#complex partial seizures

[echoes-in-the-multiverse]

Dissociative Seizures

Educational post. Trigger warnings: Medical equipment and description of seizure. 

Written by Tom and Blade.

Why will we cover this? 

Although dissociative seizures are not exclusive for those with dissociative disorders. Some people with dissociative disorders will have seizures.

A dissociative seizure is named differently in different parts of the world. 

I will be referring to them as dissociative seizures or Non-epileptic attack disorder (NEAD). 

However, may also be seen as a one of the many symptoms/types of Functional neurological disorders (FND) its matching term in the ICD-11 is Dissociative neurological symptom disorder. And this post will focus specifically on only the non epileptic seizures. 

It is also known as Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), Non-epileptic seizures, and Psychogenic seizures.

If you have known these as "pseudo seizures", it is asked that this is no longer a term that should be used because the name suggests that the seizures are not real or faked by the individual having them or cannot have an ever lasting impact.

What causes a dissociative seizure?

Unlike epileptic seizures they are not caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain.

A person can get triggered by sensations, thoughts, emotions and difficult situations. Memories of painful events can suddenly come into thoughts or awareness or a build up of stress can happen in a moment. The dissociative seizure can happen as a way to cut off stress or bad memories so that they are not relieved. This can cause a person to start to dissociate. This is when they will feel disconnected from the world around them or make it seem like the world is not real. The brain will "shut down" to protect itself from overwhelming stress. The seizure then happens because the emotional reaction of the person becomes physical.  It is known that extreme emotional distress can cause illnesses and disorders such as non epileptic seizures. 

Some people who have dissociative seizures have them caused by traumatic events. For some they may happen after the event or for others they could start years later. They may start to happen suddenly with no apparent reason at the moment. However, in some people they can be caused by the build up of stress overtime.

When seizures start they can be triggered by stressful or frightening events, even the worry of having a seizure can trigger one. They could also occur spontaneously in non stressful events. Patients may not be able to understand why seizures happen as for some it is hard to recognise the level of stress they are feeling.

What do dissociative seizures look like?

Dissociative seizures can look different from person to person.

You could have episodes of uncontrolled movements, sensations or behaviour. Some dissociative seizures may look more like epileptic seizures or may look more like fainting. Someone may have palpitations, sweat, hyperventilate and have a dry mouth. Someone may fall on the ground or have jerking and shaking movements either on one side or the whole body. A person may lose control of their bladder or bowels and may also bite their tongue. Some people may go unresponsive to people around them and may stare and go blank.

Having seizures caused by a delayed response to a traumatic event may be a part of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In these seizures a person may have flashbacks, scream or cry and they may not remember the seizure afterwards.

Diagnosis of dissociative seizures.

A specialist will have many ways to tell whether the seizures are epileptic or not. The doctor may be able to tell from detailed descriptions of the seizures or a video of one happening. However, a doctor may ask someone to have an electroencephalogram (EEG) to determine whether electrical changes occur within the person's brain during a seizure. It may also be suggested for a person to have a video-telemetry. This could be done as an inpatient in a hospital or at home. A person will wear EEG equipment for a few days and is linked to a camera. This means that during a seizure the EEG and a video of it happening can be taken at the same time. 

Brain scans such as Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or Computed Tomography Scan (CT) scans may also be done to rule out any neurological cause for these seizures. 

Treatment for dissociative seizures.

Patients may also be asked to see a psychiatrist or psychologist. They can offer Treatment such as psychotherapy, stress-reduction (such as relaxation and biofeedback training), and personal support to help you cope with their seizures. 

Talking therapy is useful to understand if there are triggers for the seizures and ways to manage these triggers in daily life. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is often recommended.

Medication will not help treat non epileptic seizures so they will only be suggested if the patient also has epileptic seizures. Taking medication for non epileptic seizures can cause side effects and do not benefit the person.

It is recommended to keep a normal daily routine. And to make sure that their family and friends are aware and understand. This will mean they will likely be able to help the person in a seizure and prevent harm.

First aid for dissociative seizures (Outsider's perspective):

DO:

- Make sure the person is safe. This can include moving objects away from them. If the person is lying on the floor, put a cushion/something soft under their head.

- Speak Calmly and in a reassuring way to the person

- Non epileptic seizures do not cause damage to the brain no matter how long it happens BUT if you are not sure if it is a dissociative seizure and lasts more than 5 minutes an ambulance must be called. If it is epileptic then a seizure longer than 5 minutes can damage the brain. (Again important to note this is advice given by the NHS of the UK)

- Stay with the person until they have recovered

DO NOT:

- Do not restrain the person. This can cause injury and make the seizure worse.

- Do not put anything in the person's mouth 

- Do not attempt to give medication

Self-help tips:

- Write down how you are feeling

- Continue to live normally and not become over cautious. This can help to speed up recovery. It is important to talk to your employer about these seizures and make clear your colleagues know what to do as well.

- Eat and Sleep well

- Build up self confidence

- Green exercise is a great way to boost your mood by being outside even if it is for a short while. Going for a walk outside.

- Fitness programmes can be found online and most can be done from your home 

- Remaining positive 

The sources we have used for this information also have more information on disability rights and benefits for those with dissociative seizures. And on driving regulations. However, these are only applicable to the UK. 

Resources we have used to create this article:

Epilepsy Society: https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/what-epilepsy/non-epileptic-seizures

Epilepsy Action: https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/seizures/dissociative-seizures-non-epileptic-attack-disorder-nead

Sheffield Teaching Hospital document: https://www.sth.nhs.uk/clientfiles/File/pd3922_NonEpilepticSeizures.pdf

Non-Epileptic Attacks: https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/non-epileptic-attacks/home.

Further information:

People's experiences: 

Documentary film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA1EYAg9y5k. Photosensitive Epilepsy Trigger Warning at (9:14 - 9:30 ) and at (45:25 - 46:18)

Websites for more information: 

NeuroKid: https://www.neurokid.co.uk/ - This is a website for children and young people with dissociative seizures but also has information for parents of these children. The website is also available in French at https://www.neurokid.co.uk/fr/.

Non-Epileptic Attacks: https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/non-epileptic-attacks/home. A page written by professionals. They have more resources and go into more detail about the self help we have addressed.

FNH Hope UK: https://www.fndhope.org.uk/about-fnd-hope/fnd-hope-uk/. Has fundraising challenges across the UK. They also have online classes such as dance, painting, mindful meditation and yoga.

Charities:

FND Action: https://www.fndhope.org.uk/about-fnd-hope/fnd-hope-uk/. They can provide ID cards for those in the UK struggling with dissociative seizures. 

Brain Charity: https://www.thebraincharity.org.uk/condition/non-epileptic-attack-disorder/. Provides Emotional support and social support for those in the UK and has a helpline. 

Trigger warnings: Medical equipment and description of seizure. Educational post.

#dissociative identity disorder #dissociative system #dissociation #actually dissociative #non epileptic seizures #functional neurological disorder #dissociative disorder #disability #psychogenic non epileptic seizures #did system #actually did #endos dni #complex dissociative disorder #ossdid #other specified dissociative disorder #partial dissociative identity disorder #partial did #did osdd #osdd

[sunkern-plus]

shout out to the people who can never have kids physically because their physical and mental health issues combined alone would put them at risk of serious harm or death if not on the right amount of pills at the right time, you guys are the real ones

#watching a the queer kiwi video about babylon bee's very unfunny shorts and like. the childless one is fucking awful #i don't want kids in the first place first of all #(not because i hate kids but because i doubt my ability to take care of any life more complex than a dog) #and second of all i literally have epilepsy so bad that i probably would die if i was off my medications #because my epilepsy is PARTIALLY TRIGGERED BY HORMONAL CHANGES #like if i have seizures if i'm on my period i will probably have seizures when i'm pregnant and that's uh. bad! #like my hypothetical baby would die of brain damage bad #like do conservatives WANT to be pro life or not because seizures + pregnant = dead baby #ableism for ts #actuallydisabled #actuallyepileptic #actuallypsychotic #actuallyautistic #actuallyocd #actuallyadhd #actuallyborderline #(because yeah without those mental health medications i'd probably die of suicide which. ALSO results in a dead baby) #again. why do they call themselves pro life if pregnancy for me would either result in brain death or suicide #(and pregnancy for people who had late onset epilepsy as bad as me and mental illnesses as bad as me)

[lintu-potter]

Wen u feel like crap, but u have to work and act like a normal human bein for 6 hours

#complex partial seizure

[kunaigirl]

Happy Disability Pride and awareness month! Let's talk about Epilepsy!

Hi there! I got tired of seeing my condition (that impacts my literal every day life) being left out or forgotten about during discussions about disabilities, so I made my own post about it! Let's go!

First Off! What the heck is epilepsy? Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the world, and it's a chronic medical condition. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes recurring, frequent, triggered, and unprovoked seizures to occur.

The official Epilepsy Foundation describes seizures as follows: "Seizures are sudden surges of abnormal and excessive electrical activity in your brain, and can affect how you appear or act. Where and how the seizure presents itself can have profound effects...Seizures involve sudden, temporary, bursts of electrical activity in the brain that change or disrupt the way messages are sent between brain cells. These electrical bursts can cause involuntary changes in body movement or function, sensation, behavior or awareness." (Source link)

Sounds like a lot of fun right? This is our life. Even with medication, we can be VERY limited to what can be safe for us. Seizure medications are NOT a cure, they only exist (at least as of now) as a tool to help have your seizures less often, or be triggered less intensely. Even on medication, seizures can still happen.

If you have epilepsy as a child like I did, it impacts your entire growing and developing experience. I spent MANY times as a child in and out of hospitals, neurologist and specialist offices, an getting so many EEG tests done. The pain of scrubbing the glue out of your hair for DAYS is horrible.

At a young age my seizures were so frequent and serious, it impacted my brain's ability to retain information. I had to re-learn the names of things at age 8 and 9. I had to re-learn HOW TO READ at age 10. I had to be home schooled because the public school system of my state at the time refused to work with me. I have VERY distinct and vivid memories of crying over my little baby ABC's book that I needed as a 4th and 5th grader. I knew I should've known this by this age. I knew that at one point I already did, and it was TAKEN FROM ME.

As an adult, I'M NOT ALLOWED TO DRIVE A CAR. And I can NEVER go to see a movie in theaters or go to see concerts or live music. There are entire TV shows I don't get to see. I can't go to clubs, arcades, dances, or raves. I miss out on A LOT of fun things. I always do, and I'm WELL AWARE of the fun I'm missing out on. The social, casual, and fun life experiences I'll never get to have. That WE'LL never get to have. And oh yeah! Seizures can KILL SOME OF US. Yep.

And the list goes on, and every person with epilepsy experiences it differently. There are multiple different types of seizures you can have, they're NOT always convulsing on the floor. For example, I have complex-partial-myoclonic-seizures. Meaning my muscles DO twitch when I have seizures, but I'm not always completely unconscious and sometimes I'm even able to stay sitting up. However, I'm still very "off" and can't focus or remember much for a good while after the fact. I can't talk or communicate during one, even with my slight bit of consciousness.

My experiences are not universal, I just wanted to talk about it and bring it up. It helps to talk about it even a little bit. Here's more about different kinds of seizures. Here's more about common seizure triggers. Here's more about CORRECT seizure first aid. And here's more general information/resources.

Please stop leaving us out of disability awareness. Please stop ignoring us or saying we're "not really disabled" or anything else like that. Please. Why does it always feel like the only people who care about epilepsy, are people WITH epilepsy? We're so tired of being ignored by others who don't have our condition.

If you're an epileptic person reading this, I see you. I love you. You're so strong, we all are. I believe in you, I believe in us. We're so much stronger than we get credit for, and it's going to be ok. Your anger and frustration are valid. Your emotions and struggles are real. You're valid, and I see you. Hang in there, we got this.

#epilepsy #epilepsy awareness #actually epileptic #disability pride month #disability awareness month #disability awareness #ok to reblog #disability pride

[blogkennethratcliffeposts]

Seizure number . ...

Seizure number . …

Just last month (August) I suffered seven mainly complex partial. Recently my seizures have quite close together. So far I have had two seizures this month, when will this frequency of seizures end Another thing is that I never seem to know what triggers the seizures, but as you will have gathered I had my latest seizure this morning.

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#Complex Partiallln #Seizure #Side Effects #Simple Partial

[comic-sans-chan]

cursed modern human garashir au where ds9 is an old ruined resort that was built by some evil rich motherfuckers years ago and was recently seized back by the native people whose land and economy it had destroyed. it's since been converted into an affordable apartment complex sort of situation (just... with a pool, bar, restaraunts, spa and tennis court built into it lol) and is run by sisko and kira. since it is rundown, odo gets hired back on to keep kids from further vandalizing it and o'brien's team gets hired on from the nonprofit organization sisko works for to fix the place up best he can. dukat is the old overseer of the property who drops by sometimes to remind them he and his hospitality business still exist, and my, what a fine job they’ve done renovating the place! it’s actually nice again. sure would be a shame if someone bought the property out from under them (lmao jk kardasi hospitality and starfleet are friends! no hard feelings. they should collaborate on some future projects, actually).

garak's a sad bitch who just lost his amazing morally dubious nepotism career at obsidian corp. (which absorbed kardasi hospitality) and moved into the complex just for the comfortingly familiar architecture. even tho he's not on the payroll for his (secret) dad's evil exploitative company anymore he's still vital to its continued efficiency and is an absolute sucker who still does unpaid shady work for them from time to time. so no one in the complex likes him, but also he's a very pleasant and fastidious queer man who pays his rent on time and has completely taken over the laundry room, to the benefit of everyone, because all the machines actually work now, it's always tidy, and there's a variety of forever-stocked detergents and soaps available, plus an iron?? there was not an iron before garak moved in. which is how it eventually becomes public knowledge that garak has an online tailoring and fashion design business, and he's actually pretty good at restoring clothes that get fucked by the washing machine or eaten by rats, soooo. yeah. they let him stick around.

meanwhile julian's a hot doctor who works at the local hospital and is absolutely buried in student debt that he refuses to let his moderately-wealthy family help him with because they're awful people who had him on illegal drugs without his knowledge since he was a little kid. they were afraid he had something wrong with him, apparently. he was too far behind in his class or w/e. they couldn't handle having a kid with special needs, so they pumped him full of dangerous experimental stimulants. only reason he found out is because he snuck off somewhere to start transitioning and had some tests done that revealed all the crazy shit in his system. he's insanely lucky he didn't end up in the hospital with seizures or fall into a coma or worse. not to mention his parents still dead-name him left and right over a decade later. it's a whole mess and a huge secret, because he technically has a history with illegal drug abuse, and it's a partially ongoing history because going cold turkey off drugs he's been on since he was six is Not A Good Idea, so??? fuck his life, actually. he lives in the apartment just down the hall from garak's. 

garak hates the country his dad's company expanded into and would like nothing better than to move back home, but it's not really logistically possible. especially since everyone there hates him cuz his (secret) dad's company is a mega-corporation that's completely taken over everything p much and is a complete monopoly nightmare, and he did... kinda... work there for decades. no one would hire him if he went back. it would be an extreme conflict of interest, since everyone wants to stay on tain's good side, including garak. but starfleet is interested in him, so he does some begrudging contract work for them sometimes, but he really has no desire to join them. he just wants to resume his old career and reclaim his assets.

julian's hospital is owned by starfleet, tho. his scholarship into medical school was also from starfleet, in fact--they're the only reason he was able to (sort of) afford becoming a doctor at all. so he's a big fan, even tho they are pretty hardcore anti-drugs in a way that's made him have to forge medical records and risk serious legal charges and prison time. julian comes across as a squeaky clean medical professional and an adorable idiot, but he's intimately familiar with back-alley dealings. which is kind of how he ends up helping garak with his drug addiction, and keeps said addiction off the record.

but basically, how it begins is julian likes to support the local restaurants in the complex and garak finds him there and thinks he's gorgeous, and it proceeds as expected. they fuck nasty and become codependent. ten years later, julian lives in a modest house with garak in his home country and garak irons all his old university hoodies.

