#they said it was most likely a slipped disc

[bazoombas]

.

CW pet injury ??

No read more because mobile sorry

[steddieas-shegoes]

you sure its a nerve or did you slip or herniate a disc??? it all sound so bad! if it doesnt get better soon please get it checked out

I’m 90% sure it’s the nerve and the other 10% is me convincing myself it’s a nerve because I don’t have health insurance !!!! Fingers crossed it improves more over the next 24 hours so I can avoid having to pay thousands of dollars that I don’t have for them to check it out 😬😬😬🫠🫠🫠 (thank you so much for your concern it means a lot 🥺😘)

[whocaresstillthelouvre]

Harvest Moon

Rating: Explicit. 18+ (Minors DNI) Pairing: Jackson Joel Miller x Female Reader Word Count: 3,100 Summary: It's Joel's birthday and you're going to make sure he has a good one. Warnings: smut, fluff, dancing in the kitchen to neil young, unprotected p in v, public-ish sex (but under a blanket), talking to neighbors while sitting on joel miller's cock, apocalypse birth control (pulling out), fingering, riding, joel has a filthy mouth, no use of y/n, not beta read.

A/N: I spent most of tonight adding 2,500 words to this barely written piece. Now it's two hours past my bedtime, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEL MILLER!!! This can absolutely be read as a standalone, but, this is yet another singular smut entry for my Elks babies. This was originally going to be posted as a birthday celebration chapter for that, but I really wanted to give Joel his gift on his actual birthday. Happy birthday you gorgeous old man, you. Hope you like the porn I wrote about you. ❤️🥴

Masterlist

🌕🌕🌕🌕

You’ve been looking for the CD since you learned of Joel’s love of the song. Tommy did it, he actually did it. Somehow by some miracle he found the CD. 

“Not a problem,” he gives you that same shy Miller lopsided grin. “Milt had it. Told me to tell you it’s yours to keep… said he owes you since you were his daughter’s favorite teacher ‘n all.”

“Thanks Tommy,” you say, barely being able to contain your excitement, “this is going to be amazing.”

“Of course. Should be thanking you really,” he shrugs. “It’s about time he had a good birthday.”

—

Joel said he’d be helping fix one of the greenhouses today, but you’re still scared to ruin the surprise as you unlock his door. 

“Joel?” you yell out into the quiet, seemingly empty house. 

No answer. Perfect.

Quick steps lead you to his CD player, the same one he first showed you how much he cared for you with. Now, it’s your turn to show him just how much he means to you. The disc tray opens and you place the CD into the system, you can’t wait to surprise him. 

—

“More coffee?” you ask, holding up the percolator.

He nods and smiles, happily sitting at the table full from the steak, potatoes, and cornbread you made him. He had insisted on sharing the meat, but you refused, happy to let him enjoy the first taste of steak in over twenty years.

Your friend Helen got her boyfriend Greg to cut a small filet of steak from the newly butchered cow. She handed it to you with a knowing smile. It’s nice to see everyone accept yours and Joel’s relationship. 

You lean over his lap, and top his coffee cup off. 

“Have I ever told you how much I love seeing you in a dress? Can’t believe you got yourself all dolled up for me.” He surprises you by pulling you onto his lap. 

“Careful!” you shriek, quickly placing the carafe on the table. “Yes, you have… many times. That's why I wore it.”

“Hmph,” he hums happily, burying his face into the crook of your neck, his arms wrapping securely around you. “Thank you for dinner–and everything sweetheart.” He presses a soft kiss to your skin. 

“That’s not all,” you giggle as he nips at a sensitive spot under your chin. 

He chuckles, his breath warm against your skin. “You’re so good to me.” 

You clutch his chin tilting his head up to meet your eyes. “You deserve a happy birthday.” His big brown eyes search yours, like he’s forcing himself to believe it. “Joel, you do.” 

He rests his forehead against yours. “I love you,” he sighs warmly.

“I love you too. Now, I have something else for you,” you slip off his lap and head towards your backpack. “It’s something small, I promise.”

You return with a bundle of fabric held behind your back. 

“Remember when you tore your favorite flannel and you tossed it in the rag bag?”

You place the flannel in his hands.

“Well, a certain girl named Ellie grabbed it for me. I mended it, reinforced the buttons, and sewed up a couple holes. It’s not perfect, but it’s fixed.”

He holds the flannel up and inspects it. “This is–wow–this–I can’t believe it.” He looks up at you, his eyes wide with adoration. “I was wearing this that first day I saw you, y’know? This is so sweet sweetheart, thank you.” 

He likes it, you thank your lucky stars. Your handsome Joel, here with you on his birthday, allowing himself to be taken care of. 

You know the story of his birthday, you’ve retold the tale to yourself every night as you anticipated this day. Afraid to upset him, afraid to cross a line, but all you’ve wanted to do is give him the world he so deserves. 

It wasn’t just you who thought of him today. It’s Tommy finding the CD. It’s Helen getting you the steak. It’s Ellie grabbing the flannel from the rag bag. He deserves all of it. 

“You’re welcome,” you say with a kiss to his forehead. “Now, put it on. I have one more surprise.”

He slips the flannel on as you head to the living room. The CD waits in the stereo. You turn it on.

The soft guitar and brushes of a drum fills the air as you turn the volume up.  

Joel’s huge smile greets you when you walk back into the kitchen.

“You– how?” he asks, unbelieving. 

“Asked Tommy and he found it for me. Milt had his greatest hits. Now,” you reach your hand out to him, “may I have this dance birthday boy?”

He chuckles and takes your hand, pulling you into him. The two of you sway along to the music, his strong arms enveloping you as your cheek rests against his warm chest. You can hear the steady thump of his heart beneath your ear. Your hands slip around his broad back, one of them trailing up to play with the soft curls at the nape of his neck. He sighs deeply before placing a tender kiss against the top of your head. 

“This is my favorite song,” he murmurs.

The sun has long since set, the singular lamp above the sink casts a warm dark amber glow across the kitchen Your shadows dance across the walls as you sway. He smells of coffee and sweet corn bread, like home and comfort. 

He starts to hum then softly sing along. His deep voice reverberates through your ear, pressed against his heart. 

“Because I’m still in love with you,  I wanna see you dance again,  Because I’m still in love with you,  On this harvest moon”

You can hear the contentment in his voice as he holds you closer. Moving in synchronicity with each other, gently stepping across the small kitchen as the harmonica solo plays. If you could stay in this moment forever you would.

You tilt your head up, and his eyes meet yours. The smile he gives lights his face. Lines crinkling at the corner of his eyes, dimple sitting deep on his cheek, mustache curving with his plush upturned lips. He serenades you with the same lyrics as before, looking deep in your eyes. 

“Because I’m still in love with you,  I wanna see you dance again,  Because I’m still in love with you,  On this harvest moon”  

His lips meet yours, thanking you with a gentle kiss. The man you love and adore, feels good on his birthday all because of you. 

The song plays on repeat, the two of you dance together, Joel gently hums and sings along as the harvest moon rises above the mountains. 

You gently pull away, unclasping his arms from around you.

“Come on birthday boy,” you say with a playful smile, “let’s go watch the stars.” 

—

You and Joel sit beneath a large plaid comforter on his porch. The early fall breeze that rolls down the mountainside leaves a chill in the air. The night sky is lit bright with the orange full moon. Most of Jackson is at the Harvest Moon Festival tonight, you can just make out the distant sounds of laughter and music flowing through the air from the main street on his porch. Ellie was especially thrilled about the teen sleepover happening at the Bison tonight, giving you both this rare moment of solitude in his backyard. She told Joel she knew he was in good hands with you for his birthday. 

And he is–or at least you’re in his good hands. 

“Oh, god,” you softly whisper into the night, you’re so tense from keeping yourself quiet. The stars are a little harder to see tonight thanks to the ambient glow of the bright moon, and yet you see stars whenever you squeeze your eyes shut while fighting the urge to moan. Joel’s deft, large thumb rubs circles against your clit while you ride two of his thick fingers. 

He’s driving you crazy like this. His large body and the blanket wrapped around you, overheating all of your senses in this chilly night. You’re completely covered, nobody would know that your legs are spread wide, one draped over his thick thigh while his hand is stuffed up your dress making you quake as he finger fucks you.

“Easy now, easy now,” he says nuzzling against your neck, his large nose charting a course across the sensitive skin. “Gotta remember where we are. You're the sweet, innocent teacher 'n librarian here. Lotta people look up to you, can’t have them knowin’ what my girl really likes when she’s with me.” Your hips slow their movement, he makes up for it by pumping you harder. “See, I can help, just gotta let me know you want it baby.” 

“Want to take–neyugh–care of you,” struggles out of your mouth. 

“You’re taking care of me right now, sweetheart, touching you is my favorite thing to do.” 

“Want to go inside… w-want to–want–to, want to feel you in my mouth,” you grip the straining bulge underneath the fly of his jeans. 

“Not yet,” he sighs deeply when you squeeze harder. “Like seeing your skin glow in the moonlight. What you’re doin’ now is enough, want to enjoy my night with you.”

Your hold tightens around his cock as you fight harder to suppress the urge to scream into the night. His fingers angle up hitting your most sensitive spot and you feel like you could explode. You’ll be the fireworks to celebrate Joel’s birthday. A whimper is fought by biting your lip, it’s so hard to not scream. His brown eyes look almost black in the low light as he watches you struggle and blink rapidly. 

“Shh baby, you’re doing so good, bein’ so quiet, don’t ruin it now. If anybody was out right now they could walk right on by and they’d have no idea what I’m doing to you under here.”

You’ve never done anything like this, so out in the open. Jackson is a peaceful town full of law abiding citizens, and right now you’re sitting on the back of the porch of Joel’s house getting felt up by him. 

“Joel… I–I’m gonna—”

“Cum for me baby.” His hot breath hits your lips before sealing his mouth against yours. Your cunt spasms against his thick fingers, you feel set alight by your orgasm, overheated and burning. Maybe you’re glowing just as bright as the moon. His tongue dances with yours, swallowing all of your gasps and cries. You’re sure at this point, anybody that walked by would know exactly what was happening between the two of you. You don’t care, all you want is to feel Joel’s cock inside you.

“Want you, Joel, want you so bad,” you mew as his fingers rub against your sensitive folds. 

“Okay baby, okay.” His fingers slip from your warmth before he brings his soaked digits to his lips. His eyes flutter shut when he tastes you. 

“Sweeter than birthday cake,” he declares before raising his hips and pulling his jeans down with a grunt. “Come here. Come sit on me.”

Your legs spread wide as you straddle his large lap with your back pressed against the warmth of his chest. He grips himself and moves the half hard heft of his cock against your soaked core, swirling his tip back and forth across your clit. 

“Tell me you want my cock,” he whispers against your neck, licking a line up to your ear. “Tell me baby.”

“I-I want your cock–I need your cock Joel,” you beg. 

“I know you do darling,” he chuckles deeply, lining himself up to your entrance.

The sounds of the festival go silent and the bright orange moon fades as you slowly sink down on his cock. Taking all of him, thick and throbbing into your tight cunt. 

“That’s my good girl,” he grits. “Your sweet pussy is taking me so well, isn’t she?”

Clutching your bottom lip tightly between your teeth, you try to fight the moan his words bring up.

“Oh, you must like that. You’re squeezin’ me so hard sweetheart.” 

You set a pace, riding him gently under the moonlight, his fingers gripping your hips tight. 

His hot breaths hit the back of your neck as your back molds even tighter to his front. His hand snakes down to rub your clit, small circles making your body meld even more against him.. The rhythm of his fingers and cock spearing you pulls another orgasm down from the ethers of space. Shivering, sweating, and stuttering Joel’s name, you’re trying to be good for him, trying to not scream into the night. 

“That’s my girl, grippin’ my cock so good, cummin’ all over me. Getting yourself nice and slippery so I can fuck you real good, huh?” 

“Mmf,” is the only response you can muster. Your cunt flutters around him, and he doesn’t relent, slowly fucking into you while his finger pulses against your clit. 

The sound of two people conversing approaches. Your movements come to a halt, Joel stays still, his finger still resting against your sensitive bundle of nerves and his cock sitting deep inside you. Hank and Billie, the nice couple that lives three houses down from Joel, walk past the porch. Both look over and wave a greeting. Fuck.

“Beautiful moon, isn’t it?” Hank says with a smile. 

“Quite.” Joel responds. The rumble of his loud voice radiates through you.  

“You guys get any barbecue tonight?” Hank asks. “It was really go–”

“We stayed in,” Joel gruffly responds. He subtly knocks his hips into you causing a wave of sensation to hit against your already cock-drunk pussy.

Your nostrils flare with a deep exhale.  

“Oh, well, there will probably be leftovers tomorrow,” Billie offers. “Tell them I sent you and they’ll give you the good stuff.”

“Thanks Billie,” you breathlessly reply, wishing on every star you’ve seen behind your eyelids, they’ll leave. “We appreciate it.”

“Best be getting home,” Hank says, grabbing Billie’s hand. “We both had a bit too much to drink!” 

Oh thank god.

“Enjoy your night,” Joel says plainly as he starts to slowly rock into you once they turn away. 

To the eyes of your neighbors, you and Joel just look like a normal couple enjoying the night sky cuddled together under a blanket… little do they know he’s filling you with his thick cock under the shield. 

“That was close,” he whispers against your ear before nipping it. 

Your giggle is cut off by a moan when he fucks into you harder. 

“Guess we shouldn’t take our time, don’t want to get caught, now do we?” he asks. 

“We can just–nyuh–go inside,” you plead, wanting to be able to moan and scream Joel’s name in the comfort of his home. 

“Gimme one more baby, gimme one more,” he grunts against your neck. “And then I’ll take you into my home and fuck you.”

His hips pound against your body, his thrusts bucking into your core harder. “That’s it baby, you really want me to take you in and lay you down ‘n fuck you, don’t you?” 

“Mmhmm,” you moan, your stomach tightening and thighs trembling as the universe splinters around you. Your orgasm rockets through your body. Color turns to black and white, noise falls silent. All that exists is Joel Miller and his big cock shattering you into a million pieces like your own personal big bang on the back of his porch. 

“Good girl,” he groans, “let’s take this party inside.”

—

The plaid comforter is laid out on the kitchen floor. Your wobbly legs move your still blissed-out body to Joel’s stereo, starting “Harvest Moon” on repeat all over again. 

You lean against the kitchen entrance, admiring Joel as he rests atop the blanket, naked and supporting himself on his elbows. No man over fifty should ever look as good as him. Broad shoulders frame his strong arms, his chest has a smattering of dark hair that trails down to the slight bulge of his stomach. His cock rests in between his legs, still hard and shining with your slick. He’s so gorgeous, and he’s all yours. 

“Come here sweetheart,” his voice is gruffer. “Lay down next to me.”

His dick twitches as you walk to the blanket and settle beside him. 

He moves over you, covering you with his warmth as he engulfs himself in your slick heat. Your legs instinctually wrap around his waist allowing him to take more. 

“Joel,” you moan. The angle allows his cock to push farther in and your walls to tighten harder against him. 

“Ooh, you’re so fucking wet, you hear that?” he asks incredulously. The squelch of your pussy soundtracks along to the song quietly playing in the background. “Sounds so fucking good baby.” 

He gasps when buries himself to the hilt, soaking the curly hairs around the base of him with your wet.

Your body trembles as your hips meet his, his cock sliding in and out of your cunt at a brutal pace. 

He takes no time to own you now behind the walls of his home. Your hands clutch at his wide back, sobs and screams of his name echoing out into the air as Neil Young softly sings in the background. 

You’re so full of him. His body surrounding you, his lips against yours, his cock pounding into your accepting cunt, his name chanting out of your mouth. 

“You want it baby?” he growls against your neck, his cock pumping in and out of your hole at a speed no man over fifty should be able to ever reach. “You want my cum?” 

“C-cum Joel,” you cry, tears sprouting from your eyes as your fourth orgasm launches through you. 

He gasps your name, pulling out of your tremorous pussy and shooting thick white ropes of cum across your pussy and stomach. 

His sweat is slick against your overheated body, you’re a mess of sweat, orgasm, and love. 

He kisses you, his tongue licking against yours before he rolls off you. His chest rising and falling as he catches his breath. “Fuck,” he pants, stretching his limbs out. “Gonna feel this tomorrow.” 

“Well, you are another year older, old man,” you tease, curling up next to him. 

“Yeah,” he turns his head to look at you. “I guess I am,” he sighs. “Thank you for–my birthday and–all of this. I can never put into words how much it all means to me.” 

