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#no longer patient enough to work in food service
lavendertales · 1 year
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Silent night—Javier Peña x f!reader
summary: it’s Javier’s first time spending the holidays with his family back in Laredo, years after his mother’s passing, and it turns out to be a more difficult time to navigate than he would’ve thought. 
word count: 1.8k
A/N: this angst/comfort prompt is my @pedrostories​ Secret Santa gift for the lovely @pedrito-friskito​. Hope you like it and happy holidays! ❤️
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gif: @bestintheparsec 
Everyone who’s gotten the opportunity to be close enough to Javier knows that Christmas isn’t his favorite holiday. Not even by far.
It used to be; when he was a little boy, that is. He is no longer a boy though. Rather a man with questionable baggage and lots of scars.
However, he agreed to return to Laredo for Thanksgiving and leave a few days after New Year’s, only because his father Chucho insisted it was long overdue for spending the holiday season with the whole family. That meant a lot of food, noise, endless and incessant questions about his life, both professional and private, and Javier detested that.
As it turned out, his love for his father went beyond the irritation and pain the holiday season caused him. And Chucho wasn’t the sole reason for his visit.
You and Javier go a long way back. You’ve actually grown up together, but as life pushed you in separate directions, you’ve lost contact. Whenever he visited Chucho, you caught glimpses of him, the rugged and grumpy DEA agent that helped put an end to the Medellin and Cali cartels. You couldn’t even imagine the horrors he was seeing on a daily basis, and yet you couldn’t help but admire him from afar. Time had clearly been generous to him. But you never dared dreaming he’d ever be interested in little life you.
You never left Laredo. You were teaching kindergarten and you were so content with your life that actually being with Javier Peña never crossed your mind. He’s probably been with countless exotic beauties, and you had nothing on them.
But apparently, you were wrong.
Because now, six months later since Javier’s first and final arrival to Laredo, he and you were something of an item, going on actual dates and spending time together like a real couple, and it still managed to blow your mind. Mostly because Javier was a tough nut to crack.
You never pushed him to reveal anything he didn’t want to. You were patient and kind and curious, all at the same time, and Javier appreciated that tremendously. He was not a man of many words, but he showed you gratitude and care in plenty of other ways: buying you flowers, driving you home from work, and simply spending time with you. And you learned to know that was Javier’s love language, acts of service.
And of course, physical touch.
He didn’t hesitate in holding your hand, caressing your cheeks, holding your waist close to him and touching you in the softest, yet most surefire ways you could’ve ever imagined. Now, he respected your personal space and didn’t push you in his pursuit for intimacy, but he sure knew how to push all the right buttons and tease you just enough to have you craving more, curious as to how he would feel, how he would sound.
But it had to wait. You’ve never seen him gloomier and more distant than now.
It’s Christmas Eve, and all of his relatives are spread across the house, sharing stories, drinking eggnog or munching on food. But Javier sits by the window with his whiskey, eyes locked on the dark sky. You approach him carefully as if you were approaching a deer.
“Are you okay?” you ask, rubbing your hand gently across his back.
Javier takes another sip, still not looking at you.
“I know this is not your favorite holiday,” you coo.
“It used to be.”
“Then… what happened?”
You knew what happened. Everyone close to the Peñas knew what happened. But you still asked because you were unsure if that particular event had really impacted Javier that much to the extent of hating a holiday.
“I haven’t been home for the holidays since she died,” Javier coos, his tone grave and filled with pain.
And there is your answer.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” you ask sweetly.
Javier nods, finally facing you as he finishes his whiskey and pours himself more.
“I couldn’t come back here after she was gone,” he admits. “I’ve always had an excuse. College, work, avoiding death, you know.”
“Sure, sure.”
“Guess this was overdue though.”
“How are you feeling?”
You rub his back, watching his face closely. He is a tough nut to crack, but when you break through, there is no telling what you will find. More often than not, Javier has turned out to be a very sensitive person, but he’s been stuck in a longtime pattern of bad habits, all in order to survive.
“To be honest, it’s hitting a little harder than I thought,” he admits.
“Can I do anything to help?”
It’s then that Javier reaches for your hand, squeezing it at his chest and flashing a bittersweet smile.
“It’s enough having you here,” he says, leaning down to kiss your cheek.
The skin where his lips pressed turns red, and you try to hide it beneath your hair.
“Do you want to talk about her? About Christmas with your family when you were a kid?”
Javier falters. In the back of his mind, he doesn’t really want to. He never spoke about his mother with anyone. But he feels that the time he’s spent bottling up his emotions and intentions hasn’t done him much good. Perhaps a change would be good.
And who better to start with than with you, the most wonderful person he’s ever known?
“She always made dad dress up as Santa to share presents to all of us kids,” Javier chuckles, fondly reminiscing of all those chaotic Christmas morning with the grumpiest Santa Claus he’s ever seen. “He hated the beard and everything, but he still did it. Partially cause he was afraid of mom, I think.”
You smile.
“We open the gifts, gather around for breakfast… we asked for cookies and milk till they got tired of us and finally agreed we could all have one. Of course afterwards we’d sneak into the kitchen to have more and get caught. But mom never yelled or got upset. She was always—“
“What?”
Javier stands there in silence, the images of his happy childhood so vivid before his very eyes that he might just tear up. Wouldn’t you know it, a couple of tears do sting his eyes, but they don’t roll down his stubbled cheeks.
“She was always the best,” he finishes, putting down his glass.
He finally allows the sadness that’s been simmering in his veins to tip over, thus filling his whole chest, and then his whole being. It overwhelms him, surrounds him in a cold, wet blanket almost that lies heavily on his shoulders.
You inch closer to him, enough for you to wrap your arms around his body and hug him tightly. Javier reciprocates instantly, his bigger arms around you like vines, his head on your shoulder. He’s never felt care quite like this, so sincere and pure in its very simplicity.
“Hey, if you need a break or want to go away for a little while, we can go for a walk or something,” you suggest, fingers curled in his hair.
Javier hums softly, clearly very comfortable in the hug. The thought alone makes you smile. Knowing you can bring some comfort to the inner turmoil that Javier has to go through on a daily basis is the best Christmas gift you can think of.
“I’m okay,” he tells you.
He smiles at you, forehead stuck to yours. For one moment in time, he feels like none of his relatives are around, like it’s just you and him there.
“I miss her a lot,” he adds, and you detect the pain in his voice.
“I know.”
“When she got sick, for months she’d beg me to take pictures of all the events in my life, of whatever had my interest so she could see them. I thought it was silly and told her I’d rather spend my time with her in that hospital room. Then she was gone, and there were no pictures. We didn’t even take a picture on our last Christmas together. Dad insisted, but I said no. Can’t even look at those anymore. Or take any.”
You don’t say anything to that. You simply hold him—or rather let him hold you, based on the difference in your bodies’ height and mass. You know Javier is a man fond of silence, so you grant him at least that on this tumultuous Christmas Eve.
“Thank you,” Javier says all of a sudden.
“For what?”
“For being here. Makes it all easier. More bearable.”
You smile, pecking his lips. “I’m glad I can be here for you.”
“Okay, gather ‘round, it’s picture time!”
The voice of Javier’s aunt Cecilia rings in your ears, and you look around panicked as everyone makes a fuss over picture time. You sneak a glance at Javier, noticing the change in his facial expression gone from fondness to discomfort, and you take his hand into yours, trying to grab him away.
“Where are we going?” he asks, dumbfounded.
“How about that walk?
Javier sports another bittersweet smile in your direction, guiding you back into the living room where everyone else is gathering.
“You said—“you begin.
“I know. But like I said, having you here makes it all bearable. And I think you’d look good in our family picture.”
Your heart flutters in your chest, your cheeks are flushed with the auburn scorch of flattery—and more.
You don’t tell him that, though. Not yet.
“What if we break up and then I’ll forever be in your family’s pictures?” you can’t help but ask.
“It’ll give me an excuse to look at our pictures. And what if we don’t break up?”
You chuckle, this time you being the one to squeeze his hand.
“Are you two ready?” Aunt Cecilia asks.
“I guess we are,” you concur.
“We are.”
Javier’s voice is confident, bulletproof, and it makes you even more secure in the knowledge that you are, in fact, in love with him.
But that’s for another time, when you can enjoy some privacy.
For now, you settle to pose for the Peña family photo, with Javier’s arm around your waist. At the very least, knowing you could help him come to terms with his mother’s absence on his favorite holiday and have a certain closure makes this moment all the more special.
It marks this as the first Christmas in Javier’s adult life.
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scoops-aboy86 · 8 days
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What are your thoughts on Steve’s chronic migraines getting worse so Eddie and Robin convince him to go to the doctor. The medication he is given helps but perhaps it starts to cause weight gain #chubby Steve Harrington
To be honest, I don’t know if I know enough about migraines to go too deeply into that part of it. My brother gets them, and I briefly thought I was getting them in college but that turned out to be just my sinuses trying very hard to murder me on a seasonal basis. The campus health center had me keep a food journal for a while in case it was a dietary trigger, though, which I kind of want to foist on Steve. Like, what if…
(This got away from me, what else is new, please either enjoy or suffer for the next 3k words. The meds definitely kicked off Steve’s weight gain, partly because meds do that and partly because he doesn’t end up puking his guts out as often anymore, but the combo of the food journal and the stress reduction of he finds in eating definitely awakens something that keeps it going.)
Hawkins Memorial Hospital and all its patient records were obliterated over the course of defeating Vecna. So now that the Upside Down is gone and the older teens have moved out of Hawkins, Robin and Steve got into college somewhere (Steve by the skin of his teeth, if only because I’m not sure if community colleges have health services for their students), and Eddie lives with them too while he works at an auto shop and tries to scrape a new band together.
Between the migraines and the campus nurse “what if”ing him about shit, because he no longer has the medical history on his whopping total of four concussions in three years, Steve has very little patience for being instructed to write down everything he eats for a week or two on the off chance his headaches are triggered by something he’s eating. He’s sure that’s not it. Robin and Eddie bully him into actually doing it, basically resulting in a communal journal where they all take notes on Steve’s meals. 
So Eddie is uniquely tuned in to Steve’s eating habits, even for a trauma-bonded roommate with a big gay crush. He doesn’t think much of it, but does have a lot of fun being all “You deserve a treat for finishing that homework on time, I’ll pencil you in for a donut and we’ll hit the corner market!” and whatever. Just a little bit of friendly teasing on the days Steve decides to be lazy and eats mostly junk. 
By the time Steve finally gets medication and a routine that actually helps keep the migraines at bay more often than not, the food journal is long done but Eddie still notices that stuff and is vaguely aware that Steve has started snacking more often, taking a little extra at dinner, doubling up on his usual bowl of cereal for breakfast. He also notices the way all of his jeans start to hug his ass more, the faintest suggestion of a future muffin top starting to bunch over waistbands when his shirts are tucked in, how he starts moving a little slower when taking the stairs up to their apartment two at a time (or, eventually, one at a time like what Eddie considers a normal person). 
He casually brings it up at one point, something offhand like, “Extra hungry today, Harrington? Or are you carb loading before a hot date, or whatever it is you jocks get up to before strenuous activity?” But Steve just laughs and helps himself to more pasta or whatever’s for dinner, his third serving, and says he’s pretty sure it’s the new meds are doing something to his appetite. So no, not just today. 
And Eddie doesn’t push, because Steve seems fine with it. The extra weight looks good on him, in Eddie’s opinion—anything would look good on Steve, but especially the contentment that comes with indulging the whims of his appetite. He’s quickly developing a snacking-while-studying habit, and Eddie learns that when Steve gets frustrated and tries to blow off doing the work, he can be both placated and bribed to continue with donuts. His grades are steadily improving, and that’s not the only thing on the upswing; he eventually consults both Robin and Eddie on how to size up his closet on a budget, too. 
The only thing Steve complains about is the dating dry spell he’s on, grumbling about shallow girls who don’t want to take the time to get to know him. Robin comments that he’s like a broken record, she heard all of this before when his parents cut him off and he didn’t have the money to plan lavish dates anymore… and Eddie feels like he’s been knocked over the head by the comparison. He can’t imagine not wanting to date Steve just because his money doesn’t grow on trees or he’s put on weight, what is wrong with those women?!
Because, call a spade a spade: if Steve were into guys, Eddie would ask him out in a heartbeat. Even if it could potentially torpedo their friendship. He puts so much energy every day into not flirting with Steve, and to be honest these days he’s mostly redirecting it towards bringing him treats. Steve has this unfortunate habit of licking his fingers (even when it doesn’t seem like he should need to!); Eddie is developing a staring problem. A worse staring problem. Whatever. 
Sometimes the three of them smoke up on Friday and Saturday nights when they have nothing better to do. (Read: don’t have dates. Eddie is used to being a dateless loser, but he feels bad for Steve and Robin. Indignant on their behalf. Secretly pleased whenever Robin has plans and relieved when Steve doesn’t, and guilty about both.) They pick out a tub each of ice cream in advance and order too much pizza and watch movies they barely pay attention to while bickering and giggling like idiots, and if it’s a double lame day weekend none of them bat an eye when Steve starts getting two tubs for himself so he doesn’t run out part way through. Goads one or both of them to bet on whether he can finish it in one sitting before it completely melts, leaving Eddie to have to hide a boner whenever the challenge devolves into messily slurping of whatever’s left at the bottom. 
It’s at the end of one of those nights where it’s just Steve and Eddie; they turn in for the night (or the pre-dawn hours at least), Steve taking a little longer to shuffle into his room because he offered to put the leftovers in the fridge. Eddie gets back up because his mouth is dry as hell, and opens the fridge for light while he hunts for a clean cup… only to realize the leftovers aren’t there. He checks the freezer, and his own mostly empty ice cream carton is missing too. Turns out, they’re in the trash, scraped clean. Steve must have finished everything. When he goes back to his room he can hear Steve moving restlessly through the thin shared wall, soft grunts and moans and muffled burps and—
Usually, Eddie tries to be a good roommate and put his headphones on when he realizes that Steve is having some alone time. But he’s sleepy and still stoned and doesn’t feel like getting up again, so he stays prone and closes his eyes, telling himself that he’s not listening, really he’s not, he’s just trying to sleep. The hand he’s palming himself through his pajama pants begs to differ, though. And if he thinks he hears choked moans of “more, give me more” and “please, I need it” and “yeah, give it to me, Eddie,” no he absolutely does not. He obviously just nodded off into a wet dream, because while Steve often joins him at Robin at the local gay establishments for nights on the town, he only ever hooks up with girls. 
The next weekend it happens again. Eddie has no idea if Steve is eating up all the extras in the kitchen or taking some of it back to his room, but it’s obvious where it’s all going. And either way the end result always seems to be the same: Steve eats and jerks off afterwards, and Eddie listens in and does the same. He feels like a creep for doing it, but the shame doesn’t hit until after he’s done biting his pillow to keep quiet and pumping into his fist until his toes feel permanently curled. 
But, he rationalizes, it’s not that weird that they each have their own guilty pleasures. Everybody’s got to have something at the end of the day, right? And at least pinning after Steve this way keeps him from doing anything stupid, like spending his weekend cruising for one night stands and STDs. It happens enough already on the rare occasions that Steve does have a date, he doesn’t need to up his risk factor for catching anything. 
This goes on until Robin and Steve graduate. Like, actual years. Eddie would feel like a monk by now if he wasn’t secretly indulging himself while imagining Steve on a regular basis, which is… it’s fine. At least it goes a long way towards keeping lingering nightmares about demon bats and evil veiny wizards at bay. 
They have two different ‘Congrats Grads’ parties in their cramped apartments, one with all their friends from school and around the city, and one for everyone who knows about the Upside Down. Eddie buys two huge sheet cakes for both, but is puzzled when there’s way too much left—and Steve doesn’t seem to have touched them. 
After the last round of guests has gone, including Robin who had announced out of nowhere that she was going to crash with Nancy in the latter’s hotel room and wake up early to do touristy things in the city while Nancy is visiting from Boston, Steve calmly gets both platters of remaining cake out. Without explaining himself, he also produces a gallon tub of ice cream and lays everything out on the coffee table in front of their second hand couch. His thighs and arms have grown thicker over the years, cheeks fuller, jawline softer. His belly rounds out before him, spilling over in front and a litte to either side even while empty, and he has this way of kind of holding it as he shifts further back on the couch to get comfortable, like he doesn’t want to jostle it or maybe, maybe just needs it a little out of the way to better move around. 
Eddie pretends not to watch but the second he glances up realizes he’s been caught out, because Steve meets his gaze, staring right back. 
“I wanted to show you something,” Steve says, and holds out the old food journal, abandoned many semesters and a whole diploma ago once it had been determined that Steve’s triggers were mostly bright lights and stress-related. 
Except… it wasn’t abandoned, apparently. Notes fill it up from cover to cover, post-its sticking out more and more towards the back pages where Steve’s increasingly squashed handwriting had run out of space for that day. Everything Steve had eaten, carefully recorded quantities. Some entries, Eddie notices, have a small ‘e’ written and circled next to them, and he’s about to ask when Steve sees where he’s looking and says, “That’s all the food you gave me.”
And Eddie hadn’t even realized how much he’d been doing that, because Steve had always just taken everything he’d offered without comment. It had become normal, like a reflex. And, okay, maybe he’d noticed that on days Steve ate more he tended to be a little more audible through the wall at night as he worked his way to completion, and maybe it had become Eddie’s favorite soundtrack to fall asleep too. 
He doesn’t realize that his jaw has dropped until Steve sits forward with a grunt—a series of them really, because Eddie is on the bean bag chair on the other side of the coffee table and that was a bit of a reach even before Steve had started adding pound after pound to his own frame—and nudges it closed with a finger under his chin. Your move, Steve’s eyes seem to say as he sits back, resettles his ass and then his belly all over again. 
“I’m bisexual,” Steve announces bluntly. “Figured I should just come out and say it, since I’m either really bad at hinting or you haven’t picked up on the fact I’ve been trying to for… a while now. Robin says it’s pretty painful to watch me fail so hard and you still act so oblivious. I think she’s sad for both of us. And,” he adds, laying a hand over the crest of his belly, “while I’m doing the open and honest communication thing—I like this. I like to eat, and I like how I look. And either you like it too or you’ve got this… codependent blind spot, Robin called it? Which I guess means you just give me things that you know I want without really thinking about it. But she also said that you might just think of me as off limits because we’re friends and we live together and I’ve never actually, like, told you that I like both, which… I don’t really have a good excuse for, other than being kind of a moron. So.” He gives his belly a double pat, which Eddie’s dazed brain can only liken to a judge banging a gavel, but whatever it’s supposed to mean is kind of drowned out by the way it wobbles and fills said brain with silent fizz. “This is me telling you. And asking, uh, if you’ve noticed, or have… any interest in me at all. If giving me food means anything, because—at the risk of making things incredibly weird between us—it makes me feel really good when you do.”
