#well angstier

[hippydippydruid]

FRACNIS FARNSWORTH IS NOT DEAD MY HEART IS FULL AND I HAVE THE MOTIVATION TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY

[hailsatanacab]

Family Dinners - dpxdc

"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.

The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.

"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.

"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.

"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."

Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.

Ancients, that's so weird!

The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.

Wait. Family dinners?

He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.

"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.

From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.

"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"

"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"

"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."

"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."

The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.

Come on, Danny, recover!

"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."

"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?

"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."

"Costume? What do you mean?"

Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.

"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!

"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.

"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.

His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.

"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.

Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"

"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"

"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."

"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.

It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.

It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.

Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.

"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."

Once again, the whole table falls into silence.

"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"

"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"

"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."

Danny's grin freezes in place.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."

"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"

Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.

"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.

"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."

An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.

"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.

"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."

"What did happen?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."

"How long in the future was it?"

"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.

Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"

"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."

"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."

"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."

Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.

"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.

"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."

"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"

"Damian, stop—"

"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."

"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."

"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.

"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."

"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."

"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."

"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."

[sucharandomwolf]

Hello Rise fandom 🤗

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Do you think if the trolls all came back, like everything in the main comic did happen and they were alive again. Do you think Feferi would actually forgive Eridan? Or want to even be his friend after everything? I don't personally like the erisol and fefertasprite interaction…felt rushed…..so I just wanted to know your opinion if things were different! :)

Yeah, I think they would be! Feferi is one of the trolls who takes dying the least badly (relentless optimism) and Eridan does genuinely feel bad, which means a lot when it's Eridan. I think she really is genuine when she says she wants them to be friends and also that she's really not the type of person to hold a grudge, and like... death is SUPER cheap in Homestuck, it's really not the horrific, irredeemable, irreperable damage that it is IRL - and if you're talking about (Feferi) and (Eridan), then they're both dead (and irrelevent) now, so the score is kind of even.

In general, the fandom - I mean, people in general, really - tend to have difficulty divorcing themselves from other people. We tend to assume that the people and characters they like will hold similar opinions to themselves. This is how people who like Karkat and don't like Eridan can mentally gloss over or even block out their clear, close friendship, or how people who dislike Cronus can end up overlooking that Meenah actually takes his opinion seriously and unironically defends his wizard thing. Feferi really isn't mad at Eridan or upset about dying the way we probably would be, because she's friends with the horrorterrors, relentlessly cheerful, comfortable with death in general, and death is also just not really that big of a deal in this setting. "I'm really sorry about that, that was shitty of me" is honestly probably all the apology she needs, especially if they came back to life anyway.

[motleyfam]

Dick is convinced that food always tastes better after a show.

His dad laughs and tells him it’s just because they’re acrobats and they can’t eat much prior to spending a few hours intricately twisting and flipping their bodies through the air over the dizzying roar of the crowds below. Hunger, he tells his son, has always been the best spice. But Dick thinks there’s more to it than that. There’s something about the buzz — the energy following a performance — that makes even the simplest of dishes special.

With so many different cultures and nationalities represented at Haly’s, Dick is used to eating all sorts of things, learns to tell who’s making dinner each night by the aroma of the various herbs and spices wafting out from the tent. There’s a Russian acrobat and a Taiwanese contortionist and a French wire walker and a clown from Cleveland, and the only common factor seems to be their insistence that the nine-year-old could use some more meat on his bones. He helps his mother stir cornmeal porridge and stuff cabbage leaves with ground meat and rice while his dad, grinning, juggles bell peppers and onions and cans of tomato paste in an arc above their heads.

It’s always late at night by the time they gather around the plastic folding tables with full plates, aching muscles, and weary smiles. Snippets from conversations in three or four different languages wash over Dick, and he doesn’t understand everything, but he doesn’t mind it either. The food and laughter warm him from the inside out, and he eats until his belly is full and his eyelids start to grow heavy. His mother pulls him into her lap and lets him curl up against her chest, and he’s lulled to sleep by the hum of the troupe members’ voices, perfectly safe and content.

