maybe it’s just bc it was my first sonic game but i simply cannot tolerate sonic forces slander 😔

Tag! You're It

Second DT Drabble, y'all! Just a heads up, this takes place in between chapters 18 and 19 of DTfiles, though I still recommend that you read chapter 19 before reading this.

Emma turned off the sink of the Watcher World's women's restroom, pumping out two sheets of paper towels from the dispenser. God, this place really was old-fashioned, wasn't it? If they couldn't afford an air-dryer or two, couldn't they have at least gotten one of those motion-activated towel dispenser things?

As Emma finished drying her hands, she couldn't help but feel like she was being... well, watched. Undoubtedly due to some chucklefuck's brilliant idea to have eye designs plastered throughout the restroom. Seriously, she could understand wanting to adhere to the park's theming, but this was just too much.

Still, she forced herself to disregard the weirdness of it all. She had a boyfriend waiting outside the Drowsy Town Theater who was probably worried sick about her. Maybe she should've asked Paul to walk with her to the restroom, might've quelled their worries a bit. Again, Emma shoved the thought aside. She was here for business. Business she wasn't getting paid for, mind you, but business nonetheless.

But as Emma stepped out of the restroom and into the balmy 70° air, she was met with a sight she wasn't expecting. The Blinky mascot she and Paul had encountered in the gift shop, standing mere feet away from the entrance to the women's restroom. Staring directly at her.

"Hello again~" Blinky greeted her in that familiar childlike voice. "Did you miss Blinky?"

"Not particularly, no," Emma replied in a deadpan tone, not willing to deal with more bullshit from this creep who threw Paul into a panic attack earlier. She attempted to walk around the stout purple cyclops, only for him to sidestep into her path. "Mind getting out of my way? I've got places to be."

Blinky didn't respond, simply choosing to stay frozen to his spot and wordlessly peer down at her. Emma could've sworn she heard him breathing heavily.

"Fucking move, dude!" she groaned irritably, attempting to step around him once more. Once again, Blinky shuffled into her path. "I don't have time for this!"

"Hehehehehe~" Blinky giggled. Did... did his lower eyelid just twitch? "Little Emma's getting grumpy~"

Emma froze. How did he know her name? She hadn't mentioned it during their first encounter, had she?

"Still afraid of what daddy told you~?" Blinky continued. "Still think that Blinky likes to hang around little girls?"

Emma's heart leapt into her throat, her eyes widening. "Wh-what!?" she sputtered in shock. How the fuck did he know about that!? Dad had always said it out of earshot! Not to mention that it'd been almost two decades since her last visit to Watcher World. Emma swallowed, attempting to hide her unease. "L-look, what do you want with me, man!?"

"You said to stay away from Paul," Blinky recalled, raising his arms up. "So Blinky wants to play with you instead~"

Blinky swung his arms out to grab her, and Emma narrowly dodged out of the way, stumbling to the ground. She looked around at the passing park-goers, who all appeared blissfully unaware. Had nobody seen that!? Emma looked back up at Blinky, who was slowly approaching her.

"Hehehehehehe~ Little Emmy Doll wants to play tag~" he chortled gleefully.

As Blinky came closer, Emma began to consider her options, trying to remain calm. Blinky was blocking her way back to the Drowsy Town Theater, and he'd probably grab her if she tried to charge past him. Not to mention, Paul was most likely still there, and Emma feared what would happen if she led Blinky back to him. She had no choice. She had to run in the opposite direction and hope Blinky lost track of her.

Not willing to let the cyclops come any closer, Emma rushed to her feet and sprinted off. As the distance between her and Blinky grew longer and longer, she could hear him burst into another giggle fit. She chanced a glance over her shoulder, and saw that Blinky was now giving chase, running after her on all fours like an animal. He appeared to be gaining on her, which gave her a jolt of adrenaline that allowed her to speed up a bit. God, of all the days to be chased, why'd it have to be the one where she chose to wear sandals?

Emma continued to run through the park, the sound of Blinky's ecstatic giggling growing closer by the second. She could still see the other park-goers in the corners of her vision, but they weren't doing anything to help her escape from this... thing that was clearly chasing her! If anything, they were just watching the chase play out!

Up ahead, Emma saw an opportunity to take a sharp right turn. An arrow-shaped sign pointing in that direction that read "This way to the Eye-Drop!". Emma continued to run straight for as long as she could before suddenly bolting to the right. When she glanced over her shoulder again, she saw her plan had worked. Blinky had anticipated that she would keep running straight, only to realize he had to force himself to turn at the last second, causing him to awkwardly skid to a halt. She could just barely see him tumble over as she turned back around. Emma took the opportunity to hide, ducking behind a wall and nestling herself between a vendor cart selling purple lemonade (whether it was actual grape-lemonade or just regular lemonade with purple food coloring is not something Emma was particularly concerned with at the moment) and an overflowing trash can.

Catching her breath, Emma cautiously peeked out from her hiding spot, surveying the area in case she had to start running again. The Eye-Drop, apparently a log flume ride, looked to be at the edge of the park. So unless she wanted to try her luck at climbing over the chain-link fence and escaping into the Witchwood surrounding the park, Emma was stuck in a dead end. The best case scenario was that Blinky walked into the center of the clearing without seeing her, so Emma could carefully sneak back out the way she came to go get help.

But when Emma glanced back towards the entrance, she saw that Blinky was just standing there, blocking her only way out as he scanned the area with his massive yellow eye. Emma wanted to scream. She was trapped, she was terrified, and her lungs felt like they were on fire from running. She had an idea. An idea she didn't wanna go through with lest it put Paul in danger, but an idea nonetheless.

Pulling her phone from her pocket (thank fuck she wore shorts with real pockets today), Emma tapped on Paul's contact, marked with his name and a pair of blue heart emojis. She considered calling him, but quickly banished the thought. If she called, Blinky would hear her. She just had to send Paul a quick message to let him know something was wrong, where she was, and that he needed to get to her ASAP. Thinking quickly, Emma typed up a message.

"PAUL SOS IN FRONT OF EYE-DROP"

Emma sent the message and put her phone away, praying that Paul didn't leave his phone on silent again. But just when she thought she could take a moment to breathe, the massive yellow eye of Blinky came into view, and Emma let out an instinctual scream of terror.

"Peekaboo, Emmy Doll~!" the cyclops exclaimed mockingly.

Before Emma could protest, Blinky lurched forward and grabbed her, lifting her from the ground with ease. He wrapped his bulky purple arms around her waist, pressing her back against his belly and pinning her arms to her sides. Despite how his tight grip was quickly squeezing the air from her lungs, Emma screamed as loudly as she could muster, kicking her legs out wildly as Blinky carried her out to the center of the clearing.

"No! No!" she cried, tears of fear stinging her eyes. "Put me down, please!"

"Hehehehehehe-HAAAAH~" Blinky giggled, punctuating it with a disgusting croak. "You're a squirmy little wormy, Emmy Doll~"

As Blinky stopped in the center of the clearing, he lowered Emma back down. He didn't release his grip on her, but her feet were touching solid ground again. Emma continued to scream, begging the people around her for help. But they didn't come to her aid. They just watched, with wide smiles and hungry purple eyes. Had they always been that color? Anyone who wasn't in line for the Eye-Drop or operating the ride had crowded around, presumably to watch Blinky do... whatever he was planning to do to her. Torture her, most likely. The reality of the situation began to sink in, and Emma's screams devolved into desperate cries.

"Please, just let me go!" she pleaded, hating how vulnerable and weak she sounded. She continued to try and thrash out of Blinky's grip, to no avail.

"We'll have none of that, miss!" an unfamiliar voice spoke up. "Here at Watcher World, we have a strict 'No crying' policy!"

Emma opened her tear-filled eyes to see three purple-outfitted people standing in front of her. A smiling man in a barker's outfit, a little old woman wrapped in a starry robe and shawl, and a stone-faced man in an usher's uniform.

"Wha...?" Emma huffed out tearfully. "Who-?"

"We're here to bring you to your big star turn at the Drowsy Town Theater, miss!" the Barker cut her off. "You've got a knack for this acting thing, don't you, miss? After all, you were in Brigadoon in highschool, and you fucking killed it, correct?"

Emma could only err and stammer in confusion as the Barker rambled on. She didn't even bother to ask herself how this random stranger knew about her 2003 portrayal of Bonnie Jean in Hatchetfield High's production of Brigadoon.

"Look at the poor dear!" the old woman spoke up, her voice pitying and condescending. "She's all shaken up!"

"Must be having stage fright," the Usher man said, his voice as flat as his appearance. He looked to the white-haired old woman. "Why don't you do your thing, Madame Iris?"

"Gladly, my boy!"

The old woman- Madame Iris apparently, stepped forward and raised her wrinkled, bony hands. The tips of her long, talon-like nails grazed Emma's face, sending a shiver of repulsion down her spine. The robe-clad old woman muttered a string of nonsense under her breath, and her appearance began to change. Her withered skin became smooth and youthful, her frizzy gray hair turned brown and silky, clean white teeth began to sprout out of her gums where they hadn't been before, and her robes and shawl morphed into a yellow tank top and jean shorts. Soon enough, where the old woman once stood, was a mirror replica of Emma herself.

The crowd around Emma cheered and clapped. Blinky- who still had Emma trapped in his arms, giggled in delight. Emma herself looked down at her legs, relieved to see that she hadn't somehow shifted into the haggard old woman. The woman wearing Emma's skin laughed, with Emma's laugh.

"Ah, look at me!" she cried happily, relishing her new look. "I'm a knockout! I'm as spry as a bird!"

Emma could've vomited watching this batshit old crone dancing around in her skin, running her hands over the skin of her arms and laughing in her voice. Though Emma did notice one thing off about her little spell.

"Nice try, dumbass," she spat bitterly. "My eyes are brown, not purple."

The not-Emma merely shrugged in reply. "We can't get rid of Lord Blinky's mark on us, no matter how drastically we change our appearance," she explained casually. "I'm sure it'll still be enough to fool your little boy toy, my dear~"

Emma's heart nearly stopped. "Wh-what're you going to do with Paul!?"

"That's not important, miss!" the Barker chimed in, stepping back up. "What's important is that we get you ready for your big debut at 5!"

"What the fuck does that mean!?" Emma demanded, trying once more to futilely worm her way out of Blinky's iron grip. "What're you going to do to me!?"

The Barker stepped aside, allowing the Usher to take his place. The Usher stooped down so he was at eye level with Emma, gently took her chin in his hand, and locked eyes with her.

"Aren't you tired, sweetheart~?" the Usher asked in a soft, strangely familiar voice. "Don't you want to sleep~?"

Emma felt her eyelids begin to droop, and her heart rate slow. "Puh-Paul...?" she asked drowsily.

"Go to sleep, sweetheart~" Paul- no, the Usher, no... Paul... told her gently. "Come to Drowsy Town with me~"

Emma fought to stay awake, but Paul... God, his voice was so soothing... And his hand felt so gentle on her face... So familiar, so reassuring...

She couldn't help but drift off.

Wanting In

Fandom: Sicario

Characters: Matt Graver, Alejandro Gillick,  Charly Dunn (OFC), Kate Macer, Reggie Wayne

Pairing: None

Summary: There was a third member that joined the team that Matt Graver created. She holds different views on the ending events of the movie than Kate did.

Word Count: 2,064

Rating: SFW

Warning: Explicit language, mentions of violence, references of drugs related to movie events

****************************************************************************************

Kate was less than pleased. We were being used. It was never about us making a contribution to the team. Nothing more than a technical necessity. We were the means to an end for the operation. Sure, it rubbed me the wrong way but in the end, what was done was done and the job getting finished was more important than my feelings on the situation. Something had to change and if it took means that were less by the book then so be it. Kate and Reggie didn't have that sort of view as we suited up.

Relegated to the back of the squad, I checked over my weapon a couple of times. The military team assembled would likely take care of any bodies that we ran into but that didn't mean someone couldn't slip through. I didn't want to be caught unaware and unprepared. 

There was a quiet anticipation that rippled through the men. I felt that creeping chill up my spine, a surge of adrenaline exploding in preparation of what was to come. A sure gun fight and nothing got the blood pumping more quickly. The SUVs stopped in the middle of nowhere, guided by the eye in the sky towards the entrance to the tunnel. Cracking my neck, I exited the car and took my spot towards the rear of the group. 

The hike to the entrance was uneventful. Alejandro was sent in first, quickly followed by the head of the military team. I felt like I was practically chomping at the bit, especially when the ringing of gunfire in a confined space started echoing out. Forgoing caution and reminders to stay back, I pressed ahead of Reggie and Kate. Sweeping in every direction I could, there was nothing. The gunfire hadn't stopped. 

A turn came up and a quick sweep to the left had me nearly face to face with one of the runners. His weapon was quickly aimed at my chest. Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger, watching as his body fell. 

"Shit." 

"You good?"

"Good." I responded quickly to whoever had asked before we moved on. Clears began to be called out as the gunfire ceased. Just as I went to turn to regroup, I noticed Kate heading off. This wasn't going to be good. My choices were to let her fuck something up or go follow her and try to stop whatever it was that she thought she could do. Making the decision, I took off after her. If the others wanted to be pissed about it, oh well. 

She didn't seem to realize that I was following her. A concerning fact for numerous reasons. She exited just ahead of me and I had to double time in so I didn't lose her. 

I exited the tunnel and nearly groaned. Alejandro had an officer at gunpoint while Kate was attempting to hold him. I raised my weapon and settled it squarely on Kate. 

"That's enough. Drop the weapon Kate." I took a leap of faith in the fact that Alejandro wouldn't shoot me too. It didn't seem like the style of the operations but I had been wrong before. A few tense moments of silence passed.

"He has an officer Charly."

"Who is carrying drugs in the back of his squad car. He's corrupt and part of the cartel. Drop your gun Kate." She refused to, shaking her head. It only took her turning her head towards me for a moment for the opportunity to arise.

The shot was fired and Kate went down. I relaxed, dropping my weapon down as Alejandro moved over to her. The bullet had hit her kevlar. He wasn't looking to kill, just incapacitate her for some time. I could hear her gasping from over here. That sort of shot hurt and smarted for weeks.

"Don't ever point a weapon at me again." I didn't make a move to stop the operative as he got into the car with the officer and drove over. Moving over to Kate, I attempted to help her up. She was still gasping for breath. 

"That was real fucking stupid," I grumbled before hauling her to her feet. She shoved me back immediately. 

"Stupid?! He had that man at gunpoint. Do you know what he is going to do? None of this is okay!" 

"I know full well what he is going to go off and do. We need to get you back. Come on. Before they send the guys back in." I reached forward and grabbed her by the vest. "Besides, it's gonna be a good idea to get your chest looked at. Kevlar stopped it but that doesn't mean it didn't crack a rib."

"How are you okay with this?!" She was still pissed. Each and every word had a gasp between it as she struggled to get her breath back.

"Because it's not our call! Wake the fuck up Kate. You think the stash houses we raid, or the homes used to hide bodies after the fact are making a damn bit of difference? Because if you do, please fucking enlighten me on where I can see it. I don't. More people are dying every day because those fuckers are allowed to do as they please and live like kings." I wasn't in the mood for her bullshit and just wanted to get back. "Come on. Before they come back looking for us." I grabbed her by the vest again and began to pull her back through the tunnel. 

We made it back just as the men were coming back towards the tunnel. Kate, still trying to recover from the bullet, tore from my grip and lunged at Matt, landing a hard looking hook. I groaned and looked towards the sky, the night was over but she demanded to cause trouble. 

Reggie moved forward only to be shoved to the ground by a few of the other guys while Matt worked on grabbing Kate and trying to calm her down. Eyes were on me and I held up my hands, not intending on causing any trouble. 

"Good work guys." I moved passed Reggie plastered to the ground and gave Matt and Kate some privacy.

*****

Standing next to Matt as he unloaded his gear from his body, I shook my head. Kate and Reggie had already left, Kate pissed off by what had happened and what she had seen while it just had added a whole gallon of gasoline to the fire for me. Was it legal? Not really. Did I give a shit about that? Absolutely not.