For a moment Eddie just gapes at him. He doesn’t even know when his mouth fell back open. His brain is still the equivalent of a shaken can of Coke that Steve’s just popped the top of, metaphorically foaming out his goddamn ears. And then when he tries to say something, it’s too many different sentences at once and just comes out as as a garbled, “Stehuhyuhwha…?”
Steve just huffs and says, “Stop trying to cheat at Scrabble, Eds.” Which is what Robin always says when Steve’s dyslexia or Eddie’s abuse of creativity in regards to spelling rears up during important moments. Like when she’s tricked them into playing Scrabble. 
Eddie tries again. “Steve, what are you talking about? What do you mean you’ve been trying, to… to what? Both? Picked up on—What?!”
Immediately, Steve’s face flushes. “Shit, you really didn’t know? Any of it?”
“I knew about the eating,” Eddie says, and he feels like his voice has gone unusually high but can’t focus enough on that to decide if it’s actually true. “I mean, I knew you seemed okay with it, but you said your meds make you hungrier or something—How like is much, I mean, is like, I mean—” He slaps a hand over his own mouth to stop that runaway train of a sentence before it goes over a cliff any more than it already has, then tries to rephrase. “What do you mean by you like it?”
“Eddie. Have you noticed how often I put my fingers in my mouth when you’re around? Haven’t you heard me through the wall?”
Eddie’s face feels hotter than the sun. “Y-yeah…” He wonders if it’s really possible to die of spontaneous combustion, but confronted directly like this he can’t find it in himself to lie. “You… you touch yourself after you…”
“Eat a lot,” Steve finishes. “It feels good, getting so full like that. I sleep better after, especially if I, uh, come.” He flushes a little at the admission, too, so at least Eddie isn’t completely alone. “I say things sometimes, hoping you’ll hear.”
“I thought I was dreaming most of that,” Eddie admits, which makes Steve perk up a little. 
“You dream about me?”
“I…” Letting out an embarrassed whine, Eddie brings a hand to his hair, dragging a clump of it down over his mouth in a ludicrous attempt to hide. “Shit, yeah. I do. I…” And, okay, if he’s going to admit this he’s not going to do it by halves, because if Steve can just say things that would get him labeled a freak in most circles, then so can Eddie, the official Freak of Hawkins, Indiana. “I listen and I picture what you might be doing in there, and I get off to it, man. I thought I was being a huge creep for doing that, but I couldn’t help it because it’s you, alright? At the risk of making things incredibly weird between us, Steve, I’ve been fucking gone on you for a mortifyingly long time and it’s only ever gotten worse, and I’m pretty sure that you saying any of what you’re saying now means I’ve finally lost my mind and I want you to be my padded cell. I don’t even know what that means, Steve, but I want it.”
Steve tilts his head slightly. “It’s gotten worse? In a bad way?”
“Oh my god,” Eddie groans, and drops his flaming face into his sweaty palms. “It’s gotten bigger. It’s gotten… more. What do you want from m—”
“Eddie,” Steve interrupts, cutting through his Freudian slips like a knife through butter. “Come here.”
When Eddie lifts his head, he sees that Steve is patting the section of couch next to him. Feeling dazed and like this might as well happen, Eddie climbs his feet and ambles around the laden coffee table on rickety Bambi legs. Jesus H Christ, is this what having a stroke feels like?
He sits. Steve lays a hand on his thigh and Eddie feels like it’s leaving a mark straight through the ripped denim. 
“I want to show you something,” Steve says. “Try something, I guess. You can say no, but… I’m hoping you won’t. Because I’ve been thinking about this ever since you started writing things in that stupid journal for me. I want you to feed me cake and ice cream, and when the cake runs out I want you to pour the melted ice cream down my throat. Okay?”
“Should,” Eddie starts, and then has to clear his throat a few times because holy shit, his voice is rough and all the blood in his body just rushed south. “Should we do this on a communal couch, or… your room…?”
Steve’s eyes go hooded and dark, bedroom eyes if Eddie’s ever seen them. The goddamn Harrington Charm. “You wanna see where all the magic happens, baby? Finally get the visual to go with the audio?”
And well, that kind of answers the question of whether Steve was wolfing down leftovers in the kitchen or in bed, doesn’t it?
The next day, Robin gravely thanks them for not doing “hungry penis stuff” on shared furniture, a phrase which they vehemently beg her never to use again with varying degrees of dismayed wailing and hysterical laughter. And then she whacks them both upside their heads with a heartfelt, “Took you long enough, you dingi!”
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your-local-hoemie · 11 months
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Hello im here with another request :p can i request thoma and childe with s/o thats not good with words? Instead of saying 'i love you' s/o expresses her feelings through her actions like making them gifts, baking for them hugging them etc c: if its to complicated or too long then feel free to ignore this okay take care c:
-🐢anon
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Welcome back to our fine establishment. Some Thoma and Childe content shall be served fresh for you uwu
Also yes. I relate to this so much cuz words are hard and so are emotions so buckle up bi’h cuz I’m diving nose first 💀
Also these are just head-canons this time because it’s 7am and I haven’t slept and I got so much work to do this week so time is limited until the 8th, I’m sorry ;-;
Warnings: fluff, established relationship, more fluff, might have to pay for your dentist appointment,gn!reader, not proof-read.
Characters: Thoma, Childe.
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THOMA~
Baby boy is very understanding
I feel he’d also naturally use acts of service to show his affection
At first he was a little paranoid since you never openly said you loved him much if at all
As soon as he realises the little things you do for him is your way of expressing yourself he immediately relaxes
Cherishes everything you do
Give him a pretty rock you found?
Bet your ass it’s always going to be on his person
He’ll always encourage you to just be yourself around him and never wants you to feel uncomfortable
Might end up having a unspoken competition with each other over who can do the most things for each other
Still can’t get used to having someone do things for him
People have mentioned how you never tell him you love him or anything like that which often makes you feel guilty or a bad s/o
He’s quick to explain that if you really love someone then you don’t need words to show how you feel~
I feel like he’d also appreciate it a lot since he gets easily flustered so having subtle signs of appreciation and affection is way easy for him to handle~
On the very rare occasion you’re comfortable enough to say you love him though you can rest assured it will hold so much more weight to it~
Even if you only say it once every year or longer he knows how hard it is for you to express yourself like that so it will be more than enough to last him~
Will also remind you that he know you love him and how lucky he is to have you so you never have to get anxious or worried~
Boy is head-over-heels for you and wouldn’t want you any other way <3
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CHILDE~
Please be patient with him good lord
He’s so clingy and he doesn’t even mean to be
When he noticed how you never seemed to return his eagerness to publicly express your love for him he gets worried
He’s aware enough to know he’s a handful and probably thinks you’re tired of him ;-;
Once you explain that you don’t feel comfortable expressing your emotions verbally he’ll quickly piece everything together
Suddenly the gifts you give him even though you know he can easy afford to buy them himself mean so much more than they already did
The food you make him tastes just a little bit more homely
If you engage in bird behaviour like with Thoma and give him cool shiny stuff you find or just a nice looking pebble, he’ll proudly show them off!
Absolutely names them too~
Has a little “family” of rocks and gets genuinely upset if people make fun of them
Move over Zhongli, there’s a new rock daddy in town
He still tells you he loves you every chance he gets but he also makes sure to tell you that he know you love him too even if you don’t say it out loud~
He’s really such good boyfriend material even with his outwardly egotistical attitude and murderous tendencies cough cough
He loves you so much and he appreciates your patience and love for him
He wouldn’t want you any other way because to him, you’re worth every second of his time
If anyone questions you or makes you feel guilty for how you act then he’s immediately there to kill prove them wrong
You’ve taught him how to appreciate the little things in his life and how even the smallest act of love can mean so very much <3
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These are so fun, idk who you are but I want to platonically make out with your brain 💀
Sorry it was so short but I’ll be back on my bs on the 8th!!
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subliminalbo · 4 months
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10 Years of Subliminalbo
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Candice Swanepoel: Mindless Pet Annotated [ 1 ]
Originally published November 28th, 2013
"You've done well, Candice. Since launching Obedience by Victoria, women just can't seem to get enough of our products. Sales have tripled in the last month alone." [ 2 ]
"Thank you, Master," Candice replied. She was teleconferencing with her boss, who had put her in charge of the Obedience campaign. Candice had traveled across the nation to nine different Victoria's Secret flagship stores [ 3 ], spreading their new product and enslaving the minds of customers who were now feeling so much more loyal to the business [ 4 ]. But they weren't the only ones under the control of this new high-tech lingerie. Candice was, in a way, patient zero.
"As a reward for your excellent work, we've decided to take you off of the campaign. I'm sure we have other models who are just dying to wear Obedience by Victoria. [ 5 ]"
"Master," Candice frowned. "Does that mean...?"
"You no longer have to wear the lingerie, yes." he replied. "We have other lines for you to promote, we can't be wasting you on one thing [ 6 ]."
"Yes, Master, I understand." Candice nodded. A part of her felt worried to be released from her boss' control [ 7 ]. She'd been wearing this lingerie for weeks now and was quite fond of someone thinking for her [ 8 ]. It was just easier.
Time fixed Candice's aversion to thought [ 9 ]. After a few days' worth of withdrawals, she no longer felt the urge for obedience [ 10 ]. With her mind finally cleared, Candice had a lot of questions for Victoria's Secret [ 11 ]. Like why they'd forced her to wear a hypnotic bra for twelve weeks [ 12 ]. So much had changed since Candice went under. Girls would stop Candice on the streets, and she would look into their eyes. Those empty eyes. And Candice knew that they were wearing Obedience, and she knew that it was her work that had taken this girl's mind [ 13 ]. "I love you, Candice. You are my idol," the girls would say, and Candice would remember all of those girls on tour. The ones who had just shown up for an autograph and had left with a new pair of underwear and an empty mind . And those girls had gone and forced their friends and family into mindless obedience as well. The campaign was so successful that CEOs of other companies were falling over each other to copy the Obedience bra's technology. Walmart had enslaved all of its employees to guarantee better service, and McDonald's was replicating the technology for food so that its customers would never eat anywhere else [ 14 ].
Candice was disgusted at this new world, and she knew something had to be done [ 15 ]. She first tried to take it up with her boss, but he was always too busy to listen. Then she tried filing a report to the ethics department of Victoria's Secret, but that too was met with no response [ 16 ]. Frustrated with her employer, Candice decided that she had to do something drastic [ 17 ].
Santiago Cruz was a young journalist trying to find her first major story to break through [ 18 ]. So far she was relegated to covering puff pieces like fashion at the Golden Globe Awards and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show [ 19 ]. Candice had remembered Santiago from last year's show, but it was Santiago who approached Candice. She'd been focusing on Victoria's Secret in the last few weeks, after a friend of hers had gone completely off the grid reporting on the new line of lingerie. Santiago had an eye for conspiracy, and this really stunk [ 20 ]. So over coffee one morning, Candice spilled her whole story.
"They told me to try on the bra, and then... Well, everything felt so good. I just wanted to do everything they told me to."
"And you didn't know what it did? You didn't know that they were brainwashing you?" Santiago replied. She rarely looked away from her pad which she scribbled every possible detail onto. Notes on Candice's story, important dates, important names. This story was going to be huge.
"I didn't... And the worst thing is what they made me do. I had sex with so many men and women [ 21 ], and they made me go around passing out the lingerie, turning other women into something like me."
"That's awful," Santiago interjected [ 22 ].
"Yes. It's addictive too. After I was freed, I wanted nothing more than to go back. I wanted to be controlled. I wanted it so bad I even tried self-hypnosis [ 23 ]."
"But it didn't work."
"No."
As the interview wrapped up, Santiago asked if anyone in Victoria's Secret knew that Candice was talking to her. Candice told her about the ethics report she'd filed, but assured Santiago that no one knew she was going to the public with the story. The two women shook hands and Santiago promised Candice that justice would be served, then they went their separate ways. A few days passed before Santiago heard from Candice again. This time it was a text that read: New info. We need to talk. Meet me at our coffee place asap. Santiago said she was on her way, and as she left the office, she told her boss that she was going to check up on a new lead [ 24 ].
Santiago arrived at the coffee shop to find it mostly empty, except for the two baristas who stood stoic and guard-like behind the counter, and at a table in the back sat a well-dressed man with Candice, who sat on the floor next to the man, resting on her knees [ 25 ]. Unlike the man, you could not say she was well-dressed. She wore some gaudy kind of cat inspired lingerie [ 26 ].
"What is this?" Santiago asked Candice. "What's going on?"
"You're asking the wrong person," the man spoke up. "She doesn't say much anymore."
"Oh my God, Candice... What did you do to her?"
"My name's Ed [ 27 ], it's nice to meet you. We've reeducated Candice. And to answer your question, Miss Cruz, this is a trap [ 28 ]. For years reporters have been trying to out my company for one dirty reason or another. We're a blight to America's youth, we teach girls to be sexual at a young age... We just can't afford to have a brainwashing conspiracy on our hands so... I guess you'd call this the coverup."
"Candice," Santiago cried. "You've got to snap out of it!"
Ed smiled and ran his hand through Candice's hair. "Go ahead, my pet, you may speak."
"I was wrong to come to you, Santiago," Candice frowned. "Thankfully Master Ed was kind enough to take me back, and I'm sure he'd be happy to have you too, if you asked. We could be good kitties together!"
"No!" Santiago screamed. "I'll never put on your disgusting lingerie!"
"I'll make you a deal," Ed spoke up. "Surrender to me, and I'll let Candice go. Your mind for hers. Or... I keep Candice as my pet, and pull some strings for you. You'll have your own column, your own news show. You'll be able to do anything you want. All I ask is that you don't print that story."
Santiago looked into the empty eyes of a mindless Candice who was busy playing with the bell on her collar. Candice had trusted her to do the right thing. Santiago promised her that she would expose Victoria's Secret, and that this kind of thing would never happen to her again. But Santiago had only taken this story because she wanted her big break, and now she was being offered just that by Ed [ 29 ]. And Candice, she looked so happy.
"Okay," Santiago choked. "You can have her. No one will ever hear a word of this [ 30 ]."
"That's a good girl," Ed smiled [ 31 ].
[ 1 ]. This short was a kind of soft pilot to writing original characters, shifting the focus from Candice Swanepoel to reporter Santiago Cruz. It wasn't the most graceful transition. For example, it created this alternate universe in my series where Victoria's Secret is, inexplicably, a dominant political force responsible for the mass brainwashing of consumers. Obedience By Victoria would come up from time to time in my stories, but I mostly got around the absurdity of the plot by mentioning Victoria's Secret as little as possible after wrapping up Santiago's Story.
[ 2 ]. Consumers being targeted by mass brainwashing campaigns is an idea that I still find really compelling, partly because profit is the most logical motive for mind control, but also because there's just sort of this mundane evil to the whole scheme. Manipulating millions of consumers into submissive puppets to raise profit margins is very funny to me.
[ 3 ]. Yeah, again I don't really know anything about Victoria's Secret campaigns and have no idea where I came up with the number nine but I'm very surprised that Milwaukee was on the list.
[ 4 ]. Probably the worst example yet of telling the audience that there is mind control happening. These days I'd probably just be happy with Candice "spreading the product" (weird word choice too tbh)
[ 5 ]. I don't really understand the motivation to take the campaign away from Candice here, other than to create an inciting incident for the story.
[ 6 ]. From the mind controller's perspective, this just seems like a bad decision. How is Candice not supposed to blow the whistle here.
[ 7 ]. Ah man, I just hate interiority like this. I try really hard to not tell the reader what the character is thinking or feeling.
[ 8 ]. Subliminalbo cliche #3: mind control is nice, actually.
[ 9 ]. This is a stupid sentence.
[ 10 ]. Casually breezing over this harrowing experience right here in a single sentence.
[ 11 ]. Girl, same.
[ 12 ]. I am convinced that these are the four worst sentences that I've ever written in succession. I think it's meant to be understatement as a joke but it's just awful.
[ 13 ]. Classic subject-verb agreement error here. Fun fact, I was finishing up my first semester of freshman English when I wrote this.
[ 14 ]. So much to unpack in this one paragraph. First of all, it's like three paragraphs at minimum. But it's so weird that I didn't put any thought into what Obedience By Victoria is and how it works. Like, how is Walmart implementing mind controlling bras? How did McDonalds put inside fucking burgers? In future versions I think I made sure to note that all of these other companies were exploring their own research, but here I mostly just wanted to stress the sheer number of people who had been mind controlled since the last chapter and I didn't really care how.
[ 15 ]. Girl, same.
[ 16 ]. "Victoria's Secret's HR department" would have been less clunky language.
[ 17 ]. Why would she even try to handle it within the company? Like, what did she expect would happen here?
[ 18 ]. Hell of a way to introduce a new character. Literally just me explaining her archetype to the reader. I could have just pasted a TV Tropes page here.
[ 19 ]. In later versions of this story I focus a bit more on what Santiago actually does. In this first draft I saw her as a Buzzfeed journalist but later have her writing for Trespass, which is an ersatz Vice. Both have struggled in recent years, but Buzzfeed was such an easy target that I felt like Vice was more interesting to criticize. Anyway, I never actually say where Santiago works in this version because everything is surface level.
[ 20 ]. Subliminalbo cliche #4: the paranoid reporter who seeks out trouble because they suspect that mind control is everywhere.
[ 21 ]. I think this concept works better as a straight conspiracy thriller about corporate brainwashing but it's always about sex. What's funny is that I'm too young here to write confidently about sex so I just have the characters mention sex and that's the smut.
[ 22 ]. Don't like the word choice here. You don't "interject" when listening to a person talk about their trauma lol
[ 23 ]. It's nice to get a little bit of Candice's struggle after taking off the lingerie, but it's still really surface level stuff here. 2013 Bo is very committed to telling instead of showing.
[ 24 ]. Eh, this paragraph is fine I guess. I just want to call out how quickly I accelerate out of the scene. We get a brief stretch of dialogue between the two and then a quick summary of everything else they said. It really feels like I'm just trying to get to the end of this story. I'm also not really sure why I went out of the way to mention Santiago's editor, just weirdly superfluous information here.
[ 25 ]. There are like eight sentences inside this sentence.
[ 26 ]. The story follows the manip again.
[ 27 ]. Though I don't name him explicitly here, Ed is based on former Victoria's Secret Chief Marketing Officer Ed Razek who was something of a minor celebrity in the model blogging space as the creator of the Victoria's Secret Angels. In 2019 Razek stepped down from his position at the company following misogynist and transphobic comments, as well as allegations of creating a culture of harassment within the company. So uh...I hate this story.
[ 28 ]. I kind of hate the way my characters talk to each other in these early stories.
[ 29 ]. She jumps straight to the rationalization, holy shit.
[ 30 ]. I originally envisioned this story as Candice trapped between two powerful wills, but it's pretty shocking how quickly Santiago folds to Ed. Later revisions have focused a ton on expanding this scene and showing that Santiago ultimately has no choice, but I don't really feel like she's in a corner here.
