Aug 17, 2017
“latah delia”
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Canada
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Brunei
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
“latah delia”
{x}
AOS Instagram Aesthetics: Melinda May
gift of knowledge
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Characters: Regina Mills/Evil Queen, Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold, mentioned: King Leopold
Pairings: Regina Mills/Rumplestiltskin
Length: 300 words
Warnings: No Archive Warnings
Summary: prompt #1 (day 1) “ golden queen + an object ”
If she had learned anything from her teacher it was that madness kept people at a distance. And while Regina wasn’t afraid of his scaly gold skin and eccentric mood swings, everyone else knew better than to become too comfortable around the Dark One.
Leopold used to gift her with any number of jewel adorned heavy dresses that bordered on ugly and childlike. They made her feel clumsy and like a china doll from the eastern kingdom traders in the marketplace, like everyone was staring at her. (They were.)
Rumpelstiltskin did none of that. He ignored her during their lessons, was dismissive of her achievements most of the time, prompted her to expand everything she thought she knew about the world. Whether the comfort of feeling guided by a strong hand reminded her of Mother. (While Cora’s hands were suffocating, Rumple’s only squeezed gently around her neck, reminding her who was the perceived higher power of their complicated duo.)
He only offered her knowledge. Spells and curses and ways to protect herself from everyone around her.
And she loved him for it.
So, when she felt so fragile and weightless, like a simple breeze would make her float away, she anchored herself to the ground with layers of intricate fabrics, heavy diamonds corsets, and scandalous cuts. (Her own type of madness.) Her own suit of armor against the world that never seemed to leave her.
Because her wings had shriveled with Daniel’s heart and Rumpelstiltskin had taught her much, but not how to save herself.
“Mary Oliver”.
in between the silence
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Characters: Melinda May, Phil Coulson, Lance Hunter, mentioned: Andrew Garner
Pairing: Melinda May/Phil Coulson, some Melinda May/Andrew Garner
Length: 800 words
Warnings: No Archive Warnings, tags to 3x07
Summary: Of all their silent conversations, this was the one that broke his heart the most.
She seemed so invincible. But just touch her and she’ll wince. She has secrets and trusts no one. She’s the perfect example of betrayal. Because anyone she’s ever trusted broke her.
She hadn’t moved since the doctors had begun working on Andrew. He watched her from the other side of the glass, breathing evenly as she watched the surgeons, covered in blood, operate on her ex-husband.
He hadn’t seen her in months.
He had sent agents, dozens of them, trying to find her. After Andrew had returned from Maui without her, he had been searching for her. Never found her, of course. No one could find Melinda May unless she wanted to be found.
But he couldn’t stop looking.
And when she had appeared just the other week, she was suddenly there and suddenly gone. It was so fast, meaningless, cold almost and he didn’t even have a chance to say what he wanted to. His pre-planned apologies.
His arguments.
His anger.
And there she was, standing across the room and he couldn’t make force himself to walk towards her. It was minutes before his heavy footsteps made it across the hallway and into the large open, hospital room. He could clearly see her reaction to his sudden presence. Her body tensed, muscles almost indistinctively rippling into fight or flight mode.
He was interrupting her vigil and he didn’t know what to say to comfort her.
He slid down on the wall next to her. His back protesting at the movement as his shoulder brushed against hers. Melinda’s body enclosed on itself slightly, making her smaller, less of a target and he pretended not to notice.
Neither of them spoke for the longest time and the only sound was the beeping of Andrew’s heart rate monitor.
“You two have the same face.” His voice was course, scratchy as he sat down next to her. Melinda’s dark eyes lingered on Andrew’s form a moment longer before turning towards Phil. “Granted you had been shot and tortured at the time, not unconscious.”
Please look at me.
Her face didn’t change at the tone of his joke and he internally sighed. The time apart hadn’t lessened the feelings of hurt she had left with. “I looked for you,” he broached gently.
“Here I am.”
Her voice was soft, barely there. It reminded him of the time after Bahrain when each syllable he and Andrew and Maria pulled out of her was a hard fought victory.
You knew where I was. You just never came.
He swallowed hard before speaking again.
“Are … are you staying?”
“No.”
I can’t.
The single word was a sharp shard through his heart. He knew that he had left things with his best friend, unfinished, broken, but he’d never had imagined that she’s leave on vacation and never return. She had always come back. Even after Bahrain. Even after her string of failed suicide missions. Her divorce with Andrew. She always came back. Except this time. He struggled to respond.
“I called…”
You never answered.
“You sent agents to tail me,” she corrected with a sigh. God, she sounded exhausted. “To try and convince me to come back to base. Level Three agents, no less.”
You should have come yourself.
“I got rid of the levels,” he said immediately, the sentence rolling off his tongue before he could reel it back in.
Please forgive me.
Melinda lifted her eyes to meet his for a moment and he could the coldness sliding between them. Sizing her up, she looked smaller, thinner than he had last seen her. There were growing black circles under her eyes that had been just as dark as she when she had left.
What have you been up to May?
“Melinda?”
There was a deep groan that had May on her feet before Coulson could even respond. She moved to the side of Andrew’s hospital bed. He was covered in layers of bandages, sheets and contrasted to his dark skin. His suit was thrown haphazardly over one of the chairs.
Judging by Melinda’s anguish, he would have believed that the good doctor was dying, when he knew differently. Just a broken hip. A few scratches. Potential concussion.
It’s going to be okay.
I hope.
He couldn’t hear the whispered words they shared. He couldn’t find it in himself to not be jealous. It was Andrew. It had always been Andrew, from the very start. He knew that of course, but as the Professor fade back out of consciousness, May glanced once over her shoulder.