#julian's addicted to trashy romance novels with mysterious ceo love interests with fancy high rise apartments and private jets #if they have an accent Even Better and garak has a thick one #so when he meets garak he's immediately drooling #but he later finds out garak was never especially wealthy he was the bastard son of the housekeeper in his (secret) dad's mansion #and as an adult he was Not paid well so he lived pretty much like a normal person #he does not drive an italian sports car it's just a kia #but garak Was on his way to taking over his dad's company and becoming filthy rich and he Is familiar with that lifestyle #so he plays it up to impress julian in the beginning of their relationship #saving up to take him to fancy hotels and restaurants in exotic locations for business purposes and doing weird sex stuff #this eventually peters out into them just loving each other for who and what they really are #but julian can't deny finding garak particularly irresistible when he's in a suit and talking about the stock market #garashir #my posts

[violetsiren90]

All I Haven't Said | Namjoon/Reader

💜 Chapter 2 💜

Table of Contents: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 (part 1), Chapter 3 (part 2)

Pairing: idol!Namjoon x f!Reader

Genre: Soulmate AU; idol AU; chapter fic; strangers to lovers; a bit of idiots to lovers, tbh; slow burn; eventual romance; eventual smut; angst (life is messy & hearts are complex); OT7 featured

Summary: You found your soulmate - or rather, he found you. Turns out he's an idol of much acclaim who needs you for very real and unglamorous reasons. What could become of two hearts so used to giving of themselves when they are confronted with needing each other?

Chapter Warnings: This fic is 18+, as is all my work and my page as a whole; Talk and depictions of cancer, its treatment, and the symptoms of both; implication of some disregard for personal agency by entertainment and medical industries; MC is diagnosed with asthma and experiences symptoms; flashbacks of a distressing situation; soulmate first touch & subsequent skinship; partial disrobing for medical purposes; medical setting and minor treatments; some social awkwardness; talk of food, eating, and alcohol consumption in the context of a soulmate AU

Author's Note: Chapter 2 is here! I tried my best to write Namjoon's response under the circumstances, but honestly I don't know how well it was executed. Let me know what you think in the comments/asks! I'm super open to constructive criticism and feedback. Also, I did my best with the Korean phrases and medical jargon. If anyone has more extensive knowledge on those subjects and wants to fact-check, please let me know!

P.S. If you want to join the tag list, drop me a comment or ask!

P.P.S. If no one has told you yet today, you're loved and worthy of love! 🧜‍♀️💜

"At night I dream that you and I are two plants that grew together, roots entwined, and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth, since we are made of earth and rain.”

~ Pablo Neruda

Chapter 2: Touching Me, Touching You

    When you touched down at Incheon International Airport, you and Matt were greeted by a rather unnecessarily large party of Hybe personnel in black plainclothes wearing masks who snatched up your baggage and ushered you into the first of a small fleet of black SUV's. The member of the legal advisory team who had visited you in the states, Choi Kang Dae, was riding shotgun and speaking into a cell phone that had not left his ear since departing the baggage claim. In the row behind you was another man you assumed to be a translator, given his fluency in English, but who was currently chopping it up with Matt in Korean, and beside him a large, serious, silent man whose eyes kept traveling to you every now and again. You assumed that meant that the rest of the ensemble filling the vehicles behind you were security, which somehow made you feel less rather than more at ease.

The further you advanced in traffic through the busy streets of Seoul, the more anxious you became. A thousand questions began to flood your brain as your heart began to hammer in your chest. If all these people had come to meet you, were you headed to the hospital now? Weren't you supposed stop at your accommodations first? If you didn't, would you even have a chance to shower a day's worth of airport off before meeting your soulmate? Were you about to bond right now? Would people be watching? Would it hurt? Why hadn't you ever thought of these things before? You felt a familiar tightness in your chest and pulled out your inhaler. An asthma attack right now? They always seemed to strike at the most inopportune times.

Matt was suddenly turning to you.

    "Hey, you okay?" he asked, looking at the inhaler you were shaking for a second puff.

You slowly exhaled and nodded.

    "I'm fine. But where are we going right now, can you ask them?"

The translator asked the Kang Dae something in Korean, and after he responded, the other man turned to you.

    "We're going to the hospital. Namjoon-ssi had a seizure last night due to a prolonged high-grade fever, so we are trying to act as quickly as possible to avoid further complications."

Matt turned to the translator.

    "This should have been the first thing we heard when we stepped off that plane. I'm not trying to play hardball here, but we're going to have to be communicated with about every step of this process so we can decide how we're going to respond. This was in the contract, communication and a chance to speak with me before she makes any step in this process..."

Matt slipped in and out of English as the attorney apologetically reassured him through the translator of their full intent to follow the contractual specifications. You felt sick, and your heart continued to hammer - though now for different reasons. You had been worried about a shower while he was fighting for his life. This was no time for nerves. You had to fight for his life too.

    When the vehicle pulled into the ambulance bay, you and Matt were handed surgical masks and ushered, with security and other Hybe personnel in tow, through the ICU and into a massive steel elevator. You watched the round button number "5" light up red as Kang Dae pushed it with a gloved hand. After the brief assent, the doors opened into a space that looked like it was straight out of a Star Trek episode - floor to ceiling white, blinding fluorescent lights, and hospital workers covered from head to toe in sterile garments ebbing and flowing in urgent silence to and fro to the rhythmic serenading hums and beeps of medical equipment. You blinked in the offending brightness.

Your party was immediately approached by a small woman with a tablet and stylus who addressed Kang Dae. You heard your name mentioned. You heard Matt's. After a brief exchange with the Hybe attorney, Matt relayed that you were going to meet with Namjoon's oncologist. Kang Dae turned to address the security staff, and his words were met with nods and murmurs of acknowledgment except by the tall, serious man from the SUV, who responded to the attorney in a low but firm tone, his eyes flashing over to you as he spoke. You looked over to Matt, your brow creased in question. He watched as Kang Dae concluded the exchange and lead your now small group of four to follow the petite woman down a long, wide hall. As you walked, Matt leaned down to whisper in your ear.

    "It appears the indignant gentleman is your personal bodyguard. Seems he's reluctant to stay behind with the rest of security."

You glanced in surprised curiosity over your shoulder and caught a glimpse of the guard seated beside the rest of the team, elbows propped on his knees and hands clasped under his chin, a pensive expression on his rugged features, before he disappeared from view as you rounded a bend.

    The hall connected to a labyrinth of others, snaking off left and right, and punctuated with massive, heavy doors. Your guide abruptly swung left to face one of the entrees, flashing a badge card across a sensor which beeped, allowing her to push it inward. It opened into a suite of rooms much homier than the atmosphere behind you, though every bit as sterile.

In the vestibule was a small acrylic table surrounded by matching chairs. As you passed through you noted to the right, a small kitchenette, and to the left a rather large bathroom. At the end of the suite, you shuffled into a large room, separated on the far left end by a curtain. The space in which you stood was fitted with grey leather furniture, a tall bamboo plant in the corner, and a low acrylic coffee-table. An older, distinguished looking man in a white jacket stood from where he had been seated in one of the arm chairs and bowed. Your group bowed in return, and the translator asked that you be seated.

Dr. Na, as the man in the coat was introduced, would run through some last matters with you before you were to meet your soulmate. He relayed through the translator that this hospital was state of the art, Korea's finest, and a frontrunner in successful experimental treatments for cancer and other genetic diseases. The room you were occupying, he said, was a suite meant for long-term inpatient care, and would be nearly identical to the space you would share with Namjoon for the remainder of his inpatient treatment. He explained that Namjoon's condition has been detected far later than was desirable, and that treatments had included invasive surgery and aggressive rounds of chemotherapy, which had slowed, but not stopped the spread of tumors throughout his body. He said that Namjoon had displayed extreme physical and emotional resilience, but that his will to fight the disease overtaking his body had begun to wane with his strength and increasingly burdensome symptoms from both the cancer and its treatment.

At this point, Dr. Na turned to face Matt full on, and earnestly imparted to him while gesticulating at you. Matt's brow furrowed, and he nodded as he listened to the oncologist before turning serious eyes toward you. Kang Dae began to say something, but the doctor held up his hand while also turning his eyes toward you with an expectant gaze. 

    "Y/n," Matt began, interlacing his fingers as he often did when trying to choose his words carefully, "Dr. Na says that there is not a lot of research around treating cancer, especially at such an advanced stage, with the soulmate bond. There are accounts of it having seemingly miraculous effects on injury and illness, but none that have been objectively measured. It has been scientifically proven to a degree that soulmates bring about peak physical conditions in one another through the bond...over time. The thing the good doctor here really wants you to understand is that there is no guarantee that there is enough time in our situation. He says that bonding with him is going to be a major risk. If the treatment isn't successful and Namjoon should pass, that would mean your ultimate death soon after."

Matt's face had lost most of its stoicism. He looked deeply worried. He looked like he wanted you to get on a plane with him back to the States. He looked like he knew what you were going to do instead. You see, you had already thought about it - the possibility of death. You nodded.

     "Tell him I understand, Matt," you said calmly, "Tell him I'd like to meet Namjoon-ssi."

Matt stared at you for a beat, as if debating with himself before turning back to relay your message to Dr. Na. The oncologist nodded, and then turned to you and asked another question in Korean. The translator explained that the doctor wanted to know if you understood the basic implications of the soul-bond. You sighed. You did.  You knew that once bonded you would be reliant on each other for nourishment and survival until the end of your natural lives, and that the bond once established was irreversible. You knew the bond was initiated and maintained through skin-to-skin contact. You knew that the bond changed your body chemistry to no longer need food or water, and that food would eventually be rejected by the body like poison. You knew these things because you had done extensive research, not because anyone in the company asking for you to give over your body and soul had tried to make you aware. They had been interested in matters of signatures and compensation. How considerate of someone to ask you now, you thought with some contempt. You wondered what Namjoon knew, what he had been told, what he had been asked. 

     "I would like to meet my soulmate now," you said suddenly, cutting through the exchange between Dr. Na and Kang Dae.

All eyes turned on you, leaving in half-finished sentences a wake of mild surprise. "I know what I'm getting into on my end of things. You had expressed before that time was of the essence and I would like to be brought to him now."

Matt relayed your response to the group, and the doctor nodded. Soon you were being handed a hospital gown, and a sports bra, underwear, and socks from your suitcase - that you realized with a bit of alarm and indignation, you had not given anyone permission to retrieve - and were instructed to shower and change into these items. 

     You slipped into the bathroom and sank down on the closed toilet, dropping your head onto the little bundle of clothes in your arms.  In your first few moments alone in over twenty-four hours, everything was beginning to hit like a volley of arrows. Agendas, agendas. Hybe wanted your soulmate. The hospital wanted to beat his cancer. You wanted to help him live. But what did he want? Had anyone asked? Would he be honest, if they did? Not for the first time, something squeezed in your chest at the thought of him. But this time, it was stronger. Your head shot up from your lap. You had somewhere to be.

    After a quick and thorough wash-up, you padded into the hall where the little group awaited you. You were self-conscious in your limited attire, and you stood awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the next as people murmured in Korean. A nurse, who had joined the small throng, approached you, slipping a hospital bracelet with your name and Hangul characters and little numbers around your wrist and handing you a pair of grey slippers. Matt turned to you.

    "This is it, kiddo. You're going to go with Dr. Na and have your vitals taken, have some blood drawn, and then you'll go meet him."

Matt sighed deeply, his eyes searching yours. He took a backward glance and stepped just a bit closer, placing a hand on your shoulder.

"You sure about this?"

You nodded.

    "Yes, Matt, I'm sure."

He pulled his mouth in into a tense line, his brows drawing together.

    "That face you're making, that defiance in your eyes," his hand fell from your shoulder, "You could be his twin. I know I can't change your mind now. Nothing could."

You gave a knowing smile. He wasn't wrong. 

    "I'm gonna be okay, Matt. I'll see you tomorrow. Call my mom and tell her things went fine. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Matt scratched the back of his head, regarding you thoughtfully for a moment before nodding. He bent to press a kiss to your forehead, and turned to make his polite goodbyes.

    The nurse ushered you down the hall and into a room that looked a little more like a typical hospital room with a gauze-covered table, a scale, and other vaguely familiar machines and equipment. After she had collected the desired data and taken a vial of your blood, she made a page in Korean, and then motioned for you to follow her. She took you down another series of passages and finally, when you were sure Theseus himself couldn't have found his way back, she stopped in front of a large steel door and scanned her badge.

Room number 594.

The door opened on its heavy hinges, swinging slowly inward. Your heart was hammering in your chest. You realized the moment you crossed the threshold  that you didn't have your things. You didn't have your phone, or your bag, or the book that was inside it, or what was between the pages of the book.

You thought about pear-shaped Italian cheese as you crossed through the kitchen area.

You thought about little Diana trying to stop your mother from crying as she lay on the floor of the kitchen, body shaking with sobs, as you moved into large open room at the end of the suite.

And then, there he was. It was all you could do not to gasp.

    You would never have recognized him for the man in the photo Diana had shoved into your face last week. Sitting propped up in a large hospital bed, he was covered up to the waist in blankets. His frame, though unmistakably large, was gaunt, and his white tee draped around him like something that used to fit - patches and wires visible across his chest through the cotton fabric. His long arms were thinner than they should have been, ashy, and littered with bruises. His head leaned back against the pillows, he wore a black beanie low on his brow, but not low enough to hide the naked skin where his eyebrows had been. His full lips were chapped and parted as he labored somewhat to breathe. The doctor was speaking to a tall man in a black tee and jeans beside the bed. Namjoon was watching them, until, suddenly, his gaze flicked to you. Your breath caught in your chest. His eyes were unchanged. Something flooded your veins.

    "I need to speak with Namjoon-ssi, please," you said abruptly, turning to the doctor and the man beside him.

They looked at you, quizzically. You cleared your throat to speak again, slower and more firmly.

"Could I be alone with him, for a moment? I need to speak with him before we begin."

The doctor turned to say something to the tall man, but a voice from the hospital bed addressed them in a soft, deep timbre. The tall man glanced at you and then at Namjoon and replied. They held a short exchange before both he and the doctor filed reluctantly out of the room, taking the nurse with them.

Namjoon sat further up in the bed, his face contorting in pain as you approached him. You stood a few feet from where he sat, your hands inexplicably itching to reach out for him. You clasped them behind your back.

    "Hello," he, rasped.

Even the hoarseness couldn't hide the warmth of his voice. You thought his eyes and his voice must be made of the very same stuff. You were suddenly a different kind of nervous. You didn't even register your own initiative to speak as the question came tumbling out.

    "Do you want to live?"

Your soulmate blinked in surprise.

    "What?"

You took a breath and repeated yourself, this time with intention.

    "Do you want to live?" You asked again. "I know there are plenty of people who want you too, but I want to know what you want."

He regarded you in intent silence for a long moment.

    "Yes," he said finally, his cadence thoughtful and deliberate, "Yes, I want to live. I wasn't sure I did, but I do. I do now."

You exhaled a little breath you didn't realize you'd been holding. 

    "Okay, good," you nodded, looking away from his intent gaze as you fought, again, the surging urge to reach for him.

His lips quirked into a little smirk at your reaction.

    "I was going to ask you a question too, but after introductions," those eyes caught yours again, teasingly, and the little smile deepened just a bit, pressing a dimple into his sunken cheek.

The misery he was living in and he was teasing you? You felt something flutter a little in your chest which you willed yourself to ignore.

    "I'm sorry," you bit back a smile, glancing away a bit bashfully, "I just needed to know that you had agency over what was happening here, that it was what you wanted. If no one else was going to give you that choice...well, I was."

He regarded you silently again before addressing you.

    "It's good to meet you, Y/n-ssi. I'm Kim Namjoon."

You couldn't suppress a smirk at his stubbornness, and at the fact that he already knew your name, like you knew his.

    "It's good to meet you, too, Namjoon-ssi," you replied softly.

He suddenly leaned back in the bed, wincing, his chest heaving a bit. You looked over at the heart monitor that beeped beside him to see that his pulse was rising.

    "Should I call in the doctor?" You asked in concern.

He shook his head weakly. 

    "Not yet," he pressed out, with effort. "I...need...to know..."

You stepped closer to hear him.

    "Know what?" He closed his eyes , bringing a hand over his chest as the beeping slowed.

    "You...could...die...trying to..." he broke into a bought of coughs that was obviously painful. Once he had caught his breath, he rasped, "Are you sure, Y/n-ssi?"