[ 31 ]. The verdict: my worst story yet. Under baked and ludicrously rushed, you can just sort of tell that I'm writing this as a quick caption to a manip. There are tons of unfortunate real world implications too with all of the Ed Razek stuff that went down at Victoria's Secret, it makes for an icky story that I'm really not proud of writing, but it is important because it marks my transition to original characters. Of all my stories, this is the one I've come back to the most to rewrite, and I've finally gotten to a place where I'm fine with it. If you've read all of this I recommend checking that version out because it really has changed a lot (though a quick glance through it and I'm already finding things I hate about it).
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the-masked-ram · 11 months
Text
Root of Humanity- Commission Gowther x Fem Reader
A/N: This is a Gowther x fem reader fic I wrote for @mastershybeastyx they were wonderfully patient as I got used to my commission and GW load and their commission took me quite a bit longer than anticipated! But it was quite fun to work on! CW: NSFW, breeding, getting interrupted ALOT, sexual tension, blow job, fem reader, cat hybrid reader, nicknames (referring to cats), heats, unsafe sex, fingering, cunnilingus, mentions of blood ---
                                          It all started with a rumbling nearby, something that made you certain that an earthquake or maybe some giants were on the way. Yet, it stopped nearly as soon as it started. You paused in your trek through town, hoping to head to the small shop to buy some salve for the abrasions on your face. Glancing over your shoulder you were uncertain if anything was going to appear over the horizon. Nothing did, and so with a frown of uncertainty, you continued about your day.
              You didn’t learn until later that the Sins were in town. Meliodas and Elizabeth were who you met first, unsurprising since Meliodas was loud enough to draw endless attention to him and Elizabeth was tall and gorgeous. When Ban joined them, it was impossible to not stare. So, obviously you got caught in the act, and of course the sharp eyes of Ban noticed your slightly small differences, even though your ears and tails were carefully hidden under your cloak.
              You withdrew as much as possible from his attention, you wanted to be invisible, this was a safe town. The people here didn’t necessarily like you, but they didn’t attack you like so many others. They didn’t drive you from their presence with sneers and raised weapons. You were treated like a demon, when honestly you were just cursed, or gifted depending on how you looked at things.               “Looks like we got a friend here, hm?” he chuckled, throwing long arm over your shoulder and drawing you against his side.
              You winced and squirmed against his tight hold, trying to pull away, “H-hey! Is this a normal thing you do? Drag strangers around?”               He grinned brightly, and he sported the blush of alcohol about his cheek bones, “I do when they look like they might fit in with us, huh, kitty cat?”               You narrowed your eyes in annoyance and wariness, “I don’t know what you mean.”               Meliodas joined in next, his bright personality easily rounding out Ban’s sharp edges, “Don’t worry! We won’t hurt you.”               It was so simple to accept, because the way he said it, he meant it with every fiber of his being.               “Looks like someone has already though,” Ban hummed thoughtfully, and Elzabeth frowned down at the scrapes on your face.               “We can help with that back at the Boar Hat,” she said, her soft voice far more welcoming than even Meliodas’s. “Ban please give her some space.”               Ban pursed his lips but listened to the lithe woman with a grudging sigh. You happily extracted himself from under his arm and bounced farther away, still eying them with hesitancy. You weren’t someone who usually just went with people when they invited you somewhere, but then again you couldn’t remember when you were last invited anywhere by anyone.              
              “Look we will be around for a week or so, and will be set up over that hill,” Meliodas said pointing vaguely in the direction from where the shaking had come from earlier. “The Boar Hat has some of the best drinks and food around I can guarantee. And service of course. Come check us out.”               It was like a welcoming sales pitch, something bright and cheery that hid all the strength and danger you’d heard about this man. But still you nodded stiltedly, uncertain if you’d follow through. Though just the consideration seemed to placate the three of them. They wandered off with Meliodas seeming to be looking for something specific and Ban talking about supplies for the kitchen.               You slipped further into town down a smaller side street where the shop you were looking for sat, a cheery open sign welcoming its patrons. You walked in cautiously, hesitating for a moment with your hand cupping your bicep in anxiety.               “Welcome!”               The shopkeeper wandered out from the back of the store a second later and smiled, though it was hesitant when she saw your face.               “Hi, I was just wondering if you had some healing salve?” you asked.               “Sorry, we are all out, won’t have any in until the shipment next week,” she responded.               Your hands rubbed against themselves, worried about the slice along your cheek the most. Then the friendly hand Elizabeth had extended to you, promising to help your wounds, flashed through your memory and with a sigh you thanked the shopkeeper and slowly made your way to the hill. It was a long walk, one filled with people making their way through their morning routines. But you didn’t stop to try and say hello to anyone, your gaze stayed focused on the strange building slowly coming into view.
              None of the three you had met in town were at the Boar Hat when you arrived. Instead, a giant stood in the way, eying you with suspicion which looked extremely out of place on her soft face. Diane, you assumed since you had heard of her exploits.               “Hello!” you called, your fingers once again twisting into a knot as you tried to keep yourself calm. “Elizabeth said I could come here to get treatment for my wounds? They don’t have any of the usual salve in town.”               You smiled sheepishly and you hoped it gave off a friendly air. Whether it did or not you weren’t sure since Diane’s facial expression only grew harsher.               “Hey Diane! What’s going on?” a young man’s voice asked, except it belonged to a boy.
              Or perhaps this was King, so he was a fairy, and yes, he was young but far from a boy. He floated out of the Boar Hat to sit beside Diane on the edge of the slanted roof of the pub.               “This person says Elizabeth told her to come here,” the giant responded with a puffed pout to her cheeks.               King’s eyes tracked your face, hidden in the shadows of your hood though it was you still felt completely exposed. He pursed his lip, floating down on his giant green pillow and hopped down to take a step closer to you. What was with these people invading your space? You tried to shrink in on yourself, no matter how impossible it was.               “It does seem like something Elizabeth would do, well we aren’t open yet but feel free to wait here until the rest get back,” he said with a yawn.               “We-ell, if King thinks it’s ok,” Diane muttered thoughtfully, curling one of her pigtails around her fingers. “Come on in!”               Suddenly her defensiveness from before melted away into a welcoming grin and you just stared up at her dumbstruck. This entire day was just a bit odd, but you nodded meekly anyway and followed the fairy inside, stopping only for a moment to look back at the giant who stayed outside.               “Don’t worry, we’ll see each other again soon enough!” she giggled and waved.               You stepped hesitantly over the threshold to where King sleepily curled up on his pillow without a care, obviously unconcerned about your presence. Your gaze skipped around the room to land on a young man reading a book. He paused long enough to look up at you and tilted his head curiously. His pink hair and soft features made him almost feminine, and for a moment you questioned whether he actually was a woman.               “Oh? Who are you? I am Gowther, the Goat Sin of Lust,” he said, standing to strike some sort of pose that had you raising your brow before you broke out into a laugh. “What’s funny?”               He looked totally lost as his hand dropped and he studied you, your hood finally falling to expose your features as you tried to catch your breath. His gaze lingered on your ears, the way they twitched with each giggle. Immediately realizing you were exposed and under scrutiny, you drew your hood back over your head.
              “Why are you hiding yourself?” he asked.               And all you could do was shake your head at how accepting and warm, though also odd, he was being after he saw your feline features. It had just been like when Ban noticed you. He didn’t even blink or twist his face in disgust, no instead he seemed drawn to you, curious about your appearance.               “M-most people don’t like how I look,” you said in a lame attempt to answer his question.               “People don’t understand anything different from them. But unlike me they don’t want to understand it either, instead they are just happy hating it. I don’t think there is any reason to hate how you look,” Gowther said, his voice steady and eyes never once leaving yours.
              You blinked at him, surprised at his answer and felt a smile creep across your lips. He frowned as he walked to you as touched your face. You flinched away, surprised more than anything else.               “You are injured,” he muttered.               “Ah, that’s why I’m here, Elizabeth said there was salve here. There was none in town,” your glance shot to the side shamefully.               He turned to the kitchen and walked out of sight for a moment before he began to riffle through a drawer, offering no explanation in the process. You stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. Nervousness making you unable to sit and instead you tapped your clawed fingers against your thighs in hopes to relieve some of your tension.
              Gowther reappeared a moment later, holding a small jar in his hands and turned to you with a tilt to his chin. He seemed confused as to why you were still standing.                             “Sit down, I will apply the salve,” he said, once again his voice seemed to have an awkward robotic quality to it, no real inflections.               Yet even though he spoke in monotone and his face stayed expressionless he cradled your face gently when you sat in front of him. He brushed your hood back down, and though you stiffened, he merely focused on the abrasions on your skin.
              His fingers were gentle, unbelievably so for someone who seemed so out of touch with his emotions, and his skin soft. Your eyes fluttered close even though you usually wouldn’t let your guard down in another’s presence, but it felt so good to have his cool fingertips spread the past over your wounds. You winced as he caught the edge of one that was particularly sensitive, and he hummed in surprise.               “Sorry,” he muttered though to be honest he didn’t sound all that apologetic.
              You laughed at the total lack of empathy in his words and opened your eyes, your ears falling to the sides as you shot him a soft affectionate smile. He looked at you in confusion even as he continued his job of covering your injuries in the salve.               “You laugh a lot,” he said.               “Actually, I don’t usually,” you murmured, the smile still curving your lips. “Apparently just around you.”               He frowned slightly but seemed to accept my answer. Finally, his fingers pulled away from your face, and then he nodded slowly.               “There, that should be good,” his words were calm.               Just as he was drawing back Meliodas, Ban, and Elizabeth burst through the door. They were chattering lively with the two men holding bags of groceries. A pig came trotting down the stairs and froze when it saw you. You too stiffened at the added noise all of a sudden.               “Oh! I’m so glad you decided to join us!” Elizabeth said, immediately skipping to your side. “It looks like Gowther took care of your face. I’m glad.”               Her smile was welcoming, both wide and gentle, a mix you’d never seen on anyone else before. It made you feel safe despite the fact you barely knew the girl. You grinned back weakly; hopeful you were able to convey your appreciation.               “Ah, hi there, kitty cat,” Ban said, his smirk wide and eyes narrowed. “Will you be joining us for dinner?”               You glanced at everyone else, uncertain before Gowther said, “Apparently Ban’s food is good. You should eat with us.”               “I don’t know how I would repay you though. I don’t have a lot of money,” you squirmed as you revealed such sensitive information about yourself.
              “You could always help waitressing!” Meliodas said brightly.               You blinked and nodded meekly, casting your gaze down to the floor, “Sure.” ---               You didn’t realize back then saying yes to dinner and helping out in the bar for the night would lead to staying with the Seven Deadly Sins. You began to travel with them, becoming a welcome addition to their group. Even Diane and King had opened up to you and you had learned that the pig wasn’t just an ordinary pig but a talking one named Hawk.
              You had yet to meet Merlin or Escanor, but you had only been with them for a month. You had taken to your waitressing job well, enjoying having a task to do and a schedule and people that you dared to call friends. Or at least allies. Lately at night you had found Gowther outside and slowly your relationship began to grow with the strange man. And it was becoming perhaps the most important relationship you would find among the strange members of the group.
              It started last week; you were unable to sleep due to the unbearable heat of the night and so you found yourself wandering outside in hopes of finding cool air. You didn’t find that relief, but you did find Gowther, with his slim legs dangling over the edge of the Boar Hat’s balcony. He was completely engrossed by the book in front of him, and you were equally distracted by the softened edges of his face. For once he didn’t look completely emotionless, for once he looked relaxed. You hesitated to interrupt him.              
              “Are you going to join me?” he asked, not once lifting his eyes from the pages in front him, in fact he turned one.               “Oh!” you squeaked in surprise. “I didn’t realize you knew I was here. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”               “You aren’t,” he said bluntly, putting the book down on his lap and glancing loosely over his shoulder at you. “Would you like to know what I am reading?”               It wasn’t necessarily that you wanted to know what he was reading, but you wanted to know more about him. Ever since the first time you met him and he took care of the injuries on your face, treating you as if you were made of glass, you’d found your eyes wandering to him more and more. You wanted to know what happened beneath his blank mask. Being privy to his moment of happiness just a second ago felt both wrong and special.               Finally, you nodded, taking a seat beside him and letting the humid air of the night tickle your bare feet, “Yeah.”               Quietly, Gowther began to explain what he was reading and how much he had read, and then when you finally understood where he was in the book, he picked it up again, only to begin reading aloud. You felt warmth, a comfortable kind, curl about your chest as you listened to his calming voice tell you of a story of knights and kingdoms. It was something fantastical that you didn’t expect the Sin to read, but the fact that he was reading it just showed how multifaceted he was.
              He managed to spin a colorful tale from the book even though his voice never once lifted from its monotone expression. It was almost hypnotic, pressing images into your brain that much easier. You closed your eyes, leaning back against your palms as you relaxed into his words and let the world he spoke of cradle you, until finally unconsciousness took its hold.
              You didn’t wake until the next morning, realizing you were back in bed and uncertain if the moment the night before had even happened. You glanced to the side where Elizabeth usually was sprawled out in the other bed but there was no one, however sitting on the nightstand was the book from last night that Gowther had been reading from. Did he finish it after you’d fallen asleep?
              There was a strange pit that grew in your stomach, growing from a seed of frustration that you’d let yourself drift off to unconsciousness and missed the end. Now all you wanted was to listen to him finish the story. You stroked the spine of the book pensively and stood to stretch and prepare for the day.               “Oh? Look who’s late to the rise. Almost giving King a run for his money,” Ban taunted from behind the counter when you made your way down the stairs.               The air smelled like breakfast, cooking ham and eggs mixed with the sweetness of some sort of fresh fruit. You licked your lips, rubbing a hand over your eagerly growling stomach. He smirked at you as he looked at you from around the corner and nodded to the pan in his hand.               “Want some breakfast?” he asked as he flipped whatever mix of foods were in the eggs.               “Please,” you murmured, your soft voice barely carrying in the room.
              Your eyes slid throughout the pub, taking in Meliodas in one corner who seemed to be watching Elizabeth sweep the dust on the floors. Gowther was sitting at a table with a different book this time, propped in his hands. Diane in her small form was eating with Hawk while King still slept on his Chastiefol.
              Gowther was the first to glance up after Ban, at the sound of your voice. His dull gaze took in your presence and then he smiled softly, the expression was gentle and comforting. Just like the presence he had become in your life. Diane and Elizabeth both were eager to greet you.               “Good morning!” Elizabeth said cheerfully and Diane nodded in agreement, her mouth full of food.               “Did you sleep well?” Meliodas asked. “You usually don’t sleep in.”               “It was a little warm last night,” you offered as an explanation, your eyes wandering once again over to Gowther who was smirking down at his book.               It’s like the night you two had shared was a secret. Something special you felt encouraged the friendship between you and the strange man.
              The day slipped by normally, spending the day joking, smacking Meliodas when he got too fresh with Elizabeth, and trying to stop Ban from drinking too much. When the pub opened for a nearby town you went to work filling out orders and carrying meals to tables. But you noticed a slow ache was encroaching in your limbs, something that wasn’t going away, and you couldn’t place what it was from. Maybe from all the extra and consistent work?
              Your tail curled around your thigh as contractions rippled through your abdomen and you nearly cried out. But instead, you pushed through it to serve the last customer you had filled out an order for and then excused yourself. Your stomach was aching, and you felt unbearably hot. Your body was nearly dripping in sweat.
              You found yourself wandering outside to the edge of the Boar Hat’s porch for relief once again, the warmth of the summer night offering little more than a small breeze to cool you. You shivered as you wrapped your arms around yourself, even though you felt on fire it was like any cold felt thousands of degrees lower than it should be.                             “Are you well?” a familiar voice called from behind you.               You looked over your shoulder to see Gowther and you smiled softly, your tail relaxing as your body calmed in his presence.               You nodded, “Yeah, I think so. Just might be getting sick.”               His head tilted curiously, “Why do you think that?”               “Achy, feverish, you know the typical stuff,” you said with a flippant wave of your hand.               “No, I don’t know. But I would like to,” he said, taking a seat on worn wood.               “Why would you want to know about illness?” you asked with a laugh.               “I’ve never been sick, it’s a new experience, and I would like to know more about you,” he responded like it was the most obvious answer in the world.               Though you knew he likely meant nothing by it, you had grown attached to the Goat Sin and your cheeks warmed at his words. Your stomach fluttered and you swallowed nervously, trying to find a reason to continue the conversation because now you were certain things were getting awkward with your silence.               “Did you finish that book you were reading the other night? The one you read to me?” you asked.               He smiled, it was a millimeter of a difference from his usual expression, but it was still existent, “No I did not. I will once you are done.”               He’d given it to you to finish reading on your own. Your ears flicked excitedly at the thought that this was your opening. You wanted to know Gowther better too.               “Perhaps you’d like to read the rest together again?” you offered, hopefully.               He nodded, “I would like that. Do you have to go back inside, or would you like to start now?”               You blinked in surprise but shook your head, “I am done. And I’d love to.”               There was an odd emotion that flashed across his face then, something you’d never seen the man express. Almost as if he was relieved while he dashed away to go grab the book. You settled more comfortably against the porch, resting against one of the pillars providing support. Trying to ignore the way you shivered.
              The next thing you knew you heard footsteps across the creaking wood and felt something warm draped over your shoulders.               “You looked cold,” Gowther said.
              You looked down and saw a blanket that you eagerly wrapped tighter around yourself. Just as you were curling up and preparing to enjoy his soothing voice, an ache rippled through your gut and an insistent warmth settled between your thighs. You could feel slick pooling in your underwear, and you let out a small moan. You needed to be filled, you needed something deep inside you, you shot Gowther a heated look where he was flipping through the book and muttering.               “Gowther,” you sighed.               “Yes?” he asked, looking up.               You watched his expression, saw the minute changes and the way his cheeks flushed slightly, uncharacteristically. Gowther licked his lips, swallowing hard enough you could hear it, and he gently placed the book down as he gave you his full attention. The force of his stare was enough to have your tail prickling and skin tingling. You needed him, he could help, you wanted him to help most of all. Your instincts took ahold with vicious talons and twisted you under their control.                             “I need you,” you gasped, your breath leaving you as you admitted the very fact that had been growing in your heart since you’d met the Sin.    ��          “Need me? Need my help?” he asked.               “I’m going into heat I-I think,” you stuttered over the words, hesitant and shy, glancing down at the ground as your lust mixed toxically with your embarrassment.               He frowned, “What can I do?”               You knew he understood what it meant; he had read enough books to know what that word meant. But you weren’t certain he understood the implications of you asking for his help. Though you no longer cared either, you needed him and only him, and as a painful twisting sensation rippled through your gut one more time, your ability to think rationally was becoming harder and harder to achieve.               “Fuck me,” you groaned, collapsing toward the ground only to feel lithe arms surround you and hold you up.                             He inhaled sharply, a sound you didn’t think was possible from him. Gowther sounded surprised, taken aback, and when you looked up through heat clouded eyes at him, a definite flush of arousal had darkened his cheekbones. It wasn’t much, but it was more than you’d ever seen on him, his desires for you were very human in that moment as his lips dropped to yours instantaneously.