He hadn’t moved, a quiet presence, unwavering. The look in her eyes made him want to cry, the pain was tangible and he could feel it in the air.
Oh, Melinda, please don’t go.
from a wip
tagged by @crazymaryt ♥♥
Rules: Include the first line from a WIP, and tag as many people as there are words.
“It was like our grief was completely...overshadowed by hers.”
(10 words)
tags: @ussjellyfish @suallenparker @nessnessquik @daisyqiaolianmay @ddagent @theehteam @marvelelle @righteousnerd @thephilindalibrary @fuckyeahphilinda
stitched up organs
Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Characters: Melinda may, Lincoln Campbell, Phil Coulson, Jemma Simmons, (mentioned) Maria Hill, and (mentioned) Daisy Johnson
Pairing: Melinda May&Lincoln Campbell, slight Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Summary: When operating on May after a gunshot wound, Lincoln finds something in her medical file that he shouldn't.
Length: 1000 words
Warnings: No Archive Warnings, surgery mentioned (non-graphic)
The bullets had torn through her ribs and into her left lung. She had still been awake and talking by the time they had come back in from the mission. Two bullets center mass and she was still conscious.
He shook his head, even thinking about it now.
He didn’t understand, medically, how she was so calm. Nothing seemed to phase her, not even the fact that she was bleeding out in seat of a Quinjet. May had even flown the rest of the team home before the blood had started to seep into her lungs.
Lincoln leaned over to check the exit wound. Coulson accidentally startled awake. He was still holding onto one of his Deputy’s hands, their fingers intertwined.
“Sorry,” Lincoln murmured, his voice was quiet, apologetic.
He shook his head and ran a hand over his face before asking, “how is she?”
“She’s holding steady. Still unconscious as you can see. But she’s breathing on her own again which is pretty good news for these kinds of injuries.” His eyes found the monitor. His gaze held on her resting heartbeat of 40, still of unnaturally low.
He could venture why, of course—he had seen her work before. The way she was able to move at an almost impossible speed. The range of her flexibility. The precision of her attacks.
“Director Coulson?”
He looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot and ugly, dark circles made his skin look even paler in the midnight. Lincoln hesitated before continuing. He was surprised when they asked him onto her surgery at all. He and Agent May didn’t have the best track record, but Coulson had quieted her protest with words he didn’t catch.
“You’re listed as one of her next-of-kin…”
“We were partners out of the Academy.” Coulson sounded confused and Lincoln rushed to continue.
“Do you think Agent May would mind if I took an ultrasound of her heart?”
Coulson eyebrows contracted immediately. “Do you think there’s something wrong with her heart?” The panic was clear in his eyes.
“Oh—no, I just have never seen someone…” oh this was going to sound stupid, “someone with such a low resting heart rate.”
He hesitated for the briefest of a moment.
“No, I think it’d be okay.”
He was swift and silent with the equipment. As he ran the ultrasound wand over her skin, he was surprised by what he found. The organ was slightly larger than he expected. There were medical studies that supported the theory that Olympic athletes exhibited slightly larger than normal hearts with low resting heart rates, but Agent May was tiny to begin with and her heart was exquisite.
He watched the heart beat and pause on the monitor. Focusing on his own pulse, he could feel his beating almost twice as fast as the injured woman’s.
“What are you looking for?” There was a curiosity in Coulson’s voice that he hadn’t heard from the man before.
Lincoln’s eyes jumped up to meet his face. “I just wanted to see her heart beat. Agent May has a very low average heart rate.”
He turned to look at his boss only to find him as mesmerized by the organ as he was.
“Is that bad?”
His head began to shake before the question had finished coming from the Director’s mouth. “No it’s actually a good thing in theory. It’s just a sign of her athleticism. It’s common in Olympic swimmers, gymnasts, that sort of thing. I picked it up on the monitor.”
It was like each heartbeat she gave could be her last. As if she was somehow convincing her heart to beat again and again in the time between contractions. He understood the type of dedication, pain, endurance that it took to train a body, an organ to be in that pristine of shape.
But what about the pain that stayed?
Would there be evidence of all that heartbreak on the inside if he opened her up to prying eyes?
Daisy had mentioned parts of her training with May before Afterlife. Of her quiet and beautiful S.O. who was always fearlessly present for their team. He had been surprised to hear of someone else, most especially a non-Inhuman, working as an impromptu-transitioner. It was the closest any human had come to understanding how to control the change, the pain, the fear.
Coulson had excused himself to take a phone call; someone called ‘Maria’ as he was putting away the equipment and logging back onto the computer.
Lincoln’s eyebrows contracted slightly as he clicked on the document flagged in May's file. The document was clear, filed about six years ago; signed off by one of the SHIELD medical officers. He wasn’t entirely surprised to find their name censored out.
A DNR.
He swallowed thickly feeling the bile at the back of his throat rise uncomfortably and glanced back at the woman lying in the bed.
He had just saved the life of a woman who didn’t want to be saved.
He didn’t mention the document to anyone else until the next day when Simmons fluttered into the room to check on May’s status. She was chattering about something he couldn’t really focus on, not with the DNR weighing on his mind.
“Agent Simmons?”
“Lincoln?”
He hesitated before, “did you know that Agent May has a Do-Not-Resuscitate form on file?”
Simmons immediately avoided his gaze. The air of cheerful chattering was suddenly gone and her pleasant smile dissipated.
“Yes…I came across it while we were on the Bus.” She sighed heavily and busied herself by checking the tubes connected to May’s IV. “But when I asked Coulson about it, he ordered me to ignore it.”
Lincoln’s eyes narrowed.
“You do know that if we were in a real hospital that you wouldn’t be allowed to operate on her.”
“Yes, but here,” she hesitated, before turning to face him with iron in her gaze, “here we need her too much.”