"I want in. Not that halfass fucking bullshit Matt. I don't wanna be kept around for shit that you can't pull unless you have someone to use as a puppet." He wasn't looking at me but it was obvious he was listening. I would have said the same to Alejandro if he was there too. He was still across the border, taking care of business. "I'm sick of spinning my wheels. I can take out bad guy after bad guy in the streets before breakfast and I have three more taking their place by fucking lunch. This? This is making a difference and I want part of that. I don't care what I have to sign or what lies I gotta tell, fuck I'll dig my own grave." The past couple of days had been a hell of a ride and more eye opening than I expected. It had served as a reminder that it was possible to get more things done than what my current restrictions allowed. Kate may not have been able to wrap her head around that, she may have wanted to do everything by the book to a tee. The other side wasn't playing by those rules. It was kill or be killed and only that mentality was going to give us the chance to get a grip on this thing before it became any worse.

There was a smirk on his face when he finally turned to look at me. Hip propped against the SUV, he crossed his arms over his chest. 

"What makes you think we're adding to the team?" He held the cards and he knew it. I had to quell any frustration at the smirk and the ploy. He was dangling bait in front of me and I couldn't bite. At least he wasn’t playing the gender card. I knew that there weren’t a lot of women that were willing to get their hands as dirty as he surely did on a constant basis. 

"It isn't a team. You take assignments and build from there." A hand ran over my dirty, sweat stained face, nearly cringing at the feel. That wouldn't serve my cause though. "I'll up and quit my position now. Resign and not think twice about. Sign whatever paperwork you want me to. I gotta do shit that matters more, that actually hits where it counts. Otherwise the bullet I take in the streets means shit. At least if my head gets cut off, it means I've pissed someone off and hopefully taken a few of the assholes down with me." A moment of silence settled between us, only broken by the grunt of a soldier or the like storing their gear and getting into their SUVs. 

"Get in the car." It wasn't an answer and as much as I wanted to push for one, it was better not to. There were only so many boundaries I could press at the moment. Biting the inside of my cheek, I slid into the backseat without another word. Steve and Matt were both silent as the engine was turned over and we took off. That was a rare occurrence over the past several days. Further proof that things were likely done. 

The desolate, nearly pitch black desert landscape went flying by outside the window. Not that I could see any of it but it gave me something to concentrate on rather than the question looming overhead.  There was no way to know what was happening in Matt's head. He didn't exactly have the power to make that call. I knew that. But he had the influence to make it happen. A shower and a beer sounded about good right then as the adrenaline rush began to die down. The job was accomplished and it meant that we could relax for just a bit. 

Arriving at the motel, the car was still in silence. The desire to throw a fit was strong, press and demand but that wouldn't be how I won this. No, I had to head back to my apartment, get myself cleaned up and wait. Slipping from the car, I knew it wasn't entirely over since I would have to sign paperwork and Matt didn't seem keen on getting any of that done tonight. Without another word, I headed to my car and settled in. There was a moment where I couldn’t drive away, stuck in that shitty motel parking spot as the entire situation washed over me. I would stick by what I had told Matt but there was a second of panic over what I had witnessed and seen now that the adrenaline had fully worn off. That wasn’t unusual, even on shit I did on a normal day. The implications of this were far bigger though and it couldn’t be ignored. Flexing my hands against the steering wheel, I let out a slow breath. There was nothing to be done about it now and it didn’t change the fact that I wanted it more than ever.

The drive home was quiet. I didn’t feel like putting on music or even talking this whole thing out with myself. Sometimes hearing the pros and cons aloud was helpful but not now. I was in the shower when the phone rang. The ringtone was odd though. Poking my head out, I could see a light coming from my pocket. Curious enough, I stepped out of the shower and crouched. There was a phone, one that wasn’t mine, nestled into a pocket of my pants. 

The caller ID came up as “Pick up the fucking phone”. Frowning, and against some better judgement, I pressed the answer button.

“Hello.”

“Wasn’t sure you would actually listen and pick up.” Graver’s voice echoed through the speaker. “So you want in.” 

Can you imagine that someone out there might be illegally training and selling box boys? The scandal! These little custom, boutique operations should be monitored more closely… (Or maybe not.) This is a bit of “Riddle’s” backstory. More to come later.

---

“And there he is, right on schedule.”

The man in the back seat of the car leaned forward, up between the two front seats. Across the street, a clutch of students spilled down the steps of the lecture hall, laughing among themselves. 

The man in the passenger seat was shuffling through a folder of papers.

“According to the paperwork, this one doesn’t have blue eyes,” he said. “My understanding was that the client had requested blue eyes.”

“Yes,” the driver said, “but you ought to see the eyes this one has--light eyes, still. Given what I know about our client, he’ll be just as happy with this one as another. This one is a better match for other characteristics.”

“Height does look good,” the man in the backseat said. “I mean, how long does our client want to wait, really?”

“Well, then, Shall we?”

---

So maybe he was spoiled, walking back from class to his apartment like this. Not his own apartment, sure. More like one quarter his apartment, but still a decent place to be for a few years. Kind of hip and cool. More or less. No cinderblock walls, anyway. Pretty lucky for that. Sure, exposed brick and all would be better, but it’s not cinderblock. But fuck it if no one ever did the dishes--

“Hey, Gravesby, hold up.”

Simon was waving at him, trotting along the sidewalk to catch up to him.

“Seriously, why doesn’t anyone call me Oliver?” Oliver (Gravesby, whatever) said.

“Because there’s like three other Olivers in our year and it’s not that big of a school, so you’re Gravesby and fuck you I’m making it stick. You doing anything for fall break?”

They set off along the sidewalk (warped with tree roots plowing under for decades, dusted with gold slivered leaves from the willow oaks overhead).

“Yeah, like four papers. Which sucks. I’m majoring in English because I want to read shit, not write shit.”

“Wait, don’t you want a PhD eventually? You’re gonna write a lotta shit, my dude.”

“Yeah, but that’ll be shit I’m actually interested in. I really fucking hate Milton. You doing anything?”

“I think I’m sticking around here too. Wanna go for pizza or something during the break? If you can stop typing that long.”

“Sure, yeah, sounds good.”

“Cool, cool. I’m meeting someone down at the union. Catch up with you later?”

“Yeah, sure--text me or whatever.”

Simon turned and trotted off, down the hill and away. Oliver (Gravesby wasn’t so bad a nickname, was it? Kind of spooky, kind of weird.) kept on along towards the student apartments just at the edge of campus.

---

Gravesby saw but didn’t see the man getting out of the passenger side of the car parked along the main drag along the north side of campus. Looked like a townie, maybe an alum. Not old at all, but definitely not young enough to be an undergrad. Grad student? Assistant prof? Maybe--hard maybe. Shitty place to park, though. He thought no more of it or him and walked on. 

The man walked along behind him; no big deal, people walk all over this campus. But it was that speed, that irritating speed where you can tell someone is behind you and you wish they’d either slow down or just fucking pass. But, no, they’re just going to walk right there in your blind spot at the same speed as you and just a little too close. What the hell?

There was a car pulled nose-out into the alley beside the taco shop. Another shitty place to park. Gravesby passed in front of it, gave the driver a wave of thanks for not running him over, and walked on. The car pulled out just as he passed.

That guy was still walking behind him. The fuck, guy?

The next alley up was too narrow for anything beside a bicycle (maybe a moped) to get through, but down at the end, perpendicular to the alley, pulled up as close as it could be, was a car. Weird. Gravesby looked at it, turned away, looked at it again. Blue car again?

There’s lots of blue cars in this town, damn. Way to be fucking paranoid, my dude. 

Yeah, but blue with tinted windows? Taco alley car had tinted windows, like, maybe too dark to be legal. Harder to tell with this one but definitely tinted windows.

He reached for his phone.

The man behind him finally decided to pass him, thank fuck. But as he did, he slammed against Gravesby’s shoulder, knocking him off-balance, knocking his phone out of his hand, and sending him a few steps closer to the mouth of the alleyway. 

“Ooh, wow, sorry about that,” Gravesby said, holding up his hands.

The man smiled at him. “No, no, my fault entirely.”

Gravesby nodded, giving a stiff smile in return, and turned to walk away.

And at that moment, the man rushed him, pushing him back into the alleyway with the flat side of a laptop case, driving him backwards into the dark of the alley.

Someone grabbed the strap of Gravesby’s bag and pulled. He turned to see the driver of the taco alley car holding on to the strap and someone else climbing out of the car. They pushed him against the brick wall and stood around him. Murals of jungle leaves and puzzle pieces soared above them.

Gravesby held up his hands, abject surrender. “If you want money, I’ve got basically none but you can have it. Phone, laptop, whatever--you can have it. PIN number. If you want me to withdraw everything in my bank account--” He was babbling, and shaking against the wall.

The three men around him all seemed so well-dressed, so professorial with their oxford cloth shirts. One was wearing wire-rimmed glasses. Another one was wearing an honest-to-fuck necktie. They could be adjunct professors or librarians, easy. Not the sort of people you’d think would corner anyone in a dark alley (holy shit, that is exactly what happened).

The one wearing the tie pushed him back against the wall, hard. Gravesby pressed himself against the bricks, palms flat against them. 

The one wearing glasses finally spoke. “Mr. Gravesby, we need you to come with us.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Gravesby answered, barely above a whisper.

The one in front of him jammed a hand against his throat, slamming him back against the wall. His grip tightened and Gravesby began to struggle and kick in earnest. 

But as soon as he kicked out, one of them caught his leg by the ankle and hoisted him up onto the toes of his other foot. The other caught up his other foot behind the knee and took him completely off his feet. He flailed, trying to catch hold of anything, with the hand still around his throat, but all he caught hold of were the tweed lapels of one of the three men, who quickly and calmly caught Gravesby up under the arms. 

Now pulled between them, caught arm and leg, he twisted, he wriggled, more like a caught fish or a worm. He should have screamed, he knew that, but struggling took up too much energy and too much thought. They carried him between them towards the car at the end of the alley. The one who caught him by the throat (finally letting go) hurried ahead of them and opened the back door of the car. Feet first, they pulled and jammed Gravesby into the back seat.

Now--and Gravesby tried to catch hold of the car’s roof, just above the open door, to try and pull himself out, to try and pull himself free. But there was nothing to hold to there; his fingers slipped across the metal with a squeal. 

The driver was back in the front seat, starting the engine. The back seat was more confined, and Gravesby was pushing against the man who had his feet, reaching for the open door, even pushing up against the roof, anything to make himself too much trouble to keep. No good: the man who held his feet was wrapping his ankles in duct tape and the back door closed and locked.

Still: Gravesby sprawled across the lap of the man beside him, reaching for the door handle, only to be pushed back, down, and away.

The car pulled away, down a side road, and away.

Gravesby was still kicking at the man taping up his ankles and didn’t pay enough attention to the one on his other side who caught hold of his arms and twisted them up, around, and behind him. A quick pull and Gravesby shouted at the pain, and stopped struggling (for a moment). Long enough, though, to find his wrists being wrapped in zip ties. He still wriggled against them.

The man with the tape caught Gravesby by the shoulders and shook him, shoving him into the middle of the backseat and holding him there. Everything was still for a moment: Gravesby, panting with the effort of it all, stared at the man who held him by his shirt-front and face. In the meantime, the other one had taken out a pair of silver scissors and started hacking at the strap of Gravesby’s bag--which broke the stillness.

Gravesby whirled around to see the scissors working away. “Hey, don’t cut my bag--that’s my shit!”

The other one gave him a quick slap across the face--enough to surprise, not enough to hurt. 

They tossed his bag into the front seat of the car.

Nearly to the interstate now. And Gravesby finally felt adrenaline turn into fear. “What the fuck. What the fuck.” He looked down at his taped-up ankles, breathing hard, trying not to vomit. “What the fuck. What the fuck.”

One of them was rubbing the back of his neck gently. It did nothing to soothe him.

“Nothing to worry about,” the driver said. And Gravesby looked up to meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. 

“You’ve got a long road ahead of you,” he went on, “so we’re going to need you to calm down. All right?”

“Here,” the man beside him said, holding out a paper cup with a pale blue pill in the bottom and a bottle of water.

“The fuck is it?”

“Just Xanax,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Bull fucking shit.”

“Mr. Gravesby, it could have been Rohypnol,” the driver said. “And I’m completely prepared to prepare something that require injection if that’s what will be required.”

“Just take it, son,” the third man said.

“Fucking--no?” 

The third man shrugged, reached over and covered Gravesby’s mouth with one hand and pinched his nose shut with the other. Gravesby twisted under his hands: no air, no breath, and no chance to take a breath before he’d clamped down his hands. 

Just as his chest began to burn, the man took his hand off Gravesby’s mouth. Gravesby gasped for air, mouth wide open, and suddenly tasted something bitter and chalky--the pill; he’d thrown the pill in his mouth in that split second, followed by a fast splash of water. The hand went back over his mouth, but now, at least, he let go of Gravesby’s nose. 

“Swallow it,” he said, calm and patient, into Gravesby’s ear and Gravesby shook his head.

“Swallow it,” he said again, beginning to pull along Gravesby’s throat like he was a dog refusing to take his medicine. “Come on now. Swallow it.”

Though he fought as long as he could, he did, finally, swallow the pill and the mouthful of water.

“Thatta boy,” the man said, finally taking his hand off Gravesby’s mouth. He gave his shoulder a shake, paternal, friendly.

“Need another drink?” the man with the bottle asked, holding it in front of Gravesby’s nose.

Gravesby eyed it suspiciously: bottled water, commercial label. Fine: he leaned over and put his mouth on it, took a drink, another, a third. 

“Got enough for now?” the man asked. 

Gravesby eyed him sidelong and nodded.

“You did add the Rohypnol to the water, though, didn’t you?” the driver asked.

“Of course,” the man with the bottle answered.

Gravesby looked at each one of the three of them in turn: the man with the bottle, the man beside him, the driver. His mouth hung open; nothing to say. 

“Then we’re off,” the driver said.

And the man beside him pulled a pillowcase over Gravesby’s head. And they all three waited.

See You in New York (part two)

A/N: The two week wait to see you again is up and Logan is thrilled to be in the Big Apple with you. (and I’m thrilled to write about it.) This boy’s got it bad. And no one’s going to feel unkissed after this part. 

Word Count: 5,220

*part one and the intro to this series services no longer required are available on my masterlist*

The alarm blared on the bedside table, bright red numbers flashing 5:45 am. Normally, he’d turn his alarm off on the weekends, enjoying the opportunity to sleep in, rolling in the sheets and pulling them up over his head to guard his closed eyes from the rising sun. But on Saturday, his first morning in New York, Logan was lying in bed, awake and alert a full twelve minutes before the buzzer sounded. City noise could be heard through the thick window panes, even up at the penthouse level. Buses, taxis and delivery vans crawled across the asphalt below, engines groaning and horns honking, trying to dislodge themselves from the traffic that had already begun to clog up the roads.  Wide awake in the city that never sleeps, Logan sighed to himself. An involuntary smile pulled at the corners of his mouth and he laughed, dragging his palm over his face. I’m in deep trouble.

He leaned over onto his side and silenced the alarm, grabbing the remote that controlled the drapes. Sitting up against the oversized pillows, he pressed the button that operated window coverings and watched as they slid open, the pleats sweeping the hardwood floor as the bright white morning light came into the room. Logan looked out over the city- your city- and excitement rose in his chest all over again at the thought of spending so much time with you. It was the same wave of adrenaline that he got when he boarded the plane at LAX, when he stepped off of it at LaGuardia, and when his lips finally touched yours, the faint flavor of your vanilla coffee creamer teasing his tongue. He ran it over his bottom lip as though he could still feel yours pressed there, and tossed the remote into the down duvet where it disappeared in a cloud of white blankets and sheets with a soft thud. Deep, deep trouble. 

Combing his hand through his hair, Logan blew out a breath, recalling the way you wound your fingers through it the night before. In the two weeks since you’d left California, Logan had spent more and more time thinking about you and how it would feel to finally get you as close as he wanted, to finally fill his hands with your curves and cover your lips with his. He thought about what it would be like to have someone in his arms that actually cared about him; someone who he’d admitted that he was falling for. Falling hard and fast. He thought about how you were the first person he’d allowed himself to think about this way.

