#to the utter despair of looking up ship stuff for them and finding barely anything

[scribz-ag24]

Your art was the start of a domino effect and now i have the biggest duskvyle brainrot. There are basically no Ao3 fics. How can i keep going like this? How can you keep going like this? please answer me. im slowly going insane.

^ this has been me since late may 2023 so trust me i get your pain.

i have read Together We'll Be Heroes and Stars that Shine like ten times each. i have drawn fanart for both and got inspired by another fic to do a short actaeonshipping comic. I literally only started drawing pmd bc there was so little ship content of them. call me dusknoir for the way i am desperately trying to keep myself alive at all costs and hope you feel the same way as me

[duhragonball]

Yamcha if you're still doing the character meme?

I am still doing these, and I’m enjoying it, so keep ‘em coming.   Before I start, let me promote the original post, in case anyone else wants to start their own thing.  I’d link to the OP, but I guess they deleted this from their blog, probably because their notifications went nuts.

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Let’s be honest, Yamcha doesn’t get a lot of big “hero moments” in Dragon Ball.   Or Dragon Ball Z, or Dragon Ball GT, or Dragon Ball Su-- Look, you get the idea.   In most arcs, he’s the first one to get benched.   In tournaments, he always loses in the first round.   He spent the King Piccolo Saga recovering from a broken leg.    Against the Saiyans, he was the first one to die.  Against the Androids, he was nearly killed and had to sit out the rest of that arc.   In the Buu Sagas he was retired.    In a number of major storylines, he just isn’t there, because no one called him.

But he remains a fixture in the franchise anyway, because he’s always showing up for more.  Let’s take the Buu Saga as an example.   It didn’t surprise me to find out he had retired, mainly from a dramatic standpoint.    There’s a lot of new characters in the Buu arc, and it made sense for some of the older characters to step aside and make room for them.   But he’s still there, because he wants to see Goku one last time, and he wants to hang out with his friends and watch some of them kick the crap out of each other.   It was kind of sad to see him stay behind while the others rushed off to follow the Supreme Kai, but he’s retired, after all.    Also, they didn’t stop to fill him in on what was happening.    I suspect he might have tagged along if they asked.  

As it was, he still ended up getting involved, and he was with the Dragon Team right up until Super Buu cornered them on the Lookout.     And the next time we see him, he’s on the Grand Kai Planet with Krillin, and King Kai seriously considers sending them in to take on Buu in case Goku and Vegeta can’t get the job done.   

And that’s a big deal, because it even comes up in the anime.   King Kai tells them that he arranged for them to keep their bodies as a precaution, but he’s totally in favor of letting them remain on the Grand Kai Planet with all of the other honored warriors, like Goku.  So you start with this desert bandit, a highwayman without a highway, probably because he’s afraid of all the women that use the interstate.   But he gradually overcomes his fears and insecurities, never completely, but just enough to put one foot in front of the other and become a better man.    And finally he ends up receiving a place among the great heroes of old.  

So why doesn’t that get more attention?   You could make a whole epic story out of that, except it’s not Yamcha’s story.  He’s a supporting character.   So the franchise itself tends to play it down.    Even Yamcha doesn’t really take it all that seriously.   I don’t know if that’s modesty or cluelessness or Big Himbo Energy or what, but that’s why it’s so easy for everyone to write him off as a loser or a failure.   They’re overlooking the bigger picture.

The best way to illustrate this is with this TFS short that serves as an epilogue to their DBZ Abridged series.   Yamcha goes back to playing baseball for the Taitans, only to get fired, because he’s so talented that he’s literally broken the game, and no one buys tickets anymore.    But he gets a gigantic severance package, and he still goes down in history as the greatest ballplayer in history.  What always gets to me is that they have to explain to him that this is actually a win.  As his coach puts it, “you do nothing but win.”   

Like Yamcha himself, we often see him from the lens of these insane Dragon Ball adventures, where you have to have glowy hair and a hot cyborg wife to be considered a success.   But to the rest of the world, he’s a jacked up millionaire with fantastic hair, and he’s a real sweetheart.   Who couldn’t like this dude?

Why I don’t: As you may have noticed, I tend to only use this section to talk about why I disliked the characters initially.   I have to think back to 1999 when I was still having trouble keeping track of who’s who.   In particular, I found Yamcha’s presence frustrating because he looked and dressed almost exactly like Goku, but not quite, which seemed bizarre.    Later, I picked up on the context, and it didn’t bother me as much.  

Yamcha does have a bit of an overconfident streak in some situations, which might look like unfounded arrogance, but I think it’s really just his carefree nature and enthusiastic can-do spirit.   He was confident about their chances against the Saiyans, but I don’t think that was him being cocky.   He just knew they had all trained hard and he was stronger than he’d ever been.    But that’s easy for people to jump on as a reason to hate the guy.  

Future Trunks claimed that he fooled around while he was involved with Bulma, but come on.    Does anyone really buy that?    Besides, at best, that would only apply to Future Yamcha, the one who died in the other timeline.   Once Trunks changed the past, all bets were off.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): I’m gonna get a little nuts here and go with TFS’s playthrough of Legacy of Goku I, where they decided to level up Yamcha and have him solo Broly.

Basically, in an RPG game like this, Wolf Fang Fist can do monster damage, so they maxed out Yamcha’s stats to wreck the game’s hidden superboss.  You have to skip to 1:40:00 or so to see the successful attempt, but I loved this video.   This is where I learned to respect the utterance of “Roga... fufuken!”  Broly probably would have respected it, too, except he died from all those hits he took.

Favorite season/movie: You know, that fight with Tien was a classic.   Not sure it’s in my top ten, but it’s on a lot of people’s lists, and I absolutely get that.

Dumb as it may sound, I enjoyed seeing Yamcha in the hospital, wrestling with his own despair as he recuperated from his broken leg.   And when he shows up at the end to congratulate Tien and accepts Tien’s apology, well, like I said, Yamcha has this great character arc, but it’s easy to overlook with everything else that goes on.

Favorite line: I forget which game it was in, maybe Budokai 3, but one of his pre-fight taunts is “Watch this, Puar!  I’m gonna win!”, which always makes me think of Puar sitting just off-camera, watching the action from a little lawn chair.  

Favorite outfit:

I may take some heat for this, but I like the Androids/Cell Saga version of Yamcha, with the short, spiky hair.  This dude’s long, luxurious rockstar ‘do is a national treasure, sure, but I dig this look more.  

Also, I consider Yamcha to be the only guy from the Turtle School who pulls off the slippers and no-blue-undershirt look.   It looks off when I see it on Krillin and Goku, but with Yamcha it just feels right. 

OTP: This guy gets shipped with a lot of people, probably because he’s one of the major characters without an established love interest.   Folks still carry a torch for Bulma, some people ship him with Tien, Frieza hit on him in FighterZ, and I’m still trying to make sense of that.   He flirts with your character in the Xenoverse games.    Years ago, I considered doing something with that, but I’ve fleshed out my OC enough to where I don’t think that fits. 

At the end of the day, I can only see Yamcha getting together with @cozymochi ‘s OC, Marzi.  

Brotp: Tien, Krillin, Goku.  Hell, I always figured Yamcha was one of the few people Vegeta could get along with to some extent.  

I mean, Tien couldn’t stand to be one the same planet as Vegeta, but Yamcha keeps coming over to have hot dogs at Bulma’s place, long after the Namekians have left.  