The night that Dick’s parents fall to their deaths, there’s beef goulash simmering on the cookhouse stove and just the smell is enough to make him sick.

[cyncerity]

Just finished your new storeshifter au and, if I may add to the angst train, how long did it take for Sapnap to eat in the same place as his partners?

I'd assume he would have some trauma surrounding eating/chewing/swallowing near people after everything that happened with Bad and I would bet that sudden change in behavior would be extremely worrying to Karl and Quackity

ANON YOURE A GENIUS

yes absolutely, it takes a long while for Sapnap to get used to eating around people again after the Bad incident. Hell, he’d probably have a hard time eating. I think he’d play it off to Karl and Quackity as just wanting to eat by himself but then he’d go off and just…not eat.

also i can imagine this happening in the middle period between the fiancés leaving after the Bad incident and them finding the store, so they’re just traversing through the dangerous woods. Yknow, probably the least favorable place to be starving yourself given that you need energy to walk and fight off threats.

(tw for a little talk of fatal vore and digestion here, nothing canon just intrusive thoughts)

I can imagine that Sapnap has a hard time with swallowing anything for a while. He won’t drink anything warm cause it reminds him of his dad’s body heat when he swallowed him. He won’t chew anything because all of a sudden he’s back to the forest in that fight with that bird and it’s his dad that’s getting crunched in his teeth. God forbid he try eating any sort of animal; the first time he tried to eat meat after the incident it wasn’t fully cooked and the blood in his mouth sent him into the worst panic attack of his life.

Worse yet, when he does have a full stomach, the sounds of him digesting his food make him want to sob. Countless times after the incident he had tried to force himself to eat. After all, he was the only one of his trio who could fight, he had to get over himself and stay strong for them. But every time, he’d dream of a scenario where he hadn’t been lucid enough to let his dad out, where he had died within him, and they only sounds he’d woken up to were the gurgles of his own stomach and he couldn’t handle that.

He survives solely on water for as long as a living being can. Karl and Quackity notice him getting weaker, but he pushes off every attempt they make to comfort him. He doesn’t deserve to be comforted. He’s a monster.

Eventually he passes out and Quackity and Karl give him a very stern talking to, and he’s no longer allowed to wander off while they eat cause they want to make sure he’s eating too.

He has a breakdown when they make soup one night because now that he’s with them, instead of it being just his dad, it’s his boyfriends, too. He can almost feel them struggling and screaming, and the warm, full feeling in his stomach when he swallows only makes it worse. He won’t tell them why he can’t eat. They can’t figure it out, but eventually they find things he’ll eat by ruling out what he won’t. Nothing crunchy, nothing warm, no meat. Karl and Quackity begin to stock up on any berries they find, honey when they can come across it, and whatever roots they can easily grind into a smoothie-like mixture just to keep something in his stomach.

It takes a while for him to get over himself, and he probably still can’t properly eat some things, and he regresses a ton when he eats one of his fiancés for the first time (still trying to figure out how that happens but i’ll write it eventually), but after a while of Q and Karl being ok with it and getting more comfortable, he starts to feel better about himself.

[aocello]

Im thinking about zackjohan one fell first/one fell harder hmm depending on the period of time it can definitely go both ways i really do zack fell first/johan fell harder HWHAHAHAHAHAHA

[incomplete-ruler]

Okay I read survive last night so now I'm gonna give a list of updates:

I'm adopting Kenta as my 3rd son (well technically 2nd because Shiki SIL) and 6th child.

Gokuluck found family ftw.

I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE HARUKA PARALLELS (especially with kujo and sensei but Kenta's situation is definitely a lot worse).

More of a bonus update, but I really enjoyed Kenta's interaction with cozmez and them looking out for him (almost like a senpai-kouhai-type situation) since they do have similar backgrounds and personalities.