Sitting up in bed, he pulled the sheets back to swing his legs over the side, planting his feet on the plush area rug. His hair fell free over his forehead as he stood, acknowledging the slight tenting in his boxer briefs with a shake of his head and a laughing sigh. Hard and fast alright. He gingerly strode over to his luggage and rifled through it to find a pair of loose fitting black basketball shorts and a dark gray tee. He pulled them on and grabbed a pair of socks and his sneakers, his phone, earbuds and room key, and headed for the gym to work off some of his excitement.  

But after two sets of push ups, dips, crunches and mountain climbers, Logan found that his morning workout routine was only fueling his thoughts. Every time he bent his elbows to 90 degrees, he saw your smile as you looked sideways at him, walking through the airport. Each time he lifted himself, locking his arms, he felt your forearm pressed against his, your fingers twined together. He recounted the entire evening with every curl, lift and press; your hand in his as you waited at baggage claim, the weight and warmth of it traveling through his veins and finding its way to his heart, the easy, comfortable way you chatted about your day and asked questions about his flight as though this were the hundredth time you’d met him at the arrivals gate. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a towel, grinning like a fool in the mirror as he replayed the moment that he told you he’d changed his reservation from the Four Seasons downtown to the Conrad, right in The Battery.

..  .. ..  .. ..  

“Alright, that all your luggage?” You motioned to the carry-on he had on his shoulder as well as the small, sleek black hard shell suitcase equipped with wheels and a pull handle, taking your phone from your pocket and Logan nodded. “I’ll call a ride. Four Seasons, right?” You hadn’t looked up from the app, tapping buttons to enter the destination when his hand covered your screen, fingers closing around your phone.

“Conrad,” he corrected you, smirk lifting one side of his mouth before his tongue came out to glide over his lips. He watched your eyes widen, delighting in the surprise that his change of plans had put there. “It’s closer. Closer to you, and you’re why I’m here. Don’t wanna sit in traffic for half an hour every time I’m gonna see you.” Don’t want to waste a second.

You bit your bottom lip before breaking into a smile, your eyes locked on his. “Good call, Delos,” you said, winking at him and pulling your phone back from his grasp to enter the new destination. You finalized the ride order and shoved your phone back in your pocket. “ETA says 5 minutes,” you told him, “We should head towards the pick-up spot.”

“After you,” he answered, trailing his suitcase behind him as you started walking. He reached for your hand with his free one, feeling your startled jump as he took it, enjoying the way your palm melded with his and the little tug you gave him.

“Oh, by the way,” you looked sideways at him as he fell into step next to you. He watched as the airflow from the pressurized doors that lead outside lifted a few strands of your hair as you walked through them, your fingers flying up to tuck it back into place. “Cynthia approved my time off request for Monday.” That’s good…because I have plans for you on Monday. Logan squeezed your hand as you continued.  “I stayed late today, finished up a few reports, switched some things on my schedule…but I know it’s your last day here and,” you shrugged, coming to a stop along the sidewalk where the designated Uber pick-up sign indicated. It’s not my last day anymore but I’ll take all the time I can get. “I wanted to make the most of it. Make the most of my time,” you rose up on your toes to meet his lips with yours and it was his turn to be caught off guard. “With you.” You ran your fingers through his hair before dropping flat to your feet again.

Logan caught your hand on its way back to your side, kissing your palm and grinning against your skin. “Good,” he said. Cause I want every minute. “More time for this.” Setting his suitcase down and letting the carry-on slump off of his shoulder to sit on top of the larger luggage, he slid one hand around to the back of your neck, right at the base of your skull. The other pulled your hand until your chest was pressed against his, releasing his grip as your palm landed on his hip. The city lights blinked and flashed, neons in every color, arrows and marquis highlighting restaurants, theatres, businesses and attractions, the sounds of cars and crowds filling the night. But it all faded as Logan kissed you for a second time, feeling you respond with just as much hunger. He’d kissed countless sets of lips, held innumerable bodies close to his, shared breath with men and women, humans and Hosts. But never had it been as thrilling, as satisfying, as right as it felt with you. Never had anyone kissed him back with anything more than lust or their own personal pleasure on their mind. But you’d spent six months getting to know him on a much deeper level than any of his former flings, and when you kissed him he felt a rush that was entirely new to him. This time he let both of his hands frame your face as his lips parted yours, tongue slipping into your mouth, taking it further than the first one had gone. It was next to impossible, but he stopped himself again from letting it progress passed the point of decency, even though he was certain he’d just found the last addiction he’d ever be at the mercy of. Take it slow, Delos, he reminded himself as he exhaled through his nose and peeled himself away from you. “More time to get to know you,” he said against your lips. Every part, every inch.

You sighed, dreamily. “More of that sounds good to me, Logan,” you leaned into his shoulder as his arm came around you, and he was again struck by how different it felt to have you this close to him after keeping you at such a distance for so long.

The urban symphony of screeching brakes, wailing sirens and groaning bus engines picked back up as a black sedan pulled up right in front of where you were standing. You confirmed that it was your ride, the driver hopping out and hurrying around to take Logan’s bags, stowing them in the trunk. Logan opened the back door for you, his hand automatically going to your elbow to help you in. You scooted across the seat as he got in next to you, his arm going around your shoulders to bring you close again as you beamed at him. Can’t get enough of that.

Once the driver had confirmed your destination and made the obligatory small talk, he turned the radio up a few notches and left the two of you in peace for the rest of the 38 minute drive through Manhattan. You looked over at him, and even though it was almost 10pm, he saw the shine in your eyes as you smiled, cutting through the darkness. “Hey,” you said softly, “I’m really glad you’re here, Logan.”

He felt his heart flip, a warm wave crashing through his chest, and he almost laughed at himself for how easily you affected him. “Me too,” he trailed his fingers up and down your tricep, soaking up every bit of contact that he could. “I could barely concentrate in my meetings this morning…almost cancelled them to get here sooner.” But I changed my travel plans enough already.

You blew out a laugh with a playful role of your eyes. “I’m sure whoever the meeting was with was glad that you didn’t cancel.”

He wrinkled his nose and curled his upper lip. “It was just a few other executives, different divisions. Can’t stand most of them to be honest with you.”

You reached up to touch the tip of his nose and he relaxed, the look of disgust vanishing under your touch. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Only sometimes,” he made to bite your finger as you laughed again, giving him a light smack on the arm. Only when it comes to you.  

You covered your mouth with the back of your hand, concealing a small yawn, grinning through it and apologizing. “C’mon, you’re not being a buzzkill already, are you?” He teased, turning to tuck the bridge of his nose against your temple before dragging it up until he replaced it with his lips, leaving a light peck there. The scent of your hair nearly overwhelmed him, and he took advantage of your yawn to inhale deeply.

“Some of us aren’t on West Coast Time, Delos, and some of us have been up since before the sun,” you reminded him, swallowing another yawn. Lips pressed together, you were determined not to let it out. Logan smiled, feeling his eyes shrink behind his cheeks. 

“Well I won’t keep you out too late tonight, promise.” Tomorrow though, that’s another story. “Think you can make it through a nightcap, killjoy?” 

Before you could answer, another yawn broke free pulling a genuine laugh from Logan that you joined in on once you’d sucked up more oxygen. “Yeah,” you nodded through your laughter. “Yeah I think I can stick it out.”

“What a trooper.”  

..  .. ..  .. ..  

After an hour in the gym, Logan headed back upstairs, sweat soaked towel slung around his neck and over both shoulders. The lobby was relatively quiet, just a few front desk employees and one or two exhausted souls on the hunt for coffee. Logan nodded and offered a polite “Good morning” to the few people that he passed as he made his way to the elevator. As he reached for the button to bring him to the penthouse level, the sound of high heels clicking against the floor caught his ear, followed by a frantic female voice.

“Wait! Hold it, please!”

Logan quickly pressed the hold button to suspend the doors as the owner of the voice came around the corner and into view. She was young: mid-twenties, average height and a slim waist with curves above and below it. Her red lips were perfectly painted, wavy hair swept off to one shoulder to show off a stunning pair of diamond stud earrings. Wearing a tight blue pencil skirt with a sheer white top and toting a leather briefcase, it was clear that she was dressed for work. On a Saturday… that’s dedication. She spilled into the elevator, nearly out of breath from her sprint through the lobby, and stopped breathing altogether when she laid her eyes on Logan.

“Oh!” She squeaked in surprise, gaze trailing up his long frame. “Thank you, I-“ she stuttered, openly staring as her eyes traveled up to his chest and the outline of the muscles that were visible beneath his shirt. “I’m running late and waiting for the elevator would…” she blew out a breath that turned into a nervous laugh. “You saved me!”

Damsel in distress. Logan had her pegged the moment he heard her heels down the hall, but her dramatics and the wide eyed way she was regarding him like some white knight in a fairy tale confirmed his diagnosis. “Don’t mention it,” he said with a smile, despite the inward roll of his eyes. “What floor?” He pointed to the circular buttons, the 15 already lit up.

Her eyes flicked to the keypad, noticing which floor he’d selected. “Twelve please,” she licked her lips and smiled while Logan nodded and pressed the number 12. “Thanks,” she said, smoothing her skirt out, hands lingering longer than necessary on her hips as she did. The elevator car started to move and Logan adjusted his stance to accommodate the shift in balance, the damsel reaching for the hand rail, just an inch or so shy of where his hand was. “I have this meeting this morning for a case I’m working on. I’m really nervous about it, I’m new to the office and I want to do everything right.” She batted her long lashes and pressed her lips together to plump them. Trying too hard isn’t the way to do things right. “Left my laptop plugged in to charge in my room and, well… if you hadn’t stopped the elevator, I’d probably miss my meeting and,” she sighed, another half laugh. “Anyway, I’m Kylie,” she stuck her hand out as she introduced herself.

“Logan, nice to meet you,” he took her hand and shook it once, immediately letting go even though she kept his palm in hers for a fraction longer. This elevator can’t move quickly enough. “Good luck with your meeting, Kylie.” He gave her a closed lipped smile as the lights above the door showed floor 8-9-10.

“Thanks,” she leaned against the railing, her shirtsleeve brushing against his arm. He avoided contact by gripping the towel around his neck, eyes darting up to the numbers. Let’s go, come on. The old Logan would have either told her to fuck off or pressed the stop button and fucked her right there between the 11th and 12th floors. But after working with you to improve his image, he found that the old Logan wasn’t who he wanted to be anymore, even if the niceties were sometimes inconvenient. “Hey, maybe I’ll see you around, Logan. Maybe we can get a drink later tonight after my meetings?” The door slid open but she didn’t move, just blinked at him as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Logan cleared his throat. Absolutely fucking not. “I’m actually seeing someone, so I’m going to have to pass on that drink. But thanks for the offer. Have a nice day.” He kept his lips in a firm line as he looked from her to the open doors. Reluctantly, she returned the sentiment and exited the elevator, shooting him one last look over her shoulder. The doors closed leaving Logan alone again and he sighed, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ, could she be more desperate?” he mumbled to himself, half amused with Kylie’s clear attempts to get in his pants, half amused with how much he’d changed. The doors opened again on the 15th floor and he exited, still shaking his head.

He let himself back into his room, setting his card key down on the small coffee table in the sitting area before heading for the shower. He tossed the sweaty towel on the bathroom floor, letting it smack against the tile as he peeled his gym clothes off and kicked them off to the side. Logan reached into the stall to turn on the water, and waited a few seconds for it to heat up before stepping under the rainfall showerhead. He stretched his back until he felt a small pop with the release of a knot, then stepped into the stall, the warm water washing away the sweat and all remaining residue of the elevator interaction with Kylie. As the droplets ran between his shoulder blades and soaked his hair, his thoughts returned again to you and the events of the previous night.

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  

The driver pulled up in front of the impressive red brick building, the chrome colored marquis and large letters boasting the hotel’s name vibrantly lit against the night. Logan got out of the car first, offering you his hand as the driver scurried to the trunk to grab his bags. Your fingers were light on his palm as he helped you out onto the sidewalk, giving you a grin as you closed the car door behind you. “Thanks,” you said, mirroring his grin. He answered by bringing your hand to his lips with a wink as the driver set his luggage on the curb.

Logan reluctantly pulled his focus from you and turned to the driver, pulling a $50 bill out of his wallet and handing it to the wide eyed man who sputtered with gratitude before getting back into his vehicle. He turned back to you, offering his hand again, linking his fingers with yours. “Shall we?” He cocked his head towards the doors and you nodded as he picked up his bags. A uniformed employee sprang to open the doors for the two of you, welcoming you to The Conrad, and Logan felt a rush of excitement, the whole trip becoming more real now that he was inside the hotel with you by his side. He turned to face you, dropping your hand and placing both of his on your shoulders, letting them run down your arms. “I’m gonna go check in and get rid of these,” he shrugged towards the bag on his shoulder and the one at his feet. “Why don’t you wait for me at the bar, and I’ll be right there.”

“Sounds good, Logan, see you in a minute,” you turned to head for the stairs that lead up to the bar but he pulled your wrist, spinning you back into him and causing a tingling laugh to spill from your soul and your free hand to fall to his chest. It brightened his heart.

“I’ll be quick,” he promised, voice low as he stroked the inside of your wrist with the pads of his fingers, locking his eyes on yours. Now that he could look at you the way he wanted, could touch you and feel your body against his own, could intoxicate himself with your lips and tongue, he didn’t want to let you out of his sight, not even for a few minutes. But he hadn’t told you about his extended stay yet, and he wanted it to be a surprise so he let go of your wrist and swallowed as he watched you head towards the staircase before making his way to the front desk for check-in.  He turned his bags over to the bellhop, along with another fifty from his wallet before following in the direction you’d just gone in.

Atrio, the hotel bar, was situated a few floors up, and he took the stairs two at a time in some places, long legs trying to get him back to you as quickly as possible. As he reached the entry, he undid the button on his jacket and his focus fell on you. You were sitting at the bar, your back turned to the entrance, and he took a moment to drink in the sight of you beneath the low lights. He saw your shoulders shake as you laughed at something the bartender said, the man passing two darkly colored cocktails to you as you thanked him. You stirred one with the small plastic garnish skewer as you turned slowly towards where he stood, smile brightening your face with more light than the bulbs hanging overhead. Logan’s heart beat out of rhythm as he walked over to you. This is really happening. We’re really… this is real. Miraculously, he kept completely cool, pulling out the chair beside you and leaning in to leave a quick kiss to your cheek. “Hey, stranger,” he said. “You come here often?”

You laughed as he sat down, passing him his drink. “Once before, but I’ve never seen you here.” Biting your lip you looked up at him through your lashes. “Guess it’s my lucky night.” You couldn’t keep up the façade any longer, breaking into a laugh that curved your lips around the sound.  

Logan took the drink from you, his fingers brushing yours against the cool rim of the glass. “Nah, I’m the lucky one,” he said, lifting his glass. “To New York,” he toasted. To you.

“New York,” you said, clinking your glass to his and taking a sip.

Logan did the same, the rich flavor of bourbon mixing with berries, mint and a slight hint of almond. That’s fantastic. “What are we drinking?” he asked you.

“In honor of your change in reservations,” you pointed to the menu at the cocktail labeled The Battery and Logan chuckled.  

“How apropos,” he responded. “Hope you didn’t mind that I didn’t tell you about the change in plans,” he shrugged. “Wanted to surprise you.” I have a few more up my sleeve, too.

“It’s okay, Logan, I like surprises…good ones,” you clarified and he chuckled again.

“Noted.” That’s one thing I didn’t know before today. “So, I was thinking,” you set your drink down on the square napkin in front of you, eyes on him and arms folded over the bar top. “You know a lot more about me than I know about you.” You nodded, raising your eyebrow. “Well I wanna change that, level the playing field so to speak.” You laughed with a small shake of your head. “What? You got a whole file on me and all my secrets,” he raised his glass to his lips, eyeing you over the top of it. “I wanna know you as well as you know me.” And then some.     

