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hopefulatrocity · 1 year ago

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From The Ashes- Chapter 12

Note: Sorry for the lateness. This is a bit more of an intense chapter, you get to see the full picture of Pheonyx's scars and also how it affects Daryl to see them. The after effects of Pheonyx's encounter with Shane are also intense. Both of our boys are dealing with a lot.

Spotify (Songs that remind me of Pheonyx, Pheonyx/Daryl, or just songs that I listen to while I'm writing.) Song: Coal by Dylan Gossett(If you're a fan of Noah Kahan I recommend checking out Dylan's music!)

Dividers: @firefly-graphics and @omiyours Banners: @liminal-creations

Chapter CW/TW: PTSD, Past rape/noncon, past child abuse/neglect, anxiety attack, physical description of abuse scars, intense transphobic internal monologue, vomiting

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The first time Pheonyx had an anxiety attack was the second week after he woke up in the hospital. It would have happened sooner but–up until that point–he was drugged to oblivion and catatonic between bouts of medication-induced slumber. When the doctors started weaning him off the pain meds, he became more aware of what was happening around him and it seemed like every emotion was multiplied to a thousand. He spent a week feeling numb and tired to suddenly being surrounded by lights and sounds that set every synapse in his brain on fire.

Overall, he was able to keep his calm when feelings were flooding his system, but he broke down when he woke up on the 9th morning and Aaron wasn't there. Despite the fact that Pheonyx spent the majority of the first week sleeping and staring at a wall, Aaron had stuck by his bedside faithfully. The only times he left were when Pheonyx was unconscious. Even then, it was only to go home, shower, and eat. The curly haired man even slept on the uncomfortable recliner in the corner of the hospital room. Pheonyx was still unsure why the man had chosen to stick by him. Aaron’s duty to him ended the second the ambulance had taken him away. But, according to his nurse, within ten minutes of arriving at the hospital’s ER, Aaron was in the waiting room using all the charm he had to try to get information on how Pheonyx was doing.

So, when the presence of the man who saved Pheonyx's life–who protected him while he was at his weakest–was nowhere to be seen after a night full of nightmares, his strength shattered. Darkness pooled in the corners of his vision and suddenly every breath was like fighting a dragon that took up residence on his chest. The feeling only got worse when the heart monitor attached to him began to beep incessantly and a small alarm went off above his head. Within a few minutes, the room was suddenly filled with medical personnel. The nurses tried to calm him, talk him through the attack and it started to work, the deep breathing, but when the doctor grabbed his arm to try to administer a sedative, he found himself screaming. The hands, rough even under the rubbery feel of the gloves, felt too familiar. His skin crawled and he had to get away, trying desperately to stop history from repeating itself so soon. Aaron had probably heard his screaming from down the hall, because he ran into the room, face red and eyes frantically scanning the enclosed space. Still trying to avoid the syringe in the doctor's hand, Pheonyx's heart immediately slowed when he saw Aaron pushing past the nurses to get to his side. All that fear and pain finally came to a head and he cried for the first time since he was hurt. Aaron advocated for him when the doctor was insisting on pushing more drugs into his system, chewing them out for being so rough with someone who had been abused so badly only 9 days prior.

The whole time, Pheonyx held Aaron's hand like it was a lifeline. Like he was floating out at sea, the anxiety and panic, a kraken trying to drag him by his legs under the surface, and the only thing holding his head above water was the warmth coming from the other man's smooth hands. He spent the next 2 hours gripping Aaron's fingers until the feeling of impending pain finally eased.

Later, his therapist would call it codependency, the fact that he couldn't cope without the other man's presence as a buffer, but to Pheonyx it was comfort. He'd been hurt so many times in his life, and no one had stopped to help him. Not even his own mother. But this complete stranger had taken it upon himself to not only rescue Pheonyx physically from death, but also emotionally from the darkest depths of his mind.

As time went on, Pheonyx managed to find his comfort in other things. Music, cooking, getting tattoos, reading. And when he found Kismet starving behind the dumpster of Zombie Ink, he found himself being the strength for something suffering from similar abuses. He still had flares of anxiety and panic when he was in large groups, especially around strangers, or when cis men pushed in a little too close to him. But it had been over 2 years since he had a full blown attack. All the progress was ripped open like a scarred wound when Shane had grabbed his arm. It brought up so many antique sorrows from the dusty depths of his mind. That lack of bodily autonomy and those memories of being broken were like a rattlesnake wrapping tight around his brain. Constantly slithering around his mind and coiling up, ready to strike at any moment. Ready to inject its venom of self hatred and consternation. It took 6 years of therapy to bash the snake to death but the ghost of the creature still ruled his thoughts sometimes.

Pheonyx used to have a rhythm for pulling himself out of that dark dimension. But it had been so long that he nearly hyperventilated before he was able to calm his breathing and work through the mental exercises his therapist recommended for him. The sun had completely disappeared from the sky by the time he felt his feet hit the ground again. The moon wasn't even over the trees yet though, so he hadn't been lost for long. By some miracle, no one had come out the front door, or looked over from their campfires on the other side of the main property. He loathed the idea of worrying his family, or having to explain his moment of weakness to one of Rick's group.

Despite the evening of his heart rate, his stomach rebelled at the abuse his mind threw at him and bile slithered up his throat. Clutching his stomach, Pheonyx only had a moment to get to the side of the house, out of sight, before the meager contents of his stomach came out of his mouth. Having only eaten jerky and some toast earlier in the day, it was mostly acid. Pheonyx grimaced at the taste in his mouth and the burn in his throat.

He wiped sweat from his forehead and used his booted foot to sweep some dirt over the small amount of vomit on the ground. He didn't want to waste water, or draw attention to himself, by turning on the hose to clean it up. The grass crunched under his feet as he made his way to the stables, breaking through the sound of crickets and cicadas that rang through the evening air. Though he knew he would benefit from a shower, the water would be heaven on his tired muscles, and the stench of sweat, dirt, and walker blood emanating from his skin was probably horrible. But he knew he needed to go out tonight, taking a shower before getting dirty again just seemed wasteful. The traps needed to be refreshed with fresh offal, and he needed to make sure to burn any bodies that had wandered into the spikes.

The sound of the porch door being pushed open made Pheonyx glance over his shoulder. Like a spotted ghost, Kismet shoved his way through the flimsy door and tumbled down the wooden steps towards his owner. A large bully smile was wide on his face as he ran to catch up with Pheonyx. He almost tripped 3 times, his brain unable to fully control the massive paws underneath him. Pheonyx braced himself for impact, as he knew Kismet wouldn't be able to fully stop himself in time, and he was glad he did. The thick skull of his fur baby rammed into his knee and nearly toppled him over.

"Jesus Christ!", Pheonyx grunted and placed his hand on the dog to settle him. "How have you not killed yourself yet? Or someone else for that matter?", he muttered under his breath. "Come on, bud. Let's feed the horses."

The duo made it to the stables in less than a minute. Kismet immediately left Pheonyx's side, while the man went to turn on the lanterns scattered around the barn, to greet all of the horses. Koda and Nellie, both chestnut quarter horses, stuck their noses down to nuzzle against the enthusiastic dog. Baker was an older roan quarter horse. His fur was based black with a dusting of white across, making him look like he'd rolled in flour. Even more gray covered his nose, indicating his age. Hershel had acquired him before Pheonyx was even born.

Just like most old men, Baker was craggy and refused to give Kismet the time of day. He snorted and tossed his head when the pup made his way over. Kismet didn't let it phase him though, he hopped up and stole a kiss from the grumpy horse, who let out a whinny in protest. But he left him alone after that, moving to the last horse housed in the stables, Beauty. The beautiful quarter horse was entirely black aside from a white star on his forehead, just like his namesake, Black Beauty.

Pheonyx watched as the stoic horse tossed his head in delight, his lips rolling up in a ridiculous smile at seeing Kismet making his way over. While Koda and Nellie simply put up with the over enthusiastic dog, and Baker hated the furry beast, Beauty enjoyed the pup's company.

Turning his attention to the buckets in each stall, Pheonyx sent a thank you to the earth when he noticed the fresh water, hay, and the remains of feed in their individual buckets. Maggie must have taken care of the animals, knowing that he would be gone most of the day. He had no issues feeding the animals, it was pretty much routine after two months, but he was tired. And the idea of measuring feed and vitamins just made his brain feel like mush. Glancing at the analog clock (whose batteries had just been replaced recently) on the wall outside the tack room, Pheonyx sighed when he realized it was close to 10. He had to go out tonight but it was still too early to make his way to the woods. He could see some lights in the house from the stable door, and he didn't want to risk anyone finding out about his nightly routine. Not yet. Running a hand through his thick hair, Pheonyx contemplated the best move. He knew if he fell asleep now, he would be dead to the world for the next 8 hours.

Deciding to kill some time, Pheonyx unclipped his weapons from his belt, taking care to place them on his cot, and stripped off his dirty tank top. He tossed it into the corner of the stall, making a mental note to wash it later. He grabbed some baby wipes from the same stall and began to wipe away some of the sweat and dirt from the day, grimacing at the black dirt streaked on the soft cloth. It would have to suffice until he was able to take a shower later. After discarding the wipes, he took a moment to run a hand over his flat chest, admiring the feeling that he dreamed of for so long. Underneath the raven wings spread across his collarbone and sternum, two mirrored crimson lines ran under his pectoral muscles, breaking for about an inch in between. The scars from the surgery were still red and stark even against the tan of his skin. They were a bit raised, mostly from moving too much after surgery and not stretching the skin properly. But he couldn’t help the fact that the world ended while he was in recovery. He couldn’t exactly adhere to his surgeon’s post-surgery care instructions while battling dead people. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have worse scars on his body. At least these scars were ones he felt he could be proud of. Pheonyx ran his hands over the bumpy skin, massaging the tissue a bit, trying to help the nerves reconnect and soften the area like he read about. He did this for a few minutes before going to the tack room to grab some protein bars. His stomach was still rolling from throwing up earlier, but he knew he needed the energy. So, he scarfed down two bars that were labeled as chocolate peanut butter flavored but tasted like neither chocolate nor peanut butter. The burning in his belly calmed a bit, thankfully. Enjoying the air on his exposed chest, the burst of euphoria giving him some extra energy, Pheonyx pulled a haybale to the center of the stable aisle and laid a horse blanket on top to protect his butt from the itchy straw.

Pheonyx went to the stall with his cot and opted to kick his shoes off, allowing his feet to breathe for a short while, the cool air feeling like heaven on his tired toes. He grabbed his guitar case from the corner and opened it up, pulling out the off brand acoustic that he had gotten at a garage sale for 5 bucks. Despite its nameless brand, the instrument was inlaid with beautiful flowers and dark wood that made it look expensive, almost hand made. Beth had been the one to pick up guitar first, at age 6, learning from an older lady at their church. In her excitement after each lesson, she would walk Pheonyx through everything she learned. With the 12 year difference between them, Pheonyx had always had a hard time connecting with the vivacious blonde. But music allowed him to bridge the gap that their age had brought between them. Video calls had given him the chance to keep up with her progress even when states separated them. He wouldn’t consider himself a guitar prodigy, he couldn’t read sheet music for shit, but he learned chords quickly and had an ear for replicating songs that he heard a few times. Overall, singing and playing were a distraction. Another piece in the complicated puzzle of his recovery.

Pulling the strap over his shoulders, he relished in the cool feeling of the wood against his bare skin. Kismet got to his feet from his spot that he claimed in front of Beauty’s stall, stretching like a cat, and trotted over to plop himself down in front of the hay bale that Pheonyx was going to sit on.

Pheonyx maneuvered himself onto the hay bale, tucking his legs in a criss cross pattern and placing the guitar in his lap. He strummed the strings experimentally, sending a thanks to the earth when the notes came out in-tune. The Georgia heat had a tendency to fuck with the wood but his case seemed to be doing a good job of stopping expansion despite the violent temperatures.

Fingers moving in a practiced pattern against the frets, he tested out some chords, trying to think of what to play.

“Any suggestions?,” he asked, looking around the stable at each of the animals. The only answers he received from the horses was a glare from Baker and a snort from Nellie.

“You can request it as much as you want, Nell, but I’m not playing Wonderwall. I’m not that much of a douche.”

Kismet lifted his head from its spot on the cool concrete and gave a little awhoo, a mix between a howl and a whine. Although it wasn’t an actual spoken answer, Pheonyx gathered what the dog was asking for.

“Dylan Gossett? I’m surprised you’re not sick of him yet. You worked hard today though so you get first pick.”

The dog’s tail beat against the stable floor, as if he understood every word, before he laid his bulky head down onto his paws with a sigh.

Calloused fingers moved onto the proper strings, the metal ribbed wire pinched the skin in a familiar pain. He shut his eyes and pictured the song in his head. The chords and the feelings flowing from his brain straight into his fingers. The soft music floated throughout the barn and he started to sing, letting his brain rest from the stress of the world and the demons in his mind.