“So I guess you’re still in love with me?” you tease.

“Always. Especially on this harvest moon,” he returns your smile. 

---

Tagging a couple people who had asked about this piece earlier this month: @almostfoxglove, @sawymredfox, @burntheedges, and @littlemisspascal 🩷🌝

[thenerdykneazle]

The Scriptorium

Summary: After a harrowing journey through Slytherin's Scriptorium, Ominis helps MC recover from being subjected to the torture curse. After all, he has personal experience dealing with its effects.

Ominis Gaunt x GN!MC

A/N: The fact that I haven't written and posted an Ominis one shot before this is a crime, honestly. Almost as much of a crime as it is that after the trauma that is the scriptorium, both boys just walk away at the end of the mission. So, I fixed it. Also, the first 2.4k of this is a description of the scriptorium mission. Most of the events/dialogue are straight from the game. So, feel free to skip ahead to the middle of this (once they're out of the scriptorium) if you don't need the refresher.

Warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, talks of child abuse, descriptions of being crucio'd, awkward teenagerness in general, MC is naked for part of it but it's not sexual (they just needed a bath, okay?), Sebastian is a walking red flag in this mission but that's not my fault

Word count: 4880

You wound down the dark staircase, descending into Slytherin’s scriptorium. Sebastian entered in after you.

“Dark ominous corridors. My favourite,” he quipped.

“No comment,” Ominis replied coolly as he followed you both.

“Come on, that was a good one,” Sebastian said jovially.

You held back a snicker.

The ancient corridor at the bottom was littered with shattered stone and ended in a sealed door. You found a note left by Noctua Gaunt. She had been here. You repaired the stone into a relief, which Sebastian pointed out showed a person facing a snake.

Ominis shifted anxiously on his feet. He explained the sinister voice he heard telling him to speak to it. He told you how he was a Parselmouth – someone who could speak to snakes. He was certain that speaking to the door would open it, but he was hesitant.

“I’m hoping you’re having second thoughts,” he admitted.

“I see no reason we should stop now,” you replied, unaware of how much you’d come to regret those words.

Ominis breathed out a defeated sigh. “It’s ironic. When I left home, I vowed to leave the Dark Arts behind. And yet, here I am…Stand back.”

You took several steps backward, and Ominis turned to face the door. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered to himself.

You stared in awe as a low hissing came from your friend’s lips. The eyes of two of the snakes carved in the door illuminated with green light, and they slithered up around the frame. The door opened.

“It worked!” you said, stunned. “Ominis, you possess a rare ability indeed.”

“Between the two of you, I’m starting to feel left out,” Sebastian whinged light-heartedly.

Ominis’s brows drew together. “Between the two of us?”

“I – never mind,” Sebastian stuttered, realizing his slip.

You weren’t sure yet if you could trust Ominis with your secret. Professor Fig had asked you not to share details with anyone, and you’d already gone against that advice with Sebastian.

You entered into the next room and were met with a locked gate. Next to it was a dial with a statue of a snake atop it. Once you were all inside, the door you’d come through shut behind you. That was the first moment where you thought this might be a mistake. Sebastian pointed out another sealed gate. Ominis suggested inspecting them for clues on how to proceed forward.

You ducked through a half-opened gate and found another note from Noctua. Her description of feeling unwelcome in the scriptorium didn’t inspire confidence in you. Nearby was another dial. You lit the torch beside it and turned one of the large metal discs. A hissing emitted from the statue as it began to rotate. You flicked through the dial, studying the symbols. Both discs had the same pattern.

In a flash, the snake lunged at you, biting your jaw as you stumbled backwards.

“That didn’t sound good,” Ominis said.

“It’s fine,” you asserted, frustration edging into your voice as you wiped the blood from your face with your sleeve. You really should’ve expected something like that.

“Salazar Slytherin didn’t make this easy,” Sebastian observed.

Obviously, you thought as you rolled your eyes. You’d be more than happy to let him take a stab at the dial.

You returned to the other dial. The gate next to it had symbols carved into it, as well. You illuminated your wand and saw that they matched some from the dial. You wished you’d noted that earlier.

“I think matching the dial to the symbols on the gate will open it,” you said.

“It seems Slytherin liked to play games,” Ominis said thoughtfully.

“Must run in the family,” Sebastian quipped.

“Look in a mirror, Sebastian,” Ominis replied irritably.

You quickly aligned the symbols on the dial to the ones sealing the doorway next to it. The serpents on the metal gate shifted, and it raised automatically.

“Matching the symbols did open it,” you said, relieved. You had half expected to be bitten again.

“Was about to do that myself, but you got to it first,” Sebastian said.

You just shot him a waspish look.

He coughed awkwardly. “Nice work,” he said.

You shook your head before continuing forward. In a pit at the end of the corridor, you found a third dial along with another note from Noctua.

I failed the dial, and it struck my face as if it were a real serpent, she started. You scoffed to yourself. Yeah, thanks for the warning, you thought sarcastically as you dabbed at your stinging jaw. She continued on in her letter to decry the way their family forced dark magic on their children.

“Ominis, your aunt wanted to change your family’s traditions,” you said.

“She did,” he confirmed in a wistful voice. “And she was my favourite person in the world for it.”

You felt a pang of sorrow for your friend. He’d lost the only member of his family that had ever been decent to him. You hoped for his sake that this adventure would provide answers as to what happened to her.

You went back to the main room, checking the symbols on the other gate that was still sealed. You went back to the dial that’d bitten you. Adrenaline pumped through your veins as you shifted the discs. There were two dials and only one door. You couldn’t be certain which went with it. You were relieved when you heard the metal clanking of the gate opening, letting out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“That sounded promising,” Ominis said.

“Another dial solved,” you replied gleefully as you searched for another door.

“Impressive. Nice work,” Ominis’s silky voice called out almost reverently from the dark.

You chuckled at how similar yet distinct the two Slytherins were, complimenting you with the same words but in entirely different ways.

You entered the newly opened archway. You read yet another note left behind by Noctua, warning of painful challenges but telling of rewards, as well. You relayed the information to your companions.

“Painful – that’s the part I’m wary of,” Ominis said, sounding nervous.

“All I heard was rewards. Keep going,” Sebastian replied with a flippant fort of confidence.

Sure enough, there was another gate at the back of the new room. You wound your way back to the remaining dial and shifted it to match the final gate. Once you aligned the discs, the gate opened with a hiss. You downed a wiggenweld to heal your gashed chin now that you weren’t likely to be bitten again. Hopefully.

“Excellent work,” Sebastian said brightly. “We’re another step closer to the scriptorium.”

Sebastian was just outside the archway when you made it back. “I spotted something ahead,” he said, fear edging into his voice for the first time. “Looks troubling.”

“This whole place is troubling, but, for my aunt’s sake, we cannot stop now,” Ominis replied.

You noted privately that you couldn’t really stop even if you had wanted to. Having only one way forward, the three of you crept into the newly revealed corridor. You had a sinking feeling in your stomach as you stepped inside.

Curiously, the torches lining the space were already lit. More clanking rang out behind you.

“The gate!” Sebastian said in a panicked tone. “I think we’re locked in. Again.”

“Then Salazar Slytherin is not yet finished with us,” Ominis said dismally.

You were inclined to agree. You couldn’t help but think that Noctua’s optimism about the Hogwarts founder was misplaced. You approached the door at the end of the corridor, feeling a cold wash over you like walking through a ghost.

Your heart dropped as you spotted the bones lying in front of the door, right next to the word ‘crucio’ in glowing letters. On the other side of the skeleton, you found another note. With shaking hands, you reread how to proceed. You looked again at the remains of Ominis’s aunt. You felt like you were about to be sick.

“Ominis. A skeleton…And Noctua’s last journal entry. She mentions being trapped here – blocked by an Unforgivable Curse,” you said, unable to bring yourself to put it more directly.

Ominis looked shattered. “This…is where she died,” he said in disbelief. He began pacing in anger. “This is where we’ll die. I shouldn’t have listened to either of you.”

His words struck harder than you would’ve expected.

“Ominis, I’m truly sorry about your aunt,” Sebastian said. “But, I know what to do. It’s going to be difficult.”

You raised an eyebrow at the brunet. You discussed the matter with him. He voiced aloud what you already knew. The only way out was casting the cruciatus curse. Something only one of you had done before. Sebastian implored you to talk to Ominis.

You had already convinced him to go into this despicable place. You couldn’t ask him to cast an unforgivable, too. Sebastian steeled himself to confront him.

“Ominis, I know this is the last thing you want to do–” Sebastian started.

“Yes! It is! I thought you knew me better!” Ominis spat back.

“But this is different,” Sebastian insisted. “Whoever you cast it upon will have agreed to it first. It wouldn’t be an innocent ‘victim.’ We have to open the door.”

“The spell won’t work unless you mean it,” Ominis said. “That’s true of all unforgivables. If it must be done, then one of you must cast it.”

“What do we do now?” you asked Sebastian. “Ominis is not going to cast the cruciatus curse again.”

“Ridiculous!” Sebastian groused. “As if dying in here is a better option than casting a damned spell.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s up to us. I can teach you crucio, or I can cast it on you.”

Your eyes widened. “Wait – you didn’t say you knew how to cast crucio,” you said.

Sebastian pursed his lips. “Because I’m not sure I do,” he replied. “Ominis knows that, yet he’s left us no choice. I don’t yearn to follow in Noctua Gaunt’s footsteps.” He glanced down at the remains. “I think I can cast it if I have to.”

Your stomach twisted at the thought of casting the curse. The hatred required. “I don’t want to learn the curse, but I can handle the pain,” you said more confidently than you felt. “It’s fine. Cast it on me.”

“I shan’t forget this,” Sebastian vowed. He swallowed thickly. “Ready?”

You nodded. “I’m ready,” you said, though your trembling voice betrayed how untrue that was. How could you be ready for such a thing?

Sebastian raised his wand. “Crucio!” he said quickly, before he could lose his nerve.

A red bolt erupted from his wand and struck you. You crumpled to the floor as blinding pain flooded through your whole body. You cried out. It was like molten shrapnel had exploded out from within you, shredding your muscles, tearing apart your organs, and splintering your bones.

“Are you all right?” Sebastian asked, his voice was scared and distant.

You could barely make sense of the words as your senses were overtaken. The red jet arced from you to the door, and it melted away. Jolts of pain still crackled through you as you pushed yourself onto your feet. You struggled to pull air into your lungs.

“A-are you all right?” Ominis asked, clearly shaken.

“That pain,” you groaned. You looked at Ominis’s horrified expression and felt guilt stab into you at the trauma he must be relieving. You couldn’t imagine going through that so young. “It was excruciating, but I’ll survive. Let’s keep moving.”

You just wanted out of there.

Sebastian was enraptured as he entered the room – as if it were sodding Honeydukes and not the lair of a dark wizard. Ominis edged cautiously inside, as well. For once, the door didn’t slam behind you.

You found an old tome and informed Sebastian and Ominis.

“You found something?” Sebastian asked excitedly.

“You two go ahead – let me know what’s in it,” Ominis said, voice still quavering. “I’ll wander around a bit.”

You were about to check on him, but Sebastian appeared at your side. “May I have a look?” he asked, gesturing to the book in your grasp. You handed it over.

“What do you think?” you asked.

“Looks like a spellbook of some kind,” Sebastian replied eagerly. “This is incredible! A Hogwarts founder’s possession – what an honour.” He shook his head. “Still can’t believe Ominis never told me about his aunt and what she found.”

You could. In fact, you wished he’d never brought it up – and that you’d never pushed him on it. “What will you do with Slytherin’s spellbook?” you asked, aiming for a casual tone. Really, you were nervous about his intentions.

Sebastian gave you a playful grin. “What I do with every book – read it! Having professors as parents ingrained that habit early on,” he said lightly. “But I can do that later. For now, I say we explore this room. It’s breathtaking.”

You didn’t feel the same eagerness Sebastian showed – perhaps because he wasn’t the one who had just been tortured. Still, it was a bit shocking to see him so chipper after casting an unforgivable on you mere minutes ago.

“I’ve been getting an uneasy feeling about this place,” Ominis called anxiously up to you both. “We shouldn’t linger here. Let’s find a way out, please.”

Sebastian chuckled. “I don’t want to leave, but I owe you – both of you,” he said. “Without both of you, we’d never have made it this far.”

“We were lucky – we could have died!” Ominis said seriously. “We must swear never to do this again.”

You saw Sebastian roll his eyes. You picked up a note lying on the desk as you tried to shove down your irritation with the boy.

“I see a way out!” Sebastian announced.

“Best news I’ve heard all day,” Ominis replied, breathing a sigh of relief as he climbed the stairs.

You all exited through the hidden doorway.

“Ominis, about your aunt–” Sebastian started as he emerged from the wall back into the dungeon corridor.

“Please, Sebastian,” Ominis cut him off. “I meant what I said before. We swear right now never to engage in anything to do with dark magic again!”

“Understood,” Sebastian replied immediately, much to your surprise. “I’m truly sorry about your aunt, Ominis.”

“I suppose, after all this, I am grateful to know what happened to her,” he said quietly. He turned to you. “Thank you.”

You didn’t know what to say. Sebastian hurried off, probably to go delve into the book. Ominis leaned against the wall, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as he tried to process the night’s events.

You chewed your lip. “Ominis, I’m so sorry I dragged you down there. I hadn’t imagined we’d end up trapped like that,” you said sincerely.

He pushed off the wall, stepping toward you. “Salazar Slytherin did,” he replied darkly. “He’s to blame for many unimaginable things.”

You felt a new wave of fear at Sebastian having his spellbook.

“I’m just glad we made it out of there,” he continued. “How are you doing? The cruciatus curse is pure torture – I would know.”

You nodded. “I’m fine. Sebastian told me a little of what happened when you were young,” you said. “Sounds as if you had no choice.”

Ominis sighed. “Should’ve known he would’ve told you,” he muttered. “And one always has a choice. I’m as guilty as the worst of my family. Like I said, unforgivable curses won’t work unless you really mean them. I had to want to cause pain, and for that I shall never forgive myself. I will regret casting it forever.”

You flinched as you thought of the pain that had surged through you less than half an hour ago. Sebastian had wanted you to feel it. You couldn’t imagine feeling that way toward him or Ominis, especially now that you knew what it was like.

Warm fingers slipped into your hand, and you looked up to see Ominis’s brow furrowed in concern. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I should’ve insisted we found another way out. Really, I shouldn’t have told Sebastian about the scriptorium in the first place. I am glad to know what happened to my aunt, but…not at your expense.”

You swallow thickly as you stared up at his kind face. “I’m all right, really,” you said.

He arched a brow at you. “Don’t lie to me,” he said firmly. “I can feel your hand shaking.”

You realized he was right. Your muscles were twitching with aftershocks from the curse. You suspected they had been since Sebastian’s curse released. You were just so out of sorts that you hadn’t noticed. “Oh,” you said dimly.

Ominis laced his fingers with yours. “Let’s get you some tea and a blanket. You must be freezing,” he said.

You were freezing, you realized. Ominis led you into the Slytherin common room. You just followed him numbly. It was like your body had reacted to the pain by shutting off your senses. Your mind had been overwhelmed. You felt like you were moving through fog now.

Before you knew it, you had a hot cup of tea in your hands and a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. Ominis rubbed slow circles on your back. His touch grounded you, keeping you from slipping into the recesses of your mind.

“Is this how you felt after?” you asked, turning your glazed eyes toward Ominis.

He stiffened, his hand freezing in place, as his features contorted in a grimace. You could see his throat bob as he swallowed.

“Sorry,” you said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Ominis shook his head. “I expect so,” he said thoughtfully, answering your question. “I would have a tremor and feel a numbing cold. One of our elves tended to me after the first time. My mother locked me in my room, and he brought me tea and tucked me into bed with extra blankets even though she’d instructed them to leave me alone. He…He also knew how it felt.” His jaw tensed. “My family distributes their cruelty quite generously.” He spat out the last sentence like venom.

You felt tears prick your eyes. “I’m sorry you both went through that,” you said.

He just nodded.

“The numbness wears off after a while,” he said as he resumed the languid circles on back. “Then it’s like…your senses are frayed. Everything is just…too much. Noise. Scents. Everywhere is too hot or too cold. Even clothes are…Well, you get the idea.”

His cheeks were coloured pink.

“How long until that starts?” you asked. It sounded dreadful.