“Seems fair, Delos,” you turned in your seat so that your body was squared with him and perpendicular to the bar. “But let’s make it fun.” Your eyes twinkled mischievously and he had to hold back a groan at the thought of how much fun he wanted to have with you. “I’ll tell you three things about me, and you tell me which one is a lie.”

“Alright,” Logan ran his bottom teeth along his lip. “Let her rip.” He took another sip of his drink as you thoughtfully looked up at the ceiling, trying to come up with your three statements.

“Okay, got it.” You took a drink, licking the spare drops from your lip, causing Logan to wonder how much better it tasted on your skin. “I have two younger brothers, I’ve never been out of the country, and my favorite holiday is the Fourth of July.” You pressed your lips together and narrowed your eyes.

“Really?” Logan sat back in his chair, casually leaning his elbow against the seat. “You’ve never been out of the country?”

Your eyes widened and your mouth dropped open. “That was… how did you…”

Logan laughed. “I’ve always been able to tell when people are lying, and that one was definitely the lie. So what’s your favorite foreign city?”

“Barcelona,” you answered, and he nodded appreciatively, telling you that he loved it there as well. He asked you about your brothers and about your favorite way to celebrate the 4th, both of you taking periodic sips from your drinks.

“Okay, round two,” he said, “try to gimme a hard one this time.”

“A challenge, Delos?” You asked, finishing your beverage. “Alright. Let’s see you figure this one out.” You shook your hair back from your shoulders and he caught the scent of your shampoo on the air. This is already a challenge. He was having a hard time keeping his hands and lips to himself, fighting with himself about taking you upstairs and learning different kinds of things. “I did a triathlon for charity, I broke my hand punching my sister’s ex in the face,” Logan’s eyes lit up in an amused fashion at that one. “And I’m allergic to peanuts.”

“Oof, peanuts, that’s a tough one,” he said, expertly picking one of the truths off without having to think. He eyed you carefully as he finished his drink. “I’m curious what your sister’s ex did to get punched. But you don’t strike me as a swimmer, so the triathlon is out.”

“How are you so good at this?” You laughed, looking down at your empty glasses.

He shrugged. “Just one of my many talents, I guess.”

You rolled your eyes. God I can’t get enough of that. When you were working for him, the roll of your eyes or the suggestion of something he didn’t want to do annoyed him in that it didn’t annoy him at all. And now, he was looking for ways to make you roll your eyes because he liked what it did to him. The bartender came by and asked if you wanted another round.

“What do you think, Logan?” You looked to him for an answer.

Yes. I don’t want the night to end yet. But you yawned again, and he looked down at his watch, the hands pointing towards 12. “As much as I wanna keep picking out your lies,” he scrunched his nose as he smiled. “I think I better get you home before you pass out on the bar.” You smacked his knee as you tried and failed to stifle another yawn. He placed his card on the bar and the bartender took it, running the payment and handing it back to Logan who signed it without looking, leaving a 100% tip.

You stood from your seat and Logan did the same, reaching for your hand the moment that you were both up and out of your chairs. It had only been a few hours, but he was already more used to the feel of your palm pressed to his than he should be. “Can I walk you home?” he asked, “It’s late and-“

You nodded, rising on your toes to kiss him like you had earlier in the night. “What a gentleman,” you said against the corner of his mouth. He grinned and let go of your hand to slip his arm around your waist, leading you out of the bar and back down the mahogany staircase.

Once the two of you stepped outside, Logan turned to you. “You’re gonna have to lead the way here.”

“No problem,” you smiled. “This way,” you said, tilting your head in the direction of the waterfront. “Let’s walk passed the park.”

The way was lined with well-manicured shrubs and a fence, the river visible passed the waterfront park. Lights in shades of pastels in the distance caught Logan’s attention. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.

“Oh!” You smiled at him, pressing closer with excitement. “We can go there tomorrow. That’s the Sea Glass carousel, it’s beautiful, one of my favorite things in The Battery. Instead of horses, they’re all fish and the whole thing is encased in glass and… well, you’ll see.”

He smiled and squeezed you closer. “Can’t wait.”

The walk was quick, just a few minutes, and before you knew it you were standing in front of your building. “Well, this is me,” you said, opening your arms wide. Before you could drop them he stepped closer, sliding his arms beneath yours and pulling you into a tight hug.

He could feel your heart beat against his own chest, and the uneven rhythm made his soar. “I’m looking forward to the next few days with you,” he said, one hand sliding up between your shoulder blades, the other pressed to the small of your back. “Thank you, for saying yes.”

“That makes two of us, Logan,” you whispered into his shirt. “And of course I said yes, I…”

He gave a squeeze to cut you off, sensing that you were about to say something a little too serious for the sidewalk. He pressed his lips to the top of your head and rubbed both hands over your back, indicating the end of the embrace. “I’ll see you bright and early, okay? I want to take you for breakfast, I…” he looked down at his shoes before looking back up and meeting your eyes. “You said once that there’s a French Bakery around here that you liked so I looked it up and… Can you meet me there at 8 tomorrow?”

Your shocked expression was more than enough to promise the sweetest dreams. “You remembered…” Of course I did. “Yeah… yeah, I’ll see you at 8. Goodnight, Logan.”

“Goodnight, buzzkill,” he leaned down and gave you a quick kiss. Ending it was the hardest thing he’d done since getting clean, but he did. Tomorrow's gonna be even better. He watched you disappear into your building before turning back towards the hotel. The stars weren’t visible in the sky behind the pollution of the city lights, but he felt them beneath his feet as he headed back to The Conrad. I am in trouble.    

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@something-tofightfor @its-my-little-dumpster-fire @suchatinyinfinity @lexxierave @thesumofmychoices @belladonnarey @ymariejp @obscurilicious @songtoyou @gollyderek @traeumerinwitzhelden @breanime @drinix 

If you’d like to be added or removed just let me know! :) 

A Fateful Encounter (2/2)

Here’s the second and final part of my collab with @nerdlycharming. This is apparently a series now because we cannot be stopped. Look for more collabs from us in the future! #sorrynotsorry

Word count: ~3000

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Michael had nearly given up hope after four days of silence from Quinn. He worked every day during that time and had seen neither hide nor hair of his friend. The first day, he figured Quinn was just sleeping off the rest of the illness, but by the second day, he was convinced he'd done something wrong. Now, at 8 o'clock on the fourth day, he was sure he would never see Quinn again.

He was on his couch, trying and failing to read his murder mystery - he just couldn't focus. He kept thinking about how lovely he was and all the things he did that were wrong and messed things up with Quinn. He wasn't even sure if it was better to know what messed him up was not his being gay but everything else about him instead, or if that as worse.

Then, a knock on the door made him nearly jump out of his skin. “Just a minute!” He called out, voice cracking a bit. He cleared his throat and stuck his bookmark in place before going to answer his door. Though his previous trail of thought was still fresh, he had no idea whatsoever about who could be at the door.

When Michael opened the door, his face nearly collided with a large cardboard box. It teetered some, before a dusty-colored brunette poked his head around the side.

Michael hastily grabbed the box from him, unable to keep a massive grin from his face. He chuckled, “Surprise indeed, I thought I'd never hear from you again!” He turned to set the box down inside. “Come, come in! You still look like you're gonna keel over!” His tone was joking, but he was still obviously concerned.

Quinn was still smiling, even when he shook his head and stepped back out of the doorway. “We can talk later. I need to get the rest of my stuff from the van before it starts pouring.” If it wasn't one thing it was another; the sky was overcast and gray and threatening to open up at any minute. The last thing Quinn wanted was for himself and his belongings to get drenched.

“Oh!” Michael exclaimed and immediately grabbed his coat--a grey plaid jacket that was lined in a fuzzy material--and putting it on over his black t-shirt with skull design. “I'll help you!” He offered, rushing to the door to assist in any way he could. He wasn't very strong, but an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt.

“Thanks,” Quinn said, leading Michael out to the moving van. He'd rented it for today and tomorrow, just to make sure he had time to get his stuff moved. He also wanted to make sure Michael even still wanted him for a roommate, but judging by how eager he was to help, Quinn could only assume that everything was okay.

The van had a mattress and a desk and a small collection of boxes, but nothing that would take too long if they worked together. “Do you mind helping me with the heavy stuff? My old roommate helped me get it in here, but I don't think I can unload it by myself.”

“Absolutely!” Michael was enthusiastic at first but only a second later he seemed to frown a bit. “I'm not very strong though, I dunno how helpful I'll be able to be.” He hoped he could be useful but his arms had more in common with overcooked spaghetti than muscle tissue.

“We can see how it goes,” Quinn said, shrugging. He wasn't particularly strong either. He'd lifted his brother a few times, but things had been dire and he was sure his strength had come from adrenaline alone. “I think they're more awkward than actually heavy. We just need to find a good grip. Let's get the mattress first.”

With a small nod Michael agreed and set out to grab hold of the mattress. “If you don't have a bed frame, I'm pretty sure my old roommate left his?” He wasn't terribly sure but his room had had one in it already, too, but it wasn't the size of his bed. It was a twin and his was a full.

“How shall we do this? Shall I go backwards or would you like to?” He way rightly sure he cared either way, but he was worried that going backwards might make Quinn dizzy - after all he still appeared to be a bit ill or at least still rundown from it.

“I'll go backwards,” Quinn offered. “Just make sure I don't run into anything.” He was all smiles now—completely different than how he'd been a few days ago. There was still a slight ache to his muscles and he definitely wasn't in top form, but he thought it helped a lot just to be able to go outside and move around, even if the weather was anything but favorable. “Ready?”

Another small nod from Michael signaled the go ahead and they began lifting. Quinn was still stronger than Michael, even still sick as he clearly was. They struggled into the building but a large jock stopped them by the elevator.

“You guys need some help?” He asked, switching his basketball to his other hip.

Quinn seemed to become bashful around the stranger. He'd met Michael mostly by accident and hadn't really gotten around to meeting anyone else. “I'm okay, thanks,” he said, looking at Michael. “Are you holding up over there?” He didn't want to answer for Michael if his friend was truly struggling.

Struggling or not, Michael shook his head but did not speak as of yet. He didn't want to look weak at all but especially not in front of Quinn. He hated it when people thought him weak or fragile.

The jock guy shrugged and left, helping at least to make sure they could get into the elevator before the doors closed.

“You sure you're good?” Michael asked, panting a bit.

Quinn nodded. He was a little more breathless than he'd usually be, but he wasn't worried about it.

The elevator opened and they shuffled out with the mattress, Quinn doing his best to look over his shoulder to make sure he didn't run into anything or anyone.

They made it to the apartment without incident. “Can you get the door? Or do we need to set it down and regroup?” Michael was not great at moving furniture so he was pretty unsure about things. He wasn't even totally sure the bed would make the turn into the apartment.

“I think I got it, just—” Quinn leaned his back against the wall, and balanced the mattress on his knee while he struggled with the doorknob. The mattress was a lot heavier than he expected, and he was tempted to just lean it against the nearest wall and call it done. But he also didn't want to put it off another day when they could easily just take care of it now.

“Got it,” he said once the door was slightly ajar and he regained his hold on the bed. “D’you think we can set it down and maybe just slide it across the floor?”

Michael was fatigued by now too but he simply had no excuse as Quinn had. He nodded before realising Quinn couldn't see. “Yeah...that works…” He was trying to remember now how many boxes Quinn had but he just couldn't. “My floor is clean.”

Quinn nodded. He hadn't been worried about dirt so much as not being able to hold the mattress for much longer. His limbs felt funny, like they were slowly but surely taking on the consistency of jelly. At least the desk wouldn't be as awkward to carry, he told himself as they set the mattress down.

Sliding it across the floor proved to be a much easier and effective way to move the mattress and in no time they had it in his new room and nestled securely on the bed frame Michael had mentioned. “Okay, the desk is next, and then maybe half a dozen boxes. Those aren't as heavy, I promise,” Quinn added sheepishly, thinking that Michael probably hadn't expected to help him move all his stuff in when he'd offered to be his roommate. “You doing okay?”

Despite the fatigue in his arms and legs Michael was still smiling back at him. “I'm alright, it's you I'm worried about, you look a bit peaky still.” He commented with a face full of concern.

The rest of the move went smoothly until it started pouring right before they went out for the last of Quinn's belongings. He tried to convince Michael that he didn't need to come out in the rain, but his friend was having none of it, so together they sprinted back and forth from the van, splashing through puddles and being pelted by cold rain.

They were both drenched by the time they'd finished, and Quinn remained just inside the doorway, his arms wrapped around himself as he shivered, teeth chattering. His movements had grown sluggish after they'd moved the desk into his room, his breathing ragged and fatigue weighing heavily on him.

He wasn't sure whether Michael had noticed any changes in him, but he knew it would be difficult to ignore the water dripping off his clothes as he trembled against the wall. He'd quickly noticed that Michael kept the place incredibly tidy and Quinn was worried about leaving water on the floor if he crossed the hallway into his bedroom.

“I-I’ll be r-right back. I n-need to move the van,” Quinn said. He'd left it parked out by the curb, but now that they were finished, he figured he should park it properly.

Michael shook his head, “you should go take a warm shower, I'll move the van.” He didn't mention the fact that he wasn't supposed to operate machinery. It would be fine with such a short distance, right? Just as long as he didn't encounter any strobe lights?

“Then, I'll make some tea, yeah?” He offered a smile. “There's leftover pasta in the fridge too, the noodles are home made!” He seemed to be quite proud of that.

“I can't ask you to do that,” Quinn said, shaking his head and sniffling, “especially because you already helped me move all my stuff in, and now you're soaked because of me.” He pulled the keys out of his pocket, muffling a cough into his elbow. “Plus, I'm the only one on the lease and the only one allowed to drive it.” He gave Michael a sheepish smile before ducking back out into the rain, hopefully for the last time today.

Quinn might not have looked the type, especially with how he seemed to run himself to exhaustion, but he was a stickler for following the rules. He took them very seriously.

Michael figured that was probably for the best, he was never totally sure when he'd have a seizure and he always looked away when he was in a car, terrified that any form of flashing lights would cause one even though he knew it to be unlikely.

Still, he felt honourbound to follow, though, jogging to catch up. “Hey! I'll come too!” He called out. “You shouldn't have be the only one in the rain, plus, who would help if you keel over again?” He teased.

Quinn gave a lighthearted chuckle as they climbed into the van. Whether because he was cold and wet or from the move itself, he wasn't sure, but he didn't really feel so great. He was dizzy and tired and achy and cold, and for the first time that day, he began to wonder if he overdid it again.

He backed the van into the first spot he could find, and despite being eager to get back inside where it was warm, he walked through the parking lot like he was moving through a tub of molasses. Ducking his head and wearing his hood did little to protect him from the sheets of rain that continued to fall.

Michael took off his jacket and put it around Quinn. “Come on, let's get this over with and get you warmed back up.” He wasn't sure where the boundaries were yet, but he could definitely be a mother hen type regardless of the relationship.

“I think you may have overdone it a bit. You should probably take a warm shower and head right to bed.” As much as he wanted to spend more time getting to know his new friend, he knew that would be better for him.

Quinn was still shaking as they walked through the front door. He felt guilty about taking Michael's jacket and having him help him move and a whole slew of other things that Michael had done for him in the short time they'd known each other. “I just want to c-change clothes and s-sit down for a bit.”

“You really should warm up first…” Michael seemed pretty worried about him but he nodded. “It's up to you though, I can't make you shower or anything.” He chuckled awkwardly knowing he'd just done something odd. “I'll go put the kettle on.”

And with that he shuffled away quickly to the kitchen, presumably to go start the tea. He felt flustered knowing how odd he'd just been, he meant well, he really did.

If Quinn thought anything about Michael's behavior he didn't say it, instead shuffling to his new bedroom for a change of clothes. He searched through his dufflebag for something warm, finally changing into pajama pants and a sweatshirt.

He felt sluggish and weak, like he had a fever, and he was willing to bet that he did. Crossing back into the living room, he noticed Michael still standing at the kitchen. “You haven't changed? You're just as soaked as I am.”