Head Canon: He’s Luffa’s type, don’t get me wrong.    I just don’t see any room in my fic for a whirlwind courtship.    The stars just don’t align.

Unpopular opinion: I’m not really behind this notion that they should give the humans more stuff to do in future series.   When it comes to supporting characters, sometimes they get phased out, and there’s no point in phasing them back in unless there’s a compelling story idea for them.   

I think it’s dumb how they teased Yamcha in the Tournament of Power prelude, only to leave him out of the tournament itself.    On the other hand, they put Tien on the team and barely used him, which tells me that even if they’d put Yamcha on the team, it wouldn’t have amounted to anything.   

I get it, people love these characters and want to see them used more, but I’d rather have one strong Yamcha story than a hundred non-starters.  And at this point, I think the only thing anyone can do is rely on fan-created content.    Be the change you want to see in the world.

A wish: Crap, it’s after ten pm.    I dunno, I wish Marzi was canon.  

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I feel like the character’s already been through worse than I could come up with for him.   

5 words to best describe them: Cat loves food, yeah yeah yeah.   That’s six, but who cares?

My nickname for them: Yeah, I don’t have one.

[flyswhumpcenter]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. Green deltas are for requested prompts.)

There’s a reason why Chronos was such a cruel god.

I almost forgot to post this fic... I started it a while back, got art block, and only went back to it during a boring geography lesson during Whumptober. It was also not meant to be an Inazuma fic, but sometimes I have a weird creativity and muse. Don't ask me, the wonders of the human mind I guess. It'll come to literally nobody's surprise that I ship Anna and Nosaka because I'm the token F/M shipper of the main fanfic writers of this fandom (y'know, gotta contrast my colleagues and provide the stuff nobody but me and maybe an IRL friend wants). I'm surprised I've never managed to finish a fic with them before, tho: yes, the previous prompt fill, "Bedside Vigil" was supposed to be for them until I switched to Haizaki/Akane over... my Tomodachi Life game immediately pairing them up (true story). Anyway. This fic does imply to a road accident of some sort, so if you're sensitive to this kind of topic (for which you're entirely justified, tbh, that's coming from someone who's almost been in one), proceed with caution. It's nothing graphic or anything, just floating in the background of this story, though. I also almost forgot to mention this is supposed to be set in my Inazuma Café AU, but the only reason why you need to know that is because they're college students there, and why Anna and Hikaru are as friendly to each other as they are here. I mean, if you wanna know more, I'll gladly respond to questions.

It’s also the last story I can write for this card without getting a Five in a Row, which I may or may not have done on purpose lol

---------

For Time Cannot Be Accelerated

Summary: Anna didn't think ambulance rides could last this long on the mind. She was seriously proven wrong.

Fandom: Inazuma Eleven (Ares/Orion continuity; implied college AU) Relationships: Platonic Anna & Hikaru friendship, implied established Anna/Nosaka

Wordcount: 1.7K words

Content Warnings: Implied road accident, talks of death, some blood and talk of injury.

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

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They’re all tense in the ambulance. It doesn’t help that they share a small space amongst themselves, all cranked in one back of a truck that had clearly been made to have one stretcher and the paramedics watching over it. Nobody talks, except the latter amongst themselves in the front of the ambulance and through the vehicle. Instead, they don’t look at each other, too busy staring at the floor or their responsibility.

Anna has opted for the floor, for the time being.

 It’s overwhelming to remain here, in a crowded place where she felt alone nonetheless, drowned in the noise of the beeping machinery and blaring sirens echoing on the inside, feet surrounded by wires, hands trembling and sorrow she desperately kept inside. Her thoughts are still shaken from what had happened merely moments before, isolating her even further, words having escaped from her mouth and her vocal cords remaining knotted with no throat clearing able to untie them back to usefulness. She’s speechless, voiceless, useless.

Her shoulder is pressed against Ichihoshi’s, whose hand happens to sometimes brush against her naked arms. From what little she can see of his face, drowned in the darkness of the vehicle and lit by the unstable, flickering coloured lights of the different monitors crippling her earing, he isn’t any more relaxed than she was, shoulders stiff and frowned eyebrows, biting his lip, trying not to fidget with his fingers. She feels like she should be telling him something to make him untense, but considering how tense she also is, she has no idea what she’s even supposed to utter. Her mental syllabus has given up on her for the time being.

 In this moment of despair and desolation, Anna still admires the valiant efforts of the paramedics making sense of the numbers displayed on tiny screens and muttering a language she doesn’t understand most of, words whose meaning she has no idea of flying way over her head. They’ve kept their cool when she was on the verge of tears, an unknown yet powerful force preventing her from falling to her knees and weeping like she is, frankly, wanting to do above everything else. Still, she’s the Empress, and no Empress has ever cried when her capacity of judgement was needed.

The air of the ambulance was hot, too much so, smothering both Ichihoshi and her. If she could take a breather outside, even if it’d be for a mere moment or from a minuscule hole, her head would spin far less quickly, her world would stabilize, her mind would be much further from the verge of breaking down under its own weight. She craves tranquillity and serenity, two states of mind she’s meant to have and yet lacked in these desperate moments.

 Anna has started finding ways to recover her calm. The floor of the ambulance which seemed highly uncomfortable and disgustingly dirty when she climbed in now looked more than comfortable enough to her, but they lacked the space to even attempt sitting down. Before long, she’s realized the hard reality of things: there’s no way for her to get even the slightest bit more comfortable, and despite the speeds this vehicle is going at, it’s still taking ages in her mind.

In a way, it reminds her of being on a sinking ship, swimming in the cold sea, except she doesn’t even have the merit of risking hypothermia because she’s boarding on a rescue boat while someone else is pushing it, giving their skin to the freezing waters and floating debris. Morbid imagery she tries to erase out of her mind as soon as possible, yet the beating of her heart making itself known in her head and neck prevent her from not thinking about death nor debris.

 “I… I hope everything will be alright,” Ichihoshi eventually stutters, in an almost-whisper, voice hiding behind the ill-paced cacophony.

“So do I,” she replies as she notices something was dripping along her skin, eyeing the liquid going down her arm. Drifting her glance in its direction, she sees he’s holding his right arm with his left hand pressed against his jacket’s fabric, a faint difference in colours showing up in the mostly uniform light blue-and-red that his white sleeves had become.

As a result, her voice changes in tone, “are you okay, Ichihoshi?”

“It stings, but it’s nothing too bad. I’ll have it checked when we’ll arrive.”

The trembling, weakness in his own voice makes her more than doubtful of his statement. He’s unstable on his feet, almost swaying, crashing into her when the ambulance unfortunately shifted too quickly for him to catch himself on something, fingers slipping on the metal walls. She barely catches him with weak arms, legs feeling fainter until she’s stabilized him on his feet.

“I don’t believe that it can’t be ‘too bad’, if you’re tilting this much,” she tells him, even more concern melting into acid. “Let me see”.

 A sense of responsibility gives her back some of her stability, legs straightening up, eyes sharper as she tried to see in the half-dark. Without a word, she took off her comrade’s sleeve, noticing the sharp contrast marked by what could only be a wound. It seems like a deep cut, with shards reflecting the dim lights visibly exiting from it. Her hair rises on her limbs as soon as she knows what this is about.

“How long do we have left until we arrive?” She demands, in an imploring voice, to the paramedics.

