#would this count as an ed or is that just another occasional symptom of my mind being very very sick?

[robinsnest2111]

:^(

hate when it's less about "what would taste good rn?" and more about "not feeling like eating at all but there's lots of perishables and I gotta decide which will give me the least amount of nausea"

[cursedmoon-doll13]

A New Year.

(Hogwarts Uni AU Intro)

Cw: Typical Blood Racism, Swearing

Features S/I OCs: Jasmine, (mine) Scarlet, (@vincent-sinclair-deserved-better) & Minoes (@myers-meadow)

Word Count: 2.8k

Dividers by @/firefly-graphics

“Here we are, then. King’s Cross Station.”

The cabbie huffed gruffly. I checked the fare metre and, wincing, fished a few crumpled pound notes out of my purse. His eyes flashed for a moment, as if he’d noticed the bronze knuts and silver sickles gleaming at the bottom. I clasped it shut tightly, pressed the cash into his open palm and withdrew. 

“Thanks,” I told him, wrenching open the car door and swinging my legs out. The rush of cool, crisp London air felt like a shotgun blast to the face. 

“No problem.” 

I had barely hauled all my luggage out of the backseat before the taxi bustled away with a puff of smoke. Peaches meow-ed at me despondently from inside her carrier as I lifted her, shuffling her mittens against the bars, and my heart wavered. 

“Nearly there, baby,” I said softly. “Nearly there.” 

I glanced up at the sky. The clouds were cast in pearly white, though it occasionally threatened to release a patch of sunlight; or a spattering of rain. King’s Cross was packed with commuters in the early morning, and I cautiously nudged into a throng of people as I hurried inside, muttering apologies. 

When I caught a glimpse of a ruffled, tawny owl flapping in someone’s cage, I couldn’t help but grin a little. I followed them up to a quiet, inconspicuous brick wall and watched as they carefully leaned into it and disappeared altogether. After a few seconds, I did the same. Stumbling onto the hidden platform, I met a sparse gathering of young folk, garbed in jewel-toned scarves of green, blue, yellow, red. 

Well, evidently house spirit was strong this year. 

The Hogwarts Express welcomed me with a thundering air horn, expelling a thick jet of steam. Peaches yowled and writhed around in a panic, so offered her a consoling finger to nibble on as I boarded. Luckily, I found a free car; granted, I had made sure to get here as early as possible to avoid the crowds. I dropped my bags unceremoniously into the nearest booth. It was then I unclipped the carrier and allowed my cat to dive underneath the table. 

“I’m sorry, girl,” I cooed. She mewled quietly. 

Her unease was pacified a little as I soothed a finger over her striped, furry head. I was able to coax her out with some treats, and soon she was curled up and snug on my lap. As I unwound my sapphire scarf from my neck, I quickly checked my watch: 10:13. It would be over half an hour’s wait before the train left. 

Settling into my booth, I squirmed from the pack of butterflies whirling in my belly. You’ll get used to it, they told me. Soon it’ll lose its lustre, business as usual. But I could barely contain my excitement. Another year at Hogwarts! The only way I could resist the urge to shoot up and pace was by rummaging through my bag; my fingers skimmed over the latest Daily Prophet and soon it was in my hands, affectionately chin-rubbed by Peaches. 

The front page flicked past like an old black and white movie reel, featuring a gaggle of triumphant Quidditch players I couldn’t recall. I straightened it out, searching for the ‘short stories’ section; they had announced a while ago that they were holding a competition. My very-much-so muggle household had grown used to receiving news owls over the years, just as it had grown used to many strange and unusual things. Really, I was such an odd child that many of those magical peculiarities flew under the radar, but levitation is not a symptom unless the diagnosis is ‘witch.’ 

Then, a tentative rap on the glass spooked me out of my reverie. I looked up to see a violet-haired student steadying themselves against the car door. 

“Hey, am I allowed to sit in here? None of the other cars are… Um, accepting.” She shifted awkwardly from side to side, as if expecting me to hiss at her. 

“Uh, yeah, of course! Sit down.”  

They tip-toed in and closed the door shut behind them. I saw she was also struggling with a cat carrier. I grimaced as I felt Peaches’ claws dig into my thighs in alarm. She didn’t stay in my lap for long, opting to hide as far away from the intruder as possible. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare your cat,” said the visitor somberly. They casted a sad, longing gaze towards the antisocial Peaches.

“It’s okay, she’s just like this around other people.” I reassured her, and craned down to scratch my cat’s chin. “Doesn’t like anyone except me.” 

They nodded, sliding into the chair opposite to me. For a moment, I seriously wracked my brains trying to figure out if I had met her before. I knew, at least, that they couldn’t have been in my own house, because I would’ve made a point of it to befriend any other cat owner in my house. 

“Um, so what’s your name?” I asked, pushing my faltering glasses back up the bridge of my nose. 

“Scarlet. Scarlet Pimpernel,” she said simply. She undid the locks on the carrier and released two slinky cats. “The tabby’s Pip, cow cat’s Fiz.” 

“Aw,” I leaned forward to try and lure one over. “I’m Jasmine Daly. From Ravenclaw.” 

“Oh. That’s nice.” 

Silence. I turned back to my Daily Prophet and continued sifting through the usual quidditch feed and Skeeter’s latest gossipy drivel (“THE LOST GENERATION: Are our young wizards becoming lazier?”), past the continuous reports on Black and over the dull, meagre contest entries. Eventually, I got fed up and dug out one of my books to read instead, groaning at the sight of the well-worn pages partially fractured from the spine. Again. 

“I’m from Slytherin,” Scarlet spoke up finally. “But I’m also a muggleborn, so… Yeah, that’s basically why no one wants me around.” 

She chuckled, though it sounded rather forced. 

“Um, no worries. I’m not gonna kick you out or anything,” I said quickly, fumbling with my wand. “You’re fine.” 

I could’ve sworn they heaved a relieved sigh. 

“Reparo! There, that should do it… Sort of…” 

The atmosphere gradually relaxed, and after a few minutes, Peaches leaped back onto my lap with a squeaky chirrup, demanding attention. Pip, too, took to winding sleekly around my legs, though Fiz loafed safely beside Scarlet, muscles twitching. 

“… So, what’s your book about?” 

I peeked up over the cover at her. 

“‘Discovering Dragons,’” I said. “I know it looks childish, but I’ve found none other that goes as in-depth as this. Call it an old obsession of mine.”  

Dog-earing my page and turning it over gently in my hands, I felt a sort of nostalgic fondness swell in my chest. With its yellowed paper and peeling casing, it was nothing special, but it was the first token of the wizarding world I was truly able to call my own. 

“It’s about nine years old, this one,” I continued. 

“Huh. It looks… Scruffy.” 

“Yeah, I’ve only read it about fifty times, which is why it’s always falling apart. Poor thing probably just wants me to end it already.” 

As if to protest, the spine cracked ominously. 

“Hey, can I borrow that?” Scarlet suddenly asked. 

Nudging up my glasses again, I followed her pointed finger towards my discarded newspaper. 

“Um, sure.” 

My curiosity got the better of me, and I ended up distracted by the photograph of the feinting quidditch player on the back of it. Once or twice, I saw the paper sag down and reveal the headline: ‘Illegal Duelling Matches Endangering Local Muggles,’ before Scarlet drew it furtively closer. Quite engrossed, she pushed a few loose strands of purple hair back into her headband. 

“I love your hair, by the way,” I blurted out. 

For the first time, their mouth cracked into a smile. 

“Thanks. I dyed it a couple months ago.” 

Then, the compartment door slid open again. This time, I recognised our visitor a little: Minoes, who had been in my Ancient Runes class last year. 

“Scarlet, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Minoes was balancing an owl cage on her hip, her luggage hooked around her arm. At this, Scarlet pursed her lips morosely. 

“You know how people are with me.”

“Oh, I know,” said Minoes, turning politely to me now: “Hello. I don’t think we’ve really met before?”  

“Hi.” I tucked a stray lock behind my ear. “Um, we shared a few classes, but we haven’t spoken much. I’m Jasmine Daly.” 

“Minoes Vleerebosch, It’s nice to meet you.”

Whereas Scarlet dressed neutrally, Minoes’ emerald-green robes singled her out. Her necklaces clacked together as she sat down beside us. Her spotted owl chirped happily in its cage, seemingly oblivious to the hungry, feline stares and chop-licking. 

“This is Hannah Theresa,” Minoes told me, prying in a finger to stroke her feathers affectionately. 

“Awch, she’s awful cute,” I said. “Can I pet her?” 

“Yes, go on. She’s very gentle, she won’t peck you.” 

I shifted over a bit as Minoes opened the cage door and allowed me to reach a hand in. Hannah Theresa’s huge, black eyes stared back at me, as shiny as polished buttons. I brushed an experimental knuckle over her feathery head, and she felt soft as cotton. 

“Hannah Theresa always delivers my mail. I have lots of pen-pals to keep her busy, so it’s a good thing she’s so sweet-tempered with me.” 

“She’s lovely, such a wee dote…” 

Pip, meanwhile, had had quite enough of me by this stage, and padded over to rub Minoes’ ankles. 

“Hello. I know you,” she murmured, scratching him lovingly under the chin. “But who’s this?” 

Minoes nodded eagerly towards the curled up Peaches, who had taken shelter beneath the table in the face of yet another unknown intruder. 

“Oh, this is Peaches.” 

Her face lit up joyfully. 

“Hi, Peaches!” 

Minoes bent over to offer a hand. Peaches only dared a cautious sniff before burrowing further into the corner, seeking refuge behind my legs. 

“She’s just a bit shy…” I said dolefully. 

“That’s alright,” Minoes replied, straightening up. “I’m absolutely determined to win her over.” 

After some failed attempts, she brandished her wand - a smooth, elegant thing - and tapped her palm and each of her fingers, uttering something in Latin. To my surprise, this changed Peaches’ tune instantly, and soon she was purring and licking her hand; something she only ever did for me. 

“You must have a soft touch, Minoes,” I praised. 

“No, no,” she replied slyly. “It’s just a little trick I came up with�� Has much the same effect as catnip.” 

“You chose our seats well, I think,” Minoes told Scarlet, who smiled faintly at her, handing me back my crinkled Daily Prophet issue.

“Anything interesting in there?”

“Um. No, not really,” Scarlet claimed. 

Just then, I felt our surroundings jolt abruptly. 

“Oh, the train's going… Do you mind if I just stay here with you and the kitties?” Minoes asked me. 

“No, not at all, it’s totally fine.” 

I hummed as we exited the station and chugged off into the countryside. Still a perfect stranger, I drifted off into my own niche for a while. Minoes produced a roll of ornamented parchment and scratched at it neatly with a quill, while Scarlet pulled their wand out and used magic to braid a turquoise-hued bracelet. 

When the compartment door opened for a third time, even Pip ducked for cover. There, smirking down at us, was the sharp, pointed face of Draco Malfoy. 

I couldn’t help but go rigid on instinct. My past experiences with Malfoy were unpleasant - owing to my Muggleborn background - so I typically stayed clear from him. It was bizarre to see him without his gigantic orbiting satellites, Crabbe and Goyle. Their absence only unnerved me more. Why was he here? 

“I thought I could smell something vile,” Malfoy said smugly, turning his pale, baleful eyes on me. “I guess it was just the stink of mudblood.” 

“Must’ve caught a whiff of yourself, Malfoy.” 

“Oh no, Pimpernel. It’s definitely you.” 

Before I could even open my mouth, Scarlet had taken the initiative to sink their teeth in. Admiring Scarlet’s ferocious glower, I felt a surge of bravery. 

“Where’s your two big dirty limpets?” I said crossly.  

“None of your business, Daly,” he snapped, looming over haughtily without even sparing me a glance. “Shut your filthy mouth before I do it for you.” 

“Oh, give it a rest, Draco!” Minoes scolded. 

But Malfoy ignored her completely, his lips twitching into a nasty scowl. He met Scarlet’s withering glare with one of his own. Scarlet gripped their wand so tightly her veins strained blue, and for a brief moment I thought they might actually hex him.