“Maybe an hour from now?” he said. He cleared his throat. “I found that a warm bath in a quiet room helps. Not hot but body temperature. It’s almost like floating in nothing. I expect you’d want the room dark, as well, but I really wouldn’t know.”

He chuckled, and you couldn’t help but laugh, as well. You sipped your tea, and you felt yourself relax slightly as the warm liquid slid down your throat. A shiver ran through you, and you tucked into Ominis’s side, resting your head on his shoulder.

He was caught by surprise, but he quickly wrapped his arm around you, holding you tightly to himself. He even rested his head on top of yours.

You stayed like that for a long time. Ominis traced his wand down a schoolbook with the hand not holding you. He checked in every once in a while to make sure you hadn’t run out of tea, casting a charm to refill your cup when needed. Slowly, your tremor subsided and your body warmed. The cold nothingness that had enveloped you was eventually replaced by a sort of static. It was barely noticeable at first, but it grew more and more grating. You felt stifled between the fire, blanket, and Ominis’s warm body next to you. You had to set your tea down because it was scalding. Your uniform scratched like sandpaper over every inch of your skin. The crackling of the flames and students speaking in low voices grew louder until the noises pounded in your ears. The dim common room seemed blindingly bright. Even the usually calming scent of Ominis’s cologne was an attack on your senses.

You groaned as you curled into yourself. Ominis scooted away from you, and you felt a pang of guilt at the relief it gave you.

“Let’s get you that bath,” Ominis said quietly as he tucked his book into his bag.

He grabbed your sleeve and tugged you to the lavatory. You cast a charm to block the windows. Only the faintest light filtered through. You sagged against one of the sinks, holding your frazzled head in your hands. Ominis filled a tub with a water-making charm, knowing the rush from the taps would be deafening. He heated the water with another spell, dipping his hand it to ensure it was the right temperature. He even set out a towel for you.

“All set,” he said gently. “I’ll relock the door on my way out so no one disturbs you.”

“Could you…stay?” you asked sheepishly.

You could just make out Ominis’s eyes as they widened. “Oh,” he squeaked. “Erm, yes, I suppose so. Are you sure you want me to?”

“I’d rather not be alone,” you admitted, wincing at your own voice as it seemed to boom out from you. “And, well, it’s not like you can see anything…right?”

He chuckled softly. “You’re correct,” he whispered.

He moved to a window seat on the far wall, and you slipped out of your robes. Despite the fact that he couldn’t see you, your cheeks flushed as you stood naked in a room with Ominis in it. The cold air was like ice on your skin. You quickly climbed into the bath. It was like applying a balm to a sunburn. You really did feel wrapped in nothing as you were surrounded by water exactly the same temperature as you. You closed your eyes, shutting out the last bit of light.

You felt the tension that had been mounting melt out of your body. The only sensations aside from the cool air on your face were the sound of your own breathing and occasional turn of a page as Ominis read. You couldn’t even hear his breaths from where he sat.

With time, your breathing stopped seeming so loud and you stopped noticing the temperature of the room as much. The water in your tub was exactly as warm as it’d been when you slipped inside. You realized Ominis must’ve charmed it to stay that way. He was quite a talented wizard.

You sat up a bit in the tub, leaning your head back on the edge of it, but you kept your eyes closed. You weren’t ready to take in visual stimuli again just yet. “Ominis?” you asked, pleased when the word didn’t ring in your ears.

“Yes, MC?” he replied quietly.

“Thank you. For helping me. It…it would’ve been awful to go through this alone,” you said.

There was a pause before he answered. “I’m sorry you have to go through it at all.”

You opened your eyes to look at him. “It’s not your fault,” you said. You turned, hooking your elbow over the side of the tub as you faced him. “I’m the one who convinced you to go down there.”

“Yes, but I should’ve known better,” he said sadly. “I just…I was so consumed by the need to know what happened to my aunt. I went against my better judgment. It won’t happen again.”

“Same here. I have no interest in investigating anything to do with Slytherin again,” you replied. “I hope Sebastian meant it when he said he’s done.”

“He’s never lied to me before,” Ominis said confidently. “But…if he does mention anything to you, tell me, okay?”

“I will,” you promised. To be honest, you felt like you could tell Ominis anything.

“Good,” Ominis said with a small smile, but it was quickly replaced with a look of concern. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” you said truthfully. “Is there another phase after this?”

Ominis pressed his mouth into a thin line. Even when upset, his features were as handsome as ever. It really wasn’t fair. “No, but this one tends to linger. You’ll feel on edge for a few days. Maybe a week, even. It tends to last longer the more times you’ve been cursed, so hopefully it’s just a few days for you,” he said, forcing a hopeful smile onto his lips.

You blinked rapidly as a thought struck you. “Did your family curse you multiple times?” you asked, aghast.

He turned his face back toward his book as he schooled his features. “Yes,” he said in a barely audible voice.

“Oh, Ominis, that’s awful!” you said. You wished you could give him a hug, but as you were naked and sopping wet, it wasn’t exactly an opportune time.

He gave a mirthless laugh. “That’s the Gaunts for you. We specialize in ‘awful.’”

“Not all of you,” you argued. “Not your aunt. Not you.”

“Recent evidence would suggest otherwise,” he said. He hung his head. “Not to mention my past mistakes.”

“But that’s just it. It was a mistake. It doesn’t define you, Ominis,” you insisted. “Do you think the rest of your family would’ve cared enough to help me?”

He scoffed. “Certainly not.”

You just waited, letting him consider the facts for himself.

He sighed as he turned back toward you. “I suppose you have a point.”

You smiled. “I know I do.”

Ominis chuckled, and it was a beautiful sound – if a bit loud at the moment.

You decided you’d soaked long enough and got out of the bath. You cringed as you patted yourself dry. The towel wasn’t quite sandpaper like your clothes had been before, but your skin still felt raw. “How long until clothes feel normal again?” you asked, hoping the answer was soon.

“It all progresses together, so it’ll take a few days,” Ominis said with an apologetic grimace.

You let out a groan. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

He held out his hand. “Here. Give me your clothes.”

You wrapped the towel around yourself before scooping up your uniform and padding over to him. You set the outfit in his open hand.

He cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said. Standing so close now, you could see the blush spread over his cheeks.

Your face flushed, too, when you realized you could’ve just levitated the clothes over. You cringed again, but at yourself this time.

Ominis waved his wand as he uttered an unfamiliar incantation. He handed your outfit back to you. It was silky smooth against your skin. It took what was left of your good sense not to drop your scratchy towel and change immediately. You shuffled off to the other side of the room to get dressed.

“That’s so much better!” you gushed once you’d donned the silk ensembled. “Thank you, Ominis.”

“Of course,” he replied. “I’m happy to help you with anything. I mean, anytime! I’m happy to help anytime.”

As you walked back over to his window seat, you could tell he was still blushing. You couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’ll help you with anything, too,” you replied.

“Yeah?” he asked with a hopeful expression.

You chewed your lip, butterflies fluttering in your stomach as you looked down at him. You raised a hand to cup his cheek, and his chin tilted up slightly as his eyes drifted shut. You leaned down, brushing your lips softly against his. In your current state, his lips felt a bit rough but pleasantly warm on yours. Nevertheless, the tender kiss sent a jolt of excitement through you. “Yeah,” you replied.

His tongue flicked out over his lips, and he smirked up at you.

The door rattled as someone tried to enter the locked lavatory. The sudden noise made you jump back.

“Ugh! This is the second time this week!” a muffled but clearly frustrated voice grumbled from the other side.

“Come one, let’s use the one upstairs,” another, much more defeated, voice replied.

“We should probably get moving,” you said, unable to stop the grin that graced your lips.

Ominis chuckled. “Yes, I suppose we should,” he agreed.

You both made your way toward the door. Ominis was much more graceful in the dim lighting than you were, and you almost stumbled right into one of the empty tubs. Fortunately, Ominis either didn’t notice or politely pretended not to. He turned to you right in front of the door, his fingers resting on the handle. He shifted nervously between his feet.

“Once you’re feeling like yourself again, would you like to get dinner with me at the Three Broomsticks?” he asked with an endearingly anxious expression.

You beamed at him. “I’d like that very much.”

He grinned as he pulled the door open for you. “It’s a date, then.”

Of all the things you’d thought you might find in Slytherin’s Scriptorium, a budding romance hadn’t been one of them. Not that you were complaining. Not one bit.

[xerith-42]

Techno and Wilbur not being brothers is so important to me you have no idea

Because them being Tommy's older brothers doesn't actually ever overlap. Wilbur acts as Tommy's brother through most of the stuff with L'Manburg, for better and usually for worse. Then once he's gone and Tommy's lost everyone he finds a new older brother in Techno.

Techno and Wilbur aren't brothers though. When they interacted they were friends at best, and tense at worst. Even if their goals do eventually line up, Wilbur still stabs Techno in the back. He promised destruction for Manberg, before setting up Tommy as a potential leader. He said he was down with anarchy but failed to properly condemn the very governments Technoblade's anarchy-based morality is centered around.

He realized that governments were the cause of all of his problems, but failed to see the bigger picture in regards to how L'Manburg had hurt everyone on the server. One of Wilbur's consistent problems is a failure to see how his actions effect those around him, or to act with a blatant disregard for consequences. And at the point that Technoblade came into his life, there wasn't really much hope for them to ever be the family they could've been.

Wilbur never cared about Techno as a person. He just saw him as

The Blade

An Anarchist

The Revolution

Wilbur knew that without Technoblade he didn't have a revolution and yet he was still willing to disregard Techno's fundamental ideals because he was too narrow minded to see anything else. Too focused on how L'Manburg hurt him, his L'Manburg, and the damage it caused his life. He barely thought of how Techno would feel in regards to his decision.

Techno's just another person Wilbur managed to burn before his death. He wasn't the last.

And when Tommy shows up in the floorboards of Techno's house a month later, after L'Manberg has exiled him and Techno has nearly lost everything to tyranny, and he has a hope that maybe this time things will be better. Tommy's young, still learning, and he's been through a lot at the hands of corrupt men wielding power.

Maybe this time Techno can have someone agree with his ideals and actually stick to it.

He humors Tommy, shelters him, but treats him as he'd treat anybody. Tommy's a nuisance, and Techno might yell at him for taking his stuff for the third time this week, but he'll never kick Tommy out. Not after he's been abandoned to this extent. Not after Tommy has suffered the hand he was nearly dealt at his botched execution.

Techno almost lost everything. Tommy did lose everything.

Techno becomes an older brother figure to a scared and grieving and traumatized Tommy, a wounded child grasping onto the last straws of normalcy he has as he watches everything he's ever known slip through his finger tips. Techno is willing to take Wilbur's place, to act as a role model to Tommy during hard times. To stay strong and teach him important values to carry through future hardships in life. Techno wants so badly for Tommy to be a proper younger brother to him.

And then he makes the same mistake his brother made.

Tommy disregards Techno.

In his desperate attempt to hold onto those strands of normalcy Tommy reaches for something he's always known in favor of the potential chaos of Techno. Tommy is trying to stick to what he knows, what he used to have, to Tubbo, to his discs, to anything that reminds him of all he's lost so he can feel like he has it back. He fails to see that Techno could have been a source of that familiarity, that Techno was trying to be the island of stability while he was crashing in the waves.

Instead Tommy takes Tubbo's outstretched hand and climbs into the lifeboat they've always been floating in together, not realizing that in doing so he has awakened a great storm that will leave him with less than he had before.

In the immediate comfort of familiarity Tommy fails to realize the consequences of his own actions, and proves that in spite of all the posturing he's done about changing, about growing, about being a bigger and better man, he's a frightened child with the worst habits of his family.

When Tommy stabs Techno in the back, he reopens an old wound

After all, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it

[unbreakabledawn]

The good part about being injured was the popsicle.

The bad part was literally everything else. Dick's chest hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before, worse than any bruise or scrape or bump from the numerous falls he'd gone through at Haly's, during practice for a show, or playing outside, climbing trees and vaulting across playgrounds. Never bad enough to need to go to a hospital, just band-aids and warm wash cloths and ice packs.

We should tattoo a band-aid on you, it would save us time and money, his dad would say every time Dick scraped his knee, which was every other week. And his mom would brush the hair back from his forehead, kiss his cheek with a warm hum, and sneak him a popsicle even though it was Wednesday and he wasn't allowed sweets on weekdays.

Another pang of pain flared in Dick's chest, and it wasn't his ribs this time.

And Bruce freaking poking right where the pain was at its worst did not help at all.

"Ow," Dick yelped, scowling at Bruce.

"I'm sorry. I need to examine you." Bruce continued pressing gentle fingers to Dick's side, moving along the bones and the edges of the blooming bruise. "Is it hard to breathe?"

"No," Dick said, lips wrapped around his strawberry popsicle. "Just hurts a little. If I breathe deep."

"Where does it hurt the most? Here, or here?"

Dick used his free hand to trace the throbbing center of pain. Bruce nodded and reached for his hand, slipping a small plastic clip with a tiny screen onto his finger. "Um, what's that?" Dick asked, watching numbers appear on the screen of the clip.

"Pulse oximeter. It measures the oxygen saturation in your blood." Bruce was now pulling a stethoscope out of a set of drawers. He'd shown Dick how to use one a few weeks ago, slipped the ear pieces into Dick's ears and placed the little disc on his chest so Dick could hear the slow, steady drum of his heart. Bruce was leaning forward to place it on Dick's chest now.

"Can you at least wait until I've finished my popsicle?" Dick said, sullen, trying not to squirm as the cold metal slid across his chest while Bruce told him when to breathe.

"You can multitask. It's a useful skill to have. Lean forward," Bruce instructed, and repeated the procedure on Dick’s back.

"I'm okay," Dick said, because Bruce was acting like the one who'd crashed straight into a concrete ledge instead of Dick. He'd been practicing hand flips in the garden, and he'd stumbled on a cracked tile and fallen and hit the side of his chest on a stone flower bed. Ugh, how embarassing. His first injury after moving in with Bruce, and it wasn't even as Robin! And still, Bruce had whisked him down to the Batcave's medbay, promising him a popsicle in exchange for being allowed to check him out.

"Yes. I just want to make sure," Bruce said, worried frown still firmly in place. He was scrawling notes on a chart, because he was a freak like that and needed to document the fact that Dick was clumsy enough to get himself injured playing in the garden.

Dick sighed and licked off the last bit of the popsicle, and the juice that had dripped onto his fingers.

The sound of something large being wheeled closer made Dick freeze. He looked up towards Bruce, who was bringing some sort of machine to the gurney Dick was laying down on.

"What are you doing?" Dick asked, alarm bells ringing in his head over the whirring and humming of the strange machine.

"This is a portable x-ray device," Bruce explained while he manipulated the machine into position. "I need to take an x-ray of your chest."

X-ray? That’s what they used for broken bones, wasn’t it? Crap, did that mean he broke his ribs?

“But I’m fine,” Dick said, trying and failing not to let his panic bleed into his voice. “I don’t need it.”

Bruce paused, hands on the handles of the machine’s head pointing it towards Dick’s chest. He peered down at Dick. “It’s just an x-ray. It’ll take me two minutes.”

“You don’t need to,” Dick said, accidentally raising his voice. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

“Dick,” Bruce said gently. He hesitantly reached forward to brush the hair off Dick’s forehead. “It won’t hurt, you won’t feel a thing. It’s like a big camera that lets us look inside your chest.”

Dick stared up at what must be the lens of the camera. He bit his lip. It didn’t look like it would hurt. “How does it work?”

“This”—he touched the head of the machine—“sends out x-ray beams. They go through your body and this plate catches them, creating an image.” He held up a wide, black plate. “So I need to place this under your chest.”

“What are x-ray beams?”

“We can do a radiation physics lesson tomorrow, if you like. For now I need you to lean forward for me.”

He did, and let Bruce place the cold, hard plate behind his back. It wasn’t comfortable, but Bruce said two minutes. He could handle two minutes.

Bruce put on some sort of black apron, and attached a broad collar around his neck. “Lead protection,” he explained to Dick, and held up a remote that looked like the trigger to a bomb. “Ready?”

He nodded.

“Breathe in.” A buzz and a louder whirr. “And we’re done.”

Dick opened his eyes. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh. That wasn’t so bad,” he admitted, leaning forward again so Bruce could remove the plate and put away the equipment. "So,” Dick said once Bruce returned to his bedside. “Are my ribs broken?"

"I don't know. Probably not." Bruce was writing something down in the chart, but the line between his eyebrows was the familiar I'm-Concentrating frown instead of a Oh-My-God-You're-Hurt frown, so Dick felt more annoyed than upset for the moment.