Daryl tossed on top of his sleeping bag for the upteenth time in the past hour. It was too hot. That’s what he kept telling himself. The sweat coating his body and the thick air was what was keeping him up. It wasn’t the green eyes that kept flashing in his mind. Or the thick brown hair. Or the colorful art that dotted tanned skin. He wasn’t thinking about how much of that skin was probably covered in tattoos. And he certainly wasn’t thinking about how that skin might feel underneath his fingers. Would it be soft? He felt like it would. Their hands had brushed only for a moment earlier and that small glimpse of sensation was softer than the flannel pillowcase he had for 13 years growing up. Originally a red plaid, the case had been washed so many times that the fabric was dulled to a light pink, and so thin that he could practically poke holes in it with just his fingers. He refused to throw it out though. It was soft and comforting when his life was all sharp edges and pain. During a drunken rage, his father had burned it. Just like every other good thing in his life.

Sighing, Daryl flipped to his other side, too tired to process the implications of his obsessive ideas. He tried to clear his brain of all thoughts, only focusing on the intake and exhale of his breath. He needed to get some rest. He had gotten barely 2 hours of sleep the night before and if he was going to spend another day in the sweltering woods, he needed to relax.

When the first whisper-soft notes of sound began to float around him, Daryl thought his mind was simply fucking with him. Playing music to an unknown song while he was trying desperately to sleep. The melody of cicadas and crickets began to blend with the soft notes and Daryl opened his eyes, nose scrunching in confusion. Everyone else was bunked down for the night, aside from Andrea who had the first watch shift. He knew that because he heard the concurrent “good night”s and the accompanying sound of tents being unzipped and zipped again. He’d kept a mental tally. Dale was the first to announce his departure, including Carol in the plans as well since they were both sleeping in the RV. Glenn and T-Dog were next. Then, Shane had kicked dirt over the fire before heading to his own tent. Rick and Lori were sleeping in the same room with Carl. None of the group had music players, and radio was a thing of the past. While the notes were quiet and dampened by the walls of his tent, he didn’t think it was coming from the farmhouse, it wasn’t muted enough for that. The only other sound was the occasional rustle of sleeping bags from the tents in the distance, as Daryl had made sure to set his tent up a fair length away from the main camp. No one else seemed to be disturbed by the sound, which wasn't entirely surprising, the music was barely audible. He doubted any of the people in the group had the heightened sense of situational awareness to hear it.

Grunting in exasperation, at the weakness of his group members and the fact he wasn't getting sleep anytime soon, Daryl lifted himself up into a sitting position. He wiped a dirty hand over his short hair. The oldest sister, Maggie, stopped him after he was done talking to Carol earlier. She didn't say much, just offered their bathroom up to him so he could shower, with hot water surprisingly. The idea sounded amazing. He'd taken a brief one at the CDC but all the running and searching made that cleanliness a distant memory. But the idea of stepping into that farmhouse made him nauseous. The idea of tainting the purity of the pristine house with his dirty soul was sickening. He'd take a dip in the creek tomorrow sometime. That's the only place he felt a dirty Dixon like him deserved. Instead of answering, he'd simply grunted a thanks and walked away. He was regretting it now though, the dried sweat and dirt made his skin itch a bit as he crawled out of his tent into the humid air, making sure to grab his bow. Fresh sweat began to pebble on his skin, starting the cycle all over again. Looking around, the only movement he could see was Andrea on the roof of the RV, her head doing a back and forth sweep with a pair of binoculars, checking the fields for signs of walkers. Even the farmhouse was still. The only sign of life was a small oil lantern flickering in one of the second floor windows. Gripping his crossbow tightly, his palms sweaty against the smooth surface of the stock, Daryl started to follow the music.

Grass crunched under his booted feet as he made his way out of their makeshift camp and got closer to the farmhouse. As he passed the covered porch, the music grew in volume, still barely audible. He walked slowly around the house and stopped when he found the source of the sound. A distance off, soft lantern light poured out of a set of rolling doors on a long building that was much newer than the other structures on the farm. Several small paddocks and water troughs surrounded it leading him to believe it was a stable or barn of sorts.

Realizing one of the Greenes must be listening to music in the barn, he loosened his tight grip on the bow. The noise was barely noticeable, especially over the summer song of crickets and nightly breeze, so the likelihood of any walkers being drawn towards the farm were slim. As the distance between his feet and the barn decreased, a voice began to become understandable through the lulling chords of guitar strings.

"-I still keep it with me

Tucked under all the memories

Your voice echoing throughout those trees…”

The song itself sounded folkish with a hint of country quality, a mix of husky voice and rural twang. Daryl was more of an old rock fan, his limited musical library consisting of AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, and Led Zeppelin. That was the typical type of music that played in any of the garages he would work at while Merle was doing stints in whatever prison or court mandated rehab. So, he’d learned to prefer it. But Merle was a fan of old country music, so he did often listen to George Strait, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Dolly Parton. Of course, Merle insisted he only listened to Dolly because she had a good rack but he had seen the older man shed a tear while listening to “Down from Dover”. The song playing had many of the old country-esque qualities that he was familiar with, although the lyrics themselves were a mystery to him.

“And through unfavorable weather

And holes in the leather

These boots still covered in tar

Well I'm still praying to the heavens

And hoping for them sevens

But hope only gets a man so far…”

When he was in front of the open stable doors, the heavy scent of hay and horses indicating that the structure was indeed a horse stable, he realized it wasn’t a radio he was hearing, but the dulcet sound of someone singing and playing the guitar. There were 3 lit lanterns spread throughout the aisle, casting shadows and yellow light throughout the space. It took a moment for Daryl’s eyes to adjust to the brightness and the unfamiliar surroundings. His sight was immediately drawn to the figure in the center of the building. Pheonyx was sitting on top of a covered hay bale, calloused fingers expertly plucking and strumming a beautiful dark wood guitar. His head was turned down, focusing on the strings so Daryl couldn’t see the movement of his lips but he watched as the man’s shoulders moved along with every word and how he moved slightly side-to-side with the rhythm of the music.

“When this game of life plays heavy on my heart and–

Love is tough and loneliness is twice as hard and–

I'll carry that 'bout everywhere I go

They say pressure makes diamonds

How the hell am I still coal?…”

Pheonyx's voice was like the campfire from the 4th of July when Daryl was eleven. The comforting tone was like the heat from the flames, surrounding his shoulders and wrapping his body tight. It wasn’t deep, but still husky and dark like the smoke that wafted up into that humid summer night, staining his tattered clothes with a familiar soothing scent. Occasional broken notes were reminiscent of the crackling fire, the popping and hissing of its own song. Despite the roughness of Pheonyx’s voice, it was still soft like the marshmallows that Merle stole from the local Piggly Wiggly. Daryl had stolen the chocolate to pair with the sweet cloudy treat, but neither could fit any graham crackers under their shirts. So, they used their pocket knives to cut holes in the marshmallows, put a piece of chocolate inside, and then roast it over the flame. The outsides of the sugary pillows were charred to hell, and the chocolate barely room temp inside, but it was still perfect. Just like that memory. 2 days later, Merle left for basic training and ultimately left Daryl alone with their abusive father. Despite that, that 4th was one he looked back on with fondness. It was perfect but also imperfect. Just like Pheonyx’s voice. It wasn't the flawless heavily edited voices that he heard playing on the radio before the turn. It was imperfect and that made it perfect.

“I've seen heaven without dying

Met the devil without trying and they both seem to wanna talk to me

But I'm all outta luck now and my dreams aren't worth a buck now

It's tough tryna land on my feet…”

Daryl watched the shadows dance across the younger man’s shoulders as the song picked up in intensity, muscles in his arms clenching and unclenching with every movement. He watched Medusa’s snakes on his shoulder dance with the rhythm of the song, as the tissue and sinew kept up with every note. Eyes trailing up over the smooth skin of his shoulder, he reached the man’s collarbones when his body became acutely aware that Pheonyx wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just as the thought entered his mind, which effectively became foggy, Pheonyx leaned back a bit, lifting his head and giving Daryl a full glimpse of the tattoo imprinted on the man’s chest. Much like the style of the other pieces on his body, a gothic style raven was spread across the hard form of the man’s collarbones. Wings spread in flight, the raven looked like it was decaying, feathers were falling from its open wings and bone could be seen poking through torn skin over the expanse of the bird's body. Mouth drying, Daryl wondered what it would be like to trail his fingers over the skin there. Would it be a beautiful juxtaposition of hardness and softness, the velvety derma laying over dense ossein?

“When this game of life plays heavy on my heart and

Love is tough but loneliness is twice as hard and

I'll carry that 'bout everywhere I go

They say pressure makes diamonds

How the hell am I still coal?...”

Before his thoughts could enter even more of a dangerous territory, Daryl was distracted by the little bit of movement that he caught at the corner of his eye. He was sure Pheonyx hadn’t noticed his presence, but the animals in the barn did. The large eyes of 4 horses were drawn to him, but they showed no outward reaction to his existence. In fact, he swore he saw them moving their heads to the rhythm a small bit. Except for the gray horse, he just glared at the archer and flipped his head at him. At Pheonyx’s feet, Kismet had raised his head and was smiling at Daryl. He didn’t get up from his position on the floor but the dog’s tail started to thump faster against the ground. Chocolate brown eyes looked at him in happiness and Daryl would be lying if he said it didn’t make his chest ache a bit.

The song sped up even more and Pheonyx sat up a bit straighter, exposing more of his torso from behind the guitar. Daryl looked away from the happy dog and his eyes were pulled into the long red scars that ran across Pheonyx’s chest. His heart began to race, mind wandering to all the possible causes for the imperfections.

“And everyday it's getting colder

Since that day in October

When you told me it was over, so I left

So if you need me, well I told you

I'm on the better side of sober

Tryna find a four-leaf clover to get me out of this mess

This game of life plays heavy on my heart and

Love is tough but loneliness is twice as hard and

I'll carry that 'bout everywhere I go

They say pressure makes diamonds

How the hell–”

It took a moment of confusing internal panic for Daryl to figure out the scars, running directly under the raven and parallel to its wings, were from some kind of surgery. Recently, if he had to guess. The scars were still bright and almost angry looking compared to the surrounding skin. Almost imperceptible, evenly spaced dots ran on either side of the angry skin, imprints of stitches long gone. The same dots ran in a circle around his nipples, which almost looked a bit scabbed.

The voice of his father rang through in his mind, Fuckin’ bitch thinks cuttin’ ‘er tits off will make ‘er a man? Ain’t gonna change the cunt between ‘er legs. Always knew ya were a fuckin’ faggot. Look at ya, boy. Lustin’ after some psycho tranny. Prolly the only pussy ya could ever get.

Daryl physically shook his head, pushing out the remnants of his father’s hate. The man was dead but still haunted his son’s thoughts. That smoke-roughened voice was ingrained harder in his body than the scars on his back.

“This game of life plays heavy on my heart and

Love is tough but loneliness is twice as hard and

I'll carry that 'bout everywhere I go

They say pressure makes diamonds

How the hell am I still coal?”

As the last note vibrated through the strings of the guitar, silence enveloped the wide space. Behind him, Daryl noted the sound of crickets increasing, the music no longer drowning them out. Aside from the insects, the only sounds that broke through the space was the slight shuffling of horse hooves and low panting from Kismet.

“5 bucks to request a song.”, Pheonyx’s voice, slightly scratchy from singing, brought Daryl’s mind back into focus. Despite the archer’s earlier thoughts, Pheonyx knew he had an audience. After spending a full day walking side-by-side with the other man, the sound of Daryl’s soft steps was easily imprinted in his mind. So, he’d heard him the second the man’s boots came within a few feet of the stable.

Blood rushed to Daryl’s face as he realized he was caught gawking. Embarrassment–and the remnants of his father’s words–sparked a small amount of anger in his chest. “All yer caterwaulin’s gonna bring a herd down on us. The fuck ya think yer doin?”, he snapped, taking a few steps into the stable, “This ain’t fuckin’ American Idol or some shit.”

“No, it’s definitely not. You’re much cuter than Simon Cowell.”, Pheonyx quipped, raising an eyebrow. Men raising their voices was typically an anxiety inducer for him, but something about Daryl’s demeanor made the other man feel more like a hissing kitten as opposed to a feral mountain lion.

Shocked at Pheonyx’s words, Daryl didn’t know how to respond. Was he joking? Daryl Dixon wasn’t cute. He was an ugly old redneck. No one had ever called him cute before.

At Daryl’s widened eyes, Pheonyx stood up, and placed the guitar down on the hay bale where he had been sitting. Kismet raised his head and looked between the two of them before huffing and lowering his head to his paws. Within a few seconds, soft snores filled some of the silence. Slightly scared to hear the other man’s response to his flirting, Pheonyx opted to continue. “You don’t have to worry though. The windchimes in the woods help dilute the sounds from the farm. As long as I don’t decide to take up the electric guitar, we’re as safe as we can be.”

