#what was i supposed to do. let him keep getting pneumonia just so i could maybe figure out a way to keep his body going

[eqan]

reminding myself we kept egan alive & happy with idiopathic megae (disgusting and evil disease) for almost 2 years. sacrificing literal time with family and friends. sacrificing holidays. sacrificing time together. so much money. and we did it happily, for him, and never in a million years would i have let him go if i didn’t know in my gut it was right. i would have sacrificed again and again for him. i don’t care

i need to stop listening to people who are like “i spent $1738283 on my dogs care and never gave up and now they’re okay again!” cause that’s 1) so privileged and 2) not the norm. if a vet recommends euth, and they’re a good vet, it’s usually because they’re right. it’s time. anything outside of that is an outlier

[moonstruckme]

Heyyy! So I'm obsessed with your writing! Your EMT series might be my favourite thing I've ever read.

I was wondering if I could request an EMT Marauders x reader story where she gets really sick but thinks it's nothing and downplays it to them, only for it to end up being Pneumonia or something. And maybe they feel guilty for not realising it sooner?

I know you've probably already written something similar to this so no worries if you don't feel like writing it but I'd love to see your take it if you decide. Hurt/comfort is my favourite trope in the world. I just can't get enough of it!

I hope you're doing well!

Thanks gorgeous, hope you're doing well too <3

cw: pneumonia

emt!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1k words

You make sure there’s plenty of honey in your tea when the boys get home. 

“Hi,” you greet them, pleased when your voice comes out semi-normal. 

“Hey, gorgeous.” Sirius flops onto the sofa, nearly on top of your curled-up legs. “How was your day?” 

You try to keep your answer brief, your cough plied into submission with honey and warm tea but not for long. “Good. Got some things done.” 

You don’t mention that after every one of those things you’d had to have a thirty-minute lie down, or that many of them involved disinfecting surfaces you’d accidentally coughed near. 

“Being sick isn’t an opportunity to get things done.” Remus sinks into his chair, leveling you with a reprimanding look. “You’re supposed to be resting.” 

You shrug. “The only reason I haven’t been at work is because—” A couple of coughs fight their way out of you. James’ expression pinches as he sits on the arm of Remus’ chair, but thankfully the fit passes quickly. You take another sip of your tea. “Because I don’t want to pass it to anyone. I think I have to go back tomorrow, though.” 

Sirius makes a soft tsking sound. The boys are all still in uniform, his tattoos peeking out from the short sleeves as he traces looping circles on the side of your knee. “But you’re not better yet.” 

���Yeah, but I’m running out of sick days.” 

James frowns. “How long has it been?” 

You bring your tea to your lips, avoiding meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’ve been out for a week.” 

“But you were sick for a while before that,” he says. “What is that, ten days? Eleven?”

You shrug. 

Sirius is looking up at you with a puckered brow. “Do you feel like you’re getting better?” 

“I think so,” you say optimistically. It’s quickly undermined, however, when you’re caught up in another coughing fit. You have to set your tea down to keep from spilling it, holding a tissue over your mouth. 

James’ eyes widen, and Sirius sits up to rub your back. 

“That doesn’t sound very good,” James says. 

“No,” Sirius agrees. He reaches to feel your face, but you brush him away. 

“Don’t-—ack—don’t get too close. I don’t want to get you sick.” 

“I’m not gonna get sick, you baby.” He pushes past your hands. “Let me do my job.” 

“You just got off work.” 

“Yeah, well,” his voice softens, taking on a sympathetic hum as he lays his palm flat to your hairline, “maybe I maybe I was talking about my boyfriend job.” A pause. “I think your fever’s gotten worse, my love.” 

You whine. “Really?” 

“‘Fraid so. Have you noticed your symptoms getting worse at all?”

“I don’t” —you cough and reach for your tea again— “think so.” 

“Dove,” Remus says warningly. 

“It’s hard to tell,” you admit. “It’s moved around.” 

“Like where, honey?” James asks. 

“Like, in my…” You feel your throat contract, another fit brewing. You touch a hand to your sternum to avoid speaking. 

“In your chest?” Remus infers. 

You nod. 

He hums and moves to sit on the coffee table, his knees touching yours. You try to warn him away, but Remus shushes you gently. “Let me look at you.” 

He brings one hand to your face, feeling the way Sirius had, and touches the other to the pulse point on your neck. His touch is gentle and cool against your warm skin. You don’t know what exactly he’s looking for, but you find yourself fighting the urge to fall asleep in the basin of his palm when it slips down to hold your cheek. 

“You don’t need to talk,” says James, “but just nod yes or no, okay? Have you noticed yourself feeling more tired lately?” 

You nod tentatively. 

“Yeah? Less appetite?” 

You frown. “I don’t think—” You’re cut off by your own hacking. 

“One week off work, and she completely forgets how to follow instructions,” Sirius teases, rubbing your leg. 

“Terrible patient,” James agrees. 

“Alright,” Remus says once your fit ebbs. “I don’t have a stethoscope, but can you turn sideways for me?” 

You do, confused. Remus puts his ear to your back. You must make an odd face, because Sirius grins at you, reaching over to pinch your chin affectionately. 

“Take a deep breath,” Remus instructs. 

You try, but it doesn’t get far. Your lungs expand maybe halfway before you’re coughing again, horrible, wracking coughs punctuated by stabbing pains in your chest. Remus sits up after a few moments, rubbing your back. 

“Sorry,” you manage. 

“Why are you sorry?” Sirius pulls you into him, cradling your head to his chest. “That sounded like it hurt, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Remus answers for you, brows bent with sympathy. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. At least now we can get you some medicine, though.” 

You cough weakly. “You can?” 

“Sounds like pneumonia?” James asks Remus. Your boyfriend nods. 

Sirius coos, petting your head. “I’m sorry, baby. I was thinking it was just a cold.” 

“It’s not your fault,” you croak. “I was, too.” 

“Feels like we ought to have known the difference, though,” James admits. When Sirius gets up, he’s quick to take his spot, tucking you underneath an arm. 

“Where are you going?” you ask Sirius. 

He’s putting his shoes back on. “To get someone to write you a prescription. The sooner we get you on antibiotics, the better. It’ll give you something to show your boss, too.” 

“I don’t need to come with you?” you ask hopefully. 

He winks, grabbing his keys. “Perks of knowing people at the hospital.” 

“Perks of flirting with the doctors, he means,” Remus mutters after he’s gone. 

“Hey,” James laughs, giving his boyfriend’s knee a playful squeeze, “it works out for us, doesn’t it?” 

“Sometimes,” Remus allows. He fixes his gaze on you. “Anything we can do to help you feel better, sweetheart? Do you want to try a hot bath? Steam would be good for you.” 

You look down into your now cool mug. “Could I have some more tea?” 

He takes it from you with a kiss to your head. “What a silly question.”

[vegaseatsass]

My Stand-In Episode 11

AUghhghhhh I can't believe next week is the last week of this series, what am I supposed to do with my life without it? (Meet You At The Blossom, you are my only hyperfixation hope)

I shan't talk about the end of the episode except to say that it feels right that Spiritual Master is the biggest MingJoe antishipper out there. Yes, he's been tirelessly advising this young master on his disastrous love life and its cosmic implications for three years, but that doesn't mean he's rooting for him or thinks the torturous time loop he's trapped everyone in is karmically sound!!!!

I also really can't get over the "every story that's not about a time loop is about a time loop" vibes of the scene too, how it was filmed, the way the master described the cycle they're in, all of it. Good stuff. But beyond that I'm zipping my lips I dare not even speculate on what is coming in episode 12.

What I do want to talk about is the Akarayota family!!

I think it is so brilliant that Ming's dad was kept fully offscreen and out of the picture until episode 10. It made him such an ominous, menacing figure. Like it seems obvious to me now that last episode, when Ing asked about telling his family and Ming said he needed to make sure it was the right time first, he was talking not about emotionally preparing himself or like, winning his family over, but about this blackmail scheme he needed to suck Mike into to "defeat" their father, which he always knew was the only option. Putting aside everything else in the Ming vs. Dad game of family ruthlessness chicken, at the end of this episode, this man was going to get his son killed in a way similar to how Ming got Joe killed: out of stubbornness, out of a refusal to believe long after he was shown that Ming would choose Joe not just over his family but over his own safety, out of a belief that he could control the situation and let Joe perish and lose nothing more than Ming's, like, will to live (but if you keep him locked in the house forever after, that won't matter, right?). You can just really see where Ming gets it from with this guy. I also have to wonder what the FUCK was going on in that household during Ming's childhood that a. the siblings are all so codependent b. Ming has learned to throw up on command c. Ming throwing up on command is something Mike has seen him do and treats as an old familiar trick.

So let's talk about the siblings! Ahhhh!!! My heart!!! When Mike first mentioned a promise, I was sure it was going to be a tit-for-tat trade where Mike owed Ming some kinda life debt (a la May saving Ming from drowning and getting pneumonia) that Ming was cashing in on. My guess was Ming had done some kind of monumental favor for Mike in their youth and Mike Owed him. But no no no! Mike's promise was made in the past three years and as far as we can see was simply borne of not wanting to see his brother in pain. I promise you, Ming, if Joe ever returns I'll do anything to help you be together, so please, for now, move on with your life. How fucking much does he love and prioritize Ming if that's a cash-in-on-able vow he'll break the law and fight their father over? How much of Mike's life is already spent cleaning up after Ming and shielding him? Again, what the fuck was going on in that household in his childhood that the oldest son in the family splits his time between business, Buddhism, and keeping his baby brother out of the line of fire? I had the thought that Ming could go to Mike for money to avoid their father, but Mike telling the loan shark "WE cannot get $500 million to you by tonight" without Ming even needing to ask him kind of said it all. Lowkey wondering if Ming is THE heir and Mike is a half-brother or illegitimate son of some kind since it does seem like the family wealth is concentrated in May and especially Ming's hands, even though Mike does nothing but work for this family lol. And May <3 I have a lot I'm mulling over in her relationship with Tong but the fact that she showed up just to shut down the line of familial manipulation that hinged on her womb was so badass. There's also something about Tong using "you chose your brother over me" as a DIVORCE JUSTIFICATION that makes me wonder if that was an ongoing conversation and threat in their relationship, that she had to prove again and again that she saw Tong as family as much as she did her beloved little brother... I do hope we see a little bit before the very end of Ming reciprocating his siblings' immense devotion to him (in ways other than "fled the country to hide that I was obsessed with your boyfriend's posterior", or tbh even gifting his perfect secretary to the brother who has always wanted him lol). But I am very compelled by what we've seen so far, that the Akarayota siblings consistently choose each other and shield each other from their powerful, terrible parents.

Last but not least, mama Akarayota! Love her writing! I love that the scene where she's accepting Joe and Mingjoe's love comes packaged with "oh yeah I was the one who destroyed your relationship with your mom teehee oops", and she doesn't even seem very sorry about it, she's just sooo happy that Joe passed her little test and loves her son and is making Ming happy and alive, and who really cares what happens to Joe's life or family. I love that she felt the urgency of Ming going to meet with the loan sharks in ways her husband didn't, but instead of working with her son or finding a way to pay the money her son-in-law owed, she just did the impulsive thoughtless rich person move of calling the cops, which escalated literally everything and missed getting Ming killed by a Joe-shaped hair. Why pay $500 million baht to criminals when you can rely on your power and the state? It's just such an automatic, instinctive, realistic choice for her to make and I love love love the consequences it came with. Basically I love that even though Ming's mother has the classic QL parent arc of moving from pressuring her son to marry women to warmly accepting that he loves a man, she does it with so much rich person violence and collateral damage along the way. There's a complexity and realism there I don't often see.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about Sol and how moving I found it that he uses "I can't get over you" as a way of connecting with Joe, empathizing with and accepting how obviously Joe is never going to get over Ming, and actually, finally letting him go. About how JOE FUCKING DYING AGAIN does in fact justify his frantic in-denial attempts to block Mingjoe a few episodes ago lol, but how beautiful it is that he was ready to let Joe go and make his own choices in this episode. About how much I wish Ming had!!! TURNED TO SOL!!!! FOR MONEY!!!! TO SAVE THE LIFE OF THE MAN THEY BOTH LOVED!!!! but that would I guess be even more of a drastic character change than Tong suddenly caring about his wife and unborn child lmao.

But I have to rewatch the episode with Laura now so we can both suffer so I will end the post here. Augh I love this series, I want it to be next Friday already I want to know what's going to happen but I also don't want it to end, augh augh augh

[im-a-marvel-ous-hoe]

Baby, It’s Cold Outside | Bucky Barnes (8th Day of 🎄)

(Credits to the owner of this pic!)

Here’s a brand new story for y’all! I hope you enjoy! 🩵

Christmas Masterlist <- check out my other holiday fics!

~~~~

“Do you think it’ll let up soon?”

I stood next to the window, holding a blanket against my body as I watched what was supposed to be light flurries turn into fat snow hitting the pavement. Soon all I could see were pure white lines, the wind outside making the snow zoom at an angle. I felt Bucky’s presence behind me, his body heat almost making me want to turn around and let him keep me warm.

“It’s uh.. lookin’ pretty bad out there, isn’t it?”

I nodded and sighed. “I should probably leave before it gets even worse..”

It was supposed to be a brief visit. I came over to his place to see him and drop off his favorite hoodie that he let me borrow a little while back.. but then he asked me if I wanted to grab a cup of hot chocolate and I couldn’t say no. That hot cocoa led to us watching a couple movies while snacking on whatever junk food he had. Before we knew it, the sun went down and the snow caved me inside Bucky’s apartment.

“You want to leave in that?” He asked while opening up his blinds even more to showcase how bad it’s getting outside. “You can’t even see the pathway to walk to your car. How are you gonna drive?”

“I’m a big girl, I’m sure I can figure it out. It’s just snow.” I walked over to his couch and slid off the blanket, shivering as soon as the air hit my skin. It’s been really nice and warm since I’ve been here and the thought of having to go out in the cold made me wish I had paid better attention to the weather outside. I folded up the blanket nice and neat and laid it on the cushion.

I wanted to prolong me leaving for as much as I could, but I knew I probably overstayed my welcome three hours ago and he might want some time to be alone. I know I would if a guest came over unexpectedly and couldn’t get the hint I wanted them gone.

He slowly stalked closer to me, his head bowed down and I turned to look at him. “Y/N, you’d freeze out there. The snow is piling up by the minute, I’m sure you’d get pneumonia and I wouldn’t be able to – ”

I lifted my hand up to his face and placed a single finger on his lips to silence him. “Nat and Wanda are probably wondering where I am. We were supposed to have a girls night and I’m like twenty minutes away from the apartment.”

He stayed silent for a moment, his body still and his cheeks were blushed. The initial shock of me shutting him up started to wear off as he sighed. He reached up and grabbed my hand in his and he inspected my fingers. I could feel his breath against me as he placed a soft quick kiss on the top of my knuckles. I instantly felt get warmer.

“Doll, your hands are cold.”

My knees wanted to buckle right then and there. I felt like I shouldn't say anything, this moment seemed too intimate and I didn’t want to break out of this bubble. Something about the way his gaze stayed concentrated on my cold fingers made my heart flutter. I longed to feel his lips against them again.. or other places.

“Maybe you just run hot.. I’m not calling you hot, it's just you’re so warm.. I – I mean, not to say that you’re not hot. You’re very easy on the eyes and..”

Oh God, what the fuck am I doing?!

“What I mean to say is – ” He laughed and brought our hands to rest on each of our sides, him refusing to let go and said, “Need me to change the subject?”

“Yes please.”

My stupid mouth just had to make a comment.

He noticed a strand of my hair seeming out of place from my messy ponytail and he reached his hand up to move it out of my flustered face and place it behind my ears.

This man is makin’ me melt like a popsicle on the fourth of July. I felt like I was warm enough to even brace the snow storm outside and walk it back home.

“You know, I.. I actually have an extra room that you could stay in, if you wanted..” I parted my mouth open in surprise as he continued. “I could let you borrow a couple of my clothes to sleep in so you’re comfortable.”

I smiled and slowly shook my head. “That’s very kind of you, Buck, but I can’t impose on you like that.”

“Trust me, it’s no bother to me at all. We could have a night dedicated to just us and watch movies until the sun came up if we wanted to.” I tilted my head and felt warmth spread across my face.

I didn’t want to feel like Bucky had to offer up a room to me because he felt bad, but I really didn’t want to drive back in this storm and freeze the whole way there. I bet if I was to even call a cab, which I probably wouldn’t because I have a working car, they would go out of their way to pick me up. Plus, I don’t really want to spend money on gas anyway.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s bad out there and I know if you’re with me, you’ll at least be safe. I don’t have to go to bed wondering if you made it home when there’s a perfectly open space for you here.”

I stood there, debating back and forth and back and forth in my mind as I tried to think of what’s the best option…

“What do you think your neighbors will think when they wake up and see that my car is still parked outside?”

“I hope they’re smart enough to know that I couldn’t let someone as pretty as you leave in a snow storm.” I tried to brush over the fact that he called me pretty and hoped that my face didn’t give away the fact that I liked it.

“And if they’re not smart enough?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“At least there will be plenty implied.” He chuckled. “But honestly, I couldn’t give two shits about what they think of who stays at my place. It’s my place.” He smiled. “C’mon, doll.. it can be just for tonight, if you wanted to.”

I glanced back at the blanket on the couch I folded neatly earlier and wished I was cuddled up against it again. Our cups of hot chocolate still remained on top of his coffee table, both completely empty next to crumbs left from pastries and plates with half eaten food. The movie on his TV paused and I realized he was still waiting for an answer.

“... Shall we heat up some more hot chocolate then?” His smile widened at my decision as I continued. “It’s gonna be a long night, Buck and it looks like we’re stuck together until further notice.”

“There’s no one else I’d rather be snowed in with.”

“After all, it is cold outside and you’re a literal heater. It was getting harder and harder to say ‘no’ to that.”

“If that’s what got you to stay, then I guess I can’t be too upset. It gives me a reason to cuddle up to you and keep you safe. I’d say this is a win – win, if you ask me.”

~~~~

I hope y’all liked it! Please let me know your thoughts! Likes, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated!

[shesinchargeareyoukidding]

Eddie Munson Sickfic: When you hurt - Chapter 5: I’ll figure it out in the morning

Read chapter one here

1975

He could hear shouting. Desperate, angry shouting.

“-ck you! He’s my kid! Mine! Why the fuck-“

-“Sir, please calm down-“

-“CALM DOWN?!? SHE TOOK MY FUCKING KID! SHE BROKE INTO MY HOME AND TOOK HIM! I WANT HIM BACK! NOW!”

“Your son has pneumonia, mr. Munson. He needs urgent medical care.”

“Bullshit! He was fine! You just want my fucking money. Take me for all I’ve got, huh?”  

What was going on? Where was he? Why did he feel so weird? Was that his dad? Eddie managed to crack his eyes open and his blurry vision registered white walls and three people in his peripheral. There was a pressure on his face. he blinked sluggishly as he tried to reach his hand up to feel what it was. His hand hit something that felt like plastic.

“No, sir. It’s not like that at all…” A woman’s voice tried to reason.

“I want him back! Right now! He’s my kid. Ya can’t just fuckin’ take him!” That was his dad. Eddie tried to lift his head to look at the other people in the room, but the movement hurt his head and he let out a groan.

“Ed! See? He’s fine! Eddie, it’s me! Yer fine, right? Let’s go home, yeah?” As he spoke, Austin charged forward and pulled the oxygen mask off Eddie’s face and roughly pulled him into a sitting position. Eddie let out a startled whimper as he looked up at his dad.

“Ed! Tell them yer fine.” Austin demanded, pointing at the other two people in the room. Eddie panted as he tried to form proper words.

“d-dad. W-wha-” Eddie stammered. Austin nodded frantically.

“Yeah it’s me, bud. We’re gonna go home, okay?” He pressed.

“o-okay…” Eddie gasped, scrambling to get his body to move as his dad pulled on his arms. A hand shot out and stopped him from making it far. The hand felt warm as it softly settled on Eddie’s back, supporting him. The owner of the hand spoke in a low voice.

“No, Austin. That’s enough, now. Just look at him.” Eddie blearily looked at the source of the voice an vaguely recognised it as his quiet and kind uncle Wayne. He calmly lowered Eddie to lay back down and Eddie was so, so confused. Wasn’t he supposed to get up?

Austin furiously shook his head and grabbed for Eddie again, but this time Wayne stepped in and blocked his brother. “That’s enough, Austin! He needs to stay. When Jenny brought him here she said he was close to death!” Wayne argued. Eddie’s heart started racing at his uncle’s words.

“That old witch is way too dramatic, Wayne! What do ya think’ll happen if I let him stay, huh?” Austin huffed.

“He’ll live. That’s what’ll happen. Give me that damn oxygen mask!” Wayne said adamantly as he reached for the mask in his brother’s hand. Austin quickly danced out of the way.

“No! Ed, tell him you’re fine.” Austin pushed. Eddie felt overwhelmed as he fought to take in enough air. His lungs hurt, everything hurt. He didn’t understand what was going on. He swallowed hard against the nauseous feeling in his stomach as he tried to speak.

“I- I…” The nausea became too much as his stomach spasmed, making him gag. All Eddie could see was the look of betrayal on his father’s face before tears blurred his vision and he threw up into a bowl his uncle had thrust out under his chin. His uncle’s warm hand rubbed up and down his back and vaguely he could hear his father still ranting.

As he was throwing up bile, two more men entered the room. “Oh thank God.” The nurse said as she approached them. “The father of the patient is being very aggressive and keeps trying to take the kid away.” The security guards didn’t need to hear any more and advanced on Austin, who threw up his hands defensively.

“Hang on! It’s my kid, I should be able to take him anywhere I fuckin’ well want.” He insisted.

“’Fraid not, sir. There’s a protocol we need to follow before we can release the kid. You can discuss that with his doctor, but you can’t take him right now.” One of the guards said as he cautiously approached the three Munsons.

Austin’s eyes shifted around the room like a cornered animal and came to rest on the door. As he looked from the door to his son, he made a quick decision. Austin darted for Eddie and forcefully pushed Wayne aside. With one arm, he lifted his son out of his bed and pressed him close to his chest, while his other hand started tearing at the IV in the boys pale arm. It took two quick jerks and the needle was ripped free. Eddie let out a strangled yell of pain as blood began to steadily drip from his arm. Austin’s strong arms wrapped around him tightly and his cries were smothered into his father’s chest.

“Austin, no! Stop it!” Wayne exclaimed as he ran forward and grabbed onto Eddie as securely as he could. The two guards each grabbed one of Austin’s arms.

“No! Don’t fuckin’ take my son! Eddie! Help me, boy!” Austin screamed as they were pulled apart. Eddie was horrified to see tears in his dad´s eyes.

Eddie sobbed as he started struggling against Wayne’s strong grip and reached his bleeding arm out to his father. “Dad!” he wailed. Wayne’s grip didn’t let up and he gathered his nephew securely against his chest, whispering reassurances in the boy’s hair and pleading with him to calm down. Austin was dragged out of the room by the security guards, fighting and yelling the whole way. Right before the door closed behind them, Austin’s anger shifted from the adults in the room to the helpless child left behind. “Look at what ya did, Ed!” Austin raged. “I told ya not to let anyone in! and now fuckin’ look, boy! This is all your fault!” Eddie started wailing even harder. “I d- I didn- “ A coughing fit overtook him and he shook violently in his uncles arms.

His dad was gone. He left a ringing silence behind, broken only by his son’s cries.

People took his dad away and it was all his fault. A new burst of energy made him lash out at the hands wrapped around his chest. He hit them over and over, he sunk his nails into them as hard as he could, he tried to pull them away from his body with all his strength. The arms didn’t budge, no matter what he did.  

He was being moved. His quiet uncle was carefully climbing into the hospital bed with Eddie fighting him every inch of the way. Calm as ever, Wayne sat down on the bed with his nephew against his chest and just held him.

“No! Let m-me go.” Eddie strained to raise his voice, tears streamed down his face and his voice came out wheezy and broken. His chest felt tight and painful.

“It’s okay, I’m here.” His uncle muttered quietly, not once letting up on his grip on Eddie.