"What?! What do you mean you don't know? What was the freaking point then?"

"I needed to check your lungs. Rib fractures can be hard to see or even undetectable on chest x-rays."

"Oh. So my lungs are okay, then?"

"As far as I can tell. I'm no radiologist."

Dick rolled his eyes. Good thing Bruce wasn't a doctor, because his bedside manners sucked. "Hmph. Well, you owe me another popsicle. Since I let you do an x-ray on me."

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him, and Dick just barely caught the quirk of his mouth before he smoothed out his expression again. "You drive a hard bargain, chum. Strawberry or pear?"

"Strawberry. Duh."

-

a/n: this is 50% due to @froizetta asking me about rib fractures for her fic, and 50% due to a patient i had last week: a young girl around dick's age who started sobbing as soon as i called her name for her exam, and who continued loudly sobbing throughout the two minutes it took to take a single x-ray of her hand. she was terrified, hospitals and medical tools and big machines can be scary to little kids! i work with a large variety of patient groups and kids are definitely the ones i struggle the most with, so this writing exercise also has professional merit (<- me making excuses for self-indulgent fic)

[ao3 link]

[cumikering]

MW3: A Year After

.9k | angst, fml, MW3 spoilers

It’s been a year.

I’ve always dreaded it. Never even thought I’d be here to say it. But it’s been a year since the last time you held me, kissed me and told me you loved me. Since you didn’t text back in over 36 hours, since Price showed up at our door that quiet night.

I wrote you many eulogies – I just couldn’t say enough. In those two days leading up to your funeral, I lay on the floor of our room staring at the ceiling. I fumbled with your ID discs around my neck as I recited the words through the river of tears. I got this, I told myself, but instead I stood by your casket sobbing, the soggy wad of paper crumpled in my fist.

I tried to say more than “John Mactavish was” – I really did, but my ground trembled and my sky shattered. I didn’t want to say it. That you were something, or someone, or whatever. Because to me, you are. You never ended. Never should have. Not now, or anytime soon.

Price pulled me off my knees and lead me back to my seat, saying no one needed me to say a thing to know just how much you meant to me.

This body wasn’t mine anymore. It felt like a nightmare. Like I woke up in a different life, like I slipped down the darkest pit into a different universe, that this was someone else’s life.

My soul died with you, and it plunged me into an abyss. You took the breath out of my lungs, and I was tortured in the tsunamis of missing you. My heart was barren, a wasteland, where the heartbeat wasn’t anymore. I floated in nothingness, wishing something, anything to take me away from this world without you in it.

It was unfair. You didn’t deserve this.

I couldn’t stop talking about your departure, about how unceremonious it was, about how crudely you were taken from me. Unfortunately, the person I wanted to talk about your death the most with was you.

I wish there was a customer care line in heaven, because I know that’s where you’d be. I’ll take an email address; I’ll file a formal complaint, a strongly worded one. I’ll rant all about it, and knowing you, you’d make it all okay.

I’d been scared that I’d forget you, but I haven’t. I remember my favourite things about you. You loved so freely, so fiercely, laughed so loud and proud. You always made everyone feel good around you. You were my eternal sunshine. Everything you touched blossomed. With the smile on my face, people told me I always seemed so happy. I was. I had you.

Our time was cut short, way too short, but I had so many blessings I couldn’t even begin to count. I had the perfect husband everyone was envious of. It brought me such immeasurable joy to wake up every day knowing you were mine. Heaven was a place on Earth with you, and it’d be selfish to ask for anything more.

You told me you’d either die in my arms or in action. And if it was the latter, you told me to not mourn, because the country didn’t take your life - you gifted it. As much as it tears at my soul, I'm so proud of you for what you did.

But how could I lie to myself. I am selfish. I do want so much more with you.

Knowing that I have to spend the rest of my life without you ruined me. I’ve got these years left, too many now without you. I’d have given you half of my remaining breaths, so I could be with you longer. Hell, I’d give you all of it, because I know you’d keep the world safe. You deserved to see it.

That gives me a glimmer of hope - the tiniest bud. I keep thinking I wouldn't last another day without you, but I always do. Your selflessness gives me the strength. It will all be ok, like you always said.

You told me there’s always hope as long as the sun is still warm like your kisses, the sky is still as blue as your gorgeous eyes, and the breeze still tickles like your whispers against my skin. And like the moon and the stars, and in the promise of tomorrow, you said I’d always rise.

You were in my life for many years, and there will come a day that I'd be without you longer. But I'll carry on. You taught me to live in the moment, and I will. I'll keep living, for you, my sunshine.

I miss you beyond words. No matter how long it’s been since our last ‘I love you’, I love you - enough to last more than this lifetime. In time I’ll let you go, but for now don’t wake me up from this beautiful dream because I still want to be in love with you.

Thank you, Johnny. Being together was truly a gift.

Forever yours, no matter where you are, even when we can’t meet anymore.

I’m sorry I had to get this out of my system. Here’s a happy possessive best friend Soap crashing your date fic

@sofasoap @b1rds3ye @caramlizedtomatoes @gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot @losersimonriley

[gingerlurk]

Lovers' Crest | Chapter 12: The Visit

Din Djarin x f!Reader

Masterlist

Summary: You have more questions than before. The same goes for Din.

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, slow burn, non-canon (the Razor Crest never gets destroyed, it also gets upgraded with a cabin), post season 3, Calvinball with canon and Mandalorian lore (making it up), light angst.

A/N: A short chapter here, will post the next one fairly soon. Been an interesting week to be a Din Djarin/Pedro Pascal fan hasn't it? Hope you're hydrating! Thanks for reading, big love.

--

The leader of the revived Mandalorian people is not so proud as to deny you to work on her speeder. She has a refreshing air of keen intelligence and frank regard. You like her.

Bo-Katan Kryze stands beside you as you fiddle with a mess of pistons and shaft lines. She asks an occasional question, but mostly looks out across the work site. Her people move about with quiet efficiency. They’re on a ranging operation – a huge group surveying a ruined city. Din had said he needed to go out there to see her – pay respects or something. So, after a terrifying meeting with a leader named simply, the Armourer, your group of three had flown the Crest out to join them.

The shade of the hangar is surprisingly cooling in the rocky, hazy clime. You spy Din by himself across the expanse, lifting crate after crate from a transport tray and stacking them neatly against a craft. You make a mental note to bother him later about adequate rehydration.

You’ve decided the person standing next to you is your best option to ask about what’s been gnawing away at you in the time it took to reach Mandalore. She and Din seem to hold each other in a profoundly high esteem, and you can see she deeply cares for him, and Grogu.

And, since Din’s big speech about the ‘sacrifices’ you made and the ‘honour’ and ‘loyalty’ you exhibited in retrieving that beskar cache, she’s ensured you’ve been welcomed and your offers to assist their rebuilding efforts accepted.

Although it was mostly when she’d reached up, removed her helmet and looked you dead in the eyes that did it. When you realised there was so much here you didn’t know. So much about Din Djarin the Bounty Hunter. So much about Mandalorians. What little you’d gleaned from discs and stories. It was nothing at all.

Still, it was just the one question you couldn’t shake at the minute. Just ask it. She’ll give you an honest answer, you think, then you’ll know.

You twist a coil of wire around and around the kit, worrying at it over much as you force the words out.

‘What does sha--’ you pause on the unfamiliar word, push it around your mouth. ‘What does shareekah mean?’

Bo-Katan turns to you sharply, but keeps an even gaze that takes in your pinched features and nervous fiddling with the bit’s end.

‘Cyar’ika?’ she asks, putting more softness on the final syllable than you had managed.

‘Sure, yes. That,’ you strip more rubber from the coil and continue twisting.

You glance sidelong at her, see Bo’s eyes soften. Then you look out into the glare. She follows your gaze to see the lone figure straighten and stretch out. 

‘It’s a form of endearment,’ she murmurs. ‘Generally, it means “darling”, “or “sweetheart”.’

The part ready, you slip it into place, plugging the ignition gauge into the new switch you’ve created, trying to remember how to breathe. You can handle this.

But, Bo continues. ‘It’s meaning is contextual though. In certain contexts, it can also be held to mean, “most beloved”.’

Oh. Force the new question past dry lips. ‘What kind of contexts?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she shrugs, arches a brow. ‘Bringing a stranger with no clan to a secretive people’s home world and convincing everybody present it was a really good idea?’

You jam the speeder’s hatch closed a touch too hard. Bo looks back at you. You give yourself a shake and huff, ‘Okay, she’s ready.’

A couple of flicks to the dash and the machine hums to life.

‘You’re going to see a lot more room at the top end now. And the glide will be tighter. I suggest heading out somewhere flat and opening her up.’

Bo-Katan gives you a small smile, a hand on your shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ she says. She replaces her helmet and swings a leg over the saddle, wasting no time zipping out from the sheltered spot. The engine roars overhead a moment later and you hear an honest-to-gods, ‘Wooooo!’ fade out.

That makes you smile. It’s a relief.

Another speeder glides in and you prepare to begin again. The towering rider dismounts and takes up a stoic vigil behind you, leaving you to your thoughts. You glance up and see Din out in the sun, looking back at you.

After witnessing a compelling ritual of armoured Mandalorians filing through a mess tent, some taking to gather around dotted fires to remove their helmets and eat, and others stepping away, fanning out to private spots – including Din, hand first squeezing your shoulder gently – you excuse yourself, begging fatigue, and head the short distance back to the Crest. 

The dusk air finally brings a cooling breeze, and you settle on letting that carry your simmering nerves back down to the earth. Seating yourself in the opening of the ship, feet thumping out a nervous pattern on the ramp, you breathe the sharp air and try to calm. You’d been growing aware of the true depth of Din’s feelings for you – even before you’d finally reckoned with each other. The conversation with Bo-Katan confirmed it. And now you’re left to wonder why it has sparked such a sharp panic within you.

There was no question you’d fallen hard for Din Djarin. Who wouldn’t? You thought you’d experienced great, epic loves before – but they all paled compared to this.

A problem was that when those old romances had crashed and burned, you’d never been sure you could piece yourself back together. And now this. What would happen to you if you lost this? You angle to the side and lean hard against the wall of the Crest, willing its cool hard surface to draw you down into yourself. It seems to hum back.

‘Be honest,’ you say aloud. ‘Am I completely fucked?’

Silence. Your breath ghosts against the wall of the ship.

Another problem was the one that had settled hard over you since stepping foot on Mandalore. This was a devout people, with a troubled and difficult history. The customs and culture were rigid, out of a survivalist’s necessity. And, as far as you could tell, their beliefs revolved around mystic superstition and ancient scriptural doctrines. Even the more pragmatic among them, like Bo-Katan herself, had an air of fateful intent around everything they said and did.

It had all given you the distinct feeling that what you and Din had found together did not fit into their way.

Even if it did, what did it mean? 

What did the love of a Mandalorian mean, ultimately? Where were you heading? What was Din expecting? You know he takes it all incredibly seriously – it’s his identity. How do you fit into all this?

You don’t know how to ask these questions. So, with an avoidant will, you push them to the side. Ferry them away like so much else. For now, you think dimly.

Out of the darkened evening, you spot a pair of lights heading for you. Din and Grogu emerge into the glow of the Crest a moment later. Grogu hurries forward to hop into your lap and you nuzzle the top of his head, enjoying his content purr and feeling calmness wash over you finally. 

Din takes you in, huddled in the door of the ship with his son. ‘Shall we get some rest,’ he asks, approaching you with a hand outstretched. You take it and stand, letting him crowd you around and into the hold.

--

Later, when you’re asleep against his chest, cool breath tickling his neck, Din once again thinks back to his conversation with the Armourer. 

After depositing the beskar and engaging in a stilted exchange of formalities, you and Grogu had been dismissed. You’d shot him a puzzled look as you followed the kid out. A what-the-fuck-is-her-deal kind of look.

Once alone with the Armourer, the two of them had sat down and discussed the best use of the beskar.

‘We have many needs, now that Mandalore is revived,’ she’s saying. Din just nods and agrees with whatever she suggests, flattered to accept an upgraded flamethrower. He’s just waiting for the inevitable. The Armourer’s perception and intuition were always an intimidating thing.

And sure enough, once the ingots of precious metal have been allotted, she goes still and stares hard at him.

He waits. Feeling not entirely ready.

She looks to the door you’d exited through, then returns her gaze to him.

‘You have coupled,’ the Armourer says.

‘Yes.’

‘She is not Mandalorian.’

‘No…’

A long, pregnant wait. She leans in.

‘Have you ever removed your helmet?’

‘No.’

‘Has it ever been removed by others?’

‘Never.’

‘This is the Way.’

‘This is the Way.’

She stands and strides to her forge.

That wasn’t so bad, he thinks. But then he’s thrown.

‘Do you know why we follow the Way, Din Djarin?’ she asks. He’s not sure what answer she is seeking. ‘The main reason?’

Once again, he waits.

‘To survive,’ she says. ‘We have been a diaspora, carved apart and hunted. We’ve followed the Way so we may continue. Do you think that holds true now that we are a united people of Mandalore?’

She turns back to him, seems to be genuinely waiting for an answer. He says, in all honesty, ‘I don’t know.’ 

It hadn’t even occurred to him to question it.

She tilts an appraising helm at him, moves back to sit opposite him again. He’s never witnessed her so restless.

‘Neither do I,’ she says, low and intense. He’s floored. ‘But I contemplate this question, every day, seeking the answers for the good of our people. As I do so, you should contemplate the questions that plague you now. Where do you fit? And where might she?’

The Armourer lets that shockwave wash through him. Then, changes the subject.

‘Your apprentice, Din Grogu, is due for his first Sojourn of the Will with his fellow students. There is one coming in a single moon’s turn. It is an important undertaking for every apprentice.’

Din welcomes the change in the course of this discussion and thinks. He knew he would have to face Grogu taking part in one of these things eventually. Had been dreading it actually. But it had to happen sooner or later.

‘I suppose now is a good time,’ Din ponders. He doesn’t want to be apart from his kid. But the Armourer’s right, it is an important rite of passage.

And, it means alone time with you. Time to figure all this out.

Time to tell you how he truly feels, maybe.

--

Prev | Next

(I am ambivalent about the movie announcement - swinging hard in positive-negative directions. But I don't think I like the new artwork that came with it at all. Something about the light reflected on Din's helmet is giving me BSG Cylon vibes? And is that an exploding ship he's jet-packing away from? Because if so, how is the poor child breathing...? Anyway, those are my thoughts byyyye.)

[fruitcoops]

i just reread "big head" and laughed my ass off, will you do another ego award one pretty pleeeeeaseee? (only if you want of course :))

One of my favorites! Character credit goes to @lumosinlove <3

(Part 1: Big Head)

“The 2022-2023 hockey season has officially wrapped,” Talker announced as he walked backward down the hallway of Gryffindor Arena. “This team had a run for the history books and everyone is so proud—and so grateful—to have such outstanding fans there with us every step of the way. We truly could not have done it without you.

“As a ‘thank you’ for everything you’ve done for us this year, we’d like to continue a very special end-of-season tradition: the Ego Award. Some of you may recall our reigning champion, Heartthrob O’Hara himself, and his fabulously embarrassing stories from last year.” He paused just outside the locker room with a significant look toward the camera. “Those may be big shoes to fill, but rest assured we have found the one person who can literally and figuratively get the job done. Behold.”

He swept the door open with one hand and chaos spilled out in a rush.

“Read it! Read it! Read it!” half the room chanted.

“Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!” the other half cheered.

“I can’t,” came Leo’s distressed answer, red all the way from his ears to his neck as he gripped a wrinkled piece of notebook paper. “You guys, this is such a—”

“Gentlemen!” The room fell silent as Talker spread his arms with a wide smile. “Welcome to the 2023 Ego Award, hosted by yours truly and bestowed upon our sweet baby net angel, the Nutcracker.”

“It’s Knut,” Leo said miserably. “Like the lizard.”

“Hush, Crunchy Peanut Butter. Do you have your punishment prepared?”

Leo turned baleful eyes on the camera. He looked rather like a puppy that had been put outside in the rain, hunched in his stall and surrounded by his carrion-bird teammates. “Save me.”

“Saviors are for the humble. You, sir, were voted off that island. Read.”

“Oh, god,” Leo mumbled under his breath as he unfolded the paper. In the corner of the frame, Finn watched him with unhindered glee. “My name is Leo Knut, and these are my top five most humbling moments with the Gryffindor Lions. Because clearly I don’t suffer enough for this team.”