    "Yes," you answered without hesitation. "Yes, I'm sure. This is my choice. I'm sure."

He opened his eyes. You held each other in a silent gaze. He looked like he wanted to say something. He didn't. He merely nodded and asked,

    "You ready, then?"

You met his questioning gaze with a wry smile and what you hoped were steady eyes as you answered.

    "Ready as I'll ever be."

    After the staff had returned to the room, the tall man in plainclothes introduced himself as Sejin, Namjoon's manager. He gave you a deep bow, which you returned, thanking you in practiced English for agreeing to bond with the idol - something that made you uncomfortable all the way down to your bones, and which you tried to dismiss without being impolite. The doctor spoke to Namjoon at some length, gesticulating to you several times. Sejin nodded along as the nurse typed notes onto her tablet.

You felt a bit frustrated, being on the outside of what so immediately concerned you. You were on the verge of asking for Matt to be brought in when Namjoon turned to you. 

    "The doctor says that while he understands first touch is an intimate experience, that he and two nurses will need to be present to monitor my vitals. My heart is on the weaker side these days."

He looked almost contrite as he said it and your chest squeezed. You nodded understandingly. He might be your soulmate, but you knew this wasn't a meet-cute. This was clinical. What was about to happen between you was a treatment. The doctor continued, and a nurse came around the bed to where you stood and waited expectantly as Namjoon turned to you, this time with an unmistakably apologetic look on his drawn features.

    "Dr. Na says that if first contact goes smoothly, we'll need to begin treatments aggressively, which means as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. I guess they want us both in just undergarments."

Ah, hence the hospital gown.

You felt heat creep up your neck. Under any other circumstances you would have been upset at the lack of privacy of it all, but these weren't like any circumstances you had ever been prepared to anticipate. You were going to have to figure the boundaries out as you went.

The nurse beside you rolled up a chair for you to sit in beside the bed, facing Namjoon. She untied and tugged the top of your hospital gown down to place a heart monitor on your chest, your soulmate respectfully averting his gaze.

When all the necessary preparations had been made, you found yourself sitting in a swivel chair cranked up to reach the height of the hospital bed, socked feet not touching the ground. You were facing Namjoon, who kept sitting forward, much to the chagrin of the nurses who kept gently but impatiently guiding him back against the pillows. You felt a sick feeling creep into the pit of your stomach as you glanced at the second nurse wheel in a defibrillator. How bad could this possibly be? Would it hurt? You steeled yourself as Namjoon sat forward again, turning up the palm of his large right hand which rested on the covers beside you.

    "It's time," he murmured softly, eyes on you as you gave one more glance to the doctor, who nodded, and giving in to an urge you had kept at bay since you entered the room you slipped your hand into his.

    A jolt shot through your body like an intense electric pulse. It hurt, like relentless aftershocks of overstimulation to sensitive flesh...and yet if felt good. So good. You had instinctively pulled to yank your hand away from the pure surprise of it, but you had tugged yourself back to no avail. You opened your eyes (you hadn't remembered closing them) to see Namjoon, head thrown back against the pillows, lips parted and eyes screwed shut as he clutched your hand in a vice grip. You glanced at the heart monitor spitting out beeps consistent with well over a hundred beats per minute. Was that yours or his? But you couldn't very well hold a coherent thought in your mind as warmth began to flood your body, followed by a tingling sensation that seemed to fizzle up from the base of your spine and trickle down your limbs.

Raising suddenly heavy eyes, you realized that you were swaying a bit on your feet. When did you stand? And you were much, much closer to Namjoon - your hand was curling around the base of his bicep, your elbow in his palm, as you pressed every possible square centimeter of your bare arm to his. His eyes were open now and he was looking at you as his chest rose and fell. You returned his gaze, unfocused, drunk on the sensations spreading through your being.

You blinked as you heard the doctor speak, but neither of you tore your eyes away, and as if in a trace, as the nurses helped you out of your clothes, and you crawled into the bed and slotted yourself against his side, stretching out your right arm to wrap around his torso. Every aspect of the feeling grew impossibly stronger, the pleasure factor so high that it felt somehow wrong to be experiencing this with a total stranger in a hospital room surrounded by others. You felt Namjoon let out a shuddering breath. His arms had snaked around you.

The last thing you remembered before falling into a delirium was the nurse pulling the covers over your bodies.

    When you awoke, or rather, came to, you felt wrong. You rubbed hazy eyes to find yourself on a little cot. Before you could even wonder where you were or how you got there, the events of the previous day came flooding back.

Holy shit, you thought, you were in Korea. You had met your soulmate - and bonded with him. 

When had you even fallen asleep? The last thing you remembered was climbing into Namjoon's bed. Your heartbeat quickened. First touch had been...something else. An image of your soulmate gripping your hand with his head thrown back flashed through your mind.

No, don't, you thought, and pushed yourself to sit up.

In your attempt to move, you quickly realized that the wrongness you felt was that you were incredibly weak. It was a strange sort of weakness, however, one that left you feeling exhausted with every tiny move but wasn't accompanied by any sort of discomfort. In fact, you felt like you were floating on a cloud, if only one you couldn't find the strength to roll off. 

You were back in your hospital gown. There was a small table to your left with a lamp, a little vase of flowers, and white telephone. To your left was a machine much like the one you had seen beside Namjoon's bed beeping away, a little green line spiking and dropping across the monitor. A long curtain stretched across the space in front of you. You needed to pee.

As you moved to get off the cot, a sting of pain shot through your right arm at the inner joint and you realized that you had missed the IV drip beside the heart monitor. Clamping the IV stand you rose precariously on wobbly legs. You shuffled wearily forward, pulling the curtain back to reveal the other half of the room...and your soulmate.

He was sitting in bed, over the covers, in a heather grey tee and navy blue sweats, bare feet crossed at the ankles. He was still wearing the beanie, and his head was dipped down, immersed in the book he was holding open in his lap. The mid-morning sun spilled through the open window, bathing the suite in a pale yellow that blanketed generic seating furniture and a small bookshelf topped with a bonsai tree and painted clay figurine beside the bed, but left the abstract art piece on the opposite wall in relative shadow.

You were about to retreat back behind the curtain when a wheel of your portable IV stand betrayed you with a squeak. You pulled the curtain hurriedly shut, but too late.

    "Hello?" You heard him call softly.

His voice sounded better, you thought. Not nearly as raspy. You must look like shit, you also thought. Oh well, you needed to get past him to look decent anyway. And to pee. And he was going to see you probably every day for the rest of your life, so, bashfulness regarding your morning mug was definitely a waste of emotional energy. You heaved a sigh, and slowly pulled back the curtain, peeking through as you advanced a step.

    "I didn't want to disturb you," you fibbed, clutching the IV stand.

    "You're not disturbing me," he responded, shutting his book.

He was looking at you with a soft expression, reserved, but still warm. He looked a lot better than yesterday, too; it was unmistakable. His skin had lost a great deal of its previously ashy quality and the bruises on his arms had nearly vanished. His lips were no longer chapped, and, you noted, were full and naturally deep in color. His face looked less wane, though still thin, his shirt still hanging loosely over his chest and broad, sloping shoulders.

    "You look a little better," you urged, hoping to justify your prolonged stare.

He smiled. You were quickly reminded like a sock to the gut how pretty his smile was. 

    "I feel better," he concurred, "Thanks to you."

You looked down at your feet awkwardly. You had never been good at receiving praise or gratitude.

    "Oh...I'm glad," you mumbled. 

    "How do you feel?" he asked.

You raised your gaze back up to meet his, a wry smile tugging at your lips. 

    "Probably about as good as I look," you rejoined.

He pulled his smile into a tight line, eyes creasing. You thought maybe that was what he looked like when he was trying not to laugh. Suddenly you felt your bladder demand priority of attention.

    "Well, I'm gonna...get ready. For the day," you motioned, quickly realizing you had nothing to change into, and slipped back into the little room behind the curtain.

Scanning the space, you noted your suitcase and bag against the wall. You filled your bag with the essentials and a change before popping back out into the other half of the room on your way to the bathroom. You noticed out of the corner of your eye that Namjoon glanced at you before looking down at his book again, and you ignored the tight feeling in your chest one more time.

    Your mom had always said that a hot shower could make a person reborn, and by golly you figured she was right. You felt life seeping back into your limbs slowly but surely as the warm water poured over your body. As always, hot water and steam against white tile oiled cogs of your mind.

Clearly, the bond had served Namjoon well. You were anxious to know what a medical assessment would report. Your own exhaustion confused you, however. Wasn't the bond supposed to nourish you, rejuvenate you? When would you stop needing food? How often would you need to practice skinship now that you were bonded? And what would that look like? A thousand questions filled your mind as you massaged your scalp. You made a mental note to write a list of questions for the doctor.

    Once you had finished your morning routine, you felt infinitely more prepared to face the day. You changed into a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt. As you shuffled back toward your room, you noticed Namjoon bent over the bonsai, tiny scissors in hand. A nurse was typing on a tablet on the other side of the bed.

    "Um, Namjoon," you asked, as you paused.

He startled a bit as he looked up at you, dropping the little scissors and cursing under his breath. The nurse peeked over and when she had seemingly assessed that no damage had been done, she smirked.

    "At least no bonsai limbs were lost this time," she murmured.

Namjoon slipped the scissors into a little leather pouch.

    "Hilarious," he deadpanned, then turned his attention back to you, "Sorry, did you ask me something?"

    "Actually," you blinked in surprise, "I was going to ask you to ask the nurse, but I guess I can ask her myself this time."

The nurse smiled at you. 

    "Ganhosanim, this is Y/n-ssi," Namjoon said, addressing the woman. She gave you a bow which you returned.

    "Annyeonghaseyo," she greeted you, "I'm Nurse Cha and I'll be your attending on most days. Please feel free to speak to me in English," she smiled.

You felt a weight lift off your shoulders. While you had been studying Korean furiously ever since your decision had been made, having medical personnel you could communicate with at this stage without having to rely on Namjoon to translate for you was a welcome relief. 

    "If you have a minute, I have some questions? Or, I will, once I write them down. Could I just put my stuff away and come right back?" You asked eagerly. She nodded, still typing away on the tablet. You dropped your bag beside your suitcase, which you tossed on the bed and unzipped to extract a pen and a notebook with three little bees embossed into the cover. You donned your slippers and crossed back over to Namjoon's side. He was sitting on the bed again, and nurse Yun was examining one of his arms. You plopped down in an armchair beside the bookshelf. 

    "Nice bonsai," you remarked, trailing your eyes over the intricate geometric patterns of its shallow stone pot.

    "Nice journal," he replied. "Moleskin?"

You nodded, holding it up to show him the front.

    "It has bees," you said with solemnity, as if the whimsy of the endearing was something to be taken quite seriously, and Namjoon hummed in grave assent. Nurse Cha glanced between you, a smirk at the corner of her mouth.

    "You said you had some questions, Y/n-ssi?" She offered.

    "Yes," you began, scribbling a few down in the pages in your lap before beginning. "Firstly wha- Oh! What happened to me yesterday? Did I pass out?" You interrupted yourself to ask.

    "Yes," she replied. "While the bonding was successful, and the skinship was highly rejuvenating for Namjoon, it appears that you were giving more than you were getting from a physiological standpoint, and while the effect was still probably similar to you on a cellular level, you were disproportionate in your transfer of energy. We've put you on an IV drip for now to ensure you're getting the replenishment your body needs regardless of food intake."

You jotted down a few lines of notes.

    "Okay, makes sense. Now, moving on to the food thing - we're still eating, right?"

Nurse Cha began typing on her tablet as she responded.

    "Yes. However, there is great boidiversity as to when and what people start rejecting as far as food goes. The average point of solid food rejection begins around two weeks after bonding. Generally, bonded individuals are still able to consume water and distilled alcohols, though they become unable to experience taste."

    "Does alcohol have the same...effect?" Namjoon spoke up from the bed.

    "An intensified one, actually," she responded, "Being a bonded mate means rediscovering your tolerance, and caution is of course advised. We've actually taken blood panels to alert us of any food sensitivities you may have. These should be immediately eliminated from your diet, as the rejection symptoms can be more severe in cases of late-stage ingestion with these items. The doctor will be in later to review those results with you."

    "Okay. And how often will we need to practice skinship, and are we going to need to initiate it ourselves or are we going to be on a schedule?"

    "I was wondering about that too," Namjoon said, adjusting his beanie.

    "The doctor will go over that with you as soon as he arrives in a little while as well. I know I'm scheduled to update your charts every six hours, so I'm sure there will be some guidance involved at first."

You quickly glanced up at Namjoon and then down at your lap. A warmth spread through your chest as you tried to keep your eyes on your notes and off of his bare arms. You were having those stupid urges to latch onto him again. Your hand twitched around your pen. You wondered what his thoughts were on your next session.

Just then, Dr. Na entered the room. He greeted both of you warmly and Nurse Cha took over relaying the consultation in English.

The oncologist was very optimistic about the effect of the soulmate bond on Namjoon, saying that his vitals had stabilized, his pain levels were lower than they'd been in weeks and the inflammation in his body had decreased significantly. He stressed that, while these were good signs, they were not a guarantee that the skinship was treating the cancer, and that they would have to take scans after a time to see if the tumors had were in fact shrinking.

He reviewed your blood panel results, letting you know that from that point forward you were to avoid consuming nightshades while communicating to Namjoon that he hadn't tested positive for any food sensitivities. He showed you a chart dictating when and how long you should practice skinship each day, beginning with a session immediately following the consultation. He cautioned you to alert medical staff if during a session you began to feel overly-drain, as they did not want you coming to the point of fainting again. You were removed from your IV drip.

    After the doctor had taken his leave, Nurse Cha fixed you with additional monitors, instructed you both to strip down to your maximum level of comfortability for the session, and departed. Once you were down to bra and panties, you climbed up into the huge hospital bed to join Namjoon, who once again kept his gaze trained anywhere but your side of the bed as you slipped under the covers and pressed yourself into his side.

Suddenly it was as if you had slipped into a warm bath under the influence of champagne. You closed your eyes and sank into the incredible sensation of his touch. His skin was like a warm cup of tea on the coldest day of the year. Like the first refreshing moments of a plunge into cool water at the height of summer. It was everything wonderful all at once, and you were so caught up in the sensation that you were barely cognizant of a tiny moan escaping your lips. 

Horrified, you bit down on your bottom lip and prayed to all that was sacred that Namjoon hadn't noticed. His immediate soft laughter, however, betrayed him, and you felt your face burning with embarrassment - beads of sweat pricking on your forehead as you covered your face with a different kind of groan.

    "Sorry," you murmured, ruefully.

    "Nah, I get it," Namjoon chuckled, his chest rumbling under your cheek. "If it feels as good for you as it does for me, then that's the correct response."

You allowed yourself to giggle a bit in turn.

    "I'm glad it's already helping," you remarked, and you felt him turn his head as if he was looking down at you.

He was silent for a beat before addressing you again.

    "Everything happened so quickly yesterday, I didn't even get a chance to thank you."

    "For what?" you countered, even though you knew exactly where he was headed with this.

    "For leaving your life behind and coming to Korea to give a stranger a chance at his. I'm going to spend the rest of my time making it up to you."

You felt your chest tighten. You pushed yourself up on one arm and turned to face him. The sheet fell down your upper body as you moved, but you were too intent on looking him in the face to notice. 

    "Namjoon, you're not a charity case. I didn't do this so that you would owe me something. This is a choice I made. All mine. So relieve yourself of any debt you may feel you owe me. We're bound by circumstance, but you're a free man in every sense of the word. I won't be a burden you bear any more than you wish to be one to me."

If you had been looking through his eyes, you would have seen yourself, pressed up out of the sheets with all the modesty of a sea nymph, your features glowing with the effects of the bond and fixed with a splendid kind of resoluteness and soft defiance. But, you saw it from your own, taking in the quiet shock on Namjoon's features that slowly morphed into something you couldn't place. Not yet. You didn't know him well enough.

After regarding you blinkingly, he looked at you with earnest eyes and gave a nod.

    "I accept those terms," he assented, and you believed him.

You thought maybe you'd believe anything he said, and, suddenly aware of the bareness of your torso under the intentness of his gaze, you slipped back down against his side.