              The kiss was sloppy, he guided you and it seemed as if you were both inexperienced, but it didn’t matter. His lips, his taste, were like cool water slipping down your overheated throat. You breathed his oxygen, and he swallowed your moans, his tongue licked into your mouth teasingly and your entire body shuddered in his firm grip.
              Some dim part of you was aware you were outside, that there were patrons cheering and talking loudly in the Boar’s Hat, and yet you couldn’t care less. Gowther tasted like fresh strawberries and mint over ice water. It was perfection and your nails curled so tightly in his shirt that their sharp edges pierced the cloth.
              He heard the rip and broke off from your mouth, looking down at the damage with a lightly quirked brow. You panted and your fingers curled tighter, tearing longer gashes into his shirt as your tail wrapped around his waist.               “Please,” you breathed against his skin, your lips just hovering above his collarbone.               He let out a choked back groan, a sound neither of you expected and he seemed just as surprised as you. His fingers gripped the back of your neck, while his other hand wrapped around your hips held the flesh tightly on one side to keep you still. He dove back down to claim your mouth again and again, altering angles as if he couldn’t find one that could let him indulge deep enough.
              The touch on your neck left to trail down to cup the side of your breast, thumbing the bead of your nipple. You arced closer to the touch, trying to encourage it to increase, to press harder. Your nails dug deeper into his clothes until finally they pricked at his pale flesh and his breath hissed tightly against your lips. He pulled back long enough to nip your lips and suck on your tongue. You trembled in his hungry grasp, and he plunged demandingly back into your mouth over and over until you were nothing but a limp puddle in his hands.
              Then the creak of the door behind you alerted the two of you to someone approaching. There was a gasp and a squeak, and you spun around to see King hiding his face and a blush that rivaled the heat you could feel on your own expression, rising up from his chest and running all the way to his forehead.               “Oh god, I’m so sorry,” he babbled, followed by several more mumbled apologies as he zoomed back into the pub.               You looked back Gowther with surprise written on your face, you desire which had been at a full bonfire just a minute earlier was now a quiet smolder. Slowly it faded further until you questioned if it was ever really there. You hesitated before your eyes drifted down to the tattered shirt decorating his torso and blinked in surprise.               “Oh… um… I need to go back,” you managed to gasp out before rushing inside yourself, hoping that your nervous twitches wouldn’t be noticed.               You glanced back over your shoulder just before the door closed and saw Gowther press a finger to his lips and a look of wonder cross his face. A look you’d seen him make when he was trying to understand something.              
              The next few days you avoided Gowther as much as possible, unsure how to bring up the situation in a conversation or wondering if you were supposed to bring it up at all. Instead, you opted to ignore the problem and it was easy enough since the Goat Sin seemed to be away visiting Merlin.
              The heat you thought had been coming on seemed to have calmed down and you were unsure it had even happened. If it hadn’t been for the vivid memories still playing in your head, the knowledge that you had his skin under your claws for just a minute and his tongue in your mouth for quite a few, you would have been able to brush it all off as a dream. It was hard to breathe sometimes when you recalled his touch on you and then you could almost feel the phantom of the heat simmering low in your gut once again.
              You were busy wiping down the tables when Gowther walked back in and just his scent, the smell of strawberry candy and freshly cleaned sheets, was enough to cause your tail to curl up behind you and bristle. You scrubbed a little harder at a stubborn stain on the grain, only to realize it was a mark that had soaked into the wood directly and wasn’t about to come up. You swallowed, keeping your head down as you went to wash another table in hopes he wouldn’t notice you.               “Good afternoon,” Gowther said with a gentle call of your name.               You froze under his gaze as you turned and looked slightly at him. Your eyes were dropped toward the side, refusing to meet his directly. You could feel the bottom of your stomach warm, and your cheeks twitched into a hesitant smile.               “Hi,” you offered shyly.               No one else was downstairs currently, and you knew from the way your body was reacting you were already flirting with a dangerous situation. Still once you looked at him fully you couldn’t turn away from him.               “Gowther we need to talk later,” you said.               He stares at you, seeming not to be aware of what you mean. He didn’t seem to understand why nor how serious it was. But with that confused and blank face he nodded innocently, completely unaware of how your stomach squirmed for him nor how the heat slowly collected between your thighs.                             “Tonight?” he asked.               You knew he meant at your usual place on the rim of the roof, where you would read books together and you’d fall asleep to the sound of his soft voice. You nodded and turned away from him, wrapping your tail tight around your waist in hopes of giving yourself some sort of comfort. He made a small sound of curiosity before you heard him walk up the staircase to the rooms that only seemed to somehow be slowly growing.
              The pub was unusually quiet that day with the Sins having their own things to do and traveling seeming to be on everyone’s minds. The rocking of Mama Hawk kept your thoughts stable as you focused on keeping your balance while working on organizing the kitchen. Before you knew it, evening was falling, and dinner was being served by a whistling Ban. However, your stomach turned away from the thought of eating and you pushed your plate far away from yourself in hopes that the smell would dissipate.
              Your heat was coming back with Gowther’s scent so close by, lingering in the rooms, and your desire to feed yourself was waning. Instead, you wanted nothing more than to be stuffed full of his cock. You squirmed on a chair as Ban and Elizabeth, both sent you curious looks while King resolutely ignored your distress and instead focused on Diane, even though his ears were pinking and you were certain it wasn’t because of the discussion about the fight that happened in the last town.
              Your ears flattened against your skull and tail curled around the leg of the chair as you felt your abdomen contract in desperation when Gowther practically floated down the stairs and walked lightly behind you until he perched on the chair just a table beyond. You ached so desperately for him, and you knew he had no idea what his mere presence was doing to you.               “You okay, little cat?” Ban’s deep voice asked, and you looked up at him with wide eyes.               “Yeah, stomach is just a bit off tonight,” you murmur apologetically, one of your ears flicking nervously.
              Elizabeth immediately jumped onto the possibility that you might be getting sick. Her eyes turned to Ban, widening even more and she pouted.
              “Do you think you can make some soup for her?” she asks.
              You shake your head, “I don’t need that Elizabeth, I just need a break for tonight. Some rest.”
              “If you’re sure,” she mumbles and looks at you in concern.
              “I think I’m going to go up to bed, actually,” you say with a gentle bow of your head.
              The others sent you a cheery good night, but Elizabeth looked worried, and Ban looked almost suspicious when his eyes landed on your flushed cheeks. You could feel the weight of Gowther’s stare following you to the steps and you breathed a sigh of relief when you finally closed the door to your room behind your back.
              You sank down against the cool wood, letting it soothe your growing fever from your increasing heat symptoms. Immediately your fingers dove down into your pants to reduce the ache between your thighs. Your body seized under the touch of your pads and your legs fell open for easier access.
              Slowly you collected your own slick and worked it over your swollen flesh, sighing slightly at the calming sensation that took over your eager libido. It was like soothing water trickled down your nerves, even as you twitched every time you flicked over your needy little clit. The memory of those amber eyes that were usually so curious but lacking emotion, and instead shifted with heat and excitement in your mind. The way they had when he kissed you, when the flames of passion had been licking at his skin just like yours.
              Your sighs turned to choked off moans as you grew closer to your peak. The Gowther in your mind’s eye kissed down your body until his lips hovered over where you touched yourself. It’s as if he were waiting for you to tell him what to do.
              What do you need?  His eyes asked. But you couldn’t tell him, if you spoke, they’d find out.
              The sound of footsteps were coming up the stairs so you grew quieter even though your fingers moved faster. It was likely just someone else going to their room anyway, they wouldn’t bother you. That’s what you told yourself while you continued to rush towards the edge.
              Then through your ecstatic state, you heard a knock at the door, soft and familiar. You knew what was coming next, he never waited for you to say it was ok for him to come in. Instead… the door opened, and you fell backward with it. Within seconds you were scrambling up, your hand having retreated from your pants.
              You blinked at Gowther with wide eyes and flattened, embarrassed ears. He returned the look only instead of shame he merely seemed confused. Then his amber gaze drifted down to where your fingers still shone with your slick and you saw him swallow hard.
              He walked into the room, closing the door behind him and he knelt down before you, “Did you still need my help?”
              He asked it so innocently even though it sent your insides aflame. You nodded silently, your eyes darting to the side in hopes of avoiding the disappointment you expected to see in his. But instead, he caught your chin and kissed the breath from you within seconds, with deep plunging swirls of his tongue and greedy pulls of his lips.
              He grabbed your dirtied hand and brought it to his lips, staring at it curiously until his nostrils flared and he inhaled eagerly.  The pink of his tongue darted out as Gowther licked you slowly, from one knuckle to the next. Cleaning you thoroughly as if the flavor of your arousal was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted.
              The throbbing in your cunt that had finally relaxed seemed to come back full force and you whimpered under his attentions. Gowther pushed closer to you, tilting your chin up as he leaned over you and kissed your lips. The press of his lips turned demanding soon enough, so much so that you could taste yourself swirling on his tongue.
              Then the door, which was still unlocked, burst open to reveal Ban holding a steaming bowl of what your addled brain provided as soup once you and Gowther nearly leaped apart. Ban stood there silently for a moment before a sly and sharp smile crept across his face.
              “Sorry for interruptin’,” he muttered and with that he turned around and the door shut firmly behind him.
              You looked at Gowther with wide eyes, taking in the slight flush of arousal on his cheeks and the barely controlled lust burning in his amber gaze. It was so rare to see him like this, so emotional. Your hand touched his cheek, stroking across the pink staining his skin before he cleared his throat, seeming uncomfortable with his own state.
              “I’m sorry. We will talk later tonight still, right? I will make sure to have myself more under control by then,” he stood and without even giving you a chance to grab a hold of your confused tongue and ask him to stay, he left out the door.
              You sat on the floor for several minutes, your body still burning from his touch. You could still feel the ghost of his lips and tongue gliding across yours and the way he hovered over you perfuming the air with his scent. With a sigh you moved to the door and opened it once to look down the hall, only to see the still warm soup sitting on the floor off to the side of the entrance.
              With a smile of appreciation, you scooped up the food and made it back into your bedroom. You managed to eat some before taking a small nap despite how uncomfortable your pussy had become again. It wasn’t until the stars were glittering in the ebony of the night sky that you woke again. It was some time until you realized you needed to go talk to Gowther.
              While you slept Gowther made his way downstairs after gathering his composure. For some reason that face you made when you said you needed him made him crave you just as bad. More so than he had ever wanted anyone before. Even Nadja.
              However, there were certain things that reminded him of Nadja when it came to your actions. Your kindness and gentle nature, your intense generosity when it came to the Sins and anyone you were comfortable with. But he didn’t see you necessarily as a replacement for her. No, he wanted you more than he’d ever even thought of her.
              He had known you very little but the time you spent alone together had become strangely irreplaceable to him. He wondered if this was what people called love. Or was it something more? His feelings toward you were growing stronger even if he couldn’t quite understand them.
              Gowther was so lost in his own thoughts of trying to sort out his own emotions that he didn’t notice Ban’s arm appear from the bottom of the stairs to snatch him in its grip. He immediately looked up in surprise to see the sly smirk the taller man sent him.
              “So, you and our little kitty cat?” Ban asked, innuendo dripped from his words, but Gowther couldn’t grasp what he was implying.
              “What do you mean?” he responded.
              The Fox Sin sighed in irritation, but King seemed to zero in on their conversation.
              “Did you walk in on them too?!” he cried, his face flushing red at the memories that were likely playing in his head. “God you guys need to learn how to lock doors.”
              Gowther looked up and Ban laughed boisterously, “They’ve done this before? Ooh I didn’t think you were such a dog!”               He grinned like the predator he was named after at the man caught in his grip. The other sins were all leaning in on the conversation now.
              “What happened?” Meliodias piped up, obviously sensing the perversion dripping in the air.
              “Saw Gowther here mackin’ on our little cat upstairs. Looked about ready to dive between her legs any second,” Ban chuckled.
              “Oh! Ban gross!” Diane admonished. “Couldn’t you be a little less crude?!”
              “If the situation called for it,” he responded with a lax shrug.
              Gowther was completely lost, and he currently wished he could understand what was going on. The itching of his fingers and the desire to use his powers came to him strongly but instead he glanced to the door where he could escape to the outside. He knew his friends didn’t like it when he read their minds.
              “So-o?” Meliodas practically sang.
              Gowther turned his attention to his captain, “So?”               The parroting of the word seemed to make his confusion more obvious than his expression or lack thereof had. Ban sighed again, and Diane shook her head.
              “Do you like her?” Meliodas asked.
              “Like?” Gowther copied again, tilting his head and considering the word.
              “The way I like Elizabeth,” Meliodas motioned to the princess, and she flushed before twitching on the spot.
              “Meliodas,” she softly reprimanded.
              He grinned at her before stroking down her thigh and causing her spine to straighten. Diane reached across to smack the back of her Captain’s head. Things were getting out of hand and Gowther still didn’t understand what was being discussed. Was it love? Affection? Lust?
              Did he feel all of those things for you? He wasn’t sure, it was hard to understand his own emotions. Lust seemed most likely to be what he was feeling.
              “You mean lust?” he said bluntly.               Diane nearly had a fit, “That’s not all there is it to it! Is that all you feel for her?”
              “Hm, I do not quite know what it is I feel for her,” Gowther admitted. “I want to touch her and kiss her. But… there is more?”
              He tilted his head in his usual confused way. The others looked at each other, exchanging expressions that were sympathetic for the Goat Sin. He may not have known how he felt but the others had a good idea, though they weren’t quite sure how deep his feelings went.
              “Perhaps you need to take her on a date?” Elizabeth offered.
              “No, he needs to show he’s interested before asking that,” King said shaking his head.
              “How about flowers?” Diane asked. “All girls love flowers.”
              Gowther looked at them with a raised brow. For once he couldn’t keep up. All this talk of dates and gifts, loving someone or not, he barely knew what was going on inside himself let alone trying to figure out whether he wanted, what was it people called it? A relationship?
              He just shook his head and walked past the other sins toward the door outside. This was a discussion for him to have with you, not with anyone else. That’s what others did right? That’s what felt right at least.
              “I need to think but mostly I need to talk to her about it. It involves us, not you,” for once his voice was firm and he let the door close shut tightly, cutting off the suffocating atmosphere from inside.
              The night air enveloped him in a mixture of cool and humidity, the scent of an oncoming storm rode the light breeze, and he wondered if it would break the slightly hotter daytime temperatures they were getting. Pulling a book from the pocket of his jacket, Gowther leapt up onto the balcony of the Boar’s Hat upper level and he rested against the outer wall as he began to read.
              You wandered down the stairs with a yawn stretching your jaw and your hand swiping across your teary eyes. The nap had felt good, and your heat symptoms were currently at a gentle simmer, something calm enough you could ignore them for now. You wondered if that was because you couldn’t smell Gowther in the immediate vicinity.
              Once you could focus your bleary eyes, you glanced around the lower levels, where most of the team sat scattered around barely functional due to what looked like some sort of drinking game. They were louder than usual and even Elizabeth seemed to have lost her usual decorum to some extent. You couldn’t see the shock of magenta hair anywhere and guessed he must already be waiting on the lip of the roof for you.
              You slowly began to creep toward the door in hopes you wouldn’t draw attention to yourself. Mostly you wanted to avoid any awkwardness that might crop up from earlier. However, that was not to be since Ban immediately zeroed in on your presence and wolf whistled as he saw you tip toeing to where he knew the goat sin had run off too.
              “Go get it!” he yelled far louder than was necessary and you felt embarrassment sink deep into your bones.
              The night was calm and soothing, but when your nose twitched, and you inhaled, you could smell a storm on the horizon with a touch of staticky ozone lingering in the air. It promised to be a big one. For now, though, you were safe, and could enjoy the gentle breeze brushing across your skin and reducing the constant fever you seemed to be running lately.
              You grabbed the lip of the roof only to feel a cool and soft hand grab the back of your wrist and hoist you up. You stared at Gowther in surprise to see him sitting there, with an open book spread beside him, seeming to be waiting for you.
              “Y’know, I knew you’d be here but… I can’t seem to get used to you anymore,” you admitted softly.
              He frowned and you thought you saw a tiny flash of hurt in his expression, “What do you mean?”
              “I don’t mean it like that,” you say softly, shaking your head, hopeful to relax him. “I meant that I’m so aware of you now. And only you. My body needs you; I need you. I want you and only you. But… I’m not sure if it’s just because of my hormones or not.”               You looked down at the wood you knelt on and clenched your hands on your knees.               “I will help you; I want to help you. More than anyone I’ve ever known; I want to know you. Understand you,” he hesitated and for the first time since you’d met Gowther he looked uncertain. “I’m not sure that makes sense.”               “It does for you,” you laughed shakily, a sound that relaxed some of the tension that had been rising.               “We can do this without any deeper meaning until your… heat?... passes,” he promised.               Something twinged in your chest, unhappy with that result, but you also knew it was the most logical choice. You nodded and smiled at him, he brushed a thumb against your cheek, and you looked at his delicate features with affection. Your ears flicked and his fingers moved up to touch the soft fur gently.
              Your eyes closed and a soft purr rolled up your throat. You heard a soft huff and cracked open one of your eyes and saw that Gowther had a gentle smile on his face, it was small just like all his expressions, but it looked like he was about to laugh. You leaned into his petting for a moment, until you felt the fire grow and lick violently up your spine again. It coiled in your stomach and begged, tugging at your clit until it pulsed with need.               “Gowther,” you breathed.               Your thighs clenched and a flash of pride grew in his eyes as he watched you struggle in his presence. You rocked against the air, your tail thrashing behind you but he ignored the spot you ached for him most. Instead, he tugged your ear lightly to drag your mouth to his, continuing where you left off in the room.
              His tongue rolled across yours and you sucked it desperately, wishing it was his cock instead. As if reading your mind, which you aren’t totally sure he hadn’t, Gowther broke away from you to stand and work his pants open.
              He pulled his erection out, pale and flushed, long and curved in a way that made your walls clench because you knew it would hit just right. Your mouth watered as you kneeled before him and he stood in front of you. He stroked across the soft skin of his cock, once, twice, gathering the pearling precum at the tip to work it down the sides.
              You leaned forward barely noticing the way the rough wood dug into your knees. Instead, your tongue popped out, and you lapped at the head. Instantaneously, as the salty and sweet flavor of his pre splashed across your taste buds, your body nearly screamed with the amount of heat that consumed it. The sheer desire was suffocating, you needed him inside you, stuffing you full and breeding you. Your tail curled tight around your waist in hopes of controlling yourself a bit more, in hopes to bring you both a little more pleasure before you lost your mind completely.
