WELCOME TO FLAWED TO PERFECTION. WE'RE A SHORT APP, NO WORD COUNT SITE. SET IN THE FICTIONAL CITY OF OCEAN COAST, FLORIDA, WE'VE WATCHED THE CITY GO THROUGH SEVERAL CHANGES OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS. WITH THE RESORT THAT CATERS SPECIFICALLY TO CELEBRITIES, THE TOWN HAS FOUND A NEW ECONOMIC BOOM. SOME HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, AND OTHERS NOT SO MUCH. IT LEFT THE TOWN WITH DEFINED LINES BETWEEN ITS ECONOMIC CLASSES. BUT THAT'S LIFE I SUPPOSE. BUT HEY THIS IS AMERICA, MAYBE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO MAKE THINGS BETTER BY MAKING THAT GREAT AMERICAN DREAM OF YOURS COME TRUE. TO GET STARTED REGISTER WITH YOUR CHARACTERS FIRST AND LAST NAME IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
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out of all the parts of his body that ought to ache his toe ached the most. Actually he wanted to just cut the damned thing off so it would stop aching. Obviously they’d decreased the morphine doses they’d given him and dimitri had been complaining nonstop since that moment. It had been a pleasant ride from the moment they’d put that needle in his arm; he hadn’t been able to feel anything and slept most of the time. and when he hadn’t been sleeping he’d just stared at a tv that someone had so graciously turned on for him, even if he couldn’t even see what was on it because everything was blurry. But at least he hadn’t been in pain. His entire body had felt like jelly. He hadn’t even said a thing to the nurses when they’d poked around with that tube they’d shoved in his chest. Actually he had no recollection of anything from the moment he’d passed out in the car to the point he woke up staring at a doctor making the morning round. He’d been in and out of consciousness, not because his head was badly injured but because a kind soul had drugged him down—probably in everyone’s best interest, not to mention the nurses. Dimitri wasn’t the one to let anyone miss the fact that he was in pain and he was sure gemma had played a great part in the idea of having him sleep most of the time. thus far he hadn’t seen her once but he had a feeling she’d been there. faces had come and gone and he hadn’t even thought that much about it, gemma had probably been one of them but he’d been too soggy to recognize her.
he’d been staring at those four walls for too long. most people would just accept the fact that they couldn’t go anywhere, but not him. dimitri hated being restrained and stuck in the same place for too long. not to mention the white walls was driving him insane. they’d gotten him off the iv and removed the chest tube since his punctured lung had re-expanded. At least that was a good thing, but he’d still been ordered to take it easy. as if he had a choice. His chest was aching as it was, dimitri wasn’t stupid enough to leave the hospital before someone told him he could… or until they pretty much threw him out. he was comfortable there and didn’t need to worry about anything… as long as they’d kept him on the morphine that was. now he was restless and had been limping around his room half the morning. he guessed gemma had taken a trip to his apartment because he’d found a bag with some of his things. at least he didn’t have to wear those stupid robes anymore. a big t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants would do.
obviously he should probably not be up on his feet but keeping dimitri in bed was harder than it would seem. He’d grown impatient and staring at a tv all day didn’t appeal to him. he was swaying as he walked, the morphine was still in his system and made his mind soggy and his vision still rather blurred. His toe was pounding and he wanted to just kick something, but even he knew that wasn’t the best idea. instead he limped across the room and held on to the doorpost for his life. ”nurse.” he called out after the figure walking the hallway. ”you.” he said again and felt short of breath already. he was swaying where he stood and blinked a couple of times to get his focus right. ”is there something to do around this place that doesn’t involve watching brain dead fucking tv? I’m not a damned vegetable like that thing in there.” he pointed with his thumb towards the direction he knew noemi’s room was. his ribs hurt like hell and dimitri made a face but clung to the doorframe for his dear life.