“I don’t want you! I want my d-dad.” Eddie yelled. His struggles started to weaken as he dissolved into tears. “I want m-my dad… I- I want my dad…” He whimpered. All the fight drained out of the boy. His trembling body went limp as his shoulders shook with devastated and confused sobs.

“I know, darlin’. I know. I’m sorry.” His uncle soothed. The arms let up on their iron grip and started to rub up and down his arms.

“I- I don’t u-understand w-wha’s happening…” Eddie sobbed and Wayne’s heart broke all over again. Eddie latched onto one of the sleeves with a desperate grip. His chest was heaving so harshly that it felt to Wayne as if his nephew’s little ribcage was rattling apart.

“I promise I’ll explain everything, Eddie. But for now, all you gotta know is that I’m not gonna leave and I’ll stay here as long as ya need, alright? Right here.” He said as he slowly rocked his nephew. The nurse carefully approached the duo and silently handed Wayne the oxygen mask as she started unwrapping a new IV-needle and some gauze. Wayne carefully placed the oxygen mask back over Eddie’s nose and mouth. The kid was too exhausted to even react to the foreign feeling on his face, just closed his eyes and let himself go limp against his uncle’s chest.

“Sweetie?” The nurse softly brushed Eddie’s hair back from his face, making him blink his eyes back open and meet her gaze. She smiled. “Hey, Eddie. My name is Alice. I’m going to wrap up your arm and put a new IV in, okay? I’ll be as careful as I can.” Eddie nodded tiredly as two exhausted tears escaped from his eyes.

Alice put on rubber gloves and disinfected Eddie’s arm, which made him whimper and squeeze his eyes shut, but he held his arm still. “You’re doing so well, Eddie.” Alice praised as she wrapped his arm up.  “You know, you might be the bravest boy I’ve ever met.”. Eddie stared at her in amazement and Alice caught his silent question. “Really.” She assured as she skilfully slipped the new needle in the small boy’s vein and taped it over securely. “There.” She winked. “Bet you barely even felt that.” Eddie nodded with wide eyes.

Wayne gave her a grateful look as she assured him the doctor would be by later to give him an update on Eddie’s health. Then she left and uncle and nephew were alone. Eddie mumbled something into his oxygen mask and Wayne leaned forward to catch it. “One more time, kid. What was that?”

Eddie huffed and lifted a shaking hand to his oxygen mask, but Wayne stopped him with a soft touch to his wrist. “I can hear you just fine, kid. Leave it on.” Eddie huffed again, but let his hand drop. Taking a deep breath, he tried again.

“ ’m sorry I yelled. a-and… and h-hit you.” He muttered against the plastic mask. Wayne gave him a gently squeeze. “Hell, kid. I get it. Barely felt it, yaknow.” He assured his nephew. Eddie shook his head.

“ ‘s not nice g-getting’ yelled at…” Eddie softly countered. Wayne nodded. “That’s true… But you’re eight years old, Ed. You’re eight and you’re really sick and you woke up to all that chaos. You were probably real scared an’ confused, huh? Totally normal for ya to freak out.” He reasoned. Eddie, whose eyes started to tear up again as he listened to his uncle describe his feelings so well, nodded against Wayne’s chest.

Wayne kissed the top of his head. “Ya still scared, Ed?” He asked. Eddie let out a weak sob and nodded once again. Wayne rearranged Eddie so he was curled up against his chest, head tucked underneath Wayne’s chin with the blanket wrapped around him and encased by his uncle’s strong arms. “I’ll take care of ya now, kid. Ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. Everything will be okay.” Eddie snuggled up against Wayne and almost believed him. “w-what about dad?” He asked. He felt Wayne’s chest rise and fall with a weary sigh. “I don’t know yet, Eddie. But I’ll figure that out in the mornin’.”

 1987

Eddie blearily opened his eyes and he instantly clocked the white walls, the too clean smell, the press of an oxygen mask on his face. He looked to his left and met the tired gaze of his uncle, sitting in a plastic chair. No. adrenaline spikes inside his body and he jolts into action. Get out! Look what you did! You’re ruining everything! He rips off his oxygen mask, throwing off his blanket. A stinging in his arm catches his attention. Looking at it, he sees that he’s attached to an IV port. Frantically and without thinking, he starts tearing at it.

“Eddie, no! Stop it!” Wayne seized Eddie’s wrist in a tight grip and ripped it away from his other arm. Eddie flinched violently and twisted his arm around in an attempt to free himself. He propped his elbow underneath his body, trying to heave himself upright. Wayne was having none of it as he pressed his forearm against his nephew’s chest and pushed him down to the bed. Eddie let out a frustrated growl.

A horrified anger overtook Wayne as he looked at the blood that started to pool around Eddie’s IV. Horror itched across his skin. “Settle down, boy! Right now!” He barked out, getting in his nephew’s face. He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but the scene in front of him was sending him back to a moment he never wanted to relive. The thought that this time it was Eddie doing it to himself made his skin crawl.

Sick as he was, the fight was quickly drained out of Eddie. He slumped back down onto the bed. His IV caught on his blanket as he lowered his arm and he flinched and whimpered in pain. Wayne took in Eddie’s pale face and the blood smearing across his arm and felt helplessly angry.

“How could you, Eddie? Look what you did!” He demanded, wrenching Eddie’s arm up to make him look at it. Large pain filled eyes shifted from Wayne’s snarling face to the blood on his arm. Eddie burst into gut wrenching sobs and Wayne reeled back. All anger now replaced by guilt.

“ ‘m sorry, ‘m sorry, ‘m sorry, ‘m sorry, ‘m sorry-“ Eddie bawled, hyperventilating.

“Eddie, no. I’m sorry. Calm down. Sssh, just breathe. It’s alright.” Wayne consoled, trying to put the oxygen mask back on. Eddie flinched away and swatted at his uncle’s arm.

“we need to leave… we have to-… I can… I can g-get up…” Eddie slurred as he started to prop himself up again. Wayne was quick to grab his nephew’s shoulders and keep him in place, thumbs tracing patterns into his skin. “We’re not goin’ anywhere, kid. We’re stayin’ right here until yer better.” Eddie wildly shook his head and then groaned at the pain it caused. “Please. We can’t… we-“ Another coughing fit cut Eddie off. Wayne pulled Eddie to lay on his side and held him steady as coughs tore through him.

“Wayne…” Eddie implored, his large eyes blinking up at Wayne.

“No, Eddie. I don’t wanna hear it.” Wayne grumbled.

“We can’t stay here…” Eddie whispered.

“Too bad, kid. ‘Cause we’re stayin’ anyway.” Wayne dismissed easily. Eddie swallowed painfully, knowing he wasn’t going to win the discussion.

“Don’t be mad…” He pleaded instead.

“I’m not-“ Wayne started, but was cut off.

“Yes you are. I t-tried to keep goin’ I promise…” Eddie swallowed hard and sucked in another painful breath. “p-please believe me. I t-tried. I did. I didn’t t-think… I wasn’t… I tried to keep going, b-but…”

“Woah, woah. Hey, it’s okay…” Wayne soothed, running a hand down Eddie’s arm. He took a deep breath as he thought of the right words. “Yes, I’m mad.” He admitted. Eddie sniffed and Wayne tucked a bit of hair behind his ear in a loving gesture. “I’m mad because you thought you had to lie to me about bein’ sick, that you thought I’d hate ya for needing help. I hoped I taught ya better than that. I’m mad that I let it get this far, even when I knew that ya still do this sometimes. I’m not mad at you, Eddie. I’m mad at myself.” Eddie reached his trembling bleeding arm out to his uncle, who immediately leaned forward and embraced his nephew, not caring about the blood staining his shirt.

“c-can you…?” Eddie sniffed as he weakly tugged on his uncles arm. He didn’t need to explain himself further. Wayne let out an amused huff as he took off his shoes. “Dontcha think we’ll break the bed this time, Ed? You’re not eight anymore.” Eddie’s smile prompted him to shrug light-heartedly. “Eh, only one way to find out, right?” Eddie’s smile only grew as his uncle climbed in behind him, joints popping as he went, and pulled Eddie against his chest, just like they had done twelve years ago. Wayne gently eased the oxygen mask back in place, ignoring his nephew’s displeased whine. Soon, the oxygen eased some of the tightness in Eddie’s chest and he sunk into his uncle’s embrace.

“I’m sorry I yelled, kid.” Wayne muttered into his nephew’s hair. Eddie tried to speak, but was reminded of the mask. His hand lifted instinctively, but was stopped by his uncle’s hand gently touching his wrist. “My hearing might not be like it used to be, Ed. But I can still hear you just fine. Leave it on.” Eddie huffed and Wayne was strongly reminded of the little boy he had held like this twelve years ago.

“’s okay that you yelled. you’re w-worried.” Eddie rasped out. Wayne shrugged.

“Still, it’s not nice getting yelled at.” Wayne nudged Eddie with a fond smile. Eddie smirked in remembrance. “god, w-we’re a mess… aren’t we?” He breathed. Wayne nodded.

“True, but we have each other, right?” He asked. Eddie blinked heavily and snuggled into Wayne’s chest. “Yeah…” He sighed. “what are we gonna do, Wayne?” His large eyes looked up and his uncle. Wayne leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his nephew’s head. “I don’t know yet, darlin’. I’ll figure it out in the mornin’”

To be continued.

Next chapter

[sunspray-peak]

Ch. 62: The Night Market

WEDNESDAY - WINTER 17

Achilles woke Wednesday morning with a pounding headache and a deep, unsettling fatigue that seemed to radiate through every inch of his body. 

He was supposed to stop by Zuzu again this afternoon to grab lunch with Alex, but as the morning ticked away, he found himself unable to rise from his bed, weighed down by a bitter blend of regret, indecision, and a rapidly increasing sense of shame. 

It took nearly all of an hour to gather both the energy and the courage to clamber across his pillow for his phone on the nightstand and dial Alex’s number. It rang twice, and then, 

“Hey!”

“Hi.”

“What’s up?” 

Achilles swallowed. Fuck. It was just lunch, how hard could it be to just get dressed and take the damn bus to Zuzu… perhaps if he could just push himself out of bed… 

“Ash? Everything okay?” 

“Oh—yes. Sorry. Are you in the middle of something? Do you have a second?” His voice came out small. Strained. It likely wouldn’t take Alex long to figure out something was up.

“Yeah, everything okay?” 

Like a block of lead, the phone felt so heavy in his hands. He wasn’t going anywhere today and he knew it. Even so, Achilles tried hard to keep his voice composed. 

Out with it, bitch. 

“I was wondering if I could… rain check on lunch. I’m sorry, I’m just… not feeling great.” 

“Oh no!” There was no disguising the alarm in Alex’s voice. “Do you think you’re sick?” 

“No, no, I’m just… tired.” 

“Oh. I see.” There was a brief pause on the other end, and Achilles’ stomach sank. Pathetic. 

“I’m sor—”

“Do you want me to order you delivery or something?”

“What? No—no, it’s all right.” 

“If I don’t do it, will you?” 

“Order food? I mean… yeah, if I get hungry…”

“Promise me you’ll eat, Ash.” 

Oh. 

“Sure. Yes. I’ll eat something.” 

“Ok, cool.” 

Achilles had nothing more to say, and Alex surely had to return to work—but as hard as it had been to punch in the number, he found it was even harder to hang up the phone. Instead, he burrowed deeper into bed, suffocating himself within the confines of his sheets, idly tracing backlit shadows along the creamy covers cocooning him from above. “I’m sorry,” he said.   

“Huh? What for?” 

“For bailing—”

But Alex cut him off—not impatiently, for when was Alex ever impatient, but in an offhand manner that suggested he was seeing the whole situation as significantly less consequential than Achilles was. “Ash, it’s fine. It’s just lunch, I get it, don’t worry about it. Do you think you want to stay in tonight?”

“No. No, it’s all right, it’s the last night, don’t want to miss it… “

“Up to you. There’s always next year.” 

“Yeah, but we can’t also stand up Sam…” A half-guilty chuckle. Poor Sam. According to Alex, he’d been kicked to the curb after Abigail and Sebastian had gone to the Night Market Festival without him two days ago, so Alex had invited him to join them two and Elliott tonight instead.“Right. So I’ll… see you tonight, then?” 

“Yup! Hey, maybe see if Leah wants to drop by for lunch. Or Elliott, since he’s coming later anyway. You just take it easy, man.” 

“Mmhm…”

Take it easy. What was he doing besides laying in bed? Pathetic. 

*****

That being said, Alex’s charitable indifference to the whole affair had been comforting, and, after allowing himself just one more half hour to stew in his own self-pity, Achilles managed to finally slug his way out of bed to put on a bath. 

Lavender bath salts. A meditation podcast. A jasmine scented candle Leah had gifted him back when he had had pneumonia. 

Breathe in… breathe out… let the anxiety ease away… 

He preferred being alone when he was in a mood, but he had caught the subtext behind Alex’s earlier suggestion—perhaps Alex was right. Perhaps being around someone else was exactly what he needed to swing to the other side of his emotional pendulum. Of course, the person he wanted most in the world right now was probably leading a cycling class at the moment, but as Alex had as much said, there were other options. 

Leah was out of town, but he’d give Elliott a call. See if the man was ready to step away from the typewriter for an afternoon. He dried the tips of his fingers and reached for his phone—wow, you managed to make it 10 whole minutes into the podcast. Congrats! Must be a record. 

Elliott answered on the first ring. “Oh ho! What perfect timing my dear friend, for I was, in fact, just on my way over to your very illustrious, lovely little neck of the woods! Will you perhaps require some sustenance—my treat, my treat! Yes, I will be swinging by the Stardrop shortly…” 

*****

The writer arrived with three steaming takeout containers, and, to Achilles’ mild confusion, a large, unmarked cardboard box. But the bigger surprise was the new coat Elliott was sporting. The patched, ratty blazer was gone, and in its place, a brand new, wool overcoat in rich ruby red. 

“I have news, my friend, wonderful news!” Without waiting to be invited in, Elliott rushed inside and bestowed the usual bone-crunching hug. “I have acquired—yes, if you can imagine—an agent! 

“Of course, I have only you to thank, my dearest friend. A Mister Nathaniel Thyme—yes, precisely, like the herb—had caught wind of my reading thanks to your exemplary advertising talents (for which I am eternally in your debt). I suppose he must have enjoyed enough what he had heard… he introduced himself to me afterwards, and, well—the rest is history! We have already begun distributing the manuscript to publishers!” 

“O—Oh.”

Achilles watched as Elliott, flushed from the Winter wind and his excitement alike, detangled his low ponytail from his coat’s high collar, and found a sour bit of bile beginning to coat the back of his throat. Perhaps he shouldn’t have invited him over. Perhaps this was, actually, in fact, the last thing he needed today. Perhaps he’d have been better off drowning himself in the bathtub. 

Jealousy, jealousy… 

But Achilles forced a smile, as he was apt to do, clapping Elliott on the back as the larger man went in for another embrace.

“That’s—wow, that’s amazing, congratulations! I’m… so… happy for you!” 

“Oh, you know I could never have done it with you, my dear friend—oh yes, for a friend like you is worth a thousand agents! A hundred thousand!” 

Continuing to hold what was rapidly becoming a more and more plasticine smile was becoming more difficult by the second. Achilles hurried to the kitchen and began opening cabinets at random, taking his time to hide his burning face among the shelves Alex had meticulously cleaned earlier that season. “I, well—I think I have some champagne around here—somewhere—we should, well—we should have a toast—”

“Oh, how you honor me!” 

Damn you Alex for being so organized—it took less than ten seconds to track down two crystal flutes and a bottle of Dom Perignon he didn’t quite remember ever purchasing. Perhaps it’d been a housewarming gift from Camille…

“For you first,” Achilles said, staring resolutely at the wood grain as he poured Elliott a glass, buying himself just a few more seconds to slide back a warm, newly configured smile. “A toast to Camellia Station. And to you. I’m sure we’ll be seeing both on the Ferngill Times Bestsellers List within the next two years.” 

“Too kind, too kind!” 

They clinked glasses, Elliott draining his in a single gulp, though Achilles took only a small sip. “So now what? Book #2? A vacation? I think you deserve one, you’ve been working on this for what, six years, right? What do you want to do next?” 

“Ah… the million dollar question, is it not? For now, the focus is on publication, but afterwards— I speak optimistically of an afterwards, of course—I believe I may allow myself to indulge in a bit of overseas travel before returning to the world of writing. I do historically favor being by the water, but long have I yearned to see the golden fields of Prairie Island! Have you ever seen a bison, my friend? Majestic, glorious creatures, they must be! And prairie dogs! Oh, how absolutely adorable they are—perhaps you would like to join me, I have heard the island is absolutely breathtaking.”  

“Well,” Achilles idly swilled his glass, “I can never say no to a large rodent…” 

He’d actually visited Prairie Island twice before—once as a child on vacation with his family and once as a part of his final book tour. He’d signed for hours into the night for the kids. The champagne suddenly tasted sour. And Elliott wasn’t helping. 

“…and perhaps by the time Mr. Thyme and I find a publisher, you yourself will have completed your next manuscript! An instant bestseller, I can see it now— ‘Catch Achilles Desrosiers’ highly anticipated return to the literary world!’ I myself have been on pins and needles waiting for it. And then we shall have reason to double the celebration amongst the prairie dogs!” 

“Well I haven’t been able to get around to… putting anything on paper right now, have I, so let’s not count on doubling our party with the prairie dogs just yet.” He had tried his best to dull the edge from his voice, but the twitch in his nose had not gone unnoticed. Elliott studied him closely from above the rim of his champagne glass, a peculiar look in his deep set eyes. 

“I see, I see—well, perhaps it is best we not overburden those marvelous rodents with our merrymaking.” Saying nothing more, Elliott returned his empty glass to the countertop and began to pop open the takeout. A warm shrimp salad, some cheesy balls of pastry, bouillabaisse, a lobster risotto… between the food and the coat, he was clearly finally willing to spend his mysterious fortune with his novel now out of the way. “Help yourself, my dear friend, please.” Though despite his words, Elliott proactively spooned a generous portion of each dish onto a place himself before sliding it over to Achilles. 

“You know, Achilles, during the final stretches of my Sisyphean—as it seemed to be at the time— task, I was emboldened by a piece of advice shared once by a favorite author of mine, of which I found particularly invaluable when I was in the deepest trenches of my writer’s block-induced languor. In fact, I went so far as to write his words on a postcard that I subsequently hung above my desk so that I could gaze upon his inspiring wisdom every hour!”

Achilles glanced skeptically up from his plate he was huddled over. “Every hour?”

“Every hour! Yes, he once said, now I am paraphrasing of course, that it indeed takes crucial ingredients—inspiration, determination, motivation, and perspiration—to achieve demystification—”

“—what—?”

“—but that to adequately obtain these crucial items may in fact require one to fully detach oneself from the very task at hand, as well as the emotional burden that accompanies it. The most efficient path may not always be what appears to be the straightest—no, brute force along one road alone cannot guarantee success. Occasionally, a detour must be taken to replenish and clear the mind and to uncover both peace and enlightenment, for can we truly blame the overly leaden soul for failing to spare room for the craft? 

“I ultimately came to calling this author’s wise words…” (a dramatic pause), “the ‘art of letting go.’” Elliott punctuated his speech with one of his usual little bows and a dramatic flourish of his fork, but Achilles had unfortunately just taken a bite of a piping hot cheese ball and was ruining the effect somewhat with his huffing and puffing. 

“Who the hell was this author?” he managed to choke out, reaching desperately for the water pitcher. “The Guru Laghima?”

Elliott’s lips flattened alongside his bushy auburn brows, a combined expression that seemed to suggest recognition that his message had failed to be sufficiently received.

“Well then. Suffice to say, that being said,” Elliott tone quickened after a bit of a lengthy pause, and he rapped his knuckles against the table. “My sincerest apologies! I did not come here to chat business—in fact, I thought perhaps we could have ourselves a bit of a game night—or, really, more of a game afternoon—if you are interested?” He lightly shook the cardboard box, and Achilles could hear the rattle of pieces inside. “I find myself with much idle time on my hands these days, I scarcely know what to do with myself. Remarkable, really! Television always did bore me, but I did always find a board game most appealing…” 

It was a little too convenient, he thought, as Elliott broke out the chess board. The food, the games, the timing of it all. He suspected Alex may have had something to do with it, may have made a phone call himself to one he knew was always more than eager to help in any way, but Achilles would never be able to prove it. 

Speaking of Alex… 

It didn’t take long for Achilles to update Elliott on the recent developments, though the man excitedly claimed to have suspected it immediately the evening of the book reading. 

“If I may say so, I believe I have a bit of an eye for these things,” the romance author had said with a somber nod before sliding his bishop forward to take one of Achilles’ last two pawns. “There was something different in the air between you—a new electrifying charge! Near undetectable, but I sensed it…” 

“You sound a bit like Emily.” Achilles quickly called his queen back from the field. Damn, Elliott was good. “But fair enough—you know, though, he actually said he didn’t start… feeling anything… until the blizzard.” 

“Hmm… perhaps that is what Alexander believes to be true, but take it from me, my friend.” Elliott politely knocked Achilles’ knight to the side. “I do indeed firmly believe there was a spark in the weeks preceding the heart of the storm—perhaps shrouded, biding its time, merely waiting for Alexander to be ready to receive it. But then again, can anyone claim to truly comprehend the mysteries of love? She can be as fickle a friend as she is fierce, can she not…” 

He chuckled to himself before tipping Achilles’ king. “And there we have it. Check mate. Good game!” 

Damn. 

Not that his defeat had come as a surprise—Achilles looked at the humbling mound of pieces Elliott had taken from him over the course of the past near hour before shaking Elliott’s outstretched hand.

“Just one more hour more until the Night Market begins… Oh, I cannot wait for you to experience the magic, my dear friend! I see them from my home, the ships, every year as they sail into the harbor, their jewel-toned hulls cutting the water like glass—a positively arresting sight. A fleet of exotic merchants, traveling the world in search of riches beyond imagination… well, it practically writes itself, does it not? What an adventure!” 

*****

Sam careened up Achilles’ porch shortly after 5:30 still wearing his JojaMart uniform which he was now shamelessly stripping in the middle of Achilles’ living room in exchange for a musty red crewneck and his usual denim jacket. 

“Yo, thanks for letting me tag along, guys.” He shoved his baseball cap in his back pocket, revealing his new mullet. “Do you know how much it sucks when your two best friends start dating each other? Man, guess I’m just chopped liver now…” With a deafening sneeze, he crossed his arms behind his head and put his feet up on Achilles’ coffee table, ignoring Voltaire’s mews of disapproval. 

Alex arrived half an hour after, apologizing profusely for running late as he hurried into Achilles’ bedroom to set down his gym bag and change out of his own uniform. He was quick, joining the little group in the foyer after just a minute in an unzipped leather bomber jacket that had Achilles doing a double take for more than just the obvious reason. 

“Wait, is that my jacket?”

“Yeah, I accidentally left mine at the gym—”

“You and your broad-ass swimmer’s shoulders are going to stretch it out, bit—”

“—all right, we all ready to go?” The word was 'we,' yet Alex's eyes lingered on only one individual in the group. Likely suspecting Achilles' distaste for pity (particularly of the public kind), he allowed only the smallest scrunch between his brows to betray his inquiring concern. But Achilles nodded in response to the question, and gestured towards the door.

“You know who wears a lot of black leather? Seb…” Achilles had never heard a person sneeze so morosely. After blowing his nose, Sam reached for his shoes. “Hey, yo, Alex, you leaving your stuff here?” 

“Oh, yeah, I’m—” Alex glanced at Achilles, but he only shrugged. He didn’t think there was anything to hide, but then again, he supposed he had less at stake than Alex did. “I’m… coming back here after.” 

“Gotcha. Smart, that’s a good idea. Yo, Achilles, can I leave my stuff here, too?” 

“Ah… sure. Why not.” 

“Awesome possum, baby.”  

*****

Elliott and Sam had little in common, but the former seemed eager to give Achilles and Alex some privacy, despite both of them having reassured him numerous times that this wasn’t a date. 

