#thank you you helped push the needle and make tumblr so much more hospitable

[pinbones]

I've shittalked the people who keep falling for scapegoating exclusionary tumblr unpopularity cycle crap, but it's worth thanking the people who've been on our sides the whole time. For every blogger who posts hate about the target du jour, there's at least one blog with less followers who's been with us from the start and I just think that's awesome. So yeah, shoutout xxx

[barnesxplum-blog]

Steve Rogers x FemaleReader

Summary: Steve Rogers is working as a builder on a construction site right outside of your apartment building, and causes you some *ahem*problems *ahem*

A/N: this is my first time writing anything on tumblr so pls be nice! Also I’d love any feedback! I’m still learning so much :)

Warnings: Smut (18+ only), catcalling, fluff(ish), swearing, unprotected sex. 

Word Count: 4,119

Shoutout to @shxrirogers for the kind words and support in helping me start writing :)

(GIF not mine)

You don’t know if it was the rippling muscles, or the soft, semi-sexual grunts tumbling from his lips that made you do a double-take. Either way, you were in a whole world of trouble, purely because of your wandering eyes. Because your mouth hung open for just a second too long. 

“Hi, sweetheart!” 

The words alone made your hairs bristle and caused numbness to bloom in your chest. 

Reluctantly, you slowed your gait and even dared to turn your head towards the construction site fully. It wasn’t your imagination. There he stood, his shirt was completely off, looking like he had just leaped out of one of those provocative calendars with half-naked men plastered across every month. His lack of clothing was unsurprising in this blistering heat, but all the same it a tugged at a cord somewhere deep inside of you. A cord that threatened to unravel and show no sign of stopping. 

The shirt in question was stuffed carelessly in the back pocket of his utility trousers, which of course, he wore low slung, the tops of his briefs peeking out and taunting anyone who dared to look. 

‘Surely this is a safety hazard’, you thought.

 Below his hard hat were two cocked eyebrows, and even further below were a set of pink lips twisted into the most irritating yet beautiful grin you’d ever seen. 

“You’re blushing,” he remarked, in an irritating sing-song voice, using the back of his hand to wipe away sweat from his forehead roughly. 

“She’s blushing, guys” he called over his shoulder, rousing incoherent grunts from the other men. 

“Can you blame her, Steve?” One whistled, crudely slapping his workmate’s butt before laughing loudly. Steve turned back, eyes following you closely as you moved slowly towards the door of your apartment complex. 

‘Of course, I’m fucking blushing, you’re standing there, half-nude in front of me with...with those out’ You thought, your eyes roving over his abs, though you pleaded with them to stop looking. 

You chose to look away and hurry inside and away from him. The inside was safe, at least. The only problem was, it was your building he and his crew were working on. It had only been a couple of days and you hadn’t had the guts to ask anyone how long they would be there for. All you knew is that they were there in the morning when you left for work and when you got back, they would be starting to pack up their equipment and head to whatever godforsaken bar they could hijack for the night. 

You heaved a sigh out, dropping your bag next to the door and collapsing onto your worn futon. 

“Rough day at work?”

 You dared to open just one eye to greet your roommate and best friend. 

“Not even, Bucky.” you sighed “not even...” 

Work was fine. Being a nurse was great. All you had to concern yourself with was stopping people from dying, and making sure they were reasonably comfortable while you did so. 

“So, why are you sulking?” He used his metal finger to prod at your cheek, the cool metal stunning you for a moment, causing you to gasp and twitch away from him. The sharp intake of breath caused your roommate to chuckle, and flop down beside you. 

“Mmnot” You slurred, burying your head in the arm of the sofa, your new sanctuary away from prying roommates and hot-as-sin builders. 

“Whatever,” he sighed and heaved himself up. “You so are” 

You watched him saunter back into his room, but leave the door open. You knew he wanted you to talk to him, but he would never push you. Just like you did for him all those years ago. He stood a little past his doorway, so you could see his silhouette fixing his hair into a tight knot. Not a bun. Not a ponytail. Certainly not a man bun. He hated all of the above variants. 

“Jesus, will those guys ever shut up?” Bucky muttered while gazing out of his window at the gaggle of construction workers making their way home for the night, as rowdy as a bunch of schoolboys. “When the hell are they gonna be done?” He mused to himself. 

You gathered the strength to stand and stare out of the open living room window, which had the same view as from Bucky’s room. You could hear them quite easily from the cracked open window. 

“Steve- Dude stop!” 

“And if I don’t?” 

You watched as the annoyingly hot construction worker finally released his colleague from a headlock, not before messing up his hair with his fist. 

“I hope soon,” you whispered under your breath, but you couldn’t help but feel you truly wanted the opposite.                                  

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before you were back on duty at the hospital. At least at work, your mind was occupied enough to forget the hot, humid night you spent trying to get the man out of your head manually and failing miserably at it, resorting to an evening alone with your right hand and your own vivid imagination. 

You shuddered at the thought of him finding out just how much he had affected you. Your colleague, Matt bounded up to you and took your state in - Buried in paperwork but somehow still whistling and smiling. 

“Y/N..?” He asked warily “is that really you?” 

You laughed and smacked his arm. 

“What? I can’t be happy?” 

“By all means!” He chuckled “It’s just normally you kinda despise admin” 

“Not today,” you winked cheerfully. 

“Well, if you’re happy doing paperwork you’ll be even happier demonstrating some stitches for a student doctor, wouldn’t you?” 

You picked up the stack of paper you were working through and tapped it on the table to straighten it out. 

“That does sound more exciting than filling these out.” You muse, scratching your head. 

He pulls out your chair with ease, making you yelp in surprise. 

“Off you go Y/L/N, I’ll take this from here” he sighed as he gently pushed you towards the hospital ward. 

You chuckled softly as you wandered towards the baffled looking student Matt had bestowed unto you. You introduced yourself to her and gave her some quick reassurance before whipping open the curtain separating yourself and the patient. You immediately picked up the chart and read aloud to the student. 

“Patient’s name is Mr. Rogers, 38, sustained some minor puncture and laceration wounds from a fall at work... what do we do doctor?” You ask smiling up at the student before you 

“Remove any debris, clean and suture?” She mumbles and you nod. 

After sliding the chart back into its place, you look up to assess the extent of the injuries and find yourself plunged into the depths of a pair of icy blue eyes. You jump back as though you had been burned by a hot stove. 

The exact same stomach-churning wave you had been feeling yesterday night washed over you, and your knees threatened to buckle and made you shift your weight from foot to foot nervously. 

Why the fuck was Steve from the construction site outside of your apartment here? 

The student threw a confused glance at the both of you, before sliding a stool to sit at Steve’s bedside. Thankfully, he looked just as surprised to see you and even had a flushed tinge to his otherwise pretty tan, uniform complexion. You cleared your throat and finally detached your eyes from his, gesturing for the student to begin. 

“So, Mr. Rogers, how did this happen?” The student asked while she disinfected the wounds on Steve’s arms and torso. 

“I was working,” he grunted, wincing at the sting “and I fell” 

You caught the subtle eye-roll the student gave in response to his obvious answer and smirked. 

It was as if you were saying the words before they even reached your brain for approval- “This would never have happened, though, if you were wearing a shirt and protective gear” You blurted, your eyes growing wider with every word you uttered. 

By the end of the sentence, you were almost literally kicking yourself. Steve’s eyes snapped up at you, a grin now plastered across his face, not dissimilar to the one he flashed at you the day before. 

“Then how the hell would I have gotten your attention” he squinted at your chest to read your name badge “Nurse Y/N...?” 

Hearing your name tumble from his lips was enough to force you to squeeze your thighs together in an attempt to suppress the tingling feeling emanating from between your legs, and pretend as though you didn’t hear him. 

Finally, your protégée was done with her clean up and switched places with you so you could show her how to suture up a wound properly. 

“Now, you grip the needle just like this...” you began.

 Absentmindedly, you placed a hand against Steve’s bare abdomen to steady yourself and instantly regretted it. 

He was warm. Very warm, in fact. It was strange that this surprised you. It was hot outside, after all. It was probably something to do with his muscle bound body looking like something that had been carved out of a cold block of marble, and placed in a museum to be marvelled at. Nevertheless, you became more and more self-conscious of how you touched him, and even more aware of his eyes boring into you as you nimbly finished up the stitching. 

“And...you’re all done.” You sighed, slightly disappointed. “Hope that helped,” you turned to your student. 

“Thank you, Y/N. It did.” She smiled at you and rushed off to lunch. 

“Yes, thank you Y/N.” Steve mimicked, now sitting up and smirking over at you. You raised an eyebrow at him as you fill out his chart. 

“What, are you not gonna say thank you back?” He teased “I could see how much you enjoyed feeling me up.” You blushed but maintained your silence. He shook his head and laughed a little. 

“I’m messing with you. You know that right?” He chuckled, but stopped quickly, as he noticed you only offered him a weak smile. 

“But seriously, thank you.” He sighed. “I guess I can get out of here now?” 

“You’re free to go, Sir” He gave you a meaningful look, and you could almost see his eyes darken a shade before he pulled on a dark grey Henley and strolled out of sight. 

You hated to admit it, but you disliked seeing him leave, and it was almost devastating to see him put a shirt on. The only consolation being that his butt in those pants worked wonders for your mood.                                                       

“I’m telling you Y/N, don’t invite Sam if you want to have a quiet night in with no hijinks,” He grumbled

 “I thought you were friends” you chuckled, flicking through yours and Bucky’s extensive DVD collection. 

“We are ... but he’s a problem” he explained, slamming the microwave door on the popcorn he had just placed in it. 

You rolled your eyes and raked a hand through your hair, before finally settling on a classic. 

“We’re watching back to the future...again?” Bucky feigned annoyance, shoving the bowl of popcorn between the two of you and curling up underneath a blanket on the other side of the couch. 

You could only see his eyes peering at you as he drew the blanket up above his nose, his legs stretched out and his ice block feet were planted on top of your thighs, draining their warmth. 

“Don’t act like you don’t love it,” you retorted as the opening sequence began. 

Much to both of your annoyance, a sharp knock at the door interrupted your movie just at both of your favourite part- the skateboard chase scene. 

“Did you order in?” Bucky paused the movie and gave you a confused look You shook your head, equally confused, and drew your knees up to your chest as Bucky stood and walked over to the front door. 

“This better be important.” he sighed as he pulled open the door forcefully. 

“What the hell?” Bucky whispered, his voice dripping with incredulity. Bucky was not a man who was easily surprised, so you quickly upped your seat and padded over to the door to see what could have possibly unsettled your normally stoic best friend/roommate. 

It was Steve. He wore a similar expression on his face to when he had seen you at the hospital early that morning. Only this time he had a shirt on and was clutching a bouquet of flowers. 

“Bucky?” It looked like all of the life force had drained from Steve’s face. After a few seconds of staring and silence, you decided to break the awkward silence. 

“I’m assuming you two know each other?” You chimed in. 

Bucky shuffled back to include you in the conversation and nodded. 

“Steve and I used to work together.” He explained, his eyes still fixated on Steve, who was now looking down at the ground. 

“You mean, back when you were an a-“ Bucky flinched beside you. You had almost forgotten how much Bucky hated talking about that. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled, briefly patting his tensed flesh arm. 

“Well, it’s nice to see you again,” Bucky continued, still holding his gaze. 

Steve looked up and offered Bucky a weak smile. “Yeah, it is,” he agreed. 

After a pregnant silence, Steve’s eyes widened. 

“Oh, you’re probably wondering why I’m here,” he chuckled nervously. 

You raised an eyebrow. This was a new side of Steve you’d observed. Not to say that you knew the guy well, but from what you had seen, he seemed to be a confident, bordering on cocky kind of guy, who loved attention. To cut it short, you had him down as a womaniser, but the way he was scratching at the nape of his neck and shuffling anxiously before yourself and Bucky gave you doubts. 

“I-I wanted to say thanks properly for today, Y/N” he tripped over his words a little as he thrust the bouquet towards you. 

Bucky now looked at you with that all too common confused look.

 “I did his stitches,” you explained, and thankfully that was enough for Bucky. 

“I was just doing my job,” you took the flowers “but thank you, Steve, that’s really sweet” 

“How did you know our door number?” Bucky asked, completely ignoring the heartwarming scene before him. 

Again, Steve blushed and smiled. “Maybe you should’ve been a detective, Buck” he laughed, “I asked one of your neighbours. I guess I got lucky” 

Bucky smirked at his comment and nodded, accepting the explanation. The conversation reached a natural end, and Bucky looked to you expectantly to bring it to its official close. 

He tended to rely on you in certain social situations, and you had grown used to it. “Well, thank you again, Steve...” you began. And just then you had a thought. 

“Why don’t you stay? We’re having a movie night.” Steve looked momentarily caught off guard and he stuffed his fists into his pockets. 

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he admitted. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and pulled Steve in by his wrist. 

“It’s back to the future tonight,” he muttered and resumed his usual position on the couch, watching intently as Steve sat between yourself and him after you had found a vase to place his flowers into. 

He could tell something was going on. Steve hadn’t acted like this since...forever ago. 

Finally, the ending credits rolled, and you noticed Bucky was fighting to keep his eyes open, his eyelids drooping and his mouth hanging open slightly. 

“Okay, I think we might have officially overtired the old man,” you remarked, chuckling as Bucky shot you a dirty look. 

He rose from his reclining position and announced he was heading to bed, not before shooting a long, meaningful glance at yourself and Steve. You were alone. At night. With Steve. You blushed as memories of you needing to touch yourself to satiate your yearning for him crept into your mind at what felt like the worst possible moment. You crossed your legs quickly to try to counteract the spreading warmth from your core. 

“Wanna watch something else?” You quickly offered. 

Steve shifted in his seat so he was closer to you, his arm draped over the back of the couch, almost brushing at your hair. “Whatever you want,” he smiled lazily at you. 

Though it was pretty dark in the living room you could see his pupils were blown, and were focused on your mouth. 

“Uh...I think they’re showing some old films on channel-“ “

You’re nervous,” he sighed, cutting you off. 

You shifted awkwardly in your seat, not knowing how to respond to his statement. Luckily for you, Steve seemed to have a plan of his own. Before you could properly react, he had brought his hand to your face, and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear before dragging a finger down your jawline to your chin, and resting it there. By now he was close enough for you to feel his body heat radiating from underneath his clothes. 

“You’re real pretty, Y/N.” He whispered. His eyes were now scanning your whole face. 

You felt your jaw drop and your mouth hang open, unsure of what was going to happen next. You couldn’t even summon the strength to say thank you. He was now firmly holding your chin between his thumb and forefinger and he gently brought it closer to his own face. You watched as his eyes fluttered closed and he pressed his lips to yours. His tongue darted playfully, asking for entrance, and you immediately moaned, granting him access. He brought his hands down to your waist, then your hips, and then squeezed at your ass. He smirked into the kiss. 

You caught your breath as you finally pulled apart from him, but relentlessly he attached himself to your neck, nibbling and sucking at the sensitive skin there. “Steve...” you sighed, embedding your hands in his soft hair. 

“Mm?” He hummed, his hands exploring your body. 

“Steve, I need you” He quickly pulled away, and stared at you. You could barely see him now in the darkness, but you could make out his chest rising and falling due to laboured breaths. 

“Say it again.” He demanded, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“Steve I need you. I need you right now” you said, adding a whimper at the end for effect. 

With a deep growl, he rose to his full height and picked you up bridal style as if you weighed nothing. Somehow, through your shocked state, you guided him through the dark apartment to your room. He tossed you onto the bed and started ravaging your body with his mouth, kissing every inch of bare skin with desperation. You felt his erection pressing against your thigh as he removed your top and fiddled with your bra strap. He ripped the bra from your body, and instantly attached his mouth to the peaks of your breast, rolling the other bud in his hand. This drew a primal moan from the depths of your body, and you clamped a hand over your mouth, knowing Bucky was sleeping nearby. You bit your lip as Steve continued to massage your breasts and flick his tongue against your nipple simultaneously. You started to palm him through his jeans. 

From what you could feel, he was large. Your mouth watered and your pussy clenched at the thought of it. It seemed Steve noticed this and almost read your thoughts. 

“Can’t wait to feel me inside you, Y/N?” He whispered, sitting up suddenly to remove his shirt, the outline of his ripped torso catching the dim light of your bedroom. 

“Please, Steve,” you whined, rolling your hips against his leg. 

“I’m gonna taste you first, darling” he muttered, pulling your sweatpants down and exposing your panties. He dragged two fingers over the material of your underwear and chuckled. 

“You’re wet,” he mused, tugging the material to the side. He began by rubbing your clit slowly, causing you to lift your hips into the air jerkily, overcome by a wave of pleasure. 

“Look at you,” he sighed so violently you could feel his hot breath against your pulsating opening 

“You’re so pretty, coming undone for me, Y/N” And with that, he dove between your folds, lapping at your core enthusiastically. You tugged at his hair, steering him as he continued to eat you out. Your toes curled at every movement he made with his fingers and tongue, almost knocking the breath out of you. 

“Cum for me” he murmured against your heat, noticing you getting close to your climax. 

“Soak my face.” His dirty words alone sent you over the edge, a wave of euphoria crawling out over your body, leaving you a shivering wreck. 

You didn’t have much time to recover from the first orgasm that Steve Rogers had so graciously given you, despite it being so intense. You had barely finished twitching when you looked up to find the man angling his sizeable cock at your entrance, his face flushed and his hair flopping into his face- a perfect picture of impatience. 

The tip brushed frustratingly against your folds, teasing what was to come. You moaned and rutted your hips against him. 

“You sure you want this, darlin’?” He whispered, his breath hot on your skin. 

You couldn’t nod fast enough, and he grinned. He loved your eagerness. It was endearing, and something he hadn’t experienced in a while. He watched your mouth involuntarily fall open as he pushed himself into you so fast, that his balls slapped against your skin. Instinctively you reached out to grasp onto something, anything and squeezed your eyes shut as you stretched around his girth. 

Steve continued to thrust into you, but took a more gentle rhythmic approach, allowing you to grow used to his size. Noticing your raised hand, he interlocked his fingers with yours, and gently rested your intertwined hands on the bedsheet above your heads, leaning down to kiss your forehead. 

“F-fuck, Steve, you feel so good” you groaned as he picked up the pace. 

“Yeah? You like it when I’m fucking your pretty little pussy hard?” He grunted, releasing one of your hands and running a finger along your bottom lip. You nodded, and licked at his fingers, before sucking on two of the long, calloused digits. 

He raised an eyebrow at you, growled, and quickly flipped you over so you were riding on top of him. 

Now you could see his body clearly. You couldn’t help but run your fingers up and down his toned chest, now coated in a sheen of sweat, all while grinding against him teasingly. 

You stuck your chest out so your breasts bounced just that little bit more, and it seemed to do the trick. He pulled you down forcefully by the arms and buried his head in your cleavage and his thrusts became sloppy and erratic. 

“I’m gonna...Y/N I’m gonna cum right now...” he warned you. Quickly, you slid off of his length and pushed your tits together in front of his tip. 

“Cum for me, Steve,” you whined, looking up at him through thick lashes. This, was enough to push him over the edge. His mouth contorted into a crooked “O” shape and his eyes rolled backwards slightly. 

White, hot streams of cum shot out at you, coating your breasts thickly. You smirked, maintaining eye contact with him whilst scooping up some of his seed and sucking it clean off of your finger. His eyes widened and a pink hue rose at his cheeks once more, surprised at how dirty you could be. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to give you another one,” he mumbled sheepishly, as you cleaned yourself up. You shook your head and slid between the covers beside him again. 

“Steve, I’ve never cum that hard in my life. Don’t worry about it.” He smirked, and reached out under the thick covers to wrap his hands around your wrists and pull you until your chest was flush against his, and you could feel his heart beating through the warm skin of his chest. All was silent until you heard feet on the floorboards outside of your room. 

“Thank fuck that’s over,” you heard Bucky grumble petulantly before hearing his door slam shut once more.

[quicksilversquared]

The Designer and the Twins

When Adrien volunteers to look after Alya's twin sisters for a bit but ends up having to go to a piano lesson instead, it forces Mr. Agreste to step in and look after the girls himself. How hard can babysitting two young girls be?

As it turns out, it can be VERY hard.

links in the reblog

                                          tumblr give me back my line break

Gabriel Agreste was in the middle of a round of edits on some evening dress designs Saturday afternoon when he heard the front doors open. He spared only a single glance in that direction- no doubt it was Adrien, returning from whatever outing he had managed to persuade Nathalie to allow, just in time for piano lessons- before returning his attention to his work.

The squeals of excitement yanked his head back up a moment later. He frowned, sitting up fully and staring in the direction of the atrium. Two voices- young, definitely girls, and sounding nearly the same- exclaimed over how large it was, how there was no color, how the other should look at the big painting, could they play in the plants-

Gabriel Agreste pushed himself up out of his chair and strode to the office door, scowling out into the atrium. The first thing he saw was Adrien, trying his best to contain two young girls that came up to hip-height. They were running to and fro, trying to look at everything all at once.

