#Drill Machine Screwdriver Set

[novelconcepts]

fic: unexpected

a fill for @karatam’s prompt : “Five things Dani realizes she likes in bed (and one thing Jamie realizes she likes about being with Dani).”

It comes as little surprise to Dani Clayton, who has spent most of her life trying not to pay attention to the things her body craves, that time with Jamie has been unlocking some unexpected doors. It’s embarrassing, sometimes, but not in a way that feels too heavy to bear; the more time she spends with Jamie, the more time she spends feeling progressively better in her own skin, the more she’s bound to understand about what makes her tick. It’s kind of nice, actually. Kind of refreshing, finding situations where she doesn’t feel inclined to hold herself rigid, where she can let her guard down and just exhale. 

Still, there are some experiences which--until they sneak up on her--she absolutely does not see coming.

1

There is a rule in their house about cleanliness. Not because Jamie is a terrible mess, by any stretch of the imagination, but because a small space gets out of control fast. Especially given how much time Jamie spends with both hands buried in potting soil, Dani feels it’s important to set some ground rules. Things like “shoes stay on the plastic tray if you’ve been out gardening.” Things like “clothes caked in dirt go straight into the special hamper to get washed first.”

Things like “if you’re going to initiate anything requiring hands on bare skin, you scrub up first.”

Jamie takes it in stride, agrees wholeheartedly that this is the only safe and hygienic approach to life. She kicks off her boots, drops any mud-encrusted flannel in the proper receptacle, and works the grime out from under short nails without pressure. 

“I’d do this without the rule,” she tells Dani the first time after this conversation, eyebrows arched. “How filthy d’you think I am, anyway?”

Dani chooses not to dignify this with a response. It’s still early-days, all things considered, and Jamie poking her tongue through her teeth on a word like filthy sends her brain places that aren’t conducive to getting anything done.

Still, there are things that test her carefully-imposed boundaries. Not so much the gardening; gardening and Jamie are a singular entity, a packaged deal Dani was wholly aware of long before falling into the woman’s bed. She sees flowers and root webs and clods of dirt packed into pots and thinks, Yes. That’s Jamie. 

It’s the fixing she wasn’t prepared for.

There are things she is better at than Jamie around the house: remembering to pick up groceries, basic human chores like laundry and vacuuming and taking out the trash. And there are the things Jamie has an edge on: hot drinks, building furniture, and repairing just about anything that slips sideways. 

“Grew up without a lot to lean on,” she explains while Dani, feeling a little light-headed in a way she can’t fully explain, watches her replace a questionable light fixture. Her hands are nimble and steady, her eyes on the job at hand, but she’s smiling. “You pick up a lot of convenient tricks along the way, life like that.”

Dani, who grew up in a household marked by her mother having “a guy”--usually neighborhood men with bad facial hair who scrubbed her around the head and called her “little lady”--for just about every little hiccup, can only watch with fascination. Jamie, it seems, has a sixth sense for problems. By the end of their first year together, she’s fixed the bathroom sink, the AC unit, innumerable lightbulbs, and the vacuum cleaner. Never once batting an eye. Just a simple smile and a “give it here, then.”

Dani, for her part, tells herself she’s watching closely to learn. To pick up these convenient tricks Jamie mentions like they’re nothing. To be able to one day make similar repairs while Jamie is busy or out of the house.

She tells herself this, even as her skin grows warm and her mouth goes dry, because there is just something about watching Jamie work. Something she can’t put her finger on about the way Jamie tips her head musingly, inspecting every inch of the problem area like her attention belongs nowhere else. She moves methodically, deliberately, never frustrated, never slamming or swearing. Her hands squeeze and slide, her brow furrowed, and Dani...

Likes this. 

She keeps it to herself, careful not to distract Jamie from the task at hand, even as her own face flushes at the sight of Jamie working a screwdriver or sifting through a set of drill bits. It’s stupid, she thinks with a hot thread of embarrassment, that her legs are weakening at the mere image of Jamie on her back on the bathroom tile, knees bent, arms working to seal some hidden leak in the piping. 

“You want to try?” Jamie asks, head and shoulders in the cabinet below the sink. Dani clears her throat. 

“No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Jamie says absently, the muscles of her stomach flexing as she arches for that little extra strength to finish up. Dani leans her forehead against the wall, struggling to find some measure of calm before Jamie can extricate herself and catch sight of the look on her face. 

She manages to keep it quiet for months, this strange heat that springs up whenever Jamie’s hands are greasy and her face has that serious cast of inspecting a complicated problem. She might have kept it quiet for months longer--indefinitely, perhaps--if not for Colorado. 

Colorado is, like so many of their trips, a spur-of-the-moment decision. They rent a battered Jeep from a questionable agency, intent on seeing the Rockies as man was always intended: hopped up on a decent amount of bad gas station coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and each other. It’s a good day, cheery sun beaming down from a sky scattered with soft clouds. Dani has been having more and more of these kinds of days, and is starting to think maybe this is the new normal. Less fear. Less tension. Just her hand in Jamie’s as they bump over an endless road in the middle of--

“No,” Jamie says in a low, frustrated tone. Dani, who has been gazing distantly out the passenger window, snaps back to reality. 

“What’s going on?”

The Jeep is slowing. Jamie steers it toward the side of the road, which is to Dani’s eyes the most abandoned place on earth. 

“Something’s off,” Jamie groans. “Engine light came on.”

Engine light came on is one of those phrases Dani intellectually understands is in English, but it might as well not be. She’s grateful for how much Jamie enjoys driving; cars are something of a mystery to her, loud, rattling machines she’d prefer not to ever deal with on her own. 

She steps out onto the road now, arms hugged tight around her body, and watches Jamie pop the hood. The day is as warm as it is beautiful, and it isn’t long before sweat is trickling down the back of her neck. Jamie, in jeans and a flannel shirt, rolls the sleeves up past her elbows and grimaces. 

“Gonna be a minute, I think. But maybe...”

She’s muttering words Dani wouldn’t understand even if she thought Jamie was speaking to her and not a busted set of gears and pistons. Jamie, thankfully, seems to know what she’s talking about as she pushes the hair out of her eyes, ties a bandana around her head, and sets to work. 

She’ll fix it, Dani assures herself, rocking back and forth on her heels in the sunshine. Jamie fixes everything. 

And, in the meantime, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with the view. The horizon is endless, the land green and gorgeous and sprawling out as far as she can process. Dani could stand here for hours, head tilted back to take it all in, letting the clean air bathe her face. 

She could also, she notes, eyes sliding back to Jamie, watch this for hours. Jamie, up on her toes, an emergency set of tools open on the ground. Jamie, sweat beading on her upper lip and trickling down her temples. Jamie, pink-cheeked, the muscles of her forearms from years of groundswork standing out in sharp relief as she jams a wrench beneath the hood and twists.

It is...very hot out here, Dani thinks dazedly. She snaps her eyes away, searching the sky for birds, searching the world for anything that could be more interesting than the sight of Jamie with grease halfway up to her elbows, a dip of skin tantalizing between her shirt riding up and the waistband of her jeans. 

Dani swallows hard. Tries to remember that they are, in fact, currently stranded on the side of a road in Colorado. Tries to remember that they are, in fact, not in a situation that should be excruciatingly appealing. 

Jamie makes a low noise in her chest, pulling hard on the wrench. Something in Dani, already strung tight enough to make her pulse race, seems to snap. 

“Hey,” Jamie protests as the tool drops from her hand and clatters against the pavement. Dani has her around the wrist, dragging her with firm intent away from the open hood. “Hey, Poppins, I don’t think--”

Dani, unable to stop herself, catches her around the back of the neck and kisses her hard. Jamie’s protests go slack against her lips, her hands windmilling uselessly as she tries and fails to locate somewhere safe to place them. 

“I--Dani, what--”

“Can’t explain,” Dani says, muffled, mouth a bit occupied with trying to kiss Jamie stupid. “Just. Need this.”

“Right now?” Jamie asks, plainly bewildered--though, Dani notes, not exactly arguing. Her hands rest gently on Dani’s hips, as though the desire to hang on and the desire not to ruin Dani’s skirt are locked in fervent battle. 

“Right,” Dani groans, licking at the sweat running down the side of Jamie’s neck, “now.”

