#then i think i passed out on the bathroom floor for a couple hours nd eventually woke up bc i was cold

[lacharcutiere]

ur my favorite drug & my worst hangover [nsfw 18+, terushima yūji]

5,9k words

✯haikyuu!! masterlist✯

winter sem break brings the new year, & a few other new developments too.

smut, tiny bit of angst, fwb, fluff // quit - lil aaron & travis barker. god this song goes so hard

the way all i talk abt is how much i love teru but have nothing to show for it— yeah we’re gonna fix that. man i love him

☾𓆙𓂻

— SOBER

the soft hum of the tv in the background slowly fades into your awareness as you blink blearily awake, almost forgetting where you are for a second.

you’re in yūji’s living room, duh. your semestral break has not been nearly as interesting as either of you’d hoped: instead, you’ve both succumbed to alternating between each other’s childhood homes, binging netflix and random youtube videos and eating chips and tubs of ice cream late into the night, as has been your custom for years.

it’s dim but for the glow of the screen, and it’s kind of chilly in here now, even with you wrapped up in a hoodie. (yours, not yūji’s. you only borrow his in emergencies.)

he’s not next to you now, but his footsteps—you know them by now: quick and kind of heavy but not overbearingly loud—are entering the room again, and you feel the sofa cushions dip a little as he retakes his seat next to you.

“hey,” he says, smiling, “you’re awake.”

“hmmph,” you mumble, sitting upright to stretch your back. “what time is it?”

“uh.” he squints at the digital clock next to the tv. “like one?”

“‘m cold.”

“me too.”

“‘nd tired.”

“you just woke up?”

“i’m tired,” you whine.

yūji groans. “you’re really gonna make me go to sleep this early?”

“you don’t have to sleep, but i will.”

“yeah,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “but who’s gonna keep me company then?”

“i dunno,” you shoot back, “text tetsu or something. he’s probably still up.”

he rolls his eyes but relents, standing from the sofa. “fine.” and he holds out a hand to help you up, which you don’t take.

“i can do shit for myself,” you joke, rolling your eyes.

“right.”

—

it’s not much warmer in his room despite the thermostat supposedly being set to an acceptable temperature, but at least the sleeping bag on the floor next to yūji’s bed is insulated, and he’s given you a couple extra blankets for which you’re grateful. the biting chill of january does not fuck around.

so you nestle yourself into a little cocoon of linens and pillows and pull your hood up, curling into a ball in an effort to conserve your body heat. you hear him laugh a little as he watches you.

“what?”

“nothing.”

there’s the light hum of a phone ringing a few times, and that little beep as tetsu picks up the facetime call.

sleep clouds your senses to the background music of stifled laughter and loud whispers and the occasional static of yūji’s phone speaker.

— BUT U PULLED ME CLOSER

the next few minutes, hour—you have no idea—pass just like that, with you drifting languidly in and out of sleep and the sounds of yūji and tetsurō’s voices audible but incomprehensible in the background.

last you remember, you’re slipping back under again, hearing tetsu through the staticky iphone speaker.

and then you wake up again because you’re fucking freezing and it’s quiet and the lights are off, except for the little reading light mounted to the headboard of yūji’s bed. you sit up on your elbows, craning your neck, and see that he’s still up, lying on his stomach with his phone dimly illuminating his face.

“what time’s it?” you mumble.

“uh... 2:38.” he pauses. “y’alright?”

“cold,” you say.

he locks his phone then, and he just looks at you kind of blankly and maybe a little mockingly? except it must not be mocking; it must be something else, because he’s just kind of... studying you.

you look back up at him expectantly. “what?” you say.

he sighs, kind of rolls his eyes, turns away from the light to hide the little smile playing on his lips. “come on up here.” he scoots over and pats the spot next to him.

thankful for an extra source of body heat and blankets and pillows, you shove yourself up off the ground and shuffle over to the bed.

it’s kind of funny, the way you’re basically adults now and yet your relationship’s still fundamentally the same as it was when you met years ago.

—

duh, yūji hates that. it’s true, that whole thing about how “every one of your guy friends has thought about fucking you at some point.” it’s true, at least for him.

and there’s something electric in how you haven’t slept next to him in months because you’ve both been busy with school, and now you’re back here. back here, where it feels like you belong.

there’s something deep in his chest that’s set aflame by the way you laugh and let him tuck the comforter over you; the way your sweatpant-covered legs brush against his own underneath it.

he wants to touch you.

he wants to wrap his hand around your thigh and pull it over his own; to run his fingertips up the length of your arm and make you shiver; to snake his around your waist and pull your head into his chest.

maybe he will once you’re asleep, he figures. once his pride can’t be hurt because you don’t have to know.

except... except he’d let it be hurt for you. without a moment’s hesitation. he would shatter it himself for you, would let you take him in your fingers and rip him to pieces too small to be puzzled back together.

because maybe he doesn’t just want you. maybe he loves you.

but even he, completely truthfully, doesn’t know.

he’s got a sneaking suspicion that he does, though, because he’s rarely confused and this is an enigma he can’t quite seem to decipher, no matter what he tries.

it’s absurd, too, he realizes laying on his back next to you, how suddenly he’s afraid to touch you. because the two of you have always been touchy, that’s just you. you’re two halves; you’re so similar. you’ve been attached at the hip since childhood—why is it different now, now that he wants that more than anything?

so here he is, spiraling in this conundrum of feelings, when it’s cut short by you, tiredly whining, “yūji.”

“what?” he sort of feigns annoyance.

“‘m cold.”

“and?”

and. and his breath catches because you roll over and latch onto him. and he brings his arms around your shoulders and holds you to his chest.

so close, and yet so far away.

and he shudders as you lay one hand flat on his chest. it belongs there forever.

you nuzzle your nose into his shoulder and inhale his scent and his brain short-circuits.

has she done this before?

and mostly unconscious, you mumble, “—warm. y’re pretty’.” his eyes go wide.

“what?”

your arms tighten around him, and he’d hate to admit it, but it’s setting him off. he’s... a little hard.

a hand settles itself on your thigh, the one that’s draped over his legs, and he pushes it downward a little, so that it’s not resting next to the rising erection in his pajama pants.

god, he wants to fuck you so badly right now, he wants for you to feel him throbbing between your legs as you whimper against his skin. but he also wants you to want him.

miraculously, a little sigh escapes your lips at the touch. so he doesn’t move his hand.

“feels nice,” you whisper.

so he decides to test the waters, and squeezes gently. you giggle sleepily.

inhibitions dissipating for a moment, his stomach leaps to his chest and he snakes that hand up over your hip, consciously avoiding your ass just in case, and rests it on your back, rubbing up and down slowly.

his chest constricts as you snuggle even closer to him. and then your leg moves back up and your thigh nudges his crotch.

your eyes snap open and he inhales sharply.

and then you’re propped up on your elbow, leaning over him.

he curses himself for forgetting to turn off the light; the flush in his cheeks is obvious.

half terrified and half excited, he watches as your face breaks into a wide, shit-eating grin.

“what?” he breathes.

your eyes narrow; a look of mischief he’s so familiar with, one that’s often mirrored on his own features. (it’s not now.)

“yūji,” you say, singsong and bright, “what’s this?”

and—oh, god, oh, fuck—you bring a hand down to rest on his dick, tenting in his pajamas.

he doesn’t know what to say to you.

“i— uhm—”

“hmm,” you hum. “y’ alright?”

he clears his throat, nods. “are— uh, are you?”

“mhm,” you laugh, wide awake now. “yūji...” you pause. he can’t stand it; he needs to know what happens next, needs to know what’s fanning the flames behind your eyes.

oh god. oh god, all he leaves is a breath in between and then you’re throwing your leg over him again and, fuck, you’re straddling him. he lets out a shaky breath, voice tight as he chokes out, “what are you doing?”

the smile is gone from your face now, replaced with something softer, something lustful. your hands move to his shoulders to balance yourself as you grind your hips down, and a low ahh slips out of him.

it’s just like that, just your clothed bodies rubbing together. he comes embarrassingly quickly in his boxers, but he lets you ride his thigh until you finish as recompense.

afterward, he excuses himself and cleans himself off in the bathroom. when he comes back, you’re sound asleep again.

that’s all that happens.

— UR GONNA FUCK ME UP

following that, everything proceeds as it had before. neither of you bother to speak of it, but nothing even seems off between you at all. it’s as if it never happened.

or maybe, yūji sometimes allows himself to think as he touches himself to the memory in the middle of nights when you’re not together, it’s like it was meant to happen.

what a wonderful illusion that is.

because he knows it won’t work, and if you ever thought about him like that, you would know, too.

the two of you have watched each other fall in love—get dumped, ghost people, whatever—several times over the past few years. he remembers your first boyfriend, your last year of middle school: the guy had been a mutual friend that you’d been crushing on for months. and yet, when you’d finally become a thing, it had taken no more than a couple of weeks for you to grow uninterested and dump him.

it’s not like he hasn’t done similar things in the past.

and it’s not like some people who’ve dated either of you haven’t had better luck; there have been several who have been the ones to break your hearts.

but both of you have yet to have maintained a long-term relationship, and neither of you have kept in contact with many of your exes.

he doesn’t want to be another one of those, and he certainly doesn’t want you to be, either.

—

it’s maybe a week after that night when you pick him up to go get takeout and ice cream.

that, in itself, is a pretty normal thing.

but then you’re sitting in your car, and between spoonfuls of mocha chip and hot caramel, you say, “so i saw this thing.”

“hm?” he responds, his mouth still full.

“your aura is striking, dude,” you quote. there’s a pause as you try to suppress a giggle. and then: “can i kiss you deeply, bro?”

he snorts and jokes, “anytime you want.” and he really hopes that you take his tone at face value, but he also knows you way better than that.

so he’s only half surprised when you actually do. half surprised, and wholly in awe.

your hands are in each other’s hair. it’s quick—feverish, but quick—and the first thing you say when you pull back is, “tastes like sugar.”

he laughs again, unsure of what move to make next. “yeah?”

and then you’re... shy? because you look away from him, back down to the cup of ice cream in your lap, and you say, “you feel good.” it’s so low that it’s almost unintelligible. but he hears you.

both your faces are burning when you look back up at him. “should we talk about that?”

“‘bout what? kissing? ‘s not the first time.”

it isn’t—he kissed you once in middle school, because there was this other girl that he’d thought was pretty, and he wanted to make her jealous. it hadn’t worked; she’d just thought the two of you were together, and a teacher had scolded you for pda. but at least it had been a fun story to laugh at for a while after.

this is obviously different, though, and you both know that. this kiss wasn’t to make anyone jealous. this one was for yourselves.

and anyway, that’s not what you meant by that.

“no,” you say. “the um... last week. at your place.”

“oh, yeah.”

“should we, um, do you wanna talk about it?”

“d’you?”

you shrug.

“alright,” he says. pauses. “so... what was that about?”

and you almost laugh incredulously. “you’re asking me?”

he stares blankly.

“you’re the one who got a boner when we were cuddling, yūji. as if we’ve never done that before.” you notice the mortified look on his face, and your expression softens and your voice lowers. “you wanna tell me what that was about? you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

and he laughs nervously and says, “no, no, ‘s fine. i was just kinda horny, that’s all. i haven’t hooked up with anyone in a while, y’know?”

you give him a sardonic grin. “and that’s why it only took you, like, three minutes to come?”

“yeah... yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.

a moment passes where you stop and think for a little, and then you turn back to look at him. “it was, uh, good, though. like, objectively. it was good.”

it’s his turn to flash a grin at you: “‘course it was. it’s me.”

“and me.”

“shoulda won the sex gods superlative in last year’s yearbook.”

“ha.” another thing crosses your mind: “and now look at us. too busy with school to even have time to fuck anyone.”

yūji doesn’t say anything, so you do it for him.

you start out carefully. “but...”

“but?”

“do you— i mean. we’ve got, like, what? three weeks left before we go back? and we’re stuck here. and— and we already hang out like every single day anyway, and. uh. and it was objectively good.”

“are you—”

“and i’ve known you for years. come on. there’s, like, nothing i could do to embarrass myself around you anymore.”

friends with benefits. you’re suggesting that you temporarily be friends with benefits.

“and it wasn’t weird after last time,” you add. “i think.”

“hm,” he says, “yeah, no, it wasn’t.”

his first instinct is to say no, to tell you it’s a bad idea. but as he thinks about it more, he realizes that you’re kind of right. and anyway, what is the worst that could happen? because he’s pretty sure he’s far gone enough for you that falling a little further wouldn’t change a thing. even if he weren’t, he’d never think of hurting you intentionally.

and, he figures, he’d hardly mind being hurt by you.

—

that is how you end up back in his bed an hour later—his parents are out on a date this evening; you’ve got until a few hours past sundown to fuck and clean yourselves off and make it look like you’ve been eating and talking and watching tv the whole time.

outside of the guise of midnight impulses, it is a strange—but also strangely pleasant—thing to be having sex with your best friend.

there’s no pretense, hardly any need to keep up appearances (at least, for you). you’re not strangers only concerned with your own pleasure; you know each other. despite never actually having done this before, he already knows what you like, and vice versa.

it’s nice.

it’s nice to hear him laugh when you whine for him to stop being so gentle, vanilla-ass bitch, only to have him call you a “horny little—” (to which you respond, no, you.)

and it’s nice to sleep with someone who reads all the cues you give him without you even needing to say anything.

it is possibly the best sex you’ve ever had in your life.

it is possibly the best sex you’ve ever had in your life, and... it might not be just because of the dynamic between you two, or the fact that you don’t have to be afraid to tell him what you like and what you don’t—the fact that you don’t even have to tell him at all.

it’s nice. for you. and it’s hell for him.

it’s hell for him to have to hold back all the sweet nothings he wants to whisper in your ear—he’s restricted to you like that, huh, baby? and fuuuck and god, you’re so fucking tight, and he knows you’re into it, but he wants to be treating you like a princess right now. he wants to call you his, wants to whisper, tell me you’re all mine against your bare shoulders, wants to tell you he loves you.

so... he does love you.

but he can’t say that. he knows he can keep you around, but you’re not his to keep.

—

it continues like that for the next several days: you fuck, it’s good sex, and he’ll touch himself to the memories if you’re not there: memories of how you taste, of the softness of your skin, of you with your legs around his waist and your bare chests pressed together, damp and warm with sweat.

it is so gratifying, and even more painful.

and then, one day, as he’s fucking you in your childhood bedroom—all white walls covered in sketches and colorful postcards you’ve accumulated over the years—something is slightly off.

there’s something about it that feels more intimate than the other times, and it goes slower than before. it’s not all lust and clothes tossed haphazardly on the floor and bodies shoved hurriedly into mattresses.

you kiss him for a long time before any clothing comes off, and you keep pulling him back to your lips as he thrusts into you. you’re not urging him faster, more, harder; you let him keep a steady pace and arch your back into the sheets as you lie underneath him.

it hits him as you come down from your orgasm and writhe in his arms, softly moaning, “god, yūji, i l—”

he stops.

“don’t say that,” he says.

still shaking and catching your breath, you respond, “what?”

“just don’t.” but his tone is casual, and so you don’t think much of it.

—

you don’t hook up every time you hang out, and yeah. you were right. it’s hardly different than before. except, isn’t it?

you’re sitting on opposite sides of your sofa one morning after your parents have left for work—he slept over the previous night, but you didn’t have sex. you’d spent it laughing over the dumbest things and blasting music as you drove around without a destination.

your’re sitting with your knees pulled against your chest, scrolling lazily on your phone while you and yūji eat handfuls of cereal straight from the box between you.

it’s mostly quiet for once; comfortably silent. neither of you have ever really been a morning person.

— BUT U KNOW I LIKE IT

the ice cracks a little when he stops shoving your hand away to grab himself another handful of cereal. you notice, and then you wonder if you always noticed little things like that, because it feels kind of weird to. not that you mind.

meanwhile, yūji watches you, studying the way your hair falls messily around your face, the way one sleeve of your sweatshirt is rolled halfway up your forearm and the other is pulled all the way over your hand.

the living room is bright, surrounded by windows, and you’re illuminated by light yellow late-morning sunlight all around and he feels safe looking at you.

the ice cracks a little more when he says your name softly.

