jomiddlemarch

[jomiddlemarch]

And whilst our souls negotiate there

Chapter 14

“I’ll leave you to it, but Miss Granger���s senior attending Medi-wizard said I was to look in on you both after three hours,” the nurse, a pleasant creature of indeterminate age and orientation far superior to the one who’d referred to Hermione as “no trouble” and “Jean,” said, careful to keep the tone respectful and matter-of-fact, as if Draco were as deserving of respect as any other wizard, despite the sickly green Dark Mark remnants on his arm and the absolutely extraordinary and bloody bonkers untested and unverified spell set he planned to cast. 

(Not wandless, though he’d considered it. Not with his usual wand, though he held it lightly in his left hand. Luna Lovegood had done whatever her equivalent of calling in a favor was and he had a brand-new wand of Japanese umbrella-pine with a condor feather core whose power was undeniable and unpredictable.)

“Ta,” he replied, channeling Neville and not Theo. 

The nurse left.

Would he have lost his mind in three hours?

More optimistically, would Hermione be sitting upright in the narrow bed, arguing over his technique and inflection, absently nibbling on the shortbread that was Mungo’s only culinary accomplishment?

He’d have to hope for the best, which came as naturally to him as singing along with the Weird Sisters on the wireless, which was to say, not at all. That American witch who’d famously refused Salem Academy had written hope was the thing with feathers and at the moment, Draco could not help wondering which blood-thirsty feathered magical creature of the wild Americas she’d meant to invoke.

It was not reassuring.

Still, he’d lived cheek by jowl with Voldemort before he’d sprouted once platinum whisker and had survived that meal with Potter in the Muggle pub, so he mustn’t quail.

He lifted the Lovegood sourced wand, winced a little at the sheer power leaping within it, and cast.

And waited.

Nothing happened. Hermione lay still in her bed. There was no evidence she’d felt anything, which wasn’t surprising, since Draco, who had cast the spell, had felt nothing either. He had a sudden memory of Severus Snape looming over him as he’d stirred a cauldron, compelling him to hold his gaze, those dark, dark eyes, and that resonant voice, very quietly saying attention, intention, without anything snide or impatient. The teacher the wizard could have been, had he not been bound to two other Powers.

Attention, intention.

Draco cast again, the wand in his hand somehow smiling at him dreamily, Luna’s perpetual expression. 

He found himself in a place entirely foreign and yet familiar in the smallest of ways.

He found himself with Hermione Granger’s hands at his throat.

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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

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1915 Bathers at "Long Beach" on Long Island's South Shore. From New York City-Vintage History, FB.

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Gnawing at the bars of my enclosure

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YOU ARE TELLING ME THERE WAS A TAKE WHERE CLARK HAS HIS GLASSES AND LOIS TAKES THEM OFF I WOULD HAVE HAD A HEART ATTACK

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Seems like a good time for a reminder that the Texas Democratic Party has a really excellent online store, including such fun products as shirts that say “Y’ALL MEANS ALL” and “VOTE FOR WEED” (the latter in the Vote for Pedro font), a mug with a trans flag Texas on it that says “Protect Trans Kids,” and — perhaps most importantly — a sticker of a pot-smoking cactus. A pretty fun way if you have some extra cash to toss it toward saving democracy. AND you get a stoner cactus sticker. What’s not to love?

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For @asteraceae-blue and inspired by these gifs and also my own imagination...

Easy does it

First date and she’d invited him over.

“I’m not easy,” Lois panted, Clark kissing her cheek, the soft place beneath her jaw, tonguing her neck, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other at the small of her back, holding her close.

Closer.

“I’m not, I don’t want you to think—” she murmured, managing a murmur and not an uncontrolled moan, but just barely, arching into him.

“I don’t think, I’m not thinking,” he said. It was the hint of laughter in his voice, the dry vermouth in the martini, that brought her back into herself, the analytic place she spent most of her time.

“It shouldn’t be an issue, it shouldn’t be a framework, being easy,” she said.