Michael jumped, Quinn having brought him back to reality. “What? Oh uh...yeah, I was just waiting for the tea.” He gestured to two steaming mugs beside him. “They're just about done steeping.”

He carefully picked them up and brought one over to Quinn and kept hold of his own, trying to commandeer its warmth for himself as he was shivering too.

“Go ahead and watch whatever you want,” he said with a head nod toward the living room television. “I think I may go have a shower actually.” He looked terribly frozen now in the light of the living room. He sipped at his tea before setting it down on a side table and heading off towards the bathroom.

Once Quinn was alone, he got comfortable on the couch and stared down into his tea. He enjoyed having the warmth leak into his fingertips rather than actually drinking it. It was nothing against Michael's tea-making ability, though.

Quinn had done a lot of thinking about Michael over the last few days. Sometimes he had a hard time getting his friend’s image out of his head even when he tried. There was something about him, and maybe it was because he'd been so incredibly kind and helpful when Quinn had really needed it, but now Quinn couldn't help but wonder—was he developing a crush?

He stared down absently into his drink until it started to cool, wondering how this would all play out.

Michael returned after a while, also in pajamas. He smiled at Quinn after sipping at his tea. He settled easily on the opposite end of the couch and became engrossed in the show, occasionally sipping at his drink.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, breaking the relative silence.

“Not great,” Quinn answered honestly, giving a halfhearted shrug. He gave a small smile, trying to convey and reassure that he wasn't nearly as bad off as last time. “Guess it was too early to be moving furniture and traipsing around in the rain, huh?”

Michael gave a small giggle. “Guess so.” He stood up and grabbed the throw blanket from before and tossed it at Quinn, not tucking him in like before. “I hope you feel better soon. Did you get any pasta by the way?”

Quinn shook his head. “I'm not really hungry. Haven't been since the other day. Thank you, though.” He yawned, burying himself in the blanket. It wasn't weird for him to snuggle with Michael's blanket, was it? After all, his friend had given it to him to use, and he really was still cold. “You like Pokemon?” he asked curiously, eyeing the pattern on the throw.

Michael nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, I'm kinda nerdy honestly…” he admitted, blushing nearly as red as the blanket.

“What about you? What do you like?”

Quinn might have replied that he liked researching and learning, scary movies, pizza, and the color blue, but as Michael was looking over to hear his response, he noticed that Quinn had dozed off already, his head leaning back against the cushions and the blanket tucked snugly around his body. Michael smiled at this, mumbling a quick goodnight before heading to his own room and settling into a new book.

It wouldn't have been either boy's ideal first night with a new roommate, but there was nothing to be done about it now, and that just meant they had the rest of their college careers to get to know each other.

Pod Malfunctions because Keith is galra and Allura is racist af

Lo

This was fun, sorry it took so long! Also, I got a bit carried away with Allura’s part because I felt like her unfairness towards Keith during this arc in the actual show was completely ignored and she received no consequence for her actions towards him and I hate that Allura was just allowed to be openly racist and. Yeah.

If you want to request something from me for my @badthingshappenbingo send me an ask/pm(As long as it isn’t Hair Matted with Blood, Punctured Lung[I actually have two requests for this and I will be doing both because one is Banana Fish] or Locked Up and Left Behind)

~

Lance's hands were a bright, startling red. They were moist and sticky, catching on Keith's dark uniform as he held him under the arms, dragging him. He gritted his teeth, grunting.

"Work with me here, Keith," He breathed. Keith, of course, didn't answer. He'd been unconscious for half of their trip, limp and deadweight. Lance hissed as he took another step, the gash on his leg oozing blood and sending hot jolts of pain through his weary body.

A long, bloody tail followed them like a grim trail of breadcrumbs that Lance feared would lead their enemies right to them. He wouldn't be able to fight them off if they did, not if he wanted both Keith and himself to make it out alive.

The speakers in his own helmet buzzed in his ear, possibly irreparably damaged, he didn't know, but he held Keith's helmet close, just in case. He hadn't seen any signs of damage but, with the way the rest of the man was, he wasn't hopeful that the piece of tech had fared any better.

He didn't think they were too far from Blue if he remembered correctly. He hoped so, at least, because he felt like they'd been walking for an eternity--Or he had been, Keith wasn't exactly a receptive party at the moment. They'd found Red already, busted to shit and unresponsive even to Keith's weary touch. Lance had seriously considered just camping out there until the team found them.

If they found them.

Thankfully, Keith had made his decision easy, passing out in a pile of bloody limbs. He wouldn't have made it if they stayed. As it was, Lance wasn't he was going to make it. Then again, he wasn't a doctor maybe it was better than it seemed?

He glanced down at Keith's face, dirty and blood-caked, his chest barely raising for stuttered air. He grimaced. Didn't have to be a doctor to see just how bad that was.

He didn't rest until they reached his lion, his princess.

He'd only managed a weak smile and a hand roughed over the cold, metallic paw before his legs gave out underneath him, trembling as he fell to the ground.

He gripped Keith's hand as tightly as he could as his eyes clenched shut in pain, he wouldn't be able to get back up, he knew. He didn't know how he'd managed as long as he had with the throb in his leg, thrumming like a jackhammer inside of his skin.

He looked up at Blue, covering the sun. He would have to wait for help to arrive. He looked down as Keith.

He never was any good at waiting.

~

He didn't know how long he'd been lying there, trying to keep his grasp on reality steady until help came. But help did come, and that was what was important in this instance.

His help came in the form of one glorious beast of a man, bi-colored and half robot to boot. Shiro was kneeled by his side, concern flooding his face as he spoke in hushed tones. "Lance? Are you with me?"

"Shiro," Lance replied softly, his voice tasted metallic on his tongue.

There was a crease between Shiro's boxy eyebrows as his eyes flickered between Lance and Keith behind him. Their hands were still intertwined and it was through that that Lance knew he was still alive--and if that wasn't just the best thing.

"I'm going to get Keith into my lion first and then I'll come back for you, alright?" Shiro said. Lance nodded with a soft sigh. He didn't mind waiting a couple more minutes for his own personal rescue; he wasn't in any rush, if he were to be honest. The warmth of the planet actually felt kind of nice. "Okay, I'll only be a moment."

Shiro stepped behind him and Lance felt Keith's hand being removed from his and the warmth of Keith disappearing from his side and soon Shiro was running away, Keith's limp form in his arms.

Lance might've dozed for a moment, he didn't really know, but the next thing he knew, he was the one being lifted. "Are you still with me, Lance?"

"Mhm," Lance said. He was parched, his lips cracked and bleeding.

Shiro was running, much like he did with Keith, and while the air whipping around them burned into him, he thought it felt nice. "How badly injured are you?"

Lance took a moment to swallow before responding, "Just m' leg, mostly."

Shiro cut him a short, skeptical look. "Also thirsty," Lance remedied.

"There should be a couple of canteens in my lion," Shiro told him. The words were music to Lance's ears and he let his eyes slip closed as Shiro ran them to the lion that would finally take them home.

Keith had taken the spare cot set in the corner of the cockpit and Shiro gave him an apologetic look as he set him up to lean against the pilot's seat. It wasn't terribly comfortable, but Keith was in a much worse way than he was, so he didn't have many complaints.

Shiro disappeared, briefly, but came back with a solid four canteens of water that looked like absolute heaven. Lance clutched all four of them in his lap, swiftly opening one and taking large portions out of the metal tin at once. Shiro looked mildly concerned, but let him be.

"I'm taking off, now. Coran should have a pod ready by the time we get there," Shiro informed him after tending to Keith more thoroughly. Now the man looked less like death and a bit more like the bloody plague.

"How long?" Lance asked in one of the brief moments he pulled his liquid goddess away from his mouth.

Shiro's lips twisted. "A day. At least."

The time sent a flare of anxiety through Lance's chest. He really hoped Keith was better off than he thought because if he wasn't, he didn't know how Keith would fare.

~

Their trip took a day and a half and Lance was proud to say he felt much better than he had before. He and Shiro had cleaned up his leg and any other injury he might have sustained and, thankfully, none of them had festered; his dehydration and utter exhaustion was the thing that had really pulled him down. Man, it was tough dragging a one-sixty-something dude around for hours with an injury.

Keith had seen much improvement with the little care guide Shiro had been given by Coran in order to keep him stable until he could get into a pod and something settled in Lance when he saw the color returning to Keith's cheeks.

Lance still wasn't quite strong enough to be the one to carry Keith out of the black lion, but Shiro had no qualms in doing it. Lance had a slight limp as they shuffled out of the lion and the first things that greeted them were Coran, Allura, and the other paladins waiting for them in the doorway, worry and anxiousness etched onto their faces.

Coran stepped forward. "How is he?"

Shiro gave him a small smile and Lance could see everyone relax at the motion. "He's a lot better. Worse for wear, but he should be fine after a while in the healing pod."

"Follow me," Coran beckoned, the others in the doorway parting to let them pass.

Lance stood behind Coran as he operated the control panel, lifting a pod. Shiro gently set Keith in, resting the man's arms over his chest. He stepped away and gave Coran a thumbs up.

Coran raised some bars on the touchpad and quirked some dials before, finally, the pod closed on Keith and freezing began.

Lance felt relieved for all of two seconds before he saw Coran's face. Shiro seemed to notice too, glancing at them uncertainly. "Coran?"

Coran frowned and opened his mouth but before words could escape him, the lights overhead began flashing a panicked red.

"Coran?" Lance's voice was high. "What does that mean?"

"This can't be..." Coran murmured.

"Coran!" Shiro's voice was tight with panic. Lance saw him leaning up against the pod's window, his eyes frantic. He looked at them, "He can't breathe!"

Something in Coran's face set in an instant. "Disengaging."

Shiro was quick to catch Keith as he fell out of the pod, Lance could immediately see his eyes roving over the man's chest as if to check that he was still breathing. he seemed satisfied with what he found and held Keith close, looking up at Coran. "What happened?"

Coran's lips twisted, a look of dark uncertainty gracing his face as he stared down at Keith. Behind them, the doors opened and Allura rushed in with Pidge and Hunk filing in after her. "What on Earth happened?"

"Come here, princess, I think you should see this," Coran said, stepping back and away from the pad. Lance peered over at it.

"What? What happened? I don't--" He let out a huff of frustration, wishing he had accepted Coran's offer of learning how to operate the thing when the opportunity was given to him.

Allura stepped up with a gentle frown as pidge and Hunk went to Shiro and Keith. She looked down and her face seemed to freeze. "What?"

"Coran, Keith needs attention." Shiro's voice was hard, laced with adrenaline and deep concern. Lance nodded in agreement, looking towards the princess, but gone was all concern from her face, eerily replaced by a stone wall of ferocity.

Coran stared at the side of her head for a moment before returning his gaze to Shiro. "Take him to the med bay--"

"No."

Lance's head snapped towards Allura. "What?"

Allura met his gaze evenly, something awfully close to betrayal embedded in her eyes. "I won't have his kind treated on my ship." She raised her chin as if to punctuate her words.

"What are you talking about!?" Lance exclaimed in disbelief. He threw an arm out towards Keith. "This is Keith. Keeeeeeith. He's our friend and he needs help."

Disgust was the only thing she replied with. "My decision is final," she spat.

"Excuse me?" Lance looked to Shiro. The man had a storm in his eyes.

"I don't know what possessed the red lion to accept him as her own, but nothing good comes of him being here," Allura said.

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked, taking a step away from the woman he so fancied.

"Princess..." Coran laid a gentle hand on her arm. "Do not let yourself be blinded by your hatred."

They exchanged an emotionally-charged stare-down and Lance was done. He threw his arms up. "What the hell?! Someone explain to me what's happening because, if you hadn't noticed, Keith could literally be dying!"

"Why didn't the pod work, Coran?" Shiro asked. "What's going on?" This was more of an agitated growl.

Coran looked down. "The pods won't work on those with galra blood."

Something in Lance's mind lagged as his neck twisted to look between Shiro and Coran. His jaw worked for a moment. "But... what? I don't... Keith's human," He finished with certainty. As he looked around, though, he became less certain. "... Right?"

Coran shook his head. "Not entirely, my boy."

"Okay... okay. Keith's part galra or whatever, cool, great, okay, doesn't make him any less dying," he said, throwing his arms out towards Keith.

Coran seemed to understand, willing to put aside whatever issues he had with it. Allura, however, turned on Lance. "After what his kind," she spat the word like it burned her tongue, "did to my people, he's not welcome to receive treatment on my ship any longer. If you have any problems with that, you're welcome to go with him."

"Go with him where?" Lance asked, straightening.

"Coran, Keith," Shiro interrupted in a harsh breath.

With one last, almost sad glance towards his princess, Coran was on the move towards Shiro and Keith, barking, "Get him to the infirmary."

Shiro nodded, picking Keith up gently. "Hunk, Pidge, come help."

Hunk and Pidge, who had been watching on with confusion, snapped into action, briskly following after them. Allura's fists clenched and she moved to follow but lance stepped in her way, arms crossed. "What do you think you're doing?" She asked.

"After what you just said about my buddy?" Lance barked out a humorless laugh. "You're not going with them."

"Lance, you don't understand--"

"No." Lance's voice was loud and cold. "I don't, and never have, understood pointless racism. I thought it was just an Earth thing but I guess intergalactic species can be just as terrible." He shook his head as if disappointed.

Allura stepped forward brazenly. "His kind slaughtered--"

"His kind," Lance repeated, "has done horrible things that Keith has dedicated his life to stop."

"You can't change blood," Allura said as if it were a bold declaration. In a way, it was.

Lance thought back to his life on Earth. He thought back to the racism that had been a constant roadblock in his life, consistently trying to bring him down. As a Hispanic man, racism wasn't unfamiliar to him and just as he had never allowed it to stop his sisters and brothers from being the best he knew they could be, there was no way in hell he was going to let it bring Keith down. No matter who it came from.

"You can't," he said. "That's why it doesn't matter. Did he slaughter your people, Allura?"

"No, but--"

"Then shut up," Lance said simply.

"What?" Allura recoiled in insult.

"I've noticed Alteans don't care so much about skin color as humans do, but you're just as racist as the rest of them and it's so pointless." He rubbed a frustrated palm down the side of his face. "I don't think you understand how many of my people get slaughtered on Earth because of the exact same thing," Lance said, a curl of satisfaction going through him when she looked like she'd been slapped.

Lance trudged on. "So what if he's galra? He's had plenty of opportunities to try and hurt any of us in the past couple of years and he hasn't. Hell, he could've killed me and Shiro ten times over by now if he had wanted to when we were in the Garrison. Keith is Keith and he's my friend and if you think you can just get rid of him then you're wrong. I will leave with him and I'm taking Hunk and Shiro with me."

Allura was looking down at her feet with a frown. "I can't forgive what they did."

"I'm not asking you to, Allura. I'm asking you not to blame Keith." It really wasn't that hard of a concept, but people seemed to have a considerably tough time with it.

She bit her lip, rubbing her arm. She stayed silent.

Lance pursed his lips, a fierce protectiveness bubbling up inside of him for his friend. Never, not in a million years, would he stand for Keith to be treated like this.

To be treated like he was in the Garrison. To be alienated by the people you swore to serve.

"Tell Coran when you're ready to apologize. Otherwise, don't come near us." With that, Lance spun on his heel and walked out.

~

"Luckily his injuries weren't too extensive," Coran said as he stared down at the electronic he had in his hand.

Everyone in the room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. "So he'll be okay?" Lance asked.

Coran gave him a small, sad smile. "Yes, my boy, he'll make a full recovery."

Keith was still unconscious and pale against the stark white sheets of the bed, and Lance felt a new kind of sympathy for the man, even if said man wasn't aware of what had transpired.

Pidge shifted awkwardly. "So, uh... what happened with Allura?"

Lance clenched his hands on his arms. Coran frowned. "You have to understand that the galra have taken everything from her. She is... not justified in her anger, but this realization is, understandably, quite a lot."