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THEN OUR SKIN GETS THICKER
“Next time the lifeguard says no diving in the kiddy pool, what are you going to do?” Tom asked the young boy, whose name was Tanner, as he was eye to eye with him. “Um…I dunno,” the child claimed throwing his arms into a shrug while giving a demon-like grin. Wow, this kid had to be the son of Beelzebub, either that or his parents were too lenient with him to give him the proper discipline he needed. This had to be the fifth time Tom went over the rule of thumb with Tanner, coming into the emergency room with a head injury after he rebelliously did against what he was told by the screaming lifeguard at the local swim club. It had been awhile since then, finally having recovered enough to go home with a very noticeable bandage wrapped around his head. “No, Tanny Boy, don’t let me down! What are you gonna do if the lifeguard says no diving in the kiddy pool?” he asked him again, folding his hands in front of him to plea for the boy to give him the correct answer this time around. “Uh…I won’t dive!” Tanner exclaimed in an irritated tone, crossing his arms in front of him. “Good, good! Now go home, boyo,” Tom instructed, handing Tanner a lollipop before he ran off to his mom who was waiting to drive him home.
Making his way out of the room that was once occupied by Tanner, Tom happily walked down the hall past the various rooms containing other patients on the road to recovery. Any door that was opened, he peeked into see what was happening and to give those a smile and a wave to whom he made eye contact with. Beginning to whistle the tune of “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, he suddenly saw Courtney the volunteer caught dead in her tracks as someone shouted at her from one of the rooms. Still whistling, but with a confused expression on his face, he picked up the pace of his steps to see what the matter was. Seeing Courtney, who looked as white as a ghost, and hearing the loud, yet winded voice, Tom peered around the corner to find that one bear of a man, coming into the hospital not too long ago after being a part of a car crash. “Woah, dude!” Tom came hurrying into the room, pulling out a chair for the guy to sit down on as appeared as if he was about to pass right there. “Pop a squat first,” he instructed, also waving Courtney away because she probably had better things to attend to than to be yelled at by an angry patient. “Secondly, Courtney isn’t a nurse; she’s a volunteer and only a pipsqueak in high school.” Coming from around the chair, Tom stood about two or three foot away from Hercules because, let’s face it, he looked like he could pummel Nurse Bellamy any second. “There’s plenty to do besides watching tv. You could read a book or a magazine from the hospital’s miniature library; you could do puzzles or play card games with some of the folks down the hall; you could play video games with the kids. Do you need more options than that?” If needed, Tom could go on and on about the activities in the hospital, such as playing one of those hand clapping games…except he normally suggested that to the kids.
At the patient’s indicator of a supposed vegetable nearby, Tom lifted an index finger and put it to his own lips, “Shhhh! No need to be rude, man! Mrs. Carney’s family might be able to hear you.” Poor Mrs. Carney was on her deathbed, her family and friends coming in everyday to see her in her vegetable state of mind. Then something suddenly occurred to Tom, causing him to glare at the patient. “Wait how do you know about Mrs. Carney? Did you leave your room ‘cause you’re not supposed to!”
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Fucking hospitals. They were a pain, and expensive. He made a mental note to force noemi to pay for his hospital bill—but then again he would forget all about it by the end of the day. he could barely remember his name or how old he was. it had literally taken him half a minute to remember where he was when he first woke up that morning. whatever nurse he’d seen that day had listed a long list of things he should and shouldn’t do, as they always seemed to do—not to mention they kept reminding him of his injuries. As if he couldn’t remember those! They were the fucking reason he was there in the first place. at least they’d been kind enough to remove that chest tube he’d had for days. but he was still ordered to stay in bed, he shouldn’t be moving around at all. but keeping dimitri in one place was pretty much impossible and staring at the four walls of that room was getting to him. he needed to do something, anything but staring at a tv or up at the ceiling. And since gemma was either home sleeping or working he didn’t have anyone to talk to either. not that he would actually want to talk, he just wanted company; it made him feel less lonely. (go figure!)