“What the fuck do you even want, Malfoy? Potter’s not here,” Scarlet growled. “Or does any old pair of glasses have you pitching a fit?” 

“You disgust me just the same,” he spat angrily, eyes narrowing. “That goes for the both of you. You shouldn’t even have been allowed in.” 

“Draco!” Minoes cried. 

Scarlet scoffed. 

“I bet the only reason you were accepted was nepotism,” she said scathingly. “Do you bribe your ‘friends’ to pretend to like you, too?” 

The two continued to glare fiercely at each other. The air crackled with malignant energy, and I reached cautiously for my wand, heart rate spiking…

“You’re a waste of my time,” he snarled. “But watch yourself, Pimpernel. If you keep dragging your slime around, this year might just end up being your last.”

With that, Malfoy slid the glass door shut and strutted arrogantly back to his Slytherin clique. 

“What are you gonna do, Malfoy, tell your daddy on me!?” Scarlet called after him furiously. 

“Ignore him,” Minoes advised. “He’s not worth it.” 

Still, I saw that she had crumpled up her embellished parchment and was now smoothing it over. I slumped in my seat, still twinging with indignance. 

“Malfoy doesn’t typically wait for permission before he spews his bile,” I said flatly. 

“Of course, I understand,” she added quickly. “Being called horrible slurs like that, I’m sure it’s awful… Draco can be so immature. ” 

I sighed. I wished I could’ve fought back as fiercely as Scarlet, instead of falling into a moody silence like last year. I didn’t quite have the nerve yet, though.  

“Better a mudblood than a prat,” Scarlet muttered under her breath, pocketing their wand. 

“Yes, I would say so,” Minoes agreed coolly. 

I immediately decided to befriend them both. 

Fortunately, the rest of our journey resumed peacefully after that little incident. My companions and I fell into a nice rhythm, talking on-and-off between pastimes. I was surprised with how at ease I felt in their presence, considering that I had never properly spoken to either of them before. When the trolley witch hobbled by, we even shared a bag of sweets, which led to us scrambling after a runaway chocolate frog in order to keep the cats from poisoning themselves. 

All in all, I got disturbingly sparse reading done. By evening, the lamps had flicked on, our pets sleepy and quiet. Leaning against the window, I saw the cloud-filled indigo sky, and caught the first glimpse of Hogwarts’ archaic spires and twinkling lights 

The Hogwarts Express huffed and shuddered to a halt. Stretching, we guided the animals back into their carriers and filed out of our compartment to join the queue of yawning students. It was only now I truly realised how famished I was; sugar hadn’t really been enough to sustain me for the whole trip. 

“Jesus, my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut,” I groaned. “Well, I don’t reckon we’ll be sat at the same table, so it’s been nice chatting with you two.” 

“Oh, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never be seeing each other again,” Minoes said brightly. “I’m sure we’ll have classes together, just like last year.” 

“Maybe.” I smiled back, feeling somewhat hopeful. 

The night blanketed down thick and foggy, coating the ground in solemn, grey clouds, and it chilled me into a shiver as we left the Hogwarts Express behind. One of my favourite professors, Hagrid, was hailing us with a glowing lantern. I grinned and waved happily at him, but he was too preoccupied with corralling the rowdy newcomers to notice me. 

“Do you think we’ll be in the same potions class again, Minoes?” Scarlet called idly from behind me. “I know that you wouldn’t drop it, anyway.” 

For some reason, she sniggered. 

“Did you?” Minoes asked, arching one dark brow. 

“Nope! You’re stuck with me.” 

They drifted off into the Slytherin crowd and I lost sight of them. My body was still aching from being stuffed in a train car for so long. I climbed into one of the horseless carriages - though I knew from my own inquiries that they were pulled by the mysterious and fascinating thestrals - and slid in beside my housemate, Padma Patil. 

I felt a bubbly wave of giddiness wash over me again as we set off for the university proper; This year would prove to be a great one, I was sure of it. 

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (15/19)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Doctor's Disorders}

“Ugh, what is that smell?” Danny asked as he and Valerie approached Tucker.

“This,” Tucker held up a spray can. “It’s my new all-over body spray. I made it myself, I call it Foley by Tucker Foley. It combines with your natural odor to create a sweet, manly scent that smells different to everyone who sniffs it.”

Their noses scrunched up as Tucker started spraying himself.

“Tuck, you smell like a sweaty cookie.”

“By choice. The ladies will be swarming all over me.”

“Doubtful,” Valerie snorted. “You smell horrible.”

He pointed at her with the can. “You don’t count. You’re already dating Dan-”

The can slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground, spraying Valerie in the process.

She scowled as the smell of sports bra and sugar cookies washed over her. “You better hope this washes out,” she growled and shoved past him towards the locker room. Thankfully she had first period free so she could shower and drown her clothes in perfume. It didn’t completely help, but it was better. Maybe she should consider keeping a spare set of clothes in her locker. It’d help for the times she tears her clothes in a fight.

“Anyone in here?” Tetslaff called just as she finished fixing her hair.

“I’m here,” she said, tossing her mini curling iron into her locker. She grabbed her bag and walked towards the door to see Tetslaff eyeing her.

“You feeling okay, Gray? Any bug bites?”

“No. I’m fine. Why?”

“All students need to report to the gym. Anyone else here?”

She shook her head. “Bailey was in here, but she left a few minutes ago.

The PE teacher nodded and escorted her to the gym. She was surprised to see the entire student body either sitting or laying on the floor and bleachers, most of whom were glowing. The teachers were hovering over everyone as a man in a doctor’s uniform drifted through, occasionally stopping to talk to the students.

When he saw her, he came over. “And who do we have here?”

“Valerie Gray, what’s going on?”

“What symptoms is she showing?” he asked Tetslaff, ignoring Valerie’s question.

“None as far as I’ve seen,” she grunted and the doctor frowned behind his mask.

“Interesting. She’s the fourth one. Sit her with the others.” He gestured to the corner and Valerie smiled to see Danny, Sam, and Tucker waiting there.

They looked surprised when she joined them and Danny pulled her into a hug. “You okay?”

“Other than still smelling a little awful, I’m perfect. What’s going on?” she asked, pulling back but staying pressed into his side.

Sam gestured to the other students. “Some sort of ghost bug, literally. A whole swarm attacked the school and started phasing into people, resulting in that. You didn’t notice?”

“I’ve been in the showers.” She sent Tucker a look and he ducked behind Sam. “None of you got the bug?”

They shook their heads and Danny pointed off to the side, “Jazz did though.”

Valerie looked over to see Danny’s sister curled up on a mat, her body fuzzy at the edges. “Well, there goes the idea that prolonged exposure to ghost hunting equipment is what’s protecting us. Are your parents doing anything?”

Danny shrugged. “We’ve been in here the whole time. The doctor said he wanted us close since we’re the only ones showing signs of immunity. And they took our phones so I can’t call my parents.”

She smirked and took out her phone. “Looks like they forgot to take mine.”

Danny took it and the three crowded around him to keep him from sight.

“Do your parents have something that could fix this?” Sam asked as Danny dialed.

He thought about it for a second then smiled. “Mom, Dad… Yeah, I’m okay… Really? That’s weird. Why wouldn’t they tell you anything? Nevermind, I’ll explain everything, but can you guys grab the Ghost Catcher before you leave?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Is it just me or does Dr. Rand look really mad that his patients are being cured?” Valerie hummed.

Said doctor was currently standing off to the side as the teachers lead students through the ghost catcher, Danny’s parents sucking up the ghost bugs as they were pulled out.

Jazz took in his scowl with a frown. “Maybe it’s a pride thing? He was pretty much useless.”

“Or maybe he was part of a government conspiracy to experiment on us while we possessed ghost abilities,” Sam suggested.

“Sounds like something the Guys in White would do,” Danny muttered sleepily from his spot in Valerie’s lap.

“He’s a doctor. All doctors are evil,” Tucker agreed.

“What’s his problem?” Valerie whispered to her boyfriend.

“He’s afraid of doctors, nurses, hospitals, so on.”

“What’d you say his name was again?” Jazz asked, still staring at the man.

“Dr. Bert Rand.”

“Bertrand? Like Ms. Spectra’s gh-assistant?” Jazz stuttered.

The trio turned to her, then groaned, “Oh my god, we’re idiots.”

Valerie frowned as their voices nudged at her, but pushed it aside as Jazz asked, “What?”

“Spectra was a ghost, same for Bertrand. They must be behind the attack on the school,” Sam explained.

Valerie narrowed her eyes and moved Danny off of her. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Jazz bit her lip as the girl left, then nudged Danny. “You three should go too. You, uh, don’t know when you might get another chance.”

They frowned, but agreed quickly and left.

Jazz smiled and leaned back. Those three could take care of the ghosts. Now she just needed an excuse for when Valerie got back.

{Pirate Radio}

Jazz sighed as she relaxed on her blanket, only to frown when someone started messing with the radio.

She sat up to glare at Tucker. “Knock it off!”

He held up his hands and backed up.

“Come on, Jazz. This music bites,” Danny said. “It’s our turn to pick something to listen to.”

“I like it. It relaxes me.”

“Well, we do outnumber you four to one,” Valerie pointed out.

Jazz grabbed the radio and held it close to her, scowling at the younger teens that she had joined on the Ops Center for stargazing.

Just then, the ground began to rumble and a pirate ship of all things burst intangibly out of the street.

Jazz jumped to her feet and gestured her brother back. “Danny, you, Sam, and Tucker need to go. Uh, go get our parents. Downstairs. Out of view.”

“R-right, we’ll go get them,” Tucker said and the trio ran off.

“I thought your parents were out,” Valerie said.

“Oops, I forgot.” Jazz turned to the girl and was surprised to see her pulling a ghost pistol out of her bag.

The girl froze. “Oh, uh, Danny gave it to me. For, you know, protection?”

As cute as it was that Danny was so worried about his girlfriend, Jazz would have to talk to him about handing out weapons of all things.

“Got anything else in there?”

Valerie tossed her a thermos just as a group of pirate ghosts landed on the Ops Center. The two girls went to work blasting and sucking up ghosts. Jazz saw a pair heading for the shield and pointed them out to Valerie, but Danny or one of his partners cut them off. She turned back to the main group of pirates and smiled when she saw the other two flying through the air.

She frowned when they seemed to fire on nothing. “What are they doing?”

Valerie looked up, then gave her an incredulous look. “Fighting the ghost captain.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Weird,” she shot a headless pirate and Jazz sucked him in. “Can you hear him?”

“No.”

“Lucky you. He’s a brat. Maybe eight or nine years… Okay, so he’s eleven. Like that makes a big difference,” she snorted. Then her eyes widened and she barrelled into Jazz.

Something exploded behind them.

“You’ve never babysat, have you? Jazz asked as they picked themselves up. “Kids don’t like to be told they’re younger than they think they are.”

“I’ve only babysat actual babies. They don’t talk back,” Valerie said.

The ghost ship flickered then disappeared.

“What happened?”

“Doppelgänger caught the brat.”

The sound of a guitar-strumming echoed around them and two of Danny’s trio slammed into the ground in front of the girls.

“Ember’s back,” they said, rubbing their heads. “You guys might want to either get inside or put on Specter Deflectors before you get hypnotized.”

“M. Bersback? The guy who gave us that awful Vapor Drone? He’s a ghost?” Valerie asked.

They stared at her blankly, then one threw their hands in the air. “Oh come on! That's not a clue. That's a billboard! We really got to start paying more attention to these things!”

{Reign Storm, Part 1}

“Did you get the book report done?” Valerie asked as she passed Danny a water bottle.

“Mm-hm.” He took the bottle and tried to drink it.

“Lid Danny,” she chuckled.

He scowled and took the lid off. “I think you beat the ghost out of me.”

“Then I did my job,” she chuckled. “Seriously though, you’re doing really good.”

“Can I have my black belt then?”

“Not quite. Now come on, we’ve still got fifteen minutes before we need to clean up.”

He groaned, but pushed himself to his feet and followed her over to the wrestling mat. Jazz had somehow talked Tobias, the wrestling coach, into letting them use it for their sparring in the morning after Tuesday’s practice in return for cleaning up after. It was a lot better than sparring at home, even if it did mean getting up way too early.