They’re not able to provide a clear time, “a couple minutes left, traffic’s really bad, our apologies”, so she has to deal with it and simply keep Ichihoshi close to her, making sure he doesn’t trip on himself, inspecting for other wounds he could have. Aside from his arm, she thinks she sees a stain on his stomach and another on his right leg, although they’re less noticeable and she kind of sighs in relief to herself about that fact. It must mean they’re less grievous than the one she saw first.

 “I really hope he’s gonna be okay…” Ichihoshi whispers close to her ear, back lying against the metal.

The concern she’s tried to hold in until now by thinking of something else and failing to fully do so breaks through the gates and floods her mind again. She has too much to worry about and not enough available space, the scratches on her knees and elbows from the glass shards paling in comparison to the anguish that this ambulance ride is starting to become.

“Same here…” Her voice almost chokes on itself, but she breathes in and out, swallows her pride and her stress in one gulp, and continues speaking as not to betray her actual state of mind. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, he’s pulled through worse, I know it…”

Her hands still enlace themselves in a silent prayer she tries to hide from the world.

“He’ll… be fine. He will be fine.”

She wants to cry.

“You’re right. Surely he’ll make it…”

 Anna isn’t lying to reassure herself, merely speaking her truth. Yuuma has always proven himself to being capable of the most daring stunts, even life-threatening ones. While she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to fully forgive him hiding his tumour away from her for reasons he’s never quite told her about, merely tune down the hurt he’s caused her by taking in account the reasons he did so; she has to use it as proof it should be fine. She only has hope to keep herself afloat now, her reason having fled the scene.

Yuuma is capable of great things, that much she’s sure of. She doesn’t know him entirely yet, and is certain she won’t ever be able to fully understand his character, yet she trusts him with her own life and, in these dire moments, he needs her. He needs her to remain strong and level-headed, to withstand the pressure and the desolation taking root inside her heart. They’ve promised to remain together and be there for each other: it’s time for her to fulfil her part of the trade.

Plus, from the three of them involved in this tragic accident, she’s the only one who has grazes instead of injuries. She also has to keep an eye on Ichihoshi on behalf of both Yuuma and her.

 “He’ll make it. I’m certain of it,” she repeats, more to herself than to her friend.

“I’m sure of it too,” he adds, in a similar fashion, and they’re back to both silently pray in silence as time slowly flows before their eyes, like the calm waves of a serene beach coming and going. If she closes her eyes and tries ignoring reality enough, she can almost hear the sea instead of sirens and cryptic whispers.

“And you? Are you okay?” she asks, her hands leaving their praying position, about to inspect her friend.

“I’ll be fine…”

He sounds too unsure to her liking, but before she can even comment on that, the atmosphere changes as she hears in echoes the nearby sirens of other ambulances.

 This is when Anna realizes that she couldn’t have been more relieved to see a hospital in her life, making sights she’d have wished never to see again some she was looking forward to: the paramedics shifting around the stretches and talking among themselves in a slightly different way, the monitors displaying new numbers, men shouting in an urgent tone. Almost unbeknownst to them, they were holding each other’s arm for support in dire times, the smell of iron sticking to his skin, her composure coming back despite the tears having taken away some of her makeup.

They’re most likely both ugly sights too, but they’re alive, they’ve arrived, and it’ll all be fine, eventually. For now, they step down from the ambulance, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Despite the circumstances, neither of them succumb to their darker thoughts and bruises, not a complaint heard despite Ichihoshi grunting in pain from time to time and her lack of balance and remaining strength to carry the both of them without herself panting.

 Still, Anna is the Empress, this much she knows; and an empress remains strong, no matter the circumstances. She’ll trust Yuuma and bring Ichihoshi to someone who can help tend to his wounds. That’s her mission and she’ll make sure to accomplish.

[sure-am-existing]

tl;dr Don't shoot IV drugs into your taint.

aka; the Swamps of Dagobah patient horror story, submitted to reddit by banzaipanda in 2013.

OR Nurse here. This is kind of a long one...

I was taking call one night, and woke up at two in the morning for a "general surgery" call. Pretty vague, but at the time, I lived in a town that had large populations of young military guys and avid meth users, so late-night emergencies were common.

Got to the hospital, where a few more details awaited me -- "Perirectal abscess." For the uninitiated, this means that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the asshole, there was a pocket of pus that needed draining. Needless to say our entire crew was less than thrilled.

I went down to the Emergency Room to transport the patient, and the only thing the ER nurse said as she handed me the chart was "Have fun with this one." Amongst healthcare professionals, vague statements like that are a bad sign.

My patient was a 314lb Native American woman who barely fit on the stretcher I was transporting her on. She was rolling frantically side to side and moaning in pain, pulling at her clothes and muttering Hail Mary's. I could barely get her name out of her after a few minutes of questioning, so after I confirmed her identity and what we were working on, I figured it was best just to get her to the anesthesiologist so we could knock her out and get this circus started.

She continued her theatrics the entire ten-minute ride to the O.R., nearly falling off the surgical table as we were trying to put her under anesthetic. We see patients like this a lot, though, chronic drug abusers who don't handle pain well and who have used so many drugs that even increased levels of pain medication don't touch simply because of high tolerance levels.

It should be noted, tonight's surgical team was not exactly wet behind the ears. I'd been working in healthcare for several years already, mostly psych and medical settings. I've watched an 88-year-old man tear a 1"-diameter catheter balloon out of his penis while screaming "You'll never make me talk!". I've been attacked by an HIV-positive neo-Nazi. I've seen some shit. The other nurse had been in the OR as a trauma specialist for over ten years; the anesthesiologist had done residency at a Level 1 trauma center, or as we call them, "Knife and Gun Clubs". The surgeon was ex-Army, and averaged about eight words and two facial expressions a week. None of us expected what was about to happen next.

We got the lady off to sleep, put her into the stirrups, and I began washing off the rectal area. It was red and inflamed, a little bit of pus was seeping through, but it was all pretty standard. Her chart had noted that she'd been injecting IV drugs through her perineum, so this was obviously an infection from dirty needles or bad drugs, but overall, it didn't seem to warrant her repeated cries of "Oh Jesus, kill me now."

The surgeon steps up with a scalpel, sinks just the tip in, and at the exact same moment, the patient had a muscle twitch in her diaphragm, and just like that, all hell broke loose.

Unbeknownst to us, the infection had actually tunneled nearly a foot into her abdomen, creating a vast cavern full of pus, rotten tissue, and fecal matter that had seeped outside of her colon. This godforsaken mixture came rocketing out of that little incision like we were recreating the funeral scene from Jane Austen's "Mafia!".

We all wear waterproof gowns, face masks, gloves, hats, the works -- all of which were as helpful was rainboots against a firehose. The bed was in the middle of the room, an easy seven feet from the nearest wall, but by the time we were done, I was still finding bits of rotten flesh pasted against the back wall. As the surgeon continued to advance his blade, the torrent just continued. The patient kept seizing against the ventilator (not uncommon in surgery), and with every muscle contraction, she shot more of this brackish gray-brown fluid out onto the floor until, within minutes, it was seeping into the other nurse's shoes.