    "I noticed you dropped the honorifics," he murmured teasingly.

You glanced back up at him.

    "Oh...sorry, I'm not used to it. I can -"

    "It's alright," he interjected, "I think we should be familiar. It will make things easier, right? Only if you want, though," he quickly added.

    "Yeah, no, I agree," you answered, shifting to press your leg more fully against his, and smiling to yourself as you keyed up your next remark.

"And I'm only your noona by a little bit anyway, so no need to call me that..."

This time a loud laugh burst out of him that shook your head enough for you to roll away and shoot him a look as he brushed a hand over his eyes in amusement. You smiled as you took in his dimpled cheeks and crescent eyes, and nearly didn't notice the voice speaking in bemused and startled Korean at the mouth of the hall. It was Namjoon who looked up first.

    "Yah!" He called in indignation and warning as you followed his gaze to catch but a glimpse of two young men, badly repressing snickers as they bolted back down the hall to the entry of the suite. 

Namjoon sighed sharply and turned to you with and apologetic expression.

    "I'm so sorry, those idiots are my friends. They're used to coming and going as they please to visit me - which, obviously now they can't just barge in unannounced."

He slipped out of bed, and you glanced away as he pulled on sweats and a shirt.

"I'll tell them to come back at a better time."

    "No, no!" you protested, "Just let me get decent. I want to meet them."

Namjoon paused as he kicked on his slippers. 

    "You sure?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

    "Yeah, yeah. I know we're still on skinship time, but, maybe we can just...hold hands? I mean, as long as you're okay with it..."

Namjoon's mouth slipped into a wry grin as he glanced down to the other end of the suite. 

    "Yeah, I'm fine with it. I apologize in advance if they can't be."

You gave a confused shrug as Namjoon picked up his phone and crossed into the vestibule area to give you the privacy to change. You pulled your leggings and sweatshirt back on and perched yourself cross-legged on the hospital bed, listening with amused anticipation as Namjoon spoke in exasperated Korean on the other side of the wall. You heard the door and three sets of footsteps accompanied by giggles and shushing, and then your soulmate emerged, all but herding the two young men preceding him into the room.

You immediately recognized the strapping, dark-haired one with the leporine smile as Jungkook, the young man who had accompanied Hybe's representation to visit you on Namjoon's behalf. The other young man you also recognized from internet images as one of the members, though you couldn't recall his name. He was shorter than Jungkook, though not by as much as he should have been due to the significance of his heeled boots. What he lacked in height he made up for in athletic build and voluptuously beautiful facial features. He shook his honey blonde hair out of his eyes, earrings tinkling as he regarded you with a coy smile.

    "Ijjogeun Y/n-ieo. Y/n, this is Jungkook and Jimin," Namjoon said, gesturing to each of the members as they made polite bows. 

    "Annyeonghaseyo," you said, returning their bows deeply, "Mannaseo bangapseumnida - dasi mannaseo bangabseubnida, Jungkook-ssi."

Jungkook flashed a blinding smile, round eyes wide and sparkling.

    "It's good to see you again too, noona," he answered in English. Namjoon's brow creased as he glanced between you and the young man you had been originally introduced to as the maknae of BTS.

    "You've met?" he asked. You nodded.

    "Jungkook was one of the people who came to meet me in the US when your company made the proposition," you explained. "He spoke very, very highly of you. His reference of your character was one of the major contributing factors toward my decision to come."

You smiled softly at Jungkook. Namjoon nodded, brow still drawn, as he pressed his tongue into the side of his cheek, jaw clenched and jutting forward, as he clapped the youngest on the shoulder. You thought Jungkook's eyes were just a bit glassy as the two shared a look that seemed to hold a lifetime of history. Jimin regarded the two with sentimentality before returning his gaze to you, again full of enigmatic mischief. The blonde took a step toward you, then turned on his booted heal, saying something to Namjoon in Korean.

You cocked your head to the side, glancing at your soulmate.

    "He said I look a lot better already," Namjoon said, eyeing Jimin warily as the younger man continued speaking, flashing you a devilish grin. Jungkook pulled his pierced lower lip between his teeth as he glanced between Namjoon and Jimin. You looked again to Namjoon expectantly.

    Awkwardness radiated from him as he deflected saying Jimin was just making fun, and he shot the younger man a look that unmistakably communicated his lack of amusement. Namjoon made another remark in Korean, and joined you back on the bed, hesitating only a moment before he took your hand in his.

You saw his shoulders sag in relief as he breathed a sigh through his nose at the contact. You had to restrain your own reaction, glancing down shyly as to avoid the two pairs of eyes trained in rapt curiosity on you from the end of the bed. Namjoon continued to speak with them, translating between you when your limited Korean wasn't sufficient, and gradually your awkwardness eased in the comfortable presence that emanated between your soulmate and his members.

As the visitors were about to take their leave, Jimin trained you with a newly serious look, leaning against the edge of the bed, and glancing at Namjoon as he spoke in what you could decipher was gratitude. 

    "He says they're all so grateful to you and glad to have you with us," Namjoon translated. You noticed his thumb slide over the back of your hand as he said it. So did Jimin, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he eyed where your digits were intertwined.

    "Ah," you said awkwardly, "No thanks necessary, we're in this together, right?"

You pulled your hand from Namjoon's and in an attempt to raise your arm and give him a nonchalant pat on the back, you backhanded him directly in the face. 

Namjoon's hand flew up to his cheek and the two younger members erupted in laughter. You apologized profusely, trying to make sure Namjoon could hear you over Jungkook's wheezing and Jimin's shrieks of what you were pretty sure was "oh shit, there are two of them". When Namjoon had assured you that he was perfectly fine and the other two had composed themselves, you said your goodbyes. As soon as they were out the door, Namjoon was apologizing.

    "It's fine," you smirked with a shrug, "That's friends for you. I would have been concerned if they hadn't poked a little fun. I like them. I want to meet the rest of them."

Namjoon slipped back up onto the bed and intertwined his hand with yours as he glanced down, a pensive look on his face.

    "There's a lot of people you need to meet," he said quietly, thoughtfully.

You studied him as he continued to look down at your joined hands.

"In fact," he continued, "There was someone I was hoping you could meet tomorrow. Someone we should sit down...and talk with."

You nodded, regarding him intently.

"Her name is Kim Hyung-seo," he continued, "She's my fiancée."

AN: Yeah, sorry to drop that at the end and peace out. 😁✌

Tag list: @butterymin @little-dark-empress @aretha170 @kamilamb @jlee97 @thephotoend @callmenoona25

#kim namjoon #knj #bts #kim namjoon fanart #knj fic #namjoon fic #bts fics #namjoon soulmate #soulmate au #bts soulmate au #namjoon x y/n #namjoon x reader #namjoon x you #bts reader insert #reader insert #eventual relationship #eventual smut #eventual romance #strangers to lovers #idol au #slow burn

[tenpintsofsundrop]

Dreaming Of You

Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader

Part One: The Psychic and The Tiger

Summary:

You and Gar have been best friends for a long time. Nothing could disrupt the harmony of such a perfect friendship.

Nothing except maybe... your usually predictable powers going haywire and somehow showing you all of his heated daydreams about you. But he couldn't possibly have romantic feelings for you. He couldn't possibly want anything more than your close platonic friendship and the occasional steamy fantasy. Right?

Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut and (Slight) Angst. Set during Season 2.

Word Count: 13,100

Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

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List of detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: some emotional angst (on the basis of mutual angst but they’re both deep in denial), accidental invasion of someone’s privacy (by accidentally reading their mind), some light canon violence (practice sparring/practice fighting), the reader character is disabled - the reader character is 100% mute, the reader character suffered with tumors that were partially cured by Doctor Caulder’s serum, the reader character suffers from migraines and seizures due to remaining brain tumors, the reader character has the ability to read minds, the reader character uses ASL because she is mute, mentions of the reader character having insomnia/difficulty sleeping, mentions of Rachel having a one-sided crush on Gar, the reader is described to exercise a lot and be physically fit but I don’t allot that to a certain body type (I am not excluding her from being fat when I write this), in a lot of passages - the reader is implied to be fat actually, mentions of the reader masturbating, a wholesome family game night that doesn’t really belong in a smut fic lmao, somewhat graphic descriptions of vomit (from illness) (it only occurs in one short section of the fic), passing mentions of disordered eating - but not due to poor body image or mental illness more in the form of restrictions on ‘junk food’ and not eating properly at meal times, dream sequences involving sex - hair-pulling, groping, biting, making out, (implied) shower sex, dirty talk, praise kink, penis in vagina sex (unprotected), mind fucking (but not in the way that you think - sharing sex with someone while having a sexual connection). All of the smut/sex in this chapter is of the day dream variety, but it is still described in graphic/detailed ways. I believe that is everything. 

A/N: The first repost on this new blog! I am so excited about it. If you have any comments or questions about the fic, please let me know, and if you have read it before, I hope you enjoy this new version, and if you're reading it for the first time, I hope that it's a really excellent experience for you.

...

Mind reading is most definitely not what people think it is. 

It’s not at all how movies portray it to be. And it’s definitely not how you imagine it to be when you think about having the ability to access someone’s private thoughts. 

To this day, you still remembered when Gar showed you the British television show Misfits, and you couldn’t help but laugh at the way the character’s mind reading power was portrayed. 

To most of Hollywood, it’s as if a person’s thoughts were a simple string of words laid out in their head, a simple script being read in their voice. As if you can accidentally overhear someone thinking about a certain topic, like one overhears a conversation. 

In reality, it was vastly different for you. 

There was no easy way to explain it, to describe the way it felt to enter the complex vastness of the human mind, but you often tried to put it into words. For one, you were thankful that it took you concentration and intent to use your powers. You never accidentally overheard someone’s thoughts the way a person can hear voices or loud music, or a television in the next room. It kept you from a lot of awkward situations. And most importantly to you, it kept you from barreling into a person’s most private space - the sacred stronghold of their mind - unless it was deemed completely necessary. 

From what you had realized, it required you making eye contact with the person in order for you to enter someone’s mind. 

“Ah yes. The eyes are the window to the soul, after all.” Doctor Caulder had remarked when he had discovered this about your powers. 

Ironic. Thematic, actually, considering that his serum had cured you of a physical blindness. One caused by a brain tumor that any doctor was too afraid to operate on in order to remove. Doctor Caulder liked to credit himself and his serum with giving you the gift of ‘a greater sight’, one that allowed you to peer deep inside others. A gift that he said allowed you to help people. 

To you, though, more often than not, it just felt like invading people’s privacy. And that was something you definitely didn’t enjoy - whether it was ‘helping’ people or not. 

Something you had learned during the minimal amount of time you had used your powers: people can be divided into two types of thinkers. That you found out very quickly. 

The first type are people whose thoughts come in the form of rich, visual landscapes. People who show off their thoughts almost purely with visuals, imagining things that might happen, remembering things that already have in vivid detail. Those people are typically the easiest to navigate, in your experience - but their memories can be the most painful and vivid if you go too deep. 

The second type are people whose thoughts come more in the form of narration - a voice inside their head speaking about their intentions or the information pumping through their mind. 

Although, unlike what most people would think, that voice is not usually their own. 

Most times it is the voice of a mentor or parent, someone who guided and built their thoughts from childhood, someone whose voice sounds firm and thoughtful in their mind. Or sometimes it could even be the voice of a TV character or a radio host, because listening to that piece of media so often caused that voice to clone in their mind and become stuck there accidentally. 

Entering the mind of someone like this can be tricky - their thoughts are difficult to navigate, because they are hard to grasp and become tangible. 

Occasionally you come across someone with a more unique mental landscape, someone in emotional turmoil or someone who simply never had a linear train of thought to begin with. Entering the mind of someone like this is more like a thousand screaming voices and flashing lights, all at once. Incredibly difficult to decipher, a sensory overload to take in.  

But those are only surface level thoughts. Your powers gave you the ability to dive deep into the cave of someone’s mind, to explore the winding halls of their memories, their subconscious. To feel their emotions, to help them work through their traumas, their pain. If they allowed you to delve that deep. Only if they invited you in. 

More often than not, you simply preferred to stay the hell out of other people’s minds. To simply give them the privacy they were owed. 

Which is why when it happened - when your powers started slipping out of your control on that stupid fucking day - you hated it more than you could be proud of it. Even if the information you discovered cemented a dream into reality that you’d been having since the day you met Garfield Logan. 

It had been a Saturday morning like any other. 

Well, one as routine as to be expected when living the Titans lifestyle. 

Moving into the Tower was actually nice to attempt to put down roots considering what you had been through over the past year or so. When you originally uprooted your life in Covington, Ohio to follow Gar, you certainly hadn’t expected the wild path he would lead you on. A path that would lead to you getting kidnapped by a doomsday cult and tortured, being lured to a house in the middle of nowhere and mentally tortured some more. All in all leaving that house with absolutely no sense of direction in your life, mentally scarred and broken. 

But you never blamed Gar for getting you into trouble. In fact, you were glad to be there to support him through everything that had happened. 

Gar was your best friend, your person, and you would have followed him anywhere. 

So naturally when he moved into the newly reopened Titans Tower, so did you. Dick didn’t fully understand the extent of your abilities, because in order to show people, you had to violate their privacy, and it wasn’t always something you were keen on doing. He simply trusted Gar at his word that you were more than capable of becoming a Titan. 

That blind faith Dick had put in you, backed by Gar’s word, that heavily motivated you to train hard in all other areas to ensure that Dick knew Gar could be trusted. To pull through on that promise and show your worth. 

That’s why you were up so early that morning. You liked to get a head start on things. You liked to be up before everyone else to prove that you were working hard on your training, working hard on studying the things that Dick wanted you to know. 

At least, those were the excuses you had prepared if anyone asked. Or the things you told yourself to escape the reality of it - to say that you were using your time wisely these days. 

Truthfully, you were never very good with sleeping. 

Between your chronic headaches, pain that left intense aches down your neck and spine, and the awful nausea that it plagued you with, and the strange dreams that your powers seemed to be paired with, you didn’t often get much sleep. 

You were still figuring out how your incredibly strange dreams coincided with your ability to breach other people’s private thoughts. But you guessed that it was simply part of that whole ‘greater sight’ thing. Especially considering that those dreams seemed to depict the future in some way. 

You often found your sleep disrupted by these dreams - visions of death or violence or even strange faces you had never seen before. And more often than not, you decided to pursue more productive activities than tossing and turning in your sheets until your alarm rang. 

Strangely enough, one of the very first dreams you’d had after being injected with the serum had been a strange setting where you were garbed in a giant, poofy white wedding dress, getting married to a large green tiger who wore a black bowtie among his bright green fur. At the time, you had genuinely convinced yourself that it was just a strange fever dream caused by the serum. Up until you’d met Gar, and something in the pit of your stomach told you that he was the green tiger in question. 

But you had never told anyone about that dream, and probably never would.

It’s something that was very far from your mind as you enjoyed breakfast early that morning. 

Dick usually let everyone ‘sleep in’ on Saturdays - as much as Jason complained that sleeping until eight was not a luxury, he and the others usually still took advantage of it. But you were up long before sunrise on that day. 

You were sitting at the kitchen island, absentmindedly snacking on some dry cereal with your journal open in front of you. You were sketching a picture of something you had seen in one of your dreams. A girl with waves of silver hair and eyepatch that you didn’t recognize, but had a gut feeling was important somehow. You glanced up at the sound of footsteps coming into the room, and found yourself surprised but happy to see that it was Gar. 

He was clearly still half asleep, his eyes barely open. He wore plaid pajama pants and a green pullover hoodie, hair still adorably messy and uncombed. He looked so utterly soft and cuddly, something that made those undeniable butterflies stir in the pit of your stomach. 

When you looked over at the clock attached to the stove, it was barely five-thirty in the morning. The sun was just kissing the sky orange to your right, casting a warm orange glow across the entire room through the many tall windows. You were almost shocked that anything other than Dick’s fist hammering on Gar’s door had gotten him out of bed this early. 

“Morning.” He grunted at you as he tiredly stumbled toward the fridge. He opened it with haste and grabbed the carton of orange juice. 

Of course. He wanted a snack. 