              His hand cupped your skull and guided you forward, encouraging you to open your mouth so he could slide along your tongue and down your throat. The heady weight of him resting there made you delirious, you could smell the musky scent of his desire and the sharp scent of crushed mint. It was so good as he slid back and forth, slowly and methodically, testing the primal desire that he’d never experienced before.
              You looked up underneath your lashes at him and saw his cheeks flushed a deep pink, almost matching his hair and his jaw dropped open to let out soft pants of air. Your jaw was stretched uncomfortably, in a way that kept you focused on how wide he’d split you when he fucked you. The curve of his dick touched the softness of the beginning of your throat, making you gag every now and then around him.
Slowly drool began to accumulate along his length and down your chin. He tasted so good, a mix of salt and like the white part of a strawberry, just a bit sweet and sour. Your lids fluttered and he groaned, causing them to fly open again as you noticed his head tilt lazily on his shoulder. His hips picked up speed until he barely left you time to draw in air. You weren’t sure you cared though.
              You gagged more, the sounds turned sloppier and Gowther’s hips were pushing harder against your nose and chin. Then both of you heard steps as they made their way out onto the deck. Your eyes widened but Gowther didn’t seem to have any mind to stop.
              Yet, right as you thought maybe the person had gone inside or maybe Gowther was going to cum and it wouldn’t matter, despite the fact your pussy desperately wanted him to cum inside it and only it, Diane’s head popped up over the side with a sly smile. It seemed as if she had intended to catch the two of you doing something and cause embarrassment again but from the look on her face, she got far more of an eyeful than she intended.               “Oh my god!” she screamed and leapt over the rim of the roof to where we stood.               Gowther immediately let go, and for a moment you were hypnotized by the way your drool mixed with his precum and dripped off his dick. Diane’s hand came down within seconds of Gowther getting his brain back under control and smacked his cheek so hard that it reddened instantaneously.  ��            You on the other hand were trying to wipe your chin clean and pull the hood of your jacket back up to hide your embarrassment.               “What the hell are you doing!?” Diane yelled at Gowther, as if you hadn’t been a willing participant.               You watched in surprise as chaos ensued and Gowther stared at her with his erection slowly softening. Your entire body cried in despair, and you found yourself almost reaching out to help him find pleasure again. He tucked himself away again though and faced Diane with a bland expression.               “Helping her. She asked me to,” he said.               That did not go over well. After the second crack of her skin against his, you stepped in.               “Please Diane,” you held your hand out in a placating gesture, scrambling forward on all fours. “Stop. He’s right. I was a willing participant.”               For a moment Diane seemed to freeze, confused, and then her face flushed impossibly darker, she screeched in embarrassment, muttered some form of apology, and dove back to ground. The mood had been officially broken despite the way your body still throbbed with need. You were still on your knees and Gowther looked at you but something in his eyes was very different. There was a glow, no matter how small, that had never been there before. A look that dare you say, seemed like affection.               You trembled under his stare, uncertain where this was going, and he opened his mouth before squinting his eyes and for a moment looking uncertain. He offered you that tiny expression you recognized as a smile, and he pulled you up to stand next to him.               “Let’s find somewhere private,” he whispered.               You shivered when his cool breath touched the canal of your ear, but you nodded all the same. Yeah, you wanted to be with him, desperately. So, you allowed him to urge you down off the roof and further away from the Boar’s Hat. ---
Meliodas was leaning back on two legs of the chair he sat on. He contemplated the ceiling as he occasionally took deep drinks from his cup. Diane burst into the pub, and even that didn’t disrupt his deep thoughts as he stared at the shapes the wood grain made.               “Dia-ane, what’s wrong?!” King asked and Meliodas finally turned his head to look over at where the two of them and his Elizabeth stood.               “God, I walked in on them,” Diane said, her voice trembling and her face bright red as she hid it behind her hands. “She-she was on her knees…”               King immediately broke in to stop her words, “Woah, woah, no need to be descriptive!”               The giantess nodded, seeming thankful she didn’t need to explain anymore. Meliodas sighed.               “They need to get this out of their systems,” he said bluntly.               Ban laughed, nearly spitting beer, “Perhaps we should avoid goin’ out. Since they haven’t come back.”               “That’s it! Everyone stays inside for the night!” Meliodas agreed.               “Why?” Elizabeth asked.               “No need to worry,” Meliodas responded, stroking the curve of her ass.               Elizabeth stiffened in surprise and Hawk butted against his chair hard enough to make him topple over. Meliodas sent him a glare even as the pig chattered on about being inappropriate. Drowning out the farm animal by focusing on dragging his chair back upright and taking another swig of his ale, he wished the two of his team outside luck as they found their way to each other. ---
The moon glowed above you, hanging with a pregnant fullness in the dark of the sky. Stars twinkled in between the oncoming clouds and though you both knew a storm was on its way neither of you worried, too tangled up in each other. Gowther’s lips stroked across yours, needy and demanding, as he nipped yours open and then rolled his tongue past your teeth. He claimed your mouth over and over, hunger roiling through you both and eventually it boiled over in you until your tail was rising over your hips and bristling.
Your groin burned, aching for his cock, something you’d been denied over and over again. You rocked against nothing but the growing breeze and the fabric between your legs and slick gathered at the apex of your thighs. Your cunt grew hot, unbearably so and you were mewling into his mouth, your fangs pricking at his lips as your claws sank into the cloth of his shirt once again.
              You pulled back long enough to breathe in deeper, seeing in the glow of the moon droplets of blood left behind on Gowther’s lips. He seemed unconcerned as he swiped his tongue across them and then wrapped his hand back around you, drawing you in for a deeper kiss until you felt like he was scooping the air from your lungs with his tongue.
              He worked your jacket and shirt off your body until you were forced to part by the cloth. But as soon as it was gone, he was back, feasting from your mouth and swallowing every sound you made. You shuddered in his tight grasp and his fingers worked over your curves gently, cupping your breast until you shifted and tried to get him to touch the sensitive peaks of your nipples. And when his thumb finally brushed over them you cried out, breaking from his mouth and nearly twisting in his grasp.
              His hand around your back, worked up your spine to grip around your neck, controlling every movement you made. You sighed, your nails sinking into his chest until finally you were able to rip apart his shirt enough that it was time to discard it. He dropped it from his body like the ruined top wasn’t any real loss, and maybe it wasn’t, your touch, his touch, was too addictive to really care about the destruction of some cotton.
              Every time you parted from each other’s lips there was a small string of spit connecting you together, and the sheen of saliva painted your mouths. There were smacks of wet flesh and the kisses grew deeper and messier. It was so good that you were growing lightheaded and eventually you stumbled, only to be caught by Gowther’s wiry arms.
              He held you up, eyes searching your face until he finally seemed happy with your condition and led you to the forest floor. A cushion of moss and soft clover held your body. As you crushed it beneath your skin it smelled like fresh grass and that warm pollen scent.               You inhaled but it wasn’t long before Gowther pulled you back to him, with a murmur of, “Pay attention to me.”               His lips found your jaw, the beginning of your neck, fluttered down your collar bone and right above the swells of your chest. He showered your skin with gentle kisses, only to follow behind with scrapes of his teeth and sharp nips, and then soothe the ache with a light lick. It was too much; your fingers were digging into the greenery beneath you. Your body arched and head rocked from side to side. It was so euphoric.
              His fingers danced down your body, bringing goosebumps to the surface the closer he got to your waist. Your hips lifted, encouraging him to where the fire of your heat had settled, where your cunt cried out for him. You were tired of waiting. He seemed to understand, or perhaps he was just growing impatient too, because his soft lips latched around one of your nipples, causing you to cry out while his nimble fingers worked open your zipper.
              You were rocking against the air, nothing providing you friction and desperation had grabbed ahold of you. When he switched to your neglected nipple electricity shot through you, making you bow and your tail puff out.               “Hurry!” you exclaimed, trying to control yourself and not grab his head and force him harder into your breast. “I can’t t-take it.”               You shuddered violently and his chuckle was `muffled again the soft flesh of your chest. His teeth were sharp against your sensitive nub as he bit down, you trembled, uncertain whether you wanted to move away or beg for more. Your body seemed to be toeing the line between greedy for any sensation and yet overstimulated.
              You whined finally before your body twisted out of the grip of his cuspids only encouraging his hands to work your pants and underclothes off your legs. Cool air kissed your slick covered pussy and you nearly cried out when Gowther dropped butterfly kisses over your silken skin, slipping lower and lower until he hovered over your pelvis.               “Ready?” he asked.               Though he didn’t wait for your slow mind to come forward with an answer. Your brain was too burnt out on pleasure to comprehend his words and pull-out comprehensible words. Instead, he slipped your naked legs over his shoulders in a position he seemed too comfortable with for never having done it before.               Your cunt was spread wide for him, dripping arousal as your walls clenched needily around nothing. Before he dove down with the flat of his tongue, he licked you from entrance to pulsating clit. You squirmed in his grip, even as his arms tightened impossibly around you. Making you so much more aware that he was much stronger than his delicate features let on.               “Gowther,” you breathed, your hips rising as much as they could to seek out his touch. “Please?”               You beseeched him as your fingers tangled in his magenta hair, tugging hard to encourage his tongue to flick faster against your sensitive flesh. His tongue and lips focused on your clit, rolling against it until you were shaking and then all of sudden he was backing off. You watched as one of his arms released one of your thighs. He stared at you in a way that told you to stay still. But how could you do that when his lips were back around you and his finger was pushing into your aching heat.
              You twisted, your free hip rising more than your pinned one, unable to follow his silent command and his finger probed inside you. He didn’t know what he was doing at first, you could tell from the way he seemed to be searching for something that brought a reaction out of you. But then his finger brushed lightly against the wall of your inner pelvis, and you groaned lowly. Your entire body nearly shot out of his grasp and he was caught by surprise.
              His eyes widened from between your legs and then he purposefully did the same motion, a little harder and that spot, that action, had stars bursting in your vision. They dotted the canopy and you gasped.               “Oh g-god, more,” you stuttered, trying to follow the movements futilely.               “Stay still,” he demanded, and the vibration of his voice reverberated against your over sensitized skin.               You tried to shift away from him but instead Gowther held you still, a flash of hunger and impatience lighting up his usually dull eyes. He nipped at the sodden skin just on the outside of your pussy. You yelped and flinched, nodding in agreement to his words finally. Then he went back to feasting on your slick until finally he began to feel a change in your walls and hear the shift in your moans.               “Wait,” you pushed at his head, your voice trembling as you tried desperately to free yourself from his touch. “Wait, I-I’m gonna— fuck—gonna cum.”               A smile, the widest one you’d ever seen on his face, curled his lips. He increased his movement, his tongue spelled words across your vulnerable nub and his fingers curled, pressing harsh and tight against that spot that had you crying out until your voice began to crack. You could barely catch your breath and your ear muscles were aching from the way they strained and twitched.
              Finally, every tensing muscle in your body snapped and then relaxed as you groaned gutturally. Your orgasm washed over you, sending your nerves tingling and hips rutting shamelessly against Gowther’s beautiful face. He encouraged it though. His fingers withdrew but his tongue continued to pulse against your vulnerable clit until you finally yanked at his hair.               “Stop! I don’t want that,” you murmured, and he looked at you confused. “I want you. I want to be filled with you finally.”               He groaned his appreciation, “Yes, of course.”               He pushed his pants down until they settled at his mid-thigh, exposing his cock to your eyes again, that pretty pink tip was sticky with his precum already. He bit his lip as he gripped himself at the base, paused for a moment as if considering something and then leaned back on his haunches and lifted one of your legs over his elbow. The position spread you wide for him and you couldn’t help the flush of embarrassment that rushed through you. That didn’t stop either of you though when he pressed forward, and you gasped at the pressure he caused.
              It felt like you were being split apart, he’d prepared you so well but still he was so much to take. He’d looked slender and beautiful, something that should be easy to take in your heated state, but he wasn’t. He stopped to rest on his hand when he was pressed halfway into you, his glasses glinted, and his eyes nearly rolled as you clenched down on him.               “Relax,” he hissed, his hips jumping forward half an inch causing you both to groan.
“I’m trying,” you swore.               “Let me in, kitten,” he breathed, using a nickname he never intended.
              But it was like opening the gates, you gasped, and your body relaxed for him, letting him push pelvis to pelvis with you. There was a sweet ache in your loins, but it was so good. That mild pain was adding insurmountable pleasure as he rocked back, the slide easier than expected thanks to the slick that now lined his cock.                             “Good girl,” he purred as he leaned further back, arching your spine for him and then rolling his hips in a quick and perfected rhythm.               It was euphoric, hitting you in all the right spots, dragging in the best ways, to where you couldn’t catch your breath. Were you drowning? Were you even alive anymore? Wasn’t death supposed to be painful? Each lucky inhale was sharp agony in your oxygen deprived lungs. But with the way Gowther was looking at you, like you had made him into a ravenous beast, you couldn’t find yourself caring.
              Your pelvis was rising to meet his, and he was not only shifting his hips in that perfect way with each fuck forward but when he slipped toward you, he ground against you for a few seconds. It caused the soft curls at the base of his dick to rub your clit tantalizingly.                             “Fuck,” Gowther spat, and if you weren’t in the throes of ecstasy, you would have been surprised.               Gowther didn’t cuss but your cunt twitching around him brought something out of him. It was bestial, greedy, he wanted to fill you over and over until you were dripping with his cum. Until he had to stuff his fingers into you so it would stay plugged inside. Because that’s what he wanted. He wanted it in you, he wanted to breed you.
              “I want to fuck you full,” he snarled, baring his teeth in an animalistic snarl. “I want to breed you, kitten.”               Your body seized upward excitement causing your cunt to clench and muscles to spasm, “Yes.”                You wanted it, you wanted it so badly. You wanted to pull more of this darkness and greed out of your lustful Sin. Your hands wound their way around his thighs, the only part of him that you could touch. You claws scrabbled at the leather hide of his pants. Desperation in your every movement for more that he could give you. He leaned over you finally, finally giving you something to hold onto better.
              Immediately your claws sank into his shoulders, and he groaned in a mixture of pain and pleasure. His lips crashed against yours as his movements grew wilder and he swallowed your every sound, fed you his oxygen until finally you came with your eyelids fluttering and the black behind them turning staticky white.
              Pleasure unfurled from your cunt like a white-hot lava, racing up your spine and down your nerves, leaving your skin tingling and burning. Gowther couldn’t stop though, he wouldn’t, it felt so good with you clamping around him, milking him and urging him to completion. Quickly he pushed you into a second orgasm, one that fell right on the heels of the first.
You thrashed under him violently, until he came with a groan, painting your insides white. His hips grew sloppy, slowed down but he didn’t stop.               Eventually your cunt throbbed again, growing eager for more. Your heat pushed you into another round, accepting his excitement to keep going.               “Wait Gowther,” you whispered.               Because though you physically wanted it, mentally you needed a moment. You needed to process what just happened because he hadn’t pulled out at all. But he had no intention of waiting.               “You’re ready to go again,” he sighed in relief in your ear, his movements growing steadier and more confident.               Since when had he become so knowledgeable about your body? ---
The two of you crept back the morning after your dalliance in the woods. The others were together at the tables, eating breakfast and all eyes turned to you as the door opened. You were certain your face flushed eight shades of red even though Gowther refused to let go of your hand.               “Looks like it’s time to celebrate,” Meliodas crowed from his seat.               By the early afternoon the celebration had left most of the party so drunk they couldn’t move, but Gowther looked at you no differently even as you were babbling to Elizabeth, and Diane was picking twigs out of your hair still. He was certain you were everything he’d been looking for when trying to understand human emotion. He finally understood the root of humanity. Love.
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metablood · 1 year
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One for All October 2022 contribution : Growing up in his shadow.
Thanks to @aimportantdragoncollector and @mcfanely for this contest !
I followed prompt #9 "Yoichi and AFO childhood". Here we are : the young AFO, from Yoichi point of view, and how Yoichi was groomed. I gave a first name to AFO for the sake of clarity...
You can also read it on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/42062892
1566 words, not rated. TW : psychological abuse.
***
I wish I could say something like “our father beat him relentlessly”, or “money was tight at home…”. I wish I could come up with some explanation, if not an excuse, for what he did.
I wish I could reassure you, by telling you people get that bad only when they have been wronged in many ways.
I wish I could tell you evil is not ordinary.
My brother’s name was Akio Shigaraki, before he chose to become All for One. He was the first born son of a successful engineer from a car company, and a devoted housewife. At first, he appeared to be quirkless, but it was the most common outcome during the 60’s. Only around 25% of children born between 1960 and 1969 had a quirk. Our father had a quirk, but he avoided talking about it, as he considered it “feminine”. He had the ability to share his emotions and sensations by touching one’s hand. You would feel them exactly like he did. He would only use it with our mother, though. And I believed it was the key of their successful relationship.
I was born only one year later than him. But despite being close in age, he only ever wanted to be my superior. He needed to come first, always. He wanted more food, more attention from our parents, a later bedtime, longer on the swing… Of course, this behavior is normal for a toddler. But you expect them to grow out of it.
Again, our parents were very nice, patient, and emotionally stable. They explained to him this behavior was not okay. They taught him to share, to ask if anyone else wanted more dessert… Akio learned his lesson: he masked his selfishness. He still got exactly what he wanted… but made you think it was your idea!
When he was in Elementary School, we heard about a boy whose quirk disappeared. The boy was devastated of course. It was a cute quirk, which let him levitate on small distances. Doctors said that sometimes, quirks could faint, then reappear later… that some quirks took a toll on the body…  Later that year, I thought I saw Akio levitating in his bedroom, as I was passing by to go to the toilet. Then he came to me, grabbed my shirt, then I have no idea what happened.
No parent, teacher, service worker, could resist Akio’s charm. His wide smile enlightened any room, his calm and unique voice made everyone stop to listen to him. He spent a lot of time fixing his hair, choosing his clothes, every morning. But he made sure nobody knew he cared about his look. It had to seem effortless.
He got straight As from kindergarten to high school. Teachers praised him for his behavior and performances. But his good grades didn’t make him unpopular, far from it… He was also good at sports and an accomplished artist, which made him popular among diverse groups of teens.
Only I knew he used multiple stolen quirks all the time, while passing for quirkless. When he reached the age of 14, he had ways to improve his strength, speed, and communication skills. Of course, he would only use his quirks slightly, not to be caught having them. It means that everywhere, all the time, he was always slightly better than everyone else. Not too much so that it would seem weird… but enough that he could be praised and cherished.
Why didn’t I say anything? Well, at the time, I was still his little… thing. His tiny, delicate, forgetful, little brother.
It was a mystery for doctors and family how I could forget so much! I would be confused about the day of the week, the time of the day... I kept checking my watch and school planner every few minutes, afraid I forgot something. But then I blacked out, and I woke up in a strange place, not knowing what happened earlier that day. Other kids laughed it off “typical Yoichi, ha-ha!”. Adults became more and more infuriated with me as the years went by. At the time, nobody talked about ADHD, so they called me names, not nice ones. Anyway, it was not ADHD, but one of the first quirk my brother ever stole: mind fog.