Of course, being at school meant there were sometimes distractions.

“Think fast, Fentoni!”

Danny turned just as Valerie caught the football that was headed for him.

“Unless you’re here to spar, then get lost, Dash,” she huffed, tossing the ball to Kwan.

“Spar with Fenton?” Dash laughed and Kwan joined in.

“You’d snap him in half before he could even throw his first punch!”

“I thought I said to get lost,” Valerie growled stepping between them and Danny.

Dash leered at him. “You gonna let a girl fight your battles.”

Danny raised an eyebrow as Valerie stiffened. “Now you f-ed up.”

“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean, Baxter?” she asked, cracking her knuckles.

Kwan grabbed Dash’s shoulder and whispered something that made Dash pale.

“J-just that Fenton’s too weak to fight his own battles, he has to rely on his girlfriend to do it for him. I did-din’t mean, you know, that a girl couldn’t kick butt.”

“Nice save,” Danny said and Dash gave him a death glare.

“Leave,” Valerie said.

They did.

“I’m definitely going to pay for that later,” Danny chuckled as he got into position on the mat.

“If you’re not going to fight back then stop antagonizing him,” she said.

“I’ve considered fighting back.”

“Then why don’t you.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t met Sidney Poindexter, then.”

“Who?”

“He’s the ghost who haunts my locker. He gets huffy with me if I try to get back at Dash. I was putting my annoyingness to full use on Dash when we first met and Sidney is paranoid I’ll do it again. According to him, I’m just as much of a bully as Dash if I do and he hates bullies.”

“Need me to take care of him?”

“Nah, we’ve got a truce. He’s not too bad. I just can’t pull anything on Dash without risking a lecture from him. And he’s still learning modern slang so a lecture from him is even worse than one of Lancer’s hip and funky fresh talks.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Do you guys know why Nathan’s been giving me evil eyes?” Danny asked as the trio walked home.

“He’s got a crush on Valerie. He’s ticked you and her are dating,” Tucker explained.

“He came up to me the other day and tried to tell me I needed to, Get your cheating boyfriend away from my Valerie! It took me fifteen minutes to get him to back off and I think he still believes you’re two-timing Valerie and I,” Sam said.

“We’re dating? Sam, why didn't you tell me? I'd have put my book down.”

Sam shoved him towards his stoop. “I want to break up. It’s not me, it’s you.”

“Okay, but I get Tucker in the divorce.”

Tucker shook his head and linked arms with Sam. “Sorry, Danny, but you knew I was a gold digger going into this.”

Sam shoved him away as well. “You can have him.”

“Changed my mind, he’s yours now.”

“You’re both awful,” Tucker fake whined and marched off.

“See you tomorrow,” the two yelled at his retreating back.

Danny turned to Sam. “Are you going to head out for patrol or do you want a snack first?”

“Depends, what’s the likelihood your food’s contaminated?”

“My mom and dad are partway through a new invention.”

“Pass.”

“You guys are ridiculous,” he called as she went to the nearest alleyway.

“Ectoplasm’s not a veggie,” she called back.

“Okay, fair,” he snorted and opened the door. “I’m home. Anything happen while -”

Danny cut off as he saw his family in the living room surrounding a certain fruit loop.

“Ah, hello, Daniel!”

“You!” he shouted, tossing his bag aside and marching up to the group. “What are you doing here?”

Some of his anger lifted as he saw his mom accidentally poor tea right onto Vlad’s lap. “Totally valid question.”

“Still steaming?” Vlad asked in his creepy stalker voice.

“You have no idea,” she growled.

Vlad turned his attention to Danny. “I was just, you know, passing through. And then I saw that marvelous battlesuit and thought, since I can't just destroy Jack and take it, I suppose I'll steal its secrets right out from under his nose!”

Danny’s fists clenched as Vlad met his dad’s eyes with a smile and the two started laughing.

“Oh I swear, I am such a josher,” he held his cup up to Danny’s mom. “More tea please.”

She poured it on his head.

“Not there! Ooh!”

Danny’s mom stomped off and his dad followed.

“I don't know what you're up to, Plasmius,” Danny started in a whisper, then blinked. “Actually, I do. You just told me.”

“That’s right! And say a word and I'll share your secret with your little friend.”

Danny stared at him blankly. “What friend?”

“Miss Gray.”

“How do you even -”

Danny was cut off when an alarm sounded through the house. His dad ran back into the room and hit a hidden button to bring up a radar system.

“Galloping goblets, it's the Ecto-Exodus Alarm!”

“The Ecto-whaty-what?” Jazz and Danny asked.

“The Ecto-Exodus Alarm! An alarm that only goes off when we're about to face a massive ghost invasion!”

Danny faked reaching into his pocket so he could grab the Fenton Phones out of his Space Fold. “I need to make a call!”

He felt Vlad’s eyes on his back as he ran upstairs, but ignored them.

“Sam, Tucker, please tell me one of you can hear me?” he said into the phones and through their link as he shut his door.

“What’s wrong?” Sam said.

“Ghost invasion. Big one. Coming right at us,” Danny said and transformed. “We need to get back here right now.”

Danny’s ghost sense went off.

“Too late.”

Danny flew out of the house as ghosts came pouring out of the portal and onto the street. His eyes landed on Johnny and Kitty and he flew towards them.

“Hey Thirteen, what’s going on?” he asked as he came level with the bike.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” Kitty said, turning to him. “Pariah Dark’s back.”

“Who?”

“If you don’t know, we’re not going to tell you,” Johnny snorted.

“Come on. We’ve been letting you mostly run wild as long as you don’t hurt anyone or destroy anything. Can’t you just tell us?”

Johnny growled and stopped the bike. “Look, we don’t know too much. He’s way, way before our time. All we know is that he’s called the King of All Ghosts and someone woke him up. Now he’s trashing the zone and looking for some ring that will give him ultimate power or something when paired with his crown. He’s powerful so everyone’s getting while the gettin’s good. Speaking of which.”

Johnny took off, but Danny didn’t bother to chase him. Instead, he turned to Sam as she joined him.

“This is bad. No kidding.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tucker flinched as his ghost sense went off for the fifteenth time. Where were all these ghosts coming from? He hoped he got into range of the mind link soon. Sam at least should be transformed so he should be getting close. Why did he have to choose today of all days to visit the gaming shop in Elmerton?

Someone blasted him and he groaned. He’d wanted to regroup with his partners before picking any fights. He turned to his opponent and groaned again. “What are you doing in town, fruit loop?”

“Haven’t we already been through this, Daniel?” Vlad asked flying closer and Tucker rolled his eyes.

So Danny or Sam have talked to him then. He hoped they were okay. “Refresh our memory.” Goosebumps swept over him and he gestured towards the ghost. “Are you the reason all these ghosts are around?”

“I’m flattered you think I could organize all this.”

“You’re right. We forgot you put everything into intelligence and strength. No way you could convince all these ghosts to listen with your charisma being a dump stat,” Tucker said, nodding. “Our bad.”

Vlad looked confused for a moment, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not here to play games, Daniel.”

“Then you’ve got the wrong half-ghost.” If he didn’t want jokes, he should have gone with Sam.

Vlad scowled at him, then he was being grabbed from behind. He looked up to see another Vlad holding him. The older halfa pinned one of his arms behind his back and held the other out to the first Vlad.

“Let go of us, creep!”

“Calm down, Daniel. I’m not going to hurt you,” Vlad one said, flying closer and grabbing his wrist. “I simply need you to hold onto something for me.”

“And why would we ever help you?”

Vlad one disconnected his glove from the hazmat and pulled it off, revealing green skin and black nails.

Wow, Sam would like those.

“Because this is a powerful relic,” Vlad two explained as Vlad one slipped a green and black ring onto Tucker’s middle finger. “One which I’m sure you’d want to keep safe and out of the hands of dangerous ghosts.”

“Like you?”

Vlad one smirked and replaced his glove.

“If it’s so powerful, why would you give it up?” Tucker asked as the Vlads let him go and merged together.

“That is for you to discover on your own. Ta!” He teleported away.

“We need to get a restraining order or something,” Tucker muttered, rubbing his shoulder. He glanced down at his hand uncertainly. Vlad could certainly have been lying, but if he wasn’t, Tucker couldn’t just toss the ring and risk it ending up in the wrong hands.

With a sigh, he continued on his way. The trio could figure this out together. Thankfully he only had to fly for a few minutes before his mind connected to Sam and Danny.

[vanxcks]

how delicate

Three things happen before Eddie Kaspbrak shows up, hair dripping, in day-old clothes, nothing on him but a dead walkie-talkie, on Richie Tozier’s doorstep. His fanny pack—his mom had replaced the “lost” one quickly enough—lays abandoned in his room; the walkie-talkie is clenched tightly in his fist.

For the second time in his life, Eddie runs away from home.

Word Count: 4839

Three things happen before Eddie Kaspbrak shows up, hair dripping, in day-old clothes, nothing on him but a dead walkie-talkie, on Richie Tozier’s doorstep. His fanny pack—his mom had replaced the “lost” one quickly enough—lays abandoned in his room; the walkie-talkie is clenched tightly in his fist. 

Richie is shocked to see him. 

“Eds,” he says, uncharacteristically succinct. “What’re you doing here?”

“Can I just come in, please?” Eddie asks, rubbing his arms. They’re covered in goosebumps. “I can’t be at that house any longer.” He’s itching to head inside, wrap up in a blanket. The summer’s finally ending, autumn showing itself in brown leaves and occasional brisk air, and that on top of being in the rain is a sure enough way to get hypothermia. He feels the panic setting in, and he takes a deep breath. 

You’re strong, Eddie. (Fragile.) You can do this. (Delicate). Fuck.

“Are you okay?” Richie asks. He doesn’t invite Eddie in, which from anyone else Eddie would find rude, but Eddie stopped being offended by Richie years ago.

“Yeah, if you could hurry the fuck up?” Eddie prompts, words quick. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“Yeah, of course, Eds,” Richie says, a little crease between his eyebrows. Uncharacteristic again. He turns around and walks inside, letting Eddie follow him. “Sorry, my sister’s not free right now. She got crabs, like I told her she would, and I said you probably got it from your mom, but she didn’t believe me. Actually, she told me to get the fuck out of her room, but anyway, I thought you should know, since you always seem so interested—”

“Can I have a towel?”

Richie pauses, mouth open, but only for a moment. “What’d you do, jump in a lake? I knew you were an idiot, but you do know that you’re not supposed to jump in the water fully clothed, right? Or did you run into Belch Huggins again? Eddie, you’re a fuckin’ twig, I don’t know how you can keep standing up to them. What’d you say to make them so mad? Did you tell them they were going to contract chlamydia or something? I’m not sure their pea brains would even be able to understand—”

Eddie lets him talk, not bothering to yell over him like he might have two months ago. Not because he’s anymore willing to tolerate Richie’s idiocy than he was. He’s just too tired to open his mouth right now.

That said, it really is getting cold. “Pea brain? You’re one to talk, trashmouth.” Richie’s face splits in a grin, and Eddie can’t help but half-smile back. “If you won’t get me a towel, I’d be happy to get one from your sister’s room. I know my way around.”

“Hey, I already told you she has crabs, right? Probably from you.”

“Shut up, Richie.” 

“Just checking,” Richie says, grinning good-naturedly. Eddie shivers.

--

[March, 1989]

Eddie is eleven when he gets his first panic attack. It’s after they find Richie’s backpack, still in his locker, the door on the linoleum floor and warped from where Bowers tore it off its hinges.

Eddie is the one that finds it.

“I swear to god, guys,” he’s saying, one hand on the strap of Richie’s backpack and the other ushering Bill along, “if we’re late again Mr Reynolds is gonna kill me—”

“Y-y-you haven’t been l-late in weeks,” Bill says.

“I swear he hates me, though. Last time I was one measly minute late and he held me back. I swear when he dies and they do an autopsy, they’ll find a stick up his ass. I bet you a million dollars.”