He cleared his throat, unimpressed. Adrien's head whipped around, but the girls didn't slow down at all. Gabriel spared them a glance, then turned his attention on his son. Adrien was cringing a bit as he watched the girls tugging at a door, but he straightened as he turned to Gabriel.

"Father, I can explain," Adrien said quickly, gesturing to the girls. "These are Alya's sisters. I was helping Alya bring some books for our project back to her house so we could work on it there during the week, but then her bike hit a hole and it fell over and she got a really bad cut on her leg. So her older sister had to bring her to the hospital because she'll probably need stitches, but her younger sisters still needed to be watched, so..."

"So you offered," Gabriel finished, entirely unamused. "Forgetting, I'm sure, that you're meant to have piano lessons in three minutes? Your instructor is already waiting for you in the lounge."

Adrien froze, gaze shooting back to the twin girls. They had finally paused in their exploration, glancing between Adrien and Gabriel with wide eyes. "Uhh..."

"Were none of your other friends available to help?" Gabriel demanded. "Or were none of them willing?"

"They- well-" Adrien shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. "Nino is on the other side of the city- he's got family over, apparently, and they were going to a roller garden- and Marinette is busy right now, Alya said. She's already babysitting Madam Chamack's daughter, and Manon is a handful just by herself."

Gabriel glanced at the two other girls. They were giggling over something between the two of them. Then he looked back at Adrien, who was looking a little stressed, and he considered.

Adrien had to attend his piano lesson, of course. He had gone without lessons for a while now because his instructor had been gone on vacation and then sick leave for several weeks already, and there were several things that Gabriel had already asked the instructor to work on so that Adrien would be able to perform at the Gabriel winter investor's dinner. Adrien wouldn't be able to concentrate or learn a thing with the twins around, that was obvious. They were unruly and Adrien had absolutely no experience with kids. He wouldn't be able to control them. Gabriel, however, had raised a kid- or helped raise a child, at least, considering that Emilie and their old nanny had done most of the work so that he could focus on designing- and was aware of how to keep kids under control.

There was no other option, really. If the twins went along for the lessons, Adrien's instructor could very well quit and then Gabriel would have to waste some of his time finding a suitable replacement. A quick mental cost-benefits analysis confirmed that, and he sighed before addressing Adrien. "Very well. I'll watch them while you attend your lesson. As soon as it's over, though, remember to come collect them at once."

Adrien lit up. "Really? You would do that, Father? Thank you so much!"

"No more lollygagging now, go," Gabriel instructed, and Adrien scampered off as instructed. The twins made to follow, until he cleared his throat. "Girls, you'll be coming with me. Adrien has lessons right now."

"Lessons! Ew!" they chorused in almost disturbing unison, turning away from Adrien at once. "Lessons are yucky! They're boring and we have to sit still!"

...okay, yeah, forget almost disturbing unison. That was disturbing unison.

"We'll come into my office," Gabriel continued. "And then I'll, uh..."

He came up blank. It had been too long since Adrien had been the twins' age, and Gabriel hadn't exactly been a particularly involved parent at that time. He would have Nathalie search up some activities, or perhaps take over the babysitting herself, but she was currently out on lunch break.

Surely he could manage alone until she came back. She was due to return any time now.

"Can we have juice?" one twin asked, tugging at Gabriel's sleeve as they entered the office.

"And cookies?" the other added on, tugging the other sleeve.

Gabriel resisted the urge to rip his arms away from both of them. That would no doubt end in tears, and he neither wanted to nor knew how to deal with tears. "I- fine. Wait here for one minute, I'll page the kitchen staff to bring up juice and cookies."

"Yay!"

Well, so far, so good, Gabriel figured as he headed across the room to Nathalie's intercom to order two cups of juice and two plates of cookies. It was important to keep kids fed and hydrated, and getting them a small snack would keep them from whining. They could sit down on the floor and eat, and he could return to his designing and actually get some work done.

"Can we see what you're drawing?" one twin wanted to know as soon as Gabriel had ordered their food and headed back to his desk. "Is it something pretty?"

Her sister pushed her. "Dummy, adults don't draw! They only write!"

"No they don't! Look, see, all of the drawings of dresses!"

Gabriel stiffened as he suddenly found himself surrounded by two small, curious girls, one on either side of his chair. "Now girls, go back over to the door and wait nicely-"

"Why are you drawing dresses?" one twin asked. "Boys don't wear dresses! Can you draw a dress for me?"

"I design-"

"I want a dress, too!"

"But I asked first!"

Gabriel moved his sketchbook and the loose pages of designs out of their reach. "I am trying to work here, girls, go-"

His movement bumped his computer mouse, minimizing the window that he had up and revealing the one behind it, which was the Ladyblog. That was an immediate distraction for the twin terrors at his elbows.

"Look, it's the Ladyblog!"

"Our sister runs that! Does she know you look at it?"

"Everybody in Paris looks at it!"

"Yeah, because Ladybug is so cool! MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!" they cheered in unison, both miming throwing a Lucky Charm up into the air.

"You should design something for Ladybug!"

"Are you any good at designing?"

"Do you sew, too? I don't see any needles!"

"You asked for juice and cookies, sir?"

Gabriel tried not to slump in relief as the twins promptly abandoned him to run to their chef, who did quite a good job of not reacting as he handed out two cups of juice and two plates of cookies before making a hasty exit. Now that was them distracted for the time being, so he could actually think about what to do next. Clearly the twins would not be content to simply sit in silence until Adrien came to collect them- they didn't seem at all intimidated by his raised voice, which suggested that they probably got ordered around quite often but never saw any real consequences- so he would have to find some way to entertain them. Without, of course, exerting any real effort himself. He had work to do, after all, and couldn't be bothered with spending any extended amount of time dealing with kids.

Even as he thought that, his Miraculous started to warm. Somewhere in the city, someone was upset enough to get akumatized. Gabriel almost automatically moved to get up and head for his elevator before realizing that he couldn't. There were two very, very nosy pairs of eyes in his office, and they would absolutely blab about anything strange that they saw. And with their sister running the Ladyblog...

He scowled and sat back down. Within a couple minutes, his Miraculous started cooling back down again, the opportunity gone.

"We want to watch cartoons!"

Gabriel startled out of his thoughts, his attention going back to the twins. They had finished off their cookies already- and he was going to have someone come up and clean, because there were crumbs all over the floor and one of the girls had clearly spilled a bit of her juice- and were headed back over for him, this time with chocolate-smeared fingers and sticky hands.

He panicked for a moment, then realized that they had literally just handed him a distraction- cartoons. While he had heard plenty in the news lately telling parents not to let their kids get raised by screens and to limit TV time, he was neither the parent of these two little terrors nor their guardian, and so that didn't apply to him. But he did know that he would have to find some age-appropriate cartoons for the girls to watch, because otherwise he would have their parents coming after him with "concerns" and he really had neither the time nor the patience to deal with that. They would no doubt do the same if he yelled at the girls to get them to behave, so he had to watch himself.

"All right, all right, I'll set up some cartoons- if you promise to sit still and watch," Gabriel told them. "No running around or anything."

"We promise!"

Gabriel tried not to grumble as he headed for Nathalie's computer. He knew that she had Netflix on her computer because she liked having cooking shows on in the background as she worked her way through particularly tedious paperwork, which he normally rolled his eyes at but right now he couldn't be more grateful that she had a resource like that on hand for him to borrow. She was logged in, which was good, and Gabriel went ahead and flipped through the listings of cartoons.

...he really wasn't familiar with what was age-appropriate for kids that small. Gabriel didn't know what any of the shows were- he had no reason to be- so the most he had to go off on was the pictures. And pictures could be misleading. He had seen enough commercials recently to know that there were some very young-looking designs for shows that had much more adult humor. So after a couple minutes of waffling with increasingly impatient twins at his elbow, Gabriel picked the youngest-looking show- surely it would be safe- and clicked on it, letting the first episode load a bit before turning the computer to the kids. It took a minute to get them seated- they were each convinced that the other was closer, which resulted in a bit of pushing back and forth before Gabriel finally got them to cut it out- and then he could finally, finally get back to his seat and start up his work on reviewing the designs again.

It had only just occurred to him that these two had made up the akuma Sapotis and that they had been quite the handful as akumas. They hadn't listened when he warned them about the trap, only wanting to run around and eat what they wanted and go to the amusement park and stay up and night and watch cartoons and...and not listen to rules.

Gabriel was starting to suspect that maybe things wouldn't go quite as smoothly as he had initially thought, but now the twins were settled in front of the computer screen and listening to some show with obnoxious music and high-pitched voices. It was distracting, but he could tune it out well enough. It took a few minutes for him to get back into the designing groove and figure out where he had left off. The design that he was reviewing was from one of his younger designers, which meant that it was easy enough to pick out where the lines needed to be altered just a touch and mark a change in the type of fabric. The piece was original and creative, though, inspiring enough that Gabriel set it aside for a moment to grab another sheet of paper, sketching out the starting lines for a matching suit to go along with the dress. It would be close-cut, absolutely tailored to perfection and creating a bit of an illusion of broader shoulders.

These pieces would end up on the runway, Gabriel was positive. Paired pieces were always popular.

He had just started scribbling down detail on the side of the paper when he glanced up briefly and spotted Nathalie's computer playing to an audience of...zero.

Frowning, Gabriel sat up fully. The sound of giggling caught his ear, and he spun around to see one twin crouching next to one of his mannequins, the hem of the dress there draped over her head like a wedding veil.

"No playing with the dresses!" Gabriel barked, and both girls jumped before scrambling away from the mannequin. He frowned over at the dress- he would have to get it cleaned soon to remove any chocolate-y fingerprints that might have gotten on the fabrics- before returning his attention to the girls. "I thought you were watching cartoons!"

"Those cartoons are boring," the first twin complained. "They're for babies."

"They're so dumb," Twin No. 2 chimed in. "I don't wanna watch a baby show. Do you have fabric scraps we can play with?"

Gabriel frowned. All of the fabric scraps that he had around the office were exclusive Gabriel print samples, or silks and embroidered pieces or things that he had beaded. They weren't things that he wanted ruined or accidentally going home with the girls. "No. And you promised-"

"But it's a baby show!"

Movement by the door caught Gabriel's eye, and he turned in relief to see an unimpressed Nathalie standing there, surveying the scene in front of her. He opened his mouth to ask her to take the girls- surely she could entertain them elsewhere in the house- but Nathalie beat him to it.

"I'll be taking a late lunch now," Nathalie told him, turning to stride right back out the door. "I will see you in a bit, Mr. Agreste."

"You were just out on lunch, Nathalie!" Gabriel objected, jolting straight up in his chair.

"And I was just summoned to the Gabriel building on urgent business," Nathalie continued as though she hadn't heard him, pulling out her phone and consulting it as though an email had just come in. "So I have to go sort that out. I will be back...at some point."

And before Gabriel could protest, she was gone. He gaped after her for a few seconds- she was his employee, she couldn't do that!- then turned back to the girls still tugging at his elbows, trying not to growl in frustration.

He had to remember, if he lost his temper, it would get back to their parents. If it got back to their parents...

So Gabriel took a deep breath, glanced at the clock- was it broken? Surely more time had passed than that!- and then turned back to the twins. "Okay, what do you want to watch?"

The girls lit up, hopping up and down and yammering at him faster than he could follow. He let them tug him up out of his chair and towards the computer, having them point out the show that they wanted to watch instead. They then spent five minutes arguing over which show they wanted to see out of a pick of four or five things before settling on one. Sighing with relief (and trying his best to ignore the headache starting to build at the edges of his temples), Gabriel clicked on the first episode that came up, arranged the computer to the twins' satisfaction, and returned to his seat. He glanced up as the cartoon started to play and- okay, he could already tell that the cartoon was a bit less babyish than the first one, though it still had annoyingly high-pitched voices for all of the characters. The girls seemed content, so Gabriel gave himself a pat on his back and returned his attention to his designs. Several minutes later, he was just getting back into designing mode. He picked up his pencil, and-

"We've seen this episode already!"

"Yeah! I don't wanna see it again, I already know what happens!"

"We've seen this so many times!"

Gabriel let out a long breath through his nose as he was unceremoniously ripped from designer mode yet again. The twins were already clambering to their feet, clearly ready to abandon their activity and start tearing through his office again. He stood before they could get too far, strode to the computer, and maneuvered back to the menu to pick out another episode. It started playing, and the twins sat back down.

Hopefully he would get more than three minutes to himself this time.

They got past the intro without incident, and Gabriel turned his attention back to his work. He had almost gotten back into the groove when the complaints started up again.

"I've seen this already! This is an old episode!"

"Really old!"

"I'll change it, I'll change it, just keep sitting!" Gabriel said hastily, completely willing to agree to anything to get them to shut up already. Thank god he and Emilie had gotten a nanny to get Adrien past this age, and thank god that they had only had one kid. Having two or more- having twins- would have been a nightmare. And hadn't Adrien said that there were four kids in the Ladyblogger's family? That would be awful. "How many episodes of this have you seen?"

There was some whispering between the two girls, and then some arguing. Finally they resurfaced with a shrug and an unhelpful "I don't know".

Small children were maddening.

Gabriel selected another episode, this time just a little further along. There weren't that many episodes listed, so if they had selected this show it meant that there had to be some that they hadn't seen yet, right?

Apparently not. Over the next thirty minutes, the girls kept interrupting him every few minutes, taking anywhere between three to six minutes to recognize an episode and start complaining. At one point, they lost interest in the cartoons entirely and started asking if they could have cake. With a groan, Gabriel realized that he shouldn't have given in so easily to their request earlier. It had been a test to see how much they could get away with, and he had failed it.

He also missed another prime akumatization opportunity. Two so close together was rare, and yet he couldn't slip away and take advantage of it.

"Of all the days for Adrien to have a two-hour lesson instead of a one-hour one," Gabriel groaned as he pushed his work to the side again to put an end to the complaining that had started anew. The twins were looking antsy now that so much time had passed without them watching all the way through an episode, and he had to wonder how much longer he would last.

Would it be possible for him to go online and hire a babysitter to finish up the time? If they stayed in the house, surely no one could complain? But it seemed unlikely that he would be able to find someone on such short notice, and it would take time for them to arrive. Besides, finding a babysitter online would require actually having more than a couple consecutive minutes to focus on that, and he didn't have more than a couple consecutive minutes, not with the girls needing constant attention.

Three more episode switches later, and Gabriel was ready to start pulling his hair out. Right before he was about to snap at the girls to just sit down and enjoy an old episode, the door buzzer rang. Gabriel dove for it, welcoming the interruption. Maybe Nathalie had sent a babysitter. Maybe the twins' family had finally decided to come pick them up. Maybe-

It was one of Adrien's classmates, the designer girl- Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he remembered. Next to her stood another very small child, her brown pigtails barely reaching the bottom of the camera.

He couldn't deal with another small child, he really couldn't.

"I'm here to collect Ella and Etta!" Marinette said with a cheerful wave at the camera. "Adrien texted me and said that he left them with Mr. Agreste?"

"He did," Gabriel said at once, noting the way that Ms. Dupain-Cheng startled. Clearly she had been expecting Nathalie at the other end. He pressed the button to open the gates. "Enter."

"Who was that?" one of the twins wanted to know at once. "A new babysitter?"

"Yes-" Gabriel started, but they were already on their feet and racing out to the atrium. Just as they got there, Marinette stepped in with the other small girl in tow. She took one look at the racing girls and raised one eyebrow, planting her free hand on her hip.

"Ella! Etta! Is that how we behave indoors? And when we are guests in someone's house?"

Much to Gabriel's surprise, both twins slowed down and shook their heads. "No..."

"I didn't think so." Marinette turned her attention to Gabriel. "I hope that they've been behaving themselves."

Gabriel opened his mouth to answer before thinking better of it. He didn't need to admit to a fourteen-year-old that he had been having trouble keeping two five-year-olds in line, not when they had settled down so quickly at her demand. Instead, he changed the subject. "Are the twins' parents finally back home to take them? Or your friend?"

Much to his surprise, Marinette shook her head. "No, not yet. Alya needs stitches and a tetanus shot, so she and Nora aren't going to be home for a while, and their parents are super-busy right now and can't leave work early. We're going to go over to the TV studio to drop off Manon and after that, I was planning on taking Ella and Etta back to their apartment so that they won't be destroying anyone else's house." She paused, glancing over in the direction that faint piano music could be heard coming from. "I. Uh. If it wouldn't be too much to ask, I would really appreciate it if Adrien could come over and help out, so I'm not the only one watching these two."

"I will send him over once he finishes his piano lessons," Gabriel promised at once, partly so Marinette wouldn't change her mind about taking the twins and partly because Adrien had offered to take up that responsibility in the first place and he needed to understand what following through would be like so that he wouldn't do it again in the future.

A chorus of whining followed Gabriel's words, and he looked over to see both twins pouting at Marinette.

"I don't want to go on a walk!"

"Yeah, that's too far! And it's too hot!"

"I want to stay here and watch cartoons and eat cookies!"

"And drink orange juice!"

The small girl holding Marinette's hand stomped her foot and turned to her babysitter. "I want cookies, too!"

"Cookies and no walking!"

Gabriel's headache spiked as the whining got louder, but Marinette only frowned at them. "Manon, you've already had cookies. Also that's too bad, we're going on a walk. No, you don't get a say in this. Now thank Mr. Agreste and we'll be leaving."

"But I don't want to!"

"Yeah!"

"If you don't behave, I'll tell your parents and you won't get dessert for a month and you'll have to go to bed early," Marinette warned them, and Gabriel watched in utter disbelief as the twins straightened up and promptly fell into line next to her. "Now what do we say to Mr. Agreste?"

"Thank you!"

Gabriel could only nod in response as the group headed back out the door, following Marinette down the steps and across the courtyard like a line of little ducklings. He waited until they had exited the gates and turned the corner before heading back into his office and collapsing into his chair.

He could deal with uncooperative suppliers and diva clients all day long, but two young children wore him out in a heartbeat. If Ms. Dupain-Cheng hadn't shown up, he- he-

He didn't know what he would have done. His patience had been gone, he had been at his wit's end, and the twins had just been whining and whining and whining.

Ms. Dupain-Cheng deserved a reward of some sort for coming in and rescuing him from those little monsters, Gabriel decided as he reached across his desk for some aspirin. Nothing obvious, of course, because he couldn't let on that he had had any problems with the twins, but she hadn't had to come over and add two more little terrors on top of the handful of a girl that she had already been babysitting. She could have just continued with her day and assumed that he was fully capable of dealing with the twins until Adrien finished his piano lesson, which is what he assumed most teens her age would have done.

Perhaps he would grant her immunity from getting akumatized, Gabriel decided after a minute's thought. He wasn't experienced enough to be able to identify individual imprints himself, but Nooroo could and he could block her imprint's emotions from getting picked up by the Miraculous upon request. Gabriel had heard talk that it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience for those who hadn't gotten akumatized voluntarily. Something about how their memories during that time were fuzzy or lost completely, which was terribly disorienting. He hadn't experienced the same, of course, and neither had Nathalie, but the two of them were special cases. Everyone else had to deal with holes in their memories and a nagging sense of confusion, neither of which were pleasant.

Yes, that was what he would do. It would be a way to express his thanks without giving away that he was doing that at all, Ms. Dupain-Cheng would no doubt appreciate being able to express her emotions safely, and it wasn't as though it would be any great loss to him.

There would always be other people to akumatize, after all, and giving one normal teenage girl a free pass out wasn't going to make any big difference in the long run.

[theghostofashton]

survival will not be the hardest part

hi. i know y’all are very anxious to read this. i know how long i’ve kept you waiting, but i’d really appreciate if you’d read this lil thing first.

so, this story, known more commonly as ‘the cancer fic’ is an idea my friend rachel gave me back in april. she’s pretty known on twitter, but not on tumblr, so for those of you who aren’t aware: rachel’s spent a really long time in the hospital over the years. she’s been having a hard time lately, and i...it breaks my heart. i wanted to do something for her.

this is that something.

in this story, rachel is awsten (she doesn’t have cancer. let’s be clear about that. aside from the medical conditions, she is awsten). there are seven main OCs. every single one of them is an actual human being. their names are the same. conditions are not. the main point of this story was the kids, to focus on the struggle rachel’s faced alongside being the person awsten is in the story, to the kids. 

a while ago, rachel came to me pissed about something she saw online, of people making hospitals out to be these “pretty” and “aesthetic” places, essentially glamorizing them. that made me want to do this even more. this is her life. this is what she deals with on a daily basis.  this is the reality of being in the hospital. it’s not pretty or glamorous or idealistic. this is real. it’s raw and real and painful because i wanted to highlight that. 

when i started writing this, i knew it wouldn’t be received the same as my other stuff. this is very OC heavy. it’s very personal. this is the longest and hardest and heaviest thing i have ever done. it’s so personal to me and to rachel and i would really appreciate yall keeping that in mind while you read.

trigger warnings for suicide and depression, also a ton of medical stuff including vomiting...this is a hospital fic, after all.

and finally, this is dedicated to lily. fly high, love. thank you for looking down on us. rest in peace.