I was nearly twelve feet away, jaw dropped open within my surgical mask, watching the second nurse dry-heaving and the surgeon standing on tip-toes to keep this stuff from soaking his socks any further. The smell hit them first. "Oh god, I just threw up in my mask!" The other nurse was out, she tore off her mask and sprinted out of the room, shoulders still heaving. Then it hit me, mouth still wide open, not able to believe the volume of fluid this woman's body contained. It was like getting a great big bite of the despair and apathy that permeated this woman's life. I couldn't fucking breath, my lungs simply refused to pull anymore of that stuff in. The anesthesiologist went down next, an ex-NCAA D1 tailback, his six-foot-two frame shaking as he threw open the door to the OR suite in an attempt to get more air in, letting me glimpse the second nurse still throwing up in the sinks outside the door. Another geyser of pus splashed across the front of the surgeon. The YouTube clip of "David at the dentist" keeps playing in my head -- "Is this real life?"

In all operating rooms, everywhere in the world, regardless of socialized or privatized, secular or religious, big or small, there is one thing the same: Somewhere, there is a bottle of peppermint concentrate. Everyone in the department knows where it is, everyone knows what it is for, and everyone prays to their gods they never have to use it. In times like this, we rub it on the inside of our masks to keep the outside smells at bay long enough to finish the procedure and shower off.

I sprinted to the our central supply, ripping open the drawer where this vial of ambrosia was kept, and was greeted by -- an empty fucking box. The bottle had been emptied and not replaced. Somewhere out there was a godless bastard who had used the last of the peppermint oil, and not replaced a single fucking drop of it. To this day, if I figure out who it was, I'll kill them with my bare hands, but not before cramming their head up the colon of every last meth user I can find, just so we're even.

I darted back into the room with the next best thing I can find -- a vial of Mastisol, which is an adhesive rub we use sometimes for bandaging. It's not as good as peppermint, but considering that over one-third of the floor was now thoroughly coated in what could easily be mistaken for a combination of bovine after-birth and maple syrup, we were out of options.

I started rubbing as much of the Mastisol as I could get on the inside of my mask, just glad to be smelling anything except whatever slimy demon spawn we'd just cut out of this woman. The anesthesiologist grabbed the vial next, dowsing the front of his mask in it so he could stand next to his machines long enough to make sure this woman didn't die on the table. It wasn't until later that we realized that Mastisol can give you a mild high from huffing it like this, but in retrospect, that's probably what got us through.

By this time, the smell had permeated out of our OR suite, and down the forty-foot hallway to the front desk, where the other nurse still sat, eyes bloodshot and watery, clenching her stomach desperately. Our suite looked like the underground river of ooze from Ghostbusters II, except dirty. Oh so dirty.

I stepped back into the OR suite, not wanting to leave the surgeon by himself in case he genuinely needed help. It was like one of those overly-artistic representations of a zombie apocalypse you see on fan-forums. Here's this one guy, in blue surgical garb, standing nearly ankle deep in lumps of dead tissue, fecal matter, and several liters of syrupy infection. He was performing surgery in the swamps of Dagobah, except the swamps had just come out of this woman's ass and there was no Yoda. He and I didn't say a word for the next ten minutes as he scraped the inside of the abscess until all the dead tissue was out, the front of his gown a gruesome mixture of brown and red, his eyes squinted against the stinging vapors originating directly in front of him. I finished my required paperwork as quickly as I could, helped him stuff the recently-vacated opening full of gauze, taped this woman's buttocks closed to hold the dressing for as long as possible, woke her up, and immediately shipped off to the recovery ward.

Until then, I'd only heard of "alcohol showers." Turns out 70% isopropyl alcohol is about the only thing that can even touch a scent like that once its soaked into your skin. It takes four or five bottles to get really clean, but it's worth it. It's probably the only scenario I can honestly endorse drinking a little of it, too.

As we left the locker room, the surgeon and I looked at each other, and he said the only negative sentence I heard him utter in two and a half years of working together:

"That was bad."

The next morning the entire department (a fairly large floor within the hospital) still smelled. The housekeepers told me later that it took them nearly an hour to suction up all of the fluid and debris left behind. The OR suite itself was closed off and quarantined for two more days just to let the smell finally clear out.

I laugh now when I hear new recruits to healthcare talk about the worst thing they've seen. You ain't seen shit, kid.

[noxsden]

Oasis

Working to expand a bit on what I have going, adding some more layers and what not, not as spooky.

The smartest bit of advice for exploring into the unknown, never trust your senses.  The rules don't apply the same as we know them, rather, interpret them.

A dream has been plaguing my sleeping mind for as long as I can remember.  My colleagues laughed at me when they found my doodles on notebook pages.  Ridiculed, dreams aren't real.  But what if they are, if what we see is what is to be.  I see this place, the sun warms my face, a lone tree in the distance.  Everything is silent, and green, it's all so green.  That's when I lose them, the snowfall up this way hasn't let up long enough for the ground to return to it's verdant splendor.  The tales of the time before, seems to have fallen into the mythological fiction section.  Losing contact with the world will do that.  The Steps barely take our pleas, we are allowed to live and work provided it's what they approve of.  Without sound evidence, they won't listen to me.

No matter how sophisticated the dream becomes they turn me away.  The sounds, smells, everything is up to interpretation they say.  I'm going to give my details to a painter and see if the vision is worth anything.  I know there is an importance to it, one of the upper echelon is bound to know something.

I was right.  They recognized it immediately, and yet no one knew of it's existence outside of them.  My distinct descriptions that fit the ones of legends, it was enough for them to agree.  They require that they are at my side, but that matters not to me.  My dreams will finally be put to reality.

My night has been haunted ever sense.  Cold sweat startles my senses.  A blackness that swallows up the green.  Shadows of impossibly tall creatures that lean down towards me.  Reaching for me, faces an impossible mix of features that don't make any sense.  They crowd around me, tearing sanity and reality back to me in an instant.  To find me panting for breath, like my body forgot how to breathe.  Clawing at my neck until I fall from my bed and realize the dream is gone.

The man found himself in a very familiar position, the other crew members wanted nothing to do with his words.  Even the Others and the captain who decided to set out on this adventure because of a drawing.  Pushed aside his place was a silent one yet again, he should feel lucky to even come along.  The wonders to be seen were not for his low eyes, a vessel, just something to get the information to a better place.  The nightmares persisted, words shouted with each twist and turn.  In the darkness of the solo cabin, a robed member loomed over his bed.  Listening to every word he spoke, and leaving without uttering a single one.  No matter how much he cried out and screamed, the figure only took what it needed and left him.  Broken and alone.

I can feel eyes on me, at every turn.  When I wake, is it the dream's presence that haunts me.  A feel of unease, of, body.  I feel a longing in them, that's what turns it into a nightmare.  The idea that I can't succeed at what it wants.  That I'm a failure and the darkness is what I deserve.  The abandonment.  Punishment.  Where was it coming from, think.  A verdant field, and a creature walks towards me.  There is pain, they are close, and then it's dark.  I wish it could be studied further, a sounding board to help me understand.  Or they aren't supposed to be the ones.

The lakes never seemed to grow angry, as crystal clear as ever.  Only the passage of the ships cleaving into it showed motion.  The plains along the horizon shrunk away, not many were allowed to go on trips like this.  Unless there was a necessity to it.  He managed a look back to see the last shred of the iron bastion they had left behind before it disappeared to memory.  Walking around the decks, he set out to find new landmarks, to see things that no one else had.  Unfortunately it seemed like there was very little in terms of distinct pillars, the cloth was all cut the same.  Even the water held little to the imagination, the bottom always stayed in sight.  More of an artificial feel to it, and far from graceful.