He told be all about it, knowing nobody would believe me. He noticed this quirk at the playground, on a 6-year-old girl. Other kids would go numb, with a blank face, when she touched them. It was unintentional! She never realized she even had this quirk before my brother stole it. He took it, tested it, mastered it. He realized he could make people confused for hours, and forget all what happened during this time, and right before touching them.
Since then, he made sure to regularly “fog” me until I became famously unreliable to everyone around us. Even my very patient mother became fed up with my “shenanigans”. Who wouldn’t? I would think we are Sunday and not go to school… I would forget what and if I ate, if I did any homework earlier that day, if I took my shower… Coming back from a trip, I would be unable to remember half of it. While watching the pictures with my family, it was like watching someone else’s memories.
My brother erased at least 50% of my life out of my brain. During the other 50%, he would groom me into becoming his ally. It’s a miracle I ever had a thought of my own.
He always had a clique of his own. And he made sure I was always included, despite me being largely unpopular. Our parents were very happy about their generous first born helping his awkward little brother to make friends! So charitable! A kind soul…
Around high school, his clique started looking more and more like a cult. People in the group would get infinite grace, good luck, a sturdy social network. People out of it were only casualties, pawns for my brother to move and use as he wished. He didn’t see any evil in that, as this is how business is done, how a political party becomes successful…
We studied in fancy private schools where the headteachers would make long speeches about being the elite, networking with the children of successful people, our success crushing other schools… It was not enough to get good grades and get a place in a fancy university. We had to crush the other kids.
All day long teachers would compare students to each other, make lists and rankings, humiliate the losers. Some kids could not spend a full day at school without crying or having a breakdown. In the same times, kids who were on top of rankings could get away with being late, being mean, harassing other students… Teachers would pass by, have a look, then look away. As long as the top tier was crushing the bottom tier, it was not bullying to them, but something about “know your place”.
Did they really think that humiliating the weaker students would give them motivation to work harder, or were they simply cowards? I always wondered how they could make any sense out of this system… last time I checked, as long as you make “rankings”, somebody has to be the last one. No wonder how much you work, how hard you try, someone has to.
In the meantime, I struggled to keep up with schoolwork, as I was in the “fog” so much. But my brother kept me close, very close to him. He could not be the “first” alone, he needed minions. Here I was, small and confused, barely a shadow. He looked like the perfect big brother, I made him look less intimidating, and a trustful protector. The strong wanted to be like him, the weak wanted his protection.
All for him, every move he made was for him. He used them, he led many to their fall. But most importantly: they thought of him as their savior. It takes a lot of self-centeredness, manipulation, and lack of ethics. But when was any of these ever punished, as long as you give them a pretty face?
How could a system that made him win all the time wrong?
Which led him to another idea: a shift in society that would not beneficiate him was wrong. Quirk and super-heroic society, more and more accurate quirk diagnosis, jeopardized his criminal lifestyle.
Enemies to my brother or his group… didn’t last long. Many ended up mysteriously becoming fervent members of his group, the rest was expelled from our school, or had accidents.
Again, is it wrong? Teachers expel kids all the time… Annoying political leaders have accidents… Among humans and animals, you must be, if not the strongest, at least the fittest.
Yes, all my brother did was to fit in. He saw the Japanese school system, understood it, and decided to take it a little bit too literally. Most kids just perform, play the good student role. Not my brother. He became, deeply, what he was asked too. First. Be First, Come First, always! And make the rest of them think that something is wrong with them! So, they’ll follow you, and plead for you to help them, teach them, show them, how to be more like you!
And so, he became All for One.
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starship-you · 9 months
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Just because there's been no national coverage on this - something about a sub full of rich guys going missing has everyone's attention - here's a journal detailing the, I guess I'll take the honor of naming it, the Tulsa Disaster Supercell, which caused the greatest disruption in utility services in the city since the 2007 Frost Storm.
June 18th, 2023, Tulsa OK was knocked off the grid by a super storm that produced 100mph straightline winds that knocked over, depending on who you ask, 250-750 power lines and caused massive property damage. The storm was significant enough to sound off weather sirens and push notifications stating a hauntingly blunt warning: "YOU ARE IN A LIFE-THREATENING SITUATION." The entire town went without power for about 24 hours (except for some noticeably richer neighborhoods, strangely...), leaving hospitals on generator long enough to relocate their patients in ICU to the capital which wasn't hit as hard. The Tulsa metropolitan area has a population of just over 1m, and right after the storm had passed, 800k were without power. This storm would move into Arkansas/Missouri to generate tornadoes.
Restoration efforts started immediately, mobilizing private contractors from as far as New Jersey, but roads needed to be cleared of branches and debris before power could come back.
It took 48 hours to restore half of those who lost power. In this time, because of the callous nature of the world itself, a heat wave would raise temperatures to 90 degrees; not unseasonable, but combined with humidity and the fact that 80% of the population had no access to AC meant that suffering was inevitable. Shelters were set up to allow people to charge their devices and escape the height of the heat, and the Red Cross had utilized the spaces in empty churches to serve as 24 hour refuge sites.
The utility companies, by the first day, had surveyed the damage and made an announcement. It would take until 5pm on Saturday, the 24th, for power to be fully restored to Tulsans; a full week without power since the storm that would span into the start of summer. A non-nuanced estimate, as individual neighborhoods had different degrees of damage, and the fact that homeowners were responsible for fixing their weather heads before they could be reconnected, meant that it could be shorter or longer.
It took until the third day for a State of Emergency to be declared; the governor was in touch with utility companies, he claimed, and had previously stated that his "heart goes out" to those effected. Conveniently, he was in Paris for an airshow on June 19th (Juneteenth is a holiday that should be a big deal dor Oklahoma given how south and racially diverse we are as a state, but French planes are cool too). Unfortunately, hearts don't save perishables, recharge phones used to reach emergency services, or keep medical life-saving devices operational.
By the fourth day, rain had come back to the region, stalling reconnection efforts until it passed. The town still looked like a war zone littered with debris on the sides of the roads, and it was a coin flip if a given street light even lit up and, despite the time to adjust to the presence of four-way stop lights, nobody still understood how they work.
By now, the 22nd, there are still 100k without power; a massive effort to be sure, but suffering continues. Much of this could've been mitigated if a State of Emergency were called sooner; the mayor had activated the city's EOC right away, but the city's resources would be hardly noticed. State of Emergency means that FEMA could be deployed, complete with a corps of engineers specialized in restoring infrastructure to storm- and war-torn regions, and would guarantee that those who lost their entire supply of food and rely on welfare could get it replenished. At least one confirmed death resulted from a respirator failing in the outage, which could've been avoided with a more proper response.
For what its worth, much of the city wouldn't vote for this governor anyway, which may explain his lethargy towards the situation. Regardless, people don't deserve to suffer and die for disagreeing with you.
EDIT: okay, I just learned minutes after posting that the sub imploded killing the passengers. This is tragic, I don't dispute that. I just brought it up at the top because it feels like it shouldn't be as big a deal as an entire city falling off the grid.
Edit 2: added a page break because I hated scrolling past it and i know others will too. Sidenote, as a tumblr newbie, is edit notes like this encouraged like it is on reddit? Given the evergreen nature of posts i can see it going both ways
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jammatown919 · 1 year
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A Witch and Her Familiar (1)
As promised, A Witch and Her Familiar! I’m currently planning four parts, the rest of which involve Raelle more heavily, but I’m a college student with limited free time so I appreciate your patience!
In the beginning, Morrigan was just another crow. One of many that, during Scylla's stay in the Cession, had been become participants in her Work; originally by happenstance of being present when she needed them and eventually because they sought her out upon realizing she paid in treats.
All the crows were friendly enough, by the standards of wild birds, and fairly cooperative once Scylla gained their tentative trust. They all seemed to blur together by way of behavior, neither affectionate nor hostile, just there to offer their services and leave with full bellies. As an individual, Morrigan might never have stood out if not for her distinct appearance.
The white marking encompassing her chest and the back of her neck, marking her as a separate species that was, curiously, native to an entirely different part of the world, stuck out like a sore thumb. Where the other crows, all the common American variety, looked far too similar to tell apart, Morrigan was impossible to miss. This made her, out of every crow that came to visit, the only one Scylla could identify by sight. The favorite by default.
Being recognizable offered certain advantages; Scylla could get to know her personality, her usual haunts, her preferred foods, even give her a name. It left open an opportunity for a deeper connection, which Scylla was happy to make.
Morrigan, for her part, seemed to recognize Scylla just as well. After realizing that her new witch friend was not immune to favoritism, she began to appear more often than the other crows, to the point that Scylla could hardly step outside the Collar house without seeing her. Sometimes she brought trinkets, but usually she just clicked her beak and waited, either to be used in Scylla's experimental version of Nicte's bat trick, or just for a pity treat.
Before long, she began to appear at the kitchen window bright and early, pecking at the glass and lamenting her lack of attention in long, loud 'kraaaa's. Scylla found the whole display remarkably endearing. Less endearing, however, was the fact that she kept waking Edwin, who had already been so patient and understanding with Scylla's presence in his home.
To nip this problem in the bud, Scylla made it a morning ritual of sorts to be in the kitchen before Morrigan arrived, boiling two eggs. One, she would keep for herself, and the other would be diced up and fed to her new friend, as well as any other crow comfortable enough to take food from her hand.
On one such morning, the first in which another crow tried to get that close, Scylla observed a very peculiar behavior she hadn't seen before.
The other crow, a small, dark beauty, hopped up beside Morrigan on the windowsill, interested in nothing but the small bits of food in Scylla's outstretched hand. Morrigan responded immediately with flaps and caws and pecks, until the intruder backed off into the garden.
"Morrigan!" Scylla chided, surprised. She'd never known the bird to be so aggressive with her food. Invasion of space, perhaps? But Scylla had been closer for far longer.
Confused, she tossed the rest of the egg into the garden so the other crow could have a fair shot, noting with interest that Morrigan did not seem to care. She simply pushed her beak against Scylla's fingers as she made to withdraw them back into the kitchen where she stood.
"There's no more, stupid," Scylla murmured affectionately. It was the first time Morrigan had ever deliberately touched her, and, confused as she was by the situation, she relished the contact. Especially with Tiffany mere days away from leaving with a new Dodger family, it was comforting to know that she would still have some form companionship.
A thought struck her suddenly as Morrigan seemed to nuzzle into her hand. It hadn't been about sharing food or space, but rather something much more personal.
"Oh," she realized aloud. "You didn't want to share me."
She was reminded then of an old Dodger friend and his obnoxiously jealous cat Familiar. Well, perhaps 'friend' was too generous a term; they'd known each other for two months, seven years ago, with him being nearly eight years her senior, but he'd been kind to her. Kind enough to put up with and answer a twelve-year-old's thousand questions about his Familiar, the Link they shared, and how it had come to be.
A Familiar, he'd taught her, was the living extension of a witch's very soul, bound together by a unique, permanent Link that, once established, could not be severed even by their own will. Though still two entities with their own minds and personalities, they were together in all things. Pleasure and pain, joy and despair, life and death. Eternal companions, never again to know the meaning of loneliness.
The bond they shared was as much a natural occurrence as it was a conscious decision. Sometimes, a witch and animal just fit together, but the choice to Link was ultimately theirs, and one could reject the other easily. Every experience was different; some Linked almost immediately, some took years, and some failed to connect properly at all and lost their chance forever.
As a child only just discovering the concept, Scylla had wanted a Familiar desperately, but at this point she hadn't thought much about it in years. Even now, as it crossed her mind that a crow would make a fine Familiar, she didn't consider it very seriously. A botched attempt to Link could ruin what she and Morrigan already had, and that was not a risk she wanted to take. To her, a friend was far more important than a Familiar.
And yet, it didn't take very long to come up again.
A few days later, Tiffany was gone, and Scylla was once more entirely business. With her temporary ward safe at last, she was free to give her full attention to the fight with the Camarilla, and that was exactly what she did.
She introduced Quinn to her new Work, dubbed Morrigan's Whisper in honor of her favorite child, for the purpose of talking strategy. Morrigan, as always, hung around after the display, seemingly content to hop along behind the two women as they walked off to discuss things that need never concern her.
Eventually, though, they went too far for her tiny legs to manage, and rather than flying off as any other crow certainly would, she simply flew up to settle herself on Scylla's shoulder. Quinn regarded her with vague interest and smiled.
"That's a fine Familiar," she remarked.
Scylla paused suddenly in reaching up to scritch Morrigan's chin, much to the bird's chagrin. She was a bit surprised that Quinn even knew what a Familiar was, given the Army didn't teach a thing about them, but she supposed the older woman was close enough to the Dodger community to have seen one or two, or at least heard of them.
The misconception itself, Scylla had honestly seen coming; wild animals didn't typically follow witches around the way Morrigan did without being Linked. Still, it was awkward to have to correct.
"She's... not my Familiar," she said quietly.
"Really?" Quinn seemed genuinely surprised. "Pretty affectionate for a wild bird. I bet you could Link if you wanted."
"I'm not sure that I do want to," Scylla confessed with a remorseful glance at Morrigan. It wasn't at all for lack of loving the bird; in fact, that was the problem. "We'll be fighting a war soon."
"All the more reason," Quinn replied. "You could use her."
It was a strategic response, one that Scylla could see the sense in, and yet it left a foul taste in her mouth. Yes, Familiars had their combative uses, despite the Army's general disregard for them, but she didn't like the implication that they were simply tools to be used. That Morrigan was a tool to be used.
She tried to keep in mind that Quinn really hadn't meant anything by her comment. Not everyone understood the personal connection between a witch and their Familiar. Scylla wasn't sure even she understood it fully, or that anyone could without experiencing it firsthand.
Still, she was closer than most, and she knew that was because Quinn was right. She could Link with Morrigan if she tried. They fit together, like her old friend and that awful, jealous cat. They had the potential for the closest, most intimate bond a witch could experience, and that was precisely why Scylla didn't want to take Morrigan into the fight.
"It doesn't seem very fair to drag her into a war that has nothing to do with her," she said. "What would she get out of it?"
She knew there were benefits to be had for the animal, particularly an extended lifespan that matched that of their witch, but that would only matter if Scylla survived the war. If she died, it would kill Morrigan instantly, and knowing that would be a weakness she couldn't afford.
"She'd get you," Quinn replied, as if that could ever be significant enough compensation. Honestly, Scylla thought it was more of a downside. "With a witch like you looking out for her, she just might be the safest bird on Earth."
That was true enough, she supposed. Any witch would fight tooth and nail to protect their Familiar, and Scylla would be no exception. But that in itself created too many problems. Would she be compelled to avoid necessary danger to preserve her life for Morrigan? What if it came to a choice between Morrigan or Raelle?
In that moment, she knew the answers; no, she wouldn't shy away from danger, and Raelle was always her priority, but she feared the extent to which the Link might influence her. Already, she felt a desire to protect Morrigan in the ways that she could, and if she allowed the Link to take her affections to their extremes, there was no telling what choices she would make.
"I don't think now is the time," Scylla admitted to Quinn, Morrigan, and herself in equal measure. Maybe eventually, but not now. When the war was over, if she made it, perhaps she would return to the Cession with Raelle and see if Morrigan would still have her.
She used that thought to comfort herself as Morrigan, as if sensing rejection, leapt from her shoulder and took off into the sky. As much as she wanted to Link, it just wasn't practical for them to have each other now. For the moment, she could only hold on to a pleasant daydream; that someday, if they were lucky, they would figure out how to make it work.
But, as it happened, 'someday' was in far closer proximity than Scylla had expected.
The news came suddenly and hit Scylla like a brick; Raelle's Unit had been blamed for the death of a young witch, Vice President Silver's own daughter, and were being taken to the nation's capital to await trial and what was sure to be unjust punishment.
Scylla knew there was only one way to proceed, but that didn't make saying goodbye to Edwin any easier. Still, she managed it, and even fooled herself briefly into thinking she would get out of the Cession without any additional heartache.
And then, just as she opened the door to get into the passenger seat of Quinn's car, a familiar dark shape fluttered down to land on the roof, leaning in as close as it could get.
"Morrigan," she said quietly, both glad for the chance to say goodbye and devastated by this final test of her resolve. "I have to leave."
Morrigan stayed rigid on her perch, even as Quinn ducked inside the car to give them a moment of privacy. Usually, this would be when she started clicking her beak for treats, but now she just stared, like there was something else she wanted and no way to ask for it.
She didn't need to ask. Scylla knew.
"I shouldn't take you," she murmured. "It won't be safe."
But, of course, Morrigan didn't understand. She never would, in the way that Scylla wanted her to, without a Link to make it happen.
Almost without realizing, she reached out and let Morrigan hop onto her forearm, drawing her in close. Her conviction was already dissolving, and the bond between a witch and potential Familiar felt less like a choice in that moment than an instinctual urge.
"I can't make you my priority," Scylla whispered, almost but not quite apologetic. She could never truly be sorry for choosing Raelle. "I already promised myself it would be her."
That, Morrigan did seem to understand. She let out a low cooing sound, as if to say that it was alright, that she didn't need to be the priority. She just needed to be together. And, deep down, Scylla knew she needed it too.
Flapping a few times to get enough lift, she repositioned herself onto Scylla's shoulder. So close together, Scylla could swear she could feel the little creature's heart beating together with her own, their breaths syncing perfectly, and before she knew what was happening, she let go and allowed whatever force had drawn them together to finish its work.
And just like that, she could feel everything. The phantom touch of her sleeve beneath little feet that weren't hers, her own determination to reach the woman she loved reflected and somehow strengthened by this tiny part of herself that still wasn't quite her, and more than anything, a deeper understanding of what exactly Morrigan was.
She would not be a burden, nor something that would threaten her resolve to go into danger. She would be something to fight for, and someone to fight with. She would offer all the love and assistance of which she was capable, and she had already forgiven Scylla for bringing her into this war.
Scylla could have basked in the fresh new-Link feeling for hours, but there were still important things to be done. She knew automatically that Morrigan did not want to be confined to the car and let her flutter off to a nearby tree branch to await the moment of departure, unafraid that they might lose one another during the journey.
That was one thing they would never have to fear again, and Scylla relished in it as she ducked into the car and pointedly ignored the knowing look Quinn shot her way. It didn't matter where Scylla went or what she did, she would always have at least one friend.
Whatever path she took, Morrigan would follow, now and forever.
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what are twenty things that you are thankful for?
I had to think about this one for longer than I really should've, I'm not nearly in the habit of counting my blessings as much as I should.
Obviously the first on the list is my three boys. I cannot (and do not want to) imagine life without them. I love these children with my whole heart, even if I am very imperfect parent.
Another fairly obvious second is a handful of very dear friends, who have been invaluable supports and aids in a very trying time of late, mentally and emotionally and spiritually and financially.
I am both awed and grateful for the unexpected success of the Salt and Light tag, and the knowledge it is helping people.