“I’d want to hear the story behind that,” Richie says, flailing away under Richie’s hand.

“Of course you do,” Stanley says as they round the corner.

“No, I’m serious! I mean, how did it get up there? I bet it was some freaky sex thing, you know?” 

He chatters on as they reach their lockers. Eddie grabs his own bag, then, after waiting a moment to see if Richie will pause in order to get his own, reaches into Richie’s locker.

And then he screams.

“Eddie?” Richie asks, spinning. Then, “Oh, my god,” as he looks at his backpack. “Holy shit! Bowers took a shit in my bag! He actually fucking did!” Richie cries. “I really didn’t think he was the sort of person that would keep his promises! Look, he tore the door off and everything.”

“That seems unnecessary,” Stanley says, looking down at it, “you always leave it unlocked.”

“Do you see this shit?” Richie goes on. “I can’t believe this. Eddie, do you see this shit? Eddie?”

Eddie’s fumbling for his inhaler, unzipping his fanny pack, trying to keep taking deep breaths. “That’s.” He gasps. “That’s so fucking disgusting, oh my god. Oh my god.” He takes a puff, holds his breath, counts to five. Then another. He wipes his hand off on his pants. How many different types of bacteria are there in feces? It’ll probably have gotten in his fingernails, all over his skin—how long will that take to wash off? What if he has a paper cut? God, then it’ll get infected. Is his heart supposed to be beating so loud? So fast?

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, but his voice sounds far away. It’s almost quiet behind the jackhammering that is Eddie’s chest. He reaches out to touch Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie flinches away. “Eds, are you okay?”

“I’m having a fucking...I’m having a fucking heart attack and you ask if I’m fucking okay?” Eddie gasps. What are the symptoms again? Pain in your arm, and in your chest, too. He’s got that. Pain in his chest. That’s one off the checklist. And fuck, if he could hear himself think over that thump, thump, thump—”Holy shit. Holy fucking...fucking shit. I am not dying in the school hallway,” he gets out, hand clutching at his own chest.

“E-Eddie, what’s going on?” Bill asks, gripping his backpack strap tight.

Richie grabs Eddie’s heaving shoulder. “Hey, are you serious? Is this real? Should I call 911?” 

“You think I’m fucking faking a heart attack?” Eddie snaps, and then he bends double, gagging. 

“I’ll d-d-do it,” Bill says, and runs off to find a phone. 

Eddie falls a little; Stanley catches and steadies him, lowering him so that he’s sitting on the ground. Richie puts a hand on his back, rubbing little circles there, telling him again and again that it’s gonna be okay, that an ambulance is coming, that they won’t let anything happen to him. And Eddie really, truly, completely believe that this is it. He keeps his eyes open, etches his friends’ faces into his mind. If he’s going to go, he’s not going to forget them. If there is an afterlife, Eddie is bringing that memory, of all of them, with him. His best friends holding him.

It isn’t a heart attack, in the end. The doctor call it a panic attack. Eddie is diagnosed with anxiety on March twenty-fourth, nineteen-eighty-nine. Now, he supposes, it’s the only one of the diagnoses that isn't bullshit. Of course, his mom doesn’t let him go home just yet. She’s terrified, absolutely scared shitless. She leaves Eddie alone in the hotel room for some hours, and when she comes back, she tells him that he’s going to have to stay in the hospital for several days.

“I thought it wasn’t that serious,” Eddie says quietly. He always speaks quietly with his ma. He knows that he’s the delicate one, of the two, but sometimes it seems like she’s the one that’s going to break at any moment. Fragile, like one touch could shatter her.

“I know, honey,” she says comfortingly, even though that’s not what he needs or what he was asking. “They just want to monitor you, make sure it’s not something more serious.”

“Okay, mommy.”

“Now go to sleep. You’ve been very badly frightened, I’m sure, so make sure to get some rest.”

He nods, and she sits down in the little chair in the corner of the room, pulling out a magazine.

It’s a long two weeks.

--

Soon, Eddie is sitting wrapped up by Richie's heater in the basement. They've talked about the basement before—about all of it. About how they can't go into dark rooms on their own, about how sometimes they wake up in the night to learn that they've been crying out in their sleep. They've talked about how they can't even see a yellow raincoat on the street without having it all come crashing back, without suddenly not being able to breathe. 

Eddie can't help but think how much easier that July would have been if he'd had his friends. Maybe it wouldn't have made him less afraid, but at least he would have been afraid with them. 

"You still haven't said why you're all wet. Unless it's sweat, in which case you were either having really amazing sex—and if I’m right, I want all the details, like who found your scrawny ass attractive and their address so I can go beat them up for taking your viginity before I could—or you actually had to lift something heavy for once in your life—"

"Hey, I didn't ask to be fucking taken out of PE." Eddie didn’t. He really, really didn’t.

"I didn't say you asked, but now that you’ve mentioned it, maybe if you'd been there it wouldn't have been quite so fucking torturous. I swear to you, Mr. Kravitz kept staring at my ass," Richie says, warming up. "I mean, I don't blame him, but jesus fuck, he's a teacher and I'm but a helpless—"

"It's not sweat, okay? It's fucking rain. Are you happy now?" 

Richie doesn’t slow down. “It hasn’t rained since morning, why the fuck—”

“You know, believe it or not, I didn’t actually come here to hear you talk my ear off for an hour, and I’m having a bit of a crisis at the moment, so maybe if you could shut the fuck up, that would be perfect,” Eddie snaps, and Richie goes quiet for a moment.

“Well, out with it!” he yells suddenly in a terrible British accent, loud enough to make Eddie jump. “The doctor’s in, come on, what’s wrong?”

“Jesus, really? The british guy?”

“I said out with it! No use coopin’ it up, better just get it over with!” He’s still yelling, brash and obnoxious.

“You know,” Eddie snaps, grabbing his walkie-talkie and stuffing it into his pocket, “I thought this was a good idea, to come here, but clearly—”

“Wait,” Richie cries, standing up a little. Eddie looks at him expectantly. Richie quiets. “I’m sorry, I—please. I’m an idiot. You don’t have to tell me.”

Eddie stands there for a moment, and then sighs. “Do you have any music?” he asks.

“Oh, absolutely,” Richie says, jumping up. Eddie follows him upstairs to his room, not mentioning the fact that Richie isn’t really allowed to play music after nine pm, thankful that Richie doesn’t mention it either. 

--

[July, 1989]

July that year is the longest month of his life. It’s a stifling cycle of taking a shower, taking his pills, reading and rereading and rereading, and then pills and shower and sleep. Rinse and repeat. If he’s lucky, he’ll get his hands on a newspaper. Everytime he does, he skims through it in a frenzy. He always pinches the paper too tight, turns the pages a little too wildly, and he knows it could worry his ma, but he’s always terrified he’ll see something new. A new Local Girl Missing headline. A body found. 

Every day there’s nothing, but every day Eddie checks.

They’d beaten it. They’d chased the monster back into the sewers, where it belonged. And Eddie had come back safe, to a loving mother and a clean and healthy household, and he should be okay. He should be free. He is free.

But It still has a hold on him, too strong for comfort.

It’s not just the newspapers, either. It’s the things he sees in the shadows at night. The way he’s taken to sleeping with a light on. It’s easy to explain to his mom; she probably wouldn’t question it anyway. Anything for her little boy. 

The lights don’t reach everywhere, though. And he’s convinced that there’s something behind the desk, in the closet, waiting to pounce on him from behind a door. Yellow eyes, glowing in the dark. A gleeful, burbling laugh.

A torn face. Blood, dripping in the wrong direction. A leper, sores oozing, rotted fingers resting on his shoulder. That day in the house shows up again and again in his dreams, every night. And every night Pennywise tells him something different. “Poor Eddie. Poor pathetic, delicate thing.” And “Your friends left you, didn’t they? Left you all alone.” Some nights, it’s “Did you think that by locking yourself inside your little house you can escape me? Oh, no, Eddie Spaghetti. That just makes it easier for me.” 

He wakes shaking, sweating, covers kicked onto the floor. And then he picks them up, lays them over him, and lies there, eyes shut, awake and aware, until the sun comes through the curtains and he can hear his ma walking down the stairs. 

Eddie knows it’s not her fault. He knows she just wants to protect him. He knows that he’s sick and that this is all for his own good. But he can’t help but entertain the idea, once or twice, that he could find some way out. He wants someone to talk to about all of this. He needs someone to talk to about all of this. And it’s not like he can just tell his mom that he and his friends got attacked by a killer clown. No, they’re the only ones. And they’re impossibly far away.

Instead, he thrashes at night. He leaves the lights on, keeps a wary eye on the shadows, and doesn’t even look in the direction of the sewer. He clenches his fists until there are little bloody half-moons in them...and then scrubs them clean, over and over and over again, wincing as the disinfectant touches the cut.

The Loser’s club survived the clown, but did Eddie? Is he alive after all? He’s not always sure.

--

They end up curled up on top of the covers, Eddie scooched over until he’s practically in Richie’s lap. The music is almost as quiet as it can get, but Richie makes up for it by yelling along to the lyrics, holding up a pen to his mouth like a microphone. 

His voice is godawful, and it must show on Eddie’s face, because Richie pokes him in the cheek and says, “Oh, is there something wrong with my singing? Is there?”

“Stop fucking—get off of me!” Eddie cries, with is a fun joke, because he’s the one almost on top of Richie.

“Is it not good enough for your highness?” Richie shouts, adn then belts out one of the riffs. “Huh?” He pokes Eddie in the cheek, and Eddie laughs, pushing him.

“You’re so fucking ridiculous.”

Richie doesn’t reply to that, just keeps on singing, wild and drunken. Eddie joins in, and then they’re both giggling like idiots.

It’s such a sweetly familiar scene that Eddie almost feels alright, for a moment. 

After a couple songs, the music switches to something quieter, more relaxed, and Eddie and Richie quiet down.

“Don’t your parents have an issue with you playing music while they’re asleep?” Eddie asks, because of fucking course he has to bring up parents. And now he’s fidgeting again, antsy and stressed out and he can’t get the image of his ma crying in his absence out of his head. Of her shutting the door on him gently every time she left the house, locking it.

But Richie seems totally oblivious to that. “Nah, they’re not home.” 

It occurs to Eddie that it hadn’t seemed strange for Richie’s parents not to come downstairs, for them not to greet him or check up on him. “You’re so lucky they let you stay home alone,” Eddie says, resting his head on Richie’s shoulder. He can feel Richie’s breathing, can feel him glance toward Eddie and then away.

“Yeah,” Richie says, smiling a little. “Can’t imagine your mom would let up on her reign of terror for one second and let you actually have fun.”

Eddie hms. “Reign of terror? For some reason I thought you liked my mom.” Not seriously, but.

“Oh, I do, Eddie Spaghetti, I do.”

--

[August, 1989, and after]

The seven kids stand in the fading light, outside the house on Neibolt street for the final time. Or what they hope is the final time. Twenty-seven years—so much can happen. Will they still be friends? Will they have long split? Will Eddie have raised a family, or will he still be alone? 

Future. He might have a future. They all might.

He’d thought so many times that they would die, this summer. Seeing the rotting, sore-ridden fingers connected to the rotting-sore-ridden person in front of him. Pennywise, inches from his face. Richie’s hand on his cheek—a pathetic, last ditch effort at comfort. (It didn’t work as a comfort, strictly, but it stuck in Eddie’s mind for the whole month he was at home. He hadn’t wanted Pennywise’s face to be the last thing I saw. For some reason it makes him feel warm inside.) 

Suddenly, things don’t seem so bleak.

Then Eddie gets home, and things go back to the way they were. The way they were, except that everything’s tinted by the fact that Eddie knows. Eddie knows his meds are fake, that he isn’t sick, that his childhood was taken by nothing more than an overprotective mother. 

God, he was a fucking idiot. He didn’t even know what his sickness was—his ma hadn’t told him anything more than careful, sweetie, and you know how delicate you are. Did he play along with it because he believed her? Because he was just as terrified of his dying as she was? Or just because it was easier to do that than face facts.