“Keep that up and you’re getting the Potty Mouth Award, too,” Talker warned.

“You can’t—” Leo rolled his eyes. “Fine. Number five: trying to drink out of the wrong side of my waterbottle.”

“How many times?” Finn prompted eagerly.

“Once.”

A chorus of protests rose up—Leo pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Nine times. Shut up. Number four: losing a kitten in my shirt when we had a shelter visit."

"Two kittens," Sirius corrected. "One went up your pant leg."

"Oh my god, can you not?"

“That one was delightful,” Kasey agreed, nodding along. “Just—honestly, one of my favorite memories.”

Leo smoothed the edge of the page, nose wrinkling like he had smelled something unpleasant. “Is it too late to eat the paper?”

Remus tsked. “We gave you a chance. Not our fault you chose the most painful path.”

A rogue socked foot came into frame and poked Leo on the shin. “Read, Butterball.”

“Number three,” Leo continued, tilting his face to the ceiling in a clear bid for strength. “Getting stuck jumping the boards, falling back onto the ice, slipping when I got up again, and only making it over successfully with the help of two different people dragging me over the edge.”

“Like hauling a bag of bricks,” Logan mused from his place on the floor.

Dumo nodded solemnly. “Or a dead bear.”

“Slip a disc about it, Grandpa,” Leo quipped before glancing to Talker. “If I read the next one without eating this paper, can I skip the last one?”

“No,” the rest of the team answered in perfect unison.

“We all go through trying times,” Finn said with a pat to Leo’s knee. “Look on the bright side: at least it isn’t me this year!”

Leo stared at him for a long, silent moment.

“You astound me,” he said at last.

“Thank you.”

“That’s not a compliment.”

“I’m taking it as one.”

“How did I end up with this award?” He looked around the team with a lost expression. “How is it not Ginger Spice every goddamn year?”

“Because we have to switch it up so we can trauma-bond over mutual humiliation,” Talker informed him. “Also, you’re a little fucker and you can’t hide it from the good people of Gryffindor forever.”

Leo shook his head, but turned back to his notes. “Number two: leaving the ice baths to get my Gatorade, then slipping and falling in my own puddle on the way back.” He closed his eyes. “And spilling the entire bottle of Gatorade on myself. And slipping in that as well.”

“It’s important to me that people know you just laid there for, like, five full seconds,” Kasey added.

“Thanks.”

“Any time, Honeynut Cheerios.”

“After I’m done, can someone bury me under the net? I want to haunt you all for making me do this.”

Several noises of assent followed and Leo nodded.

“Cool. Sweet. I love this for myself.” He cleared his throat and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Number one: I underestimated the weight of my new gear, sat on a stool, and fell backwards off it. I took six and a half people down with me like a bowling ball wrapped in Velcro and foam. Every second of it was caught on camera and replayed through commercial breaks, then late-night television. Harzy, will you do the honors?”

“Of course, Bodacious Nutacious.”

Leo held his arms up and Finn scooped him over his shoulder with a grin as the room erupted into whoops, hollers, and applause. The camera followed the stream of players out and down the hallway; Talker stepped into frame once more, craning his neck to watch Leo and Finn disappear around the corner.

“Thanks for joining us for another year, Lions,” he laughed. “We look forward to so many more. Stay humble!”

[gilly-moon]

For the ask prompt:

Introducing them to their special interests/hyperfixations

And/or

Pure genuine laughter, because these two would go really well hand in hand I think!

~harley

I only now realized that I don't think I've ever done little one-off drabbles like this before, so it was harder than expected to keep it short! Super fun exercise in little character moments tho ♡

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

Jack’s first mistake was mentioning he had only seen a handful of horror movies.

His second was letting Pitch sit him down for a marathon of his favorites.

They’d gone through the trouble of tracking down a local rec center, ensuring it was empty for the night before dragging out the old box TV on its cart and getting comfy on a couch that could’ve been older than the building itself. Pitch brought the movies, and Jack reluctantly brought himself.

He wasn’t a scaredy-cat, or so he’d insisted to Pitch. The few horror movies he’d seen might’ve caught him off guard with a jump scare or two, but he’d never left them scared.

Turns out he’d just been watching the wrong ones.

Really, he should’ve expected it. Why would he ever think that asking the King of Nightmares to show him some horror movies would be a breeze? A little gore, a little suspense, no big deal, right? Instead, he’d found himself halfway into a psychological hellscape of a movie and realized exactly what he’d gotten himself into.

When the credits rolled on the first film, Jack turned to Pitch with wide eyes and asked him flat-out if he’d been doused with Nightmare sand and if - pretty please - he could wake up now. Pitch just grinned evilly and stood up to put the next movie in. But then Jack made some throwaway comment about horror movies being gratuitous fear-fests, and something shifted in Pitch’s expression. Remote still in hand, he stood with his arms crossed and sternly said, “Now listen here, Frost,” before launching into a lecture about the complex and difficult art of instilling fear in an audience.

And the more Pitch talked, the more of Jack’s fear slipped away. So even after Pitch sank back onto the couch to start the movie and fear filled the air again, Jack scooted a little closer and found every opportunity to poke him with questions.

Without fail, Pitch always had an answer. He talked at length about when and where it was most effective to use violence or gore, how best to use a character’s fears against them, or the intent of a scene in creating psychological unease in both the protagonist and the audience. By the time the third film was playing, he began pointing things out unprompted, and had entirely forgotten that his initial intent was seemingly to watch Jack drown in his own fears.

Jack was utterly captivated. He’d never seen Pitch speak so passionately about anything, aside from the occasional rant about the Guardians and Manny. A scene that might’ve had Jack tucking into his sweatshirt and staying there til morning shifted from frightening to fascinating as Pitch broke down piece-by-piece how the film had foreshadowed everything without ever allowing the audience to suspect the horror to come.

Metallic eyes locked on the screen, Pitch didn’t seem to notice that Jack had been watching him instead of the movie by the time the last film was coming to an end. He was too busy rambling about the plot, rising from the couch to retrieve the disc.

“Humans are surprisingly adept at supplying inspiration for their own worst nightmares,” Pitch said, turning just so to make his irises gleam from the blue TV screen. “Though I prefer to think their inspirations are a product of my own meddling while they sleep. Don’t you?”

Jack blinked, considering the films they’d just watched and trying to imagine all their horrors coming directly from Pitch himself. It was a far easier task than he should’ve been comfortable with.

“I almost forgot for a sec there,” he said with a faint laugh, “you’re like…insane, insane. Like, cult leaders and torturers would be begging you for ideas if they could.”

Pitch raised an eyebrow, looking over Jack curiously from where he stood. “And yet you still choose to spend time with me.”

Jack shrugged, crossing his legs underneath him. “Look, I’m the fun Guardian, not the smart Guardian.”

And the laugh that escaped Pitch then made Jack light up like the moon. It was brief, but it was real. Jack could sense it, that pure sound that welled up in the tall shadow of a man and escaped him before it could be stopped. Jack reveled in it, and how rarely he heard that laugh unless it was darkened by cynicism or mischievous intent.

“Well, I appreciate you indulging me,” Pitch said after clearing his throat. He strode back to the couch, looming over Jack as the first beams of dawn began breaking through the curtain. “Though I must admit, I was hoping to taste more of your fears tonight. Shall I leave you with a Nightmare instead to remember me by?”

Jack shot to his knees, startling Pitch just enough for Jack to grip the front of his robe and successfully tug him down into a quick kiss.

“Not a chance in hell, Boogeyman,” he murmured against those scalding lips.

Before Pitch could recover, the winds where whisking Jack out the door, escaping from the shadows with a laugh.

[clarepreed]

Scorched

Story Summary and Content - 5,716 words. Will discovers Melanie has succumbed to heat stroke on her run. Hyperthermia, seizure, cardiac arrest. On-site resuscitation, Stryker LUCAS 3 device, ambiguous ending.

--

Will

“Are you sure?” he murmured, speaking close to her ear. Strands of her corn silk hair stirred with his breath. “The guys will be absolutely fine if you play disc golf with us. And maybe you shouldn’t get too hot. We started a lot later than we meant to.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. One more time to try to get to know them before I give up.” Melanie made a face, her freckled nose crinkling. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I don’t blame you,” Will said. For some reason, his friends Avery and Meegan didn’t seem to get along with his fiancée. Granted, he thought most of it was Meegan, with Avery not speaking up out of a misguided sense of loyalty.

We’re all too old to behave like that, he thought, angry and frustrated that he couldn’t fix the situation.

He didn’t understand how they couldn’t like Melanie. He was biased, of course, but she was wonderful. One of the kindest people he knew. That understandable statement about “giving up” was one of the strongest things she’d ever said against someone.

Will leaned in to give her a hug. Her skin was already damp and warm, her cheeks flushed. Petite and on beta blockers for migraines, the heat often got to her before he even noticed the temperature was unpleasant. “Drink plenty of water, find some shade, and I hope you have fun. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

“Love you,” she said, stretching up to kiss him.

Melanie 

She was lost.

After almost ninety minutes of thinly veiled disdain from Meegan and silent discomfort from Avery, Melanie really had given up.

She’d run out of water forty-five minutes prior and was obviously not close enough to the other women to ask for some of theirs. Nauseated and headachy, she didn’t think she could stand the two of them another minute.

“I’m going to head back to the parking lot,” she’d told them, leaning down to rub her cramping calf muscle. “I don’t feel very good.”

Avery stirred at that, asking: “Are you okay? You look like you’re getting a sunburn.”

Before Melanie could answer, Meegan made an annoyed sound and tossed her hair. “Let her go if she wants to go, Avery! Jesus!”

Melanie looked at Avery. “The two of you will be okay?”

“Obviously!” Meegan barked, making Avery blink at her rude tone.

Melanie shrugged, sighed, and left, fighting back self-pitying tears as she ran down the trail. Running was difficult and painful with leg and side cramps, but she knew she’d need to get back and drink some water before that would get any better.

At some point, however, she’d taken a wrong turn, or multiple wrong turns, and now she was lost, the sun beating down on her every time she emerged from the canopy and the humidity overwhelming her when she ran back into a wooded section. She wasn’t even on normal trail anymore; she’d ended up on a paved section that she kept expecting would terminate at the parking lot and yet somehow never did.

Melanie ran down the hill and stopped in the patch of shade at the bottom, dragging her phone out of the deep pocket in the side of her navy blue leggings.

Sweat made it hard for her to grip the phone. It poured out of her, dripping off her nose, trickling down her spine. She couldn’t get her thumbprint to read on the device, and then she realized she still didn’t have any service anyway, so unlocking the device didn’t matter. She shoved the phone in her pocket and shook her water bottle before remembering she was out of water and had been out for a while. The bottle slipped from her hands without her even noticing, dropping into the dead grass with only the quietest of sounds.

“I think there’s an intersection of trails up ahead,” she muttered, squinting through her smudged sunglasses. “And hopefully legible signs.”

The last signs she’d passed were too faded to read.

Heaving a sigh and feeling queasy, Melanie took off at a jog. The sun beat down on her shoulders and stung her scalp. She was sure she’d long since sweated off her sunscreen. The bottle was back in the car along with her day pack, since the plan had been to stay out fewer than two hours. Fair-haired and freckled, Melanie knew she should have known better.

She also should have known better than to be out there at all. The fact that she was the only one walking the cracked, paved trail told her everything she needed to know. Melanie increased her pace, hoping to get to the next intersection soon. 

If there had been anyone else out there, they would have noticed that she was all over the place, struggling to keep herself upright and moving forward.

Will

He was so shocked he repeated himself. “She just ran off?” He’d already checked his phone; no messages or calls from Melanie.

“Ave, you’ve been gone… hours!” Loren, Avery’s boyfriend, exclaimed.

“She doesn’t like us and she didn’t feel good so she said she was just going to come back here.” Avery shrugged, though she had the grace to look concerned. “I thought she knew how to get back! I did ask her if she was okay.”

Will ignored the comment about Melanie “not liking” his friends and reached up to grab his topknot. It was a nervous gesture. “She wasn’t feeling good? In what way?”

“It’s really fucking hot out here,” Meegan replied in an exasperated tone, fanning herself with her hand as she sipped water. “She was hot like the rest of us!”

“We should have come back with her,” Avery said, giving Meegan a What’s wrong with you? look. “She had leg cramps and said she was nauseated. Her skin was really red. She, uh, ran out of water really early, too.”

Will spat out a quiet curse and then said: “She’s on medication. She gets hot fast… what the hell, Avery!”

Avery paled, looking at her boyfriend.

“What do you want to do, Will?” Loren asked, shaking his head.

“Look for her! If the girls beat her back, something’s wrong or she got lost.” He gestured toward the parking lot. “I’m gonna load my pack up with water.”

“I’m sure she’ll be back any minute,” Meegan said, her tone saccharine and dismissive. “You shouldn’t have to give up your second round. I’m sure she’ll call.”

“None of us had service out there!” Avery protested.

“It’s too hot for a second round anyway,” their friend Bruce said.

Will slung his backpack of discs onto his back and jogged to his station wagon. Opening the back hatch, he dumped his discs in the car before filling his bag with Melanie’s sunscreen and water from the cooler. 

“Avery and I are coming with you,” he heard Loren say. “Just give us two minutes.

“Alright.” Will closed the back hatch and slung his bag over his shoulders. “And the others?”

“Bruce, Meegan and Doug are staying back in case she shows up here. Also, because Meegan is a bitch.”

“Melanie doesn’t have a problem with Avery and Meegan,” Will said, his tone harsh.

“I know. It’s just ‘cause Meegan wants you to bone her.” 

“That’s ridiculous.”

Loren shrugged and called out: “You ready, Avery?”

The three of them ran down out of the parking lot and onto the main trail. Will noticed the pavement shimmering ahead.

“Shit it’s so hot out here.” He cringed at the way the hot air burned in his chest.

He felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach.

 

Melanie

She wasn’t going to be able to keep up her current pace.

The sun continued to beat down on her, drilling into her skull and giving her a throbbing headache. And she was running out of steam; whatever energy she’d had earlier had drained away with the sweat.

She looked into the distance. The sky farther out was dark, looking very much like a thunderstorm was headed her way. She hoped it was moving quickly; in addition to the heat, the air was humid, and breathing felt a bit like sucking on the steam from a boiling pot of water.

She tried to remember the max length of the paved trail, but couldn’t. One arm eventually connected to the municipal Greenway. 

That thought made her stumble. She snatched her sunglasses off her face, tried to wipe them off on her shirt.

“I’m not on the Greenway, am I?” She muttered, looking around her for any markers that would identify where she was. There was a bench ahead on the right, but that didn’t help her locate herself; they were all over the place. “Dammit…”

She felt strange. Her heart was beating fast in her chest, and it was hard to catch her breath. She staggered to a stop.

Melanie’s eyelids fluttered, and the world around her canted dangerously to one side. Her right leg folded, and she fell over, landing hard in the broken asphalt running along the edge of the trail. Her legs burned with a series of scrapes and cuts, and she rolled onto her back, flinging an arm over her eyes to block the glare. 

Moving around like that made the nausea build and her mouth tingle. She laid there for a while, thinking the nausea would subside. Instead, it built, making her stomach pulsate.

Gagging, she pushed herself upright and tried to spit into the dirt. Her mouth was too dry, and she couldn’t pull together enough moisture to spit. 

Can’t stay here. She had a niggling feeling that something might be wrong with that thought, that embarking on what already felt like an endless search for the right trail might be a bad idea. She didn’t have the wherewithal to examine the thought further.

Melanie forced herself to her hands and knees, then wavered there for a long time before she gained her feet. She’d stopped sweating at some point, and her skin felt tight and hot. Standing took her several tries, but eventually she hauled herself upright.

Thirsty…

Hot.

She shuffled downhill, her thoughts a useless, whirring pinwheel. 

Will…

Melanie panted, feeling like each breath was incrementally harder, desperately trying to suck in another.

Her last truly coherent thought was that this had all happened faster than she would have guessed.

Momentum carried her down the slope until her legs gave out, and she muttered “Oops” as she landed hard on her knees. She tipped over, dumping herself on the hot asphalt. She hit on her right side, giving her temple a glancing blow, then sprawled on her back, eyes closing against the bright sun.

Will

“We’re going to have to split up when the trails do,” Will said, anxiety making his tone more commanding than usual. They’d been running for fifteen minutes so far with no sign of Melanie. “We don’t know which way she went.”