“hm?” you say, confusedly looking up at him.

“nothing,” he answers, too quickly. “i’m just... happy right now.”

you smile, radiant. “i’m glad you are.”

—

in the afternoon, you’ve grown bored and are wandering the streets of your neighborhood, voicing thoughts and pointing out people you pass by.

it’s still early, but it’s january, so the sun is already beginning to set.

when you’re a couple minutes out from your house, yūji goes quiet, and it stays like that for the rest of the walk.

and then, as he stands next to you while you unlock the door, he blurts, “i have to tell you something.”

you freeze. “what?”

it’s silent for a bit. “never mind.”

“yūji—”

“it’s okay,” he says softly.

he wants to shrink away from your gaze as you study him. he knows you know there’s something amiss, and second thoughts have almost always been his own personal hell.

graciously, though, you don’t ask. and it’s like stepping through a portal when you’re back inside; it’s all forgotten and back to how it was before.

—

but: a little while later, you’re lying side-by-side on your bed watching netflix again, and for whatever reason you turn to look at him for a moment and it’s just—

you can’t look away. and you don’t know why.

he can feel your eyes on him and it burns, and he wonders how much longer he can keep this up before he loses his mind.

when he doesn’t turn to face you, you call his name softly.

“hm?”

after an uncomfortable moment of hesitation, you say, “something’s up.”

“what?”

“yūji,” you repeat, and he forgets to breathe for a second. “are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

the mattress shifts under his weight as he sits up, resting his head in his hands. he takes a deep breath and can’t bring himself to meet your eyes.

“what’s wrong?” it sounds less like a question and more like a plea.

“i—” he starts, and then stops himself. “i can’t, i can’t do this to you.”

“can’t do what?”

there’s a painful silence, heavy with anticipation and maybe a little bit of dread.

“i don’t wanna keep hooking up with you.”

you sit up, too.

“did i...? do something wrong?”

he shakes his head and sighs, and he sounds exasperated. “it’s... no, it’s— i think...” and he seems to grow more frustrated as he fails to verbalize whatever it is, this strange cold fire stinging in the pit of his stomach.

“what do you think?” you whisper.

and he stands and walks to the door. his hand rests on the knob and he whispers back, in a voice that sounds precariously close to breaking, “you, when i... y’know. ’m sorry.”

and he’s gone.

and you have no idea what to think, both of what he just said and the fact that it sends an excited buzz through your nerves, even though it probably shouldn’t.

— IT'S HARD N IT'S HARDER TO ADMIT

his words are stuck in your head all night, have you caught somewhere in between laughing and crying.

you want to call him, ask him what the fuck is going on and why you think you kind of like it, but you don’t.

but when you look over at your alarm clock to see that it’s 2:00 a.m. and sleep refuses to let you succumb to it and you relent to the warm emptiness between your legs, it’s yūji whom you imagine is there to fill it.

you think of the way his tongue trails down the expanse of your neck, the way he feels inside you, as you whine into your pillow and desperately try to make yourself come.

it doesn’t even occur to you until later, when you’re waking up to sunlight slicing through your half-open blinds. and then it does, and you text him: i do that too.

he doesn’t text back, but ten minutes later, your phone rings. he sounds breathless.

“be here in ten,” he says.

you pause. “okay.”

and you are. he throws open the door as he hears your car pull up and jogs out to meet you, and all he gives you is a quick, “hey,” before dragging you inside.

there’s no one else home, so he motions for you to have a seat at the kitchen table and takes the one next to you.

“do what too?”

“what?”

“what you texted me.”

you look down, studying the seams of your sleeve and feeling your breathing go shallow.

“do what too?” he repeats.

and softly, you say, “want you.”

yūji stands, pulling you to your feet with him. “want me how?”

your eyes are wide and a little bit sad as you stare up at him. “i don’t know.”

then he cracks a tiny smile. “good,” he says, “i don’t either.

except he does.

he wants you every way, your presence, your time, your body, your fucking soul, all of it. but he doesn’t say that.

when you kiss him, he implodes, melts into your arms as if he’s trying to fuse your bodies together. but he says nothing of it.

the feeling of your wrist in his hand, the sound of your giddy giggles as he leads you to his bedroom—for now, that’s enough.

he takes it slow.

when he’s shut the door and ensured it’s locked, he turns to find you’ve already tossed your top on the floor.

a smile meets yours, gentle fingertips on your cheek, a soft whisper against your hair: “put it back on; i wanna do it myself.”

and you laugh and oblige, shivering at the now-familiar sensation of the warm metal bead on his tongue against your lip as his hand finds its way to your ass and squeezes gently.

“yūji,” you whisper.

“i like it when you say my name like that,” he murmurs into your shoulder, rubbing gently up and down your back underneath your shirt.

“hmm,” comes your contented response.

and then his fingers are rubbing gently against the hem of your shirt, easing it up to reveal your body inch by inch, and you shiver a little under his feather-light touch.

lifting your arms up, you allow him to slip your shirt back over your head, and then his hands are all over you again, squeezing your breasts through your bra and tracing lines up and down the center of your back. the little metal ball on his tongue presses against your lower lip. you tug at the hem of his hoodie, and he pulls it off.

the feeling of his skin on yours is nothing new now, and yet this time, there’s a certain nuance to it that he can’t place.

he wonders how you want him again; can’t stop wondering as you lead his hand down to the button on your jeans, laughing a little as he kneels at your feet to unzip them.

as he pulls them slowly down your legs he lines your thighs with little, butterfly-soft kisses, murmuring unintelligible praises.

when you’re left in only your bra and panties, he wraps his arms around your waist and falls backward onto the mattress, taking you down with him. you sit up a little, so that you’re straddling him, and he lets out a low sigh.

“you are fucking incredible,” he breathes as you suck gently at his neck, leaving light marks that will have faded by tomorrow.

your fingers trace the dips between his abs, tantalizingly, eventually making their way all the way down his stomach to the waistband of his sweats, and then a little further, palming his dick through them and feeling how fucking hard he is.

he groans a little, says, “please don’t tease me,” as you continue to do exactly that, but he doesn’t stop you.

when you shift a little so that you’re positioned right over him, soaking panties rubbing a tiny little wet spot into the tent of his erection, he sits up and gathers your body into his arms, lips and tongue moving against yours as one hand unclips your bra while the other settles itself on your hip, grinding you down against him. you press your thighs together at this feeling of pure need you’re experiencing and he pulls his mouth away and looks you in the eye.

“may i?” he whispers, and you smile and nod, laughing as he rolls you off of him to rid himself of the rest of his clothes and dig a condom out of his bedside table, which he hands to you.

you’re impatient as you tear it open but force yourself to roll it onto him slowly, studying his face as he revels in the feeling of your fingers grazing lightly against his dick.

once it’s on, he flips you over again, laughing, and exhales slowly as he slides your panties down your legs and tosses them somewhere on the floor to be found later. his fingertips ghost gently down the sides of your thighs as he bends down to lick a long stripe between your legs and across your clit.

“fuck,” you breathe as he groans softly against your skin, the vibrations sending an electrifying buzz up your spine.

he presses his tongue flat against you, metal bar circling your clit teasingly, and then he pulls away and groans, “sit on my face,” his words hurried and slurred with lust.

so you let him move to lie on his back and straddle his face, giggling as he wraps his hands around your thighs to pull you closer.

“aw, don’t be shy, i thought that’s the whole point of this,” he says.

and then his mouth is back on you again, tongue flicking slowly and carefully, taking in your every response, and soon he’s got you shaking on top of him, grasping at the headboard and his shoulders and tangling your fingers in his hair.

he keeps going after you’ve already finished, making you writhe and whimper, only letting go of you once he’s satisfied.

he pushes you backward so that you’re still sitting with your knees on either side of him and he sits up, leaning back against the headboard. his lips are on yours, then, and he’s pulling your hips to his, the head of his cock nudging ever-so-lightly against your entrance.

“quit teasing me,” you whine when he grips your waist, refusing to let you sit yourself on his dick.

“i’m not.”

“yes you are!”

“‘m not,” he mumbles, smiling, as he draws his lips down the curve of your left shoulder and back up again. “i’m savoring the moment.”

you huff. “you can savor it with your cock in me.” and yūji does his best not to show it, but the high he gets from those words alone, from knowing how desperate you are for him, even if it’s just for his body, sends him straight to heaven. because regardless of how much of him you want, it’s still only him that you want in this moment, and right now that’s enough.

you allow him to move at his own pace, his movements slow, languid as he holds you to his chest, one hand around your waist and the other reaching up to tangle his fingers in your hair. he lets himself say the things he wants now.

“kiss me?” he whispers, and you oblige happily. you taste like him, and he’s so content he could lose his mind.

instead he loses himself to you, shaky breaths between “god, you’re so good,” and “you have no idea… how long i’ve waited… for you to want me like this.” there’s a single thing he holds back from saying, but he still plans on saying it. he’s just saving it for the right moment.

you’re drunk off of him, your body shuddering against him with every touch of his skin to yours, not knowing what to say and yet feeling as if you know everything you’ve ever needed to. and you say it for him.

“i love you.”

the words are barely there, just a breath against his lips as you kiss him, and it’s too much for him. he finishes with something akin to a sob, taking your face into his hands. “i love you,” he responds. and then, “say it again? please?”

you close your eyes and smile, leaning into him and brushing your lips against his. “i love you, yūji.”

his hand’s on the back of your head, then, pushing you back to his mouth, wanting you closer, wanting more. and you want more, too, fingers tracing lines down his back and arms and stomach, sending waves of light through his skin. this is it, he thinks as you press your body tight against his, this is all there is.

you are everything to him.

— SOMETHING ABT U I CAN’T QUIT

in each other’s arms later that evening, you feel yūji’s chest move slowly up and down with each inhale and exhale, contented in sharing this silent moment with you, and then you know. you know how you want him. you open your mouth to speak, and he does at the exact same time. the two of you share a laugh, just like you always have.

“you first,” you say, propping yourself up on your elbow so that you can look at him properly.

he reaches up and rests a hand flat against your face and runs his thumb lightly over your bottom lip. “i am…” the words are slow and quiet and purposeful. “i am so in love with you.”

your smile widens against his hand. “i want you. everything… about you, with you. i want it all.”

and he mirrors your grin, just like he always has. “i’m yours to take.” his eyes flit down to your lips, his thumb still pressed against them, afraid to look you in the eye as he speaks his next words. his face flushes pink; it’s adorable. “say you’re mine, too?” it’s a request, a plea—not a command.

you reach up to your face and place your hand over his. “all yours,” you say. “don’t even have to ask.”

it’s silent for a bit again, and then he sits up, going a little more serious.

“what?”

“what happens if this doesn’t last?”

you sit up, too, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and gently pulling his head to rest against yours. “after all these years?”

“hmm.”

you think for a moment: after all these years. your whole lives, spent together, maybe not as lovers but always as two halves of a whole. it’s him you always gossip to first, whom you always went to after heartbreaks and fights with your parents. he’s the first one you told when you lost your virginity, crashed your car, got into one of your top universities. he’s held your hand through everything.

so finally you say, “i don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

he pulls away to look you in the eye. “why not?”

his nose brushes against yours as you lean your forehead against his and laugh a little. “are you dumb, yūji?”

“i don’t think so?” when you say nothing, just continuing to look at him with that shit-eating grin on your face, he goes, “am i missing something?”

you press your lips to his for a second and pull away, still smiling at him. “it’s us, yūji. always has been.”

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu smut #haikyuu fluff #terushima yūji #terushima yuuji x reader #terushima x reader #terushima x reader smut #terushima x reader fluff #terushima smut #haikyuu friends to lovers #friends to lovers #hehe #i literally love yūji so fucking much #like yūji dummy if ur reading this #gimme hug #n show me what that tongue do ahahahaha #jk #unless #marg luvs teru #and the fact that this is like the longest oneshot ive ever written proves it lmfao #anyway yea this was in my drafts for literally like 5 months or something so here #this is just pure self indulgence tho tbh

[biotic-boshtet]

Aftermath - Chapter 3

hellooooo friends, lets continue my trend of updating at godawful hours of the morning

Read on AO3

Start from the beginning

Waking up, Shepard wonders for a second if she dreamt it all, but then she feels Kaidan’s field against her own, gently fizzling. One of his legs is caught between her own. He’s somehow wrapped up in the entire comforter. She relishes in the feeling of just existing next to him for a moment, then he shifts and rolls over, scooching close so he’s pressed against her back, wiggling of the covers to just enough to drape an arm over her waist as he presses a kiss to her shoulder.

“Mmm, good morning.” Norah Jean feels his voice rumbling through him almost more than she hears it. Only one hearing aid is on and it’s pressed into the pillow.

“G’morning,” She readjusts so she’s laying on her back, Kaidan resting his head on her shoulder now. She tugs at the blanket he’s still burrowed into. “You stole the entire comforter overnight.”

“You weren’t using it.”

“So?”

“So, I put it to good use, its cold as hell in here.” He settles down deeper into the bedding.

“It is nice in here.”

“Right. I was getting flashbacks of Noveria while I was trying to fall asleep.”

“Oh please, it’s not that bad.”

The comm system crackles and they both glance up at the speaker on the ceiling.

“Up and at em, Norah Jean! We’re 10 minutes out from the Mu relay. Might wanna head up here.”

The channel clicks closed before she can respond. Norah Jean hides her face against Kaidan’s hair for just a moment, before sighing and rolling out of bed.

“So, do I get to call you Norah Jean now?” Kaidan sits up in bed, rubbing his arms, content to watch her in the dim light for now.

“If you want, preferably not around the rest of the crew, not if we’re gonna keep this quiet.” She gestures to the general space between them as she pulls on a t-shirt. Almost immediately, she pulls it back off, throwing it at Kaidan. “That one’s yours.”

“Joker calls you Norah Jean, always wondered about that.” He finally gets out of bed, shuffling around looking for the clothes they’d left scattered around the room.

“Close friends and family. He’s both.” Norah Jean tosses another piece of his uniform at him, this time hitting him square in the face, making herself giggle. She’s standing in front of the mirror, fingers staring to comb through her hair, then swiftly braiding down its length. Pins sticking out of her mouth, she carefully winds the braid into a flat bun, pinning as she goes until its completely secure.

“Y’know, that is mesmerizing to watch. Almost as fun as finding all the pins to take it down again.” He’s sitting on the desk, tugging on his boots.

“Maybe you can put it up next time, see if you can get the bun within regulation.” Finishing the last button on her uniform shirt, she tucks her it in and fastens her belt.

“I think I’ll leave that one up to you, you’re the expert.” Boots tied, he made his way across the room to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She stood still for a moment, cleaning up her eyeliner. He rested his head on hers, eyeing her reflection. “God, you’re beautiful.” He paused a moment, grinning. “Norah Jean. Yeah, that’s good. I like that.” Hearing her name from his mouth sounded so right.

She turned around in his arms, standing on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. “We should go.”

“Mhmm, maybe just one more.” His hands cup her cheeks, and he kisses her slowly, savoring every second he gets.

Then the two of them walk out the door and pretend to be nothing more than friends while they try to save the galaxy.

-

She’s alive. She’s alive and everything hurts. She shifts and immediately freezes; white hot pain blocks every coherent thought. Alarms wail in the distance, she focuses on their sound, breathing through the pain. Most of the debris missed her on the way down. She’s not pinned under anything; she just hurts like hell. She shifts slowly, black spots dancing in her vision, working her way to a sitting position. She moves her left leg, and the pain comes again, this time she can think enough to pinpoint the source. Her knee is wrecked, probably. But it sure hurts like a bitch.

One more try. Gotta be worth one more try. She grips the low wall of a garden bed behind her as she tries to get to her good foot.

Tries.