But also THAT CLIFFHANGER WAS ILLEGAL, though maybe that's because this season is the first time I have to listen to the story as it comes out.

[thetarttfuldickhead]

Uh, so, I saw this kickass piece of fanart by @thwipped and whoops, innit:

---

If caught and asked about it, Jamie couldn’t have explained why he did it.

Actually, no. Scratch that.

He could have explained, probably. He just wouldn’t have cared to.

---

The way it goes is this:

He’s been with Richmond for a couple of months and haven’t those been the longest fucking months of his life, because yeah, ‘course it’s fun being the best fucking player on the team, ‘course it’s fun hearing the fans chant his name, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, and getting a bit of rest from his dad ain’t bad either, but Richmond is a shit club with a shit manager and the only fucking bright spot—

Well. That’s turned out to be shit too, hasn’t it.

At least Jamie’s killing it, at matches, at training, every fucking time he steps onto the pitch. No one can fucking touch him, dominating yeah, and today’s been a good day for it too, what with the photographer on the sidelines snapping picture after picture for some promo or other. Jamie didn’t pay too much attention to the details, just made sure they got him from his best angle (every angle’s his best angle), and that’s that, until a couple of days later when he walks past Hopkins’ (or Huggles’?) empty office and sees the photos spread out all across the desk.

And well. ‘Course he steps inside to have a look. Bound to be a bunch of him looking fit as fuck, right, and who doesn’t want to see that, and maybe he can grab one for Keeley, bet she’d love it.

There is a bunch of him looking fit as fuck, no surprise there. Difficult to choose the best one really, they’re all fucking brilliant  (‘cause he’s fucking brilliant), and he’s deliberating between an action shot of him about to score one of the prettiest goals this sad fuck of a club ever saw and a shot of him afterwards, chin raised against he blue autumn sky like a hero out of a movie or something. Gorgerous, innit.

And then his eyes fall on a picture of Roy.

A picture of Roy fucking Kent. And. Like. It’s not even anything special, not like Roy’s actually doing anything in it, it's just a stray shot of him caught unawares with his shirt raised to wipe the seat of his forehead and he’s—

He’s. Uh.

Fuck. Jamie stares and he stares and he stares because for all that his old attraction to Roy didn’t survive five fucking minutes of actually being in the same room as the man, that’s just—

The shorts riding low on his hips. The dark hair trailing down and down, and the glistening drops of sweat on his forehead and Jamie can fucking smell him and that’s not sexy, is it, except it really fucking is, and those arms, and something unguarded and vulnerable and the real Roy Kent is a royal cunt but the Roy Kent in the picture—

He’s something else, isn’t he. He’s fucking fit. (Okay, the real Roy Kent is that, too, but it kind of fades in the face of him being an insufferable old twat and all that.)

Jamie grabs the picture. Doesn’t let himself think too much about it. Shoves it in his pocket and walks away, feeling it burn, burn, burn against his side.

---

When Jamie was twelve his mum gave him a poster of Roy Kent and Jamie was over the fucking moon. When Jamie was twenty-three he met Roy Kent and Roy Kent glared at him with unmitigated disgust and okay, fuck you too, mate. You’re not even that good anymore, and still you expect everyone to fall at your fucking feet, do your fucking bidding and make like you’re the fucking king, and fuck that, the king is dead, old man; long live the king.

Thing is, looking at the picture now it’s not that hard to forget about the real Roy Kent (nasty bastard) and remember the Roy Kent (fucking legend) that looked down on Jamie from his bedroom wall and whispered encouragements in the back of Jamie’s head and, a little later, featured frequently in fantasies of a different sort.

Picture in one hand, cock in the other, Jamie wanks to Roy for the first time since he came to Richmond (and if it’s not all just the memories of the man he once imagined, if it’s a little bit tinged with dark looks and growls and Roy snarling his name like it’s an insult… Well. That’s nobody’s business, that.)

