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nc_ooc2018-04-02 06:43 am
iam_senpai) wrote in nc_ooc2018-04-02 06:43 am
Entry tags:
April Writing Prompts
Happy April, Nexus goers! I know we're a day late and I apologize. I got lost in a list of the 2018 website April Fool's jokes and had a REALLY HARD TIME focusing on my Mod work yesterday. Please forgive me m(_ _)m
m(_ _)m m(_ _)m
As always--
Disclaimer: I never close old writing prompts from previous months. People can and should be encouraged to post on old month's prompts and I highly encourage players to track these posts to catch stragglers or new people writing on old prompts.
Now. With that out of the way, onto this month's prompts.
1. It's a No Good Rotten Very Bad Day...for your character. A "bus drove through a deep puddle way too fast while you were walking alongside on the sidewalk" kind of day. A "dropped the only meal you were gonna get all over your new pants and also the floor" kind of day. Good luck.
2. Please listen to me
3. Gardening isn't as easy as it looks.
4. Wanting to change versus Trying to change
5. It's the Little Things
Bonus Prompt:
no subject
Prompt 1 and a little of Prompt 4: Get Me Back to My Multicolored Dream
no subject
no subject
"Growing Pains"
1 - Lost
2 & 3 - Break / Fuel
4 - Foreign
5, 6, & 7 - Shipwreck / Beginning / Fate
It's the Little Things (Ziggyverse AU)
Dee blinked. That was a feeling he knew well, from as recent as this morning. But coming from Jay, it was surprising to say the least.
"... what did you do?"
"Went down to the hotel gym with Mick and some of the other guys." He rolled over. "Fuck."
"Whose idea was that?" Dee snickered softly. "And how much alcohol was involved first?"
"Mine. And none, thank you..." he pouted.
Dee slowly pushed himself up. "I thought you hated going to the gym."
"I do. And just in case I managed to forget why, I definitely reminded myself." Jay groaned.
"Then why...?"
Jay was quiet for a moment, and then he sighed. "You remember what happened on our double date with Mick and Ziggy?"
"Which part? The absolutely amazing dinner with the most wonderful man in the world? The stunned emoji face from your sister when you texted that selfie of all of us together?" That technically came through the next morning, but in Dee's mind, it still counted.
"No, I mean before all that. When we had to put your chair in the taxi. And they didn't have a ramp."
Dee looked at him, confused. The new chair was almost a tank, but still, "You and Mick got it in and out of the trunk just fine."
"Mick got it in and out of the trunk just fine." Jay corrected. "I... helped... a little at best. But he didn't even need it. And that chair weighs a good 350 pounds! The man is fucking jacked."
"...So?"
"I'm... well... I'm not."
Jay poked his own stomach. The guitarist for the Spiders was solid as a rock, with a six pack he could just imagine Ziggy fawning over. Jay, on the other hand, could stand to lose a few pounds. He was softer, squishier. Not out of shape, per se, but definitely not in it either. He was strong enough to push and carry Dee, sure. But the new chair made that even easier too - the low-power manual mode felt like some kind of futuristic hoverchair, to be honest. And once Dee got the hang of the controls, he wouldn't even need to be pushed at all.
"I know it's silly, but seeing those guys... it made me feel really self-conscious. Like what if you..."
Before Jay could finish his thought, Dee had pressed a finger on top of his fiancé's lips. Just as Jay knew Dee's triggers and how to pull him out of a vicious spiral, Dee knew Jay's insecurities pretty well now too. And he knew what the other man needed right now, more than anything else, was soft, soothing reassurance.
"Jay... Sweetheart... I wouldn't trade one ounce of you for Mick or anyone else..."
"But..." he mouthed, but Dee lovingly shushed him again.
"So Mick can lift three and a half me's... Big deal..." Dee slid in close, draping himself over Jay and physically confirming every single affirmation as he said them. "He'll never be anywhere near as comfortable to cuddle up to. His hair isn't silky enough to run my fingers through. His eyes aren't mysterious pools I could get lost for hours gazing into. His fingers could never dance their way through corset laces like yours can..."
The list went on. Jay put his arm around Dee and held him.
"And you never have to try be anything other than who you are right now to make me keep falling in love with you every day. I promise."
"...thank you."
4. Wanting to Change (Ziggyverse AU)
Dee, of course, had been a bundle of nerves for all the usual reasons. And having a concussion, in and of itself, certainly didn't help. As a nurse, Jay knew what to watch for, and was grateful when the first few days had passed with zero complications. He was even more grateful that Dee didn't panic when Tom insisted both Gloria and Martyn sign off before Kuro would be allowed to play their next show.
Hell, if anything, Jay was floored. Dee talked to Martyn for over two hours! (Maybe there was actually was some brain damage done...) But both of them cleared the Kuro singer. Their show would go on!
At least, that was what everyone assumed, until making it through soundcheck and rehearsal became an obvious struggle. Dee was off, missing cues on both vocals and keyboard. His voice sounded pained. Something was obviously wrong.