The more she moves the more she hurts. Can’t even fucking breathe right around the shooting pain in her ribs. Swearing, she let herself sink back down to the floor. Somebody’ll find her. Eventually. Probably.

-

After two weeks of debriefings and medical paperwork and an official Alliance investigation, she was finally free. She’d been put on a week of mandatory shore leave, along with the rest of the Normandy’s Alliance crew. Looking around the courtyard, she spots Kaidan, just where he said he’d wait, and she’s making her way over to him. He looks up from his omnitool with a smile as their fields intersect.

“Hey, Norah Jean.” He gets halfway off the bench when she grabs his shirt and kisses him senseless, crutches falling to the ground. He reacts almost immediately, one hand sliding around her waist and kissing her back, oh so slowly, calming her frantic pace. When they pull away for air, his free hand cradles her face, thumb gently brushing over her cheek. He presses a kiss to her nose. “Hey, hey, we’ve got time.”

“Let’s get away, Kaidan, just the two of us.” She’s still breathless, all she wants is to kiss him again, but she settles for resting her forehead against his chest.

“You got a place in mind?”

“My grandparent’s old house, in Anchorage. Couple hours away, at least. Quiet and pretty unlikely to be occupied this time of year.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” He grabs her crutches and hands them to her, before grabbing his own bag off the bench.

-

Six hours and a trip to the grocery store later, they’re climbing out of a skycar in front of a modest looking house, twenty minutes outside the city limits of Anchorage, Alaska. Standing on the porch, Norah Jean leans her crutches against the siding to dig into a rarely used pocket of her duffel bag. She retrieves an old set of keys, unlocking the doorknob, then leaning all her weight against the door to unlock the deadbolt. The door creaks as she swings it open.

“After you.” She waves Kaidan and his armful of grocery bags into the dark house, grabbing her crutches and following him in, locking the door behind them. She flips the lights on, illuminating the living room and kitchen.

“Nice place. You spend a lot of time here?” Kaidan sets their groceries down on the counter, separating out the perishables. Norah Jean leans on the bar, smiling at him as he opens a bottle of beer and passes it to her.

“Not anymore, used to visit all the time as a kid though. Pretty sure my bedroom hasn’t changed in 20 years.” She clinks her bottle against his and takes a swig.

“Let me guess, you’ve got model ships all over your room.”

“Close. Old space stations and satellites. Plus, a scale model of the solar system, minus the sun.”

“Impressive.”

“I like to think so.”

“Can’t wait to see it.”

“You’ll see when groceries are put away.”

“And you’re not gonna help me?”

“Kaidan, if you want me in that tiny kitchen with my crutches, I’ll gladly grab one thing at a time and put it away, but I prefer to stay out of the way. This is a two-butt kitchen, max, and these crutches may as well be an extra butt.”

Kaidan laughs. “Fine, fine, but if you want another beer, you’re grabbing it yourself.”

“I can live with that.”

He puts the last few things in the cupboards, then wanders back around to the bar, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “C’mon, Norah Jean, give me the grand tour.”

“I’m afraid it’s not all that grand, but I’ll indulge you.”

She leads him around the first floor, showing him the fireplace in the living room that’s older than half the house itself. Down the hall is a bathroom and the office that sometimes doubles as a guest room, where Kaidan spends at least 10 minutes asking questions about the artifacts and antiques in display cases along the wall. Between the two is the back door.

Upstairs was another bathroom, the master bedroom, and the other two bedrooms.

“I’d show you Jamie’s room, but I’m pretty sure it’s locked, and also I don’t care, but here’s my old bedroom in all its glory.” Norah Jean swings open the door, flicking on the light, revealing blue-black walls and ceiling, spattered with thousands of white speckles. A handful of constellations are carefully mapped out across the walls.

“Wow.” Kaidan idly traces along the lines of Orion with a finger, gazing around at the sky on her walls. “Did you paint all this?”

Norah Jean snorts, “Hell no, my grandpa did most of it, I helped. Well, I helped as much as a fidgety 5-year-old can muster when she’d rather be outside. Pretty sure there’s a few sets of handprints scattered around from me and Jamie.”

“It looks really good, it’s easy to see how you ended up in space after spending enough nights surrounded by walls like these. You’ve even got Arcturus up here. Didn’t you say you grew up there? On Arcturus station?”

“Yeah, Dad ran the garrison for a while, gave us a break from moving every other year. He didn’t get reassigned till I graduated high school, and by then I’d enlisted.” She drops her duffel bag on the floor, walking across the room to sit on the bed. “How’d you work your way back to the Alliance? After Jump Zero, I mean.”

“Time, mostly. Dad tried not to talk about it, didn’t want to push me further away.” He drops his own bag next to hers and sits on the bed beside her. “Aunt Irene, though, she wouldn’t let it go. She was always trying to talk me into the Marines, long as I can remember. It got a little better as I got older, but then after BAaT, she mostly quit talking about it, just the odd comment once or twice a year. Then a few months before my 22nd birthday, she talked me into staying a week with her and her wife in Rhode Island, to get away from Vancouver and breathe for a bit, y’know, see the Atlantic Ocean, Niagara Falls, few other places. The whole week she didn’t bring up the Alliance even one time. I got so curious that I finally cracked and asked her about it my last day there. She told me I was more than old enough to make my own choice, that she’d talked it up all she could and especially after the disaster with BAaT, all she could do now was support whatever choice I came to. I enlisted 6 months later.”

“Sounds like she really had an impact on you.”

“Yeah. She was having a blast drilling recruits out on Jump Zero when I finally decided. I think she’s still there. She’s made a hell of a reputation breaking in cadets, earned the nickname “Mad Major Mabbit”, she thinks it’s the greatest thing.”

Norah Jean stares at him, mouth hanging open. “No.”

“Yeah.”

“No, Kaidan, she took a year on Arcturus my first year of training, I swear to God she was the reason I almost dropped out. We were butting heads all year. And she’s your aunt?”

“Really? She’s the reason you nearly washed out? I wonder what she’d have to say about you now?”

“Probably not much good, I mean, we did steal the Normandy.”

Before he can say anything in response Norah Jean shivers, then, a long, low rumble of thunder rattles the house. Her face lights up and she shoots off the bed, hopping on her good leg before snatching up her crutches and racing to the window.

“It’s thundering! Let’s go downstairs and watch the storm!” She grabs her N7 hoodie from her bag, tossing it on.

Kaidan gives her a look. “You want to go sit in the rain, just because its thundering?”

“No, I want to sit under the back porch, enjoy the smell of the rain, and watch the lightning, all while staying perfectly dry.”

“Alright, I think I can get behind that.” He gets up off the bed, searching in his own bag for a jacket, pulling it on as Norah Jean works her way down the hall.

He joins her at the top of the stairs, not sure if she stopped to wait or if she doesn’t know how to get down them. Her laser focused stare down the steps says the latter.

“Do you trust me?”

She looks up at him, chewing her lip. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Yes?”

“Good, I’ll carry you down the stairs.”

Norah Jean makes an undignified squeak as he sweeps her off her feet, careful not to jostle her knee. One arm is almost uncomfortably tight around his neck, and the other grips her crutches as he walks down the stairs. He carries her to the couch, gently setting her down to let her sort herself out.

“You know, I’ve got to learn how to get down the stairs sometime this week.” She grumbles as she gets to her foot, making for the bar and their half-forgotten beers.

“Here, I’ll grab those, and some new ones. And don’t worry, I’ll let you work out the next time yourself.”

He follows her out the back door, to an old bench just out of the way of the water splashing over the edge of the gutters.

“You sure we’ll stay dry?” He passes her one of the open beers.

“Probably. Unless the wind blows this way, we’ll be fine.”

He looks out at the back yard. Lightning flashes, he counts on instinct. Thunder crashes overhead.

“Ten seconds.” She swings her good leg as she sips her beer. “Do you get a fun tingly feeling from thunderstorms? Or is it just 2.5s and 3s?”

“Sometimes. Don’t usually associate it with fun though, it’s just kinda weird feeling to me. I don’t think 2s are as sensitive to it.”

“Huh. I’ve always loved thunderstorms, partly for the feeling. Just one of those things that reminds me I’m still here. Still kicking.”

“Yeah.” He reaches for her hand and she laces her fingers with his.

#mass effect #mass effect fic #shenko #fshenko #kaidan alenko #norah jean shepard #otp: we know the score #i had to split it in two so i could update and also keep working on the 'rest' of the chapter #as usual i will reblog again when i get up tomorrow to boost at not 3am #sorry to everyone who is not a nighttime gremlin or on the other side of the ocean #mandi writes #now time to play MELE #as a treat

[harrieatthemet]

Holiday: Chapter 14

A/N: you’ve all been waiting.... here it FUCKING is. I cannot deaaaaaal.

I had become a pro at dodging phone calls. I’d left Harry the voicemail a few days ago, and he had returned it only a few hours later. Too caught up with Anne in the bathroom, I got to my phone just after the call ended. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to call back. He’d call again the next day. Actually, he called a couple times throughout the day. And the next day too, and sprinkle in a few texts. ‘Are you okay?’ Or ‘Why aren’t you answering?’. He’d call Anne, as her week and a half long vacation here came to a close, and she’d brush it off. She’d lie, as I sat vertically across the table from her, telling her to keep it vague. So when he’d ask what I was up to, how I was feeling and if I was functioning like a normal human being, she’d assure him I was as well as could be expected. ‘Keeping herself busy with work’ she’d say, before cleverly rerouting the topic.

She wasn’t lying, honest to God. I truly have been keeping myself busy with work, and had even bitten off a little more than I can chew. I’d made it my job to call over to New York at least three times a week, if not more, just to make sure Molly hadn’t let my dad wither away and hide in his room. She’d call every night, sometimes so late, in the middle of an anxiety attack. Her voice was practically inaudible as she wept loudly into the receiver, leaving me puzzled and incapable of aiding her. In addition to that, I’d taken on a few extra clients to keep myself busy. I found that too much time to myself made me prisoner to my own thoughts, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs. Having Anne here definitely helped, especially since Penelope was being an exceptional handful. When Harry went away, she usually was, since he indulged her in endless attention. 

I had a fistful of hair bunched up in my hand, and I pondered whether or not to just tear it right out of my head. A few blueprints were strewn about on the table, mocking me as I tried to figure out what the fuck to do with them. I was running on next to no sleep, since Molly had called at 1 am and wouldn’t hang up until close to 4. Anne was kind enough to help get the kids to school, in fact she was more than willing. 

She loved dressing them for school, and she’d been snapping photos of them with their little backpacks the entire time she’s been there. She’d let Quinn hang back, sparing him from daycare so she’d have him around all day. I think her favorite part of the entire endeavor was dressing Penelope in the morning,  picking out the prettiest outfits for her. She’d enjoyed watching Penelope teeter into school, linking up with a few of her little buddies from class. I would never accuse Anne of having a favorite grandchild, she adored and doted on all 3. But, she definitely had a soft spot for Penelope. I think a large part of it was because she reminded Anne so much of Harry, so charismatic and a desire to entertain people. I’m sure part of it had to do with the fact that Penelope was the only granddaughter, too.

“Yeh been working all day, Ella.” Anne sighed disapprovingly, walking into my office with a sandwich on a plate.

“M’fine, really.” I yawned, smiling as she placed the plate in front of me.

“ ‘Nd I know yeh not sleeping well, heard y’on the phone late last night. S’not good for you, the baby either.” Anne reprimanded sweetly, frowning at me from the other side of my desk.

The word baby seemed to be a trigger word for me, and my lip instantly found itself in between my teeth as I gnawed at it viciously. I had forgotten all about that, in the midst of everything else going on. It was the reason I was avoiding Harry, because I knew if I’d answer one of his calls I’d unintentionally blurt it out. He was due to fly back to LA in a few days, and I was anxiously anticipating his arrival. We hadn’t really spoke in almost 3 weeks, and the fact that one of the first things we’d discuss is a fourth baby made me lightheaded. As Anne reminded me about my pregnancy, I begun to wonder how Harry was gonna react. Would he be happy? Did he want a fourth? Maybe he didn’t, maybe four was too many. We hadn’t really left off on the best terms, either. I didn’t know if he’d still be a little upset with me when he got back, or which Harry I’d be getting. 

“Dont need t’worry about me Anne. I promise I’m alright.” I forced a smile, bringing the end of my pen to my mouth.

“Y’speak t’Harry at all yet?” Anne frowned, shooing the pen away from my mouth as I nibbled at it subconsciously. 

“Uh, no,” I whispered, re-occupying myself with a sketch, “haven’t had a minute to call him.”

“Because,” Anne hissed, moving the paper from in front of me, “yeh not makin’ the time. Should really relax, not good t’put all this stress on y’body.” 

She did, in fact, have a point. With my mom passing, my workload doubling, and of course the pressing needs of all 3 of my kids, I had put an undeniable amount of stress amongst myself. But I had to, because if I didn’t I’d have too much time to think and that is the last thing I needed to do. Anne had been practically babysitting me the past few days, more than she was the children. She’d check in on me every morning, and make sure all my needs were met every night before I’d go to sleep. The house was pristine, the cleanest it’s probably ever been. She was extra attentive to the toys Quinn would leave laying around the house, scolding him before telling me ‘gonna slip on one o’these if y’not careful’. She’d be right there, when the morning sickness was just about to get the best of me, with a tall glass of water and a few saltines. I was unspeakably grateful, and the thought of her leaving tomorrow made me a little solemn. 

“Can’t eat,” I’d grumble, the mere sight of food making my stomach ache unbearably, “lost any and all taste for meat.” 

“Little bean doesn’t like meat, hm?” Anne would coo, speaking directly to my belly.

Anne was absolutely over the moon about this fourth baby, and spoke to my belly constantly throughout the duration of the day. When she read the pregnancy test she practically cried. She had started calling it little bean not long after, though she had been gushing to me about how she was absolutely sure it’d be a girl. The mere thought of having a girl made me fear Penelope’s reaction, as she quite enjoyed being daddy’s only princess and relished in the attention. I knew it was killing her, not being able to tell Harry, and for respecting my wishes I was even more appreciative of her (if it was even possible to be). 

I, on the other hand, wasn’t really sure about how I felt in regards to another baby. A pregnancy couldn’t have happened at a worse time, as me and Harry had only just started up again, and we clearly were still working out the quirks. On top of that, I was still reeling from the blow of losing my mom. Everything felt like it was being catapulted at me, at warps speed, without allotting me anytime to collect my thoughts. Having three kids already was enough of a job, especially since all 3 of them had very demanding personalities. I didn’t know how the kids would react to a fourth sibling, and for that reason I had kept it to myself. Anne had been badgering me to go for an ultrasound, to know what was going on and get an idea on how far along I was. And I kept promising I would, that I’d do it tomorrow, but each day would come and go and I’d only continue to put it off. 

“Four grandkiddies,” Anne sighed happily, “s’just a dream. Y’making me the happiest nana in th’world, sweetheart.” 

“M’glad to hear it.” I smiled warmly.

“Make me even happier if yeh’d take a nap, maybe nibble on somethin’ too.” She’d instruct, batting her lashes at me as she coaxed me into following her orders.

I hung my head, chuckling at her attempts to mother me so kindly, before I hesitantly agreed. She smiled proudly, placing a quick kiss to my temple as I strolled out of the room. The house was quiet, since Penelope and Brayden were off at school and Quinn was napping, and I enjoyed the nice lull of silence that was replacing the usual shrieks and squeals. 

I hadn’t even gotten halfway across the first floor, en route to the kitchen as ordered by Anne, before I had to completely stop in my track. An all too familiar head rush overcame me, as the room started to blur a bit. My hand subconsciously flew out to the wall, using it to regain balance while the room twirled. I had to shut my eyes for a second, my dizzy spell making my knees go a little weak. It seemed as though they were starting to get noticeably worse, especially if I’d be walking or standing for too long. I hadn’t mentioned it to Anne, because I knew all too well it’d send her into a frenzy and then she’d really be itching to tell Harry. She was already worried enough, and telling her about dizzy spells that were common for the most part seemed unnecessary. 