“It shouldn’t,” he agreed, like they were sitting at work and he was wearing his freaking glasses and they were having a discussion. “And you’re not. Not easy—”

“I’m not difficult,” she retorted. As retorts went, it was pretty weak because she prided herself on being tough and she’d also untucked his shirt and eased her hand beneath, to touch his back, to feel him without anything between them, which he evidently liked about as much as she did, since he started kissing her mouth again, sucking on her lower lip, demanding, letting go of that reserve he cultivated, letting her feel his power, his desire.

“No. Not difficult. Not easy,” he said, the hand at her waist at her thigh, nudging her to wrap it around him, then picking her up and walking to her bedroom, falling back onto the bed so she was on top and he had a decent view down her shirt.

If she wasn’t easy, why had she worn the embroidered lace balconette bra with the matching panties? Who the hell was she kidding?

“Gosh you’re pretty, Lois,” Clark said, startling her. His eyes were so blue, so direct and so full of a tenderness she couldn’t possibly deserve. She froze.

“I don’t think you’re easy and we don’t have to do anything else,” he offered, his hands almost chaste on her body, his voice soft. “I could go home—”

“No,” she blurted out. “Stay. If you want, I mean.”

“I want,” he said, shifting her slightly, letting her find out just how honest he was. 

Very. 

Prodigiously.

Cripes.

“You’re not easy, but this could be,” he said. “You and me, maybe like this, it could be the easiest thing in the world.”

“That depends,” Lois replied, happiness making her snarky.

“On what?” Clark said, still earnest.

“On whether you’re any good at this,” Lois said. 

Clark grinned and before she could say a word, had flipped them, Lois’s thigh canted over his hip, his free hand unfastening the buttons of her oxford. The tender expression in his eyes shifted to something darker, headier, as he took in the lace bra, the edge of her tattoo above the waistband of her pants.

“Oh, I’m good at this. Super, even,” he said.

Oh, he was.

Gnawing at the bars of my enclosure

[jomiddlemarch]

Manny Jacinto | Kitchen Convos | August 08, 2025

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[jomiddlemarch]

[jomiddlemarch]

what does your blood taste like to a vampire

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Never know how much I care

Chapter 2

Jack’s fever had broken six hours ago and he was being an asshole about it.

“Your fever broke like six hours ago, I’m not leaving you,” Robby said. He didn’t actually put his hands on his hips but it was in his tone. Along with fatigue and some lingering terror because he hadn’t seen 105 on a digital thermometer ever and he never wanted to again and getting Jack into the tub had possibly been a bad idea for Robby’s lower back, which he wasn’t about to mention to Jack, who’d insisted, in between fits of coughing, that he was too heavy.

So, like maybe he had been but what was done was done and Robby probably could use some PT for his back at baseline. He’d never done any after he threw it out skiing a few years ago.

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine on my own,” Jack said.

“I have the time, I never take sick days. Or personal days. Or vacation, really, though this doesn’t really count unless I start sticking little paper umbrellas in your Gatorade,” Robby said.

“All the more reason for you to go,” Jack said.

“Can you give it a fucking rest already, Abbot?” Robby said.

“I like it better when you call me Jack,” he said.

Just a little while longer, Jack Robby had murmured, the ice cubes he’d dumped in the bath slowly melting, Jack lying there with his eyes closed like fucking Ophelia, too pale against the white fiberglass tub. Someone out there probably thought it was the set-up for an erotic fantasy but not Robby, counting respirations, checking Jack’s pulse, looking at his lips for the first sign of cyanosis. When Jack opened his eyes, there was no impulse to call him Sleeping Beauty, to say something about how he really could nap anywhere. Robby muttered You scared me, Jack and closed his own eyes, listened to the cold water lap against the sides of the tub as Jack shifted. The water made a softer sound when Jack started shivering, the fine tremor of feeling cold instead of his earlier rigors. The thermometer read 99.8, near enough to normal, when Robby said C’mon, Jack, let’s get you out, get you into bed, regretting letting Jack get into the tub in his tee-shirt and boxers as the sodden cloth soaked Robby and made a new awkwardness where there had only been necessity.

