#not like on the brink of death but shes old and frail and sick

[livsspecialinterests]

idk what specific pathology is responsible for this but whenever I feel bad I literally cannot comprehend ever not feeling bad again

#this isnt that deep im just tired and anxious #and have studying and loads of unpaid work stuff to get done #the state of uk healthcare and the general state of the uk rn makes it hard to find extranl sources of motivation #have got to make my own motivation and so on days where i feel bad it just all goes to shit #also titrating my adhd meds and was told that things might get worse before they get better #which i understand but i wasnt prepared for the reality of it #also my grandma isnt well #not like on the brink of death but shes old and frail and sick #me and my mum are both worried that she's just going to get worse quite soon so thats like a cloud over the head too #actually i take back the its not that deep #i do kind of feel like shit lol

[concussed-to-pieces]

Whether It Works Out Or Not: Summer’s Warmth, Part One

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2

Pairing: High Honor!Arthur Morgan/Named OFC

Rating: Holy shit T.

AN: Thank you all so much for continuing to read! Enjoy!

EDIT 4/18/21: Attempting to fix the formatting now, forgive me! It shows up fine before posting, but I believe I have it squared away! ;-;

[Spoiler warning for the epilogue!]

Tag List: @huliabitch​​​ @cookiethewriter​​​ @pedrosbigdorkenergy​​​ @thirstworldproblemss​​​ @anonymouscosmos​​​ @culturalrebel​​​ @karmezii​​​ @teaofpeach​​​ @crookedmoonsaultpunk​​​ @wrestlingfae​​​ @zombiexbody​​​ @nelba​​​ @scribblenotes76​​​ @toxiicpop​​​ @mstgsmy​​​ @misty-possum​​​ @gallowsjoker​​​ @midnightbeauty35​​​ @lackofhonor​​​ @renegademustelid​​​ @missfronkensteen​​ @newplanetshine​

Part One: Strangers

Part Two: Friends

Part Three: More

Bonus One: A Brief Diversion

Bonus Two: Back In The Cage

Winter’s Cold, Part One

Winter’s Cold, Part Two

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains emotional distress, vivid recollections and self-loathing. Stay safe!]

Arthur dreamed of the vigil he had stood beside Kieran's grave, Chase's large head resting on his shoulder. Bitter, sorrowful words had twisted up in his throat until he just shoved his face into the horse's mane so he could unleash a body-rattling sob. He had left a handful of bulrushes crisscrossed over the grave. Kieran had always plied the horses with whatever treats he could scrounge up, mushrooms or bulrushes or the rare luxury of sugar cubes. 

Kieran O'Driscoll, Kieran Van Der Linde, but in the end he had died Kieran Duffy. Just one more hideous taunt sent to the Van Der Linde camp from the O'Driscolls, one more life lost in the feud of two proud men who had wronged each other. 

Arthur dreamed of the nightmare of Guarma, the way his body was wracked with feverish chills on that godforsaken island, blistering sun beating down on him and he had just forced himself onwards, ignoring it. 

Micah mocking him, Dutch's merciless slaughter of that elderly woman.

Stumbling across Hosea and Lenny's graves on his long, slow trek back to Shady Belle from Van Horn and it just hitting him like a bullet to the gut that they were gone, truly gone. Like Kieran, like Sean.

When he and Charles had found that young woman in the Murfree hellhole, Arthur had sworn for several long, panic-stricken seconds that it had been Irene. The fear he had felt, the agony, he had nearly been sick with guilty relief when she stepped into the light and her eyes were blue. The enforcer would never say how dangerously close he had come to pitching himself at her feet and begging her forgiveness for being grateful that she wasn't who he had thought she was. 

And the girl's mother in Annesburg trying to pay him, like he had done something incredible. Like he wasn't a monster himself, jaded with loss and becoming more and more certain that Dutch was hellbent on reaching their collective doom. Tahiti and mangoes had never sounded so unappealing.

Molly, struck down with no mercy, 'she knew the rules', they all knew the damn rules.

Collapsing out of the blue in the streets of Saint Denis on his way to meet up with Sadie so they could rescue that fool Marston, coming back around with a kindly stranger directing him to the doctor, the sterile reek that permeated the office as the learned man dropped the bad news on him with all the grace of a boulder on his chest.

Tuberculosis, and the noose that had been around his neck since Blackwater finally snapped taut to strangle him. 

His slow, shambling walk down the street as whatever that doctor had given him to take the edge off made him hallucinate that the damned deer was back, the majestic creature sauntering through the crossroads in front of him like some kind of divine herald.

Or hellish omen.

After that was just the long, torturous slog as Dutch did his best to drag them all down into the fiery abyss with him.

Strauss, Strauss, preying on fools, on desperate men with pregnant wives, on folk he knew damn well couldn't pay him back! When Arthur had finally had enough of being the bastard's lackey he roared at the man to get the hell out!, every ounce the commanding king of legend that Sean had mockingly likened him to.

Hearts are so rarely pure. But then again, they are also rarely impure, that sister had said. Her wise words had given Arthur pause, the man speechless beside her on the bench. He wasn't used to such ambiguity from religious folk. Normally it was either saccharine-sweet pandering about how he could still be saved, or self-righteous wrath as he was told that his perdition would last eternity for every rotten thing he had done.

Rightly so, too! He was a terrible man.

The imagery of the deer kept haunting him. Arthur didn't understand it, he couldn't manage to wrap his head around why he kept dreaming about the deer. The deer or Irene, her violin music lilting fae-like through the twilight of his consciousness nearly every night as he struggled to stifle his coughing.

Black lung, black lung, Micah mocked and sneered.

When Ms. Grimshaw's end came, it was the final signature on the decree of his damnation. Violence begot violence begot violence and Arthur could scarce imagine how grisly his own demise would be.

Pinkertons flushing them out of the cave like hounds after quail, he and John fleeing--

The sound of Micah's labored breathing, blows landing over and over, the two of them circling one another on the edge of Purgatory itself until Arthur's broken body had finally given out.

In the final act of his life, Dutch had met his eyes and then departed wordlessly with Micah in tow. The sting was a far-off sensation, dulled by inevitability.

I gave you everything I had.

Arthur had thought he was dead; had thought the fight was well and truly kicked out of him. That incorrigible, stubborn spirit of his, the spite and loyalty and grit flickered and faded like a candle in a draft. He barely remembered the sunrise, his last rambling thoughts before consciousness deserted him fixated on the fact that he could feel the deer from his dreams, pacing just outside his field of vision... 

But of course, he couldn't forget the price on his head. He was still worth something to someone, even if he was hovering at Death's door.

…

Irene didn't sleep a wink, tossing and turning until the wee hours of the morning. Finally, when she checked her old pocket watch for the sixth time and saw that it was four o'clock, she gave up. 

Irene got out of bed, got dressed, and went to Anna's room to wake her. "You're coming fishing with Mama, little fawn." She whispered while the child yawned. "You can even go back to sleep on the shore, alright?"

"Mmhm." Clearly still half-asleep, Anna nodded, rubbing her eyes. 

Irene gathered up her fishing gear and her daughter, leaving a note in case she wasn't back by the time Arthur managed to rouse himself. For his sake (and perhaps a bit for her own as well), she hoped he slept in. 

It wasn't until she reached the riverbank that the lunacy of the whole situation really hit her. He was the father of her child, she had nursed him back from the brink of death itself, and yet she feared what the reveal might bring! Hadn't she done enough worrying over the last few months? 

Maybe she was more worried about whether he would stay simply out of believing it was his duty to do so.

If nothing came of it, if he...wanted nothing to do with her now that the two of them had inadvertently brought a new life into the world, it wouldn't change anything in her existence. She would live out her days in peace, far from society. Arthur Morgan would no doubt carry on in the same manner that he always had, though perhaps just a touch more cautiously. 

She didn't let herself think of the alternative. It was best that she not get her hopes up. After all, he had been the one to put their meetings to an end. Knowing what she knew now, further clarified by what Trelawny had mentioned, it seemed as though Morgan was trying to protect her from the grisly fate the rest of their band was barreling towards. She could not fault him for cutting her loose, no doubt he had thought he was doing the best thing for her. 

In a way, it had been. 

Irene hooked several fish as she pondered, reeling the small offerings in absently. Anna was young. Young enough that should Arthur decide to leave, she probably wouldn't even recall him given enough time. So it was Irene's own selfishness that she was hung up on, her own silly feelings and emotions. 

Somewhere along the way, during their free and easy couplings, she had fallen in love. With Arthur Morgan, a man she could readily admit to knowing precious little about. It seemed so foolish now, what had she been thinking?

The woman smiled wistfully as the sun rose.

She hadn't been thinking at all, there was the truth of it. She had enjoyed herself for the first time in her life, consequences be damned. 

Besides, when it all comes down to it, Irene mused as she glanced over at the sleeping form of her child, I would trade a thousand Arthurs for one sweet little Anna.

Anna woke up again around eight, clamoring for her breakfast. The two of them walked hand-in-hand back to Irene's stead, Anna swinging her arms and singing some tuneless ditty only she knew the words to. 

Arthur was awake and upright on their return, the man supporting his weight with the rough-hewn posts of the paddock. Chase looked for all the world like she was listening to him as he muttered to himself, the mare's ears pricked to catch his voice.

Clearly Irene wasn't the only one who had missed him.

Anna bolted forward, crowing in triumph. Normally Chase tended to keep to the far side of the paddock, where it was more shady. "Up, up! Wanna' pet!" The little girl demanded, straining to reach Chase's nose.

Arthur, frail and pale as he was, certainly gave it a good effort. He got the child nearly two inches off the ground before he failed, visibly panicking as he dropped her. Mercifully she didn't seem to notice, the little girl just thinking they were playing a game. 

She was laughing, "again again!", waving her arms and Arthur shot Irene a look so terrified she was barely able to restrain her mirth.

"Annie, how do we ask?" Irene prompted her daughter, then propped her boot up on the lower cross-beam of the fence and patted her thigh. "Come along, up you get!" Anna threw herself over her mother's knee, grappling Irene's skirts before managing to reach Chase's nose from her new vantage point perched on her mother's thigh. 

"Mister Art'ur no lift me?" The little girl queried after a time, giving the tall man a quizzical look. 

"It's gonna' be a while before I'm liftin' much of anythin', Miss Anna." Arthur answered her ruefully. 

"But Mama can lift?" The child continued curiously. 

"Your mama is the strongest person I know. She can lift you, me, that horse, the barn…" Arthur rattled on, listing more and more outlandish things as Anna giggled. "I once saw her lift a whole riverboat with her pinky!" Arthur claimed. "Weren't even breathin' hard neither!"

"Mama can do all that?" Anna asked, those blue eyes wide as she tilted her head back to stare up at Irene. 

"Absolutely!" The woman replied firmly, then smiled. "I'd do even more for you, my little fawn."

"She's a real strong woman, Miss Anna, real strong. You'll be just like her someday." Arthur murmured, his gaze gone melancholy again.

In response, Anna seized Arthur's hand and bunched up her tiny fist to make a 'muscle' in her arm for him to feel. "Strong!" She insisted, her expression fierce. 

"You shoah are, what you need me for around here?" Arthur humored her with a grin. "I'd just get in your way at this point." Irene realized that he wasn't talking to the child anymore, for all that his eyes were on Anna. 

"We are more than happy to have you, isn't that right Annie?" The woman stated, making Arthur glance up at her. The raw look in his gaze caught her off-guard.

"Mmhm," Anna agreed with a decisive nod. "Make you better!"

"S'pose if I had to pick a place to convalesce, I couldn't find a nicer sanatorium even out east." 

…

Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. 

Was this little baby girl his? Did he even deserve that sort of joy? She was two already, he had missed her first steps, her first words…God, it always seemed like he was too late. From his first child Isaac with that sweet girl Eliza, to Mary, and now this.

He and Irene sat on the porch of her little cabin, the woman having made a delicious fish fry for breakfast. It smelled amazing, but Arthur's stomach was too knotted to eat. He fumbled with his fork a few times, casting about for an opening to ask Irene the all-important question on his mind.

Anna unwittingly offered him his opportunity, the child scarfing her breakfast and then begging to be permitted to play in the puddles in the yard. Irene nodded after a moment, collecting the child's plate and then instructing her to don her mess trousers.

The little girl tore off to do so and her mother chuckled quietly. "She is such a menace. Always rummaging, stomping, finding new things to squish or examine." Irene remarked. 

Arthur couldn't wait a second longer, abandoning his plate as he turned to look at her. "Irene," he said her name sharply, trying to keep his voice low. "Is that girl my child?"

Irene took her sweet time replying to him, chewing a mouthful of flaky fish. "What happens if I say yes, Arthur?" She asked, her own words soft. 

"I...I want you to know that I did my damnedest to not--I mean, when we...hell, I didn't want you pinned down like that bastard Carson wanted." Arthur swore grimly. "I didn't want to saddle you with somethin' you ain't asked for, Irene."

"Will you leave? If she's yours?" Irene was picking at her food now, refusing to look at him. Anna carried on stomping in the puddles across the yard, her giggles punctuating the silence.  

Arthur inhaled to respond and accidentally sent himself into a coughing fit, hacking and snorting in the least glamorous way possible. "It ain't fair that you've had to put up with me for so long, with the...shadow of me, even. I'm barely a fraction of the feller I once was. Can't even lift the little one," he mumbled after he managed to get the spasm under control. "But...but even if she ain't mine, even if you've been uh, knowin' other men, it doesn't matter to me, okay? I got no business commentin' on your personal affairs." 

Arthur felt like he would burst into flames from how hard he was flushing; he usually wasn't this nervous when it came to speaking what was on his mind. 

"Feels like I've gotten a second wind here, and I just...I never stopped thinkin' about you," he confessed. "Dreamin' that I would come out the other side of this and that I'd still have a damn chance to see you again."

Irene was merely listening to him ramble, her face neutral. Meanwhile, Arthur was floundering. He had no idea what the right answer might be. Did she want to be left alone? Should he entirely abandon these thoughts, these selfish wishes of his?

"I spent most of my younger years tryin' to put on a respectable front so a specific woman and her family would deem me worthy." He vaguely recalled being strung out on drink in Valentine, crying against Irene's stomach as she stroked the back of his head to soothe him. "It was never enough, and I thought that was it. That was the end for any of those dreams I had. Then I...I met you." Arthur took her hand, rubbing his thumb over the pulse that beat in her wrist. "As much as it killed me, I had to...I didn't want you to be trapped in my mess. I felt--I-I mean, I..." 

I love you, I love you, say it, you cowardly fool!

"If I do this, if I let you stay...you can't go gallivanting off into the wilds, understand?" The woman informed him sternly, her back ramrod straight. "I will not have my daughter getting attached to a man who cannot be there for her, Arthur."

His heart twisted uncertainly in his chest and Arthur hesitated, teetering on the precipice. "She is mine, isn't she?" He finally asked, his voice faltering. At her hesitant nod, the man's throat closed up. "Jesus." Arthur rasped, trying and failing to blink the tears away before they could fall. "A daughter. A li'l baby girl. I never thought I'd...Christ almighty Irene, I n-never--" 

And in an incredibly masculine display of self control, he dissolved into hiccupping sobs.

…

Irene had tried to steel herself for his reaction, fearing the worst. This however, was...manageable. 

"Hush, Arthur." She chided him, feeling her own lower lip quiver. He caught her up in an embrace, his once-powerful frame fragile and trembling with every gasp for air. His fingers clutched at her sides and he buried his face in her shoulder, his hat tumbling to the ground. "Arthur, it's alright." Irene's arms slipped beneath his own and she tentatively hugged him back, just letting him weep and sniffle into her neck. "There's no need to cry."

He stifled a cough in the crook of his elbow, pulling away after several moments. "'Course, a'course. M' fine." He choked out, mopping at his face with his bandanna.

"Art'ur, Mama!" Anna called from the paddock, her tiny hands cupped together around...something. "Art'ur see!" She stumbled to the steps, where she opened her hands just the tiniest bit. 

A wee toad sat in her palm, the creature looking a bit put-out over their current situation. 

"Caught yerself a prince there, Miss Annie?" Arthur asked, rattled by another coughing fit when she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Nuh Art'ur, a toad. Not a frog." Anna corrected, giving him a fierce scowl. "No kisses for toads."

"Little miss," Irene interjected sharply, raising an eyebrow. "Mind your manners. I know you're not that rude."

"B-But...is a toad!" Anna protested, waving the aforementioned critter around.

"I know that, Annie, but you need to be polite when you talk to folks. Now, what do we say?"

"M'sorry, Art'ur." Anna mumbled, depositing the shaken toad into her mother's waiting hands and then scuffing her boot on the ground.

"Oh don't worry about it, li'l Miss Annie. No harm done. You were right, after all." Arthur assured her with a tight smile, his eyes clouded with emotion. "Guess I got a lot to learn about that sort of thing, I ain't much in the habit of readin' fairytales." 

Irene seized the moment of distraction to usher the toad into the shelter of the shade beneath the steps. Then, she brushed her hands off on her apron and got to her feet. "Well Anna, you know what day it is. Come along, little fawn." To Arthur, she continued, "it's Monday, which is also wash day. Be a dear and strip your bed, would you?"

…

Arthur hated that he was absolutely drenched in sweat over something so mundane! He recalled enviously the sheer amount of times he would trek back and forth across whatever camp they had set up, lugging sacks of maize or a fresh kill over one shoulder with the greatest of ease. 

He had nearly been bested by sheets and bedding, of all things. This boded poorly. 

He laid on his back for several long minutes after he had managed to finish remaking the tick up in the hayloft, doing his best to catch his breath again. He knew he should be grateful for surviving the consumption in the first place, but there was a nagging fear in the back of his mind that threatened to fester.

What if this was as good as he got? What if he never really...recovered? His clothes fairly hung off of him; his entire body had become so frail. He was winded from making his blasted pallet! He would be a dependent, a sponge on Irene, a leech. 

That thought had him cringing, and he forced himself to sit back up. Everything ached. He had pushed himself too hard, that was all. Arthur knew in a logical sense that he couldn't just...expect to leap out of bed ready to wrestle a grizzly so soon after a five-month stint of nothing. It just pricked at his pride.

"Arthur?" Irene's head appeared at the top of the ladder, the woman giving him a quizzical look as she took in his rumpled state. "Would you like to bathe? Water's still hot."

Bathe. Lord, a bath sounded heavenly right about now. His sore muscles practically screamed for it. "Depends on how much I'd have to pay to get you as my bath girl." He replied without hesitation.

"I'm a luxury, Mister Morgan." That would have driven a knife into his belly, had she not punctuated it with a saucy wink. "I'm afraid you'll have to do a bit extra to earn a helping hand in your washtub."

Arthur grinned ruefully, shaking his head. "Forgive me ma'am, my mouth ran away from me."

"Oh I'm certain!" Irene laughed, reaching up to swat his knee. "Come along now, before the water cools."

Stripping down in the privacy of her bedroom was...interesting. Arthur studiously avoided looking at the mirror she had as he shed his clothing, folding everything and leaving it by the door like she had asked. The woman already had clean clothes waiting for him on the chair beside the tub. He wouldn't get better service in a Saint Denis hotel!