He uncapped it and gulped it with enthusiasm, not bothering to get a glass or even close the refrigerator door. The sharp light of the halogen bulbs and the cool air pouring from the appliance almost hurt you, your overly sensitive eyes and skin picking up on the sensations more potently in the soft morning light of the room. 

Gar turned around, the carton still poised to his lips. He took large swigs that made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and he kicked the fridge door shut behind him as he finally put the carton down on the counter, exhaling a large, nasty burp. He looked at you with a sleepy smile, almost making you mad with how cute he could be after doing something like that. 

You were about to comment on the disgusting nature of his habits when something strange happened - something that had never happened to you before. 

You locked eyes with him, and with absolutely no intention or purpose on your part, you were struck with a flood of his thoughts. A vision, a vivid painting brought to life by his imagination. 

It was a distinct, full picture of the two of you. 

He had you pressed against the kitchen island, his hands commanding and warm on your hips, like they belonged there. His body was firm against yours, tightly pressed against you as if trying to spite the clothes you wore - and his lips were on yours in a demanding kiss. It was entirely passionate, downright hungry. He left gentle nips on your bottom lip as you ran your hands through his sleep mussed hair, your gentle tug on it forcing a moan from his throat, his tongue pressing into- 

A gentle gasp coiled in the back of your throat as you were shocked back to reality, finally able to force yourself out of his mind. 

You had no idea how the accidental violation had even occurred in the first place, but to stay there and indulge in it would only be continuing to do him a great injustice. When you dared to let your eyes flicker back to his face, he was staring at you with a strange look - his brow slightly furrowed, worry dancing across his mouth. Clearly he wanted to ask you what was wrong. You hadn’t greeted him or said ‘good morning’ in any sort of fashion yet, and now you were just sitting there, frozen on your stool, every inch of your body tight as ice at what you had just seen. 

“Did you want some?” He asked, picking up the orange juice carton and holding it out to you. 

It was adorably ignorant of him - to think the strange look that had struck your face was over some dispute about orange juice. That you were annoyed because he wasn’t sharing well enough. You simply shook your head in the negative and began gathering your things as quickly as possible, trapping your pencil between the pages of your notebook as you scrambled to get out of his sight. 

You needed time to think. 

You had no idea what the hell had just happened, but you sure wanted to avoid him until you could figure it out. Until you could get it under control. You raised your hand and signed something about showering to him. But your movements were quick and sloppy and you didn’t look at him for confirmation that he understood before you barreled out of the room. You were too eager to hide in your bedroom until you were absolutely forced to see him again. 

… 

It’s not like you hadn’t thought about it before. 

You had thought about it a lot, actually. 

But he had been far too good a friend for you to ever risk losing that friendship over your stupid lust - over some stupid schoolgirl crush that you were sure would go away. And the whole uprooting your life and having a demon from another dimension invade your mind and show you the darkest parts of yourself thing definitely made you put your crush for Gar on the back burner. 

It’s not like you were blind to how entirely perfect Gar was. He was handsome, he was cute - so entirely adorable in his boyish looks and his sweet smile. So cute and excitable, with the way he could be bashful, yet confident at the same time when spurting out random facts about video games or going on and on about seemingly any subject that excited him. And you quickly realized that he had more than boyish charms the first time you had seen him shirtless - accidentally caught him changing when living together at Caulder House - and you saw his gorgeous physique on display. 

You had been smitten with Gar since the very first moment you had met him, actually.

Back then your crush was something that should have been glaringly obvious to him. You could barely maintain eye contact with him within the first few days of knowing him, you were always so flustered around him. That, on top of the playful teasing of your housemates, wondering when the two of you were finally going to admit that unspoken thing you had going on. 

But when the two of you left Caulder House and set out to explore the world - it had remained unspoken. 

If Gar had known about your crush on him, it had never affected the way he treated you. Your friendship grew so strong so quickly, and you never wanted to lose that. You never wanted to lose him. So you settled for platonic couch cuddles and late night multiplayer and him letting you sleep in his bed whenever you got a bad migraine. 

And then Rachel came along. And you saw the way he looked at her, the way she looked at him. And even though you thought you had probably lost any chance of ever being with him the way you had dreamed of - you still packed your bag and squeezed into the back of Dick’s Porsche with him when he begged for you to come. 

Naturally, you were spinning at the revelation that apparently, he had thought of you the same way you thought of him. You almost wanted to convince yourself that it had been a mistake. That it had just been a fantasy you had cooked up inside your own mind. It’s not like you didn’t have many, many fantasies about Gar running around in there. 

But no. You knew distinctly what it felt like to use your powers. Being inside the private cave of someone else’s mind - even touching the surface of its depths is a unique experience. And doing it by mistake feels no different than doing it on purpose. 

You had no clue what had caused your powers to go off by mistake, but you definitely knew the feeling of using them. 

Those were most definitely Gar’s thoughts that had invaded your mind. Gar’s thoughts about kissing you, handling you with such intense passion. Your skin startled to crawl with a unique heat as you remembered the vision so vividly. You heaved a great sigh as you flung yourself backward onto your bed. You gazed over at the clock. It was almost time for training. You wouldn’t be able to hide from Gar for much longer. 

…  

You were just glad that training that day consisted of blindfolded sparring. 

Dick seemed very surprised when you volunteered to go first after he introduced the unorthodox exercise. But to you, it was a simple logic that had you eagerly chopping at the bit to get a piece of cloth covering your eyes. If you were blindfolded, there was no chance of you catching Gar’s eye. Or anyone’s for that matter. 

You had no idea if your powers were simply spinning out of control, or if it was an unintentional emotional reaction triggered by Gar’s presence. You weren’t quite sure which was worse. If it was a case of your powers going rogue, growing stronger somehow, then perhaps you’d have to start wearing a blindfold all the time. 

If it was specifically something with Gar, then… maybe that was worse. It probably signaled something deeper with you. Your feelings for him clawing at your unconscious, begging to be spilled to the open air. Which you really weren’t eager to let happen anytime soon. 

You were almost relieved when Dick paired you off with Jason, saying that your skill set ‘complimented’ his. He explained that he wanted the two of you to try the blindfolding exercise together while he quizzed Gar and Rachel on logic puzzles in the other room. At least Gar would be required to be away from you for a while, and you’d have a very slim chance of catching Jason’s eyes. You didn’t want to know what kind of things he was thinking, what secrets he had. Definitely not. 

As the two of you sparred, you were entirely unfocused, your thoughts swimming. 

Jason caught you off guard, and easily swept you off your feet completely as he struck you hard in the ankle with the wooden practice sword he was wielding. You grunted gently as you hit the floor, and rolled over on your back, defeated. You reluctantly removed the blindfold as you caught your breath, and saw him standing above you, offering you a hand to help you up. As you blinked against the sharp light meeting your eyes, you accidentally caught his gaze, making direct, certain eye contact with him.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened. You breathed a small sigh of relief. 

“You okay, Fancy Hands?” He asked, leaning down so his helping hand was closer to you. 

It was a nickname he had affectionately given you the first time he’d seen you use ASL when you had met - back at the safe house in Chicago. Back when Jason had used Dick’s tracker to find him and you all met the surprise second Robin for the first time. 

At the time, you had been surprised to find out that Jason actually knew quite a few signs because one of the kids he’d been in foster care with had been deaf. You had explained to him that your hearing was perfectly fine - your mutism was because of a surgery during your childhood that had removed a tumor from your throat and had left your vocal cords damaged. It was something that had occurred long before your life had become about powers, a green tiger, and one too many Robins to count. 

In the present, you were simply thankful that your powers didn’t seem to act up with him. 

In response to his question, you nodded, taking his hand. 

He helped you to your feet quickly, and you found your own practice sword where it had fallen. You then replaced your blindfold once again. Though it was slightly troubling to know that this sudden shift in your powers only seemed to be triggered by Gar - that knowledge did help you focus a bit more on the lesson. 

As you focused, you blocked two of Jason’s hits with your sword and landed a swift, sharp hit somewhere on him. 

“Ow!” He whined. “Take it easy, Fancy Hands, this is only supposed to be practice.” 

You giggled, smiling to yourself. 

… 

It had been a few days since then. 

And you had been strategically avoiding Gar. 

At least, avoiding him as much as you could without arousing major suspicion. It was a pretty large living space, and with only four other people in it, it was next to impossible to come up with excuses to avoid him entirely. He was your best friend, after all. If you just quit spending time with him entirely, that would cause him to ask way too many questions. And you definitely couldn’t give him the answers to any of those questions. 

You had made a hard agreement shortly after you had met him - you promised that you would never use your powers on him without his explicit permission unless it was some kind of emergency. A life or death situation. You both easily agree that his brain was his brain, and like every other person on the planet, it was his private sanctuary. He was entitled to that privacy. He deserved that much. Everyone did. That’s why you always tried to avoid using your powers at all costs. 

You didn’t want to explain to him that you had accidentally broken your promise - that you had seen some of his most private thoughts. On top of that, it was like a giant tease toward your feelings for him. Feelings you shouldn’t even have for your best friend. 

So in the meantime, while you were trying to figure out how to reign in your powers and stop from having another freak accident like the one in the kitchen, you stuck to what you considered ‘safe’ activities with Gar. Things the two of you could do together that would absolutely minimize eye contact between the two of you. 

Things like: studying Dick’s allotted mandatory reading material, where your eyes would be safely glued to the pages of a book. Playing video games with him, where your eyes would have to be on the screen. And you always made sure you sat next to him at the dinner table, where your eyes would be parallel to his, or stayed safely on your dinner plate. 

You had been doing just fine until another accident happened. 

Of course, it happened because of factors you hadn’t taken into account. 

You had been up late in the training room, something you did often. Because of your hesitance to use your powers, you liked to exercise often to be in peak physical condition in case fighting was ever necessary on your behalf. 

On top of that, you and Jason had somewhat of a silent rivalry going. You had kicked his ass quite a few times during training sessions, and though he would never say it, he liked how you kept him on his toes. So now you were always trying to quietly outdo the other. Something you were caught up in thinking about as you floated down the hallway toward the bathroom on light feet, your toiletry bag in hand, hoping Jason hadn’t beaten you to the shower. 

What you were not at all expecting, was to collide heavily with a half-naked, still wet from the shower Gar. With neither of you paying attention to where you were going, you smacked into each other at a fair speed, him waltzing out of the bathroom and straight into you. Your toiletry bag went flying, and with the zipper undone, your products scattered out across the floor. 

“Shit, oh my god, I’m sorry.” Gar quickly apologized, being the entirely sweet person that he was. 

You both leaned down in unison and began picking up the mess of bottles and other products. You forced yourself to keep your eyes steadily on the floor, not daring to look toward his face, no matter how much you missed his sweet smile and those big brown eyes looking back at you. You couldn’t risk it, not if you would make that unintentional invasion of his privacy once again. 

Gar’s chest twinged with sour notes as you avoided his gaze. Usually, you were always so pleased to be around him. He thought that he had done something wrong. Something grander that he had somehow failed to perceive. 

“I guess I better watch where I’m going, huh?” He chuckled, trying to make conversation with you. 

Truthfully, he just wanted a reaction out of you - he needed to see your smile like wilting plants needed rain. He worried that he wasn’t going to get it anytime soon. 

You kept your eyes glued to the floor, making it an exercise in self-discipline. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his dripping wet leg and the edge of the fluffy, white towel he was wearing. You knew he was shirtless and it was far too tempting to look. 

When your hand went for the bottle of conditioner at the same time as his - you accidentally brushed over each other. You felt a unique heat creeping up your spine. Like magnets, like a plant growing toward the sun - like any natural reaction that self discipline can’t be stopped - your eyes flickered up and met with his. 

And once again, you became trapped in the depths of his dangerous gaze. 

You were sucked into his mind before you could stop it. In a millisecond, all of your senses became consumed by another vision of his imagining. 

You were surprised to find that it was a scene of you, alone. 

It was a way you had never viewed yourself before; getting the chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, even if it was only imaginary, was quite a strange sensation. 

The scene was an outside perspective of yourself showering, as if someone was staring at you through the clear glass door. You had to admit that it was positively erotic. The way the bubbles cascaded down your skin, the way your hands rubbed your flesh as you washed yourself. The dream you stopped the smooth lathering partway to grab and grope at your thighs and breasts, moaning lightly under your breath as you did so. 

You had never thought you could be so… dreamy. 

You didn’t remain alone in the shower for long, though. 

As if out of nowhere, Gar appeared behind you, his naked body almost eclipsed by yours, save for his delightful broad shoulders and his head as it poked out around yours. You had never seen a more appealing sight in your life. His gorgeous face with wet hair stuck to his forehead, the grin that came across his cheeks as he looked at you. His arms came to wrap around your waist as he gently brushed a loofa across your stomach. He began kissing along your shoulder, licking his tongue across your neck and boldly moaning at the taste of your skin-

You forcefully pulled yourself from the vision. As you rocketed back to reality, it was like having ice water thrown down your back. 

The surrounding warmth of the imaginary shower was gone, and you were once again in the cool night air of the hallway. You gazed across Gar’s face, taking in the wide-eyed, clueless expression he wore. He almost looked worried for you, wondering why you had spaced out like that. He had absolutely no idea of what you had just seen. 

You snatched the bottle of conditioner out from underneath his palm and shoved it into your bag. Miraculously, you stood up on shaking legs, turning around and going to escape back to your room. 

“Didn’t you wanna use the shower?” Gar called after you quietly. 

Right. Your shower. 

You whipped back around, nodding at him in passing - but you kept your eyes locked on the floor as you sped by him. You practically ran into the bathroom before he could make any comments about your strange behavior. 

You shut and locked the bathroom door behind you, sealing yourself in the smothering heat and steam that he had left behind. When you glanced over at the mirror and saw that he had been drawing funny faces in the condensation - something that was so terribly Gar it almost hurt - you felt even worse about violating his privacy. Even if it was an accident. 

You tried to let the guilt go as you scrubbed away at your body. You told yourself that it wasn’t your fault. 

Eventually, you found yourself only reminded of his steamy fantasy as the bubbles ran across your skin. You had never felt sexier, never felt more attractive in your entire life than you did in his eyes, in his imagining of you completely naked. 

The biggest reason that it boosted your confidence? His mental image of you was so strangely honest. 

In his dream, you weren’t cartoonish or overdone by his lust. Even though he had never seen you naked before, your breasts weren’t ballooned out or perkier than they should have been. There wasn’t a great amount of fat trimmed from your body, as if he desired you to be thinner than you were. It was so gratefully you - but it was a hot, sexy, fantastic version of you. A version that he apparently wanted to have shower sex with. 

The very thought had you pulling down the extendable shower head and holding it between your legs, getting off to the way Gar thought of you. It was perfect - until Jason’s banging on the bathroom door, complaining that you had been taking too long, interrupted you. 

… 

Gar’s hands were all over you. 

It left you absolutely breathless, giving you no room to escape the pleasure he was delivering. He had turned you into a quivering, moaning mess. His mouth was between your legs, on your neck, on your breasts. His perfect lips were hot on your own, trying to trap the indescribable sounds you were making for him. You were completely pliant to him, to his needs, a melted puddle of want under his ever giving hands. 

“God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He moaned into your ear, finally lining his cock up to your throbbing entrance, finally ready to give you what you needed most. “I can’t wait to watch you cum on my cock.” 

His dirty words only fueled the every growing desire that was mounting inside you. You keened out pathetically as he finally pushed inside you. His cock ignited you with a sharp electricity, filling you up so perfectly. 

You were shocked out of your strangely wonderful dream by a pounding on your bedroom door - Dick coming to wake you up for training. 

“Morning jog in twenty minutes.” He called out through your door, making you groan into your pillow. 

There wouldn’t even be enough time to relieve the hard painful throbbing between your legs before you had to get out of bed. 

As much as you loved the man who had so graciously taken you in and now acted as such an amazing mentor to you - you really hated Dick Grasyon sometimes. 

…  

Gar had been plaguing your dreams since you had discovered the kind of thoughts he had been having about you. Of course, he had been the subject of plenty of your daydreams - but this was so much stronger. He had invaded your subconscious and made a home for himself there. 