“How do you want to—”

Loren was interrupted by Avery, who came to an abrupt stop, nearly causing her boyfriend to run right into her. Before he could speak, she burst out: “Is that her?! Straight ahead and up the hill?”

Will squinted. The asphalt was still shimmering, and he didn’t see what she was talking about. He was about to call whatever she was seeing a mirage, when he blinked and the glimmering mirage coalesced into an identifiable shape. There was a small person laying in a crumpled heap on the hot pavement.

“Oh my God!” Will took off at a sprint, his feet slamming the pavement. “Melanie! Melanie!”

When he reached her, he threw himself down, his bare knees making contact with the hot asphalt. “Ah! Fuck! Mel?!”

She was sprawled on her back, eyes closed. Her face was so red he could hardly see her blonde eyebrows. He could hear and see her breathing fast and shallow. She’d been sweating heavily at some point, based on the stains in her shirt and the way the fine hair around her face stuck to her skin. When he touched her, however, her skin felt hot and dry.

Loren and Avery stopped close by, and he heard Avery say: “Oh my God!”

Will gathered Melanie’s limp body in his arms and staggered to his feet, carrying her a few meters away to a shadier spot in the grass. Loren helped him lower her to the ground, supporting her neck and saying: “Will, it looks like she hit her head.”

Loren was right; he could see an abrasion along her left temple.

“I’m running back for help,” Avery said. She held a sweating water bottle out to Loren. “That was frozen this morning, it’s still really cold. I’m going back to where I have signal and calling 9-1-1, she needs an ambulance!”

“Please,” Will said, shrugging out of his back pack. “Tell them she has heat stroke, she’s unconscious and breathing fast… She takes propranolol, it makes it hard for her to regulate her temperature!”

Loren cracked open the bottle of icy water as his girlfriend took off downhill.

“Melanie!” Will called, giving her arms and hands a quick squeeze. Loren poured water in her hair and over her neck. “Melanie, please, open your eyes! Dammit, we shouldn’t have even come out here today! Melanie!”

They soaked her clothing and tucked bottles still cold from Will’s cooler underneath her arms, hoping that would help.

“We can’t give her any unless she wakes up,” Will said. He was patting Melanie’s face, lightly slapping her. “Wake up, honey. Melanie!”

“You’re right.” Loren leaned back on his heels. “What else can we do?”

“We just need to keep her from getting worse while we wait on the ambulance.” Will watched her pant for a while, then slid his thumb up to her eyelid. He pried them open one at a time, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. Her light eyes stared up and through him before each lid slipped closed again. “Melanie!” 

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Jesus, I can’t tell if she’s cooled off at all. Do you remember what happens when someone has heat stroke?”

Loren crouched by Melanie’s head, looking almost as worried as Will felt. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. Just… if someone is red, dry, and unconscious, you call 9-1-1.”

Will grasped her shoulder and shook her. “Melanie!”

“Huh.” Melanie let out a grunt, and Will saw her eyelids flutter.

“Melanie, hey, open your eyes. It’s Will. I’ve got you and help is coming. Just open your eyes.” To his immense relief, she did. Her blue-grey eyes shifted restlessly, never quite focusing on him. She was still breathing fast and shallow, and he rested his hand on her chest, his touch feather light.

“Take a deep breath for me, Melanie. You’re breathing so fast, I bet it’s making you dizzy.”

“Wh… where…?” she whispered. He could feel her heart beating, so rapid it was hard for him to discern the individual beats.

“You’re still at the park,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. He pressed two of his fingers into her neck, feeling around until he found her pulse. “Just relax, Mel. Take a deep breath.”

“Unh…” Her eyelids fluttered, her face slackening.

“Keep your eyes open, Mel.”

Her eyes closed, and for a long moment all he could hear was the rapid pants of her labored breathing. As he watched her, her body stiffened, back bowing and a strange cry tearing from her lips. The whites of her eyes showed as her lids opened to slits. The panting sound stopped.

“Mel! Melanie!” He put his hand back on her chest. “Breathe! Can you breathe?”

She went briefly limp, then her body started jerking. He heard her breathe again, whistling through her clenched teeth.

“She’s having a seizure!” Loren exclaimed. “Like when my nephew had those fever seizures!”

Will wanted nothing more than to make it stop. He smoothed her blonde hair back from her forehead. She was making little grunting sounds, and a small amount of sticky white saliva frothed up between her lips. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay…”

The seizure didn’t last long. Her body relaxed, jaw unclenching. She was taking short, shallow breaths, though now they were much further apart. 

Will wiped the saliva off her face with the bottom of his shirt and then opened her mouth, trying to make sure she wasn’t going to choke on something inside. As he leaned close, she took a breath. There was a long pause, then she took another.

She let it out, and he waited. 

And waited.

“Melanie.” Will shook her shoulder hard.

“Did she just—”

“Melanie, take a breath!”

She remained unresponsive, her chest still. Will’s eyes darted across her face, looking for any signs of movement.

“No, no, no—” He leaned over and grasped her jaw, then pressed his mouth to hers and blew hard. He felt air escape her nostrils and belatedly pinched her nose before blowing into her mouth again. This time, her chest rose, one of her small breasts brushing against his arm.

He was at an odd angle, so he moved perpendicular to her body, tipped her head back, and forced another breath into her lungs. Her chest rose, but otherwise she laid motionless.

“Does she have a pulse?” Loren asked as Will was breathing for her again. Will pressed his fingers into her neck, felt her pulse flutter under his touch.

“Yes, but it’s so fast…” He kept breathing into her, watching her chest rise and fall. Her mouth was over-warm under his, and her skin beneath his hands felt feverish. “Take a breath, Mel. Come on, please.”

To his shock, she did, her chest rising out of sync with the breaths he’d been giving her. She exhaled, and another breath followed a few seconds later.

“That’s right, baby, just keep breathing in and out. Help will be here soon, and they’ll get you cooled off…” He clasped her hand in both of his, feeling her engagement ring against his palm. “In and out. In and out. You’re doing so good. In and out. I love you…”

Will scanned her with his eyes. Her lips looked dusky.

“Does she have any health problems?” Loren asked.

“Just migraines, but the medicine makes her kind of temperature sensitive. Fuck! I shouldn’t have brought her here today, and I should have called for help when she didn’t come back! Melanie!”

Her breaths seemed fewer and farther between, and he released her hand so he could tip her head back and rest his other hand on her chest. “You have to keep breathing, Mel. The ambulance will be here soon and they’ll make you feel better. Please, baby.”

He looked up at Loren. “How long do you think it will take them to get here?”

“It shouldn’t be much longer,” his friend reassured him. “There’s a hospital not too far from here!”

Melanie sighed, and he waited.

Several seconds passed and Will realized she’d stopped breathing again. He bent over her and pinched her nose, blowing a breath deep into her lungs. Then he pressed his fingers into her neck.

He adjusted his positioning once, twice. Waited.

“No…” The word was like an exhalation.

“What is it?” Loren asked, his voice sharp. “Will, what—”

“I think she just died.” His voice cracked, shock running through him like a jolt from a live wire.

Loren was silent for a few seconds, and then he burst into action, crawling around to her other side. “Will, if you mean she doesn’t have a pulse, then we have to do CPR!”

Will watched his friend bend over Melanie, hands clasping together before he pressed them to her sternum. His arms were straight and he rocked his shoulders over his hands, pressing down hard. Melanie let out a huff of air and Loren started counting, his compressions forceful enough to make her head rock and her feet sway.

“…four, five, six, seven…”

Will reached down and took Melanie’s hot, limp hand, squeezing it. Then he released her fingers and grabbed one of the water bottles tucked against her, already warm from her body and the air. He poured the water over her scalp, his hand making a gentle dam to keep the water off her face.

“…twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty!” Loren stopped pressing on her chest. “Will! Give her two breaths! Quick!”

Will dropped the empty bottle, noticing that Loren picked up the other. As he leaned over her and forced air into her lungs, Loren emptied the contents of the bottle over her chest.

“If we keep oxygen circulating, the medics might be able to revive her,” Loren said. “They have medication, and a defibrillator, and—”

He stopped speaking so he could start compressions again. “One, two, three…”

Will picked up his empty pack and used it to fan her, hoping the breeze on her wet skin would cool her off. He was trying to decide how long it would have taken Avery to get back to the parking lot, given she was headed downhill and not checking out any side paths. 

“…twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty! Breathe, Will!”

Will complied, watching her chest rise with each breath and blinking back a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea. Loren started compressions again, her shoulders twitching each time he forced her sternum down. Halfway through the set, Will heard a crunch, followed by a gagging sound from Loren.

“What was that?!” he gasped.

Loren was breathing hard and just shook his head. “…twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty! I think it’s normal, either way we can’t stop, Will!”

Will gave her another two deep breaths. It was disconcerting how warm and soft her lips were, even though, as far as he could tell, she was dead. He let his hand rest on her forehead, his thumb smoothing the fine hairs of her eyebrow. He thought he’d understood that anyone could die at any time, but looking down at her, thinking about all of the plans they’d made, he realized he hadn’t truly believed it. She was supposed to be invincible.

His head ached with regret and grief.

“…thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…”

“Please,” he whispered. “Come back. Melanie, please come back…”

“…twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two…”

He ran a finger down the bridge of her nose. She had a small nose with a straight bridge and the faintest of wrinkles near the tip from repeatedly scrunching up her face. Usually to laugh at something he’d said.

“Thirty!”

He pressed his lips to hers again and gave her his breath.

“One more round and then we need to switch, my arms are getting tired!”

Another breath. “Okay. You’ll let me know if I’m fucking it up?”

“Yeah—two, three, four, five…”

Close as he was, he could hear spurts of air escape her lips each time Loren shoved his hands down into her breastbone. The pressure made her throat click.

“…fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…”

“Please, please, please don’t die, don’t die… Please don’t die, Mel.” He made himself shut up and took a deep breath, tears pricking his eyes and a wave of dizziness rolling over him. She couldn’t afford for him to lose his shit.

“Thirty!”

Will leaned over to give her two more breaths, and then he shifted down her body, clasping his hands together and pressing the heel between her breasts. Loren reached out and pulled him forward so that his shoulders were over his hands, and then Will shoved them down into her sternum. Her chest gave to the pressure, and he felt a sick chill roll through him. He popped back up and then pushed her chest down again, noticing as he did so that her stomach bulged slightly with each thrust of his hands.

“…three, four, five, six, seven…”

“That looks good, Will. I think we’ve been doing it right, helping her right…”

“…fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…” What am I going to tell her parents? I’m supposed to protect her.

What am I going to tell MY parents?

“…twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty!” Will leaned back, panting more from emotion than exertion, watching as Loren tipped Melanie’s head and gave her two rescue breaths. Her chest rose and fell with each, and then it was Will’s turn.

As he started the new round of compressions, a sound pricked his ears. A siren.

“…two, three… Loren, is—”

“That’s the fucking ambulance!” Loren shouted. “Keep going, don’t stop, they’ll tell us when to stop—”

“…twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, if you can hear me, baby, help is coming… God…” He could feel himself starting to shake.

Loren cut in: “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two…”

Will took a deep breath and continued counting for himself as his hands forced her ribcage to flex. “Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty!” 

Loren’s breaths inflated Melanie’s chest, and then Will went back to compressions. The sound of the ambulance siren energized him, and he made himself compress her sternum hard and fast. 

“One, two, three, four, five—”

“I see it!”

“…seven, eight, nine, ten…”

The ambulance came to a halt on the path beside them. Will glanced up long enough to see Avery jump out of the passenger seat, her eyes huge as she realized that Will and Loren were performing CPR.

“Oh God, she stopped breathing?!”

“…twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…” 

Someone touched his shoulder. “Sir, we’ve got her now. You did a good job.”

He glanced over. A dark-haired, female paramedic crouched beside him, already leaning around to press her fingers into Melanie’s neck. Will lifted his hands and then scrambled backward. When he tried to stand, he stumbled. A tall paramedic grabbed him under the arm, steadying him until he could stand on his own.

“Are you alright?” the man asked.

“Yes, I…” He felt like he was floating. His head pounded and his stomach throbbed, something that he hadn’t allowed himself to notice before. Everything started to spin and shimmer around him.

The medic squinted at him. “Let’s set you down.”

Will let the medic help him to the ground and then waved him off. “Help her!”

“Got another one, need to get them both in the air con…”

Loren crouched next to him, looking worried. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I went over for a second to check on Avery.” His girlfriend hovered at the tree line, her loud sobs cutting through the sound of everything else.

The female paramedic was giving Melanie compressions now, her back to the tree line. This meant he could see the effect the forceful thrusts had on Melanie’s body. She seemed to cave in around the woman’s hands, over and over again in a rapid assault.

The tall paramedic kneeled by Melanie’s head, opening packets and laying things out beside him. Will watched him grasp Melanie’s head and carefully thrust her jaw forward. He slipped something metallic into her mouth that turned on a light when he cranked it open.

The third paramedic, a stocky younger man, was starting an IV.

“Hold compressions,” the tall medic said. He threaded a tube down the length of the metal device, then retracted the device and connected a bag to the end of the tube.

The medic who’d been doing compressions pressed the bell of her stethoscope to Melanie’s chest while he squeezed the bag, then nodded and immediately started compressions again. The tall paramedic secured the tube with tape, then reached down to pick up a cold pack, activating it with a firm squeeze of his hands and shaking it. 

He tucked the pack under Melanie’s arm, then reached for another.

The paramedic with the IV began to apply electrodes to Melanie’s chest, working around the medic performing compressions. He connected the leads to a monitor and a high-pitched whine filled the air. Will heard someone say: “Asystole. Pushing epinephrine.”

More cold packs were applied to her body. The paramedic performing chest compressions switched off with the tall paramedic and started squeezing the bag.

Will clutched at his head, his breath coming fast. The paramedics were working quickly, but nothing they did seemed to change anything. The monitor whined. Melanie’s lips stayed ashen. Her body continued to limply accept the abuse, her shoulders twitching, small breasts trembling. The tube between her teeth swayed.

“Pulse check!” The medics all reached in, one pressing fingers to her neck, the other her wrist, the third pressing his gloved fingers next to her groin. After ten seconds, he heard: “No pulse, continue compressions, unpack the Lucas!”

The stocky paramedic got up and jogged to the ambulance.

“What?” Will asked quietly, glancing over at Loren. “What did they say?”

“They said they were going to ‘unpack the Lucas,’ but I don’t know what that means.”

Avery had stopped sobbing, Will realized. She was sitting much like he was, with her hands gripping her head, her eyes staring hard at Melanie’s lifeless body.

The stocky man ran back with a plastic case and set it beside Melanie. He quickly opened up the case and pulled out a yellow plastic board, which he laid on the grass above her head. Will saw him pull other equipment out of the case, but he didn’t have any context for what any of it was and he didn’t want to delay the medics by asking questions. 

The tall medic stopped compressions and the female medic slid an arm under Melanie’s back. She lifted, propping Melanie’s unconscious body upright. She was only sitting up for a short time, just long enough for the stocky medic to slide the yellow board under her back, but Will saw her face before her head sagged backward. Some of the red coloring had faded, but instead of red she was going purple-gray.

He would never be able to express what it was like to watch the woman he’d planned to marry flop limply as the paramedics laid her dusky, half naked body back down.

As soon as they got her flat, the tall medic started compressing her chest again and the female paramedic reattached the bag to the tube, squeezing it regularly. The stocky medic picked up something from the case, what looked to Will like a motor with two plastic arms that curved out from the bottom. The stocky medic clipped the arms into slots on the yellow board while the tall medic lifted his hands off of Melanie’s chest, reaching for what looked like a suction cup at the base of a piston. He directed the cup down to Melanie’s naked chest and then pressed a button on the side of the motor. The cup thumped down hard into the center of her chest, and a new sound joined the deadly whine: nn-hit, nn-hit, nn-hit. Will watched them fasten a harness over Melanie’s shoulders.

“Push another epi and then let’s get her on the bus,” the female medic said. While the stocky medic was giving Melanie medication, the tall medic took her right arm and strapped her wrist to the motor. Then the stocky medic took her wrist with the IV and lifted that arm, attaching the strap loosely and sliding his finger under the strap to make sure it wasn’t trapping the IV tubing. 

All the while, the machine pistoned itself with precision into Melanie’s chest as the remaining paramedic squeezed the bag. Will realized he could see Melanie’s engagement ring on her hand, glinting in the hot sun.