Lowering his body down into the still-warm water was absolutely heavenly, for all that he nearly scalded himself. Irene must have topped off the tub before he came in, bless her for it. 

A lump of soap sat primly atop a wash rag on the mat next to the tub, and Arthur knew he ought to get started before the water grew too tepid to be comfortable. But there was no harm in taking a moment or two to relax, right?

He lolled his head back against the lip of the tub, his eyes wandering lazily to the mirror beside the door. It was safe to look at now, as it was tilted in such a way that he wouldn't see himself. The last rays of the day's sunlight reflected off the looking glass, the beams warming the rough-hewn floorboards from their usual pale gold to a rich, honeyed brown. 

Arthur wondered idly if Irene had built this place by herself. He didn't doubt it; she was a resourceful woman. 

There was still the question of how she had managed to get ahold of him. Oh certainly, she had mentioned Josiah. But there had been an omission of further details involving his rescue that he found odd. He would have to ask her after he was done with his wash. Maybe over supper.

He groaned, straightening his back and scooping up the soap. He'd best get to scrubbing if he wanted to be presentable for the mealtime.

…

"Arthur?" Irene knocked on the door to her room, a touch worried when she received no answer. "Arthur, it's nearly time for dinner." Still nothing. She took a gamble and turned the handle, easing the door open a hair. 

Arthur appeared to have fallen asleep in the tub, and Irene barely managed to stifle her chuckle. She closed the door behind her gently, tiptoeing to the side of the tub.

He didn't look so worn when he was sleeping, she decided. The furrows smoothed from his brow and the lines around his eyes eased a bit, his mind temporarily free of the burdens that plagued him during his waking hours. Irene settled onto the floor beside the tub, stroking her fingers through his damp hair. "Arthur," she called softly. 

He hummed low in his chest, those blue eyes blinking open as she continued to comb through his thick locks. "Well, ain't you a sight for sore eyes." The man drawled, a lazy grin on his face. "Prettiest bath gal I've ever seen." Arthur slotted his fingers through her own, pressing a kiss to her raw-washed knuckles. "These poor hands of yours...Irene, you'll work yourself to the bone." He chided. "Once I get back up to full strength, I promise you'll want for nothin'." 

Nothing at all, his gaze continued, the heated stare sending those old but oh so familiar waves of delight through her body.

"Arthur…" Irene was at a loss, biting her lower lip and breaking his stare by dropping her eyes to the floor. "We will have to wait and see. Once you're back on your feet." She allowed finally.

"It's a deal, Miss Craft." Arthur swore, his jaw set in a determined line. 

Once you're truly well again, I doubt I'll be able to hold on to you, Irene thought sadly as she rose to stand once more. "Supper is nearly ready. Don't take too long, otherwise Annie will polish off your helping!" She teased, her heart not really in it.

Arthur cocked his head, appearing like he was about to question her further, so Irene seized the moment to slip back through the door and close it behind her.

She leaned back against the door, staring up at the ceiling while exhaling hard. Her throat felt suspiciously tight and Irene shook her head at herself, annoyed. I'll be alright. Annie and I have been fine, and we can carry on just fine even without Arthur.

If only she believed it!

Summer’s Warmth, Part Two

#red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption 2 epilogue #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x original female character #high honor arthur #arthur morgan imagine #rdr2 #rdr2 fandom #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 spoilers #slow burn #rdr2 epilogue #back at it again

[the-colony-roleplay]

Reverend Enoch Lynch | Forty Nine;  Elite

House: Torren Status: Infected — Increased Vision Elite Specification: Therapist

History

First there was Enoch and his mother and his father. She was happy and robust. She fed the animals, kept the house warm and her two boys fed. His father was healthy and worked the land. He took Enoch out onto the rolling hills with a rifle the moment he was able to hold it. Enoch knew how to shoot a rabbit before he knew how to read. He knew about Death before he knew about Life. He knew about God before he knew much about other people. The trio lived a simple life for a decade.

Then there was Mordecai and Reuben. A healthy pair of boys. His mother was still robust. His father was not unhealthy but he stopped working the land. Enoch helped to feed the smaller livestock, lit the fires, and he went out into the hills with his rifle by himself. It wasn’t long after that his mother’s belly grew once more.  

Then there was Eunice and Dinah. A frail pair of girls. His mother was hollowed out. His father unhealthy. Enoch was only twelve years old and he fed the livestock, cut the firewood, lit the fires and cared for his father. He still believed in God more than people. Hard work, quiet and unforgiving work at the whims of a fallible mother made it more and more obvious that humans were not perfect and never would be. He prayed on the lonely hills and always found a rabbit when he needed a meal.

Silent and observant Enoch began to understand. He saw his mother not as most children saw their parents; infallible, all-knowing, like how most people view God. He knew she was simply a woman, scared and tired of watching her husband die. A woman who wanted to yell at God till he gave her answers, till he gave her a miracle. A woman desperate to finally have a daughter and knowing her husband’s health was about to nose-dive rushed into the pregnancies. She thought the four children were a cruel answer to her fervent prayers, that if she asked for something God would give her too much to handle as a poetic punishment of sort. Enoch had opinions on that, he never shared them. He kept working hard, ran what little he could of the farm. Just enough to keep himself and his family fed and warm.

The Lynch family became something like pariah’s living in their isolation with an ill father, failing farm and fanatic mother and her small brood of kids she could hardly contain. Except for the eldest who seemed to belong to an entirely different family. Many called Enoch unnerving. Unaware or unwilling to see how much was piled onto the young boy’s shoulders when he did well in school, turned his steady unflinching gaze onto a task and completed it. The closest thing to a friend he had was the school chaplain. Even then, Enoch would arrive too early for school and settle in the school chapel, no-one quite sure what the boy was looking for. No-one asked so Enoch didn’t share.

Enoch’s interest in medicine had many assuming some sad story relating to his father: a naive wish to ‘heal’ people. Instead, he wanted to understand people like his mother. He wanted to help others in a less tangible way than fixing a failing body. It came down to it, Enoch thought, that the mind was the greatest struggle anyone could face illness or not. Human’s greatest gift from God but they’re the most sorely misunderstood of them

Pursuing his education meant choosing between his family and himself. His mother called him selfish and wicked; Enoch knew he could do more for them with a career and income than if he tried to prop up the failing family farm without any help. It was the first time his mother disowned him but not the last. Enoch always knew she was unstable, it was no surprise.  After that she’d made sure Enoch understood to never show his face anywhere she would see him. Easy enough, except for Sunday mass. It is how he found himself in an Anglican church. Whilst from an outsider’s perspective Roman Catholic to the Church of England wasn’t a big difference, Enoch found it to be an entirely different world. Without knowing about his mother, he finally found some sort of belonging.

Finishing up his masters and finding work, he proved to be a natural. When he was working, Enoch was to his patients a constant calm presence. Kind but not coddling. The work suited him, mostly. There was something missing. A few more years of working alongside getting more involved with his local church something finally clicked. People often ask about the ‘moment’ that would make someone decide to become a Priest. Enoch found that he never could pinpoint the exact moment. At some point, the thought occurred to him. Then a little while later he decided he should. So he did. Like with most things Enoch set his mind to he succeeded in it.

That was the second time his mother disowned him. When he told her that he hadn’t realized she’d ever ‘owned’ him, she’d only called him a wicked boy and he smiled at her for the first time in a long time. Enoch forgave her but that didn’t mean he was going to let her slither her way back into his life. Good didn’t always mean nice.

Enoch had his own parish, a greater sense of belonging and he could help anyone who came asking for it. It was good, he was happy. The happiest he’d ever been and at thirty-six, to be feeling truly happy for the first time, the melancholy of that wasn’t lost on him. Still, Enoch never let it stop him, it simply meant he wanted to do better by those around him.

Eleven years of this happiness and D-Day struck.

Enoch Today

Enoch woke up in the wreckage of his modest apartment. Crawling out of the rubble he felt sick to his stomach and the world spun. Normal, he assumed, for having a building collapse around him. With no serious visible injuries, he feared he had a concussion. Enoch set out in a confused haze towards the only place he could think of: his church. It felt fitting to find it, one of the only structures in the town left standing. A few windows shattered: but it still stood, proud and tall among the rubble and a desolate landscape. Pushing through his nausea Enoch sought out official help, seeing if anything was left of communication lines or the emergency services.It became apparent there was nothing and no-one but himself and God to rely on. He waited out the sickness and double vision. Later it would become clear he had an Infection: Increased Senses. Sight, specifically.

The first few years he spent based out of his church working methodically through the town. He sought out the living, first, knowing they couldn’t wait. After he’d found what seemed like the only living left in town he began to seek out the body of parishioners, just to give them proper burials. The church became what it was also supposed to be: a beacon of hope. Fortunately for his new flock, anyone who thought they could take advantage of the ‘kind’ priest were usually met with his rifle and unnervingly good aim. Hunting rabbits all those years came in handy.

The congregation ( as they began to call themselves ) were self-sufficient when the first Crusades began. It was optional, at first, for people to join the nearby Colony that cropped up. Enoch was tired enough that he considered the offer but politely declined. He stayed put, finding stragglers and once in a while people from the nearby colony would drop in to see if anyone wanted to come back. The third time they visited something felt off.  Enoch found that if he listened in on conversations between the Crusaders and his own people, it was less of an offer and more thinly veiled threats. They seemed particularly interested in those with gifts — infected, they called them. Called him.

It was a beautiful day in July when Enoch felt compelled to pack a bag, his rifle and leave. He told everyone in the building to leave tonight. Some listened, most didn’t.  The second wave of asteroids destroyed the church entirely. Enoch watched the building fall, knew that he couldn’t have convinced them all to leave. He’d done his best. And he was tired.

This last year has been spent alone: just Enoch with a bag of belongings and his rifle. He was alone but not lonely. He spoke to God still. Never lost his faith even as he picked his way through rubble and chaos. Even as he hid in the shadows watching Looters destroy and pillage he never lost faith.

Practically walking the length of England he came across a lot of people but found that more often than not, he never felt compelled to join them. He was still so tired, so unsure what his next steps were. He simply kept moving, settling down for a week here or there before he’d spot more survivors and find he desperately wanted solitude.

One day, he came across a crusading group which didn’t make him immediately turn tail. Enoch watched from afar and quickly realised they were simply scavenging for supplies. It was a ragtag looking group, not the usual gruff men who came to his church collecting his strays. He waited for them to settle down for the night and decided he’d done enough these past six years and he could let himself be taken someplace safe. Enoch approached with open arms, rifle tucked out of sight. Hands held out in greeting. Putting on his clerical collar may have been overkill but it tended to put people at ease. The next morning, he walked into Colony 22.

As a brand new arrival, he hasn’t had much chance to settle in yet. He’s still on high alert from years in the Wastes but truly it’s from a lifetime of exhaustion. Enoch found himself relieved to be in Torren after hearing the descriptions: Delmas sounded exhausting, Brinks insufferable and Calysets seem like a bore. Even if he seems a touch quiet or too thoughtful for his house, he’s always done what he set his mind too and if passion were their unifying trait Enoch has it in spades. It’d be easier to pry a dog from its bone than shake Enoch from a cause he believes in. Physically he’s not a formidable opponent in the games or training, but, give him a gun and a perch and he’ll terrify anyone.

TAKEN; ORIGINAL CHARACTER

#matthew mcconaughey #matthew mcconaughey fc #literate rp #original rp #mature rp #enoch lynch #torren #taken #male #elite #infected #taken male #taken elite #taken infected #increased senses

[howtodisassembleyourdeviant]

Overlooked Flowers pt.3 (Good end)

If you asked me to tag you, I'm not ignoring you, I just don't know what I'm doing yet and have to do all this from my phone.

Please enjoy!

Something wasn't right. It kept eating at him. You may have been reclusive lately, but you would always answer immediately, a minute at the most. However, It's been twenty since he asked you to 'hang out'. He missed you. He didn't like that you were pushing him away.

He stood up from his couch and headed towards the door.

"You're going to see her, aren't you?" Chloe's voice called from behind him. She had been spending more and more nights at his apartment. When things were good, he didn't mind, but things rarely stayed merry for long and when that happened, he felt like an intruder in his own home. During these times, he wished you would let him come over. He was comfortable around you, able to be himself. Unlike now, where he is contemplating telling Chloe that he got a call from the DPD, from Hank, or Markus, just to avoid the argument that telling the truth was sure to spawn. In the end, his preconstructions informed him of his low success rate, deciding it really didn't matter. He only gave a moment's pause before slipping his boots on.

"I have to. I think something's wrong."

"If you leave, I won't be here when you come back, " her voice had a dangerous edge to it. This was not the first time he had put you above her. They had many arguments about it, but it was about to be the last.

He looked over his shoulder before opening the door.

"I'm sorry."

And with that, he left.

Climbing into his car, Connor was surprised how easy it was to cut ties with Chloe. They had been in a relationship for two months now, and he did care for her. Surely this should affect him on some emotional level, but all that he could feel is dread. You still haven't answered him, even as he sent several more messages and tried calling you. It was making him frantic, pushing him to switch to manual steering, speeding around corners and intersections.

He managed to get to your house in record time. A knock and a call of your name only prompted your cat to start mewling loudly, but he knew you were home. He banged on your door before finally giving up on formalities and trying the handle. He was surprised to find it unlocked, panic surging through his artificial veins. It all came to a stop when he found you on the floor, reaching for your phone with blood-soaked fingers.

"Y/n!"

Wasting no time, he called for an ambulance as he bolted to your side. You were surrounded by flower petals stained a deep red. A quick scan confirmed his suspicions.

Hanahaki disease.

The roots were so entangled within that his scanner was having trouble differentiating between the roots and your arteries. He could see how they twisted around your inner workings, each it's own form of agony, and he could see where several had punctured through your lungs, slowly flooding your airways.

Carefully, he scooped you up and cradled you to his chest. The movement set off another fit, but it was weak, you being too tired to fight against it anymore.

"Help is on the way, just hang on, " his voice was strained, forcing the words out in an effort to calm you when you both knew they wouldn't be able to help. The accursed plant was too large now and unless it perished it would cause just as much damage to try and remove it.

Your glossy eyes fought to focus on him, mouthing his name but unable to say it, only a gurgled cough escaped along with more flower petals. The sound crushed his heart. He didn't know what to do. At this point, he wishes you had been assaulted by a burglar. At least then he would be able to attend to your wounds. How can he stop a flower from growing? Who could you love so much that you would die for them?

"Why? Why didn't you tell me?" His eyes welled up with tears, dripping down his face and onto your cheeks. He wants to find the person responsible. To break them to match how broken you are. Only an idiot could deny the chance to be with you.

Unable to speak, you reached your hand up, cupping his face, thumb rubbing against his cheek, wiping away his tears. He could feel a warm wetness from your palm, knowing it was likely your blood, but he didn't care. He leaned into your touch, placing one of his hands over yours.

Your lips moved, mouthing the words that made him realize that he was the idiot. A sob escaped him, watching as you slipped in and out of consciousness. Your hand went limp against his cheek.

"Please... Don't go... Don't leave me, " he sobbed, pulling you closer, "I... I love you. I love you so much." How could he be so stupid? You gave him everything he asked so freely, and he had mistaken the feelings that had bloomed as friendship rather than something more, something deeper. He can't lose you. "I love you, " he whispered against your ear as he held you closer against his chest.

You sharply gasped, eyes wide before you began a fresh wave of coughing, this one far more violent. It was in this moment that the paramedics burst through the door, shoving the android out of the way and rushing you to the back of the ambulance. He didn't even have a chance to say goodbye. All you left behind was a single, dead petal. He picked it up and clutched it to his chest.

You were in surgery for 17 hours as android and human alike worked together to repair the damage and remove the now dead, shriveled plant from within your inner workings. 17 hours with no news as Connor paced the entire time, still clutching the withered petal against him. Seeing it, feeling its course surface, he is reminded there is a chance. That, with it dead, you could be saved.

Hank stopped by during the tenth hour, after hearing what happened when Connor didn't show up for his shift. Hank had known you were sick, caught you coughing into a black handkerchief, the color likely hiding the blood. Anytime he asked you about it, you brushed him off, eventually snapping at him to leave you alone. He had no idea what it was, or that it was this bad. Had he had known, he wouldn't have been so quick to back off. Of course, being what it is, you likely would have continued on your self-destructive path, unwilling to lose your emotions. Can't really blame ya. As much as he wished to stop feeling after Cole, he couldn't imagine life without them, like a machine.

"Connor, sit your ass down, she's gonna be fine," Hank groused. he wasn't very confident about his declaration, he's seen what hanahaki can do to a person, but he'd say anything if it would calm his partner down, make him get rid of that broken look on his face. Connor acknowledged him, sat for all of five minutes, clutching something in his hand, before standing back up and returning to pacing back and forth.

Where the hell was Chloe? Wait, scratch that. Connor, looking like a stiff breeze could blow him over, over another woman, a woman even Hank thought he was gonna get serious with, and, to top it off, the woman is only dying because of him... yeah, if he were Chloe, he wouldn't be here either. probably would've dumped his ass.

"Wearin' a path into the floor ain't gonna make them work any faster. Just calm down." Connor looked over at him, the sight breaking the old man's heart.

"I can't."

That was all he could get out of the devastated android. He stood, grabbing Connor by the shoulder and pulling him into a tight embrace. The RK800 stood frozen for a moment before a sob escaped his throat, hands gripping tightly at the lieutenant's coat. Hank held him, feeling him quake with every hushed cry.

"She'll be alright, she'll pull through," he consoled, a few tears escaping his own eyes as his heart ached for his boy. After a long while, Connor had finally calmed down, releasing his death grip on Hank's jacket and pulling back, giving the man a brief, wry smile.

"Thanks, Hank, " he breathed, letting it out while wiping at his face. Glancing at his, now empty, hands, Connor looked to the ground, searching urgently for something. Before Hank could question it, he seemed to have found what he was looking for, watching him pick up what looked like a small, old leaf.

"Whatcha got there?" Connor hesitantly held it out for him to see, as if Hank would snag it away like he had done with so many of his quarters.

"She had coughed it up right when the paramedics showed up, " he pulled it back to his chest.

"So it died?" Hank sounded incredulous, eyeing the android.

"I... I told her I love her..."

The grizzled lieutenant merely nodded. The plant could only die if genuine feelings are expressed. He had to bite his tongue against saying 'bout damn time', knowing that would only worsen the poor kid's pain. He had no idea, and you were willing to die rather than voice your feelings, claiming to want Connor to 'find his own way'. Hank knew better. You were scared. Once you were better, Hank was gonna give you an earful for letting fear and pride blind you and damn near kill you.

Hank was there for another three hours before Fowler called him. He was adamant about staying, but Connor urged him to go, only agreeing under the condition that he is informed the second you were out of surgery.

………..

The head surgeon came out, informing him of the damage he already knew of and all the work needed to pull you back from the brink. You weren't out of the woods, but you were stable. He was thankful that you had listed him as your emergency contact, as when they tried to explain you were still in bad shape and resting, he went to your room anyway. He had to see you, no matter what state you are in.