“Still shouldn’ be takin’ any chances,” Daryl grumbled, his eyes narrowed. He briefly glanced down, taking in the full view of Pheonyx’s torso. Under the scars on his right side, a quote was scrawled across his ribs, although Daryl wasn’t close enough to see exactly what it said. On the opposite side, in a fancy cursive font that was larger than the quote’s, was a girl’s name. Daryl didn’t understand the weird rolling in his stomach at the idea of someone else’s name being on Pheonyx’s skin. It wasn’t something he’d ever felt before and he pulled his stare away, hoping to unpack the feeling at a different time. Drifting down, a quarter sized round scar was prominent on the younger man’s stomach. It wasn’t as new as the ones on his chest. This one was older, and less smooth. The scar was brown and sunken into the surrounding skin, almost as if something gouged the flesh out. Almost unnoticeable on his pale skin, several pale jagged lines circled Pheonyx’s belly button, not scars, but stretch marks. They were very light, and Daryl only saw them because the lantern light was hitting the area just right. Those lines led under low slung jeans and Daryl had to stop himself from thinking about what else those jeans were covering.

“Probably not, but sometimes you have to weigh risk and reward. What is the point of living anymore if you can’t do the small things that make you happy?”, Pheonyx crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t do it much, just needed to let off some steam.” He took in the bedraggled appearance of the other man. Daryl was still wearing the same clothes from earlier but now they looked wrinkled, more wrinkled than before. Short hair was sticking up on the back of his head and he had a look on his face that reminded Pheonyx of Beth when she woke up from her naps as a baby. "Can't sleep?"

The deep grunt from Daryl’s chest was almost a guffaw. "Was tryin. Heard ya singin. Thought maybe someone left a music player on or somethin’,” He looked at Pheonyx and a wave of shyness came over him. The slight upturn of the other man’s lip was making the moths in his stomach beat against his intestines with the strength of a CAT bulldozer. He had roasted up a squirrel before heading to bed, the meat probably hadn’t sat well with him. Gripping the crossbow strap on his shoulder, he brought his thumb up to his mouth to chew on the corner of his nail. “Yer pretty good”. The words were spoken softly. He wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted Pheonyx to hear him.

Surprised at the compliment, a small squeak escaped Pheonyx’s chest. He covered it quickly with a cough and rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks," He ducked his head as blood rushed to the surface of his skin, heating up his already warmed body.

Daryl gulped as he watched a red pigment pop up over Pheonyx’s cheeks and slowly spread down his neck, to his chest, to his stomach, and past the waist of his jeans. The only response he could muster was a grunt as he tried not to think about how his own blood was making a similar southward journey. Although this was probably for a much different reason. Daryl averted his eyes to the floor of the stable, suddenly fascinated by a small piece of dried mud that oddly resembled the state of Florida.

To hide his embarrassment, Pheonyx wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. “So, um- I figured we'd pick up where we left off tomorrow. Sophia seems to be sticking close to the creek. There are a few landmarks along there she could be holed up at-”.

Without thinking, Pheonyx turned around, going to grab one of the three unopened water bottles sitting on the table outside of the tack room. His mouth was suddenly dry so he opened the bottle and took a few hefty swallows to remove the cottony film that had slowly spread over his taste buds.

At first, Daryl didn’t see them. All he saw was more ink spread across broad shoulders. It was easily the most eye-catching tattoo that he had seen on the man so far. An amalgamated blend of dark reds, deep purples, fiery oranges, and bright yellows in almost paint-like strokes created an image of a phoenix in flight. Both wings reached up towards Pheonyx’s shoulder, the feathered ends were ragged flames that almost seemed to be in perpetual motion. Smoke and ash circled its feet and followed in a cloud behind its body, a nest of history and rebirth. A death left behind. Small black eyes were galvanizing against the backdrop of smoldering colors. Those little dots told a whole story in and of themselves. The expanse of inked skin was an enchanting piece of artwork that practically flew off the surface it was needled into.

It was only when Pheonyx lifted his arm to bring a bottle of water to his lips, did the lantern light accentuate the skin that Daryl thought was smooth only moments before. Instead of even flesh, heavy scarring marked almost every inch of skin along his whole back. The type of scarring Daryl was all too familiar with. Long, deep lashes broke the surface of the area. Only slightly thinner than his own. Whip marks. Dozens of them. More than Merle and he had combined. Littered between each mark of rancor were round, sharply-demarcated cigarette burns. Less than the whip marks but still a dozen at least. Daryl had to force down the squirrel that threatened to make a return appearance. Those memories from moments ago–happy memories of campfires, charred redneck s’mores, and brotherly bonding–were quickly replaced by nightmarish flashes of subjugation and brutalization. Red stained leather repeatedly falling down on his back, breaking open the soft skin of his boyhood and replacing it with the tougher, thicker skin of his adulthood. Each lash another brick on the wall he kept around his heart, a testament to his distrust and solitude. He needed to leave. The muscles in his legs were twitching. His brain was sending the signals to his feet to run but they weren't listening. It was like sirens were going off in his head and he was right back at that dirty old trailer, hiding in his tiny closet. Praying to a God his mother had so fiercely believed in.

To think that Pheonyx had felt something similar, more if the amount of scarring was anything to go by, made him sick. He had to get away. Get away from the reminder of the weakest points of his life.

Pheonyx turned around, placing the bottle cap back on his water, and stopped his rambling at the ghost standing in the entrance of the stable. Daryl’s bronzed skin was suddenly cadaverous, the blush that had been there moments before was completely bleached from his body. Sweat shined on his forehead and the whites of his eyes were nearly imperceptible against the pallid color of the surrounding flesh. Blue eyes latched on to him and he was nearly floored by the amount of emotion rolling off of them. While something wiggled in his brain that told him he was wrong, Pheonyx identified the emotion as disgust. The way Daryl’s eyebrows pushed together and his mouth pushed into a thin line, made the revulsion evident. He felt a surge of panic when he realized what caused this sudden change in the man across from him. His back. He hadn’t even thought about it. Growing up, he tried not to be ashamed of the scars but it was hard not to be. For so long he had to hide them, from his mother, then from his siblings. His mother wrote notes so he didn’t have to change in the locker rooms at school, ashamed of what his peers would say about their family. When he left Georgia, he made the ultimate decision to leave his hatred for the marks behind as well. The back tattoo had been his ultimate fuck-you to his father’s abuse. The tattoo artist he worked with specialized in scarring, and even used some of the scars to create the lines and color of the fiery bird, incorporating pieces of a broken childhood into a beautiful picture of reclaiming. But that familiar feeling of embarrassment and mortification slipped back into his heart at the look of repugnance on Daryl's face. Feelings that he swore he would never feel again.

Before Pheonyx could utter a word, Daryl whirled around and disappeared into the darkness of the night. A bubble of sorrow traveled up his throat and the familiar sting of tears began to fog up his vision. He scrubbed his eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding his water bottle, refusing to let those little beads of weakness roll down his face. That feeling of sadness was quickly replaced with anger.

What the fuck is wrong with me? He’s just a guy. I haven’t even known him for a full day. His feelings shouldn’t determine my self worth!, His internal monologue screamed. He was a fighter. He had been broken so many times. Beaten into dust. But he fixed himself. For years, he sat and glued those pieces of himself back into place, replacing the destroyed one with new pieces, learning to live with the holes of ones he couldn’t fix. But he was whole. And he did that. He wasn’t going to let some guy destroy his very essence. In anger, Pheonyx tossed the water bottle at the tack room wall. The plastic caved easily and a spray of water spread over the cement floor. The horses all jumped back in shock, their hooves clipping on their stall floors.

Having heard the sudden movement of Daryl’s escape and Pheonyx’s outburst, Kismet looked at Pheonyx with worry. He lifted himself off the ground and trotted over to his owner. He pressed himself up against the man’s legs and nudged his head up against calloused fingers. A low whine escaped his barrel chest, a vocalization of his concern.

Guilt ate at Pheonyx’s chest. He hated scaring the animals. “Sorry, guys.”, he spoke softly to them all, trying to calm himself.

He thought Daryl was different. Earlier that day–when the man had accepted his identity without any protests or questions– Pheonyx felt like he might have found someone he could connect with. If not on a romantic level, at least as a friend. But he was wrong. The look of horror on the man's face as he backed out of the barn had that familiar feeling of shame filling his stomach. The scars that laced his back like a patchwork quilt of heartbreak and abandonment. Each piece was a square of fabric that told its own story. Daryl was the same as everyone else, seeing only the scars on the surface and judging him for them.

“Fuck it.”, He refused to sit there and wallow in self-hate. Pheonyx walked with purpose to his stall, grabbing his bag of clothes and digging deep until he found an old clean band t-shirt. He pulled the soft fabric over his head, covering the objects of his discomfiture. Snatching up his cutlass and hunting knife, he quickly hooked the weapons to his belt, the weights of them a blanket of comfort across his skin. Opting to leave his Glock behind, he looked around for his bow and quiver that he had given to Maggie to put up. Both of them were leaned up against the small table by his bed, and he grabbed them. Feeling a bit of an evening breeze, Pheonyx also grabbed his jean jacket. The light blue denim was soft from years of wear and the sewn in red hood made for good protection whenever the Georgia skies opened up. He shrugged on the jacket, making sure the hood wasn’t tucked inside. Movement was slightly limited with the material but it was better to have his arms covered since he was going out alone.

Pulling the quiver over his shoulders, he gripped the bow in his hand, some anger still running through his veins. He shut off all but one of the lanterns in the stable and made to leave. The clicking of familiar nails on the cement floor made him turn around to the big dog following him.

“Go to the house, Kismet. You can’t go. You know that.”, another soft whine rumbled through the dog’s chest and Pheonyx felt guilt crawl in his stomach. “I’m sorry, buddy. I’ll be okay. Go on. Go to bed.” He used the bow to point toward the house.

Sad chocolate eyes stared at the man for a moment. Then, Kismet huffed and started trotting towards the farmhouse.

Rolling his shoulders, Pheonyx pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it. He walked until he reached the edge of the woods and stepped over the barb wire that encased the wood line. Just like every other night, he pushed into the gloaming of the night and chased after shadows.

Taglist: @yoongibaybee, @edgyboi10000, @dixonsboy19, @clairealeehelsing

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drowningworms · 5 months ago

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Psych wards are psychotic and evil

By the way, friends, if you ever have a mental breakdown or are suicidal or anything like that don't go to the emergency room. The following is not just one bad hospital. It's basically all of them. I've talked to other people in other parts of the country.

I had a massive breakdown summer of 2023 from a new anti-anxiety med and a lot of stress. We called for an ambulance and got 4 cops instead. And I got a nice strapped down ride to the ER. To be fair, I was not in my right mind at the time and was unpredictable.

But it wasn't fair.

ER psych wards are straight out of 1923.

They use hours of stress positions and cold to torture the inmates into "submission" ("coercive measures"). And it doesn't matter if you are already submissive. I was obviously in control of myself by then and fully cooperative. The bastards wanted their fun anyway. After the hours of stress positions, they continue to keep "patients" unsettled with over medication of "anti-psychotics", verbally shame them from being sick, and keep them in a constant state of anxiety and discomfort after they have "coerced" them into submission while way too many heavily armed cops roam around doing their own bullying. All the time denying them obviously needed medical care including simple first aid. The "nurses" and "doctors" themselves have lost their empathy and replaced it with sadism. And they ruin the good hearts the younger ones to be just like them.

I didn't hear a single compassionate word given to anyone.

There are not private rooms. It is a open, tiled area buried in the basement behind many doors and guards and closed to visitors with a bathroom and guardhouse in the center with a few alcoves and no doors. While I was strapped down for hours with my arm cranked behind my head, with my shirt pulled up for cold torture, and the cuffs tightened and biting into my wrists (but they could still shove two fingers into my flesh and squeeze them in there so it was "legal") the other inmates were just wandering around me and I was utterly vulnerable should one of them decide to do anything to me. People are all dressed in paper gowns and sitting on hospital beds, wall benches, and wandering to pass the time.

I have so many stories just from 18 hours of being in there witnessing the worse psychological and physical tortures they were doing to the people they knew had nobody. It was a constant provocation of the most vulnerable people in the hospital in order to excuse more "coercive measures".

I watched them kill an old woman's dog.

It was going to be 115F that day. So early in the morning around 5am she started asking for her phone to call her brother to go get her dog out of her trailer and save it from heat death. They told her she could use their phone. But she didn't know the number (who knows anyone's number anymore?) She asked for her cell phone in her belongings right behind them and they said they would get it and then they strung her along till 3 in the afternoon, making her beg and plead and be oh so polite so she wouldn't end up on a bed with her arm cranked behind her head for being too loud or give them an excuse to simply straight up tell her no for being too "disrespectful."

They were petty too, loudly telling people breakfast was on it's way 3-4 hours before they knew breakfast would get there just to make people feel hungry and get them anxious and waiting assuming it was coming any minute now. As the staff kept reminding us breakfast would be here any minute every few minutes.

And they take away even the ability to escape by suicide. An escape so many would surely make if they could. I doubt Hell would be much worse. The only reason I got out so "soon" was I had an advocate (spouse) trying to bring me home. To be fair people are sent there for being "suicidal". But I don't see how it could do anything but hasten their descent towards taking their own life.

They, like prisons, don't help anyone. It's just for storage and terror. And it caused me trauma that continues to give me flashbacks months later. I'm not sure what state I would be in now without a loving family and a spouse who loves compassionately and deeply to heal me. Or my long-time counselor. Or my chickens. I held my little bunny for hours as my little angry little tribble did his best to comfort me. I slept with terrible dreams for nearly 48 straight. I couldn't even eat for a week. It feels even now like it set me back a year in my recovery from the pit I only recently crawled out of.