September 3rd, 2017 – 10:53 AM

"Aws, we need your help."

He pulls out his other earbud and lifts his head, places a hand over the page in his journal as he looks over to the doorway. He doesn't wait for something else to be said, flips the book closed and loops the band around, pulls out his remaining earbud and wraps the cord around his phone.

"Who is it?" He falls into place beside Geoff as they walk down the hallway. An arm snakes its way around his waist and squeezes his torso. He moves a hand to Geoff's back, closes his eyes and breathes in. "What happened?"

"Nia doesn't wanna take her meds. And she needs a Vitamin B shot too," Geoff says. His voice is low. He runs his other hand through his hair with a sigh. "She's crying. It's bad."

"Fuck," he swears. He picks up the pace, so fast he almost breaks out into a run by the time they reach the end of the hallway. He breaks out of Geoff's hold and jogs past the nurses' desk and a bunch of hospital carts, ignores the multiple cries of 'Awsten, don't run!'. He needs to get there. He needs to be there. He forgot this was happening today he completely forgot fuckfuckfuck-

And when he does, he doesn't stop. He runs through the double doors, into the pediatric ward, and veers off to the left. "Nia..." He breathes. He stops at the foot of her bed, places a hand on the railing and moves to stand next to her head. "I'm so sorry I forgot, sweetheart. I'm here now."

"Awsie!" Nia cries. She stretches her arms out for him. Tears are drying on her cheeks and her lip is quivering. "Don't want it Awsie, don't want it."

He swallows. It feels like his heart is attached to strings and the puppet master is tugging, harder and harder, about to rip the muscle from its suspension in his chest. He takes one of Nia's hands and climbs into the bed next to her, pulls her into his chest and squeezes tightly, presses a kiss to the top of her head. When he looks up, it's straight into Geoff's eyes. He's tapping the end of the syringe with his nail, lip pulled between his teeth, sympathetic smile on his face.

"Tell me when she's ready," Geoff says softly. He nods and looks back down at Nia. Her head is completely hidden from view. Her arms are squeezing around his waist. He can feel the damp spot on his shirt.

He sighs. "Nia, love, hey, don't cry... It's gonna be okay, I promise." He tangles his fingers into her hair and pulls them through, tilts his head down and places another kiss against her scalp.

"Don't like it..." Nia whines. He exhales heavily and tightens his arm around her back.

She doesn't deserve this. She's so young. She should be worried about not having enough time play on the swings and whether the mean boy in her class will steal her toys again, not on the verge of a panic attack over a fluid-filled syringe that comes with its own cocktail of side effects. This is a mountain and it's too big for her tiny shoulders to carry.

"It's gonna make you feel better. Don't you wanna feel better?" Her sobs are starting to quiet. He keeps rubbing her back, pressing the circles in, firm and soft and tight against the warmth of her skin.

"And Nia, hey," Geoff says. "Awsten can stay with you after, if you take it."

He lifts his head to meet Geoff's eyes and sends him a smile. Geoff nods a bit and smiles back, motions to the door and mouths, 'I'll get them to let you. You can't leave her right now. She needs you'.

'Thank you. I love you,' he mouths back.

'I love you too'.

"You'll really stay?" Nia looks up at him, quivering lip and teary eyes. She's blinking rapidly against the sheen.

He leans forward and kisses her forehead. "Of course I will, love. But you gotta take your meds, okay?"

She gives a sigh that is much too long for a seven year old, before eventually nodding and sticking her arm in Geoff's direction. He pulls her head back down into his chest as Geoff cleans an area on her bicep, feels her grip around his waist get tighter and tighter.

And then the needle goes in and she squeezes him so hard he starts to see spots, but they go as quickly as they come. Geoff presses down on the tube to insert the medicine in, and ever so slowly, Nia's grip starts to loosen. She doesn't look back up until Geoff is pressing gauze against her skin and moving his hand to her shoulder.

"Which one this time?" Geoff shows her a handful of band-aids, all various colors with character designs and tiny patterns decorating the tops. Awsten smiles as she settles back against his chest and points to one on the end that displays a smiling princess from some movie he barely recognize. He remembers seeing her on the screen a few weeks ago in the playroom, feeling Nia tap his shoulder excitedly and squeal over how beautiful she looked when she came on the screen. And then black overtook his vision and he didn't wake until the credits were rolling and Nia was snoring in his arms, making little snuffles every couple seconds.

Geoff grins and affixes it to her skin. Nia takes her arm back and turns over fully, moves her head to his shoulder and breathes out warmly into his neck. He moves his arm up to wrap around her and pulls his fingers through her hair again.

"What song?"

"The Pink one!"

He smiles. "Alright love, close your eyes..."

...

September 3rd, 2017 – 12:22 PM

"Aws?"

"Sunshine, hey, wake up."

He blinks rapidly. His head feels heavy, like it's stuffed with cotton and full of rocks that make it so impossibly hard to lift. "Huh?"

"You fell asleep." A pair of lips brushes his cheek. He hums, keeps his eyes squinted and snakes an arm around Geoff's neck. "Let's go back to your room, 'kay?"

"Mmph...carry me..." Everything feels so weighted. He's warm and the position he's in is comfortable. He doesn't want to move and turn cold again.

"Sorry love." He can hear the smile in Geoff's voice. "I'm carrying something I think you'll like a lot more."

"Hm?"

Geoff holds up a large bag. He waves it around for a few seconds, just enough time for Awsten to detect the beginnings of a green logo...

Could it be-

"Holy shit, did you get me Whole Foods?" He tries to keep his voice level as not to wake Nia.

"Maybe." Geoff smirks at him. He reaches out for the bag but Geoff hefts it higher than he can stretch, swings it back and forth while keeping it up in the air. "Back to your room love, then we can eat."

He follows Geoff out of the pediatric ward and down multiple hallways. Geoff uses his shoulder to push open one of the doors to the adult ward, holds it open for him and then walks behind him until they finally reach his room.

"I don't think I've ever loved you more." He says the words through a mouthful of food, five minutes later. He smiles, as Geoff reaches out to wipe at the side of his mouth with a finger. Geoff licks his finger and he rolls his eyes, leans in for a kiss that ends up being a quick peck. He takes another bite and closes his eyes. "Oh my god..."

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Geoff asks. "Since you've had outside food?"

"Oh hell yeah," he mutters. "The crap they have here is so disgusting, jesus christ..."

He's been back in the hospital for almost a month now. They let him out a couple months ago, let him go home and go back to school and try to become a normal seventeen year old, one whose home isn't a hospital ward and whose reality isn't the rarity of his disease.

And then it happened and now he's back here. It feels like he never left. He knows more of the white walls and antiseptic smell and nurses coming in ever few hours to check his blood pressure and change his IV fluid, of constantly being asked if he's okay, the pokes and prods and needles shoved in his skin, the cannula they forced into his arm and chemotherapy treatments that inject so much chemical into his bloodstream that everything in his body is rushing to get out, like it's the relative no one wants to see at a family gathering and everyone is doing their best to get away.

There's a point, when you live in a hospital, where everything starts to blur together. It all mashes into one, one large ball of prods and pokes and people everywhere, grabbing and pushing and turn over here, no not like that, I need to take some blood, come on Awsten, jut cooperate, okay? Why do you always have to be so difficult?

Some days it doesn't feel like anything anymore. He exists on a separate plane from everyone else, watching his physical form stare at the wall limply. Nurses come and go, lift his arms and shove things into his skin, wrap blood pressure cuffs around his biceps and change his IV fluid, and all he can do is lay there, force his eyes open and try not to retreat back into himself.

You're never alone in a hospital.

"Aws?" He shakes his head and blinks rapidly, lets his eyes come back into focus. Geoff's smile is gone. He's leaning toward him, brow furrowed, sandwich abandoned in its container. "You okay?"

He forces the corners of his lips upward. "Yeah."

"You can't lie to me, sunshine."

"I'm fine," he insists. He puts his own sandwich down and tilts his head to brush his lips against Geoff's. "I love you. Thank you for this."

Geoff uses one arm to shove the food boxes off to the side and scoots forward in the same motion. Awsten jumps, as he takes him into his arms and presses a long kiss against the top of his shoulder. "I love you so much. Please don't shut me out, okay? I want to help you. I'm here to help you."

"You are," he murmurs. "Trust me, you are."

...

September 5th, 2017 – 9:46 AM

"What's this for?"

"I'm not too sure, sunshine." He tightens the wrap around Awsten's bicep and walks his hand down his arm. When he gets to his elbow, he digs his fingers into Awsten's skin, feels around for the vein that should hurt him the least. The most prominent veins are the easiest to stick. "They didn't tell me that."

There are so many needle scars on his arm already. He's spent his entire life being poked and prodded like a science experiment, so much so that he doesn't even have to turn away now. Geoff remembers those days, years before he started training to become a nurse, when he would sit in the chair and hold Awsten on his lap and try to distract him to keep his gaze away from his arm.

It's a pang, a sort of sting that embeds itself into his chest and stabs at his heart. He swallows.

He's wanted to be a nurse for most of his life. Awsten being sick only fueled it. He remembers growing up, spending all his teen years in the hospital by Awsten's side, holding his hand during the chemo treatments and promising through tears that everything would be alright for surgery after surgery.

He's lived this alongside Awsten, but Awsten's been the one going through it all, dealing with the tests and surgeries and chemotherapy treatments, he's the one who was forced to give up a childhood and a normal life to be stuck with white walls and sterilized tubes and overwhelming antiseptic, he's the one whose life will never be any semblance of ordinary. This is his life. He had to give everything up.

He had to give everything up.

There's a lump in his throat. His vision is starting to blur. His eyes are getting misty.

He's wanted to be a nurse for most of his life.

This is one patient he never thought he'd have to treat.

This is one patient he never thought he'd have to treat.

"How much do you need this time?" Awsten's voice isn't high. He doesn't sound shaky or scared. His tone is level. He's not meeting his gaze. His eyes are on his lap, where he's picking at a loose thread on his sweatpants with his other hand.

Geoff shakes his head to clear it. The ache behind his eyes is a balloon that's about to pop. It's pressing against his skull, full of tears, about to rip and tear and spill. It's about to spill. Everything's about to spill. "Not much." He forces his voice to stay steady as he presses the needle into Awsten's skin.

Awsten doesn't even flinch.

He watches the needle go in and keeps his eyes there until Geoff pulls it out and presses gauze against the wound. Geoff drags in a breath, hiccups and tries not to let a sob slip with it.

But sure enough, "Gee? You okay?"

He swallows again. The lump in his throat throbs. His head aches as he lifts it. He looks at Awsten, at his wide eyes and skinny frame, at the thin hair that's just barely started to grow back and look how it used to before the chemicals ripped it all out. He looks down at the gauze he's still holding to Awsten's arm and then at the two tubes of his blood now placed in the sterilized box.

"Yeah, love. I'm fine."

...

"Awsie!"

"Why's Nurse W here?"

"What's the guitar for?"

He exchanges a look with Geoff and smiles, surveys the room and lets his gaze stop on Lily, whose eyes are fixated on him. "Geoff was telling me about a certain someone – or someones – being naughty?" He glances over at Geoff. "Right?"

Geoff's eyes are wide when he answers, "They just don't wanna eat their lunches, Aws. I didn't know what else to do."

"That's not fair!"

"I don't like it."

"It's gross..."

He nods. "I know, guys. The food sucks." He shouldn't even be preaching right now, shouldn't be telling them to eat what's on their plates, because more often than not he throws his own plates out and makes Jawn bring him Whole Foods. "But the nurses get all annoying and yell-y about it 'cause you're all on meds, okay? If you don't eat you'll get sick."

"He's right," Geoff says from behind. "But I'm glad you think I'm annoying, babe. Nice to know."

Jacob starts to 'oooooh' and Nia and Matty quickly follow. They're grinning widely at them, wide eyes and red cheeks paired with large smiles.

He rolls his eyes and leans back to peck Geoff's check. "Oh shut up. You know what I meant."

"Do I?"

"Yeah." His cheeks are growing hot. He drops his head and leans in to whisper into Geoff's ear, "and you are distracting them."

"Well," Geoff murmurs, breath warm against his ear. "You're distracting me." He closes his eyes as their lips slide together, feels Geoff's arm move down to his waist. Just as he reaches up to wrap his own arm around Geoff's neck, Geoff breaks the kiss and takes a step back.

"Uh..." Everything is so hot. His fingers are brushing Geoff's shoulder. He stretches his hand out more, grips onto him and takes a step back so they're standing next to each other. His lips are still tingling.

"But anyway, as Awsten was saying," Geoff continues. "You guys finish your lunches, and he's gonna sing you a song." He glances over. "Right, Aws?"

"R-right," he says faintly.

...

"Alright, what song are we doing?"

"You should sing one of yours," Geoff says. He unzips the guitar case and kneels in front of it to pull the instrument out. "Maybe not something...too sad, if you can? They've cried enough today."

He rolls his eyes and starts to flip through his journal. It may as well be called a songbook by now. At first it was messy feelings, but now they all come out in pretty metaphors that are inadvertently lyrical. "I live in a hospital, the fuck did you expect?"

"You gotta have something happy," Geoff insists. "It's not all white walls and hospital floors, is it?"

"And antiseptic smell," he mutters with a grin. "But no, yeah, I got something."

"You gonna give me the chords, or?"

"It's that one," he says. He forces himself to smile and reaches for one of Geoff's hands briefly. "The one I came up with that right? You helped me write some of it?"

"Aws..."

He swallows and looks down at the floor. "You got it?"

"Yeah."

"Awsie!"

"What song are you playing?"

"Do the pink one!"

"I like the silver one!"

"Does it have to be a color one?"

He takes a breath and keeps the smile plastered on his face, steps back to stand next to the stool Geoff's sitting on and leans his hip against it. He has to inhale again, looking out to all of their smiling faces. Nia's talking excitedly to Lily, nudging her shoulder and whispering loudly in her ear. Lily is smiling and nodding, but her gaze is focused on him. Jacob is pressed against Toby's side, saying something to him, to which Toby smiles and brushes a hand through his hair. Georgia has Rosie on her lap, and she's smiling and nodding as the two year old grabs a lock of her hair and starts to babble nonsense. He has to smile at Matty, who's trying very hard to have a silent conversation with Geoff, making an obvious effort to mouth words. You can do this. Breathe. You can do this. They're probably not gonna get it anyway.

Georgia and Toby will.

But the others won't.

They're counting on you.

You can do this.

"This is a new one," he says, tries to keep his voice level. "I wrote it a few months ago, with Geoff, actually. It's the first time I've sung it since, so...yeah, I guess. This is, I'll Always Be Around."

...

September 8th, 2017 – 3:37 PM

"Awsten? Kiddo, hey, can you come here a sec?"

Geoff stops.

It feels like the words jump-started his heart, shocked it backs into continuation of the never-ending marathon it's been running. The world stops for a second, pauses where it is and tilts slightly, goes fuzzy at the ends and allows the black to creep in.

Awsten's head doctor usually leaves everything up to the rest of his team. He doesn't join in unless things are particularly bad, unless he has a piece of news to give that is anything but standard. He isn't called in unless it's big, unless whatever's going on requires a more drastic treatment or everything needs to be changed. Calling Awsten to his office...

The blood test.

The results.

The results are in.

"I promised Georgia..." Awsten trails off. His words start to get softer by the end. He knows. He's been in here long enough to know what this means. He knows what this means. He knows exactly what this is. He knows. Geoff's heart is racing. It's hotcoldhotcoldhotcold fuckfuckfuck- "Y-Yeah. What's up?"

Geoff wrenches his head up to meet the man's eyes. They exchange a glance. He needs to be in the room Awsten can't be doing this alone he needs to be with him he needs to be with him he needs to be in that room with him- and fortunately, he receives a nod and a small hand gesture. He sets his binder on the nurses' station, ignores her calling after him irritably ­who's chart is this, Geoff? You can't just leave it wherever you want and expect us to...

He jogs to catch up and falls into place beside Awsten, reaches for his hand and squeezes tightly. It's already clammy, slick with sweat. Awsten is shaking. He swallows. Nonononopleasenonononono-

They sit down in the office. He keeps a tight hold on Awsten's hand and tries to take some deep breaths for himself. You are not allowed to panic right now. You cannot panic. Awsten needs you more than you need to panic. Awsten needs you more than you need to panic.

Awsten needs you more than you need to panic.

"What's going on?" Awsten's voice is so shaky. He tries to push his chair closer, gives his hand another tight squeeze. Awsten doesn't even acknowledge it. His gaze stays fixated on the doctor.

The man sighs. "We've been running tests for a couple weeks now, kid. That's what taking bone marrow and doing scans and drawing blood all those times was for. We wanted to make sure we were completely right before saying anything."

"W-What do you mean?"

Geoff swallows. His breath catches in his throat and he clenches his teeth in attempt not to cough. Please no please it can't be that please don't let it be that please he can't deal with this he doesn't need this please don't let it be that pleasepleaseplease-

"When we got your bone marrow sample back," he says. "We found some abnormalities in your white blood cells. That didn't necessarily mean – we had to do a lot more tests and imaging before we were able to confirm anything."

"Just say it." Awsten's voice is so soft. "Please. I need you to say it."

"Awsten-"

"Just tell me!"

"We did so many tests, did the same ones over again, tried to explain this any other way we possibly could...but everything came back the same. The results all point to one thing." He takes a heavy breath and shakes his head.

"Your cancer's back. I'm so sorry, kiddo."

There's a moment. Everything stops. The world is still. Someone hit the pause button.

And then it plays.

And Awsten runs.

...

"Aws- Awsten, hey, stop."

"Let go of me, Geoff!"

He struggles against Geoff's grip, pushes at his arms and fights against the tightening around his abdomen. "I mean it, let me go!"

"No." Geoff's voice is right next to his ear. He feels his breath warming his skin, feels the arms move up to his chest and wrap around him even tighter. "Just breathe, sunshine. I promise it'll be okay."

"No it won't!" The words end in a sob. He shoves at Geoff's chest again, keeps pushing and resisting. Gotta get out gotta go I can't be here it'sbackit'sbackit'sback-

I can't be here I can't do this let me go please let me go I need to be alone I can't do this anymore I don't want it why is this my life why does this keep happening why is it happening to me I don't want this anymore pleasepleaseplease- it'sbackit'sbackit'sback-

It's back.

The scream starts low, at the back of his throat. It feels like his vocal chords are tearing as it comes up. Everything hurts. His chest is open and the poison is flooding in and everything is burning the world is on fire he can't see can't move can't breathe what's going on why won't it stop it'sbackit'sbackit'sback-

"C'mon love," Geoff is saying. "Deep breaths. With me, okay? I'm right here. It's all gonna be okay, I promise."

"D-Don't," he gasps it out and then drops his head. Everything is blurry. He's squinting at the ground. His vision is squid-inked, black spots dancing and moving all around, combining together to obstruct everything. Can't see can't see can't see– it'sbackit'sbackit'sback-

Everything is on fire. The world is white-hot. It's burning it's all burning it's hot everything's hot it's moving it's hot it's too hot it won't stop nothing will stop why won't it stop it won't stop-

He can't see. He needs more air.

There's no more air.

He needs more air there's no more air he needs more air there's no more air he needs more air there's no more air he needs more air-

It's back it's here it's happening all over again I don't want it please nonono take it away I can't do this take it away I don't want it please I'm sorry please I don't want it I don't want it I don't want it-

There's pressure against his arms. The hands clasp his biceps and push him back. He feels the hard surface digging into his spine. His stomach is churning. Everything is spinning. Can't see can't move can't breathe redwhitehotredwhitehotredwhitehot-

"...breathe, Awsten..."

"...sunshine..."

"...doing...well..."

He hears bits and pieces. They all sound far away, like Geoff's voice is being transmitted through a vocoder from another room. It's distant. Everything's distant. He's floating. The world is getting smaller and smaller. He's going higher; ascending into a separate plane of existence where his body is not a battlefield the latest fight just broke out on.

The next breath barely feels like one. It fuels the burn in his chest, the smoldering of his lungs and hiss of everything charring to a crisp and floating down to dig into his chest cavity. It hurts. Everything hurts. It won't stop. It hurts.

It's back it's back it's back it's back it's back it's back it's back it'sbackit'sbackit'sback-

It's back.

...

September 8th, 2017 – 8:32 PM

"It's gonna be okay, sunshine."

He tousles his fingers through Awsten's hair and kisses the back of his head. Awsten sniffles, scoots up slightly and then lets his head flop back. "S-Sorry, I just..."

"Don't start," he mutters.

Awsten does this all the time. When they're alone, in private, it's like he turns into an infinite thank you note, exploding with 'I'm sorrys' and 'thanks for putting up with mes', overflowing and letting them pour out of him like he's a cup that needs to be emptied periodically. "You have nothing to be sorry for, love-"

"Geoff, thank god, there you are." He jumps, hears the door banging open and one of the on-duty night nurses call for him. "I know you're off today, but Jacob's crying and we're short on staff 'cause of the storm, can you help?"