“Hey, we’re all friends here,” Alex had said cheerily, swinging an arm around Elliott’s shoulder. “Oh, by the way, didn’t get a chance to congratulate you on the reading! It was great…” 

Alex carried most of the conversation as the group made their way down to the beach. That suited Achilles just fine; he was still in a bit of a funk and was content to walk a step behind and listen to the chatter. 

Mayor Lewis was waiting by the bridge with Marnie, and greeted the group—especially Elliott— with alarming enthusiasm. Achilles, who’d been lurking near the back and therefore a little out of sight, readied himself for the chastisement that Lewis never got to deliver after his little stint at his and Abigail’s ceremony at the beginning of the season. But it seemed like Elliott’s new virtues had wiped out Achilles’ sins, for Lewis pumped his hand with great gusto. 

“You know, I’ve purchased some of my favorite items from this market…” Lewis said, as Marnie handed each of them a wristband. “Perhaps you’ll find some items for yourself, Elliott—this could really be the chance to update that beachside home of yours, really make it a standout of the community!”  

They proceeded down to a small booth set up on the frosty sand. Here, Elliott treated everyone to a large coffee— “An utmost necessity if we want to enjoy all the splendor the night has to offer!” —before the group turned to make their way to the crowded boardwalk. 

Suddenly, Alex froze. 

“Al, what’s up—oh.” 

George and Evelyn had apparently chosen to visit the Night Market tonight, too, though they must’ve arrived earlier and were heading on home now, making their way along the same marked path Achilles and his crew were taking. But upon making eye contact with Alex, George visibly huffed and pivoted off road. 

Achilles gave Alex’s shoulder a little squeeze. “Al?” 

“Yo, you okay, man?” Sam, oblivious Sam, had continued to trudge along and was only now noticing everyone else had fallen behind. “What’s up?” 

“No, nothing—sorry about that…” Alex jogged to catch up to Sam and, with a grin, clapped him on the back. But even so, it seemed like it might not only be Achilles who would be plastering on a happy face tonight. 

*****

The boardwalk was aglow with spherical lanterns strung from pole to pole. Boats of all sizes and colors and styles were (mercifully) anchored alongside the docks. Some were exorbitantly painted—murals depicting stars and moons, flower-filled meadows, and more. Others were slightly more plain, sparkling solid coats of green and deep red. But all were brimming with different exotic wares. 

A firm hand around his arm. “You gonna be okay? With the boats?” 

“They’re not moving, and we’re so close to shore. Should be fine…” But he appreciated Alex’s concern. 

Everywhere Achilles turned, he saw tourists haggling with the shopkeepers over everything from deliciously fragrant buns to oil paintings to freshly caught fish. They followed a pink Persian rug that’d be rolled out along the boardwalk to a purple boat. A string of rainbow fairy lights hung from the teal beams above them. 

Sam squatted in front of a trio of large stone animal statues and placed his hand atop the bulbous eyes of a frog. He hung his head. “You know who likes frogs? Seb…” 

“Did I hear someone say they like frogs?” A greasy looking man with a blond mustache seemed to appear from thin air. He placed a clawed hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Only $50, young man, and a bargain at that!” 

Feeling more merciless than usual today, Achilles left a baffled Sam to fend for himself, turning to join Elliott in perusing a shelf laden with small, neatly labeled bags. “Hmm… didn’t realize there’d be seeds, I’d have asked Shane if he wanted to get ahead for next year.” 

“Oh ho! I saw Master Shane here opening night with quite a hefty supply of seeds, he must have been of the same mind. I assure you, he took it upon himself to replenish the stock!” 

Trusting that Shane had likely purchased what they’d need for the farm, they left the boat (sans frog statue) and headed towards the corner of the dock where a man in thick, round frames stood amidst several canvases; Elliott had shared he was thinking of purchasing a painting for his home (Achilles was somewhat heartened to hear someone was taking Lewis’ suggestions seriously). 

While Elliott and Sam debated the merits of ‘Portraits of a Mermaid’ over ‘Tropical Fish #170,’ Achilles returned to the main path to sit with Alex, who had stepped away earlier to sit on a wooden bench facing the sea.   

“Hey. You okay?” 

“Hmm?” 

Achilles touched Alex’s elbow. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m okay… I mean, I knew they were going to the Night Market tonight, I expected to run into him with you… but still. It’s never fun to be ignored, is it?” 

“I suppose not.” 

“I’m okay though,” Alex repeated. With a little sigh, he slumped further into the seat and leaned  just slightly into Achilles’ shoulder. “Just a little tired. Had to wake up extra early for training since I couldn’t stay late.” 

“Should we head back?” 

“Nah, I’m sure the coffee will hit soon. And besides, we haven’t even seen the mermaid show—“

“WHAT IS THAT?” 

Sam’s screech sent Alex and Achilles (and many others nearby) jumping to their feet in alarm. 

“Over there! Look over there!” 

The surrounding crowd followed Sam’s finger out towards to the rolling waves where—yes. Something strange was bobbing south of the docks. Something green, with glowing yellow eyes, barely visible far beyond the radius of most of the lights. 

“It’s a sea monster! Shit, I gotta get a pic—I’m gonna get closer, be right back—” Arms flailing, Sam sprinted down the boardwalk, flip phone in hand. 

“Fuck that. I’m never letting you swim out there ever again, you know that?” Achilles muttered, sitting back down on the bench while Alex chuckled. 

“Man,” came a voice, wailing now from twenty feet away. “Do y’all know who really likes sea monsters? Abby…” 

*****

After the excitement surrounding the sea monster had died down, the group made their way to a small submarine that had been parked right at the edge of the boardwalk. 

Achilles was no fisherman. Neither was Alex, really, nor Sam. But Elliott was eager for them to experience “all the marvelous wonders of the Night Market,” going so far as to offer to cover the rather hefty admission fee of $50 (which only Sam took him up on). 

And so it was that Achilles found himself in a 30 foot long tube of ghostly blue metal that was sinking rapidly into the depths of the Gem Sea.

“You okay?” 

A firm hand at the small of his back this time. 

“Mmm. Yeah. As long as I look away from the windows.” Achilles’ response was stiff—this wasn’t like swimming, or even like being in a boat, it was much too still. But even so, the whole concept of being hundreds of feet down below in the water was… unsettling. 

Alex glanced around the walls before taking a step to his left, blocking Achilles’ view to the cold, barren sea outside. “Better?” 

“Mmm.” 

He watched as Elliott, Sam, Alex, and the six other passengers tried their luck at deep sea fishing. Achilles cheered them on, but had no qualms sitting out himself—any sudden movements on the opposite end of a fishing pole could send him into a faint. It’d take nearly thirty minutes to rise back to the surface, he ought not to risk hyperventilation. 

At the end of the half hour, Sam and Alex both managed to snag only a few sea cucumbers and loads of seaweed. Elliott, on the other hand, had succeeded into reeling in an odd, blob-like fish the color of bologna that sent Sam to his knees in yet another mournful frenzy. 

“Man… you know who likes blobfish…” 

“It was very kind of you to invite him, but do you really think he’s enjoying it?” Achilles whispered as Alex threw his seaweed fronds overhead back into the water.  

*****

Somehow, Elliott had managed to persuade Alex and Sam to try the submarine one more time. Achilles had declined—one time in the underwater metal tube was enough times, thank you very much—but had insisted he not get in the way of their fun. So after bidding the trio a “See you in a bit,” he meandered over to one of the benches on the dock to people watch. He hadn’t his notebook on him, but he constructed his little stories in his head until a bright purple mustache caught his eye. 

“Ho, Rasmodius.” 

“Ah… Achilles.”

He stood to meet the Wizard, who had stopped short upon Achilles’ greeting.

“I saw it was your birthday today on Pierre’s calendar. Happy birthday.” 

“Ah… is it now…” Rasmodius snorted and gave his mustache a small tug. “Thank you, boy… I must say, when you become as old as I am, Achilles, you no longer keep track of such things…” 

All right then…

“How are the repairs going?” Achilles asked. “With the keystones and the Wall? Is Abigail helping you?” He gestured for Rasmodius to take a seat, but the Wizard declined with a weary raise of his hand.  

“Ah…” With a deep sigh, Rasmodius removed his hat and began to thumb the brim between his hands. “The repairs are going as well as can be expected. The progress is slow, as I had originally predicted given our limited manpower, but… the progress is being made.

“It is Marlon and Gil who are assisting me. After much thought, I felt it only right we finish this… together.” 

“I see.” 

Achilles had tried hard not to think too much about his foray into the mines. The day would come when he would be ready to fully face those memories head on, but for now, he had been content to let them drift through his mind like passing clouds. But at Rasmodius’ words, Achilles was suddenly reminded of a message he had neglected to share.   

“She said it wasn’t your fault,” Achilles said, haltingly. “When I was on the 105th floor, opening the seal. There was a voice. She wanted me to tell you it wasn’t your fault.” 

Rasmodius seemed to shrink into himself—lost in his own thoughts, no doubt, judging by the faraway look in his eyes, his slight frown. Mona.

For a beat, neither spoke, until, with what seemed like great effort, the Wizard looked up from the wooden slats of the dock to return Achilles’s gaze. “How have things been for you, dear boy? The farewell you bid to the arcane arts seemed quite decisive, I do hope you have no regrets…?” 

Of all days to be asked this, it had to be one of the low ones. But even so…

“No. No regrets. Things have been… fine. Sometimes good, sometimes… less so. But I suppose that’s just how it is.” 

Rasmodius tipped his head in agreement. “Only natural.” 

“Yes. Yes…” It was Achilles’ turn to sigh, but unlike Rasmodius, he did so with but the faintest trace of a smile. “As a whole, though, I think… I do think I’m better.” 

“I am happy for you, Achilles. It is what you deserve.” And to Achilles’ surprise, the Wizard stepped forward to offer his hand. They shook once, and then Rasmodius turned heel and departed.  

*****

It was getting quite late—nearly 11pm, and they still had the walk back home… 

Even with the coffee, he was beginning to feel the weight of each footstep now, and despite his historical dislike for any sort of public displays of affection, he found himself, almost unconsciously, reaching for Alex’s steady arm. For something to hold.

“You okay?”

“Is this whole night just going to be us asking if the other person is okay?” 

Alex laughed, but pulled him a little closer and murmured his next words close to Achilles’ cheek. “Do you want to head back?” 

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m just a little tired.” 

“Mmkay, you just let me know.” 

*****

They ended the night with the mermaid. 

Achilles had never seen one in person, despite all his travels. Had never spent enough time by the water, he supposed. She sat on a small stage in a large, porcelain clam shell and was as beautiful as the photos he’d seen had promised; full figured, with an iridescent green tail and thick blue hair that flowed behind her as she sang a series of wordless songs. 

It was a kind of tune he’d never heard before—mermaid music was notorious for warping when recorded, something about its magical qualities just didn’t translate well—haunting and forlorn and dark. And yet there something about her heavy tone that was simultaneously warm, somewhat mellow. 

He could feel it in his chest, the vibrations of her strident song radiating through his heart, and despite her otherworldly beauty, he found his mind wandering to days of past—to his childhood in Monstera, a time he rarely thought about these days, not because it had been bad (on the contrary), but because somewhere along the line he must have learned to deem it irrelevant to his present. 

It made him… well it made him sad. And as they left the auditorium, he became bitingly cold from the growing chill both outside and within his veins. 

Afterwards, the group much subdued now—whether from the mermaid’s cries or the late hour— bid Elliott adieu. The remaining three headed slowly back to Strawberry Farms. 

*****

Sam didn’t linger, his severe cat allergy wouldn’t allow it. He grabbed his crinkled JojaMart polo from where he’d stuffed it by the couch before sneezing his way to the kitchen table where Alex, familiar with Achilles’ nighttime routine, had made himself comfortable. “Cool, you ready to head back to P-Town?” 

Alex gave a little start, the chair he’d been leaning back in falling forward to the floor. “Oh, I’m… I’m actually staying the night.” 

Sam didn’t react, only giving a incurious nod as he wadded up his uniform and shoved it into his backpack. “Oh gotcha, cool… hey, you know who used to always stay the night at my place when things got bad with ol’ D-bag? Seb…”

Achilles just shook his head as Sam somberly made his way to the door. 

“Thanks again for letting me hang with y’all. Can’t wait to tell Seb and Abs about the sea monster, they’re gonna be pissed… serves them right… dating…” The thought seemed to brighten him for a moment. With a somewhat cheery wave, Sam grabbed his skateboard and headed out. 

*****

“Poor Sam. Does he know we’re dating, too?” Achilles asked once the door closed behind a rapid trio of sneezes. “Actually, does anyone know we’re dating? Would you like to keep it on the down low?” 

“Nah, my grandparents know, so I guess I… don’t really care if anyone else does. I haven’t really said told anyone else, though—but I don’t mean for it to be a secret or anything! Guess I just… haven’t gotten around to it. Oh, except Haley. I told her, of course.” 

“Oh yeah? How’d she react?” Achilles asked, remembering the two used to date.

“She, uh, asked me how you were in bed.” 

Achilles felt his nose begin to twitch. “Lovely. Such a lovely girl, always.”

“But I told her we weren’t doing it. Yet. I told her I, um. I think, or I guess I am, you know. Demi… Lovato. Just kidding. I don’t know why I said that. Bad joke. Demiromantic. Asexual. She was… chill. She already knew what that meant, apparently, but I told her you had taught me about it and… stuff. Yeah.” 

“Yeah? And?” 

“She just said ‘that sounds about right.’”

“Always a charmer.”  

Achilles poured them both a glass of the sleepy time chamomile tea he’d been boiling, though it was past midnight, and his sleep schedule already fucked past the point of sleepy time tea’s sleepy time rehabilitation. He really ought to have gone straight to bed, but Alex still seemed a little down, and so he pushed aside his fatigue and his lingering melancholy and, after bringing out the usual late night snack of scones, took a seat at the candlelit table across from Alex.  

“Have you been able to talk to him about it?” 

There was no need to clarify who “him” was. 

Alex took a two-handed sip of tea and sighed as Voltaire hopped up to provide a comforting snuggle in his lap. “No. He still doesn’t want to talk to me. Grandma says to give him time, which makes sense, I guess…” 

“Do you want to talk to him?” 

“I mean yeah, of course I do. But it’s… hard. And every time I try, I just… it’s like I forget how to talk or something, I just feel guilty—and I know, I know what you’re going to say, I shouldn’t, but I do. And I suddenly start feeling like I’m going to cry which only makes me more anxious because my grandpa hates crying and yeah, maybe that’ll go away with time, but right now, I just… I don’t know how much time I have left with him and just… I don’t know. It’s hard.” He ended with a bit of a sniff, hands buried deep in Voltaire’s fur. 

“Has Evelyn talked to him at all?” 

“I mean, I think she’s tried, but it’s hard for her, and he just… shuts down, you know. It’s like talking to a brick wall, he’ll just leave the room and refuse to say anything at all for like an hour… I mean, I don’t know, it’s not like I’m surprised…” 

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Huh?” 

“I mean, I don’t know.” Achilles tore his scone into quarters. “Totally understand if you want to give it more time. I suppose I just… hmm. Well I don’t want to assume anything, but it must be… hard. Er. Harder. When it’s your family. To… talk to them. Try to get them to see sense without getting caught up in the… emotions of it all, if that makes sense…” 

Wow! What a great explanation! Gold star. Dumb bitch. 

“Hmm…” Alex thought on this for a few seconds, digesting the offer as he gravely popped a jam covered scone into his mouth. “Are you saying you’d be able to bully him into talking to me because you wouldn’t feel bad about it?” 

It was, actually, remarkably close to what he had indeed meant, but the smile that had quirked Alex’s lips sent Achilles slapping the table and crying, “Man, that’s not even close to what I said—” anyway. 

“I know it’s what you were probably trying to politely say,” Alex said, laughing with a mouthful of scone. But as he stood to throw his napkin in the trashcan, he grew again more serious. “I mean, maybe. I’ll think about it. Everything else in my life is… it’s going great. Really great. Going right. And I’m like… I don’t know. Life can’t be perfect, right? I’ll think about it. Thanks for the offer.” 

*****

By the time 1am rolled around, Achilles had decided he might as well accept that his sleep schedule was utterly wrecked and, rather than acknowledge the sunk cost of it all, fully commit.

“It’s really cold tonight, isn’t it?” He was huddled under the covers, watching Alex step out from the bathroom in a pair of dolphin-patterned pajama pants and matching shirt that Achilles had purchased for him on impulse in Zuzu the previous day. 

“Really?” Alex scratched his tilted head and rolled up his sleeves. “Geez, you Monstera people. Weak. I actually thought it was weirdly warm today… Want me to turn the temperature up, though? Grab another blanket?” 

“I’m trying to flirt with you, Al.” 

“Oh. What? Oh!” 

In a single bound, Alex leapt atop the bed to wrap his arms tightly around Achilles’ chest. 

“Have I got this right, do you feel warmer now?” he asked, laughing while dodging Achilles’ flailing hand. 

“I don’t know, could be better—ok, now you’re choking me—”

*****

Maybe it was the coffee finally kicking in, but Achilles’ cheesy attempt at flirting had paid off, and things had quickly devolved into a tangle of impatient touches. 

It was an unusually warm winter night, and it wasn’t long before the two of them were hot and slick with sweat. The taste of Alex’s skin, so soft and smooth, on his tongue. Alex’s body hard and firm beneath him. The moan that escaped his lips when Alex dared to nip him just below his ear—it was almost too much, to the point where it was Achilles this time who had to unceremoniously excuse himself, and with a groan, retreat to the restroom. 

When he emerged, he found Alex draped across the pillows, engrossed in something on Achilles’ phone. Curls loose, a lazy smile on his lips. Sheets not quite covering the statuesque muscles of his chest and stomach, as his free hand clutched the corner of the comforter. The rosy glow of the bedside lamp cast his boyish face in a youthful, angelic light. 

You could hang that up in a museum. Achilles found he was breathless. Until—

“Hey, Achilles, can you—” 

Well. That was certainly enough to break the spell. 

“I’m sorry, what did you just call me?” 

A cheeky smile as Alex set the phone back down on the nightstand. 

“I just wanted to say it out loud once. Just for fun. Uh-kill-eeze. You don’t look like an Achilles.” 

“Must be the supposed French in me holding strong. Also probably because I’m not blond. Scoot.” 

Alex scooted as Achilles clambered back into bed. There was no pillow between them tonight, but even so, he made sure to keep a bit of distance as he pulled the sheets up. But Alex immediately squirmed closer until he could rest his head atop Achilles’ chest, his hand reaching to clutch Achilles’ own as it rested atop his stomach. “Oh—actually, sorry, Is this ok?”

“Yes.” And with that word, Alex, who Achilles had only recently been realizing must’ve been a rather touch-starved child, sank deeper into Achilles’ side. That being said, Achilles couldn’t help but add, “But come Summer, I’m exiling you to the other side of the bed, I told you I run hot.” 

“Yeah, you do.” Alex gave Achilles’ chin a merry pat, and said while gazing up at him, “You know, I think you would look good blond.” 

“I would look absolutely hideous, but that’s very sweet. Thank you.” 

Alex laughed and pulled himself higher to rake a hand through Achilles’ very much dark brown hair. “Nah, I don’t think you could ever look hideous.”

Achilles’ fingers curled unconsciously at the touch, a pressure beginning to rebuild in his cheeks, and Alex ignored his scoff to gently reach for the side of his head and tilt him closer, murmuring into his hair, above his ear, “Your hair’s getting long.” 

“It’s been long, I haven’t cut it since the Fall. I mean, who even am I?” He threaded his own hands through his hair—he’d always kept the top longer, but for four years, he’d visited his hairdresser religiously every two weeks to keep the sides a bit more closely cropped. How even the simplest things had changed. “You like it like this?” 

“I like both. I think you look nice with both.” 

A playful shove. “Geez, stop flirting with me.” 

“I’m not flirting, I’m just telling the truth.”

Achilles clicked his tongue. “Didn’t Kiss Achilles’ Ass Hour just end? Not that there was any literal ass kissing involved, but—”

Alex laughed and lay his head on Achilles’ chest again, his right hand reaching for Achilles’ left  —it wasn’t much of a surprise that he was a cuddler. Achilles was not, but Alex’s longing for touch was obvious, and he wrapped his arm around Alex’s shoulder all the same as they both lay in bed, falling together, falling asleep…  

“How’re you feeling now?” Alex murmured. 

Achilles stirred—why did he always fall asleep so much faster around Alex? “Mmm. Better than this morning.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” 

He absentmindedly stroked Alex’s hand, stared pensively through the darkness to the ceiling above and the skies beyond. Something was bothering him. Something more than today’s double dose of jealousy and melancholia. “Hey Al?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Are you sure you want to be with me? 

A shuffling of the covers. Alex was scooting himself upwards, and Achilles, following suit, repositioned himself as well, onto his side. It was hard to make out Alex’s face in the dark, the moon and stars hidden behind heavy blackout curtains, but his grip on Achilles’ hand remained firm. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I don’t even mean it in a woe-is-me, self-righteous, trying to dissuade you sort of way—trust me, I’m selfish remember, I’m not going to try to dissuade you. Also, I’m cool as shit.” Oh my god, can you just be serious, please. Achilles’ face once again grew serious. “But I suppose I just mean, genuinely—have you really thought about it? About what a… potential relationship with me would be like? Right now? I know I’ve said it comes and goes, I’m… taking it a day at a time. And Yoba knows it’s lightyears better than it used to be, and I’ve been looking at getting a therapist again, but even so, I can’t guarantee there won’t be many more days like today, or worse, where I just feel… tired. And sad. 

“I just feel so… adrift. As a person. And I don’t want to drag you down with me, especially since you seem to have a lot of your shit together lately and I… well I don’t.” 

“Come on, I’ve known you for a year now, Ash, I know you of all people will get your shit together at some point.” 

Achilles snorted, and Alex, perhaps regretting his words, sighed. “I’m sorry, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say…”

God, you’re so sensitive, you dumb bitch. Now you’re annoying him… 

But to Achilles’ vague surprise, Alex moved closer. 

“Look, man, I didn’t ask you out thinking it’d suddenly be sunshine 24/7 for either of us if you said yes. I knowI’m not going to magically make you happy all the time—heck, I’m not happy all the time so the math wouldn’t even math anyway. 

“But I hope I can give you… I don’t know. At least some sort of peace of mind that on both the good days and the days that suck, you won’t have to go at it alone if you don’t want to. Would that be enough for you, you think? Because it’s enough for me.” Lightly callused fingers circled Achilles' wrist, thumbed his palm. “So yeah. Yeah, I guess I’ve thought about it, and… well, yeah. I’m sure. You’re my best friend. I know you, Achilles. And I love you. Really. Even if we weren’t dating, I love you. You’re my best friend.” 

[princessfbi]

Hi happy Saturday! 16 and 26 for (If I Fall, Can You Pull Me Up? & Last Man Standing ) 17, and 45 -118side

16) How did you come up with the idea for xxx?

If I Fall, Can You Pull Me Up?

I knew I wanted to do a low stakes fic after finishing Oh Captain (My Captain), Our Fearful Trip is Done. I can't remember if I got the visual of Buck holding his stomach first or if it was Eddie seeing someone walking away with Buck's jacket but one of those popped up in my brain and then I built the story around it. The Maddie aspect kind of came naturally to the storyline.

Last Man Standing

Ever since I wrote Oh Captain (My Captain), Our Fearful Trip is Done I'd been wanting to write a sick fic because the Buck being sick part was supposed to be a little more prominent in the story but it just didn't work out in the final draft. It was also another scenario of wanting do something a little low stakes after writing She Made Herself Stronger (by Fighting with the Wind). You have the lovely @buddie-buddie to thank for it too because she enabled me and answered a lot of my questions.

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.

A blush dusted across his nose the moment his feet touched back down, a soft landing you could barely hear with how gentle Eddie made sure to guide him. 

26) Which part of your xxx fic was the hardest to write?

If I Fall, Can You Pull Me Up?

Funnily enough, the hardest part to write was the explanation as to why Buck and the others were there. That whole build up scene outside with Eddie before he sees the man with Buck's coat was so hard to explain. The rest all came pretty naturally.