Ushered back into his room as soon as another had noticed him starting to write things down.  With the notebook purged he was reminded that it was a place for reflection, not a place to record secrets.  Reluctantly the man nodded his head, something was better than nothing and this was about all that he could claim was his.  That and the idea that this stuff is real, it was real.  Everything he had seen r rather not seen, was confirmed by their actions.  He would just have to out think them.  A loud thunderous sound was heard from outside, seeming to shake everything about his room.  A loud knock on the door and he demanded to see what was going on.  The reply was short and agitated, the boat was shifting into the next lake.  A passage that allowed safe travels, built machinery, manned by people, people that knew.

Voices bickered back and forth, normal voices, like everyday ordinary people.  That seemed absurd, how could secrets be maintained.  The man started dragging his bed to try and get a better look out the small porthole.  Perhaps in the distance those things were buildings, houses, with families enjoying the unseasonably warm air.  Grinding metal sheered through his inner peace, grinding along the fiber of his being.  There was no use trying to hide his intent, the door seemed to stick, connections tearing like his skin was being peeled away.  Before the feeling of being watched set in again.  How quickly it had become familiar to be watched, after not being noticed at all.

Dark and damp his room became, without the grace of the small portal for light.  In the belly of the ship where he could hear the thrum of the machine heart.  Laying on what could only loosely be described as a bed.  A huddled body that slowly relaxed as the darkness grew on him.  There was nothing else in the room but him, nothing.  This was just an obstacle to overcome, slowly sleep crept over him.

Verdant tendrils swirled about his vision, filling the dark abyss that had enclosed about him.  Like the prison bars lifting away from him, vision came back so quickly it blinded him.  When his eyes finally adjusted he was standing at a cliff side, staring down at that lone tree.  There was movement down there, but it was so far away.  Still, he smiled, set free from his confines his arms lifted up victoriously.  Then that feeling returned, a swelling unease behind him.  Turning to face a strange shadowy figure stepping slowly towards him.  A subtle orange glow beamed and cast a shadow, trying to hinder the approach, but a silken shroud kept the being safe.  As it neared he could tell very little from the vaguely humanoid face.  Save for a long twisting grin that curled up impossibly.

"What was was.  What is can be.  What will, might not."

The lips moving as waves did, breaking apart to show the glistening teeth beneath.  The silver leapt from him, wrapping about the man and cinching tight.  A scream was released before the disembodied force tugged him backwards over the edge.  His voice caught in his throat, and only a distant cackling could be heard.  A sudden rush as the shapeless figure appeared at his side.  Twisted grin swirling endlessly into nothing before a direct flash presented a face.

"Paths can be blocked by all sides.  But only opened by one."

A shouting came from the doorway, calmly the man sat up.  Bathed in the light of the engine the robed man grumbled and pestered him until he had gotten up and headed for the door.  Dazed and groggy he slid around the man's stained robes and continued upward.  Everything seemed a little darker, the rust taking on an even more ochre appearance.  Even his footsteps seemed to carry over from his dream, each step had a subtle give, like he was stepping on the spongy soil and growth.  A wistful sigh that was cut short with a shove from the man in robes as he was ushered out of the quiet ship and onto dry land.

It was just how he had envisioned it, a green expanse that went in every direction the water wasn't.  Another sharp pressure as he was shoved forward, rather than complain he simply kept walking.  What choice was there for him to make.  Everything was silent, only the rustling of wind along the flickering blades of grass.  The engines had gone dead, a still coming to the mechanical beast that had brought them to their final destination.  Another shove, he stumbled forward, the process repeated until he found himself in front of the Chancellor.  The ultimate shove brought him to his knees, the dirt tossing up around him.  A large patch of bare dirt that expanded in a circle around him.

When he looked up that large looming tree in the distance, and there roaming, where the long limbed beings.  Gracefully moving among the darker vegetation.  Pushing himself up to rest on his knees, a deep inhale was taken before that watched feeling crept over.  Turning his head to face the Chancellor just as a sharp pain shocked from his torso.  Slowly looking down at the metal that protruded from his chest.  Words gurgled from his slack jaw, a why could be seen in his eyes.

The other robed members, dirtied robes stained with crimson, faced the expanse and hummed.  A laugh from the Chancellor as he stood up and turned to face along with the others.  "Only worth to lead the way.  It's the simple ones that have the grandest delusions." A look of despair transfixed time and space, everything seemed to stop.  His eyes had turned towards the beings as they glided effortlessly closer.

Serene, the pain had left almost as quickly as it had come to be.  A smile crept onto his face before a subtle laughter broke the silence, his dreams had meant something after all.  The ones in robes turned to look at him, disgruntled and gnarled faces twisted in disgust of his transgressions.  Turning to collect him they felt a sharp tug at their legs.  Before a scream could be let out the two in robes were yanked away from the grass and dirt, disappearing into the verdant abyss with a splash.

The chancellor looked confused, reaching down towards the vegetation.  Applying pressure caused his hand to slip from view pulling back the vines that seemed to choke the surface of a sludgy liquid beneath it.  Blinded by rage, he too turned towards the dying man, not noticing one of the creatures stood behind him.  The vegetation tangled and entwined with his arm, piercing into his flesh to audible screams of pain.  Sound that carried for miles as he was lifted up and towards the creature.  Vacancy in it's eyes, a featureless ivory covering to it's head.

The continued screams caused the head to tilt, a whirring sound as pauldrons sped up and then settled to a much more ordered ticking.  Annoyed by the noise the beast let out a low tonal growl before throwing the man over it's shoulder.  His form sinking from this plane with a splash.  Silence fell back over the area, only the low sounds of the dying man and the strange being.  Lifting itself up, the feet that glided effortlessly turned out to be knees to impossibly long limbs.  An extension down from the pauldrons, like a cape of living metal scrapped along the dirt and grass.  It's arms extended out slowly to scoop up the man, cradling him gently against it's chest.  Pushing away from the land it continued that graceful stride back towards the tree.

Verdant tendrils blinding him again, chasing away the darkness that had imprisoned him.  Flashes of a tree top, with aged brown leaves crinkled as he pushed up to a sitting position.  Looking up at the gathered walkers he smiled, a small nod was given.  Returned by each that had come to see him off.  Lifting himself up to his feet he made his way back towards the boat.  Answers, questions, a purpose drove him.  A purpose that had made that fatal wound a nightmare, that didn't have him question the ticking that settled by his ears.  Climbing up the silent carcass of the mechanical beast, looking off at the setting sun.  Only acceptance rang through his eyes.  

"Home was the end."

[quoratopstories]

What is the weirdest/grossest/most disturbing thing seen by emergency room staff? Do you ever find it difficult not to faint?

Not a personal experience. I came across this on a similar thread on Reddit. It is quite long but the OP elicits quite the imagery, if you will.