I settled into one of the barstools at the kitchen island, force feeding myself a few apple slices. Anne had sauntered in not long after me, claiming it was so she could start dinner but I knew it was more because she wanted visual proof of me eating something. She was chattering away with me, about silly little things mostly but she’d slip in a conversation or two about the baby. I didn’t know if she could tell that I was monotone when she’d bring it up, if it gave away the slight disinterest I had. And the more she’d go on about it, talking about who’d she think this one would look like, or spewing name inspiration, I couldn’t help but feel so awful. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get excited about the idea of fourth baby. It had always been a dream of mine, growing a big family and having a lot of kids. Even before our split, I had clued him in on wanting a fourth, and at the time he wasn’t against it. But how would he feel about it now? 

“Phone’s buzzing, love.” Anne voiced, turning around from the stove and nodding to my phone.

“I know, it’s fine.” I answered, hoping she’d let it go and not ask who it was.

“Know it’s Harry.” She murmured, turning her back to me and fixing her attention to the stove, “Should really talk t’him, think he’s worried.” 

I was quick to let my fingers hover above the phone, debating on whether or not I wanted to answer the call. My thumb decided for me, as it quickly smashed itself on the screen before hitting the end call button. I could hear Anne tsk me from her spot in front of the stove, subtly shaking her head. I was about chime in, doing my best to explain to Anne that it’d be better to tell him in person, but a familiar cry could be head through the baby monitor sitting just beside the fridge. Quinn’s subtle crying turned into wailing, and I hissed as the octave of his voice came screeching through the speaker.

“I’ll grab him.” I breathed out, Anne turning around to fight me on it.

“S’alright love, eat.” She shooed, following me as I walked towards the stair.

“Really, I got him.” I insisted, turning on my heel and going towards the step.

“Oi,” Anne yelped, “Ella! Watch!”

I hadn’t even had the opportunity to ask her what she was screeching about before I could feel the sharp pain stinging the bottom of my foot. Brayden’s little toy car, which he seemingly had forgotten at the foot of the staircase, punctured the sole of my foot. And as if the pain of the spiky thing wasn’t bad enough, the thing faltered my balance before it went gliding across the floor. Anne had dome her best to get across the hall, but not quick enough. My ankle twisted slightly before the front of my body went hurling itself onto the staircase. I threw my hands out in front of me, to soften the blow, but my timing was delayed. I could the front of my forehead smash against the foot of the stair, knocking me out clean. 

“Christ, Ella.” A familiar voice groaned, coaxing me out of sleep.

I shifted in the bed, a small hissing sound tumbling out of my mouth as I realized how sore my body felt. Tired, and not to mention a little overwhelmed and hazy, I blinked a few times as I adjusted to harsh lighting of the room. I eventually figured out who was standing in the door, catching sight of a very frazzled looking Harry. He didn’t wait there long, scurrying across the hospital room before standing himself on my bedside. His frown was prominent, bags under his eyes a little more noticeable than usual. He looked worried, and stressed out, and I had to remind myself that my tumble to the floor had landed me here in this uncomfortable hospital bed. His eyes flew around the room, analyzing the dinginess of it all while looking a little unsettled. He never really liked hospitals. 

“Yeh busted the bloody thing right open!” He breathed, leaning in a little to look at the small wound just beneath my hairline.

“Thought you were coming home tomorrow.” I mumbled, shying away from his stare.

“I mean,” he started scoldingly, “y’didn’t answer any of my calls, or texts and it was really making me-“

“Your mom was with me. I would’ve made it another day just fine.” I answered defensively, his frown furrowing deeper. 

“Clearly not!’ He chuckled lowly, settling into a spot just beside me, “s’everything alright?” 

I wasn’t sure why he was asking. A part of me started to grow antsy, because I was missing a few pieces and I didn’t want to open my big fat mouth and accidentally give him more information than he already had. I didn’t know how long I was out for, or if Harry came straight here from the airport. I also had no idea if he had spoken to Anne upon his arrival, which meant I didn’t know what there conversation had consisted of if there had even been one. A trip to the hospital was sure to have sent Anne into an absolute fit, and she was probably worried about what my fall had done to the baby. I wasn’t sure if she had let it slip to Harry, although I’m sure if she did he’d be much more cross with me. Of course, I was planning on telling him eventually, but I wasn’t sure how I’d go about it. I had assumed I’d have at least another day to think about it at least. 

“M’fine.” I answered flatly, earning a very judgmental eye roll from Harry.

“Mum said y’been dizzy a lot,” he lectured, “not eatin’ right, ‘nd not sleepin’ much. Really, Ell, yeh makin’ m’nervous.” 

“Well don’t be!” I assured, patting his hand, “No need to panic, told you I’m fine. Mean it, too.” 

“Wanna tell yeh m’sorry.” His tone was serious, his fingers keeping my hand placed above his, “ ‘nd not just for like, one thing. I mean fo’ everything, really, ‘cus I been takin’ yeh fo’ granted. Gonna start bein’ honest with yeh, I promise.” 

Fucking great. If I didn’t already feel like shit, literally and figuratively, I was even worse off now. I knew it took a lot from him to apologize, because he never cared to admit that he was wrong. The whole being honest bit made my chest get anxiously tight, because if he knew about the secret I had been keeping from him for over a week, his head would come spinning right off. Then, I started to feel guilty. I felt guilty because what my mom had said was right. He really did care about me, enough to fess up to his wrongdoings. And, in addition to that, I really had been keeping myself closed off to him. The word vomit was bubbling in my throat, and if the doctor hadn’t walked in the second he did I don’t even know what would’ve came out of my mouth.

“How we doing in here Ms Hansen?” He sung, causing Harry’s face to contort in distaste at the sound of my maiden name replacing my married one.

“Much better.” I lied, the twinge of pain from my cut on my head starting up again. 

“Did yeh talk t’my mum? She tell yeh all the symptoms Ella’s been havin’?” Harry spoke up, swiveling his back to face the doctor.

“I did,” the doctor smiled, grey eyebrows wiggling a little, “totally normal.”

“Normal?” Harry repeated slowly, “Passing out like tha’ is normal? ‘Nd the dizzy spells, all that? Normal?” 

I could feel my heart rate start to excel, as Harry was approaching dangerous territory. I was sure Anne had mentioned to the doctor I was pregnant, if it wasn’t the very first thing she told him. I thought about cutting him off, or asking Harry to leave the room. It was a shit idea, because I knew Harry would refuse to leave and even pick a fight with me about how he absolutely needed to stay in order to hear every detail. The doctor nodded, taking a seat in the medical chair as he whipped out a small clipboard with a few attached sheets stuck to it. Harry was watching him, knee jumping nervously as his grip on my hand tightened. 

“The passing out, definitely not. Poor dieting and sleep patterns can attribute to that, Ella, so it’s important fix that. Especially now.” The doctor instructed, scribbling something down on one of the sheets.

“Yep, got it. That’s it?” I was speaking fast, much faster than my brain was working. 

“Why now? Told me y’were alright, Ella.” Harry’s voice was frantic as he turned to look at me, annoyed that I was keeping him out of the loop.

“The dizzy spells are normal, but take it easy for a little while. You’re starting the second trimester in a few weeks, sometimes the dizziness sticks around.” 

The words that fell from the doctors mouth practically made my heart stop working altogether. My face went blank, my body immediately freezing up as I felt Harry’s grip on my hand loosen. His brows furrowed, for a moment, as I presumed he was repeating to himself what the doctor had just said.

And then a puzzled look swept over his face, “Second trimester?”

#harry #harry smut #harry imagine #harry images #harry imagines #harry blurb #harry blurbs #harry concept #harry concepts #harry x reader #harry one shot #dad!harry #Harry Styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles smut #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fluff #harry styles pref #harry styles fic #harry fic #harry fanfiction #harry fluff #harry styles blurbs #harry styles blurb

[porkchop-ao3]

Doofus Rick x Reader

I wasn’t sure whether I should post this, but I decided to go ahead and do it. This is a pretty personal fic that I basically wrote just to make myself feel better lol. It’s a SFW Doofus Rick x reader comfort fic where reader is dealing with an alcoholic parent. I hope someone gets something out of this, even those who don’t fully relate with reader. Thank you for reading x

-

I was never a deep sleeper. The slightest thing could wake me, whether it be a conversation in the next room, a light breeze… the smell of burning. I shot up in bed, taking a few deep breaths through my nose, trying to figure out whether I was imagining it. No. Something was definitely burning. I threw the covers off and ran out of the room, checking every room I passed before making my way down stairs. The lights were on downstairs, despite it being past three in the morning. I got to the kitchen, being greeted by chaos. There was a broken egg on the floor, discarded ingredients and cutlery littering the work surfaces, eggs and baked beans bubbling away on the stove, and the source of the smell; toast under the grill. I pulled it out, burning my hand on the grill pan handle, sighing as I saw the blackened bread; practically charcoal at this point. With the fire hazard taken care of, I ran my burn under the cold tap, watching a blister form on the heel of my hand. It was too damn late for this crap. Well, early might be a better analysis, given the ungodly hour my mother was still up at.  

“Oh, you’re up. Want some eggs?” She asked as she entered the kitchen. Her words were slow and merged into each other. She’d started drinking at six on the dot, and it was evident she hadn’t stopped since.

“No thank you.” I told her, not turning to look at the swaying, squinty-eyed mess I knew I’d find. “Your toast’s burnt. I’ll make you some more.”

“Oh no, I only nipped to the bathroom. Thought I’d taken it out from under the grill.” She said, frowning at the smoking toast.

“No. Go and sit down, I’ll finish it.” I said, drying my hand off with a paper towel when the burning subsided.

“No, it’s okay, honey. I’ll do it.” She said, binning the burnt toast.

“Go on, sit down. I can’t sleep anyway, it’ll give me something to do.” I lied, finally turning to her and guiding her out of the room. Eventually, she accepted the offer. I took a deep breath once she was gone, then got to work on cooking some fresh toast. I gave the beans a stir, flipped the eggs, and cleaned up the mess she’d made.

This wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence. My mother tended to only eat at ridiculous hours of the morning, her medication messing with her appetite; only issue is, her drinking problem meant she was drunk most of the times she tried to cook for herself. This wouldn’t be the first, or last, time I’d have to step in to help. It didn’t bother me. Sure, I’d rather be sleeping, but at least I knew she had something in her belly to soak up all the beer. She wasn’t a bad mum. Not at all, she was my best friend. That’s why it hurt so much. I was completely powerless, I’d asked time and time again for her to try and cut down on the drink. Never once had she listened; only turned it all around and made out that I was ‘picking’ on her. She couldn’t seem to see that it was destroying me just as much as it was destroying her.

Once the food had finished cooking, I dished it up for her, bringing it into the living room where she was sat having a cigarette, watching some late night TV roulette show. Thank God she wasn’t a gambler to top it off, she just liked to guess the numbers before they came up. She was never right, of course. I handed her the food, she thanked me and tucked in, patting the seat next to her to ask me to join.

“I should be getting back to bed.” I told her, rubbing my tired eyes. I looked down at my hand, which was starting to hurt again. Sighing heavily, I leaned down to kiss my mother on the cheek. “Goodnight, mum. You going to bed soon?”

“After I’ve finished this.” She nodded.

“Okay. Love you.” I said, turning to leave.

“Love you too.” She called back. I climbed the stairs with a lump in my throat. I’d had a few weeks away from uni, and every time I was home long enough to see how bad things were, it made me feel worse and worse. I climbed back into bed and shed a few tears before going to sleep.

The next day entailed a regular trip to the supermarket. Mum dragged me with her at least three times a week, and every time I didn’t need to ask what we were going for. Occasionally we’d pick up bread, milk, something for lunch. But outside of the large shops we did to buy food for the next week or two, our frequent visits had one purpose. Two large crates of beer; twenty cans in each. Forty in total. It’d last a couple days. Sometimes we’d buy them two days on the trot, 'just in case we can’t come again for a few days’. It became rather embarrassing at times. The checkout people knew us, knew what we always bought, sometimes they’d joke.

“Having a party?” they’d say, amusement on their faces. My mum would just laugh. I’d cringe.

It got to the point where I could tell she was self conscious about it. I’d ask her what we needed to get. She’d stay silent for a while, then list off something I knew we didn’t need. Or we’d be in the supermarket, she’d have a cart full of beer and would pause to think of something else we could get. She acted like we needed extra bits and bobs, but I knew it was because she didn’t want to go through the check out with just beer for the second time that week.

And the sheer amount of money that went into it… I didn’t want to calculate it.

I needed a break from it. I needed to have a night off watching her poison herself, I needed to spend the day with her sober, and remember her that way when I went to bed. So when six o'clock rolled around, I left the house. I texted Rick, asking him if he was busy. If he was, I’d book out a cheap hotel or something for the night, but I couldn’t deny that I craved to see him. He was a little bright light that made everything around him disappear, and Lord knew that’s what I needed. To my relief, he texted back quickly, letting me know that he was just finishing cooking dinner and he’d like for me to join him, if I wanted to. I picked up the pace, walking the short ten minute journey to his house.

He gave me his usual beaming smile when I arrived, holding the door wide open to welcome me into his home. I wiped my feet on his doormat before stepping inside, shrugging my coat off and hanging it on it’s usual peg by the door.

“It’s lovely to see you, (y/n). Th-thank you so much for joining me for dinner, i-it’s nice to have company.” He said, closing the door behind me and straightening out the blue checkered apron he was wearing over his sweater. My mood lifted instantly, and I mirrored his huge smile.

“Thank you for having me. I… I fancied getting out of the house, and I can never say no to a meal cooked by you.” I told him, rubbing my hands together to warm them up. We’d had a chilly few days, even a few flurries of snow, but Rick’s home was toasty warm.

“C-come through, it’s almost done!” He said, leading me through to his kitchen, urging me to take a seat at the little round dining table in the corner. He had a vase full of flowers in the middle of it, as usual, this week it was a combination of lilies and these little yellow flowers that I didn’t know the name of. “We have homemade sweet potato and carrot soup, with some tasty salad on the side and fresh baked bread. I hope that’s okay for you.” He told me as he served up the food.

“That sounds perfect. Thank you.” I smiled, even though he couldn’t see with his back to me. “I love that you make your own soup, I usually only have it out of a tin.” I giggled.

“Well, the potatoes and carrots came out of my garden. I-I-I sometimes have so many, I don’t know what to do with them. Soup’s a good way o-of making use of them.” He explained, bringing over two bowls of soup and placing one down in front of me, before placing the other one on the spot next to me. Next, he carried over a bowl full of dressed salad, and a wooden chopping board with sliced bread on it. It all smelled so delicious. “S-same goes for the salad. It’s all home grown and fresh from the ground!”

“Can’t beat it.” I grinned. “So everything here has had your heart and soul put into it. It’s going to be delicious.”

“Well,” he blushed deep red as he took his seat next to me. “I should admit, th-the bread was bought from the bakery this morning.” He told me sheepishly, and I chuckled.

“I just watched you slice it. That’s good enough for me.” I teased with a wink, and he smiled in amusement. The first mouthful of soup had me humming in appreciation. Rick was the best cook in the world, I was sure of it. Every meal he made was to die for.

“Th-there’s plenty left, feel free to have seconds when you’re done. A-nd I’ll even give you some to take home.” He said. I shook my head and held a hand up to him.

“Oh, don’t let me steal it all. I know you like to save your leftovers for your lunch!”

“Please. Um, I wasn’t kidding when I said I have so much veg I don’t know what to do with it. Y-y-you’d be doing me a favor by taking it off my hands!” He admitted. I laughed, patting the back of his hand.

“Well, in that case I’ll take as much as you can give me.” I grinned. He smiled back, nodding his head eagerly. We fell quiet after that, and in the silence I noticed that he had the radio on. He was playing some Bob Marley quietly in the background, and the entire atmosphere served to drain me of any tension.