She fumbles them toward the backseat, pausing every couple of steps to push Jamie hard against the car. There’s something about it--something about the sun beating down, and her hand caught between the hard shell of the Jeep and the soft skin at Jamie’s back, and the way Jamie is making surprised breathy sounds against her ear. Something, most of all, about Jamie trying so hard not to get her dirty while being utterly unable to keep her hands to herself. 

“There’s a rule,” Jamie says, like she’s reciting a play she couldn’t possibly care less about. “Your rule.”

Dani, pulling the back door open and sliding along the gray leather, shakes her head. “House rule. Don't care.”

Jamie’s laughing, but there's something nervous about it, something like she sort of expects to get into trouble for this. “Poppins, you are...something else today.”

Dani pauses, leaning back on her elbows, watching with dark desire as Jamie climbs in after her. The door latches with a soft click, Jamie hovering on her knees over her in the small space. 

“Something okay?” Dani asks, her voice smaller than intended. Jamie grins. 

“I’m okay if you’re okay.”

Dani grabs for her again, unable to pin down the roaring pleasure in her chest as Jamie’s smile lands against her skin. Her hands are wild, roaming creatures with their own agenda, sliding under Jamie’s collar, fisting around Jamie’s shirt. When Jamie kisses the hollow of her throat, she sighs, arches, liking the weight of Jamie between her bent knees. 

There is a rule about dirty hands, it’s true, and they both know it’s for a reason--which is why, eyes on Dani’s face the whole time, Jamie grasps her by the hips and lifts, shifts, eases Dani until her back is pressed against the window. Jamie hooks her fingers into the waistband of underwear already too ruined to be of use, sliding them down Dani’s thighs, shoving them restlessly into the back pocket of her own jeans. 

“Jesus,” she breathes against Dani’s skin, already soaked through with sweat and want. “This much from--”

“Watching,” Dani groans confirmation. One hand is gripping the back of the seat, her knuckles stark against the dark leather. Jamie makes a noise she thinks might be amusement, or utter helpless desire--maybe some mad combination of the two. 

“Didn’t know you had a thing for--”

“Jamie,” Dani interrupts, a sharp plea that snaps Jamie’s attention back where it belongs. They can talk about this later, Jamie teasing her for an unexpected mechanic kink, Dani hiding her face and laughing. Right now, she can focus on nothing but Jamie’s hands, creased with engine oil, gripping her thighs. Sliding smooth down to bracket her kneecaps, up to hold her hips steady. Jamie, mouthing at her slowly, trying to make it last, teasing her with soft flicks of her tongue and warm, soft kisses. 

“Jamie,” Dani repeats, her voice cracking, her free hand winding in Jamie’s hair and pulling. Jamie concedes, head bobbing gently between her legs, body coiled in a position that will probably feel fantastic tomorrow--but, if she cares, she certainly doesn’t show it. Her fingers dig into Dani’s skin, leaving dark stains behind, her mouth drawing Dani tighter by the second. 

Sex with Jamie has never been what Dani would call boring, but something about the sight of her here--eyes closed, breathing hard, fingers pushing Dani’s skirt up as she strains to keep from putting those hands directly between Dani’s legs--has an effect they’ve never quite managed before. Dani, biting hard into the back of her own hand as her hips jerk out of control. Jamie, making the most of the moment, kissing her clean with long, sweet strokes. 

“Jesus,” Jamie says again, sitting up and staring at her. “If I’d known--”

“You’d never have finished a repair around the house,” Dani points out, breathing hard, head lolling back against the glass with a light thump. 

“You’ve been feeling this at the house?” Jamie looks stunned. “Poppins, you’ve been wanting this for months, and you’ve just been letting me fix things instead of taking you to bed? Where the hell are your priorities?”

“Didn’t want to distract you,” Dani mumbles, the drowsy delight of a good orgasm wrapping comforting hands around her good sense. Jamie’s jaw hangs open.

“Poppins.”

“Mm?”

“Distract me. For the love of god. Distract me.”

2

Dani doesn’t go back to teaching. It’s not that she doesn’t love it, not that she doesn’t know she’d still be good at it; it’s more that the world is too unpredictable now. That she is too unpredictable now, unable to tell what tomorrow will look like inside her own head. She’s been feeling better, admittedly--Jamie has a way of making the ground stand still under their feet, of leading her by the hand into warmly-lit places where she feels less like there’s something following at her heels--but it’s not the same. Even before the Lady, before Bly, before fleeing to Europe in the first place, teaching had been heavier than school had prepared her for. So many kids, with so many expectations, so many needs one person couldn’t possibly fulfill. 

So, no--she doesn’t go back to teaching. Teaching feels like the old Dani in some terribly sad way she can’t define. The new Dani turns her attention toward a different kind of cultivation, toward learning how to make people happy with the art of living things. It’s a creative outlet she hadn’t realized she needs. It brings her closer to Jamie, gives her a better understanding of Jamie’s way of seeing the world. It’s different, but she does love it. 

It does not, for all of that, erase old habits. 

She doesn’t really realize she’s doing it, at first. Some things are just so naturally ingrained, so much a part of her daily experience, that she doesn’t think about what she’s saying. 

Until Jamie just stops and...looks at her. 

“What?” Self-consciousness, not a particularly new song, hums under the word. Jamie is gazing at her with head slightly cocked, lip between her teeth. 

“Nothing. Nothing, just...”

Dani reels back the last five minutes, searching for whatever might have put this truly unfamiliar look on Jamie’s face. It’s not teasing, exactly; not bothered, either. It’s...pleased?

Jamie had just passed her with a basket under her arm, laundry rescued from the dryer and folded before Dani had even realized they were ready. She had turned, watched Jamie amble by with a spring in her step that said I have done the thing, and the thing is good, and she had said...

“Oh.” She can actually feel the color draining from her face. “I just, uh. I mean. Habit.”

Jamie grins, still looking a little surprised, but not exactly upset. “No, no, it’s fine, Poppins. Got no argument with being a good girl now and then.”

She winks, throwing an exaggerated little swing into her walk as she makes off toward the bedroom, and Dani sags against the couch. Has she done this before? Has she been absently calling Jamie a good girl upon the completion of  little tasks this whole time, and only just realized?

It is a very particular kind of embarrassing, and Dani does not have the first idea what to do with it. 

“Have I been doing that?” she asks over dinner, picking awkwardly at her pasta and studiously not looking Jamie in the eye. Jamie, midway through pouring a glass of wine, pauses. 

“Doing what?”

“Calling--uh--I mean--”

“Praising me for my efforts about the house?” Jamie is too pleased about this, Dani has decided. Entirely too pleased for her own good. 

“Hey, I can take it back,” she mutters. Jamie snorts, setting a full glass beside Dani’s place and kissing the top of her head. 

“Uh uh. I’ve earned my gold stars, Poppins. Pry ‘em from my cold dead hands.”

Dani downs half the glass in a single swallow, eyes rolling toward the ceiling. Jamie is really laughing now, the full-body laugh she reserves for poking fun at Dani with absolute affection. 

“Oh, don't be like that. It’s sweet. Can’t say anyone’s had nice words of the like for me much before you.”

Dani looks up to find Jamie leaning across the table, her expression heartbreakingly earnest. The tension melts slowly out of her body; she realizes she’s made a fist under the table, her thumb tucked into her fingers. Old habits, indeed. 

“You don’t have to be embarrassed about things like that,” Jamie says, her voice softening. Her hand slides under the table to close over Dani’s flexing fingers, like she knows what Dani was just doing, that Dani was just sliding back to anxieties she’s long tried to bury. “I take no offense at being called good at anything where you’re concerned, Dani. Trust me.”

She does, very much, but even so, she tries to keep a handle on it. Isn’t it condescending, she wonders, speaking to Jamie that way? Why on earth would Jamie appreciate a pat on the head, a gentle assertion of good work?

She gets it under control. Reminds herself she is not a teacher anymore, and Jamie is very appropriately an adult who doesn’t need to be confirmed in her choices at every turn. 

She gets it under control--until one night. One night, spent celebrating an exceptional year at the shop, with too much wine in her system and too many hours spent in a too-public setting to be allowed to touch Jamie properly. They’d sat at a table with a few well-meaning shopkeepers from down the street, and they’d laughed, and drank to hard work and good fortune, and all the while, she’d been watching Jamie out of the corner of her eye. Jamie, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, hair mussed from hands Dani understood as wanting to be on her body, sifting through her hair. Jamie, chain-smoking cigarettes Dani ached to take from her and place between her own lips, if only to taste Jamie. 

