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Masks & Merlot | Masks

↳ModernLegacyHeir!Kim Seokjin x Servant!Reader ⤜ Long-time pining/drunk love confessions ⤜ Rating: MA ⤜ WC: 6,715 ⚠️ Crass language, hurt feelings, talk of death of a parent, talk of parent with terminal cancer, servitude mentality, heavily skewed power dynamics/objectification of women, parental abuse/physical abuse, heavy drinking, bad feelings, oral f. receiving, fingering, drunken advances, emotional gut-punching

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‘Put on a brave face’ is something you’ve been told for as long as you can remember. The thing is, though, you don’t like having to put on a mask for the benefit of someone else. What other people think of you is the least of your worries. Still, it’s expected of you.

You might think you’re a faceless shadow, but you’re also keenly aware you’re made to dress the way you are for a reason. To be looked—leered—at. The short pencil skirt and tight white button-down paired with red kitten heels are impractical for a maid. Yet, here you are, stretching up onto the toes of your not-for-a-maid heels, trying to dust the top shelf of a bookcase and hoping your skirt doesn’t rise too much to show off the bottoms of your asscheeks.

“I do not care what the Robinsons are doing. We have to do more. Whatever the cost, whatever strings you have to pull, you do it! I will not let them ruin this merger for us, and that is final. Do you understand me?”

The phone slamming home into its cradle startles you, causing you to bump your knees into one of the lower shelves. “Ah,” you mutter under your breath, rubbing at a particularly painful spot. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t bruise.

“I didn’t mean to startle you like that.” You can’t help jumping again. The voice is so close you catch a whiff of the whiskey he nursed before making that phone call. A thick, blunt finger slides along your neck, sweeping away the ends of the ruby-colored ribbon you’re using to tie your hair back. “I like the color. It suits you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kim,” you mumble, fighting the urge to hunch your shoulders around your ears just to get his wandering digit away. He fingers a bit of your hair, twirling it around before giving it a jarring tug.

“Such a polite girl.” His words have your stomach churning as you slip on your mask of subservience. “A sweet—”

“Father.” The word echoes through the room, laced with acid.

Mr. Kim chuckles, giving your hair one final tug before the unwelcome warmth of his body leaves your back. “Seokjin, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“You’re the one that called for me.” As Seokjin moves into the room, you catch his eye. For a moment, you see pity staring back at you…and something else, but it’s gone before you can decipher it.

“Ah, right, so I did. I want to discuss something with you.” Mr. Kim gestures to the plush, black leather chairs in front of his desk. “Sit,” he says, the word more a command than an offering of courtesy. He folds his own wiry frame into the rolling chair behind the desk and leans back, looking relaxed, but you know he’s no less ready to strike like a snake if provoked.

“What do you want?” The impatience in Seokjin’s voice is surprising. He isn’t usually so severe when addressing his father. You silently urge him to stand down, not to earn himself a malicious bite.

Mr. Kim laces his fingers together over his stomach, watching his son with unreadable eyes. You dart furtive glances over your shoulder, hoping one of them will dismiss you from the room so you don’t have to witness what is sure to come, as you absently brush a cloth over the same shelf you’ve been cleaning for the last few minutes.

“Girl,” Mr. Kim snaps his fingers.

“Yes, Mr. Kim?” You spin around, hands automatically going behind your back, and your eyes cast down to the floor. The mask of obedience, one you’ve perfected over the years.

“Get out.”

Quickly gathering your basket of cleaning supplies, heartbeat in your throat, you force yourself not to look back as you exit the room as fast as possible. As the door to the office swings shut, you hear the distinctive crack of an open palm against flesh.

The sound makes you weak in the knees, your mask slipping slightly. But you hurry along, willing yourself to continue down the hall and not rush back into the room in a defensive panic. Seokjin getting smacked around by his father is the least disturbing thing that goes on behind closed doors here at the Kim estate. And you’ve learned the mask of a martyr is one you can never wear.

🎭🎭🎭

Seokjin

The pain radiating along his jaw is nothing compared to the feeling now screaming through his chest.

“I am to what?” he asks, daring to incur his father's wrath again, simply so he can be sure he heard him correctly.

Mr. Kim leans back in his chair, smugly rubbing his reddened palm. “You will be marrying the Volkov girl. The engagement will be announced at our annual fundraising ball next month.”

“Yana? But she’s only seventeen.”

“Eighteen as of last night.”

Seokjin frowns. “I don’t want to marry her. I don’t even know her.”

His father laughs, throwing his head back and echoing his amusement to the ceiling. “Oh, my dear boy, you say that as if it matters. I only met your mother once before we wed. You will have plenty of time to get to know her after you bed her and solidify our connections with the Volkovs.”

“A business deal. That’s what this is about?” Seokjin always knew this was most likely to be his future. Though, the closer he got to thirty, the more likely it seemed his father wouldn’t push an arranged marriage on him. If he were in private, he might laugh at his own naivety. Being thirty and expected to marry someone twelve years younger gives him an icky feeling. Though, he knows if he expresses that, his father will just laugh again and tell him to man up.

Mr. Kim swivels in his chair, reaching for the bottle of rye at the other end of his desk. “You will come to learn that everything in life is about making a deal and what you can do to get ahead. As my only remaining son, you are expected to take over for me one day. This isn’t a life for having a soft belly, son. You’d do well to remember that.” He pours a generous amount of the caramel-colored liquor into a crystal glass. “Now, get out before I find someone else to name as my successor.”

It’s on the tip of Seokjin’s tongue to tell his father he doesn’t care to be his successor and wishes he could run away from this life as Seokjoong did. He’s never envied his brother, not until now. They don’t talk, or rather they are not allowed to talk. He’s unsure where his brother is or if he’s even still alive.

The day Seokjoong turned eighteen, he packed his bags, and left in a flurry of harsh words and angry tears. He was effectively cut out of Seokjin’s life. At fifteen, Seokjin didn’t have much choice in the matter. At first, he hated Seokjoong for leaving, but now…now, Seokjin just wishes he would have taken him with him.

His movements are stiff as he rises from the chair. “Good day, Father,” he mutters, offering the slightest bow before turning on his heel and swiftly exiting the office. As soon as he’s in the hall, he drops his face in his hands and muffles a growl of frustration.

“Are you okay?” your sweet voice pulls him out of his pending spiral.

Slowly dropping his hands, he uses the movement to cover his perusal of you, giving you a quick once over, looking for anything his father might have left behind. “I don’t know why you still work here.”

“Oh.” Your lips pull down in a frown, and he knows his harsh words have stung.

Waving a hand in the air, he says, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean I wish you’d get away from here…away from him. You deserve better than this life.”

Your lips press into a firm line, your eyes narrowing at him. “I won’t have this conversation with you again.”

He’s all too aware of why you’ve remained here as a maid—your parents; sickly mother and deceased father. Your mother was dragged into the Kim household as a maid to pay off a debt owed to Seokjin’s father after your father was murdered during a deal gone wrong. They were partners once, his father and yours. But something happened, and that all changed in a matter of days. Your father died, leaving your mother pregnant and with nowhere else to go. In an act of desperation, she signed a contract with the Kims to pay back her late husband's debt but also for protection and a place for her unborn child–you. It’s all you’ve known, and as long as your mother still resides here, even if from a sick bed, you refuse to leave for fear of retaliation from Seokjin’s dad.

You almost made it out right before she got sick. Seokjin had squirreled away enough of his monthly stipend to see you off to an excellent college and a quaint apartment, with enough money left to keep you afloat until you could manage it yourself. He’s always had a soft spot for you. You were practically his only friend growing up. That was until he turned fifteen, and Seokjoong left. His father thought he needed to start acting more like a man and less like a teenage boy.

The account Seokjin set up for you was a gift for your eighteenth birthday. That was over a decade ago now. The entirety of the account shriveled up to help cover your mother's medical costs.

“You’re so stubborn.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I could fire you, you know?” The words are out of his mouth before he can think better of it. His conversation with his father has his temper blaring, and he’s taking it out on you.

You tuck your lips between your teeth and nod. “My apologies, Mr. Kim. If you’ll excuse me, your mother will need me in the drawing room by now.” You move to step by him, pausing to glare up at him. “You should ice that,” you utter through your clenched teeth, eyes dropping to the side of his jaw.

“Wait,” he says, grabbing your elbow to halt your departure. “I’m sorry. I’m upset, and I’m taking it out on you.” You just stare at him, waiting for him to release your arm. “Can we talk later?” He doesn’t have to tell you where to meet him or when. If you decide to forgive him for his harsh words, you’ll find him…like you always do.

The subtlest jerk of your chin is all he gets from you before you pull your elbow from his grip and disappear down the stairs. Just as you hit the bottom of the steps, the door to his father’s office opens. He steps out, crossing the landing space and resting his palms on the banister. Seokjin watches his father watch you. The way he knows you can feel his father’s eyes burning into your backside makes him want to chew rocks. Instead, he turns and continues down the hall toward the library, where he’ll wait for the rest of the day to see if you show up.

🎭🎭🎭

“A little to the left. Yes, right there. That’s it. Perfect!”

Your arms ache from extending them over your head for so long trying to help Royce, the groundskeeper for the Kim estate, hang up the newly potted plants that Mrs. Kim selected for the front porch—the exterior decor of the Kim estate changes with the seasons if not with the holidays.

“How many more are there?” you mumble in question to Royce.

He glances back at Mrs. Kim, perched on a plush patio chair, fanning herself with a large pink hand fan. She sips delicately at a chilled glass of lemonade before gesturing to the next column on the porch. “The yellow ones here, I think, Royce.”

“A dozen more,” he whispers in response to you. “Yes, ma’am, I think that will look lovely,” he raises his voice, giving Mrs. Kim a bright smile. You like Royce well enough. He’s always been kind to you and your mother. However, Royce has the help of his grandson, Levi, whom you despise. It should be Levi helping Royce right now, sweating on the front porch, instead of you. But, when you asked after him, Royce just grumbled something under his breath and shrugged his shoulders. You’re just the maid, but you know better than complaining or pointing out that maintenance work isn’t part of your job.

By the time you’re done helping Royce, your arms feel like jello, and all you want is a shower. “Thank you for your help today, kid.” You nod to Royce and watch as he strides toward the golf cart he uses to get around the estate grounds.

You contemplate calling after him and asking for a ride to the workhouse on the backside of the property, but remembering there’s something you need to do before you can go home for the day has you turning to head back inside. Mrs. Kim and her assistant Yuri wave away your question of whether or not they need anything before you excuse yourself.

The library is upstairs, at the end of the east wing. It’s a room hardly anyone ventures into, with the exception of you and Seokjin. It was his sanctuary growing up, where he escaped to when things got ugly between his parents. He used to leave you presents in the fiction section, knowing that was your favorite but also that you must clean in here even if it’s not used, so you’d always find the things he’s left for you. It eventually became a place you both used to escape when you needed a moment away from the outside world—where you could laugh together, like two friends not from wildly different worlds.

That’s where you find him, tucked into the far back corner of the library where the small collection of fiction books resides. It’s a secluded spot, one you have to intentionally seek out in order to see. It’s not scholarly for a library to hold fanciful tales of intrigue, mystery, or romance. At least, according to Mr. Kim, it’s not. But, ever the one to indulge his wife, he conceded the small section per her request; you’re sure if he had known she intended it for his sons, he would have squashed that request in a fit of masculine rage. After all, tales of princes and heroes offer nothing of how the real world expects—no, needs—a man to behave.

“You didn’t ice it,” you comment, leaning against the curved wall along the back of the section. If you lean a little to the right, you can see the door to the library still shut as you left it. No one has ever caught you or Seokjin in here, but that doesn’t mean you’re not always paranoid. It’s bound to happen one day. The last thing you need is to be turned out for suspicion of being inappropriate with the son of your employer. Your reputation would be ruined, while Seokjin would probably earn a pat on the back from his dad and a glower from his mother.

Seokjin jerks upright from his position on the floor, the second Twilight book thumping closed at his feet. “Fucking hell. You scared the shit out of me.”

“I always skip that one.” You nod at the book on the floor, ignoring his outburst of surprise. “Jacob is way too much of an entitled alphahole.”

“Alphahole?” he questions. He leans down and snatches up the book, shoving it back into its place in the bookcase.

“Alpha, asshole. Alphahole. It’s a thing.” You shrug. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

A myriad of emotions flicker over Seokjin’s face. You watch him open his mouth, intent on saying something, but his brow slowly pinches, and his lips slide shut. Whatever comes out of his mouth, you know it won’t be what he originally wanted to say. “How’s your mom doing?”