"That doesn't give her the right to treat Keith badly." the words were out of his mouth before Lance even realized it. His eyes were set on the bed in front of him, but he saw the mildly grateful look Shiro sent him.

"You're right, my boy. I apologize for any unsavory behavior she might have exhibited." Coran bowed his head slightly.

"It isn't your fault," Lance muttered. Coran glanced at him, likely noticing his mood, and let it be.

"He should awaken before long. I'll go check in on the princess." Coran exited, the door sliding shut behind him with a hiss.

Once he was gone, Shiro bumped his shoulder against Lance's. Lance looked up and was met with Shiro's warm smile. "Thank you for defending him."

Lance shrugged. 'S'nothing."

"No, it meant something. Means something. I appreciate it. I know Keith will, too."

Something stuttered in Lance's chest, fluttery like panic. "Don't tell Keith," Lance said in a rush of air.

Shiro looked at him oddly. "Why?"

Lance's neck bowed. "S'just... he doesn't... need...that. It sucks to know people don't like you because of your parents or something, you know? 'Specially after all of..." Lance waved his hand in the air, "this."

Shiro stared at him for a second before smiling again. "Okay."

No Luck?

A/N:I apologize for taking so long in finishing this. I had some writers block for weeks, but here it is part two to Bad Luck. All my love! - w.d.

Pairing: Fem Reader x Peter Parker, includes Ned and Michelle

Prompt Synopsis: Part Two to Bad Luck. The tables have turned with luck as Peter forgets his best friend’s birthday. He saves her as Spider-Man but will he be able to repair his relationship with her as Peter?

Word Count: 1,886 words

Warnings: Angst and mention of almost kidnapping.

(I don’t own the gif, credits to the owner.)

Naive decisions and stupid adolescent mistakes laid up Peter’s alley way. In his mind he believed time would be on his side. A quick training session with Mr.Stark about his new spidey suit, and then onto celebrate his best friend’s birthday. He had it all planned weeks before; from constantly reminding Aunt May that he’d be at his internship the whole week, to buying (Y/N) the pendant necklace she had talked about. He spent a good amount of time and half his savings in making sure everything went to plan.

Days approaching went in Peter’s favor, until the day before. Mr. Stark called him early at 1am to tell Peter there was a small Avengers Mission-Opt in California. A mission that they could truly utilize Spider-Man in. Peter flustered by this sudden request, didn’t receive time to think about his choice. Mr. Stark had to know there and than, because Peter would have to leave at the exact night.  

“What time do you think we’ll be done with the said Mission?” the question blurted out.

“Well it’s not about how fast it’s done, it’s the quality. It depends, are you in or out kid?” Mr.Stark responded.

Peter conflicted with this, took no hesitation to answer with, “I’m in.”  It’s taken Peter a whole lot of trial and error as a neighborhood Spider-Man, this mission would be a game changer. His adrenaline built up thinking of assisting a mission as an Avenger. When the team needed Spider-Man, the person who needed Peter Parker faded from his memory.

Now Peter found himself relaxing on a quinjet flight back home to New York. Exhaustion was an understatement to his body. On the plane ride over he barely got a two hour nap. It then escalated to quickly changing into his suit, and to jumping out of the plane to the rendezvous point. Peter didn’t know the time of day when him and Black Widow reached ground in San Francisco. It was for sure past dawn but had no time to find out. The goal of the mission was clear as night and day. Find the secret operative base of mutant slave trafficking, stop all operations, and set the imprisoned mutants free. They need Spider-Man for the mutant slaves escape route and for his young pop-culture ideas if something unplanned occurred.

The Mission-Opt took a little longer than Peter anticipated but he didn’t mind. In the moment of his actions it felt like a sugar rush. The mission was successful, they retrieved information on other base leaders and freed all of the 15 slaves. From this mission Peter walked away with improvement tips, and an accidental bruise on his abdomen both from Black Widow. As he relaxed in the quinjet he was met with a young mutant around the age of 8 or 9. Silence was shared but Peter sensed he wanted to share something with him.

Peter sat himself up turning to the kid beside him. “What’s up bud?”

“I-I want to, I want to thank you, Spider-Man sir” the boy said with tears forming in his eyes.

“Aw, buddy you’re welcome, but no need to cry your safe now,” Peter was flustered by the boy’s tears so he pulled him into a hug.

“Thank you sir, I was almost sold to strangers on my birthday,” the kid hug Peter tight and backed away to wipe his tears.

“Well happy birthday, I’m glad I was here to help you,” Peter smiled then ruffled the boy’s hair.

“Thank you sir, you were my good luck present today,” he said before he went back to what could be his older sister. Peter felt good about his actions and went back to relaxing. He kept repeating the boy’s last sentence over and over. He was good luck for somebody today. Until it finally struck a nerve in Peter’s brain. (Y/N).

Shit he forgot about her birthday. All the days leading up to day were constantly making sure this would be her best birthday yet. Now he might’ve ruined it. He checked his phone to see that it would be around 6pm back home, with 4 hours to go he’d get home around 11pm. Peter felt horrible, and was about to text her an apology birthday message. After a revision of his message he deleted it and sighed; knowing it could make it worst. His phone started to buzz and (Y/N)’s face popped up. If he answered he wouldn’t know what to say and she was smart enough to probably figure out he was on a plane. So, he didn’t pick up letting the phone ring. It pained him to ignore the call but he had to fix this in person. He couldn’t listen to the voicemail. It would drive him crazy.

Peter spent the last 4 hours in agony thinking of what he was going to say to her. She was probably with MJ and Ned at the bowling alley. She was probably having bad luck the whole day, and he couldn’t do anything at the moment to fix it. It was obvious that (Y/N)’s birthdays weren’t the luckiest. As (Y/N)’s best friend he was always there to make the day better. He planned that today he was going to man-up and tell her how he felt about her. She was oblivious to his feelings for years, and hoped he’d have luck on his side. Him forgetting (Y/N)’s birthday made him believe good luck was not with him today.

On the contrary, at the bowling alley (Y/N) and her friends were having the time of their lives. Spending time with good company and smack talking each other the whole night. Laughs and snarky inside jokes were shared. Good food and snacks were eaten.They spent four hours on four rounds of bowling, at the end of the night they named Ned as the King of the alley. (Y/N) she was having the time of her life. Here with Ned and MJ, she almost forgot Peter wasn’t present; almost. (Y/N) walked with MJ and Ned to their separate apartment complexes. Both insisted to walk (Y/N) home first, she denied wanting to take a walk alone. Once she walked with both of her friends home, she strolled around a bit stalling. Checking the time on her phone left her to sigh; 11:45. Still no call or text from Peter. A simple apology text would have made her to stop worrying about him. It just never came.

Peter arrived back in Queens at 11:48 with Mr. Stark in front of (Y/N)’s apartment complex.

“Is this where your girlfriend lives?” Mr. Stark asked raising an eyebrow. He didn’t let the flustered Peter answer and followed up with, “Is that why you wanted to know how long the mission would take?” Peter nodded. Tony laughed and opened Peter’s door for him. He thanked Mr. Stark as he got out of the car. Peter looked up at the building hoping she’d be willing to talk to him. Before Peter could enter the building he heard a familiar voice shriek. As if his blood ran cold in his veins, (Y/N) was in trouble. He quickly suited up to the nearest alleyway and used his senses to find her.

“Please, please someone help!,” (Y/N) cried. It was too good to be true that today was bad luck free. She should’ve known better to walk around at night alone. Distracted by her stupid friend ignoring her. All lead her to a random dude with a knife, to dragging her to an alley. She was kicking and trying to scream louder but was knocked out.

“You sure got a pretty face but, an annoying yapping mouth,” the man rolled his eyes as he continued dragging her body.

“That’s not how you talk to a lady, is it?” Spider-Man landed in front of him. The man propped up (Y/N) and pointed his knife at Peter. Peter got on his knees pretending to be afraid.

“Just let me and the girl go, no one has to get hurt,” his voice gave of his nervousness backing up to a wall of a building.

“Is that a real knife dude?” Peter faked cried.

“Yes it’s real,” the man kept pointing the knife shaking.

“Oh no, my weakness is small knives,” he said then rapidly shot a web to the man’s hand holding the knife. The man was pushed back to the wall and dropped (Y/N). Peter hurried to (Y/N)’s body.

“Let me go man,” the man yelled only making Peter web his mouth shut and webbing his free hand. Peter’s attention went back to (Y/N). She started to wake up to see flashes of Spider-Man in front of her. (Y/N) wanted to open her eyes again to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating but, she had a tremendous headache to do so.

“Spider-Man?” she softly spoke.

“It’s okay mam, you’re going to be okay,” Peter carried her bridal style back to his home. He let her sleep in his bunk bed below and changed out of his suit. Peter grabbed a wet toilette and cleaned her small cut on her head. His eyes stared longer than they should’ve, bruises formed on her arms. He felt so stupid, but grateful he was there to save her. If he hadn’t got there, she could’ve been-, Peter didn’t finish the thought. She was here and safe. Exhaustion took over him that made him fall asleep in his chair.

-Next Day-

(Y/N) woke up startled by her surroundings, she was in Peter’s room. Yesterday could’ve been a nightmare that never actually happened. Then her eyes realized the bruises on her arms and her hand touched her existing cut. How does this explain, why she’s in Pete’s room. Peter was nowhere in the room. (Y/N) slowly sat up, looking around the room still bewildered. She got up to see a note from Peter on his desk, alongside a velvet black box.

Good Morning Beautiful, I promise I’ll explain everything soon. Firstly I want to apologize. I’m an incredibly stupid idiot to ignore you on your birthday. I forgot, which there is no excuse to forget an important day. I got the pendant necklace you talked about a while back. I know you might forgive me quickly, but I’ll keep saying sorry and doing my best to make it up to you. You mean the universe to me and my actions yesterday don’t represent how I feel about you. I want you to know, I felt bad luck without you. None of these words are good enough (Y/N). Right now, Aunt May is helping me make you breakfast. It’s highly not going to go well, so we’ll probably go to your favorite cafe. Happy belated birthday. I...well I’ll tell you when we’re alone.

-Peter x

The bacon was burning and the smoke filled the apartment. Peter laughed with Aunt May as she panicked with a towel. He heard his bedroom door open, he stood face to face with the person who made his weak knees. An astronaut would be able to see his smile from space, that’s how grand it was. She was there standing ever so beautiful wearing the pendant and smiling at him. Luck could never be the reason that this moment happened, it all occurred because it was love. Pure love.

Tag List:  @justmesadgirl 

-W.D.’s MASTERLIST-

When Morgan Got LASIK

The Night Before

Last Thursday started off with my meds and eye drops.

I knew one of the drops I was supposed to start the day before, so I looked over my bottles and found it. Then, I reread my directions where it said: 4xs a day, starting the day before surgery.

Well, BLEEP. A little late now.

I did the drops that night and twice before surgery.

Before Surgery

Surgery was at 1pm, and I was supposed to have a light snack at least an hour prior. So, I had a large breakfast sandwich at 10am and called that “good.”

Packing up to go, they’d mentioned they had stuffed animals for me to hold during surgery. But why use theirs when I have stuffed animals of my own. I slid one I call “Alfred” into my bag and grabbed all the drops for the doctors to check over.

My appointment was the first one after lunch, so the office was quiet when I arrived and logged in. They had a remodeling show on the TV in the waiting room, so that proved suitably distracting from my slowly rising panic.

When the receptionist got back from lunch, she had me sign my wavers and took my money. Then, I sat down for about 10-15 minutes, until they called me back.

The surgery assistant told me that it was fine that I’d only had 3 rounds of the antibiotic and gave me a name-tag to wear. Then she proceeded to give me about 3 more different types of drops, while going over the procedure and the steps I would have to take when I got home, while answering my questions as they occurred to me. She used a cross between a giant mascara wand and a large cotton swab to get the extra drops off my lashes. Plus, she gave me Xanax – to keep me calm and to relax my face muscles.

The surgeon came in with a very low-key vibe, almost surfer-esque and reiterated that staying calm would make everything go much better.

Morgan: With protective hairnet and last time with glasses.

Surgery

The room was surrounded by windows on the front and sides, with 2 different laser/operating set-ups and carts of tools around the edges. Spot lights were on the ceiling and there were seats for my friend/driver to wait and watch from.

I got a big hug, took a deep breath, and entered the operating room.

The assistants directed me into the chair/bed with all the lights and lasers set up over it. I hugged Alfred to my left-side, out of the way, and held his hand with my right.

Step one was to slice open the lens of my eye.

They had me stare into a bright light, taped my lashes out of the way, and then they put something on the lens of my eye before they made the incision. I don’t know exactly what they did, (and I’m not going to look it up because the thought of it makes me want to panic), but it felt like a hard lens.

The lens for the right eye went in, it was uncomfortable, but I followed directions and concentrated on slow, deep breaths and not moving.

The left eye was not so cooperative. I think I heard the surgeon say, “Huh, your cornea’s a bit small but it’ll fit,” but mostly, I tried really, really hard to stay still and breath quietly.

The back of my head was chanting: Don’t move or you might go blind!

While the front of my head was going: I don’t want to do this any more, he’s really smooshing my eye. I don’t like this anymore! Why am I doing an elective surgery? Why did I ever think this was a good idea?!

Fortunately, that part lasted less than 15 seconds. Three slow breaths and the smooshing was done.

Step Two were the lasers.

As forewarned, they moved the bed over to the second station and the surgeon reassured me. “That was the hard part, nothing else will be that bad. The lasers are easy.”

And he was right.

I stared at a green little dot between two red dots, keeping my eyes as still as possible.

I remembered from remarking on it during my readiness check-up, that when they move the light closer, it feels like your eyes are drifting either up or down, but they aren’t. So, I didn’t panic when I was keeping my eyes on the green light but it felt like my eyes were moving.

I think there was a sensation? But mostly, I remember the smell – like using a curling iron a little too long and you scorch the hair a little. Plus, trying to forget that if I flinched, I could do serious damage to myself.

Each eye, once they were lined up and set, took less than 20 seconds.

As they finished with each eye, they peeled the tape gently off my lashes and just stuck it to my hairnet.

Then, it was done. Less than 10 minutes.

LASIK: Post-Surgery

They led me over to a chair, just on the other side of the wall from the observation chairs. I tapped at my driver and waved, then sank into the seat where I hugged Alfred pretty hard.

The surgeon said, “You can put down the–oh, that one’s yours.”

To which I replied, “Now’s when I really need him, with the adrenaline rush and the being able to move again. Now the panic’s setting in.”

He reminded me of my post-op care, escorted me to the door, and I was done.

With my post-op-sunglasses, I looked around in awe. It was like having contacts in, although I was very light sensitive.

About the time we made it to the highway, the numbing drops were starting to wear off. I just closed my eyes and hid from the sun for the 30 min drive.

Once home, I had a regiment of drops: antibiotics, steroids, and moisturizing drops (regular ones for while I was awake, gel ones for pre-nap/bedtime).

The doctor advised chilling the drops, but I’d asked his assistant about that before the surgery.

I don’t even like cold water!

When I’d taken the moisturizing and antibiotic drops pre-surgery, I’d already fought the urge to rub the bottle between my hands to make it closer to body temperature. She reassured me that it was just for comfort and that the drops were fine at room temperature.

I’m not gonna lie–the first round of drops stung a lot, and I asked myself yet again, why did I do this to myself! After waiting 3-5 minutes between drops, I finally got them all in and checked off on my chart. Stumbling up the stairs, I put on my sleep-goggles, carefully made sure I had a pillow behind my knees, and lay down on my back.

The assistant had mentioned during my surgery-prep that it was important not to put any pressure on the eyes or to touch them, especially for at least the first two days. But! If at all possible, it was best to sleep on the back and with the goggles for the first week. I want the best possible outcome, so I’ve been very, very careful.

Following surgical directions, I took my 3 hour nap, got up, and did another round of drops.

Morgan Collage: With sleep-goggles, post-op sunglasses, and no glasses

The First Day

The first day, steroid drops were hourly, the second day every other hour, and for the rest of the first week, meals and bedtime — just like the antibiotic drops.