Dimitri shouldn’t even be standing up to be honest, his head was spinning and the morphine was making his legs feel like vegetables. He stared at the guy talking to him. was he fucking serious? though since he didn’t quite have anything to say dimitri pretty much followed the man’s order. to him the guy didn’t look like a nurse still he was dressed like one. man, all these hospital staff made him feel confused. He had to be a doctor; after all he was a man what business would he have doing a woman’s work? ”if she’s not a nurse… what does that make you? a doctor? why are you nursed like a dress?” he tried to form sentences but it really wasn’t, obviously, working out quite as well as he’d hoped. he could probably say the things he’d been thinking about for a long time but quick replies was not his strongest forte at this given time and place. no putting words together in sentences when he was being hurried didn’t work out at all. god, he hoped it was not a permanent condition! If it was he could probably kiss his job goodbye and live as a fucking hermit for the rest of his damned life.
He looked up at the doctor person and gave him a questioning look—or as much of a look as dimi could give figuring his nose was covered in surgical tape. They had told him he’d broke it and he’d asked them how much it had improved his looks. And the damned people had laughed at him. he had been dead serious but of course people didn’t understand dimitri being serious, most people just thought he had a sarcastic sense of humor when in reality he had no sense of humor! or well… he did… but his sense of fun had caused his sister to crash straight into another car and put them both in a hospital bed. why on earth were people so fucking stupid? ”do I look like the kind of book that persons?” he did like to read… occasionally. Most of the time he was just too lazy and well, to be honest, it was a good sleeping pill! If he opened a book he would fall right back to sleep and he’d slept for too damned long. ”video games sounds good.” finally! He managed to put together a sentence that actually made sense! The idea of video games cheered him up a bit. At least he would have something to do. card games… no. ”what mrs. Car? I was sister about my talking!” he frowned his brow. That didn’t make sense… ”I was talking about my sister,” dimitri corrected himself. last he’d head of noemi she had been in a coma, or medical coma, or unconscious. Actually he had no fucking idea and he didn’t care less. The bitch had tried to kill him!
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Tom absolutely loved his job, there were no doubts about it. Sure, there were those moments like in every job where he questioned why the hell he was a nurse, but most days were better than others. Clearly, Nurse Bellamy was a guy who saw the glass as half full; there was always that silver lining in every situation you could spot, or sometimes it takes is to convince oneself it’s there at all. Either way, dealing with grumpy patients such as this giant of a man was not a problem for Tom. There had been worse; in most cases is there always, always something worse he had come across in the past with the experience he had thus far. When the patient finally sat down in the chair, he listened to what he had to say carefully. With an expression of puzzlement crossing Tom’s features, it took him a moment to figure out his words were in reverse. Forcing himself to keep back a chuckle as in not to offend the man, he began to answer him as if they were having a conversation that made perfect sense. “Noooo,” he drew out, shaking his hands in front of him while his head did the same. “I am a nurse. One of the head nurses here; definitely not qualified to be a doctor, bro.” Tom got it all the time with people assuming he was a doctor just because he was a man. How sweet of them to believe he was capable of going to school for waaay too long to receive the degree. Heck no, techno! Four years to become a nurse was enough for him. He enjoyed being a nurse; besides, Tom didn’t have confidence in himself to think he had the intellect to take a stab at studying to be some sort of doctor. “By the way,” he suddenly remembered, being totally rude of him to forget such a silly formality. “I’m Nurse Bellamy, but since you appear to be a little fuzzy in the head, you can just call me Tom.”
After listing off the possibilities of what the patient could do in his spare time, all Tom received in return was an expression that meant this beastly guy thought he was an idiot. Being given another mixed up sentence, it took Tom a second to figure out what he was trying to say again. “I don’t know what you like to do!” he exclaimed, giving him a shrug. Did Tom look as if he could read minds? As much as he wished for the superpower of penetrating through people’s craniums to read their inner thoughts, he sadly lacked it. If only he were Raven Baxter from the TV show, That So Raven – fierce and psychic. At his agreement to play video games, a grin spread on Tom’s lips: “Good choice. I hope you don’t mind playing it was some of the kids in the same wing. They’re usually the ones hogging it.” There was barely a second where there wasn’t a kid attached to one of the two game consoles they owned in the recreational room. Occasionally an adult or teen would join on in, but they normally didn’t bother trying to fight the kids off to get the chance to play Mario Cart or Super Smash Brothers. Another muddled up sentence given to Tom, he had to pause again to extract whatever the meaning was. Luckily, he didn’t have to when the patient corrected him. “Oooh yeah, I forgot you are Noemi’s brother. Jeez, such harsh words to use towards your own sister.” Tom then went to the doorway to see if he could spot a fellow nurse or volunteer to grab him a wheelchair so he could transport the barbarian to the recreational room. Seeing Courtney walk by again, Tom gave her a pleasant smile before asking, “Do me a favor and fetch me a wheelchair, please?” Immediately, she did as she was told, taking her about five minute to retrieve a wheelchair and leaving it to Tom to fiddle around with. Grabbing the chair by the handles, he pushed it over close to the patient so he would barely have to get up off his feet in order to get into the wheelchair. “Here ya go! Hop right in!”