You frown, knowing this is the question he uses when he’s deflecting. “You’d know if you ever came by anymore.”

Now it’s his turn to frown. “You know it’s not that easy. If Father knew I was coming by your place, he’d make my life a living hell.”

He has a point. The last time his father caught wind of him frequenting the small workhouse on the backside of the property, Seokjin was sent away to an all-boys boarding school in Europe for a year as punishment. From what little Seokjin told you about the school, it was more like a prison where he was forced to scrub the floors with a toothbrush and launder clothes. It was something about how if he wanted to cavort with the help, he could live like them for a while.

“Seems like he’s already doing that,” you murmur, hesitantly reaching out and brushing along the darkening skin of his jaw. Seokjin winces, tilting his face away from your inspection.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

You chew the inside of your cheek, trying to decide whether or not to play nice right now. “She’s surviving,” you finally say. “No different. The doctor says the treatment is working, but I’ve not seen any improvement. He says I’m being impatient.”

“When is her next appointment?”

“In two months. It’ll be another evaluation to see if the cancer is spreading.” Even the word is bitter on your tongue. You hate talking about it.

As if sensing your souring mood, Seokjin gestures to the small pile of pillows in the corner. “Want to read to me?”

And just like that, you feel lighter. You let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”

You settle down on the pillows, back against the wall, and ankles crossed out before you. Just like old times, Seokjin lays down on his side, his head resting on your lap and a hand on your knee. He used to have nightmares when he was a child; the only thing that would soothe him was you reading to him. You would sneak out of the workhouse, and he’d let you in the backdoor. Together, you’d creep up the stairs and into the library where you’d read to him, just like this, until the sun shone through the windows.

It’s a form of comfort for both of you. Just a bubble of serenity, filled with imagination and powerful characters that always defeat the darkness they face. Though, as you grab one of the thick novels off the shelf nearest to you and flip open the front cover, you can’t help but look down at him, letting the worst mask of them all fall in place—the mask of the best friend, the companion in all ways but the one you truly want. He can’t be yours. He will never be yours. So, taking a fortifying breath, you put on a brave face and begin to read.

🎭🎭🎭

It’s been weeks, and you never did find out what Seokjin wanted to talk to you about that day. It’s not like it really matters, though. He’s been different ever since, stiff and distanced. You tried approaching him a few times but only received a glare or a grumble about how you should be doing your job instead of wasting time with idle chit-chat. That’s probably what hurts the most, his digs at you as if he hasn’t been the one to instigate said chit-chat in the past.

He’s turned into someone you barely recognize. Not only are his words not typical, but the permanent scowl tugging at his lips and the dark circles around his eyes are out of character, too. At first, you thought it was a mask he was putting on, a show for his father. But as the weeks dragged on and he continued to treat you like a stranger, it seemed less like a farce and more like a new reality you needed to try to accept.

It’s not like you’re not used to adapting to sudden changes. The death of your father and the sickness choking your mother were sudden tidal waves you had to navigate to keep your head above water. Though, the difference was you had Seokjin acting as a life preserver during those instances. Now, you’re just floundering on your own, waiting to be sucked down into the salty oblivion.

“Are you riding over with me or going on your own?” Royce’s voice jerks you out of your moment of internal fugue.

“I’ll drive myself. Thanks, Royce. See you there.” The last thing you want is to be reliant on someone else as a way home later this evening after the charity gala is over. Usually, you don’t attend these things. But, it was requested by Mrs. Kim that you are there tonight to oversee the kitchen staff.

You take the golf cart Royce typically drives around the estate to the workhouse. It’s a nice place, all things considered—two bedrooms, two baths, with a large kitchen and living room. The master bedroom—that your mother insisted you move into after your father passed—has a balcony overlooking the garden out back.

Skipper, one of the estate’s cats kept for keeping the mice out of the stables, sits on the porch as you hurry up the stairs. You give him a soft pat before heading inside.

“Is that you, hun?” your mother’s crackly voice calls from her bedroom located off the living room. Another perk, she said, of you moving into the master bedroom was her taking the smaller downstairs room so it would be easier for her to get around when she’s feeling particularly under the weather—which is most of the time now.

You toe off your heels by the door. “Yeah, I just came back to change before going to the gala.”

The sound of her breathing machine whirring grows louder as you cut across the living room to peek into her room. She’s sitting in a rocking chair, angled so she can see out the floor-to-ceiling window that looks out into the garden. “You should wear my pearls tonight. They will look so pretty on you.” She gestures with a hand that trembles so much it makes your stomach hurt to look at. You hate seeing her like this, slowly being eaten alive by a dark disease.

“The ones daddy got you?” you try to hide the emotion in your voice, but you can tell it doesn’t work by the sad smile she gives you.

“They’re in the jewelry box. Top drawer in the chifforobe. Grab them and try them on.” The silvery pearls are nestled on a bed of velvet—a single strand, just long enough to sit above your collarbone and a pair of studded earrings. “Come closer. Come, come, let me see.”

You kneel before her, your hands gently on her quilt-covered knees. A silk scarf is wrapped around her head, the long ends dangling over her shoulder. A light hand lands on your shoulder, her cold fingers sliding over the side of your neck and along the strand of pearls. “I can’t possibly wear these tonight, momma. They’re far too precious for the charity gala.”

“Nonsense. Nothing is too precious for my girl. They’re right where they need to be. You could wear them while waiting tables at a dinky diner, and I would still think they were right where they belong. You keep them. Wear them tonight, catch the eye of some nice gentleman, and get the hell out of this place.” Her words, teasing at first, turn serious in the end. Her eyes bore into yours. “I mean it. You need to get out while you still can. Don’t worry about me, you have a whole life ahead of you, and I’m just holding you back.”

“Don’t talk like that,” you admonish softly. “I’ll wear them tonight, but I’ll be coming back here just the same, and I’m not leaving. I won’t leave you.” You push up from the floor and finger the pearls around your neck. “I won’t,” you repeat before brushing by her and heading up to your room to get ready.

🎭🎭🎭

Seokjin

“I need another drink.”

That’s met with a derisive snort. “Haven’t you had enough already? The party hasn’t even begun, and your words are slurring,” Namjoon comments, his eyes flicking between Seokjin and the two empty bottles of wine discarded on the table between them.

Swirling the remnants of the wine in his glass, Seokjin leans forward and rests an elbow on a knee. “No amount of wine will be enough with what I face tonight.”

“Oh, fuck you. At least Yana is pretty.” Namjoon rubs his thumb along the diamond-encrusted band sitting snugly on his left hand. “Janika is a nightmare and looks like she took a hoof to the face as a child.”

Seokjin glares at Namjoon. “Yana is a child.”

“She’s eighteen.” He shrugs. “That’s old enough.” He watches as Seokjin tips back the remaining wine in his glass, swallowing it in one gulp. “Keep your head, Seokjin. You know your father will be displeased if you’re five sheets to the wind before he even makes the announcement.”

Straightening in his seat, Seokjin grumbles and sets the glass on the table. He glances at the remaining unopened bottles of wine. “I hate that you’re right. I guess these can wait until after he ruins my life.”

“What’s the big deal, man? It’s just a marriage. It’s not like you can’t still stick your dick elsewhere.” Namjoon takes a small sip from his own glass of wine, the only one he’s had so far. “You’re acting like your dad is cutting off your manhood or something.”

Seokjin sighs. “I just don’t want to do it. Shouldn’t that be good enough? I don’t care about being the heir or continuing the family legacy. I just want to—you know what, never mind. You’re right. It doesn’t matter.” He pushes up from his chair, shaking his head as he leaves Namjoon behind in the parlor. He’s tried being friends with Namjoon and the other guys from prominent families he’s supposed to be rubbing elbows with, but they’re far more into the lifestyle than he is. So far, all he’s managed is maintaining cordial niceties when required.

There’s only one person he’s ever considered a true friend…and he’s been avoiding you for weeks—some friend he is. He’s tried to tell himself it’s for the better, that he must distance himself from you for obvious reasons. But it’s been torture. He allowed himself to indulge one last time when he asked you to read to him, like old times. He knows it can’t continue, not after tonight. So it’s better this way. It’ll hurt less in the end.

He heads down the hall, toward where the converted kitchen is. The building is old, a historical site that all the affluent families use when they want to put on a good face for the general public. It’s owned in part by his and the Jung’s families. They use it more often, holding speaking events nearly every month. Hoseok, the heir to the Jung fortune, is much like Namjoon in that Seokjin tolerates him when he has to but, beyond that, would rather not. They’re spoiled, entitled, and a bit on the twisted side.

The kitchens are bustling with activity, hundreds of workers in white and black livery working like a well-oiled machine. There is one bright pop of color among the monochrome. His eyes hone in on it instantly. You’re flitting about, the rich carmine color of your dress standing out like a beacon calling to him. He slips through the crowd, avoiding hefted trays of hors d’oeuvres and frosted glasses of champagne.

“Marta, be sure the sommeliers have a few bottles of the ‘00 Château Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux ready for the head table.”

“I love when you speak French, even if it’s just to name a wine.” The words are out of his mouth before he can swallow them back down.

You whip around, clutching a clipboard to your chest. “Seokjin! What are you doing in the kitchen? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the gala?” He feels the way your eyes rake over him, taking in his fitted white Armani suit and the red rose pinned to the front lapel. “You’re already ready. But missing your masquerade mask.” You clear your throat when he just stares at you, a smile tugging up the corner of his mouth. He taps the front of his jacket over the internal breast pocket where his mask sits. “My other question still stands, what are you doing in the kitchens?”

He doesn’t answer you immediately. Instead, he lets himself drink you in. Much like the bottles of red wine he downed earlier, you make him feel brazen and lightheaded. Your curves are accentuated by the fit of your dress, hugging all the right places. He can see your heartbeat thumping away in your neck, drawing his attention to the string of tiny pearls around your neck. Jealousy flares inside of him, wondering who gave you such a gift.

“Where did you get the pearls?” he asks instead of offering you an answer to your question. “I haven’t seen you wear them before.”

Your eyes go soft, and he watches your lips dip down. “They’re moms,” you whisper, bringing a hand up to touch them.

The jealousy turns to acrid bile in his stomach. Seokjin drops his eyes, suddenly contrite. “They look beautiful on you.” Another slip-up of words, but as his eyes slowly slide up to your face, he’s relieved to see a smile warming on your face.

“Thank you, Seokjin.” You begin to turn away from him, intending to get back to your responsibilities, but he’s not sure how much longer he can stand the gap that is growing between you. It’s his fault. He knows that. Maybe that’s what pushes him to capture your elbow, pulling you up short. The library wasn’t enough. He needs just one more moment. He promises himself this will be the last.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Your eyes dart around, watching as others around you start to take notice of who is among them. Seokjin can hear them whispering, alarmed that he’s here. “Sure,” you stammer, gesturing urgently to a door in the back. “Go. Marta, I’ll be right back.” The older woman gives you a polite nod and Seokjin a tight-lipped glance.

The door leads to a small storage room filled with cabinets and shelves covered in cleaning supplies. You slip in behind him, shutting the door softly. He turns, letting his eyes slowly drift up your form. “Hi,” he says when his eyes finally reach yours.

“Hi?” you parrot. “Look, I’m sorry, Seokjin, but I don’t have time for idle pleasantries. I have a lot of work to do before the gala begins.” Your hand grips the doorknob as you turn to leave.

“Wait, stop.”

He watches as your shoulders rise and fall with a sigh before you turn back, hand still on the knob, to meet his eyes over your shoulder. “What is it?”

“I—uh,” he fumbles with his words, the wine sucking away at his ability to think clearly. “There’s something I want, er, that I need to say to you.”

Turning fully around, you cross your arms over the clipboard you’re still carrying. “Okay? What do you need to say?”

“Well, it’s not really say,” he takes a hesitant step toward you. You try to step back to maintain the distance, but your back meets the door instead. “It’s more do.”

“Do?” you whisper as he steps even closer. “Seokjin, I don’t—“

It’s a stupid move. He knows that. But it happens. He cuts off your words with his lips, firmly pressing against yours. Your mouth is stiff, rigid against his no matter how much he tries to ply your lips with soft nips or teasing flicks of his tongue. He presses against you, molding his body to yours. He can feel you trembling, your breathing growing erratic. The moment you unfreeze and melt against him, he lets out a throaty moan.