I think the second worst thing was the insanity of it all. Why hurt people who are already hurting so much? I get the whole Nietzsche thing is in play. So fucking what? It's still insane.

The worst thing was meeting a young resident doctor who was obviously gay and Latino. He knew what it was like to be oppressed. I could still hear some basic goodness in his voice. But he was already cold and compassionless. They were ruining his good heart just as they had done to so many others. And he will become twice as much a son of hell and traumatize thousands more over his long life.

And I know that is only a snapshot of the evil in our empire.

#ER #ER psych wards #suicide #civilization #America #mental health

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believesinheros · 2 years ago

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Changes.

@bitofashortfuse

Change of scenery. It was required when you experience a traumatic event. For Nic she was the made hero of her own. She wasn’t the surgeon on the scenes. She wasn’t the person that opened up a patient or took the tools to repair the damages. She was the nurse that gave orders; she also had the bedside manner that was nearly perfect. She was the girl who would sit by a stranger; hold their hands when no one was there. She was the nurse that would bend backwards in order to advocate for you. She had a huge heart; and through the years she held one important relationship with Conrad Hawkins.

He was her fighter; the guy that knew how to push buttons, to challenge her. He had broken her heart once; but down the line she saw the good in him. The change he had; he no longer held the temper, he only wanted to fight for his patients, do right by them. And for a while we had a perfect relationship reigniting the flame, even said I do, but no relationship is perfect especially when death comes knocking on your door. Conrad died a hero. He had his last breath jumping in front of a car for a child. Nic held his head the whole time, she watched his eyes flutter closed for the last time. She watched the shallow raising and falling of his chest. She had the tears stray down her cheeks. That day stayed with her; and as much as the blonde loved Atlanta, she felt the numbness each time she walked through hallow halls, The stares from the people that knew her love for her late husband. It had become hard for Nic to want to work, despite how much she loved her job. So that’s why she decided to uproot her life; and come to Med in chicago, It was a place she had lived when she was young, so there was a sense of home for her.

She found a cheap shoebox apartment a block from the hospital; it was an easy route, and despite all the nerves coursing through her body; she felt like this was the right move. To move forward; nothing tethering her to fear; to the past life with her husband. The blonde was on her first shift at med; Maggie was giving her the run down; how each page worked; the smaller patient rooms. The right proacals. Listening intently the blonde bobbed her head along when they got a call from a girl named Brett informing us an ambulance was on route, a cop undercover was injuried, that’s when I caught sight of Will; Halstead the memories of growing up next door to the halstead boys became obvious. An instant smile tugged at the corners of my lips.

“ Stayed a chicago guy after all?” Beaming gaze emitted onto my features as he saw me, “ NIC” A brief extension of an embrace right as the doors swung open, A blonde women I can assume was Brett stepped out; “ Will it’s Jay. you might want to come to keep him calm, he’s insisting that he’s fine.” A knowing glance shared. Lips paused dropping my smile. Jay Halstead? A cop? Injured? I had a jar reaction it had been years since we spoke, since I had uttered a word to him. College, our futures never allied together. But here in Chicago; same place same time. Being a nurse; I had used my quick feet letting shoes shuffle after Will as the ambulance bay doors opened; you heard the annoyance from Jay almost instantly.

Snapping gloves over palms, the female had stepped out onto the pavement, Will had stepped forward as the gurney was taken out of the back and there was Jay laid back against the mat. Instantly I felt those nerves, would he be okay to see me? Did he resent me for never calling? We had once been thick as thieves, and suddenly our futures pulled us apart. I had to admit I loved him; and now I felt those jarring feelings instantly.

“ What kind of operation did you get messed up man? “ Will attempted to joke as he nodded to me as I stood at the sliding doors; almost unsure if I should move closer. “ Look who I found? “ Obvious speaking of me, I had stood awkwardly as the doctors started to move Jay inside the hospital. Eyes met his briefly. “ Jay.” The name that felt familiar; yet we stood as strangers.

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newspaper12 · 1 year ago

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A Voice for the Vax-Injured

Angela Wulbrecht, a nurse for the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, discusses the consequences of COVID vaccinesIn a recent episode of "American Thought Leaders," host Jan Jekielek and Angela Wulbrecht discuss the devastating and sometimes deadly consequences of the COVID vaccines on certain recipients. A nurse for over two decades, Ms. Wulbrecht suffered a life-threatening response to the vaccine. Today, she works for the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, where she advocates for injured patients. She also appears in the new documentary, “The Unseen Crisis.”Jan Jekielek: You're one of the stars of “The Unseen Crisis,” which is now screening at a New York City film festival. Let’s talk first about how you became a nurse.Angela Wulbrecht: My mom is from the Seychelles Islands off the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. My father was American, and I was born in the United States. When I was 8 years old, my father and I were in a car accident. I survived with a fractured vertebra, but my dad was killed instantly, and I was rushed to a children's hospital. My mom wasn't in the States at the time. I was terrified and alone, and devastated by my dad’s death, but these nurses decorated my room with balloons and teddy bears, and loved me, and got me through the most tragic time of my life. So even then, I decided I wanted to become a nurse, to give back what they had given me—this incredible gift of love and compassion.

Related Stories

My mom had no family in the United States. She decided to go home and be closer to her family, and we returned to the Seychelles. After high school, I went to nursing school in the United States. Once I graduated, I started working as a labor and delivery nurse. I loved helping women at one of the most beautiful times of their lives. Within a year, I pretty much was a charge nurse for the Department of Women, Infants, and Children.Mr. Jekielek: Let's fast-forward to when you worked in a hospital in Sonoma, California.Ms. Wulbrecht: When the pandemic hit, everything shut down. My daughter had to be homeschooled. I took it all really seriously. When the government told us this was bad, I believed them. When they said the vaccines were safe and effective, I believed them and rushed to get my vaccine. Within 12 minutes of getting it, I was on the ground.At first, I thought I was having an anaphylactic reaction. The paramedics took my vitals, which were extremely unstable. My blood pressure was so high I could have stroked out. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital.That was the first of five 911 calls and five hospitalizations. Those first weeks I was at the doctor's office every day if I wasn't in the hospital. I was fortunate because I was valued in the medical community where I worked. They were eager to take care of me. This was also early on when only medical staff could get the vaccine, so they did all sorts of tests to figure out what was going on. Three or four different cardiologists plus other doctors worked on me.I was still pro-vaccine. I looked at it as similar to giving penicillin to me, because I'm allergic to penicillin. So I was encouraging people to get it to protect each other.Mr. Jekielek: Then you appeared in the media.Ms. Wulbrecht: Kaiser News interviewed me to share my story. By that point, I’d started to learn of others getting injured and how they weren't being properly cared for. My goal in this interview was to highlight that. After the article hit other major newspapers, I started to realize thousands and thousands of other people were having vaccine reactions. People who were injured would ask online, “Are there any vaccine injuries out there?” My name would pop up, my number wasn’t blocked, and they could find me.Then I was invited, along with others, to speak to the CDC and the FDA . I was happy we could present our evidence to them.They listened, gave us their email, and told us we would have a follow-up meeting. We never heard back from them. I emailed multiple times but never heard from them.I thought, “If the CDC and the FDA won’t listen, the NIH will, because they’re doctors. We're in this together.”I sent Dr. Nath, the head of neurology at the NIH, my hospital credentials and asked for his help. He was wonderful. I emailed him cases of vaccine injuries, and he would reply right away.In one email, I asked him to look at data compiled by Steve Kirsch. His response was this generic email saying they didn’t treat vaccine injuries and that if I had further questions to look at the CDC website. That was the gist of it.At that point, I realized my perception of these people putting health and safety first hadn’t been true. Greed, money, and power came first.So I joined the VSRF team, founded by Steve Kirsch. It lit a fire in me. We were a team. None of us had a background in event planning and media, but we were passionate about caring for people.Mr. Jekielek: A silver lining of the whole recent madness is meeting some really principled people, which I'm grateful for.Ms. Wulbrecht: “The Unseen Crisis” filmed by Cindy of NTD News and The Epoch Times reveals who the vaccine injured are, and I hope doctors will watch it. The whole crew was wonderful. I felt like I was with family.If I'm never allowed to work in another hospital again for speaking out, for helping the helpless, that's okay. I went into this to do my duty and to protect patients first. I want help and compensation for all the vaccine injured. That's my goal.This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. #Voice #VaxInjured A Voice for the Vax-Injured https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2023/10/16/id5510944-Angela-Wulbrecht-700x420.jpg Read the full article

#VaxInjured #Voice

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institutional-secrets · 2 years ago

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Inside the Facility

For my research I intended to gather knowledge for my topic from all possible angles. In order to make this achievable, I needed to get information from a primary source to get as close to actuality as possible. I was able to accomplish this by reaching out to people I knew who had experience in mental hospitals. By doing this, I could discover authentic details of what goes on behind the scenes of mental health patients.

A friend of mine, who will remain anonymous, was willing enough to open up to me about her time in a mental health hospital for research purposes. I interviewed her regarding where she stayed, the conditions of the hospital, restrictions implemented, and the effectiveness of the facility.

For some background, she explained that she suffered from anxiety and depression throughout her teenage years. She was never medicated or treated for her mental health prior to getting admitted to the hospital. One day her suffering became unbearable and caused her to go to the hospital. From this, she was asked if she would be willing to get admitted to a mental hospital, which she agreed to. There were tedious procedures that needed to be followed in order to find an institute with availability that also took her insurance. She had to wait a total of about twelve hours to be admitted. This consisted of talking to various doctors, filing for paperwork, taking an ambulance from hospital to hospital, and going home to gather necessities for her stay. She finally was admitted to Meadowwood Behavioral Health Hospital after all.

She was told from the start that she would have her own room and access to a phone to use whenever she pleased. Upon her arrival she was welcomed into a room with a roommate and no personal phone to use. Although there was a phone for calls, everyone had to wait to be called back if they had a call or they had to wait hours to make a call. From having no prior history of psychoactive drugs, she was immediately put on four different medications, all of which she did not consent to taking. Despite this, the doctors made sure patients took their meds by checking their tongue to make sure the pills were swallowed.

She felt that the hospital she was put in was not a good fit for her. For example, she stated that she was “triggered by the other patients' experiences”. Her own feelings felt invalidated through other people who seemingly were going through “so much worse”. All of the therapy sessions consisted of group meetings, which could be skipped if patients did not feel up to talking. However, to be released, patients must eventually engage in group meetings to cooperate with the program and make progress. She reported feeling isolated from being kept in a confined space with other patients who came off as threatening.

After just one day, her and her parents agreed that this hospital was not suitable for her. Regardless of her and her parents wanting her to come home, she was not able to leave until she was approved to leave by the doctor. She was kept in the facility for five days. It was not until she was advocated by a social worker to be discharged. Ultimately, after her stay at the hospital she had higher feelings of depression and anxiety. She in turn did not recommend getting admitted into a mental hospital unless you are severely a danger to yourself or others.

This interview gave me a lot of insight into just one circumstance of a mental health center. Of course many factors come into play when examining these institutions. Many people have had beneficial experiences in these centers. However it is important to note the instances where things went wrong. Many problems tend to repeat themselves and it is those that need to be worked towards changing.

I was shocked by the details I received about her getting prescribed with various medications at once so quickly. I would suspect that more would have to go into diagnosing a patient. Such as figuring out if medication would be a good option for the patient and if so, then decide on which kinds would be most beneficial. This interview ultimately fueled my advocacy towards improving mental hospitals. It further gave me an inside perspective of what patients actually experience when seeking mental health help.

It is important for higher ups, the people who can make something happen, to be made more aware of the recurring issues happening in mental hospitals. Many Americans struggle with their mental health and are too scared to enter programs that could help. This is due to a fear of hospitals potentially causing more harm than good. Today’s society needs a safety net to provide them with reliable guidance on how to manage their problems and allow them to heal.

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martinhealthactivist · 2 years ago

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Martin County Hospital District Stanton, Tx: How Good Are Your Local Hospitals? Thespectrum Com

Rapid testing—both PCR and antigen tests—is offered through many Stanton-area pressing care centers and doctor workplaces, usually at an extra value ranging from $50 as a lot as $150 per check. Usually it will allow you to get results again in beneath an hour, and require advanced booking by way of the supplier. However, if you can wait 24 hours in your outcomes, many labs are turning round send-out lab exams in that time frame, which may save you some cash. Receptionist loudly asked for all waiting room to listen to if I was utilizing Medicare?

Based on the company location, we can see that the HQ office of Martin County Hospital is in STANTON, TX. Depending on the placement and native financial situations, Average hourly pay rates may differ significantly. Definitely advocate this hospital for all of your healthcare wants. Answers emergency calls and makes patient transfers. Administers first assist to patients in emergency conditions.

I have been right here numerous times utilizing private insurance coverage and nothing provides a cause for such a query. While I was waiting, Three white ladies show up with out appointments, ask questions, Complete the Solv questionnaire on the desk and all get seen before me. When I asked Gracieanna about my appointment, then she said, oh you’re next. Once seen the male nurse didn’t weigh me but requested me to inform him my weight and started a discourse about me taking treatment for high blood pressure and having been referred by a doctor.