"I-" He starts to say. Movement cuts him off. Awsten pushes out of his hold and slides to the floor, wipes a hand down his face and makes his way out of the room without a word.

He takes a breath and climbs off the bed too, exchanges a glance with the nurse as he makes his way out of the room and picks up into a slight jog in the direction of the pediatric ward. Awsten's long gone from the halls. He moves through quickly, comes to a stop in front of the double doors and pushes through, straight over to Jacob's bed.

"...thunder, okay? Wanna tell me why?" Awsten is curled up on the mattress next to Jacob. He's lying on his side with Jacob's head against his chest and his arm wrapped around Jacob's shoulders.

"I-It's just noise." Jacob's voice is barely audible, especially from Geoff's position at the foot of the bed. Awsten is louder, but not by much. Neither of them notices – or if they have, they aren't paying any attention to – his presence. He tugs his stethoscope to sit properly around his neck and takes a tiny step backward. "J-Just noise..."

Outside, the sky rumbles with another loud crack. The lights flicker briefly. They're gone for less than a second, but it's still enough to make Jacob jump and whimper, turn onto his side and tighten his arms around Awsten's waist.

"It's gonna be okay, love," Awsten murmurs. He presses a kiss against the crown of Jacob's head and hugs him closer. "It's just noise. It'll pass like it always does. You'll go to sleep and have nice, happy dreams, and when you wake up it'll be all gone, I promise."

"I'm scared..."

Geoff swallows. The words feel like a stab to his heart, a Jacob-sized missile that's large enough to burn a hole through the muscle. It starts a fire that stokes and sparks and burns, an ache in his chest that spreads quickly, smolders everything in its path and turns the entire cavity to flame.

"You wanna know what I do when I get scared?" Awsten hums.

"What?"

"I do something to get my mind off it." Awsten removes one arm from his body and stretches to the other side of the bed, pulls a book from the stack on top of Jacob's nightstand. "When I stop thinking so much about what's scaring me, it gets easier."

"R-Really?"

"Really." Geoff inhales, stares at the large smile on Awsten's face; he's grinning with his teeth, crinkling at the corners of his eyes and stretching so wide his cheeks look like they hurt. "Now where were we?"

"Harry's just about ta be sorted!"

"Oh!" Awsten's eyes go wide. "That's a really good part! What house do you think he'll be put in?"

"Slytherin!"

"What? Why?"

Jacob is giggling by now. The tears on his face are starting to dry up. His cheeks are pink and his smile is bright. He was sobbing ten minutes ago, and now he can't stop smiling.

Just noise.

...

September 12th, 2017 – 2:26 PM

They have a name for these days.

Amongst the nurses, they're called 'sudden death'.

The days when someone's kid is sick and someone else went on vacation and forgot to alert everyone else, when circumstances have piled in and formed a bullet that shoots the entire hospital in its foot. They have too many patients and not enough staff and that means they have to overcompensate and a job meant for six nurses has to now be done by three.

Having practically grown up in this hospital, he's been around for more than he can count.

You can tell by a nurse's tone of voice, the manner in which they handle things, their pace; the tells of 'sudden death' are hardly difficult to spot. People are grumpy and annoyed when they're stressed. It takes a special kind of person to shove that all back in and lock it far enough that it doesn't come oozing and seeping out into their personality.

And sure, Geoff is a really special person, but he's not that special.

The kids have all needed something today. Everyone's been fussy and grumpy and tired; they're spiking fevers and running around all over the place, tired of being cooped up inside but too unwell to be taken out for a walk. The cabin fever is setting in with Geoff's resolve headed closer and closer to the bin.

He can see it on Geoff's face. His eyebrows are furrowed and his lip is pulled between his teeth as he scribbles something into a chart. His hair is a mess, his scrubs are stained with something – some kid probably threw up on him and he hasn't had time to change – and his eyes are red.

He wants to say something, wants to slip behind him and wrap his arms around his waist, wants to breathe you're doing great, love. I know you're stressed and everything's a lot, but you're handling it really well against his ear, but he knows it wouldn't help. He knows Geoff has a lot of work to do, and distracting him – even if it is to try and help him relax a little – will only stress him out even more.

The news has felt like a hurricane. A natural disaster that's eclipsed their worlds and turned them on the side. It feels like that. The world's been turned 90 degrees, flipped onto its side, but everything hasn't moved with it. The world has changed but everything else hasn't and the limbo is lingering.

It's too much. It's all too much.

"Nurse W?"

"Nurse W..."

"Nurse W!"

Geoff jumps. The binder wobbles on the tray he was leaning on, and crashes to the ground. He blows out a heavy sigh and leans down to pick it up. "Give me a second, Matthew."

Awsten winces. He looks over at Matty, barely catches a glimpse of his wide eyes and quivering lip, before tiny footsteps pound against the tile floor and the four-year-old runs out of the room.

He sighs.

Matty's had a rough day. He spiked a fever overnight, so the nurses have been all over him, checking his vitals every hour to make sure he hasn't caught an infection. He's been bound to his bed in case there actually is something wrong, which doesn't bode well for a hyperactive four year old that loves to run around and play. He doesn't do well without his daily playroom time.

"Aws, fuck, I didn't mean to, could you..." Geoff trails off. He shakes his head and looks down at the chart in his hands.

"I got him," he replies. He knows exactly where Matty'll be. His favorite place in the hospital is that damn playroom. It's not much compared to a child's playroom at home, but the hospital has manage to accumulate a ton of board games, along with a foosball table, a pool table, and multiple video game systems. The room is massive, with tons of windows and brightly colored walls. And the kids spend every minute they can spare inside; a reminder of the future to tide them over. "Hey love, everything's okay. Geoff's just grumpy today. He has a lot of work to do because some of the other nurses didn't come in."

"He's mad at me," comes the tiny voice. He follows it to the edge of the foosball table, kneels down and presses his ear to the ground, sees Matty curled up underneath. "I made him mad."

Awsten sighs. His heart feels like it's being pulled, like Matty's piece is trying to break away from the others and descend into the bottom of his stomach. It's this ache that funnels out from deep in his chest, awakens every time one of the kids is upset and coats everything with a light layer of pain. "I promise he's not, Mats. He knows you've had a hard day and you didn't mean to bother him."

"I hate staying in bed."

He smiles. "I know you do, kid. The doctors were just worried today, hm." He scoots closer to the edge of the table and stretches a hand out. "When you guys randomly get fevers in the middle of the night, it means something bad could be happening. They just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"But Awsie, I feel fine," Matty insists. "I don't feel sick 'nymore."

"That's great, dude!" He exclaims. He drops his voice down for the next few words, "how about we go on a little adventure to celebrate, hm?"

"An adventure?" Matty's eyes seem to light up. He pushes up on his hands and stretches to connect his back with the bottom of the table. "Cool!"

"For sure, kiddo," Awsten replies. "Come on out, let's go do something cool!"

Getting Matty to sit in a wheelchair is a bit more of a struggle. He insists he's fine, pushes at Awsten's hands and whines when he rolls the chair up behind him, I don't wanna sit in thaaaat, why can't I just walk like a normal person? It takes a good five minutes to convince him, it's a special kind of adventure, okay? It'll be so much cooler in the chair, I promise.

But soon enough, they're off. He grips the handlebars tightly, gives the chair a hard push, and starts to sprint after it. Matty's giggles can be heard all the way down the hall. He catches up to the chair and grabs the handlebars again, keeps his stride and runs straight ahead, into the elevator that's just opened.

"Press a button," he instructs Matty, once the doors have closed.

"Which one?"

"Any one you want."

The elevator surges upward. The doors open with a ding.

He's not even sure what floor this is.

He grips the handlebars and shoves the wheelchair forward.

And then he's running all over again.

...

September 14th, 2017 – 5:48 PM

Something shoves at his shoulder.

It's gone before he has a chance to see what it is. He stops, clutches his clipboard against his chest and turns around.

Awsten's footsteps are loud, smacking against the tile floor. He has his head down and his arms drawn into his body. He speedwalks past Geoff and disappears down the hall, turns a corner out of view and vanishes completely.

"Dammit..." He looks up, makes eye contact with Awsten's head doctor, and grits his teeth.

"What the hell happened?" He mutters. He drops his clipboard off at the nurses' station, Parker, room 302, he's all set for the night, and walks right up to where the other man is standing. "What did you say to him?"

"Geoff," the man sighs. "We just scheduled his chemo treatments. He's starting tomorrow."

"He's...what?"

Everything goes cold. He feels the ice, feels it travel up his veins and seep into his bones like he was just dunked in a vat of frigid liquid.

"Yeah," Awsten's doctor replies. "First thing tomorrow, we've got a chair all ready for him. We're doing it in cycles this time, so he's gonna have the first infusion tomorrow, and then a couple weeks of rest. That'll give his body some time to make new, healthy cells."

"Fuck," he whispers. "He, I- fuck..."

"Go," the man murmurs. "I'll take care of your other patients. He needs someone with him right now."

He nods. His hands are shaking. He feels it in his legs too, like they're the consistency of jello and won't carry him any further if he tries to walk. He forces down a swallow and turns around.

And he runs.

...

His chest hurts.

It's a thorn in his side, a stabbing pain that keeps shooting and getting worse the faster he goes. It's the kind of pain he knows will get worse if he stops. He can't stop running. He needs to find Awsten. Can't stop running need to find Awsten can't stop where is he where is he where is it-

Not in his room. Not in the pediatric ward. Not in the playroom. None of the kids seem like they've seen him. Geoff doesn't want to say anything, doesn't want to ask Georgia or Toby whether he's passed by, they don't need to know. You don't need to scare the. They don't need to know.

"Fucking hell, where is he?" He grunts. "Aws? Awsten!"

He finds himself in Awsten's room once again, surveying the nightstand – his journal is still sitting there, like always – and the bed – his phone isn't there, so he must have it with him. He rakes a hand through his hair with a shaky gasp. "Fuck, Aws, where are you?"

That's when he hears it.

It's tiny. The sound is smaller than he's heard from Awsten in a long time. If he didn't know any better, he'd think it was one of the kids. It almost sounds like Matty or Nia on a bad day. They're the most vocal about it. Lily never says anything and Jacob is starting to follow in Toby's footsteps, not expressing unless he's asked.

"Oh, sunshine..." he sighs. He steps around in front of the bathroom – the door is open, why the fuck didn't he bother looking the first time he was here – and bites his lip. He moves further into the bathroom, a few feet behind Awsten, and looks over him, into the mirror.

There are tears rolling down his cheeks. His eyes are red. He's perched on the bathroom counter, fiddling with an electric razor, trying to plug it into the outlet next to the sink. It keeps slipping out of his hands because they're shaking so much.

"Aws..."

"Please don't shave your head too." The words are punctuated by a sob. He slides off the counter and takes a couple steps to meet Geoff in the middle of the bathroom. He reaches up and tangles a hand in Geoff's hair, swallows heavily. "You're just starting to look like yourself again. And it- it reminds me of what I lost."

He shaved his head. He remembers the day, remembers feeling the realization, the start against his chest as Awsten sat up in a flurry and burst into tears. He remembers the grip, how tightly he held him, lips pressed against his head and fingers running rapidly through his hair, it's just hair, sunshine. It doesn't define you. You'll still be beautiful. He remembers the lasting kiss, leaving his lips against Awsten's head for a while, and hey, it'll grow back, y'know? It's a reminder of what you're going through. How strong you are. It'll grow back when all of this is over and you can dye it whatever color you want and you'll always remember what it took to get you there. It's just hair, love. Okay? Just hair.

He remembers waiting until Awsten had finally drifted into sleep, going straight to the bathroom and turning on the razor without a second thought.

The lump in his throat is throbbing. His vision is starting to blur, slightly misty and foggy at the edges. He reaches out and pulls Awsten into his arms. Awsten snakes his own arms around his back and they stay there. He tightens his grip and Awsten grabs fistfuls of his shirt and no one moves. Nothing moves. They stay.

When he pulls back, it's just a tad, only enough to keep Awsten at arm's length, "what if neither of us shave our heads?"

"Geoff, I can't," Awsten says quietly. He drops his head down. "I can't watch it gradually-" His breath hitches. "Just...fall out."

"Hey, whoa, breathe." Geoff tightens his arm around Awsten's back and presses another kiss to his head.

What's a color you've always wanted your hair to be?"

...

September 15th, 2017 – 9:56 AM

"Alright kiddo, just attaching this last bag, and...you're all set, okay? It's gonna be a while, though, so make yourself comfy."

"Can...can he stay?"

Geoff swallows. The words feel like a bullet sent spiraling into the bottom of his heart. Awsten owns it, climbed into his chest and claimed it so long ago, sits on top with the most beautiful smile on his face and both hands under his chin, faced turned up to the sky. Awsten has the largest part of his heart, the same part that's been stitched over and glued together and hangs, from the thinnest thread. Awsten has it and he keeps breaking it.

"I took today off," he says, before the nurse has a chance to speak. "Tomorrow too. And I can take Wednesday if you need me to. I'm here, sunshine. You've got me."

They knew. Awsten's doctor was ready to fight if he had to, make sure, if anyone says anything to you, you send them to me, okay? The kid has no one and I'll be damned if they don't let you stay with him. The hospital didn't give him any trouble, and up until this point, he's been allowed to be in the room for everything. They needed to do a blood test and even let him be the one to do it, let him practice medicine on his day off because Awsten was getting panicky and this could not be the first blood draw in years that ended in tragedy.

"Of course he can stay," the nurse says. "I'll be back in a little while to check on you, okay? You know to press the button if you need anything, so just...good luck, sweetheart. Let's hope you don't react too badly."

Geoff drops to his knees in front of Awsten once she's out of the room, grabs both his hands and squeezes. "You doing okay, love? Still feel sick?"

Awsten shrugs and turns his head away. "I dunno."

"Your hair looks pretty." He leans up to brush his fingers through the newly dyed blue strands. They put a ton of conditioner in after the bleach and the result is so soft. He can't stop playing with it.

"Shut up."

"Hey," he murmurs. He squeezes Awsten's hands again, swings them back and forth. "It's gonna be okay, sunshine. We'll get through this."

"I just-" Awsten's face seems to crumple. He bites his lip and lets out a dry sob. "I thought it was over. I thought I was finally getting my life back. I thought- I thought I was done with this..."

Geoff stops there. He has to.

The ache is giant. It feels too big. It's right behind his eyes, a malleable balloon that's seconds away from popping. It lodges itself in, presses against the rut in his skull, and keeps going. The pocket of tears feels too full. It all feels too full. Everything is too full.

He doesn't know what to say.

He doesn't know what words to string together, what message to send, how to breathe reassurances into a body that's already beyond fallen apart. He doesn't know how to keep saying it'll be okay, you'll beat it, you've got this, I promise it'll all be okay, because he doesn't.

He doesn't know if it'll be okay.

Awsten's cheeks are red. His eyes are glassy. His lip is quivering. His hands are clammy in Geoff's, damp and slick with sweat. He looks so small in the chair, with his skinny shoulders and tiny frame, a child in a near adult's body living a life he never wanted.

He swallows and stands up on his knees, surges forward and takes Awsten into his arms – as best he can without disturbing the IV – and kisses the side of his head. He holds him for a while, keeps his lips against his skin and his eyes closed. Sunshine.

"What can I do?" The words feel hollow. It's like someone punched a hole through his chest and the pieces are dangling, bone fragments hanging from tiny threads, teetering over falling to their deaths and embedding themselves deep into the bottom of his chest cavity.

"The kids," Awsten whispers. His voice is thick. "Don't say anything to them, okay? They don't need to know."

...

"Easy, love, there you go, you're okay. Deep breaths, you're doing so well."

The aftereffects of the chemo don't waste any time. He rubs Awsten's back as he gags again, winces and tries to keep hold of the basin while still supporting Awsten's body. Awsten lets out a sob in between heaves. Tears are pouring down his cheeks. His hair is plastered to his forehead, sticky with sweat.

"Geoff..." Awsten whimpers. The spell seems to be over (for now, at the very least), but he doesn't lift his head. "It hurts."

"I know, sunshine. I'm sorry." He winds his arm tighter around Awsten's back and moves the basin off to the side. "You think you're done for now?"

"I dunno."

"Sunshine..."

"They probably think I left them." Awsten's voice is hoarse, raspy from all the vomit. "They're gonna be so mad at me, I- fuck." He scrambles against Geoff's arm and grabs for the basin, moves his head over it just in time to gag once more.

Geoff sighs and rubs his back, reaches over to hold the container on Awsten's lap. "Careful, sweetheart. You're gonna really hurt yourself if you keep doin' this."

"Already did," come the words, soft with a hint of rasp. "You- you should go ta them. They need you-" He pauses and shifts with a grimace. "M-more than I do. M'used to this."

"Stop." He tightens his grip around Awsten's waist. Awsten turns to look at him, and he exhales, shakes his head and runs a finger across Awsten's sweaty cheek. "I took the week off. You know that. You're my priority right now. The kids are fine, love. The other nurses have them." He sighs and leans in to kiss Awsten's hair. "You take care of everyone, sunshine. Now it's my turn to take care of you."

He's never reacted well to chemo. Geoff remembers the first time, remembers when he learned what it meant to 'feel your heart sink into your stomach'. He remembers standing at the edge of Awsten's bed with tears in his eyes, feeling bugs stinging his skin and the blood rushing in his ears, like Awsten was on fire and he'd turned into gasoline.

The vomiting doesn't start until afterward, until the chemicals have had a chance to seep into his bloodstreams and settle in amongst the cells. It takes them a while to adjust, but once they do, the damage begins.

He throws up everything in his system and cries, burns up with a fever that fries, all whilst the chemo wreaks havoc on his body. Geoff watches and winces and feels more pieces of his heart chip off, feels them drop and press into the bottom of his chest and sting, bleed, you're fucking useless why can't you do anything fucking do something you useless piece of shit. He doesn't deserve to suffer like this.

He doesn't deserve to suffer like this.

"G-Gee?" He blinks and refocuses on Awsten, pulls his teeth in with his lip and presses down. "I'm c-cold..." He's shivering. His teeth are chattering loudly. "M-make it stop..."

Geoff swallows and moves his hand up to Awsten's forehead. He has to pull it away almost instantly, lean back and shake his hand out before he wraps it around Awsten's waist again. "You're burning up, sweetheart. Lemme just go get a cloth..." He squirms, tries to push Awsten's arms away and detach himself. "Love, you gotta let go."

"No." Awsten's voice is so small. "Warm."

"Yeah, you are, sunshine. Your fever is high." Geoff sighs. His heart feels like it's bleeding, like every word is a separate slash and every piece is sailing away on a raft of its own. "This'll help, I promise."

"I got it."

He inhales sharply as he lifts his head; watches Otto take a couple steps up to the edge of the bed and place a folded washcloth in the middle of Awsten's forehead. His own hair is shoved into a beanie and his eyes are downcast. He straightens the fabric on Awsten's head and leans in to brush his lips against his hair.

"I didn't- they didn't say you were-"

"You haven't picked up your phone in days," Otto murmurs. "Jawn and I were worried. He wanted ta come with, but he got called into work. I didn't..." He trails off and shakes his head. "Why didn't you tell me, Geoff? He's your boyfriend, but he's...he's important to me too. You know that."

"I..." He looks down at Awsten, whose eyes are closed. His breathing is starting to deepen. "I didn't know what to say. How to say it, I guess? I don't know anything anymore. M'just..." He swallows. "I can't feel. Not right now. Not while he's feeling everything."

"You can." Otto glances behind himself and reaches for one of the chairs that are been backed against the wall. He slides it over and turns it around, sits backward and grips onto the bars at the back. "With me."

...

"I can't do this. Not when he's like this, I just-"

Geoff cuts himself off, tightens his grip around Awsten and keeps his eyes trained there. He waits for him to continue, to pick up where he left off and finish the thought, but the words don't seem to come.

"He's asleep," he says. "And he has a fever so it's a pretty fuckin' deep sleep. You're okay, Geoff. Let it all out."

"I can't," Geoff grounds out. His voice sounds choked. It's like there's gravel in his throat, a new piece tangling with every word. "He needs me not to. I can't have my feelings right now. They're not important."

He sighs and stands, walks back over to the side of the bed and reaches for one of Geoff's hands. "They're always important."

Geoff does this. He always has. He represses and pulls in, absorbs every last ounce of what he's feeling to put it in this tiny bottle and lodge that in the hollows of his chest. He squeezes out whatever he can, has a breakdown in the staff room or bursts into tears while he's getting ready, turns on the waterworks for a minute and then forces them off, forces it down, forces everything away.

"His cancer's back," Geoff says the words to Awsten's head. He won't look up. "It's back and it might be worse than before we don't know and he's back on chemo and everything's happening all at once and I don't have time for this." He finally lifts his head. His eyes are glassy and red-rimmed. "I have him and the kids and all the fucking work I have to do here I just can't-" A dry sob. "I just can't."