The lubricating drops are every other hour for the first 2 weeks, and at least 4 times a day for the first 3 months.

Did I mention in the pre-surgery post that the tear ducts are connected to your sinuses? And thus you can taste the steroids about 5 minutes after you put in the drops. They suggest pressing on your tear ducts/bridge of your nose to keep the drops from draining too quickly, but you can’t hold them there forever. I’ve taken to keeping a box of tic tacs in the bag I carry my drops in.

TV wasn’t hard to watch. Reading was more of a challenge, although my computer screen was worse than my phone. (I’ve turned the brightness down on all my devices). After a bit of TV, I headed off to the mall (it was raining heavily) and got some walking in, and focusing on something further away than a phone or TV screen. I could read my phone, but it hurt my eyes to do it for too long.

The night-halos are as predicted, although I’ve been told they usually get better. Oncoming traffic has larger halos than the red back running lights. Break lights also get the halo.

LASIK – The Aftermath

The day after my surgery, I had a 10 am appointment to have my eyes checked and was declared to have 20:20 vision, just over 20 hours post-op.

They did mention there was some blood in my eyes around the incision site, but it should clear up. If not, I’d go back to the surgery suite, they’d fold back the lens, and just suction it out. (I REALLY hope it’s cleared up on its own, I haven’t seen any blood in the mirror.)

I took a 6 mile walk on a trail near my house. It had been raining earlier, and was heavily overcast – which was just perfect for my delicate eyes. I wanted to get the exercise and taking the long break from screens was really helpful. I needed a nap, though. Either the stress or the healing was exhausting.

I had the surgery on a Thursday and by Monday I was back in my office. It was a little bit of a struggle and I had to turn the brightness all the way down on my monitors, but no headache from that. My work laptop screen is a different story. (Or maybe it’s just because I logged onto it after a long day, when my eyes were already tired.)

1 week out, my eyes still tire easily–especially of screens. This is evidenced by mild headache and my eyes drifting out of focus on my computer screen. I find pressing my palms over my eyes very restive. I haven’t been able to edit much, but I did manage to squeeze in a scene.

My eyes still have edges that sting a little when I put in the drops. Hopefully that will be healed soon! Eyes shouldn’t have edges!

I think my eyes will continue to be a bit photo-sensitive for a while, so will continue wearing the post-op-sunglasses anytime I’m outside in full daylight for quite a while.

P.S Here’s an actual picture of those plastic blue glasses, 1/3rd the size of my face versus post-op Morgan:

Got any questions about LASIK that I didn’t cover?

Had LASIK? Feel free to share about your own experience!

Morgan’s LASIK Adventure When Morgan Got LASIK The Night Before Last Thursday started off with my meds and eye drops.

Overdose - James Leister

[[And here’s another one! This one is, again, set in my To Be A Phillips universe with @therealmololly, but this one is set from the point of view of my muse this time -- one of my more minor muses, James Leister; a medic at the hospital. This is set the day Cameron was admitted, and follows the thread (found here) from his point of view.]]

Trigger warning: mentions of drug overdose; (original thread contains triggers of drug overdose)

Overdose

Working in A and E was never easy - it was almost constantly busy, whether it was for some kid with a cold that didn't go away or someone who'd been stupid and jumped off a roof into a pool and missed (it happened more often than you'd think). Being a trauma surgeon - and one of the best, mind you - James Leister saw anything and everything.

Heck, he's even seen someone swallow Lego pieces. It was stupid, but the operation had been fun, he supposed.

Getting the call on the red emergency phone when he was working on trauma always sent a rush through him - it got him excited. Who would he be working on today? What would he have to fix? Or, better yet, what stupid but hilarious story did a patient have for him this time?

Any traces of humour were wiped clean from his face when he answered a call.

“Weston A&E Department,” he answered shortly. Within moments, the words, ‘young male, aged 18, overdosed, ten minutes out’ were scribbled down on the emergency sheet in front of him, and as soon as he put the phone down he got to work.

“We have a teenaged male, aged eighteen coming in,” he called out as he and a couple of nurses began getting one of the beds ready. “Overdosed on sleeping pills at home. They're ten minutes out!” He began looking around. “Marks, make sure there's oxygen available as soon as we need it! Wright, be prepared to take bloods - we need to know how much is in the system!”

“Leister, is there enough charcoal available?”

“Harrison should've been to the stocks and back after last night's mass ambush from pub night!”

Ten minutes went surprisingly fast for a medic; James realised this when there were calls that the ambulance was coming in, and quickly putting on the required protective apron and gloves he stood aside and waited as the paramedics rushed the patient in.

He almost had a heart attack when he recognised the figure lying on the bed.

“This is--”

“Cameron Phillips,” he breathed, accidentally interrupting the paramedic. “Turned eighteen about a week ago.”

There was a short nod as the paramedic picked up where he'd seemingly stopped, the boy being wheeled next to the bed. “Overdosed on sleeping medication about forty minutes ago, his cousin came home to find him on the floor. Has been on oxygen since he got in the ambulance. He’s vomited once in the ambulance, we think he got a lot of it out of his system, but he’s been unresponsive.”

James glanced down at the boy, a bit of relief seeping in when he saw the mask was fogging up. It wasn’t much - only the smallest bit - but it was still something. “Do you know how many pills he took? Whether he’s eaten at all today?” he asked as doctors settled themselves on either side of the stretcher.

“Both unknown, but his cousin said that he suffers from insomnia and depression; the depression since he was fourteen, the insomnia for a couple of years.”

“Okay, thanks Miriam; let’s move him onto the bed.” He gripped the side of the stretcher closest to him. “Keep the mask on his face. We go on my count: one, two, three!”

As soon as he’d been slid over, everything sped up tenfold.

“Get him intubated so we can use the charcoal!”

“Marks, check for injuries - paramedic says he was found on the ground, he could’ve injured himself.”

“Got it!”

“Wright, get those bloods down to the lab for tests - we need to know how much we need to clear out.”

“No visible threatening injuries, Leister - no bleeds, no breaks. Bruising and marks on his arms, though.”

“Okay, get an IV in to flush out the system. We need to get it out as fast as possible.”

“James, he’s not breathing!”

That made his heart stop, and less than a second later he was barking out orders again.

“Get the ventilator, now! Check for a pulse and make sure his heart is still beating! Whilst the ventilator is on its way, get the bag and breathe for him! We need to get him hooked up to the monitors to keep an eye on his vitals!”

The slow beating that emerged from the machines once the boy was hooked up set James on edge. “I don’t like how slow his pulse is,” he muttered beneath his breath as he finished making sure the machines were arranged properly, and his fears were met when he flatlined.

“Start CPR and charge up the defib!” James moved to start pressing down on the boy's chest, trying to get his heart to start beating. “Get the adrenaline ready to inject!”

The room was a whirr of people moving around the bed, trying to bring the boy back to life whilst aiding him with his breathing and monitoring his vitals.

“Defib charged!” Marks moved forward to press the pads against the boy's chest. “Clear!”

Everyone stepped away as Cameron's body jerked, but his heart refused to beat.

“Up the charge!” James commanded as he moved back to compressions. “Get the ventilator ready for intubation!”

A nurse gave him a confused look. “What makes you think he's definitely going to come back?”

“Because I'm not letting him go, that's what,” James snapped. “Keep him breathing using the bag! Once we get his heart beating again we'll intubate straight away.”

“Charged!”

Everyone stepped back as Marks put the pads to his chest.

“Clear!”

James was relieved to hear a pulse returning - faster than before, but not quite fast enough. Still better than nothing.

“Get him intubated - he needs the oxygen. Airway first, then stomach.” He stepped back, breathing heavily from the panic of losing the kid and the actual carrying out of the CPR. He didn't miss the small smirk Marks sent his way. “Don't you dare say I'm getting old.”

“I didn't say anything!” she protested as she pushed the tube down Cameron's throat.

“You were going to, though.”

“You think that, but now you'll never know.”

James sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, looking at himself in the mirror, before splashing some cold water on his face. Dealing with trauma patients was hard, but when it was your own family, even if they weren't exactly flesh and blood, it was so much harder.

Glancing at himself again in the mirror, he grabbed paper towels to dry off his face before turning to leave the bathroom.

He didn't expect to see his sister standing outside the room.

“Oh my--” He put a hand to his chest, breathing heavily. “Frick, Allie! Don't do that!”

She just rolled her eyes at him, before looking at him seriously. “How is he?”

“I'm guessing you're talking about Cameron. Nurses should've taken you to see him by now.”

“Jimmy…”

James moved to pass her, heading out into the corridor and back to resus.

“James Leister, answer my question!”

“The nurse would've!”

“James!”

He rounded on her, sighing deeply. “You want to know? You want to know how he is?” He stepped close to her, staring her down. “Cameron came in unconscious. He'd overdosed on sleeping pills - on Nytol, which apparently his own mother got him to buy. We've had to give him charcoal to stop his body from absorbing any more, and we're flushing out whatever's in his system via IV.” At the slightly relieved look on her face, his face hardened. “Allie, his heart stopped and he stopped breathing. We found marks on his arms; bruises and scars. On his wrists and inner elbows. Even if he does come out of this without a damaged liver, he's got to have a psychologist on his case because this was most definitely a case of self harm; it was attempted suicide, Allie. You want to know how Cameron is? He is not okay and apparently he's been hurting since he was about fifteen. And you know what? I'm fucking pissed that he's ended up here and I'm having to find out about this, because no doctor should have to treat their own family.”

He turned on his heel and began walking briskly towards resus, leaving his sister standing in the corridor, shocked.

The last few hours of any hospital shift were always the most tiring, something which James noted as he sat at the nurses’ station, running a tired hand through his hair. Working in A&E was always exciting, but sometimes there was just that lull in ambulances that gave you the chance to breathe.

Of course, there was also that feeling of foreboding that accompanied the peace, but James took whatever peace he could get.

“Long day?”

He looked up to see his girlfriend standing there, a tired smile on her own face. He returned it just as wearily.

“You could say that, Kay.” He rubbed his forehead as he sat back in the seat. “Just… such a long day, honestly.”

“Rumour has it you had to treat a family member.”

“Technically not my family. He's my sister's nephew. Her husband's brother's son. So really we're not related at all.”

“But you consider him family to you anyway.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “You know me too well.”

“We've been dating for five years without a proposal; I think I have the right to know you.”

“You keep saying that, but last I checked you weren't ready for a proposal.”

“When did I say that?”

Both doctors reached for their belts when a beeper went off, and James blanched when he realised it was his.

“Another ambulance coming in,” he said quickly as he got up. “Gotta go.”

“Keep ‘em alive, Jimmy boy,” Kaycee called out as he rushed off to resus.

As soon as he got in, it was a flurry of doctors as medics rushed to get the injured out of the vehicle. He stopped the nearest nurse.

“What's up?”

“A car accident - crashed into a tree. Five victims; two in shock, one with cuts from broken glass, one with bruises from an airbag, one unresponsive.”

“Where's unresponsive?”

“End bay, led by Marks.”

He grabbed an apron and a pair of protective gloves as he briskly headed over to the bay as directed. Tying them on, he felt as if he would be ready to deal with the patient.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

“Shit,” he hissed beneath his breath the paramedic began to read out the stats of his brother-in-law.

The universe had decided to royally fuck him over today.

Hamsters Quotes

Official Website: Hamsters Quotes

• A squat cannot be performed on a Smith machine any more than it can be performed in a small closet with a hamster. – Mark Rippetoe • Adrenaline kicks you in when you’re starving. That’s what nobody understands. Except for being hungry and cold, most of the time I feel like I can do anything. It gives me superhuman powers of smell and hearing. I can see what people are thinking, stay two steps ahead of them. I do enough homework to stay off the radar. Every night I climb thousands of steps into the sky to make me so exhausted that when I fall into bed, I don’t notice Cassie. Then suddenly it’s morning and I leap on the hamster wheel and it starts all over again. – Laurie Halse Anderson • And then the turbines generate electricity that goes into the whole town.” “You mean they aren’t powered by giant hamsters on wheels? I was misinformed. – Michael Grant • At school, our classroom had a small rodent zoo consisting of two rabbits, three hamsters, a litter of baby gerbils and a guinea pig. At first, I’d thought the teacher was raising snack food, which impressed me, being the first sign of intelligence she’d shown. Soon, though, I’d figured out the animals’ true purpose and left them alone, though I would never understand the appeal of petting and coddling perfectly good food. – Kelley Armstrong

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Hamster', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_hamster').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_hamster img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