The rest of the items are of a fairly personal nature.
I am grateful that when CPS showed up on my doorstep, the police officers she brought with her pressured her not to take my children
I am grateful that my abusive husband took the no-contact order from CPS as an excuse to entirely cut us off financially - removing my last inhibitions to divorcing him and freeing myself and my boys entirely from his cruelty
I am unspeakably grateful for the friends who have ensured that my boys and I are not destitute and starving in the streets
Following on that, my mother who has kindly driven us to the store to get groceries and to various vendors to ensure we are not without amenities and necessities for my work, despite being in equally dire circumstances
For the wonderful, wonderful people with whom I have spent the entirety of the last week on the phone trying to arrange affairs that my husband canceled - phone service and internet and necessities for our lease and medical records and police records - such sweet wonderful helpful people, made an onerous chore much less onerous
Grateful that Sam's was running an online promotion that allowed someone to get a membership for $25!
Grateful that our roommate was able to willing to take on the entirety of rent next month (that my husband usually pays 2/3 of) while I sort out my messy sordid affairs
Grateful that I had the money to restart services and pay necessities
Grateful for a good computer and a working phone to allow me to work and earn money to care for my children and connect with the outside world
Grateful that God is using what my husband intended for ill to deliver me and my boys from a cruel, violent man
Grateful for my son's speech therapist, who has helped him so much and advocated for him tirelessly
So very glad my children and I have enough food now
That we are safe and warm inside our home
That the landlord has been helpful and cooperative and kind - and changed the locks the same day I requested it
That none of us were seriously injured in the incident that led to CPS being informed
So very grateful for the largely, overwhelmingly positive reaction Salt and Light has gotten
For a God Who is a Father, a Comforter, a Succorer, Who cares for the fatherless and widows, with Whom nothing is impossible, Who turns all things to the good of those who are the called according to His purpose, Who is endlessly patient with His flailing whining children, Whose love is so deep and wide it fills all the heavens and cannot be conceived or measured, Who is righteous and just and holy, and Who yet cares for the smallest and least of these His creations, Who loves His children in ways that I (who would go to war for my sons) cannot even begin to comprehend.
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maytheoddshq · 1 year
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Marina Bellheart (she/her). Sponsor. Thirty-Three. Aubrey Plaza.
Marina Bellheart believes, first and foremost, in the power of social mobility. In the Capitol, as everywhere, there are haves and have nots. That is, there are the servers and the served. Marina’s parents were the servers, working restaurant jobs, and while there was never any concern about putting food on the table, it was embarrassing having parents who did service jobs while others at school had parents who were, simply, socialites, business owners, and the like.
Marina was very smart. The family lived in a comfortable apartment outside of the city center, solidly middle class by the Capitol’s standards. Before Marina was born, her father had had money, power, lots of it, but he’d made some stupid deals, lost all of it. This has been the great shame of Marina’s life, and she has clawed her way back to the power she feels was her birthright, never given to her.
In school, she made the right friends. Not the people she liked the most – that kind of thing didn’t matter to her – it was about power, who she knew and who she could learn information from. After high school, she attended university, and while her parents had a nest egg of money, it wasn’t enough to cover the costs, tuition that hardly mattered for the rich and powerful of the city but which was a larger sum for her. She made the most of it, though, turning it into an opportunity, nannying for a powerful family. She found that she loved working with kids, and earned her degree in psychology with some idea of perhaps becoming a child psychiatrist.
But after graduation, her focus turned to marrying into money. She had no other choice. Neptune Bellheart was a good choice, as he had connections to the family she nannied for. Getting him to fall for her was easy, to marry her even easier, but after the papers were all signed, she found that his affections were like the wind: sometimes a pleasant breeze and other times, a gale-force hurricane.
The problems truly began when she failed to become pregnant. They tried for a year, a year during which he was very patient and she was very hopeful and good, doing little but being a good wife, making friends with the right people, pretending to enjoy pleasant conversation at dinner parties where more and more of their social group would announce their pregnancies. By the end of the first year, his anger was clear. By the end of the second, a specialist offered up expensive treatments. By the end of the third, she told them that it was simply not going to be possible for them. Marina offered solutions: a surrogate, a divorce. But Neptune would not have either; he’d rather not have a child than to have one baked in someone else’s oven, a cold turn of phrase, and he’d certainly prefer childlessness over the scandal of a divorce. His career was on the rise, owner of a series of power plants in Five, and he told her to forget it. That it didn’t matter; that he didn’t want a child anyway; that she should busy herself with being his wife.
And so she did. She toyed for a bit with divorcing him, not wanting to withstand his moods, but she had stupidly signed a prenup in the period when love felt like it was real, and she would lose everything. She toyed with starting her therapy practice, as well, but the thought of working with children no longer interested her. More than Neptune’s desire for an heir to the company and family name was her own desire for a child, someone to love and give sweet little things to and care for. Someone to dote upon.
She fell into sponsoring mostly out of boredom and the desire to spend Neptune’s money. She was part of a circle of wives and she wanted to break out of the mold in some way. She’d always regarded the Games with some distant interest, aware of their place in her own lifestyle, the fact that without them, she would not have what she had, would not live within this luxurious city at all. The entirety of society would collapse, and after she’d spent so much time climbing the scaffolding of that society, she did not want to see it fall. No – it was exciting to be part of it.
She started sponsoring during the Quell, never one to pass up a good opportunity for dramatics. She enjoys it quite a lot, as it requires her to be clever. She has put her money into the right tribute several times now, and she feels lucky for it, proud of their success and her place in it. When the Games aren’t on, she grows bored again, and recently has found herself wondering how she might find her way into a Gamemaking position, something to keep her occupied year-round building the Arenas.
As for her personality, she is smart and cynical, considers herself a realist, and remains distant enough from the people around her that she won’t form true connections that – like her husband – could grow to hurt her. She enjoys Capitol society even as she feels much of it is beneath her, and has had several affairs, which if Neptune were to find out would ruin her completely. She likes the thrill of it, though, is excited by a bit of danger that she can control, that she gets pleasure out of.
Strengths: confident, smart, charming
Weaknesses: cynical, sarcastic, pessimistic
PENNED BY: Virginia
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cross-my-heartt · 2 years
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Pieces Ch. 4
Crosshair doesn’t think he will ever have a family again but the galaxy has a knack for proving him wrong. And little by little the pieces fall into place.
← Previous chapter || Read on Ao3
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Crosshair was naive to think he’d be left alone for long. Shortly after the doctor had left she’d come back to pester him to eat and wring out more details about his wounds. He’d tried to cuss her away but the damn woman only seemed to derive amusement from his churlishness and it took one bowl of porridge, two glasses of water and a secondary examination of his wounds to make her go away.
After that he’d pretended to take a nap only for that nap to turn into a real one and by the time he woke up the sun had set outside and the medcenter was quiet. Embarrassingly, his first thought at that moment had been the kid. But he’d squashed it promptly as he’d yanked the sheets over his head.
The next morning it was the Rodian who changed his bandages as much as Crosshair resented having to add to the growing list of people that invaded his personal space.
“Tinar acts as something of a nurse around here.” The doctor had clarified. “I’m not always available so he’ll take over for me sometimes.”
“Something of a nurse.” The Rodian scoffed. “Four years of working here and this is what I get.”
“I never said you were a bad nurse.”
“Something of a bad nurse you mean.”
As the afternoon rolled around, the kid had shuffled back into his room. He claimed he was taking up space by occupying a patient room but Crosshair knew better after he’d woken up to find food and water next to the couch, arranged in that familiar neat freak military fashion.
They spent the day in companionable silence – as companionable as Crosshair was capable of – or exchanging information.
Apparently both of them had chosen the same day to escape based on the same intel. Kaisel did not have an organized military but the Empire was struggling with guerilla forces operating from the forests around Dunbara. As a result, they’d organized an on-site training exercise which meant that for a day most of the two bases’ personnel would be absent. Crosshair had been prudent enough to see it and so had the little medic. But that wasn’t the only thing Crosshair had learned about the other.
He’d nearly choked on his water when he’d learned that the kid wasn’t actually a kid... No, the reg was about the same age as him, the difference being negligible even with their accelerated growth, and if his illness hadn’t eaten away half a year of his service he would be what among them passed for a seasoned vet.
Needless to say it significantly changed the way Crosshair saw him.
The next few days had passed in a blur with his wounds healing just as Ghost had predicted. Eshla had insisted they stay a bit longer until the city had cleared of imperials and Ghost had had time to recover. And if the first hadn’t convinced Crosshair, the latter certainly had.
The reg had seemed fine, running around and keeping himself busy, but Crosshair had noticed that he still spent a large part of the day sleeping. So he stayed put. Haunting the medcenter more than inhabiting it. The doctor and the Rodian were a constant presence but being social with them sounded about as pleasant as pulling teeth, even more so when he knew he had to keep himself in check.
These people were helping them without having to, the last thing he wanted was to snap at them and make them reconsider.
There were also days when the faceless nameless anger took over and he would prowl the hallways like a caged force of nature, deprived of a way to spend the destructive energy of his temper, fingers flexing, jaw clenching and tongue itching to throw an insult. But he didn’t talk about those days. He didn’t think about those days.
So he ate, slept and whiled the hours away in his room.
His only break of routine was when Ghost came to visit. He didn’t want to admit it but having the reg within sight calmed him down. The kid – Ghost, karking hell, his name was Ghost and he wasn’t a kid – also had a surprising sense of humor that started to show once he shucked off all those layers of awkwardness and anxiety he showed around Crosshair.
Crosshair had crashed into him one day on his way back from the fresher and true to his no-filter character had blurted the first thing that came to mind. Which happened to be: “Kark, you’re kriffing short!”
In his defense he really hadn’t seen the reg coming – there was a good handspan of height difference between them and Crosshair had been distracted. But the reg had merely rolled his eyes and circled around him.
“Thanks, it’s a fashion statement.”
Now why the reg wanted to be around him was a mystery. He already seemed to be on good terms with the doctor for whom he would run different errands, taking inventory or whatever it was medics did when they weren’t pestering patients. And yet he still slipped back into his room at the end of the day.
It was during one of those visits while they were talking about the chips that there was a knock at the door and the doctor poked her head in cautiously.
“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”
Her hesitation, so unusual for the woman they were used to, put both of them on edge and Ghost hurried to uncross his legs from where he’d perched them on top of the storage chest. Crosshair had noticed it was his default position when sitting.
“No, not at all. What’s wrong?”
At his considerate tone, the doctor bit her lip. She didn’t say anything as she opened the door all the way and pushed a large heavy-looking box to the middle of the room, one hand wiping the dust that clung to the surface.
“A while ago some clones came to the center looking for help,” she said and Crosshair found himself listening intently, unable to tear his eyes away from the box.
“They were on the run like you but… we couldn’t save them in time. We gave them a funeral as best as we could.” Her hand lingered over the lid. “But the cremation unit couldn’t burn armor so.”
“I thought since yours is damaged,” She looked at Crosshair. “And you didn’t have much to begin with…” Then turned to Ghost.
She was expecting a response and the lack of one made her falter. But her next words died in her throat as she watched Ghost approach the box silently. He turned the lid aside and removed the blanket on top with careful fingers.
Three reg buckets stared back at him, above what Crosshair assumed was the rest of the regs’ armor. He couldn’t see it all from where he sat but Ghost did and it seemed to nail him to the spot, his lips drawn into a thin line and a faraway expression in his eyes.
Silence fell over the room. It stretched so thin and tense that even Crosshair felt its blades digging into his skin and the doctor hurried to remedy what she thought was a mistake.
“This was out of line, I shouldn’t have-”
“No.” Ghost interrupted. Pulling the blanket over the buckets, he arranged the lid back on top.
“Thank you. For holding on to it.” He gave her a reassuring look. “We’ll make sure it’s put to good use. I’m sure it’s what our brothers would have wanted.”
His words elicited a wan smile and the doctor left without saying anything else. Crosshair didn’t stick around to watch that haunted look crawl back over Ghost’s face. The reg didn’t even notice as he slipped out of the room and padded after the doctor, finding her in the midst of absentmindedly rearranging the contents of a cupboard in one of the patient rooms.
He positioned himself between her and the exit.
“Why are you helping us? All of us?”
She gave him a sidelong glance, not the least surprised to see him there.
“I guess I just have a soft spot for you boys.” She shrugged and went back to her task but his silence made it clear that that wasn’t an acceptable answer. A sigh ripped itself from her chest.
“Most of Kaisel’s people don’t care if it’s the Empire or the bounty hunters that run the planet. But there were some that did.” At that, she turned around and it was her turn to fix him with a questioning stare.
“Do you know where the Empire takes its prisoners?”
Crosshair weighed his options as he met her look head on.
“I was only a pawn.”
“Ghost says you were more than that.”
There she was again. The woman that didn’t take no for an answer. He averted his eyes when it was clear she would accept nothing but the truth.
“They don’t take prisoners. Not for long.”
Her eyes bore into him for a few immeasurable moments before she gave a curt nod and straightened her clothes. In the blink of an eye, all traces of a disturbance were gone from her manner.
“The city’s almost free of imperials,” she said, the note of a smile bleeding into her tone. “But I hear the Empire is planning to leave the planet permanently. It seems we’re not worth the trouble after they lost their main base in the mountains.” Her eyes narrowed at him with a hint of suggestion.
“I don’t suppose you know who was behind that?” She asked playfully.
“Not a clue,” Crosshair drawled, waved over his shoulder and slipped out of the room.
Ghost was quick to take on the task of assembling his new armor. Crosshair saw him picking out individual pieces as he’d passed by his door, adjusting them to his body and trying to figure out how to make them work for him. He himself was reluctant to get started. It wasn’t the armor that worried him – much of the stuff had already made its way to the black market thanks to the scum scavenging battlefields so they wouldn’t have to worry about standing out.
But something about sifting through the dead regs’ gear made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t bring himself to whisper a mando’a prayer for the deceased the way he’d caught Ghost doing, one of his pale hands reverently placed on a vambrace striped with light blue.
Those feelings of brotherhood, they’d never shared them with the regs. It would be hypocritical to start now.
So he spied on Ghost’s progress instead, procrastinating as he observed the clever ways the reg adapted the armor. He would forgo pieces that made the already clunky on him set feel clunkier, like the elbow guards and standard belt. The loose fit was somewhat corrected by baggier clothing to bunch up and hold the pieces in place. The next problem was the plackart. Reg armor was meant to fit snugly and if pieces were to overlap too much they would restrict mobility. Unfortunately for Ghost that was the case for the plackart and breastplate for him.
A difference in height made all the difference as Crosshair well knew himself.
Yet the little medic didn’t let that stop him. A few days after catching him conspiring with the doctor, Crosshair stopped by his room to find him cross-legged on the floor, a look of concentration on his face as he sewed a length of armorweave to the inside of his top.
Reluctantly impressed, Crosshair stopped at the threshold to watch. Where the doctor had gotten the material was anybody’s guess. That woman knew her way around the world, that was for sure. But he had a feeling this hadn’t been her idea.
The reg’s brow was scrunched as he aligned the next pass of the needle and pulled the thread taut. He hadn’t noticed Crosshair standing there and Crosshair took the opportunity to gauge if the other’s gaunt features were improving in any way. If they had he would have noticed it – his eyes didn’t miss details like that. Staring for too long soon proved to be a mistake however when the light from the window hit just right and the reg’s face morphed into a more familiar one.
A face they’d rescued on Skako Minor. A face that frowned as he was scolded for being mean to Wrecker. A face that was cold as a blaster was leveled at him from the pod-
Crosshair clenched his teeth. He needed to forget about it. He needed to forget about them. Feeling his arms tighten where he’d crossed them over his chest, he concentrated on the deft way the medic handled the needle and thread. With his two hands. With years of experience from stitching up wounds.
No, his wasn’t Echo. And Crosshair would do well to never think of that reg again – the one whose captain had risked everything to get him back.
After that little episode he’d decided it was time he dealt with his own armor. A decision that he definitely didn’t make because he needed a distraction. Waiting until Ghost was done and the doctor was busy – he didn’t want an audience – he took the box and carried it to the storage room. It weighed heavy with two full sets of armor still inside along with the parts Ghost hadn’t used. He set it down and inspected its contents.
He had two options to choose from: one set was heavily personalized with patterns and tally marks adorning nearly every surface, whereas the other one was blank. A clean slate. The corners of his mouth curled down. That one had either been upgraded recently or it belonged to a shiny… he shook his head. He wasn’t taking the personalized one, that wasn’t his past to wear.
Next was trying to get the armor to fit. Which was, as expected, an exercise in futility. His limbs were just too long. The shorter, wider leg pieces kept sliding down his legs and clacking together in what was a ridiculous display and he was quick to discard them. He had to compromise with the rerebraces however as one of his own had been split by a grazing shot.
In a weird stroke of luck, the bolt that had struck above his hip had been fired by a downed trooper and its angled trajectory had made his armor’s job easier than usual. But the damaged codpiece was still scrap. His belt and plackart were intact at least - regular clone armor would never fit around his scrawny waist.
In the end the only parts he could or had to replace were the pauldrons, rerebraces, chest plate and codpiece. Which was, of course, ignoring the obvious question of the helmet.
Crosshair sighed and slid the end of a swab stick between his lips. The good doctor had been adamant about not letting him put any more hyponeedles in his mouth and she’d quickly found him an alternative. She’d also cleaned his imperial armor – all without any prompting on his part – and he currently glared at the dark-colored pieces spread out in front of him on the floor.
He was not fond of this armor. It was a reminder of a time he had been very much used and treated like dirt. Designed to fit his body like the possessive fist of the Empire that had had its grip on him for almost a year.
But to compromise here… he’d be damned before he compromised when it came to his sight. The reg bucket had a visor he could best describe as complete garbage while his imperial issue helmet was equipped with the best of the best (if nothing else, the imperials knew their weapons and they knew how to hone them).
So from that perspective, the choice was an easy one.
Silently, he picked up the dark helmet and set it down next to the other assorted useable pieces. The reg bucket was placed carefully back into the box.
The next few minutes were spent staring at the mismatched mess he’d managed to accumulate and he’d already made up his mind when the doctor popped in to check on him.
“Oh! Someone’s making progress.”
Crosshair ignored the comment as he stroked his chin. “You wouldn’t happen to have some paint lying around, would you?”
She raised an eyebrow and grinned.
“Are you kidding? Blood splatter doesn’t make for good décor you know. You have no idea how many times we’ve repainted these walls.”
He stared at her from his spot on the floor.
“A simple yes would have sufficed,” he deadpanned. Her laugh echoed down the hallway as she disappeared to fetch the paint. Before long he had two small cans of white paint and a brush.
He didn’t go for anything elaborate. One stripe down the side of each leg piece and a wider one running down the middle of the helmet, front to back. It wasn't his style to be sure but it made the armor look lived in.