By the time they make it home, her hands are tingling, her body desperate. Jamie, watching her with the smug smile of a woman who knows Dani’s hand has been flexing between her own knees for two hours, makes a show of stretching. Her shirt pulls up from her belt, flashing a glimpse of stomach. 

“Bit tired,” she says. “What do you think, time for bed?”

Dani makes a powerfully undignified noise, and Jamie’s laughter rings bright in the otherwise-silent apartment. She catches Dani by the hand, eyes shining. 

“Honestly, Poppins, you are too damn easy.”

They fall into bed--into couch, really, the bed being far too many steps away--and the world shrinks to the polished buttons of Jamie’s shirt popping open under her tripping fingers, the material of Jamie’s slacks shoved awkwardly down her legs, the trace of Jamie’s tongue around her earlobe as she tries desperately to focus on intricate details like zippers. Jamie, bless and damn her, never seems this clumsy, even with all the wine in the world in her blood. 

“I like it,” Jamie breathes, grinning. “You only get clumsy when you’re desperate.”

She climbs over Dani, curling behind her to better get at the zip on her dress. Dani leans back, dizzy with the rush of Jamie pressed against her back, grinding her hips slowly as if to intentionally drive Dani up the wall. The dress peels away, and Dani hears herself swear. 

“Could you go any slower.”

“Could if I tried,” Jamie murmurs, nipping at her neck. “Why? Don’t like it?”

She splays a hand beneath Dani’s breasts, pressing in tight against her back, rocking against her with little sign of picking up the pace and putting those hands where they’re most wanted. Dani groans, lets her head fall back against Jamie’s shoulder. 

“You,” she says without thinking, “are being a bad girl tonight.”

Jamie freezes. Dani, head buzzing with the aggravation of Jamie playing her little game, Jamie’s fingers toying across her belly, doesn’t hear herself. Not at first. Not until Jamie says in a voice almost like a growl, “That so?”

Oh, Dani thinks. Oh no. I did it again. 

“Tell me, please,” Jamie goes on, hand slinking lower, “how I can get back into your good graces.”

It should be weird. It should be so uncomfortable, slamming the brakes on this whole evening--but Jamie’s hand is on a mission, Jamie’s hips rocking against her faster, and Dani finds she doesn’t care nearly as much as she should. 

“You--know--”

“Tell me anyway.” Jamie’s hand is circling, refusing to continue its descent, and Dani almost wants to laugh. This is insane. This is insane, and stupid, and if she doesn’t get Jamie to keep going, she might just kill her. 

She turns her head, finds Jamie looking at her with pupils blown and lips parted. She reaches back, grabs Jamie by the jaw. 

“Touch me,” she says, her voice firmer than it’s been in a long time. “Now.”

Jamie’s eyes roll back in her head, her fingers dipping between Dani’s legs with obedient speed. Dani sighs, moving to meet her strokes. 

“More,” she hears herself say in that same commanding voice, and Jamie shudders. “Harder.”

She’s never done this before; it’s never crossed her mind to tell Jamie what to do, how to touch her, what she needs. Jamie is intuitive, naturally taking the lead on nights like these, and she’s damn good at it--but this feels incredible in an entirely new way. Her hand slides down to join Jamie’s, curling around Jamie’s fingers as they slide in and out in a series of increasingly rough thrusts. She finds herself arching back, Jamie’s hips bucking as she strains for friction of her own, and when Jamie curls her fingers deep, she curls with her. 

“Fuck,” Jamie groans, shifting her hand out from between Dani’s legs and replacing it instantly between her own. Dani rolls, pushing her flat against the cushions, grabbing hold of Jamie’s wrist and stilling her fingers. 

“That,” she breathes, lips brushing Jamie’s softly enough to burn, “was very good work. Gold star.”

Jamie whimpers, letting her hand drop away so Dani can return the favor. It doesn’t take long at all; Jamie’s pretty far gone even before Dani brushes against her with a hand that no longer feels clumsy. 

“That,” Jamie says when they’ve collapsed in a sweat-slick mess of limbs, “was new. Teacher voice always just sort of on tap, huh?”

Dani resists the suddenly-overwhelming urge to hide her face. “I don’t know where that came from.”

“Don’t much care,” Jamie says, rather happily. “It works for me, as it turns out. I am gonna line these gold stars up on the fridge.”

3

There is something engrossing about being wanted, something Dani never really understood before Jamie. Being wanted before wasn’t exactly a positive sensation; men looking her up and down in malls and bars, eyes like brands on her skin, made her feel like crawling under a table. Women, on the rare occasion she crossed one who met her eyes, were somehow even worse--their smiles were thin, brittle reminders that Dani wasn’t Normal. That, if she ever were to jump from that ledge, these women wouldn’t be there to catch her. Their want was an ice bath, a horrible reminder that there was something wrong with her ability to be wanted. 

And, with Edmund, it was worst of all, because she wanted to want it. Wanted to want the way his eyes started following her out of rooms before they were even in their teens. Wanted to want the way his hands would reach for her as they grew older, as his body began sending signals that she was right, and hers developed an alarm bell that only ever screamed stop, please, go away. 

She should have listened to that alarm bell sooner, probably, but Edmund--for all the horrible suffocating sense of him draped over her life--was also a shield against the rest. With Edmund’s arm around her, she felt caged, but strange men let their eyes slide off her like rain. With Edmund kissing her cheek, she felt wrong, but strange men stopped trying to brush up against her skin. 

The line, however, she had to draw somewhere, and she drew it at marks. Eddie accepted her unwillingness to climb into his bed as classic “good girl” behavior; Danielle, he thought with ease of understanding, wanted to wait until they were married. Sure, fine, good. His mother would approve, and hers would leave them both un-defenestrated by their wedding day. Perfect for everyone.

Still, he wanted to touch her. Wanted to press his lips to her skin. Wanted to make sure she--and anyone else who chanced a look--knew he was always there, etched into her. 

She hated it. Hated the way he’d lean back after leaving a hickey hot on her neck, looking faux-apologetic and more than a little smug. Hated the way, no matter how many times she told him it wasn’t professional for an elementary school teacher to stroll in with love bites, he always seemed to “forget.”

She hated being marked. 

With Edmund.

With Jamie, it’s an entirely different story. 

“Shit,” Jamie sighs. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

Dani, shirt slung over the back of a kitchen chair, shifts in Jamie’s lap. There’s something about being able to do this at their own leisure, about Sunday brunch fading into charred bacon and lost-chance waffles as she and Jamie sink into long slow kisses on the other side of the kitchen, that she thinks she’ll never be over. 

Jamie, looking more than a little irritated with herself, is now brushing soft fingertips across Dani’s collarbone. Even that much sends sharp little thrills up her spine. She tips her chin down, tries to see the spot Jamie is pressing against. 

“Left a mark?”

“Yeah.” Jamie sighs again. “Sorry, Poppins, I don’t know my own goddamn--”

Dani laughs. She really doesn’t, is the thing. Jamie, who couldn’t be more unlike Eddie if she tried, genuinely doesn’t ever mean to mark her skin. And it’s not like it happens often. She’s normally pretty good about self-control in ways Dani suspects have to do with a history of punishment and consequence following every action. 

Jamie is grounded. Jamie is restrained. 

Except when Jamie isn’t. And, lately, Jamie has been restrained with her less and less. 

It started the day she told Dani she was in love with her. A thing Jamie had been saying without words for a long time, Dani knew, but it was so good to hear the phrase fall from her lips anyway. So reassuring, to see the nerves in Jamie’s face, the way Jamie’s eyes shone with a desperate need to make Dani understand. 

That day, in the back room of the shop, Jamie had marked her for the first time. Heat still pools in her belly when she thinks of it, even now: how Jamie had shoved her up against the door, hands fevered, mouth a hot wet slide against her throat. Jamie’s touch had felt good; Jamie’s devotion, even better. And something about the sum of it--of being in the shop, where precautions had been taken, but they were still rather public, of Jamie’s nerves still holding the reins, of Jamie’s words still fluttering between them: pretty in love with you, it turns out--had both of them nearly high. By the time they broke apart, giggling and heaving for air, the deed was done. A single red mark, low on Dani’s neck, burning bright for anyone to see.

Jamie had touched it lightly, kissed it gently, face flushed with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean--”

And, somehow, that had been the thing to do it. The thing that sent Dani’s arousal over the edge. Not just Jamie leaving the mark on her skin, but the apology in Jamie’s eyes as she realized. Jamie, never intending to force ownership. Jamie, never striving to show the world she owned Dani’s body. 