The Stanton Territorial Hospital renewal project was the most important project ever undertaken by the Government of the Northwest Territories. This five-year, $260 million project changed an growing older hospital originally constructed in 1985. The constructed hospital is sort of twice the size of the unique and presents in depth martin county hospital stanton tx inpatient, important, and assist services together with biomedical and data expertise. Hima B. Parchuri, DOis a household medicine practitioner who practices family medicine and primary care medicine.

Death amongst surgical inpatients with serious treatable problems RateNoneN/A13 - Results cannot be calculated for this reporting period. Martin County EMS supplies 911 ambulance service and TruLite Homecare is right here to serve you within the comfort of your home. So much like stanton tx hospital to your family during this time and past. Love for all in these heart breaking hours with prayers for God’s arms holding you and supplying you with peace and acceptance in the days forward. Coleton “Cole” Landrum, 15, of Beaumont, died Tuesday, January 31, 2023, at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, Houston.

Obits.dallasnews.com needs to evaluation the security of your connection before proceeding. In this position, Dr. Marrero will report on to Steward Chairman and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre and... The follow sees patients with diabetes, adrenal problems, osteoporosis, and thyroid and pituitary problems, and helps patients manage their weight and metabolism. At the University Hospital, we provide free wi-fi internet from anywhere contained in the hospital to all of our sufferers and visitors. USA Health supplies patients with new, promising experimental therapies through ongoing scientific trials. Our exemplary education and analysis programs have contributed to our progress as the region’s only tutorial medical middle.

How patients lately discharged from the hospital responded to a survey about their hospital experience. The survey requested questions similar to how well a hospital's docs and nurses communicated with the patient. Patient ExperienceHow patients lately discharged from the hospital responded to a survey about their hospital experience. In July 2022, Steward Medical Group launched a model stanton hospital tx new affected person portal to enhance our patients’ expertise and improve access to their well being information. Through the new portal, patients will have extra access to their data in a single safe location anytime, wherever, from a desktop, laptop, cellphone or pill gadget.

At the Stanton High School Baseball subject car parking zone on West Third Street, in Stanton. Those looking to receive the vaccine are requested to enter from from State Highway 137 adn to wear a brief sleeved shirt. Please present your corporation e mail which will be use for declare process. We need your help as a result of we are a non-profit group that relies upon contributions from our group in order to record and protect the historical past of our state.

We are especially grateful for the complete staff at Memorial Hermann’s Pediatric ICU for their love and care of not only Cole, however his complete family. The driver of the SUV, Jeyco Gonzalez, 19, of Schuyler was ejected from his vehicle and pronounced lifeless on the scene. The driver of the pickup, Tyler Regan, 24, of O’Neill was extricated from the wreckage and transported to the West Point hospital.

The common family size was 2.87 and the typical family measurement was three.36. As of the census of 2000, there were four,746 people, 1,624 households, and 1,256 households residing in the county. The inhabitants density was 5 people per square mile (2/km2). There have been 1,894 housing units at a mean density of 2 per square mile (1/km2).

#Healthcare

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atlanticcanada · 2 years ago

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'We know that there’s work to be done': N.S. premier expands on plan to address ER overcrowding

Nova Scotia’s PC government revealed a multi-point plan Wednesday to address problems in emergency rooms and improve ambulance response times.

Premier Tim Houston says a number of the initiatives began as pilot projects and are about to move forward permanently.

“Some are real short term. Having like, a customer service really, a patient advocate in the emergency rooms, talking to people, communicating with people, making sure they understand the process,” says Houston. “We expect to see that rolled out really quick, possibly this weekend. Some of the others things will be over the next couple of weeks.

“I think the important thing is, a lot of these things have been in the works, so we kind of know what it’s going to take to roll them out, but we know that there’s work to be done and this is our first step,” he added.

Houston has said the plan could cost “tens of millions of dollars,” but an exact dollar figure hasn’t been released.

“We know there’s a lot of work to do in the system and I’ve always been very clear that it’s going to cost money. We’re making those investments and it’s going to take time, and it is taking time, it’s easy to get impatient. I’m impatient as well.”

During Wednesday’s news conference announcing the plan, Karen Oldfield, the president and CEO of Nova Scotia Health, said the province has the necessary funding, experience and political will to make change.

But the province is struggling with a lack of health-care workers -- something pointed out by critics of the plan.

Houston says there are “a couple” aspects to addressing the problem, such as allowing health-care workers to do everything for which they are trained.

“But we know that retention is an issue as well. It’s a tough environment for sure, so we need to make sure we’re respecting health-care workers in how they’re paid, in their work environments. If we start getting those things better, then recruitment is kind of a follow on that,” he says. “But certainly we need people. There’s not enough people, we’re not alone, there’s not enough people in the province, so we’ll look to recruit from other areas.”

The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union is critical of the plan, saying there's nothing to retain skilled nurses in emergency departments.

Houston says making jobs, and the quality and work-life balance, stronger should help retain people.

“Compensation is part of it, but there are other parts of it as well, and I don’t think we should lose sight of that -- we won’t as a government.”

The new plan involves several types of actions across the health-care system, leading some to wonder how everything will work together.

Houston says it’s “not perfect” but improvements will be made over time.

“Don’t forget as well, we put out an Action for Health Care plan in this province. We have a website, people can go and see that. These are initiatives that we’ve been working on. A lot of the planning and execution in some cases with pilot projects is already happening. The rollout is critical.”

There may also be a deal between the provinces and the federal government for increased health-care funding.

“Money is necessary, the investments are necessary, the federal government, you know, we’re hopeful they will be there as partners on the funding,” says Houston. “The system that we designed a generation ago needs to change. The world’s different now and there’s more chronic conditions and the system was designed in many ways for acute care.”

Houston says the province is working with Ottawa to help doctors who study in the provinces stay and avoid having to leave due to citizenship red tape.

“Definitely working on the licence process to make sure it’s streamlined and we have quality people, we can’t sacrifice the quality, but if the qualifications are there, the process has to be smooth,” he says. “Immigration is part of it -- that’s part of the things we can partner with the federal government. Money we can partner with, immigration we can partner with, technology, leadership – there’s lots we can do.”

Houston also says he may think about more private-public partnerships “if necessary.”

“We made a very similar announcement to the one that Ontario made, we made it back in the summer, same things -- if people are waiting for eye surgery was the one we announced initially, where they get that surgery is less of a concern as to when they get it. They want those surgeries and it’s still public pay, we’ll still pay, instead of just going to a regional hospital, they may go to a clinic somewhere,” he says.

“Nova Scotians have told me, ‘That’s OK we want the surgery.’ And we’ve started with eyes, but like other areas, will move out as necessary. We have to get those lists down, return people’s quality of life.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2vcyZDm

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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rahrahkaz · 2 years ago

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2023 Goals...Blog More

January 4, 2023

2023 Goal….write more. I love writing, but I never make enough time for it. I’m not even sure I’m that good at it, I just know it’s therapeutic for me and often provides me and my family with support that I never know I even needed. I have a goal in 2023 to have a blog post at least once a month, so stay tuned!

So today, it is Wednesday night, the first Wednesday of 2023. We are almost 5 years into the diagnosis of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy for both Caleb and Dunky. Here I sit at 9 pm in the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) across the street from Nationwide Children’s with Caleb sleeping, who is exhausted from the past few days, but also likely exhausted from just living with this disease.

Our flight plans were perfect, leave on Tuesday at 1 pm from Minneapolis, appts on Wednesday, leave on Thursday. But mother nature had other plans with inclement weather, so we changed flights to leave Monday night, only to be faced with delay after delay. We finally got to our hotel in Columbus at 3 am. I booked a hotel and arranged for a late check out so we could sleep and go swimming at the indoor pool before heading to the RMH. Caleb lasted 13 seconds in the pool because it was too cold for him. I’d like to think my ability to brush that off is due to my obsession with yoga, accompanied with parenting kids with special needs, cause deep down I wanted to force him to swim since that’s why we were there. Kudos to me.

Doctor appointments were hard. I wrote a 3-page paper and sent it ahead of time just to be able to document my thoughts related to Caleb and this disease. I did this so I didn’t have to continuously talk about his failing body in front of him and to avoid the tears that accompany those discussions. It discussed things like his increased struggles to get off the floor, his muscles that fatigue faster than I would ever imagine, the depression and anxiety that he expresses in his words and actions.

Caleb is 9, the age where you start to see disease progression. It used to be 7 or 8, but with steroids, it is more like 9 or 10. He’s also brilliant. I watched him look at the older kids in the lobby of the waiting room and could see the anxiety and wonder on his face if that is what is to come. Yes buddy, that is what is to come. But instead, I flipped that stroller around and engaged him in the Paw Patrol show that was playing on the other side of the lobby. We don’t try to hide anything from our boys, but sometimes, it’s even too much for me.

This visit I strategically needed a coffee while Caleb did his PT, which involves the Northstar Ambulation Assessment. I typically accompany him and help him along, but I knew his physical decline would be too much for me to watch. It’s so sad to see a 9-year-old be asked to jump or take a step, and they aren’t able to do that. Thankfully, Nationwide has the best clinical team that they jumped in and took Caleb without missing a beat.

It was just two weeks ago that I was doing this same thing with Dunky. Travel, flights, overnights and days of doctor appointments. I still find it hard to believe that both my kids have a terminal disease that require so much clinical interventions. It’s already exhausting and it’s just the beginning.

In a nutshell, this disease is the worst. It can get the best of you if you let it, but I continuously do things to ensure it does not, because life is too short for a typical person, and it’s certainly too short for a little boy with Duchenne. So we saddle up, make the best of every day, travel, smile, create memories, spend too much money on ridiculous things that make them happy, advocate, ensure they have the best clinical care and put our trust in God that their lives will be filled, joyous and plentiful while they are here on Earth.

Thank you to all that are on this journey with us, you know who you are! It’s all of you that ask how you can help, it’s all of you that show up at my doorstep with treats for the boys or coffee for us, it’s all of you that continuously donate to Kasners Kick Duchenne or the Flanigan Lab that fuels the Duchenne research, it’s all of you that invite us out, knowing it may not be what you expected, it’s all of you that join me in the Columbus marathon, it’s all of you that rode the KKD Gravel and can’t wait to do it again, and much more. We are forever grateful.

Love, the Kasner Family

1/4/23

#kasnerskickduchnne

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phawareglobal · 2 years ago

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Cat Macera - phaware® interview 395

Pulmonary hypertension patient, Cat Macera, discusses her diagnosis that happened during Covid and how her background in the medical field helped her become a strong advocate for herself and others.