"You don't have to," Otto replies. He leans forward to wrap his arms around Geoff's shoulders, careful to avoid disturbing Awsten. He can feel the sleeve of his shirt starting to dampen. He winces. "Not right now. Right now is yours, okay? You don't have to be anything for anyone. It's okay. Just breathe, alright? I gotcha."

It's silent for a few minutes. Geoff cries quietly against him, silent tears that are soaking into the fabric of his shirt. "I'm so scared. All the time. I'm so fucking scared this might be it. That I might-" A breath that ends in a sob. "I'm so fucking scared I might lose him."

The ache behind his eyes is big. He wants to cry too. Everything hurts.

He swallows and tightens his grip, starts to rub Geoff's upper back. "You won't. He's gonna be okay. I know he is. He's survived the worst and he'll survive this too. You know him. You know how much he's been through. He's so strong. He's not going down without a fight."

"I don't know how much fight he has left."

...

September 21st, 2017 – 2:38 PM

"Awsie!"

"Whoa!"

"It's blue!"

"Your hair's so pretty!"

He swallows against the lump in his throat and forces the smile to say on his face. Nothing is wrong. They don't need to know. Nothing is wrong. You can't tell them. They don't need to know. They don't need to worry. Nothing is wrong.

The last six days have been the worst he's had in a very long time. He doesn't remember the last time it was this bad, can't recall a time previously when pulling himself out of bed didn't feel like his body weighed a thousand tons and merely opening his eyes formed a very large lump in his throat that fortified itself with steel.

He's been staying away. The chemo is hard. It hurts. His body feels like a battlefield but the war's barely started. Every side effect is a new battle, a new tiff that breaks out and wreaks havoc. It feels like he's bleeding, all the time. Every day he's being sliced open a different way, and the pieces that are left don't fit together anymore.

"You like it?"

"Yeah!" The vigorous nod comes from Nia. "It's awesome!"

"Thanks, love," he says. He steps over to her bed and shifts Rosie against his hip to ruffle her hair. "How've you been today?"

"Missed you." Nia ignores the question and holds her arms out. "Where'd you go?"

He exhales and swallows again, feels the saliva travel downward and settle in his stomach heavily. Nothing is wrong. They don't need to know. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. "I just got really busy with my family and stuff." He pauses, tries to keep his voice steady. "But I really missed you guys."

A silence falls over the room. He bites his lip. Toby and Georgia are looking at him. He can see the confusion on their faces. Their gazes are burning into his back. They don't believe you they don't believe you they don't-

He feels an arm snake around his back and exhales a shaky breath, leans into Geoff's grip and closes his eyes for a briefly. Geoff rubs his back for a few seconds and then takes a step over to Nia's bed. "And they really missed you too, so how would y'all feel about a movie night to catch up?"

"Yeah!"

"Yes!"

"Please, Awsie?"

He smiles, presses a kiss against the top of Rosie's head with a swallow. "Geoff was just telling me that he got some new movies for you guys. I think he got Moana and that other new Disney one..."

Lily is leaning so far off her bed that she looks like she's going to fall out. Her eyes are wide. She's reaching for him, making grabby hands and opening and closing her fingers. He takes a step closer, shifts Rosie on his hip and reaches for one of her hands with his free one. He tightens his hold on Rosie so he can lean down and press a kiss to her hair.

"Movie night it is." He hears Geoff say from behind. "Let's go into the playroom guys, alright?"

"Yeah!"

None of the kids have IVs in at the moment. He knows Jacob is scheduled for a vitals check in a couple hours – Lily just got back from hers, Geoff is doing Nia's right now, Matty's was done, and Rosie just finished – and Georgia and Toby know when they have to get up and come back into the ward for their checks. This is – ironically – the perfect time.

Matty jumps onto Geoff's back. He watches Jacob tap Toby's shoulder until he gives a very heavy mock sigh and crouches down too. Nia grabs Georgia's hand and starts to giggle, race you to the playroom! Boys vs. girls! Their footsteps are loud as they run out of the room and stomp down the hall.

"Ow, sweetheart." He unclasps Rosie's chubby fingers from his hair and kisses her cheek. "Careful, okay?" She babbles something he doesn't quite catch and flops against his shoulder.

"Awsie?" He feels a tug at the hem of his shirt and smiles down at Lily.

"Yeah, love?"

"Your hair's really pretty," she says softly. She moves her gaze down to stare at her lap as soon as she finishes talking.

"Thank you, Lil," he murmurs. He lifts her chin and brushes his fingers through her hair. "Come on, let's go watch the movie, hm?" He turns around and bends his knees slightly. "Climb on."

"You've got Rosie." Lily's voice is barely audible at this point. "It's okay."

"I can carry you both," he replies. His heart feels like it's being pulled, like her piece is trying to tear itself from the whole. He shifts Rosie with one arm, and uses the other to squeeze Lily's hand. "C'mere, love. We'll go watch Moana and I'll braid your hair, how's that sound?"

Lily smiles.

...

A crab is singing.

An evil crab is singing a song about something being shiny. He isn't sure what or what happened or how they got to this point, but a crab is clawing at whatever character The Rock is playing and singing about seafood and shiny things.

The younger kids are enthralled. Lily, Nia, and Matty haven't looked up since the movie began. Toby, Jacob, and Georgia seem a little less captured and Rosie probably couldn't care less, but the little kids are enjoying it.

He hasn't really been following the story. The songs are catchy and the dialogue is funny at some parts, but he hasn't been able to pull his mind out of the hole it's been sucked into.

It's all so much. It's so much and it feels so heavy and he can't move out from underneath. He can't move or breathe or escape any of it. These white walls are his reality, a physical representation of the life that feels like catastrophe.

It was starting to get better. Things were starting to go back to normal. He was starting to unstick himself from the passive as he passed into a more active role in his life. The world was starting to come back into orbit, like he'd finally come back to Earth and reentered his body again, given life to a body that had been disguised as a corpse for so long.

He was alive but never living.

The world was different too. He remembers that, when a tiny stream of light cracked through the weight on his shoulders, split it in half and started to break off pieces. He remembers feeling lighter, feeling like he was floating in the best way, overlooking cotton candy skies through newfound rollercoaster highs.

He remembers how sparkly everything started to look. The world was clearer and brighter and prettier, with glitter and shine everywhere. It felt like a dream. Like his nightmare was morphing into an existence he could get used to living in. A conclusion that was no longer confusing. The world wasn't blurry anymore. Nothing was blurry anymore.

It was a new canvas and he'd been given paints for the first time.

And then it hit. A wrecking ball that was on fire, sparking with every reminder of the existence that-

He swallows. The lump in his throat is throbbing. Everything feels far away, like he's managed to float out of his body and onto a separate layer of pain in the last twenty minutes. He blinks, refocuses his vision, and forces in a deep breath. Not now. You'll have time for this later. Not now. Not now. Not now.

He rakes a hand through his hair.

He stops.

Someone hit pause on the world. The breath has been sucked dry from his body, leeched from his bones and tugged away from his throat. It feels like sandpaper. The last thread holding his heart together has snapped and it's falling down, further and further, sinking into his stomach and rolling back on the switch that sends nausea surging up into his veins.

No. No. No.

He forces himself to look downward, moves his entire head to stare at his hands, stare at the lock of hair that has just fallen out and into his palm.

He tries to stifle it, keep it back, lodge it in his chest for later when he's back in his room and Geoff is with him- wait for Geoff wait for Geoff not now please not right now I can't do this- so it's not nearly as loud as if he'd chosen not to, but a tiny sound, a whimper leaves his throat.

He hears the gasp.

He whips his head up, locks eyes with Georgia, whose gaze is flittering from the lock of hair to him so fast he can't follow it. Her lip is already starting to quiver. Her eyes are getting glassy.

"Fuck," he curses in a whisper. He closes his fingers around the lock of hair and slips his hand into his pocket, slides out from under Lily, "I'll be right back, alright love? Just gonna go to the bathroom real quick."

He meets Georgia's eyes once again and then looks pointedly at the hallway, bites his lip, what the hell am I supposed to say to her how do I do this she wasn't supposed to find out she wasn't fuckfuckfuck-

Georgia makes her way out of the playroom and steps no further, plants her feet and crosses her arms over her chest. Her lip is wobbling dangerously and there are already tears on her cheeks.

"Georgia, love..." he sighs, shakes his head and presses harder into his lip. "I didn't, you weren't supposed to-"

"You're sick again," Georgia chokes out. Her voice is thick with tears. "Aren't you? It's back. You're getting chemo again. That's why your hair is falling out."

"Sweetheart..." His heart is constricting. It feels like she just took a sledgehammer to it, slammed into it at full force and smashed it to smithereens. Nausea is swimming up his throat. The ache behind his eyes is pulsating.

"Answer me!"

"Yeah," he says. His voice cracks. He knows he's crying too. "They found some abnormalities in my white blood cells, and-

Georgia sobs. She covers her face with her hands and cries loudly, a kind of sound that bottles itself up and comes flying toward him, bypasses every layer of skin to crash into what's left of his heart.

He surges forward and pulls her into his arms, presses nose to head, wraps arms around waist. She throws her arms around his abdomen and buries her head in his chest, lets out another sob that muffles slightly into his shirt but still sounds as guttural as the first one.

"It's gonna be okay, love," he whispers. His voice is shaking. His hands are, too. He tries to keep them steady as he rubs her back, kisses the top of her head and hugs her even closer. "I'm gonna be okay. You don't have to worry about me. I'll beat this, you'll see."

"You don't know that!" Georgia wails. "You don't know anything! What happens if you don't? What are we gonna do? Awsie," She hiccups, chokes on tears and starts to cough. He winces and presses firmer into her back, rubs in small, tight circles. "What am I gonna do without you?"

"Nothing." He closes his eyes and presses his cheek against the top of her head, lets the tears stream freely down his face. "Because I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'm staying right here. I'm gonna beat this and be around to play Monopoly with you and help you with lyrics and tease you about Toby and teach you- teach you how to play guitar. I'm gonna be around. I'm gonna beat this. I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

...

September 22nd, 2017 – 11:21 AM

"N-no."

Lily starts shaking her head, slow at first, and then faster and faster, eventually so fast that she's probably making herself dizzy. He sighs and takes a step forward, reaches for her shoulders. She tenses underneath him, but doesn't start to move away. Just as he's about to speak, he hears the tiniest, "No, Awsie."

Lily is peering up at him with wide, glassy eyes. Her lip is quivering. His grip on her shoulders has allowed her to wrap her hands around his forearms. She squeezes. Her little nails are digging into his skin, sharp enough to prick, but not nearly enough to hurt. "Please. No."

"Lil." He bends his knees and crouches so he's at her eye level. "I promise it'll be okay, love. It's not going to hurt. You'll be fine."

"Scary," she mumbles. Her voice is so small. She moves her gaze to her lap and pulls her knees up and into her chest. "Don't wanna."

"How about I come with you?" He offers. He scoots his hands down and around her back, slides onto the bed and pulls her to his chest in one motion. She curls in and buries her face in his shirt, lets out the tiniest whimper that slowly transitions into a sigh.

He swallows. He looks down at her and watches his hand come up to rub her back, keeps his eyes there and pulls his lip in with his teeth.

It's like his heart's been split, like each of the kids has crawled inside and claimed their own piece, perched on top of them and turned each one into their own arts and crafts project. They're both different and vital, like slashing through one or feeling it pull away from the hole turns everything upside down. If one of them falls, they all fall. They all fall and nothing's okay. These kids inadvertently have so much power, positions that weren't necessarily given to them but happened on their own; he got attached and they made their homes in his heart and he's not getting any of it back.

The universe seems to be on his side. Lily contemplates things for a few seconds longer before peeking up at him long enough to nod. She clenches her fingers around the fabric of his shirt and scoots even closer, close enough that he eventually pulls her onto his lap and moves to properly sit on the bed, shoots an apologetic look at the orderlies that have to transport a much heavier bed than they were originally planning to.

"It's an ultrasound," one of them says. "So you're good, kiddo. We're just bringing this in." They roll in the ultrasound machine, right up to the edge of the bed, and set to work connecting everything.

"Do you know what it's for?" Geoff wouldn't tell him. He's asked multiple nurses – maybe they didn't tell him 'cause he's a student – but they've been silent too. No one will tell him what's going on. They're hiding and he's trying, trying to find their needle in the haystack of 'I don't knows', trying to keep his breaths at ease when it feels like everything is starting to freeze.

"They didn't tell us anything, kid, sorry. We just gotta get all this hooked up before the doctor comes in, alright?"

He swallows and forces out a nod. His heart is racing. He doesn't know what's going on. His breath is coming shorter, shallower and shallower as he grips Lily's body tighter and buries his nose in her hair. He doesn't know what's wrong doesn't know what's wrong what'swrongwhat'swrongwhat'swrong-

It's just a routine ultrasound.

She's going to be fine.

It's just a routine ultrasound.

She's going to be fine.

She's going to be fine.

She's going to be fine.

The saliva feels heavy in his stomach.

She's going to be fine.

She has to be fine.

...

September 22nd, 4:45 PM

"Yeah, and just put your middle finger there...yep, there you go, that's G major."

Toby shifts his finger into place and strums the chord, smiles widely at the sound. Awsten looks down at the neck of his own instrument and follows up with another G chord, one Toby's sounds almost exactly like. He's getting it.

"Good!" He exclaims. "You're a fast learner."

"I have a good teacher." Toby looks back up at him and bites his lip. "But he's really stupid sometimes, too."

"W-what?" He swallows. His heart picks up almost immediately, like someone flipped a switch to turn from peace to panic. Toby is the oldest. He's not like Nia or Lily or Jacob; he can't be placated with a white lie wrapped in lullabies. He knows what's up and he sees through everything.

Toby moves his gaze to the ground. "Georgia told me," he says quietly. "Y'know, what you guys talked about a couple days ago. Don't be mad at her!" He holds his hands up in surrender. "I kinda forced it out. She was crying and kept crawling in my bed with me and I needed to know what was goin' on."

"So you..." he trails off. The words die in his throat, like the lump lodged in the back has grown to a full-on barrier keeping them back. The bugs are starting to awaken under his skin, press their stingers down further and gnaw and absorb. "You know..."

"...yeah."

"Fuck." He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fingers around the neck of the guitar, and feels the strings dig into his skin. It hurts. It stings. But it's a good pain, a good sting. He presses further.

"You're not on your own, y'know."

"Toby, I-" Everything stings. The world is on fire and it's starting to burn deep, char everything that's left of his chest and turn it all to ruble. He knows. He knows. The one thing he wasn't supposed to find out and he knows and Georgia knows and the kids Nia Lily, Jacob Matty fuckfuckfuck-

"You're always there for us," Toby continues. "You hold Jacob when he has nightmares and go with Lily to her scans and make sure Nia doesn't rip her cannulas out. You're the one that knows what Matty needs when he's having a bad day and makes sure Rosie's getting the love she needs. You make sure all of us, are getting the love we need." His voice catches in his throat. He pauses and shakes his head. "But it goes both ways, y'know? You don't have to be the hero all the time. It's okay to need us sometimes too."

He swallows. The ache behind his eyes is starting to burst. It's leaking everywhere, paint layers of pain coating the room in anguish. Everything feels too big. It's too much. This is too much. It's all too much.

"I just..." is all he can force out. Everything hurts. It's too much. It hurts. "I'm so scared. All the time. And I didn't- I didn't want you guys to be scared. I'm always the one tellin' you it'll be okay but this I just- I don't know. I don't know if it'll be okay and I didn't wanna scare you guys and I just- I didn't want anyone to worry about me." A sob tears from his throat, dry and scratchy. It feels like there's an open wound left in its wake, raw and blistering. It feels like razors cutting through everything.

Toby's eyes are glassy and his voice is thick when he speaks next, "you're our big brother, Aws. We love you. We don't know if it'll end up okay but we can be there for you while it happens. Like you are for us all the time. We wanna be there for you. Let us be there for you. You've done enough for us." His breath hitches.

"And hey, even heroes need saving sometimes, right?"

...

September 23rd, 2017 – 1:30 PM

"NO! PLEASE! AWSIE!"

He hears the cries from across the hospital. They're distinct, punctuated by guttural sobs and loud, raspy coughs. He pulls the other earbud out of his ear and flips his journal shut, slides off the bed and wobbles onto his feet in one motion.

His heart is racing.

He can feel it in his ears as he takes off, runs out of his room and into the hallway, past the nurses' desk, Awsten, don't run! You're gonna hurt yourself or someone- and straight to the pediatric ward. He bursts through the double doors at full speed, squeezes his eyes shut and swallows against the nausea already rising.

His stomach is in his throat. It's the kind of feeling you get running the mile in PE, that overwhelming stickiness and heaviness in your chest, like it's nausea rather than blood being pumped into your veins, knowing that you have to keep going, because if you stop you're going to puke. It's a blanket that drapes over him stickily, coats everything in a mush and blurs it all together.

Lily.

Lily's crying.

He stumbles over to her bed – wobbles dangerously and almost trips and collapses on himself multiple times – and straightens against the rails. A weight hits his chest. A pair of arms winds around his neck.

"Lil," he chokes out. His breath is coming in pants. The room is tilting and shifting. He reaches his arms up to wrap around her, pulls her into his chest and turns to the man standing at the foot of her bed. There's a nurse on the other side, holding a needle attached to a tube, with two more tubes lined up in the tray in front of her. "What the hell is going on?"

"Awsten-"

"Was this planned?" He continues. He knows Lily's doctor. The man is the main guy in charge of all the kids; he's a fifth year resident who oversees all of their care after the specialists give instructions. He's been doing this for a while now, spent most of his residency in this ward – Awsten'd like to think they know each other pretty well.

He would've said something, if Lily had a planned blood test. The entire ward knows how terrified she is of needles. It's a process; they tell him the day before and he goes to her that night, slips into bed next to her and strokes her hair as he tells her what's going to happen. He stays with her – the nurses are all used to this by now; they know that if it doesn't happen, then, well, this, will happen – and coaxes her into things slowly, and it works. It works every time.

"Awsie they're tryna stick me I don't want it please don't let them it'll hurt I don't want it please-" The words come out as more of a gasp. She heaves at the end, coughs so harshly that she's dry gagging against his shoulder.

"Whoa, hey, it's okay," he murmurs. He rests his chin on top of her head and starts to rub her back, presses a kiss against her hair. "Awsie's here, love, I'm here. I'm not gonna let them do anything to you that you're not ready for, alright?"

"Awsten, can I talk to you in the hall?"

"I'll be right back, okay?" He starts the flood of sweet nothings against Lily's body as soon as her doctor finishes speaking. She's shaking her head and saying no over and over, squeezing her eyes shut and crying loudly. "I promise, they're not going to do anything-" He pauses to look pointedly up at the nurse, who nods and sets the syringe down. "Until I get back. No one's going to touch you love, I promise. I'm gonna go talk to the doctor. I'll be right back."

"What the hell are you doing?" The words come out as a growl. His chest aches. He can still hear Lily crying in the other room. Every sound feels like another slice at the fragments of his chest cavity, another hole poked into Lily's piece of his heart. The world was just set on the fire, but he doesn't know where the source is. He doesn't know where it's coming from and he doesn't know how to stop it. "I haven't seen her that upset in years. She's fuckin' terrified."

"Awsten."

He stops.

The anger, the white-hot walls building themselves up in his chest, stop. Everything feels like it's falling, like he's plummeting back to Earth with that single word. "H-her- the ultrasound," he whispers. "What did it say?"

"There's something wrong with her kidneys. We need to do some more tests to confirm – that's what we're taking her blood for – but it's very possible she might be in kidney failure, kiddo."

"I'll do it." He doesn't register the words until he's saying them. His heart is racing. The world is spinning away, a tiny dot, a blip on his radar. He's somewhere else, in a different existence, and everything is screeching to a halt. "I'm a match."

"We haven't confirmed she needs a kidney yet," the man says. "And kid, I hate to break it to you, but...if she does, you can't donate. You're getting chemo, remember? Your immune system's already compromised beyond belief. No one in their right mind would let you do a transplant right now."

He stops.

...

September 25th, 2017 – 8:28 PM

"How're you holdin' up?"

He swallows at the voice, doesn't move to lift his head or turn toward the door. "What're you doin' here?"

"I heard." There's rustling. He hears a jacket unzip, and then hears it fall to the ground. "About everything. I talked to Geoff. Aws, I'm so-"

"Save it." He bites the words, but it feels like the pocket of tears is pressing harder against his skull. His throat is closed. Speaking feels like razor blades cutting up his vocal chords, like there's a wheel of knives shredding them to pieces. The ache lodged between skin and skull stays, pounds and presses in until keeping his eyes open starts to hurt. "I don't wanna do this right now."

"You can't keep it locked up. You suck at that. We both know it."

"I can't do this." He grounds the last two words out and lifts his head to glare at Jawn. "Don't you get it? I can't talk about it. I can't think about it. I can't do it."