Jay called a stop.
He spotted the other Dee, who was hanging out in the pit area. "If you guys want to warm up, the stage is yours. We need to take a break."
The rest of Kuro gathered around Jay as he helped Dee to the backstage couch. Dee fell back against it, eyes shut.
"Open your eyes. Look at me." Jay held a finger up and watched Dee's eyes carefully as they followed it. "Can you tell me what's wrong?"
"The lights hurt... and everything's too loud..." He groaned, shakily putting his hand on the side of his head.
"Ansgar, can you grab me an ice pack from the first aid kit? And a towel?" Jay instructed, turning back to Dee again. "Any nausea?"
"Not really..."
"Do your arms or legs feel any weaker than they usually do?" That was certainly a very relative question in this case, but still an important one.
Dee shook his head. "It just... hurts."
Jay took the ice pack from his drummer and wrapped it in the towel, draping it over the back of Dee's neck.
"Post-concussion headaches are pretty common for the first couple of weeks." He reassured Dee as well as the rest of the band. This didn't look like anything dangerous, or even a full-blown migraine. "But they're transient. They'll come and go..."
"Before the show tonight?" Rex dared to asked.
As Jay hesitated, Dee looked up at his bandmates in the dim light. Concerned expressions turned to disappointment as the silence stretched.
"Can't he just ta..." Johan started to ask, but cut his own question short when Jay immediately jerked his head, as if waiting for the inevitable fallout.
Dee reflexively gulped. His heart sped up as his breath hitched. He could feel the sweat beading on his skin in spite of the ice pack. Everything in his mind and body was shouting at him to run far, far away from the just the question itself.
"No..." Jay started to answer one of them, but Dee somehow managed to cut him off.
"Will... will it ge..get me through th..the show?"
Everyone stopped and stared. Jay, especially.
"T..taking something..." he was on the verge of a panic attack even saying the words, but he clenched his fists and spat them. "W..will it get me through the show? And... and not be... b..bad?"
Jay knew he had to respond quickly or Dee would jump to the absolute worst scenario, but he was completely and utterly stunned by the words coming out of his fiancé's mouth. Rex nudged him in the ribs, filling in the gap. "We all take mild painkillers sometimes."
The other band members nodded.
"Nothing like the narcotics they prescribed for the port placement." Jay insisted. Not that Dee had taken any after the surgery for a point of comparison. Hell, Gloria had to put in a nerve block because Dee was in agony and he still refused to take anything at all. "More like what they gave you at the hospital a few days ago."
He felt Dee tremble beside him and just held him for a moment.
"I know that terrified you. I know... Being out of it, not remembering what happened..." he whispered, gently stroking Dee's hair. Dee nodded, doing his best to hold it together, but unable to get the words out. "But that was from the head injury, I promise. Not the acetaminophen. Or paracetamol as these guys call it. It's the same thing. By the time you were asking Mick what happened, it was already completely out of your system. Gone. Done. No bad side effects, right?"
"No... but..."
"It's safe enough that I can give it to pregnant women when they're in pain, without fear of hurting the baby."
"I don't... I don't want to take anything!"
Normally, Jay would just leave it at that, but he'd been talking with Martyn a lot recently too. He pulled Dee gently closer as he tried a new strategy, "But you also don't want to spend the whole night lying in your bunk with a throbbing head when you could be on stage, performing."
He felt Dee shake his head, and heard a weakly muttered, "...No."
Jay glanced up to the others, silently pantomiming for two pills and a glass of water. Ansgar went to grab a cup from the water cooler, while Rex and Johan both rooted through one of their bags for a cheap bottle of paracetamol.
Out of the available medications, that really was the safest for head injury recovery too. Less risk of bleeding like there could be with aspirin or one of the NSAIDs Jay usually kept in his.
"Which would you rather do?" He whispered softly.
"Be on stage... m..make it through the show..." Dee looked up to his drummer holding a cup of water and his bassist holding two capsules in his hand.
"Then you know what you need to do, don't you? To make that happen?" Jay encouraged.
"It won't be bad? You... you promise... it... it won't be bad..." He squeaked as he held out a shaky hand.
Jay reached out to support it, so he wouldn't drop the pills. "It won't be bad."
Ansgar handed him the cup, and to everyone's amazement (albeit with a little bit of coaching), Dee took the proffered pills.
"It'll take about half an hour for them to kick in." Jay provided helpfully. "You should lay down, close your eyes, and just rest until then. Okay?"
Dee nodded as Jay helped him recline on the couch and readjusted the ice pack. He looked back up at the rest of the band, unable to hide the shock and surprise written plainly on his face.
Kuro did take the stage that night. It wasn't their strongest performance technically speaking, but you couldn't tell from how much the crowd was into it. The Prophet put everything - both his courage and his pain - into his voice. "Never give in, never back down" never felt as raw or as real as it did that night. And when they walked backstage again after their set, and Jay saw the empty plastic cup on the table next to the couch, he still had to pinch himself just to prove he wasn't dreaming.
He wasn't.