Last Man Standing

I don't remember anything being particularly difficult on this fic. Sometimes, I can just write a fic top to bottom with no problem at all. Sometimes, I need an outline to help keep track. I think the only thing that was maybe difficult was getting in all the little medical indicators of the pneumonia right.

45) What spurs you on during the writing process?

For me personally, I tend not to let myself get caught up in writers' block. I just push through it. I think it can get pretty easy to get caught up in the frustration of that, that sometimes you don't realize that it's started to become a crutch. I try to remind myself it doesn't have to be perfect but it needs to be on the page. And that's hard work but I view it as hard work on myself rather than just work. Writing is a way for me to release stress and keep my mental health in working order. So, it's hard work but I also know that I'm worth the effort.

It helps to have a schedule for myself too. I view writing like working out. Regardless of what's going on in my life, I'll do twenty minutes in the morning of just writing. Then, if I can, I'll do two hours somewhere that isn't my house. Whether that's at a cafe or the library or whatever. It's a boundary I set with my loved ones. They know that when I'm writing, I'm writing, and after a while they started to respect that. I took a break for the holidays which was much needed and necessary but it's been a struggle to get back on my schedule so it's really important for me to keep that consistent.

If I get an idea right away, I'll go and make notes. Sometimes, I'll write a few sentences here and there. It's game over if I write the first sentence right away because then it means the idea has consumed my whole brain and I'll see you in a week. 🤣

Also my whole support system of @lovebuck @mellaithwen @homerforsure @buddie-buddie full on enabling helps me too. ❤️

Send Me Fanfic Writing Asks

[doc-coyote]

On December 3rd of last year, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Please understand that she is okay, now, she's doing great. But for months leading up to this diagnosis she was in intense pain. The doctors finally figured it out and told her they would do their best to take care of her and they did. What they wouldn't tell her until she was several months free of cancer, when she was diagnosed, it was so bad they thought she was as good as dead.

They only told her this when she had been the best recovery any of these specialist have ever seen. She began chemo as soon as possible. My dad became her primary caregiver and I was her secondary. She went through chemo and then they stopped it in April to let her heal enough to have surgery to cut out what remained after such aggressive chemo. Chemo was miserable. She'd basically get a few days of normalcy only to have to return for her next session.

As the chemo and surgery days were going, they discovered the cause of my mom's cancer. The big one was ovarian cancer but then they also found a dime-sized bit of lung cancer, my mother has never smoked and avoids smokers at all cost. It was genetic, a mutated BRCA2 gene, this is one of the genes that is supposed to stem cellular growth and stop cancer from happening. If you have ovaries, a mutated BRCA2 is bad news.

This gene mutation means she's susceptible to other cancers, she's already got a full double mastectomy planned for once her post chemo treatment is over so she doesn't have ticking time bombs on her chest. The three of us, her kids, got genetic testing to see if we carried the BRCA2 mutation. We don't, had it been me or my brother, it'd have meant early and regular prostate checks. Had it been my sister, she'd be looking at a full hysterectomy like mom had just gotten AND then my nieces would have had to be tested as well. Again, thankfully, that isn't the case for any of us.

This last year has been very long. I was up at all hours for months, on call for my parents. Helping whenever I could. I honestly would keep doing it as long as it means she's fine. She is doing so well that doctors debate studying her for this level of recovery. She's got a few more months of post-chemo and then once she's deemed recovered from the treatment, the masectomies, likely in the fall. She has been completely cancer cell free for months now.

My dad was always a good cook but his skills have quadrupled, bare minimum, from this. Since my mom gets tired quicker now, I've become his TV and movie watching buddy. My nieces love this fact. I'm often still over at my parents' place to help and sometimes just to see how they're doing and hang out. The feeling from last holiday season and this one is night and day.

I'll be going over there on Christmas day to hang out, likely watch a movie with my dad and give them and my nieces presents. My dad has been using an unused umbrella stand he cut as a rolling pin so I got him a real one since that umbrella stand was never meant for this. My mom has wanted new slippers and she even showed me the direct ones she wanted.

My great-grandmother on my father's side lived to be 106. I was six when I met her, she died shortly after that. She got pneumonia on the trip to visit. This locked something in my mind: our family live up to 106. My mom has joked that when I told her this at that age and having seen all we've been through, I might have locked, not just my mind, but reality as well. My mom is 66 this coming March, my dad just turned 67 last month. Roughly 40 more years here for the both of them. I'll be 37 in February, so just shy of 70 years left for me. I sure hope we can all live with that.

I'm just glad my mom proved a bunch of experts wrong just by being her. She said she's focused on the positive as best she can to get through this. It's almost the opposite of how I survive. I want to be like that. But spite and anger can keep me going when hope is lost. She says I've always had back up plans so that makes sense for me. In October, the father of an old friend, died. His dad was diagnosed with cancer several years ago. I'd often thought of him with this all happening with my mom. Hoping his treatment and health were doing better. I'd known his dad for twenty years, he was a few years younger than my parents. This has been one very long year.

I guess I tell you all of this just to say that I love you all. Since the pandemic started, I've begun ending interactions with friends with I love you. I've always done this with my parents so it wasn't difficult to spread it to my friends. So easy was it that I've accidentally said it to strangers like bank tellers and cashiers. I don't ever expect to hear it back, I don't mind if people don't feel comfortable sharing those kinds of feelings but I just want everyone I know to know that they are loved by me. I have been in mostly lurk mode on this site for years now. Liking posts and maybe sharing photos here and there. So, I love you, dear reader, even if you never made it this far in all this writing. I just felt like I should post this here.

[burgers-and-french-fries]

17

My Journal friend,

Where do I even begin? I suppose I could start where I last left off. I have good news, we found Jesse and I’m glad we did because he was not in good shape at all. He had caught an unbelievably bad case of pneumonia and thankfully, the doctor said that we found him just in time or else he’d hate to think about what could’ve happened had we not. I will say this, even if Uncle Jeff was telling me to not worry about finding Jesse and to give up, I’m glad he gave in and helped. Jesse wouldn’t be around if Jeff continued being so stubborn.

Liz also came with us to help find Jesse and to keep the peace between Jeff and I as we had had a huge fight beforehand. It meant so much to me that day to have Liz tag along.

Anyway, just as we left Jesse at the hospital the first night, I kissed his cheek. I have no idea what came over me that night, but it just felt right. Jeff and Liz did tease me a little bit because of it but it didn’t last long.

A couple of days later, Jesse told me about his past and boy is it a sad one. It makes me feel very blessed to have the life I have. I have mom and dad, no matter how much they may drive me nuts sometimes and then there is Jeff. Of course I have Zarah too and if I didn’t have any of them in my life, I don’t know what I’d do. I just wish Jesse had a family…no scratch that, he does have a family now and I hope that he knows that he never has to be alone again. 

The best thing to come out of the whole Jesse situation was that he has been working with me to get Jeff and Liz together. You see, Jesse was afraid that he’d have nowhere to go after leaving the hospital and after copious amounts of begging Uncle Jeff to let Jesse stay with him and him saying that he didn’t have the room, Liz stepped up. She turned her guest room into a room for Jesse. I think Jesse likes his room. I haven’t straight out asked him but if I had to wield a guess, I’d say that it’s become his safe haven.

Speaking of getting Jeff and Liz together, what a shit show that has been. At first I thought it’d be easy but boy was I wrong. Jeff has been so stubborn about the whole thing and just when I thought things had worked out and Jeff and Liz were going on a date together, I was humbled beyond description.

 Let me explain.

Jesse and I had spent the day together and when I got home, Jeff was getting ready to go out for the night and when I asked him who he was meeting up with, he told me that it was an old friend. The way he said it made me think that it was with Liz. I was so excited.

I rushed next door to Liz’s and Jesse told me that she also had a date. I ended up helping her get ready as she was feeling incredibly nervous, but it all worked out and she was the vision of beauty. Of course I had to thank the practice I had gotten when I would help mom get ready for her date nights with dad. Bonding with Liz was fun, and I got to know a little bit more about her.

She left for the date a brief time after and while she was gone, Jesse and I watched some horror movies, and you know how much I don’t like those movies but seeing the excitement on his face made me push those feelings to the side. 

This leads me to tell you about my almost kiss. That’s right, you heard correctly. My almost kiss. I started having some second thoughts about Jeff and Liz getting together and I started wondering if my meddling was a clever idea. I also felt like something was right but anyway, Jesse was sweet to comfort me. 

I had my head on his chest, and it was really sweet and then somehow, the atmosphere changed. I remember that I looked up at him and he looked down at me. I felt something pulling me toward him. I don’t remember much after that, but I do remember feeling nervous. I felt butterflies in my belly and my face weirdly got tingly. I had never felt that before, so it was a little strange. Just as Jesse and were about to touch lips, Liz practically kicked the front door in and scared both Jesse and I.

It was really funny because Jesse got so scared that he shoved me off the couch and I hit the floor. We all had a good laugh but then things got awkward. Jesse left to his room and long story short, I got mad at him, and I also got mad at Jeff for making me think he was going on a date with Liz.

Jesse and I have since talked through everything and we are on good terms again. Aside from that, we have bigger fish to fry. 

When Liz came home from her date, she told me that she had not only been stood up by the man that had asked her out, leaving her sitting there humiliated, but she also told me that she had seen Jeff with a woman. She went on to tell me that they had been too focused on kissing to realize that they weren’t the only ones in the restaurant.

I went home that night seeing red. I was alone in the house the whole night and fell asleep on the couch waiting for Uncle Jeff until he came home the next morning looking disheveled. No need to tell me what he was doing. 

We got into a fight because he told me that he had been seeing this woman, Capri, for a while now. I’m still mad that he didn’t tell me about her. I mean, we used to tell each other everything and now, I don’t know. 

Anyway, the other day, Zarah, Jesse and I did some recon. Jesse and I watched what he called chick movies to try and gain some ideas of how to get rid of Capri and Zarah, she did a whole bunch of digging on Jeff’s harpy. I realize the nickname of Harpy may be a bit harsh but learning that this woman is only twenty, I think the nickname fits. Sure, Jeff can date who he wants (as long as it’s Liz) but a 20-year-old? That’s wrong on so many levels.

All of this recap to say this, Capri is finally gone, Jeff and Liz are growing closer, and I finally kissed Jesse.

Let me explain how all that happened, but buckle up, it’s a long one.

July 4th (yesterday)

When Jeff is around on the fourth of July, mom and dad usually cook a big breakfast for us all and we sit in front of the tv and watch whatever sports show is on. It’s a lot of fun but this year, I’m stuck with Jeff and Capri. Normally I wouldn’t mind but Capri completely dictated what we did. No big breakfast and no sports on tv. No fun basically speaking.

What did we do for breakfast you may ask? Jeff and Capri had a breakfast date, and I spent the morning having breakfast with Jesse and Liz. It was a bummer that Jeff wasn’t around but Liz, who had been slaving away in front of the stove, had made Jesse and I an entire spread of 4th of July themed foods. 

It may seem childish when I list the things she made but it meant a lot to both Jesse and I.

Liz had made Firework Pancakes and to go with that, she made a fruit salad with Watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, banana, and pineapple. It was really good. Liz also made a fun drink for us to have with our food. I think she called it patriotic punch, or was it 4th of July punch? I can’t remember but either way It was all so delicious. 

The best part of it all is that Liz and Jesse agreed to watch sports with me. It was so much fun, and I really enjoyed my time with them.

After breakfast and sports, I went back to Jeff’s where Jeff and Capri were just getting back from their date.

I would have said something but the look on Jeff’s face told me not to. Something had obviously happened while they were gone, and I’d be lying if I said that I was at least a little happy on the inside. I hoped that it meant that Jeff was finally seeing the bigger picture.

Capri went inside before Jeff which was good because it gave me a quick second to ask him if he was ok. He gave me a small smile and a nod, but I could tell something was off. I decided not to push it. I just let it go.

Once inside, I went to my room where I video chatted with mom and dad. They were happy to see me but with the things that I told them, they weren’t too pleased with what they were hearing. I assured them that things were being taken care of and that I was fine. We all had a good chuckle at that. 

I’ll be glad when they are home, and I can hug them. I miss them so much. Don’t get me wrong, this summer has been fun, but it’s been different and hard at times. Though I suppose that’s what makes it memorable I guess.

After talking with them, I decided to lay down for a bit but then Jesse texted me, asking if I had plans for the night. I told him that I’d most likely go watch the fireworks with Jeff and Capri and that would be it for the festivities this year.

He replied back saying that he was sorry to hear that. I told him that he didn’t have to be sorry and then he asked me if I had heard of the carnival that happens in Boca every independence day. I told him that I hadn’t and then he asked me if I wanted to go to it with him and check it out. I immediately texted back saying yes. I was determined to go, no matter what Jeff said.

Jesse texted me back and we arranged a time for us to be there and talked about where he would meet me; and because Jesse knew where everything was located, I let him pick our meeting spot.

Once we made our plans, I rushed over to Jeff who was in the kitchen while Capri took a call outside and asked him if I could go to the carnival with Jesse. I was sure that he’d say no but to my surprise, he agreed and much to Capri’s chagrin, Jeff suggested that we all go.

He told me that he’d stay out of my way and let me be with Jesse so long as I kept him in the loop of where we went etc.

Capri did kick up a fuss and tried to get Jeff to change his mind, but he told her that he wouldn’t mind having some fun and that he knew she’d like it once we got there. She told him that she doubted it but just before I left to find Jesse, Capri seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere of the carnival like Jeff said she would, though thinking about it now, it was the kiddie coaster operator that made her appear to be enjoying her surroundings. Or at least that’s how she made it seem with the fact that she was ogling the poor guy right in front of Jeff and I.

Anyway….how many times have I said that word in this entry? Too many is my guess; but in my defense, you know it’s just one of my words that I tend to over use. So sue me if I don’t use another word with the same meaning.

Moving on, I ended up finding Jesse quite quickly thanks to his set of directions and we went off walking around and enjoying all the lights and booths that had been set up.

Jesse told me about one booth he’d always wanted to try but never did because he didn’t think he’d be particularly good at it.

It was a game booth where you’d toss a mini bean bag to try and win a stuffed toy. I was always really good at those games so I told Jesse that we should give it a go. He agreed and he ended up beating me and scoring a pretty big Pikachu, whereas I won a pretty impressive sized hello kitty toy. I didn’t mind that as I do have a secret thing for Hello Kitty, I think she’s super cute.

Once we had done that and tried our hands at a couple other booths, we met up with Liz who had been sitting down enjoying some carnival goodies and told her about our wins. She told us that she was proud of us, and she even offered to watch our prizes for us if we wanted to go off and have more fun. We thanked her and bolted to try our hand at the ring toss before heading toward the rides.

Jesse turned out to be good at the ring toss as well and won himself another stuffed toy, although it wasn’t as big as Pikachu, it was still pretty neat. It was a rainbow teddy bear, and I won a cute orange and yellow coloured monkey. We were happy with our prizes, and we went back to Liz, who had been joined by Jeff and Capri. Liz smiled at us when she saw us with more prizes.

I showed Jeff my prizes and he was happy for me. 

Jesse and I decided to sit down with them for a little bit before we went in search of some cool rides to go on. I just hoped that Jesse wouldn’t suggest the Ferris wheel. I don’t mind the idea of them but as someone who is afraid of heights, I don’t normally go for rides like that. I can brave a roller coaster after a bribe or two, but I’d rather go on what some would call ‘kiddie rides.’ Ones that weren’t too high or too crazy. 

Chatting with Jeff and Liz was nice especially because Capri was on her phone again, texting whoever it was. Jeff seemed annoyed by it, but you could tell that he was trying not to let that show too much, if at all.

Eventually Jesse and I left and as we were about to cue up for one ride, a group of boys about our age started yelling things at Jesse and mocking him. I didn’t know who they were, but I could tell that it was starting to get to Jesse.

I asked him if he wanted to go to a different ride and come back to the one we were at later, but he just shook his head and looked straight ahead. I smiled at him sympathetically and slipped my hand in his. I didn’t want him to feel like he was alone or like I was going to start pestering him with questions. I wanted him to know that I was there if and when he wanted to tell me who those kids were and why they were picking on him and that if necessary, I’d kick their asses.

Jesse could sense that I think and looked at me with a smile of his own. His was a smile of gratitude though and not one of sympathy, which I was glad for.

**He’s cute when he smiles.**

Thankfully, the other boys gave up and moved on with their night and left us alone. I could tell that Jesse was relieved.

Anyway, Jesse and I enjoyed all the rides we went on but just before the fireworks were due to go off, Jesse suggested something I was dreading. He suggested that we go on the Ferris Wheel because the view from up there was amazing, and we would be able to see a few different areas the fireworks would be displayed from. 

I have to admit now that it was neat to see but at the time, I could have killed him. I tried to tell him as calmly and coolly as I could that I didn’t want to go on it, but he noticed my tone and got me to admit that I was terrified.

He was very sweet about it and told me that if I really didn’t want to go on, he understood and would happily go on something else. I could hear in his tone that he was disappointed so I relented, pushed my fear to the side as best I could and told him that if it meant a lot to him, I would brave it just this once. He seemed surprised at that but assured me that it was going to be ok and that he was with me.

We bantered about it for a few minutes and before we knew it, we were at the front of the line and there was no backing out. It was time and I just had to accept it. 

I very shakily got into our carriage, sat down, and tried to get comfortable and by get comfortable, I mean holding on to whatever I could for dear life while praying that we wouldn’t get stuck and plummet to our deaths. I was so in my head about it that I hadn’t realized that Jesse was sitting next to me with his arm around me as though he was ready to grab me at any point and protect me.

It was a kind gesture and one I really appreciate as it made me feel safe.

When we started moving and the carriage started swinging a little bit, I got scared and started freaking out slightly. Jesse again was really reassuring and told me that everything was going to be ok. He also told me that if anything happened, he’d be with me and that we’d go down together. It didn’t help but it did make me laugh, which I guess was his goal as he seemed pleased with himself that I was laughing, even if it was nervously.

After reaching the top, that’s when I really went frantic. The Ferris wheel stopped to let other people off and let other people on.

It was excruciating being that high up and being stationary while the carriage you’re in sways gently.

I was set on keeping my eyes shut to try and calm myself so I wouldn’t end up in a panic attack, but Jesse took my hand in his and told me to open my eyes.

I told him that I didn’t want to, but he told me that it was ok and that if I didn’t open my eyes, I’d miss the firework display. I told him that I couldn’t because if I did, I’d panic, and I didn’t want to do that and make a fool of myself. He replied and said that it was ok and that he understood. 

Admittedly, I was scared that if I opened my eyes, I’d do something that I’d regret. I didn't know what that regretful thing was, though.

Against my better judgment, I opened my eyes anyway and when I did, the sky was illuminated with various shades of red, white, and blue. I was in awe. Jesse had been right, the view from here was breathtaking, even if it was taking every muscle in my body not to pee myself, pass out or get sick with how high up we were. 

Being in the Ferris Wheel that high up with Jesse somehow felt right and just like that, as I watched the colours dance across the sky, the air around Jesse and I changed. 

The air felt thick with apprehension. It was the same apprehension that was in the air the night Jesse and I almost kissed. It was like things had aligned for us to have a second chance at a first kiss. 

I nervously turned my gaze to Jesse to find that he had been looking at me with the same expression he had the first time. I like to think it was an unmistakable look of longing, but who really knows.

I felt a swarm of butterflies rush to my belly at the same time my heart started beating rapidly. My face got all weird and tingly again. I’m not sure what that’s all about but I really don’t care.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting for my first kiss, Jesse’s lips touched mine and pardon the pun, but it felt like fireworks were going off.

I still can’t believe I got my first kiss, and I can’t believe it was as romantic as that and now I can say that one of my biggest fears helped aid me in one of the biggest moments of my life.

It’s something that I will cherish for the rest of my life, as cheesy as that sounds.

I’d love to keep talking about my first kiss (makeout session), but some things are better left to the imagination.😉

Ok, now going back to Jeff, Liz, and Capri.

As I said earlier, Jesse and I left them sitting at a food truck so that we could go on the rides but in that span of time, a fight broke out.

Here’s what happened.

Capri and Kiddie Coaster operator guy had once been in a relationship. I would be surprised if I didn’t already know that, but that’s not the point. The point is, Capri had failed to mention to Uncle Jeff that she and operator guy had been and still were engaged; due to get married this Fall. 

What transpired was that Jeff and Liz, who had been sitting and talking, didn’t realize that Capri had left them to go and hook up with operator guy, who, as it turns out, is the person she had been on the phone with for most of the day. Capri had told her fiancé that she would be coming to the carnival and that she’d meet him behind a certain set of bleachers….I know, how cliche right?

Saying that, the bleachers they were under happened to not be very private shall we say, and Jeff and Liz found them fairly easily. Jeff, rightfully so, got angry and started yelling at the pair. 

When I asked Liz about the fight this morning, she said that it was a little too intense and security had to be called. Thankfully, Liz was able to talk the security guard into letting her and Jeff walk around but he told them that if any more scenes were made, they would be kicked out and not allowed back in, no matter how much they begged. Liz was grateful to him and agreed to keep Jeff in line.

I thought that was funny.

I will admit that it sucks that I couldn’t put my ‘so long Capri’ ideas to the test but I am glad that Jeff now sees the truth and sees just how ridiculous he was being. I’m hoping that it means I can get back on track with trying to get him and Liz together finally; and speaking of Jeff and Liz, I’ve not seen them since this morning, so, just maybe, things are aligning for them as well.

Here’s hoping.

Anyway (I swear that’s the time I say that in this entry, and I promise to try and find another bloody word with the same meaning. My apologies for the repetition), I’m off to go swimming with Jesse and hopefully plan out some more ideas for Jeff and Liz’s happily ever after.

Ok, Bye.

P.S: I don’t understand why everyone says that first kisses are awkward. Mine sure wasn’t!

===

Tag List: @hauntedflamingo

[ellephlox]

Obstinacy

Summary: You get sick and refuse to let Matt help you because you don’t want him to get sick, too — the question is, how long can you keep him away?

Pairing: Matt x fem!reader

Warnings: Some gross pneumonia descriptions, light swearing, nothing else!

A/N: So I’ve been away for awhile, and I’m really sorry about that. I’ve been trying to write my own book and I finished the second draft, so taking the time for fan fiction has been on the back burner lately. But of course with the RETURN OF OUR BELOVED KING on She-Hulk, I had to take the time to write something because IM STILL FREAKING OUT GUYS MATT IS BACK AND HES SO AMAZING AND HOT AND ALLSKJF LSDKFJLSKDJFLSDK

You felt the chest pain on your way home from work — the kind that arrived out of nowhere, as though it dropped from the sky into your lungs, and seriously made you wonder how colds were able to work that quickly. 

Of course, maybe it wasn’t a cold. You kept your hopes up as you cooked dinner, testing your chest a few times with a few large intakes of breath, but each time was the same result: a small tickle in the back, like a little voice saying, Hey, I’m here, and you’re going to be miserable for the next couple of days! 

Which really stunk, if you were being honest. It was getting towards mid-October and you were hoping to carve pumpkins with Matt or do some other corny autumn activity that every other normal couple did in the city. Not that you two weren’t normal. But other couples didn’t really have to contend with the whole I’ll-see-you-later-honey-after-I-beat-up-some-bad-guys-tonight, and you figured it must make movie nights a lot more frequent for most people than it did for you and Matt. That was another thing on your list, too — watching a horror movie to get into the Halloween spirit. 

“I’m not into horror movies,” Matt had said when you’d pitched the idea to him. “Audio commentary kind of kills the whole scary aspect.”

“Then you’re watching the wrong movies. I don’t mean movies with gallons of blood and cheap jump scares. I mean psychological horrors, the kinds that make you stay awake at night because they’re that freaky. We’re doing it, Murdock, whether you want to or not.”

Whether you want to or not, however, didn’t include the extenuating circumstances of getting sick.

It took longer than usual to get up the stairs to your apartment. You felt so drained that you wouldn’t have minded showering and then crashing into bed, if you weren’t hungry. The wind rattled at your windows as you cooked a big pot of rice, enough to last the next few days. You’d bought fixings yesterday to make a homemade curry with it, but one look at your pantry and you scrapped those plans in exchange for half a jar of pesto with a dubious expiration date on it. Matt wasn’t supposed to be over until after seven in the evening, thanks to the unforgiving hours of lawyering, but you called him as you stirred the pesto in with the rice. 