• But I just felt at one point that I was on a hamster wheel, you know? Just doing movie after movie and thinking so much about career related things and I think missing out on hanging with my friends and family as much I needed to. – Woody Harrelson • DNS is kind of the hamster under the hood that drives the Internet. – David Ulevitch • Even as a child I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but in an aesthetic one. A hamster or guinea pig would pass away, and, after burying the body, I’d dig it back up: over and over, until all that remained was a shoddy pelt. It earned me a certain reputation, especially when I moved on to other people’s pets. “Igor,” they called me. “Wicked, spooky.” But I think my interest was actually fairly common, at least among adolescent boys. At that age, death is something that happens only to animals and grandparents, and studying it is like a science project. – David Sedaris • Girls were nice to me in the same way that they would be nice to a hamster. I fantasized about wild encounters with females but knew they’d never happen unless my own involvement could somehow go undetected. – Joel Achenbach • Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup-they all die. So do we. – Robert Fulghum • Have you noticed how the Republicans and Democrats try to copy each other at their conventions. Like at the Democratic convention John Kerry’s daughter told a story about how he once gave CPR to her hamster. At the Republican convention the Bush girls are going to tell a story about how when their hamster was bad, their dad built them a little electric chair. – Jay Leno • Haven’t had your fill of interesting events?” “Never. They are the spice of life.” She held up her half-finished hat. “How do you like it?” “It’s nice. The blue is pretty. But what do the runes say?” “Raxacori-Oh, never mind. It wouldn’t mean a thing to you anyway. Safe travels to you and Saphira, Eragon. And remember to watch out for earwigs and wild hamsters. Ferocious things, wild hamsters.” – Christopher Paolini • He was not used to the smell of dragon breath, which is best described as a combination of the stench of burning rubber and the stink of old socks, with overtones of a hamster cage in dire need of a cleaning. – Angie Sage • I always find cardio the most monotonous. Running on a treadmill shows me why hamsters are so crazy. – Luke Evans • I always see to the dogs first and leave the cats and the occasional birds and rabbits and hamsters for later. It isn’t that I play favorites, it’s just that dogs are needier than other pets. Leave a dog alone for very long and it’ll start going a little nuts. Cats, on the other hand, try to give you the impression that they didn’t even notice you were gone. Oh, were you out? they’ll say, I didn’t notice. Then they’ll raise their tails to show you their little puckered anuses and walk away.- Blaize Clement • I can’t shut my brain off. It’s like a hamster wheel.” ~ Justin – Richelle Mead • I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel. – Vince Vaughn • I do not mean to be the slightest bit critical of TV newspeople, who do a superb job, considering that they operate under severe time constraints and have the intellectual depth of hamsters. But TV news can only present the “bare bones” of a story; it takes a newspaper, with its capability to present vast amounts of information, to render the story truly boring. – Dave Barry • I don’t believe in happy endings. Children have got to face death sooner or later. Granny and Grandpa die, dogs die, cats die, gerbils and those frightful things – what are they called? – hamsters: all die like flies. So there’s no point avoiding it. – Raymond Briggs • I don’t believe in reincarnation, and I didn’t believe in it when I was a hamster. – Shane Richie • I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. – Graham Chapman • I feel so agitated all the time, like a hamster in search of a wheel. – Carrie Fisher • I got ham but I’m not a Hamster – Bill Bailey • I know what the intimidation level of high school is. You’re on a hamster wheel, running, running, running, trying so hard to fit in. It’s all about how you deal with what you’re given, feeling OK with being the odd man out before you’re finally successful. – Drew Barrymore • I love running cross-country…You come up a hill and see two deer going, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ On a track I feel like a hamster. – Robin Williams • I love watching him think,” Maeve told Lily. “You can almost hear that poor little hamster running and running on its wheel. – Jim Butcher • I voted against Gerald Nabarro in my first general election, but my defiance made no difference. If you had put a Conservative rosette on a mustachioed hamster, it would have been elected. – Jeremy Paxman • If anybody felt worse than I did, it was Amos. I had just enough magic to turn myself into a falcon and him into a hamster (hey, I was rushed!) – Rick Riordan • If the sun were made of hamsters, the earth would be incinerated. – Michael Schumacher • I’m done with men. I have a hamster. That’s all I need. – Janet Evanovich • It’s fine to be on the hamster wheel, running and running, trying to grab the brass ring or whatever you define as success, but your relationships, that’s really all that matters when it’s all said and done. – Katie Couric • It’s for the hamster that I’m gonna buy! This is so perfect! (after opening a hamster wheel at Christmas) – Gerard Way • I’ve lived here … my whole life. It’s where I lost all my baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in our backyard. Also where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they’ll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto I buried after the accident. – Jennifer McMahon • Lissa knelt down, compassion on her face. I wasn’t surprised, since she’d always had a thing for animals. She’d lectured me for days after I’d instigated the infamous hamster-and-hermit-crab fight. I’d viewed the fight as a testing of worthy opponents. She’d seen it as animal cruelty. – Richelle Mead • Most of us are animal lovers. We insist that we love all animals equally – the hamster, the weasel, and the zebra – but if pressed, we will admit to being either a cat person or a dog person. – Nicole Hollander • New Rule: Gay marriage won’t lead to dog marriage. It is not a slippery slope to rampant inter-species coupling. When women got the right to vote, it didn’t lead to hamsters voting. No court has extended the equal protection clause to salmon. And for the record, all marriages are “same sex” marriages. You get married, and every night, it’s the same sex. – Bill Maher • No matter if you’re a man, woman, cat, hamster, you will get lost in Matt Bomer’s eyes. I don’t know what they are made of outside of dreams and rainbows and amazingness but it truly doesn’t matter. And when he sings. It’s like God gave with both hands and then grew a third hand and graced him with more. – Channing Tatum • One of my producers said this business is like a hamster on that little wheel thing that goes around and around. You may have a great day and get great ratings, but then you’ve got another show to do – whatever moment of success or happiness you have you’ve got to keep grinding it out for the next day. – Sean Hannity • Privately, I consider religion to be a load of bollocks, but when you have a sobbing five year old wanting to know what happened to her hamster, you develop an instant belief in anything that dissolves some of the heartbreak off her face. – Tana French • Some of my best friends are Venture Capitalists, but let’s face it, a hamster with Alzheimer’s could make those kind of numbers. It’s great work if you can get it. – Scott Adams • Some Poor grad student pressing on the flanks of a hamster and out comes a doctorate on the other side – Robert M. Sapolsky • Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree, But it was eaten by a newt, And now I have no cuddly fruit, O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree! – Clive Barker • The hamster called. He wants his home back. – James Patterson • The Hamsters really kick ass – Slim is one of your greatest guitar players – Walter Trout • The kid makes you sick. He looks the part, he walks the part, he is the part. He’s six-foot something, fit as a flea, good-looking – he’s got to have something wrong with him….Hopefully he’s hung like a hamster! That would make us all feel better! – Cristiano Ronaldo • The real slums are another matter. The bad parts of Tondo are as bad as any place I’ve seen, ancient, filthy houses swarmed with the poor and stinking of sewage and trash. But there are worse parts – squatter areas where people live under cardboard, in shipping crates, behind tacked-up newspapers. Dad would march you straight to the basement with a hairbrush in his hand if he caught you keeping your hamster cage like this. – P. J. O’Rourke • The thing is, we have to let go of all blame, all attacking, all judging, to free our inner selves to attract what we say we want. Until we do, we are hamsters in a cage chasing our own tails and wondering why we aren’t getting the results we seek. – Joe Vitale • The wheels are turning, but the hamsters are all dead. Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot. I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it. – George Bernard Shaw • The world’s tragedy is that men love women, women love children, and children love hamsters. – Joanna Trollope • We sometimes feel like hamsters on a wheel, covering the same musical ground we did 20 or more years ago. – Bent Saether • Well, I’m an uncle now … don’t know if I’m a good one. My nephew asked me the difference between a hamster and a gerbil and I told him I thought there was more dark meat on a gerbil. – Bobcat Goldthwait • What if hamsters fought in the American Revolution? – Colin Mochrie • While I liked hamsters, too, the Habitrail cage was expensive. Even I could see that the interconnecting boxes, tubes, and spheres could easily bankrupt a family and lead to addiction later in life. Because, how would you know when to stop? How could you stop? An entire city could be built with a Habitrail. – Augusten Burroughs • Why shouldn’t it be that way for the rest of us? Why not just go with it? Just walk the dog and send the tweets and eat the scones and play with the hamsters and ride the bicycles and watch the sunsets and stream the movies and never worry about any of it? I didn’t know it could be that easy. I didn’t know that until just now. That sounds good to me. – Joshua Ferris • With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom. – Erma Bombeck • Wondering where Ranger was now, when I needed him. Why wasn’t he here, insisting on locking me up in a safe house? Now that my hamster’s cage was clean, I’d be happy to oblige. – Janet Evanovich • Yeah, well, don’t worry about it. I’ve never met a Daimon yet I couldn’t take. (Wulf) Guess again, little brother. You just met one, and trust me, he’s not like any you’ve ever met before. He makes Desiderius look like a pet hamster. (Acheron) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You ignorant little slug!” the Trunchbull bellowed. “You witless weed! You empty-headed hamster! You stupid glob of glue! – Roald Dahl • Your Mother was A Hamster and you Father Smelled of elder berries. – John Cleese

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Hamsters Quotes

Official Website: Hamsters Quotes

• A squat cannot be performed on a Smith machine any more than it can be performed in a small closet with a hamster. – Mark Rippetoe • Adrenaline kicks you in when you’re starving. That’s what nobody understands. Except for being hungry and cold, most of the time I feel like I can do anything. It gives me superhuman powers of smell and hearing. I can see what people are thinking, stay two steps ahead of them. I do enough homework to stay off the radar. Every night I climb thousands of steps into the sky to make me so exhausted that when I fall into bed, I don’t notice Cassie. Then suddenly it’s morning and I leap on the hamster wheel and it starts all over again. – Laurie Halse Anderson • And then the turbines generate electricity that goes into the whole town.” “You mean they aren’t powered by giant hamsters on wheels? I was misinformed. – Michael Grant • At school, our classroom had a small rodent zoo consisting of two rabbits, three hamsters, a litter of baby gerbils and a guinea pig. At first, I’d thought the teacher was raising snack food, which impressed me, being the first sign of intelligence she’d shown. Soon, though, I’d figured out the animals’ true purpose and left them alone, though I would never understand the appeal of petting and coddling perfectly good food. – Kelley Armstrong

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• But I just felt at one point that I was on a hamster wheel, you know? Just doing movie after movie and thinking so much about career related things and I think missing out on hanging with my friends and family as much I needed to. – Woody Harrelson • DNS is kind of the hamster under the hood that drives the Internet. – David Ulevitch • Even as a child I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but in an aesthetic one. A hamster or guinea pig would pass away, and, after burying the body, I’d dig it back up: over and over, until all that remained was a shoddy pelt. It earned me a certain reputation, especially when I moved on to other people’s pets. “Igor,” they called me. “Wicked, spooky.” But I think my interest was actually fairly common, at least among adolescent boys. At that age, death is something that happens only to animals and grandparents, and studying it is like a science project. – David Sedaris • Girls were nice to me in the same way that they would be nice to a hamster. I fantasized about wild encounters with females but knew they’d never happen unless my own involvement could somehow go undetected. – Joel Achenbach • Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup-they all die. So do we. – Robert Fulghum • Have you noticed how the Republicans and Democrats try to copy each other at their conventions. Like at the Democratic convention John Kerry’s daughter told a story about how he once gave CPR to her hamster. At the Republican convention the Bush girls are going to tell a story about how when their hamster was bad, their dad built them a little electric chair. – Jay Leno • Haven’t had your fill of interesting events?” “Never. They are the spice of life.” She held up her half-finished hat. “How do you like it?” “It’s nice. The blue is pretty. But what do the runes say?” “Raxacori-Oh, never mind. It wouldn’t mean a thing to you anyway. Safe travels to you and Saphira, Eragon. And remember to watch out for earwigs and wild hamsters. Ferocious things, wild hamsters.” – Christopher Paolini • He was not used to the smell of dragon breath, which is best described as a combination of the stench of burning rubber and the stink of old socks, with overtones of a hamster cage in dire need of a cleaning. – Angie Sage • I always find cardio the most monotonous. Running on a treadmill shows me why hamsters are so crazy. – Luke Evans • I always see to the dogs first and leave the cats and the occasional birds and rabbits and hamsters for later. It isn’t that I play favorites, it’s just that dogs are needier than other pets. Leave a dog alone for very long and it’ll start going a little nuts. Cats, on the other hand, try to give you the impression that they didn’t even notice you were gone. Oh, were you out? they’ll say, I didn’t notice. Then they’ll raise their tails to show you their little puckered anuses and walk away.- Blaize Clement • I can’t shut my brain off. It’s like a hamster wheel.” ~ Justin – Richelle Mead • I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel. – Vince Vaughn • I do not mean to be the slightest bit critical of TV newspeople, who do a superb job, considering that they operate under severe time constraints and have the intellectual depth of hamsters. But TV news can only present the “bare bones” of a story; it takes a newspaper, with its capability to present vast amounts of information, to render the story truly boring. – Dave Barry • I don’t believe in happy endings. Children have got to face death sooner or later. Granny and Grandpa die, dogs die, cats die, gerbils and those frightful things – what are they called? – hamsters: all die like flies. So there’s no point avoiding it. – Raymond Briggs • I don’t believe in reincarnation, and I didn’t believe in it when I was a hamster. – Shane Richie • I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. – Graham Chapman • I feel so agitated all the time, like a hamster in search of a wheel. – Carrie Fisher • I got ham but I’m not a Hamster – Bill Bailey • I know what the intimidation level of high school is. You’re on a hamster wheel, running, running, running, trying so hard to fit in. It’s all about how you deal with what you’re given, feeling OK with being the odd man out before you’re finally successful. – Drew Barrymore • I love running cross-country…You come up a hill and see two deer going, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ On a track I feel like a hamster. – Robin Williams • I love watching him think,” Maeve told Lily. “You can almost hear that poor little hamster running and running on its wheel. – Jim Butcher • I voted against Gerald Nabarro in my first general election, but my defiance made no difference. If you had put a Conservative rosette on a mustachioed hamster, it would have been elected. – Jeremy Paxman • If anybody felt worse than I did, it was Amos. I had just enough magic to turn myself into a falcon and him into a hamster (hey, I was rushed!) – Rick Riordan • If the sun were made of hamsters, the earth would be incinerated. – Michael Schumacher • I’m done with men. I have a hamster. That’s all I need. – Janet Evanovich • It’s fine to be on the hamster wheel, running and running, trying to grab the brass ring or whatever you define as success, but your relationships, that’s really all that matters when it’s all said and done. – Katie Couric • It’s for the hamster that I’m gonna buy! This is so perfect! (after opening a hamster wheel at Christmas) – Gerard Way • I’ve lived here … my whole life. It’s where I lost all my baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in our backyard. Also where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they’ll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto I buried after the accident. – Jennifer McMahon • Lissa knelt down, compassion on her face. I wasn’t surprised, since she’d always had a thing for animals. She’d lectured me for days after I’d instigated the infamous hamster-and-hermit-crab fight. I’d viewed the fight as a testing of worthy opponents. She’d seen it as animal cruelty. – Richelle Mead • Most of us are animal lovers. We insist that we love all animals equally – the hamster, the weasel, and the zebra – but if pressed, we will admit to being either a cat person or a dog person. – Nicole Hollander • New Rule: Gay marriage won’t lead to dog marriage. It is not a slippery slope to rampant inter-species coupling. When women got the right to vote, it didn’t lead to hamsters voting. No court has extended the equal protection clause to salmon. And for the record, all marriages are “same sex” marriages. You get married, and every night, it’s the same sex. – Bill Maher • No matter if you’re a man, woman, cat, hamster, you will get lost in Matt Bomer’s eyes. I don’t know what they are made of outside of dreams and rainbows and amazingness but it truly doesn’t matter. And when he sings. It’s like God gave with both hands and then grew a third hand and graced him with more. – Channing Tatum • One of my producers said this business is like a hamster on that little wheel thing that goes around and around. You may have a great day and get great ratings, but then you’ve got another show to do – whatever moment of success or happiness you have you’ve got to keep grinding it out for the next day. – Sean Hannity • Privately, I consider religion to be a load of bollocks, but when you have a sobbing five year old wanting to know what happened to her hamster, you develop an instant belief in anything that dissolves some of the heartbreak off her face. – Tana French • Some of my best friends are Venture Capitalists, but let’s face it, a hamster with Alzheimer’s could make those kind of numbers. It’s great work if you can get it. – Scott Adams • Some Poor grad student pressing on the flanks of a hamster and out comes a doctorate on the other side – Robert M. Sapolsky • Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree, But it was eaten by a newt, And now I have no cuddly fruit, O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree! – Clive Barker • The hamster called. He wants his home back. – James Patterson • The Hamsters really kick ass – Slim is one of your greatest guitar players – Walter Trout • The kid makes you sick. He looks the part, he walks the part, he is the part. He’s six-foot something, fit as a flea, good-looking – he’s got to have something wrong with him….Hopefully he’s hung like a hamster! That would make us all feel better! – Cristiano Ronaldo • The real slums are another matter. The bad parts of Tondo are as bad as any place I’ve seen, ancient, filthy houses swarmed with the poor and stinking of sewage and trash. But there are worse parts – squatter areas where people live under cardboard, in shipping crates, behind tacked-up newspapers. Dad would march you straight to the basement with a hairbrush in his hand if he caught you keeping your hamster cage like this. – P. J. O’Rourke • The thing is, we have to let go of all blame, all attacking, all judging, to free our inner selves to attract what we say we want. Until we do, we are hamsters in a cage chasing our own tails and wondering why we aren’t getting the results we seek. – Joe Vitale • The wheels are turning, but the hamsters are all dead. Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot. I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it. – George Bernard Shaw • The world’s tragedy is that men love women, women love children, and children love hamsters. – Joanna Trollope • We sometimes feel like hamsters on a wheel, covering the same musical ground we did 20 or more years ago. – Bent Saether • Well, I’m an uncle now … don’t know if I’m a good one. My nephew asked me the difference between a hamster and a gerbil and I told him I thought there was more dark meat on a gerbil. – Bobcat Goldthwait • What if hamsters fought in the American Revolution? – Colin Mochrie • While I liked hamsters, too, the Habitrail cage was expensive. Even I could see that the interconnecting boxes, tubes, and spheres could easily bankrupt a family and lead to addiction later in life. Because, how would you know when to stop? How could you stop? An entire city could be built with a Habitrail. – Augusten Burroughs • Why shouldn’t it be that way for the rest of us? Why not just go with it? Just walk the dog and send the tweets and eat the scones and play with the hamsters and ride the bicycles and watch the sunsets and stream the movies and never worry about any of it? I didn’t know it could be that easy. I didn’t know that until just now. That sounds good to me. – Joshua Ferris • With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom. – Erma Bombeck • Wondering where Ranger was now, when I needed him. Why wasn’t he here, insisting on locking me up in a safe house? Now that my hamster’s cage was clean, I’d be happy to oblige. – Janet Evanovich • Yeah, well, don’t worry about it. I’ve never met a Daimon yet I couldn’t take. (Wulf) Guess again, little brother. You just met one, and trust me, he’s not like any you’ve ever met before. He makes Desiderius look like a pet hamster. (Acheron) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You ignorant little slug!” the Trunchbull bellowed. “You witless weed! You empty-headed hamster! You stupid glob of glue! – Roald Dahl • Your Mother was A Hamster and you Father Smelled of elder berries. – John Cleese

  [clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );