SUMMARY: the minute he steps into the ED, Jack can tell something is up. Sure, he's there on time rather than early but while it might be a recently formed habit when it comes to his job, it's pretty much old news by now. No, it's something else. He can’t quite name it yet but it's there.
It's the stares following him from the doors of the ambulance bay to the lockers, the whispers that stop as he passes by the day shift team, the smug smirk on Dana's face.
He knows better than to ask her directly though. She'll come to him when she's good and ready. Chances are, it'll happen when he least expects it.
(or what happens when both shift teams realize Jack Abbot has a controversially young girlfriend who may or may not be Internet famous and universally loved in the city)
TAGS: established relationship, fluff and smut, oral s*x, jack abbot is a giver, reader-insert, no use of y/n for reader-insert, age difference, reader is jack abbot's controversially young girlfriend, social media, internet culture, reader is a youtuber/influencer
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Merlin's barely recovered from the shock of hearing a polite knock on his very remote little cottage, when he swings the door open to find Arthur Pendragon staring at him. "I've been exiled," Arthur says calmly. "May I come in?"
"What?" Merlin wheezes.
Arthur seems to take that as invitation enough, shouldering past Merlin to enter. Dimly, Merlin notices he's wearing his long traveling coat, his sword at his hip, and a pack slung over his shoulder. "You keep this place just as messy as you did my chambers," Arthur tuts, looking over the humble interior of Merlin's cottage. His nose wrinkles in distaste as he looks at the dirty bowls on the table sat next to tinctures of bitter and poisonous plants, and Merlin's few articles of clothing drying on all the chair-backs. "Honestly, Merlin, what would your mother think?"
He swings his pack around, throws it down on the table, and begins to remove his coat. "I," Merlin breathes. "You. What are you—"
"Please tell me you have some actual meat in this hovel," Arthur adds. "It's a very long ride from Camelot, and I didn't stop to hunt for fear that I wouldn't make it here before nightfall."
He removes his coat, folding it and putting it up on a nail that sticks out from a wall. He turns and looks at Merlin expectantly. "Well?"
"EXILE?!" Merlin shrieks. "What are you— you're not— how did you even—"
His magic is bubbling up inside of him, confused, hurt, and restless. If Merlin hadn't already checked that it is indeed Arthur standing in front of him, he'd have thought the man an imposter. "How did you find me?" he settles on, hands curling into fists in an effort to control his raging emotions.
"I didn't," Arthur says. He leans over, absentmindedly straightening a pile of scrolls Merlin left askew. "I always knew where you went."
"What?"
"Lancelot is a very good tracker," Arthur says, in the tone of voice that indicates it explains everything Merlin needs to know. "Although he got a little too close following that business with the Sluagh. I told him to make sure you were well, not press his face into the windows."
"The wards," Merlin says faintly. He felt them thrum a couple weeks prior, indicating that someone had approached his cottage, although Merlin was unable to discover who.
His magic gave him no such warning for Arthur's arrival, the bastard.
"You've known where I've been ever since you sent me away," Merlin says slowly, trying to make his mind understand. Arthur is still looking at him with the expression he has whenever he thinks Merlin is being particularly slow about something. "And you didn't… mind? Say something?" Scream at me to leave? Show up with a company of Camelot's knights to dole out the law?
Arthur looks cross. "Well, you could have chosen someplace further than a day's ride out from Camelot," he says, and Merlin winces. Arthur then suddenly looks apologetic, and Merlin doesn't know why. "But it's for the best that you didn't. It would have been too hard for me to reach you had I need of you."
"Need of me," Merlin echoes faintly.
Arthur's apologetic expression melts into one of guilt. "I— I made sure I wasn't followed," Arthur says, and it is as he is instinctively flexing his hand that Merlin notices the bruises on his knuckles. "But I should have been more careful. My father, well—" A pained expression crosses his face. "Out of the two options, I was betting that he wouldn't choose exile. The other, I could handle."
Oh. So that's what this is about. Arthur has done something to irritate Uther, and he has turned to Merlin to fix it. He is desperate enough to decide he has need of Merlin again to seek him out. Merlin supposes it shouldn't be surprising that Arthur knows where he is, since it doesn't matter where he lives, as long as it is away from Arthur. Or maybe Arthur just wants the security of knowing Merlin can't run if Arthur decides to renege on his mercy.
If Merlin were his own friend, he would advise himself to have more self-respect. As it stands, at least there is no one else in the cottage to witness how pathetic he is. "What do you need?" Merlin says quietly.
Arthur shoots him a look. "Well, a fire would be nice, for starters. And I wasn't kidding about needing a meal—"
"With Uther," Merlin says exasperatedly. "Surely you must have some idea of how to calm his anger. I could conjure a kelpie and make sure there are witnesses to you heroically slaying it—"
"I've got my father under control," Arthur says. "Sure, it does make things a bit harder having to conduct a base of operations from this…." He looks around, and decides on a word that won't spark Merlin's ire, "abode, but my knights and I have been using coded communication for months now. The council was losing faith in him even before he chose to exile the crown prince. I give it less than a month before he brings Camelot to the brink of crisis, and then I'm sure the guards will be more than happy to allow me to return."
Merlin blinks. Perhaps this really is an imposter that has entered his home wearing Arthur's skin, or maybe he has finally gone utterly mad. He would have thought it would take more than half a year of broken-hearted solitude to get to that point. "Arthur, what are you talking about—"
"Oh, right. I'm sorry, I considered sending Lancelot with a message, but I didn't want him to be caught with anything on him were he found. I couldn't—" His thumb brushes over his lip, and Merlin sees a scab there. "I couldn't risk anything pointing to your location. Hence why I told my father I wouldn't give up that information, even under torture."
"What?!"
"Don't ruffle your petticoat, I'm fine," Arthur says quickly, as if Merlin had not just felt his magic jumping under his skin with all the fury of a dragon guarding its treasure. "I was expecting him to take me up on the offer, and then I wouldn't have to bother you. But it seems my father decided it more appropriate to strip me of my rank and title until I told him where you've been hiding."
Merlin stares at Arthur dumbly. There's no doubt about it, he has gone mad.
At least one of them, anyway.
"Why wouldn't you just tell your father where I am?"
"Very funny. Should I have offered to lead the knights to capture you myself, then?"
Merlin keeps his face blank to conceal the pain. "I suppose."
Arthur gives him a queer look. "You're acting odd. Did your brain wither away from having a forest respite for a few months?"
"Forest respite," Merlin sputters, and he may be pathetic but he still has enough dignity to grow angry. "I don't know what you want, and I'll help you with whatever you need, but might I remind you that you were the one that exiled me!"
Arthur rolls his eyes, and Merlin's hands curl into fists. "You're being dramatic."
It's so casual, so thoughtlessly cruel, that Merlin's magic lashes out before he can stop it. It doesn't hurt Arthur—he never would, never could—but Arthur's mouth falls open as he is shoved into a chair and held in place with invisible hands. For a second, fear flashes across his face, but even that is not enough to quell the anger inside Merlin. Like the first crack of ice across a frozen lake, it only splinters under further pressure.
"I did everything for you," Merlin rasps. "I bled, I killed, I would do it again without hesitation, and I know I lied to you, I know I hurt you, but— but you can't just turn up again like nothing has happened, when you sent me away—"
"—Merlin—"
"It's not fair, it's not fair to take me up one day and cast me away the next, so after this," Merlin's voice trembles, but he juts his chin upwards, he is stronger than this, damn it, "if you no longer wish to see me, then respect your own wishes and leave me be—"
"Merlin!" Arthur is still straining against the weight of the magic holding him in place. But he doesn't look angry, more confused and irritated. And sweaty. "When did I exile you?"
"Oh, I don't know," Merlin snaps. "Maybe this will refresh your recollection: 'Leave here now and don't come back.'"
He knows his voice is a harsh imitation of Arthur's exact words, as they have been ringing in his head since the moment he first heard them. They had barely sunk in, leaving their impression in the grove of his mind—a permanent scar that would never fade—when Arthur barked, "Now," his expression utterly furious. And Merlin had listened.
He breathes out harshly, trying to get a rein on his anger. And Arthur looks—
—well. He doesn't have a word to describe how Arthur looks, exactly.
"Merlin. You did magic in front of my father and his entire court." Arthur is speaking very clearly and slowly. "It was all I could do to buy you enough time so you wouldn't be caught while you fled."
Merlin blinks. He hasn't focused on that part of the situation, truly. He has been more concerned with the hurt in Arthur's eyes, the way his expression turned cold and commanding within a second. All of it, targeted at Merlin. "You were angry."
"I was frightened." Something shudders across Arthur's face before he can conceal its honesty. "I always knew you were a reckless idiot, with how little you cared for doing magic in plain sight, but I knew even I couldn't save you from that display—"
"You." Merlin feels dizzy. He sinks heavily into one of his chairs, and he hears Arthur take a deep breath as his magic releases his hold on him. "You knew. About my magic."
"Of course I knew; I'm not blind," Arthur says, aghast. "I just figured you were pretending otherwise so we wouldn't have to talk about it. Did you really not—" And then his mouth closes. He blinks. Merlin can almost see the coals inside of Arthur's head producing steam. When he speaks again, his voice is small. "I see now. How things might have occurred differently to you."
Part of Merlin wants to cry, part of him wants to scream, part of him wants to laugh hysterically, and he very bravely and wisely does not do any of that. "So you weren't sending me away. Forever, that is."
"No." There is a similar edge of hysteria to Arthur's voice. "Just until I could make it safe for you again. Until I could bring you back to Camelot."
"You kept track of where I was," Merlin says distantly. "You—" He shakes his head quickly. "Arthur, you didn't— please tell me you didn't tell Uther to torture you rather than reveal where I was— I'm not worth it, why did you, why—"
He stops when he finally catches Arthur's eye. Arthur is looking at him in a way Merlin had only caught in glimpses before, like a beam piercing through the clouds, but now the full force of the sun is shining upon him. "How is it obvious to everyone other than you?" Arthur asks.
Merlin's face shatters, and Arthur is out of his chair, making his way over with apologies, and Merlin hears him saying something about how he assumed, he was wrong, he didn't mean to, and that nothing needs to change. He puts his hand on Merlin's shoulder, and Merlin realizes they are both great idiots, and it is probably better to speak with their actions, rather than words. So he does exactly that.
It is only when Arthur has his breeches half undone that he pauses to speak, as he hikes Arthur's tunic up for better access to his chest. "I do love you too, by the way."
"Glad we got that sorted," Arthur replies, and they tumble into bed, basking in the privilege of an undisturbed exile.
Shane finds many things that Ilya does weird. For example, he says, “Okay, cut it in half,” like it’s just that simple and the world won’t end when someone doesn’t follow the recipe exactly. Or he eats two pizzas like it won’t affect his body at all, and he isn’t afraid it will make him play badly (Shane doesn’t allow himself many cheat days, because sometimes he’s sure they’ll will ruin his game, and he can’t have that). And he has absolutely no system when it comes to his laundry. When Shane asked him about that, he just shrugged and said something about his clothes “surviving or dying,” whatever that meant. Shane didn’t press further: first he needed to look into it. As far as he knows, clothes couldn’t “survive” or “die”. They weren’t alive.Â
Of course, he loves everything about Ilya, including those things. It puts everything into a broader perspective and he likes that, even if it sometimes unsettles his inner world a little. But over the years he learned that it can be a good thing. He wouldn’t be here with Ilya, in his cottage, if it weren’t for it; he wouldn’t have had the courage to invite him. But it’s still scary. Everything about them scares him, but at the same time, he knows it’s worth fighting for. That’s why he set a rule that they would be honest with each other in the cottage. It wasn’t always easy — he was almost suicidal when Ilya mentioned marrying Svetlana — but he realized they needed it. So many years with so little words; so many looks from Ilya he couldn’t decode. He wished he could be better at this whole “reading people” thing but it wasn’t so easy for him.Â
Courage. Honesty. Communication. On paper, it seemed easy, even something obvious to do, but in truth it wasn’t. Not for him. Not for them. That’s why he couldn’t just ask Ilya about something that bothered him for several days. In reality it wasn’t anything big, but to Shane it was. He felt like the ground would swallow him whole if he asked the question. The question itself was simple. Asking it wasn’t.
“Why do you always cover the edge of the table with your hands when I lean down to pick something up?”
A simple question that haunts him for days. Of course, he looked into it, but it wasn’t very helpful. Someone online said it was meant to show your partner that you care and don’t want them to get hurt, but to Shane, that explanation didn’t make sense. He was a big guy and played hockey, a brutal sport where he could suffer far worse injuries than just hitting his head. And even on the ice he wasn’t some fragile thing — he could fight and check other players just as hard as they could him. And Ilya knew that, sometimes even experiencing it firsthand. So why?
It all came down to that one evening when he was working at the table in the cottage. Ilya called him “boring” when he said he should get some work done and answer a few emails, but then he just sat on the couch and put on some baking show. They were sitting in comfortable silence — one that Shane had come to love over the past few days at the cottage. He was typing on his laptop when he heard his pen drop on the floor. He bent down to pick it up quickly, but because of that, he didn’t pay attention and bumped against the edge of the table.Â
“Fuck,” he sweared.Â
That got Ilya’s attention. He stood up from the couch and crossed the distance between them in a few long strides. He kneeled beside Shane and took his head in his hands, checking for any sign of injury.
“You okay, moy lyubimyy?” he asked with a lot of concern in his voice. Shane’s heart melted. It was a shame the world didn’t know how sweet Ilya was. And maybe it was for the better, because for some reason, Shane wanted to be the only person who knew that about him.
“Of course. It wasn’t anything serious. No need to be concerned,” he said with a shy smile on his lips. He was in a bit of pain, but he’d had worse. It was almost nothing compared to his hockey injuries.
“No? But the moment I’m not here to…. What is the word… protect you, you hurt yourself,” Ilya answered.Â
Shane furrowed his brows. “That’s what you were doing this whole time?” he asked.Â
Ilya laughed as if Shane said something very funny. “Of course. What did you think? That I like holding tables?”
Apparently, he found the whole situation very amusing, while Shane’s brain was trying to process everything. He was looking at his boyfriend, or rather in his direction, not quite meeting his eyes. Ilya was a little concerned, this time not about his health, but about his mind that liked to overthink everything. He sighed and made a decision.Â
“My mother used to do the same for me,” he said after a moment. That got Shane’s attention. Mentioning her wasn’t easy, but with Shane, it wasn’t so bad — at least not anymore. “She said I should do this to my girlfriend. To protect her,” his eyes watered, but that was okay, or at least that’s what he told himself, even if he didn’t quite believe it yet.
A little “Oh,” escaped from Shane’s lips. He didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t new, he always felt this way when Ilya mentioned his mother. Nothing he came up with when Ilya was talked about Irina was ever enough. He was always searching for better words.Â
“That’s… very sweet,” he said. His heart fluttered. His whole body suddenly felt like jelly. “I love you,” he added. It was still new to him, saying to saying words, but it made him happy. Not many things felt beautiful to him, but this did.
And for some reason he wasn’t afraid that Ilya wouldn't reciprocate. It was all so new to them, and yet he was so sure.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he heard it and smiled even wider. One day he would say it to Ilya in Russian, but he wasn’t ready yet. He wanted to surprise him, just as his Ilya had with this simple gesture.Â
His emails were suddenly forgotten. After all, they weren’t nearly as important as Ilya, or the simple gestures that made Shane’s heart melt.Â
Sometimes, Bradley wonders if Jake knows what's bothering him before he manages to work it out himself. He'd ask now if there was a chance Jake would let him get away with it.
Bradley watches a storm roll in.
hangster, 2k, established relationship, late night conversations [AO3]
Ich promote hier jetzt auch einfach mal meine Fanfic, weil Lungenemboleo mir die letzten zwei Wochen nicht aus dem Kopf gegangen is, hihi
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary:
Leo hatte eine Lungenembolie.
Adam war dabei.
---
Aka: Missing Scene zwischen EdN und BiD, weil es mir nicht reicht in einem Satz zu hören, dass Leo Konsequenzen der Explosion hatte und das nicht zu sehen.
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When Laura Lee is five, she settles on her grandfather’s shoulders in the midst of a town fair, with squeaky carousels, overpriced souvenirs, and tenacious eyes all around her—that’s when she first feels close to the clouds. The feeling is a flutter in her chest, porcelain plates clashing against her sternum, and she ends up carrying the debris for the rest of her life.
“You’re scared?” Her grandfather asks quietly, firmly holding her legs and anxiously looking around, always searching for empty corners in the busiest of places and smallest of towns. He’s used to vastness; his natural anchor is debris he carries around as well. “I’m not going to drop you, you know?”
“I’m not scared,” Laura Lee answers, tightening her fists against his shirt. “I like it.” She takes a deep breath, eyeing a Ferris wheel that fills her with dread. “Do you feel close to God when you fly planes?”
“Oh,” and he laughs, warmly and hoarsely, like an old engine. “Not really, my dear. Heaven is very, very far away; I don’t think that’s the way to feel it.” He settles down on a backless bench near an old oak tree, putting Laura Lee back on the ground. “I feel closer to God when I come back safely to the ground. The further you are from your ground, the harder it is to feel connected to anything, you see? Why do you ask? Did you feel closer to God on my shoulders?”
“I did." She nods vigorously. “When I grow up, I want to fly planes too.”
“Well, that’s very difficult.” He looks at her with that specific kind of fascination people give children who set their feet on anything—when the act of securing yourself to an idea is more important than the idea itself. Securing yourself means growing up.