I ended up having two bowls full of soup, and Rick seemed impressed by my appetite, pleased that I enjoyed his food so much. I insisted on doing the dishes while he sat down and relaxed. I divided the leftover soup into two airtight tubs, and popped them in the fridge with the leftover salad. The bread was wrapped back up in the paper bag it came in, and placed in the wooden bread bin. Once the kitchen was nice and tidy, I joined Rick in the living room where he was working on a jigsaw puzzle. He was sat cross-legged on the floor, all the pieces spread out around him. I grinned ear to ear at the sight.

“Would you like to join me?” He asked. “Don’t feel obliged. I-I know some people find them a little tedious…”

“I’d love to join you.” I said, taking a seat opposite him. He handed me a cushion to sit on, since the antique Persian rug underneath us offered little padding from the hardwood floor. Rick’s house was full of interesting antiques. Most of which were collected from markets and car boot sales across the country. The rug we were sat on had been in terrible condition when he’d bought it, but he’d spent hours meticulously cleaning and repairing it, reweaving damaged areas by himself. He was extremely resourceful, and his talents seemed to have no end. The rug looked beautiful now.

“This is a ten thousand piece puzzle. I just recently spotted it in a thrift store, s-so let’s hope all the pieces are there!” He said, handing me the box with the picture on. It was a group of wild horses galloping through a dusty, isolated landscape. It was a very beautiful image, and like Rick, I hoped that there weren’t any missing pieces, so we could see it in its entirety. “I like to st-start at the edges and work my way in.” He explained with a smile, sifting through the pile of pieces. He’d already made a start, having joined a few pieces together, revealing what seemed to be the blue sky.

“I might be slower than you. I haven’t done a jigsaw in years.” I warned, and he shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter how long it takes us, it will be nice to work together.”

Rick hummed along with the music still playing quietly. He always paused to give an excited little gasp every time he found the right puzzle piece, and to my surprise I found myself doing the same. I didn’t think I’d have so much fun doing something as simple as a jigsaw puzzle, but I realised that anything with Rick was going to be enjoyable. He had a way of making me enjoy the little things. I had a handful of puzzle pieces, inspecting each one carefully, when I heard Rick give a different kind of gasp. I looked up at him in question, noticing that he was looking at my hand.

“H-how did you do that?” He asked me. I realised he was referring to the nasty burn on my palm. I dropped the puzzle pieces and he reached forward, taking my hand in his.

“The grill pan handle got really hot, and I stupidly grabbed it.” I told him with a sigh.

“Does it hurt?” He asked. I shrugged.

“A little.” I admitted. He rose to his feet, leaving the room for a moment. When he came back, he had a little woven basket in his hands. He set it down, and I peered inside; it was full of first-aid items.

“Y-you should really dress it. Otherwise it could- you could hurt yourself even more.” He told me, and I nodded.

“I was really tired when I did it, it didn’t even occur to me. I’d only just woken up, it was the middle of the night.” I explained, and he gave me a puzzled look.

“I-if it’s alright for me to ask… what were you doing cooking in the middle of the night?” He asked me. I stared at him for a while, unsure of how to answer. He sensed my discomfort, shaking his head as he pulled a bandage out of the basket. “Not to worry. Let’s get this covered up for you.”

“No, it’s okay. It was food for my mum. She… she burned toast and I had to step in.” I said, and a look of understanding passed over his features. He nodded and took my hand in his again, inspecting the wound.

“H-how, um, how is she?” He asked hesitantly. I took a shaky breath.

“Same as usual. I just… I notice it more when I’m not at uni.” I explained. He watched me carefully, his eyes were sad and I had to look away. I felt myself becoming emotional, but I didn’t want to put him in the uncomfortable position of seeing me cry.

“Um, I know it’s not quite my place to say… but I’d like to share something with you, if you don’t mind.” He said, beginning to wrap my hand up in a bandage. He worked so carefully, I barely felt his fingers moving over my hand; he was being overly gentle, trying not to hurt me.

“I don’t mind.” I said, looking back up at his face. He had a look of concentration on his face, a slight frown curving his brow.

“I… I’ve told you about the alternate versions of myself, do you remember?” He asked, and I nodded. Pretty hard to forget that one, I thought. “Well, I didn’t really tell you that, um, I-I-I’m quite different from them. They- ah, it’s difficult for me to explain. They don’t like the things I do and they act very differently, but that’s not what’s important. The thing is, they- a lot of them suffer with, uh, they drink very heavily.” He said, clearing his throat. “Alcoholism is very common among Ricks, and so I have a predisposition to struggle with it myself.”

“Is that why you don’t really drink?” I asked, and he nodded his head, giving me a little smile as he finished dressing my hand. He brought my hand to his face, giving my palm a light kiss. Butterflies erupted in my tummy at this, and I flipped my hand over so I could entwine my fingers with his.

“I used to drink. And f-for a while I was quite- I had a difficult time. Th-that’s when I decided to stop. Since then, I’ve been okay. Y-you know I have the occasional glass of wine with dinner, but that’s all.” He said, and I nodded in understanding. “But, if you noticed; I said I decided to stop.”

I stared at him for a while, trying to figure out the underlying meaning to his words. After a moment, he stood up, urging me to do the same. He guided me over to the sofa and we sat together, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

“I don’t want to make you feel hopeless, that’s not my intention. B-but I understand that you put a lot of pressure on yourself, don’t you?” He asked. I thought about this for a while and I had to agree. I nodded and looked up at him. “I want to help you to stop doing that, b-because it’s not worth it. I decided to stop. And that’s the only reason; nobody convinced me.”

“Oh. I see what you’re trying to say.” I sighed, looking down at the ground.

“I’m sorry, beautiful. I-I-I don’t want you to spend your life worrying about something that you can’t change. The truth is, your mother will make her own decisions, and I know that it’s difficult to accept, but… but nothing you do is going to effect that decision.” He said. It was quite blunt, but deep down I knew that he was right. I’d always known. All the hours I’d spent crying with her, begging her to get help, it wasn’t going to do anything. She was a grown woman, she made her own choices. If she wanted to stop, she would. If not, well…

“I see. You’re right, Rick. It’s just very difficult to sit back and watch it happen, you know?” I said, and he nodded, his expression sympathetic.

“I know. I-if it helps, you’re very welcome here. Any time you feel the need to get away.”

“Thank you.” I whispered, turning and leaning into his side. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, his arm tightening around me.

“Th-there’s nothing wrong with you being there for your mother, or loving her, or even worrying about her. But it isn’t your job to babysit her. Y-you’re her little girl, sh-she should be the one looking out for you. Don’t give yourself a job you didn’t apply for, you see?” He spoke quietly, stroking his hand up and down my arm and resting his cheek against the top of my head. I nodded. “If you want to come over here whenever she starts… um, j-just know I’ll always open my door to you. W- uh, would you like to stay the night?”

“Yes please.” I breathed, relief allowing my shoulder to sag, my muscles to unfurl.

“I lo-” he started, then paused and cleared his throat. “You mean an awful lot to me, (y/n). S-seeing you sad makes me sad, a-a-and I want to do anything I can to help you.”

“Were you about to say-” I looked up at him, a flutter of excitement in my stomach. I paused and shook my head, not wanting to put him under any pressure. “Nevermind.”

“N-no, I uh, I mean… I was.” He said timidly, chewing on his bottom lip with those adorable crooked teeth of his. “I’m sorry.”

“You can say it. I’d like to hear you say it.” I whispered, stroking my hand over his chest. He caught my hand in his, drawing patterns on my palm with his thumb. He looked at me for a long while, his eyes moving back and forth between my own, searching them for something. I didn’t know what. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, it seemed, because his confidence grew.

“I love you.” He told me, and a smile broke out across my face.

“I love you too.” I replied. I craned my neck and kissed his cheek, and he laughed shyly, glancing down at our hands as he flushed.

“D-do you r-really mean that?” He asked me.

“Of course I do. I’ve never been more sure of anything.” I assured him, and he seemed to believe me. He grinned wider than he had all night, then leaned down to press a single kiss to my lips. Rick’s kisses were more often than not very timid. They were brief and soft, and they always left me craving more. I rarely pushed for more, though, preferring to move at his pace. On occasion, I was rewarded for my patience, and Rick would find the confidence to give me more than I could ever hope for. Times like that were what my dreams were made of, and I treasured them, their rarity increasing their value like a precious gem. They were always worth waiting for.

#rick sanchez x reader #doofus rick x reader #doofus rick #j19zeta7 #fanfiction #alcoholism

[dinosaursindisarray]

Logging some things, don't reblob and probably don't read cause Im not good at trigger warnings

Month was feeling bad and went to get a shower, was gonna pamper herself. Somethin happened, not sure what but a kid came around. Names Holly and seems like she's a collection of fragments or subsystem or something like Curi. Little different but similar.

Wildly different patterns of thought and stuff. Different kid voices, ages 5 to around 9 or 10. One saw the bathroom fan and said 'there's a man in the vent watching us'. Weren't upset about it none, just stating it. Different kid got scared of that and someone else didnt believe the first kid. Someone didnt want to get out of the shower because as soon as something touched them, they'd be dirty again. Couple thought some pretty damning csa stuff but I dont remember it myself, just that it happened.

They all went by Holly, so it's kinda confusing but there were differences between them that show it was different kids. Different kids, one name. Like a group of people piloting a giant robot. One or maybe all of em didnt know how to put on a pad, didnt know where we were. Month's friends came home while we were in the shower so the Holly brigade got scared and snuck around. Dressed in the clothes month had brought in before the shower and wrapped up in a towel as a cape. Went into the adjacent room to the bathroom and locked the doors. They sat on the bed but then someone said in a panic that the bed was too close to the door and if someone broke in the door, they'd be easy to grab where they were. They went over and hid on the floor on the other side of the bed and tried to figure out things. Someone suggested maybe they were kidnapped and someone else said that wasn't true. A strong pull/command of 'go to sleep' started and they got dizzy, feeling like they were spinning 'like on a teacup ride'. One of them practiced saying 'hello my name is holly and I would like to go home now please' inside, while another just cried that they wanted to be home.

A while passed and month slowly was able to get past radio (who was singin some christmas carol, holly jolly christmas) and fought for control. That made it impossible to stay upright because of the dizziness and they rested their head on a chair seat. Month tried to say that things were fine, it was alright and they should get up and go lay down in her friend's bed. Said they could cuddle under a blanket nice and warm but not too hot and go to sleep and feel better. Took some doing but she managed to cofront after half n hour or so of talkin to them nd got them to get up and unlock the door to go out. Her friend was laying on the couch, other friend gone, and after a few minutes of hiding and waiting, she got Holly to ask if they could lay down in her friend's bed. Friend said yeah but they could also lay down in the other room. Some of the kids took this to mean that they'd be in trouble if they went to the bed to lay down, like that months friend was being passive agressive and setting them up for way to be mad at them and punish them. Some of the kids that werent scared wanted to go to the bed anyway, while others got terrified, and a fight broke out inside. Month lost control and the body froze for a minute, before holly creeped back into the bathroom and locked the doors again.

She sat on the floor and curled up, dizzy. One of the kids suggested cutting, and the other kids refused. Kid that wanted to cut thought about drinking the chemicals under the sink, th shampoo and stuff, but someone else said itd be too sad if they died. Self destructive kid went silent. Someone suggested sleeping in the bathtub because they /had/ to go to sleep, but someone else lamented the size of the body and that it wouldnt work. They settled on the floor and closed their eyes to sleep, and I started tryin to claw my way out. I know theyre just kids but strength in numbers. Eventually managed to get to front nd told Holly that I was putting them to bed. Went out nd asked again if we could go lay down and got told yeah. Told the kids to go to sleep.

Still dizzy and pukey a tad, and i think the sleep order affected month too or somethin. While holly was on the floor of the bathroom, i heard month saying how she's not doing subtext in her relationships anymore, she's only gonna be listening to blunt straightforward things so that things wouldnt be or seem passive agressive anymore. Dunno if she was tryin to comfort the kids or herself.

Whole thing was about 2 hours. My vision is messed up rn too. Holly has settled tho.

-Riley

#donut rebagel // #personal //// #probably just dont read it // #-Riley #no trigger wrnings so be careful if you do read

[abigailtan]

Singapore Red Cross; Mission Trip, Batam (10th – 11th November 2018) Written by: Abigail Tan, Singapore Red Cross Volunteer

I AM SO EMBARRASSED! Because this trip happened almost a year ago and I thought I had posted it. On the bright side, I did send my write-up.

Day 1; (GMT +8) Singapore

5.30am (GMT +8) I was dragged out of the comfort of my bed, with my messy hair and a rancid breath, I made my way to the bathroom and got ready. Short of bring bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I was dressed decently enough; my motivational quote t-shirt and a pair of worn-out jeans, I left home before the break of dawn…

The official meeting time was 7am at Harborfront Centre and a handful of volunteers were already there by the time I arrived.

The man were requested to wait by the drop-off to help carry some boxes. (15 boxes)

15 boxes worth of first aid supplies for Red Cross Indonesia, which will come to be known to us over the weekend as Palang Merah Indonesia (PMI).

Cataloguing each box and appointing people to account for a couple of boxes. 

Majestic Dream; rather suggestive but was not quite the case, I hardly slept on the hour-long ride to Batam as I was battling motion sickness. Urgh. But it was bearable.

Instead, I made my first new friend; Jessica! An operating theatre nurse and so we hit off rather well, top it off with our volunteering experiences and that was a good 45 minutes worth of talk!

Some took the opportunity to get a group picture and others slept.

But the hour-long ride was quick and almost painless… The sheer number of people going into Batam on a weekend was insane. It is rather on par with the number of people going into Johor Bahru. So, we grit our teeth and power through.

Prior to leaving Singapore, we were told that when we reached immigration on the other side, we had to keep our voices down. Unfortunately, none of us took a picture of the sign, so here’s one off an article from Straits Times.

(image credit: Signs showing prohibited behaviour at the immigration checkpoint of the Batam Centre International Ferry Terminal are plastered all over the pillars. -- ST PHOTO: DANSON CHEONG ) – caption off straits times article; Shhh! Be silent at Batam immigration queue or be sent back home (published: 17th August 2014)

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/shhh-be-silent-at-batam-immigration-queue-or-be-sent-back-home

I wouldn’t say that there was pin-dropping silence but no rowdy noise, so good enough.

We cleared immigration in under an hour and each of us took charge of collecting the boxes from baggage claim. With almost no hiccups the mission trip officially began.

(GMT +7) Indonesia, Batam

Remember how when we were kids and there was always headcount during field trips to make sure all the kids are accounted for. Or some of our teachers made us buddy up so that we could look out for each other. Well, that happened automatically for us and it wasn’t just counting heads we had to make sure all the boxes brought over was accounted for too!

A bus came to pick us up and off we went to PMI!    

The ride went without accident; the thing that struck similarity was the amount of greenery. Huge trees that formed a canopy created shade in this equatorial region.

A small road leads us to where PMI Batam sat, lalang grass lined the sides of the road until we hit a dirt road that branched out and that lead us to the property where this 3-story building sat. It showed age together with improvements and refurbishments; an extension of the former building was obviously new and rather posh for what Batam has to offer.  

The bus came to a halt and all 20 of us on the bus took a minute to soak in; PMI staff lined the entrance of the building in anticipation of welcoming us. Ladies first and then the guys were right behind us and Uncle Tony was the very last as discussed, no one is supposed to be behind him.

The storage unit by the side of the bus opened and revealed 15 cartons that were together with some personal belonging and without hesitation, all of us formed a line and moved the cartons from the bus to the inside of the building. Our Malay speaking friends instinctively became unofficial translators.

15 cartons moved in seamlessly and as we settled into our new environment an elderly lady walked out, she is the lady that will come to be known to us as ibu (Malay greeting for mother). She warmly welcomed all of us and lead us to the 2nd story where a room was prepared for us to rest and fill up on food and drinks. There was a spread of kuahs (starchy and sweet delicacy) and what seemed to be a pastry with potato in it.

We walked in and dropped our bags, and our hands went straight to our necks for a good stretch. PMI staff came into the room and started visual documentation of our movements; in other words, took our photographs.