---

He keeps the photos in the bottom drawer in his bedroom and he doesn’t pull it out a lot, ‘cause there’s Keeley and she’s fucking fit and the sex is mindblowing and Jamie doesn’t need to gawk at pictures of sad old has-beens to get his rocks off.  

Sometimes there’s a different sort of itch, though, and he scratches it. No big deal.

(He wonders sometimes, what the real Roy would say if he knew. Plays it out in his mind, all the different ways it might go. Cums as he imagines it.)

He thinks maybe Keeley would like the picture too. Not ‘cause she’d like Roy, she’s got way better taste than that, and she’s fun and she likes a bit of fun and if there’s one thing Roy Kent ain’t, it’s fun, innit. But he’s fit and all, and Keeley’s got eyes.

He imagines it, sometimes, the two of them getting off together over the picture. If Roy – the real Roy – wasn’t such a miserable old prick, he’d suggest it to her maybe. But Roy is such a miserable old prick, and the whole thing is way too complicated to explain, so he doesn’t.

Then Keeley dumps him and the dream was only ever that.

---

They send him back to City. Jamie doesn’t understand. One moment he’s sharing a bottle of tequila with Dani Rojas and taking up the Richmond chant and Jamie’s not wrong and for the first time he wonders if maybe there could be something for him here, and the next he’s woken up by his agent and that same evening he’s back in Manchester like he never left, only the stale air in the house he bought with his fifth paycheck tells him he did, and the numb sense of loss as he steps through the door tells him he did.

It’s months before he gets everything from London shipped and sorted. Busy getting up to speed with everything at the club and all. It’s good to be back, really, a proper team, a proper coach, all that. Dad starts getting in touch again, sure, but it is what it is.

So yeah, it’s months before he gets all his stuff unpacked and months before his fingers brush over something familiar and he stands there staring down on the picture or Roy and it’s odd because it seems like only yesterday he first saw it and it seems a lifetime ago.

A rush of lust – Pavlovian, right, Keeley? – but a rush of something else too, rusted barb wire tugging at his guts, sharp and sickening.

He looks at it for a long time and then he puts it away and this time he doesn’t take it out again. That’s over and done with.  

(Only, he doesn’t throw it away either. Just lets it sit in a neglected drawer, ignored but never let go, like all the other things that must never be.)

---

(There’ll be a time, some years later, boxes packed and moved and unpacked and an old photo slipping to the floor and

what the fuck is this?

and

what’s that, babe? oh my god, you look hot! fucking hell! jamie, where did you even get this?

and

when did you get this? i’m still playing here

and

uh, well, you remember that photo shoot they did for the promo just a couple of months after i joined richmond?

and a raised eyebrow and

yeah?

and a shrug and cheeky grin and

yeah, well, picked it up for darts practise, didn’t I

and Roy snorts but he’s smiling too and

figures you’d be shit at darts

and

what are you on about, man, i’m aces at darts… ooh, because there’s no holes in it you mean, yeah, no, you’re right, you’re right, i’m shit at darts, fucking terrible

and they’re both smiling now and Keeley is too and Roy notes how it’s clearly been handled a lot and what were you doing with it really and the glint in his eyes says he knows but Jamie tells him – tells them – anyway, in great, great detail.)

[whentommymetalfie]

Bird Song -Tommy and Luca

Tommy is not sure how he’s ended up here. On the surface it appears like a dream, the penthouse in Soho, the successful husband who never misses an opportunity to spoil him, a life full of expensive dinners and parties. But beneath the glimmering surface lies a darkness unlike anything else.

AO3

[skyloftian-nutcase]

(I realized on the second or third read that this is quite heavy on the angst so fair warning)

"Am I heartless?"

The words echoed in Legend's mind as he stood in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror. Sky's voice screamed in his head, loud and soft, accusatory and questioning, hurt and resigned.