You had so many machines hooked to you, and your frail form seemed more so against the stark white bed. Connor sat in the chair beside you, taking one of your fragile hands between his own, the petal he had clung to this entire time, now resting in his breast pocket. He watched as your chest gently rose and fell, but it felt so artificial, being forced in by the tube down your throat. A scan of your body revealed all the work that had gone in to save you, and the devastation the plant had wreaked. He watched your heart, beating at a languid pace, matching the slow beeps of the monitor. It was weak, but it was there.

Your face was so pale, and you looked so worn. How long had you been battling against the manifestation of your lament? Why couldn't you have just told him? So many nights spent lying tangled together... why didn't you ask him to stay? Had he understood human emotions more, understood his own better...

There was no going back, now.

he stayed by your side, unmoving even as the nurses would try to tell him that you needed your rest, to come back during visitor hours. Knowing of your condition deterred them from doing much else. He only moved when the nurses needed to care for you, returning to your side the second they were done. He asked Hank to care for your cat. Connor felt terrible for leaving the feline alone after it had witnessed such a tragic event, but he couldn't leave you, not again. Whatever happens now, he will be here, by your side.

Two days passed with no change. Hank stopped by a couple of times, but he didn't stay for long, feeling like he was intruding. He would ask if Connor wanted anything and if he thought of something, just let him know. A couple of your friends had stopped by as well, the few that still cared for you even as you pushed them away. Once they learned what happened, they realized what you were doing, what you had done to hide your illness. They left little gifts, as flowers felt a little inappropriate, considering the situation, wishing you well. One brought a fleece blanket, knowing how much you loved the soft material and how you hated feeling cold. How ironic it was that your favorite season was Winter. Most ignored his existence, though two glared at him. How could he blame them, sitting here, going over memory after memory. It was there, your feelings written in everything you did. how he did not see was beyond him.

A jarring sound broke him from his thoughts. A sustained beep resonating from your monitor. Panicked, he scanned your chest to find your heart still, lifeless. A few nurses burst in, paging for a doctor while trying to resuscitate you. They knocked him out of the way, and he watched in horror as they fought to bring you back.

"Don't go," he whimpered, seeing them bring out the paddles. Your body jumped when they pressed them down to your chest, the monitor hiccuping before flatlining once more. He couldn't handle it. His chest aching in a way he had never experienced before, making him want to rip his own thirium pump out to make it stop.

"DON'T GO!!!" he cried out despairingly. One of the nurses looked to him in annoyance.

"Get him out of here." Two large men came up, attempting to grab him. He struggled and fought, trying to remain with you. One of them punched him in the temple...

He jolted in his seat, unaware of his surroundings for a second. He was still in your hospital room. You remained in bed, unaware of the outside world.

At some point, he had slipped into stasis, the stress bleeding into his dreamscape, resulting in the horrible nightmare that left him trembling. You had not gone into cardiac arrest. You had not left him. A diagnostic told him he had entered low power mode for 7 hours. He couldn't believe so much time had passed and he didn't notice. Still, he picked up your hand and held your wrist against his ear, listening to the steady pulse. It was enough for now.

The soothing thumps kept lulling the emotionally drained android in and out of stasis. Though, with the added reassurance, it was a dreamless slumber, his body merely processing background information and attempting to maintain, if not lower, his elevated stress level by shutting down as many systems as it could without causing issues. The hours passed by in what felt like minutes.

The following day, they decided to remove your artificial breathing. The doctor observed as the android nurse removed the tube from your throat. Connor watched with bated breath, fear striking him like lightning each second your chest remained still. Finally, you sucked in a harsh breath, gasping a few times before your breathing stabilized, slow and uneven and very much alive. A tear escaped his eye as relief washed over him.

On day nine, a tug at his hands and the loss of your warmth against his face brought him out of stasis once more.

Your eyes were fluttering open, hands going into the blanket, balling the material up in your fists.

"Ahh," you gasped, eyes wide as tears began to form. Your monitor began beeping faster, heart racing as you struggled to figure out what was happening. Your rapid breathing irritated your damaged throat, triggering a coughing fit, making it worse. You pulled at the iv in your arm, panic rising. Connor quickly pulled your hand away before you could get it out, then paged a nurse. He put his hand on your cheek, trying to get your attention.

"Y/n, it's alright, you're at the hospital," he was unsure if his words were registering in your pain-laced mind, "I've got you... I've got you."

Your coughing eased as your breathing started to slow, but the tears continued to fall. There was some blood on your lips, prompting Connor to scan you. Luckily, there was minimum damage, nothing that would require you to go back into surgery. The nurse finally showed up. Seeing the situation, she promptly left again, grabbing a needle and injecting your IV with liquid relief. Your hand gripped his free hand tightly before you were out once more. It was an intense interaction, but you had awakened. He planted a small kiss on your brow, wiping your tears away and dabbing away the blood, promptly returning to his previous position, feeling more hopeful than before. He didn't let go of your hand.

You were improving, and soon he would be able to tell you how he feels, without fear and despair enveloping everything. When you are better, he might even scold you a bit for keeping such a huge secret from your "best friend". He wondered what will they be now? "Dating", as he had classified him and Chloe? Or, perhaps, "girlfriend and boyfriend" as Chloe had labeled them? Than again, considering all that the two of you have done in the past, would it be the title of " lovers"? He supposes he'll leave those titles for you to decide, as long as he can label you "mine" and you do the same in return.

It would be two more days before you would regain consciousness again. Hank had brought him spare clothes the previous day, as when you had woken up, something within himself woke up as well. He felt more alive than the previous days, more himself.

With it, he noticed how disheveled he was, pointing out that he was still wearing the clothes from the night he had found you, the blood long dried and beyond smelling like copper to a rancid scent that could not be healthy. In his trance, he had not noticed, but now, he was certain you would not appreciate the foul air once you woke up again. Most of the blood on his cheek had been washed away by his tears, but some still remained, sticking to his face unpleasantly. He borrowed the bathroom that was adjacent to your bed, washing his face and hands before switching clothes. He wanted to look presentable for when you awoke again.

He had also requested for an extra sweater, which he draped over you. In one of his memories, he had forgotten his sweater at your house. When he went to retrieve it, he found that you were sleeping, the sweater held close to your chest. At the time, he thought you were cold, as the blanket was kicked off of you, so he carefully took his sweater from your arms and pulled the blanket up. Seeing it now, he cringed, having realized that was probably the worst conclusion and action he could have come up with.

When you awoke, it was not nearly as dramatic as the last time. Your eyes were slow to focus, and you kept trying to look around, confused. Eventually, your eyes found him, beginning to fill with tears. You tried to say something, but with your dry, damaged throat, all that came out was a breathy wheeze.

"Don't speak. You could further injure yourself." You nodded slightly, placing your hand over his. He picked it up and brought it to his lips. You smiled, one he matched with his own. With your free hand, you gestured, asking for some water.

"They don't want you drinking too much while your throat is swollen, but I'll see if you can have some ice." He tries to stand, but you tighten your grip on his hand, distressed.

"I'll be right back, " he bent down, gently placing a kiss on your lips, " and I'm not going anywhere."

"I…l…ve…ou, " your voice was barely there, but it was enough to make Connor's heart swell.

"I love you, too." It felt like a great weight had been lifted off his chest, watching your smile widen as you gently tugged on his tie to bring him back to your lips. He was sure he looked goofy, unable to keep himself from grinning.

……..

Hank came by a few hours later. He found Connor lying across your lap, his lower half propped up on a chair. One of your hands was tangled in his hair, your thumb caressing his crown. Your other hand was being held by his, breaking contact only when you needed to pop an ice cube into your mouth. You were both watching the tv across from your bed, some crime show, acting as if you were both simply at home and not in a hospital room after you almost kicked the bucket. You both had your own suspects, Connor using the evidence to explain his. Hank had no idea what you were saying. You would tap on Connor's head to get his attention so he could read your lips. Based on the scrap of paper by your bed, you both had been at this for a while, one check by your name, three by Connor's and five under both. Neither of you even noticed him until he cleared is throat. You seemed happy to see him, giving him a wave and a smile.

"Hello, Hank." Connor regarded him. If he didn't know better, he never would have guessed this was the same android that was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown not even two weeks ago and who had been sitting here since, the poster-child for depression.

"Don't you fuckin' 'hi Hank' me!" Hank barked, and instinctively you shrunk down into the sheets, avoiding eye contact. Connor sat up, sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet in the chair, "you two just gonna pretend nothing happened? You've been on the verge of killin' yerself, and now yer just chillin'? And you! You treat your friends like shit, quit yer job, almost kill yerself, and now yer sitting here, watching tv like it's any other regular day at home? Fuck you!"

"I-sor-ak! I-d-n't-an-" your words were incomprehensible, and Connor tried to tell you to stop, but it wasn't until you started coughing that you ceased. Connor glared at him.

"She can't even speak right now, what good would it do to chastise her?" When your fit ended, he held the cup of ice for you, taking one and slipping it into your mouth, "Besides, I've found, from personal experience, that near death experiences carry their own lesson."

"I'd believe that if you ever learned to listen to me, " Hank groused, hands crossed over his chest. Perhaps now was not the best time for this, but its hard not to get pissed off when the people who've you been scared shitless for are just laying about without a care in the world.

You tapped Connor, pointing to your lips and than to Hank. Catching on, he nodded and waited for you to start.

"I'm sorry, Hank, " Connor began, relaying your message by reading your lips, "I didn't want you to worry. I figured if everyone hated me it would hurt less when I was gone."

"Bullshit. Ya should've just told Connor, you fuckin' idiot!"

You scoffed, smiling at the lieutenant.

"Yep." You leaned forward and kissed Connor before settling back into the pillows, Connor following suit, laying back on your lap and taking your hand back in his.

"There's another chair over there, " Connor gestured to the far wall, "you're welcome to join us."

Hank shook his head before scoffing himself. Everything ended alright, might as well not dwell on what could have happened. He dragged the chair to the other side of your bed, jostling your hair before sitting down. You quickly fixed it before adding Hank to the roster, smiling at the makeshift family. To think you could have lost this. You really were an idiot, but you were an idiot in love, and it feels so much better when its reciprocated.

#connor x reader #connor fanfiction #rk800 reader #connor dbh #dbh #dbh au #detroit become human

[bl00dgutsgl0ry]

The Aftermath: Chapter One

Pairing - Jotaro Kujo x Noriaki Kakyoin

Smut/Fluff/Angst - Angst and eventual slow burn fluff and smut

AU - None

Warnings - Swearing, will get graphic about wounds maybe, smut.

Chapter Two Here / Chapter Three Here

CHAPTER ONE

Reality

    Jotaro couldn’t believe it. How could this happen? How could Kakyoin let this happen? He was smarter than that, so much smarter than that. Kakyoin was always so planned out and meticulous about everything he did so why did DIO land a punch into his stomach and send him flying into the water tower? Kakyoin knew how to assess his enemies and not underestimate them; so what the hell happened?! Joseph and Jotaro saw the emerald splash hit the clock tower. The final emerald splash. Time. That was it… Time is what The World was able to control. Kakyoin knew what he was doing all along giving Jotaro his final hint.

    But that was then; and now Kakyoin was in critical condition lying in a hospital bed, unstable and in a coma. The nurses pitied the seventeen year old boy. Was he going to make it? Not even the nurses nor the doctors knew what was going to happen to him; it was all just a test of time. Jotaro was a shut in at this point. His best friend lying close to death in a cold hospital room alone. Joseph had yet to go back to New York and was staying with Holly and Jotaro. Polnareff had gone back home, but consistently stayed in touch with Joseph. He couldn’t contact Jotaro, with him almost never coming out of his room, but would get occasional updates from Holly or Joseph on whether or not he was still alive. Why did it have to turn out this way? Kakyoin was too good for this turn of events. He didn’t deserve this fate and yet here he was on the brink of death. It’s been three months since the fight with DIO and no one was the same. Joseph was quieter than normal and Jotaro didn’t even go to school. Polnareff wasn’t nearly as energetic as he once was. With half of your party either dead or dying, of course something in you was due to change. Only once Jotaro found out that Kakyoin was now in stable condition did he start coming out of his room. He still never talked, nor did he eat but this was progress; and with Holly being the worried mother she was, became ecstatic to see her son walking around. The first thing he had said in months was that he was going to go see Kakyoin and without even checking if it was alright, he was out the door. Joseph was worried, he was the only one to consistently go see Kakyoin and every time he did, he seemed to look worse in worse. But the doctors said he was becoming stable so with a heavy heart he took that information and told Jotaro immediately. Joseph didn’t want Jotaro getting his hopes up and expecting to see a semi-healthy looking Kakyoin; only to get let down, he couldn’t stand to see the kid get hurt again.

    Jotaro had reached the hospital within thirty minutes due to taking a crowded train, and once exiting sprinted to the hospital.

    “I’m here to see Kakyoin Noriaki.” Jotaro’s words felt heavy against his tongue due to not speaking in so long.

    “He’s on the third floor in room 305 in the ICU. Though just to remind you, there is only an hour left to the visiting hours.” Once hearing the room Jotaro walked away; not noticing the sympathetic glance the receptionist threw his way at his back. She had heard quite a bit about the Kakyoin boy and it was never good. It was always doubt on whether or not he would wake up, or ever recover so she pitied the boy just like every other nurse and doctor who had heard about him.

    Jotaro walked with heavy, wide set strides, navigating through the large hospital towards the ICU. Once entering the ICU he walked slower, to make sure he got good looks at the room numbers. He approached the room he suspected to be Kakyoin’s, but as he did, he overheard some doctors who had just exited from the room.

    “I feel bad for the kid. Even though he’s stable he’s never going to recover. If anything he’s probably going to be paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life if he ever wakes up. I think I’d rather be dead.” Are you kidding me? What kind of fucking doctor says that? It took everything in Jotaro not to summon Star Platinum and just beat the shit out of him but, alas, he just kept on walking. Once reading over the room number three times to make sure he had gotten the right room, he opened the door quietly and walked in. This was not Kakyoin; or at least not the Kakyoin he knew and came to love. He was so pale and frail. He looked like shattered glass that someone tried to glue back together. He wanted his Kakyoin back, not the Kakyoin that DIO had shattered.

    He’s not dead Jotaro, be happy. Star Platinum’s voice called from behind him. He had never heard his own stand’s voice become so soft and quiet before, it almost made him feel sick. His stand, the famous Star Platinum, the stand the defeated DIO, was a force to be reckoned with; and it was whispering like a nervous mother trying to console a sobbing child.

    Jotaro stood at the side of the bed, staring down at Kakyoin; he felt tears welling up in his eyes. Just as he knelt down at the side of the bed, did the tears start to fall. They fell, and fell, and didn’t stop falling. Kakyoin’s body, which was once pink and warm, was now almost white with how pale he was.

    “You were the one that was supposed to survive this unscathed. You were the one that was supposed to be going to school and painting. But here you are, limp.” Jotaro’s body shook as he cried. Jotaro never cried but he couldn’t help himself. He had spent three long months thinking Kakyoin was going to die, and now that he was stable, he had never looked more dead. God dammit Kakyoin, why did you have to be the one to get critically injured. Why couldn’t Jotaro have been the one to take the hit. As the tears streamed down Jotaro’s face, he grasped Kakyoin’s had as gently as he could, not wanting to disrupt the boy in any way. He placed Kakyoin’s hand on his cheeked and kissed it. He had fallen in love with the red headed boy but never said anything about it to anyone. As much as he denied it himself, he was scared. Scared of losing the one boy, no, the one person he had ever loved like this. Countless nights were spent tossing and turning thinking about his fellow student. He wanted to kiss the boy, to hold him and treasure him till the end of his days. That was during the trip, so the three whole months spent after the trip were even worse; living hell almost. During the trip, all he could think about was loving Kakyoin but now all he could think about was that Kakyoin might die never knowing how much Jotaro truly cared about him.

    “Sir, visiting hours are over, I apologize but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” A soft voice rung out into the room. Jotaro’s head snapped behind him towards the door, eyes meeting a small woman leaning into the room. With one final sniff, a softly whispered goodbye, and a soft squeeze to Kakyoin’s hand, Jotaro stood wiping his eyes and walked out of the room. The hospital was nowhere near quiet but to Jotaro, it was dead silent, the only thing to be heard was his own heavy footsteps. If.. No, when Kakyoin wakes up, Jotaro swears to himself that he will never ever let any threat come to Kakyoin again; not as long as he’s alive at least.

#jjba #jojo part 3 #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #noriaki kakyoin #jotaro x kakyoin #jotaro kujo #kujo jotaro #joseph joestar #holly kujo #jean pierre polnareff #stardust crusaders #my writing #jjba imagine

[ironman-lover2005]

Coronavirus Endgame

Summary: The Coronavirus pandemic has caused mass hysteria. You fight to survive in the post apocalyptic world. Hilarity ensues.   

Warning: Graphic content

    It was 16 months after the outbreak. The virus spread across the planet in no time. The initial death toll was peanuts compared to when it reached its peak 5 months in. The World Health Organization classified it as a global pandemic. The media dubbed it the Coronavirus. Sadly it had nothing to do with the beer.

   The virus was feared by many but still regarded as a joke by a vast majority of people. They thought it would never affect them. If only those people were still alive to know how wrong they were.    

   It all started in China after a few people got poisoned by eating bat soup. Weird thing to eat and in hindsight it was the worst mistake in human history. The Coronavirus, or code name COVID19, spread like a wildfire. It was first regarded as a supped up flu. Later-on the deaths proved it was one-hundred times more deadly.  

  Day by day we saw how much the virus spread across the globe. Any little spec of COVID19 germ in the air could lead to contamination. It was easily contagious like the flu but the symptoms wouldn’t manifest for two weeks. People were walking around already contaminated without a clue.

   Weeks went by as the media reported death after death. The virus made its way to Italy until it became the 2nd most contaminated country on the planet. The Italian government shut down all daily activities. Citizens were forbidden from leaving the house unless there was an emergency. It became so bad later-on that the rest of the world decided it was time to nuke Italy off the map or face super contamination. World leaders did not hesitate to pull the trigger. Millions of lives were lost but to no avail. The virus kept spreading even after killing all those innocent, sick people.

   The North Korean’s had their own way of dealing with the situation. Anyone found guilty of carrying symptoms of the Coronavirus were shot on sight. The North Korean government kept it hush-hush until videos of the killings went viral on the internet. Sadly, no one cared. Trying to end the contamination was a good thing, right?

   At this point months went by as scientists everywhere scrambled to get the cure. Even fake news outlets like TMZ were reporting about our favourite celebs dying from the disease. Anything to cause mass hysteria. Elon Musk eventually gave up and took a private rocket to Mars. No one knows how that turned out.

    This all brings me back to my own personal tragedies. I was one of those idiots who thought the virus would just be gone one day and it would never affect me. Wrong.

   My parents were the first to die. Then my brother. My uncles and aunts. My cousins. Everyone around me got infected one by one. Every death led me into a darker place mentally. I almost couldn’t go on until I linked up with some longtime friends.