OR Nurse here. This is kind of a long one... I was taking call one night, and woke up at two in the morning for a "general surgery" call. Pretty vague, but at the time, I lived in a town that had large populations of young military guys and avid meth users, so late-night emergencies were common. Got to the hospital, where a few more details awaited me -- "Perirectal abscess." For the uninitiated, this means that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the asshole, there was a pocket of pus that needed draining. Needless to say our entire crew was less than thrilled. I went down to the Emergency Room to transport the patient, and the only thing the ER nurse said as she handed me the chart was "Have fun with this one." Amongst healthcare professionals, vague statements like that are a bad sign. My patient was a 314lb Native American woman who barely fit on the stretcher I was transporting her on. She was rolling frantically side to side and moaning in pain, pulling at her clothes and muttering Hail Mary's. I could barely get her name out of her after a few minutes of questioning, so after I confirmed her identity and what we were working on, I figured it was best just to get her to the anesthesiologist so we could knock her out and get this circus started. She continued her theatrics the entire ten-minute ride to the O.R., nearly falling off the surgical table as we were trying to put her under anesthetic. We see patients like this a lot, though, chronic drug abusers who don't handle pain well and who have used so many drugs that even increased levels of pain medication don't touch simply because of high tolerance levels. It should be noted, tonight's surgical team was not exactly wet behind the ears. I'd been working in healthcare for several years already, mostly psych and medical settings. I've watched an 88-year-old man tear a 1"-diameter catheter balloon out of his penis while screaming "You'll never make me talk!". I've been attacked by an HIV-positive neo-Nazi. I've seen some shit. The other nurse had been in the OR as a trauma specialist for over ten years; the anesthesiologist had done residency at a Level 1 trauma center, or as we call them, "Knife and Gun Clubs". The surgeon was ex-Army, and averaged about eight words and two facial expressions a week. None of us expected what was about to happen next. We got the lady off to sleep, put her into the stirrups, and I began washing off the rectal area. It was red and inflamed, a little bit of pus was seeping through, but it was all pretty standard. Her chart had noted that she'd been injecting IV drugs through her perineum, so this was obviously an infection from dirty needles or bad drugs, but overall, it didn't seem to warrant her repeated cries of "Oh Jesus, kill me now." The surgeon steps up with a scalpel, sinks just the tip in, and at the exact same moment, the patient had a muscle twitch in her diaphragm, and just like that, all hell broke loose. Unbeknownst to us, the infection had actually tunneled nearly a foot into her abdomen, creating a vast cavern full of pus, rotten tissue, and fecal matter that had seeped outside of her colon. This godforsaken mixture came rocketing out of that little incision like we were recreating the funeral scene from Jane Austen's "Mafia!". We all wear waterproof gowns, face masks, gloves, hats, the works -- all of which were as helpful was rainboots against a firehose. The bed was in the middle of the room, an easy seven feet from the nearest wall, but by the time we were done, I was still finding bits of rotten flesh pasted against the back wall. As the surgeon continued to advance his blade, the torrent just continued. The patient kept seizing against the ventilator (not uncommon in surgery), and with every muscle contraction, she shot more of this brackish gray-brown fluid out onto the floor until, within minutes, it was seeping into the other nurse's shoes. I was nearly twelve feet away, jaw dropped open within my surgical mask, watching the second nurse dry-heaving and the surgeon standing on tip-toes to keep this stuff from soaking his socks any further. The smell hit them first. "Oh god, I just threw up in my mask!" The other nurse was out, she tore off her mask and sprinted out of the room, shoulders still heaving. Then it hit me, mouth still wide open, not able to believe the volume of fluid this woman's body contained. It was like getting a great big bite of the despair and apathy that permeated this woman's life. I couldn't fucking breath, my lungs simply refused to pull anymore of that stuff in. The anesthesiologist went down next, an ex-NCAA D1 tailback, his six-foot-two frame shaking as he threw open the door to the OR suite in an attempt to get more air in, letting me glimpse the second nurse still throwing up in the sinks outside the door. Another geyser of pus splashed across the front of the surgeon. The YouTube clip of "David at the dentist" keeps playing in my head -- "Is this real life?" In all operating rooms, everywhere in the world, regardless of socialized or privatized, secular or religious, big or small, there is one thing the same: Somewhere, there is a bottle of peppermint concentrate. Everyone in the department knows where it is, everyone knows what it is for, and everyone prays to their gods they never have to use it. In times like this, we rub it on the inside of our masks to keep the outside smells at bay long enough to finish the procedure and shower off. I sprinted to the our central supply, ripping open the drawer where this vial of ambrosia was kept, and was greeted by -- an empty fucking box. The bottle had been emptied and not replaced. Somewhere out there was a godless bastard who had used the last of the peppermint oil, and not replaced a single fucking drop of it. To this day, if I figure out who it was, I'll kill them with my bare hands, but not before cramming their head up the colon of every last meth user I can find, just so we're even. I darted back into the room with the next best thing I can find -- a vial of Mastisol, which is an adhesive rub we use sometimes for bandaging. It's not as good as peppermint, but considering that over one-third of the floor was now thoroughly coated in what could easily be mistaken for a combination of bovine after-birth and maple syrup, we were out of options. I started rubbing as much of the Mastisol as I could get on the inside of my mask, just glad to be smelling anything except whatever slimy demon spawn we'd just cut out of this woman. The anesthesiologist grabbed the vial next, dowsing the front of his mask in it so he could stand next to his machines long enough to make sure this woman didn't die on the table. It wasn't until later that we realized that Mastisol can give you a mild high from huffing it like this, but in retrospect, that's probably what got us through. By this time, the smell had permeated out of our OR suite, and down the forty-foot hallway to the front desk, where the other nurse still sat, eyes bloodshot and watery, clenching her stomach desperately. Our suite looked like the underground river of ooze from Ghostbusters II, except dirty. Oh so dirty. I stepped back into the OR suite, not wanting to leave the surgeon by himself in case he genuinely needed help. It was like one of those overly-artistic representations of a zombie apocalypse you see on fan-forums. Here's this one guy, in blue surgical garb, standing nearly ankle deep in lumps of dead tissue, fecal matter, and several liters of syrupy infection. He was performing surgery in the swamps of Dagobah, except the swamps had just come out of this woman's ass and there was no Yoda. He and I didn't say a word for the next ten minutes as he scraped the inside of the abscess until all the dead tissue was out, the front of his gown a gruesome mixture of brown and red, his eyes squinted against the stinging vapors originating directly in front of him. I finished my required paperwork as quickly as I could, helped him stuff the recently-vacated opening full of gauze, taped this woman's buttocks closed to hold the dressing for as long as possible, woke her up, and immediately shipped off to the recovery ward. Until then, I'd only heard of "alcohol showers." Turns out 70% isopropyl alcohol is about the only thing that can even touch a scent like that once its soaked into your skin. It takes four or five bottles to get really clean, but it's worth it. It's probably the only scenario I can honestly endorse drinking a little of it, too. As we left the locker room, the surgeon and I looked at each other, and he said the only negative sentence I heard him utter in two and a half years of working together: "That was bad." The next morning the entire department (a fairly large floor within the hospital) still smelled. The housekeepers told me later that it took them nearly an hour to suction up all of the fluid and debris left behind. The OR suite itself was closed off and quarantined for two more days just to let the smell finally clear out. I laugh now when I hear new recruits to healthcare talk about the worst thing they've seen. You ain't seen shit, kid. tl;dr Don't shoot IV drugs into your taint.

Source: http://ift.tt/2jupCGH... Read other answers by

Lesslie John on Quora:

What are some hilarious Marijuana stories/incident?

Read more answers on Quora. via Quora http://ift.tt/2jEEShX

[flyswhumpcenter]

It Happened Again [Fever February Day 17 - Hospital Fever]

FEVER FEBRUARY INDEX

Summary: Chiaki receives a call from not one, but three of her friends, and all for the same reason. A reason so strong, she leaves her livestream viewers hanging without a word, and runs for the local supermarket. Because it all happened again.