More intense than any fantasy you had ever cooked up yourself, every single time you closed your eyes - he was there. You could feel his lips on your skin, could feel his hands on you. It had become more difficult than usual to sleep, and when you did, you woke up with a light sheen of sweat covering you, your pussy soaked and throbbing, absolutely needy for him. 

You knew it would be wrong. It would absolutely be wrong if you acted on your feelings for Gar now, well-informed that he was attracted to you too. That he might want the same things as you. It was so undoubtedly wrong to take information you had discovered with your powers and use it for personal gain like this. 

But, on the other hand, you knew the only reason he was plaguing your mind so much - you had some hope that he felt the same way. That he returned your big, scary feelings. 

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? 

You couldn’t know for certain if he felt exactly the same way that you did. 

Yes, you had seen him imagining kissing you, imagining doing sexual things with you. You knew that he thought of you in an erotic way. But that only meant he wanted to fuck you. 

It certainly didn’t mean that he wanted to be seriously romantic with you or that he wanted a serious relationship. He also could have sexual fantasies about Jason swimming around in his head - ones that you hadn’t seen. 

Nothing about what you had seen said he was in love with you. So if you told him about your feelings for him unprompted, not only would you make yourself look like an idiot, but you would eventually have to tell him about the things you had accidentally seen. He would never forgive you for violating his privacy, and you would be heartbroken. 

Sometimes you really wished you could just be normal. 

… 

“Well, this is fucking stupid.” Jason griped, throwing himself down onto the couch with a heavy sigh. 

“Yeah, we all know that, Jason.” Rachel quickly agreed. “But if Dick comes back and doesn’t see us having Happy Bonding Board Game Fun Times, then he’ll make us run laps or balance plates on our heads again.” 

She proposed an easy argument in favor of shutting up and co-operating as she unpacked the many pieces of the board game that Dick had gotten you guys - Trivial Pursuit. Something ‘fun and educational’, he had explained. 

You laughed under your breath at Rachel’s comment. 

Dick wanted the four of you to spend more time ‘bonding as a team’. He had explained that one of the reasons the Old Titans worked so well together out in the field was because they did casual, friendly activities together as well as training together. He wanted this new team to be as strong as the old one. 

You thought maybe this sporadic encouragement of bonding had been brought on by how you had been acting. With your dreams growing more intense each night, you had been increasingly turning down Gar’s invitations to play video games together, or study together. You had even started making up excuses to take dinner into your room or skipping dinner altogether in favor of eating bowls of cereal when no one else was around. And you knew Dick had noticed. 

But you also knew that you weren’t the only one to blame. 

The whole ‘team bonding’ thing could have easily been prompted by Jason’s increased agitation with the living situation, his eagerness to leave you all behind and get back to Gotham. And the fact that Rachel, like you, now rarely came out of her room. 

This always left Gar in a strange situation where he was desperate for friendship but everyone pulled away from him, everyone wanted to isolate themselves but him. You felt increasingly guilty about it. You felt so bad for abandoning your best friend. But every time you looked at him, even without making that dangerous eye contact, heat began to rise in your face as flashes of his fantasies or your wicked dreams began popping into your mind. 

But now you were all being forced to spend time together. You couldn’t avoid it so easily. You knew there was no excuse you could cook up to get out of it. And like Rachel had said, you didn’t want yourself and the others to be plagued with some dumb punishment like running laps if you could just be playing a board game instead. 

All four of you were sitting around the small coffee table in the living room area of the open concept space, the fire pit sending warm waves over you as the dark sky went on boundlessly through the tall windows. The lamp above your heads and the city lights cast a warm glow over everything, creating a beautifully pleasant atmosphere that made it easy to ignore your problems. 

Dick was gone out on some ‘errands’, and made you all promise to play the game and spend some time together while he was gone. 

“I like board games.” Gar smiled, picking up one of the pieces and inspecting it. “Of course, I do prefer multiplayer online. But some old fashioned tabletop is good to throw in there every once and a while.” 

You smiled at Gar’s comment. He was so wonderfully nerdy. Undeniably one of the reasons you had developed feelings for him in the first place. 

You were seated beside him on the plush rug, crossed legged, your knee just barely brushing against his. It felt strangely normal to be like this, pretending like nothing odd had happened between you in the weeks past. You were enjoying the feeling, indulging in actually getting to hang out with your best friend without worrying about romantic feelings or any of the other bullshit. 

“Could you not be a total dork for like… five seconds?” Rachel quipped, raising an eyebrow at Gar. 

Gar threw the game piece at her, and it bounced off her chest before it disappeared somewhere on the floor, making her look for it. You laughed. 

“Ugh, this is so fucking stupid.” Jason groaned into a small throw pillow from the couch that he had pulled into his face. “I don’t want to play this dumb fucking game.” 

‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’ You signed. 

Seeing as Rachel didn’t know that much ASL, and Jason wasn’t even looking at you, his face still covered by the pillow in his little tantrum, Gar interpreted for you. 

“Are you afraid you’re gonna lose?” He announced to the room in a tone ripe with sass. 

Rachel smiled at the challenge, looking over her shoulder to see how Jason would react. 

“What? No.” Jason snapped, sitting up and tossing the pillow behind him. “It’s just a stupid game. I’m sure there are far better things I could be spending my time doing.” 

‘Then play.’ You signed, making steady eye contact with Jason, challenging him. 

“Then why don’t you just play?” Gar spoke, adding a few more words. Not that you minded. You thought it was generous and sweet that he had rushed to learn ASL in the first few months of knowing you just so he could communicate better with you. It was one of the things that had made you fall for him so hard, so fast. 

Jason’s face was struck with the realization that you were the one challenging him, not Gar. His eyes flickered between the three of you,  and then he settled into a seat on the carpet beside Rachel. 

“Okay fine, how do you even play this stupid game?” He grumbled quietly, snatching the instructions from Rachel. 

‘Why don’t we make things interesting?’ You said, knowing you could aggravate Jason’s competitive side even more. 

And in the back of your mind, you were thinking about the fact that if you were too focused on winning the game, you wouldn’t be too focused on Gar. You wouldn’t be thinking about the fact that he had shifted closer to you, and his thigh was pressing more into yours, spreading a deadly heat across your skin under your clothes.

“What, like a bet?” Gar responded to your words rather than translating them to everyone else, and you rolled your eyes at him. 

‘Yes, a bet.’ You quickly clarified. 

“Are you challengin’ me, Fancy Hands?” Jason posed. “You wanna lose even more disastrously to The One and Only Robin?” He added on, his words dripping with that usual air of cockiness. 

‘Second Robin.’ You reminded him.

Jason knew enough sign language to know these symbols. Especially the one you had specifically taught him for the bird with the same name as his caped alias. So even though Gar failed to translate these words for fear of starting a genuine fight, Jason responded to your feisty words.  

“The One and Only Robin, now that Dickhead Grayson is retired.” He proudly corrected you. 

‘Whatever.’ You shrugged it off. ‘We’ll see if any Robin can win the board game he calls so stupid.’

“Yeah, yeah.” Jason chided. “What kind of bet did you have in mind?” 

‘Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.’ You explained. 

“Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.” Gar explained it to him. 

“Loser between the three of you.” Rachel corrected with a smirk. 

“Loser between the two of them. I’m just the messenger.” Gar quickly told her. 

“The winner gets the last Twinkie from my stash.” Jason added, upping the ante of the bet. 

Gar and Rachel’s eyes practically began glowing (especially considering what their powers made them capable of) at the mere mention of junk food. 

Dick had pretty much banned any food that was considered unhealthy. He said it wasn’t good for training. ‘Why put garbage in the tank? It doesn’t make the engine run properly’ he always nagged. 

The few times you and Rachel had been ‘caught’ coming back from a 7/11 with a bag full of goodies, he had made you read the labels out loud to ‘justify what you were putting inside your bodies’, and blah, blah, blah. So you liked eating sugar? Big deal. 

Eventually all his nagging just made you guys give up, or eat your doses of junk food outside the house (during the rare times he actually let you guys out). But of course, it just made Jason more determined to sneak things in. And of course, with his delinquent mindset, he had come up with a perfect system that involved wearing an overly large coat and keeping food in a false bottom drawer he had created in his room. He had started making you guys do him favors in exchange for snacks, but a lot of the time, it was worth it. 

“Ante up!” Rachel ordered. “Twinkie on the table!” She smacked her palm flat on the table, glaring Jason down until he rose from his seat to go retrieve the desired item. 

… 

You were enjoying game night far more than you thought you would. 

Everyone was, actually. Rousing laughter and chatter filled the room as you all took your turns, argued over the rules, and raced to see who would win. Your mind was distracted far from any sexual thoughts of Gar. You weren’t focused on the things you had accidentally seen when mistakenly crossing the threshold of his mind, or the heated dreams it had caused you to have. For the first time in weeks, a great worry had been lifted from your shoulders. 

Which was probably why it happened. You were probably a fool to think you were safe - to think this new power you had discovered couldn’t act up just because you were sitting around with your friends, innocently playing a board game. 

Gar turned to you, picking up one of the trivia cards to ask you your question as your turn came around. 

“Alright, science.” He announced. “How many bones are in the human body? Is it A: 206, B: 104, C: 198, or D: 236?” 

When he had finished reading it, his eyes flickered up from the card in his hand and met with yours. You were damned by fate as you were once again drawn into the depths of a hot, wicked fantasy of his creation. 

It was another third-person perspective of him and yourself, a portrait of perfect intimacy. 

In the wicked fantasy, he had you pinned against a wall, both of you completely naked - his sweet, bare flesh pinning your heated body against the surface. His breath mingled with yours as pressed kisses into your mouth, clearly torn between claiming your lips over and over again or the simple act of breathing. He wasn’t sure which was more precious - the taste of your mouth under his or the bits of air he needed to survive. 

He had one of your legs hitched up around his hip, your knee up around his back, giving the perfect view as he shoved his cock inside of you. He was so large - hot and heavy, splitting you open with his monster cock without hesitation as your needy cunt dripped around him. He let out a grunt as the wet slide of your pussy enveloped him, loving the most tender touch of your warmth on his aching cock. 

The fat around your hip bloomed through his fingers as he held you steady, hammering his hips against yours. It created a wet smacking sound that sent electricity shooting through you, the fantasy so palpable that you could almost feel the thickness of his cock tearing you open - you could almost feel the heft of those mighty nine inches dragging against your deadly hot inner walls. 

You admired the glisten of sweat on his rippling back muscles, the hot grunts that poured from his swollen lips. You loved the sight of your nails digging into his skin as you gripped his shoulders, desperate to hold on. 

“You’re so good for me.” He murmured against your panting lips, his voice deep, absolutely thick with sex. “I love this pussy so fucking much.” 

“Y/N?” 

This time it took Gar’s voice echoing in your ears in the real world to pull you out of the vivid daydream. 

“You okay?” The pure sweetness of his tone, the quiet caring had you quaking almost as much as the heft of his daydream cock. 

Your pussy throbbed hard between your thighs and your face was burning hot. You could feel the beginnings of sweat glistening on your forehead, and you hoped that your physical reaction to what you had seen wasn’t too obvious in the dull lighting of the room. Perhaps you could blame it on sitting too close to the fireplace. 

You dared to let your eyes have a once-over of Gar’s face, hoping not to be pulled back into the stupor once again. He was looking at you with that familiar wide-eyed, positively clueless expression. He was sitting there thinking about fucking you up against a wall and he had absolutely no clue that you knew. 

“Don’t think too hard about it,” Rachel scoffed. “It’s a pretty softball question.” 

Fuck, right. You were supposed to be playing trivia. 

You had genuinely no idea what the question had been, and wouldn’t dare ask Gar to repeat it for fear of giving yourself away, so you simply picked an answer out of the blue. 

‘C.’ You gestured the sign for the single letter, hoping it was correct if it was supposed to be such a ‘softball’ of a question. 

“Wrong.” Gar sighed, placing the card in the used pile. 

“I thought it was 207?” Jason wondered out loud, sounding genuinely confused. “Oh wait, that’s the joke answer.” 

“Ew.” Rachel cringed. “Don’t be gross.” 

“Hey,” Gar placed a gentle hand on your forearm where it was resting on the table, capturing your attention. “Are you okay? You really zoned out for a minute there.” 

Oh god. He was being so sweet and caring. You almost hated it, because you knew you couldn’t tell him what you had truly seen. You couldn’t explain what was truly wrong with you. 

‘I’m fine.’ You assured him, pulling your hand naturally out of his warm grasp to communicate. You hoped he wouldn’t notice that you were pulling away from him to avoid the heat of his touch and refusing to look at his face. 

“I’m sure she’s fine, Gar.” Rachel smiled. 

You nodded. 

“Some people’s brains just get fried when they’re asked to be smart on the spot.” She added on - this being sass that was clearly directed at Jason. It made you laugh. 

It then moved on to someone else’s turn, and you were glad the focus had shifted away from you. 

…  

Just like everything you had touched lately, game night turned into a disaster. 

Jason realized he wasn’t going to win after he lost one too many pop culture questions. Ones based on movies and shows that he hadn’t even seen. And he claimed it ‘wasn’t even fair’ because he was being questioned based on material that he had no knowledge of. 

When Gar and Rachel told him that was just how the game worked, he proceeded to pull the ‘I was poor growing up, of course I didn’t watch those movies cause I didn’t have a TV’ card. When that got him no sympathy, he flipped the table. A screaming match broke out between the three of them, and everyone stormed off to their separate corners, leaving you to clean up the pieces. Quite literally. 

You managed to find and pick up all the game pieces in the shaggy area rug, and you put them back inside the game box. You figured they might be useful in the future in case everyone made up and did want to play the game again sometime. One of the last things left on the carpet was the crushed Twinkie, which had been smashed by the weight of the coffee table when Jason flipped it over. 

It was still nicely inside its plastic packaging, but it had become a crumbled mixture of cake pieces and artificial frosting, rather than the golden log it once was. You shoved it in your pocket - it was definitely something Gar would still enjoy. Though your relationship with him was strange and strained lately, you would still give it to him. 

You put everything back in the living area exactly as it had been, not wanting to tip off Dick to what had happened. He already had enough reasons to be on Jason’s case, you didn’t want to give him one more. Even though Jason was a bit of a parasite, you thought it was basic decency to have his back. 

Just as you were finished tidying, Dick returned through the elevator, heaving several bags of groceries in both his arms. 

“How was game night?” He smiled at you as you came over to take a few of the bags from him. 

You smiled back, giving him an exaggerated thumbs up with your free hand. 

You knew he had picked up some basic signs in the time of knowing you, but he was nowhere near as fluent as Gar, or even Jason. So you stuck to simple ASL with him, or gave him exaggerated facial expressions. Or just wrote things down on paper or texted like you did with most other people. 

“Good.” His voice held an edge of relief to it. “The four of you should be spending more time together. It’s good for team morale.” 

You felt slightly guilty for lying to him, but you didn’t want to get the others in trouble for something that really wasn’t their fault. He couldn’t force you guys to enjoy spending time together if it wasn’t going to come naturally. 

You put away the groceries in relative silence. Once you had finished folding the reusable bags and putting them away, you were going to escape to your room when Dick caught your attention once again. 

“Um, one more thing.” He said, stopping you in your tracks, making you turn around to face him. You looked at him with curious eyes, and he continued speaking. “It’s probably none of my business, but… is there something going on between you and Gar? You guys used to be like… best friends, and now you hardly ever spend time with him.” 

You felt a dizziness overtake you - that hard drop of your blood pressure from feeling so caught. 

It was like the days when you had first met Gar, when your feelings for him were so bold and unrestrained. And anytime someone mentioned his name around you, you practically melted into a puddle. 

In response to Dick, you simply shrugged. You knew that you looked entirely guilty as your eyes darted around the room - to the counter, the floor, the dull embers in the fire pit - anywhere but at him. 

“Listen, I know this life can be pretty isolating. Especially when you have unique powers. Which is not something I know personally. But I have seen you struggle with it - with using your powers, holding back that unique ability you have when you should be using it and living up to your potential. And I’ve seen Gar help you through it in ways that no one else could.” 

Dick’s words, coming from such a steady and authoritative voice did shock you. You were surprised that he considered your powers to be a ‘unique potential’ - rather than the dangerous, privacy invasion tool that you always saw it as. You were even more surprised to hear that he had observed the ways Gar had helped you when you struggled with the decision to hold back or not, the moral confliction of it all. 