   Maddie was one of my best buds. She was an emotionless wreck on the outside but a soft and kind-hearted mess on the inside. She was the first person I went to see after my entire family died. She took me in, fed me, took care of me. We almost had everything we could hope for during an apocalypse. Food, shelter and toilet paper.

    But the world outside was a raging cesspool. The people lost their minds. Civilization as a whole ceased to exist and laws were nowhere to be found. It was every man, woman and animal for themselves. Savage beatings and robberies were now the norm. Anything to get what they need to survive.

  One cold, silent night and everything I had was gone in the blink of an eye. I woke up in the middle of the night to screams of death coming from Maddie’s room. I rushed as quickly as I could but I was too late. The people who got to Maddie had already ransacked the room and fled before I even got there. Her face was bashed in, bleeding from every orifice. Her body was twitching as she crawled to me. Her hand reaching out to me as I stood there frozen in horror. I fell to my knees and started weeping. I took Maddie in my arms and screamed for help. With one final breath, Maddie looked at me in the eyes and muttered “we getting it”. She passed out and never regained consciousness.

   Even after losing Maddie, I pulled myself back up and pushed on. But that wasn’t even the worst death I had to endure.

   I wandered around in the streets every night. Going from house to house. Living day by day. Eventually I found another person that I cared about deeply. 

   One night while randomly walking through the streets. I found my best friend, Eureka, lurking in the shadows on the corner of a dark alley. My eyes opened wide in disbelief. I thought I would never see her again. I ran up to her with a smile of relief on my face. We both embraced each other while crying tears of joy.  

    After the initial shock and disbelief of meeting up in the apocalypse so randomly, we got to work and procured a decent shelter. It was a run down old house that was barricaded after the disease outbreak. We made it our own little home. Things were looking good. But all good things must come to an end.  

   One day we decided to head out and look for more food as our supplied were running dry. We ended up visiting an old place where we used to work back in the good old days before Corona hit. It was a little pharmacy on the side of the street. Being inside felt like old times. The place was empty. We didn’t hear a single peep as we walked in slowly but surely. We took a couple bags and started scavenging what was left of the shelves. Some old expired chips, dirty cans of soup, maple sirup. We got everything we needed and set sail for the front door. But on the way out the unthinkable happened.

   Eureka ended up saving me from contamination after a hysterical man tried to lunge and cough at me. Lucky for me she pushed me out of the way and took the cough germs straight to the lungs. The man hightailed it out of there as soon as he got his victim. The piece of crap just wanted to end a life for no reason. I once again found myself hopeless, yelling for help into a cold abyss. Eureka was coughing up blood a few seconds after the disease spread in her body. She died two weeks later after I tried everything in my power to save her life. COVID19 is a bitch that took away my rock.

  I ended up alone, again, 10 months deep into the apocalypse. I was barely surviving off of canned beans and water. My body was becoming frail. Every step I took required maximum effort. One day I was walking outside, begging anything that could hear me to give me some food. I could feel my bones cracking as I stumbled to the pavement. I lost consciousness for a few minutes. My head was aching after hitting the cement. Bloody and on the brink of death I somehow woke up later in a warm bed with some food and water on a nightstand right next to me.

   All that brings us to the present day. As I write this story in my diary to reminisce of the loved ones that I lost. And to remind myself that I now have a new life, away from the Coronavirus, away from death. I’m now in a safe house miles away from the main land. Completely safe with all that I ever wanted.

-“Hey, you coming to bed?”

-“I’ll be right there, Iron-Man”.

-“Hey, don’t call me that. It’s embarrassing”.

-“Okay, Tony. Just let me finish writing”.

    Anyways where was I? Oh yeah. Tony Stark saved my life and now I live with him on his private island. Safe and sound. Living my lifelong dream.

   This one is for you, Maddie. We got it. But at what cost?

                  Fin.

#tony stark #iron man #ironman #marvel #mcu fanfiction #mcu #marvel fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #iron-man #ironman x reader #endgam #avengers #marvel endgame #infinity war #imagine #ironman imagine #y/n #coronavirus #corona #covid1-19 #covid19 #covid-19 #pandemic

[ash-mynx]

Writing prompt after listening to this. Pennywise POV

- She only a few months old when I first laid eyes on her. A tiny baby, swaddled in a pink blanket littered with little ducks, and a shock of dark hair sticking out in all directions.

- For the first time in my existence, I felt I could not harm a defenceless child. My primal instinct stopped in its tracks as this tiny human swatted at the bells at the ends of the soft silk cuffs of my suit.

- A child with no fear. A child that would be spared. A child who giggled at a confused apex predator.

- She was 27 when we met again. No more a child, but a fiercely independent young woman. While ambitious, she could never escape the clutches Derry had on her.

- She left for college, but something always pulled her back. First her ailing father, then her mother. Both were gone by the time she turned 25.

- A whirlwind summer with a young woman and a clown, still perplexed by the fact she had no fear, came and went. No love was more fierce than that of ours.

- At the end of the summer, she understood I would be leaving her for 27 years, and she vowed to wait. God - You waited an eternity for a love this crazy and fulfilling, what was another 27 years to feel alive again?

- I came back, as I had promised her. I never forgot the shock of dark hair she had, and how she smelled of citrus. She was still as lovely as when I left her all those years ago.

- She was now 54 years old.

- I forgot how fragile mortals are. Her dark locks were now sprinkled with strands of grey. Or silver... I think I prefer silver. Though older, she still smelled of citrus. Her loyalty to me never faltered.

- How did the destroyer of worlds find someone so perfect that he wanted to build something with a human?

- Another summer of adventure came and went. She was slower this time, more cautious how she placed her feet as she ran through the fields to the sewers with me.

- I still saw the beautiful 27 year old I once knew. Maybe her soul would always be 27 to me...

- 27 years later I returned. It was more difficult to find her, but the scent of citrus guided me back to her.

- She was now 81 years old. Her face covered in deep lines - each told a thousand stories. Her hair completely white, no longer even the silver which mimicked my suit. How time is not kind to mortals...

- She was still a sight of beauty to me. But my beauty now lay in a hospital bed. I can smell how frail she is, and sickness in her breath.

- God... I have been away from her for so long, and now she is on the brink of death. I cause death and destruction to everything I touch, but here I am, begging the universe to stop the clocks and give me time to love her again. To hold her again. To run through the fields and give into her every plea, just to see her smile once more.

- Her eyes open momentarily. I can tell just how much energy is being sucked from her frail form. She motioned for me to sit on her bed, and patted my silk gloves, as she smiled and whispered to me that she loved me.

- Her breath became unsteady. Her hand became clammy. Soon she was no longer bound to this Earth.

- Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I roared in anger. Before I could comprehend what I did, her hospital room had been destroyed by my own hand.

- I am the destroyer of worlds, but the world had destroyed me.

- Immortality meant nothing. Power no longer tasted as sweet as cotton candy. I had lost the only good in my jagged soul.

- I held her hand in mine, and knelt beside her bed.

- "I just want to be loved by you..."

#pennywise the dancing clown #pennywise the clown #pennywise

[marril96]

Beneath the Nougat Sky

Characters: Jack, Rowena, reader

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: While the others look for a cure for Jack, Reader keeps him company and they talk about Rowena.

A/N: This is a sequel to my story Haunted, but it is not necessary for you to read that story to understand this one. Both can be read as standalones. Huge thanks to @ultimatefandomtrash61 for giving me advice on how to write Jack, and to @oswinthestrange for coming up with the summary.

Editor: @oswinthestrange

Things in the Bunker had been hectic since the early morning. Sam, Dean, and Castiel were going from book to book on their shelves in a desperate search for something — anything, a slightest sliver of hope — that could help Jack.

There appeared to have been nothing.

Every book was empty of anything useful, every clue a dead end. At times it felt like a conspiracy, as if someone had hidden the necessary knowledge just to make the search difficult.

Nephilims couldn't be that rare, could they? You knew they weren't the most plentiful of species, and their existence had been forbidden since the beginning of time, but there had to have been some information about them aside from the very basics.

There was nothing. Not a single damn thing. Not in the Bunker's books, not in The Book of the Damned that Rowena had checked cover to cover, not in the old grimoires you'd brought along in hopes of finding something useful.

By the time noon came by, everyone was getting frustrated, and rightfully so. A kid — one who appeared to be in his late teens and used to be able to obliterate cities with a snap of his fingers, but a kid nonetheless — was dying, and there was nothing either of you could do to help him. All that knowledge at your disposal, and it had failed. It had failed you and, most important of all, it had failed Jack.

Rowena swung by the nephilim's room every half an hour or so to check if he was alright. Sadly, his condition seemed to be worsening. Every time she'd hold her hands over him and utter the enchantment you knew by heart by now, having heard it over and over since yesterday, her face would fall and, while no words would leave her mouth, her expression would scream sadness. Jack was dying. There was no telling when, other than the vague soon, but he was dying. A few days, weeks if he were lucky, and he would be gone.

Rowena acted nonchalant, but you could tell it affected her. She was a bad liar, a terrible actress; as much as her mind was set on selling the indifference, her body told a different story. One just had to know how to read between the lines to see it. You knew Rowena well enough by now to see the truth in her body language.

She cared about Jack. She'd only known the boy for a day, but she felt for him. She liked him. She'd misjudged him at first, likened him to his father (in all honesty, who wouldn't? Not that many people would be chill around the son of Satan), but she'd quickly realized she was wrong. All it took was for Jack to utter a few kind words and flash her a smile, and he'd won her over. He was innocent of his father's crimes. Just another one in the long line of Lucifer's victims. Rowena knew the feeling well enough.

You pulled a chair over to Jack's bed and sat down. Pale and cocooned in blankets, he looked impossibly frail, as if the slightest rougher touch would make him fall apart. You'd never met a nephilim's before, but you knew this wasn't their natural state. They were supposed to be strong, powerful, a force to be reckoned with. Jack looked like a flu-stricken schoolboy on the brink of death.

Which he kind of was.

His eyes opened, big, beautiful, bright despite the illness. He flashed you a boyish smile, the same one that had melted Rowena's heart in the matter of seconds. "Hi."

"Hi." You couldn't help a smile of your own. The boy's joy was infectious. "How are you feeling?"

"Better. For now."

"That's great!" You ignored the 'for now' part. No need to dwell on the bad.

"Where is everyone?" Jack asked, looking around.

"Library. Still researching. I'm on a break," you replied. The truth was, you'd quit. There was nothing there for you to find. Sam, Dean, Castiel, and Rowena had, as a last resort, started going through the books they'd already checked, just to make sure they hadn't missed anything. A waste of time, you thought. There was nothing there for them to find.

Jack raised an eyebrow, curious. "And you came here?"

"Thought you'd like some company." That, and you wanted some company of your own. The Bunker could get terribly lonely if one was on their own long enough. "I can leave, if you want."

"No. You can stay." The boyish smile was back. Even dying, the nephilim was all charm. "I do like company."

It was a deal, then.

The two of you sat in silence for a while, unsure what to say. What were you supposed to talk about with a one-and-a-half-year-old teenager? Half the time you didn't know what to talk about with Rowena, and you lived with her. You usually compensated by wrapping your arms around her and pressing kisses all over her jaw and neck.

That didn't seem appropriate in this situation.

Maybe silence was good. You were never a fan of small talk, anyway.

"Y/N, can I ask you something?" Jack asked all of a sudden.

"Sure."

"What happened tonight? To Rowena? I heard screaming. It was her, right?" He looked at you, asking for confirmation.

You nodded. "Yeah, it was her. She had a nightmare."

Jack's face was all sympathy. "It must have been a bad one."

"It was." He had no idea how bad. For the sake of his innocence, you hoped he never would. What Rowena had gone through you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

"I have nightmares sometimes. I never scream like that."

"That's good."

He nodded at your words. "Why did she scream?"

"Because…" Because she was traumatized. Because, despite Lucifer being long gone, she was still scared to death; scared that he would find her, that his hands would wrap around her neck again and his feet would pound at her skull until it crushed under the pressure and fire would swallow her alive. Because she didn't feel safe, and it was doubtful she ever would. You sighed. How were you supposed to explain that to a child? "Sometimes, when something really bad happens to you, it stays with you."

"PTSD," Jack said, full of childlike pride at having remembered the term. "Sam told me about it. It's trauma."

"Yeah," you said, breathing out in relief. The boy was knowledgeable enough.

In Rowena's case, though, trauma was putting it mildly. The flashbacks, the nightmares, the random outbursts of fear — they were more than mere trauma. The woman's soul was scarred, permanently, if her current condition was anything to go by.

Jack's face grew serious, as if he had suddenly grown up in the span of a second. The brightness in his eyes shut off like a switch had been flipped, all dark, no stars. It was an unnerving change. "Is it because of my father?" he asked, voice terribly quiet, almost a whisper.

"Yes," you replied, taking a small breath. There was no point in lying. As sick as he was and as much as you wanted to make it easier on him, he deserved to know the truth.

Guilt spread over the nephilim's face as soon as the word left your mouth. His eyes trailed downwards, stopping at his hands that were clasped over his sheet-covered stomach.

Your heart broke for him. It wasn't his fault his father was a monster. Nobody could choose their parents. What they could do, though, was strive to be good, to be better people than those who'd brought them into this world. From what you'd seen — and heard from Sam, Dean, and Castiel — Jack was doing a great job at that.

"It's not your fault," you said. "You're not responsible for what Lucifer did." All of that was solely on the bastard, may he rot in hell. "Rowena doesn't blame you."

Why did it matter? Why did you care? Because he's a child, your inner voice said. You were far from motherly, but you could recognize a child in pain. There was a time when you were that child. If you could help in any way, no matter how miniscule, you wanted to give it a try. You had nothing to lose, while Jack, hopefully, had something good, something positive to gain.

"She doesn't?" Jack asked, perking up at the prospect.

"No." You gave him a smile. You'd have preferred to give him candy, but you had none, so you settled for the next best thing. It worked, if the sparkling sliver of light, miniature and barely noticeable but there, in his eyes was any indication. "What she told Sam… She didn't mean it. Not like that. She was just scared."

The boy had won her heart quite fast. She knew she was wrong about him, and you could tell she regretted being so cold. Her cruelty had already hurt two children in her care. She wouldn't let for there to be a third. That wasn't her anymore.

"I understand," Jack said, a small smile playing on his lips. So forgiving, so understanding, even so close to death. Bless his precious soul.

"I think she really likes you, actually," you said and grinned in emphasis of your words.

Jack's face lit up like a child's on Christmas morning. "You do?"

"Yeah. She talks nicely about you, and she's been so gentle with you. Trust me, she's not like that with everyone."

Not by a longshot. Usually, it took a long while for people to earn Rowena's trust. Yet, all Jack had to do was utter a few kind words and flash her a smile, and she was all his. It was the mother in her, you guessed. Mourning for the son she'd lost, the son she'd left and hurt in unimaginable ways. She couldn't bring Crowley — or Oskar, for that matter — back, but she could be kind to another child. Jack was innocent, uncorrupted. He deserved kindness. His genetics didn't define him. He wasn't his father, and he'd proven it the moment he'd first shown himself before Rowena's eyes. He was no danger, no threat, no monster. He was a child, and she treated him accordingly.

Jack was grinning from ear to ear. "I like her, too."

That filled you with warmth. You couldn't remember the last time someone other than you said they liked Rowena, and said it so genuinely, so purely. Rowena would be happy when she heard it — and she would hear it. She still struggled with her redemption, struggled with other people accepting her. Knowing that this boy, whom she'd only known for a day, liked her would help. It would give her hope.

"She's really nice," Jack added. "Like a mom." His face fell for a short moment. "Sam told me she had a son, and that they didn't get along, and that he died."

"That's true," you said sadly. As much as you loved Rowena, that one was all on her. She would carry the guilt for her mistreatment of her son to her grave.

"That's a shame. She seems like she'd be a good mom."

You thought so, too.

"Back when she was a mom, she wasn't very good at it." Understatement of the century.

Jack frowned. "But she's changed, right?"

"She did," you confirmed. "She's very sorry for hurting her son."

"My dad wasn't sorry."

He looked away as he said it, features twisted with pain and hurt and yearning. He'd loved his father, and he'd wanted him to love him. But Lucifer wasn't capable of such emotion. People, even those in his own family, were pawns to him, puppets to use and abuse and destroy as he saw fit. Jack could love him all he wanted; the Devil couldn't — wouldn't — change.

"He said he was, but he wasn't. He lied to me. He pretended to love me, and he… hurt me," Jack said. His eyes met yours, as wounded as a puppy's. "Rowena's a good mom."

Better than my father, was the insinuation.

To be fair, a lot of people were better than his father. But you understood what he was trying to say. Rowena's change was genuine. Lucifer's wasn't. That, by virtue, made her a better parent, no matter how bad she used to be. It made her a good mother.

That was for Crowley to decide, though. He was the one she'd hurt the most. Sadly, he wasn't here to give his point of view.

"She's always been good to me," you said. Even back when she was a wicked witch, thought by many to be heartless, she'd treated you well. She'd never hurt you.

"Sam told me you guys have been together for a while," Jack said, genuinely happy to hear about your relationship.

You and me both, kid, you thought. "A little over two years, yeah."

"I'm happy for you."

This time it was your face that lit up. "Thank you, Jack. That's really nice of you to say."

No one had ever said something like that before. Not to your face, anyway. This boy was a gem. You hoped he could be saved. The world would lose a wonderful person if he were to die — and god knew there weren't all that many of those left.

Jack coughed, once, twice, three times, the sound tearing from his throat more like that of a sixty-year-old smoker than a sick teenager. A sick, dying teenager, you reminded yourself. This wasn't a common cold. The boy was mortally ill.

All because of his bastard father.

How many lives could Lucifer possibly ruin? He'd permanently scarred Rowena. He'd pracically murdered his son. He was dead, gone, rotting, and yet, his presence still lingered over his victims, destroying them from the inside one little piece at a time.

"Are you okay?" you asked gently.

"Yeah," Jack said as the coughing fit slowly died down. "I'm fine."

You're not fine, you thought. You're dying. "Would you like to see some photos? Of Rowena and me." Maybe seeing some happy pictures would cheer him up. It was worth a shot.

The idea thrilled him. He smiled through the pain. "Yes!"

You returned his smile. Dragging your chair closer to the bed, you pulled out your phone and started going through the gallery. You and Rowena lived high risk lives, so social media was out of the question. You had profiles on a few sites, but neither was in your name, and you had a strict policy of never posting your pictures on either of them. It was too dangerous. Jack was the only person who would ever get to see them.

The thought excited you. It felt nice to share your happiness with someone else.

There was a picture of you and Rowena smiling, arms around each other in a light embrace. One had Rowena leaning on your shoulder, and you resting your cheek on her forehead. One was of the two of you in bed, hair messy, smiles wide. One was from your trip to the beach a few months back, sun shining brightly in the background and almost obscuring your faces. One showed Rowena asleep in your lap, while another showed her sleeping in bed, with your hand on her forehead in a gentle caress. One had you making funny faces at the camera; it made Jack laugh out loud, which in turn elicited a laugh of your own. There was one of Rowena pouting while you kissed her cheek. And one where she was glaring bloody murder at the camera, with you resting your head on her shoulder and holding two fingers over her head as pretend horns.