We soon settled in comfortably and got refreshments.

Ibu came in shortly and there was an exchange of kind words between PMI and ourselves.

We then went on a tour of the place.

3 floors worth of square-space for utilisation. The first floor where the entrance opens to a foyer has a high ceiling and huge windows that allowed plenty of sunlight to brighten the place. A shelf by the entrance held several potted plants and across it a decent reception area.

Right by the foyer sits a plaque on the wall that states the opening date of the building by the President.

A set of glass doors sits on the far right and that leads to the blood donation area where 2 resident doctors are. And they briefly explained the process, a donor would walk in and fill in a form indicating personal particulars and their last date of donation, medications taken or any illness within the last few days. Next, they’ll be led to a doctor who would screen through the form and a couple of drops of blood from a prick of the finger to test for blood count. Then a basic health screening. Blood pressure and what not. If all is well, a set of recliners awaits past another door where the donor will lie there for about 30 minutes while a pint of blood is drawn out.

I tried to donate, but I was on allergy meds a couple of days prior so that disqualified me.

It’s interesting; the way they collect blood. The strikingly obvious difference from Singapore would be the governing body that deals with blood collection.

2nd floor was where the offices are and where the meeting room that held all of us were. At the end of the long corridor was a hall that could easily accommodate 300 people comfortably standing with sufficient personal space and maybe 500 to 600 people but packed like sardines.

By the other end of the corridor stood a room; the call centre.

Where equipment like these would be found on the Titanic. Although out-dated, but I admire that they’re still out there fighting the good fight with what they have. And that’s admirable. 

It was incredible; I apologise if I sound like I’m dishing out on them. I’m not. I feel that they’re worth saluting because even if equipment like that and they’re still out there helping people.

PMI I salute you.

Truly an eye-opener for all of us; or at least I can speak for myself.

Prior to lunch we got down on our hands and knees and worked up an appetite. Not exercising per se but the output alone was enough to get our stomachs growling.

This is where the 15 boxes come into play. Almost like clock-work, we settled into a factory line up; passing down each kit and each pair or trio would place the items needed. Face masks, micropore tape, shear scissors, gauze, crepe bandage, triangular bandage and tweezers. Came up into a rather decent first aid kit. 15 boxes worth of supplies was made into 200 proper first aid kits.

LUNCH! I am not even going to deny, yes, we were all looking forward to food after the incredibly productive afternoon.

Okay, I am going to need someone to level with me… Because whilst eating I had a realisation that it’s probably not chicken that I was eating… …

So… I dived in thinking it was some form of ayam penyet and when I picked up the supposed chicken with my hands I realised that the wings are smaller than usual and the ribs are surprisingly small too. Which lead me to the conclusion that it wasn’t a chicken to begin with.

I eat quail eggs, but to think that I chomp on a bird… … I am going to need more time to rest this unsettling feeling.

That aside, lunch was good.

Lunch was followed by nearly an hours worth of some more chatter among ourselves. A couple of us represented Singapore Red Cross and discussed the following days’ events with PMI.

So by this point, we knew that there was going to be an event the next day with some of the PMI youths; think of is as Secondary School’s Red Cross Cadets. An event was to be held with some 2200 students and we are to assist with some of their programs. 20 of us were split into 2; basic first aid training and outdoor games! We discussed among ourselves and delegated jobs. Among us were first aiders of all ages and varied experiences to offer; some were already first aid trainers, some of us are in the medical field. Naturally, the trainers formed a group and they needed more people, I eagerly raised my hand; there’s something about teaching that I enjoy, something about passing on knowledge and seeing their eyes light up when learning becomes fun. 10 of us formed the teaching team and the rest helped at the games booth.

As our discussion came to an end, something was brewing down the corridor within the walls of the hall.

PMI staff and some; if I had to venture a guess; 60 PMI youths were seated on the floor facing us as we walked in. You know how when it’s your birthday and you have to stand with the cake facing the party as they sing happy birthday to you and you have completely no idea where to place your hands. That was me. It was a massive wave of mixed emotions; overwhelming and essentially trying to grasp their enthusiasm about our arrival. I was in complete awe. The kids, they greeted each and every one of us. I mean it in every sense of the word. EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. It was the LONGEST greeting, but also the most heartfelt.

We spent the next 40 minutes with our youth volunteers thinking of ways to engage tomorrow’s students. They were eager to help us, more than I can speak for ourselves. Joint discussions came to an end and we had to say goodbye to everyone at PMI. It was time to check into the hotel.

Time to freshen up for a pow wow session and DINNER! Some shopping at the mega supermarket then back to the hotel for another SouthWest Discussion. Settled some stuff, delegated work and just like that the day ended; but not before a hot water bath… urghhhhhhhh…

Day 2; (GMT+7) Batam, Indonesia

Our day started at the break of dawn; 6am. Freshened up; changed, packed and down we went for breakfast and an early checkout. We literally stayed the night. Time was of the essence and by 7.15am we were already on the bus towards school grounds!

It was probably almost 8am by the time we arrived at the school. Personal and important belongings were brought along with us. 2 cartons of first aid kits were brought down together with teaching aid.

Not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning; after yesterday’s culture shock and taking the time to let everything around us settle in, today is a lot better. (Or so I thought) We stood around rather aimlessly until we saw familiar PMI faces! And then we were led to the field and sat by the bleachers.

So some 500 students were already standing on the field when we got there; being PMI they had first aiders on stand-by and also an ambulance.

There weren’t any translators so what happened next is essentially what I saw coupled with what I felt. So all of us were seated there, the parade commander comes out and shouts out commands; attention and at ease. On our far right of the field were 7 students standing side by side, we were to their left. And they each shouted what seemed to be the 7 fundamental principles of Red Cross. The parade commander walked back, faced the students, shouted a command and soon all of them were saluting us. SALUTING. US. US! Singapore Red Cross. [I am still very much in awe as I am typing this.] It’s a level of gratitude and respect that I’ve never experienced, and I speak for myself.

Then it was the presentation of a first aid kit and a Singapore Red Cross Bear from SRC to PMI and PMI presented us with a plaque.  

LET THE EVENTS BEGIN!

The teaching team gathered and grabbed our teaching aid which included 2 miniature little Anne, 2 chocking demo sets, and triangular bandages. We were then led to the upstairs classrooms where tables and chairs were pushed aside to make more floor space.

The team split into 2 so that we can accommodate 2 groups of 30 students. Despite having a discussion yesterday about ‘lesson plans’ we had to make do with what we have. What were we teaching first? Which team was going to take which teaching aids? You’d think that since there’s 2 of each; at least for miniature little Anne and the chocking demo sets we could split. But my team took both Annes and allowed the kids to have their hand on the CPR dummy and try it for themselves. While the other team started with chocking.

We had the kids sit by 3 sides of the classroom and we took ‘centre stage’. If I hadn’t said it already, I will; I enjoy teaching. We had to break the ice somehow, there’s no manual on “how to start a lesson” especially since there was no concrete plan on how we were going to go about doing this. I did the first thing at the top of my mind and that was to jump right into the centre and wave my hands whilst saying “hello!!!”. And an equally enthusiastic response was returned.

I am incredibly grateful for the PMI staff we had with us and the youth volunteer who helped us with translation. Despite English being taught in school, but because it isn’t practised very much at home there is still some form of language barrier. The kids were very patient with me and the translators, which made teaching went on without any major hiccups. Each step was taught with great patience ensuring that the kids understood everything and that no one got left behind. We taught what was essential; under what circumstances would CPR be required, how it was done, the positioning of the hands, knees placed apart for stability, locating the landmark and the placing of the heel of the palm, how the elbows had to remain straight and teaching them that we weight needed to allow compression to happen was coming from your own body instead of exerting strength from your arms.

At first, I thought it would be fun to have the kids raise their hands to try out the dummy, first to raise their hands would come up. Then I quickly realised that it was not feasible. So after a few quick hands, I decided to go good-old-one-by-one in sequence, that also allowed me to keep track of who has tried CPR on the dummy.

I had a few interesting questions that I can recall off the top of my head;

1.      Miss, why must the elbow be straight?

a.      Less force is exerted if the elbow is bent

2.      Miss, if the unconscious person has a pulse do I still do CPR?

a.      Pulse = heartbeat, which means the person is alive and so CPR is not necessary

We taught them how to secure various fractures; cervical fracture and a wrist/forearm fracture. Simple fracture. Nothing complicated.

Teaching them was an amazing experience; answering their queries and quenching their thirst for knowledge was amazing beyond words can tell.

The time soon came for us to say goodbye, but not before handing out little presents to them. One by one they came to us and greeted us in the most respected way possible; in Indonesia or rather the Muslim community, young ones greet their elders by holding their hands and placing it to their faces and then their own hands to their chest. This form of greeting is known as ‘salam’.

Just before we stepped out Ibu invited us to lunch. We left school and the bus took us to a seafood restaurant. It wasn’t posh, it wasn’t anywhere ‘upscale’, a dirt road led us in-between 2 rows of shops. You’d think that somewhere like this was an ordinary seafood place, but when we walked in, it was almost like a political rally, the Mayor of Batam was finishing his lunch, people were surrounding him and pictures were taken. There was an exchange of formalities between the Mayor and Ibu and we each went on our way. A private room with 4 tables was prepared for us.

Cereal prawn, fried fish, vegetables, chili crab, rice were served to us. Not forgetting fresh coconut and its refreshing water and flesh. It was an amazing lunch. We thanked Ibu for the invite and salam as we made our way out. It was only right after the way we were treated throughout our stay.

Last minute shopping before we made our way back to Singapore where I believe most of us knocked out during the hour-long boat ride.

I’ve been volunteering with Red Cross for over a year now and I have met several beneficiaries; I’m a born and raised Singaporean, we may not be rich, but we get by, I may have seen our low-income families but I’ll never understand their difficulties as I am lucky enough to have not walked in their shoes. I was fortunate enough to have lived abroad for almost a year and I’ve come to appreciate what Singapore has to offer; clean water, convenient public transport, good healthcare coverage, good public education system and a generally safe place to call home. I’m grateful for a job that pays me enough to travel from time to time and travelling solo has opened my eyes to other parts of the world. I’m not here to gloat or brag about my life; after the mission trip I’ve come to really understand the term “the ones with the least to give have the most to offer”. This trip opened my eyes to below poverty line and despite that, help is bountiful. This trip has given me more than I could ask for; kindness, respect and a lifetime of learning ahead of me.

#first aider abi

[debbiehross]

An introduction

I was asked by many friends before leaving NZ if I was going to write a blog. Having never done this before I thought it might be a good idea to give it a go even though I’m no writer, and am very techno challenged.  And I have to wonder who would actually be bothered to read it anyway. But thanks to Alenka, who patiently tried to set me up one night before we left Auckland, I’m making a start. And Rebecca, who spent a little bit of time with us on the boat when we first arrived. So here goes…

Making a dream come true takes a lot of hard work…

It must be a ‘time-of-life’ thing – having a dream to cruise around the Med.  We follow in the wake of many.  It’s a time in ones life when your children are independent, there are no grandchildren to tug at your heart strings, the family pet has died (RIP Bessy) which also reminds me … without wanting to sound flippant, but both sets of parents have long passed, meaning no elderly dependents. We are free, in the most fabulous way. It’s a tangible feeling that both Chris and I feel. What gave us the final nudge was concluding the sale of our business last year.  Although Chris remains a director for the time being, it accelerated our plans to escape the NZ winter.

Having spent last year researching boat models and options, which involved two trips to Europe to view vessels for sale between Spain, Italy, and Greece, we settled on a Ferretti 80 RPH (raised pilot house). It’s a production boat built for the Mediteranean waters, so should be easier to re-sell,  it had the right amount of cabins; four, each with their own head (bathroom) so our friends and family could join us from time to time. It has crew quarters that are not too cramped – and which now house two crew. And it was in Greece.  Where a huge piece of my heart still resides.  Having spent many years here in my younger life.

She is far from being classified a Super Yacht – she’s more of a large family motor launch.  We have renamed her Awanui.  It is a beautiful sounding Maori name. And we were told that we needed to have a Maori name with at least two “A”s in it?  Not sure exactly why? (Graham?) Anyway it looks lovely sign-written on the aft.  Awanui means a large conch shell – or big river – we choose to think of it as the large shell. Not many big rivers around here.

We arrived on the 4th June 2017.  Awanui has been residing in a little marina an hour north of Athens, called Nea Ataki.  We have employed Captain Kostas, mainly as he lives here and overlooks the marina so it is easy to winter the boat in this little village.  He has also had many years experience cruising all around the Med. So he may not be the young Greek God-like specimen I was hoping might take the helm – we’ve gone for experience instead. And he’s delightful.

So too is our Deckhand Essham.  Who couldn’t be more sincere in his efforts to be helpful.  Hesham is Egyptian, and has a young family living there to whom he remits all his wages.  It makes you realize how precious employment is here and how big the sacrifices made, to ensure a steady income. Ironically our OE is coinciding with our daughters’, although she has noted the irony of her working in the refugee camp whilst weekending on the “luxury” boat.

It was by pure coincidence that her work with the NGO, Lighthouse, placed her in Ritsona, which is only a few miles from this Marina in Nea Ataki. She has been there for a month now and will join us for a week later in the Summer when her placement finishes.

Bex farewelling us before work.

Rebecca took us to her favourite Taverna in Chalkida, a great local spot. Although...clearly no need to book ahead!

Our first week in Greece involved fitting out the boat with all the toys we know we will enjoy over the coming months.  We now have two foldup E-Bikes, two paddle boards, and two kayaks (the E bikes had to be sent from the UK because when researching Greece vendors from NZ, we simply got no response from the sports shops there despite many promises - so we ended up having to deal with a UK sports shop.

As we are not a Greek Boat, and VAT is not paid so we have a Transit Log.  This means we cannot stay in Med longer than 6 months a year.  We must have the Transit Log signed and stamped by the Customs Department and the Port Police before we can go cruising. But first we had to pay the electricity bill from the Marina.

This gave us a taste of Greek Beaurocracy.

To pay the electricity bill Chris went into Chalkida with Captain Kosta to the Port Harbour Masters Office.  Capt Kosta marched Chris into a Board Room where a meeting was in full swing, and introduced him to the Mayor of Nea Atarki, the Mayor of Chalkida, the Head of the Port Authority and a couple of other Directors. After that slightly embarrassing interlude Chris then spent about 20 minutes trying to pay the bill. Behind a desk were three girls to take the 173 Euros. One talked, one computed the invoice, and one took the money.

 Then a drive to the Customs Office to get the Transit Log signed.  They went to the second floor where the Transit Log was filed and filled in our departure details.  During that process the Customs Official went downstairs to the first floor, twice, to photocopy the documents and returned.  Finally he sent Chris downstairs to get a stamp and signature from the Receptionist, who then handed them over to her Boss who entered Chris’s passport details into his computer, and signed and stamped them again.  Chris then returned to the 2nd floor where the original Customs Official wrote an invoice for 40 Euros and sent them next door to the Cashier.  The Cashier stopped his game of Sudoku to process the payment and kindly gave Chris an apricot to eat while he was doing it.  Having eaten the apricot and paid the 40 Euros, Chris had to return to the Customs Officer again with his receipt and finally the Transit Log was handed over. But it doesn’t stop there.

Next stop was the Port Police, which was in another building a short drive away. Chris submitted the Transit Log to the Port Police who then wrote our departure details into a large ledger book on the counter. More stamping and signing - until finally they were free to go !!

We then stocked the pantry and the freezers.  Captan Kosta drove us to his favourite places – one being the butcher who has 5 sons all of whom help to run the family butchery, and the farm that supplies the meat.  There were photos of the cattle and their farm on the walls and we got to choose our cuts of meat from the whole beast. They chopped it up there and then.  We were told that the farm is totally organic, which was pretty obvious, and that the animals are very happy. We like that.

The family farm - happy family of cows.

Choosing the eye fillet.