"Not talking about it isn't gonna make it hurt any less," Jawn says. "But at least lemme give you a hug first. You scared me, you fuckin' asshole."

"It wasn't a damn picnic for me either, thanks," he mutters. Jawn moves toward him and he lets it happen, feels the arms around him and leans up and into the hold. He buries his face in Jawn's chest and exhales, feels the lump in his throat start to throb and tries to bite back the sob.

"It's gonna be okay." Jawn rubs his back and he leans into it. The ache feels too big. Too much. It's forcing itself against his skull in a pocket of pain that feels too heavy. It all feels too heavy.

He wants to sleep. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

He wants to sleep.

He doesn't want to be here anymore.

...

"You're not gonna talk to Geoff about this. So it's either me, or I'm going to your doctor and telling him you need a damn therapist."

"You wouldn't."

"I fucking would," he shoots back. The words feel hot, leaving his chest. His hands are shaking. Everything is tooredtoohottoored- "I can't just sit here and watch you destroy yourself."

Awsten laughs. It's a different kinda of laugh. It sounds choked. His voice is slightly raspy. It sounds like poison, like the sound has injected it into the air and it's starting to diffuse across the whole room. "Destroy myself? You think I'm doing this?"

"Awsten..." The marks beneath his eyes have deepened. They're a darker shade of purple, deep enough to reach the tops of his cheeks. He looks paler. Jawn knows he's already had a chemo infusion – they fuck with him really bad, remember? He doesn't look very good. But it's helping. It's supposed to help – but he didn't think it would happen this fast.

He's pale. He looks sick. It's like the cancer patients you see in the movies, sunken in eyes and sallow skin, pale and weak and sickly.

"How the fuck am I supposed ta get better when my life won't?"

A silence falls over the room. It's sticky. It feels like a blanket that has stingers attached to it, pressing into his skin and burning. He doesn't know what to say. There's nothing left to say.

He's never known what to say. He remembers being ten years old, watching Geoff hold a cloth to Awsten's forehead while trying to figure out what words yelled into his mom's answering machine would make her pick up. He remembers getting into bed with Awsten and curling around him, please, J, I'm so cold please hold me it hurts so bad, trying to keep the liquid out of his eyes so Awsten could spill freely. But most of all, he remembers the late nights, staying up till 3am even though exhaustion tugged at his bones because Awsten couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep and I'm so tired, Jawn. I'm so fucking tired of pretending it'll be okay because bad things keep happening and I don't want to do this anymore.

He remembers going home, laying awake for hours into the night and staring at his ceiling, please, anyone, if you're up there, please just...turn his luck around. Give him some good. He doesn't need anymore bad things to happen. Make his life good, please, give me all the bad stuff if you want, but he's been through enough.

I don't know if he'll survive another bad thing.

(I think he'll actually do it.)

Awsten has depression.

He was diagnosed when he was 14; right after they got the news that his cancer had gotten worse. Right after weeks of lying in bed that progressed to months of wishing he was dead. It was like life had sucked the color out of him. He was a wrung-out rag of empty promises and false hope.

He tried to kill himself when he was fifteen, stole one of the scalpels from a tray in the ER and went to town – nothing is getting better and it's too hard. I'm sorry. He ended up in therapy for six months, on a slew of medication to combat the cocktail of emotion wreaking havoc on his brain.

Awsten has depression and it's gotten a lot better in the past few years, calmed the tides as the trials in his life started to diminish. Things have been getting better. His promises were holding true – I told you it'd happen, didn't I? I don't break promises; he was finally starting to look like less of a dick as the universe clicked into place for the first time.

"Did they tell you anything else?"

"She needs a kidney." Awsten's voice is flat. "I can't donate. I'm a match. But I can't donate."

"How do you-"

"I know her damn blood type." It's a snap now. He bites the words. There's a hint of rasp; a hint of a sob that's poking its way through the surface, about to escape. "Geoff can't keep a fucking secret to save his life."

"She'll be okay," he says. His heart is racing. Not another bad thing he doesn't need this he can't do this right now why the fuck are you doing this why are you doing this to him what the hell did he do to deserve it- "They'll put her on a list, or something, right?"

"So she can die waiting?" Awsten is quiet for a few moments. He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head and bites his lip. "I just- I thought this was over. I thought I was done with it. I thought it was- I thought I was finally getting better..."

"Awsten..." He sighs out the word, feels the tug and burn in his chest. It's like that single utterance set everything on fire and now it's smoldering.

"Some days I still wish I was dead," Awsten mutters. "And it's not fair that obligation is the only thing holding me back from that."

"You're not doing that again." He stands, takes the couple steps over to Awsten's bedside and reaches for one of his hands. "Okay? I need you to promise me. You are not trying again."

"I don't want Geoff to have to explain it to them," Awsten mumbles. "They...I can't do that to them."

"You can't do that to yourself, either," he says. "You deserve to want that. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to live." His chest feels like it's being torn open. Slashed apart. The words are taking a knife through the structure he's been trying to rebuild for months. Everything is on fire and everything is broken and it's all so bad why is it so bad why does his life have to suck this much why do bad things keep happening to him-

"Sometimes it doesn't feel worth it anymore." Awsten's voice sounds different. He doesn't sound sad or angry or frustrated. The words are out there but they're different.

It's the voice of someone who's been sad too many times.

"I'll let you get some sleep, okay?" The words tumble out in a rush. His hands are shaking. His lip is quivering. The world looks blurry. Everything is starting to fog over. He reaches out and rubs his fingers down the side of Awsten's face, cups his cheek and leans down to kiss his forehead. "And I promise I'll come back tomorrow, 'cause we're not done talking about this. But it's late. You need your rest. You'll feel better in the morning, I promise."

"I'll still be dying."

...

September 25th, 2017 – 10:06 PM

"Sunshine? Hey love, you awake?"

Check on him. He's not in a good place. I don't think he should be alone right now. I...you gotta get him talking, Geoff. He's locking too much up and we- Jawn's voice caught there. The sob tore its way out without warning. I'm scared he might try again.

His shift just ended. It's not uncommon for him to stay, change out of his scrubs and make his way back to Awsten's room to check on him one last time. He spends a lot of time in this hospital outside what he's meant to; you're not okay and I'm not leaving you like this. If they let me stay, I'm here.

Awsten's parents don't. They fund his private room and make sure he has the best of the best, write a check every time someone calls their house in place of actually coming to the hospital to spend time with their son. Geoff knows the nights, curling around Awsten and trying to get his mom on the phone, why don't they care about me? What did I do wrong? He knows his heart breaking, feeling the bomb detonate and the pieces fly everywhere, a reminder of the life he couldn't fix. He couldn't fix it he couldn't do it he couldn't-

"Hey." He forces his voice to stay steady and drops to his knees to get on Awsten's eye level, reaches forward to brush his hands through Awsten's hair. "How're you feeling?"

"Didn't Jawn tell you?" He bites his lip at Awsten's voice. It's not loud or soft or happy or sad or scared or confident or anything. It's one level, one tone, one emotion. It's nothing.

"He's just worried, angel," he sighs. "I am too. We all are. You've had better days."

"Don't."

"Aws-"

"You don't have to be here," Awsten mutters. "You can go. I don't need another person to disappoint."

It feels like a bullet. It probably would've hut less, had Awsten pulled out a gun and shot him straight in the heart. It's a pain that encompasses, stretches out over everything and throws a blanket over it all. It's entrenching. Capturing. It feels white-hot at first, and then dies to a low buzz that's prominent enough to hurt, all the time.

"Listen to me." He stops himself, has to rein everything back in to keep from word vomiting everywhere. Breathe. It's gonna be okay. Breathe. "I'm your boyfriend, not your dad. I don't have some bullshit expectations you're letting down. I love you. I just want you to be happy, okay? I want you to feel better and be happy because you deserve it. I hate seeing you like this, sunshine."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

"What, sunshine?" He swallows. He isn't sure how they got here. He doesn't know how they ended on this. Sunshine is- Awsten is sunshine. When he looks up at the blinding light, feels it rouse him every morning and blinks up at the rays through his window, when he feels the warmth against his back and the soft breeze against his chest...Awsten is sunshine.

"M'the furthest fuckin' thing from sunshine." Awsten bites his lip. He's staring at a spot on the wall, not really even looking at it. It's almost like he's staring right through it, like the x-rays have moved to his eyes.

"My love," he murmurs. He grabs one of Awsten's hands and brings it up to his lips. "You light up every room you walk into. You smile and laugh and tell stories, you expose your heart to the world even after it's been broken. You read to Jacob when he has nightmares and go with Nia to her scans and hold Lil all night if it makes her feel better about blood tests. You take Matty on adventures so he doesn't get bored – and so the other nurses and I don't rip our hair out – and you're so good with Rosie. She loves you. She attaches herself to you for a reason, y'know? You're teaching Toby guitar. And Georgia...what you've done with her and songwriting and helping her to become more confident in talking about her feelings...the other nurses and I talk about it all the time." He pauses. The lump in his throat is throbbing. "She may not be here if you hadn't done that. And after I've had a hard day-" He leans down and kisses Awsten's forehead. "You are where I want to go. You make them easier. You hold me and let me vent and make me feel like my problems are real, even when you're dealing with so much worse." He stares at Awsten through glassy eyes, takes his other hand and smiles. "You are the embodiment of sunshine."

He tilts his head forward and pecks Awsten's lips. Awsten wraps an arm around his neck as he kisses back. They stay there. His knees are bent in a very uncomfortable position and everything is burning, but they stay there. It's silent for a long time.

"I'm so scared she's gonna die."

The words hang in the air for a moment. He opens his mouth, knows he has to say something even though he doesn't know what to say; he needs to hear something, you idiot. Say something. Awsten beats him to it, "and if she goes, I go."

"Whoa, no," He breathes. He braces one hand against the mattress and pushes up, hooks his leg around Awsten and slides in behind him to straddle his body. He winds his arms around Awsten's waist and pulls him in, presses his lips against the top of his head and leaves them there. "We are so far from that, okay? I talked to Briars today. She is so far from that. And you are never doing that again. No matter what."

"I can't do it," Awsten says faintly. "I don't know how to live in a world she isn't."

"For her," he replies. He looks down at the mattress and reaches for Awsten's hand, laces their fingers together and squeezes. "You live, for her. Live the life she wouldn't be able to. You smile and you laugh and you love and you live. You beat this stupid fuck up of cells and get outta here and we go find a nice apartment in the city where you can look out over the buildings and we can go to art galleries on the weekends and walk around downtown and have people over for brunch." He moves his lips to the shell of Awsten's ear and starts to stroke his hair as he continues, "and you can find an amazing producer to sign you so you can sing your songs everywhere. Live for that, my love. If, god forbid, anything happened to her, she would want this. For you to live and love and laugh and let things get better. She'll be watching and she'll be so proud."

...

September 27th, 2017 – 3:31 PM

"Nurse W?"

He feels a tug at the hem of his scrub shirt and pauses to look down. "Yeah, love? What's up?"

"Why'd Awsie leave again?" The seven year old's voice is slightly higher than usual, lacking the hint of whine she usually has in favor of what sounds like genuine curiosity.

He sighs. Awsten hasn't gotten out of bed since that night. The kids haven't seen him in a couple days. Jawn came back, sat with him for a few hours and tried to coax some words out, he didn't say like, anything, dude. One word or a fuckin' head nod. I'm really worried about him.

He's okay most days. He deals with things as they come, processes the pain as it permeates, lets it seep in steadily rather than absorbing everything all at once. It's a tidal wave of false hope and empty promises that encompass him on the worst days. Geoff knows those.

He knows check-ups turned to suicide watches, curling around Awsten while still in his scrubs – don't you have work to do? scans to run? Patients that don't wanna off themselves to check on?

You're all I care about right now, love. I can't function if I don't know you're okay.

You've been functioning fine until now.

"Is Awsie okay?" He blinks rapidly to refocus his vision, and swallows against the newly formed lump in his throat as he takes a breath. The ache is back. Everything feels thicker in a way that makes the room start to blur. It's going fuzzy at its edges. He swallows.

"Yeah, sweetheart." He holds out a hand for her to put hers in. "Do you remember what we talked about a while ago?"

"Sometimes he has sad days," Nia says quietly. She's staring down his lap. "Where he doesn't want to get of bed."

"Right," he replies. The word feels thick. It's like the room has been filled with molasses, like they're swimming and wading and trying to break through the sticky mess that just keeps on coming. It feels too thick. Too heavy. Too much. "He'll feel better soon love, I promise."

"I wanna go."

"Hm?"

"I wanna go see Awsie," Nia repeats. "I wanna make him happy."

"Nia, love..." He bites his lip. It's a good idea. It bottles itself up and shoves into his heart, presses into one of the holes Awsten's created and starts to close it. It's warm. It might work.

Or, Awsten might say something so morbidly dark and give her permanent anxiety of whether each new day might be the day he actually does it.

"I wanna go," Nia insists, louder this time. "He needs me."

"Are you-"

"Please, Nurse W." Nia pokes out her bottom lip and widens her eyes.

"I wanna go."

...

He doesn't have the best track record with Septembers.

Maybe it's because that's when everyone from school goes back or the world starts to turn chilly and windy, maybe it's the reminder that you're never gonna be normal. This? This is your life. You're never gonna have something different. You'll never be like them. You'll never be like them.

You'll never be like them.

Maybe it's the reality that these four white walls are all he'll ever be.

He can't cry anymore. It feels like he's used up everything in his tear ducts, like they're scraping against the insides of themselves and scrambling for more water to let out. It hurts. All of it hurts. It's a pain that stays, sets the tendrils making up his chest ablaze; burns through the short phrase of this will pass. It's not forever. You'll get better, and sparks all over again.

September isn't good to him. It never has been.

This year hasn't been good to him. There was a spike and now it's falling all over again and Lily could die and he could die and everything's falling apart it's all gone to shit so quickly he was so happy what the fuck happened how the fuck did this become his life he was so happy he was going back to school he was supposed to be a normal one with everyone else how did this happen how did this happen how-

How the fuck did this happen-

He doesn't think because he can't breathe. He doesn't let himself. He ruminates and cultivates more anxiety, more dampness down his back and slickness on his hands and churning in his stomach, more hotcoldhotcan'tmovecan'tspeakcan'tbreathe, more tooheavytoohardtoomuch, until everything comes out all at once and he's left an empty shell of the promises he once was.

September isn't good to him.

"Awsie?"

He freezes.

Everything seems to stop. It's like someone hit pause on the world and play right after. It jars. Whatever he has in his stomach – bile and stomach acid grossgrossgross – is about to eject upward. He can feel it. It's too much. It's all too much.

This can't be happening.

Please no not her please why is this happening please I can't do this I can't deal with this pleasepleaseplease-

He feels the arm thrown across his side and the weight against his back. The arm span is tiny, but a tiny limb still snakes between his body and the mattress, wraps around him and squeezes tight. "I'm sorry you're sad."

"Nia," he chokes out. He didn't realize he was crying until the sob slipped, until that one word broke the barrier and sent the floodgates rushing. "Wha- I- you-"

"I wanna make you happy," Nia says softly. "But Nurse W said sometimes that doesn't happen. So I wanna be here. I hate being sad alone. I think everyone does. I don't want you to be sad alone."

He forces himself to swallow, twists around and flops onto his other side so he can meet her eyes. She's smiling at him, hair pinned back, eyes shiny. He knows his are red. Everything's red. Redwhitehotredwhitehotredwhite-

"Your hair is really pretty," Nia continues. "It looks like the smurfs! When you're better we'll watch the movies, okay? I have my own smurf, I'm so lucky..." She reaches up and starts to tangle her fingers through his- no.

Please no not now please nononononono-

"I thought- I thought something was wrong." He can hear the tears in her voice. She's holding a blue strand in her hands. They're shaking. Everything is shaking. Nothing feels real. He wants to go away why is this happening fuckfuckfuck- "B-but," she whispers. "It's gonna be okay, y'know? You're gonna fight. Beat this again. I know you will. 'Cause heroes always win, right? You're gonna win."

"Yeah," he chokes out. Reaching forward, he pulls her into his chest and squeezes, buries his nose in her hair and closes his eyes. "I'm gonna win. I'm gonna beat this, I promise. I'm gonna be here with you and we'll watch all the Smurf movies and eat all the blue ice cream and it'll be so good, okay? It'll be so good."

He sobs into her hair and clutches her even tighter against him. This is about the time she'd be whining, giggling, Awsie, you're holding me too tight!

She doesn't.

She stays.

He stays.

It'll be so good.

...

October 15th, 2017 – 10:56 AM

"Shhh, Lil. It's gonna be okay, love. Just keep breathing for me, that's it, you're doing so good."

"H-hurts, Awsie." The words come out in a gasp. She hiccups against his chest and chokes out another sob, one that seems to bubble up her throat and spurt out messily. "Hurts s-so bad..."

He sighs, squeezes her tighter and presses his hand firmer into her back. "I know, sweetheart. I know. It'll get better soon, I promise."

Kidney failure isn't the prettiest. She's at the top of the donor list, but her condition is deteriorating in front of their very eyes. She's been put on dialysis and a bunch of new medications to combat the symptoms and make her more comfortable, but the only thing that will actually help her pain is a new kidney. She needs one. She needs a transplant in the next couple weeks or she won't survive.

The past (almost) three weeks have been the worst of his life. He knows that for a fact, knows that nights spent staring at the ceiling, red eyes and aches in his chest, feeling like everything had been torn through and smashed with a wrecking ball, like the precious tendrils making up his ribcage had been broken down too many times and the strength to rebuild was too much.

This feels worse than that, like someone's gone in and torn through his chest like it was made of paper, torn the pieces into fragments that are scattering everywhere and falling, crashing, down to the bottom of his chest cavity. Every piece is a new sting, a new dig that sparks and burns and turns the whole world white-hot while he tries to catch his breath.

He's drowning, all of the time. It's too hard and too heavy and too much he's choking on mouthfuls of water every time he tries to swim he has no strength left to pull from within it's all such a mess of chemo and dialysis and tears is Lily okay she has to be okay what's going on with her no fuck I have to be there you don't understand she's scared she needs me-

You're having chemotherapy she needs me these are chemicals attacking your cells she needs me you need to take care of yourself she needs me-

He's had one more chemo infusion in the time, one that wasn't any better than the first. He puked and cried and pulled Geoff off the nurses' schedule for another three days, hid face in chest and forced himself not to come out until he could be an actual human being and not a saggy lump of flesh that couldn't stop complaining.

His feelings were like a painting and the canvas was already full.

And now everything is grey and the world is dull.

He doesn't know what to do anymore. He doesn't know where to go from here. It's just make it to tomorrow get through today live to see tomorrow it's not a life. It's nothing. It's an existence without a purpose. He's a presence with a ghost of a personality. Reality is heartbreaking when fantasy rips off the cloak.

"Awsie..."

He doesn't know what to do anymore.

He doesn't know how to help. He can't fix this. He'd rather die than sit here and watch her cry for another second. It's too heavy. It's a weight that slams down on his shoulders, like her prognosis has placed another thousand tons on his back and he's flailing under the unexpected attack. He doesn't know what to do he can't do anything he doesn't know what to do he can't do anything he doesn't know what to do he can't do anything-

He can't do anything-

"Whoa, Lil, don't touch that." He blinks back into focus just in time to catch Lily reaching for her cannula. He takes both her hands in his and brings his other hand around to cover them. "That's gotta stay in, alright love? I know it's annoying, but you need it."

"Hurts," she fusses. She's teary and frustrated; it's been a long day and it's about to be an even longer night. It's hard to sleep when you're in pain all the time and he knows it won't be letting up any soon. None of it will be letting up any soon. He has cancer and one of her kidneys is failing and there's nothing either of them can do about it.

These are their lives.

This is his life.

He'll live and die here, thrive and cry in the place that was never supposed to be home but now is. His cancer's back and one of her kidneys is failing and nothing ever goes right for him why the fuck does everyone get to tell me to have hope when everything is bad all the time why don't they realize that having hope makes it worse when things go bad why doesn't anyone get it why are they all so stupid-

It's too much. It's too much for him to handle, too much for any human being to handle. There's too much pain and too much heartbreak and too much loss it was getting better it was supposed to get better what the fuck happened how did he end up back here how did this become his life again-

He can't stay and he can't leave. They need him but he doesn't need the world anymore. It's hurt him too many times. He's given second, third, fourth, fifth chances and been disappointed by every single one of the answers.

He's not living but he can't die and the limbo is frying. He's rotting here. He's rotting inside. It's too much. It's all too much.

"Aws?"

He blinks a few times and looks up, then closes his eyes and shakes his head, tightens his arms around Lily and lets his head tilt back a bit.

It's not just Geoff.

Lily's doctor is standing behind him.

He can't do this again.

No more bad news.

Not one more thing.

He can't.

"Don't," he forces out. "Please, whatever it is, I don't wanna hear it. I can't take 'nymore of this, please."