Resigning himself to the final result, he stood up, grabbed the two cans and walked out into the hallway to return them. It was a slow day for the medcenter and the place was mostly quiet or at least he thought so until he approached the reception room.
“This is your last warning, shrimp. Give me your bacta or I’ll make sure you need it more than me.”
Crosshair froze.
“And I’m telling you we barely have any bacta left!”
The cans of paint were set aside as his legs carried him forward on autopilot, coming to a stop at the doorway to the reception room. Once there his attention snapped to the hulking Trandoshan who had his blaster aimed at Tinar, ugly mug split into a toothy smile. Blood oozed from an open wound on his other arm and made a mess on the floor though it didn’t look like anything serious. His gear screamed bounty hunter. And so did his attitude.
Crosshair’s eyes slid to the receptionist. Tinar’s expression would have been annoyed if it weren’t for the layer of fear that clouded his face. Without a doubt his daughter was still playing in the backroom behind him.
“What the kriff are you looking at?”
He turned to find the Trandoshan staring at him.
“Scram human.”
And that did it. The final drop plummeted, his temper snapped and something in his body began to scream violence.
“Get out.” Crosshair hissed, his voice colder than a glacier. It was a warning. A threat. But the Trandoshan was none the wiser. He broke into a laugh and pretended to wipe a tear from his face with the edge of his blaster.
“Or what?”
Crosshair was in his face in the blink of an eye, his whole body coiled and thrumming with rage. The Thrandoshan was bigger than him, twice or maybe three times his weight, tough-skinned and muscled but he didn’t care. The last strings of his patience were crackling as they snapped and the repressed anger and frustration flowed like a drug down his veins, liberating and maddening at the same time.
He hadn’t gotten to snap Rampart’s neck with his own hands and he might snap one now – nobody spoke to him like that anymore.
He yanked the lizard’s collar to bring him down to eye-level. “Or,” His grip tightened. “the last thing you’ll see will be the inside of your skin.” The words were said in a gravelly undertone, bringing his voice down to a rasp. Next to him the fingers of his free hand twitched, ready to claw into flesh, and the longer he glared into the other’s eyes the more the bounty hunter’s confidence seemed to leave him.
Once it was clear who had the upper hand, the Trandoshan started to panic. His fanged mouth curled into a scowl and his scales turned a sickly glistening shade. Crosshair felt him trying to pull back but held on mercilessly.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he tried but Crosshair saw it for the distraction tactic it was and his hand flew up to catch the blaster that was preparing to aim at him. His fingers dug into a thick tendon and the Thrandoshan dropped the weapon with a cry just as Crosshair kicked his legs out from under him. It sent the bounty hunter sprawling to the floor and landing on his injured arm.
Crosshair didn’t move an inch as he continued to stare him down, shoulders tensed from where he now towered over him. That seemed to be all the other could handle and he scampered back on all fours.
“Alright, alright I’m going!” He held his arm out in front of him. His eyes darted to the discarded blaster but he seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the risk and he scrambled to his feet, scurrying out of the medcenter and down the street until he was out of sight.
“Huh.” Crosshair heard Tinar’s voice behind him. The Rodian was leaning over the reception desk, a look of approval in his eyes. Crosshair leaned down to pick up the dropped blaster and set it on the desk.
“Put that away somewhere.” He growled and turned to leave.
“Or,” Tinar gasped, “maybe we could keep it on display. You know, to scare away thugs like that.” He turned the blaster over and poked his tongue out as he tried to aim it. Then noticed Crosshair’s withering glare.
“What! I know how to use it!”
“Put. It. Away.” Crosshair loomed over him. The Rodian grumbled but stowed the blaster away in one of the desk drawers.
Crosshair exhaled loudly through his nose. His fists clenched one more time and he turned to stomp back to his room – he was still twitching with angry energy and needed to lie down. Kriff, he needed a toothpick too, something to dig his teeth into.
He turned down the hallway and was momentarily surprised to see the doctor leaning against the wall, looking at him. With a smirk. The sight stopped him in his tracks but not for long and he stormed past her, eager to be alone. Her words slipped through the crack just before the door to his room closed.
“Guess it’s not so bad to have some freeloaders around…”
_____
Crosshair displaying stalkerish tendencies? More likely than you think. He’s definitely the concerned hovering type and I’ll die on that hill.
Also to clarify about Ghost’s height, he’s 4-5 centimeters shorter than a regular clone which is a small but visible difference. He’s still a decent 178 cm tall but that doesn’t mean much if you’re as tall as Crosshair.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter even though it was a bit fillery! As always I’d love to know your thoughts!
Next chapter →
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morningstarascending · 9 months
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Life No Longer Silenced - Part 7
Finally I was making fair money to get a medical card for all the chronic pain I have. Headaches daily, pain in my spine and left limbs daily. So I turned to medical weed for sleep and pain, definitely better than pills but should still be used responsibly. I was asked to train and teach the other managers what I did and train a back up for if a manager is ever out. I ended up getting food poisoning from a chinese takeout and going to the hospital. Gallbladder and intestine was infected, had to be on two antibiotics. St. Lucie Medical center (now renamed, still horrible administation and bad doctors, amazing nurses though) malnourished me and I went from 350 LB to 180 LB in a month. Doctors didn't care at all, one hit me in the stomach and the nutritionist tried to give me the wrong foods. The nurses were wonderful, giving me unlimited access to their breakroom for ice and to the fridge that had stuff for the patients, wasn't much I could have but the chicken stock they showed me. I wish nurse were given more respect. I now got back to work owner acted all nice being an ex doctor but got annnoyed when you tell him all the medical stuff, he asked and get upset. I ended up learning somethings, he lost his medical license to money laundering. I discovered this is another owner not to be trusted. I end up at bad jobs with bad boss' and abused. Things really began to take a turn, no manager would agree and so the other two would way over order and empty the bank acount. Then when bills are paid, you are black listed till all bills are paid. So I had to fix that, since the owner decided to make me general manager and handle all liquor ordering for all of the store. That made me even more alienated from the workers and managers. I did everything I was suppose to do, even tried to get pay raises for coworkers but couldn't. At this time I start dating a woman that was a customer, she lived in the area. It lasted a year and it took me too long to see the red flags, so many. Publix owned the plaza for one of the store, well it had a bad roof they never wanted a fix and even rented it out with bad rusted a/cunits and, mold/mildew in walls. I tried so hard to get it fixed, other cowarkers and I had asthma. All of us were having reactions to the bad leaks. Well Publix and the roofing company didn't like me when one roofer told me the truth about the situation. The roof fix was bad and in the pics, the rusted holes in the a/c units were worse, and myself and coworkers were getting sicker. They sent roofers out again and said it was fine, even though we had buckets of water collecting water. One of the roofers tried to steal my new phone and I tried to report it and the lies on the roof. Publix and roofers complain about me and I get moved to another store. Well couple of female coworkers and the other crazy male manager decided to make things even worse, talking behind my back and get me demoted after I started going though the system to fix that store. I was close but it looked like liquor and money was being stolen. Margins were all over the place, case sizes were all wrong. I just didn't have enough time to figure it out before I was removed by the toxic workers. I heard that stores are doing bad and loosing money I choose not to go back there. I ended up getting a new job and it is the place I am currently working at. Very toxic, expecially with new managent, rumours, gossiping, osha violations, federal violations, false hiring advertisments, empty work, broken promises, lies, a ceo that doesn't see any of it or chooses not to. No ones health and safety is taken in consideration, especiallywith this heat. I was on a igger team in the beginning but two left, one being toxic and the other still growing up with lots of potential. Teams also has revolvng members, lost two toxic ones already. Had two toxic and dumb general managers, a service manager that was check out when I started and, now a service manager that doesn't know how to be a manager. Just knows how to play favorites and pall around with his friends there.
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roshanacg · 11 months
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An insight into agencies offering disability and elderly care services in Australia
Australia is one of the most developed countries in the world and the medical facilities provided by the skilled people here are extremely updated and professional. Apart from hospitals and nursing homes, this country gives in for skilled services like disability services, elderly care and also employment services to people staying in there. The most crucial ones among these services include the initiatives taken for people who are more vulnerable than the other lot.
It is a fact that persons with disabilities are normally more vulnerable and weaker than the other sections of people and need more care and concern all the time. Thus, the professionals are trained and skilled enough to assist people who are clinically facing challenges in life. Disability services Australia are basically designed to enable handicapped people to participate in daily activities to an extent possible. It is not advisable to seclude people from daily lives on account of their physical disabilities and thus certain agencies are diligently at work so as to get them back to normal lives with utmost care and support in every way possible. Besides, Elderly care in Australia too is taken very seriously. The professionals are adequately trained so as to ensure holistic care of people who are aged and weak. They are entitled to take care of their food habits, hygiene and medications and also their well-being. The major part of their task is to provide love and warmth to the people who are no longer able to get things done themselves. There are nurses and caretakers who even take up duties at the patients’ place so as to allow them to enjoy the comfort of their own homes while being treated and looked after. Cooking of meals, domestic assistance and personal care are the major pillars of elderly care initiated here in this land.
It is a fact that there are people who need employees and people who need employment. It is here that Employment agencies come into the forefront. The major task that the professionals do here is that they establish a link between the job givers and the job seekers so that the former can find out the right kind of employees and the latter can get along the right kind of job profiles. This is how these agencies make sure to initiate overall care and support to the needy in the society.
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internationalnewz · 11 months
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Infants, bed-ridden patients wait in cramped airport to escape violence-hit Manipur
Close to 2,000 passengers are stranded at the premises of the airport, the terminal building of which can handle only 750 passengers - 250 for arrival and 500 for departure - at a time.
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KOLKATA: Heart-wrenching scenes were witnessed at the Imphal airport which is overcrowded with passengers young and old, many of them ailing and wailing, eager to flee from Manipur which has been shaken by violence since last week.
Patients with catheters just out of ICU, newborn and premature babies with mothers, women with advanced pregnancy, bed-ridden cancer patients, besides people with worry writ large on their faces, all thronged the airport in the past few days to take flights for places outside the state as soon as possible, officials said on Tuesday.
Some of these passengers with bullet injuries have also been seen in the airport.
"You would feel like crying if you see the scene at the Imphal airport," an AAI official told PTI over the phone from Imphal on Tuesday.
Close to 2,000 passengers are stranded at the premises of the airport, the terminal building of which can handle only 750 passengers - 250 for arrival and 500 for departure - at a time.
Airline companies have put in additional flights to take the passengers, with their queue getting longer gradually as the ethnic violence broke out a few days ago and army men have to be deployed.
Doctors of the airport, employees of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and staff of different airlines have been working hand in hand round the clock to make the distressed people a bit comfortable.
The AAI has been providing all stranded people with food and water. The airport now is being run with bare minimum support.
Since all shops are closed outside the facility, the AAI officials in Imphal had sent SOS messages to nearby airports such as Guwahati, Agartala and Dibrugarh to get supplies — food, water, essential medicines and others for both staff and passengers, another official said.
A special ticket counter has been opened at the airport.
A Local Area Network (LAN) network is being used for the purpose as internet services have been suspended since last week in the state, said the officials who refused to be identified for fear of getting targeted.
Sources at the airport said that the gates of the airport have been attacked twice by the rioters but they could not succeed in entering.
An employee said that his colleagues and officers have been staying on the airport premises since the violence broke out. The handful of AAI employees have not been getting enough rest, an official said.
The Imphal airport used to handle 14 incoming and the same number of outgoing flights a day and the number has shot up, he said.
On Monday, the airport operated 80 flights - 40 incoming and 40 outgoing.
The Regional Executive Director (RED) of AAI's North East region, S Jugani said, "The AAI has coordinated with the state government to provide police escort to the people going outside from the airport."
"All our employees are working round the clock in three shifts. The total number of flights (scheduled and additional) operated to and fro Imphal between May 4 and May 6 was 216," the RED said.
A help desk has also been set up at the Imphal airport to assist passengers.
People have been allowed to stay at the airport premises on humanitarian grounds, Jugani said.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Monday said that 60 people were killed, 231 injured and 1,700 houses including religious places burnt in the ethnic violence.
Violent clashes broke out in the northeastern state after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the 10 hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status, leading to the deaths of at least 54 people.
Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal valley. Tribals — Nagas and Kukis — constitute another 40 per cent of the population and live in the hill districts.
The clashes were preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land which had led to a series of smaller agitations.
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rajesh221 · 1 year
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Everything To Know About Laparoscopy Surgery
 Harish Jagtani Hospitals is working to boost the healthcare system by spreading awareness and making the citizens of DR Congo health conscious. Join our mission and share the information with your family and friends to step towards a healthier life. To access world-class medical facilities, forlaparoscopic surgery in Congocontact our expert team of healthcare professionals. Continue reading to know more about laparoscopic surgery. 
What is laparoscopy?
Laparoscopy is a surgical procedure in which doctors use smaller cuts than the patient might expect. In this particular type of surgery, doctors use a special slender tool called ‘laparoscope’, which has a tiny video camera inbuilt and has a light on the end. While undergoing surgery the surgeon inserts this tool through a small cut and through the video monitor can observe the inside of your body. Its camera sends all the images of the interior of the body to the video monitor, to enable the doctor to analyse the body without long cuts. If surgeons do not use this particular tool, there may be a need to go for long incisions which means longer cuts.
It is a kind of ‘minimally invasive surgery. It was initially used for gallbladder surgery and gynaecology operations. Later on, doctors started to use it for the intestine, liver, and other organs of the body.
Laparoscopy allows for shorter hospital stays, enhances recovery, produces less pain, and smaller scars than the traditional surgical procedures.
Uses
Nowadays it has become very popular and convenient and is in use for many patients having any abnormal abdominal issues. It is also used to diagnose tumours and other such growths. It is also in practice to detect blockages, unexplained bleeding, and other infections.
In women it is used to diagnose or treat fibroids, these are the growths that occur inside or outside the uterus. Most of the fibroids are non-cancerous. To diagnose or treat an ovarian cyst, fluid-filled sac inside or on the surface of the ovary. It has several uses like removal of ectopic pregnancy, performing a hysterectomy, and many other medical issues.
Laparoscopic surgery is sometimes used when a physical exam or imaging tests, such as X-Ray or ultrasounds, do not provide enough clarity and information to diagnose.
Advantages
This surgical process has several benefits in comparison to traditional methods such as-
Smaller scars.
Less painful.
Quick healing.
Less stay time in hospital thus reduces hospital expenses.
Can resume daily routine quicker.
While undergoing surgery you would be required to follow all the instructions given by your surgeon. He may ask you to be fasting or may give you special instructions about eating food 6-8 hours before surgery. So follow all the instructions properly.
If you are still struggling to ‘find a doctor’ for laparoscopic surgery, you may visit Harish Jagtani Hospitals to access world-class and affordable healthcare services in your city. Harish Jagtani Hospitals, provide all the related services starting from surgical critical care, to nutrition and diet counselling, to ensure your complete well-being. Contact us now and schedule an appointment.
- Harish Jagtani
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urielhomecare · 1 year
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Signs Your Loved One Requires In-Home Care
You may have visited an elderly parent over the holidays and noticed signs that they may want support inside the home. Maybe there wasn't enough nutritious food in the fridge, things weren't as clean as often, or the elderly forgot to take their medicine. Here are some indications that your elderly relative may benefit from the support – and companionship – of in-home caregivers to continue living independently.
You need to look for the proper caretaker for your elder one. Uriel Homecare provides the best service of Old Age Care at Home in Jalandhar at an affordable price. Our expert medical team will help your elder one live safely and comfortably. 
Signs that show that your elder one needs caretaker service
In the last year, there has been a fall or illness.
Mood swings or depression have resulted from social isolation.
Your loved one has lost interest in pastimes.
The house is in such a mess that it might be unsafe.
Your loved one can no longer maintain housework or outdoor work.
Unclean clothing and untidy hair indicate that your loved one is not taking care of personal hygiene.
Empty cupboards and refrigerators with rotting or expired food are indicators of poor nutrition.
Uriel Homecare service of Old Age Care at Home in Jalandhar can help older people live safer at home by assisting with Companionship, Medication, Nutrition, Transportation, and other services.
A Safer Home for Senior Independence
Where would you like to live when you become older? According to surveys of people aged 50 and over, the majority desire to be elderly, and live in their own homes even if their health needs change. They prefer to stay in their familiar surroundings in their owner-occupied with familiar businesses and services. They have built an informal support system of family, friends, and neighbors through the years. Their origins are in their hometown!
However, as time passes, families sometimes wonder if their elderly loved ones are still secure at home. Those two flights of stairs, the stylishly low lighting, the old foot tub – assets of the house that everyone took for granted now appear to be threats! It's important to assess the home's adaptability and learn about improvements that might help your loved one's house better meet their changing needs.
Patient Care Services in Jalandhar: Human Touch in Home Safety
There are many benefits to staying at home, but for seniors with arthritis, vision impairment, stroke symptoms, or other physical and cognitive issues, certain daily duties are simply not safe, even with home adaptations. Professional In-home Care Services help to make all the difference in this circumstance. Here are a few examples of how the experienced Uriel Homecare Services team assists elderly clients to be safe at home:
Housekeeping services, such as performing activities that may be unsafe to your elder one and eliminating dangers indoors and outside that may cause a fall.
Household hygiene duties to reduce the risk of infection.
Doing laundry – the washer is often seen in the basement.
Medication reminders to avoid overdosing or missing a dosage.
Assistance with bathing, dressing, and toileting.
Exercise and other indoor and outdoor activities that keep clients healthy and interested are supervised.
When it is no longer safe for a person to travel, transportation is provided.
Communication with family — safety is a joint effort.
Understanding Senior Depression
Depression is one of the most common illnesses.  It affects people of all ages, even the elderly. However, depression is frequently misunderstood. Uriel Homecare understands the difficulties in recognizing and treating this medical illness, and we also know that dealing with depression in a positive, medically acceptable manner may make a significant difference in a senior's quality of life in many circumstances.
It can be distinguished by a wide range of symptoms, including:
Low energy
An unusual lack of enthusiasm
Physical attractiveness is ignored
Inability to focus or memory losses
Leaving friends and/or habitual activities
Interruptions in eating and sleeping habits
A strange obsession with aches and pains
What Are the Root Causes of Depression?
It might be caused by a specific incident in a person's life (such as a loss, a change in the situation, or a health problem that limits activities and mobility). A variety of conditions, such as stroke, Parkinson's disease, or hormone imbalances, can cause physical changes that lead to sadness. It might also be an adverse effect of some drugs or medication combinations.
Just as it is critical to verify whether a person's signs are caused by physical difficulties, it is also critical to ensure that the person's symptoms are not mistaken with other medical diseases, as depression may resemble other medical conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. 
So, if you are noticing such signs of depression in your elder one’s life, don’t ignore them. If you are unavailable with your elder one at home, hire a caretaker for this service to overcome the lack of loneliness and caretaking. Contact Uriel Homecare Services at Jalandhar.
“Compassionate care is what we provide at Uriel Homecare”
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