“I was wondering when you’d call,” he said. His voice was lighthearted. 

“Hi,” you said, as casually as possible. “How was your day?”

“I officially reduced the pile of paperwork on my desk from ten inches high to eight inches high, so I’d call it a success. You at your place?”

“Yeah. Hey, I wanted to let you know that I think I’m coming down with something, so maybe you should stay at your own place tonight.” Before Matt could ask, you added, “I’m fine. Just one of the colds that’s going around. But I’d feel horrible if you got it.”

“What about the pumpkins?”

“Pumpkins can wait. I haven’t even bought them yet.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, and your stomach flipped. What a way to boost my self-esteem that he actually likes me. “How about we just don’t share sodas, then?”

You frowned. “Last time this happened, I told you to stay away from me and then you just ended up kissing me. The next day, lo and behold, you started coughing. So, no. Not happening.”

“You kissed me, if I remember correctly.”

“Excuse me? What kind of a lawyer are you? That’s gaslighting, sir.”

He continued, ignoring you. “Maybe I’ll just hear some suspicious noises coming from your apartment tonight. And then I’ll have to investigate, because it’s my civic duty as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. And when I see a beautiful girl, sitting on the couch and pathetically eating rice and pesto alone, I’ll just have to join her. Accidentally, of course.”

“What I’m interpreting from that is that you go cuddle up with any girl that you find eating alone in her apartment.”

“What I’m interpreting is that Matt says he’s doing all these dangerous things at night but really he’s just chilling out while enjoying the lavish praise of being a local superhero,” Foggy said, his voice distant in the background. 

You snorted. “Am I on speakerphone?”

“No,” Foggy answered, sounding far too cheerful for someone working far beyond sunset. “Matt just keeps his phone volume weirdly high for someone who supposedly has super-hearing.”

“I do have super-hearing, Foggy.”

“Then how are you not shattering your eardrums? Between your phone volume and crashing at girls’ apartments to eat rice and pesto, I’m really doubting this whole Daredevil façade,” Foggy said. 

“Anyway,” Matt cut in, “I’ll pop in tonight, just to bring over some food and meds. Do you want anything specific?”

“Matt, really. I don’t want you catching this. And it’s late, you should get home and actually get some sleep for once. I’m fine, it just feels like a cold.” You would have elaborated, but your chest decided to seize at that moment, and you had to trail off quickly before it became apparent in your voice. 

He sort of listened to you that night. He had swung by (through the window? Or with the spare key you’d given him? There was no way to know) and dropped off food, but it was while you were asleep, and it looked as though he’d only gone into the kitchen then left. 

You’d only found the food when you wandered in blearily at three in the morning, sweating and freezing at the same time. There was no point for the thermometer; a fever was obvious and you didn’t particularly care what the number was. The cough was worse, though. It made it hard to fall back asleep — every few seconds you’d feel as though your lungs were spasming, and the back of your throat felt as though it had been bitten by fire ants. 

Sirens rang in the distance. You hoped it wasn’t for something Matt was involved in; not because you didn’t trust him to handle it, but because it was three in the morning and you’d kick his ass if he wasn’t sleeping at this point. 

Then the headache hit you. Maybe you wouldn’t be kicking his ass anytime soon. 

The pressure was enough to make you stumble into the counter as you rummaged for a glass of water. Everything about your arms felt off, as though your muscles had been crushed into powder, and you misjudged your grasp on the glass. It fell, crashing to the floor and skating outwards like a nebula of knives. Automatically you reached for the paper towels, and in your haze you stepped forward. 

Barefooted. 

Glass crunched under your foot and you swore, not at the pain but at your own stupidity. It took another half an hour to bandage up the bottom of your foot and at that point you were too exhausted to finish cleaning up the glass. 

When you woke up next, sun was filtering through your curtains and your mouth was as dry as though you’d swallowed ten cotton swabs. Dazed, you picked up your phone, and squinted at the notifications; one missed call from Matt and a followup text. Quickly you sent him an I’m okay message and then fell back onto your pillow. 

The fever felt worse. Goosebumps ran up and down your legs, but you were simultaneously sweaty under your sheets, so you threw them off to go shower. Only then did you remember the glass you’d stepped on because your foot protested angrily as soon as you placed it onto the carpet. 

Hopping was the only option remaining, and that expended just about every ounce of energy you’d garnered while sleeping, so that you just about collapsed against the bathroom wall, wheezing, by the time you’d made it. And of course that was when your phone rang, so you hopped back to your room, and barely made it in time before it went to voicemail. 

“Hello?” you croaked. 

“That’s all I need to hear. I’m coming over.”

“I... what?”

“Yeah. You sound terrible, Y/N.” Matt’s voice was overly concerned, and you didn’t like it at all; you could practically feel the pity coming off of him. At least, it felt like pity. And that wasn’t what you wanted. 

“Matt, not only will I personally make you rue the day that you step foot in here while I’m sick, but—” You broke off, coughing, and wincing at the same time because you could imagine Matt’s expression on the other end.

“I don’t like talking to you over the phone,” he said in a low voice. “I hate not hearing your heartbeat, hearing your lungs, feeling your temperature. You’re being overruled. I’m coming.”

“Don’t you have to be at the court today?”

“Not until ten.”

Defeated, you flung the phone on the other side of the room. That conversation sucked out everything you had, and you gave up on the idea of taking a shower. The bed looked much more comfortable. It didn’t help that your breaths were getting alarmingly short, and it was difficult to draw in anything more than a quick inhale. Your eyes were closed for about five seconds before they popped back open. 

Matt was coming. Damn it, damn it, damn it. You went to the windows and locked them all, then crossed to the front door. He had a spare key, but you also had a bolt, and you slid it across, feeling somewhat proud of yourself for having made the trek to the entryway. The bar is very, very low at this point. 

You’d run a marathon right now before letting Matt get anywhere near you. That resolve was the only thing penetrating the fog around your head, and you double-checked the windows again. It wasn’t as though he’d be leaping and climbing up to them, anyway; he was coming from the office, and would therefore be in his lawyer suit. With the number of people down on the streets and the broad daylight, Matt would be hard-pressed to make it up to your fire escape without the newspaper headline being BLIND ACROBAT BREAKING AND ENTERING IN HELL’S KITCHEN the next day. 

Sure enough, ten minutes later Matt was outside your door, and his sharp rap on the door did nothing to make you move. You sat at the counter, sipping on some water, and shook your head. “Nope. Not happening.”

“Y/N, I can hear the crackling in your lungs,” he said, his patience more intact than you would have expected. He thinks he’s going to win.

“My lungs aren’t crackling. They’re just... not feeling so hot.” Now overly-conscious of your breathing, you tried to make your breaths smoother and less obviously sick. 

There was a pause on the other side of the door. “You’ve got too fast of a heartbeat. Unlock the bolt or I’ll kick the door down.”

“Yeah, my heart’s racing, because there’s a man threatening to kick my door down,” you said, and feeling inspired, you clicked the on button of the remote next to you. The television flashed to life, showing the weather report, and you turned the volume up. Take that, Matt. “See? No more lung crackling or racing heartbeats.”

The only issue was that now you could hardly hear him. You barely made out his next sentence, it was so faint on the other side of the door. “I can still hear both, you know,” he said, muffled. “You know how many televisions there are in the average block of apartments that I have to filter out every single night?”

“Shit.” You shut the television off. “Listen away, then. It’s not going to change anything because I’m not letting you in.” 

“I wasn’t kidding about kicking the door down.”

"And I’m not kidding about not letting you in. Plus, you’d have some tough questions to answer when my neighbors report you for kicking down my door, Devil Man.”

“Why won’t you accept help when you need it? You really need a doctor.”

“Hypocrite,” you said under your breath, relishing the fact that he could hear you.

“I can hear you.” Just as you’d expected. “And what I do is irrelevant to the fact that you’re currently sitting in your apartment with what’s probably pneumonia.”

“Oh, it’s not pneumonia,” you said dismissively, though you felt awful enough that he was probably right. At least, your lungs seemed to concur with that diagnosis, and as if to verbally agree with him you coughed, wheezing and choking for air.  

“If I didn’t have to be at the court in half an hour, I’d go home and get into the suit just to have an excuse to come through your window right now.” Matt was pissed, that was for sure. There was a dangerous undertone to his voice, softened only by that ever-present concern in what he was saying. 

“I know, Matt.” You rolled your eyes. “It’s a lost cause, alright? Tomorrow I’ll be feeling a lot better and then maybe — maybe — I’ll let you come in. And that’s if we keep all the windows open for fresh air and—”

“Why do I smell your blood?”

You glanced down at your foot. Traitor. It had stopped bleeding ages ago, but you should’ve changed the bandage again one more time before Matt showed up. “I’m... doing acupuncture. On myself.”

“Y/N.”

“Fine. I made a blood oath and pricked my thumb to assure myself that I will never, ever let you catch a sickness from me.”

“In ten seconds this door is coming down unless you tell me. And if you could hear my heartbeat, you’d know I’m not lying.”

“Fine! I just stepped on some glass, okay? But my foot is fine, it’s seen worse days. I mean, you should’ve seen that time that I got a pedicure and the lady told me my heels were the most cracked she’d seen in a long time.” You were rambling, and that wasn’t a good idea, because it made you lose your breath and then you were gasping for air. 

After another five minutes of arguing that ended only when you swore to call the doctor if you got any worse, he left, grumbling that Foggy would kill both of you if he was late for court, and that was the only reason he was giving up — “temporarily”. 

Only when it was too late did you realize that was a mistake, and that you should have let him help.  

It was past two in the afternoon when you woke up from a nap, and every muscle in your body felt as though it were frozen. You were trembling slightly from the cold, but couldn’t muster the energy to even sit up and grab the blanket at the foot of your bed. It was difficult to swallow, and you clutched at your throat, certain that someone must be standing over you and clasping their hands around your neck, but there was no one there. 

“Matt,” you whispered, expecting him to be there, or to hear you, but there was no one. Taking slow breaths, you tried to calm down on your own. One, two, three. One, two, three. All you could manage were short, raspy breaths that hardly got enough air, and your head pounded. Blindly you reached out for your glass of water, and nearly dropped it again, your hands were shaking so much. The feeling of your lips against the rim was like pressing a dried sponge to the edge of a bowl and the water tasted sour in your mouth. 

And then you tried swallowing. It was as though someone had blocked up your throat, because you couldn’t swallow, and you gasped, heart racing as panic flooded through you; for a moment you couldn’t breathe and then you finally coughed up the water, chest heaving from the sharpness of each cough. You grabbed a tissue, hacking into it for at least another thirty seconds, and finally a glob of mucus came up and your airway cleared up just enough that you could breathe a bit more. 

You almost tossed the tissue to the floor without looking at it, but a flash of red caught your eye. 

Blood. In the mucus. 

That was the tipping point for you. Didn’t people die shortly after coughing up blood in the movies? That was how it went. A character coughs, looks into their hand, and then resignedly tucks it away without the other characters seeing. It was like the knoll of death, ringing in your ears. 

You hardly knew what you were doing as you dialed Matt’s number, not even thinking about what you were tapping into your phone but allowing muscle memory to guide you. 

“Hello?” He picked up almost immediately. 

“Matt—” You started to speak his name, but halted; it was too painful. Dropping your voice to a whisper, you started over. “Matt, I think I need you here.”

“What? What is it?” 

“I’m—” You glanced down at the tissue. Literally dying here? That was a surefire way to make Matt have a heart attack. “I’m not doing so well. I might take you up on your offer to help.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be over in five minutes. Did you call the doctor already?”

“No.” The thought of calling the doctor was exhausting on its own. 

Matt seemed to notice that. “I’ll call,” he assured you. “Can you breathe alright?”

“Not really.” Tears were spiking in your eyes and you brushed them away. “I just coughed and... there was some blood in it.” You wheezed for breath, the drawing in of air rattling everything inside of you and getting caught at the top of your throat.

“I’m taking you to a hospital.”

“But—”

“No, sweetheart. You need a real doctor. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Somehow you must have fallen asleep again, because Matt was lifting you from the bed and you wrapped your arms around him. “Can’t breathe,” you whispered, gasping for breath. 

“I know. I can hear your lungs,” Matt said, voice strained. “I’ve got a cab waiting on the street. Can you walk or do you need me to carry you?”

“I... I can walk.” You slung an arm around him and made your way slowly out of the room, limping with every step on your bandaged foot. Matt, to his credit, allowed you to do what you could. His tie was loosened and his suit jacket was gone, but he still wore a button-down, tucked into his pants. 

“Bet you won your case, then,” you whispered, hardly even aware of what was coming out of your mouth. “No one can... say no to this.”

“This?”

“Hm. This.” You meant to nod up and down at Matt, but it came across as more of a head shake. “You.”

And then your assertion that you could walk proved difficult to fulfill, so you redirected your efforts to not face-planting in your living room, despite the strong, steady hands Matt kept on you the entire time. Once you reached your stairs he took over for the most part; your feet were hardly touching the ground with the amount of support he was giving. 

That was where your memory cut out. You must have passed out, because the next time you opened your eyes, it was in the hospital bed, and Matt was reading next to you, his long gaze fixed on the wall in front of him as his fingers danced over the text. 

“Hi,” you whispered lamely. Everything about you was groggy and it was hard enough just to focus on him. 

Him. Only he could look handsome in a hospital. At some point he’d exchanged the suit for a tee shirt and sweats, and his hair stuck out at every angle possible. You wondered vaguely if he’d come from Fogwell’s. 

He set the book down, relief evident on his face. “Hey, sweetie. How are you doing?”

You ignored his question. “How do you always manage to look good?”

He nudged you. “I should be the one asking you that.”

“That’s... the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. Even if you weren’t blind, it’d be a lie.” You closed your eyes, then opened them again. The ceiling was too white. “What happened?”

"Aspiration pneumonia.”

“Hm?”

“You have aspiration pneumonia,” he said. “Which just happens to be a type of pneumonia that’s not contagious.”

You meditated on this. “So?”

“So you could’ve let me into your apartment, that whole time,” he said, looking distinctly indignant, and it was enough to make you laugh. The laugh was short-lived, because it quickly transformed into a wracking cough that made your entire chest throb, but Matt was on his feet in an instant, holding your hand.

Only when the coughing stopped did you remember the bolt on your door. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you get in?”

“Broke down the door, like I promised.”

“Are... are you serious? What about the neighbors?”

He laughed. “You know, breaking down a door isn’t incriminating evidence that I’m Daredevil. I told them you were having an emergency, and when they saw you, they believed me.”

“They saw me?” You didn’t remember an audience when Matt was helping you out of the apartment.

“Well, you were taking your sweet time on the stairs, and coughing loudly enough for anyone in a mile radius to hear you, so yeah, they wanted to see what was happening.”

You buried your face in your hands. “That’s just great. And now, what, is my apartment wide open for anyone to go in?”

“No, I called in a favor with Foggy, and he’s hanging out there until someone can come in and fix it.”

“Even better. Now I’m indebted to Foggy.”

Matt smiled coyly. “Oh, and I should mention—”

“Oh, no. What?”

“—that there’s something else you’ll love about all of this.”

“Stop smiling like that. Why are you smiling like that?”

“Aspiration pneumonia is commonly associated with the institutionalized elderly. In other words, it’s a nursing home problem.”

“A nursing home problem?”

“A nursing home problem,” he confirmed. “I was thinking that maybe for your next birthday I could get you fitted for dentures.”

“Hilarious. Really, so funny. You really should have been a comedian. I swear to you that the next time you get sick, I’m going to make fun of you and you’ll never hear the end of it. Got it?”

He grinned and squeezed your hand. “Murdocks don’t get sick.”

“That is the second biggest lie I’ve ever heard. I seem to recall that time you projectile-vomited off of the Ferris wheel.”

“Because I was motion-sick, not sick-sick.”

Your eyelids were already getting heavy just from the five-minute conversation. You beckoned him closer and leaned onto his shoulder, pressing yourself into his warmth. He smelled like fresh deodorant and coffee. “Pumpkin carving as soon as I can leave?”

“Definitely,” he said, placing your fingers onto the pulse that drummed under his wrist. “And this time, I’m not lying.”

[eldrai]

you were always gold - Hotch

Posted on ao3 here

Thanks to @hotch-central for organising the celebration. @jaspxr & @masterwords - here you go!

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan :)

Summary: A look at Hotch through the years.

Words: 4.1k

Warnings: domestic violence, child abuse, touches very briefly on grief

0.

Everything happens in such a rush things blur together into one. A rush of water and the pains are real and they say it’s named after Caesar, don’t they? But they say Macbeth was one of them and the legends, they never end well.

He’s the smallest baby they have delivered in years – unquestionably the smallest live birth – and later it will seem unbelievable he survives long enough for the transport up to a hospital with room for an incubator because it’s not easy work for those underdeveloped lungs.

They don’t expect him to breathe for the hour. He screams.

.

1.

It’s not much of a surprise when he ends up in hospital, though the nurses are amazed looking at his chart that the kid born so small is, against the odds, still fighting a year on. Fragile bones and ribs poking through beneath his skin, infections whittling away at the meagre fat lying beneath. His growth charts are a jagged mountain range. Climb and fall. Climb and fall.

Pneumonia is a nasty thing and certainly a child of his size, his condition, is not guaranteed to pull through. Intravenous antibiotics, God’s will, both; the surprising part is that he survives.

.

2.

“No. We’re done here. I’m not letting some jumped-up moron tell me there’s something wrong with my son!”

“That isn’t what he was saying.”

“Oh, well, I’m clearly missing something. Care to fill me in?”

“No, I just meant… they did say he might be behind, being born early.”

“For god’s sake, is that what you want people to think of him? Behind?”

“No—”

“Then stop getting hysterical at every little thing.”

“What was I supposed to think? All the other children on the street have already—”

“It’s like you want them to start calling him a—”

.

3.

Their house is full of people, unfamiliar faces, and Dad lifts him onto his shoulders.

The angle is strange, peering at the top of heads, his house new and alien to him. He’s not sure if he likes it. Dad’s hands on his knees anchor him to the present.

He is distant but invincible here, so tall he could touch the sky if only they were outside. Safe from everyone else. Safe from anyone else.

Noise envelops him as he’s set down amidst a swarm of people. Dad’s hand on his back urges him on to blow out the candles.

.

4.

His heels bounce against the sun-warmed cabinets as the whisk clinks off the bowl. Mom whisks with one hand, her other keeping it steady, and Aaron sneaks another handful of the chocolate chips.

They’re melting under his tongue and the residue in on his hands while she pours the cake batter into the tin. She slides it into the oven and clicks her tongue fondly at him, reaching for kitchen towel to clean up.

“Oh, go on,” Mom says, setting the bowl on the counter. “You finish it off.”

Aaron runs the spoon around the bowl, eagerly gathering the rest.

.

5.

“I’ve got you,” Dad repeats. “Keep going, I’ve got you.”

And he does, until the wobbling is scary enough he stops with a screech of brakes and a scrambling hop off the bike, just about staying upright and that’s good enough because he’s doing it.

Aaron turns around but Dad is back with Mom. “Dad!” he exclaims, mostly confused and a little betrayed.

“You did it all on your own,” Dad says. “I told you that you could, didn’t I?”

Mom’s beaming too, her face lit up like Dad’s, and they’re both smiling right at him.

It’s a nice day.

.

6.

“And date of birth?”

“Second of November, ’71.”

Aaron whines and presses into the comfortable warmth of Mom’s side. She cards her fingers through his hair, keeps his fringe away from the congealing blood on his forehead.

“Oh, poor thing,” the nurse says.

The wrapper of a lollipop is screwed up in his hand. She offers him another and he turns away. All he wants is to go home.

“And how did this happen?”

“He was climbing on the furniture,” Mom says. Lying is a sin but he’s six and that’s old enough to keep it secret. Dad said so.

.

7.

“Guess what day it is,” Aaron says, bouncing on his heels impatiently.

“Stop that,” Dad says.

He stops, curling his toes in his shoes instead, and waits.

“What?”

“What day it is,” he repeats.

Dad’s face stays stone cold in his realisation and Aaron’s excitement is gone just as fast as it came on. He blinks but his eyes are watering and he can’t talk without giving it away.

“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about,” Dad snaps. He tosses his coat onto the rack and storms to his office.

The slammed door resonates through the house.

.

8.

“But he said he’d be home!”

“I know,” Mom says. “And he will be. Let’s eat before it gets cold—”

“We can’t start without him,” Aaron says. “He said he’d be here.”

“Aaron. Dinner. Unless you want to go hungry.”

“Fine,” he says, kicking at the carpet. “You’re ruining it.”

“It’s always my fault, isn’t it?” Mom sighs. “The only thing ruining it is your sulking.”

Aaron sits on the windowsill and rests his chin on his knees. “He said—”

“For Christ’s sake, can you give me a break?” Mom says.

He bites his lip until it bleeds.

.

9.

“You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?” Dad says.

Aaron shakes his head but the joviality in his tone doesn’t match the storm in his eyes and he knows this game. Tread carefully. Watch out for landmines.

Dad stares right at him and he’s afraid he can see right through him, flip through his thoughts like a book, open it up to whatever page he wants and just read away. But if he moves… so he doesn’t. He stands still under the scrutiny and crosses his fingers in the sleeves of his sweater.

“Good,” Dad finally says. “Good.”

Aaron shivers.

.

10.

“Not with the baby,” his father dismisses. “It’s too much work.”

It’s not fair, because everything is always about Sean since he was born and sure, he’s a baby but is it that much of a stretch to just let him have this one day? All he’d done was remind Dad.

“What would you know?” Aaron mutters.

Dad’s eyes narrow. He wasn’t quiet enough but he’s frozen where he is. All thoughts about birthdays are gone as soon as Dad raises a hand.

Suddenly he’s stumbling back and—

Dad slams his head against the wall hard enough he sees stars.

.

11.

“He’s eleven,” Mom says.

“Oh,” his father says. Under his sharp gaze, Aaron ducks his head and stares at the plate. He doesn’t want Dad to say anything about it, he doesn’t, and he sure as hell doesn’t need him to. “I thought I’d missed something important.”

His hand aches from his grip on the cutlery. His eyes are stinging. But it’s fine, because Dad’s right. Birthdays are for little kids. What’s the point in celebrating someone existing? If you want acknowledgement you have to earn it, that’s how the world is.

(That’s what he’s gonna do next year. Easy.)

.

12.

The party is for his father’s sake and they don’t even try to pretend.

Someone in their bedroom is laughing, hushed voices blending together, and because it’ll be him or Mom’s fault if they mess something up, Aaron edges along the hall silently.

Through the crack in the door he recognises his father. He does not recognise the woman he is kissing.

He can’t do that.

“Mom,” Aaron urges downstairs, his voice low in the crowded kitchen. “Dad’s upstairs, you need to—”

“I know.”

“But he’s with—”

“Aaron,” she says, a distant sadness in her eyes, “I know.”

.

13.

His father is hard to hate.

Actually, he is easy to hate, and irritatingly easy to forgive. Making up his mind is where the difficulty lies.

Because he can’t stop seeing the silhouette of his father and the woman, bodies pressed together close enough to be one in the shadows, and then his father goes and does things like taking a detour on his journey home from a business trip to pick up a set of fascinating old psychology volumes for Aaron’s birthday. Even if he doesn’t understand why they’re interesting.

He is desperate to hate him.

Why can’t he?

.

14.

It has to be more for Sean’s sake than his because all of this is just playacting to Aaron. Pretending that they’re a regular family. They’ve surpassed the age where he’s gullible enough to think this might be it, they might actually care, so instead of excitement his birthdays dawn with a sense of resignation. What is it this year? His father throwing a party as an excuse to drink, his mother scrubbing the house from top to bottom, relegated to keeping Sean out the way? Complete ignorance?

It's not like he cares.

(He misses being that young and hopeful.)

.

15.

When he stumbles home hours later than he ought and drunk on whatever he’d gotten his hands on, the house is dark. Neither of his parents had mentioned it in the morning and Aaron didn’t want to cause an argument bringing it up.