Jack loved every single one. It warmed your heart to see someone genuinely like your relationship. After years of judgment and snide comments about Rowena being too much to handle and warnings about her leaving you out of the blue without saying goodbye, it was a nice change.

"There you are," Rowena said. She entered the room, a cup of steaming tea in her hand. "I was wondering where you'd run off to."

"Miss me?" you teased.

"Terribly. I can't live without you," she said sarcastically, a small smile playing on her lips.

You clasped a hand over your heart dramatically. "Be still, my heart."

"Aye, aye." She walked over to the bed. "How are you doing, Jack?"

"Good," the boy replied.

Rowena was unconvinced. However better he got, it was only temporary. She knew that. You knew that. Jack knew that. Still, she gave him a smile that was almost motherly, warm and sweet, the kind of smile she always gave you when you were sick. I'm here, it said. I won't leave you. No need to ruin the mood with the awful truth.

"I made you a cup of tea," she said, showing him the beverage. "I hope it will be to your liking."

"Thank you," Jack said happily. "I'm sure I'll love it."

You didn't have the heart to tell him it was bitter. Who knew? Maybe the nougat-loving nephilim liked his tea without sugar. It was doubtful. But he would drink it and, even if he wished for sugar, he would tell Rowena it was great. That was the kind of person he was. Kind. Sweet. Innocent.

"Any progress?" you asked.

Rowena shook her head, lowering the cup on the bedside table. "Nothing. I was thinking of ringing some witches I know, see if they know anything."

"I could call a few people, too," you said. There were some acquaintances you'd made over the years, as well as people — humans and monsters — who'd owed you favors. It was worth a shot.

"Thank you," Jack said, "for doing this for me." His face grew sad, solemn. "Even if it's a waste of time."

"It's not a waste of time," Rowena said.

"If we can help, we will," you said. It was the right thing to do.

Jack gave a small nod. "Thank you. Both of you."

You smiled, and Rowena followed suit.

"Let's look you over, shall we?" she asked.

Jack expressed his agreement with another nod, and Rowena's hands were over him in an instant, eyes wide and flashing purple as she chanted. The news, as expected, wasn't good; he was getting worse. Every passing minute brought him closer to death's door.

All the more reason to keep trying. You weren't going to give up on this kid, and neither was Rowena. He deserved to live. And the two of you would do everything in your power to help make it happen.

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @darktweet @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @victoriasagittariablack @rowenaswife @dropsofpetrichor @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @elaspn @faeyla @hotdiggitydammit @1-800ahs @darkhumorsblog @wayward-kaia @sunseteer5 @ruthiesconnells

#rowena #rowena macleod #rowena x reader #jack kline #supernatural #spn #my fics #beneath the nougat sky #fic #fanfic #fanfiction

[ours-is-feral-love]

My Blood Will Make You Clean

A/N: Inspired by @petolinka‘s post: “I need a scene [in episode IX] where Rey gets shot and Kylo feels it.

Summary: They have been ignoring the bond for months, resisting its pull. But one night, Kylo Ren finds himself on a strange, seemingly-deserted planet, an excruciating and inexplicable pain in his side. Rey is there too, bloodied and begging him for help. [SPOILERS FOR TLJ!] 

Don't hold your breath, waiting for me/

'Cause I may never come home

99 | Elliot Moss

My Blood Will Make You Clean

He is almost asleep, caught somewhere on the brink of a dream, when he feels it. There are stars behind his eyes. A slow-moving sun rises above an expansive body of water, gradually setting the whole scene on fire. She is there too, he thinks. In shadow form. Curled on the ground at his feet. He wants so badly to reach out to her, but he reels in his foolish urges. Then there is a pain, so intense and sudden it jerks him from his bed. The glittery lake disappears, and he is once more in his cold, dry room. It is centred at his right side, the pain. Between his ribs it feels as though someone has torn a hole in his flesh. He clatters to the floor in a tangle of discarded clothes and bedsheets, clutching at his wound.

What has happened?

He scrambles, separating his sweat-ridden body from the mess of sheets, searching for any sign of harm, any laceration or mar. He finds nothing. His skin is clear; the only marks are old and sewn together with scar tissue. But still, he is in agony. Gritting his teeth, he presses shaking fingers against his ribcage and is helpless to swallow the pathetic yelp that spills from his throat when his side begins to burn and throb. Truly, he feels as though someone has snuck inside his room and stabbed him with a lightsaber. Only, of course, there is no evidence of any such attack. All he has is a feeling.

He hears it then. A gargled cry. He has heard the noise before, and he is instantly on alert as the scenery around him changes. He is pulled from his room by the neck, landing on a darkened, deserted road. Looking around frantically, he does not recognise his surroundings. There are trees of brilliant green on all sides, lining the road, illuminated partially by a round, full moon. Ren strains his ears, listening for any sound of an engine, but does not hear a thing.

She is there again. No longer a shadow, her body lies on the ground, curved at an odd angle. She looks like a sleeping babe. He would have assumed she was asleep if it weren't for the soft, muffled whimpers he hears that can only be coming from her. All at once, the severe, blistering ache returns and it is all he can do to remain upright. Below him, the girl retches. The horrible noise forces Ren back, and as his bare feet crunch dirt and stones, the girl startles, lifting herself half off the ground.

Their eyes meet. Flashes of agony snake through him and he can stay standing no more. He collapses onto his knees in front of her.

Once, he thought of himself as strong. Powerful. He felt he could one day rule the galaxy—fulfil the plans of his grandfather. But this is evidence enough that he is far weaker than he ever assumed. This bond has sucked the energy from his bones bit by bit. Soon, he will be nothing more than a shell of his former self.

He stares at the girl. Anger flickers over her face, mixing with the pain. One of her hands covers her right side. It is covered in blood. He can smell the stuff. A metallic scent fills the air and makes him want to gag.

“What happened?” He is surprised to hear his own voice shaking out the question, but it is gone before he can swallow it.

Rey breathes in sharply through her nose. “Someone attacked me. They came out of nowhere and got me with a blaster,” she sputters. Her eyes fall closed. A thin line appears above her nose. “They tried to take my things, but I don’t know why they did this.” She looks down at where her hand rests.

The bond between him and Rey has been quiet these past months. He has fought against it each time he has felt it trying to take him. Seeing her—her, the one who turned him away, leaving him on his knees like some piteous animal—has been the last thing he wants. He imagines Rey has been doing the same thing, otherwise he is sure they would have found themselves face to face more frequently. When the blaster got her, she must have wholly let down her guard. The Force took advantage of her predicament and brought him to her.

Somehow, the bond has grown stronger despite them working together to destroy it.

An inexplicable shot of fury contaminates Ren’s bloodstream as he watches Rey’s pale face crumble. Her bottom lip, which blends into her skin, juts out and her jaw begins shaking. Shock. It must be setting in. He looks around Rey and sees a wet puddle on the black road. Touching it, he pulls his hand away and finds his fingertips bathed in red. She’s bleeding out quick. The freckles dotted on her forehead and nose are almost the same colour as the inky sky above.

Rey starts whimpering again. “It hurts, Ben,” she groans, her half-open eyes finding him. There is no more anger to her; she is all fear now.

Ren’s mouth slips open at her usage of his given name. He doesn’t know why, but he must help her. He can’t understand it. He has never been able to. This is the not the first time she has called him by that name and he should be adding to her pain, not desperate to relieve her of it. But the word sounds . . . almost inviting, even when shrouded in Rey’s anguish.

“Please,” she says.

That word. It conjures up bitter memories in his head. He sees her abandoning him. Time and time again she has turned him away, refused his feeble pleas. And yet—

—Ren crawls towards Rey’s frail body and kneels before her. She looks up at him, a blankness to her stare. None of that familiar light shines. Slowly, he reaches out to her. Inch by inch his hand extends closer and closer until the tips of his clean fingers glide across her cheek.

God, she is frozen. Worry slithering inside of him, he cups her face and brings her head to rest on his chest. Her cold flesh, damp with chilled sweat, sets his skin ablaze with goosebumps, but he thinks the discomfort is worth it if his own body heat can in any way help.

“What do I do?” he asks. What a stupid question, but she is lying limp in his arms and he has never felt so much . . . concern for anyone in his life. It must be a side effect of the bond; the Force is still tethering them, desperate to keep them locked in some unbreakable, undetectable chain. His eyes catch the tear in her blood-soaked shirt and he asks again, quieter this time, more frustrated, “What do I do?”

“Help me.” Her voice is barely audible.

There are tears slipping past Rey’s eyelashes and moving into her hair. Ren gathers the wetness on his thumb. He is used to seeing her cry. Most instances he is the one causing her eyes to well, but this time he is nothing more than a bystander, and he finds himself wishing he could track down whoever hurt her, whoever is making her cry out of fear and pain, and kill them. Oh, he would make it a slow and tortuous death.

“I will,” he promises. “I swear it, I will help.”

He is trapped between the light and the dark. They are battling constantly inside of him even now, though it appears the light is winning tonight. Tomorrow may bring a different story, but Rey, who, Ren knows, suffers from the same afflictions, is tugging at the goodness within him, lugging it to the surface.

His own side still pulsing, Ren manoeuvres his arms underneath Rey’s heavy body. Cradling her neck and the insides of her knees, he flexes his muscles and lifts the girl off of the ground with difficulty. With the world around them shaded in darkness, he has no way of knowing where they are. Without that knowledge it will be challenging to find anywhere with a medical bay. But he presses onward, even while his fictitious wound smarts as he walks. He holds the girl close to him, reaching through the Force to try finding any hint of life through the forest.

It frightens him that he can hardly sense Rey.

Simultaneously it angers him. Both because she does not, in any capacity, deserve this, and because he is sick and tired of this bond. Moreover, he is sick and tired of craving this bond. Is he not a most powerful Supreme Leader of the First Order? Is he not the one person in this entire galaxy attempting to complete the plans of his grandfather? Why, then, must he be impaired and degraded by this alliance?

He should leave her. That is what he should do. He should drop her half-dead body to the road and race back to his rooms. Perhaps when the Force takes her soul it will finally cut their ties and he will be free of her.

He stops walking. Staring down at the grease-painted girl, he tries finding the darkness within him. But before he can search too long, Rey makes a gargled mewl and Ren must watch with wide eyes as a line of blood passes through her lips.

No. He cannot abandon her to die on this strange planet alone. Whether it is the Force or his own free will, he isn't sure. But he doesn't care. He must, must, find assistance.

Weak, calls a voice in his head. It is quiet, though. Distant.

He ignores its taunts and continues walking, his legs moving faster than they ever have.

Several minutes later, he senses movement in the near distance. Rey's body has grown considerably more cold and limp, but, if he focuses hard he can just barely feel her. There is no more fear in her; there is nothing now. He is running out of time. Buckling down, Ren speeds his way along the empty road, praying to the light, begging like a fool for Rey not to die. Not like this. Not while he is trying so fiercely to rescue her.

"You're going to be okay," he vows, short of breath, as he rounds a corner and spots an eating establishment of some kind. There is music coming from inside the rundown building, and he can hear drunken laughter.

Racing onward, he stops short of reaching the doors. Frantic, Ren kneels, gently placing Rey on the soft grass in front of the doors, his heart collapsing bit by bit as her head lolls away from him. He turns it carefully, noticing more blood splattered on her chin. Her eyes are closed. Her breathing is past shallow—it is practically nonexistent.

There is no time to lose.

Swallowing his pride and his fears, he begins shouting. "Help! I need help! Someone, please! She's been hit with a blaster. I don't think she has much time left." His voice cracks as he reaches the last word, and he looks over her broken body, wondering if this will be the final time they see each other.

He does not want it to be.

Footfalls near the two bound individuals. "You're safe," Ren says, a wash of relief soaking his blood-sodden skin.

He wants to stay with her. To protect her, help her. He is worried whatever medical facility these creatures take her to won't do enough to mend the wound, and she will die as a result. But they surely know his name on this planet and him remaining at her side wouldn't be a good idea for either of them. So, Ren departs the scene, feeling the bond lift him once more by his neck, the image of Rey, her chest moving with the smallest of breaths and her body covered in red, sticky liquid, plastered to the wall upon his return to his empty, black room.

Sleep has almost captured him when he feels her presence. He sits up in his bed to find her standing above him. For one silly moment, he thinks this is her ghost, and his throat itches with sorrow before he recognises the solidness of her body. He coughs, ridding himself of the emotion.

They watch each other carefully. It takes him almost a full minute to realise his lungs have stopped working as he takes in her living, breathing form. She is dressed in what looks like a white, front-buttoned medical gown, but there is rich colour to her face and a sparkling light to her eyes. Unlike last time she found him half-clothed, she does not seem so offended. If anything, she is fascinated by the bare flesh on display. Her eyes follow each line and curve before returning to meet his.

What does he say to her?

"Thank you." It is Rey who speaks first, and her clear voice strikes his heart directly.

"I"—he begins, but he has nothing to say in response.

"You saved my life," she states, stepping forward. Very, very slowly, she reaches out to him and places her warm hands on his shoulders. He tilts his head up, an ache blooming in his stomach. "I have to ask . . . why did you do it? You could have left me to die there. Why did you not?"

Ren parts his mouth. His eyebrows bend and move above his nose.

He could easily lie to her. He could tell her the Force would not have it any other way. He saved her against his own will.

But what is the point of lies now?

"There," he begins, pausing briefly to search for the right words, "there is light still in me, and when the Force brought me to your side, that part of me that I had kept hidden for so many years burst forth. I had to help you. There was no other choice."

He is almost sick with aggravation at his admission to the girl, but that all melts away when one of Rey's hands slips beneath his chin. Her face is alight with joy and gratitude. In response, his mouth twitches to one side. An almost smile.

"Thank you, Ben," she says, and he does not mind her calling him by his true name.

They remain like this for moments longer, neither one moving or making any sound. She has won this battle and he will allow her to stay here in celebration.

"You are better?" he asks when she removes her hands. He wants to grab at them, but he ignores the impulse.

Rey nods. "I am. Almost fully healed," she says, popping a single button midway down her gown and moving the fabric to one side. There is a pink, rugged mark on her pale skin.

Before he can fight to restrain himself, Ren extends his arm and touches the scar. Rey jolts slightly, but does not move away or ask him to stop. Her skin is on fire. It burns through his fingertips, setting his blood ablaze. He can feel every emotion flitting through her. Hear every thought moving inside of her mind.

Suddenly, Rey's hand is on top of his. She entwines their fingers and takes another step. She stands between his legs, her racing pulse against the palm of his hand. Looking up at her again, he is not surprised to find her leaning down. He grips her tighter, his free arm moving around to her back.

"I can't stop this," she breathes. "I can't get you out of my head."

He understands the notion.

"But," she says, lowering her head until their foreheads touch, "I don't want to. You said it yourself, Ben, there is good in you, and I will fight alongside you until you are ready to join me."

He doesn't want her to talk anymore.

Before she can open her mouth again, Ren presses on her spine and feels her collapse into him. His eyes shut as their lips met. Behind his eyes, a picture show begins. He sees a desert planet, feels the heat of the sand soaking through his shoes. He hears a girl's voice screaming as someone pulls on his arm. The images move quickly, flickering like a heartbeat, until he recognises his own face.

You know I can take whatever I want.

You're not alone.

You're still holding on! Let go!

And he hears her. The words that still haunt him like some phantom.

Neither are you.

Don't do this, Ben. Don't go this way.

He sees his wretched face as she leaves him on his ship. But soon he is watching himself crawl on a gravel road, his eyes filled with concern.

Rey's mouth is soft and wet against his. As the images fade from his mind, he is aware of how thrush his body is with hers. Her hands are tangled in his hair. Her belly is pressed against his chest. Through the small gap in her medical gown, their bare skin is connected.

He will never be rid of her now.

"I have to leave," she gasps, pulling away several minutes—though it could have been years, centuries, for all he knew; and really, what did he know—later. She pants into his open mouth. Her lips, he notices, are swollen and raw. "I managed to get through to Finn. He and Poe are coming to get me."

Stay.

He almost blurts it, but he digs his teeth into his tongue until he can taste blood and the word evaporates from his brain.

"Go," he says instead, gruff.

Rey's forehead is against his once more and her fingers are filtering through his hair. Her eyes are closed. "I'll be back."

As she makes this oath, her body disappears from the room. He is left clutching air, still able to feel her lips on his, staring at the place where she stood.  

I'll be waiting.

Open your eyes, and steady your hands/

'Cause we may never come home

#reylo #kylo ren #ben solo #rey #star wars #tlj spoilers #force bond #romance #fanfiction #one shot #i know this is a divisive ship #but meh #i'm all for it

[akaiwakizaka]

A small biography.