“It’s good to have someone like that. Someone you can rely on. Someone who knows what it’s like. You just… you shouldn’t push him away. You probably need him now more than ever.” 

His words were solid concrete in the otherwise quiet room, weighing down your already heavy heart. 

Even though he had no idea why you had been pushing Gar away, strangely… he was right. You finally looked up to find your mentor’s cold steel gaze staring you down. 

‘Thank you.’ You mouthed the words along with the sign, just in case he didn’t know what it meant. 

He nodded at you, silently releasing you from the conversation. You mindlessly put your hands into the pockets of your sweater as you walked away, and you felt the gentle crinkle of the Twinkie’s wrapper. You decided that you should go visit Gar before you went to bed. 

When you approached his bedroom door, you were surprised to see that it was open. You peered inside, peeking your head around the corner, and you found Gar sprawled out on his bed. His laptop was on his stomach as he stared at the white-blue glow with a bored expression on his face. He was likely studying. Trying this best to. 

You knocked on the open door to make your presence known. He jumped slightly as you broke his concentration, but he quickly recovered from being startled. He sat up fully and put his laptop to the side, the screen still open and casting a glow into the dimly lit room. You didn’t wait for an invitation to come in, and his gaze was drawn to you as you walked into the room, not bothering to shut the door behind you. 

“Y/N. Hey,” He smiled at you, pleasantly surprised that you had come to see him. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

A small twinge of guilt flared in your stomach. 

You felt bad for avoiding him for reasons that weren’t truly his fault. You felt bad for putting a strain on your friendship with him because you couldn’t control your stupid powers. You felt bad that you couldn’t just tell him the truth. 

And a huge part of you felt even worse that you couldn’t control your own lust simply because you knew that he felt somewhat lustful toward you. 

As your eyes glanced at his wide thighs spread out on the bed, even covered by his jeans, your pussy ached. You couldn’t stop thinking about the way those thighs had worked as he thrust his cock in and out of you when he had you pinned to the wall in that fantasy. You hated how your mind was so hyper-focused on something that wasn’t even real. Maybe it was just hotter and more wicked because you knew it was a fantasy of his creation. It drove you more insane because it was something he apparently wanted just as badly as you did. 

Even if you could never tell him you wanted it as badly as he did because of the way you had found out. 

‘I thought you might want this.’ You signed to him. 

Past the hazy fog of your lust clouded thoughts, you remembered why you had come to see Gar in the first place. You took the smashed, pathetic Twinkie out of your pocket and presented it to him with a small grin. 

“Oh thanks!” He was eager to take it from you, ripping open the packaging and taking a bite of the crumbling cake. 

“Yeah, definitely still good.” He assured you with his mouthful, giving you a cheeky smile and a thumbs up. 

You were happy that you had finally done something right. You gave him a small thumbs up in return and went to leave again. But he was quick, abandoning his snack on the bed and jumping up to interrupt your path before you could escape. 

“Y/N, wait. I was hoping we could talk.” He said quietly, his voice full of a strained hope. “I miss you.” 

Even as he pleaded for your attention, your eyes were stuck at your feet. Rather than daring to look up at him, you stared hard at the space where his green socked toes stood in front of yours. You had no clue what exactly was triggering these ‘episodes’ with your powers, but you knew it had something to do with him. You couldn’t risk it, not again. 

You loved how almost all of his clothes were green - a choice he often made because he said it was easier to match his hair the way it now naturally grew from his head. The color would forever remind you of him whenever it came up in life. He had taken everything green in your life and possessed it as his own so that it made you smile whenever you saw it. So that anything green would make you mourn for him long after he had left your life in one way or another. You hated it and loved it at the same time. 

“If I did something wrong, please just tell me. I wanna fix it.” His voice flexed under the weight of his pain. 

It was intensely difficult for you to listen to. 

It sliced through you like a knife. 

Your selfish acts, your uncontrollable, stupid powers and the way you ran from the consequences had somehow convinced him that he had done something wrong. 

Tears pricked your eyes. 

You racked your gaze carefully up his body, and your eyes landed on a piece of vanilla cake crumb that had gotten stuck to his chin from the Twinkie. Just the look of it, something that was so foolish and unserious and so Gar in this very serious moment made you crack a smile. Instinctually, you reached over and brushed it away with your thumb. 

He sighed out a half-breath that could be perceived as a laugh when he realized what you were smiling at. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously at the thought of his own clumsiness. 

‘You have done nothing wrong.’ You assured him, keeping your eyes locked on the wall behind his ear. ‘You never do anything wrong. You’re so good.’ 

“Then what is it?” He pressed. “Will you please just look at me?” 

He used a gentle hand on your chin to force your eyes towards his, and before you could stop it, you were caught up in it again. You were once again sucked into the complicated swell of his beautiful mind. 

But this time it was distinctly different. This time it wasn’t some heated fantasy, wasn’t some painted imagining. 

This was a memory of something that had already happened. It was most definitely a memory you knew well. Although this time it was like you were watching it from the outside - or rather, you were watching it from Gar’s perspective. 

It was a vision of you knelt on the bathroom floor, puking into a toilet. The sounds of your own sickness easily made you cringe. Gar didn’t flinch or feel any disgust though. 

You could feel his emotions like the grooves of a record, carved into the memory and being replayed. All he felt was a great wave of sadness for you. Instinctually, not really knowing what else to do, he reached out and placed a comforting hand on your back as your muscles lurched with another wave of gags, forced by your body’s ill-made systems. 

It was a specific night that you remembered well. 

You had only been in Doctor Caulder’s care for a few weeks at the time, but it had become evident that even though the serum had cured your blindness, your intense migraines and even the occasional seizures caused by your brain tumor still persisted. 

You had crawled to the bathroom with the intention of dealing with your ailments in privacy. But Gar’s room was right next to yours, and he had heard you groaning in pain, had heard you throwing up and gasping for breath because of the pure force of the vomit. 

So he did the only thing he could think to do. He got a glass of water for you to rinse your mouth when you were done, and then he simply sat with you, trying to bring you some comfort in your time of need. He felt hollow and useless as you heaved into the toilet, nothing left in your stomach to give up but bright green stomach bile, your body forcing every last bit of it out as the migraine raged on. 

When the heaving stopped, he pulled you into his lap. He was ready with a warm, damp cloth to put on your forehead, and a towel to wipe your mouth. You relaxed into his calming touch. He bloomed with pride at being able to hold you in his arms, being able to keep you safe, even if he couldn’t heal you from what ailed you. 

‘You can leave.’ You signed to him. 

At the time, he understood it well, even with just a few weeks of studying under his belt. 

A small wave of offense went through him. He didn’t want to leave you. Why would he leave you in such a weak state? He wanted to help you. That’s why he’d gotten out of bed in the first place. 

“I’m not gonna leave.” He told you. “I won’t leave you. Ever.” 

At the time you had been far too sick to really take in the weight of his words. But now, lingering in the memory, you could feel the determination sitting deep in his chest. The affection for you as it swelled inside him, the way he held you just a bit closer. 

You were shocked back to the cold concrete of reality when he gripped your arm in the present, pulling you out of the sweetness of the memory by force. He spoke something that was muffled and full in your ears as you struggled to pull yourself out of the thickness of his clouded mind. The expression on your face must have told him you hadn’t heard him, because he repeated himself. 

“Will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” He demanded, his voice sharp with worry. 

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ You lied, shaking yourself from his grip. ‘I have to go study.’ 

You ran from the room before he could confront you any further. 

Your mind was positively drowning with thoughts about Gar. Did he feel the same way about you? Had he felt the same way about you since the two of you had met? 

Your mind was so clouded that you slammed into your closed bedroom door before you could remember to actually turn the doorknob and open it. It left you cursing internally as you rubbed the sore spot blooming in the middle of your forehead. 

This crush was going to ruin you. 

… 

Unfortunately, you couldn’t easily avoid Gar forever. 

The next day, when Dick was giving out assignments, he paired up you and Gar for sparring practice right before he pulled aside Jason and Rachel for a quiz on the assigned reading material. You tried to wave him down, wanting to protest about having Gar as a partner - but of course, he didn’t read ASL. And he didn’t give you any room to protest as he spouted off about what kind of drills the two of you should be practicing and told you that he would come by in two hours to ‘check-in’ on your progress. 

You wanted to scream. Sometimes, not having a voice truly, utterly sucked. 

You thought perhaps it was Dick’s way of forcing you to make good on the advice he had given you the night before - forcing you to spend time with Gar so that you would stop pushing him away. But it was so damn inconvenient when you still didn’t know what was causing your powers to act up. 

As you walked to the training room, you told yourself again and again that you could bear two hours alone with Gar. Especially because one of the drills that Dick wanted you to practice was blindfolded sparring. That was an easy way not to have your powers flare-up against your will. You told yourself that you needed to get back to normal. You couldn’t have Gar thinking that you hated him - thinking that he was the reason for your strange behavior when he was truly the best, kindest person in your life. 

Well, technically he was the reason for your strange behavior. But not at all in the way he blamed himself for. And you wouldn’t have him thinking that he had fucked up your friendship somehow or pissed you off unintentionally for some reason he couldn’t even name. 

You and Gar exchanged a few words - you agreed that you would wear the blindfold and try to defend against his attacks, and he joked that he would ‘go easy’ on you. It felt delightfully normal between the two of you for a few minutes. 

He gave you one of his perfectly dorky smiles and you felt butterflies in your stomach. Beyond his wildly attractive body, beyond that sexual heat - you remembered why you had fallen for him in the first place. Those boyish charms, that gentle nature that made him so irresistible as a friend and so easy to yearn for as a lover. 

When you put the blindfold on, it felt like a comforting shield against his wild daydreams, trying to buck free from his mind. You both picked up the wooden swords, and when he asked if you were ready, you nodded. 

Unfortunately, you were not exactly on your game. 

Usually, you were quite a skilled fighter. You could keep up with the likes of Jason Todd, who trained night and day just to prove how skilled he was. Your powers gave you slightly honed senses, giving you the ability to hear more acutely, giving you the advantage in a situation like this. 

But that was part of the problem. You were picking up on Gar’s breathing, the heavy panting coming from his lips as he swung the practice sword and started to work up a sweat. Your concentration was clouded by the small grunts he made as he worked his muscles, and the careful, skilled movement of his footfalls as he charged at you. 

He easily landed a few blows - gentle, purposefully light swats - on your arms and torso, and he distinctly noticed you not making any real effort to dodge or fight back. Your mind was too busy churning with the mental image of him sweaty from the effort, imagining those same grunts as he fucked you. 

This crush was going to ruin you. 

Gar stopped his movements, and you relaxed your body, pausing any half-efforts you were making to fight him off. 

“Are you okay?” He asked. “Do you have a migraine or something? Do you need to go lay down?” 

Of course. He was concerned for your well-being. It was something that only made him sweeter, and only made you twinge with guilt at what had been going through your mind. 

‘Fine.’ You responded, performing the sign with one hand, still clutching the practice sword with the other. ‘Keep going.’ 

You heard Gar sigh - clearly somewhat hesitant. 

But then he swung his sword down again, and when you heard it whipping through the air, you made a distinct effort to block it this time. You raised yours up, blocking the blow. He let out a quiet chuckle, pleased now that you were better focused this time around. 

You really tried harder. 

You found yourself blocking his blows, using your own swift footwork, and even then - your unconscious distraction was apparent. 

Usually you were better with your tactile awareness, but as the edge of the mats came under your foot, you didn’t notice. And Gar, ever concerned for your safety, used his non-sword hand to reach out and grab your arm. He quickly yanked you back from the edge in case you tripped and fell. He wouldn’t want you to hit your head on the concrete floor, even if it wouldn’t be a terribly grievous injury. 

But he was pumping with energy from the mock fight, and when he pulled you in, he used far more force than he had intended to. It wasn’t a simple correction of your footing like he intended. He accidentally sent your distracted legs tripping over each other and sent you barreling right into him. With the momentum, you knocked him completely off his legs. You ended up falling right on top of Gar as he landed splayed out on the mats, on his back. 

Gar broke into a gentle laughter, finding the entire thing to be quite amusing. 

His hands naturally found your hips and warmth spread out from there, something that quickly overwhelmed your senses. You dropped your practice sword with a numb hand as you became entirely heated by the feeling of his rock hard body beneath yours. Upon instinct, you reached up, and pulled the blindfold up to rest on your forehead - which turned out to be a terrible mistake. 

In that moment, you came face to face with Gar’s stunning, big brown eyes and you were once again sucked into one of his heated fantasies against your will. 

Unlike the others, this wasn’t a picture you were viewing. It wasn’t something in his mind that you were only seeing from the third perspective. 

No - you were in this. 

Somehow, he had drawn you so deeply into his fantasy this time that you were in it, participating in it, truly feeling it. 

In the daydream, you were sitting on top of him, easily paralleling your current reality.

But in this dreamy version, he was completely naked, and you felt the delightfully throbbing hum of his cock deep inside of you. Because it was just a dream, it wasn’t nearly as distinct as the real thing would have been. But the feeling quickly spread heat through your entire body. Especially when paired with the visuals his imagination had conjured up for you. 

The feeling of his hands on your hips in the real world easily turned into a searing burn that you were sure you could feel on your bare skin. You looked down at him below you, as though you were really straddling his naked body, proudly riding his impressively large cock. His taut muscles rippled under sweaty skin - his abs flexing with the effort, his biceps bulging as he held onto you. 

All of it so enticingly topped off by the sight of his face, his forehead glistening with sweat, stray green hairs stuck to it. The expression he held was almost beautifully pathetic as he struggled with such overwhelming pleasure - his lip snagged between his teeth, his brow heavily creased. Quiet, desperate whimpers escaping from his throat as he guided you to grind on his thickness. 

You let out a sharp moan of your own, desperately aching for breath, and that chugging in your throat was the thing that sucked out of the deep fog of this fantasy. 

When you looked into Gar’s eyes once more, you saw the look of dawning on his face. It was mingled with confusion, but you knew that this time, he had felt it too. He had felt you on a deeper level, and he knew, even if he couldn’t nearly explain it - the two of you had shared that experience on a deeper level. 

And what’s more - out here in the real world, not in some sense of fantasy, you could feel his hardness throbbing against your leg. And it felt just as large and impressive as it was in all those dreams. You knew that your cunt was likely boiling hot against him, giving you away. And though the temptation to lean down and ensnare his mouth was so intense, the temptation to beg him to fuck you right then and there - something inside of you kept chanting:

‘Don’t ruin your friendship. He’s your best friend. Don’t fuck it up.’ 

And somehow, miraculously, fighting against all of your overpowering lust - you listened to that voice. You rushed to get off of him, scrambling off the floor to a standing position on shaking legs. You tried your best to ignore the entirely painful throbbing between your legs as your pussy screamed out for him, for his touch. 

Naturally, Gar thought that he had freaked you out. He thought that the reason you had jumped away from him so fast was because he had a raging hard-on and you were intensely disgusted by it. In his mind, he couldn’t easily see it being the exact opposite reason. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He rushed to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. My body - my body just - reacted-” 

Gar also rose to his feet, awkwardly tugging at the crotch of his loose workout pants to try and disguise it. You made the mistake of glancing at the tent and visually confirmed that it was just as large as he made it out to be in all of his fantasies (and yours). 

‘It’s fine.’ You sighed to him. 

You were once again making steady eye contact with the floor - trying not to get drawn back into his mind. But it only made Gar feel more awkward, more like he had wronged you. 

Gar’s throat immediately numbed when you turned and left to charge out of the room. You were intensely surprised when you felt his hand on your arm once more - that firm, commanding touch pulling you back once again. 

Wrestling with the embarrassment inside of him was a storm of anger. 

The fact that even now, you were so unwilling to talk to him about any of the problems in your friendship. You just kept brushing him off. It caused a very uncharacteristic flare of annoyed rage inside of him that he just couldn’t swallow down. So with the hand that he wasn’t using to hide his boner, he kept that grip on your arm. He forced you to stay, forcing you to turn back and face him. 

Him asserting himself like that, the show of force over you - oddly enough, it only added to the arousal boiling inside of you. A small whimper escaped from your lips, and you resisted the urge to smack a hand over your mouth in some attempt to hide it. You knew that Gar had definitely heard it when his face shifted from that tense anger to a look of sheer guilt. He thought that the grip on your arm had somehow hurt you. 