Every time since, she’s tried to explain it to Jamie, tried to bring clarity of word to the hot pulse of pleasure she feels. How there’s a wild delight to watching Jamie want her. How Jamie is, as the time passes, getting worse at pretending to be cool about it. 

It isn’t kind, exactly. Isn’t the nice, sweet, orderly thing to do about it. But all the same, Dani finds she’s having trouble not coaxing Jamie along when it’s clear she’s starting to lose control.

She’s taken to loitering in the bathroom while Jamie showers, for example. Most days, it’s innocent; Dani will post up on the counter with a book, or a cup of tea, and they’ll just make small talk through the thin curtain. Jamie will wash quickly, with no sign of needing assistance, and Dani will hand her a towel when the water shuts off. Perfectly fine. Perfectly civil. 

But there are days--usually when the shop has been particularly stressful, when customers have been needy and shipments have been delayed--when Jamie will gesture for her to follow under the spray. Days where Jamie’s nerves are so frazzled, her control over all the tiny little details of owning a business so slim, that she’ll invite Dani to join her. These days, with Jamie loving her under hot water, with Jamie whispering her name into the steam, Dani thinks it is good to be wanted. So good, to be the small bright spot of control in the world for Jamie, who likes understanding how things work, who likes being able to set things right. With her back against the shower wall, Jamie’s mouth sucking sharp hot bites into her shoulder as her fingers stroke and rub between her legs, Dani thinks there’s nothing better than giving Jamie that measure of control. 

She notices it other times, too--usually when the world is bigger than the two of them can stand. When a snowstorm blocks off the whole street, stranding them inside, and the power goes, and it’s just the two of them moving together under a stack of blankets to make their own warmth. When it’s Jamie, fearful of how long it will take to dig them out again, leaving sharp, nervous marks on her breasts only to be dragged back up by the hair to kiss her as her fingers work Dani to orgasm. 

Or when they make the mistake of turning on the news, signs of war and violence and politicians making unacceptable calls about the bodies of their constituents, and the only way to bring Jamie back from the brink of hopelessness is to coax her into shutting it all out. Pinned against the counter with her hands braced, with Jamie biting hard and kissing soft, Dani forgets for a long stretch of matching heartbeats that anyone else exists outside their walls. 

Sometimes, the mark is gone by morning. Sometimes, Jamie ruefully kisses the spot on her throat, the underside of her jaw, her breast, and says, “You really should yank on my hair or something to stop me.” 

Dani can't quite find the words to tell her how much she likes it. How the brief flare of delicious pain, soothed so soon after by Jamie’s tongue, the pad of Jamie’s thumb, Jamie’s soft embarrassment, grounds her in the strangest way. Not because it shows the world anything--she’s good at wearing sweaters that hide the spots nicely, to keep anyone from questioning her “roommate” in the aftermath--but because it shows that Jamie doesn’t need to keep her head when Dani’s around. That, sometimes, the act of giving Jamie full control over their bed and the way their bodies come together, feels as good as the first nervous time Jamie had said she loved her. 

Jamie shows her with every act, every day, that this is love. Jamie in these moments of unrestrained passion is showing her something else. That she’s safe with Dani. That she doesn’t need to hold anything apart from Dani anymore. 

And there is something else to it, as well. Something entirely different. Something about the rare occasion she rolls Jamie onto her back, holds her wrists to the mattress, gazes into Jamie’s eyes in search of permission. Jamie likes to give, in all ways that matter, but sometimes, Dani likes this, too: to give back more than she takes. To grant Jamie not just control, but release. 

On this kind of night, left hand pinning Jamie in place, right hand setting a brisk, rough pace between damp thighs, Dani lowers her mouth to Jamie’s throat. She kisses slow, tasting sweat and that undefined thing that is Jamie alone, and waits for Jamie to chase her hand. Waits for Jamie to writhe beneath her. Waits for the moment where the right twist, the right pressure, sends Jamie over the edge. Then, only then, does she bite down. 

Because Jamie is embarrassed by marking her, but she’s seen the way Jamie looks at the rare mark she receives in the mirror. The way the collar of her t-shirt will slip, revealing a maroon blemish on pale skin. The way Jamie’s eyes grow dark, her body leaning against the counter like she’s suddenly lost all the strength in her knees. 

She really does prefer giving Jamie control, giving Jamie the gift of building a safe space for them both to land. But every so often, it is beyond worth it, to see the look of surprised delight in Jamie’s face when she flips the script. 

4

There are things, though. Things she didn’t know, before Jamie. Things she’d never thought to glance at, before Jamie. 

“I don’t know about this,” she says. Jamie doesn’t look the least bit perturbed. 

“It’s only an idea, Poppins. Can absolutely veto it at any time.”

Dani frowns. “I don’t--I mean, what made you think--”

She’s going about this all wrong. Jamie shakes her head, some of that old shuttered guard dropping into her expression in a way Dani decidedly does not like. 

“I’ve embarrassed you,” Jamie says. “I’m sorry, Dani, I wasn’t trying to--”

“No, It’s just...won’t somebody notice?”

Two women walking into a shop like that. Two women looking around a shop like that, having conversations about what they’d like or like nothing to do with. Somebody is bound to overhear, Dani thinks. Bound to report it down the line, and what then?

They’re in San Francisco, and Dani knows that’s the main reason Jamie’s even talking about this. They’re in San Francisco, have just bought a brownie that, yes, makes her feel more inclined than usual to drop her guard. She’d thought maybe they’d partake of that brownie in the comfort of their hotel room, that she’d follow the buzzing of her body right into the bed with Jamie, and that would be their afternoon spoken for. It had seemed a good idea at the time. 

Jamie, evidently, has other ideas. 

Which is how Dani, with a bit of a body high and the grip of anxiety tight around her throat, finds herself gazing at a Californian sex shop. 

“We do not,” Jamie says, watching her carefully, “and I cannot stress this enough, Poppins, we do not have to go in.”

“There’s...stuff in there.” The brownie is certainly doing its work. Dani swallows hard, searching for words more befitting of the situation. “Toys and things.”

Jamie looks as though she's suddenly trying very hard not to laugh. She seems considerably less high thus far, less inclined to disappear into this sidewalk if only someone were to let go of her arm and allow her to lie down. 

“It’s the brave new frontier,” Jamie says, managing to keep her amusement tamped down in the face of Dani’s wide eyes. “We’re in the 90s now, Dani Clayton. The world is changing.”

“It is,” Dani repeats in a stage whisper that sounds very loud to her own ears, “a sex shop. In California.”

“Bit better stocked than one in England, I’d wager,” Jamie says through a smile that might yet dissolve into giggles. Dani squints at her, trying to stop the street from performing a gentle rotation around her. 

“Whose idea was this again?”

“The brownie,” Jamie says, “was yours, actually. Haven’t tried this, Jamie, that’s what you said. We’re on an adventure, Jamie. I thought a nice spot of grass would do the trick fine enough, but...”

Dani slaps at her shoulder, misses somehow, almost tips over. Jamie catches her around the middle, and there’s a flash--the briefest, there-and-gone flash--of that night. Of Jamie holding her up. Of watching the world spin for a very different reason. 

Life, she thinks with a stab of unease, is very short. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Jamie repeats, a bit bewildered. She adjusts her grip, helping Dani find her feet again so she can let go. California is better than most anywhere else--at least this part of California--but it still isn’t good to give the universe an open shot. 

“We can...” She can’t say it. Isn’t quite that high. “We can--”

“Explore,” Jamie supplies. “See the sights. It’s an adventure, after all.”

And it does feel adventurous. There is a bravery in Dani Clayton she never seems able to predict--the things she’s capable of, the things she even finds she enjoys, tend to come out of left field and catch her unawares. Some of these things have a tendency to work out better than others. 

(Example: kissing Jamie. Truly the best snap decision she’s ever made. Inviting a ghost into her body? Maybe not so high on the list.)

But the sun is bright, and the buzz beneath her skin feels good, and there is no sign of ghosts in California. Just a surprisingly well-lit shop with a clerk who gives them a bored nod and a tiny hand gesture that says, Go on, couldn’t care less what you do, long as you’ve got cash. Dani smiles at him, too wide, and wonders if he’s like them. If he, too, has spent a lifetime unable to show off in the world. 