After Neibolt, after Georgie and the clown and all of the horror that Eddie can’t share, his mom stops keeping him inside. He leaves the house quietly with a note on the kitchen table. When he comes home, there’s no more evidence of his ma’s worry than her pursed lips and the worried divot between her brows—he’d inherited it—and they speak nothing of it. 

Eddie finds himself spending more and more time with Richie, as things progress. Richie never comes to Eddie’s house—Eddie’s willing to push his luck a little, but shoving the fact that he’s meeting Richie in his mom’s face would be too far. Not that his meeting up with Richie is a capital-t Thing. Of course it’s not. Because even though Eddie looks at Richie sometimes and can’t look away, even though Richie pulled Eddie close when they thought they were about to die, even though Eddie secretly loves it when Richie pinches his cheeks and calls him cute, doesn’t mean Richie likes Eddie. Because Richie isn’t like that. No, fuck that—because they’re both boys, and that’s not how it works.

If any of his friends had to show their faces at his house, Richie would probably be the worst choice. Eddie’s ma hates Richie with a passion—”dirty boy,” she calls him. When they were little, Richie had come over to Eddie’s house for sleepovers almost every week, at least until they tried to climb out the window one night and sneak into the playground. It had all gone fine—or the climbing out the window part had, at least. But Eddie tripped on the sidewalk and skinned his knee, and the cut ended up getting infected. He was sick at home for weeks.

(Now, after everything that has happened, Eddie has to wonder if any of his sicknesses were real. Did he ever hear the diagnosis from the doctor themself? Eddie can’t even remember.)

So Eddie bikes to Richie’s house, or he finds him waiting outside the arcade for him. They buy ice cream, wander through the park. Eddie brings comic books to Richie’s house and they blast music and eat a frankly disgusting amount of chocolate. Richie seems to have an endless supply of peanut butter cups in in his bedroom. 

Eddie has been friends with Richie for years—he’d call them best friends, if he didn’t know that Richie would tease him mercilessly for it. (Or he’d pinch his cheeks and call him adorable, which is just as bad, really.) But something about hanging out with him, separate from the group, has felt different, lately. Slightly charged. Electric in their slight touches, in the way Richie grabs Eddie’s hand, in the way Eddie catches Richie looking at him over his Batman. Eddie thinks he likes it.

Things go on as they would. Considering how their summer had gone, considering that he’s Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, things are good. Happy. Peaceful.

Eddie feels alive, for the first time in years. Not delicate, alive. 

And then, one day, Eddie wakes up in the morning, and his mom is sitting at the foot of his bed, watching him. 

Okay.

"Good morning, Eddie," his ma says softly, placing a hand on his leg. 

"Good morning," Eddie replies, fucking confused but trying his best to keep it out of his voice.

"Eddie," she says, using his name again, which is usually a bad sign, "I went into the bathroom this morning, and I noticed your fanny pack hanging from the door." 

"Yeah, that's where I always leave it."

"I know, and I opened it, just to check to see if your meds needed to be topped up."

Technically, the meds never need to be topped up. They never needed to exist in the first place. But Eddie keeps his mouth shut. 

"I noticed," she continues, and it occurs to Eddie that the flatness of her voice seems to be wavering, like she's forcing something down, "that there were more pills in the jar than there should be. Haven't you been taking your pills, Eddie?"

Fuck. He hadn't been taking the pills since Neibolt, but he'd been careful to do away with them anyway. Flush them down the toilet, or let them go down the drain. He'd thought it had been a slightly silly precaution, but apparently his ma really was paying attention.

It makes his stomach hurt a little, and he tells his fingers not to itch for his inhaler.

"You were counting my pills?" he asks, voice a little hoarse.

"I'm only looking out for you, Eddie," she says, and his stomach definitely hurts.

"I don't need those meds, ma," he replies, voice edging up a couple decibels. "I'm not sick."

"You are, Eddie. You are sick. You know that. The doctors said it, remember? Remember that?"

Eddie tries to stand, tries to get out of his bed, but his ma puts a hand on his leg. His head knows that she really is just trying to help him, that she's his mother, that she knows what's best. But something else says that only one of those things is really true. "Doctors? All I remember is you coming into my hospital room and saying that I need to stay overnight for a scrape on the knee!"

"Sweetie," she says, her tone saying loud and clear that you're being unreasonable, "you could have gotten an infection."

"It was a scrape on the knee, ma!" he cries, wrestling his leg away and scrambling out of his bed. He's not sure, all of a sudden, why his heart is beating so fast. "Keeping me in the hospital, it—it was irrational."

"I was only looking out for you, Eddie," she says tenderly.

"Stop saying that!" he yells. "I'm not fucking sick, and I just want to have a normal life and—and not have to take fucking meds with me everywhere I go—"

He hears it first. It takes a moment for the pain to come, for him to realize that she's slapped him. Shit. 

Eddie's ma brings a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and frightened. "Eddie," she gasps, "Eddie, I'm so sorry."

Eddie just stands there dumbstruck, staring at her. He's never been hit in his life—not by anyone other than fucking It. 

"I didn't mean to, I love you, you know I didn't mean to—" she says, reaching out for what looks like a hug.

And suddenly he's in that house on Neibolt street again. There's a painted and awful face jeering at him, and he's cornered, and he can't fucking breathe, and he just turns and opens the door and leaves. Just fucking leaves. He's not even running, at first. There is no noble rescue. There is no Beverly, in the sewers. No heroic deed ahead of him. He just walks down the stairs, and then speeds into a jog, and then opens the door and fucking sprints down the street.

He can't hear his ma calling after him. He can't hear anything.

It rains. He wanders the city for hours, not keeping track of time, panicking and then convincing himself he’s going to be fine and then panicking again. Where can he go? What can he do? He doesn’t want to go back, but should he?

Who is someone he trusts? Who he knows isn’t going to send him home, who will listen to him, no matter what?

So he ends up at Richie’s house.

They sit there in silence for a little while, the only sound Freddie Mercury crooning through the radio speakers. 

“I’m not sick,” Eddie says quietly, eyes directed unfocusedly at the comics lining the bookshelf across the small bedroom.

“What?”

“I’m not fucking sick, Richie,” Eddie says, and he’s too tired to snap at him.

“So did you make all of that up just so you couldn’t hang out with us? I thought you were deathly athsmatic or some shit,” Richie says. There’s laughter in his voice. He doesn’t get it.

“No—” Eddie says, and he sits up, widening the distance between them so he can look Richie in the eyes. Richie’s eyes widen slightly. “I’m not sick. I—all my meds were, were—placebos. Fakes.”

“Wait, what the fuck? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, Richie, I—I don’t fucking know! I don’t know what to think. All my life my ma has told me one thing, and then the girl at the pharmacy, she—she said something else.”

“Hey,” Richie says softly, putting a hand on Eddie’s knee. 

Eddie ignores him. “And then I confronted my ma about it right before, before Neibolt, but she seems so—goddam she seems so vulnerable, and I just—I don’t know what to do, I really dont—”

“Eds, Eds,” Richie says, moving his hand to Eddie cheek and making him meet his eyes. “Slow down.” Eddie stares at him, chest heaving, and he reaches for his fanny pack, for his inhaler. 

“Fuck, oh, fuck,” he gasps, wringing his hands, “oh, god, I need my inhaler, oh shit—”

“Eddie, Eddie, stop!” Richie shouts, grabbing Eddie’s hands and holding them still. “You’re spiraling, and when you do that you need your inhaler, and you clearly don’t have it right now, and apparently you don’t even fucking need it, whatever that means, so just—just shut up and tell me what happened!” Richie lets out a breath, quiets down. “Maybe I can help.”

“I think…” Eddie says, and he takes a breath, trying to calm his roiling insides, “I think my mom has been keeping me. Like a prisoner, or something.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Richie breathes.

“I mean. Not a prisoner. But she’s so...so hyper-anxious about me getting sick that she’s been telling me I’m sick so that I don’t go outside, I guess. Like when I had to stop taking P.E. class, because she said I was too delicate. I guess I wasn’t as delicate as she thought, but she did everything in her power to protect me.”

“Shit, Eddie, are you okay?” Richie asks, and his voice has none of its normal teasing spark. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, honestly.

“Is there...anything I can do?”

Eddie shuts his eyes, feeling the tears coming. He feels Richie’s hand take his, squeeze it. “No, but can I stay here tonight?” 

“Fine, but stay the fuck away from my sister. We have really thin walls here, and if you two keep me awake I’m going to throw you out, I hope you know.” And it’s an awful thing to say, but it’s the perfect thing, too.

Eddie grins. “I make no promises,” he says, and he follows Richie into the hallway. 

Richie doesn’t let go of his hands.

[generalelectricllama]

I threw up- very suddenly and painfully- almost completely undigested dinner (from at that point 7 hours before) and bright red blood specks. Freaked out because that is NOT NORMAL for me in any way. Got my cousin to drive me to the nearest ED. I called them and warned them ahead of time that I have been having COVID19 symptoms and planned on getting tested asap. 

They got me back, while not allowing my cousin who brought me to come in as well (kudos to the staff, they were very nice and polite about it), and got my vitals as soon as i had gotten a wrist band around my arm. While my BP was higher than normal, my oxygen count was almost perfect and I had no fever.

I explained to the doctor everything that had been going on. From my start of symptoms on 3/19 and what those symptoms were (hard to breathe, sore throat, coughing with occasional mucus production, horrible sinus issues, body aches, etc) and how the cough would come and go but I still felt like crap. How I’d had an almost constant headache for over a week now and had been feeling nauseas for 2 days now, but just finally threw up suddenly tonight.

How I had been taking aspirin every 4 hours since I had an allergic reaction to the medication the dentist gave me when they pulled my tooth and they refused to send in another for me. How that I possibly and highly likely had UC or crohn’s and that I was waiting on getting a colonoscopy to be sure. Doc told me that I was throwing up bright red blood spots because its highly likely the aspirin caused a big ulcer and that I needed to not take more. 

He gave me a prescription for nausea, for an antacid, and for something to coat my stomach to let it heal. He also emphasized that I needed to call the number for the main hospital test location for COVID19 as soon as they opened tomorrow to get prescreened and make an appointment to get tested. He explained that he wasnt gonna admit me or do testing of any kind because my oxygen levels were near perfect. So apparently they are looking at oxygen levels because of how bad this virus affects the lungs.

He said the CDC wasn’t allowing them to do flu testing or anything else to reduce the risk of exposing someone to CV or flu or etc. I don’t blame him. He was very nice and definitely didn;t make me feel stupid for coming in (even though this location was empty and had minimal staff). 

I plan to call this number to get tested if possible to make sure. being in limbo about this is miserable.

[midwestwifelife-blog]

11 Weeks Later…

I am 26 weeks pregnant today with a healthy and beautiful baby boy. My last update was at 17 weeks. It was rough, but healing. My husband and I have taken the last 15 weeks to really unplug, get to know our baby and enjoy the second trimester. 

26 weeks and counting…

We received confirmation on July 6th the our little miracle babe was indeed a boy. The overall shock of going from having a daughter to now a son was a lot for a pregnant lady to handle. When we started this journey to expand our family, we weren’t expecting to get pregnant our first month of trying. We were, and continue to be so grateful to be able to have our first child, regardless of gender. We exchanged our tutus for jeans, redecorated the nursery, and picked a new name. 

We are so excited to welcome Grayson Thomas to our family. 

As for me, I’m learning more each day. My bump has officially “popped”. I struggle with the weight gain, but I know its for a great outcome. We did find out that I have placenta previa / low line placenta that they are keeping an eye on. Placenta Previa is where your placenta is covering your cervix and the baby doesn’t have an exit. Low line placenta is where your placenta is near or partially covering your cervix which would cause hemorrhaging if you were to go into labor, and deliver vaginally. Both conditions are dangerous and taken seriously. My placenta is in between the two. It isn’t fully covering my cervix, but it is too close for comfort. In most cases, the placenta moves out of the way as the baby grows bigger, and isn’t a threat. In some cases, the placenta moves in the wrong direction. At my 24 week appointment, my doctor said my placenta moved a little bit, but still needs to be monitored. I will get another ultrasound at 32 weeks to confirm if I will need to schedule a C- section or if I will be in the clear. Fingers crossed, all moves and we are good to go. Due to the current position my husband and I are on what they call “pelvic rest.” No sex, and nothing in the vagina. To me, I have not regained my sex drive. I give my husband so much credit for being able to put up with my mood swings, and changing body, as well as not being able to have intercourse. We occasionally fool around, but I have to make myself get into it when I truly don’t want to. My doctor says it could be my body telling me it isn’t safe yet, which is amazing, but could just be a normal symptom of pregnancy in some woman. Either way, he is the best for not pressuring me. 