The next day, on Tuesday June 13th, we set off from Nea Ataki and motored a little way up the island of Evia to a little village called Limini.  Absolutely delightful.  We have now christened the E-bikes (I’m in love with my little Red bullet – goes like a rocket) and rode up to a lookout then back down to the town to buy fresh bread, pastries (naughty) and rock melon (peponi) for breakfast. Past a local fisherman beating his catch of Octopus on the rocks. Cleaning and tenderizing them.  He was very happy to show us the biggest one – he had many.  

Taken Capt. Kostas spot already!

Octopus fisherman in Limni.

Limni port and (below) town.

It is now Sunday afternoon, we are relaxing on the boat awaiting the arrival of out first guests from New Zealand. Rebecca and her workmate Anita drove from the refugee camp on Friday to Agios Konstandinos for the weekend. We motored around the bays to Agios Yeoryios. We had a great day Saturday soaking up the sun, swimming and paddle boarding and topped it off with freshly caught sardines for dinner, beautifully prepared by Hesham. 

Hesham giving Anita a lesson on sardine prepartion.

The girls sun baking.

Chris overlooking arrival in Friday nights spot (Agios Yeoryios).

[redlipsfortheguillotine]

Dr Took My Appendix or: How I Learned to Stop Searching and Love the Iron, Part II

Part II Appendixgate

Now I’m not someone who believes things happen for a reason. Not at all. I think things happen, some of which as a result of our own actions, for better or worse, some as a result of the actions of others, and some just randomly. But I think every time something happens, we have choices. Bad breakup, fail an exam, have a drinking problem, get robbed, anything really – we choose what to do with it, if we can. Sort of like when people say depression happens for a reason. Yeah, the reason is usually being born with mental illness, developing them in life or as a result of another illness, medication etc. It’s not that deep, and it’s a shitty deal. Likewise, I believe freak medical emergencies happen for the reason that, well, they just do. Disease, accident or in this case, standard appendix ticking time bomb gone awry.

On July 31st I went to bed feeling totally fine. Well, still bored and insufferable. But fine. August 1st, I woke up at 4am with stabbing pains in my gut. Sort of similar at that point to the pain you get when you have food poisoning or a bad GI bug. I got up, had some quick and horrendous toilet action, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I called in sick to my practicum (which I only did because I couldn’t stand up straight because of the pain). Mid morning, I took a taxi to the ER, because it was much worse. Appendicitis vaguely occurred to me since right lower quadrant pain is a hallmark of the condition. I was given an ultrasound by the bedside – note, bedside ultrasounds are less reliable, and ultrasounds in general are unreliable when performed on someone with abdominal fat as the visibility is bad. The Dr said it “probably” wasn’t appendicitis so he wasn’t going to do a CT, and that it would either get better or worse. He said he’d get me some Advil (seriously, on behalf of the entire medical establishment I’m sorry we think an Advil is helpful for anything that brought you to the ER). He forgot, and I went home. I took Advil every 4 hours, which took the pain from a 9 down to a 7, so that was the routine. My pain level of 10 up to this point in my life was my first IUD insertion about 9 years ago, just for reference. At this point my practicum instructor called me and reassured me that when I got in on Tuesday we’d sort out a way for her to test my skills and we’d figure out the missed hours.

On August 2nd, I woke up feeling still shitty, but hoped I could get a lost of rest. Around lunchtime I started feeling a bit weird and nauseous. I turned off the fan and curled up on the couch with a blanket. I was freezing, which is obvs weird as I am always sweaty. Suddenly I realized I was going to puke, and walked to the bathroom, noting that I was walking into furniture on the way. I went to throw up, didn’t, and sat down on the bathroom floor. I noticed my toes and feet were super pale and blueish, stood up and saw my face was too, and my lips were purple. Now I may just be in the beginning of LPN school but I know that these are bad things. I said out loud to my reflection, “this is bad, I’m scared.” Then I stumbled on back to the living room to call my mum, and as I leaned over the couch my fingers smartly dialed 911. I explained my situation and was told not to eat or drink in case I threw up, and that there were no ambulances available but they’d send one when they had one. Yeah. That’s a thing. Probably worth its own blog post. I took my temp which was 38.5, so that got me thinking, well maybe this IS appendicitis. But what’s with the weird feeling? I called my mum, who called Al on her cell while talking to me on her house phone (and tried at one point to put the phones together so Al and I could hear each other – useless, but cute!). I asked her to help me time my pulse, which I discovered was 160. Um, shit, I thought. It’s normally 76, so this is an issue. 

55 minutes later the ambulance showed up, at the same time as Allan arrived from work. I got into the bus and the paramedic and I agreed that I was super sweaty, and my pulse was nuts. I told him the Dr had said maybe it was the stomach flu, and he gave me the paramedic face that says “this is definitely not the stomach flu it’s obviously an infection but I don’t diagnosis so I’m not saying that.” Got to the ER, where we all learned together that getting an IV into a sweaty arm is very hard. No IV Gravol for me! A bed became available, and as soon as I stood up nausea gave way to me telling the paramedic I needed to poop. Yep that’s what I said, at age 34 to a paramedic “I need to poop.” Allan came in with me to make sure I didn’t pass out, and then we both quickly decided we weren’t ready for same room pooping, so he stood outside. While, I might add, another patient screamed that she was dying. Hospitals are awesome. Anyway, I got to the bed, and thankfully saw a smart and pro Dr, who said “this is going to hurt,” poked me in the gut hard and whipped his hand away. (Rebound pain is a fairly definitive mark of appendicitis, it’s the removal of pressure that really hurts). I scream-moaned and he said “K! Appendicitis I think, let’s get you some morphine and a CT scan.” Morphine is awesome, just for the record, and I went from pain that was now a 10 to a nice fuzzy 5. The CT showed my appendix was 3 times its normal size, with probable fluid collection which could indicate rupture, and p.s. I have 3 accessory spleens (called splenules!) that are maybe useful and probably cute. Got scheduled for emergency surgery 45 minutes later.

Woke up and discovered what a 10 on the pain scale REALLY feels like. Yuck. What I thought was 15 minutes in the recovery room was actually 2 hours of Al feeding me ice chips until they could get my pain down. Two 5mg doses of fentanyl later and a lot more ice chips (and Allan asking me questions about North Korea for his own amusement) and I got wheeled to my room. Nb: fentanyl gets shit-talked but medically it’s epic, it’s just only great in a medically supervised environment where you can be reminded to breathe and the dose is exact. Though you’ll do stuff like text your friend and have no recollection of doing so. But I digress. I soon discovered I had a drain extending from my belly, to collect what was in fact a ton of fluid from the ruptured appendix and the large abscess that caused said rupture. The next couple of days involved a lot of pain (a new 10! Post surgical pain after fentanyl wears off), a lot of Dilaudid (aka hydromorphone - also gets shit-talked, also great in a medical setting), a bunch of crying, me trying to convince my surgeon that I had to get out and go to my practicum, and a lot of help from nurses, my mum and my husband. We nurses are obsessed with whether post-surgical patients are passing gas. This is because we need to ensure bowel paralysis is not an issue. No exception here, I had someone asked me if I had passed gas every couple of hours. All I wanted to do was lie in bed, but I know walking helps gas passing, and I now completely understand how hard it is to get post-surgical patients to walk around. But I did. I’d walk up and down the hallway with Allan and my IV pole as support, ensuring my drain was securely pinned to my gown so it didn’t pull on that incision. I had low BP so lots of potassium IV, I had about 5 bags of IV antibiotics a day, and Heparin shots to prevent blood clots. On the day I was released I had my surgical drain removed. This involves a friendly nurse pulling a couple of feet of tubing out of you, followed by a 12-inch piece of plastic, while you make alien noises and try to breathe out enough for your ab muscles to stop trying to pull the tubing back in. You guessed it – new 10 on the pain scale. Luckily, I can’t remember that pain, cause my mind was like NOPE block that shit out. I got home, and thank Odin for Allan, who fed me healthy food and toweled me off after showers (and made fun of me for making him carefully dry between my toes), gave me meds because I was too high to correctly dose myself, and carried my pillows to and from the couch/bed every day. It took about 3 weeks of inactivity and my formerly unshakable quad muscles atrophied to nothing.

For the first time in my life, I felt an overwhelming need to go to the gym. More specifically, I wanted to lift weights. I felt weak. After surgery, the drain and what turned out to be sepsis, I was wrecked (thank you Dr idiot for sending me home instead of getting me a CT scan, thank you me for following my intuition when I knew there that my body was screaming at me that something really bad was happening). I’m fine, but sepsis kills people, and as I know now it takes about a month to recover from. Then some recovery from all the antibiotics themselves. But honestly, I’m so grateful for antibiotics and for the paramedics and for that second Dr for quickly and correctly diagnosing me. I could have done without knowing what sepsis felt like but I’m glad I now do, for my own benefit and the benefit of my future patients. I went through a lot of feelings (even more than usual!) over those weeks, from being angry I couldn’t finish my practicum or continue onto the next term with my friends, to feeling lucky to be alive, from feeling good that I had a break from the school work I had not been handling well. Eventually, I settled somewhere in between all of those feelings. I enjoyed the food Al made for me (including actual vegetables for the first time in months). I gave up coffee, which my Dr had been suggesting for oh, several years. (I suggest trying to quit coffee while immobile, without responsibility, and hopped up on drugs, it’s much easier). I watched several seasons of RuPauls’ Drag Race, and eventually, I started watching CrossFit documentaries on Netflix.  This was the first sign that something was very different. I was choosing to watch fit people on tv, and I wasn’t crying that I was out of shape and they were better than me – I was feeling inspired. Needless to say, I’m not sure if I found it stranger or if Allan did, but it was clear that post-surgery Rachel was perhaps some sort of Rachel 2.0.

Part III coming soon

[cornersofthew0rld]

Colombia; Vol. 3

And now to commence my segment on the northern Caribbean coast! Again, bits and bobs were written on the day and the rest was written post-travels, so apologies for any confusion with tenses/lack of cohesion.

Tuesday 29th – so we arrived to the bus terminal in Cartagena at about 1pm (an hour or two later than planned), and I took a taxi straight to my hostel, through lots of heavy traffic. After dumping my stuff I walked around the entire centro histórico (incredibly beautiful colonial buildings) and bought a coconut on the street filled with its yummy water. Had some dinner in the only cheap traditional restaurant where I had a chat with the owner who told me about his life in Cartagena (where he moved to from Medellin). Got back to the hostel in the evening, and was about to have a shower when I saw a HUGE cockroach crawling along the floor! So naturally I ran out screaming and had to use a different bathroom. Had a beer and a chat with the guy working the night shift who told me about his life, and went to bed at about 12:30am.

Wednesday 30th – I wasn’t sure what to do today at first, whether to do something in Cartagena or go elsewhere; but since the historic centre is quite small so I had already seen all of it, and the majority of the city is poorly constructed residential areas, I decided eventually to take a bus and then a mototaxi (a ‘taxi’ which is really just a motorbike; I had a helmet but of course no biking leathers, yes parents I was fine but yes I was also pretty worried about injuring myself!!) to la Playa Blanca, on La Isla Barú. Right now I am sitting here typing this in my hammock on the white beach before the crystal blue and very calm sea, where I am going to spend the night. I have to keep reminding myself not to get carried away with how much time I spend in each place, as I don’t really have that much time to travel most of the north coast! Only two or so weeks! But this beach is really incredibly beautiful, even though it’s sometimes annoying that I have no running water/wifi/electricity apart from one hour when the sun goes down. Oh and rats chewed massive holes in my lovely tote bag overnight because I left a few bananas in there. Gross!

Thursday 31st – I decided to stay another night on la Playa Blanca since it’s so beautiful, and the rent of my hammock was a mere £4 a night. I woke up accidentally at about 6am and witnessed the sun rising, which was beautiful; at which point the food sellers started walking the beach and I bought egg arepas, watermelon and papaya. During the day I decided to pay for a boat ride to the Rosario islands, a collection of tiny islands about a 20-minute ride from where I was staying. I snorkelled around the coral reefs and saw loads of weird and wonderful fish! Returned to the beach, got an amazing 40-minute whole body massage from a local lady for about £8, chatted to loads of the locals and guys selling things on the beach, and the very hippie Argentinian couple who were pitching their tent on the sand near my hammock. Lovely chilled out day overall, though I did manage to get sunburnt, classic English style.

Friday 1st September – did a bit of swimming around the Playa Blanca, drove a jetski for the first time to another little coral reef off the Isla Barú and had a look at the fish with a snorkel, before showering, eating ‘pan de coco’ (coconut bread – delicious!) and getting my stuff together to catch the mototaxi back into Cartagena, where I then took a normal car taxi to the bus station. Having spoken a lot to the Spanish girl who ran my hostel, she had put me in contact with a man in Taganga (a tiny beach town on the outskirts of Santa Marta) who runs what I thought was just a normal hostel but is actually an Airbnb (I suppose it got lost in translation) and would give me a private room for only 20,000 pesos a night (i.e. ridiculously cheap, about £5.50). There was loads of traffic on the way to the station so I missed the 3pm bus I wanted to get by about 20 minutes and was told the next one was at 5pm, so was sitting around sweating all the liquid out of my body and with very little nutritional food on sale in the station. I arrived quite late to Santa Marta, so had to take a taxi from Santa Marta bus station to Taganga, where I met with José, my host for the weekend. He showed me the house and I played with his gorgeous spaniel Toby, before settling in for the night – I don’t know what it is about long journeys, but it just tires me out so much even though all I did was sit down!

Saturday 2nd – since José had no plans for the weekend he offered to show me some of the cool stuff around the area! We spent the day on la Playa Grande, where we had lunch and did some snorkelling, ate dinner at home and then drove to Santa Marta to check out the port and walk around the old town centre, had a drink in a bar that was playing reggaeton! Then we went back to Taganga as I was still really tired from the previous day. It’s also impossible not to wake up early in this extreme heat, so I couldn’t have had a lie in if I tried.

Sunday 3rd – we drove up to Minca, the cloud forest a little way into the Sierra Nevada mountains, and hiked up to the set of waterfalls with Toby. José initially was not in a very good mood as he received news in the morning that his friend in Cali was in a serious car accident, but we managed to have a nice time nonetheless. We went home and cooked there and just chatted – spending time with José really helped me practise my speaking skills! His English is very limited which I really appreciate haha, as it forces me to explain difficult things in Spanish rather than reverting to English.

Monday 4th – José left very early in the morning to go to work in Bogotá, so I decided to take his advice and do the mini diving course available at one of the dive centres on the seafront. I got there at about 9am and ask to join the group for the day, and immediately got on with the instructors there. Even though I did snorkelling on Isla Barú and at la Playa Grande, it was a shame as clearly a lot of the corals were bleached and there just weren’t that many to begin with. And of course I wasn’t able to go down very deep. But this was without doubt one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had! Being able to dive down and coexist with these creatures even for just 40 minutes at a time is just wonderful. You can easily find statistics on the biodiversity of coral reefs and how despite the fact they cover a mere 1% of the earth’s oceans, they contribute about 20% to the fauna and flora species – this was apparent even on the short dives I did! I loved it so much I decided to stay in Taganga until Friday in order to take the 3-day diving course (which also allowed me to pass the NAUI diving test and become a certified scuba diver)!

Tuesday 5th – started the 3-day diving course this morning, which involved learning about all the kit, diving theory and doing underwater exercises with the ventilators and mask. We did most of the boring stuff (!) today, and did proper dives again on the following days; but of course it was still lovely to just hang out in the sun and have a laugh with the instructors. I moved into the very basic hostel of the dive centre (where they have cockroaches!!) to stay until I left Taganga, as it was free since I was already paying the fees for the course.

Wednesday 6th – 2nd day of the diving course – did two dives today; the one in the morning was to a little shipwreck off the point of the bay, and the other to the other side of the bay. Like the first day, I saw lots of morays, a squid, sea urchins, these weird lizard things that run around on the sand of the seabed, and of course plenty of fish of all different colours; and on this day I actually witnessed my instructor Yarith spearing a lionfish with his harpoon! This was made into ceviche later on that day, which looked incredible but alas, I of course did not eat it. Lionfish are the only species of fish that they are allowed to catch, as they were introduced to the Caribbean by humans (I think?) and are affecting the populations of basically all other fish on the coral reefs.