There isn’t much time to think about it, not with Jamie taking her by the sleeve and guiding her through neatly arranged aisles. There are costumes here that make Dani’s skin go white-hot to imagine trying to be serious wearing. There are items designed to vibrate, items designed to bind wrists, items designed for things she really feels better off not thinking about at all. 

“What d’you think?” Jamie asks at one shelf, eyebrows raised, and Dani thinks she’s joking. Probably joking. Must be joking. 

“Have you--I mean, I’d have no idea how to--”

“You could,” Jamie says in a low voice that sends a shiver down her spine. How Jamie can do this to her without even trying, even after years together, she can’t explain. Jamie isn’t even working at it now; her hands are tucked into her pockets, her head tilted pensively as she considers the array of options laid out before them. She’s barely even looking at Dani. 

“I could,” Dani repeats weakly, “what?”

“Try it out,” Jamie explains. “If you wanted. If you were interested. But that’s not really what I’m suggesting. See...I know how they work. I’ve, uh...I mean, if you’re interested in...that.”

Her voice trails off, her eyes darting to steal a brief glance at Dani’s face, and Dani’s not entirely sure what her face is even doing. Judging by the way Jamie licks her lips, she suspects it isn’t subtle. 

“Interested,” she says in a very small voice, gripping Jamie’s hand with convulsive force. “Yeah. Little bit.”

They don’t try it out in the hotel room; that is, Dani says once the brownie has worn off some, entirely too bold, even for an adventure. They make absolutely certain the package is tucked away in the bottom of the suitcase, as far as possible from prying eyes that never come to call. They don’t even talk about it again until they’re safely home. 

Dani’s suddenly so nervous, it’s like the first time. Like stumbling up to her room with Jamie pressed close behind, every touch the kind of electric she’d thought might take her out before she had a chance to get Jamie’s clothes off. She walks into their apartment, this place they’ve called home for almost four years, and she thinks, I have never been terrified here before. 

Jamie, seeming to sense her mood, sets the bag by the door and pulls her into an embrace. She kisses the side of her head. “Hey. We don’t have to. Can just put it in the closet for a rainy day.”

Dani senses the truth of this statement, that Jamie is perfectly fine pretending they never bought the thing at all. That Jamie would be perfectly fine sliding into bed with her like always, relying on skilled hands and searching tongue, loving Dani with everything she’s got as she has for years. Jamie would be okay with this. Jamie would never push. 

But life is short, and sometimes, a person can surprise herself. 

Jamie switches the lights off. Jamie almost never switches the lights off, not since the first time she ever told Dani she was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. Still, Dani is relieved. There is something reassuring about Jamie’s willingness to take her hands in the dark, about Jamie’s eagerness to please her binding tight to Jamie’s devotion to keeping her safe. 

“Slow,” she promises Dani, sliding into bed and cradling her face. She is still just Jamie, Dani recognizes, though anxiety is playing tricks on her heart rate. Just Jamie’s hands, soft on her cheeks, brushing her hair back. Just Jamie’s mouth, raining small, light kisses across her face. Waiting for her to decide how far this goes. 

And Dani would be lying if she said she wasn’t nervous--if she said the brush of cloth harness around Jamie’s hips and the silicon between her legs wasn’t a surprise, even knowing what to expect. She would be lying, too, if she said it wasn’t a thrill. That Jamie is just laying alongside her in familiar sheets, thumb drawing soft arcs across her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw, tipping her head back so Jamie can kiss her neck. That Jamie is touching her like always, not pushing, not rushing, fingers playing along her skin like she’s the world’s most well-loved instrument. 

Jamie, breathing soft words into every kiss. Jamie, exhaling, “Lead the way, okay? Tell me. Anything you want.”

Dani finds her own hand sliding down, exploring the familiar curve of Jamie’s neck, fingering the chain that rests against her collarbones, drawing down, down, until she’s taking a handful of something not Jamie in the least. Testing its weight against her palm. Curling her fingers loosely. Jamie, though this object is not possessed of skin or nerve endings, sucks a breath in through her teeth anyway. Like Dani taking the time to explore is doing something maybe Jamie herself can’t even explain.

“Okay?” she says, breath warm on Dani’s skin, and Dani nods. She finds her body is searching Jamie’s out, pressing in close, and Jamie’s hand is covering hers. Even as she moves Dani gently to her back, even as her hips are coming to rest against Dani’s, her hand is there. A grounding force, as ever. Guiding in. 

Dani draws a hot breath, knees bent, and Jamie pauses. Moves only when Dani’s eyes open and she nods, one arm around Jamie’s neck, pulling her down to kiss her parted lips. 

“Slow,” she agrees, and Jamie makes a noise she likes more than anything else in the world as she shifts her hips, slides all the way in. The world is dark around them, made up of little more than the careful rock of Jamie’s body against hers, the instinctive way her own legs come up to pull Jamie deeper, the wonderfully small, uncontrolled noise she can hear herself making against Jamie’s shoulder. The method is foreign, but it’s still Jamie’s body behind each thrust, still Jamie’s rhythm making her whimper and clutch at Jamie’s neck. 

They move together, and it’s been four years, four years of learning every inch of how Jamie is capable of moving with her, but Dani finds this is something other. Something perfectly matched. Not better, not a completion she’s never found before--Jamie has never been lacking--but new, anyway. 

She hears her own hitching breaths, hears the fevered, reverent way Jamie says her name over and over, the bed knocking against the wall again and again. Jamie, true to her word, goes slow the whole way, until Dani is biting her own lip against a cry, until Dani is clenching and shuddering under her. 

“Good kind of adventure?” Jamie asks, having carefully extricated herself, stripped off the addition, curled up against Dani’s chest. Dani hums. 

“Thank you.”

Jamie raises her head. “For what?”

Dani mulls it over, her body spent, her mind already on its way to sleep. 

“For,” she says at last, nuzzling closer, “not getting sick of me. Not getting sick of walking with me through the parts I’m not...prepared for.”

She doesn’t say what she means--that, someday, the parts she isn’t prepared for won’t be trying a new toy in bed--and knows she doesn’t have to. Jamie signed on for the whole adventure the day she took Dani’s hand, kissed her knuckles, promised her company for good or for ill. 

There’s a promise like that, Dani thinks blearily as she sinks into sleep. For better or worse. People say that to the person they’re going to...

5

Living in America when you can’t share the love of your life with the world is, sometimes, a lot more frustrating than Dani would have given it credit for before finding Jamie. Back in her old life, walking around with Edmund’s hand possessively wrapped around her waist, she’d felt like no one should want to lean into PDA. It was embarrassing, she felt. Horribly awkward, having someone else’s arm around your shoulders as you tried to fall into step with their much longer legs, or trying to find the right produce at the grocery store with someone insisting you hold their hand. She’d thought it would be a relief, in its own horrible way, not to have that opportunity. 

And then Eddie was gone, and Jamie’s was the hand in the grocery store, the arm hesitating before reaching her shoulders. Now? Dani gets it. Dani gets it, and can’t have it, and it makes her crazy.

She thinks Jamie knows this. Knows Jamie, too, longs for a world where no one would look twice if they curled close together in a movie theater, or lay with Dani’s head pillowed in Jamie’s lap at the park. Jamie wants the constant contact at least as much as Dani does, because tactile environments are where Jamie shines. 

It is, before Jamie ever said the words aloud, how Dani knew for a fact Jamie loves her. 

It is, before Jamie ever admitted as much, how she knew for a fact Jamie has chosen this for good and for all. 

And it is, as time marches on and strangers remain staunchly bigoted, making her crazy not to be able to embrace. 

Jamie feels it, too, she knows, but Jamie has a very particular way of coping with her inability to just behave normally with Dani in social situations. A way that is, in its own way, also driving Dani crazy.

She just keeps getting more and more handsy. 

The thing is, she’s doing it in the most absent-minded way possible, like Dani has watched girls--straight girls, girls who are allowed to cuddle close to other women and touch their hair and play with their jewelry without anyone caring to judge--do her whole life. In ways Dani herself can’t imagine. Jamie will just sidle up behind her, hand brushing her shoulder and falling away again before anyone can question it. She’ll touch two fingers lightly to the soft inner stretch of Dani’s wrist to get her attention at dinner, and by the time Dani’s fully registered it, her hand is gone, flagging down a waiter.

At first, Dani thought she was doing it on purpose. A kind of game to keep them entertained in boring public situations. She’d thought it was another brand of adventure, of Jamie being comfortable in her skin so long, she feels capable of sneaking past strangers. 