You give in, opening your mouth to welcome the exploration of his tongue. He can taste mint on your lips. It wars with the thick cherry and currant flavor from the wine lingering in his mouth. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he murmurs against your lips, stopping only to catch his breath before drawing you back in with languid strokes of his tongue.

“Seokjin,” you breathe as his lips move to trail down your throat. “You have to stop. You’re drunk.”

“No,” he states. He drops to his knees in front of you and presses his face into your middle. “Don’t make me stop. Please. I want you. I need you.”

The desperation in his voice makes his own ears hurt. He must be so goddamn pitiful groveling on his knees to you. He just can’t help it. He’ll blame the wine later, surely. His hands tug at the hem of your dress where it rests above your knees. He goes slow, giving you plenty of time to stop him as he pushes the tips of his fingers under the fabric.

His eyes drift up, looking at you through the valley of your breasts. Your eyes are squeezed shut, bottom lip caught between your teeth. “Jin,” you whisper. It’s neither encouragement nor a plea to stop.

This is his last chance to show you how he feels about you. After tonight, he’ll belong to someone else. He’ll make sure you get out. He’ll pull all the strings at his disposal to ensure you and your mom get away. But, right now—right now, he needs this. He needs to be selfish before his whole world gets ripped away and he finds himself tethered irrevocably to a leash his father holds. At least, that is what he tells himself as he rucks your dress up around your hips.

You’re wearing sexy, lacy panties. They’re sheer enough that he can see the cleft of your pussy, a sight that will be forever branded into his mind. “I’ll stop if you want me to,” he offers, panting so heavily that he knows you can feel his warm breath against your skin.

“Y-you—don’t…don’t stop,” you whimper as he brushes his nose across your lace-covered mound.

Letting out a ragged breath, he presses his face against you and inhales deeply. “You drive me crazy. You always have.” Seokjin pokes out his tongue, lapping along the already damp front of your panties. He works his fingers around the band, yanking them down and helping you step out of them. “Fuck,” he curses, eyes landing on you now fully exposed to him. He absently tucks your panties into the pocket of his slacks.

The first brush of his tongue on your naked flesh has you coming up onto your toes. Seokjin moves with you, bracing his hands on your hips to hold you in place. He chuckles when the clipboard clatters to the floor beside him, freeing your hands to fist into his hair. “Jin.” That’s definitely a murmur of encouragement.

Your hands tug at his hair, eliciting shocks of pain across his scalp that he uses for further encouragement. The flavor of your arousal fills his mouth as he greedily sucks and laps at you. Every flick of his tongue against your clit makes breathy little moans puff past your lips.

Seokjin grips one of your calves, encouraging you to lift your leg and rest it over his shoulder. The movement opens you even further, allowing his tongue to dip lower. Like a man starved, he devours you and swallows down everything that drips onto his tongue. “Such a good girl,” the words are more of a vibration against your core, making you shudder above him.

Deep satisfaction settles in his chest as he rumbles with a moan of his own. His cock is straining so hard against the fly of his pants that it hurts. He can’t remember ever feeling like this. All he wants to do is slide home into your body, claim you for himself. But this will have to be enough.

“I’m going to cum,” you mewl as you writh, pinned between his ravenous mouth and the door. Seokjin wants to feel you fall apart for him—because of him. Releasing the grip on one of your hips, he works two fingers beneath his chin, slipping them inside of you.

He can feel your body poised on the edge, ready to shatter for him. Crooking his fingers up, he draws a hearty moan from you that bleeds into an open-mouthed silent cry as he sends you careening over the edge with his tongue rolling against your clit.

It’s over too soon, your body slumping against the door. You release your grip on his hair and drop your leg from his shoulder. “That was,” he pauses, sucking in a few unsteady breaths, “amazing.”

The look you give him as he stands has butterflies filling the pit of his stomach. Your fingers tremble when you reach out to cup his jaw, your thumb rubbing along his bottom lip. “I don’t even know what to say,” you finally whisper. Your eyes are large, full of life and wonder. It’s like a dagger to the heart knowing he’ll probably never see this look from you again–that he’ll be the one to forcibly remove it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I felt sooner,” he admits.

Your laugh is light and airy as you begin to fix your clothes. He sees you glance at his pocket, where your panties were stuffed earlier. But you don’t ask for them back, just shimmy your dress back over your hips and smooth over it with your palms. “You didn’t exactly say anything.”

Seokjin purses his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, really. I-I mean, obvi-obviously,” your words stutter out with mild embarrassment. It’s cute. Seokjin likes you like this. He tucks away the image of how flushed you are, the way your hands twist together as you look up at him through your lashes. “I liked it.”

Time to twist the dagger now sliding into his belly. “I’m not sorry for that.” The look of confusion on your face is the first twist of the knife. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“What? But you just said—“

“It’s the wine. I’m sorry. I need to go.” It’s painful, slipping on that mask of indifference, the final twist of the blade.

Your chin warbles, nearly bringing Seokjin to his knees. “Right,” you say smoothly, donning your own cold mask. “You should head to the ballroom, things will be beginning shortly. I’m sure your parents will be looking for you.” Your words are as much a dismissal as you’ll warrant without outright telling him to fuck off. He knows the last few weeks haven’t earned him any favors with you. And what he just did is the last nail in his coffin. He lets his eyes linger on you a moment longer, watching as you square your shoulders and snatch the clipboard off the floor.

He gives you one last look, hoping you’ll meet his gaze and see through his lies. But, when you continue to ignore him and intentionally stare at the clipboard, he exits the storage room and then the kitchen. He doesn’t look back as he approaches the double doors that lead into the ballroom. Pulling out the folded red mask from the inside of his coat pocket, he slides the band over the back of his head. He swallows thickly, staring at the gilded handles of the doors a moment before grabbing one, twisting, and pushing through to walk forward like a man being prodded along a plank, a raging, bellowing sea churning just below, waiting for him to plunge into its icy darkness.

Next Chapter⇾ ◅ Back to series masterlist

◅ Back to Main Master List   ©️ 2023-06-08 ColorMePurplex2

[mrcoltkaneko]

daybreak (rod)

a/n: i am very... meh about this one, but when i heard that RODAW was happening, i had to throw something up for my favorite boy. it’s written in the second person because... i just vibed with it???? LMAO idk. as always, your comments / likes / reblogs are very much appreciated. i apologize for any typos in advance, i think i wrote this in like 4-5 hours so it is a very raw draft. i might go back and edit it at some point, but for now, please enjoy! 

pairings: Colt x MC angst

summary: So much for wanting to die, for choking yourself with smoke and willpower and here he is, doing it all by himself, five-and-a-half feet away.

rating: PG-13

content warning: cancer, infidelity.

length: 2172 words

tags: i am constantly amazed at the amount of quality content that comes out related to ROD. i’ve fallen out of the choices fandom but ROD still holds a special place in my heart and i’m so excited that it’s the same for a lot of other people as well! @rodappreciationweek ! 

All great love stories begin with a once upon a time, but you think that yours must have begun with an and they lived happily ever after, because with him, you are always drowning in a sea of now, now, now that exists only in a dream.

You smoke cigarettes now. It’s something of a habit, picked up in college after drunken nights out in the dead of a winter, desperate for the quick pinch of sobriety and a flicker of warmth — even now, you remember how much the smoke and tar had made you cough. Now, the nicotine, it tastes sweet on your lips.

You wonder when you’d become so jaded.

Even jarring images of blackened lungs can’t scare you now, not when you'd seen with your soul the images of your own heart, bloodied and bruised to shit. Not when you've seen her father waste away in that bed, antiseptic stinging your nose, your eyes. A year after he’d retired. There’d been plans, big ones for him to buy a home up near Olympia, fix it up himself. He’d bought tickets to Italy. You’d always thought he’d go out in a bang, a furious firework in the sky commemorating his heroism. None of seeing him die in that damned hospital was heroic.

You bring the cigarette up to your lips and inhale, holding your breath. Her gaze focuses on the skyline ahead, gripping the rust-streaked railing in front, the Hudson reflecting ink black, save for the moon’s milky touch rippling ribbons of white on the water. Only when you feel your chest constrict and vision blur that you open your mouth and let the cancer flow out. Hunched over the barrier, you begins coughing and fuck, does it feel good. It’s like being eighteen again, taking that first puff of that cigarette, feeling the smoke’s heat sear your throat in a line of fire.

“You all right?”

You glance up. You already has a bitter retort locked and loaded, about how you’s fucking goddamn fine, that you doesn’t need his help, that there’s pepper spray in your purse that you wouldn’t hesitate using and —

( “Ellie?” )

And your breath stops.

So much for wanting to die, for choking yourself with smoke and willpower and here he is, doing it all by himself, five-and-a-half feet away. You drop the cigarette, three-quarters done, and it’s no wonder that you are breathless because you drowns in him once again, like something familiar creeping up your airways, a release .

“Colt.” You take a step forward, hesitant. You watch his face, in as much disbelief as yours. He’s wearing the same jacket from all those years ago, and you want to laugh, to straighten the lapels and plant a kiss on his cheek and then cry from the youer impossibility of seeing him again, but seven years is too much time. You scrape the toe of your boot against the cobblestone, never daring to look at his face. “How - how are you?”

“I’m good. Didn’t know you were in New York.”

“I am.” You pause, wondering if you should say any more. “I work - I work at a publishing company. I edit books.”

“That’s cool. Good for you, El.”

A pause enters the conversation. For a moment, all you can hear are the distant hum of cars, the white noise of city life. And all you want to do is cry, but not for the same reasons as before, but how stilted their conversations are, how much you do not say that you wanted to for the longest time. Like, I’m sorry, I wish I’d stayed, I wish I hadn’t thrown you out. Like, I’ve missed you, you complete me, I love you.

“Are you in New York too?”

“Nah. Just here to visit my girlfriend’s parents. They live up in Queens.”

Oh.

You want to ask. You want to know her name, her job, what she’s like. You want to know whether the girlfriend has met his mother, whether she knows about his father and Ximena and Toby and Logan, whether she knows about you. In bitterness, you’re reminded of your own boyfriend, the one you’d fought with earlier over a carton of milk — and then it dawns on you that there is a space of seven years that you have been gone, torn from Colt’s life that you don’t know about, and you swallow. The pause is no longer a pause, but a thick hesitation sitting in between you and him, and you struggle to breathe against his presence.

“Listen, Ellie —”

“No. It’s fine — it’s fine, I mean, it’s been seven years, right? You’re allowed to have a girlfriend and a life, and I have a life now, and we’re all fine, really —”

“Hey! Christ, slow down; I just wanted to ask if you wanted to go for a walk. My girlfriend, she’s out with some friends and I was just killing some time anyways.”

You know you shouldn’t. That the time away had been her time to heal, to process their goodbye from all those years ago, and yet — you’ve never been good at holding him at an arm’s distance, even when he’d been three thousand miles away.

So you say yes.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

You’re positive that this is all a fever dream, that there’s no way that Colt is beside you, that you’re laughing with him again, that it’s always when you least expect it that you’re thrown back into the waters again, unsure of where it’d started, and yet, not caring in the slightest.

The stars, you’ve never noticed them in the city. Not with all the light pollution circling high above the clouds, but with him, you’re positive that the stars shine for him, bouncing off the tips of his cheekbones, the tip of his nose. Two in the morning and you’ve never felt held more than this exact moment, not in so long. You don’t know if it’s the warmth of the alcohol or the orbit of his presence, but you're rosy-cheeked, desperate to find his physical touch next.

Leave it to him to jolt you out of your fantasy.

“How’s that boyfriend of yours, huh?”

You swallow. The 40s you’ve both bought in a dingy corner store like nineteen-year olds with fake IDs lie in the paper bags at their feet and the magnified haze of reality swings at your head. Drunk, and yet, too aware of your drunkenness, you squint at him, challenging him with a brashness only marked by the alcohol.

“What’s it to you, anyways?” Cross, you pick up the bottle, taking a swig of the drink.

Colt shrugs. “Curious. I’ve seen your pics with him.”

“You’ve been stalking me,” you reply, smirking.

Shaking his head, he chuckles. “And you can never answer the questions without being a smart-ass, can you?”

“It’s none of your business.” You pull your knees closer, hugging your legs to your chest. “Anyways, you haven’t said a word about your mystery girlfriend,” you challenge. It’s not like you want to hear about her, but the prospect of telling Colt all about your significant other brings a rock to your stomach.