But when he realises it’s completely silent, his father in bed instead of sitting up to catch him sneaking in, his chest goes a strange sort of cold. It is one thing to be ignored. Another to be forgotten.

Drinking would be a hell of a beating if his father did catch him, so silver linings, right?

.

16.

“Apparently they’re rare,” Haley says, pressing the coins into his hand. “I heard you talking to Mr Callaghan about them in history,” she says. “I didn’t mean to listen but… and then I saw them and I thought you might like it?”

She’d thought of him! She’d thought of him and cared enough about it to buy something she thought he might like whilst she was away – and she’d remembered it in the first place. And maybe that’s just what friends do but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t also be more than friends. Hopefully.

“They’re great,” Aaron says. “Thank you.”

.

17.

His father goes slow, breath wheezing as life seeps out of him. Aaron almost feels sorry for him.

The night lasts forever. When morning sun spills into the room, he checks the absent pulse in his cold wrist. Sean and his mother are crying. Inconsolable. He probably should be.

(They’ve seen what he’s done, how are they upset?)

Someone has to get things set into motion, so it’s Aaron who rings the doctor, the undertaker, the grandparents who never visit.

And the funny thing is he doesn’t realise.

Not until the death certificate is filled out for the 2nd November.

.

18.

“What?” Haley says, starting to smile. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“I’m not,” Aaron says. The roof is cold even through his jacket and his hands are already going numb. Her house isn’t as far out from civilisation as his but it’s enough that the streetlights don’t give the night sky their sick yellow tint.

Something about the stars makes him feel so insignificant he could lie here forever, staring up at them. Like nothing and everything matters and he doesn’t have to choose either. Just be.

Haley asks what he’s smiling about.

He made it.

.

19.

They haven’t got much money between them, let alone individually. It’s the sort of relationship he imagines as his parents’ worst nightmares and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Nor do they know a ton of people out here.

Aaron grabs pizza on the way home from his afternoon lecture and they eat in front of the TV; her card joins the ones Sean and his mother and Jessica have sent.

She gives him proper pens, the kind with ink refills and his initials engraved on them. Sentimental but useful and she really does understand him like nobody else.

.

20.

It’s just a letter.

No big deal.

Not like it has anything to do with the course of his future.

Nope.

It’s the worst birthday present he’s gotten and also the best. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. (He does).

“You do it,” Aaron says, because he thinks left to his own devices he’d let it gather dust, too anxious.

And Haley being Haley opens the LSAT envelope before he has the time to change his mind. Her eyes go wide and she grins.

She shoves the letter at him. “Aaron! One seven three!”

“You’re joking.”

She isn’t.

.

21.

“I don’t want to end up like him,” Aaron says. “If I do get like him, when we’re older, just promise me that you’ll leave?”

“You won’t,” Haley says. “You can’t be. That’s not you.”

He crumples the empty can and tosses it into the garbage with a metallic clatter. “I know, but I need to know you would.”

“He was like that because he was a dick,” Haley says, “not because he drank.”

“It didn’t help,” he says. “And everything has to start somewhere.”

“I know,” she says, “but you’ll never be him.”

Aaron never notices she doesn’t answer.

.

22.

Haley’s hair splays out across the pillow, a gentle gold in the early light. Aaron pulls her closer with a hand around her waist. Sometimes it’s like an eternity has passed between now and high school – and others it’s like they’re back at her parents’ place, lying on the roof and talking of the half-baked plans of what their lives are now.

They have plans for later, and she’s bought and wrapped gifts despite his assurance it’s fine not to, that they ought to save for Christmas.

In this moment, nothing is more perfect than an easy morning with Haley.

.

23.

Living out of boxes loses its novelty a lot quicker than it did the first time they moved – out on their own, independent, there was nothing that could’ve made it feel bad – but for an apartment without water stained ceilings and barely functioning waterworks, not to mention closer to college, does make up for it.

It’s the kind of long day where it’s a relief to flop down on the mattress when everything is finished, even if it’s on the floor because they haven’t put the frame together yet. Hasn’t been much time to think.

Aaron likes the simple days.

.

24.

All their professor had said was he knew Aaron’s father. A passing comment. Enough for him to receive more than a few filthy looks.

As if his father ever helped him.

A classmate – whose sole personality trait, so far, is being from Andover – keeps his voice just low enough for him to hear. “Well, some of us didn’t have to buy our way in.”

Aaron flips over his paper and glances at the man’s score. A 76 to his 89.

“No,” Aaron says. “I take it you did, though.”

He couldn’t care less. It’s just fun to see him splutter.

.

25.

“It’s the one day you’re allowed to have a day off,” Haley says. “You’ve been at it for hours.”

Aaron flips the flashcard over and sighs. It’s a boring topic, nothing for him to remember it by, and he’s screwed up not paying enough attention to it before exams.

“I know,” he says. “Give me half an hour, then I’m done.”

“Can I help?” she offers. “If you want to talk through it.”

He lets his forehead rest on his desk for a minute and straightens up, massaging his aching head. “That’d help. Thanks.”

“Okay,” she says, “so tell me…”

.

26.

He’d rather be at home.

This is his father’s game, the politics of it all. Finding the right shoulders to brush. Picking through a conversation, insulting and complimenting in the same breath. It is an unfortunate necessity when he knows he could be curled up with Haley or out to eat somewhere he can enjoy the food for what it is.

Aaron is one of the youngest they have here and, according to his boss, one of the best. Invitations to events like this aren’t to be taken lightly.

He can thank the old man for that, if nothing else.

.

27.

Everyone acts like he’s young, he has time. And he does – in the scheme of things – yet Aaron can’t help but feel there is something missing. That the years are passing by and he’s stuck in place.

It’s difficult to verbalise so he doesn’t. Aaron isn’t in a bad place in life, far from it, and a little guilty for feeling like he does about it because what is there to be sad about?

He smiles through the congratulations from colleagues and goes home to Haley and ignores the sense of time wasted beating like his heart in his chest

.

28.

The FBI field office is… frenzied. They don’t have a minute to stop, to rest, and it’s like a weight is lifted from his shoulders when he accepts the job. Reaching their killers before they become killers, the victims’ shaken but unharmed, is what he’s been missing all this time.

Though there is less monotony, the lack of predictability makes planning harder. What is supposed to be a routine (as they ever get) case takes all afternoon and half the night; Haley is already asleep when Aaron comes home at half past two.

“Hmm?” she mumbles. “Love you. Happy birthday.”

.

29.

It is definitely preferable to a party reminiscent of his father, but there is something off about being back in his childhood home for his birthday. Too quiet. Too peaceful. His gut warns him to be on edge just in case.

In case what? His father’s been in the dirt over a decade.

Sean is all long limbs and long hair he claims is the fashion. Aaron suspects he keeps it because it annoys their mother. She and Sean have always looked similar whereas he’d heard more than once about being the spitting image of their father.

Just his luck.

.

30.

Being back in Virginia, living here, is bizarre after so long dreaming of running away. Late nights in his childhood bedroom staring at the ceiling and all to be back, not two hours away from that house.

Aaron has Haley, and they have their own house, and the BAU might be a small place but it is exactly the right place for him. They’re carving out their niche, as small as it is, doing something to truly help people.

(His history bears a striking resemblance to some of their unsubs. There’s a reason they don’t know much about him yet.)

.

31.

The drugs are keeping him too far from conscious for his liking, and hardly touching the deep ache in his ribs. Aaron clears his throat. His mouth is dry. Flashes of memory play out between now and yesterday but all he remembers in detail is the force of the bomb.

He blinks away sleep and rolls over. Jason had been there when he last shut his eyes and it’s Dave this time.

“Didn’t know it was your birthday,” he says.

“What?”

Dave nods at the hospital bracelet slipping down his arm. Aaron pushes it to his wrist.

“Well, happy birthday.”

.

32.

In hindsight he should’ve expected it.

The embarrassment is the good kind, if such a thing exists, and he’s smiling despite his face growing warm.

“Oh, you thought we’d let you forget?” Dave teases.

Aaron shrugs it off, because the thought hadn’t really occurred to him at all. It still feels foreign, birthdays. He doubts that will ever stop.

The gifts are harder to get through only because it’s strange receiving quite so many. What they’d call little things, sure, but that they’ve thought about it and gone through with collectively pretending to forget until the last minute—

It’s nice.

.

33.

Jason hadn’t told him about the paperwork that comes with the job.

It is nothing he can’t handle but that doesn’t make it light work – and he’s supposed to keep an eye on everyone else’s because inconsistencies are on him and their higher-ups aren’t forgiving.

Half the struggle, Jason once said, was getting them to believe behaviourism warranted a major focus at all. The other half is catching their unsub - and you can predict how an unsub is going to react.

More than anything he just doesn’t have the time to slow down. It’s fine. He can celebrate later.

.

34.

“Hey, buddy,” Aaron murmurs. Jack coos and blinks up at him with inquisitive blue eyes.

He lifts him out of the crib and Jack gurgles, clenched fists starfishing out. He’s tiny and light and fragile and solid and warm all at once. His son.

“I know,” he says, bouncing him gently. “Must be a lot to look at, huh?”

Jack makes a little noise.

“Do you know what the best birthday gift I ever had is?” he teases. “I think you do. Yes, you do!”

Jack’s legs flail in the air as he coos.

“Oh, yes, you do!” Aaron smiles.

.

35.

It hurts more that she knows what he’s going to say than it does to have to admit it.

“You’re not going to be back in time,” Haley says. “I made the reservation because you said you would.”

“I know,” Aaron says. “I know I did. If you give me the number I’ll see if I can—”

“Don’t,” Haley says. “I wouldn’t want to burden you.”

“Haley,” he pleads. “I thought I would. I promise.”

“Yeah, you always do.” She sighs, static on the phone, as Jack babbles. “That’s the problem.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Happy birthday, Aaron,” she says ruefully.

.

36.

The papers come at an awkward time, their communication almost entirely through their respective solicitors, and Haley is (somewhat) rightfully pissed at him so Aaron doesn’t expect anything.

After all the years, the absence stings a surprising amount, as juvenile as it is of him to mind it.

What gets him is that Jessica, who is more pissed, still sends him a card. It’s filled in to the absolute bare minimum and honestly he’s surprised she did. Hopes it hasn’t caused an argument between them.

Hopes it isn’t tearing apart their family too, since he has the talent for it.

.

37.

They don’t take no for an answer. Because having his family somewhere across the country and being completely and utterly useless to them is not enough of a no.

Aaron does not voice his other objection, which is it makes him feel all of ten years old again and forced to play his role in their perfect family tableau. He never did figure out how to fit in.

His birthday lands during a case this year, quite possibly the first strike of luck he’s had all year, and he doesn’t care how much they complain. He has work to do.

.

38.

He doesn’t want to see them, he doesn’t want gifts, he doesn’t want anything except the ordinary to happen. For one thing Aaron doesn’t deserve it and for another he genuinely doesn’t want to celebrate. As if there’s something worth being happy about.

The kid gloves they’re treating him with have that benefit, at least: they listen to him.

It is a lonely day, aches in a familiar way, and it does not surprise him that he’s ended up like this once more.

There is a statistic: people are more likely to die on their birthdays.

How many choose to?

.

39.

Aaron agreed to drinks because it felt like the option least tailor-made to ensure he wouldn’t be alone. The least condescending.

But sitting around with the rest of the team, throat burning from his drink, the small talk and music reverberates in that hollow space in his chest. He wishes he’d stayed at home.

And when it’s finally an acceptable time to call it quits, he—

“Hey, Hotch,” Morgan calls.

He turns.

“You all right?”

They both know the answer but it’s not about that. Aaron appreciates and hates that Derek noticed. It’s always Derek.

“Yeah,” he lies. “Thank you.”

.

40.

“Happy birthday,” Derek murmurs.

His eyes are dark like sun-warmed earth, and Aaron forgets to breathe for a second; being so close to Derek, taking in the smell of his cologne, a fresh, woodsy scent, wonderful and dizzying. He reaches up and cups Aaron’s jaw with a warm hand, tilting his head as he closes the gap between them.

Aaron lets his eyes close as Derek’s lips meet his. The kiss is steady and gentle and just the right amount of insistent; everything he expects from Derek yet so much better than he’s ever imagined.

He smiles; Derek smiles back.

[mishkakagehishka]

What is blackstar theatre starlesss help holy shit why are all these guys so hot how do i get in on this lmao

HIIIIIIIIIIIII okay hold on i myself am still somewhat new to this (well, i remember halloween 2021 as the first event i was playing during), but let me give you the basics. Very long text ahead.

Before I start yapping about the gameplay, I'll tell you about the characters, the storyline and the music (to the best of my understanding anyway) - [nicki minaj meme] so there's this Theater. Starless is, like, a show restaurant. You come in, you grab a meal, you watch some guys sing, you have a good time, right? There's currently 5 teams: K, W, P, C and B. There were only 3 in the beginning, but certain characters branched out of K/W/P and formed their own teams, which were C and B. Now, the story itself is a bit... dark? I suppose you could say. You play as Saki (you can change her name ofc) and, right from the start, you're being chased by some weirdos;;; but Kei (the top of Team K) saves you just in time and - whoops! Turns out you know eachother. Freaky, right? Saki doesn't remember him, though, from what I understood, but listening to one of their songs made her faint, and basically now she has to be protected by these guys at Starless because dangerous stuff's been happening. It's quite... convoluted, there's speculations of human experimentation from what I've read - but yeah. There's also the whole "all of the former owners of Starless went missing" thing, and the Black Card business, there's a lot of intrigue to it. It makes me wish I was better at Japanese so reading a single chapter doesn't have to be a full-day job! The whole game's got a mature feel to it, so it's not really an "idol game" imo - there's not even much emphasis on the power of friendship or hard work as with most other idol-raising games. Despite being teams, most of them have deep rivalries between eachother, not to mention the drama that happens between members of different teams. Some outright hate one another. Plus, the characters are all older and, well, more mature. The youngest one, I believe, was born in 2001, but most seem to be late 80s-90s (and, yeah, instead of just a birthday, they have full DOBs, so they age up each year lol). Also, for some reason, so many of them just have their tits out on full display most of the time. The outfits are... well, like the story, they sure are mature. They'll get pneumonia, but it's eye candy, I suppose lmao anyway the event stories are also really fun to read and, though it's not otome, there are a lot of interactions with certain characters that will make you go🥰🥰 - though a majority will be from Kei and Heath since the two (seem to be) childhood friends of Saki's. That said, you can absolutely swoon over any of the characters, trust me. I believe Otome Ayui on YouTube translated a chunk of the main story and some event stories, but otherwise, if you don't know Japanese, you'll probably have to make do with computer translations or a dictionary since I, personally, haven't found any other translations. It's so worth it, though.

As for the teams, as I said before, currently we have five. I'll also say something about the characters, but I think it'll be obvious who my faves are lmao anyway, you've got Team K (from the top, clockwise: Kei, Yoshino, Yakou, Ginsei, Gui, Sotetsu), Kei is like the main main guy, he cares a lot for Saki and wants to protect her. Ginsei is really loyal to him, it's a bit cute to watch. Gui is who's interesting to me in Team K - he's pretty stoic and emotionless, but he keeps mentioning waiting for someone he calls "Master". Yakou used to be in Team P, but quit, and then returned after finishing university, he gives me a cute genki vibe. Yoshino is a bit of a ball of anxiety, he's cute, but timid. Sotetsu is the lone wolf, but he can be quite bold with Saki at times.

Team W (Kokuyou, Akira, Taiga, Sin, Takami). Kokuyou's got these dog tags on him that I'm pretty sure say "Chiaki" on them, but that's for another day. He's a bit scary and has some anger issues but <333 lol Akira is the token flirt of Team W, he's a little shameless, but has said once that Saki is "special" to him so? Anyway. I can't say much about Taiga because he speaks in such heavy slang I can barely keep up, but I guess the fact that he speaks in a lot of slang is also something that tells about a character. He's an IT nerd who's physically weak, though, I've figured that out. Sin is like the gentle giant, he's huge, but really intelligent. He speaks in, I can't even say in riddles, it sounds more like prophecies. It's odd, but he can really make pretty words flow. Takami is the reliant big brother type, and he has acted in musicals before, though I don't really trust him, somehow his way of speaking evokes trustworthiness a little too much, ironically. Maybe that's just my bias against bespectacled anime characters, though.

Team P (Rindou, Menou, Nekome, Ginsei (yes, again), Sinju, Maica). Rindou and Sinju used to be idols before joining Starless. Yakou was actually in Sinju's idol group, but they have some beef now. Rindou is pretty mild-mannered, responsible and gentle, he even speaks formally, to the point that, when he's introduced around the same time as characters like Kokuyou and Mizuki, it almost makes you feel like he doesn't belong. Menou is the token always-sleepy character, he speaks so cutely because of it, though. A scene that is locked into my memory is, during Team B's onsen event, apparently they just found him sleeping in their hotel room lololol but he becomes a completely different person on stage with how well he dances and acts. Nekome is Taiga's older brother, he basically raised him on his own. He was one of the first members of Starless, but he ran away and was considered missing at one point. Apparently he regrets that, but I don't trust him, either. Sinju is the really genki character, he's full of energy and just <3 so cute <3, he respects Rindou a lot and is really hard-working. Maica is the tsundere here, but seeing him blush is so worth every single one of his harsh words. He's really pretty, but hates being judged on appearance and hates being told he looks like a girl.

Team C (Mokuren, Zakuro, Kasumi, Hari, Qu) - I want to note this here, all of the characters (to my knowledge) are men, except for Mokuren. In their introduction video, their gender was listed as "unknown" so I (and I believe I've seen others) use they/them for Mokuren. Anyway, they consider dancing the essence of their life. Though their profile says they show no interest in anything other than dance, their hobby is listed as "eating" and, let me tell you, can Mokuren eat. Zakuro's way of speaking is absolutely amazing, he's always dropping "oya oya"s and dramatic phrases. Listening to him talk is wonderful, but I don't trust a word he says. He's definitely hiding something behind that JoJo pose. Kasumi mostly keeps to the background, he prefers not being seen and is actually really good at hiding his energy that he often scares people when he starts talking lol he calls himself a "mob" (like a faceless side-character), and seems to prefer it that way. I don't know much about Hari, but he seems like the cool type, a bit of a jack of all trades. And Qu - he's the fashion and make-up loving type. He used to work as a drag queen, which isn't something you often see in media like this so it stuck out to me.

Team B (Mizuki, Heath, Kongou, Ran, Lico). Mizuki is like. A wild dog. He had a rough childhood and a lot of street smarts, but not much regular smarts. He's also a bit of a tsundere, but there's a good heart in him, I believe. Always down to fight. It's really funny hearing him go wild, his voice is sorta higher-pitched, so it's entertaining. Heath is the token sickly character, he has lung issues, I think? Coughed up blood once. Heath is really attached to music and doesn't like others singing the songs he wrote. Because he tends to push himself, the others scold him sometimes. He also does tarot! I think he's faded out here because he's still in the hospital (IIRC in a recent event he mentioned having to go to surgery soon). Kongou is possibly the closest thing Team B has to a responsible adult. He looks scary, but is actually a pacifist and has a calm vibe about him. That said, he did use to be a wrestler. He's a chef now, though :) Ran is like. I wouldn't call him a problem child, but there's a reason why his tagline is "No.1 energetic brat", he's very energetic, and has quite the shark-toothed grin when feeling violent. Always down to fight pt.2. Then there's Lico - he used to work as a host and he's so full of himself. Also quite flirty with Saki. That said, surprisingly enough, it's often him (and Kongou) who ends up as the voice of reason. You know the situation is dire just by that.

Then you also have the current owner, Haseyama, and the only staff member who, because of that, gets called Unei (literally "management"). Haseyama gives me some. Weird vibes, but not in a bad way. He's trying to convert Starless into a host club, though. Unei is just a poor little meow meow, timid and overworked. Save him. Get him out of there. The two also formed their own teams for April Fools' and the songs were actually. so good. But still, someone save Unei.

If you ask me to describe the genres of the music, it's very... far from what you'd expect in an anime boy rhythm game. I'd call Team K's as maybe close to visual kei? Kind of rock-y. Their vocalists are Kei (Ray Fujita), Yoshino (Tomoki Saito/Academic BANANA) and Yakou (Matsumoto Akito/Shinku Horou). Then, Team W definitely gives me more rock, maybe even alternative rock vibes. They've got come cool guy stuff going on, the music goes hard. Their singer is Akira (Kobayashi Taro). Team P are the ones you'll like if you like usual idol stuff, their songs give off a more pop-hearty vibe, and I'm assuming that's bc a few of their members actually are former idols, in-game. Their singers are Sinju (Stungun), Maica (Kradness) and Rindou (Ajikko). Team C is the gender team, they're so aesthetic. I have no idea what their genre is, but, whatever it is, it slaps. Kinda gives me club by the beach on a summer night vibes, but specifically those "clubs" that are actually half in the open. Their singer is Zakuro (Shakemii). And Team B, my personal faves🥰, are a hip-hop/rap team. Their songs go so hard. Their MC is Heath (Takuya IDE).

Most of the songs are based on works of literature (because it's a show restaurant, right?), which is also really fun, and an especially good ego boost when you figure out what the song is based on purely through the references in the song itself (though if you play the game, the loading screen for the song will give you a summary). I'll link each Team's first-uploaded song and my personal fave, just for diversity's sake and to get a feel for them - I believe the first song is always important to hear. So Team K's first - During the demise (sung by Kei, one of the main themes alongside W's BLACKSTAR, based on Lohengrin), and my personal fave - The Final Problem (sung by Yoshino, based on Sherlock Holmes/The Final Problem). Team W's first - Breakin' it faster (based on Romeo and Juliet), my fave - Out in Out (not based around a text, but around the Battle of Thermopylae). P - 虹の彼方へ (sung by Maica, based on the Wizard of Oz), 一雫の秘密 (sung by Maica and Rindou, based on The Turn of the Screw). C - Purple Dawn (based on the Ode to Joy), 暁の願い (based on Tenshu Monogatari). B - 日蝕 (based on Macbeth), 駄犬 (not based on anything; a diss track/"We went crazy" track lol)

Now as for the game itself, first of all, in my humble opinion, it's one of the best mobile rhythm games out there. The whole game is vertical instead of horizontal, so even the rhythm part is like that, but it's really fun. There's three difficulties, normal, hard and advanced. Normal and hard are unlocked from the start for every song, but to get advanced you need to get a full-combo on hard mode. The beatmaps on advanced mode often make little shapes, like in the new year 2021 song the ending, when the singer says "happy new year", forms the number 2-0-2-1, or, in a different song, the word "mikadzuki" (crescent moon) forms a crescent-moon-like long note, or in yet another song, during the words "Team K", the long notes form a K. It's just really fun, it's not too difficult (though some songs... beware the lvl>30 songs), but it's fun. Most of the difficulty comes in speed changing, so it's important that you know the song well when playing on the highest difficulty. As with other mobile games, it's important to have a good roster. There are songs that limit what characters you can use, but the first roster (オススメ) will automatically choose your best cards for a song, and the second one (スタメン) chooses the original members of the song in their original line-up. I don't even use the other rosters as I mostly just play with the first one, the second one if a daily challenge requires it. Cards range from 1* to 5*, and the 10pull in a gacha gives you a guaranteed 4*, and the featured cards for an event are always 4*. While I haven't gotten many 5* in the gacha, I still have a lot, and I'll talk about that in the event section, trust me, you'll love it. Anyway, asides from the rhythm part (the Performance), you have "rehearsal" where you can choose a song, a team for the song and have them "rehearse" - this boosts intimacy (unlocks stories and badges), as well as levels that character's level for the song. The higher the level, the less misses you'll get during autoplay - which is good for event songs so you don't have to grind too much. Rehearsals also help you level your heroine level, which will fully replenish your torepo and chikepo, so it's also useful to spam rehearsals during events. Torepo is what you need for rehearsals and you get a bigger maximum with each level-up, while chikepo are always maximum 5 and you use them to do Performances. You can't play without them, but they replenish really fast (1 every 20 minutes). You can boost your final score by "betting" chips on any of your top3 characters at the end of a Performance, but I suggest keeping the chips for event challenges. (And also, the chips multiply the scores instead of adding a set amount, so best to bet on the 1st one) There's also heroine status, where you basically compete with others to be the most active player, each rank gives you better rewards. Imo, B and S are the best (SS is the best, but a bit;;;; difficult to get), as B gives you chips as rewards, and S gives you torepo replenishing items. SS gives you chikepo replenishers tho.