Now, after weeks of increasing torment, she thinks Jamie is just doing this. Somehow toeing the line between what is dangerous and what is fraying at Dani’s sanity. 

“How are you doing that?” she asks when Jamie brushes the tips of her fingers just under Dani’s blouse, catching the strip of skin before her jeans begin, though they’ve got seven customers milling around the shop. Jamie looks confused.

“How am I doing what?”

“You’re--” Dani bites down on the words as old Mrs. Morgan, who comes in twice a month for arrangements to present to her daughter-in-law, shuffles up to the counter. Jamie smiles her best customer-service smile, as polished and somehow genuine as anything, and sets to work ringing her up. Dani, free for the moment, leans back with thumbs folded tight into her fists.  

“Sorry,” Jamie says a few minutes later, once more wearing that lightly-perplexed look she gets when Dani points out something of which she has not been conscious. “What’ve I been doing, now?”

“You’ve been...” Dani makes a concerted effort to lower her voice, which seems like a wise idea right until Jamie takes another step and bends her head to hear the next words. She’s right there, barely three inches away, and Dani’s never clenched her fists so hard to keep from grabbing at thin black suspenders. “Touching me. In public.”

“Have I?” Jamie looks genuinely startled. “More than is normal, you mean?”

Dani shakes her head, unable to stomach the difference between what is normal for them and what is normal for women who are not sleeping together. Not in love. Not sharing every inch of a life that deserves to have songs written about it. 

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says. “Honestly, Dani, I didn’t mean--am I making you uncomfortable?”

You’re making me want you, Dani thinks helplessly, in places I absolutely cannot have you. Which is, in its own way, worse. 

“I’ll be more careful,” Jamie assures her, completely missing the point. She reaches as if to touch Dani’s elbow, catches herself, smiles wryly. “A lot more careful.”

Dani wants to tell her that isn't what she wants, isn’t what she’s ever wanted, that there’s only so much time in the world for careful--but that’s the fire talking, the one running through her blood each time Jamie looks up from repotting flowers and gives her a little once-over, a wink. The real world requires careful. The real world requires walking lightly, hands swinging a little apart. 

The real world requires, when Jamie leans over her to recover paper towel from a higher shelf, breasts pressing into Dani’s back, her to keep her goddamned head. 

It requires, when Jamie reaches around her for a drinking fountain in the park, bare skin of her arm pressed flush to Dani’s, her to keep her goddamned self-control in check. 

It requires, when Jamie laughs and bumps close in line at the airport, her fingers brushing the hair behind Dani’s ear to keep it out of her eyes, for Dani to keep her goddamned pulse from skittering into adrenaline overdrive. 

It’s been years, she reminds herself furiously as they settle in on the plane. They’re off to see Owen for the first time in ages, and it’ll be good to get away--there have been feelings she can’t collate inside her head, dreams in black and white she wakes from gasping. A little time away should help bring her back down. 

Back down from worrying over ghosts, anyway. 

Jamie’s wandering hands, on the other hand...

“Jamie,” she hisses, because airplane seats are really not spacious, and though they don’t have a seatmate on the aisle, there’s an elderly couple across the way with a perfect view of Jamie’s hand resting on her knee. Jamie looks down, jumps a little, tucks the offending hand under her own leg. 

“Shit. Don’t know what’s wrong with me...”

Nothing, Dani wants to say, is wrong with you. It’s them. They’re wrong for asking us to hide. They’re wrong for asking me to ever pretend, even for a second, that you’re not the most important person in my life. 

“It’s all right,” she whispers instead, like the pressure of Jamie’s palm sliding off her kneecap hasn’t left scorch marks. She closes her eyes, leans her head back. There’s a long flight ahead for someone already on fire. A long flight, and she thinks with truly feral madness, There’s a bathroom. Small. Cramped. But we could fit, maybe. I could get her in there, maybe. 

She lets the image unspool for a moment: Jamie propped against a tiny airplane sink, muffling filthy sounds against her arm, Dani on her knees before her. No. No, best put that away for now. Even if they weren’t caught, by some insane miracle, they’d just have a bigger problem afterward. A problem labeled we’ve proven we’re willing to test this. 

Dani isn’t, not really. Not if there’s a chance of blowing up their whole life. 

Still, it’s hard to scrub the idea away. Jamie is looking at her with some concern, and it’s fair: Dani’s aware her cheeks are pink, her breath coming in sharp hitches. She forces a smile.

“You all right?” Jamie asks quietly. “Don’t feel sick, do you?”

“Not sick,” Dani says. She presses her lips into a thin line, gaze flicking unintentionally from Jamie’s eyes to her mouth, and understanding breaks slowly across Jamie’s face. 

“Ah.” She looks so smug. Dani wishes that made her want Jamie any less. 

“Don’t tease,” she mutters. “Can’t help it.” She really can’t, either. Jamie’s been there, right there, touching her everywhere for such short bursts, but the shop has been crazy. They’ve been tired. There hasn’t been any real time together in far too long. 

Jamie looks at her, a long look that Dani thinks for a heart-stopping second will end in her simply saying, “Fuck it” and leaning in to kiss Dani on this plane. Can’t, she warns her silently. Can’t do that, Jamie, because if you start, I won’t be able to stop--

“Bit chilly,” Jamie says conversationally to someone over Dani’s head. She turns, catching sight of an airline stewardess just as Jamie adds, “Wouldn’t say no to a blanket, if there’s one handy.”

Oh, she’s made a joke, Dani thinks, staring fixedly at the ceiling. Heaven help me, she’s made a goddamn Owen pun, and they don’t even know. 

The blanket, when it arrives, is thick, made of a somewhat scratchy dark gray material. Jamie spreads it laboriously across her own lap first, then makes a show of looking at Dani. 

“You cold? Only, this is huge, and I’d feel terribly selfish hogging it the whole trip.”

Across the aisle, one of their elderly neighbors nods as though Jamie is the wisest, kindest person she’s ever seen in the wild. Jamie gives a returning nod, says blithely, “Ask for a blanket, flight’s always frigid once we get going.”

She’s pulling the blanket across Dani’s lap now, somehow making it look as though her hands are not sliding up Dani’s thigh in the process. Dani nearly bites her tongue trying not to respond. 

She does believe, with her whole heart, that Jamie did not mean to start this. That Jamie’s wandering hands in public are entirely a thing of habit built at home. Jamie is always touching her at the apartment, always squeezing her arm or stroking her cheek or kissing whatever part of her is within reach. It’s the most natural thing in the world. She certainly hasn’t been putting them at risk on purpose. 

But right now? Right now, on this plane, tucking the blanket carefully around Dani so there’s no way prying eyes can catch a glimpse of what’s going on beneath it?

Jamie is absolutely doing this on purpose. 

“Are you crazy?” she hisses, trying to look as though she isn’t seconds from flying out of her own skin. Jamie is smiling so calmly, so rationally, tucking her hands under the blanket.

“Nope. Just chilly, as I said. Aren't you?”

Dani thinks she’s never been warmer in her entire life, not with Jamie’s rebellious left hand dragging the skirt up over her knees. From an outside perspective, it’s impossible to see; Jamie looks perfectly calm. Even friendly, should anyone catch her eye. She smiles like she doesn’t have Dani’s skirt rucked nearly to her waist.

She smiles like her hand isn’t sliding down the curve of Dani’s thigh now, cresting against the front of cotton underwear. 

“Jamie,” Dani breathes. Jamie leans over on the pretense of trying to glance into the aisle for persons unknown. Her lips graze Dani’s ear. 

“Keep quiet. Just pretend you’re looking out the window.”

Looking out the window, Dani thinks wildly, right. Like nothing’s going on under the noses of their fellow passengers. Like nothing whatsoever is happening under this blessedly-thick blanket, Jamie’s left hand tracing shapes into the apex of her groin. Jamie, with the calmest goddamn smile she’s ever seen, saying, “This is going to be good for us, y’know. Haven’t been out to see the sights in ages. America’s really gotten under my skin...”

How, thinks Dani, fists clenched against her own thighs under the blanket, is she talking? How can she possibly be holding a perfectly sane, perfectly serene conversation with her fingers sliding up, pulling aside the elastic of Dani’s underwear, moving the material aside just enough to press against slick skin. Dani swallows hard enough to hurt. Her own fingers are leaving impressions against her legs, bruises she’d rather be digging into Jamie’s skin. 