“Fine,” Robby said, but they both knew he hadn’t said Jack, not when it could mean too much. When neither one of them could chalk it up to something, anything else now, later, a slow night three years in the future, when Robby would look up to find Jack watching him, unconcerned about being caught.

“You not going then,” Jack said.

“No,” Robby answered and it was the right call, because Jack sank back into the pillows he’d insisted Robby prop behind him, keeping him semi-upright, claiming it helped with his cough, but now he looked tired, the kind of tired when you knew someone else was responsible for any knock on the door, the phone’s trill. Keeping the glass on the bedside table full of water, offering you the next dose of ibuprofen, a plastic cup of rice pudding because you’d once mentioned it as your favorite.

“You’re tired, you should lie down,” Jack said.

“Tired? With one patient on a shift, one who didn’t need to be intubated or restrained?” Robby said.

“Wasn’t a shift. M’not a patient,” Jack said. He patted a spot next to him. “You’re tired and you’re already exposed to this crud, you might as well lie down.”

Robby was pretty sure he should say no. He should argue or not argue, he should go to the kitchen and get another mug of the chicken broth and threaten to spoon-feed Jack, he should tell Jack to sleep and go hang out on the couch, put something mindless on the TV, check his messages. Stare at a wall, think about Jack lying in the bed, Jack in the bath, turning his face into Robby’s forearm, muttering hurts, Michael.

He sat down on the bed, bent over to take off his shoes. Lay down on his back, pretending it was neutral, not to face Jack. Not to turn on his side and feel Jack move closer, his hand on Robby’s hip as if he needed to keep from falling.

“Just for a little while,” Robby said. It wasn’t only for himself, an excuse. Later, they’d both need it and he knew that. He’d want to have said it and Jack would too. Or Jack would want Robby to have the ability to retreat and didn’t have the wherewithal to make that possible.

“A little while’s good,” Jack said.

Robby closed his eyes and let himself drift for a minute. He’d only been in this bed once before and he’d reached the age where you discovered there were great swaths of memory not exactly missing but unavailable, experiences you remembered by their description and retelling, but everything about being in Jack’s bed felt as deeply ordinary as if he’d spent every night there for the past decade. He imagined putting in a neuro consult to ask about it, the flicker as each letter appeared on the screen, the pause before he figured out how to write the question…

“You better not check the census,” he said to Jack, knowing his cell was within arm’s reach, Jack’s and also Robby’s, but Jack wouldn’t call from Robby’s phone, even if he’d look at the labs on the patient in the psych hold.

“Never crossed my mind,” Jack said.

“Liar,” Robby replied.

“I only lie when it matters,” Jack said. That Night, he’d said it wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t have to be a big deal, they were cool. He’d said it with his hand resting at the back of Robby’s neck, where Robby’s stethoscope would be, if he’d been wearing it, or his hoody or his scrubs or the white Hanes tee-shirt he wore under his scrubs. 

“Yeah, no shit,” Robby said. 

He felt Jack reach over and take his hand. 

“If you already know what the truth is, you learn more from a lie, Michael,” Jack said.

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Quick what are you doing RIGHT now (besides scrolling Tumblr)

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all those posts that are like "why am i researching currency debasement in the 1860s for a fanfiction no one is going to care" are full of shit, i just DNFd a fic for being obviously incorrect about the history of plumbing

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"youve got one character trait and one character trait only: being funny. whether or not canon fleshed out your character is irrelevant, you are treated as comic relief in fanon. and i will be entirely honest, you carry most fanfics on your back. thank you for your service. if i were to give you a song, i'd choose "Hermit the Frog" by MARINA or "There's Something Happening" by Jack Stauber :]"

here's a quiz i made so you can learn what type of fanfic character flaw you would be <3333