You also have daily challenges: every day you get two songs with three challenges each. You don't have to finish them all in one day, though, you actually have 25 days to complete them, but every day you get two more, so it's best to be up to date with them. The challenges are usually something like "play x times", "get x score" (or the harder "get x score with スタメン", "get x score with y member", or the easier "get x total score"), "get a combo of x" or "get less than x misses" or "get more than x perfects". For each challenge you get some items (which can also be the premium currency, Dia!), and a challenge point which you can exchange for skill-up items, 5* cards, level-up items, 4* or 5* guarantee gacha tickets.

Secondly the events, they come at you pretty quick (at least imo but then again i'm also juggling three other mobage with bsts, so i'm stretched a bit thin), so there's new content very frequently, and here's my fave part about this game: the event 5* are ridiculously easy to get. The current event card is a 4*, but last event was a 5* and let me tell you, I logged in, I played the event song like. Seven times, got the card. Of course, if you want to skill it up completely, you gotta work your ass off to get all the copies, but I'm saying, if your goal is to just get it... (plus you can still skill them up without the actual copy of the same card, as I said - you can get skill-up items in the challenge point shop, and now you can exchange puzzle pieces you get when exchanging 3* and above cards for a skill-up item). All events give you event points, but some also give flags. Events with only event points will have the first copy of the card relatively low, so it's best to play the event song with 2 chikepo at once, but if it's a flag event, the event card will be easier to get on the flag portion. Since playing on 2 chikepo only doubles event points, it's a bit more grindy, but still possible without spending Dia - though it is faster if you at least get and level some of the featured event 4* (or even the 3*) in the gacha as they boost the amount of points and flags you get. For flag events, it's also best to use the third roster (イベント特効). You don't even have to have too high level cards, the Team B onsen event was one of the first ones I was here for, when I barely knew how to play, and I still managed 2 copies of the Ran 5*. The event songs will also have challenges - similarly to daily challenges. They'll range from "play with a rehearsal level of x or above" to "get a total of x score" or "get an x score total", sometimes "bet x chips". With each challenge, you'll unlock a story part (and reading each event story part gives you premium currency). The event songs will later be played with the reminiscence tickets on the reminiscence tab of the performance screen - these tickets are easy to collect, and you can use them to replay songs, unlock story parts you haven't and get level-up items if you want to further level an event card. Also, during events, on the event screen you'll be able to access the eeru store (eeru being the non-premium currency), it has a lot of stuff, but imo always go for the Dia and chips, if they're available.

And I think that's about it from what I have to say about BSTS? All in all, it's really fun, the story and characters are gripping, and the songs slap sooo hard. I'm pretty sure I ascended when I first heard each Team B song. I definitely suggest playing it, or at least getting to know the story/characters and listening to the songs. Though it's only available in Japan </3 QooApp thankfully exists lmao

[fruitcoops]

Ok so what sbout remus/sirius being too sick to go to an away game so the other one has to go alone, and then tons of facetime conversations and "get well soon" videos from the team?

This is related to this fic about Remus and Finn bonding over terrible reporters--hope you enjoy! SW credit goes to @lumosinlove, and the Loops/ Talker bonding is for @lee-1012!

TW for illness

“You don’t look so good.” Remus frowned as he held the inside of his wrist against Sirius’ forehead. “And you definitely have a fever.”

“Non.” Sirius sat up on his elbows with a groan, then almost immediately flopped back down.

“Yes.” He leaned back on his heels and checked the clock—they had two hours before they had to be at the airport. “Baby, I don’t think you should—”

“ ‘m going.”

“It’s not a good—”

“Gotta go. Games.” Sirius cracked one glassy eye open. “Two weeks away. I’ll take the first couple days off.”

Remus sighed through his nose and brushed his sweaty hair out of his eyes. “You shouldn’t go on the plane if you’re sick. Not just for your sake, but for the rest of us. We don’t need everyone to come down with this.”

He received a halfhearted glare in response, but Sirius finally huffed and curled on his side to nuzzle against his thigh. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, baby,” Remus said quietly, bending to kiss his temple. They hadn’t been apart for that long since before he was a player, nearly a year prior. Hell, he had never played a game without Sirius, let alone two weeks’ worth. “Lily will check on you, okay?”

Sirius mumbled an incoherent response and cuddled closer when he began combing his fingers through his hair. The second alarm beeped, loud against the quiet of their bedroom; time to go, he thought ruefully. Sirius touched his knee as he started to stand. “Love you. Be safe.”

“Love you more.”

“Love you most.”

“Go back to sleep,” Remus said as his heart clenched. “I’ll let Coach know what happened, but you’ve got to rest and take care of yourself. Hydrate or die-drate, yeah?”

“Yeah. Love you.”

“Sleep,” he repeated, kissing his forehead once more before hauling himself out of bed and tucking the covers around Sirius’ shoulders. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

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

The clouds were a soft, pastel pink around them as the sun rose—Sirius’ favorite. If his phone was correct, Lily would be there soon to let Hattie out and make sure Sirius wasn’t pushing himself too hard. The thought brought Remus a bit of relief, but not enough to quell his concern.

Talker poked his forearm, snapping him from his reverie. “What’s going on?”

“Just worrying.”

“About Cap?”

Remus waved a hand vaguely. “And Hattie, and Lily, and whether he’s got a cold or something worse. Feels weird being here without him.”

Talker hummed his agreement and offered one of his earbuds. “Want to listen to half of Bohemian Rhapsody with me? It’ll give you five minutes and 55 seconds of relative peace.”

“It’s too quiet,” James groaned just before he pressed ‘play’.

Across the aisle, Remus saw Kasey roll his eyes. “Your husband is sick, dude, not dead. He doesn’t talk to you on planes anyway.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Bliz.”

“Oh my god,” Kasey muttered under his breath, securing his headphones tightly over his ears.

James let his head flop to the side with a baleful look. “Loops, you’re on my side, right?”

“I’ve got you, buddy,” he assured him. Talker stifled a laugh, and the opening chords began as more clouds rolled past. Remus let himself drift with them, taking deep breaths to soothe his worries; Sirius would be fine. He had the sniffles, or at worst the flu, and he would be join them for the second week in top form. There was nothing to worry about.

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

“He’s got pneumonia,” Lily sighed.

“He what?”

“A mild case, but the doctor said it would take a week of antibiotics and rest before he’s close to a hundred percent. No hockey for about a month, too.”

Remus stared at the wall of his empty hotel room, lost for words. “Well, fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.”

“Pretty m—absolutely not, go lay down.” There was a rustling noise and two grumbling voices. “Sorry about that.”

“Will you put me on speaker real quick?” Remus asked, pinching the bridge of his nose until he heard a faint click. “Sirius? You there?”

“Yes! I miss you, and I was just going to tell you that it’s really not that—”

“Please sit your ass down. Lily, if he tries to fuck around and find out exactly how nasty pneumonia is, you have full permission to sit on him. I miss you too, love,” he added after a short pause.

“He’s blowing you a kiss,” Lily informed him. “Oh, and he’s giving me the puppy eyes.”

“Resist if you can. Love you both. Give Hattie lots of cuddles from me.”

“We will,” she promised.

The second the call ended, Remus groaned aloud and thumped his head against the wall before padding down the hall. Just my fucking luck. The door swung open after the second knock; Arthur’s face fell. “How bad is it?”

“Mild pneumonia.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep. Doctor said he’d be out for a month.”

Arthur rubbed his eyes and nodded, motioning Remus back towards his own room. “Get some rest, then. I’ll let everyone know in the morning. Any idea how he got it?”

“Not a clue.”

“Thanks for the update, Loops. Sleep tight.”

“I will,” Remus lied as he headed back for a sleepless night between cold sheets.

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

Lily sent updates every few hours; most reported that Sirius was sleeping well and looking better with each passing day, but Remus couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly guilty. If something happened while he was hundreds of miles away, he would never forgive himself. He had sworn in front of their closest friends and family to be there in sickness and in health—what kind of husband ditches their partner for one of a million roadies?

This one. He stabbed a piece of broccoli and shoved it in his mouth. And then he goes and makes an idiot of himself for the world to see.

The interview was supposed to be easy, but he couldn’t let it roll off anymore. Not when he couldn’t answer their questions even when he wanted to, not when he was states away from the love of his life while he was sick, not when he felt helpless and shoved aside in every current aspect of his life.

“So.” The chair next to him creaked as Talker planted his full weight in it and set his plate decisively on the table.

“What.”

“Oh, pissy Loops. Haven’t seen you in a while. Talked to Cap yet?”

“Yeah.” Another piece of broccoli fell victim to his frustration.

“How’s he sound?”

“Better.”

“Sweet.” Talker continued to munch away on his dinner. “Anyone ever told you that you have the general disposition of a wet cat when you’re upset?”

Remus tried and failed to keep down a smile. “I seem to recall you bringing it up on occasion, yes.”

His dark eyes softened and he bumped their elbows together. “He’ll be okay.”

“I know.”

“Really, Loops. Cap’s going to be just fine. Lily doesn’t sugar-coat this kind of stuff, and he’s a tough guy. Mild pneumonia doesn’t stand a chance. Besides, we’ve only got four days left and we need you to kick some ass out there.”

If Remus was a little more emotionally vulnerable, he would’ve burst into tears. Instead, he settled for leaning his temple against Talker’s with a quiet ‘thanks’ and allowed himself to be pulled into a side hug. Across the dining hall, Finn shot him a thumbs-up and a wink. “Love you, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Talker teased. “The internet is already coming to your aid, you know.”

“About…?”

“Not only have those asshole reporters become a new meme, you’ve also got a shit ton of people bringing up past mistreatment of athletes in the press room. You’re the face of a revolution, Loops.”

“I’ve been the face of too many revolutions for one person,” he groused, not even bothering to duck out of the way when Talker ruffled his hair.

“Well, one more won’t kill you.”

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

Remus’ heart raced as he stepped off the plane. The logical part of him knew that Sirius would be waiting outside the security gate, but everything else screamed to see him now, now, right now so he could be sure he was alright. At least he had sounded healthier on the phone the night before—Remus wasn’t sure what he would do otherwise.

“Deep breaths,” James reminded him as they walked toward the baggage claim. “I’m sure he’s—”

An excited shout broke through the thick crowds. Remus’ heart skipped a beat, and then he was running, racing through the people that parted for him as his vision tunneled. His carry-on hit the ground with a low thud that he hardly heard as Sirius lifted him straight off the ground and held him tight.

“I love you,” Remus said immediately, locking his ankles around Sirius’ lower back and squeezing his eyes shut. “Are you okay?”

In lieu of a response, Sirius pulled back and kissed him, cradling one side of his face in his warm, warm hand. Two weeks may as well have been an eternity. He broke away after a moment, searching his face for any signs of illness or pain. “I’m fine,” Sirius said softly, as if he could read his mind. “I promise. A little tired and sore, but there’s no lasting damage.”

“Don’t do that again,” Remus said into the side of his neck as he hugged him close. He smelled like home. “Not when I have to leave.”

Sirius’ arms were steady around his back. “I won’t.”

“I’m going to grill you on everything as soon as we get home.”

“I know.”

“But right now, I’m just going to hug you because I missed you and I worried myself into a hole, like, every night.”

He could feel Sirius’ smile against his shoulder. “I know.”

[oh-no-my-hand-slipped]

A new prompt for you! (Finally :3)

I'm picturing multiple couples or a family group (4+ adults) who share a cottage together in the middle of nowhere, living off the land. Winter is coming, bringing with it its chill winds and early dustings of snow. The people are hard at work every day, chopping wood and putting aside the last of the food for winter.

It's the worst possible time to get sick, yet someone does, coming down with a miserable, streaming cold and high fever. What do they do about it? How do the others respond?

Could have definite cottage core elements, or fantasy (since you're so good at writing that!) or contagion if you choose. Can't wait to see the results :)

It’s been so long since I’ve written a real, honest to god fic, so this will be my debut back into snzfucker favor!

Okay, okay, who to include in this house of contagion?

We need a soft healer boi that takes care of everyone before themselves, of course. A very strong, stoic, hardworking warrior with muscles of steel - but the same can’t be said for his immune system. A hyper comic relief (like if Scout from TF2 was in a fantasy setting) that insists he isn’t sick, but can’t keep back his sneezes long enough to prove his point. And, of course, a tall, thin scholar whose cold heart is only melted by his fever.

Adventurers packing it in for the winter and preparing for journeying in the spring, now only at most a few yards from each other and having shot immune systems from the exhausting work. Illness doesn’t have to travel far to infect…

Oh, this is gonna be good.

***********************

“Look look look! Otto, you’re not gonna believe this!”

Barlow skidded to a halt, almost tripping over his own two feet before regaining his balance. Otto chuckled.

“Alright, alright, que pasa? What is so exciting?”

Barlow fumbled with his cloak before pulling a shiny coin out of one of the pockets.

“I got this off a path when I was pickin’ berries! Must’ve been a merchant or something…”

Barlow’s eyes suddenly lit up.

“Or maybe a warrior! Ooh, or a knight! Definitely somebody with a cape.”

He flung the back of his cloak behind him and stood tall, crossing his arms with a self-satisfied grin. However, Barlow couldn’t keep the pose long - the frigid air made him close the thin burlap around himself again, shivering. Otto knitted their brow.

“You’re wearing your summer cloak,” they said, looking Barlow up and down. “You must be freezing, chiquito!”

Barlow waved his hand, as if batting away Otto’s concern.

“Don’t worry about it, doc. It’s gonna take more than a little wind to get me down.”

As if to prove a point, he spread out his arms and spun around, laughing at the many leaves he kicked up.

Otto would usually be charmed by the sprite’s antics, but their concern soon outweighed their amusement.

“Just make sure to change into your winter clothes soon, okay? I would hate for you to get sick.”

Barlow stopped spinning, coughing a bit as he caught his breath with chilly autumn air. His hot breath clouded around his face like smoke.

“Okay, okay,” he panted, “I’ll grab it when I go by the cottage. Forgot my basket anyway. See you around, doc.”

With a quick salute, Barlow ran off, cloak billowing behind him, still clenching the coin in a tight fist. Otto shook their head and sighed. They knew that Barlow just didn’t want them to worry - but that only made them worry more. The healer in them couldn’t help but notice red-tipped fingers, congested voices, and pallid complexions. Besides, with a harsh winter underway, a cold could very quickly rear its ugly head, turning into bronchitis, pneumonia, and even infect a person’s magic…

Otto took a deep breath. Their thoughts had run away with them - and now, more than ever, it was important to stay focused.

The doctor gathered up their scrolls, pulled their coat close, and started back to the cottage.

Perhaps a little tea would calm their nerves.

***************

“it’CHEW! CHEW!”

“Salud.”

“Ugh…thanks, doc. Snf!”

Otto looked up from his knitting to see Barlow rubbing his long, pointy ears with a pained look on his face.

“Do your ears hurt?”

Barlow put his hands in his lap. “No! Just, uh, a little itchy.”

Severin, who had been reading on the sofa across from Otto, hid a smirk behind the yellowed pages.

“Someone must be talking about you,” he drawled smugly. “Considering the way you conduct yourself, I’m not surprised.”

Instead of snapping back, Barlow still scratched at his ears. Severin slit his eyes and continued to read. He almost seemed disappointed.

“Could be thragweed,” Godric rumbled from a large wooden stool, rubbing his beard in thought, “but they usually shrivel up by the first frost. Didja see any three-leaved plants while you were out foragin’?”

Barlow shrugged, wincing as he rubbed harder. “Um…maybe?”

Otto frowned. “Be careful. You’ll hurt yourself if you keep scratching like that.”

“S-sorry, I…huh-hold on…”

Barlow buried himself in his cloak, with only his mop of red hair showing.

“hit’SHEW! Huh…it’TCHEW!”

The sprite continued to let out sneeze after sneeze, his wrinkled, pink nose only showing when he needed to come up for air. Otto got up from their chair, and they were soon holding him by the shoulders to keep him from knocking himself over.

Barlow finally finished, snuffling into his sleeve. He looked up at Otto with bleary eyes.

“Sorry, doc, I don’d dow whad’s gotten into be…”

Otto hushed him with a gentle pat, using their free hand to feel Barlow’s forehead. They clucked their tongue.

“Oh, mijo, you have a fever...”

Barlow’s breath caught, and he coughed into his shoulder. “Nah, I…I’b okay, Otto, really. I’ll be…snrk…fide in the morning. Just gotta sleep it off…”

Otto smiled gently. “Well, you’re right about one thing. A good night’s sleep is exactly what you need. And maybe a little salve for your poor ears…”

Their hand still on Barlow’s shoulder, Otto guided the sprite to his bedroom, mumbled protests and miserable sneezes trailing behind them.

***************

Barlow’s fever never grew very high - his burning ears and nose, however, kept him up for most of the night. By the time morning came, he was too exhausted to even feign health. Otto had to put him back to bed, which was only met with pitiful murmurings.

“‘M fide, doc, I…hetch’CHIIIEW!”

“Pobrecito! You sound even worse than yesterday…”

“C’mon, Otto, I…”

“I don’t want to see you out of bed today, okay, cariño? You need to rest.”

“Nngh…”

Otto and Severin split the foraging work, since their respective jobs were mostly planning and budgeting the winter ahead of them. Godric promised to keep a good eye on the patient, but that didn’t lessen the doctor’s worry any.

“I wonder how Barlow’s doing,” Otto murmured, probably for the umpteenth time since they’d begun their work.

Severin scrutinized his severely pricked thumb. “Children always carry around such nasty things. It’s a wonder he hasn’t caught the plague instead of a simple cold.”

Otto froze mid-pick, and Severin hurried to correct himself.

“Peace, my friend. It is just a cold, after all.

He grimaced.

“One I dearly hope he keeps to himself.”

They both continued to fill their baskets with berries, wiping the frost off their shiny, black skins. However, Otto’s mind continued to race.

I shouldn’t have left him. Godric only knows so much. What happens if his fever spikes? I’m a healer, I’m not supposed to leave the sick behind. Should I go back? I should go back. No, I promised Barlow I’d get his foraging done. But I can’t keep a promise if he’s dead. What if he’s already dead? What if Godric’s on his way right now to tell me? What if I’m already too late? How will we bury him, the ground is too hard. Otto, your friend has died and all you can think about is how to bury him. You must be the most selfish -

“Otto.”

Otto snapped back to reality to see Severin giving him a fierce side-eye.

“It’s only a cold.”

Otto took a deep breath. “Right. Gracias. I…I lost myself, didn’t I?”

The afternoon went by in a quiet fervor, both of them trying to fill their baskets before the sun went down. With Otto’s quick fingers and Severin’s thin ones, it was an easy job, and the managed to get back before it got too dark.

Otto wasn’t two steps through the door before they were at Godric’s heels, wringing their hands and stammering through the worries that had built up through the day.

“Are you sure…how…did he…should I…?”

The warrior just chuckled and put a gigantic, calloused hand on the their head.

“He’s on tha’ mend, doc, on the mend. Sneezin’ his head off, sure, but gettin’ better.”

As if on cue, two loud sneezes interrupted them from one of the bedrooms, followed by a mumbled curse and a few wet sniffles. Godric shook his head.

“Been like that all day, poor tyke. When he wasn’ dozin’ off, tha’ is.”

Severin took a few scrolls out of his dragon-scale satchel.

“I understand you have a more…pressing engagement. Why don’t I take the calculations tonight?”

But Otto was already on their way to Barlow’s bedside, medicine bag in tow. Severin only lifted his eyebrows and turned on his heel, setting up the many notes he had taken and a few quills on the oaken table.

“Besides,” he murmured to himself, “I don’t want to get near whatever affliction that sprite’s come down with.”

*************

Barlow was scratching at his drooping ears, which were now covered in a red, peeling rash. Otto gently pushed his hands back under the quilt.

“I know it itches, but you need to try not to scratch.”

The healer took a small glass container out of their bag, dipping two fingers into the greenish-gray ointment inside. They began to apply the salve to Barlow’s ears, taking care not to put on too much.

“Tell me when you need a break,” Otto said.

Barlow nodded, eyes squeezed shut. After a few minutes, his nostrils started to twitch, and he held up a hand.

“G-gudda…huh…!”

He jerked forward into his knees.

“hit’CHEW! hhhit’SHEW! Uh…hut’SHIEW!”

Barlow snuffled into the quilt, and Otto handed him a tissue.

“Salud.”

“Ugh…sorry, doc…”

Otto put the cork back into the glass bottle and set it on the bedside table.

“It’s alright - most sprites have the same reflex.”

“No, I beant…for…”

Barlow bit his lip, his ears drooping even lower.

“For geddin’ sick.”

Otto put a hand on the sprite’s back.

“Oh, mijo…”

“I-I didn’d mean to,” Barlow whimpered. “I…I should’ve god by coat like you told be to…and dow w-we’re - hic - gudda starve…”

Otto hushed him, pulling Barlow into an embrace and rocking him slowly back and forth.

“We will be fine, mijo,” they whispered, their voice soothing Barlow into a sniffle. “We will forage until you are better, and not a day before. That is what friends do. They protect each other, they take care of each other, and they love each other like family. And that is how I love you. Like my family.”

Barlow hiccuped, trying to speak through his tears.

“Shhh, mijo…it’s okay…”

Otto wrapped the quilt tighter around Barlow and laid him down, pushing hair damp with both tears and sweat out of his face. The sobs quieted, then dissolved into shaky breaths. Before Otto even made it through the doorway, they could hear small, congested snores coming from the pile of blankets.

*****************

Scritch scritch scritch…scriiiitch…

Harried quill scratching filled the air as Otto entered the living room, putting on their tweed coat and wool gloves. They stretched out their arms.

“Buenos días!”

Godric lifted his coffee mug as a greeting, his famous half-smile dancing over his lips.

“Well, aren’tcha bright as tha’ north star this mornin’!”

Otto beamed. Barlow had slept soundly through the night, and he was still fast asleep when they had checked on him. Not a sniffle or a sneeze came from that room.

“Severin, I was thinking we could pick up acorns today,” Otto thought aloud, buttoning their coat. “There is a beautiful place in the forest…”

Silence. The quill scratching only grew more manic. Otto glanced up.

Severin was hunched over the table, writing madly on several open scrolls, only pausing to move a few beads on his abacus. Otto went back to getting ready. Sometimes it took a while for Severin to answer if he was engrossed in his calculations. He would respond when he got to a stopping point.

After about fifteen minutes of fidgeting with their scarf, though, Otto tried again.

“From what I’ve seen, we should be ready for winter in a week, maybe less. All that’s left is the dried vegetables and a few more logs for firewood.”

Again, there was no answer. But now that Otto was a little closer, they could see why.

Severin’s eyes were inflamed and painful, as were his gaunt cheeks. His long, usually well-preened hair was matted against his forehead, with stray hairs sticking up this way and that. Thin shoulder blades came together with each labored breath. Long fingers shivered around a red quill, leaving stray marks on the parchment.

“Mi sombro,” Otto breathed.

The shadowling blinked, raising his head stiffly. Pools of sweat, shaken loose by the movement, streaked down their face.

“I…couldn’t sleep,” Severin croaked. “Have I…have I been awake…?”

Godric looked up from his mug, finally noticing the sorcerer’s state. “Stars above, lad! Ya look like hell frozen over!”

The shadowling stared straight ahead, his breath coming in ragged strains.

“Could someone…please put out the fireplace…?”

Otto clucked their tongue, putting their hands on either side of Severin’s neck. His dark eyes fluttered shut, as if with great relief.

“Mm…”

“Ay, tu cabeza,” Otto cooed, putting their hand on Severin’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”

Severin finally looked down at the doctor. His tense gaze was now dazed, vulnerable - even afraid.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said again, hoarsely.