"Aws-"

"Everything hurts," he says. "All the time. Everything is so bad and it's all so much and I can't do anything I can never do anything and I'm so fucking sick of feeling useless so please-" He pauses, clenches his teeth to keep the sob back in. "Nothing else. I can't do it."

"Awsten-"

"I can't," he insists. "Please."

"Sunshine, will you just shut up and listen?"

"Why don't you get it?" He snaps. "I don't wanna hear about how she needs more dialysis or that you moved my chemo up or someone else has something wrong with them. I don't wanna hear more about this damn hospital because I know I'm gonna be stuck here until the end of time. I don't wanna-"

Geoff takes a step forward. He's smiling. Briars is smiling. They're both smiling why are they smiling what the fuck- "Our sister hospital called ten minutes ago. They had an MVC. Brain dead on arrival. And-"

"You..."

"We have a donor."

...

Reality will break your heart.

Survival will not be the hardest part.

[buttersbots]

Welcome to Earth

Word count: 2,837 Rating: K+

deviantART | Archive of Our Own | FanFiction

This is an older one, but I realized the only version I had on tumblr was a link! That won’t do for one of the most important stories in my series.

Here’s my dear Fletcher’s debut 💜💜💜

July 28, 2847 ‒ 02:36:12 As Two’s due date approached, it became harder and harder for her to stay offline. So many of her systems ran to keep her containment chamber cool, to divert extra power to the nanobots, to write the child’s programming and code their behaviors. Sleep mode was difficult to keep, though it was all she wanted, and this night was one of the worst she’d had in weeks. It had taken what felt like hours of tossing and turning to slip out of consciousness at all, leading to thin, restless sleep mode. Not even that was meant to last.

Two woke to a critical system alert. Her visor hardly cleared the start screen before a window popped up, consuming her whole field of vision. Two had to read over it a few times. Her eyeforms swelled to their full size. “Nos,” she uttered. “...Mmm?” “Nos... wake up...” she pushed at his shoulder. He rubbed his hand over his face, lying with his back to her. “What is’t, love?” the words fell out of his half-functional processors. “B-Baby...” Two stammered. Nos-4-a2 gave a soft yawn to bring air through his ventilation systems and shook his head. “Sorry, wha’s that?” Two grabbed his shoulder harder, her fingers trembling. “Baby!” No words were exchanged while Nos processed what she said. After a minute, he turned over to face Two, optic still closed. He put his arm around her and nuzzled his head lightly against her metal. “Sorry, love... doctor said no interfacing til’ six weeks after the baby’s born...” “No, Nos-4-a2, wake up!” Two urged again, wiggling out of his grasp, “I don’t mean you, ‘baby!’ I mean the baby’s ready!” Two had never seen her husband move faster in his life. He sat bolt upright in less than a second, his jaw dropping open. “Now?!” “Yes, now! The program is finished! It’s finished!” “Okay. Okay, I’m going to ‒ I’ll call a car! Do you need anything? Should I get you a cloak? Do you need a power cell?” “No, just call a car!” Nos lept out of bed and flew to the closet, grabbing the first cloak he found. “Quinn!” “Yes, sir?” Nos burst back into the room, trying to fasten the clasp on his inside-out cloak, a wild smile plastered on his face. “Contact a driving service, we need a car to the hospital immediately!” ~~~ July 28, 2847 ‒ 10:54:13 Nos-4-a2 alternated pacing and sitting, twiddling his thumbs, trying to keep himself occupied. “Uncle Nos, don’t you want to sit down? Watching you is making me tired,” Willow sighed. After hours sitting in the waiting room, her game had run out of batteries, leaving her starved for entertainment. “Let him be, Willow,” Wall.E scolded lightly. He had been sitting next to Probe One, watching the news on the silent, subtitled holovision. “...Why can’t I be in there?” Nos muttered. It was killing him, not being able to see his wife at such a time. Their whole corner of the waiting room sighed at the repeated question. “She’s unconscious, being in there would only make your worrying worse and get in the way of the doctors. They’re still repairing her,” One repeated. Nos looked at the double doors that led to the operating rooms, hovering in place. It would be so easy for him to push through those doors and peek into her window... He turned his gaze down and started pacing again. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand waiting. After Two woke him up and they’d rushed to the hospital, the nurse took them to a room where Two was prepared for the operation, connected to machines that monitored her vital system functions. Nos-4-a2 stayed with her through four hours of preparation before being sent out to the waiting room. Two had gone through just about every emotion imaginable while the engineers set everything up. Twinges of pain occasionally shot through her from the deactivating reproductive hardware, but it was only to be expected. The nanobots had started detaching the probeling from her inner workings. Nos did everything he could to support her, though he could hardly handle himself as it was. To distract her, he talked to her about anything that came to mind. He held her hands ‒ though it earned him a few dents ‒ and told her stories when she was too distracted to talk. She knew every story he told, but was happy for any reason to take her mind off her dizzying thoughts. It was six o’clock in the morning when one of the nurses told them it was time to start the operation. Nos stayed long enough to sit with her while the inhibition coding took effect, putting her offline for the operation. Before she went out, he made sure to tell her that the next time they met, they’d be parents. Two was so excited that the nurse had to dial up the inhibition coding. As soon as Two went offline, Nos-4-a2 had to leave her in the hands of Dr. Darickson and his team. When he arrived in the waiting room with frayed nerves, Probe One, Wall.E, and Willow were all there. Seeing his family helped ease his mind, even though he was still on pins and needles. The clock slowly inched toward eleven. The sunlight moved through the window and traveled across the floor torturously slow, leaving striped patterns on the carpet. Nos cast his optics out the window, looking out at the view of Axiom Lake from five stories above the ground. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait before he stormed out of the waiting room to see Two. As soon as he had worked up the nerve to go, everyone’s attention shifted to the opening doors. Dr. Darickson stood on the threshold, the bags under his eyes magnified by his thick glasses. His mousy hair was even more disheveled than usual, and he had dark stains on his sleeves. Nos felt his power core drop out of his frame. Darickson grinned. “It's a boy.” ~~~ July 28, 2847 ‒ 11:06:11 Two couldn’t tell whether she was awake. Wasn’t she supposed to be doing something important? Where was she? It was dark, wherever she was. Something hurt. She couldn’t really tell what, but she felt smaller than before. Energy signals radiated from all around her. Two tried asking Nos what was going on, but he didn’t respond. Where was he? She thought he should have been there, still pestered by the thought that something important was going on. As much as she tried to focus, Two couldn’t get her optical system working. Or maybe something was wrong with it? Could that be what hurt? Everything she could see was grey and black and peppered with pinpricks of color. Her hearing wasn’t any better. It sounded like it looked: unidentifiable somethings dancing right outside her range of perception. Then the light changed. Bright colors flooded in. More sounds came through. Brilliant shades of red, purple and blue approached her with an energy signature that wrapped her in comfort. A gentle pressure surrounded part of her... her hand. Her right hand. A delicate sensation streamed into her through the new contact. She asked Nos to tell her what was happening again. “Shh, I’m here, Eve...” he answered through a distant fog, “You did it. You did it, my amazing little dove, you did it! It’s a boy!” ~~~ Tears brimmed in Nos-4-a2’s optic as he cupped Two’s little hand in his. Even after he told her the news, she didn’t seem to register what was going on. He thought she might be trying to focus on him, but the limits on her processors hadn’t worn off yet. Not that he cared. He was so excited, he kept telling her over and over again, rubbing her fingers between his. He could feel her becoming more aware with every passing minute, dripping with anticipation for when she realized... And there it was. The softest, most blissful smile came over her drowsy features as it dawned on her. “A boy?” she beamed. Nos-4-a2 made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yes, my love.” Two choked on a laugh as well, squeezing his hand. When she reached out, he readily leaned down to give her a hug and buried his head against hers. “Have you seen him yet?” she asked in a wavering voice. “No, but I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” “I can’t wait another moment.” “Oh, come on!” Nos sat up, “If I waited outside for hours, I’m sure you can hold on just a bit longer.” “It’s not fair, how could they keep him away from us?” “I asked the same thing when Darickson told me I could wait with you. They’re just working out the last few bugs.” “Is everything alright?” “Yes, he’s perfectly fine, completely healthy. It’s all just routine maintenance for newborns. You know what Patrick told me?” Two looked at him expectantly. “He said he’s beautiful, Eve. He must look just like you.” Her smile looked like distilled bliss. He felt the waves radiating from her power core swirl around him, and as he leaned down to plant a kiss on her forehead, he basked in her emotions. He wanted to scoop her into his arms and keep her there forever, the robot who had given him her universe. Now, she’d even given him a family. Words weren’t enough to say how much he loved her right then. Even the dust motes that twirled through the light looked utterly beautiful. Stroking his talons slowly up and down her arm, he told her about how well she’d done and that everyone was there to support her in the waiting room. Nos-4-a2 thought that all the world should have been there for such a historic event. Their child was the first Energy Vampire born with the Earthling artificial reproduction program. Neither could think of anything else. Anticipation bubbled in the air as the new parents awaited the arrival of their son. ~~~ July 28, 2847 ‒ 11:44:28 Two couldn’t rest for two reasons: she was plugged into a charger that fed her a constant stream of energy, and she still hadn’t seen him. Everything else in her body felt tired and worn and thankful for the electricity being provided; even her mind felt like it had been fed through a shredder then messily stuffed back in her head, but there wasn’t anything that could distract her from this. Nos, too, was shimmering with waves of static impatience. He was still holding onto her hand, trying to keep himself occupied by playing with her fingers. It was no secret that the nearly sleepless, stressful night had exhausted him, but there was no way he’d leave to eat yet. Two traced the dents in Nos’s hands. She had never been so scared or excited in her life, though she had been less than prepared for the pain. Apparently, the newer versions of the reproductive hardware had worked that bug out a little better, but she wouldn’t have to worry about that ever again. The reproductive ware had been removed during the operation, just as she and Nos-4-a2 had decided. That would be her first and last time giving birth. Giving birth... that was another concept entirely. After carrying the little ‘bot for around 60 weeks, she could hardly believe it was over. She would never be pregnant again. Now that she’d given birth, she felt just as confused as she did when she first found out she was pregnant. A part of her was waiting to wake up from this strange dream, though she knew it was all real. The door she was staring at was real. The feeling of missing parts inside of her was real. Nos-4-a2 sitting next to her, probably thinking something along the same lines, was real. Never before had Two felt so invested in the present moment. Suddenly, Nos froze, his hands becoming tense around Two’s. He picked up the sound of footsteps coming down the hall just before she did. Two’s energy fluctuated as the footsteps stopped in front of their door, a shadow falling over the frosted glass window. The door opened, revealing a black-haired human nurse holding a blue bundle in her arms. She had a pleasant enough look about her since she’d been up all night. “Congratulations, Eve Two and Nos-4-a2,” she smiled, “He’s in perfect shape.” Nos let go of Two’s hands so that she could use both her arms to receive the bundle of fabric. A soft pulse came from within the blanket that each parent recognized as part of the other. Two couldn’t keep her hand from trembling. It was time... after fourteen months, they were finally going to see their baby. The universe held its breath as she pulled the top of the blanket away from the new robot’s face. “Oh... N-Nos...” her voice caught. She tugged the blanket down more to take him in. The newborn fledgling’s whole shape was not unlike Nos-4-a2’s, besides his head being round instead of flat on the back, and with a rounded chin as well. He didn’t appear to have any neck besides three black cables, one thick and two thin, connecting his body to his head, and instead of purple triangles on his forehead like his father, he had dark blue semi-circles, cutting off at his black visor. There wasn’t a single tooth in his small mouth, and as he yawned, they could see that his tongue wasn’t forked like Nos’s, but round. The rest of the metal on his face was such a pale shade of blue that it was almost white. The exposed section of his shoulders was deep purple, along with his upper arms. His forearms were the same pale blue as his face. The couple noticed with even closer inspection that his hands were like Two’s in having magnetically bound pieces, including a bit for a palm that she didn’t have. The middle section of his torso was pitch black like his visor and completely smooth besides a single silver wire on each side, while even further down, he had two silver rings around his waist where Nos-4-a2 had three gold ones, and a silver upside-down triangle that followed the taper of his lower body. “Congrats again, you two. I’ll let you have some time alone with him, but Dr. Darickson wants me to tell you, Two, that you need to rest. You know what to do if you need anything,” the nurse told them matter-of-factly. “Thank you,” Two nodded as the nurse left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. There was a minute of silence where Nos and Two just kept looking at the baby in the latter’s arms. Slowly, Nos reached around her back, holding her closer to him. “You did it,” he whispered shakily. Two looked over at him to see the most endearing smile on his face, oily tears shining in his optics. “Oh, Nos…” her voice trembled as she leaned her head closer to his and cuddled the baby between them. Nos gave her a little squeeze around the middle in response. “Do you… want to hold him?” she asked softly. He pulled his arm from behind her, putting both out to take the baby. Two handed the sleeping bundle to him, and he held it as if the little robot would shatter at the slightest bump. Their child was very small to Nos, even though he had taken up so much space inside of Two. The tiny fledgling’s head could fit in his father’s palm, and his entire frame from top to bottom wasn’t as long as Nos’s forearm. A single oily tear fell down the Energy Vampire’s cheek. He couldn’t explain what it was about the baby, but just seeing him, feeling his unique, peaceful energy signature made Nos so inexplicably happy. He looked up at Two, overpowered by the need to tell her, “Thank you.” The words were quiet, sincere, and from the very depths of his soul, making Two’s visor sting. She gasped and Nos-4-a2 almost leapt in surprise when the baby emitted a quiet start-up chime. Nos gaped down at the child, cradling him to his chest, staring straight back at the tiny purple eyeforms blinking open in the baby’s visor. It was the most remarkable thing he’d ever seen. Their baby blinked up, focusing on Nos’s optics. “Hey there, little tike,” he whispered, “I’m your daddy!” The baby blinked again and made a face, like hearing his father’s voice was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to him. Next to being born, it probably was. Two experienced a moment of inspiration. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt perfect, like it just fit. She remembered one of the names that they’d picked for a boy. “…Fletcher.” Nos laughed, blinking another tear away. “Welcome to Earth, Fletcher.”

[laonii]

What In The World is Going On With Lahn - A Recap

So, I know over the last year, I’ve made many friends, and shared my story, but some I don’t end up seeing much anymore. Or there might be people wondering about my sporadic posting Tumblr. Anyways, now I’m (hopefully) coming towards the end of it, I’ll just put down the whole story for everyone. For people I haven’t seen in a while to catch up, and for people just straight confused to know. 

If you’ve got any questions for me, feel free to shoot me a message, I’ll turn on anon too.

It’s going under a Read More cause it’ll be long with pictures but, tl;dr: Lahn’s got cancer, 9 months of chemo, 1 month of radio, and a bone marrow transplant later, I hope I’ve won.

So, back in May of 2016, at the ripe old age of 21, I was preparing for my mid-year exams. I’m currently studying a Bachelor of Laboratory Medicine, and I had practical microbiology and immunology exams to prepare for, and theory on those two -and- metabolic biochemistry. Fun, right? I was pretty stock standard university student (Picture related, it me, prior to diagnosis!)

My doctor had noticed just the week before that in my standard iron level check ups, I’d actually been showing both signs of iron deficiency, and iron overload, for the last year. It’d always been chalked up to allergies or illness before, but this time, he wanted a clinical haematolgist to check it out. I noticed around this time if I raised my left arm above my head, I’d lose circulation in it. I noted it in my brain, intending to tell the haematologist about it. An early morning shower lead me to discover the swollen lymph nodes in my neck on both sides, and seeing as I could get into my doctor that day, I said screw it, booked the appointment, and handed in my last assignment for the semester. I truly walked into that appointment, believing I’d be back home in a few hours with nothing much more than a “Well, you’re probably getting something viral, but bring it up to the haematologist in a week and a bit when you see him”

This was definitely not the case.

He immediately started calling up every hospital in my city, looking for one that could get me in for a CT scan that day, while shooing me across the hall to have bloods taken, and to call my parents, knowing this was something a little more serious than just a viral infection.

Mum tells me the images of my CT were pretty popular, a lot of staff went into the room, but they let us go, with no hint of what they found. My doctor rang me on the drive back home, and asked me to come in, where he dropped the bomb I probably had lymphoma, the blood flow to my brain was being cut off, my airway was being cut off, and I needed to go present to emergency -now-. I didn’t have time to go home, and frankly, he really should be telling me this news over the phone, instead of telling me face-to-face.

I saw him at 11am. By 4pm, I had been admitted to hospital, with a bed up on the cancer ward.

The next week was a mess of tests and preparations. They needed to check my heart and lung function, get me in for fertility preservation, determine and stage my disease, get the hardware installed to have chemo through, and determine and order the chemo I’d need. They...didn’t get it all done, but, a big chunk of it they managed

I was diagnosed with Stage III/IV Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. So here, the left side is a normal result. Right side? All that extra dark black stuff, and how my bones are darker and more visible? That was my cancer (Well, except that one little spot in my upper arm, that was from robo-arm installation)

I started chemotherapy, ABVD, a week after I was admitted, with the help of my handy dandy robo-arm! It’s actually called a PICC line, but, you do kinda look cyborgish. It’s a thin tube they insert into one of the large veins in your arm, and push the tip right through until it sits just above your heart. Then, they can use that tube to pump chemotherapy directly to your heart, to be rapidly distributed through the body, and they can also use it as a needle free way to draw blood (Believe me, this is a function I miss)

My first dose I had as an inpatient in the hospital, and after a few days, they were happy with how I was going, the nodes in my neck had started to reduce, so I was discharged. And all the other treatments I had as an outpatient. Half a day at the hospital, every 2 weeks, for 6 months.

They did another scan after 2 months of treatment, and that one, it showed no cancer! We were exhilarated, and it made the next 4 months of treatment a lot easier to bear. I organised to return to university in 2017, organised getting my apartment back, and looked forward to settling back into my future. My last day of chemo, I’m a little disheveled, I don’t look the best, but, I was so excited. We brought in cupcakes for every patient and nurse on that day.

I had another scan in November, which, too, came back clear, and my haematologist gave me clearance to fly to the US the week of Christmas, to spend time with Zak (the-zaktrain), who was my rock through all this, and continues to be to this day. Zanin (mugishalffull) even flew in for a weekend, and we burnt up the town (And spent 90% of our time in the warm playing video games). We adopted a cat! And then it was back to studying at university, back here in Australia. I moved out back to the apartment I had before, and started getting back to my life... when we found a lump in my neck again. Only on the left side, this time, not the right.

They did more biopsies and scans, and, they confirmed my Hodgkins was back. Because it was such a short time for it to come back, it was now refractory disease, and, for extra bonuses, they found it in the left side pelvis and in my ribs. I found out this -after- I got admitted for hospital for extreme pain in my left side of the pelvis. (Painkillers are a hell of a drug)

The treatment this time was more savage, ICE chemotherapy, over 3 days which I was required to be hospitalised, into an autologous stem cell transplant. Basically, a bone marrow transplant, but using my own cells to replenish the marrow. This also required the installation of new, and more terrifying, hardware just after the second month.

This would allow them to harvest my stem cells they were about to start forcing my bones to produce, through a machine that’s kinda like a dialysis machine. I did two months of ICE chemotherapy, before they moved onto stem cell harvest. I had to inject myself twice daily to stimulate the production of them, which made you feel like you had the flu and a migraine all wrapped up in one, and then when you had enough, they harvested, which was a day hooked up to this machine

Another scan, they found the ICE chemo had shrunk the cancer in my chest, and seemed to have cleaned up my bones, so they went ahead with the next stage, transplant. For this, I’d need to travel, they don’t do that at my local hospital, so, I lived in another city for a few months. They gave me a week of BEAM chemotherapy, which destroys the bone marrow, which...they normally do as an outpatient, but, my symptoms were bad enough that I was admitted on the second day. This was my world for a month (Thank god for mobile broadband with free Netflix data)

After the chemotherapy was done, my stem cells that had been frozen and prepared, were re-infused into my system. Thus came the most risky two weeks of my life. Without bone marrow, my blood counts would drop, and I’d have literally no immune system (which, given its repeated attempts at killing me, is what it gets) and the stem cells would take about 2 weeks to engraft, and start producing cells of their own. And for some people they woudn’t engraft. For me, fortunately, my cells did engraft, and like clockwork, about 2 weeks later, I started producing my own cells again, and was no longer reliant on blood transfusions and being fed through a tube. Not really any pictures of this time, I spent 99% of my time sick or asleep, really.

I returned back home, hardware removed now I no longer needed it, and in July of this year, they did yet another scan. It seemed as though the cancer was all gone, but, the nodes were still quite swollen. My haematologist suggested radiotherapy to those areas as consolidation, and the radiotherapists agreed, after seeing the latest scans. So, I did a month of radiotherapy to my chest and neck, into hospital every day. And I came out with this horrific thing. I hate this mask. It currently lives in the roof because the noises it makes make me have mini panic.