“You’ll like it,” Jamie says in a placid, low voice, like her fingers aren’t currently tracing a spot particularly wet and warm. Like Dani’s hips aren’t twitching as she fights the urge to press into Jamie’s hand. Like she doesn’t know Dani’s nails are biting into her own thighs, dragging grooves that will burn later. 

“Jamie.”

“Mm?” Like she doesn’t know. She’s grinning a crooked, cheerful little grin that makes Dani want to kiss her blind. If only they weren’t on a plane, if only there weren’t so many damn people around, she’d be out of this seat and riding Jamie’s lap, paying her back for this, making her squirm--

“You,” Dani says through clenched teeth as Jamie teases with one finger, slowly sliding in and easing right back out again. “You are in so much trouble when we land.”

“Yeah,” Jamie agrees, eyes shining. If anyone bothered to look at her properly, they’d see the hunger etched all over her face, even under the easy smile. “Yeah, reckon I am. But that’s hours off, yet, Poppins. Might as well enjoy the ride.”

Dani moves a hand to grip Jamie’s knee as hard as she can, exhaling through her nose to keep from whimpering as Jamie sets a slow, dangerous pace. 

This, she decides, will certainly be the thing to drive her insane. 

6

She's learned a lot about Dani over the years. A lot of wonderful, invigorating, sexy things about Dani--and a lot of simple ones, too. How much garlic Dani prefers in just about any dish. How good she is at decorating a house so it looks safer than anywhere in the world. How bad she is at pretending not to stare when Jamie walks out of the bathroom in nothing but a mis-buttoned flannel shirt. 

A good relationship, Jamie has determined--all too aware that this is the first and last truly good relationship of her life--is constant education. Learning what your person likes, and doesn’t like, and didn’t think they could ever tell you they liked until the moment arrived. Learning when to keep the lights on, when to hold them in the dark. Learning what moods beg a kiss, which ones require hands wiping away tears, and which ask only for silence. 

She’s been with Dani a long time. Hopes to be with her a lot longer. Decades, if she can trick the universe into granting them that long a reprieve. Years, if she can only steal that much. Any time with Dani is cherished. Any time with Dani is more than either of them expected. 

She’s been with Dani a long time, and there’s a lot she knows now. Where Dani’s ticklish in ways that will derail sex entirely by way of hysterical laughter; where she’s ticklish in less aggressive ways that will, in fact, enhance the experience when Jamie kisses those spots. She knows that Dani likes to relinquish control, because it makes her feel safe in Jamie’s hands, and that she sometimes likes to sneak control back when Jamie isn’t looking, because she likes the way Jamie forgets how to speak when she’s surprised. She knows the way Dani likes her neck kissed, the way Dani likes to be held through a particularly intense orgasm, the way Dani gets the right kind of embarrassed when something unexpectedly obscene comes out of her mouth at just the right moment. 

She knows a lot about Dani, every last detail precious, but she doesn’t know everything. Sometimes, Dani still surprises her.

Like the day she comes home with a sad little plant. 

She doesn’t recognize the look on Dani’s face, and a part of her--the part that’s been waking more and more as Dani jerks restlessly in her sleep, as she carefully averts her eyes from the bathroom mirror, as she gives that old tired not-quite-present smile Jamie remembers so well from their last week at Bly--worries. Dani is still full of surprises, but some of those surprises have teeth. Some, Jamie fears she’s not strong enough to lift from Dani’s shoulders. 

This time, though, the look is less hunted and more...quietly nervous. Jamie is distracted, failing miserably to secure dinner for what feels like the thousandth time in this kitchen, but something about the way Dani is hefting this plant cuts through her focus. 

Dani, rescuing plants off the side of the road. Be still her heart. 

Something about the way Dani glances at her as she takes over at the stove, something about the way Dani brushes past like she’s running on something electric, nearly ruins the surprise. Nearly. Except Jamie is distracted, and there's something green and not entirely lifeless to repair, and Jamie has always been up for getting to the heart of a problem. The roots, she sees without really needing to dig. The roots are...

“Dani,” she hears herself say. “Why’s there a...”

And then Dani is using words like best friend, love of my life, words so big and so wonderful Jamie wonders if she’s really awake right now. And there are other words, scary ones--don’t know how much time we have left--but Dani chases them quickly with the best words Jamie’s ever heard. Words like spend them with you. Words like we’ll know. Words like it’s enough for me, if it’s enough for you. 

Jamie can’t imagine this not being enough. 

She’s half-crying, kissing Dani, half-laughing, wholly effervescent. Dani’s hair is soft under hands that suddenly feel too small, too clumsy, holding on to something so fragile. Dani’s whispering I love you against her lips, and Jamie recognizes some fear in the way she’s pulling Jamie closer. Some fear, and a huge amount of relief, too. 

“Did you think I’d say no?” she teases when the tears dry up enough to let her speak again. Dani, forehead pressed against hers, shakes her head minutely. 

“I don’t think anyone knows what the answer will be. But...no. No, I didn’t.”

“Good,” Jamie says, trying to look like she’s not sniffling. “Think you know me better than that.”

“I know you better than anyone,” Dani says, so honestly, Jamie feels something crack from deep inside. She slides the ring onto her finger to distract from this feeling of being dunked under by some enormous wave, by feelings she truly once thought she’d never have the space for in her body. 

Dinner is decidedly not salvageable by this point, and Jamie finds she isn’t hungry, anyway. She leads Dani to the the couch, curls up close to her, eyes straying back to that sad little potted plant. 

“Tried to grow it, didn’t you?”

“No,” Dani says, with exactly the same inflection she once used at six in the morning in a greenhouse. Jamie laughs. 

There’s an energy between them tonight unlike anything Jamie’s ever felt before. It’s been hinted at over the years--in a bedroom at Bly, in a diner in the Midwest, in the middle of their shop--but never quite so clearly as in this moment. Dani, who has seemed less and less content lately, has an arm around her shoulders, her breath coming easier than it has in weeks. Jamie doesn’t like thinking about that, doesn’t like looking too closely at what might be pulling Dani back down that particular road.

This, she decides. Just this. Just today. The rest can wait. 

Dani has her hand in her lap, is fiddling with the ring like she can't quite believe she had the guts to actually give it to Jamie. Dani is always so much more surprised by her own courage than Jamie has ever been. It was always, she thinks, watching Dani idly twist the gold band back and forth, going to be Dani doing the proposing. Dani, whose relationship with marriage is so complicated. Dani, whose relationship with time is so complicated. 

There’s a lot in the relationship Dani leaves in Jamie’s hands. Repairs around the house, ideas of how the shop could run more smoothly, most nights in the bedroom. There’s a lot Dani doesn’t feel like she needs to grip in tense fists, a lot Dani has never felt the need to control. Jamie’s not sure control is the word she’d choose for herself, either, but there’s a certain natural leadership to her posture in the world. Maybe because, for a time, there was no one but Jamie herself calling the shots. Maybe because she’s used to making hard choices, unable to drop them on anyone else’s shoulders. 

It makes her feel an unexpected kind of strong, that Dani trusts her with so much. 

But this always felt important to leave to Dani. Jamie would have been all right if they never had this conversation; the way she sees it, not much would have changed. Dani is still her most important person, ring or no. She’ll be here as long as Dani will have her, even without vows or witnesses.

But for Dani to have done this--for Dani to have planned it out, kept it a secret when she is absolutely terrible at keeping secrets from Jamie (”I never know,” she says, making a horror into the sweetest thing in the world by virtue of pout alone, “how much time we have, why would I keep anything from you?”), dropped it smoothly on a sunny evening like this--is perfect. It’s small, and it’s private, and it’s the bravest thing in the world. 

“I love you,” Jamie says, because there is no amount of saying it that would feel like enough. Dani smiles until the corners of her eyes crinkle. 

There are things that have surprised her about Dani over the years, and things that may have surprised Dani even more--but the thing Jamie finds most surprising of all comes from this. From the way her whole body relaxes in Dani’s hands. From the way her eyes close and her breath shallows out when Dani’s nearby. She’s never been good at vulnerability, not with anyone, but the minute Dani entered her life, it’s like vulnerability became her life’s mission.

Never consciously. Never with intent. Just...organically, the way cells know to age, the way plants know to seek sunlight. Dani walked into her life with shoulders tight and more love in her heart than she seemed to know what to do with, and suddenly, Jamie wanted only to give. Her time, her affection, anything Dani needed. Anything Dani could ever want. 

It should be exhausting. It should take everything out of her. It should wring her out and leave nothing in its wake. 