He scrambled to his feet, watching as the medics gathered up their supplies. The female medic disconnected the bag and reached down to support Melanie’s head; the others lifted from the sides. They moved her onto the waiting gurney.

Watching them move her, looking so small and vulnerable underneath the machine, Will felt something let go inside of him. He took a breath, trying to steady himself. His eyes struggled to focus. He raked his gaze across the tree line, over Avery, then back, his eyes finally settling on Mel on the gurney.

Loren reached toward him, his blurry face contorting. “Hey, you—”

Will collapsed, the world around him fading to black.

He woke an indeterminate amount of time later in the air conditioned back of the ambulance, to the sound of a piston and a high-pitched whine. Bright, artificial lights stabbed him in the eyes, and he tried to sit up, only to find that he was strapped down.

“Will? Just lay there and rest for me, alright?” an unfamiliar voice said. “We had to strap you to the backboard so you didn’t fall off. I put an IV in your arm and you’re receiving fluids. You got a little too hot and passed out on us.”

Melanie…

“Mel—” he twisted, looking toward the rhythmic noise to his right. 

“The Lucas device is pumping her heart for us.” The tall paramedic from before leaned over him. “We’re cooling her down and keeping her blood circulating so the doctors at the hospital can help her.”

Warm and dead, Will thought, shuddering. Did I hear that on television?

The paramedic seemed to be trying to block Will from looking, but he caught sight of her anyway. He could just see her profile, with the tube protruding from between her teeth. Further down, the device pumping her heart. It arched over top of her torso, rocking slightly. The suction cup punched into her sternum over and over again. He could see her breasts wobble and her stomach roll with each forceful, mechanical compression. Her pale legs rocked with the rhythm of the compression device; they’d removed the rest of her clothing and packed more cold packs around her.

“Do people survive… if you have to use that?” he asked, shivering, his voice broken.

The medic leaned over him again and removed the cold packs that Will hadn’t even noticed were tucked under his own arms.

 “Sometimes,” the man said, resting his gloved hand on Will’s arm. 

The paramedics continued to move about the small space, checking the monitor and administering more medication, even speaking directly to him, but all Will could hear was the whine of Melanie’s still heart and the relentless nn-hit, nn-hit, nn-hit of the machine pumping her chest.

[danganronpa-theories-v3]

Is Shuichi the mastermind of V3?

I've had a few thoughts about four chapters and Shuichi's involvement in them.

FIRST CHAPTER So, the first case had an unreliable narrator as Kaede. While playing the game for the first time, Shuichi felt like a really good and reliable guy to me but after analyzing the game again and looking at other people's theories, I think Shuichi might be strongly connected to the mastermind to the point of being one. A detail that strucks out about Shuichi is his parents being an actor and a screenwriter. This is important considering the game's ending. I believe it means there's a possibility of him having good acting skills and feeling comfortable being a character in a "fictional" world. In the first chapter, Shuichi had quite a few opportunities to notice what Kaede has been up to.

He leaves her around shotput balls, soon-to-become murder weapons.

He had an opportunity to see that the books were put in a very strange fashion.

Clearly, he withheld information about the cameras from everyone including Kaede for no obvious reason.

It is very possible he messed the cameras up in some way (https://www.tumblr.com/fit-artichoke8738/649993708004130816/problems-with-the-library-cameras-drv3-ch-1).

SECOND CHAPTER The most suspicious thing about the second chapter was the way Ryoma died. I suppose there's no arguments against Kirumi being the killer but did she kill Ryoma the way Shuichi said she did? https://youtu.be/HXuq50Bt6PE?t=341 - Monosuke here even touches on the topic of the cause of death although in the usual wacky way. Monosuke has a "slip-up" in which he says it was practically impossible to put the body in the piranha tank - you had to lean through the window and that would count as breaking the rules. All that when other characters emphasize that the trick would work only if someone carefully put the body in the piranha tank. Ryoma had a crack on his skull. Could Kirumi have killed him with one blow and leave his body without any other manipulations, and then someone decided to make things more interesting? Perhaps, to give Shuichi another chance to shine as a detective?

THIRD CHAPTER Korekiyo's behavior during the third trial was a bit suspicious. Korekiyo acted as if he didn't remember killing Angie or perhaps didn't do it at all. He was ready to prove his innocence till his dead sister persona told him to "admit defeat", otherwise he would probably try to defend himself further - and that's already after the Closing Argument! But he wasn't really nervous nor did he put much of a fight when the students suspected him in killing Tenko. You can say he simply realized he isn't going to be executed for this but obviously killing Tenko would make him the prime suspect in Angie's murder, especially if he knew he used the same floorboard to kill both of the girls. I think another thing a lot of people already noticed is that Korekiyo only asks about what would happen if there are two blackened after the second murder already happened. and he does it in front of everyone. And he doesn't even get the answer at that moment because Monokubs (seemingly) didn't expect this to happen at all - this to me outrules the possibility Kiyo asked about this before. Korekiyo also is the first one to say "We should investigate Tenko's death as well, just in case" after it's revealed only the Angie's killer is the blackened, basically asking to be outed as her murderer and possibly appreciated as one, with his genius seesaw trick and all. Before the Closing Argument, Shuichi says, "Kiyo..I want you to confess! No…I will force you to confess!". Sounds strange if we consider the possibility Kiyo might not have anything else to confess for.

FOURTH CHAPTER The 4th chapter… something tells me Shuichi had a hand in Miu's murder. One of the most suspicious things is how Kaito was the last to appear when everyone's logged out. He said, "What's this all about!? What was that body discovery announce-" when there was no body discovery announcement. It is EXTREMELY suspicious that he knew someone was dead beforehand. He even goes on to repeat that obvious lie, saying "when that body discovery announcement woke me up, I rushed over here". For some reason, Shuichi doesn't question this one. After Shuichi said he was going to reveal the culprit, Kokichi says, "Even if the culprit is Kaito?". Is Kaito the culprit?

@fit-artichoke8738 theorized about the possibility of Body Swapping (https://www.tumblr.com/fit-artichoke8738/648228491354144768/body-swapping-in-the-virtual-world-drv3-ch4). As far as I recall, Miu didn't specify at the beginning that you can log out as anyone, so that makes not mentioning that you can log in as anyone less improbable. https://youtu.be/LVrHupB88y4?t=2880 - In this sequence (Gonta bringing the bridge), we see events not only through Shuichi's perspective, something that the game didn't do very often. What was the reason for that? During the trial, Kokichi was quite angry at Gonta, pressuring him to make solid arguments to defend himself. Some people say Kokichi just wanted to kill everyone after he had the card key and saw what the "real world" was like. But he also said (in yellow, mind you) that he wants to live with his super angry sprite. If this line was genuine, then why would he pressure Gonta to defend himself so much? Perhaps because Kokichi thought that Gonta might not actually be the culprit?

This first line came after Miu explained everything. Isn't Gonta smart enough to at least listen to what Miu just told everyone? Maybe I'm wrong but this bit feels like someone putting on an act. The second line - and then again, Gonta questioned something that was explained a few seconds ago.

So these chapters have these questionable moments that make me think Shuichi has something to do with the game's mastermind if he isn't one to begin with.

[dustedmagazine]

Workers Comp — S-T (Ever/Never)

Workers Comp raises a raucous, twanging ruckus on this self-titled debut, spitting home-spun poetry about dead-end jobs off the back end of a bucking blues-vamp. Disappointments are rife, the struggle is real, but it’s always music o’clock somewhere, and that’s something to celebrate.

A stripped-down trio, Workers Comp marshals the talents of Deadbeat Beat’s Joshua Gillis on guitar, Luke Reddick of Divorce Horse on bass and Ryan McKeever of Staffers on drums. Fair warning, however, the new band sounds not much at all like any of its three predecessors. Instead, it evokes the humorous wallop of the Strapping Field Hands, and the drunken rave-ups of Hootenany-era Replacements. This country viewed through a cracked mirror, amped up and agitated, but also extremely articulate.

The disc starts with its honkey-tonk-i-est track, the Cash-worshiping “When I’m Here,” which starts in profanity and an aborted count, and goes from there. Gills drawls in an uncertain croak, but the lines include some doozies (My favorite: “Labor day in Baltimore/that’s time and a half/planting flowers on a plot between a joke and a laugh/if irony were ecstasy we’d rave until we die, eating bubblegum for breakfast or McDonald’s apple pie.” ) Indeed, the combination of absolute commitment and sly subversion might remind you of Ryan Davis.

It’s a good first track, but also a bit of a head fake. The rest of the songs run more to rock than roadhouse, though of a rootsy, blues-fired, early 1960s variety. And, these dear reader, are the good ones. “Pick and Choose,” rolls like a semi-truck on a steep down-grade, driver frantically looking for an off-ramp. “High on the Job,” maybe the disc’s best cut, flares out of a box drum cadence, its blues riff jutting off towards the horizon, as the singer spouts poetry. “Tripping hard in the parking lot of a quick stop on the go/feeling like an open mic at a lip-sync funeral,” drones Gillis, and it make sense in a lurid, trance-y way.

Gillis sings most of the cuts, but Luke Reddick takes over vocals on “Peel Away” and “It’s Fine” have a noticeably different tone to them, less sardonic, more anthemic and with the singing coming from a different place in the mix. In addition, Anna McClelland stops by to sing “Never Have I Ever,” slipping a bit of sweetness into Workers Comp’s bleak, hyperverbal dystopias, and it makes you think about what a different band they’d be with her as the singer. Still furious, still clanging hard, still letting loose an ecstatic “Whooo!” at unpredictable intervals, but lots more pop.

The music is consistently excellent, rough-edged and full of heart, but brainy enough to catch you up short. I played “Gilt Rigs” for a member of the family and asked him if he heard any Dire Straits in the guitars. “It’s like Dire Straits played by the Fall,” he said, and if you want to know what that sounds like, get on Workers Comp.

Jennifer Kelly

[livingdeadhorse]

YOU GET IT!!! YOU GET HOW ABSOLUTELY CRINGE GIRLFAIL FAKE CELESTE IS!! 

The moment she started yapping about her experience as a gambler in her FTE, to simply turn out to be nothing but gambling manga references, made me so embarrassed for her. She’s absolutely so cringe, and to add on that, in “Hair & Gyoza” (Danganronpa 3 Drama CDs ALL 4 DISCS: Kizakura’s Double, Departure, & 2 Bonus Discs! ~LOST MEDIA~ found on YouTube), 

She mentions wanting to ride a robot. 

(My Japanese isn’t that good, but I’ll try to translate to the best of my ability.) 

“I have almost done everything that can be done in this world. Someday, I would like to be summoned from the Tokyo Tower to another world and try gambling while riding a giant robot.” 

Like, what!? HELLO???

It’s also explained that she only joined Hope’s Peak because Kizakura Koichi mentioned a lucky student would be joining her class, and she flat out said it was a sign she was chosen by the ultimate lucky student in her class (Naegi). And for my personal view, when she antagonized Naegi for Sayaka’s murder, I feel like that’s her testing his luck, perhaps? But it also might explain why she’s in the background of every pre-game photo just standing, she spends her life in the underground gambling so of course she’s going to be socially awkward

SHE’S SO CRINGE I CAN’T //affectionate!!

And you’re so correct that everything in chapter 3 was just her being her! People mention why didn’t she use her great poker face in that trial, as if we didn’t see her snap over the littlest thing, such as Hifumi over her milk tea not being exactly how she wanted, or when in “Hair & Gyoza,” throwing a TANTRUM when Kizakura accidentally slipped on a gyoza wrapping and ripped off her drills, kicking, screaming, only to calm down when she requested Kizakura to give her a massage. She makes me physically recoil. So, of course, she’s going to be yelling when she is on trial for a DOUBLE MURDER!! 

As for Celeste’s ass-kissing scene for Byakuya, I interpret it as Celeste having a crush on him, maybe? In the DR collab with Sanrio, Kuromi has a crush on Badtz-maru, something Celeste and Byakuya are seen with in the collab and Celeste’s JP voice actor interview mentions,

“It’s something like, Celestia, Togami, Fukawa, a love triangle?”

that I found on 101soundboards (DANGANRONPA REARRANGE SOUNDTRACK & ORIGINAL DRAMA CD ダンガンロンパ リアレンジサウンドトラック ＆ オリジナルドラマCD - Video Game Music).

I think that’s a neat detail, but SHE’S SUCH A LOSER!! I LOVE HER AND HATE HER!!!

HIIIII YO I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THE MANGA REFERENCES. So cornyyy what is wrong with her. More evidence for my Hifumi and Celeste were friends propaganda. Two losers who live vicariously through media.

I had NO idea about the drama CDs oh my God, I can't thank you enough. She wants to be ISEKAI'D LMAO.

I remember Koichi mentioning he was going to scout Celestia, but I don't remember the tidbit about the lucky student. Is that from the anime or other supplementary media? Either way, Celestia living out her "chosen one" fantasy through such stupid means. I can't take her seriously I can't. Her antagonizing Makoto to test his luck is a really cool interpretation! I chalked it up to her usual meddling behavior but it's been established that she had been curious about his luck and how it compares to hers....thinking emoji.

Also yeah, I'm sure the actual reason she's just standing there in the photos is because they didn't want to draw a complicated character design over and over again but. One of the only pictures where they don't slap a sprite png on the background is the one with Hifumi where she's visibly embarrassed. Honestly, I think most HPA students are socially awkward. It'd be easier to count the ones who ARE good at socializing. Also in the manga it's slightly implied that she grew up isolated or even bullied. Also her insistence that Yasuhiro is a loser's name...#wdym

She makes me physically recoil. So, of course, she’s going to be yelling when she is on trial for a DOUBLE MURDER!!

OH MY GOD YOU GET IT. This is the riskiest gamble she's ever done and from the moment Hifumi doesn't die immediately, she knows she's fucked.

I had no idea that there were hints towards her crushing on Byakuya! I personally interpreted the ass-kissing as her wanting to BE Togami. He's rich, powerful, famous, and nothing about his life is "boring". From the second he shows up, he draws everyone's attention and even gains admirers. He is looked after by servants and travels the world. He is EVERYTHING Celestia wants, so he's definitely at the very top of her ranking system.

ALSO THANK YOU SM FOR THE DRAMA CD SOURCES!!!! I love and hate her so much. Just such a weird woman (VERY affectionate).

[omegaremix]

Rioux, 1999.

Post-Brentwood was a turning point in my life. The minute I heard Sick Of It All played at Drew’s (♀) graduation party was the very minute my music tastes would change forever. As an Eighties’ kid, I grew up on Duran Duran, Run DMC, Alisha, Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam, Poison, and other chart-toppers. Anything could be ‘pop’ if it becomes popular enough. That’s how it got its name. Pop set me up to be diverse person I am now with stations like New York City’s Z100 where there’s a new market trend manufactured and released every five years to be fed on by the majority.

“Maladjusted” blasted through her backyard boombox for all of fifty of her closest friends and classmates to hear; the same friends and classmates who laughed at me or ignored me for being a poser. They weren’t laughing or shit-talking behind my back now that they saw me at Drew’s get-together. “How did he get in?” they wondered. That didn’t matter. They didn’t say shit to me. I never saw most of them again after that, nor did I keep tabs, either. I asked Drew who they were and she told me. Boy, did it go down angry and aggressive. I didn’t hear anything like it. So I went to the South Shore Mall’s record store and copped Scratched The Surface on cassette to quickly become my go-to record during senior-year summer. That was my introduction to hardcore and the start of something more personal and relatable than what I listened to before.

Shortly thereafter, Wipeout XL came out for Playstation and my trajectory in taste had changed for a second time. It was one of the first games released that had a major soundtrack thanks to disc capacity. A line-up of Underworld, Fluke, Photek, Future Sound Of London, The Prodigy, and Chemical Brothers gave me a three-month head start before - you guessed it - pop and alternative rock stations jumped on that wagon as the next great profit maker. Even stations changed their formats for a night or two to keep up with the hottest trend of the year, such as when Atari Teenage Riot slipped through the airwaves and literally changed my attitude of music. Another hand would be dealt, and one which was the most fascinating: industrial. Mortal Kombat motion picture soundtracks were the gateway to it after establishing Nine Inch Nails, Filter, and Ministry as my Big Three. I snatched up on three Meat Beat Manifesto tapes, four Skinny Puppy discs, The Wax Trax box set and label mail order, and some Cleopatra label compilations. (Yeah, I know. No need to tell me.) It all goes to show how a lot can happen in one year before heading to community college.