Radiotherapy, I finished that last week. Other than the mask from hell to keep you bolted down, it was easier to deal with, than chemotherapy. In a month, I have another scan, and hopefully, it’ll show no cancer with reduced swelling, and I can go back to planning and living my life again, albiet, with the caveat that the transplant recovery time is 6-12 months, and that I can’t do university until that recovery period is over. Hoping to go back to visit the states soon, and getting to see family, this year.

So, that’s what’s happened to me this year (and a bit). And why I seem sporadic and all over the place.

[gguksgalaxy]

Engraved pt. 3

Masterpost <-- Engraved 2 | Engraved 4 -->

Short: You’re a tattoo artist for a gang known as EXO who own a club down town. (read synopsis at masterpost) Words: 4377 Warnings: Blood, needles, swearing, sexual references? Nothing too bad again.  Pairings: D.O. x Reader, slight Kai X Reader A/N: LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Read HERE on AFF or on tumblr down here. 

Beside you, D.O.’s head fell on your shoulder, as his weight on your became heavier and heavier slowly. Upstairs, doors slammed open in the hallway. The first person outside was Minseok. “Minseok, he’s been stabbed!” you called. The leader wasn’t wearing much more than a pair boxers and a shirt. “Fuck. Lay! Yixing!” he yelled, voice echoing in the room, authority dripping off. He made his way down the high stairway, running a hand through his hair. “What happened?” he asked, coming up beside you and pulling up D.O.’ s shirt and sweater. Blood was still running out, his shirt and pants ruined with dark stains. “He broke into my house, I found him stabbed.” “You stabbed him?!” he boomed. “I stabbed him in the arm after he tried to choke me, I didn’t stab him in the chest!” you said defensively. “LAY!” Xiumin called again, looking upstairs as a door opened. Chen was the one who came outside. “Jongdae, find Yixing, Now!” Chen was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. But when he saw you and D.O. he quickly made his way down the hall. “Okay let’s help him down.” The two of you set him against the wall, stripping him of his hoodie and using that to hold the wound closed. His face was turning pale and his eyes were barely open.   “D.O.” you said, pushing his hair back form his face. “Stay with us okay, we’re going to help you.” 

Loud footsteps followed from the iron stairs, and you found Jongdae trailing behind Lay. Jongdae was carrying a box of some sorts. “Move,” Lay hissed at you, hand pulling you up roughly by your upper arm. He turned you away and sank down beside D.O. He tore his shirt open, and the lights in the room flickered on. Jongdae’s doing. The wound was on his right side, far to his waist, so hopefully they didn’t hit anything vital. “What is this?” Lay suddenly asked, checking the wound on his arm. He looked up at you, eyes full of anger. “Did you do this.” “He was trying to choke me!” “You stabbed him in the arm? What the hell did you do this with?” “A tattoo gun.” you mumbled rubbing the back of your neck. “You almost hit an artery, you could’ve killed him!” “I was about to faint, I didn’t know what to do!” “You need to learn to stay the fuck away.” He hissed. Xiumin put a hand on Lay’s shoulder. “We don’t have time for this, I’ll talk to her later. We need to help him.” Lay turned away from you, and Jongdae sat down beside him with the box. It contained needles, tubes used for IV’s, and a bag of blood. You watched as he disinfected D.O.’s arm and asked jongdae to tie of his upper arm with a strip of fabric. He sank the needle in with practiced ease, and connected the blood bag to the tube. “We need to get him upstairs, I can’t do this here.” Suddenly, more doors opened upstairs and people filled into the hallway. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Sehun, Suho, Jongin, looked over the railing at the scene downstairs. They were surprisingly silent. Lay and Xiumin were lifting up D.O., holding up the dripping blood bag. “Move!” Xiumin called. Everyone upstairs stepped aside, and Jongin was the only one to come downstairs. You weren’t really sure what had happened. But the moment D.O. was out of your sight, it was like all the pain in you body hit in. Your vision blurred, and hot searing pain went up your leg. You throat ached and you coughed. Everything started spinning and you had nowhere to catch yourself. Jongin caught you around your waist. “Easy there.” he said, sitting you down on the stairs. “Shit, are you okay?” Jongdae said, kneeling in front of you. Jongin was sitting beside you, arm behind your back trying to keep your up. “Did you get shot?” Jongin trailed his finger up your leg, bruised and bloody skin shivering. Your leggings were stuck to your skin by now. He reached the scrape wound, and you hissed through your teeth. “We need to get Lay to check that out after he’s done with D.O.” Jongdae pulled of his vest and held it against the wound. “Is it deep?” “I don’t know, I got shot while driving. Haven’t had time to check.” He nodded, “It doesn’t seem too bad apart from the blood, but you’re also soaked so that might make it seem worse.” Suddenly it was like the cold set in, the feeling of your wet hair against your neck, you leggings sticking to your skin everywhere. Was it raining? You hadn’t even noticed in your hurry. “Here,” Jongin unzipped your jacket and slid it off you, your shirt was still dry on the top. He pulled of his sweater and helped you put it on. “Thank you.” you smiled softly, and he winked at you. “Dae, can you do something for me?” “What?” “Take Chanyeol with you, and go check on my shop. They busted the window and there’s blood and supplies everywhere in the open now. If they’ve left, can you try to clean the blood?” Chanyeol and Baekhyun moved down the stairs. “Yeah we’ll go, let me grab my gun.” Baekhyun knelt down beside you too. “What exactly happened?” You sighed, leaning against Jongin’s side, who pulled his arm further around you. “I was upstairs and heard someone breaking in. So I went downstairs and i got attacked. I tried to fight him off and I might have bruises all over now. He somehow managed to get his hands around my throat and I was about to fucking die right there. So i stabbed him with a tattoo gun. That’s when I found out it was D.O. I took him here as fast as I could, but I got shot on the way. I lost them thank god. “Come on let’s go.” Chanyeol threw a gun at Dae, who caught it deftly. “Thanks guys.” Jongdae smiled, and pressed a quick kiss to your forehead. “Anything.” And then they were out the door. It wasn’t even 2 minutes until Chen came back, pushing your motorcycle inside through the door. “You might want to park this inside next time.” “Fuck of!” you laughed. “What is it between you and Jongdae?” Baekhyun laughed. You looked at him, the red haired boy pushed his glasses up his nose. “He’s my best friend.” “Who you sleep with?” “Yeah.” “Shit can I be your best friend?” “I’m not sleeping with you!“ you laughed and pushed him a little. “Does that mean you sleep with Jongin?” Jongin and you both tensed but replied in unison. “No.” Something flashed across Beak’s face and you were sure he was about to make a rude comment. He didn’t though. “You want me to call someone to fix your window? So I can get you around insurance?” You hand’t expected him to say something like that, you guys weren’t really that close. Most of the time he was busy doing his job in his office and you were busy doing yours or hanging out with Jongdae and Jongin. “Yeah thank you.” “Hey, you might have just saved my friend’s life. It’s the least I can do. Plus, you’re somewhat of a friend too right?’ In someway Baekhyun always made you laugh. “Somewhat of a friend you really want to sleep with.” He shrugged. “You’re hot I can’t help it.” With a roll of your eyes you leant your head on Jongin’s shoulder. He was warm and you were cooling down quickly in the large room. Without a word he rest his cheek on your head and carefully kept Chen’s vest pressed against your wound. In his movement you could feel he was scared to hurt you. So you put your hand over his to press tighter, and left it there. Beside you, you still felt Baekhyun eyes on the two of you, silently judging. He didn’t say a word. “Angel?” Suho’s voice sounded from upstairs. All three of your looked up. “They’re almost done with him, he’s doing alright. He just lost a lot of blood, you were just in time.” You nodded. “Thank you.” “I think we should thank you, but we both know that might not happen.” He laughed, his grey hair sticking up in different directions. “Xiumin mentioned you were bleeding, come upstairs, Lay will check it out.” Jongin helped you up, and Baekhyun was calling someone behind you. You thanked adrenaline, because with all the pain going through your body right now, you weren’t sure if you would’ve made it to the warehouse if you weren’t high on it. Before you entered the room where Lay was helping D.O., Suho stopped you with a hand around your wrist. “Please don’t talk back to him. Not with Xiumin in the room after D.O. just almost died.” His sentence hit home with you, he almost died. He could’ve died and it would’ve been your fault because you didn’t recognise him and found it necessary to stab him again. “I’m sorry.” “You shouldn’t be.” Suho said. “Just ignore him.” You nodded as Jongin helped you into the room. D.O. was on a hospital bed, the white sheet beneath him stained red, his eyes closed. He was hooked up to a heart monitor, and the IV’s dripped steadily. You didn’t know they had all this stuff. “Sit on the other bed,” Lay said, his voice surprisingly calm and level. Jongin helped you up, and you pulled your disgustingly wet leggings of your legs with some struggles. Leaving your in his sweater and your underwear. Lay disinfected your wound, and you scrunched up your nose at the burn. Jongin took your hand in his, to show you he was there. But he knew you’d taken much worse, it was just Jongin being Jongin. It’s been a long time since you’d seen the professional side of Lay. As he grabbed some anaesthesia, antiseptic and a needle and thread. Maybe you were too naive thinking he’d be nice to you, as you yelped loudly when he practically stabbed the needle in your leg. “Sorry.” he said, his voice still neutral. It was then that you noticed Xiumin at the other end of the room. He was on a chair beside D.O., his dark eyes quickly flickering from the heart monitor to D.O. His back was tense, his head resting against his hands as he leant on his knees. Frightened. Suho stepped over to him, squeezing his shoulder, but he never looked up. The feeling of thread sliding through your skin and wound was uncomfortable, even with the numbness. It was something you’d felt before, but it was still uncomfortable. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from it. The way Lay’s hands moved with ease as the tied of each little stitch, he’d done it hundreds of times before. His normally beautiful hands were gloved. You and Lay would never get along, for good reasons, but there was a thing about his hands that always had you watching them. His fingers were long and nimble, carefully taken care of skin and nails. The hands of someone who used them to heal the human body. And to break it down. “There, you’re all done. I’ll put some gauze around it. It wasn’t deep so it should heal with a small scar.” he pressed gauze on your wound and wrapped some bandage around it. Jongin helped you up again, putting full pressure still hurt. But that was maybe also because of the large bruise at the back of your thigh, which you felt sting from the sitting down. “We should have crutches somewhere, I’ll give you them tomorrow.” Suho said as he followed you outside. “For now, just stay here.” You nodded as Jongin lead you into his room to catch some more sleep.

***

When you woke up, your face was pressed into the crook of Jongin’s neck. His skin was warm against yours, and soft. You sighed deeply, and moved a little. Everything was aching, and your throat was incredibly sore. “Good morning.” Jongin said, voice rough with sleep. You just hummed, scared to try out your voice after last night. “Your neck looks like shit.” He said, trailed a finger over the skin. You flinched away, knowing it was lined with dark bruises. “You can borrow a turtleneck.” As thanks you pressed your lips to the corner of his jaw. He pulled you closer, probably enjoying your warmth as much as you enjoyed his. “It’s been a long time since we were together like this.” His hand trailed down your side to come to rest at your hip. You felt your bad leg was thrown over his. “I missed it.” “Sorry.” You whispered. “It’s okay.” he said, and you drifted back to sleep.

***

You stayed with them for 3 days, for safety reasons. And because Chen and Baekhyun had guilt tripped you into cooking for them, because you stabbed their usual cooks arm and now they’d have to eat takeaway every night. It was nice though, to not be alone for once. Most of them were nice to you, with the usual exception of Lay and Xiumin. They ate with you and the rest, but there wasn’t much conversation, and most of the other guys probably noticed the tension. Suho tried to be as nice to you as he could, but you knew he was the one who suffered the most under your difficult relationship with the other two. Tonight was the night you were going to go home, get back to your customers who you had to cancel due to an unfortunate ‘accident’ at home. Now, you brought food into the living room with Jongin and Sehun on your heels after they’d helped you out. “So Angel, words been getting around something happened at our place. I don’t think most people know why, and neither do we at this point.” He said, sitting down in one of the chair around the table. As you took D.O.’s seat beside Chanyeol and Jongin. “Who was he after thought?” You questioned as you waited for the others to come sit down. “Some guy who had been failing to pay his debt, nothing big. You said there was a whole group of them right?” “Yeah, at least five.” “Weird.” Baekhyun sat down across from you. “I checked surveillance camera’s, but their faces didn’t show up in the databases I have access to. Xiumin took a look, but he didn’t recognise any of them.” “Let me have a look, maybe I recognise them.” “I don’t think we need your help with this.” Lay snarled, from the other side of the table. “You’ve done enough.” Suho sat down too, not wearing his usual skinny jeans but a pair of training pants. “She might be of help though, she knows a lot of people outside from here.” Lay opened his mouth to answer but you beat him to it. “Still opting out of skinny jeans I see Suho?” His eyes shot up from his plate to you, narrowing in something that was supposed to be suspicion but he still looked cute. But behind those sweet eyes, he hides a cunning mind. A mind made for scheming and planning, and coming up with plans to lead them to the best solution. “What are you on about?” Jongdae suddenly said. “Nothing.” “Spit it out.” “Excuse me Chen? What did you just say to me.” You turned over to him, raising an eyebrow daringly. He shook his head. “That’s what I thought.” After that you ate in silence mostly, some short conversations between them about everyday things. The whole time though, you felt that Suho was watching you, and you knew damn well why. You just had expected him to tell them about this, and you tried not to laugh. “Okay what is this?” Chen called out, pointing at you and then at Suho. “Is there some inside joke I’m missing out on?” You looked at Suho, questioning him. Chen noticed. “Spit. it. out.” You zipped up your mouth, leaving it to Suho. Until Sehun chipped in. “You have been wearing lose pants for a while now Junmyeon.” “Shut up Sehun.” he grumbled in response. “Don’t tell me you did it.” Chanyeol said from beside you, and then he looked at you. But you kept a straight face. He turned back to Suho who blushed. You knew that he had probably asked Chanyeol about it before making the decision. “You did it. Oh my god.” “Did what?” Chen whined. You sighed, swallowing the last bite of your meal. “Suho got a prince albert done.” Chen choked on his water, and baekhyun fell silent in his conversation with Jongin. “He what?” Baekhyun asked. Chanyeol was laughing. “He got his dick pierced.” By now Chen was laughing loudly, “Not like he’ll put that thing to good use.” And now some other guys laughed and you saw Suho cringe. You actually felt bad. “Well Chen, the only reason you say that is because you chickened out of yours.” Then it fell silent again. “You did not.” Chen hissed. “I did, now i seriously thought you guys were closer than this. Do I need to point out anybody else’s piercings? Wow.” You leant back in your chair shaking your head while smiling. “Oh please do.” Chen said. He sounded angry, buy you knew that Baekhyun and Kai already knew about it, and Chanyeol probably did too. “Lay doesn’t have any.” Sehun pointed out the silent one at the end of the table. “I do.” he replied calmly. “Under my tongue.” “Risky.” Chanyeol replied. Lay rolled his eyes and stood up from the table. “I have no time for the childish business.” “Why did you have to say that!” Chen whined, with his hands over his face. “You promised.” You chuckled, getting of your chair and stepping over to him. With your arms around his neck and your chin on his head you said; “No I said I would use it against you if you told everyone my secret. But I didn’t say anything about other situations. Plus, how long do you think Baek can keep his mouth shut?” The rest laughed, but Suho didn’t, and you felt Chen move his head to look at Kai for a second. “Don’t even think about it Chen.” You whispered in his ear, and left the room with that. To be honest, you felt sort of bad, you had made that comment towards Suho wasn’t intended this way. Chen would get over it, what he said to Suho wasn’t that nice either. How do they manage to live in such close quarters and not know stuff like this really? Kai had already put the pieces together on Suho’s piercing, and from Sehun’s comment he almost had too. You hopped into the kitchen to bring D.O. something to eat. He was in his bed, they had moved him there since the hospital bed wasn’t that comfortable. His room was at the far end on the hallways, close to Chen’s and Chanyeol’s, who he shared a bathroom with. You hadn’t actually been there yet, but you also felt like you needed to apologise to him. The door opened without a sound, and you found him awake. He was reading a book, but looked up when you entered. “Hey.” he smiled a little. “Hey, I brought food.” “Ah, thank you.” He put the book down beside him and you handed him the plate. “I’m sorry.” You said, bowing your head down. “I should’ve recognised you.” He softly chuckled and patted the bed for you to sit down. “Sit, I have some questions.” You frowned but sat down besides him. “I want to thank you first, if it weren’t for you I’d be dead now.” “I stabbed you.” “After I tried to choke you.” “Yeah, about that why did you do that if you knew it was me?” You said still frowning. He looked up, swallowing his food. “Well that’s what my first question was about actually. Where did you learn to fight like that? For a second I was convinced I broke into the wrong place.” “Oh that…I sort of grew up with it. Did you forget that I’m part of this life too?” “You’re involved with a group like ours?” “I’m a rogue.” Suddenly he stopped eating, eyes going over you. “Then why are you here.” his voice became harsh “Don’t do that! Don’t treat me like rash because I’m a rogue, please. I just work for myself okay.” you mumbled a little bit. He pouted a little, full bottom lip jutting out. Then he looked up at you with big eyes, his red hair almost falling over them now that it wasn’t styled up. “Xiumin alway says tha-“ “I know, I’m not like that.” You looked at him, and he chewed his lip ring. “Sorry.” “It’s alright, i guess I deserve it.” “How did you know his name?” “Huh?” D.O. narrowed his eyes, searching for something on his face. “I can never tell when you’re playing me or not.” “Life is a game. Whose name?” “Xiumin’s, it’s Minseok. I’ve been here for a little less than two years, but even I didn’t know. Suho told me.” He took another bite of his food, looking away from you. “Oh.” you said, you had barely realised you’d said his name. “I’ve known him for a long time now, I know all of your first names.” He looked up again, moving his hand to touch the piercing in his eyebrow, twisting it. “You know mine?” “Kyungsoo. But I never call you that, I know.” “You can, I don’t like D.O.” “Then I will. Just not around Xiumin, he get’s pretty ticked of when I call you guys by your real names.” Kyungsoo nodded. “Are you okay?” His question kind of startled you, why should he care? He almost died himself and you only added to that. “Don’t worry about me.” “I can see the bruises on your neck. I’m sorry for doing that.” “Well I guess we’re even then?” He laughed a little, and you couldn’t help but smile at the sound. “Yeah, I guess we are. I am sorry for bringing them to your house though, I’d help clean up if I were in a better state.” You stood up to leave. “I got to go, I’ll see you around. I hope you get better soon.” with a salute you walked to the door, but his voice stopped you. “Angel, if there’s every any way I can repay you for saving my life, let me know.” With a grin on your face you turned around, shooting him a wink. “I will.” The door closed behind you, and you took the door to the other stairways, which lead to the basement. They had a training room there, filled with all sorts of work out equipment and machines. You remember asking Xiumin if you could use it once, he blatantly refused and you had pouted. His answer remained no. So now you had a subscription to the local gym, which smelled like shit. He was there though, like you expected. Wearing sweatpants and nothing else. His feet were bare on the mat, his back glistening with sweat. Xiumin had probably the best body in the group in your opinion. He was a little on the short side, but his chest was nicely defined and his arms definitely looked good too. His muscles flexed as he punched the bag in the middle of the room, shoulders tensing and relaxing, jumping on the balls of his feet. There were some bloody streaks on the bag, probably from his unprotected knuckles. You had told him over and over again he should wrap them up, but he’ll never learn. It was bad for his tattoo’s, and he came in for touch ups more regularly than normal people with hand tattoos did. The skin on his hands was layered with scars, from cutting his own hands, getting into fist fights. It was that way when he was younger, before the group came to be. Before everything. “Get out.” He panted, wiping the sweat of his forehead and grabbing a bottle of water of the floor. “Don’t command me.” “You should know better.” “I know better than to listen to your commands like a little lap dog. I don’t work for you, you can’t tell me what to do, Minseok.” You went over to one of the cabinets and took out rolled of bandage. “Xiumin.” he corrected you with a snarl. “You are not going to force me into obedience by having me not say your real name.” you said calmly. He sat down on a bench and you sat down beside him, roughly taking one of his hands and wiping them with a wet cloth. “Stop doing this, he’s going to be okay.” You put the loop of the bandage around his thumb and started wrapping his hands. “One day you’re going to hurt yourself. They care about you too you know. It shouldn’t take an event like this for you to show you reciprocation.” He didn’t reply, but willingly handed you his other hand. “Showing that you care isn’t weakness, it’s strength, because you have to put yourself in a vulnerable position. It’s easier to remain closed up and protected.” You finished and stood up. “If you need a touch up, give me a call.” Before you reached the door, your eyes met his in the large mirror on the side. They were free of makeup, sharp, staring into yours. Most people were swayed by his voice, the authority in it. For you, it had always been his eyes, how it felt like he’d stare at you until you fell apart under it. “Tell me one thing before you leave.” he said, standing up. “Why is it, that every time you’re involved, one of them has to die?”

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