Showering us with love…

We’ve got 2 baby showers scheduled with in the next few weeks. Our first shower is for Jordan’s side of the family. We decided to have a co-ed diaper keg and baby shower. I am so glad I can have my husband with me for at least one shower. I have my family shower in September, and that will be interesting. The love and support we are receiving is unexplainable, and makes waiting so hard! 

14 Weeks to go…

The next 14 weeks will be so amazing, but also so hard. I want to speed through to finally meet our boy. I want to see what his little face looks like, and finally start this journey as a mother. 

I have fears, anxiety and nerves of what will come. My job, daycare, and having our lives change forever. Labor, and not knowing when and how he will make is arrival. All of the uncontrollable factors. 

I realize posting each week was a big commitment, and I have decided to post when I feel like I need it, however your love and support is amazing. 

Until next time.

XOXO

T 

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story Part 45

I had decided that winter break that I had no interest in staying in Kendrick High School any longer. My time in Kendrick was over, and that was it. Zack was gone, I hated the sight of everything and most everyone around me, I felt I was missing out on life everyday. I wasn't the same person I had been, and my ticket to getting away from my father didn't involve staying in Kendrick high school. My classmates meant nothing to me. I liked my Science teacher, and did well in his class, but that was no reason to stay in school and besides he was moving to work at a better school himself. I was still going to try in school for the remainder of time, but as I saw it, there was no way I was going to become a rock star (of sorts) if I wasted and decayed for three more years. Those three years would be better spent practicing and making art. Even if I had to get a part time job, I was willing to go for it rather than straggle along as I had been. This wasn't working out for me at all, and I felt like I was at a point where I understood that and if I cared anything about myself at all, should leave. But I didn't quite want to drop out either. I was always a little jealous of Ava's new school. She seemed to have a lot of cool hippie friends, punk friends and the like. I had never had friends like that really. While we were wearing away in the middle of nowhere Kendrick. I wanted to meet cool people. The way I saw it, that might be a good way to start a band. If I made friends that had similar interests, perhaps we could start a band. I had a lot of ideas and aspirations about this. I became inspired to leave. I wanted to go to the Lewiston High School (45 miles away) next year to see if I could get something from it.

And in the winter of 2004 – 2005, I was always sick with cold-flu like symptoms. I am guessing that I caught about five colds in a row that winter. It didn't help walking to school in the cold air, which would hurt my lungs and my nose. Sarah, naturally was sick all the time as well, us having both caught it from the moist school air and from one another. There was absolutely no way to not breath other people's air in the crammed hallways, it didn't matter if you washed your hands. Everyone got sick. The scent was sort of fowl, a mixture of sweat, bubble gum perfume, bad breath and whatever goop they were making in the cafeteria kitchen all moistening the air to make this soupy school air that I look back on with such disdain. Since we were both sick all the time, I would stay over at her house anyway. I didn't ever want to be home if I could possibly help it, and I figured the damage was done. It was terribly unpleasant and honestly, it might have been more reasonable for me to just have gone home to get better, but home was not where I wanted to be. Sarah would always wake up to the slightest movement, so I had to stay perfectly still, making sure not to wake her up on her bed even by moving my own head at times. But as I laid there, I would be choking and having troubles dealing with all the flem and such that comes with having a horrible cold. We both were feverish and sleeping was horrible. And she would be awake anyway. It was gross.

We thought a lot together about how we were going to get out of Kendrick. I was twenty-four seven adamant and inspired and obsessed with anything involving goals. It became a sort of obsession of ours, but especially me. However, Sarah had the capacity to make our leaving possible, as she had taken driver's ed and I had not. Sarah's mom was going to let Sarah have her blue 1979 Honda Civic to drive as her first vehicle that coming summer. It made good mileage, and though it wasn't a terribly good car, it would certainly work for what we needed it for. Sarah would drive naturally, as I still had no real idea how to drive. And Sarah would have her license by that summer. Now, all we had to do was find a way to get gas money, or at least have some idea on how we were going to pay for our trips to and fro from home and back everyday. I had saved up money for the last two years, spending money only on Christmas presents, and though I didn't quite have enough, I felt that it would be a good start. Sarah's mom agreed to pay some of the gas money.

One way that we considered was trying to sell some of our belongings at a city yardsale over in Lewiston. Sarah's mom had bought a booth, and tended to do this yardsale event every year. It would take place in this enormous building with a bunch of other vendors. It would be a bit like a flea market in a sense.

I didn't have many things, and Sarah's items took up the majority of what could be sold as we learned over the next month sorting out our disposable items. I mostly picked out a few scarves and bags I no longer wanted. My pickings were slim, truth be told. I grabbed some of my loose Eminem items that I no longer cared for, a franchise and a favorite that I no longer had much investment in. It was a pretty weak selection really. Sarah had a major video game selection she didn't want. On the night before the city yardsale over in Lewiston, Sarah and I were both sick as dogs. Neither her nor I could breath right, our noses were leaking, but so stuffed up at the same time that it caused intense headaches. I couldn't even talk as my voice was gone – I couldn't even cough. We both had fevers. My skin hurt and I was almost nauseated. And yet, we had to make that money to get out of Kendrick, no matter how we felt. So I pushed through it in some kind of fowl haze. There was nothing we could do to stop this. So we got up early in the morning, deliriously put on our clothes, packed our stuff to Sarah's mom's red pick up, and got on down the road listening to Queen's Greatest Hits.

That day was long and terrible. Perhaps one of the longest and more terrible days I have had. We didn't make very much money in the end. I was never sure what I made, since my items weren't labeled and Carol sold the stuff not sure who's was who's. I managed to buy this disturbing peach mask with holes for eyes and the mouth. The man who sold it to me only ask a dollar for it, I liked it so much and he was so unlikely to have sold it otherwise. He gave me an odd look, as it would take a very strange person to really want something like that. I still have that creepy mask to this day. It has been dragged around for quite a long time now.

There were many points in the day where I wanted nothing more than to sit, but there were no decent places to sit. I could barely engage in the busy world around me. I had no money for food. Sarah and I felt like zombies. Eventually, I left the building into the frigid cold air, and laid down on the cold cement outside. Even though the cold air was torture to my throat, I just laid there anyway, too tired to continue standing and walking around as I had been doing it for six hours straight. If I stood up any longer I feared I would pass out. Sarah came to sit by me. For some reason, I remember Carol was annoyed at us if we left the booth, but there was no use for us, and I don't quite remember what the problem was. I think it is quite likely that both Sarah and I, being as we were fifteen, might sometimes have done things that were rude unknowingly. That is one explanation. Or it could just be that Carol was slightly annoyed anyway as adults generally and mysteriously are at times, and we were just there to be annoyed at. In any case, it was all a million miles away from me.

Sarah eventually convinced me to come back into the building – for her sake as her mom was going to annoyed with us. As I weakly scraped myself up off the ground, shaking and wheezing, a jovial man and a woman in their early thirties came up to us with two big boxes. In the boxes was just about every Seventeen Magazine from the 90's. They wanted us both to take them with us, for free. At first I refused, but then later thought better of it. Sarah and both eventually split them, and for the next five years of my life, I carted around those Seventeens, clipping things out of them to put into collages, and occasionally reading some of the articles and admiring some of the 90's fashion in them. Eventually Sarah gave me her half as well. I ended up having a knack for postmodern collage art later on.

I didn't feel like I was in school anymore, even while I was in school. The walls of the school were now an illusion. I wasn't happy in class by any means, but I knew my mind was now stronger than the school and I could no longer be dragged down as I had been. I found this to be an enormous relief, and it was a true first for me, after eleven years of psychological warfare. There was a sort of stress I had carried along with me all through grade school that always made me sick inside when I saw all the people and meaningless rules and empty rituals that everyone had always done so well at, and I had always failed. I didn't have the energy to care any longer, rules didn't matter anymore, people's opinions didn't matter anymore. I didn't have to defy their opinions as much as I just didn't acknowledge their existence to begin with. They just simply didn't exist in my life. I followed a new path now. There was no more reason for me to go to the school. The faces of people like Kyle just seemed more or less like empty soulless blurry faces with no meaning behind the eyes.

My back had gotten kind of screwed up over the years on the count that, despite the fact that I never did my homework at all, I did always take all of it home with my everyday with this insane thought that maybe that night I would miraculously find the something I never had and pull those books out and do the work, marching up and down the hill with fifty pounds strapped to my back had killed my back, all of my books pouring out, books in my arms day after day, week after week, and year after year. I was starting to have this permanent dull ache in my back at all times, but in a strange way, I internalized that in some manner I must deserve this pain. After I made this shift and became my own boss and wanted to steer my own destiny, the shame disappeared and I stopped bringing the books home with me. I think I was starting to live as I was, and not as people wished I was.  And that me didn't have a lot of room for any of this waste anymore. And it was strange, but when I stopped even pretending that I was going to do my homework, I actually started doing even better in school. The shame that was used against me all those years had actually made me a worse student, when I am assuming most adults were pushing it on me so I would conform.

Sometimes, I would just walk out of class to use the bathroom without asking any teachers. This was against the rules. I didn't ask, and I chose not to broadcast guilt or feel overly ashamed of it as I walked out. If office people tried to stop me I disregarded them entirely. I didn't see the need in a law that said that I had to ask before I went – something so stupidly basic to everyone's existence that I couldn't believe how dumb and trained they wanted us all to become, so I disregarded the rule entirely, and I left for the stalls whenever I preferred. And most of the time, teachers didn't stop me. I just had that look in my eye. I was fed up with school in the same way that Bill Murray was fed up with Groundhog's Day.  All I cared about was David Bowie and Queen, being a musician, and transforming into whatever it was that was growing inside me. I was a new being, shedding the old self.

I once got the song 'Don't Stop Me Now' stuck in my head so loud during class, and I felt the song so strongly that I got out of my desk and began dancing down the hallway.  The kids and the teachers looked at me. They tried to call me back, but I didn't care. The teacher, our health instructor Mrs. Spencer, was a pretty lenient woman actually, and that might have been part of it. She didn't get paid much but was married to a nice rich man, was open about the fact that she wasn't getting paid enough to put in the effort, and felt that she only needed to do the work that she was getting paid to do rather than stress about trying to control a classroom, so classes were pretty light concerning what I ever actually learned in her class. Health was highly underfunded in what she could realistically teach, so she just had us look at the food pyramid, watch 80's and 90's anti-drug and sex ed videos occasionally which were hilarious, and sometimes take walks to the park on a nice day. She never got angry or raised her voice, and was always straight forward and placid in every situation. You could say just about anything to her, and she would just calmly laugh without losing any composure. She might have been one of the first well rounded adults I had ever met. And she was an open atheist. She was the first adult I had ever met who was calmly just that. I had gotten in a lot of religious people's faces, but it wasn't without some provocation. I don't know how many times I was told that I was going to hell or that I needed to be prayed for. It just got irritating and condescending after awhile.

I think people noticed that I was a lot different, or at least they seemed to, because a rumor floated around that I was now a heroin junkie. Some of this was my own fault. At some point I had written the word HEROIN on a desk and I got sent to the office for that. I had to explain to the school, once more, that I was not doing heavy drugs – or any drugs. My father tried to get mad at me, but even he knew that the notion of me being a junkie was wholly unrealistic in every sense.