My name is Cat Macera, and I'm from upstate New York. My connection to pulmonary hypertension is I am a patient, and now a very strong advocate. In 2020, I was actually taken to the hospital by an ambulance because I had difficulty breathing. I couldn't make maybe five steps, and I was so winded I had to stop and sit for 10 minutes or so. They did find fluid on my lungs. Eventually, they just considered me as congestive heart failure and then did a right and left heart catheterization and found mild to moderate pulmonary hypertension. I was in the hospital for 10 days. They sent me home, and that was all I knew about pulmonary hypertension. I was sent home with a bunch of meds. I didn't have any trouble in my recovery at the hospital, but when I came home, I had trouble climbing the stairs and carrying laundry baskets or cleaning house. A lot of tests were not being done because it was Covid, so there were a lot of delays in deciding what was going on with me. But I chugged along. I started working out because when they sent me home they said, "You need to lose some weight and exercise and diet." That's what I did. I was familiar with pulmonary hypertension because I worked in the medical field for about 20 years. But I had figured that I was too young to experience that because there wasn't a lot of information out there about it. I graduated nursing school in 1983, so I think that was probably just about the beginning of pulmonary hypertension. I didn't get to have any other tests done. I didn't see an actual another doctor until June of 2020 to discuss most of my symptoms, but I was continually short of breath. So it was interesting because Covid prevented things, but it also sort of gave time to doctors to look closer to what I had been diagnosed with. In October, I was actually sent out and they did the usual, is it asthma? Is it an allergy? Could it be COPD? So more testing. That's where things started changing a little bit more because COVID [restrictions] had released a little bit more where you could have other tests done. You could go in and get an x-ray or an MRI or those kind of things. In January of 2021, I had another right heart catheterization done and that's when they discovered that I had actual pulmonary arterial hypertension, which was actually the cause of my breathing difficulties for almost a year. I actually switched on my clinical side, so I look at it very clinically. I try not to let it overwhelm me too much because I know eventually there's going to be answers and there's going to be treatment. I have no doubt in my mind that I will have the best care. I was very lucky to get diagnosed very early with this disease, very early. So much so that we weren't really sure how I would show up when they did the right heart catheterization, but it did show. But having some knowledge I think gives me a better edge of communicating with doctors, and being able to ask perhaps the right questions to move forward. I know how to advocate for myself properly. As a patient, it's a little bit different. You got to be little bit more different because you are patient. I have run into many members of the medical field that really don't understand pulmonary hypertension. So I really encourage them to reach out to somebody that can direct them better about exactly what pulmonary hypertension is and how many types there are. I do think my medical background has helped. I can say that it's been tough no matter how you look at it. Life has changed for me. Friends are not the friends that were there before. Especially during COVID, your social life had changed. But now two years later, my social life is improving. One, because my health has improved for the most part. Medication has helped. I also had to have an adrenalectomy in this process that had caused some problems. So I'm just recovering from that. But I can see where this would cause depression in a lot of people because it becomes overwhelming. There were times when it was overwhelming for me because I got frustrated with, well, it's not going quick enough for me. As a nurse, we never thought about it that way. But as a patient, it doesn't go quick enough. So I can understand and I would advocate that. Doctors, nurses in the field that work with PH patients, be a little more patient with them when they start to lose their temper a little bit or are frustrated, because time is different for a patient than it is for the medical field. I come from a very small area. I think there was only one other person that I met in this local area. When I say local, within 50 mile radius, that had pulmonary hypertension. I had asked her if she would be interested in starting a group, just at least so the two of us would have a stronger support system. She wasn't really interested. She was new. She was probably not as new as me into it, but she was new to it. But she wasn't really interested in it. I think some people just struggle with getting into a group wondering if they'll fit in or not. I have not gone into a group, so it's a little difficult for me to participate in a lot of things that normal people participate in. I'm up at 1:00 in the morning and usually I'm sleeping by 3:00 in the afternoon, so my hours are very strange. Most of my activity begins very early in the morning. So no, I have not gone into a support group, but I imagine I would go into one if I felt I needed a little bit more. But I'm so early on and very lucky to say that my pulmonary hypertension was very early caught on, so it's not probably as bad as many others have it. When I was in nursing, I worked 11:00 to 7:00, so I'm used to those hours. But after I retired from nursing, I went into baking and those are some really weird hours. So it's just hours that I've done for 20, 30 years so my body's used to that. When I was diagnosed with the pulmonary arterial hypertension, my doctor out in University of Rochester had asked me if I would be interested in doing the six minute walk study and so I participated in that. I think they're working on a second part to that study, so I should be entered into that again. As I told my doctor, I said, "Any study that comes up, please let me know if I'm eligible to be part of it." The only way to defeat this disease is studies. We don't have enough studies. We don't have enough people that are [participating] really, because it's very rare, as you know. So the more studies we can get, the more we can discover, hopefully cures or better treatments or different treatments. If I could give any advice to any patient with PH, it would be that the only thing that pushed me forward is every day, actually every hour, because I started out that I could only walk 250 steps without being exhausted in the beginning. I said, "Okay, the next hour we'll do it again. The next hour we'll do it again." So it's just whatever steps you can take forward, any forward movement is great movement. That's not backward movement. It's forward movement. Just keep moving forward. But most importantly, learn to forgive yourself if you can't get up and do what you did yesterday. Be patient with yourself as well as you would be patient with others. My name is Cat Macera and I'm aware that I'm rare. Learn more about pulmonary hypertension trials at www.phaware.global/clinicaltrials. Follow us on social @phaware Engage for a cure: www.phaware.global/donate #phaware Share your story: [email protected]

Listen and View more on the official phaware™ podcast site

#pulmonary hypertension #phaware #rare disease #lung disease #clinical trials #podcast #PH #asthma

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imaginedreamwrite · 2 years ago

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Would love to see more of this SilverFox

Silverfox!paramedic!Bucky knows his girl can be clumsy and it only makes sense that he carries her wherever he can, he doesn’t want her hurt — if she does get hurt, she’s in capable hands

Like maybe it's one of the first times she's really hurt herself, and he's at work, and she's trying to reach him

The bay of the station was quieter than it had been in a while, a relief for Bucky who was hoping to leave earlier than he should have.

After a crazy few hours in the early morning after the clock struck 12, he had finally been able to take a breather and sit. As he found himself a comfortable place to sit in the bay of the station, he had kicked his feet up onto the bumper of the ambulance and tilted his head back.

He let his eyes close and breathed evenly, his mind wandering to the back and forth conversations that had taken place during small moments and minutes he had to talk. The whispered murmurs at the hospital where he would often cross paths with you, was not nearly enough for him and yet he was given no more of it.

Your job as a mental health associate counsellor had put you on the forefront of a lot of the same cases as he was on. Bucky had witnessed first hand you being talked down to by doctors or screamed at by parents because you stuck by what your patient/client wanted. You were willing to make an enemy of yourself for the greater good of your patients, and he admired that.

Of course he couldn’t deny that once or twice he’d wanted to throw the aggressive doctors or parents out the window of the ambulance, but he had to keep to himself.

You had a bleeding heart, you wanted to help people who didn’t have someone by their side or an advocate for themselves. You wanted to be the kind of person who had pushed for better mental health treatment.

Bucky admired you, he endeared himself to you.

He also tried asking you out on a date which was a foolhardy attempt he figured, when you hadn’t given him a direct answer.

“A date?” You’d seemed surprised, even more surprised when Bucky walked you to your vehicle instead of heading immediately back to the ambulance. “Why?”

“Why? Shit, did you just ask why?” He was as puzzled by you as you were him.

“No! I mean…not you, because you’re…you…” you waved your hand and rambled, completely missing the sign in front of you.

“Watch where you’re going, Bambi.” Bucky yanked out of the signs path, saving your clumsiness from walking straight into the pole.

“Thanks,” you chirped and ran a hand down your face, “I’m not…I’m not saying no, but I’m not-“

You hadn’t gotten the chance to say anything else, Bucky had gotten a call and the ambulance pulled up to the curb. His partner grinning foolishly through the glass at the two of you, eyes alight with amusement.

“We’ll talk next time.” Bucky had started to walk away, and turned to face you. “Be careful, Bambi! I don’t want the next call to be yours.”

“Bambi?” You furrowed your brow. “Why Bambi?”

“Hey Buck!” He lurched forward suddenly and dropped his feet to the concrete, eyes growing wider as he woke from his Power Nap.

His partner was coming down the steps with a phone in hand, grin large and wide on his face.

“What’s going on?” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck and stood, his grey and silver streaked beard in desperate need of a trim.

“Bambi called.” His partner tossed him the phone, his grin growing with every hint of amusement in his voice. “Your clumsy Bambi footed girlfriend broke her foot.”

“Bambi,” Bucky made a sound in his throat then answered your next call and held it up to his ear, “what are you doing? I told you I don’t want calls from you.”

“Ha ha ha-“ you had cut yourself off with a huff, and then a sweat. “Fuck, ow!”

“Bambi, you need help?” Bucky crooned through the phone, flipping his partner off.

“No! I’m fine-“

“You broke your foot, don’t lie to me baby dove.” Bucky spoke as he walked across the bay toward the lockers, mouthing a hello to his cross-shift.

“Fine!” You huffed and then sighed, slow and grumpily. “I broke my foot because I’m too short to grab the stupid kettle in the stupid cupboard-“

“Have you been to the hospital?”

“I can’t drive, Bucky.” You whined, likely near tears.

“Want me to bring the ambulance?” He was shedding his uniform jacket and trading it in for his leather one, skillfully using one hand.

“No, I’ll be fine. I just need to stand up and hobble-“

“I don’t think so.” Bucky cut you off with a stern warning, coming from a place of affection. “You’re not going anywhere. Give me ten minutes and I’ll take you.”

“You just got off nights, Bucky I can’t-“

“You can and you will, Bambi. Ten minutes.” Bucky ended the call and shoved his phone into his pocket, a sigh edging on his tongue.

“Younger women,” his partner smirked and crossed his arms over his chest, “so fucking adorable, aren’t they?”

“She could stab me in the heart using a knife laced with poison,” Bucky closes his locker with a thud, “and I’d blame myself.”

“You’re in love, Barnes. Only took 45 years.”

#Silverfox!paramedic!Bucky Barnes #paramedic!silverfox!Bucky Barnes #Silverfox!Bucky Barnes #Silverfox!Bucky Barnes x reader

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felicitysmoaksx · 3 years ago

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Doctor Visit

Relationship: Jay Halstead, Will Halstead and Disabled fem!reader Halstead sibling, along with Manstead if you squint.

Summary: Set after 7x02 of Chicago Fire, you are taken to Chicago Med after trying to help your father get Ronnie out of the apartment during a massive fire. And see your oldest brother there.

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: Aftermath of an apartment fire

Read Part 1

Soon you arrive at Med and Sylvie and the other paramedic-Emily, as she had introduced herself- is wheeling you in, calling out your stats, vitals, and why you’re there. Jay trailing after you. You see him wave to someone, but you can’t see who it is. Someone directs the gurney holding you into a treatment room. A female doctor with long brown hair moves into the room. She introduces herself as Dr. Manning. They transfer you to the bed, rolling the backboard out from underneath you.

“Nat, you may want to loop in neurology with this case.” The familiar red hair catches your attention before your eyes settle on Will’s face. You sigh. Your red-headed brother.

“Do you want to take this case, Dr. Halstead?” The woman-Nat asks him and you can even hear the edge in her voice. Your eyes find Jay, who’s standing just beyond Will’s shoulders. Your eyebrows are drawn upward, but your older brother shakes his head. Your oldest brother just shakes his own head and responds in a calm voice, “Love to, but I can’t.”

The doctor scoffs, taking your blood pressure. “And why is that?”

“She’s my baby sister. And you know the hospital’s policy about treating family.” Will explains, walking into the small room. He takes your left hand, uncurling it as Jay had done in the ambulance. Only instead of dropping it as your older brother had done, Will starts to fidget with it. It was something he had done since you were a baby, so your left hand wouldn’t curl up as much. You try to take your hand back with a glare at him, but he isn’t letting you. He continues to play with your hand. The information seems to make Dr. Manning falter in her movements. She glances up from where she’s listening to your heart with her stethoscope.

“Why do I need to loop in neurology?” She asks. At this you pull your oxygen mask down, “I have cerebral palsy. Diagnosed when I was a baby. It’s a neurological condition. But smoke inhalation and a cut on my forehead won’t affect that.”

“You don’t know that,” Jay steps into the treatment room with his arms folded over his chest, “Nat, humor him? Please,”

You roll your eyes, knowing that Jay only stepped in because he thought a fight was brewing between you and Will. “You know, I’m twenty-three years old. I can make my own medical decisions.”

You say this because not many people with cerebral palsy can advocate for themselves. Not because they weren’t capable mentally, but because they couldn’t actually move. A good portion of people with cerebral palsy were confined to a wheelchair and could barely move their mouths.

“Don’t be stubborn. When was the last time you saw your neurologist? If it was recently, then I’ll drop it.” Will tells you and you feel yourself frown at your oldest brother as you say nothing. Not willing to let him win. He stares back, not willing to back down either. Stubbornness is something you had in common with both of your brothers.

You hear Jay sigh loudly. He’s pinching the bridge of his nose when you finally break the staring contest with Will.

“I know you two have your own problems to work through, but can you please try not to kill each other right now?” He asks, trying to stop an already brewing fight.

His question is met with silence and he looks over your head. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Dr. Manning shift uncomfortably. You forgot she was even there. He sighs, “Natalie. I’m sorry to leave you with these two, but I’m going to go check on Dad.”

Then he walks away calling out for a Dr. Choi, who you assume is your father’s doctor. Dr. Manning moves again so now she’s standing in between you and Will. “Can I ask our neurology department for a quick consult?”

Will is already starting to protest, but your doctor holds up a hand. “Both of your older brothers have made their opinion clear. But as you said, you’re twenty-three and coherent and lucid enough to make your own decisions so the decision is ultimately up to you.”

You immediately want to refuse. But then you catch the look in your eldest brother’s eye. You may be mad and hurt by Will. You may even not be talking to him right now. But he is still your brother and right now he is worried about you. You sigh, “You can ask neurology for a consult.”

Then you turn your head, locking eyes with Will. He has your dad’s eyes while you and Jay share your mother’s. You shove a finger against his chest, “But I want it on record that I think it’ll be useless.”

“It’s on record,”

“Great. I’ll page Dr. Abrams. Will, can I speak to you for a second?” Dr. Manning asks and Will nods with a sigh before he squeezes your left foot gently. “I’ll be back, okay?”

And then he follows your doctor out the door.

“So is she the reason you have a specialty in neurology?” Natalie asks as she glances down at her tablet and when they pass the main desk, she picks up a clipboard and hands it to him. “You want to go ahead and get started filling out her information for her? I’m assuming you know most of it.”

“I know there’s no cure. And even if there was, I don’t think she’d even take it. It’s a part of her by now. But I wanted to know. More about it. What I and Jay could do to help improve her life. I actually wrote my dissertation on cerebral palsy.”

“And me not knowing you had a sister when I was your fiance aside, why did it seem like she would rather do anything than talk to you?” Natalie questions him.

Will sighs heavily running a hand through his hair, “Probably because I haven’t been the best big brother since my mom died. Instead of coming home when she passed, I ran and continued running until a few years ago. And even then I still didn't know how to approach her. Or even now.”

“She’s really pretty. She looks like you but with Jay’s eyes.”

“It’s the red hair. She looks like my mom when she was younger-in her wedding photos,” Will tells her, “Whereas Jay and I have one feature from my mother and more features from my father.”