Fandom: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Non-Desp AU, cameos by characters from DR1 and DRV3) Ship: Hinanami (Hajime/Chiaki)

Word Count: 3K words

Notes: No long time to see in the Hinanami sphere with my usual sickfic business. Can't say this is the best comeback ever, but I hope to do much better next time haha. This was mostly a warm-up. A three-day warm-up, but still, a warm-up.It turns out using my ideas from July 2017 more than half a year after originally having them made this fanfic very stale and with nowhere to fucking go. And I still don't know how to write Chiaki so that's good I guess. Kind of a follow up to a Pixelated Fever oneshot from a while back, "Hajime discovers shiny hunting: the fic". At least, takes place in the same settings and AU conditions.

AO3 version available here.

The hunt was going strong for Chiaki, who was sitting in front of her computer for a surprise livestream. It doesn’t happen often, because she attends college (as she should), and while she couldn’t really launch herself into competitive gaming thanks to it being too fast for her, she still dreamed of making video gaming her source of income in the near future.

Sure, shiny hunting required ungodly patience to most people’s eyes. It was, after all, a long and slow process of trying over and over until you find the perfect gem. Some people said it was useless because it was “just the same but in different colours”: Chiaki loved it because she could do it at her pace. She also happened to think it was a great challenge with a satisfying reward, since she got to keep the fruit of her labour.

So, of course, when her phone rang, she didn’t pick up at first.

The chat got a bit upset over this. It was probably just a friend from college who was calling to get some news of her. At worst, they would leave a voice mail and she would call later. Maybe. She didn’t like phoning people. She preferred talking to them over Discord and Skype. She’d see later, she thought.

“Don’t worry guys… It’s probably just a friend from school…” she told her audience, in an attempt to calm them down.

But the phone kept ringing.

Chiaki wondered if she shouldn’t have muted it, because she didn’t like being disturbed during her livestreams at all! It was meant to be a sweet surprise for her viewers, not some kind of chore to go through because of someone desperate to talk to her when they could wait for later.

Still, she eventually picked her pink cell, if only to look at who’s calling her. The name on the screen couldn’t mistake her: it’s Makoto. It seemed like she had also missed calls from Kazuichi and Kaito. That was weird… Why would the three of them call her at the same time? There must had been a reason for it. She picked up the call.

“Chiaki, finally!” Makoto sighed in relief from the other side of the line, but she could still tell he was very tense. His voice was shaking between every word.

“What’s wrong, Makoto? You sound so stressed…”

“Oh, huh, yeah, that’s why we were trying to call you! It’s about what happened a bit earlier at the shop…”

The supermarket, of course! Makoto, Kazuichi and Kaito all worked there. That made a common point between the three of them. She felt a lump forming in her throat, in anticipation for what was to come.

“Could you come to the supermarket as soon as possible? I’m afraid I won’t be able to explain you everything on the phone, I have stuff to attend to real quick! But please, please come as fast as you can, Chiaki!!”

The urgency in Makoto’s voice made her accept, even if she would had been more reluctant usually. Displaying a cold face, or at least one colder enough to get a mixed reaction from her worried viewers, she waved them goodbye and went offline. Without a word.

Her fingers were shaking. She didn’t have to be told to guess it was about Hajime. Why else would they all call her? It had to be about Hajime. She quickly grabbed her bag, her keys and headed outside as soon as possible, running down the stairs of her building, almost forgetting to lock the door to their flat.

In front of her apartment lot, was a car waiting for her, much to her surprise. In its driver’s seat, Kaito. Chiaki sat the passenger seat quicker than she could have ever expected coming from her, barely looking at him to thank him for the ride, or just to even say hello to him. How unpolite of her, but her anxiety was already growing to high levels.

“You really didn’t take long after Makoto called you, dontcha? It’s weird, cause you’re usually pretty slow!”

The car took off as soon as he stopped speaking, heading straight to the supermarket. And that was where everything fell apart to her eyes.

Chiaki ran straight to Makoto and Kazuichi, who were standing near the glass double-doors of the entrance. They both seemed sad, compared to their usual grins and smiles… This only meant trouble, and what kind of trouble and to what extent, she would soon know. Kaito followed closely behind her, his footsteps loud enough to be heard from far enough in the almost-empty parking.

“Makoto, Kazuichi, I’m here…! Sorry for the missed calls and lateness…!”

She was breathless, but she didn’t mind, as long as she got to know what was wrong and whatever she could do to fix it, as little as the fix would be.

Kazuichi looked at her with an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm. At that point, it seemed like even a kiss from Sonia couldn’t make him look happier.

“So,” he told her in a calm voice, “you came, huh… Guess we don’t have much choice but to explain you what’s just happened, right?”

Makoto seemed very embarrassed upon seeing Kazuichi’s eyes laid upon him.

“Hajime… isn’t really here anymore…” is all the lucky boy added, looking down.

That was even worse! What had even happened in there?!

“What do you mean?” she asked, determined to squeeze an answer out of them.

“Yeah, guys,” Kaito arrived into the conversation, “Hajime was there when I left! Where is he?”

“We had to call an ambulance man!” Kazuichi yelled as his reply. “His fever wouldn’t stop rising, we got scared shitless!!”

Chiaki completely froze.

For once, she had an insistent glaze laid on everybody around her. It wasn’t really them she was blaming: of course they’d call an ambulance if their friend and workmate had a potentially lethal fever. No, it was an anger directed at both her, for not preventing this situation to happen when she could have done so in the morning, and at Hajime for being irresponsible again.

He truly hadn’t changed on that point since Hope’s Peak.

“Oh, right!” Makoto reacted. “You can’t know the full story yet, Chiaki! One of us will have to tell you when driving you to the hospital, since at least two of us need to remain here…”

“I’ll drive her myself,” Kaito said as he patted her shoulder. “You guys take care of the mall while I’m away, okay?”

“Copy that, Roger!”

It was with anxiety and an intense worry burning in her blood that Chiaki followed the astronaut-to-be to his car which he had sloppily parked when bringing her there.

Kaito’s story enabled her to put in pictures what had happened at the supermarket while she was hunting for a Reshiram she’d have to put on the side.

While they were ordering shelves, with desert alleys in dire need of restocking, he heard a weird thumping sound. Thinking it was just some product someone hadn’t put in there properly, Kaito went to check out what had caused the noise, as faint as it was.

He was confronted to his workmate and friend collapsed to the ground, face against the cold floor, having seemingly fallen from his stool as he was restocking soulmate-themed cereal boxes.

Growing instantly worried, he ran to Hajime, who fortunately was still breathing. He wasn’t breathing fine, that was for sure, as it was in ragged breaths, but he was alive. Not alive and well, that was for sure, but he was alive. He also didn’t seem to have hurt anything except for his nose and some quick bruises here and there on exposed parts of his skin.

Turning the older boy on his back revealed two things to Kaito: Hajime was paler than if Celestia Ludenberg and his best friend Shuichi had a corpse baby together, and that his cheeks and bridge of nose were redder than Himiko’s hair. He also happened to have dark rings under his eyes. Well, darker-than-usual rings that was. After all, Hajime always looked tired and done with everything ever.

(Chiaki couldn’t really contradict that. Hajime was, frankly, a bad sleeper who really enjoyed waking up early in the morning.)