You meet his eyes. Dark, stormy, you think you see a phantom of a frown, emotion betraying his usual aloof demeanor. But as soon as it crosses his face, it flies off into the distance, and he shrugs. “You always do this, Ellie — act like that I’m out to get you, comment on your life choices —”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I the one that couldn’t handle my fucking anger whenever things didn’t go right, because if I remember correctly, that was you.” You bolt up, an accusatory finger thrown his way, and he matches your movement, drenched in passion.

“You’re going to bring that up? Because if we’re going to rehash our goddamn relationship right here, I’d be happy to list all of the things you did that were fucking frustrating to deal with.”

“Oh my gosh, yes. Please do that, I’m begging you,” she snaps back, sarcastic. Hesitating, you turn back to him, fire burning in your eyes. “Actually. Let’s do it. Say it. I dare you. Because if I remember correctly, it was me that left. Not you.”

Silence blankets the two of you, and his face hardens back up, body returning to the slack swagger he’d always carried so easily in his chest. Shoving his hands back into his pockets, he crouches back down, eyes aimed towards the water. “Whatever,” he snorts, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

He’d always been so nonchalant. Still is, and it’s what you’ve loved about him, the way he could tell you so much more with his eyes than his words. You’d loved Logan too, but he’d always been brash, the brushstrokes of his love painted in broad, simple marks. And yet Colt — the intricacies of his emotions have always been a puzzle that you’d been adamant to unscramble. How the flicker in the corners of his eyelids could mean that he’s upset, or the twitch in the corner of his mouth, deepening a shred of a dimple gave away his happiness. Even now, the ghosts of those imprints remain etched onto his face, and you can tell he longs for something more, a what if still lingering on their tongues.

And like always, you fall into his lips.

It’s a mistake.

And yet — a glorious, beautiful, irrevocable mistake, even more when you feel his lips press against yours. He’s missed me too, you think, and you wonder why he is the only person that has only made you feel like the world is yours. You are drunk, sitting on concrete by the muddy river and yet you want to savor the moment forever, inscribe it into your skin as a tattoo.

When you part, your teeth taste like sin and your hands are drenched in the blood of your guilt, but you’d risk it all to do it again.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

One more joy ride on his Cavalieri Novanta, you understand why you loved ( love ) him. Freedom has always come at a price for you, perpetually out of your reach but with him? He makes it easy to be in freefall, and as your hands wrap around his waist, you’re not afraid to hit the ground.

Coney Island is a hellmouth, but at 4AM, the silence is cathartic. You’ve never been to the beach without the buzz of crowds closing in on you, and yet, there is something distinctly wistful about the abandoned park. Still, quiet, with only the creak of the boards underneath your feet, the ocean is there, and yet — you only see Colt. If the Pacific had been an expanse of hope and new horizons, you think that the Atlantic is a deluge of melancholy. There is no room for your sorrows when you’ve finally been let out of your self-inflicted cage. He finds a place in the sand, and you follow along, head on his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t have kissed me.” And yet, his lips are in your hair, whispering. You think you feel him trace an I still love you with his lips, but you can’t be sure.

“I was drunk.” You still are. You can’t think straight. When you’re with him, all you see is him.

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“Since when have you cared about whether something’s right or not?” It shocks you to the core, more than you expect. It’s not him. This is not the Colt you know.

“You don’t want this. You don’t want me.”

“What - no. Of course I want you. I want you, Colt Kaneko.” You know you do. You’d leave everything behind, run far away with him until your feet bled. Frantic, you find his face, search for that shred of longing you’d become so familiarized with. You don’t find it. “Run away with me. You don’t - we can go back. We can go back.” Desperately, you think that if you say it enough, you could make it a truth.

“You know, Ellie.” Colt swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck. For once, you cannot read the emotion in his face, and it terrifies you. Seven years is too much time lost, and you think about all of the things you’ve missed.

You do know. Leaving him once, you know. That your longing and love for him has always relied on being apart, that two burning hot fires only created a larger fire that threatened to ruin everything else in its path.

“We would’ve burned each other up, El.” He’s closer now, only a breath away. A finger on your cheek, your hand snakes up and holds his hand, memorizing his touch. His thumb swipes away a tear that you didn’t even know had fallen.

He leans in this time.

A first kiss against the Californian sunset, the last rolled into a New York sunrise, you wonder if you’ll ever look at daybreak the same way again.

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[lurkingwhump]

Pink ribbon

It hit me again. October, breast cancer awareness.

You hope with all your heart that they find new treatments to beat back the fucking thing. The thing you won’t wish on your worst enemy.

And yet, as you read the stories touting the 5-year survival rates, you can feel the lump in your throat and the tears in your eyes again. Not everyone survives.

You can’t help from feeling like you want to shake your fist at the world or punch something, no matter how meaningless that gesture is. You can’t help the feeling of sadness, the unfairness of it, and the sense of loss.

I miss you sis, always will.

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[puckleisdreaming]

The bar was empty apart from one old man over by the slot machine in the corner. He’d been there all night as far as I could tell and hadn’t so much as gotten up to relieve himself in at least the two hours I’d been here. Every now and again he’d post another coin in and pull the big red lever on the side of the machine and it would light up and play a little tune as the wheels spun and then ‘thunk, thunk, thunk’. Sometimes this was followed by a metallic trickle of change as the machine begrudgingly vomited forth some coins only for them to find their way back inside as the man continued to play his games. I couldn’t understand it. They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I can’t remember where I’d heard that. But if that’s the case this guy had to be absolutely fricking nuts, like out of his mind crazy considering how many times he’d pulled that fucking lever. Again and again he’d yank it and the machine would make that noise like an old washing machine with a brick in it. I’d come to brood and here was this old nutcase throwing money away over and over and for what? What was he hoping would happen?

I was getting wound up over nothing, I turned back to my beer. It was a miserable night and the damp that the patrons of the evening had tramped in and out of the place had suffused the air with a nasty humidity that fugged up the back of my throat. I kept sipping this beer to try and clear it but it didn’t work.

“You must really hate yourself.” Anette took the stool next to me and looked right at me. The way she was staring it was like she could burn holes in my temple, I just kept staring straight down at the beer. Ca-chunk went the lever as the psycho in the corner pulled it again and tumble tumble tumble went the wheels.

“What do you want, I’m busy.” I took another sip and glanced at her through the corner of my eye. She must have been on a job dressed up the way she was. Her freckled face was framed by crinkly blue black hair. She’d died it a few months back and now it reminded me of the ribbon inside cassette tapes all scrunched up the way it caught the light sometimes. New glasses and boots too, someone was paying her good money. I wasn’t used to seeing her in a dress and the sleek black number stuck out painfully here, if it wasn’t so empty, the attention she was drawing would have made me feel sick. My palms started itching.

“I can see that, just like you’ve been busy every night for weeks.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“I’ve got better things to do than watch you every night but you know we’ve got eye’s and ears, you weren’t going to be able to just stop calling us and hope to slip away”

“I don’t see why not, it’s not like you need my help.”

I dropped a handful of coppers on the bar for a tip and headed out leaving the beer half drunk, Anette cannoned it down before following me out the door. I pulled my collar up against the rain hoping the foul weather would dissuade her, she had a U-field up. No such luck. I stopped and turned to face her watching the rain as it got caught in the static field being projected by the small device attached to her wrist. The droplets got within a foot of her head before slowing to an eery stop about two inches from her hair. They vibrated slightly caught between their momentum carrying them forward and the static field pushing them away before they spat off the field like water splashed on a hot pan. She stood there fizzing and spitting water out in every direction forming strange rainbows caught in the neon light of the nearby bars and casinos.

“Wasn’t it you who told me only assholes use U-fields? Spraying every passerby without one in the face as you walk by.”

“That was before rain water became the leading cause of skin cancer. Got sick of stabbing myself with a syringe full of Oncoligon every time I got caught in a shower.”

“Rather that than give some poor sod ocular just for passing me in the street.”

“Are we going to do this all night? You’ve been in that bar every evening for three weeks. If you were drinking yourself to death I’d be less concerned but you’re not and you’re not returning our calls so tell me what’s going on with you.”

She was more pissed off than I thought she was, crackling there like a live wire out in the rain. I’d known Anette long enough to know not to get her too wound up, she had a tendency to lose it and like all Neomancers when she lost it people tended to end up needing retinal surgeries. It had been a while since I’d seen her at work but I was watching for the tell tale signs, flickering electrics nearby, a slight glow to her skin.

“We’re friends, I think I’ve been very generous with the time I’ve bought you, but people are starting to wonder when you’re coming back into the fold. I’ve told them all you’re good for it, that you’re just getting your head together but when you took off you made a few people look very stupid and you know what happens when certain people are made to look stupid.

“I told you Anette. I don’t have it. I don’t know what happened in that vault but I don’t have it. If I’d made it out of there with a mancy like that don’t you think I would have made use of it by now? A sorry sap like me I could have sold it for a fortune, paid everyone off, and still had money left over to make a break for it. If I’d collected what we were looking for that night and wanted to make a getaway I would be gone.”

She moved like lightening. The world exploded in agony as ice picks were smashed through my eyeballs and my brain burst with white. Lights out.

I came to on a cold concrete floor, as my eyes began to focus I was aware my clothes were still damp, couldn’t have been long since our little chat. The headache I had was splitting and my vision was fuzzy, my periphery dropping away to a hazy blackness like I had weird tunnel vision. From what I could make out I was in a small room with a steel door, the only light was a fluorescent tube up in the ceiling and there were no windows. Guess I was staying put. I crawled over to the wall and placed my forehead against the cool concrete hoping to curb the oncoming migraine. I hadn’t been hit by Anette before but I’d seen her wipe out others, I found a sudden deep well of sympathy for her victims. She’d been training with someone as well. She’d always been tougher than a carrier like me but I was quick at least and made a living off of being able to get out of trouble. Sure I was a few weeks out of practice but she had definitely gotten faster.

Without moving I considered my situation. Concrete walls, no windows, probably a basement. As it was Anette who picked me up it was most likely one of Desto’s spots but without more information I couldn’t guess where. There were hundreds of Desto’s places all over Avon and I could have been bundled to any one of them whilst I was out cold. Up until fairly recently Desto had been my employer and ever since Anette had joined two years ago she’d been Desto’s number two. Most of Desto’s income came from snatch jobs and implantation surgeries so she had plenty of carriers in her employ. Her mancer’s were always there for when she needed a little more muscle but she preferred to keep a low profile for most of her work. I found a small crack in the concrete wall next to my cheek and traced it with a finger, feeling the rough texture and waiting for the beating that would inevitably be coming. It was the best gig around if you could get into a boss’s good graces but pissing them off was verging on suicidal.

Thinking about that stupid man and his stupid slot machine, how many times had he been there in the weeks I’d been frequenting that place? Every time I’d gone I knew it was stupid to keep returning to the same spot but I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like change. What happened in the vault had shaken me and suddenly the dashing high life of working for a boss didn’t seem quite so desirable. I wanted out and I had let myself dream that word would get back to Desto that the job had gone to shit but all she’d lost was a carrier. She had hundreds of me in her employ, no skin off her nose if one got caught by the enemy and beaten to a bloody pulp. Maybe, just maybe, she’d decide to cut her losses and forget about it, forget about me.

It had been a risky job, we always knew that, but word had gotten out that Jacob had some crazy mancy stored down in his vault whilst he tried to find someone who could make an implant that could carry the thing. Mancies came in all shapes and sizes and the more powerful the mancy the more complex the implant you needed to integrate it. Any sucker can carry the thing around but to properly integrate a complex bit of Arch tech with the human nervous system took serious technology. Most bosses have vaults to keep mancies they find whilst their techs fabricate integrations for them. Even when the tech was done you had to pretty much just hope you were compatible with it. Different mancies integrated with different people. Anette was a neomancer, her little bit of Arch tech that sat in a chip at the base of her skull allowed her to project and control, to some extent, visible light. How? I don’t know, ask the techs, but it’s all because of that micro chip at the top of her spine.

I’m no mancer, I’m a carrier. Outfitted with an all purpose petabyte microdrive in my forearm I can carry pretty much any non integrated mancy as long as I can get close enough to download it. No one fully understands Arch tech but the one thing we do know is the file sizes are enormous. Stupid big. Even the flashest of new computers couldn’t come close to needing the kind of square footage these things needed in dataspace. So they load up people with massive drives, hook the drives up to our metabolics for fuel and send us around to carry them from place to place. Wireless would take years and a simple portable drive won’t do it. You need something with some serious horse power and you know what’s easier than lugging around a hard drive hooked up to a car battery? Knitting a microdrive into the cardiovascular system of a human being.