Name:  Wakizaka no Akai. Age: 28. Gender: Female. Body: Tall for an Au Ra girl, yet a bit under-weight. Medium toned skin, a slight tan from working on a farm years prior. Eye Color: A soft lilac tone, almost white yet the purple hue is evident. Hair Color: Burgundy, with soft maroon high-lights. Body Type: Frail, almost doll-like. Medium bust, and the smallest showing of her rib cage if seen without clothing. Physical 'special stuff': Soft freckles line the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks, along with long white claws on her fingers from lack of cutting them down. A few cuts and scars on her hands from years prior to coming to Eorzea. Big, off-white horns that come off of the sides of her head along with off-white scales that trace her body. Affiliation: Drakenguard Lodge. Home: Prior to Eorzea: The outskirts of Othard, in a small farm house that could easily be mistaken for a cottage. Current: A wonderfully medium sized home in The Lavender Beds. Family: Far too many to list, yet here we go: Mother is Wakizaka no Koharu, father is Wakizaka no Gyosei, younger sister is Wakizaka no Ajisai, and older brother is Wakizaka no Unzan and Shiroi. NOW THAT SHE IS MARRIED she has a husband nameds Micaux Wakizaka and an adoptive son called Oscar Pendragon. Best Friend: Akai's best friend is a social grey cat who USED to share the same FC as her. She’s witty and kind, though her puns could kill someone. Allena is also teaching this cat some conjury. Worst Enemy: The Garlean Empire, due to the fact that her home land was under the rule of them until they revolted. Interesting Quirks: Has a slight obsession with romance novels, often hoping her life will be a repeat of these novels. She's a 'yes-man' of sorts, her kindness taking a hold of her and making her agree to up-most anything asked of her. Rumors!: "I heard she has an irrational hatred of crocs. You know, crocodiles?" -Valentina Jalenoux Most say she's prone to taking her imagination to the extreme, going as far as burying the drawing of an original character she once made.... There's no proof of this, however. Well, unless you check the backyard of Kallista Aral(RIP). Biography: Akai and her family resided in a small farm house in the outskirts of Doma, by the valleys where Yanxia is. Their kind and nurturing nature procured them the job of lowly farmers, only conversing with people when they had to take a caravan to another village to sell their crops. As a young child, Akai had a frail body and could not do much when it came to farm work, so was often taken along when they voyage to other villages and spoke to the children who were there. She came to meet a young gal by the name of Izayoi, who's parents owed a small library in one of the villages in which all of the village folk would come to gain knowledge. As an act of kinship, the girl would often sneak out books for Akai to read when she was back at home so that she could learn more about the world around them. She learned of the Warriors of Light, the Eorzean Alliance, and of the marvelous tales of the large city of Ul'Dah..... Curiosity took the better of the girl, giving her an insatiable feeling of wonder and awe of the places outside of her small farm and surrounding villages.... And at 16, she took one of the few chocobos her family had along with her belongings and set off to come to the wonderful land of Eorzea... yet her journey was not done with ease. The harsh sun was a change from the environment she had been used to, and her weak body had been reaching it's limit. One day, as she was close to her destination, the heat and exhaustion over took her and she fell off of her chocobo and fainted on the desert floor. She had surely thought she was left for dead.... Until a merchant came across her limp body and brought her to her destination full of worry. The man nursed her back to health, allowing her to eventually regain consciousness. The merchant went by the name of Samuel Warrick, a Hyur who sold numerous dyes and clothes to the people of Ul'Dah. Akai had finally come to her destination where she could start a new life that was much different to her old one.... And took on the name Allena Warrick. Living with the man for a few years, she took on the companionship of this man and saw him as a father figure of sorts. She felt that her life was at its peak, selling goods at the Ruby Exchange while still gaining her knowledge and reading as much as she could... That is, until Samuel grew very ill. Her sole provider had been teetering on the brink of death, and she was quite unsure what she could do if he had left her life. The man whispered into her ear when she was on his death bed to "spread kindness onto others.... One act of kindness is like a drop of water into a lake; it will create endless ripples." Heeding his words, she traveled to Gridania in search of the Conjurer's guild. Allena knew that her body was too frail to defend and help the people she wished to aid, yet she could use another alternative to be a kind being. Learning the ways of healing, she could restore any lost hope others would have when they had felt they reached their end. She was awoken to the path of nature, using her abilities to help the sick and aid all those who could not afford to help themselves. As she aided any adventurer she came across, she soon found a free company willing to take her in... And that was the Night Shade Company. Growing more and more attuned to her skills, her kind was out-lawed by the Conjurers due to the fact that she was nearing a "point of no return"; that she is one of the reasons as to why Conjurers and White Mages were used as weapons of war during the Calamity. None the less, she persisted. She used her resources to grow further into her abilities, and soon awoken as a White Mage. Through the aid of the Padjal, her abilities grew powerful despite her body being unable to to handle strenuous tasks. It was by the help of the elementals that she grew so powerful, using her powers to aid and not to harm. Advancing more on her skills, she decided to use her immense knowledge to also help the Scholars of the MSS further their research. While aiding one of their members in Ul'Dah, she came across a young Lalafell girl my the name of Shiori who had no home to turn to.... In turn, she took the girl in as her own, much like Samuel did for her. The young girl became her adopted daughter, the both of them moving to her home which is in The Lavender Beds. After the closing of the Night Shade Company, Allena joined the Mythrill Scroll Society in hopes of using her healing abilities and knowledge to further their investigations on the various subjects they chose to research. She is often seen giving back to the community around her, setting events where she could expand her connections and grow to have a second family almost.... To replace the one she left long long ago. It is unknown if Allena will ever return to see her family. It is also unknown if her family is even still alive... Yet she has hope that one day she will meet them again.

Many moons have passed since Akai first joined the Scrolls and she felt herself needing some sort of change. With the aid of a comrade known as Joelistyn Dusk she founded Drakenguard Co., a private company that caters to hunts of all kinds given to their lodge members along with private missions from nobles and trading companies. When it was discovered that she was not an Eorzean citizen she had to go through a citizenship order and returned back to her original name, Wakizaka no Akai. She resides in the Lavender beds still with her lodge being in Mist, but dreams of looking for her biological family now that she can aid then as best as she can. Now a 28 year old maiden she has met Micaux Wakizaka, a doctor who works in her lodge with her in the clinic and the two fell in love. They both got married in September and have adopted a young Ishgardian Elezen boy named Oscar Pendragon.

#Allena Warrick #ffxiv rp #ffxiv #au ra raen #au ra #au ra female #raen #my characters

[peopleandrhythm]

S2E3: Here Comes the Rain and the Thunder

Hope wakes up slowly, bleary-eyed and sore. She blinks against the late morning light streaming through the balcony doors and sees a familiar form in a chair beside her bed, a thick textbook open in her lap. “Hey.”

River looks up, startled. “You’re awake!”

“Apparently.” Hope pushes herself up into a sitting position, wincing slightly. She nods toward the book. “What’s that?”

“Oh.” River closes the book and hefts it into the air. “Biology.”

Hope wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”

River chuckles, then asks, “How are you feeling?”

Prodding the spot where an arrow had been less than twenty-four hours earlier, Hope shrugs and answers, “The wound is completely healed over, but something about being shot takes a lot out of you, y’know?”

“Yeah, I bet.” River abandons the textbook on the floor and slides onto the bed next to her girlfriend, taking up her hand. “Last night really scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry I’m so bad at date night.” Hope tips her head onto River’s shoulder.

River breathes a laugh. “Yeah, you owe me big time.”

A blonde head pokes through the door. “Look who’s awake!”

Hope twists her head to look up at her aunt. “Alive and kickin’.”

“Just the way we like you.” Rebekah enters the room fully. “Feeling rested?”

“I mean, I’d never say no to more sleep, but yeah.” She tugs at her lip with her teeth. “Any news on, you know. Who shot me?”

Rebekah’s smile falls. “Ah. Yes.” She sits carefully on the edge of the bed. “We don’t yet know who exactly did this, but…” She trails off.

“What?” Hope askes, worried. “What, what is it?”

“It’s the witches.” Hope turns to look at River. “The witches think the vampires did this. Payback for putting one of their own in the Penitentiary. They’ve been…they’ve been upset.”

Hope’s face is grave. “What’s happening?”

“War,” Rebekah sighs. “This city is on the brink of war.”

River trudges through the bayou, swatting gnats away from her face. Her leg catches on a kudzu vine, but she tears free easily. She stumbles into a familiar clearing, hands already tugging at the hem of her shirt. She’s down to her underwear when she hears a voice call, “You know there’s no moon, right?”

River’s head snaps up to see Rose, casually leaned against a tree on the opposite side of the clearing, munching on an apple. “I know when the moon is.”

“And yet here you are. Turning.”

River narrows her eyes. “My girlfriend got shot yesterday, I have no idea who did it, and the Quarter is about to tear itself apart. So yeah, I need to just not be for a little bit.”

Rose shrugs. “Hey, I’m not gonna stop you. ‘Specially since you’ve got that ring on.”

“Thanks.” Then Rose watches calmly as the girl tears herself into a beast, bones crackling as a wolf appears in the clearing. She takes a hunk out of her apple as the wolf stretches its limbs. The wolf pads over to her, and Rose jerks her head toward the woods. “Go.” The wolf huffs once and then tears off, a dark blur between the trees.

South of Mt. Nimba, Côte d’Ivoire

Backpack slung over one shoulder, Kol Mikaelson walks through a thick grove of evergreens, ducking under branches until his path dumps him into a small village. There’s a large circle of wooden huts, with an open area in the center where a few dozen people mill about. They all look up as Kol approaches, instantly suspicious.

“Bonjour,” he calls with a small wave. “Je cerche le Sabbat de Nimba.” [Hello. I’m looking for the Nimba Coven.]

A large man with a piercing gaze steps up to Kol. “Nous ne voulons pas de votre genre ici.” [We don’t want your kind here.]

“Je ne veux pas causer de problèmes,” Kol says placatingly. “J'étais un sorcier une fois, comme toi.” [I do not wish to cause trouble. I was a witch once, just like you.]

“Et alors?” [So what?]

Kol extends a hand. “J'ai besoin de votre aide.” [I need your help.]

Cautiously, the coven elder presses his palm to Kol’s, and a barrage of visions washes over him. He sees a young woman with hair like fire, and city of stone that houses the dead. He snatches his hand back, and those standing behind him shift nervously. The elder regards Kol with a grave expression. “Vous souhaitez rencontrer notre Avocat.” [You wish to meet our Advocate.]

“Tout à fait.” [Very much so.]

“Alors viens.” The elder turns and begins to walk away. “Il y a beaucoup à voir.” [Then come. There is much to see.]

Marcel turns off of Dauphine Street into a narrow alley lit by a single flickering bulb. He approaches his friend from behind and claps him on the back. “Why’d you call, Josh?”

Josh doesn’t answer, so Marcel follows his gaze down the alley, where a body lays ungracefully, a long, thick piece of wood protruding from his chest. Marcel’s entire demeanor shifts. “What the hell happened?”

Josh shrugs. “I just found him like this. They left him here. Whoever killed him just…left him here.”

Marcel runs his hand over his face. “Who did this?”

“Who do you think did this, Marcel?” Josh snaps. “The witches have been at our throats since someone attacked Hope Mikaelson.”

“No.” Marcel shakes his head stubbornly. “No, that wasn’t us, and they know it wasn’t us. They know I would never let—”

“They don’t care!” Josh gestures angrily toward his fallen comrade. “They killed him in cold blood because some vampire might have shot their Advocate.”

Marcel stares at the nightwalker’s body for a long moment, taking a few deep breaths. Then he whips around and says to Josh, “Alright. Call…call Sarah or…or Luca or somebody. Bring him to the bar. We’ll lay him to rest.” He marches toward the street.

“Where are you going?” Josh calls after him.

“To have a word with the regent.”

Hope stands alone on her balcony, watching the passersby on the street below. There’s a lone trumpeter two blocks down, putting a contemporary twist on an old Armstrong classic. Sun on her face, she lets her eyes slide shut as listens, following the playful melody as it dances on the warm breeze.

Then, without warning, an electric pain sings through her head. Her eyes screw tight, and she clutches at her head. A thousand voices are shouting at once, and she can barely make out individual words—vampire—guilt—death—justice—blame—listen—

Hope’s knuckles are white as she grips the rail, her body bent forward in agony. Through the cacophony of dead witches’ voices, she focuses what little energy she can summon to create a magical barrier between her own thoughts and the onslaught of sound. The voices dull to a faint hum in the background, and Hope lets out a slow breath. Her eyes flutter open, and she looks over at the trumpeter, who, oblivious to her entirely, continues to play.

Kol follows the tall man to a hut on the very far edge of the village, far from the prying eyes of the community. The elder has to duck to enter the tiny space, and he returns just moments later with a stout woman with an unwelcome expression. “Qui est-ce?” she demands of the elder. [Who is this?]

“Un visiteur d’une terre lointaine,” the elder explains. “Il a besoin de la voir.” [A visitor from a far-off land. He needs to see her.]

“Absolument pas,” the woman argues with a shake of her head. “Elle est trop faible pour les visiteurs.” [Absolutely not. She is too weak for visitors.]

Kol steps forward. “S’il vous plait, je viens en apprendre advantage sur votre Avocat. J’essaie d’aider quelqu’un de très important pour moi.” [Please, I come to learn about your Advocate. I am trying to help someone very important to me.]

“Invitez-le,” the elder says gruffly. [Invite him in.]

The woman’s eyes narrow, but she says begrudgingly, “Vous pouvez entrer.” [You may enter.] Then she spins around and reenters the hut. The coven elder motions for Kol to follow her, and he does, ducking through the low door. When he straightens, he sees a single mat rolled out onto the hard floor, and a petite, frail body curled atop it. The girl twitches slightly, eyes screwed shut in pain.

The woman sits on the floor beside the girl, resting a hand atop her head. “C’est ma fille. Elle est notre Avocate.” [This is my daughter. She is our Advocate.]

Kol watches as the girl, mostly skin and bones, takes in shallow, labored breaths. “Est-elle malade?” [Is she sick?]

“Elle est malade dans son âme,” the elder says quietly. “Les voix de nos ancêtres l’ont rendue folle.” [She is sick in her soul. The voices of our ancestors have driven her mad.]

Kol’s eyes widen in horror as he watches the girl twist and moan, clutching at her head as if her hands were the only things holding it together.

By the time River approaches Rose on Mary’s front porch, the sun in already on its descent, casting elongated shadows over the little house. She sits on the step beside the alpha, staring out through the trees. “I needed that.”

“Gets itchy sometimes, doesn’t it?” River side-eyes Rose. “The wolf. Can feel it clawing at you from the inside, trying to get out.”

“Yeah. The anger doesn’t help.”

“Rarely if ever.”

They sit in silence, watching the sun flicker through the trees. Then River says, “You know, the offer still stands.”

“I don’t want it.” Rose doesn’t hesitate in her response.

“I didn’t realize being an alpha required being a martyr—”

Rose shoves off of the porch, striding away from River. “Hey, you know what?” She spins around and snaps, “You don’t know anything about being an alpha, so maybe mind your own business.”

“What is your problem?” River asks, standing up. “Hope’s offering you the chance to control your turning, not some deal with the devil.”

“Isn’t it though?” Rose mutters, mostly to herself.

“Do you have a problem with Hope? Because she got shot yesterday and I really don’t think—”

“Hope’s fine. Hope’s…” She sighs and crosses her arms. “It’s just…”

“Hayley.” Rose doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. “You’re still pissed at Hayley.”

Rose works her jaw. “I am still trying to clean up the mess she made when she left. Half this pack—what’s left of it—doesn’t trust me, Marcel and Vincent don’t respect me, and too many people think that because the great Hayley Marshall is back in town with that birthmark on her shoulder, suddenly she’s in charge.”

“No one thinks she’s in charge, Rose,” River insists. “You’re the Crescent alpha.”

“Yeah, I am the alpha. And I can’t look at my broken pack, beaten down and terrified, without thinking of what we were like before she abandoned us.”

River’s shoulders drop. She walks over to Rose and stands beside her. “I’m sorry she hurt this pack like that. I’m sorry that you were the only one willing to pick up the pieces. But I don’t see why you have to suffer every full moon because of it.”

“When I turn…” Rose takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “When I turn, yeah, it’s hell. But I feel…connected. To nature, to my pack…to myself. The pain of turning…it’s the price I pay for being a Crescent.” She twists her head to stare at River. “And I think it’s worth it.”

Hope is sitting at the dining room table, picking slowly at a bread roll. She’s so deep in thought that she’s more tearing the roll apart than actually eating it, as very few of the pieces actually end up in her mouth. She’s nearly managed to reduce the thing to a pile of fluff when a quiet voice interrupts her reverie. “Penny for your thoughts?”

She looks up in surprise to see her father standing in the archway, hands behind his back. “Hey. Just, uh. Thinking. What’s up?”

Klaus’s eyes dart away, avoiding her gaze. “There is something you should know.”

Hope’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “What’s wrong?” Then Vincent comes into view, just behind Klaus’s shoulder, and Hope’s face falls. “Oh god.”

“One of Marcel’s nightwalkers was found dead,” Vincent says solemnly. “Staked in an alley off Dauphine.”

Hope stands up and grips her chair back. “That’s what they were talking about,” she sighs, mostly to herself.

Klaus tilts his head. “That’s what who were talking about?”

Ignoring him, Hope asks of Vincent, “Who?”

The question stumps Vincent. “Who killed him?”

“Who died, Vincent.”

“Oh.” Vincent rubs his hands together. “I haven’t spoken to Marcel yet but—”

“Was it a witch?”

“Now hang on—”

“Did you think I wouldn’t hear, Vincent?” Hope snaps. “The witches decided that a vampire shot me before they even let me tell them what happened. So when a vampire shows up dead, I know where I’m pointing a finger first.”

“There are hundreds of witches in all nine covens, I have no way of knowing—”

“It’s your job to know!” Vincent falls silent. “Find who did this. Talk to every single witch if you have to. This city is reaching its breaking point, Vincent, and…I can’t watch it burn over me.”

Vincent nods, shoots Klaus a look, and walks away. Klaus, in turn, approaches his daughter. Softly, he says, “If you’d like my advice—”

“No offense, Dad?” She looks up at him. “If you’re going to say I should respond with fire and fury…just don’t.”

“The witches are using what happened to you as an excuse to exact revenge over the girl killed in the Jardin Gris, and you cannot let them get away with it.”

“I’m not doing anything until I have answers, Dad!” Hope pinches the bridge of her nose, suddenly feeling far older than eighteen. “This is insane. The witches know better, especially after what happened with Alessandra.”

“Who?”

She shoots her father a withering glare. “The witch murdered in the Jardin Gris.”

“Ah, yes.” Klaus claps his hands together. “Well, the witches of this city never were particularly bright.”

“You’re not helping, Dad.” Hope pushes past him to leave, but he snags her arm and tugs her back. “Listen to me,” he says quietly. “This will only get worse before it gets better.”

“I know that—”

“I have seen this city descend into chaos over far less than the near loss of a community leader. If war does befall New Orleans—”

“It won’t—”

“—if it does…you will protect yourself before anyone else. Do you understand me?”

Hope looks at her father as if seeing him for the first time. “See, that’s the difference between you and me, Dad. You say you love this city, but I’m willing to die for it. Are you?” She jerks her arm away from her father and leaves him standing speechless behind her.

It takes the better part of the day, but Vincent is just about to enter Lafayette Cemetery when his path is suddenly blocked by a pissed-off Marcel. “Look—”

Marcel raises a hand to cut him off, a vein popping in his forehead. “His name was Brady.”

Vincent puts his hands up in an attempt to calm Marcel. “I been all over this city today, Marcel, ain’t nobody know anything about your boy gettin’ killed.”

“Who else would kill him?” Marcel shouts. “Y’all have been up in arms since Hope got shot!”

“Because they think a vampire did it!”

“Well it wasn’t us!”

“And this wasn’t us either!”

The two men glare at each other, panting angrily. Then Marcel growls, “If I find out that one of your witches killed one of my nightwalkers…I won’t be able to stop them from tearing the Quarter apart. And I don’t know that I’d want to.”

Vincent steps up, gets right in Marcel’s face. “One of your vampires did kill one of my witches, and if another one decided to retaliate, I don’t know that I’d want them to see justice.”

“So this is about Drew now?”

“Man, it’s about all of it! Alessandra and Hope and the loitering in our shops and the threats against our families! You say you want a community here, you talk a big game—it’s time to actually step up and do something!”

“Well dead vampires don’t exactly inspire community building.”

“The live ones ain’t doin’ such a good job, neither.”

Marcel narrows his eyes. “Keep your witches in check, and I’ll do the same. Sound good?”

“Sounds like the best we’re gonna get, but yeah. Sounds good.”

Josh finds himself in the vampire hangout bar once again, spinning his whiskey glass round and round between his fingers. The atmosphere is heavy, with quiet conversation barely audible over the jukebox music. Most of the vampires are vacillating between anger and despair, each mourning their lost friend in their own way.

Until Ricky, a relatively new vampire with a loud mouth, stands up and barks, “Is this it? Is this how we respond to one of us dying?”

“Cool it, Ricky,” Josh says in a flat voice, not even looking up from his drink.

Ricky turns to face Josh, all eyes in the bar on him. “Man, I ain’t gonna cool it ‘cause you and Marcel and the Mikaelsons want me to cool it. First Drew goes to the Penitentiary and now this? Now Brady? Bullshit.”