The person staring back at Legend wasn't really someone he seemed to know anymore. Tired eyes, skinny face (when had he lost so much weight? Had he always been this thin?), dry hair. He'd finished an eight night work stretch and it showed. He wasn't hungry, but he knew he hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours. He'd only had an energy drink as his entire sustenance at work last night. He'd worked a code, magically healed someone's stubbed toe, dealt with a family member snapping at him for taking too long to get test results that he couldn't even control, cleaned up someone's excrement four times, treated someone's migraine, told a creep that he could hold use the urinal just fine without Legend's help, saved another nurse from getting hit on by yet another creep, taken care of two teenagers who were coming from an MVC, and told someone that she'd miscarried.

And then he'd gotten off shift, driven to Sky's place since his friend had offered him a quiet place to decompress, slept, woken up, and read a book like it was a normal day. And then that evening Sky had the gall to ask if he was heartless. As if Legend hadn't just spent the night grumbling and laughing and making jokes with Warriors, teasing Hyrule whenever he saw him, and making dark comments about the entire situation.

Legend had long since accepted he was an ass. He'd accepted he was bitter and hurt, he'd accepted that he coped through keeping everyone at arm's length and laughing at the darkness around him. It's how they all coped.

He'd accepted that he was heartless. He had to be.

Sky's insistence on that being untrue healed something in his heart he hadn't even known was broken. He wondered if his other coworkers felt similarly. It was hard to tell - emergency personnel often didn't talk about what bothered them. They just laughed at it.

Why did it matter, whether he could feel things or not? Why did it matter that work bothered him but didn't? Why did it matter that he could watch someone die and crack a joke that would make people's heads snap towards him within the same minute?

Just how broken was he? Was it worth fixing? Why could he be having a good day and then all it took was one idiot to sour his entire opinion on humanity? Why did he get so angry, so hurt, so bitter? Why did the mistakes, the idiocy of one person make him distrust all people? Why were people just awful?

Why was he like this?

Legend reached up to his face, his fingers finding his earlobe and messing with the little hole where an earring would usually sit. He remembered the small, delicate hands that pierced them, the smell of the sea and laughter in the wind, the music and the fun nights, and the times when he did actually have some joy in his life.

He remembered the sand mixed with blood, the taste of bitterness and regret, the heavy decisions made in a single day.

He remembered all the emergency departments he'd finished, the poor management, the overworked staff, the entitlement of some patients, the desperation of other patients, the fear over being able to afford getting basic life saving care, the anger at how broken the system was, the frustration that could only be taken out on healthcare staff. He remembered the cases of abuse he'd reported, the anger in Hyrule's eyes when he brought in a drunk woman who survived a crash that she'd caused while the young mother she'd hit had been killed, the assault victims he'd treated, the frequent flyers who would just come for a sandwich but would cause a scene if they had to sit in the waiting room while actually sick people were taken back, the anger and hurt and bitterness and why were people like this?!

But it wasn't always bad. It wasn't. So he shouldn't just focus on the bad. He shouldn't just remember the bad. Why was that all he fixated on?

"What's wrong with me?" he muttered, leaning his head against the cool mirror on the wall.

"Am I heartless?"

No. No, Sky wasn't heartless. Sky had gone through a war, had seen things he refused to talk about, and he still had a warmth to him that Legend couldn't even fathom. Legend hadn't fought in a war, and yet here he was, being bitter about life.

You've fought in a war and you damn well know it, he reminded himself. As if the emergency department wasn't a war zone in its own right, as if he hadn't seen things that people weren't meant to see.

Ravio's words echoed in his mind next, insisting in how he was a hero, how all healthcare workers were heroes. It wasn't a new sentiment - many said it. But it didn't sink in. He didn't feel much like a hero. He just felt broken.

Maybe Sky was right. Maybe Legend wasn't actually heartless. Maybe he was just heartbroken.