Thursday 7th – final day of the diving course, and today we went to Tayrona national park for the day – totally beautiful. Completely secluded white sand beach, crystal clear blue waters with visibility for like 15 metres underwater, and there was absolutely no one else around! The corals started a mere 3 or so metres from the shore, so I could see them just from swimming around on the surface! Loads of tiny hermit crabs about ½ of the size of my little fingernail, countless species of fish swimming in shoals, and all the other things I listed before. I took the boat back to Taganga with a couple of the instructors (the others were staying on the beach all weekend as the bogotanos who started their courses that day were spending their whole course there!) where we had a few beers before I turned in for the night.

Friday 8th – took the bus from Taganga to Santa Marta, got off at the stop and walked to the bus station, wading though torrential rain and ridiculous puddles up to my knees which led a truck driver to take pity on me and give me a lift to the bus station. Took a coach to Palomino, where I stayed at a very nice ‘hostel’ which was basically a hotel, it was so nice. Palm trees all over the area, a swimming pool, gorgeous huts for dorm rooms. Had a walk down to the beach and a little swim, then went back up to lie by the pool and swim there. Then a storm came down at about 4pm and it didn’t stop raining for about 5 hours so just hung around the hostel, had some dinner there and got chatting to the Colombians working behind the bar. When it stopped raining and they finished their shifts, I ended up going out to a salsa/bachata bar with them and having a dance! It was a nice place to chill out, but really I didn’t think the town was that interesting, there wasn’t a lot to actually do or explore and the beach wasn’t nice enough to just hang out there all day (although I suppose now I am a little biased, having already been to what I consider not only the best beaches in Colombia but the best ones I’ve seen in my life). Maybe if I wasn’t travelling solo and had chosen a better hostel (where people weren’t there to just chill out) I wouldn’t have got bored so easily.

Saturday 9th – checked out of the hostel by about 11am and then took a bus from Palomino to Riohacha, the biggest city (though still small compared to what I’m used to) in the department of La Guajira. Had a walk along the sea front, which was pretty dead by the time I got there as it was nearly sunset, bought a small dinner at a stall there before going back to the hostel, as there wasn’t much else to do and not many people staying at the hostel. Caught up on Game of Thrones after avoiding the internet for so long in case of spoilers! And had an early night, ready for the next day.

Sunday 10th – I was able to leave the bulk of my belongings at the hostel for the next few days, thanks to the kind hostel owner, as I knew I wouldn’t need much of it and lugging it around in the extreme heat would have been a pain. I took a shared taxi at about 9am from the hostel in Riohacha to Uribia, then took a mototaxi on a little tour around the Manuare salt flats (still very cool, but not as impressive as I was expecting them to be) and the flamingos that migrate to Musichi at certain times of the year. The driver of the mototaxi actually wasn’t as good at Spanish as I was expecting, as he mostly speaks the language of the Wayuu people who live in the region since there aren’t many people of European/other foreign origin there. He then took me back to Uribia, and as I was getting off (on the wrong side of the motorbike) I badly burned the inside of my calf on the exhaust pipe of the bike; the wound of which did not heal into a proper scab (it was just open flesh and pus haha, probably because of the humid environment and the fact I couldn’t properly disinfect it for a few days after it happened) for 2 or 3 weeks, and the scar of which I still have about 2 months later. I got onto the big jeep taking about 15 people to Cabo de la Vela through the desert, which basically just bumped over a dirt track for about 2 hours; this really is the middle of nowhere. If someone had a heart attack or something out there they would definitely just die; I think the nearest proper hospital is in Riohacha. I got chatting to a lovely hippie Spanish couple sitting next to me in the jeep, who said I could borrow their hammock to sleep in while I stay on the beach in Cabo, as they would be using their tent! This was so nice, I only had to pay about £2 for the two nights I was there to the rasta guy who owned the kite surfing centre, and also the thatched hut roofs which kept us sheltered from the sun during the day and the tree trunk ‘poles’ of which I tied the hammock to. We ate dinner all together at one of the beach restaurants that was next to our pitch, and settled in for the night not long after as there were basically no lights and it was pitch black by about 7/8pm.

Monday 11th – spent the middle 4 or 5 hours of the day hidden in the shadows of my hut, as the sun was so strong I was afraid for my skin and could hardly function in the heat anyway. This was a shame, but I had a dip in the sea every now and then, played around with one of the indigenous kids throwing sand with the consistency of a sort of clay-mud at each other, and later in the afternoon I had a walk through Cabo exploring, and met a Mexican guy who was also travelling by himself. Had some beers with him and the Colombian guys (not sure why I found this strange but they were all from Cartagena? I wondered how they all ended up there) who ran some of the kite surfing centres, before going to bed by about 1am, as I had a verrrry early morning the next day!

Tuesday 12th – got up really early, around 5am, to get my stuff into a jeep and travel a long way to Punta Gallinas, the most northern point of the whole of South America! This required a 2 hour long jeep through the desert again, to Puerto Bolivár, where we took a speedboat for 2 hours to Punta Gallinas. So we arrived a little after 9am, at which point we had breakfast in the little covered ‘restaurant’ (it was just a 50m2 platform off the sand with a thatch roof over it to cover us from the sun). We were shown to our hammocks, and then I took a short walk through a bit of the desert with a German girl to see if we could find something other than sand and cacti (we didn’t), at which point it was too hot to continue and I could feel myself starting to burn, so we headed back to the camp. The other boats had arrived from Puerto Bolivár (we had been the first) and so we set off in jeeps to see the Punta Gallinas landmark, a few photo opportunities at different sand dunes and bays, and then headed to a gorgeous beach where there were about a hundred pelicans floating around. I started talking to a hilarious German couple, Olga and Felix, who were just a few years older than me, and we had a lot of laughs together than day; I recommended the diving course to them if they had never done it before, and they said they might make a detour to do it. The Wayuu people living there had brought a cool box of beers and water, which were gladly received at this point as it must have been 40-45 degrees. I got chatting to a lovely Brazilian man called Biano who was doing yoga on the beach and of whom I was very jealous (I am not at the point in my practice where I can do headstands or handstands haha), and sat with him and the German couple for dinner, which was a huge meal and delicious. Those who ate fish probably had the best lobster of their lives – along with all the trimmings of rice, patacones, salad and other things, they had two enormously fat lobsters caught that day each, for about £10. I was still very pleased with my meal, which was the same except instead of lobsters I had some delicious green lentils and a fried egg. We stayed until long into the night just chatting and looking at the stars – we could see the Milky Way so clearly, it felt like a weirdly spiritual transcendent experience.

Wednesday 13th – left Punta Gallinas really early in the morning (though I was tempted to stay longer just to be in peace and quiet and enjoy the wonderful beach, Biano had already been there for 2 days by the time I arrived), got on the boat at about 5am to Puerto Bolivár, where the jeeps were waiting to take people back to Cabo de la Vela. My jeep back to Uribia, as I was supposed to be going directly, did not arrive at all and I was worrying that I would be stranded in the desert alone with no internet or phone service…another driver offered me his spare seat in his jeep to go back to Cabo de la Vela for free, which obviously I greatly appreciated, but was really annoyed as that had added another hour or so to my journey. I found the same Wayuu lady I booked the trip with in Cabo, and had a go at her for not sending someone to pick me up, as I had paid extra to go directly to Uribia; she apologised and said that since I was the only person going to Uribia from the port that they would not be able to set me up with a private jeep, so she put me straight on another jeep from there going to Uribia. I was of course still very angry, but there wasn’t really anything to be done at that point and I was tired, so I appreciated that at least I was getting my own jeep back to Uribia and went straight to sleep. Once I arrived in Uribia, I took a shared taxi back to my hostel in Riohacha to have a shower (this was amazing! I hadn’t showered since Saturday!), collect my rucksack and get the bus to Santa Marta; where I then shared a taxi to Taganga. I arrived in Taganga at about 8/9pm and went straight to my hostel to get some much-needed sleep!

Thursday 14th – got down to the dive centre at around 8am ready for my final dive in the Tayrona national park! And the lovely German couple I met in Punta Gallinas had decided to come too, so I had friends in them and the dive instructors, it was great! It was the same setup as the previous Thursday; boat to the national park, where we spent the whole day and ate freshly cooked lunch right on the beach, with absolutely no other people around. These dives were particularly special as I saw a manta ray!! I tapped on my oxygen tank to get the attention of Michael, my instructor, and the other girl I was diving with, and they were also both over the moon about it; my instructor told me when we reached the surface that even he hadn’t seen one before as they usually stay far away from the divers, and he’s been working there for a year or two, diving nearly every day! I feel so lucky to have witnessed that. We got back to the dive centre at about 7pm, and I was really sad to say goodbye; Gabriela (the 11 year old daughter of the owner), who seemed to have taken quite a liking to me, was also upset that I had to leave haha. I rushed to the bus station in Santa Marta as I had arrived later than expected and didn’t have much time to get ready to leave, but managed to make the 8:30pm bus back to Medellin.

Friday 15th – the night bus was really late arriving to Medellin, so as soon as I got off the bus in the station (about 2pm) I went to buy my ticket to Guatapé as I didn’t make it there the last time I was in Medellin. I had just paid to put my rucksack in the storage area of the station when the people at the ticket desk started shouting for me, saying the bus was about to leave; I rushed to go through the security and get my bag scanned, and was just approaching the bay when they told me the bus had just left. I was understandably very gutted about this, but accepted that I would have only been able to spend about an hour there anyway, which just wouldn’t have been enough time to fully appreciate it and see all the landmarks there – so I have vowed to myself that I will be returning at some point in the future. I went to find my hostel, where I relaxed a bit and started chatting in Spanish to a German girl (whose English was surprisingly not very good) who had arrived a couple of days before and was looking for an apartment; she said that she was going to be living in Medellin for the next year as part of her university degree! I was obviously very jealous! We went to the supermarket to get some food (where I also ended up spending about 30,000 pesos on a pair of trousers).

Saturday 16th – ate almost an entire watermelon and some granadillas and bread for breakfast, before sadly saying goodbye to my hostel in Medellin and getting to the stop for the ‘colectivos’ (shared taxis to the airport). Luckily these taxis take an amazing route up and around the mountain, so I had some wonderful views of my favourite Colombian city as I said goodbye.

#travel #travelling #colombia #caribbean #cartagena #isla baru #playa blanca #santa marta #taganga #riohacha #uribia #manaure #musichi #punta gallinas #puerto bolivar #cabo de la vela

[johnnyfizz89]

The Stars

The Stars

By: Johnny W. Moody

September 2nd 2013 Original Idea

May 9th 2014 First Copy Typed

 I’m walking past the water treatment facility near the ball field and a lot of people are on blankets awaiting the meteor shower just as the sun is setting.  I say to a lady, there’s better viewing just up the road there.  Oh yah she says and I say yah, there’s a lot less light from the city.  Do you hear that beeping sound?  Yah what is that?

         The alarm clock falls from the shelf above hitting John on the head waking him up. Son of a bi*ch, fu*ker grrrr that hurt. Damn, what was that dream about? Damn it, he turns and sits up in bed trying to remember but his mind can’t recall the dream.  Well it’s gone, I’d better go make some breakfast I’m starving. While eating his oatmeal the quiet kitchen starts to annoy him, so he turns on the television.  

Tonight we’re looking at a nice clear sky around sunset so if you get the chance head out and look up.  That’s right tonight is the night of the great meteor shower and looks like most of the United States will have a good view of it.  Hear that fish, there’s a meteor shower tonight. Well I’m going for a walk I’ll be back in about an hour.  John walks over to the front door and puts his shoes on then walks out the door.  He locks the door before he starts his run. As he turns around the mail lady is walking up his sidewalk and says “good morning John how are you today?” I’m good Debbie how are?  I’m great, this weather is fantastic.  Is there anything good for me today or just junk mail and bills?  No bills but you do have a package here I need you to sign for.  Got a pen I can use?  Sure here you go.  Ugh I hate these electronic pens they never work right.  Just press hard and make sure you don’t lift it till your full name is written.  There we go it worked that time.   Have a nice day Debbie, I’ll see you same time tomorrow.  You too John, enjoy your run.

Hey John nice weather we’re having.  Yes it is, hey are you going to be watching that meteor shower tonight?  There’s a meteor shower tonight?  Yep and the sky is supposed to be clear just around sunset when it starts.  Well I’ll be sure to get the wife and watch it tonight. Have a nice day, you to neighbor.

John walks a few miles out of town across the bridge then turns around and starts his run back into the city.  He passes the old ball field near the water treatment facility and has a strange feeling of Deja Vu.  Weird, I bet that’d be a great place to watch the meteor shower tonight. He continues to walk and makes his way through the city park where he sees a couple playing tennis.  He yells “who’s winning?”  The lady say’s “I am”.  The guy say’s “well she doesn’t have the damn sun in her eyes while she serves”.  Now don’t blame the sun for your bad game man.  Switch sides at the sixth game and get back in it.  Excuse me but who’s side are you on, I’m the one winning anyways. Good luck to you both I need to get home.  Have a good game you two.  Those two are way too competitive with each other.

Home at last, god this ac feels good.  Time for lunch, but what should I make.  John walks over to his freezer and opens the door and just stands there looking in.  Oh this cold air feels amazing, ok what have we got in here.  Pizza, to hot, Hot Pockets has the word hot in it.  Ice Cream Milk Shake it is.  John walks over to the counter with Ice Cream and milk in hand and sets them down.  He pulls out a blender and grabs some frozen fruit out of the freezer and decides to throw that into the blender as well.  He adds ice cream and a splash of milk and hits blend but forgets to put the lid on and ends up wearing it.  He laughs after briefly cussing to himself thinking how good the frozen mess felt on him after an hour long run in the near triple digit heat.  Well looks like I’m taking a shower now.  Fu*k it I’ll order a pizza.  It should be cool enough by the time it gets here.  John calls the Pizza Place and orders a pizza then hops in the shower with his clothes on.  He looks at himself in the mirror and says, “Don’t judge me.”  He finishes his shower then takes off the wet clothes and wraps a towel around his body.  He runs his fingers through his clean wet hair and takes a deep breath, then breaths out.  Ok I need to get dressed, can’t answer the door in a towel.  The moment he gets to his bedroom the doorbell rings.  He rushes to put on his pants and falls to the floor and more cussing follows.  He stands up and zips his pants and runs to the door.  He grabs his wallet from his back pocket and opens the door. It’s the pizza delivery guy but not the normal one that delivers to him.  Um sir you’re not wearing a shirt and there’s blood on your forehead are you ok? What, oh crap I am bleeding aren’t I. Look can you just come and set the pizza on the table here while I go take care of this.  How much do I owe you?  Um you have a large 3 topping pizza and delivery charge, your total is $15.80. Here’s a $20 keep the change.  Are you ok sir?  Yah I just fell while trying to put my pants on, it’s not the first time I’ve ever fallen.  Ok you have a good night.  Thanks you to.

John is in the bathroom again putting a band aid on his forehead and has a flash back.  Hey you know there’s a better view of the shower tonight if you go up that road. John shakes his head and grabs the sink for balance.  He runs his hands over his face and breaths out slow.  Leave me alone dream just get out of my head.  He walks to his bedroom and puts on a shirt then heads to the kitchen. He walks over to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water and grabs the pizza off the table.  He leans against the counter and eats a slice, then another, then another.  He then takes the rest to the couch and opens the bottle of water to take a drink.  He turns the TV on and flips over to the weather channel.  It’s a hot one out there today folks but don’t worry, looks like a nice cool down tonight, low near 50 which is a far cry from the low 70s as it’s been most nights this week. The skies should be clear giving you a great opportunity to see that Meteor Shower.  Now remember they start just as the sun begins to set so don’t miss it. That’s it for tonight’s forecast, have a great weekend everybody.

#books #book #writing #writer