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He blamed noemi for being in the hospital. It was after all her fault they had ended up there! he hadn’t done a single thing besides coughing and coughing and cursing and coughing some more. how distracting could that really be? she had crashed the damned car so she was definitely to blame for his punctured lung, broken ribs, concussion and not to mention his broken toe and nose. at least they had been kind enough to keep him sedated for a couple of days; his cold was gone, it would have been a pain to cough with a punctured lung. But the risk of inflammation was still severe, he hadn’t been in the best shape before the accident and now he would probably feel like crap for another month. which meant gemma would go through another episode of his “hey do this or that for me because you ought to feel damned sorry for me woman” theory. She was a nurse, was she not? she should at least try to take care of him now! she’d failed that miserable when he’d had that cold, and dimitri wasn’t the one to let a thing like that go… ever. his logic was simple: she was a woman therefore she should take care of him. but gemma, of course, had to say no because that was all she ever did. she never listened to his pleads. ”but you’re a guy,” dimi stated as if it was impossible for men to be nurses. It should be; women were nurses and men doctors, that was the unwritten law in his sexist universe. ”my wife is a nurse… well, ex-wife… girlfriend… something… whatever…” he actually had no idea what to call gemma. She hated being called his wife and he hated calling her his ex-wife and girlfriend was just a word he hated beyond everything. it sounded silly and if she ever heard him call her that she would have won that battle and dimitri would never admit to such a defeat. ”tom?” he looked at the guy and made a face. that was a stupid name. instead of trying to even say his own name dimitri just held out his hand for tom to read that stupid hospital bracelet. ”I’m that person,” he said and made a face. moving his arms hurt like fuck, if it wasn’t the ribs hurting it was his muscles and if it wasn’t the muscles hurting it was probably just in his head. something hurt and that was it.
The mention of kids made him uneasy. He didn’t like kids, they were usually tiny idiots with no brains… well, if they had brains they didn’t know how to use it. but at least he would get out of this room! any other nurse would probably have protested and led him right back to the bed. he would have protested loudly, of course. dimitri was sick of the room, sick of doing nothing and he was sure that he wouldn’t get any better by just lying there and staring at a tv. He wanted something to do, to keep himself from going crazier crazy. ”what games do you have?” at least he managed to put together a decent sentence this time. man, if those children wouldn’t let him play video games he would run them over with a wheel chair. And worst off: what If he would, against all odds (of course), lose against on of these kids? But the prospect of getting out of the room was outweighing the possible loss in a video game. If he left he would at least not have to watch that crappy daytime tv in his loneliness. It was seriously driving him half crazy. the mentioning of his idiotic sister had dimi giving tom a suspicious look. ”she’s the one that put me here.” she had been the one crashing that damned car, it was her fault he was in the hospital to begin with and well… he didn’t ever care to be nice to her but now he really had reason to dislike her. she had tried to kill him! he shifted in his seat and grunted. He was sore all over and just hearing his sister’s name made his fingers twitch. Couldn’t someone do him a favour and put a pillow over her face and just kill her for him? she wasn’t worth the time he’d have to spend in jail if he did it himself. for a second he was almost worried the male nurse (biggest joke ever!) was going to run over his toe with the wheel chair but thankfully tom knew what he was doing and dimitri got up on his feet again only to change seats from the wooden chair in the room to the more movable vehicle. It had four wheels, didn’t it? and an engine… sort of. that totally made it a vehicle! He muttered a ”thanks” before running a hand through his hair. At least they hadn’t cut it off. that would had been the last drop!
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It was typical for Tom to receive quizzical looks about the fact he was a nurse. Yep, he was a male nurse and lovin’ it! But not only was he a nurse, but he was a head nurse – it made all the difference! He didn’t mind people questioning his title as a nurse, especially because he was used to it by this time. “So…?” he asked, with a smile still on his face while he popped the question. Why did it matter if he was a male nurse? He saw nothing wrong about it! And he didn’t give a damn at the fact that there was probably only two or three other male nurses he had heard of working at Ocean Coast Hospital as well. All his fellow nurses were female and they fully accepted him for who he was. Plus, being a guy who was caught up on pop culture and the latest and greatest TV shows, it had never been difficult to join in on their conversations. Essentially, Tom fit right in with the transfer to Ocean Coast and it was a great decision to make. He then gave the patient a strange expression as he explained to Tom about his wife/ex-wife/girlfriend being a nurse too. “Uh…what the heck? That’s a mouthful of titles you have there for her. I’m confused. Which one is she exactly?” Tom clearly wasn’t an expert when it came down to relationships; let’s face it, he totally sucked ass. Except never in his life had he heard anything so complicated. This patient had a wife/ex-wife/girlfriend? Man, that sounded fucked up! “Yup! It’s just Tom,” he confirmed with the added nod of his head. When the patient lifted up his arm to show Tom his bracelet, he reached out to twist it around in order to see the name. “Dimitri Correia! That’s right. I remember now.” Hey, it’s not Tom’s fault when he was dealing with patients going in and out of the hospital every day. He usually only recognized those who frequented the hospital all too often. Glancing at the patient who now had a name, Tom looked at him with concern upon seeing the face he was making. “Woah! Dude, what’s wrong?”
Tom was glad that Dimitri liked the sound of playing video games – proud of himself for making a patient satisfied! Though, he had to pause for a moment to recall what games they had for the consoles. “Hold on…gimme a second,” he told him, placing a hand on his forehead as he tried to remember. “I know we have the a lot of the Mario games. You know, like Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, and a couple of the Mario Parties…oh! I know we have this one hunting game where the Wii remote is in this bright orange plastic gun. It’s pretty fun shooting animals if you’re into that,” he explained to him, but worried about his last thing about shooting animals. What if this Dimitri guy was a part of PETA? Tom was going to be dead with his comment about killing animals in a video game – hopefully that wasn’t the case! However, Tom was so shocked that his guy would say such harsh words about his sister. Nurse Bellamy was an only child with divorced parents, but siblings couldn’t be that bad to have! “Hold it! We’re not playing the blame game here,” he told him, holding up his hands as if he were taming a wild beast and trying to keep it back from him. He had heard a few things here and there about what happened to the Correias, otherwise, he was in the dark when it came down to their situation. Either way, Dimitri was obviously pissed.
Once Tom had pushed the wheelchair over to the Dimitri and waited for him to climb into it, he then started pulling the wheelchair backwards in order to have room to turn it around. Finally having the wheelchair facing the doorway leading out into the hall, Tom began to direct the wheelchair out of the room and towards the recreational room. On their way to the room, Tom waved to a few faces here and there until they reached their destination. “Here we are!” Tom pushed the wheelchair over to the area where a bunch of kids and a couple teens were huddled around the TV screens while eight of the children were given the opportunity to play on the two video game consoles. “Yo, little buddies, can this guy join you? His name is Dimitri,” he said to the hoard of kids, leaning down to them in order to interact with them properly. A lot of the kids stared at Dimitri in horror, probably at the sight of all his wounds and bandages, and at the fact that an adult wanted to play a Mario game with them. There was silence for a good couple seconds until a little girl stood up and gave her controller to Dimitri. “You can take my place,” she spoke to him meekly before going back to where most of the kids were sitting and plopping down amongst them. “Wow, that was so kind of you, Marissa.” And here Tom was thinking Dimitri wouldn’t be able to receive the chance to play video games because the children could be so selfish!