[endlessburningdarkness]

been thinking about luo binhe getting therapy in the modern world. living a good life, happy, only to be haunted by dreams of horrendous abuse. inflicted on him and by him. thinking he's going insane, becoming depressed and suicidal. it takes years of his life to piece together that these dreams are in fact, memories.

he comes to accept it and move on with the help of cbt. but just as he's pulled himself out of a depressive pit and ready to move on, fate throws another anvil at his head. one day, he run's into a man who look's just like his hated teacher. in shock, binghe almost doesn't manage to dodge when the man immediately attempts to kill him.

turn's out, shen jiu remembers too.

[youchangedmedestiel]

You know what was hard for Dean when he was in that underground and government-run prison, isolated, was that he was alone with nothing. They had nothing. But what was the hardest is that he didn't get any touch. Any touch at all. He would have trade a good punch in the face instead of this nothingness. He would have trade any kind of torture touch just to feel somebody's slight brush of skin against his.

And when they were finally free, sure he touched those people that were hunting him but it was more about survival. But then, he got to hug Cas and his mom and it felt so good. He could finally feel someone else's warmth against his touch-deprived body for so long. He felt like being alive again.

[adamstanheightsleftshoulder]

fuck you american werewolf in london au where lawrence is david and adam is jack slowly decaying as a doomed soul ghost or whatever snd doing this every five seconds

[sapphosewrites]

Trektober Day #30: Time Loop / Mentors

The relationship has become recursive by the time Ezri tracks Ben down. A Dax, a Sisko, a mentorship. Curzon mentored Ben. Ben will mentor Ezri. Jadzia and Ben, she supposes, sort of mentored each other.

Should she be trying to mentor Jake? Keep the line going? Ezri doesn't really think she's qualified to mentor anybody, not until she gets her pronouns and breakfast order figured out.

It's not quite reassociation. After all, Ben isn't a Trill, so there's no worry about creating a closed loop. One day, he'll die. So will Ezri.

Dax won't.

She wonders if it will hurt more to lose him because she's known him and loved him across three lifetimes. It already hurts enough to lose someone after only one. Maybe joined Trill are drawn to reassociate because they want to create a time loop, where they don't have to face the fact that so much of living forever is losing the people you love.

[noa-ciharu]

PLLLLLEASE *down on my hands and knes* PLEEASSE SHARE ANY NIKOLAI HEADCANNONS please brother I know you got some in you COME ON YOU GOTTAVE HEARD SOME MAN PLEASSE *sobbing*

Ohhh I do have quite a few. Since I regularly write smut I have a lot nsfw ones but I'll keep them sfw here. Here are some of them:

- he's strong af. I mean, that's sort of canon already with that one official art where he's holding onto iron bar and supporting entire body weight

- similarly, even if ability is innate, he didn't get good at utilizing it overnight. Therefore Nikolai had lots of trials and errors when younger; thus I hc he has lots of scars and tiny cuts over body

- scar over eyes symbolizes 'punishment' for 'having eyes open'. "Bird born inside the cage dies happily in it for it never knew it was imprisoned" - awareness of limitations of his mind (human emotions, instinct, conscience, ability to feel pain, to wish etc.) hurts him, but he'd rather be aware than close eyes to the truth ("over happiness I chose freedom of my soul"); also why he wears eyepatch over eye without a scar. Thus I believe Nikolai either gave himself that scar or somehow received it while 'fighting for freedom of his soul'

- before becoming part of doa and heading to Yokohama Nikolai rarely settled in one place for too long. He's always on a road, on search for something that'll bring him freedom; or on a run from himself, if you will. As result he has a knack for learning languages fast

- is a type of person that can blabber day and night without actually revealing anything about himself

- was an outcast as a child, perhaps even shunned by peers, thus that's where masking and theatricality took root. From there on he became more and more of a performer to the point where others were unable to tell what's real and what not about Nikolai - that way rejection wouldn't even hurt since it's not 'him' being rejected, but mask he's presenting

- is actually highly intelligent, hence can't stop pondering over philosophical topics. That's already sort of canon, but I believe he 'cant turn philosophizing and seeing things pass the surface off', therefore sees world through different lenses from other people. That additionally separates him from world around him