In Speech class, we were all supposed to debate certain topics that were voted on by the class majority (excluding abortion or 'is there a god'), and the girls in the class decided to vote on this impossible stance of 'Should convicted rapists and child molesters get life in prison'. I was supposed to argue against this point, and that was – obviously a serious challenge. Honestly, I didn't think it was a very appropriate subject to be questioning really. I might be able to talk about statistics more and come up with some kind now – kinda. I suggested the death penalty, but for whatever reason the Speech teacher told me that that would not be an acceptable stance for me to take. So basically, I just had to try to justify small sentences. For whatever reason even further, my speech teach was fine with me suggesting snipping men's junk when they molest children – something I also didn't believe in, but it seemed a little better than suggesting five years or something petty.

I really did as much research as I could at the time. I wasn't good at research at that time, and to my credit, the rural school of Kendrick didn't teach students how to do research so I was kind of at a loss. However, when the time came, Sarah and I got in front of the class, and I argued the futile argument that serial rapists and molester sickos needed to lose their dicks and get smaller sentences. I was able to explain that the prison system was actually a huge money hog. And like I said, I could come up with some more reasons now, very flawed reasons naturally, but more no less. And considering how impossible my case was, I did extremely well at debate. It helped a lot that I didn't care anymore. My classmates who had otherwise come to know me as a slacker and a introverted straight F loser were even impressed by my skills in debating my case. After a half hour debate, I lost naturally, but many people came up to me individually and congratulated me afterwards on my technical prowess in the act of building a case and articulating and defending my point and counter points. People were genuinely impressed with me when it came to my language and my ability to persuade others if I had to.

This might have been a strength I was proud of in myself, having spent most of my life being somewhat of a mousy victim to whomever. My father could yell, but I had the power of cutting to the heart of things and finding the truth. This gave me an edge over him, that made me feel better even though it wouldn't make a difference to him at all. The ability to debate and have molded opinions based on truth values gave me a sort of confidence in myself. But when I looked at Sarah's art, or her ability to just play and sing a song on guitar, or how she had a perfect figure and I was heavy, I would have given it all up in a heartbeat to have that instead. The things I was good at weren't really very soft or flattering to most people. I was just essentially good at questioning things. And it was making me a little mentally unhinged, always feeling like I had something to prove. Having to work twice as hard to be taken seriously in a fundamental human way. My moods were all over the place. One moment I would feel really like I was a very unique and special person – sometimes I felt like dancing to Under Pressure, and then the next I would feel nothing but gross and ashamed of myself, saw myself as everything my father had ever yelled at me, and I felt like a worthless failure with no control over my own life and I would have the urge to hang myself. There seemed to be no in between and it and came to be very stressful and hard to balance these extremes. So even though I was no longer engaging with mindless societal expectations, I was still very much at war with my own expectations. And I couldn't help but continue to tirelessly compare myself to Sarah. I just wanted to disappear.

Confronting Sarah about it, I found that she seemed to retreat in a way whenever I talked about my feelings, and this made me mad. She would cave to everything I say. When I asked her to see me as an equal, she very often just repeated back to me what I just said. I found this annoying. I wanted a friend that was going to be there for me. If I criticized her at all, she just told me she wasn't a very strong or good person and that I deserved better. In many ways, she jumped to that answer emotionally due to a vacant lack of self worth that she had, much different than mine, but something that hindered her ability to really be present in the world or want to make any kind of real difference. This always upset me further because I wanted a friend, and not a follower. And it sometimes felt like she was giving up the friendship by passively walking away from me. Of course, I was also abnormally unstable. And she was abnormally distant. I was also getting mad because she didn't seem as excited about being in a band as I was. I wanted it, and needed it, and Sarah used it as a dream to get through the day. She didn't want to think about the future. She just wanted to sleep all day and eat fudgsicles, listen to CKY and use our ideas of being musicians as a fantasy. I felt like I was always making all the plans, but due to my lack of charisma and charm, I couldn't meet new people and got nervous and defensive too readily. Sarah in a sense had never had any real failures at life. She had a few setbacks, but she had never been rejected as I had. She had witnessed it to a degree with me, but I don't believe she ever really understood what that felt like for me. By fifteen I was already somewhat emotionally damaged. So people liked her. And like I said, she was lovely, and naturally gifted. I had to work very hard to have half of what she had.

So we started to fight about this subtle problem between us. It started to become a pattern of sorts. I would write angry letters in my bold tiny handwriting, often times filling up the entire page of a line sheet in even the white areas, putting two lines of words in a space meant for one, and using the fronts and backs. I would write these eleven page notes to her all the time, my mind racing with self hatred and anger. I would sob as I wrote them, and found that I was certain that our friendship couldn't last. Some of it was that my mind was very good at figuring out very subtle hints of things and exploding them into bigger issues very rapidly, which would become a mapped out mosaic of connected thoughts and concepts. And the other half was that I was insecure and self loathing and jealous of her. It would have been very hard for anyone to defend themselves when I attacked them with my notes, let alone Sarah.

Sarah did personally like who I was somehow though, despite how difficult I was. She was the only person who was around who did like me. This almost made it harder for me to reject her outright. She told me once when I got jealous of something she drew that she admired me because I really seemed to have a passion and a sense of care for everything I did. I really tried. So even when I failed, it was a failure that I felt. She admitted to me that she didn't try on anything she ever did. She half assed most of what she did. It just happened, and most of the time what she put out in the world was shallow bullshit that people would eat up mindlessly and she knew that, but had no personal value to her. She lacked mental clarity and she didn't feel like she had anything to convey to anyone and nobody could see through it – except me. Perhaps even with all the problems we have, me recognizing that there was something wrong with her thinking even then gave her a feeling of mattering to someone or having validation in a world who otherwise superficially had her pegged as the cool 'Juno' type (Juno hadn't come out yet, but that was how people saw her), without recognizing who she was or that she had any real flaws. It was a small consolation, and I would now argue that her expression of self was valid regardless of how it felt to her personally, but it helped me to hear it from her in this way anyway. Besides, a lot of her art talent had happened from countless hours spent alone drawing and shadowing her artwork while I had been spending more time with Ava or ogling over Zack the previous year and a half. She earned much of her talent. And some of my lack of development was my own fault.

Still, I took absolutely everything personal. Ms. Fiske, our art teacher had something against me, but seemed to have a small crush on Sarah. It might have helped had I had some encouragement from the art teacher, but she really was all about putting Sarah on a pedestal. Even though I didn't like Ms. Fiske that well, it really hurt when she would see a picture on the table that I had done, and she would shower Sarah with approval for her talent, but when Sarah told her it was I who had done the piece, she would take a step back and walk away awkwardly. In her mind, I was scum for the most part like how most people saw me, and to think that I could create something she might enjoy was something that caused her to have cognitive dissonance concerning how she saw me as a person and she liked me even less for it.

I ended up giving Ms. Fiske my little kid's guitar. My father bought me a real acoustic guitar he bought in a shop and the tiny one for grade school students was too silly and small for me. However, I knew Ms. Fiske would like it, so we went up to her doorstep and left it there. When she found it, she thanked Sarah. When Sarah told her it was me, she glared off, and then got this crazy look on her face of denial, and thanked Sarah again. This should have been a silly example of Ms. Fiske's issues, but in many ways, the world's bias for Sarah, however shallow and silly, only confirmed the inner voices in my head that told me that I was ruined and that I should go kill myself. I remember getting upset and crying.

Ms. Fiske was a super lame teach though – despite her art degree and her liberal title, she really was very conservative in everyday life. She always threw out my clay creations because she didn't like them. She didn't like things that weren't vases for the most part. I started working on these two clay people – a man and a woman. They were both naked, and the man had an erect penis. I didn't know at the time that men's penises changed size for the occasion. I really believed that men had to really fight to hide erections at all time, and I was very good at just never ever looking. I thought perhaps they hid them in their pant legs. I worked on them in class for a week, perfecting and smoothing out their bodies and faces and hair, and then put them aside for the next day. Ms. Fiske ended up finding them. She put them in front of the class, talked about how talentless and base and disgusting these figurines were. She challenged whoever had made them to step up, and claimed that whoever had done so deserved to be expelled for their disgusting twisted and perverted mind, someone who would never be a good artist and didn't take art seriously. It was a bit much, and I didn't speak up. I watched in sadness as she squashed my Adam and Eve back into balls of clay. I never tried to make anything out of clay again.

Sarah also got more credit than me in English. Our English teacher wanted us to write short stories that used a lot of similes and metaphors and personifications, to prove we knew the difference. I got inspired to write a story of a person who was running away. I didn't do a grand job, and the story was a little campy I admit, but I did put in more effort than normal. Sarah didn't have any ideas on what she wanted to do so she just copied my idea, only adding onto the same character I had created and made them do some things I didn't have in mind. I told her it would be fine. The English teacher, when she graded both of our papers, accused me of copying Sarah. It was just her automatic assumption since she almost seemed annoyed when I did do my homework. It just didn't fit in with people's schema about me. I was at this point, not allowed to succeed. Sarah was the gleaming emerald of a person – even though she wasn't popular in the traditional sense, and I was but a common stone – and an ugly jagged one at that. She gave me a C- and Sarah an A. Even though I had done everything I was supposed to. She told Sarah she just liked the story better that Sarah had written. All the while, I just felt like it had been my creation.

It was really difficult waiting for the rest of the year to pass so I could go to a new school and finally be done with all of this for good. I would occasionally see Zack drive through town on the weekends, but he was usually with a gaggle of druggy mechanic hicks, and he rarely stopped. He always waved and his eyes would twinkle when he saw me. I could almost see a sort of feeling wash over the car he was driving in as it sped off into the distance. I had the sense that he still cared a great deal about me. But he wasn't going to make much of an effort. My goal was that someday, when he was a successful musician as I assumed he would be given he was the most talented musician in the area, and when I was someday in a band of my own, perhaps I would be ready then, or worthy then of him. He had promised me that he would come back for me the previous year. When that happened, we would escape. We would psychologically escape to where 'they' could never get us. The lack of clarity is very hard to explain. Most of the acceptance and understanding I felt about this notion came from a very subconscious place. It manifested itself in my life much like a religion, the one thing I had to hold onto.

In school, I witnessed racism first hand for the first time. There had never really been a lot of dark skinned kids in our school. It was an incredibly white community I grew up in. But one day our English teacher had gotten sick for a day and her replacement was this black teacher – I think he went by Mr. G. He was elderly, and very nice. And honestly, as much as it pains me to admit this, it was shocking for me to see someone who wasn't white. It's not like I had any cruel or negative intentions, but I was able to study my own feelings and I noticed my own nervousness in his presence, which I knew even then was wrong and silly. I hadn't realized this about myself before since there was never anyone in my life who was dark skinned. Still, it was there and my reaction was noticeable. Rather than pretend I wasn't off, I acknowledged it and tried to study it.

The rest of the class however, was even worse and this became a bigger focus. The pile of stupid disgusting Larry the Cable Guy loving white little fuckhead male jocks all crowded their desks together in a near circle. They were so nervous they couldn't even stay still. Their faces were flushed red unable to control the psychological outflow of anxiety and racist ideas. Whenever the black substitute teacher said anything to us at all, however mundane, the boys would start trying not to laugh like the very notion that a teacher could be black was too much for them to handle. They began loud whispering racist jokes, and it was so disgusting I just wanted to get out of there. I knew that my nervousness in the situation was wrong as it was, but they were horrible, and I hated them. Honestly, what a worthless lot of people. You could actually just hear everything they were huddled around saying. Their racism was not even discreet. You could hear the racist terms they deserved to get their faces pounded in for. The substitute knew they were being racist too and his response amazed me. He looked at them with this placid sense of knowing. It didn't phase him. Did black people in our country – which I had foolishly thought was more or less done with the days of racism (bad education at work) really deal with so much of this that to them it was something they just expected by default?

The hall monitor/detention lady who I had grown to know very well over my time in Kendrick (I believe I explained who she was back when I was writing about 7th grade) Mrs. Fligger had a brain tumor. For the last year and a half, she had become more and more stingy and strange. At random, she would give detentions now that made no sense whatsoever. People would complain to the faculty about her strange behavior and her delusions, but I think the principal and office people felt bad about firing her, and just told the upset students and parents to suck it up and do their time. She would accuse people of cussing. I got a few detentions for running and cussing, and nothing of the sort had happened. There were many times where she would see me walking, and demand I go back and 'walk this time'. I hadn't ran at all, and I would go back, and walk, only to be given yet another detention and made to walk again. Eventually, I realized that something was wrong and I just began to ignore her.