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This guy had to be fucking kidding him! dimitri just looked at him as if he were an alien telling him he was from a different planet. Men did not become nurses because that was a female job. if the feminists knew what dimitri was thinking they would opt to have him euthanized where he was sitting. (frankly they’d probably want to kill him anyway but whatever.) but this was just fucking ridiculous. The guy must be fucking joking! ”you’re a fucking guy and a guy can’t have a woman’s stupid job.” it just made no sense to him. tom had all the advantages on his side and still he was just a nurse. A nurse! What kind of guy became a nurse!? a retard, maybe. Or a homo. Oh fucking hell. was his nurse a fucking faggot? He glanced up at tom and squint his eyes. he didn’t look like a homo. He looked like an asexual fucking transvestite. But if the so-called nurse was a transvestite he was most likely a flaming homosexual as well. why else would the guy become a nurse? Everything about tom was just a big mystery to dimitri since he had no fucking clue what the hell the guy ever meant. Did that guy just ask him to explain what he’d just meant? Wasn’t it perfectly clear? To dimitri it was, of course and he indirectly thought that every other man on the planet understood what he was thinking and could follow his reasoning. Obviously he was wrong. maybe this time he had been a bit unclear…? Just a bit, but for once he didn’t want to get it wrong because he had a bad, bad, bad feeling that whatever he told a nurse would end up being whispered in gemma’s ear. Maybe that was just another prejudice against nurses he had, but he couldn’t bee too sure and he sure as hell didn’t feel like being reamed at now. so he watched his tongue even if it meant he would just over think everything he said and scramble the sentences again. ”all of them?” he actually posed that as a question because he had no idea what the hell he was going to say. ”she won’t let me call her ‘wife’ so I don’t fucking know what to call her…” again he gave Thomas a suspicious look. ”do you know her?” he scratched his head and would probably have shrugged his shoulders or made a face if he knew it wouldn’t hurt. ”it’s nothing,” he lied. If he admitted he felt any sort of pain he feared he was going to be put back to the damned bed and he was sick of that room.
For a second he wanted to ask tom what the hell was wrong with him. ”Mario party?” he made a discontent face. he remembered those idiotic games. God he was probably old enough to remember the very first Nintendo games from back in the early 1990’s. ”I’d rather shoot bitches than animals.” that was probably something most didn’t know about him: his odd fascination with video and computer games. Though, are you surprised? How else would he have gotten into computers to begin with? when he was, e.g., noor’s age the computers were fucking boxes and that was it. so to be honest, without the stupid games he would probably never have bothered to even glance at a computer. And well, to be even more honest he found hardware development far more interesting than software, but he couldn’t say that around work because he was pretty sure 90% of his co-workers would give him nasty looks. He had his odd interests that obviously went well together; he didn’t know how many fucking computers he’d put together now. it was one of the things he did have patience with. building the computer he could do but when it later came to actually use it he couldn’t be assed and the times he played some game he would yell at the screen and slam his fists against the desk in complete and utter rage. Not that it was any different from his everyday life, but it was still different seeing dimitri did not accept losing as a possible outcome of a game. ”whatever, she tried to kill me.” he was going to keep on saying that until hell froze over because in dimitri’s universe it was the damned thruth. His sister had tried to kill him and that was it but that didn’t matter now instead he shook the thoughts of his idiotic, vegetable sister away. ”Mario kart will do,” dimitri muttered and glared at some old lady with her walker as they passed by. and it would only get worse: children. god he didn’t like children; of course they were the kind of children you just wanted to fucking hate but couldn’t because you pitied them instead. He stared at the girl who offered him her seat. Was that some kind of trick? He didn’t trust kids, they were vicious bastards all of them. ”uh, thanks, but it’s okay I got the uh… wheelchair,” he said and forced a smile. he could always sit in that, no need for any stupid couches. he had at least held his tongue and didn’t curse because one thing he’d actually learnt over the years was that people didn’t appreciate strong language around children. ”wanna play?” the question wasn’t directed to the kids because their participation was almost a given, the question was for Thomas and dimitri glanced at the recently nicknamed transvestite nurse.