“I’m sorry.” He repeated himself, quickly dropping the grip on your arm. He was glad when you stayed of your own volition this time. “But, can you just talk to me? Please?” 

You hated to ignore his pleas, your own guilt curling in your stomach. 

After a moment with no response from you, more anger splashed up inside of him. 

“I hate this.” 

He said quietly, his voice almost breaking under the weight of his pain. 

“I hate how we aren’t close anymore. We don’t talk, we don’t spend time together anymore. I feel like I barely even know you…” 

He quickly gained momentum in his ranting, his words picking up from a dull whisper. You crossed your arms, keeping your eyes on the floor. You knew that you were the perfect target for all of his upset - so you simply took it. 

“This place is changing everyone!” He barked, motioning around wildly to the walls. “I’m living with my best friends and I’ve never felt so damn alone!” 

As his words echoed in the open space, he looked at you with intensely sad eyes, obviously waiting for you to say something - waiting for an apology. 

But any explanation you could give would mean admitting that your powers had gone haywire. It would mean telling him that you had been invading his privacy without permission. It was bound to screw up your friendship and leave him feeling just as alone. You clasped your fists tight, staying entirely still while he waited for an answer. 

“Fine then.” He said quietly, absolutely defeated. 

He was the one to charge away this time, harshly smacking his shoulder against yours in anger. He kicked down a rack of weapons on his way out. 

You hear him let out a harsh, exasperated ‘fuck!’ when he got halfway down the hall. 

At that point, you couldn’t help the tears that escaped as the pain surged through your chest. 

Maybe you had fucked up the friendship in an entirely different way.

...

Keep Reading Here: Part Two - Our Past, Our Present, Our Future

Final note: yes, I used to be @/pinkchubbiebunnie. That is still my username on AO3, and this is my new blog. This is one of my old fics, so please don't accuse me of stealing it if you see this. I have added some new scenes and elements to it (hence, why I have split it up into two parts) so if you recognize me by this fic and if you've read it before, I hope you enjoy re-reading it in its newly improved form. Feel free to follow me if you’re interested in my fanfiction and thoughtful discussions of the media that I enjoy.

#sundrop writes #gar logan #garfield logan #gar logan x reader #garfield logan x reader #titans #dc titans #dc titans x reader #titans x reader #dc fanfiction #dc titans fanfiction #titans fanfiction

[ckydunn]

girl imagine fracturing ur head in a bus crash and then going into cardiac arrest and Then having a partial complex seizure which caused a brain bleed putting u in a coma all in the space of like 20 hours

#house #house md #will txt

[yokowan]

whoops sorry I just suffered a partial complex seizure in the part of my brain that makes me reblog twinks in latex so sorry

[cdd-swag-bracket]

Explanation of the various CDDs

(NOTE: This is not meant to be complete definitions of all presentations of these disorders. Do not use this as a diagnostic tool. This is only for the purposes of helping decide what disorder you headcanon characters as having)

A paraphrase version of DSM 5 Criteria for DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder)

Criteria A: Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct alters, which, may in some cultures as an experience of possession. The alters fronting involves marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in mood, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning.

Criteria B. Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events inconsistent with ordinary forgetting.

Criteria C. The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Criteria D and E. The disturbance is not a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice. The symptoms are not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or another medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures)

C-DID or Polyfrag DID (Complex Dissociative Identity Disorder or Polyfragmented Dissociative Identity Disorder)

Note sometimes C-DID and Polyfrag DID are used to refer to similar but slightly different presentation, sometime they are used to refer to the exact same prescriptions. For the sake of this bracket they will be used interchangeably.

Refers to a subtype of DID, there are several different definitions used both clinically and by the system community.

A DID system that has a high number of alters and fragments. Usually 100 or over, however some clinicians put the number as low as 26+.

A DID system that splits fragments very easily, often times making some the system has more fragments than full alters

A DID system that have a complex internal structure. For example many subsystems, or an innerworld with layers. These internal structures often have strong memory and/or communication barriers between them.

Often times definitions include multiple of the above mentioned.

OSDD-1, refers to disorders very similar to DID that do not meet either Criteria A or B.

It's worth mentioning the the "A" and "B" are not actually used clinically, but will be used here.

OSDD-1A (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder)

Refers to DID like symptoms without fully meeting Criteria A. OSDD-1A system do still have identity alterations, however they are less intense than that of DID or 1B. Usually version of the same person or similar people. Alters in OSDD-1A systems are sometimes called aspects

We've seen it described as, in OSDD-1A systems alters are more likely to be described as "me but not me", "other/also me", "sorta me", or "me but different". Whereas in DID or 1B alters are more likely to be described as "nothing like me" or "someone else"

It is a spectrum though of course.

The memory gaps in OSDD-1A are like those in DID

OSDD-1B (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder)

Refers to DID like symptoms without fully meeting Criteria B. Meaning there are not substantial memory gaps of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. Some OSDD-1B do report less complete memory problems, such as emotional amnesia.

The alters in OSDD-1B systems are like those in DID

P-DID (Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder) paraphrased from the ICD-11

Partial dissociative identity disorder is characterised by disruption of identity in which there are two or more alters associated with marked discontinuities in the sense of self and agency. Each alter has its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, conceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment.

One alter is dominant and normally functions in daily life, but is intruded upon by non-dominant alters (dissociative intrusions). These intrusions may be cognitive, mood, perceptual, motor, or behavioral. They are experienced as interfering with the functioning of the dominant alter and are typically aversive. The non-dominant alters do not recurrently take executive control of the body's consciousness and functioning, but there may be occasional, limited and transient episodes in which a distinct alters assumes executive control to engage in circumscribed behaviors, such as in response to extreme emotional states or the reenactment of traumatic memories.

The symptoms are not better explained by another mental, behavioral, or neurodevelopmental disorder. Are not due to the direct effects of a substance or medication on the central nervous system, including withdrawal effects. Are not due to a disease of the nervous system or a sleep-wake disorder. The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

U(S)DD (Unspecified Dissociative Disorder) in the DSM 5 is described as

"This category applies to presentations in which symptoms characteristic of a dissociative disorder that cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning predominate but do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the dissociative disorders diagnostic class.

The unspecified dissociative disorder category is used in situations in which the clinician chooses not to specify the reason that the criteria are not met for a specific dissociative disorder, and includes presentations for which there is insufficient information to make a more specific diagnosis (e.g., in emergency room settings)"

U(S)DD does not inherently make someone part of a system, however sometimes it does

In this bracket it will also be used for characters where you are not sure what they have.

[artistryevie]

Happy Epilepsy Awareness month! [2023]

Happy Epilepsy Awareness Month 2023!

For those who don't know what Epilepsy is, it's a chronic condition that affect people and their daily lives. It also affects the human brain by the disruption from the normal electrodes, can come in from pseudo Epilepsy (Which mimics the seizure from high amounts of stress, not recorded as Epilepsy activity in an EEG, but still causes it such as low blood sugar, anxiety, etc, rather than electrical brain activity.).

This chronic condition can come from development in childhood sometimes by head injuries, genetics, along with some other causes. Seizures are also deadly to humans and animals no matter what type they have, it is considered dangerous. (Complex partial, grandmal, absent, and drop seizures) are really deadly depending on the circumstances and the environment around them. It CAN also a disability to not only children, but in adults as well, since it affects daily life, needs to be monitored by peers, or in some cases forget or have cognitive delays.

I have Epilepsy which is complex partial on the left side of my brain that could also be generalized. I have both Epileptic and Non-Epileptic Seizures, and while the Epileptic ones are mostly under controlled, the Non-Epileptic seizures are more harder to control due to my anxiety, stress, depression, and emotions. I have mostly Absent seizures, and due to to the condition, have a little bit of some cognitive delays from childhood.

For Those out there who are struggling, they are not alone and there is others who have different experiences fighting their battles.

Speedpaint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMDfExbubo4

#illustration #digital art #digital illustration #artwork digital #epilepsy #non epileptic seizures #seizures #photosensitive epilepsy #photosensitivity #actually epileptic #epilepsy awareness #epilepsy awareness month #seizure awareness #chronic illness #mental heath support #friendly reminder #awareness month #november epilepsy awareness #dragon #dragon oc #oc art #awareness #advice #support content creators #artist support #independence

[polyhexian]

Re: your post about epilepsy from a while ago, it made me think of this, if you don’t mind me asking:

Did the big fancy test in the hospital (you mentioned it in the notes of that one epileptic Hunter fic) you had to do go okay? I know it’s been a while since that fic but I still wonder about it sometimes whenever I reread the fic. I hope you’re doing well!

Ugghhhh god it went fine but was ultimately useless. Basically I went to the hospital for five days and they put a bunch of stuff on my head to monitor my brain function

And then like they took me off of my medication to try and induce a seizure under observation. But I didn't have one. So... Didn't really learn anything. My neurologist said based on my MRI and the EEG I had after my grand mal that I have brain damage indicating I've been having seizures since I was a kid but obviously they've not been convulsive cuz nobody noticed. So I have some kind of complex partial seizures but nobody knows what they look like cuz I didn't have one under observation. And the kind of epilepsy I have is caused by a head injury or a really high fever. But I don't know what caused it either haha. My neurologist said my seizures might be cyclical or something and that's why I didn't have one.

Basically i spent almost a week in the hospital and wasn't allowed to stand up or go to the bathroom alone for noooooo reason

[torturing-characters-101]

I love your blog! How do you give some one an EEG? How does it work? Also, what would it look like if someone was sleeping when they got their EEG?

An EEG, or electroencephalogram, is a recording of the electrical activity in the brain. It can be used to monitor or diagnose certain conditions like epilepsy, dementia, brain tumors, and sleep problems.

A technician attaches 23 electrodes (small metal discs attached to wires) to the patient's head with a gel or glue, which allows the electrodes to pick up electrical activity from below the surface of the skull.

The technician then records the electrical activity while asking the patient to do various tasks. These tasks are dependent on the purpose of the EEG, but generally include breathing very deeply for a certain amount of time, looking at a flashing light, opening or closing their eyes, sleeping, reading a passage of text, drawing or doing something creative, solving a problem, or simply resting.

Sometimes, a patient may be asked to stay awake the night before, so they will be drowsy and able to fall asleep during the EEG. They may also be asked to hold off on taking certain medications. The EEG recording usually lasts about 20-40 minutes, but can be longer. In some cases, the patient may go home with a portable EEG attached, which they may wear for 1-3 days. When it's done, the technician removes the electrodes, which often leave a sticky residue that the patient must wash off.

The waves from each electrode are evaluated based on the location of that electrode and the quality of the waves. Waves are defined based on amplitude and frequency. Amplitude is how tall the wave is, while frequency is how many waves there are over a set amount of time. The same type of wave may mean something different if it comes from a different electrode location on the scalp.

EEG waves look different depending on what the person is doing. Someone who is awake generally has higher frequency, lower amplitude waves (though these can change somewhat with different tasks the person is doing), while someone who is asleep can have many different types of waves depending on their sleep stage. There may also be recognizable sections that have specific meanings, like "K-complexes" or "sleep spindles", which also help indicate specific stages of sleep. Seizure activity is usually indicated by a sudden increase in amplitude and frequency, which can be in all leads (generalized seizure) or in only some of the leads (focal or partial seizure).

The following is a 2-minute video that explains what the different sleep stages look like on an EEG recording:

#whump reference #writing reference #sleep #eeg #seizures #epilepsy

[dragonfly-system]

Many anti-endogenic systems will argue that DID & therefore systemhood is a trauma-based disorder at its core, and cannot exist without chronic childhood trauma. Let’s analyze that.

Disclaimer: This analysis ignores the existence of spiritual systems, as the crossroads between religion and psychology is very tricky to understand, and we believe we’re not qualified to write on that subject. This analysis also only covers the DID diagnosis itself, whether it applies to endogenic or traumagenic systems. It mentions but does not extensively cover systems without a DID diagnosis, which are valid in their own right and may have achieved functional multiplicity.

Let’s start at the basics: the criteria for DID according to the DSM-5. According to webmd.com, to diagnose DID, the patient must have:

“Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self.

Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events.

The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder.

The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices.

The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures).”

Points 4 and 5 focus on religion and drug use, which are going to be ignored for the sake of this analysis. It’s the first three points that play a key role in the diagnosis of DID, OSDD-1, and DDNOS. 

Working backwards: point 3 says that the system’s plurality must be disordered to have the diagnosis. Therefore, any form of functional plurality is excluded from the diagnosis; despite this, functional multiplicity is often the goal of extensive therapy when diagnosed with a dissociative disorder. The reversing of the third point of the diagnosis is often the goal of treatment. However, when people state they want to reach full integration to obtain functional multiplicity, it’s often misunderstood. Integration is the process by which the amnesiac barriers between system members lower and communication between members strengthens, whereas fusion is the process where system members merge into one whole piece, essentially turning a system into a singlet over time (source 1, source 2, source 3). You may be able to tell that by achieving functional multiplicity, amnesia is lessened, following the reversing of point 2. 

If we break up the previous paragraph, we can come up with a diagnostic criteria and treatment for plurality using the first three criteria: 

DID is diagnosed when a person shows multiple identity states[1] that suffer with amnesia between them[2], resulting in heavy distress in their life[3]. 

Functional Multiplicity, which is achieved through integration (the lowering of amnesia barriers[2]), can lead to less distress[3] in a system’s life as their identity states work in better harmony[1]. 

Comically, none of the criteria itself uses the word “dissociative”, though the avenue of it will be pursued due to being in the name of the disorder. In traumagenic systems, yes, the dissociation is brought on by severe trauma. But what about endogenic systems who are diagnosed with DID? In these cases, it’s more likely that their system started spontaneously, naturally, or from some other cause; however it came about, originally, they were not distressed. A severe stressor happened later in life for these diagnosed endogenic systems: while that could be them encountering trauma, it could also be the stress of any natural disaster (or, in recent times, a certain pandemic). Dissociation could also happen as a result of anxiety or another mental illness. Dissociation itself is a coping mechanism for any stressor, and it’s important to know that, while trauma counts as a stressor, not all stressors equate to trauma. 

As a final note, not all endogenic systems need to be diagnosed with DID to be valid, nor do all traumagenic systems need to be diagnosed. We ourselves are traumagenic, and we don’t want to be diagnosed with DID; we want to seek help to cope with past traumas we went through, as dealing with that is more important to us (and will likely be more effective for us) than dealing with our amnesiac barriers directly. Functional multiplicity exists, and a system is still a system, whether diagnosed or not.

#pro-endo #pro-endogenic #plurality #systemhood #df-alk #df-jake

[bratty-metalhead]

Ghost Mutuals Tag Game 🦇 Send this to the last ten Ghesties in your notifications, then reply here with ten facts about yourself! Let's get to know each other!

Yay, a message that isn’t porn.

(1) Outside of Ghost, my favorite bands are The Funeral Portrait, Ice Nine Kills, My Chemical Romance, and Motley Crue

(2) I am writing a book. It’s a dark romance/thriller. It had a character in it who is a musician, and that persons music is my own original lyrics!

(3) My favorite hobbies are writing, singing, cooking, and baking

(4) I am married. My husband and I have been together for 10 years, and married for 2.

(5) I am a proud Satanist

(6) I love foxes, beluga whales, axolotls, and manatees

(7) I am a psychiatric resident. Current I work in a day program for kiddos with cognitive disabilities and complex trauma. My specialty is pediatric cognitive developmental/developmental psychology and pediatric neuropsychology

(8) I have a *slight* whiskey obsession. I love collecting and tasting.

(9) My husband and I are working on having a baby, and it’s… not going well. It’s a huge source of stress in our lives.

(10) I have a serious chronic illness. The first is neurological, which causes seizures, partial blindness, and a brain tumor. The theory my doctors have is that the hormonal imbalances from this disease are leading to my infertility.

#whoops accidental trauma dump #Satanism #ghost #ghost band #brattymetalheadtiktok #ghost bc #tobias forge #ghostbc #the band ghost #ice nine kills #my chemical romance #motley crue #the funeral portrait #metal head #Emily answers #writer #author