“Who says the Mikaelsons want you to cool it?” All heads snap to the door to the bar, where Klaus Mikaelson leans against the doorframe. He shrugs. “If anything, now is the time to let things get…heated.”

Ricky lifts his chin in challenge. “The hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“Well.” He lopes into the center of the bar, crooked smile on his face. “I’ve never made secret my distaste for the witches of New Orleans. And now more than ever it seems that we…” He gestures broadly to the room. “…are in agreement on this point.”

With a curious tilt of his head, Ricky asks, “So what, you want us to clap back at the witches? Ain’t they loyal to your kid?”

“Those witches put my daughter’s life in danger the minute they made her their Advocate. If they’re all dead…” He smiles widens. “…there will no one to whom my daughter can advocate.”

“Okay, stop.” Klaus’s face colors with surprise as he turns to see Josh, now standing and facing the confrontation. “Marcel would never be okay with this. What you’re talking about is genocide.”

“Marcel Gerard has never had a problem with cultural genocide in the past,” Klaus argues. “What’s a little actual genocide in the grand scheme of things?”

“Ricky, don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to start shit to start shit.”

Ricky’s eyes dart back and forth between Klaus and Josh. They finally settle on Klaus. “Man’s got a point,” he says to Josh. Then he steps up to Klaus and smirks. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

In the dark, Amaya fumbles with her apartment key. It takes her three tries to unlock her door, her nametag hanging loose on her button-down shirt. She finally pushes her way inside, bone-tired and ready to sleep until her class in the morning. She tosses her bag onto the nearest chair and kicks off her shoes. Each one clunks heavily onto the floor, but then there’s a third thunk that freezes her. Eyes suddenly very wide, she listens, ears probing the silence for any other sound.

After a minute, she relaxes her shoulders, sure she imagined the strange sound. Her fingers come up to begin unbuttoning her shirt, when there’s a creak from down the hall. “Oh my god,” she breathes, and grabs her phone. The flashlight flicks to life, and she shines it down toward her bedroom, where she sees nothing. “Hello?” she calls, stepping forward tentatively. “I have mace!”

There’s another creak, this time right behind her. With a sharp gasp, she whips around and shines the light right into someone’s face. He grabs her arm, and she shouts, struggling against his grasp—

—and then he says, “Maya, Maya, calm down! It’s me!”

Amaya stops fighting and looks up. “Joel?”

“Yeah.” He cocks his head to the side. “You carry mace?”

“This is New Orleans,” she says.

“Fair point.”

With a sign, Amaya reaches over and flips a light switch, and suddenly she can actually see him. She glares for a moment, then smiles wide and throws her arms around his neck. “I thought you were out of town until tomorrow.”

“What can I say?” He hugs her back. “I missed my little sister.”

Amaya lets go of Joel and looks up at him. “C’mon. I made arroz con pollo.

Let’s eat.” She turns and walks into their tiny kitchen. Before following her, Joel slides off his leather jacket, tossing it onto the chair atop his sister’s bag, and revealing a long, curved scar along his neck.

#the originals #originals #tvd #tvd fic #originals fic #people and rhythm #pr 2x03

[calamiticus-blog]

and here’s the second one, which is also so messy and blah i’m so sorry it’s like 2 am and i wanted to get these out so my apologies for typos and general messiness. i added trigger warnings but if i missed anything pls lemme know and message me if you wanna plot with my babes :)

[ TRIGGER WARNINGS: DEATH, DEPRESSION, AND ALCOHOL/DRUG ABUSE UNDER THE CUT. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION. ]

❝  be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ❞

LYDIA GRAHAM? No, that’s actually MATILDA YOUNG. About to begin SEVENTH YEAR, this GRYFFINDOR student is sided with THE LIGHTNING INSURGENCY. SHE identifies as CIS FEMALE and is a MUGGLEBORN who is known to be RASH, IMPATIENT, and CALAMITOUS but also PUCKISH, CHARISMATIC, and CONFIDENT. 

general

name: matilda tillie ann young

age: 17

house: gryffindor

student functions: gryffindor keeper

boggart: the ghost of her mother, pale and withered and broken

patronus: wild cat

orientation: pansexual / panromantic

headcanons.

if you want a death sentence, you’ll call her matilda. no one calls her matilda. not even her own father calls her that. he knows better. you can call her tilda, matty, til - whatever. anything but matilda. mostly, she gets called tillie, and that’s how she introduces herself. “tillie young - at ya service,” she’ll say if you ask her for her name. she hasn’t uttered her full name - no one has - not since that day. and she wants it to stay that way. matilda young died the day her mother left this world, leaving behind a totally different person. a ghost of a person. and if you try to resurrect her, ever utter that name, all you’re going to get is a fistful of pain, either to the schnoz or the groin. don’t you dare call her matilda. 

tillie young grew up muggle, completely unaware of the phenomenon that was coursing through her veins. her childhood was fairly simple, though somewhat riddled with hardship. michael and tabitha young were, just that - young. tabitha was just seventeen when she found out she was pregnant, about to have a kid when she was still one herself. her boyfriend (a rather loose term for michael at the time) was just a couple years older, a uni drop out who played drums in a psychobilly band that was honestly not that good at all. the only good song he ever wrote was for a little black haired girl, a spitting image of her raven-haired mother, and the only joy the man ever had. despite her rocky origins, tillie grew up in a loving home with a pair of crazy, and heavily inexperienced, parents who were growing up beside their wild haired daughter. those first few years were bliss, the kid not knowing the troubles lurking beneath the surface of her parents’ wide grins. 

so it was a shock when the leukemia hit. tillie tries not to think about it, because it only ever gets her mad. it was just a reminder that life wasn’t bliss, that it was cruel and unfair and things never really ended with “happily ever after” like those silly children’s books mum would stop and read to her whenever they were out and happened to be near a book store. life was not some fairy tale. she had to learn this the hard way. her memories of her mom range from her being healthy and oh-so-happy to frail and weak. and yet she was always smiling, even through the hardest parts. she was so strong, so committed to making sure her daughter didn’t see the true suffering behind her eyes. tillie hadn’t a clue then what was happening, but looking back all the signs were there. despite their efforts, it didn’t take long for the sickness to take hold, and she remembers being curled up next to her mother, staring up at dark and beady eyes, hearing her father’s muffled weeps against the other side of her neck, barely concealing the slow and dying beat of tabitha young’s heart. she’d stayed there for a couple hours more, until they had to tear her away from the body’s side. she hadn’t even cried until they were out in the hallway and michael was struggling to keep tillie from jumping out of his arms and rushing back into the room where tabitha lay. 

it was shortly after this that life sent another curveball tillie’s way. when her mother left, so did any light in their world. her father resorted to alcohol and medication to numb the pain left from their loss. he was barely a dad now. tillie stopped calling him dad just to make that clear. she spent a lot of time between the homes of relative’s and “in the system” while her father went through phases of sobering up and falling into bad habits. eventually they gave up on both of them, and through a cruel twist of fate tillie stayed with her dad. she may have been the kid, but michael needed someone to take care of him more than he could take care of someone else. so she dealt with it, and soon enough the daughter became the caretaker. it forced her to grow up fast, but the everlasting memory of her mother kept tillie from growing up too fast. she still remained impish and charming and refused to be some stick in the mud grown up. that was dad’s job, even if he wasn’t going to live up to it. but her lifestyle left her with complicated and unnerving feelings, a sort of darkness that would follow her no matter how carefree she attempted to act in the face of all her adversity. 

this darkness took the most intriguing forms. all her life her parents had compared her to a storm. you could always sense just when a hurricane’s about to land, and according to her parents you could always sense when tillie was going through something. every tantrum was accompanied by a disturbance. the echo of her laughter caused things to literally jump. and those big old crocodile tears that leaked whenever she was upset brought on the most peculiar wonders that either tabitha or michael had ever seen. strange coincidences, they’d say, but when tillie was older and able to recognize the peculiarities herself, she couldn’t help but feel there was more to it. after all, things randomly, albeit briefly, levitating around you was no common occurrence. the answer to this quiet question that was plaguing her every night didn’t come until the arrival of a strange and ancient looking woman to her home when she was eleven, accompanied by a letter delivered by owl inviting her to attend hogwarts school for witchcraft and wizardry. it seemed like out of one of those fairy tales her mum used to read to her, but this was no fairy tale. magic was real, and tillie had some of it herself. 

the transition into being a witch was strange, to say the least, but tillie has embraced it fully. since discovering she’s a muggleborn, she’s wanted nothing more than to immerse herself completely in this new and fantastical world that’s been open to her. she took to hogwarts so naturally, it was like she was born with the knowledge of it. and while she isn’t the most studious or intelligent, she’s soaked up the education it’s given her. to know that magic is real and to be steadily mastering it has awakened a joy in tillie she never knew was there. not since her mother died. she found a passion for quidditch, being an exceptional beater. she loves charms and transfiguration, taking glee in transforming rats into goblets and the like. every second spent at that castle is like the first chapter to a brave new adventure. but the true reason she’s taken such a liking to hogwarts is because for the first time in a long time she has a home - and a community that loves her and welcomes her in with warm embrace. michael did little to make her feel love after tabitha’s passing. the friends she’s made at hogwarts and been the opposite. she doesn’t feel lonely anymore, not here. she feels at peace and blissful, like a child again. it’s hard to believe it’s her last year and that it’s all coming to a close. she wishes she could turn back time, back to that first day on the boat, so she could keep reliving these seven years over and over again. 

the war scares her. the prospect of her fairy tale world being ruined by the threat of war unnerves her. tillie doesn’t want ruin to come to the wizarding world. not when it’s been such a joyous escape from the tragedy of her past. she was quick to sign up for the insurgency - desperate to keep this danger from spoiling the beautiful community she’s come to consider her home. she’s eager to fight back, to bring an end to this ridiculous fight once and for all. with blind courage and optimism, she believes that they’ve got what it takes to bring a proper end to this. nevermind that they’re just a group of kids - this is their world. her generation is on the brink of adulthood, and these backward thinking pricks want to ruin their future? hell no. she won’t let this stand. as a muggleborn she feels particularly threatened and it only spurns her on more to stop the death eaters once and for all. behind all that courage and ambition, though, she’s afraid. she’s afraid that she won’t be good enough, that she’ll fail. she’s afraid of dying and leaving her father an even bigger mess than when her mother passed. 

loud and somewhat obnoxious, tillie is incredibly outgoing and isn’t shy when it comes to making friends. she’s rather protective and if she sees anyone being bullied she’s quick to jump to their defense and claim them as a friend. once you’re her friend, you can count on being protected by her. she may not seem like much but she’s tough and foul-mouthed and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or into a fight or two. growing up on the streets, she learned to fend for herself - and she’s seen her fair share of the big bad guys picking on the defenseless little ones. tillie won’t let that fly, though. as a seventh year, the question of her future has been brought up more than she wants to address. she’ll tell anyone she wants to be a holyhead harpy, and she very well could be, but there’s a lingering though of becoming an auror or working in law enforcement. she wants to protect the little guy, to bring justice to those that do wrong, but she isn’t sure her grades are enough to get her into a training program. so she won’t say it aloud. plus, holyhead harpy sounds so much cooler.  

wanted connections.

friends - like said above, tillie loves to make friends. and she loves to defend said friends. she’s a cross of mom friend and your friendly neighborhood badass - she will probably mom you and tell you to put on a jacket when it’s cold out because “you might get sick” and she’ll baby you and remind you to get enough sleep and eat three balanced meals, but she’ll also punch someone square in the nose for you, and is known to kick a few groins in the name of friendship. she’s already lost the most important person in her life - whenever she gains a new friend, she goes the extra mile to ensure their safety and happiness. and she loves to remind people she cares, because you never know when they won’t be around to hear it anymore. and she doesn’t want the lat words between them to be bad. ( can be multiple people )

exes - she may be a loving shit, but man tillie is not the best at maintaining serious romantic relationships. could be the unconventionality of her parents’ relationship. could be the string of destructive relationships she watched her father endure after tabitha left them. whatever the case, she’s just not good at keeping these things going. often times it’s because she gets scared. they’re getting in too deep. they’re really developing serious feelings about each other. then she gets cold feet. blame it on her self-destructive nature or inability to think decisions through before acting upon them - tillie always breaks things off just when they’re going so well. it’s because she’s used to good things leaving her. she said her goodbyes once and she can’t handle the thought of losing anyone else. with war looming on the horizon, this is getting all the more stressful. so she broke shit off again, because if something happens she can’t live with losing another person she loves more than life itself. better to end it now than see it end through death. ( any gender )

rivals - whether they are rivals on the pitch or elsewhere, tillie cannot stand this one person. they’re always against her, always standing in her way. they don’t see eye to hate. they think lowly of one another. maybe it’s a blood status thing. maybe it’s a gryffindor/slytherin thing. maybe it’s just the fact that tillie thinks she’s a lot better than this person and vice versa. whatever it is, there’s no doubt there’s bad blood between them. perhaps if they looked past their differences the pair could be a dynamic duo, come to actually like one another, but that doesn’t seem likely. tillie hates them with all of her might, and she refuses to see them as a human being. they’re more like the devil incarnate, but whatever. ( any gender )

can’t think of that many more but i’ll take like any connection you can think of so don’t hesitate to message me your ideas!!

[ READ MORE ]

( feel free to message me with plots or connections, even if they aren’t listed on here ! i would be open to everything and anything ! )

#ghostsintro #( m. young ) #( about. matilda ) #i'm sorry i suck at these

[readerwinterbarnes]

Motionless Pt. 13/?

Bucky x Reader, OC’s

Summary: Albern’s plan slowly becomes revealed and the outcome doesn’t look good.

Word Count:  2,504

Warnings: Language, character injury, graphic stuff, depression, angst

A/N: Oh man guys, it’s been quite a journey. There is still a lot going on and it’s gonna be a feels trip. Thank you for being patient with me this whole time and enjoy! Let me know what you think of it!

The lonely sound of water dripping in the drain was the all you could hear as you slowly came to. You don’t remember blacking out after Bane brought you back in, then proceeded to handcuff you to the rusted bed rails or even when someone - you had no fucking clue who - came in to check on you. Which was actually quite amusing as you thought about it. Why on earth would they come check up on you when you had absolutely nowhere to go and no means to move?

Well you could, if you weren’t currently handcuffed to the bed on your fucking stomach. Then all you’d have to do would be to crawl right out the door and out of, well, wherever the fuck you were.

You laid your head back down on the worn down mattress, losing yourself to the silence. There were a few rats in scurrying along the walls, only to huddle together in a corner fighting over the food scraps that was once your food.

Bane came in once or twice a day with a plate of food and placed it within reach of your hands, for you to eat. But you didn’t. You didn’t dare touch, let alone eat anything they offered you, in fear of them injecting it with something or dusting it with some sort of powder. So, you left the food alone and offered it to the rodents instead.

Time passed slowly, but you were pretty sure it was a few more days before anyone came into your molded, rotten cell. But today was different, a very bad different. A new and uneasy chill ran down your spine when you noticed Albern walk in behind Bane, with a grin on his face. Almost as if he was a child receiving a gift on Christmas. Crouching down so he was eye-level with you, he took off his black leather gloves and caressed his smooth warm hand down your spine. Letting it linger just above your hip. Disgust swam through you like a tidal wave, but you were completely helpless from his actions.

And by the smug look on his face, it told you he was extremely happy you couldn’t fight back.

So you kept your mouth shut and just grinned and bared it. Hoping he would just say his piece and leave you alone to your thoughts and your furry rodent friends. But knowing Albern, he was here for a reason, he was here on a mission. A mission you happened to be involved in.

“You are looking a little frail my dear, is our hospitality not to your liking?” You remained silent, but your eyes spoke volumes. There was so much you wanted to say to him, every single vulgar phrase, word, insult you could come up with were swarming around your head so fast, you weren’t even sure where to start. Albern leaned down and kissed your temple softly, brushing back your unkempt hair, frowning at the tangles.

“You are using your mind a little too much, Y/N. Why don’t you relax and let me handle things. No need for you to tire yourself out.” He clasped his hands behind his back, moving to stand in front of you while two other men in white lab coats came walking in.

“We need you to be strong and healthy, in order for our plan to work.” This set you on edge, Albern rarely, if ever, had anyone else take part in his ‘interrogations’. You weren’t sure why they were there, but it definitely didn’t look good.

One pushed a gurney behind the other, waiting patiently as Bane uncuffed you from the bed rails. Standing aside as the two doctors lifted you up and placing you back on your stomach on the gurney, Bane re-cuffing you to the gurney. By now you were confused, the only other room Albern interrogated you was, well….the room you were currently in. No words were said as the men began to wheel you out of the room and down the long hallway. You thought, ‘This is it, this is where they actually finish the job’. But then you thought back to what Albern said days before, how you have something he wants and Bucky has something he needs and all that Hydra bullshit. So if you weren’t going to die, what the hell are they planning?

You continue down the familiar hallway, taking in the gray concrete walls, watching as the lights passed by you. Casting shadows alongside the holes and cracks that lined the walls. You shifted your head to an upright position, resting your chin on the white bedsheet as they turned down a different hallway. You weren’t familiar with this area. You most definitely would’ve remembered this. The walls were….clean. Walls that were once concrete, were now, smooth white plaster, dark blue tiles bordered the edges. The sharp smell of disinfectant, detergent, and non-moldy air filled your nostrils.

After a while, you were wheeled into a huge bathroom where three female nurses waited patiently. The man who was pushing your gurney, stopped just beside the women, followed by Bane and Albern.

“Bane, would you please uncuff our guest here, wouldn’t want to risk her getting a further infection.” Bane took off the cuffs from your wrists, leaving behind scarred and bruised flesh behind. There was no doubt the cuts around your wrists were infected, but it could’ve been worse.

“Now my dear,” Albern pulled up a chair and sat down beside you as the women cut off the remainder of your clothes - leaving you completely bare - as they were put aside to be burned now doubt. “You are in very good hands. If you behave, any future pain will be much more tolerable, if not,” he trailed his fingertips over the bandage at the base of your spine, “you will regret it, I guarantee you.” Without removing his hand, he decided to migrate his hand up to your neck and rub his thumb alongside it, forcing you to face him.

“These two lovely nurses are going to bath you and afterward, I’m going to let the doctors patch you up. Wouldn’t want you to get sick, not when I still have great plans for you. Of course, that might change quite sooner than you think.” He sat back in his chair in a relaxed state, crossing his legs together as he stared at you. Now you even more confused. First, he tortures you until you were might as well have been on the brink of death. Cuts out the contraption in your back, along with your ring finger, litters your body with countless scars and brand marks, leaves you in a cold, moldy room for who knows how long…..and now? Now, you’re being treated for your injuries, being looked after from the injuries he put there in the first place? No, no this wasn’t going to stand with you. He most definitely had a reason as to why he was doing this.

“Okay, not that I don’t like being pampered, but what the hell do you want, Squinty? You gonna treat me with hospitality until I feel safe and then come bursting in with a new toy to inflict pain on me?” The women working on you, stopped waiting to see what would happen, but you paid no attention to them, you wanted answers and you were determined to get them.