“Look, I would try to talk to her. It’s clear you care a lot about her. Explain that to her and that you didn’t handle your grief in the right way. Have Jay there to help.”

“I’m afraid the silence and distance have already done too much damage.” He sighs. Natalie pats his arm with a sympathetic smile, “If there is too much damage then what is the damage in trying? Now, I have another patient to check on and I’ll page Abrams on the way. Just try, Will.”

Tagging: @i-like-sparkly-things bc you seem interested in this fic!

#One Chicago #one chicago imagine #will halstead imagine #jay halstead imagine #chicago med imagine #one chicago fanfiction #chicago med fanfiction #jay halstead fanfiction #will halstead fanfiction #reader fanfiction #chicago med #my writing

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girlactionfigure · 4 years ago

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“I give my child in your care, raise my child as if it were yours.”

These words were written by the mother of a six year old Jewish girl Rami, who was smuggled out of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland, during the Second World War. Little Rami was placed into foster care with her mother’s Polish friends on the Aryan side of the city and, unlike her mother, ultimately survived the war. The person who was instrumental in making Rami’s survival possible was a woman named Irena Sendler, a social worker and Polish resistance operative who helped save 2,500 Jewish children like Rami during the Holocaust.

Beginnings

Irena was born in 1910 in Warsaw into a Roman Catholic family. Her father, Stanislaw Krzyzanowski was a physician and a researcher in infectious diseases. He was a humanitarian and an idealist, who helped found the Polish Socialist Party. He believed in democracy, equal rights, universal health care, and an end to child labor, and was even expelled from university in Poland for leading strikes and protests advocating for those goals.

When Irena was two, the family moved outside of Warsaw, to the village of Otwock, where Stanislaw set up his practice for the treatment of tuberculosis. The village was fifty percent Jewish, and that percentage included the poorest of residents. Unlike other doctors in the area, Stanislaw treated everyone, the rich and poor alike, despite the poor not being able to pay. “If someone else is drowning, you have to give a hand,” he would often say.

Irena grew up in close contact with the Jewish villagers. She played with their children, and by age six even spoke fluent Yiddish. At home Irena’s family life was warm and nurturing. Stanislaw loved his little girl very much and hugged and kissed her so often that Irena’s aunts would warn him not to spoil her. “We don’t know what her life will be like,” he’d reply. “Maybe my hugs will be her best memory.”

In 1916 an epidemic of typhoid fever swept through the village and Stanislaw chose to be on the front lines. Typhoid, a bacterial disease spread through food, water, and close contact with infected persons, was especially prevalent in poor communities with bad sanitation. Unlike other well off villagers who isolated themselves to avoid contact with the sick, Stanislaw continued caring for patients and later that year succumbed to the disease himself. He died shortly after.

But Stanislaw’s spirit lived on in his daughter, and as Irena matured she resembled her father more and more in her beliefs and actions. She majored in social welfare at the University of Warsaw, and interned in charitable welfare clinics where the poor could get a free education and legal assistance. She also started becoming more politically involved, joining the Polish Socialist Party that her father helped start and beginning to engage in protests and activism herself.

In 1935 anti-Semitic sentiment was on the rise in Poland, and at Polish universities an informal rule nicknamed the “bench ghetto” was introduced. “A rule was established at the University segregating the Catholics from the Jewish students,” Irena recalled. “The Catholics were to sit on the chairs to the right and Jews on the chairs to the left. I always sat with Jews and, therefore, I was beaten by anti-Semites together with Jewish students.”

Later, like her father, Irena was suspended from university for boycotting the labeling of campus identity cards with the word “Aryan” to differentiate non-Jewish students from Jewish ones. “I was taught since my earliest years that people are either good or bad. Their race, nationality, and religion do not matter — what matters is the person.”

The War

On September 1, 1939, after the signing of a non-aggression pact between themselves, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. The country was split in half, with the eastern side going to Soviet Union and the western to the Nazis. Warsaw fell to the Nazis.

Overnight Jews became second class citizens in Warsaw. They couldn’t hold state or government positions, couldn’t own businesses, they had to register ownership of property, and lost access to their bank accounts.

Barred from offering social services to the Jewish population officially, Irena with a few friends began to circumvent the rules by faking paperwork in order to do so. This was the beginning of Irena’s resistance operations. Soon Irena and her resistance cell were providing money, food, and clothing to thousands of Jews in Warsaw.

A year after the invasion, moving forward with their ultimate goal of Jewish genocide, the Nazis established a ghetto for Warsaw’s Jews. 350,000 Jews, nearly 30% of the city’s entire population, were imprisoned in a 1.3 square mile ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a ten foot tall brick wall crowned with ribbons of barbed wire.

Irena sprang into action looking for blank documents that could give Aryan identities to Jewish friends destined for the ghetto. And once the ghettoization of Jews was complete, she continued helping in any way she could.

Life in the ghetto was miserable. The Nazis rationed roughly 200 calories of food per person per day. Death by starvation was common. Sanitation was terrible with refuse and human corpses littering the streets. There was a shortage of soap, clothing, and the means to heat living spaces. Many people froze to death. Disease was everywhere, including tuberculosis, dysentery, spotted fever, and typhoid fever, the same disease that claimed Irena’s father’s life.

But Irena was undaunted. Because of her work with Warsaw’s Department of Health and Social Services, she received a pass from the Epidemic Control Department that allowed her official passage in and out of the ghetto. She immediately began making daily visits, sometimes multiple per day, to smuggle food, money, and doses of typhus vaccine into the ghetto. She would hide items in the false bottom of her bag, or in small pockets sewn into a padded bra. Many women had their bras altered with padding and pockets. “It was a joke in wartime Warsaw that women’s breasts had grown dramatically everywhere in the city since the arrival of the Germans.”

Children

Sometimes Irena would smuggle candy or dolls for the ghetto’s children. Children were particularly vulnerable in the ghetto, succumbing faster to malnutrition, freezing, and to more varied diseases than adults. Some families facing starvation relied on their children to obtain food by smuggling it from the Aryan side of the city. Other families sent children across the wall hoping they would fare better as orphans on the Aryan side than inside the ghetto. In the beginning of 1942, about 4,000 children lived on the streets of the Aryan side. 2,000 of them were Jewish.

That year, fearing Nazi soldiers’ contamination with typhus and other diseases from children living on the street, the chief of the Nazi police ordered for Warsaw’s social services to get all homeless children on the Aryan side of the city off the streets and into orphanages and other local institutions. The roundups yielded a number of Jewish children, many of whom Irena and her network helped disappear into private homes and orphanages under false Polish identities. But there were thirty two Jewish kids that could not be placed, and so, in order to save them from execution, Irena had to smuggle them back into the ghetto. Knowing what was awaiting them there, Irena was devastated at not having an alternative solution. She vowed to never again return a single child to the ghetto, and started, along with her associates, an operation to smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto and to provide them with false Polish identities and caring homes on the Aryan side of the city.

The price for helping a Jewish child in wartime Warsaw was execution, and Irena and her core group of twenty to twenty five mostly women operatives, risked their lives daily to save each and every child. Children were smuggled out of the ghetto in a variety of ways. There were secret routes to the Aryan side of the city via sewers and underground corridors. Children were able to get across by sneaking through an old courthouse and a Catholic church that stood on the border of the ghetto. Irena’s epidemic control pass allowed her to officially bring a child out of the ghetto for treatment if they were ill with tuberculosis. Children with or without the disease were brought out this way. Some kids were hidden in ambulances, under floorboards or dirty rags, or in coffins along with dead bodies. The Nazis were terrified of disease and performed only cursory checks before waving ambulances through. The youngest, including babies, had to be sedated with tranquilizers and hidden in trucks in toolboxes, in sacks masquerading as laundry or potatoes, or under vegetable boxes. Some were left in briefcases on early morning streetcars that ran in and out of the ghetto and later picked up by a friend.

Once out of the ghetto, children had to take on new identities in order to integrate into Polish society. Sometimes documents were faked, other times legitimate blanks could be found. If children looked too Jewish, they had makeovers to make them look more Polish. Sometimes it was as easy as dying a child’s hair, other times Jewish boys had to become girls in order to prevent the Nazi authorities from checking for circumcisions.

Escaped children went on to live in homes of friends, in convents, in group homes, orphanages, or religious institutions, and Irena kept a list of each and every child placed with the hope of reuniting them with families after the war. She encoded and recorded only the most essential information such as names, addresses, and an account of any money that parents gave to help with caretaking on cigarette paper that nightly she prepared to throw out of her kitchen window in case the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, ever came looking for her. Eventually, when it became too dangerous to keep the list at home, she buried it in glass bottles under an apple tree in a friend’s garden.

By this time Irena was already having nightmares on a regular basis. Not only did she worry about the children who would certainly be killed if they were ever discovered, she also worried about the families that were risking their lives to hide them. On top of everything, Irena was the sole person who knew the detailed histories of all the smuggled children. If anything were to happen to her, that information would be irretrievable.

Capture

In the fall of 1943, the Gestapo found and arrested a woman who ran a laundrette that the resistance used as a drop-off point for messages and packages. Charged with conspiring with the resistance, the woman was tortured and ultimately broke, giving up names of resistance operatives. One of those names was Irena Sendler’s. Days after, the Gestapo pounded on Irena’s door in the middle of the night. She was arrested, beaten, interrogated, and sent to Pawiak, a secret prison for intelligentsia and those politically involved. Most prisoners interned at Pawiak never left alive.

The Gestapo repeatedly tortured Irena for information, breaking her legs and feet, and permanently scarring her body. Despite the agony, Irena never said a word. She knew what divulging information would mean, a death sentence for thousands of children, friends and families. As luck would have it, the Gestapo thought they had captured only a fringe resistance operative, not the head of children’s division of the resistance movement, which meant Irena received no special treatment. Certainly if they realized who they were dealing with, they would have taken extra measures.

Irena lived at the prison for four months until her execution date was set for January 20, 1944. During the days, when she was not being tortured for information, Irena worked as a washerwoman cleaning soiled Nazi underwear. One day, when the Nazis found the laundry work not to their satisfaction, they lined up all the washerwomen against a wall and shot in the head every other one. Irena was one of the ones who survived.

On the morning of January 20th, a Nazi officer came to take Irena to the courtyard where she was to be shot. She was led down a corridor, but instead of being taken into the waiting room where she was to await her execution, the officer led her out of the prison and into the street. He released her and told her to run. As Irena later found out her friends in the resistance had bribed the Nazi with what today amounts to $100,000 to secure her escape.

End of the war and legacy

Once free, Irena went into hiding, and soon resumed her operations with the resistance. She continued rising in ranks until she was running meetings and setting agendas. In the summer of 1944, with the Soviets advancing, and the Nazis retreating, the Polish resistance army attempted to liberate Warsaw. They fought for two months, but were ultimately defeated by the Nazis. In response to the uprising, Heinrich Himmler, a most high ranking SS officer and the person responsible for forming and operating Nazi death camps, gave the order to kill all Polish residents of Warsaw and to level the entire city. “The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth…,” he ordered. “No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.” Ultimately more than 400,000 people were killed and eighty percent of Warsaw was destroyed by the retreating Nazi army. Irena miraculously survived the destruction.

After the Nazis were driven out of Warsaw, Irena and a friend went to dig up the list of children they had hidden in bottles. They searched and searched for the tree under which the list was buried, but found only rubble. Irena then set out, along with her friends, to recreate the list from memory. She continued working for decades helping reunite children with their families, and even adopted two orphaned Jewish girls herself.

Irena lived until 98, and passed away in Warsaw in 2008. Until the very end of her life she felt that she did not do enough to help children during the war.

Five years before her death Irena received Poland’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, but she never enjoyed being called a hero.

“Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes… Indeed, that term irritates me greatly.”

“Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.”

The children Irena saved during the war continued to call and visit her until the end of her life.

Historical Snapshots

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liesoverthec · 3 years ago

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I have to say - I never wanted Hen to have to quit medical school or anything but I really still can’t handle the thought of her LEAVING US but the ep where she advocates for her mom really cemented for me that she NEEDS to do this and anyways -

Now my dream is for them to follow OG on Mondays with like, 9-1-1: ER, and Hen and David could be the two leads, and Evangeline Gonzalez could get a nursing job there instead of the nursing home, and Sydney and Luis could at least be background characters, and they could write it so that every patient on OG gets dropped off and they spend 20s showing the patient moving into the hospital, and then on Med they start each patient with the last 20 seconds of the ambulance before using the same footage of the patient coming into the hospital, so it’s like a little tiny recap so you don’t HAVE to watch both, but then we can still see everyone on both shows, and maybe the doctors could break HIPAA or whatever since it’s TV and call the dispatchers for “clues” as to what behavior their patients had when they called 911 so the dispatchers could be included too.

But then we wouldn’t lose Hen, we could get more David, I think Evangeline has SO MUCH POTENTIAL to be amazing, and we’d get a second found family to adore, that could hang out with the first one, bc of course Hen will still go to the station, and David will be at Bobby and Athena’s.

Tim please if I could have 20s of your time I think this idea has potential.