“It cannot be that difficult,” Laura Lee says sheepishly, and her grandfather laughs again.
For as long as she remembers dreaming, Laura Lee dreams of the skies. She looks up whenever she prays, and the wooden boards of the ceiling she sees are like a coffin lid. She can’t reach them when she’s on her knees, and not even when she stands up, but she imagines herself to be infinitely taller, entirely unbound, to be hitting the wood with her fists, decisively yet gently, as if holding a steering wheel. It’s not until Bible camp that she learns most people look down when they pray. It’s not until Bible camp that Laura Lee learns that most people see religion as a restriction of sorts. It’s a set of rules that teaches you the words you cannot say and the people you cannot be.
To her, it’s the skies. If the clouds are anything close to what she imagines them to be, buckets of cold water filling your lungs and making you learn to breathe differently, it’s just like being baptized. To her, religion is freedom. Anything Laura Lee does, she does because she believes it’s right, so it’s a zero sum of giving and taking. She believes in miracles, but she also doesn’t think about them too often. If you start expecting miracles, they aren’t miracles anymore. There’s a place for everything, and hers is somewhere on her grandfather’s shoulders, scratching the barrier of infinity.
She’s not afraid of God—she trusts God. She’s still afraid of Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and skyscrapers because these are the forces she cannot control—nobody’s running them. If believing taught her anything, it’s that you cannot trust a machine or anything without a soul. Soul is everything, and hers is beautiful, with large glass windows and a view of the clouds, birds, and sunshine. With flying, it’s all in her hands, so steady and eager to punch through ceilings.
Her grandfather tells her a lot about plane crashes and dead-stick landings as she gets older. It doesn’t scare her. Caution is not fear. It’s a warning, a lesson, and a blessing. To be cautious is to be brave. Laura Lee is nothing if not brave. She knows that when a plane takes off, porcelain shatters inside you, and you can never fix what’s broken, but debris is also not fear; it’s a sign of living.
“Pilots die too, you know?” That's what her grandfather tells her in elementary school, when her dreams are still too bright and too distracting. She’s a hard-working child, but she still just shrugs when anybody asks her about her favorite class.
“Everybody does." Laura Lee frowns at him, with her neat sunshine hairstyle and another one of her flowery dresses. More often than not, she comes home with her hem dirty and her forehead sweaty. “It’s not for us to decide.”
When Laura Lee starts playing soccer with her classmates in the schoolyard, landing in mud, scraping her knees, and only ever crying before bed, almost nobody’s surprised. Running is almost like flying, and competing is almost like taking control, steering a wheel, and her grandfather tells her there’s nothing more important for a pilot than his ground. If you don’t look down, you’ll never learn how to land. So she keeps falling face-first, but she still looks up during all of her prayers. Religion is a zero sum. When she’s eight, she’s finally stretched in both sides.
(this is actually a part of a currently-abandoned LottieLee fanfiction I was working on. I just really like how this part turned out, so I didn't want to let it go to waste. maybe some of you will like it and be potentially interested in my future writing for this fandom. you can also follow my ao3 (link in my blog description) where I post lots of horror-themed content and plan on posting a MistyNat fic in the future
anyway, I love Laura Lee a lot and just wanted to do something for her character!)
john confesses to gale (excerpt from my postwar fic)
inspired by the line in the movie tropical malady, "when i gave you the clash tape, i forgot to give you my heart. you can have it today"
John reaches out in the darkness and carefully places a hand on Gale’s warm shoulder. He doesn’t stir. His skin is soft.
“When I gave you my lucky deuce,” John whispers. “I forgot to give you my heart. You can have it today.”
The words are out. Doesn’t matter if Gale is asleep, John reasons, he said the words and they’re out. An invisible weight lifts itself from his shoulders and a vice unclenches from around his heart. John exhales softly. He closes his eyes, leaving his hand on Gale’s shoulder, grateful that he hasn’t stirred.
A moment before John falls into unconsciousness, he feels Gale’s hand come up to cover his own. He feels the mattress shift and opens his eyes to see Gale’s face inches from his own, lit up by the moonlight streaming bright through the window. At their feet, Cinnamon curls herself into a tight bun, purring softly.
“You’ve always had my heart, John,” he says, taking John’s hand and bringing his fingers to his lips. He holds his breath, spellbound as Gale presses his lips to each of John’s knobby knuckles, Gale’s eyes closed as he does so. Gale’s lips are so soft, though chapped, and John’s too tired to resist the thought of imagining his lips on his own.