[letscoolpromeuniverse]

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[aph-dia-comic]

Feli didn’t mind that Lovino was going to kill him later, those cigarettes deserved to drown. He had heard from his Grandpa that his father had died of cancer soon after he was born, all because of cigarettes. It was a dirty habit and he didn’t understand why Lovino was so determined to suck on at least one everyday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday just made it down the drain. There went Thursday and Friday. Feliciano knew that Lovino was probably going to buy (or steal) more, but that didn’t matter at that moment.

As soon as he saw the last cigarette disappear down the black hole he heard a loud high pitched screech coming from the hallway of the school. It almost sounded like a bird, or a pig, or something in between. It took a moment for Feli to realise it was screaming. A child was screaming in the hallway. The scream was followed by a low rumbling, aggressive growl. The growl surely would have come from an animal. No human could have made a sound like that.

Feliciano could barely hear the toilet anymore. His breath hitched in his throat as he made his way to the door which lead to the hallway. The door, which had creaked somewhat on his way in, made no sound on his way out. Feli barely registered that his own footfall was now impossibly silent. All he could hear was was the low growl, which rose and fell like heavy breathing. The hallway was vacant.

The growl was instead coming from the room opposite, which was the assembly hall. The assembly hall always seemed to be colder and dimmer than the rest of the school, and Feli had heard that a janitor had died in there 50 years ago because he locked himself in the cupboard and took his own life. It was months before anyone found him because the school was mysteriously still getting cleaned. Feliciano hated going into the assembly hall alone, what if the janitor was still there, mopping up?

Feliciano was suddenly aware he could see his own breath. Had it already become that cold? Wasn’t it only September? The growling he was listening to also sort of morphed into more of a human breath, still heavy and wheezing, but human nonetheless. Feliciano didn’t know which was worse; a potentially dangerous monster, or a potentially dangerous human. In the end, he was able to conjure up enough courage to open the door to the hall. This one was as silent as the last.

Blood was the first thing he saw. Bright red and pooling around the second thing he saw. The child who was probably the one screaming earlier was torn up like a tissue that had fallen in the path of a playful kitten. Next to this site stood a man wearing an equally bloodied and torn shirt, staring down at the young boy in a sort of meek horror. While the child looked as if large talons had been dragged from his bowels to his chest, cutting his belly into ribbons, the man was untouched. Except by the blood, of course. The child’s blood.

Feliciano was frozen. He didn’t know what to make of the situation. He knew in the back of his mind he should get help, but he was transfixed. Somehow he thought that the moment he’d look away, the man would be gone. And he was right. When he blinked, in less than a second the man vanished. And in the next blink, the blood was gone too. Feliciano thought the kid had gone as well, but he was still there. Only, he was stood up and completely fine. He looked a bit too young to go to their school, and wasn’t in the school’s uniform. He had long white braids, and Feliciano wondered for a moment whether the child was a boy or a girl.  Whatever the gender, the kid was stood with his (or her) back facing Feliciano, looking up at an art piece on display.

“What are you looking at?” A small voice asked behind him.

3.2

3.3 will be uploaded on the 3rd of November

[4healthlife]

17 Thoughtful Breast Cancer Surgery Care Package Gift Ideas

Deep down, you recognize it’s true:

Cancer patients have a good sort of physical and emotional needs. According to American Cancer Society, treatment for carcinoma usually includes surgery and radiotherapy , often along side chemotherapy either before or after surgery.

If you've got someone who has carcinoma and you would like to point out her you care –

Here may be a hand-picked selection of 17 thoughtful carcinoma care package gift items that she would appreciate, including the explanations of why these things are helpful and recommended by people that have skilled the journey.

Don’t forget to share these practical and heartfelt gift ideas to assist out others! 1: carcinoma Surgery Recovery Robe Recovery garments designed to satisfy the special clothing needs of carcinoma patient after surgery, as mastectomy and lumpectomy procedure can really impact their daily tasks, particularly getting dressed. This unique clothing is formed to be worn before, during and after surgery. As testified by these actual user reviews, recovery garment with bra and robe combination may be a thoughtful gift for carcinoma patients to form their recovery easier and bearable. This garment is meant with pockets to carry post-operative drains and ice packs, a front-closure bra, and other designs that help the carcinoma patient during treatment and post-surgery recovery. Watch the video below to find out more, and check price here 2: Practical Post-Surgery Shower Pockets After surgery, surgeon may put one end of a soft plastic tube into the surgical area, so as to empty out fluid that then moves into plastic collection bulb attached to the opposite end of tube. The purpose of such surgical drain is to stop fluid buildup, which may end in painful pressure and delay healing post-surgery. One of the foremost difficult challenge of getting surgical drains is managing both the tubes and therefore the drainage collection ports, as she will feel clumsy and risk accidentally coitus interruptus a drain. So having a special drain management garment, like the carcinoma surgery recovery robe recommended earlier, are often a lifesaver. Else, these specially designed shower pockets that hold post-surgery drain can help her to shower without having help from somebody else . 3: Drainage Pouch Holders For Day and Night Wear The Helping Hands Dry Drain Pouch designed by Heal in Comfort is for usage during shower and therefore the remainder of the time. Its 2 pocket compartments allow her to place post-surgical drains and other items (such as cell phone). Another good alternative is that this Post-Surgical Drain solution with adjustable cotton waist belt and shower bag, to be worn during the recovery period of carcinoma surgery. 4: Soft Seatbelt Cushion for Mastectomy This will make the car rides easier for carcinoma patient that has skilled surgery, by avoiding the pain often caused by normal safety belt on post-surgery area. 5: Soft Comforting Pillow Heart-shaped Axilla pilla microbead pillow may be a lovely gift idea for post-op patients, to assist relieve underarm pressure during recovery. 6: Healing Thoughts Weighted Blanket A weighted blanket to snuggle in not only can keep warm, but it can bring mental calmness by reducing her anxiety before and after breast surgery. BlankieGram Healing Thoughts blanket may be a top rated option, as evident by its countless excellent user reviews that cancer patients simply like it . Superior quality and unique design decorated with inspiring messages on the blanket are key factors that make it stand out. 7: Inspirational Book Authored by Cancer Survivors Cancer patient may search for books that provide inspiration, hope, encouragement, and guidance. Choose a book with uplifting cancer survival stories, and confirm it’s free from anything too heavy with sad or depressing contents. 8: Shirt with Funny Messages Laughter is that the best medicine! Consider funny gift to cheer up cancer patient with a way of humor. For example: When she receives this funny shirt for carcinoma survivor, expect to ascertain her laughing face! Make sure that your best intentions won't unintentionally make her feel worse with a funny gift. shop now #9: Mood Lifting 10,000 Lux Light Therapy Lamp While breast surgery and cancer treatment itself can greatly affect a patient emotionally — JAMA Psychiatry medical journal revealed a study that shows 10,000-Lux light therapy can improve depression. This research finding is further supported by most users of Verilux HappyLight lamp that mimics sunlight and brings UV-free daylight indoors with a light-weight intensity of 10,000 Lux. This can help improve the mood of carcinoma patient and help her sleep better. 10: Small glove Jewellery with Pink Ribbon Pink ribbon is that the international symbol of carcinoma awareness. Many people find these small jewellery are inspiring, because the great design of this inexpensive gift motivates the patient to continue FIGHT against carcinoma . Available in many design, including pendant necklace, earrings, stud, and dangle. 11: Cancer-Fighting Recipe Cookbook Healthy eating diets are critical for any cancer patient / survivor, but nutrition in cancer care are often challenging. Choosing healthy food isn't the sole important think about fighting cancer, as how she prepares and cook the food also matters. So cookbook with great cancer-fighting recipes may be a good gift idea, especially if she likes to cook. According to Mayo Clinic and WebMD – The 3 key purposes of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in carcinoma treatment are to shrink a tumor before surgery to form it easier to get rid of , to stop cancer from returning after surgery, and to kill cancerous cells that have spread to other parts of the body. However, as radiotherapy and chemo destroy cancer cells, they also damage healthy blood cells and cause undesired side effects to the body. To help improve the carcinoma patient’s quality of life during treatment, there are useful products that ease the side effects of chemo and radiotherapy , supported recommendations from healthcare professionals and cancer patients who are there before. Consider the subsequent items as a part of your carcinoma care package: 12: Oral Rinse to alleviate Mouth Sores and xerostomia Dry mouth, mouth sores, infection within the mouth and throat, ulcers, and metallic taste are common side effects for patients receiving cancer treatment. Alcohol-free and sugar-free mouth rinse by Prevention Oncology and Biotene can help to appease oral tissues, ease mouth sores and sensitivities. Spry moisturizing oral spray with Xylitol may be a good alternative to assist stimulate saliva and inhibit bacterial growth within the patient’s mouth. 13: Anti-Nausea Candies and Wrist Band Chemo and radiotherapy may cause nausea and vomiting as body tries to rid itself of poisons . You can inspect anti-nausea candies like Queasy Drops, or Sea-Band anti-nausea wrist band which works by using acupressure for natural nausea relief. 14: TENS Device for Peripheral Neuropathy Radiation therapy and chemo may cause damage to nerves can cause neuropathic symptoms like pain, tingling, and numbness in body areas like chest, back, hands, and feet. Such neuropathy side effects can also include aching within the muscles and joints, headaches, and stomach pains which will last long after treatment ends. Research published in U.S. National Library of drugs shows Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) device is useful relieve cancer pain and Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). 15: Active Hexose Correlated Compound (AHCC) This natural mushroom extract is employed in over 700 hospitals and clinics in Japan, mainly for cancer patients. Extensive research show AHCC may significantly reduce the side effects caused by cancer treatment, with studies published within the Journal of other and medicine (study on carcinoma patients), World Journal of Clinical Oncology, and lots of more. Watch the video below by Dr. Geovanni Espinosa, and >> Learn more about AHCC here. 16: Specialty Skin Care Products for Cancer Patients Chemo and radiotherapy can damage skin cells during a way that creates them dry, while other possible side effects affecting the skin include irritation, crack, rash, redness, itching, peeling, and sun sensitivity. Recommended Read: Top Rated Skin Care Products for Radiotherapy and Chemo Patients It is highly recommended to use moisturising lotion formulated for cancer patients who receive radiotherapy and chemotherapy. A top rated option is Jeans moisturizing cream. 17: Chemo Scarves or Headwear For Hair Loss Many chemotherapy drugs can cause hair loss (alopecia) by damaging the hair follicles, with patient may begin to lose hair within the primary 2 weeks after chemo starts. Having her hair fall out after chemotherapy isn't getting to be pleasant, but you'll make it more enjoyable with a head wrap or chemo scarf that's getting to help her feel fashionable and cute. You can get her a spread of designs and options, like stylish chemo hats and pre-tied bandanas, in order that she will switch back and forth as she likes. What seems as alittle switch to you, might be an enormous one to her

[eneloh]

alrite yall time for me to get serious for a minute here. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. this year alone it is predicted that 24,400 women will be diagnosed w/ it. that’s about 67 women each day. 5,000 women will die fighting it. that’s 14 women every single day. 1/3 of breast cancers can be prevented. its important to minimize alcohol intake, avoid shift work and exercise is key. every extra drink increases it. alcohol is a carcinogen that’s recognized as a cause of cancer of the mouth colon throat esophagus and stomach. women who abide by the lowest drinking guideline (which would be less than 1 drink a day) have a 8.5% increased risk of it while women who exceed have a 37% increased risk. alcohol is 1 of the a whole range of factors. be cautious with it especially if you have a family history of breast cancer. Night shift work is also a risk factor. exposure to light at night disrupts a womans circadian rhythm and inhibits the production of melatonin (a hormone that can suppress tumour development). night light can also suppress vitamin D as well as contribute to behavioural dysfunction due to lack of sleep and stress from families functioning on different time schedules. when you don’t sleep a lot of other things don’t go well with your body and your life. and finally, women that are physically active have a 20 - 25% reduced risk of breast cancer. even a moderate amount of physical activity ( getting the heart rate up) is beneficial. even after menopause. it will also help to cope better w/ treatments and have an improvement in survival rates as well as quality of life fitness level and lessens fatigue. and w/ that being said…plz support cancer research. im doing this cuz im sure some of you know or have heard about someone whos going through it or was affected by it. im doing this to spread the word and to show what the pink ribbon represents: solidarity hope and survival. I want to inspire ppl to believe that they can survive. and they will

[ashdavidson2008-blog]

But I’m not 40 yet!

I think I said that more than 16 times in the past week… mostly to myself, while lamenting what was happening.

So what was happening… well, it is October and since I’m a Facebook/Instagram junkie I am bombarded with “Pink-tober” 💓

I think breast cancer awareness month is amazing for so many reasons. I have amazing friends that have dealt with the dreaded c-word and kicked it’s ass! I have some that are currently fighting it- and my heart breaks for every one of them.

I love seeing athletes wear pink cleats and pink gloves and talk about how their moms, sisters, and aunts are survivors. I love seeing people join together as a community to walk and raise money to fight against something that is curable and NOT a death sentence. I love seeing proud, strong women with “I’m a survivor” t-shirts and bracelets. I like seeing as my friends update their Facebook profile pictures to a pink ribbon frame.

There are a lot of ways we are reminded that breast cancer (and really any cancer) is out there and affecting our friends and family everyday.  Which makes me want to remind people that October is not the only month that breast cancer impacts.

Interestingly enough, October was the month that I had to be reminded that I am not invincible, the month I keep saying “but I’m not 40 yet”, and the month I found a lump in my breast.

I was getting ready to take my bath one evening, sitting in the bathroom waiting for my (way too hot for any normal human being) bath to finish running and was (big surprise) scrolling through Facebook.  A friend from high school posted on October 11th “I have an aggressive form of breast cancer.”- she is not 40 yet either!  She reminded her friends to do their self exams.

Now I am a nurse… and I know how important they are… but I am not a consistent examiner.  But she encouraged me to check. 

And there it was… something different… something that was not supposed to be there… a lump.  Even the word gets stuck in my throat.  I kept checking in different positions, was it a lump or just a weird fibrous thing or something else?

I wasn’t sure…

So I had a choice to make: 1) ignore it (I mean I would not have even known about it if I hadn’t checked) 2) get really upset and scared and ultimately fall apart 3) make an appointment and just figure this thing out.

Seriously my friends- if you find one, make the appointment right then and there!  We have apps on our phones that allow us to scan a finger and make a doctor’s appointment.

That’s what I did… figured I was going to have to face it sooner or later and I just don’t have time for later!  So while my water was still out of any appropriate temperature range, I made my appointment with my PCP (I was secretly hoping they would just tell me I was crazy- strange, I’ve had this feeling a lot in the past year- and even though some of my friends may disagree, no reputable professional has told me I am crazy… yet…).

My appointment was the next week, October 17th.  Went in to (hopefully) them not be able to find this darn lump… damn thing was still there.  Bastard….

So appointment made for a diagnostic mammogram and an ultrasound (if needed).  Insert “But I’m not 40 yet” utterance #8.

So on this past Monday I went to the “Women’s Center” at my doctor’s office.  For anyone wondering, “Women’s Center” is code for really dimly lit waiting rooms, to hopefully calm very anxious people, with terrible music being played about two notches too loudly (not sure how that fits in with the whole “calming” goal).

Luckily I was not there for long and a “not even 30” year old called my name and led me to a little room with multiple changing rooms with curtains.  I was told to “disrobe from the waist up and put the gown on, opening to the front”- gotcha… Ladies- wear leggings or some other comfy bottoms!

Then the kindest radiology tech ever, Ms. Kay, came to get me.

She brought me to another fairly small room with a large machine, resembling an industrial steam/clothes press, that was the center of attention.  Oh my- this was happening….

And just in case you were wondering- this room was also very dimly lit with “warm” lighting.  Which really does make you feel more comfortable.  Although they could have increased the temperature just a tiny bit (I’m still not one-hundred percent convinced they don’t keep it cold in there for some “medical” reason- you know what I mean).

Thanks to Ms. Kay, she gave me pretty simple directions, positioned my arms, told me when to breathe, and made general small talk to keep my mind off things.  Man that woman could multi-task.

Since there was a lump, I had to do the more detailed mammogram (diagnostic) versus just the screening one.  Basically just a few extra angles and pictures of areas of concern.

While this was definitely not my most favorite way to “get felt up” it was definitely not as bad as I had made it in my head.  There is not pain (at least not for me- every woman is different), just discomfort.  Honestly- the hardest part was trying to stop breathing when she told me to and also not being freaked out that you are pretty much attached to this machine and completely at its mercy for a few moments at a time.

But before I knew it, my time with (newly named by me) TataSmasher 3000 was over.  I was hoping to get out of the ultrasound, but Ms. Kay sadly did not tell me I was crazy and that it did not matter that I was not 40 yet.

So downstairs I went to the ultrasound tech.  If you’ve ever had an ultrasound you probably realize that the most “painful” part is the temperature of that gel (brrrr).  But that was over within minutes.

Once done I was able to get dressed again (fyi, I almost tripped over the gown because they were so long… or I’m so short… six of one/half dozen of the other).

And off I went back to work and to life and to trying to remember how old I will be come this December (all I know is it is not quite yet 40).  Oh and back to waiting…

In the time between leaving my appointment and getting my results, I had a lot of time to think about things… but honestly, I just didn’t… I couldn’t… I wouldn’t waste any more energy on worrying until I knew I had something to worry about.  Thankfully I have a job and a family that keep my mind busy.

Then I got the call… I saw the caller ID and paused… held my breath (thanks for the teaching Ms. Kay)… then remembered I had to slide to answer.

“Ms. Davidson, I have your results… there is no mammographic or sonographic evidence of malignancy.”

Yep- I’m in the 80%!  Yes ladies- 80% of lumps are benign- but you won’t know unless you get checked.

So I think I finally took a full breath today- first one since 10/11/17… and exhaled the worry and fear.  It felt great!  I cannot thank my friends and family enough for the support and encouragement given to me during this short time- never once did I think “oh my gosh, I’m in this alone”- I love you all!

I could have easily been in the unlucky 20% group and been standing with my friends that are.  Ladies- I love you all, but am happy I am not joining that club.  But what I will do is continue to walk, continue to update my Facebook profile picture, continue to tell my friends to check then get checked, and anything else I can do to make sure that women are finding these things early, so we can decrease the percentage of those 20-percenters that don’t make it to ZERO!

If you have any questions, let me know- I am by far no expert, but I am lucky enough to know some amazing survivors that want to help anyone.

[kedaiborongbuahkurma6873-blog]

Why It's Easier to Succeed With pengedar kurma di kuala lumpur Than You Might Think

Spiritual Dwelling, The Bible, & Jesus The Shelton Diet Plan

The Shelton Diet Program was Made by Medical Doctor Herbert Shelton. Dry fruits have been excellent laxatives and they also are a terrific natural remedy for anemic conditions, acidosis, fever, and sexual weakness. Fibers would be the carbohydrates found in plant-based foods which don't digest in the human body. It's very important to be aware that dates really are high in carbs along with their candy taste makes them easy to over eat.

You get fat when you consume far more calories than you burn up, and it is simple to overeat high-calorie foods such as dates. If someone suffers from cold rheumatism, eating foods using a hot or warm energy would be useful. In William Bartram's book, Travels in 1773, he "observed jericho medjool dates amongst them (fruit bushes ) the uncontrolled crab (Pyrus coronaria) within his explorations close to Mobile, Alabama.

But a few varieties of dates can be eaten in a less than a old condition, pengedar kurma di kuala lumpur broadly named khalal. " Fruit from the khalal stage have attained their highest size, are typically yellow or crimson, possess a candy flavor, also are crunchy, slightly like apple.

Enable the dates soak for about 10 minutes, then then and subsequently strain on the fruit and then discard the water. It is more delicious when eaten fresh instead of dried. mariami kurma The common English names are dried dates, dates, date palm, and so on; generally oblong, together with changing measurements, shapes, colors, consistencies and quality.

Even the bunches on shorter trees may be softened in to ribbons to eliminate any ripe dates. Even though it is really just a frequent notion that eating limitless amounts of fruits and vegetables will be able to help you shed fat, research proving this as a proven fact are restricted, in line with the facilities for disease deal with and Prevention.

Although fiber in dates has the ability to lower cholesterol levels, http://officialaushop.com/s4pichm869/post-the-most-influential-189683.html researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of technologies in Israel report which dates possess better consequences at lowering triglyceride levels, and it is another form of excess fat from the bloodvessels.

That has brought about many of extraction procedures, in which the retention period, charge of investment, residual reductions, sugar concentration are balanced to arrive in a minor general unit cost to get the date juice. The study was of folks ingestion 6 dates each day, for 30 days before their estimated due date.

The best possibilities of fruit for diabetics are any which are refreshing, frozen or canned without added sugars. Eating 2 dates supplies you with 6 percent of the every day significance for b 6 and 4 percent of the daily worth to lactic acid and niacin. When the seed of this date-palm germinates, the publication of food kept up in it's converted into glucose by means of ferment call cytase, produced by the very first green leaves of the plant.

Dates are rather valuable in keeping your heart healthy. Consume alkaline food and simmer to displace pH balance and wonderful well-being. One medjool date supplies approximately 167mg of potassium, and it is crucial for keeping healthy blood pressure. Including dates in your daily diet can have health benefits.

For those who, similar to me, additionally build a fascination on the wellness advantages of fruit and veggies that you eat, you probably ponder about the wellness advantages of dates whilst scanning this informative article. 7. Consuming dates shield against your colon, prostate, breast, endometrial, pancreatic and lung cancers.

Dried dates are a better source of calcium and iron compared to fresh, but fresh new dates are a far superior way to obtain vitamin do. A 3.5 oz. Dose of fresh dates comprises 3 4 mg of calcium, including 6 gram of iron and 30 milligrams of vitamin C, and also the exact same size serving of dried dates contains 81 mg of calcium, 8 mg of calcium along with milligrams of vitamin C. Vitamin C is less stable nutrient compared to calcium or iron, and is destroyed by both heat and storage.

Considerable progress has been produced lately regarding our understanding of the bioactive chemicals present in fermented foods and their direct connection to human health 89 this kind of protective results have been attributed for the phytochemicals, secondary plant metabolites or key cell elements, existing inside fruits 89 Thorough evaluation of those dates utilised within this review revealed that they truly are a rich source of phytochemicals, for example hydroxycinnamic acids, PACs and also lipophilic polyphenols.

Consuming a milk decoction of date fruit from boiling up to seven date fruits at a cup of milk at night time for 1 month is advocated as a very valuable cure for that treating coughs, bronchial catarrh, asthma, tuberculosis, cold, and flu, fevers, chest complaints, laryngitis, sore throat, etc..

The fruit of this real date palm also is advisable for consumption by allowing women to add further nutrition in their https://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/?query=Dates Fruit diet . Average Western food diets comprise too much of everything exactly are called acidity foods, in too high quantities. Dates have a high nutrient content, that is beneficial for many different health states but their extraordinary heights of iron produce them a great dietary supplement for individuals suffering from anemia.

[awarenessgallery]

Art features the burgundy and ivory awareness ribbon art meaning to show support for head and neck cancers including ivory and burgundy cancer awareness angels. Head and Neck Cancer refers to multiple body locations including the lip, oral cavity (mouth), nasal cavity (inside the nose), paranasal sinuses, pharynx (pharyngeal), throat, and larynx (laryngeal). There is increased risk of getting these cancers from tobacco use, heavy alcohol use, and infection with human papillomavirus (HPV). April is Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month.  See more at blog post https://awarenessgallery.com/blog/2018/09/25/head-and-neck-cancer-awareness-burgundy-and-ivory-ribbon-custom-buttons-and-pins/ #headandneckcancer #headandneckcancerawareness #headandneckcancerawarenessmonth #cancer #cancerawareness #cancerawarenessribbon #cancerawarenessribbons #cancerribbon #cancerribbons #HANCA #OHANCA https://www.instagram.com/awarenessgallery/p/BwpFcStAxWm/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=10i85ywajwhsb

[allyinthekeyofx]

Playing Hooky 1/1

Playing Hookey

AllyinthekeyofX

Summary:

Who was it that said Doctors make lousy patients? Mulder attempts to alleviate Scully’s boredom as she recuperates from the whole Ritter thing.  It’s fluff.  Plain and simple.

1/1

Scully is bored. Correction; Scully is bored, antsy, tired and angry at the world right now. Add to that whole cacophony of emotional turmoil a gunshot wound that isn't healing as quickly as she’d like and we have a recipe for disaster.

Listening to her on the phone just now - the fourth call in the space of two hours I might add - as she pathetically attempted to deny that she was crawling the walls, made my decision an easy one.

I'm aware I'm in the process of going AWOL which isn’t exactly going to endear me to our beloved AD Kersch, but then again what's another small misdemeanour when you compare it to the mounting pile of faux pas Scully and I have committed since finding ourselves thrust under his less than supportive command?

The guy is kind of an enigma to me. He doesn’t hate us exactly – or at least I don’t think he does. But I get the feeling that he was as horrified as we were when he suddenly found himself saddled with Mr and Mrs Spooky.

I think maybe we have upset the delicate balance of his well-oiled manure detecting machine.

What can I say? Scully and I just don't do fertilizer.

Simple as that.

So, here I am, jacket discarded, shirt sleeves rolled up, tie loosened comfortably, making a beeline for Scully's apartment and whistling as I do it.

Whistling for Christ's sake.

Obviously I have no conscience anymore with regards to my precarious position within the Bureau; What I do have though, is an obligation towards my partner because if she's pissed off, then I see it as my purpose in life to alleviate that.

And not to mention of course, at the back of my mind is the mind numbing realization that I almost lost her.

Again

Only this time around, it wasn't as a result of anything I did. This time she almost died because of the blind stupidity of a rookie agent who was prepared to go to any lengths to ensure his fast track ascent up the golden rungs of the VCS division ladder.

Peyton Fucking Ritter

My hands tighten on the steering wheel as I once again roll his loathsome name around my tongue; feeling the bitter taste of unrequited revenge rising up at the back of my throat as I do so.

The man who almost killed my partner.

The man whose hands were still covered in her crimson blood when in a blind fury I barrelled into that New York Hospital and wrapped my own hands around his throat and truthfully, the only thing that stopped me squeezing the life out of the bastard there and then was the sight of Scully, her eyes tightly closed against the pain, being wheeled away from me as they took her up to the OR to repair the damage the bullet had wreaked as it tore through her delicate flesh.

Suddenly, Ritter was reduced to the insignificant little toad that he was, and I dropped him like the proverbial hot coal before sprinting after my partner, reaching her just before she disappeared into the elevator, I grasped her pale, slender hand in mine as though my life depended on it and was rewarded a thousand fold when her eyes fluttered open and she regarded me sleepily from behind a drug induced haze.

And even then, as sick and hurting as she was, she sought only to lessen my own pain.

I hadn't realized I was crying. I have no conscious recollection of when the tears began to form crystalline paths down my face. Only that she shakily reached up, wincing as she did so, and smoothed the wetness away, her sweet voice barely more than a whisper as she grimaced through each word.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later”

And then she was gone.

I hadn't believed her though; convinced as I was that I would never see her again. 

Never look into those liquescent blue eyes that give her the ability to gently sooth my soul without her ever having to utter a single word; never feel the fluttering of her hands against my skin as she chased away my demons, held my nightmares at bay. Never watch her smile that gentle smile when I needed someone, anyone, to give me a reason to believe in myself. That I still had something to offer a world that had already taken so much.

And with that thought came the stark realization that if she did die, then I would surely follow her.

That a life without Scully wouldn’t be a life worth living.

But, of course I should really have known better because my Scully is tough. And against insurmountable odds she survived yet again to fight another day..

I brought her home a mere eight days later and left her in the care of her Mom - she protested weakly of course, It’s not Scully's way to admit need - but I think when all was said and done, even she appreciated that she was in no shape to care for herself.

The placement of the healing wound made it difficult for her to even walk around without pain arriving once again to cloud her delicate features, so she accepted the help that was offered to her with rare equanimity.

Not for long, of course because that would just be too much to hope for and it came as no great surprise when, just two days ago she insisted vehemently that she was recovered sufficiently to cope alone. 

 Neither Maggie nor I wasted time arguing with her. And she is okay - of that I have no doubt - but she's as bored as hell, and from bitter experience, I've discovered that a bored Scully is a dangerous one and I wouldn't put it past her to push her still healing body way too far before it is ready. So, I have come prepared, my plan of action necessitating a quick side trip on leaving the office.

It actually makes me smile to realize that despite her guarded exterior, I know this woman almost as well as she knows herself because after all, six years spent with someone, day in and day out means you get to pretty much know their likes and dislikes.

Scully has a penchant for what she and her kind would term Romantic comedy. Light hearted romantic blurb of the movie variety.

In other words a Chick Flick

Now, I’m not the most sensitive guy in these regards - a nice B rated Sci Fi is more my scene - but I know enough about women, and Scully in particular, to know when it’s appropriate to put a lid on the mutants so as to deliver what she needs to take her mind off her boredom. 

Jostling for space on the passenger seat beside me are all the elements that will hopefully drive all thoughts of a premature return to work out of Scully’s mind.  Well, for the remainder of today at least. A bottle of mid price white wine -Gallo Turning Leaf, to be precise, which is one of Scully's favourites and while I’m aware she probably shouldn’t be drinking too much (being that I’m not entirely sure whether she’s still taking regular pain relief or not)  I figure one glass won’t hurt.

A quart of Rocky road ice cream which I know she will eat straight out of the tub, and the knowledge that recently she’s been on a kind of health kick and has substituted full fat for some insipid tasting tofu based shit hasn’t deterred me in the slightest, because ice cream is like a drug to this woman and there is no way on earth she will be able to resist when I put the spoon in her hand. The video of course; recommended to me by the guy in the store who took one look at the wine and ice cream and raised his eyebrows knowingly. I glance across at the title.

While you were sleeping.

I’ve never heard of it, but the guy was insistent. If it turns out to be a bad choice I’ll just go back and shoot him.

And finally, the impulse buy to end all impulse buys and one which, if I’m honest, is so out of character for me that the shock might just send her straight back to the hospital.  Because I have bought her flowers for no other reason than the fact that I saw them and they reminded me of her.

Twelve huge tiger lilies, velvet petals against a backdrop of delicate green fern, bound with wide, white ribbon and so beautiful that the sight of them stopped me dead in my tracks.  I had to buy them, the decision totally out of my control and I was reaching for my credit card before I even reached the doorway that led to the shop, barely even batting an eyelid when faced with the cost.  I don’t buy her flowers. Never have. The one time I ever offered her anything even vaguely resembling them was that painful day when she called me to the hospital to break the news that she had Cancer. I bought flowers because at the time I didn’t know what else to do because what the hell do you offer your best friend and centre of your universe when she's standing there calmly telling you that she is going to die?

At the time, flowers seemed as good a thing as any.

But she didn’t die because against all the odds, she survived that too.

Like I said before, Scully is tough.

My mind has been drifting during the journey over here, and I’m kind of surprised when I roll to a halt outside the beautiful Georgian building that my partner calls home and as I take one more glance across at my hoard of Scullyesque goodies, I can’t help wondering suddenly if I'm doing the right thing.  But I force myself to take a deep breath and before my courage can fail me completely, I scoop everything up in my arms, being careful not to crush the delicate lily petals against my chest and exit the car.

It takes her a while to answer the door but eventually, I hear the sound of locks being turned and chains pulled across -Scully is very security conscious and after everything that's happened here over the past six years, I can’t say I blame her.

Her face appears before me, eyes widening as she registers who it is that has disturbed her afternoon, and the expression on her face seems..........guilty. Why does she look so guilty?

"Mulder......what are you doing here?"

Not exactly the greeting I had hoped for, but I smile in return anyway.

"Playing hooky. I figured that the doo-doo could survive an afternoon without me."

She smiles wanly back at me but makes no other move and eventually, conscious that the ice cream is beginning to melt I take the initiative.

"So, Scully, you gonna invite me in or what?"

I don’t like the way she reddens slightly, as if she is embarrassed by my sudden appearance and for a fleeting, moment that makes the blood literally turn to ice in my veins, I wonder if she’s got a guy here.

Which is stupid I admit. But my paranoid insecurities can be a bitch at times.

Eventually though she simply nods and steps aside, allowing me entrance.

And then I understand.

The apartment is littered with boxes, the contents of which are scattered haphazardly around the room. Both doors of the giant pine closet that graces the corner of Scully’s sitting room are hanging open. From my position at the rooms’ threshold I can see that it is empty.

Scully is having a clear-out it seems.

My recently shot-in-the-guts partner, not two weeks out of the hospital and still a long way from recovery is, instead of obeying orders and sitting on her ass, having a fucking clear-out.

I feel the anger bubbling up from deep inside me and even as I speak, I can hear how pissed off I sound.

"What in hell do you think you're doing Scully?"

She has the decency to at least look contrite, folding her arms across her chest and dropping her gaze away from mine, because, stubborn pride or not, she knows that this is wrong. I mean, she’s a Doctor for Gods sake.

But then again, Scully is like me - never been too good at following her own advice.

"I was bored." she admits finally, sounding so much like a petulant child that I almost expect her to jut her lower lip out.

The sudden mental image of pouty Scully though does little to dispel my anger. In fact if I’m honest, I am fighting the urge to grab her by the arms and attempt to shake some sense into her; not exactly the best course of action, given her current condition.

"I don't care how fucking bored you are Scully, you were told to rest. You promised to rest. Jesus Christ, you almost died. What’s the matter with you?"

My words increase in volume until I am right on the cusp between firm voice and shouty voice. Her neighbours will be hammering on the wall in a minute.

But right now I don't care.

Scully on the other hand, apparently does care. And if looks could kill...well, let’s just say that this month’s triple X membership payment would have been $50 wasted.

She doesn’t like being shouted at - she never has and the coward that lurks beneath my hardened exterior wishes he could pull the words back in.

Or at least lower the volume a little because my diminutive partner is now slightly red in the face and spitting the words right back at me like an angry cat.

"Stop being so damn melodramatic all the time Mulder. I didn't almost die and you know it."

She is breathing hard. We both are. Only I'm not wincing the way she is. Shouting back at me has obviously pulled at her wound and suddenly I feel like the most selfish shit in the world.

No, that's not big enough. Try the universe.

So I battle to bring my emotions under control; emotions that are still raw enough to make my throat tighten every time I think of her lying, bleeding and in pain on that hospital gurney.

I hate to see Scully in pain. Especially since she hides it so well. It makes it hard to really gauge what she needs sometimes.

But that's my problem, not hers.

I back away from her slightly to give her some space, wanting to reach out to her, but not knowing how. So I fall back on the only thing I have left.

The truth.

Softly spoken, almost whispered.

"No, you didn't. But you might have done and that's just as hard to handle Scully. I wasn’t there. I should have been there.”

Sudden understanding floods her features and her eyes film as tears gather at their corners because she knows if I’d been there I would have been covering her back. Just like she covers mine. Splitting us up made her vulnerable.

She could have fucking died. And I wouldn’t even have known until the phone call came through; the notion that I could have lost her is absolutely paralyzing and one that has been at the forefront of my mind for every second of every hour of every fucking day since it happened.  Because I wasn’t there when she needed me and I should have been.

She chooses this moment to take a step towards me, bridging the gap I myself created only seconds ago and lays her palm flat on my chest, right at the point where she can feel my heart beating through the cotton shirt that covers it.

Her way of affirming to me that she is here.

That she's okay.

"I'm sorry Mulder. I guess I just make a lousy invalid."

Her whispered admission lightens the moment slightly and I am able to smile. Because Scully is a lousy patient. We both are. Maybe that’s why we understand each other so well. Like attracts like my Mother used to say.

Maybe that’s the reason we argue so much; this innate stubbornness that we both seem to have been blessed with in spades and which often gets in the way of us really seeing the other’s point of view..

She remains there for a few seconds, until the air between us clears and we are able to breathe again, allowing my focus to snap back to the reason I came here in the first place.

"I brought you flowers" I say stupidly.

Scully smiles then, not one of her usual tight lipped smirks this one. Oh no - this is a brilliant, full wattage grin that lights up her face and makes my stomach flip lazily because I think I’ve only had the pleasure of seeing this phenomenon maybe a half dozen times in our partnership and it knocks me squarely on my butt each and every time.

She takes the flowers from me gently.

"I’ll put them in water."

And then the grin surfaces once again.

"You can clear up in here."

I don’t argue.

XXXXX

It’s much later now although I’m not really sure of the exact time. I removed my watch when I found myself standing at Scully’s sink washing the remains of a hastily thrown together dinner off her china plates.

I actually cooked for her. Not a practice I indulge in too often, and not one in which I profess to have any real skill but even I can just about manage to put together a simple meal given the right circumstances, and since she had dutifully slipped back into recovery mode, I was happy to experiment a little.

Thankfully, the results weren’t too bad, although I’m damn sure she’ll never taste bolognaise quite like that again.

We didn’t wind up watching the movie.

The damn thing wouldn't play for some reason and I was disappointed at first. I mean, that was the sole purpose of coming here.

I had wanted to sit with my partner and share a chick flick with her.

Instead though, what we actually shared was Rocky road ice cream straight from the tub and a bottle of chilled Turning leaf.

I listened to the sound of her laughter, and even though she winced every time she laughed it just didn't seem to matter and when she tentatively reached for my hand across the tiny space that separated us, nothing seemed to really matter very much anymore except the feeling of her fingers squeezing mine just as tightly as when I had squeezed hers when she lay broken and bleeding on that hospital gurney.

Only this time it was different, because this time we are safe.

And now that the afternoon shadows have turned in to night, Scully is nestled against me, her head resting against my chest as she finally loses the battle with herself and succumbs to the healing sleep she so desperately needs.

And that’s okay; because I feel her heartbeat merging with my own - chasing away my fear and allowing me to finally breathe into relaxation for the first time in days; my eyes growing heavy as I am soothed by the weight of her against me.

Today has been a good day.

Maybe I will play hooky more often.

END

[sludge-world]

Thoughts at the close of business

I think I'm clever sometimes. I let my imagination convince me that I have an insight to share. But it is so rare that someone asks for advice that sometimes you find other options, or craft them. I did just this thing at a question and answer session with the 4 contestants for this weekend's Minnesota Leather Pride.

But first some history.  In 4th grade we wrote letters to our heros. Most kids were normal and choose Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky.  But I never liked sports and even then thought myself clever. I picked President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, it was the early days of the 1988 campaign and I watched the news.  I had sympathies for the enemy in the cold war, a prepubescent edge lord in a time before online. I internalized some counter revolutionary ideas and spent my high school years caught in the thrawl of Newt Gingrich and his insurgent Republicans before going to college, coming out and returning to my radical roots.  I was, am and will probably always be a Communist.

The intricacies of my ever evolving and unorthodox approach to Marxism aren't important, per se.  It is just to give context to this story. One day, when I was Minnesota Leather boy, in 2017, I set my Facebook profile picture to a picture of myself wearing my sash and, in what was the fashion of the day, an added frame that showed the world my feelings on some topic or issue.  But instead of a ribbon for AIDS awareness or breast cancer awareness or autism awareness it was a firetruck red hammer and sickle. It didn't take long for someone in the leather community to let me know they didn't appreciate me being visibly Communist and visibly a titleholder in our community. 

I did it to be a bit provocative, I won't deny that. I thought it could bring attention to two things I cared about, a few people might be upset but I was entitled.  But when someone did call me on it I wasn't defiant, I apologized and took the picture down. Inside I felt aggrieved, but when it went from a theoretical offended "someone" to an actually offended someone, I recognized that it was a wrong move and I changed course.  I recognized that it was a cheap shot to leverage this platform I had won to, in my own small way, represent and advocate for this community to then promote a message that most everyone saw as unrelated. I wasn't being asked to change my message or censor any opinion I held, I was simply asked by one person to not grab the microphone out of Taylor Swift's hand and yell "Communism!" And I realized I was simply being asked to be polite and recognize people might find it irksome. Furthermore, the picture wasn't advancing an argument or pleading my case, it was being a disruption.

In my perception, I expressed an unpopular opinion and it turned the community against me.  I was henceforth a suspect character who was tolerated by never truly embrace. Honestly that whole drama was probably in my mind. For all I know one person just happened to offhandedly mention it to fill a lull in conversation and no one else noticed and even this person didn't care with any gusto.  But it affected me and it changed my mind about what is beneficial, what is sharing my deepest beliefs and what is just putting rational discourse aside and making a statement; I realized I didn't want to provoke because then people stop listening.

But it stuck with me because it made me think a lot about how much of myself I'm willing to compromise to be part of a community.  I considered explicitly how much of my involvement with kink I was willing to hide from vanilla friends and family and how much was crucial that they know if they were to know and accept the genuine and full me.  A whole reevaluation of my relationship to any group whose label I, through choice or circumstance, was a constituent of. And I figured out my own boundaries of what I'm willing to compromise for social acceptance.

With all of that in my mind, I asked the four contestants, as of writing this titleholders, what they would do if they found themselves facing criticism for expressing an unpopular or controversial belief with the community.  I thought I was so clever and giving them a heads up to consider beforehand a situation that had led me to a lot of energy intensive soul searching and contemplation.

Almost as soon as I had asked it I overcame my delusion and admitted to myself that I, like so many question askers before me, asked a question because I wanted to be heard and not truly to spark new thoughts in those answering or the audience.  But what's done is done. And the answers I heard got me thinking all over again.

As I listened to their answers I was struck by a nearly universal assumption on their part; they all seemed to take for granted that if they expressed an unpopular opinion it was likely they were wrong.  That idea made sense. Both chronically and acutely the leather community has faced divisions around the place and position of transgender people. In our local community a consensus emerged early and strongly that trans men are men, trans women are women, non-binary people exist and all were welcome to compete for titles that match their self identity.  This put us at odds with a vocal and entrenched faction of the larger community that disagreed. Their policies and escalating rhetoric tried to discourage the change we were advancing. In that context it made sense that our community knew better than those other people in other places. And if I disagree with this community I must be the one who is wrong, who should listen and learn and be open to change.  If I disagree it means I might agree with the people I generally disagree with and that doesn't seem right.

This wasn't the answer the clever me wanted to hear.  I wanted to hear a full throated defense of freedom of conscience and speech.  I harbored hope that someone would say they would stick to their guns and challenge the community to accept them as they were, disagreements and all.  I wanted them to say that they had core convictions that they couldn't silence or hide come hell and high water! If anyone ever did begrudge me talking politics then my insightful question would make them reconsider.  Now, as far as I know, none of that happened. No one took particular notice of my question. If they did, they probably wouldn't relate it to the incident that was only significant to me and nearly two years out of date.  But since then I've been thinking again.

Throughout the rest of the day and night, through the contest I was judging and my drive home afterwards I have been turning all this around in my mind.  Arguing with myself, looking for new connections or insights. 

Here's where I've ended up. This isn't an answer or even something I'm ready to say I believe. From the start of the next paragraph to the end of this sort of essay, please remember this is a maybe, a perhaps.  It's an answer that seeks to spark more questions, in me and maybe in whatever audience it finds. But, again, I recognize the vanity of thinking I have the power to influence anyone.

Maybe both answers are crucial. Maybe being truly part of a community can be defined by this question, this construction.

You are part of a community when you share something precious in common, be it kinship or love, philosophy or real estate.  Communities coalesce around these shared ideas. If you find yourself in disagreement with your community, the responsible path begins with questioning yourself.  Why do you disagree? Have you made mistakes in logic or let your mind be clouded by biases or blind spots that could have inadvertently brought you to hold an idea that is truly incongruent with the concepts you hold dear and have bound you to this community?  Only you can answer this question, but if your honest self inquiry reassures you that you are right in the face of disagreement from those you see as your own, it is the best course to hold true to your ideals and trust that your bond to your community will allow them to accept you disagreements and all.  Or, if the rupture is insurmountable, you must trust that there is a place for your in another community where you will be accepted for your genuine and honest self.

There is a comfort in conformity and acceptance. There is a power and strength in defiance.  We each live life charting our own evolving course between these two shores, sometimes sacrificing one to secure the other, always balancing what we desire with what we're willing to risk losing to secure it.

And if, through timidity or complacency, we ever default to blindly following popular opinion or stubbornly insisting knee jerk on our own correctness, we not only fail to grow into the person we are always desirous of becoming, we do harm to our community by not trusting others to see beyond our differences.  Further, we deprive those we claim solidarity with the opportunity to know the true self we are as well as the chance to examine their own ideas and either join our dissent or find their existing agreement reinvigorated and stronger for the reminder of the shared beliefs.

Our communities construct us as much as we construct our communities and it is on each of us to continue that inner dialogue and remain vigilant.  Sometimes we'll fit in and sometimes we'll stand out, if we are where we are loved and we love then we are in community worthy of us and us of them.  

Disagreement and agreement, fluidity and solidity, deference and defiance all have a place in living communities and living communities survive into the future.

[pemborongkurmamalaysia4810-blog]

Spiritual Living, The Bible, & Jesus The Shelton Diet

The Shelton Diet Plan was created by Medical Doctor Herbert Shelton. Dry fruits are great laxatives and are also a wonderful all-natural remedy for anemic conditions, acidosis, fever, and sexual stimulation. Fibers would be the carbohydrates utilized in plant-based foods which don't digest from the human body. It is very important to be aware that dates really are packed with carbs along with their candy taste helps make them easy to over eat.

You acquire weight when you take in far more calories than you burn, and it's easy to overeat high-calorie foods like dates. If somebody is affected with chilly rheumatism, consuming foods with a warm or hot energy would be useful. Back in William Bartram's book, Travels in 1773, he "observed amongst them (fruit bushes ) the crazy crab (Pyrus coronaria) in his explorations close to Mobile, Alabama.

However, some varieties of dates can be eaten in a less than a old state, traditionally called khalal. " Fruit at the khalal point have attained their maximum size, therefore are typically yellow or red, have a candy taste, also are crunchy, slightly like an apple.

Let the dates soak for about ten minutes, and then then breed your fruit and then discard the water. It is more flavorful when eaten fresh rather than dried. The most popular English names are dried dates, dates, date palm, and so on; commonly oblong, and with changing sizes, styles, colors, consistencies and quality.

The bunches on shorter trees may be softened in to ribbons to eliminate any mature dates. Even though it is in fact a frequent belief that consuming limitless amounts of fruits and veggies can help you lose excess weight, studies demonstrating this as a reality are limited, based on the Centers for Illness control and Prevention.

Though the fiber in dates has got the ability to lower cholesterol levels, researchers in the Technion-Israel Institute of technologies at Israel report that dates possess better results at lowering triglyceride levels, which is another form of body fat in the blood.

This has attracted about lots of extraction procedures, at which the retention period, charge of investment, residual reductions, sugar immersion are all balanced to get there at a minimal overall unit price tag to get its expressed date juice. The study was of individuals ingestion 6 dates every day, for 4 weeks before their estimated due date.

The most useful possibilities of fruit for diabetics really are some that are new, frozen or canned without added sugars. Eating 2 dates provides you with 6 per cent of the every day value for B-6 and 4 percent of the everyday worth to pantothenic acid and niacin. When the seed of this date-palm germinates, the book of food stored up in it is changed into glucose by means of ferment call cytase, generated from the very first green leaves of the plant.

Dates are very useful in keeping your heart healthy. Eat fermented food and simmer to displace pH balance and amazing well-being. 1 medjool date provides approximately 167mg of potassium, which is important for maintaining healthy blood pressure. Including dates on your diet may have health benefits.

If you, like me, also build a curiosity about the wellness advantages of fruit and vegetables that you eat, then you most likely wonder about the wellness advantages of dates though reading this particular post. 7. Ingesting dates protect from your colon, breast, prostate, endometrial, lung and pancreatic cancers.

Dried dates are an improved source of calcium and iron than fresh, however clean dates are a much better source of vitamin C. A 3.5 ounce. Dose of new dates comprises 34 mg of calcium, including 6 g of iron along with 30 milligrams of Vitamin C, and also the very same dimension serving of dried dates contains 81 mg of calcium, 8 mg of iron and milligrams of Vitamin C. Vitamin C is much less stable nutritional supplement compared to either calcium or iron, which is destroyed by both storage and heat.

Considerable improvement was produced in recent years seeing our understanding about these bioactive compounds present in plant-based foods along with their immediate connection to human health 8 9 Such protective outcomes have been attributed to the phyto chemicals, secondary plant metabolites or key cellular components, current within fruits 8 9 Thorough investigation of the dates used inside this review revealed that they truly are a rich supply of phyto chemicals, including hydroxycinnamic acids, including PACs and lipophilic polyphenols.

Drinking a milk decoction of date fruit from boiling up to 7 date fruits kurma green diamond pemborong kurma seri kembangan selangor at a cup of milk in bedtime for 1 month is recommended as a useful remedy for the treatment of coughs, bronchial catarrh, asthma, tuberculosis, cold, and flu, fevers, chest complaints, laryngitis, sore throat, etc..

The fruit of this legitimate date palm also is advisable for consumption by allowing women so as to add more nutrition into their diet plan plan. Average Western diets comprise too much of that which exactly are termed acid foods, at overly significant amounts. Dates include a high nutrient content, which is effective for many different health conditions but their remarkable levels of iron make them an ideal health supplement for people experiencing anemia.