Whether or not I had employment, I still managed to purchase tons of music. It became a beast I constantly had to feed. I had record store visits, radio, magazines, and now the internet (‘world wide web’ they once called it) to keep me updated. Every week I found something new to check out. Oh, look. Alec Empire is on the cover of another magazine! The December 1997 issue of Wire, #166. Have to buy it as his stock was riding high with (once again) Atari Teenage Riot and his DHR label. On the way to Empire’s glow-up were two other artists I came across in their pages: Autechre (who they proclaimed as noise gods) and Merzbow.

When you keep hearing the same names over and over, eventually they’ll get you to check them out. That’s what happened with those two and with expectations - what you shouldn’t have when diving into an artist or album. Autechre’s Tri Repetae++ caught me off guard. They said it was an electronic record and I foolishly thought it was techno instead. I hear the album opener “Dael” expecting a build-up leading to an explosion of sound. Wrong. The minimal structure and complex melodic rhythms of a cold, mechanical, emotionless being started as-is and moved its way to the end. This wasn’t anything to a traditional dance record I was accustomed to. No. These were experiments that Sean Booth and Rob Brown created which were so innovative that they’ve gotten endless praise for them since. A few listens later and I had Tri Repetae++ on constant repeat.

Merzbow? That’s another story. Like Tri Repetae++, I bought Pulse Demon at the Port Jefferson Music Den, once a bastion of everything obscure which hasn’t existed in 20 years. That was my introduction to noise. Fucking Lady Godiva riding on a Sybian did I not know what was in store for me that day. It was the shiniest and sharpest-sounding thing I now had in my collection. I load the disc in, pressed play and - what?! It was one giant maelstrom of harsh white noise, produced and output louder than usual, complete with Bridget Riley-esque op-art and its silvery prismatic sheen. Pulse Demon was devoid of any rhythm, melody, beats, measurements, sound structure, tonality, vocals, or even a sense of time whatsoever. It was a giant endurance test that felt like there was no end in sight. Again, expectations are a foolish thing to ask for.

I didn’t know what to think. I immediately dismissed it and never played it again. I couldn’t say I was actively disappointed or put-off but rather dissuaded. It was nothing what I experienced. Back then, I was a feature writer for the student paperduring my disastrous time at community college’s middle campus. The campus majority consisted mostly of shallow club-goers and superficial people who stood in their safe comfort zone of basic dance music, fashion, and friends who judged and dismissed anyone who were weird or different from them. I always went against the grain and reached for something different and challenging; things that loudmouth belligerent chauvinist Opie & Anthony fans were too stupid to learn from. I had no other albums to review on the backburner, so Pulse Demon was it for the following issue. I was honest about my take on it: it was an unlistenable mess of a joke. I handed in my 1,000 words to our features editor, a long-haired burnout held over from the hippie generation, and it finally saw print in one of our Spring issues.

The day after my review came out, I was called in to the office by my editor-in-chief Phil. Somehow we got word from a professor who read my article and took issue with it. “Really?” I said. But it didn’t stop there. Phil also told me that Professor Rioux wanted me to visit his office to discuss the article with him.

I failed an article for a professor I didn’t even know I had?

Phil had him for English. But not to fear. The overall consensus was that he was friendly, calm, and reasonable with his students. And here was an odd moment he shared with me: Pfr. Rioux played some of his favorite weird music during an end-of-the-semester holiday party for his students to hear. Seriously, not to fear. He sounded like someone I would connect with. Phil assured me that all would be fine and ended up arranging a time and day to meet up with him. That would be next week Wednesday after the publisher’s meeting.

I arrive at Prf. Rioux’ office where he welcomed me in and introduced himself, dressed up in the usual teacher’s attire of blazer and dress pants. So far, so good. I sat down in his office and looked around to notice two rows of tapes sitting on a desk next to his bookshelf. There was a Temple Ov Psychick Youth cross hung up on the wall and also noticed the black shirt he was hearing under his blazer which featured Aube’s Quadrotation on it.

We sat down for a good 45 minutes discussing my article. Not once was Prf. Rioux mean, belittling, or off-handed - unlike others who called themselves ‘professors’. Rather, he gave me constructive criticism. Judging by my article, he told me that I missed the mark on Merzbow and didn’t come into the album open-minded. Clearly I didn’t understand noise music enough for me to write what I did and there was way more to it than I thought. The most important takeaway was that I shouldn’t have compared noise to anything else in a traditional sense. Sure, it was an entirely different animal that can still have value, substance, a structure, a methodology, and a meaning to it all like everything else.

So he kindly offered to make me three cassettes of whatever rang familiar and whom I was curious about to widen my horizons and get a better understanding. All early industrial and / or noise. Wonderful. I obliged. One week later, I returned to his office where he had them all ready for me. I thanked him for the tapes and said goodbye to him.

What was on those tapes? First, Merzbow. Not surprisingly. Three unknown tracks from the Lord of Harsh Noise. On the other side was Masonna, another Japanese noise artist whose Inner Mind Mystique finished up tape #1. Tape #2 was more varied. I heard very little of Coil other than “The Snow” off the Wax Trax compilation. Right after that was Jim G. Thirwell / Foetus whom followed up with three tracks. (Coincidentally, both aforementioned artists remixed Nine Inch Nails). Rioux threw on three tracks from Einsturzende Neubauten’s Kollaps with a small sampling of Clock DVA tracks from Black Souls In White Suits. Our final tape had a good ten tracks of Death In June whom I never heard of, and several versions of Throbbing Gristle’s “Discipline” rounded out all that Prf. Rioux gave me. Never had I received anything like it from any professor.

I was forever grateful. I played those tapes to good use, enough to go back into my usual grind of music and artist reviews with a better understanding and reasoning. I didn’t review any of the artists after that Merzbow debacle, but my stance of him changed for the better and went back to Pulse Demon several more times. I happened to purchase several more of his albums where I could, dove back into Inner Mind Mystique and picked up on Nic Endo’s White Heat when that was released. I pushed more heavily into Einsturzende Neubauten’s chaotic phase, Clock DVA’s experimental era, and the world of Throbbing Gristle. I would be only toes deep with the other artists; checking in from time to time.

What were the chances that anyone (who appreciated the genesis of industrial and a knowledgeable noise fan) would notice a specific artist printed in a campus newspaper no less? It was bad enough that I dealt with one disappointment after another interacting with people and trying to find my place on campus; which I eventually did with neutral results. Where reaching out to people with similar tastes in music were few and far between (only one or two people on campus wore Dead Voices On Air, Ant-Zen, and Ras DVA shirts), someone reached out to me instead. Of all the professors I ever had, no one and I mean no one had that kind of knowledge that Prf. Rioux did, with mixtapes to boot, too.

As his tapes played in my Walkman while trekking around campus, everything else around me was happening as usual. Cover bands and boring flavorless local bar acts peppered the Long Island music scene. WBLI continued to pump out more puerile paint-by-number club mixes as usual with Fatboy Slim and Robbie Williams up next. Ska fans hopped out of the woodwork to defend their precious circus music and became overnight know-it-all elitists ready to play the scene-politics card. And free pink PVC cowboy hats came included with Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Spice Girls, and Limp Bizkit worship. Forget it. The late Nineties was clearly a bad era in music and pop culture - and it still had time to get even worse. The only places of solace I had were the few record stores I frequented. Commack’s Cheapo’s, West Babylon’s Looney Tunes, Central Islip’s Mother’s Music, Port Jefferson’s Music Den, and Centereach’s None Of The Above. At least they catered everything to my choosing.

But I never forgot where I came from or lost track of where I headed. By the time I attended Stony Brook, I fell victim to the Mothers Of Noise ‘scandal’ and discovered Prurient from it. I’d be one of the few on campus familiar with Whitehouse, Boyd Rice / NON, and even Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music on top of everything else.Each and every one of these artists were mentioned in my new wave of reviews and I even featured on my radio show. I also never forgot those tapes. I still have them, and they became one of the few shining reminders of an era that was mostly ill to me.

Cassette #1, side A:

Merzbow: “???”, “???”, “???”

Cassette #1, side B:

Masonna: Inner Mind Mystique

Cassette #2, side A:

Coil: ”Panic”, “Tenderness Of Wolves”, “Clay”, The Anal Staircase”

Foetus: “What Have You Been Doing?”, “Today I Started Slogging Again”, “Gums Bleed”

Cassette #2, side B:

Einsturzende Neubauten: “Tanz Debil”, “Steh Auf Berlin”, “Kollaps”

Clock DVA: “Consent”, “Anti-Chance”, “Uncertain”

Cassette #3, side A:

Death In June: “Hello Angel”, “Heaven Street”, “She Said Destroy”, “Fall Apart”, “Leper Lord”, “C’est Un Reve”, “Touch Defiles”, “The Torture Garden”, “Come Before Christ…”

Cassette #3, side B:

Throbbing Gristle: three live “Discipline” performances.

[fatfables]

Shawn makes some new friends at Yale

This is a sample section from the third part of my gainer novel, Camp Shawn.

The first three parts are available to read at fatfables.com

Shawn and Harry sat down next to Tom who introduced Shawn to a few of the others. There was a tall Dutch boy with ginger hair and a long low bell shaped belly that hung off his six foot seven frame, he was called Bart, so everyone referred to him as Simpson. There was also a guy from Toronto called ‘Big John’, a nickname that he had kept from school. You can guess why. And the only guy there who was fatter and heavier than Shawn, Terry Thompson. TT was a massive superchub, 536 lbs and eager to grow. Shawn eyed him enviously.

The barbecues had been cooking constantly for the last four hours and were still going strong. Shawn started with a few plates of cheeseburgers but soon found himself starting to become bored by the meat. He sighed heavily, when he realised why, and Harry handed him three more beers. Fortunately for Shawn the posh Yale boys had provided salads and sides. 

Shawn found the potato salad. It was made with whole baked potatoes smothered in mayonnaise, creme fraiche, and other buttery sauces that he couldn’t quite recognise. He ate four huge bowls of it. It was one of the most filling side dishes he had ever had and the calories soon started to fill out his own sides. He drank 3000 calories in beer alone and his massive belly filled with gas and started to balloon accordingly. College was starting to turn him into a big drinker and his size meant that he could drink a lot. He burped loudly after throwing the contents of one of the red party cups down his throat in one. He belly laughed and asked if they were hiding the desserts from him. Harry called another boy over and told him that it was time to empty the fridges.

The jokes continued as the beer poured and barbecue sizzled. The YGS boys started to reminisce about their success earlier that evening and took much joy in telling and retelling the story of how Dr Steve Stringer had fallen in the custard and slipped a disc. Shawn licking the custard off him was one of the funniest things any of them had ever seen. The memory of his Dad being taken away in an ambulance and the thought that he was right now laying paralysed in a hospital bed, raking up a massive bill, while he was here feasting and partying with his new fat friends filled Shawn with joy. It also enabled a new hunger to overtake him just as the deserts arrived.

Shawn, Harry, Tom, TT, Bart, and Big John went to town on the deserts. Thanks to the new Dutch Simpson they had massive amounts of Stroopwafles and Poffertjes. The deliciously gooey waffles were stuffed with a thick caramel syrup that ran down the double chins of all six boys as they raced to ram as many of them in their mouths in one go as they could. They devoured at least twenty each and devised a game of trying to say ‘poffertjes’ with the correct pronunciation while chewing on chipmunk-esque mouthfuls of cakes and cream.

“Puffedjerkges,” said Tom.

“Priflgedjes,” said Harry.

“Preodflegas,” said TT.

“Plufdgasgas,” Shawn spat loads of pastry out from between his greedy fat lips when he laughed as he tried to speak.

“Proffertjes,” said Simpson, with expert native pronunciation.

The beer and more than generous portions continued to flow. Shawn was starting to feel lightheaded just as his belly became achingly overfull. All the beer and sugar was reacting in his huge tightly packed stomach. He could hear and feel it all sloshing and gurgling about. Once or twice he did a small sick-up as the slimy digested fatty treats struggled to find anywhere else to go due to just how gloriously overfull he truly was. He felt like such a wonderful pig.

At this moment he felt someone grab his heavy arms and tie them behind his back. It was Harry. The same was done to Tom Stanton 315 lbs.

“This game is called Hog-tied.” Harry said. “The aim is to see which one of you can eat the most chocolate cheesecake in under three minutes.”

A pile of family sized cheesecakes were placed on the table in front of Shawn and Tom. Shawn’s eyes sparkled like the brightest star in the sky.

“I’m gonna kick your skinny little ass Tom-boy!”

“Good fucking luck, Big head. I’m hardly a newb at this!”

TT started the clock.

Both pigs let their heavy heads drop forward into the pies. Shawn snuffled and grunted as he took huge bites from the cake. Tom was also pigging away at a rapid rate. He used his long tongue to sweep the rich topping into his mouth before gnawing at the cookie base like a starving rat. Shawn was the first to lift his head as he finished licking his tongue around the edges of the metallic tray. His huge moon-like face was covered in cream, chocolate sauce, and syrup. It ran off his forehead into his eyes. It was up his nose and dripping into his mouth. He was clearly salivating.

The second cheesecake was placed in front of him. He dived in without a second thought. Both boys were full to the point of bursting. As Tom lifted his head his belly pushed out and the shirt he was wearing ripped wide open. Three buttons flew off across the table and 315 lbs of pure belly fat plopped out into the cooling night air. The gathering crowd cheered loudly.

Shawn lifted his head for a second time after barely thirty seconds. He tilted his head as far back as it would go causing the folds on the back of his neck to scrunch together. He stared up at the stars and groaned loudly.

“Uuufffff!”

“Had enough?” Harry asked.

“No fucking chance. Cake me!”

The third cheesecake was slid in front of him and he dived in face first. As he bit, licked, chewed, gulped, and swallowed, he could feel his belly straining and stretching out in front of him. His gut was so big and swollen that it took real physical effort to lean far enough forward to reach the tantalisingly tasty torta. He continued to huff and puff as he gobbled down every last inch of the third round. He lifted his head just as Tom was finishing his second cake. Of course Shawn was going to win.

There was just over one minute left as the pigs started to gorge on their third and fourth pies. Shawn’s belly was now in real pain. It was once more far too full to hold any more food but he kept eating anyway. He was such a lard balloon. It really was a glorious sight for all the other boys to see. He ate with such passion and desire and his belly was just the biggest roundest ball of fat that any of them had ever known. Shawn heard a creaking noise. At first he thought it was the bench below him but he quickly realised and ate with even greater gusto. He felt his belly grow, licked up the last of the crumbs, lifted his head and let the seams of his new YGS t-shirt, that he had only just been gifted, rip open down his left hand side. Another huge cheer rang out.

“That was the largest size we had.” Someone said.

The first to show itself was his marvellously meaty love handle. It plopped out with a thud and hung in the open air, five inches over the side of his trousers. The fat was thick and rich and lightly tanned. Next out was the huge fat roll that sat on top of it. Four inches tall and just as wide. The tight skin struggling to hold the fat in was as smooth as silk. Then came his left breast, the size of a basketball and just as round. It shone in the moonlight, a huge erect nipple on top. The t-shirt then flung open and fell down his right hand side. His bulbous balloon belly burst out, forward and free. It was magnificent. Over 76 inches in diameter standing. It must have measured well over 100 inches sitting. Glistening red stretch marks ran all around it, melting into his tan. The blubbery layer of fatty adipose covering his digestive organs must have been at least two feet deep. His fat fat face was still smothered in the creamy cake. Shawn really was the world’s most glorious looking glutton.

He squealed like a prize hog. Leant his head backwards and screamed at the top of his voice;

“CAKE ME!”

The fifth cheesecake was hastily chucked in front of him. He screamed in pain as he leant forward. The weight of his tits and fat rolls crushed down on top of his screaming stomach. He dug his tongue deep into the cake and ate and ate and ate.

Tom lifted his head from his third round just as the three minutes were up. Shawn groaned in frustration. He knew they wouldn’t let him finish the final cake. 

“Tom Stanton 315 lbs, three chocolate cheesecakes!”

 “Shawn Stringer, King of Fat Camp, four and a half chocolate cheesecakes!”

There was a large round of applause as all the YGS boys cheered and laughed.

“I once did five, ya know,” TT said to Shawn.

“Fuck you!” Said Shawn.

“Not quite,” retorted TT.

Harry put a hand on Shawn’s aching shoulder. Every cell in his body ached. He stared down at the lunar landscape that was his new friend’s belly and stroked himself.

“Now it’s time for your reward.” He smiled widely as he and a group of the boys including Tom, TT, and Simpson helped him to his feet and led him groaning back to the frat house.