“Cut the bullshit and just tell me what the fuck you want with me. Is it because I destroyed poor brother Friedrich’s plans? Is it because Bucky put a bullet through his head? ‘Cause let me tell ya, he had it comin’. Why am I all of a sudden so special to an old disgustingly piece of Hydra ass?” Albern stopped Bane with a raised hand, eyes locked on yours. You had to give this man credit, his face expressed no emotion, but come on, you lived with the Winter Soldier for years, you could tell when a fire was building up behind a pair of eyes. Hydra trained or not, you were getting to him and he knew it.

But as quickly as the fire arrived, it died just as fast. He smiled at you softly, unaffected by your outburst. “Yes, it is quite tragic of my late brother’s life, but I assure you Schatz (sweetheart), his plans were most definitely not destroyed.”

“Then why the fuck am I here?” You snarled at him, growing impatient with the lack of answers you weren’t getting. Unfazed by your tone, he relaxed in his chair once more.

“All will be answered in due time. Now,” he nodded at the four who were waiting patiently by the door, gesturing them forward, “I trust you’ll behave yourself and let them take care of you? Or am I going to have to stay and observe?” The image of the squinty eyed freak, sitting back watching attentively as the nurses bathed you, giving him a perfect view of your exposure, made you sick.

“If it makes you go away, then yes.” You answered back coldly, receiving a smile in return.

“Wonderful, please inform me as soon as she is prepared.” He told the others, which they responded with silent nods. Albern adjusted his glasses as he looked at you. “Bane will stay here and keep you company. So if you could behave, that would be absolutely divine, considering we have so much more to talk about.” With that, he left you in the care of the others.

You let them move you around in the stall when needed as you sat on the stool, watching as weeks’ worth of grime, dirt, and blood swirled on the smooth white tiles, down the shower drain. It’s not like there was much for you to do, besides sit there and let them work. It brought back memories of when you watched your father help bathe your mother before it all went bad. The gentle caresses, loving touches he would give her. Making sure her hair was out of the way as he washed her skin with her favorite body wash. Then he would softly wash her hair, brushing the tangles out afterward. It reminded you of the times when Bucky would do the same for you. Memories of you and Bucky came filtering through, one’s you almost forgot.

You remember the time when Bucky was recovering from his bike accident and you rushed out of his room, asking the others for help. About an hour later, you were all dolled up in your favorite dress you knew Bucky loved seeing you in, carrying in coffee and pastries for the both of you. How you both spent the whole night, well into the early morning playing 20 questions. It was perfect, getting to know the man you loved all over again. Having the chance to start over, have a chance to fix the relationship you both never wanted to give up. But now, now you wondered if you’d ever be able to go back home to that. Home. The mere thought of that word felt like a dream you could not reach. A shooting star flying past you so fast you barely even had the chance to register its existence.

It wasn’t until much later when the two nurses and the doctors were done with you. One lady even took the time to brush your hair and put it up into a long braid. You were about to be transferred over to the table when you hunched over, barely missing the trash bin at this point, as the contents of your stomach were forced up. A strong arm held you up by your waist so you wouldn’t crumble to the floor due to the lack of use of your legs. You scrambled to stand, but with no success. One of the nurses handed you a glass of water after you finished wrenching a few minutes later. You were exhausted, dehydrated and hungry. It wasn’t the first time the contents of your stomach came up and it wouldn’t be the last. Considering you’ve hardly eaten anything and whatever water they gave you, was gone in seconds flat. So you wouldn’t be surprised if your stomach wasn’t too thrilled with the speedy food consumptions.

With a clean full set of clothes, even fucking socks, you were placed in a wheelchair and pushed back down the hallway. To your new holding cell no doubt. It took the two doctors a matter of just little over an hour to check all of your injuries, clean them, stitch them together and bandage them. You were practically a half dressed mummy at this point. But at the moment you didn’t care. For the first time in weeks, you felt as if you could relax. ‘Course you knew the moment wouldn’t last, never did when it came to Hydra. But you soaked it in. The feeling of the smooth cotton sliding against your skin was the best feeling you could ask for. Sure, you were a prisoner of the enemy you strongly hated, but this was a whole lot better than being tied up with rusty handcuffs on a threadbare mattress in a cold moldy room.

A few minutes later, you were then brought into a completely new room, it was still a holding cell, but honestly, not what you were expecting. The bed had an actual mattress, one where the springs weren’t popping out. The room was void of mold and rats and it was...clean. Bane followed in after the doctor pushed you beside the mattress, Bane then proceeded to pick you up out of the wheelchair and placed you on the bed.

“Well look what the cat dragged in. Come to tell me that this is all one big massive mind game and you found a new way to make me bleed?” You sneered at Albern as he walked in, only seconds after everyone but Bane left.

“I must say, Y/N, you look absolutely radiant, and ‘glowing’ as you Americans like to say.” You stared at him questionably.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Admiring your handiwork no doubt.”

There was a twinkle in his eye, one that could only mean he knew something that was going to help him in the long run. He sat on the chair next to the bed as he pulled out three photos. Photos with blurred green images on them. Images that resembled a person….a very...small person. You dragged your eyes from the photos laid out in front of you to his own. The air sucked out of your lungs.

“Congratulations, Miss Y/N Y/L/N, you’re going to be a mother.” Tears ran down your face as you looked at the small figure in the pictures. Each one labeled with a date, the most recent one was taken not that long ago.

A fresh sob shook through you, you were two months pregnant.

Part 14: WIP

DUN DUN DUN!!!! 

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[labourpress]

Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Health Secretary, speech to Unison’s conference

**Check against delivery**

It is my pleasure to be here. As a Labour MP, a trade union member. As a member of your shadow Cabinet and – I hope – as the next Labour Secretary of State for Health.

And it is a pleasure to be here with UNISON a great trade union led by one of the great General Secretaries Dave Prentis. I congratulate all of you for your campaign on public services and the work of public servants.

Dave spoke with great eloquence earlier this week.

And when Dave said that funding’s becoming scarcer – he was right.

When Dave said you’re all asked to do more with less – he was right

And when Dave said you cannot trust the Tories with the National Health Service – he was right.

And that’s what I want to talk to you about this morning.

But my first duty this morning on behalf of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn is to say thank you to this union and your members and indeed all who work in the NHS.

So to the nurses, the midwives and the health care assistants – we say thank you

And because we don’t always remember them but I’ve seen for myself the difference you make when a few years ago I had the honour of shadowing your stewards on facility time at Lewisham hospital. To all your stewards representing you in hospitals we say thank you.

To the porters, the cleaners and the IT administrators – we say thank you

To the medical secretaries, therapists, paramedics and managers – we say thank you too.

For your care, your dedication, your self-sacrifice, every day, your extraordinary efforts, literally often the difference between life and death.

Friends, we are here today. In our various vocations and in this union because we believe in something bigger than ourselves, because we are driven by solidarity not selfishness and we understand, and indeed value the ethos of public service. An ethos that not only runs deep in our history as a trade union movement but defines the character of our country as well.

Because when you look at every stage of life, whether we call it cradle to the grave – or as Shakespeare wrote of the 7 ages of man.

At every stage public servants have been there for us, have cared for us, have nurtured us and made us all what we are today.

Each and every one of them transforming hopelessness into hope.

From the midwives and clinicians who bring us into the world, the teachers who inspire us, the community workers improving our quality of life, to our care workers who look after our frail, weak and vulnerable.

All represented across this union, all everyday showing the value of public services at the heart of a civilized society

And nowhere is that clearer, than in the NHS

A National Health Service is truly visionary – a central part of the values we share as a society.

So today in the run up to this General Election I want to talk to you about the attack on our NHS and on our values by this Conservative Government.

And in this campaign let’s be resolute to not let any Tory run away from their record on the NHS.

Theresa May can insist problems with the NHS are nothing more than a ‘small number of incidents’ but she can’t deny what we see with our eyes to be happening.

The winter crisis we’ve just been through, with ambulances backed up outside of hospitals, patients on trolleys in corridors, operations cancelled, elderly people trapped in beds with nowhere to go.

Ever lengthening queues of the sick and elderly across the land.

Nearly 4 million people waiting for an operation;

Over 200,000 people waiting for four hours of more in A&E in February alone;

The number of people waiting for 12 hours or more on trolleys doubled in a year. Sometimes patients wait over 30 hours on a trolley.

Call it a ‘humanitarian crisis’ as the Red Cross did.

Call it the NHS on a ‘burning platform’ as the CQC Chief Executive did

Call it an ‘existential crisis’ as Sir Robert Francis did

I simply call it what it is – this is a Tory NHS crisis and that’s why the future of the NHS is at stake in this general election.

We have a Prime Minister who even yesterday still refuses to see the truth that the NHS is overstretched, understaffed and under threat.

We have a Prime Minister imposing on the NHS the largest financial squeeze in history.

Who allows hospital trusts to fall into deficit like never before.

We have a Prime Minister who next year will be cutting NHS spending per head.

Yesterday we heard that the NHS has a backlog of £5 billion in repairs for crumbling hospitals and out of date equipment.

They expect the NHS to find £22 billion of so called efficiency savings which no one believes can be found without cutting frontline care.

A health system buckling under the strain of huge financial and operational pressures.

And what does it tell you about the state of 21st century Britain under these Conservatives that the number of hospital beds take by patients being treated for malnutrition – yes malnutrition - has trebled in recent years.

Malnutrition on the rise in Tory Britain; isn’t that a national disgrace; isn’t that a badge of shame.

And because of the pressures on beds in the last few years a million patients have been discharged in the middle of the night.

And the numbers of elderly and vulnerable people trapped in hospital with nowhere to go at record levels.

And why? Because we have a care system that has been savaged by 7 years of spending cuts. We have a care system on the brink of tipping point.

We have over a million of the most elderly and vulnerable people denied the care they deserve. Some maybe our own grandparents or parents, our own relatives.

And yet we have a Prime Minister who walks by on the other side, refuses to face up to the problems and says to councils in the most deprived parts of the country: you can raise your council tax even though it will go nowhere near meeting your social care needs.

Unless of course it happens to be Surrey County Council where you can get a special secret sweetheart deal with Downing Street.

Well I tell you something, under Labour these dodgy deals that demean Downing Street will be gone. We’ll bring back honour and integrity to policy and decision making in No 10. No more special access and mates’ rates but fairness instead for all.

And while this Prime Minister ignores the social care needs of the many she can find millions to build new grammar schools,

She can find billions to cuts taxes for the biggest corporations, but she won’t recognise the demands of the elderly or treatment requirements of the sick.

So let us be absolutely clear – what prevents this Prime Minister from acting is not the financial constraints of the economy but the dogmatic constraints of her ideology.

Things are so bad that even Andrew Lansley – remember him – even Andrew Lansley has complained it isn’t getting the money it needs.

Talking of Lord Lansley, never forget that the priority of these Conservatives – including Theresa May - was always a top down reorganization in the Health and Social Care Act whose very aim was to drive our NHS into the realms of privatisation; 

And I can tell you today we will not yield, we will not buckle.

Labour will defend the National Health Service and axe that Health and Social Care legislation that allows the NHS to be fragmented and sold off.

Privatisation of the NHS will come to an end.

And I tell you what else we will do:

We will reinstate the Secretary of State’s responsibilities. We will reinstate the NHS – publicly funded, publicly administered and yes publicly provided.

And I want our NHS staff and patients to be given an actual real genuine voice in the running of our NHS too.

So I can announce we will also put healthcare professionals, staff and patients on the Board of any organisation providing NHS care.  

And yes this will apply to all private companies currently providing services or we will insist they hand back their contracts.  

But we will go further than that too and insist that Board level representation of professionals, staff and patients is on every organisation providing NHS care - including Clinical Commissioning Groups and all NHS Trusts.  

So Labour will deliver staff reps on boards with voting rights at the heart of our NHS.

Better services

Over this campaign Labour will be setting out our plans to deliver the improvements that patients need.

We want to see hospitals properly staffed, waiting times coming down and emergency care available to those who need it, operating to the standards that patients expect.

Under the Conservatives the 18 week target has been dumped for what they call non-urgent operations.

To paraphrase a famous pre-election speech from time gone by: I warn you that if the Tories win again not to get old, not to get sick.

I warn you that the real cost of the Tories winning again will be felt in longer waiting times, and people spending longer in pain and discomfort for knee replacements and hip replacements.

Let’s be clear what’s happening, step by step, bit by bit.

The NHS under Tories is being pushed back to the bad old days and it will fall to Labour to save the NHS like we have done throughout our history.

So we confirm our commitment to hitting the targets for A&E,

We’ll do so by investing in our NHS, in our community services, and renewing the focus on keeping people well and out of hospital, delivering care closer to home at the time when people need it.

Because those who have given so much all their life deserve security and dignity in retirement we’ll integrate health and social care

And when it comes to the planning and delivery of local services we will always ask what is in the interest of local needs not what is in the interests of filling financial holes.

And we will deliver long overdue improvements to mental health care as well.

We know that mental ill health is the leading cause of sickness absence at work, costing the economy £105bn every year.

And that one in four of us in this room will experience a mental health problem this year.

And yet all we get from Theresa May is warm words and empty promises, but no real meaningful action.

Unlike the Tories, Labour will tackle the underfunded and understaffed mental health system.

We want to see mental health services properly resourced and focused on prevention, rather than just asking the NHS to intervene once a person is already in crisis.

We will give our mental health services the money they desperately need to look after us all, because there can be no health without mental health.

The next Labour government will deliver true parity of esteem between mental and physical health.

We won’t just talk about equality – we will deliver it.

And if we are to deliver these improvements for Britain’s patients, then our starting point will be delivering improvements for our health and care workforce.

Standing up for staff

So today I want to set out Labour’s plans for the staff of our NHS and social care system.

You are the lifeblood of the NHS. You have committed your working lives to caring for others in our times of need.

You deserve to be cared for yourselves, but for too long this Government has taken you for granted.

A pay freeze has seen NHS wages fall 14% below inflation.

Cut backs to training places have meant units are even more short-staffed.

And now Brexit threatens the ability of our NHS to recruit from abroad, and threatens thousands of good, kind European staff who are working in our country already.

So let me make it clear, Labour would make the NHS a priority in the Brexit negotiations, and as Keir Starmer said yesterday we would give an immediate NHS guarantee to all European NHS staff.

Let us send a clear message to the thousands of NHS and social care staff from the EU. You are welcome, needed and your rights will be guaranteed in the UK under a Labour government

You know because you see it every day that staff are being forced by this Government to do more and more with less and less

Giving ever more of your free time to keep the service running – working through your breaks and often long past the end of your shift.

It’s why I say that our NHS staff are the pride of Britain.

Yet you are ignored, insulted, undervalued, overworked and underpaid by this Tory government.

Well not any more. Enough is enough.

NHS staff have been taken for granted for too long by the Conservative Government.

Cuts to pay and training mean hard working staff are being forced from NHS professions and young people are being put off before they have even started.

What is bad for NHS staff is bad for patients too. Short staffing means reduced services and a threat to patient safety.

So I can announce a Labour Government will step in with a long term plan for our NHS which gives NHS staff the support they need to do the best possible job for patients.

NHS staff deserve to be rewarded for the complex, difficult and highly specialized professional work that they do.

So I can confirm today that a Labour government will scrap the pay cap, put pay decisions back into the hands of the independent pay review body and give our NHS workers the pay they deserve.

It’s fair to staff and it’s in the interest of patients too.

And it’s also in the interests of patients that we invest in the potential of our staff.

My long term ambition is for our NHS staff to have the best trained staff in the world ready to deal with whatever they face in the years to come.

As a first step that means giving those who want to enter nursing, midwifery and allied health profession a step up, not kick the ladder away.

So let me commit here today that we will re-introduce bursaries. We will reinstate funding for health related degrees so that people who want to get into health professions – whether they are young people starting out or older students who want a new career after starting a family – don’t feel put off by financial considerations.

Safe Staffing

I know that whenever we need the NHS it’s there for all of us and our families. But all of us are naturally anxious when our loved ones or ourselves need to spend time in hospital.

Quite simply Labour will never compromise on patient safety.

After seven years of Tory mismanagement our health services dangerously understaffed.

We are thousands short on the numbers of nurses, midwives, and paramedics that we need.

And yet the attitude of this Prime Minister remains blinkered in the extreme. Her head buried in the sand. A casual dismissal of the concerns of patients and their families.

So just as I’m passionate about investing in our NHS staff, I will be the real patients’ champion too

Time and again expert reports - including the groundbreaking survey UNISON published this week - have told us that staffing levels are linked to patient safety but this Conservative Government has failed to deliver staffing levels which keep up with demand.

So the next Labour government will legislate to ensure safe staffing levels in England’s NHS.

We will immediately ask NICE to undertake work to set out how safety can be determined in different settings, including looking at legally enforced staffing ratios.

So conference with a Labour government a new law to guarantee safe staffing, so that finances never again take precedent over patient safety.

And unlike the current Secretary of State I don’t make promises on behalf of the NHS while refusing to give the NHS the resources and tools to deliver those promises.

The NHS under Labour will get the funding needed. Over the coming days we will outline a long term plans for the NHS; for how we integrate health and social care.

For too long, NHS staff have been taken for granted by the Conservative Government. Wages falling, workloads rising. Staffing shortages getting worse.

So I’m pleased to be able to launch here today Labour’s three point pledge for NHS staff: better pay, safer staffing and fully funded education.

So yes this election is about the future of the NHS.

And yes, it falls to this movement as it has throughout our history to make the case with passion and yes pride for a National Health Service – free at the point of need for every man, woman and child.

It falls to us again as it has throughout our history to make the argument for collective provision not just for a basic health service but for the very best health service.

Throughout our history, we never lost our ideals and we never faltered in our ambitions for the best health care for everyone.

Because we know that a National Health Service funded through taxation; with treatment free at the point of delivery; where everyone is treated equally based on clinical need not ability to pay is not only the right thing to do but it’s also the most efficient, effective and safest system of health are across the world.

Friends one of favourites poets WB Yeats wrote ‘in dreams begins responsibility” –

Inspired by the solidarity of the communities of Tredegar and motivated by the dream of a fairer society not just for some but for all Nye Bevan took responsibility to bring it about the Health Service

In doing so we escaped from a world of patch work provision and charges for healthcare

So let’s never forget that in that speech introducing the National Health Service Bill he said the NHS, would

“lift the shadow from millions of homes”

“It will keep very many people alive who might otherwise be dead”

And:

“No society can legitimately call itself civilised” he said, “if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means”

They were words that still inspire

And of a cause that still endures;

And now the responsibility falls to us.

So the choice in this election on June 8th is clear

A rebuilt the National Health Service and social care service for the millions who depend on it with Labour

Or cut backs, sell offs and nothing but a rump service under the Tories.

A world class NHS providing the best quality of care – 

Or waiting times get longer, staff demoralised, standards of care plummeting

The choice is clear.

Labour’s commitment; that is our purpose.

Our Values, Labour Values,

Our Policies will protect the future for the NHS and standards of NHS care

Let’s go out and win.

Thank you

Ends