What ended up happening, is she started to scream at teachers and commanding them to stop running as well. It was sad really. Even though she was by far, one of my least favorite people, I believe what little control she had left in this world was her ability to go about and dish out detentions to whomever, and she was holding onto that power to the point of psychological delusion. I also imagine having a tumor growing in her head was surely not helping, and probably partially if not entirely the cause of her behaviors. She was losing the battle to cancer. One day, parents tried to come into the school to talk to the office, and she commanded them to walk rather than run. She would not let them into the school unless they did what she said. She gave them detentions – even though they were obviously not students at all. They ended up not being able to get past her, and the school let her go that day. She stayed the rest of the day however, and continued to mindlessly dish out detentions to whomever. I remember her grand leave. It was lunch time, and we were all just eating lunch. She looked down at where everyone's feet were in their chairs, and she started giving out massive detentions to everyone because their feet weren't 'in the right place somehow. Eventually, nobody listened to her – didn't know how to even if they had wanted to, and many of the kids were starting to call back at her to go away already and to resign, that everyone was tired of her. I watched the high school rebellion against her and I saw something kind of break in her face a little, like she lost. Like she had given up in some deep and final way, not on the people in the room, but on life itself. She told us all that she hated us, and then she grabbed her bag and her 80's style windbreaker, and she trudged out the door and drove away. I never saw her again.

PART 44 - http://tinyurl.com/ydfpbzxt

PART 43 - http://tinyurl.com/yckvswd7

PART 42 - http://tinyurl.com/ycnng83q

PART 41 - http://tinyurl.com/y84kmttv

PART 40 - http://tinyurl.com/y8aj6kmq

PART 39 - http://tinyurl.com/y97vprft

PART 38 - http://tinyurl.com/ycr7la8q

PART 37 - http://tinyurl.com/y8trssqd

PART 36 - http://tinyurl.com/y9ygq9q8

PART 35 - http://tinyurl.com/ya5xhe2f

PART 34 - http://tinyurl.com/yc6y4p69

PART 33 - http://tinyurl.com/y87449dz

PART 32 - http://tinyurl.com/ycetanep

PART 31 - http://tinyurl.com/yae3o4rd

PART 30 - http://tinyurl.com/ybht9aul

PART 29 - http://tinyurl.com/ybfcr9j2

PART 28 - http://tinyurl.com/yagdlo47

PART 27 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcj5fgf

PART 26 - http://tinyurl.com/y73nvl73

PART 25 -  http://tinyurl.com/y6v6pgoj

PART 24 - http://tinyurl.com/ycak5d8r

PART 23 - http://tinyurl.com/yac6sk3g

PART 22 -  http://tinyurl.com/yat6cfnw

PART 21 -  http://tinyurl.com/y783egno

PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt

PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8

PART 18 - http://tinyurl.com/ycrznrwk

PART 17 - http://tinyurl.com/y77unlng

PART 16 - http://tinyurl.com/yadpsv8c

PART 15 - http://tinyurl.com/yb3lt6k5

PART 14 - http://tinyurl.com/yb4cfedq

PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s

PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw  

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

[paumeranian]

Insight Statements

ONE: Since medical clinics are busy on most days, patients feel as though consultations are fit around the provider and not them, meaning they have to take time off work or uni to book an appointment and potentially miss out on pay or important activities.

Data count: 17

Survey responses:

“Easy to schedule for a day but not always for a specific time.”

“My doctor [at uni] has a high demand for appointments and usually any free spots don’t align with my timetable.”

“I book appointments usually when I get the chance to.”

“Booking an appointment can be difficult.”

“Most medical centres are only open on normal business hours (8am - 5pm) and it’s particularly hard for me to go without taking a day off midweek.”

“Work and uni means I don’t have much time spare time between 8:30am - 5pm when I need to go to the doctor.”

Interview responses:

“[Booking an appointment] takes so long. I’m sick I just want to get this over and done with so I can rest.”

“I have to call them up and wait for quite a while to book. If it’s peak hour there’s weird elevator music.”

“You never know when the next appointment will be free, if someone cancels or if there’s a slot that’s open.”

“When I asked to be seen on the day, usually there aren’t any available so it’s a hassle.”

“My GP isn’t open during the weekend and I’d want be seen sooner rather than later.”

“I was stressing out because I had so much work to do [for uni and I have to take time off].”

“I was stressed because I had to take time off work but happy at the same time.”

“I was just annoyed that I had to deal with my foot, it was hassle.”

“I had to heal naturally which prolonged my healing time which was about 2 years and it stopped me from doing most things.”

“The time they book me for is always early morning, not close to when I’d want to be seen.”

“I go to a busy clinic so booking can be difficult.”

Secondary research:

“Often the biggest barriers to accessing health care are geographic and financial. The issues are not having time, transport, or money to put towards attending distant health services, missing work to seek medical advice for themselves or loved ones, are a reality in so many of our communities.”

Source: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/03-04-2017/the-patient-really-is-always-right-how-to-vastly-improve-our-public-health-system/?fbclid=IwAR0q2AagaLKtQ_lb25YhRCt0B2h3YytW1z9K5ktmgqKsgGUWLdGOuVx2ZZg

TWO: Waiting times for walk-in public clinics can go up to an hour or two and in worst cases, up to 4 hours in the emergency department which adds to the stress patients are already feeling due to their illnesses.

Data count: 7

Survey responses:

“The wait is the longest.”

“Some clinics are free but the waiting times are too long.”

Interview responses:

“My mum is unwell, the wait is too long, we’ve been ringing the bell but no one in answering.”

“For accidents and going to A&E, I find the process much harder as I typically wait for an hour or so.”

Interview responses:

“At public hospitals, you wait with a lot of people and they’re all sick. I’m germophobic and since I’m already sick, I get concerned when people [around me] start coughing as I don’t want to catch anything more.”

“The longest I’d wait at a public clinic would be about 45 minutes. While waiting I feel hungry, sometimes worried about what they could find.”

THREE: Healthcare is a high-demand public service where providers (nurses, doctors) deal with multiple patients on a daily basis. As a result, patients think it’s unfair that an appointment at a cost of $40-$50 only lasts for about 10-15 minutes. They feel as though this isn’t enough time to fully voice out their symptoms and have all of their questions answered.

Data count: 11

Survey responses:

“AUT only allows 15 minutes for an appointment on average.”

“An appointment for me occasionally takes 10-15 minutes.”

“It can be even shorter, typically 15 minutes.”

“More like 10 minutes.”

“Sometimes it’s very quick.”

“15-20 minutes isn’t enough time as the doctor is constantly thinking about the next patient so they just want to get through my one.”

“I feel like sometimes appointments are rushed due to a lot of patients.”

Interview responses:

“Checkup was 10-15 minutes but would’ve been better if it was longer so I can have more time to explain.”

“There could be things that we forget to tell doctor and with the time limit for appointments, it’d be hard to follow up after the appointment is finished.”

“A normal dosage of antibiotics made me throw up so I remembered to tell the doctor to half the dosage otherwise I would’ve thrown up again and had to come back.”

“When I go home after an appointment, I still have questions I didn’t get to ask but it’s because I didn’t get to think of them.”

FOUR: A major factor that stops people from consulting a doctor is cost. Because of this, patients feel inclined to see the doctor with a list of things to get checked out to make the most of their time and money as they wouldn’t want to return for follow-up appointments.

Extra: There is a consensus amongst students that the cost for a check-up (about $40) is too expensive. Without financial support from parents, they feel as though they would struggle to fund their own healthcare.

Data count: 8

Survey responses:

“Generally my parents pay for my doctor check ups but since my health clinic is not very subsidised ($50 for a consultation)  if it were up to me to pay I would definitely struggle with that.”

“It’s so expensive to go, usually try and created a list of things that I need checking up on before I finally go.”

“Going for injections/ screening for diseases is annoying! You pay $60 for pain and a needle in your arm which isn't amazing - and that's not even the injection itself, just the screening process.”

“Personally, lack of money hasn’t prevented me from going to the doctor but I if I didn’t have the available income I’d think otherwise. I’d probably do my own research, try home remedies etc.”

Interview responses:

“There’s all these other issues I could ask them about [while I’m already there.]”

“I feel obligated to go to the doctor with a list of things to get the most out of time and money. It’s sad that I have to do this.”

“I feel like I’m a burden saying ‘Oh by the way, there’s this other issue…’ I don’t want them to think I’m a hypochondriac. At the same time though, I don’t want to have to come back for another issue [appointment].”

“A lot of the times when I do need to go to the doctor it’s because a whole lot of stuff has built up cause I’ve put it all in the back burner.”

FIVE: There is a lack of knowledge on medical information and healthcare costs amongst majority of patients (mainly students) which hinders them from exploring cheaper options and informing decisions on their own health and wellbeing.

Data count: 16

Survey responses:

“It’s expensive especially for students. Although there are a lot of on campus help I think this needs to be made more obvious and also for youth who aren’t studying but living by themselves.”

Interview responses:

“If I knew I could get it cheaper through Studylink I would’ve applied. But it is Studylink so I know it would take ages to process it.”

“I think it needs to be made more explicit if you can get healthcare for cheaper. If I haven’t heard it, how can anyone else?”

“I don’t know why it’s hard to find useful information. It’s like they don’t want you to use it.”

“I don’t know much about the medical system.”

“Medicine and information about them should be available to everyone.”

“If you don’t have proper understanding of health, you might miss out on details when telling your doctor about your symptoms.”

“I wish it was easier to find medical information (cheaper healthcare options).”

“Not enough knowledge on healthcare makes it hard for me to compare what I’m receiving to what I could be receiving.”

“You get what you get or you don’t know what you should be getting if you have nothing to compare it to.”

“I haven’t consulted other clinics so I wouldn’t know if what I’m paying is too much or too little.”

“I wasn’t aware that there were other options for getting iron medicine like through IV or shots.”

“They know that we’re students, we don’t have money. They should give us some sort of concession [for healthcare].”

“If they made student discounts more obvious then I’ll definitely get it.”

“I keep forgetting that students can get things for cheaper since we’re broke as hell.”

“I don’t think about student prices [for healthcare] since for buying food and petrol there isn’t a discount.”

“It’s the student’s responsibility to find things out but we need to be informed first.”

TED Talk on US healthcare costs

Shocking differences between health costs depending on location

Opportunity: informing people how much stuff in healthcare costs i.e. treatment, prescription to allow them to “shop around”

Patients are no different to customers

SIX: Nurses in the emergency department feel burnt out after long shifts due to staffing issues and dealing with multiple patients in different morbidity levels at once. On days like this, getting compliments from colleagues and patients help boost their morale.

"It takes a lot of dedication and mind preparation before coming to work. You don’t know what to expect, and they always expect the best out of you. You can’t make mistakes, it’s someone’s life."

"Getting compliments makes us want to do our jobs better, continue to help save people’s lives."

"If it’s busy, you don’t have control over how many people come, you feel burnt out and even if you cry for help sometimes it’s not addressed."

“When I’m not coaching I feel burnt out, when it’s short-staffed I feel like I didn’t do enough but most of the time it’s fulfilling.”

“As an ED nurse you never know what to expect.  Generally the big problem would be man power and staffing issues.”

“Little things like getting compliments/commendations from patients and colleagues, it boosts your morale and makes your career not just a career but also your passion.”

“It’s a fact that employees who are more appreciated tend to find it really difficult to leave their job. But people who are undervalued it’s easy for them to drop a job, no matter how many benefits you get - you’re gonna burn out at some point.”

“You can’t give your all to one patient cause you have to save some [energy] for the next one. That’s the difference with us, some nurses might answer differently but as an ED nurse it can be exhausting.”

“You need to deal with behaviour and social issues as well as safety. People would just think our job is easy - you give medication that’s it. It’s not just that. Most of the time our morale is at stake.”