Otto rubbed their thumb on Severin’s feverish cheek. “I know, cariño. I know.”

***************

It took a lot more doing to get Severin to bed than it did Barlow. Not only did he insist he was perfectly well, only warm from the unlit fireplace, but that he had seen terrifying visions outside the window.

“Their eyes, doctor…they stared into my very essence…a…a beast of some kind…we’ll be killed…”

“Shhh, my love. It’s only a nightmare from your fever. You will feel better soon.”

In the end, the only way Otto could leave the cottage was by taking a small talisman Severin had in his cloak. They weren’t superstitious, but Otto wanted to do anything they could to put the sick sorcerer at ease.

Now with one less healthy person in the group, Otto rushed to get the last of the supplies for the cold winter ahead. The first snowflakes were beginning to fall, which made finding acorns that much more difficult. Before the sun reached its peak, the ground was completely covered in a thin layer of snow. But, for once, Otto’s anxiety was an advantage.

They plowed through every task as if their life depended on it. Another of their friends falling ill had kicked their healer instinct into high gear; whenever they were fatigued or sore, all it took was a few words of the healing oath to get them going again.

“From the monsters of the cave, of the sea, of the heart,” they whispered while peeling wild wolf onions, “I shall protect and provide for those who cannot.”

As morning turned to afternoon, the light flurry of the morning became a bitter gale that howled through the trees like a hungry animal. The world was silent except for the frigid wind - all the creatures of the forest knew well enough that the winter ahead would not be kind to them.

But Otto knew nothing of this.

And so they marched forward.

It was quite past dark when Otto returned to the cottage. Much to their delight, a fire was flickering in the fireplace, and a wonderful, familiar smell lingered in the air - a mixture of tender meat and spices.

As Otto had hoped, there was a pot of stew left over the flames. The broth still bubbled with warmth, and the chicken and vegetables gave off a heavenly steam. Their stomach suddenly felt very hollow.

They hadn’t eaten all day, had they?

With raw fingers, the doctor tried their best to use the ladle, which was as big as their entire arm and weighed twice as much. Gripping the handle with both hands, they brought the brew to their lips, taking care not to burn their tongue.

A beautiful, soothing flavor poured down Otto’s throat. They leaned their head back and closed their eyes, making sure to drink up every last tasty morsel. It was a long time before the ladle was empty again.

Once they were finished, the healer felt a heaviness collect around their eyes. Finally, at long last, they could rest. The cottage was fast asleep - and now it was time for Otto to follow suit.

Sleep came upon Otto too quickly for them to retire to their own bed. Like a hound after a successful hunt, they crawled onto the sofa and curled into a ball, dead to the world before their head hit the soft cushions.

*******************

Otto wasn’t sure how long they slept. They remembered bits and pieces of dreams, of words, or memories - but mostly a comforting darkness that lulled them into a deep drowse.

When they finally awoke, the first thing they saw was the flitting of the fire. The flame had all but burned itself out during the night. Otto rolled over, stretching and sighing with satisfaction. That was the best they had slept in several days.

They indulged themselves in a large yawn and shifted off the sofa, cringing from cold stone against their bare feet.

The cottage was still silent with sleep - not a thing stirred but the creaks and groans of the wooden beams. A frigid wind had picked up outside, and bits of snow swirled in the air.

How cold Godric must be this morning, Otto thought as they padded towards the hallway. The warrior was always up and working by first light - quite before anyone else was awake - but came back inside to drink some hot coffee and see how the preparations were going. Godric made a strong cup of coffee. One could smell it and be ready for a new day; that’s usually all most could stand without sputtering.

Today, however, there was no earthy aroma of it brewing. All Otto could smell was a hint of the stew they had eaten the night before - the husk of a beautiful, delicious dream.

The doctor peeked his head into Barlow’s room. The sprite was laying on his stomach, eyes closed and breath soft. Though they had been feeling better for the past day or so, Barlow’s nose frequently ran away with him, and was still very pink and sensitive. His upright ear twitched ever so slightly, but there was no sign of him stirring any time soon.

Severin, on the other hand, had fared much worse. Despite the many wet rags coating almost every inch of his febrile body, his breathing was still heavy and labored, and his eyes darted under closed eyelids. Bite marks covered cracking lips. Otto made sure they made little noise as they tiptoed from the doorway. Severin needed all the rest he could get.

Otto turned from his patients, a familiar heaviness weighing upon their heart. Such misery in what was supposed to be a warm season of reaping and feasting.

Perhaps it came back with them from market, or from the many travelers that take the nearby road into town. With how hard everyone had been working, and how many nights were left unslept…

Otto massaged the bridge of their nose, dashing from one possibility to the next, feeling more and more ashamed by how little they prepared, how stupid they must have been, how utterly selfish! They had been so busy with preparations that they had barely noticed that their journeymates were wasting away!

They could have done something. This was all their fault, wasn’t it? How could they be a healer if they couldn’t even keep the ones they loved safe?

Otto was roused from their guilt by the sound of harsh coughing. They peeked their head into the past two rooms, fearing that one of them had been awakened by their footsteps. However, both of them were still out cold. Or out warm, in Severin’s case.

No, the coughing wasn’t coming from their rooms, Otto realized. It was coming from the third bedroom - the one that they and Godric shared.

The door creaked open as Otto shuffled inside, already knowing the worst was yet to come.

“Doc? Is tha’ you?”

Godric was sitting up in bed, quilt wrapped around him, his chest heaving with another hacking fit. His cheeks were flushed with effort and fever. Otto went to his bedside, their heart dropping into their stomach.

“Real nice ‘a this cold to leave the healer last, eh?” the warrior joked before laying back down with a quiet groan.

Otto pushed the hair off Godric’s neck and felt his lymph nodes, which were not only hot, but terribly swollen.

“I can chop those few pieces ‘a wood, an’ then I’ll-”

“You are not getting out of this bed,” Otto said sternly. Then, with a kinder tone, “I know you want to finish your work, but you are very sick. You shouldn’t be out in the snow.”

“But how-”

“I will take care of it, cariño. Just rest.”

Godric opened his mouth to say something else, but just coughed and covered himself up with his quilt.

“Take care of yerself, doc,” he said before Otto went to check on the others. “There isn’t anythin’ I can’t do after I’m back on m’feet.”

***************

Between taking care of three sick creatures and the final preparations, Otto ran themselves ragged over the next few days. None of their friends were particularly hard to take care of - especially after Severin’s fever broke - but the heaviness of their heart continued to weigh upon them.

With no other options, they threw themselves into work.

If they chopped enough wood for an extra week, they chopped enough wood for two extra weeks. The larder was more than full. Their fingers and hands and back and everything else was sore, but they couldn’t stop for long without feeling their guilt gnaw away at them.

One frigid morning, Otto had taken to the axe, splitting wood and putting them in the shed to keep them dry. They had run out of pre-cut trunks a long time ago, so they started cutting sticks in half for kindling. Out of the corner of their eye, mid-swing, they saw a figure marching through the snow - lifting their foot high before stomping it down again with a crunch.

After a few minutes, Otto could finally see a pair of long ears fluttering in the cold wind.

“Barlow!”

The sprite grinned as he approached Otto, holding up a steaming container of something in his mittened hands.

“I got soup!” he called out, trying to move faster in the deep snow. “Godric felt a lot better today, so he wanted to try somethin’ new. It’s real good! Even Severin ate a whole bowl of it, so you know it’s gotta be great.”

Barlow sat next to the chopping block, and patted a mound of snow next to him. Otto sat down, wincing as their sore muscles twinged.

“Godric says we’re all packed up for winter,” Barlow continued as he handed Otto the food. “And we’ll even have stuff to eat in the spring, too.”

Otto didn’t answer, but tucked into the soup, not even blowing it off before putting the spoon in their mouth. Barlow thought for a little bit, then spoke again.

“Doc, Godric told me that we got more than enough food and wood to last through the winter. If you wanna come inside, we’ve got a checker game goin’…”

Otto didn’t respond, but they had started to shiver from the cold. Barlow took of his coat and draped it around Otto’s shoulders.

“C’mon, let’s get back. Everybody’s waitin’ for us.”

Barlow took Otto by the hand and pulled them up, then led them back towards the cottage. Otto trailed behind like a quivering lamb, both exhausted and numb. They couldn’t think of much else than putting one foot in front of the other.

When the pair finally got back to the cottage, a warm, cozy scene awaited them. Severin was on the couch, doing needlepoint with half-open eyes and content look on his face. Godric was above the stove, stirring a pot and putting one seasoning or another into it. The fire was blazing in a lovely orange hue that painted the scene with a beautiful glow.

While Barlow went right inside and was greeted by the others, Otto stood in the doorway, weary eyes closed, soaking up the light and warmth as much as they could.

“Doctor?”

Severin was up now, his quiet wisdom regained. Before Otto could answer, the sorcerer started to remove their soaked outer layers with quick fingers.

“If Barlow didn’t bring you here,” Severin said, “you would have worked yourself to a frozen skeleton.”

Otto suddenly jerked his head to the side.

“het’TCH! TCH! TCH’UH!”

“Many blessings, doctor.”

Severin smiled and tilted his head.

“Many, many blessings.”

Otto sniffled, rubbing their nose with stiff fingers.

“Nngh…gracias. Just a little…heh…htch’CHU!”

“Aye, I don’ like tha’ sound of that,” Godric rumbled from the kitchen, turning his head to see the sickly healer.

Otto waved their hand. “Just a li-hih-ttle sdiffle…”

“One that is long overdue, I think,” Severin said, putting the last of their wet things away.

Otto was ushered in front of the fire, still at the mercy of his nose. With each sneeze came a chorus of blessings and, if need be, another handkerchief.

“That’s a real nasty cold, huh?” Barlow commented after a particularly forceful fit. “Even I didn’t sneeze that much.”

As the day came to a close, the group all gathered on the couch, listening to the wind howling outside and treating themselves to Godric’s famous roast and sweet apple tea. Otto didn’t eat very much, but the hot tea soothed their sore throat.

“Tank you for taking such good care of be,” Otto snuffled.

Godric chuckled. “Ya care so much about us, doc. It only makes sense that we’s care an awful lot about you, ‘specially when ya aren’t feelin’ well.”

“And after you tended so well to us, may I add,” Severin said, leaning his head back.

“Yeah!” Barlow agreed, not exactly as good with words as the others, but still just as thankful.

Otto, overcome, buried their face in Godric’s side and began to cry, letting out everything that they had felt in the past few days. They wanted to stop, they wanted to explain, but it was lost in desperate sobs and hiccuping. Godric held them closer to him while the others offered quiet support until the doctor quieted.

“There ya go,” Godric said, putting a large hand on Otto’s head. “It’s gonna be alright.”

Filled with comfort and warm food, Otto quickly dozed off, and the others weren’t far behind. The only sounds were the falling of fresh snow, the crackling of the fireplace, and the snores of deep, contented sleep.

And, as winter finally settled into Harbinger Woods, they all settled down for their long winter’s rest.

******************

Not only do I want to dedicate this to @perfectpaperbluebirds , who gave me the prompt, but also @sneezytomatosquish , who has been feeling emotionally and physically under the weather lately. That may have changed by the time this fic is finished, but I shall gift it to you anyway. You are one of my favorite creators, but I want to create something for you for a change. You deserve it.

Get well soon!

[morganaspendragonss]

Hi! Not the same med anon as before but I saw your post so I thought I’d offer what I saw! I work in a hospital with some vent patients so I know a few things but I’ve never worked with some one with hypothermia so this is mostly guessing about his condition.(Like you said there’s not much new in the pics but I’m OBSESSED) anyway

Let’s start with the monitor. His heart rate has been 69 in every pic which I weird to me but it’s probably just what they have it set as for TV. 69 is a normal HR indicating he isn’t stressed or in pain (it would be up in the 120-130s or even higher if that were the case). His heart rhythm looks normal too. We know his HR drops really low in the promo so I predict it will go as low as 30-40 and then maybe stop completely (!). This is probably due to an arrhythmia (irregular heart beat) which may have caused his initial cardiac arrest in the last ep (Also they moved him way too much which you aren’t supposed to do with hypothermia patients but whatever). His BP is not displayed on the monitor even though he has a cuff hooked up which is also weird (it would be where those white Xs are and the machine would automatically run every 5 min or so). His O2 is also lower than other times (100 in the episode and pic with Owen and 93 now) 93 is still a normal pulse ox but I’m concerned that it’s lower as well as the waveform (see how the blue line dips a little toward the beginning?) this could indicate he’s having some trouble or maybe they’re trying to wean him off the vent and he is just working harder with the new settings.

That brings me to the vent! I can’t for the life of me see anything on the screen and I want to know the settings so bad! Basically I’d look for the setting, his Fio2, and his PEEP. If he is on a positive pressure setting, it means he’s fully dependent on the vent and can’t breathe on his own (very sad but very angsty for us). Alternatively, if he’s on a spontaneous setting he is getting support from the vent but is triggering his own breathes which is what would need to happen before they took the tube out. For the FiO2 it is basically how much oxygen he needs from the vent (20-40% would be good cause that means he doesn’t need much to keep up his pulse ox, the closer he gets to 100% the more help he needs to keep his blood oxygenated). Last is PEEP, which would tell us a lot about what his condition actually is. A normal PEEP is 5 so if the vent is set to 5 it means he’s good and ready to get off the vent as long as his FiO2 and setting are good. If his PEEP is higher ( I think it can go up to 10 or 12) it means he can’t keep his lungs from collapsing without the pressure regulation from the vent. This is usually seen with patients with pneumonia or water in their lungs because all the extra stuff in the lungs is building up pressure and causing the lungs to collapse. I think it’s a good chance TK could have pneumonia or water in his lungs which could be a big reason why he needs the vent but I wish I knew his PEEP so I could tell (I also saw a post about him maybe being given antibiotics so i think we really could be looking at an issue like this as well as his arrhythmia but we will see). Also I’m being picky but his vent tube would never be shoved under a bed rail like that it would be hooked up to special holders on the ventilator to make sure it is always in sight (because like if something got stuck he could die cause he needs the vent to breathe so it’s an important tube haha).

But yeah that’s my speculation! Sorry it got so long but you always seem genuinely interested! Med stuff on tv almost never lives up to my hype or reality but I’m actually hopefully for this one!

i literally owe you my life anon. this is so much information and i am living for all of it. it genuinely does interest me because as much as i love whump, i also love realism so i do have a tendency to get bogged down in the most minute details. i just want to know what the writers are trying to show us wrt tk's condition because it's all well and good having him on the vent, but if they're trying to emphasise that it's bad bad, then they should put some effort into displaying that.

not that i'm saying i'm expecting to be 100% medically accurate because at the end of the day it is a tv show. but if they're going to display stuff on these machines, it would be nice for it to actually mean something rather than it just being like 'standard' or whatever.

anyway!!! thank you so much for this ask. it was truly fascinating and i loved reading it!! 💚💚💚

[not-a-coral-snake]

for the @lamenweek Day 6 prompt: Auguste Lives Au

inspired by this post by @skyline-sunset-in-my-veins and @phoenixtcm

“When I am in Arles this fall,” Damianos says, words soft in the summer sunset air around them, “I will kneel before your brother the king and ask his permission to court you.” He pauses, smile just the slightest bit cocky. Laurent is lounging, hair mussed and shirt trailing half-opened laces, in Damen’s arms. “Court you officially, I mean.” 

“You are going to Arles for the negotiations yourself this year?” Laurent says. Seated as they are, Damen cannot mistake the shudder of tension, quickly repressed, that runs through Laurent at Damen’s words.

“You haven’t told him yet,” he says. 

“It’s just I thought that the ambassador—”

“You haven’t told him yet,” Damen says again. “You said when I saw you last fall that you would tell him last winter for sure.” He tries not to sound accusatory, but well. It is not the first time they have had this conversation.

“I haven’t told him yet,” Laurent concedes. It should not be so hard. It’s been six years since Marlas. Vere and Akielos are at peace. Laurent is in the habit of sharing nearly everything with Auguste, and yet— 

“I’m waiting for the right moment,” he says, as he always does. “It’s a sensitive matter, I wish to catch him in the right mood, lest he make up his mind before hearing me out.” 

“And you’re afraid of hurting him,” Damen says, as he always does.

“And I want to ensure I don’t hurt him. So I have to find the right time—”

“It’s been years now,” Damen cuts in. “Should we believe that, somehow, the perfect moment will occur this summer, when it did not last winter, or last spring, or the summer before that?”

“Damen—”

“This can just be a fling, if you want,” Damen says, gently.

‘That’s not what I—no,” says Laurent. Damen’s never said that before. 

“We can just keep meeting a few times a year. It doesn’t need to be serious. It doesn’t need to be something we tell others about.”

“Damen, stop,” Laurent says. “No. I want to court you. I want it to be official. I want it to be serious.”

“Well, then let it become serious.”

“I’ll tell him this time,” Laurent says. He can do this. It’s been six years since Marlas. Auguste always speaks of Prince Damianos in respectful tones. Laurent picks up Damen’s hand, kisses his knuckles. “Promise.”

And Laurent means to tell Auguste that summer, he really does. He meant to upon his return last fall as well, and the time before that, and the time before that. It’s just that—well, it’s just that every time he returns from diplomatic visits to Delfeur or Ios, he’s struck again with the slow, deliberate way that Auguste moves now. Each year as late spring ripens into summer, he sees how it saddens Auguste that he still no longer has the vigor or endurance for hunts or long rides or anything more taxing than a slow turn around the gardens. Each year as fall deepens into winter, he sees how another year has gone by and the cold makes Auguste’s injuries ache just as much as they had the winter before. 

Auguste had nearly died on the battlefield at Marlas. But that wasn’t the whole of it. Even after he had survived the trip home to Arles, he almost died of fever, of wound rot, of the pneumonia his battle-damaged lungs nearly couldn’t shake. And he almost died of assassination, not one time but many. There were few ways to kill a king in the peak of youth and health without attracting undue suspicion, but endless subtle ways to hasten the death of a man in his sickbed. Their uncle, left to rule the court unchecked, had tried seemingly most of them, endless schemes which Laurent had only barely managed to avert and which left behind no conclusive evidence for Laurent to show the court. Even as Auguste had gained strength, the schemes had continued, until the day Laurent gave up trying to beat his uncle while playing by his uncle’s own rules and had simply arranged an accident of his own. 

After that, Auguste was safe, but the fallout from their uncle’s years ruling the court and admittedly-suspicious death left him with nearly as many enemies as allies. As prince, Auguste had been universally adored. As king, he faced a yearslong struggle to regain the allegiance of erstwhile allies. 

And all this was, at its root, because of Marlas. Because of Damianos. Auguste’s history with Damen wasn’t just the matter of an injury six years ago, not when that injury had colored every day of his life since. And Laurent can’t imagine a way of telling him that he loves Damen, wants a future with him, without it sounding like a betrayal. 

To make matters more awkward, Auguste has, for whatever reason, gotten it into his head to nag Laurent about romance. It’s uncomfortable enough to be keeping his relationship with Damen a secret from Auguste. It’s worse to lie, outright or by omission, every time Auguste asks him if there’s anyone Laurent is interested in pursuing. 

And then— “You know you can tell me anything, little brother,” Auguste says quietly, a few minutes after Laurent has let a conversation about an overly-flirtatious marquis from Lys lapse. 

Laurent swallows, mutely cataloging the darker corners of his past. He does not like to lie to Auguste. But he does.

And there are things he probably will never tell his brother about, things Auguste does not need to know, but also— “Actually, Auguste,” he makes himself say. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

And then he pauses, because he still hasn’t figured out a semi-workable phrasing. I’m in love with Prince Damianos, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still upset about what he did to you. I’m fucking the man who almost killed you, and I’m sorry but also I won’t stop. I know seeing the prince of Akielos this fall will probably be terrible for you but also when he asks to court me please say yes.

It’s Auguste who rescues him, after a moment or two of expectant silence. “Is this going to be you finally telling me about your romantic entanglement with Prince Damianos?” he says. “Because honestly, I’m getting sick of seeing you walking around looking guilty and sad all the time.”

“You knew?” Laurent says.

“Of course I knew! You, dear baby brother, are not very subtle. And I’ve had to hear all your reports from the negotiations with Akielos twice a year. Was I somehow not supposed to notice how you gradually stopped insulting Damianos and started telling me about all his varied and impressive positive traits?”

“I said that he was straightforward and committed to the good of his people, and thus that the negotiations were likely to be a productive use of time!”

“And then the trip after that, you said that he was an innovative thinker, a natural leader, and you couldn’t help but admire his tenacity. You said you didn’t mind having to go on hunts with him, which anyone who knows you understands is a major compliment, and when you said he was patient, you smiled that quiet smile of yours that means you are remembering something that made you very happy.”

“Auguste—”

“And yet! Whenever anyone suggests you have developed any fondness for the man, you deny it. Why go to such lengths to conceal a friendly working relationship?”

“Auguste—”

“And honestly, brother, even back when you hated him, I couldn’t help but notice you mentioned his appearance rather a lot. You were always complaining that he was ridiculously tall, or offensively muscular, or something along those lines.”

“I said he was a brute!”

“You also said that his eyes were, and I quote, ‘disgustingly soulful.’ Oh, and the letters! Was I not supposed to notice that in the last year your correspondence with the prince of Akielos has roughly quadrupled in volume and frequency, even as the official negotiations are reaching a standstill? There isn’t enough policy discussion to account for a tenth of the letters you write. There isn’t enough policy discussion to justify you going to Delfeur in person twice a year, and yet you insist on overseeing things personally each time anyway.”

“Auguste, I’m sorry, all right? I know that this must have been painful for you to witness, and I don’t want you to think I don’t care about everything you’ve been through.” He swallows. “But I don’t want to stop seeing Damianos.”

“All right.”

“‘’All right?’ You’re okay with it? Just like that?”

“He makes you happy. If your judgement of him is to be believed, then he sounds like a worthy man. And I trust your judgement.”

“But he stabbed you. And now I’m sleeping with him.”

“Well, we were at war. And it was years ago. And I’m fine. We’re at peace, the nation’s moving on, you’ve moved on in your opinion of him, I can move on as well.”

“It’s not that simple!”

“Why can’t it be? I only met him for about ten minutes. I’m sure there’s more to him than he revealed in a single duel. You have my blessing, Laurent.”

“How can you just—”

“Remember when your pony threw you and you broke your collarbone?”

“This is not the same, this is not even close to the same—”

“You snuck out of the infirmary to go to the stables and tell Chuckles you weren’t mad at him.”

“I was seven, he meant me no ill will, and the bone healed in a month. Also he was a horse,” Laurent grits out. “Damianos was—is—a grown man, responsible for his choices, the injuries he inflicted did lasting damage, and he was trying to kill you.”

“Well, no one is asking you to sleep with him,” Auguste says, in his reasonable-big-brother voice. 

Laurent lets out a breath, sits back in his chair. “I started managing the negotiations with Akielos so that you wouldn’t have to speak with him,” he says. “We said that it was because I could travel more easily, that it was because you could not justify spending so much time away from court. But in truth, I did not want you to have to be in a room with him, to have to learn to make polite conversation with him and pretend that Marlas did not happen, that it didn’t matter. If I have come to know him as far more than just the soldier who attacked you, if I have put his past actions behind me, come to care for him in spite of them—that does not mean I expect you to do the same. Could ever ask you to do the same.” 

“You’ve always been protecting me, all these years,” Auguste says softly. “Don’t think I don’t know it, or appreciate it. But let me be the protective big brother again once in a while? You’ve learned to let the past go and let yourself have the present you want with Damianos, because you’re in love with him. Allow me to let the past go and have the future I want, where my little brother is happy.”

He’s looking Laurent in the eye, gaze steady, and slowly Laurent allows himself to believe that Auguste is serious, that in his heart of hearts, he does not mind. That he is happy for Laurent. 

“Thank you,” he says. “For your blessing.” 

“Of course,” Auguste says. And then, “Well, when I say you have my blessing, I mean informally, of course. Prince Damianos will have to ask me himself.”

“You just want the chance to make him squirm,” Laurent says. 

“I just want the chance to make him squirm,” Auguste concedes, and he and Laurent break into quiet laughter, imagining it.