Of course, Kaito immediately ran to warn Makoto and Kazuichi, who were in near alleys, about Hajime being half-dead on the cold-ass floor. He didn’t even think about checking the latter’s temperature: his face alone, and the heat beneath his fingers, were enough to give away how high the guy’s fever was.

Of course, Kazuichi immediately panicked. Despite the fact he used to be in Hajime’s class and was probably the one of them three to be the most aware and used to the ex-Ultimate Counsellor’s antics. Instead, it was Makoto who got the idea to bring their workmate to the break room, lay him on the sofa there and call for Chiaki and an ambulance.

(Kaito apologized for not remembering the ambulance call at first. Chiaki excused it as stress taking over his memory. After all, she was dead worried for Hajime too.)

And that was when she finally picked up their calls, or rather, their pleas for desperate help as they really didn’t know how to deal with the situation. Dead in their tracks. He didn’t have any idea: even if he was often sick, he wasn’t that insane.

(Chiaki nodded.)

The trip to the hospital had been deadly quiet on her part. Chiaki still couldn’t utter a single word, actually: she was worried beyond her mind, and words just wouldn’t exit her mind. Instead, it was a bit of a turmoil inside of her. The question was: how hadn’t she noticed something would go wrong?  

Recalling her day as best as she could, she remembered he had woken up far before she did, leaving the flat before she could be out of bed. She swore she had heard some suspicious sounds here and there, probably tumbling. It was easy to brush it off as Hajime not being very awaken yet. But she should have known better.

She should have known he was an earlier bird than that.

Before she knew it, Chiaki was getting leaded into some corridors and into a hospital room. She knew it wouldn’t be as happy as the time they had all gone to check on Kazuichi who had broken his leg trying to please Sonia again (it had worked, somewhat, at least she had recognized the kind gesture). It would also not be as dark as Kaede telling them about that time Shuichi had almost strangled her in a delirium.

At least, she was certain Hajime didn’t have pneumonia. That was a plus, right? Else, she would have heard it, if Kaede’s descriptions were anything to go by.

In the room, she was left alone to face an occupied bed, door closing softly behind her. “I’ll let you two have some privacy” was the worst sentence ever when she barely knew what was wrong. Timidly, the gamer made her way to the bed, weary eyes fixated on the patient. She wasn’t scared of him: she was scared of what he had, and what he had done. There was always something terrifying, or at least intimidating about what he was capable of doing for the sake of something mundane.

Chiaki grabbed a nearby chair calmly, silently, and put it next to his bed. She sat just as noisily on it, sighing, afraid of studying his current condition from the outside, yet feeling the duty to do so. After all, she was his best friend and girlfriend. One of the things she owed him was to take care of him.

Kaito was right: Hajime looked tired all the time. However, it didn’t mean it couldn’t get worse: the Hajime before her eyes right at this moment was exhausted, if not worse. His dark rings had taken the shape of a dark purple canyon. It would have scared those who didn’t know him in his worst times: having see him overworked before, it didn’t scare her as much as it should have. It still made her worry, just as much even, but it wasn’t scary anymore.

The dark rings were alone on this face, though. While Hajime wasn’t as pale as a “corpse baby”, his skin had still lost a couple tones of colours, making him shades whiter than he usually was. That would be to ignore the important redness on his face: his cheeks were, indeed, tainted in a sickly shade of red.

His ragged breathing was one more indication of how unwell he actually was. How on Earth had he even been able to go to work in this condition? Sweat was rolling down his face, accompanying a pain look even in slumber and the other sickness symptoms he was showing. She could only wait for him to wake up to discuss everything she wanted to discuss.

Chiaki had dozed off without realizing it. She only realized it when she felt a hand shaking her shoulder gently, almost weakly, and stirred her eyes open. She woke up a bit quicker than usual, much to her surprise, before realizing she had napped in a room she wasn’t familiar with. Moments after that, she remembered where she was and why so: she was at the hospital, because Hajime had collapsed at work. Well, the collapse part was a hypothesis, but it had to be that, right?

The hand, in fact, belonged to him. He was half-sitting half-lying, a small smile on his face, and that despite his half-closed eyes and shabby breathing. He looked so weak… It was always weird to see him so vulnerable, far from his usual physical strength and both comforting and almost intimidating aura.

“Good morning, Chiaki…”

His smallest smile was driven with kindness even if it was, like everything about him right at this moment, weak.

“You shouldn’t be the one waking me up, Hajime…”

He snickers lightly.

“Why so…? You were asleep, weren’t ya…?”

“Because I’m not the sick one here!”

Hajime got taken aback, well, as aback as he could get when it seemed like his body had given up on him for the most part. Only then, did he weakly smile again, scoffing to himself.

“Heh, you’re right… I actually don’t recognize that place… We’re not in the staff room, right…?”

“Indeed, we’re at the hospital…”

Chiaki couldn’t bring herself not to be angry at him. She was, usually, never angry, except when stuff like that happened. According to her friends, it was anger born from worry, and she couldn’t see any other explanation to her uncharacteristic anger otherwise.

“I pissed you off, didn’t I…? Should have expected it as soon as I left…”

“Why are you doing this?”

He goes completely silent.

“I already explained to you countless times you shouldn’t be doing this for whatever reason you come up with… And so did everybody else… So, why are you doing this?”

The (cold) sweat running down his face was telling her he didn’t know himself. He never knew, in fact. He just kept doing because he considered it was his duty, or his obligations, and that you shouldn’t not accomplish your duty and said obligations.

Instead, his eyes looked at the IV in his wrist.

“Dunno… But I know I always tell you that I dunno… People keep telling me I can’t stop, they’re probably right… Haha…”

“I think that… If I hadn’t woken up so late, I may had been able to stop you…”

“What do you mean…?”

“You’ve been exhausted for a few days, yet I simply didn’t do anything against it…”

Hajime looked perplexed by her words. Who wouldn’t be? She wasn’t like that, usually, but she thought it was one of these times where she could express these kinds of feelings openly without them feeling too much out of place. It had happened before, in high school and afterwards.

“You’ll never stop if we don’t prevent you from throwing yourself in a fire… But I feel like I’ve already told you so. Multiple times, even, I think. I don’t feel like words serve a use anymore…”

“Guess I really am a stubborn guy, huh… Sorry for all the worries and fuss I caused, I’m sure the guys are gonna scream at me again later…”

“Why did you come to work sick, exactly?”

“Well… Today was supposed to be a busy day, at least this afternoon, so we were asked to come here to restock… And you know we need the money to buy you a new setup for your streams…”

Shot through the heart.

“Oh, Hajime… Don’t tell me you went to work sick because I want to replace my microphone and camera…”

He smiled.

“What if I did…? We need all the extra money we can get, especially since we’re still both in college and whatnot…”

“Yes, but not at the cost of your health!”

“Yeah, you’re right… Health’s expensive too…”

His deadpanned look and his illogical statements just screamed to her his brain was severely fevered.

“This isn’t what I meant… You need to take better care of yourself, Hajime. I know you’ve made some efforts for it in the past, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a long way to go… You should know by now overworking doesn’t bring you anything but pain and fevers…”

“But…”

“Don’t use the money argument, please… Not again… Life doesn’t work that way, Hajime…”

His smile faded.

“Yeah, I know that… You may be right when you say I need someone to stop me from doing stupid shit…”

Chiaki put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“So, let yourself some rest and care, okay? We’re all going to make sure you get the self-care you need…”

He laid back in bed.

“Yeah, let’s do that once I’ve actually slept…”