#911 fox #hen wilson #dr david hale #they could announce it end of next season see #Bc hen is on an accelerated course #so she’d have been in it for 2 years which is def not enough time for med school but it’s the #plus #think about how much better things like the sniper arch would have been #if they tranferred eddie into hen and David’s hands at the hospital #it would have been AMAZING DONT LIE TO ME #I have lots of thoughts about this #I want it to happen

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florenceandthemachine · 5 years ago

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okay but jackson falling for single dad stiles (◕‿◕✿)

SO (and I feel like I’m going to be saying this a lot) HERES THE THING.

@jacksonstilinskis, as you can assume, the first time they meet is a fucking disaster.

It’s a disaster because Stiles moved to New York for his bachelor degree, partially in an attempt to chase the highest scholarship he was awarded and partially in an attempt to get the fuck out of Beacon Hills, the place that killed his mother, his father, and his best friend — and the place that left him with a squirming three month old less than a year after he graduates high school, a gift from the recently departed.

He gets a major in Criminology and a minors in Mythological Studies, rocks the single father gig, and manages to teach Claudia (Scotts idea, Stiles had cried when he found out) what is okay to bite and what is not okay to bite, but getting into grad school is a whole other animal.

It’s a disaster because Stiles decides to forgo taking out a mortgage in student loans and tries to save up for his masters program by joining up with the NYPD. They have amazing benefits, amazing child support, and a legal team that could kick anyones ass.

It’s a disaster because six years later, when Stiles and Jackson first meet, Stiles is in uniform (a uniform he looks damn good in, Jackson begrudgingly acknowledges) and Jackson’s Porsche just hit about 87 miles per hour in a 55.

The best part is (well, the best part if you ask Stiles — the worst part if you ask Jackson) is that Jackson has been pulled over hundreds of times before, and he always — always — gets out of it with a smile and a laugh and an apology, and Stiles could not give less of a fuck. Jackson breaks out all the tricks. The smile, the pout, the puppy eyes. He actually thinks it works for a second — Stiles is smiling back at him, and Jackson isn’t above tilting his head to get a better look at the way the uniform hugs him, but then Stiles is asking for his registration and insurance and Jackson’s smile falls into a scowl.

Finally, he brings out the big guns — he casually gestures to his scrubs, mentions he’s on his way to a surgery, because being top of his class at Harvard Medical had to count for something — and he really was in a rush, officer, he had to get to the patient right away.

Stiles has the audacity to roll his eyes and laugh as he hands Jackson his ticket, and Jackson has to pretend that the sound didn’t make a shiver dance over his skin. “Well, I certainly hope you take more time and care with your patient then you do on your commute. Have a better day.”

The cruiser follows him all the way to the hospital, and Jackson feels a moment of petty anger before he realizes that the 23rd Precinct is basically right across Park Avenue from Mount Sinai Hospital. If he looks out the window of his office, he can see a steady stream of police cars going in and out of the underground garage.

Huh.

—

Jackson allowed himself a full week to whine to everyone who would listen about his ticket after he plea bargained it down, but then even he got tired of sulking —

(“I am not sulking, Laura.”

“It was over a month ago. You are absolutely sulking, you baby.”)

— sulking over who he had only thought of as Officer Asshole. Who the fuck gives a speeding ticket to a doctor, a doctor that was on his way to surgery?

Not that Jackson had actually been on his way to surgery. He was never in a rush to surgery, because he was never late to surgery, because he barely left the hospital on his days off, let alone a day he had a surgery scheduled.

Either way, that was months ago, and even Jackson couldn’t hold a grudge that long. He was in rotation today — Mount Sinai may have been one of the best hospitals in the nation, but it was first and foremost a children's hospital, and being in rotation — and seeing the people that they were helping, the kids they were helping, really helped bring that home to everyone.

He grabbed the next clipboard off of a stack and pushed open the door to the waiting room, taking count of all the parents and kids waiting for everything from a bruised knee (helecoptor parents) to any number of fakers (midterm season was rough on everyone).

“Claudia and Stiles... Stilinski?”

What the hell was a Stiles?

Jackson only had half a moment to think about it before a dark head popped up, a child that couldn’t have been more than six in his arms, and Jackson almost felt resentful when he realized that he was staring at Officer Asshole again. And Officer Asshole had a kid, who looked absolutely miserable, and Officer Asshole looked miserable in proxy to his kid, and Jackson really needed to start thinking of him as a “Stiles” before he accidentally called him officer Asshole out loud.

Jackson guided them back to an exam room full of stuffed toys and bright colors on the wall, letting Stiles take his time setting Claudia down on the bench before sitting right beside her. He introduced himself and smiled down to Claudia — who had a low fever and was squirming uncomfortably, rubbing her little hands against her flushed cheeks, and Jackson would never think that was not cute. Even a sick kid was a cute kid, and though this kid was sick...

“...it’s nothing to be worried about. Kids get sick all the time, and it sucks, but it happens.” Jackson said, using his full soothing doctor voice on Stiles, who looked at the same time utterly relieved and totally embarrassed.

He confirmed as much as he stood up, taking a prescription from Jackson for some children's medicine to help bring Claudia’s fever down, shaking his head slowly. “Sorry. It was probably overkill to bring her to a hospital, but I’m still pretty new to this parenting thing. I just... I don’t know, I have a tendency to assume the worst, after... well. I just do.”

Jackson almost laughs again, shaking his head. “Don’t ever apologize for advocating for your kid. It’s the best thing you can do, next to pulling over innocent doctors who definitely aren't speeding.” He reaches out to shake Stiles hand, dazzling smile on his face, and Stiles’ blooms into recognition.

“You’re the doctor! The doctor I pulled over. Sorry, I forget names and faces, but I could never forget that smile.” Stiles said, a grin on his own face, shaking Jackson’s hand for a few seconds before his eyes widened in horror, yanking his hand back. “Oh god. That sounded so creepy, I’m so sorry, she’s kept me up for three days straight. I didn’t mean it in a weird way. I just—uh, I have to go. Thank you again! Please don’t think I'm some freak in a uniform!” he says, almost tripping over a nurse as he backs out of the room.

Jackson is grinning even wider, a real smile splitting his face, and he can’t help but call after him. “The coffee cart on 102nd is great for long nights. Favorite for all on call doctors and most of the boys in blue.”

Stiles smiles weakly and gives a thumbs up, disappearing down the stairway.

Officer Asshole — Stilinski, he reminded himself — wasn’t just hot, he was actually kind of cute. He was a cute dad.

Jackson was kind of fucked.

—

Jackson is sitting on a bench on 102nd Avenue, looking up at the dark night sky, when a danish lands in his lap. Jackson just looks at it for a minute — he’s just finishing up a thirty hour shift, and he’s only vaguely sure what’s real anymore — before he looks up, staring dumbly at the cup of coffee extended to him.

“It’s uh, a peace offering. And an apology? I mean, I’m not sorry for writing you a ticket. You were speeding. But I am sorry for calling you Doctor Dickbag for like a week afterward. But that medicine you gave me had Claudia back to her giggly self in no time, so I think you’re even. With yourself.”

It’s Stilinski, and judging by his pressed uniform, styled hair, and bright (if not nervous) smile, he’s just getting on shift while Jackson is mentally checking out of his own.

As soon as he puts two and two together, Jackson gratefully takes the cup and takes a too long swig of what tastes like frothy sugar milk, almost gagging as he looks at Stiles like he had been poisoned. “What the hell is this, a hot milkshake? Oh god, I should have known you were the type who drinks hot sugar, not coffee.”

Stiles has the audacity to laugh as he sits beside Jackson, and the two of them fall into easy, if shallow, conversation. They talk about work, and themselves, and soon Stiles is checking his watch with an apology, because his shift starts at 4 and he has to get into the precinct.

Jackson watches as he stands up and puts on his fancy police hat, and later, he’ll blame it on sleep deprivation, but he calls out after Stiles’ retreating form.

“So, coffee and a danish, maybe breakfast next time? I’ll buy.”

Stiles stops and turns, looking Jackson over, and he grins as he nods his head, even if his cheeks are pink. “It’s a date.” He winks and turns back around, and Jackson actually feels goosebumps on the back of his neck.

Oh, Jackson was fucked. He flops back on the bench and smiles to himself, before frowning, whirling around to yell at Stiles’ retreating backside.

“Wait, what the fuck do you mean you were calling me Doctor Dickbag?!”

—

They manage to have several coffee / breakfast / here’s a meal dates, and Jackson is almost proud of their timing—Stiles kisses Jackson on date number two, a quick peck that leaves Jackson’s world on it’s edge as he grins at Stiles blushing backside as he speaks rapid fire into his radio, now buzzing with life. It’s cute on their first date, but gets old by their fourth date, they manage to kiss for almost twenty seconds in the ambulance bay at Mount Sinai before Jackson’s pager goes off. He groans and pulls away, glaring at the device as though it personally offended him, and Stiles laughs as he brings Jackson’s hands up to kiss Jackson’s knuckles.

“Go, go save lives. But, uh, if you were free on Thursday, I was thinking... maybe we could have our next date at my place? I’ve already got Mrs. Bobrowski on speed dial to babysit.” Stiles says, his tone confident even if he’s chewing his lip nervously. It’s a trick question — Stiles is off, and Stiles knows that Jackson is off, and Stiles already secured a babysitter, and Jackson can feel Stiles eyes dipping back from his lips to the low V of his scrub top, and Jackson wastes no time before agreeing wholeheartedly.

“It’s a date.” he murmurs against Stiles lips, squeezing his ass through the uniform, and Stiles squeaks in appreciation as he swats Jackson toward the hospital doors.

Thursday rolls around and Jackson puts on a tight pair of jeans, a button down shirt with far too many buttons undone to be decent, and adds just a drop of cologne to his pulse point. He looks good. He feels good. He buys flowers, for fucks sake, which means that of course when he knocks on Stiles door, Stiles is wearing a ratty tee shirt and sweats and has a pained look on his face.

“Jackson, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bobrowski cancelled on me and I couldn’t get another sitter and I wanted to call you and tell you but I left my phone at the station and—”

Stiles looks miserable, and that’s all Jackson needs to know he’s telling the truth, that he truly is sorry, and that he’s going to tell Jackson “another time”, like having a kid involved would ruin a dinner date. Jackson takes a split second before shutting Stiles up with a kiss, brushing past him with a grand flourish as he says Claudia in the living room, bending down to give her first choice on Stiles flowers.

Stiles just stands in the doorway, stunned, looking as Jackson goes to the kitchen, Claudia skipping along happily behind him, excitedly waving her new purple flower in the air.

“Jackson, you don’t have to—”

“Stilinski, you have three seconds to shut up and tell me where to find a vase, and then tell me how I can help you with dinner.” Jackson says expectantly, and Stiles feels something warm curl around his chest.

—

They have dinosaur nuggets and carrots and peas for dinner, and Jackson loves it.

They watch a Disney movie and Jackson holds Stiles hand on the couch, and he loves it.

Stiles puts Claudia to bed and then turns to Jackson with such a hungry look in his eye, he can hardly blink before Stiles has him pulled into his bedroom, and fuck, Jackson loves it.

They barely get each other naked before they tumble into bed, and Stiles is rubbing against him so deliciously, and Jackson mouthes at his neck and bites at his pulse, and he would almost be ashamed of how quickly he comes, his body warm against Stiles, thrusting against his hips, but Stiles is right behind him, and they’re warm and sticky and have a mess on their abdomens.

Jackson just looks at Stiles in surprise, and they both stare a moment before they’re both laughing, desperately trying to stifle the sound so they don’t wake Claudia. Jackson wipes them clean with something on the floor (”that's my shirt, you ass!” Stiles basically squawks) and then they both lay there in bed, listening to the sounds of the city from the window, and Stiles starts to talk.

He tells them about his best friend Scott and his wife Allison that married right out of high school, and Allison who got pregnant before her first day at UCLA. He tells them about how after Claudia was born, they made Stiles the godparent, and then left Claudia in his care while they went on a much-delayed honeymoon to the coast, and then he tells them about how a little gas leak in the hotel robbed him of his two best friends and robbed Claudia of her parents.

He goes through it quickly — “what happened then sucks, but there’s no sense in wishing it was different” — but it brings him to his next point, lying with his head on Jackson’s chest, fingers tracing the lines across his stomach.

“Usually, guys run like hell when I say daughter. I’m a 26 year old cop with a 6 year old kid, and something about that is terrifying. Not that I think you’re going to be terrified, but—”

“Stiles, if this is the part of the show where you tell me that you and Claudia are a package deal, can it. I know. I’m not mad about it. Hell, I’ve already fooled you into thinking I’m more than just a dickwad, I’m not backing out now, I’ve put too much work into this.” Jackson snarks, and Stiles looks at him for a minute like he was crazy before he reads into Jackson’s facial expression, and his smile softens again.

“You’re still a dickwad. Doctor Dickwad.” Stiles says, playfully squeezing Jackson’s side. “But I guess I can keep you around as long as Claudia finds you useful.” he says with a dreamy sign, nosing along Jackson’s jawline once more.

Jackson just grins and turns to kiss him, taking a moment to realize—

he was so, so fucked.

#jackson whittemore #stiles stilinski #kidfic #teen wolf #stackson #officer stilinski #doctor whittemore #I love them #ask #flospeaks

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