Instead, it seems to make her stronger every day. It seems to make her more with everything she gives to Dani: her love, her hope, her reassurances. She gives, and Dani, who could so easily take, gives back, and Jamie thinks, It’s this. It’s the exchange. Not just the caring, but the being taken care of. 

“What’re you thinking?” Dani asks. Jamie winds their fingers together, brings their joined hands to her lips. 

“That I’m lucky. Incredibly, illogically lucky.”

“Should I have--” Dani hesitates. “I don’t know, done it sooner?”

Sand in an hourglass, Jamie thinks. In the end, it’s all sand in an hourglass, and no amount of rushing can change it. 

“It was perfect,” she says, leaning across Dani to kiss her lips. “Truly. Couldn’t ask for better.”

Dani looks like she may be considering pressing--there’s a particular crease she gets between the eyes when self-consciousness is at the wheel, and it breaks Jamie’s heart every time she sees it. Jamie pushes her back against the arm of the couch, dropping with her until they’re laying flush, cupping one hand under Dani’s jaw to kiss her properly. 

“Perfect,” she repeats, brushing her nose against Dani’s, sighing when Dani’s hands move reflexively to slide the strap of her overalls off her shoulder. 

There’s less verbal reassurance from there, considerably more work done via hands and sighs and lips. They’re laughing even as Jamie shifts too far to the left and rolls them both onto the very-solid floor in a half-dressed heap. Dani’s still laughing--half-wild with what Jamie reads as untempered relief--even as Jamie helps her wrestle out of her jacket, even as Jamie is sliding down her body, kissing her way back up again through the impossibly-deep slit in her dress. 

There are times with Dani that feel like the pair of them will burst into flame if they aren’t touching, if they aren’t setting a rhythm together in that very moment. There are times where it’s all hunger, all heat, where Jamie thinks the very act of loving Dani might set her ablaze. And then there are times like this: times where Dani watches her with half-lidded eyes, smiling even as Jamie is undressing her, even as Jamie is coaxing cloth aside and pulling Dani to her mouth. Smiling, sighing, shifting under Jamie like there’s nowhere else in the world she’d rather be. 

Times like this, tasting Dani, grasping blindly for her hand with eyes closed, are secretly Jamie’s favorite. Times like this, feeling Dani move beneath her, tracing Dani’s knuckles with the pad of her thumb, Dani’s voice the only song in the room, are the absolute ideal. It’s only here, in their home, knowing Dani would give anything to keep this safe, that Jamie thinks she’s her absolute best self. 

It’s here--curled on the floor with her back against Dani’s chest, Dani’s hand tossed lightly over her hip, both of them covered with a very badly crocheted blanket Dani picked out at a flea market--that she feels most real. 

“I want this,” Dani says sleepily, words muffled with her mouth pressed against Jamie’s shoulder. “For as long as possible.”

“Sleeping naked on a hardwood floor?” Jamie shifts her face against her bent elbow, grinning. Dani’s arm slides tighter around her middle.

“Holding you. Anywhere.”

“Think that can be arranged,” Jamie says, voice unexpectedly thick with emotion. Dani nuzzles against her shoulder again.

“Promise?”

Something releases in her chest, the duality of Dani now--a Dani who is starting to get scared again, but still brave enough to ask Jamie to marry her--and Dani then--a Dani terrified already, but so brave in asking Jamie to stay--coalescing into one. She inhales, shuddering, pressing back into Dani’s arms as hard as she can. Dani squeezes like she understands, like she knows Jamie needs nothing like she needs to know Dani is the most solid thing in the room. 

This is the thing, Jamie thinks, that surprises her most. Not just being taken care of, but needing it from Dani. Needing to be held, needing to feel the weight of Dani’s body against her own. Needing to be reminded that for all her good humor, all her confidence, all the times Jamie can’t help putting Dani first--Dani’s doing the exact same thing. 

“I’m gonna marry you,” she hears herself say, turning in Dani’s grasp and pressing her face against Dani’s neck. “Someday. Minute it’s even remotely legal.”

Dani makes the most content noise she’s ever heard in her life. “One day at a time,” she says. To Jamie’s ears, it's the purest kind of vow. 

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

23. Vent

While Joey plays with old coworkers, Henry’s busy traversing the vent maze in the studio for his safety. Luckily for him, it turns out that not every searcher and or lost one is in cahoots with the Ink demon, and possibly, none of them could be his minions after all, at least, not willingly... (Set in the AU where by yeeting Joey into the ink machine before going through the portal-door in the kitchen, Henry is accompanied by a chatty, useless, and overall insufferable little imp.)

One minute, he was at the Ink Demon’s mercy, the next, everything went black. It wasn’t hard for Henry to put together what happened; the exact same thing that always happened whenever the Ink Demon caught him back in Joey’s old story: He died and went back into the puddles.

He knew the drill by now; walk to the light,  move on. But this time, he felt someone pulling him out. And when he reemerged in the small room, he felt different; didn’t ache as much as he did before, but felt light headed, and was it just him or were his clothes somehow both too small and too big for him?

“There ya are! Nice an’ all in one piece…” The person who had apparently pulled him out of there dusted him off and was eying him for damage. “Both arms, both legs, stable form, dat’s good.” The creature let out a light chuckle. “Da prophet would’ve chewed me out big time ovawise!”

Henry shook himself off, wiped the ink out of his eyes, and his jaw dropped to the ground when he saw a cartoon, wolf-like snout where his nose should’ve been.

Upon further inspection, his face wasn’t the only thing changed; he lost two fingers on each hand, he appeared to be covered in a short coat of soft black fur, and his clothes were too big and too small for him because he had gone from a short and stocky man to a beanpole of a wolf.

“This isn’t as funny when you’re on the receiving end of it…” he muttered to himself as he adjusted his ill-fitting clothes.

“Or when it happens ta someone ya like...” An ink creature with pants and a baseball cap added. “I still shudda every time I remember ‘bout how Norman first handled it.” He readjusted his cap. “But just thinkin’ about how Joey must’ve reacted when he first figured out he’s da main star of the show now instead of callin’ da shots no more… Oh, ta be a fly on da wall ta see dat!”

“As your fly on the wall at the time, he mostly screamed, cried a bit, blamed me for it, and his voice kept cracking up so it was hard to take him seriously.”

The creature in a similar position to the prophet made a sound similar to someone trying and failing to hold back laughter.

“Yep! Dat sounds exactly like him!” The creature snapped his fingers as if he had just realized something. “Oh yeah! I don’t think we’ve intraduced ourselves, I’m Walter, friends call me etha Walt or Wally, and you are..?”

“Henry,” The wolf offered “my name is Henry.”

“Nice ta meetcha Henry!” The creature grabbed his hand and shook it. “Now I’d hate ta be pushy, but we’re gonna get some not so fun company if we stick around chattin’ too much, da Ink Demon ain’t the most forgivin’ when it comes ta “slacking off”, so…” He took a screwdriver out of his pocket and got the grate off of a large vent. “We gotta get outta here.”

-----

The good news about his new form was that it was easy for him to climb into and through the maze of vents without too much issue, the bad news was was that as his glasses were made with a human nose and ears in mind, not a dog’s muzzle without human ears to support them, they kept falling off unless he used a hand to hold them in place, which also didn’t make traveling through the vents the fastest route possible.

“Good thing we’re tryin’ ta be quiet…” His guide offered. “Just because I said ‘we gotta get outta here’ doesn’t mean we gotta be quick about it, take your time. Da Ink Demon can’t do nothin’ but chew us out an’ or taunt if he catches us in here, an’ he’s nowhere as scary as Sammy when he’s angry! Well, I guess ya could say dat he doesn’t get angry no more, but what he does have dat replaces his anger is way worse… ugh...”

“It’s a good thing we can slow down and talk I guess...”

“Yeah, real swell! Ya sure ain’t da most talkative guy I’ve taken on this little vent tour of mine, but you’re good company!”

“So, where exactly do you plan to end this vent-tour?”

“Oh! Right!” He turned around to face the old wolf. “Before I forget, here’s an important little tidbit that ya gotta know before I can let ya outta these vents; if ya meet up wit’ Joey and ya pity him enough ta let him tag along wit’cha, I wont blame you, he seems pretty harmless and pathetic now and I’d feel bad too if I let him get ripped to pieces, but whateva you do, don’t tell him that us ink guys are on your side. Okay?”

“Do you want him to be afraid of you?”

“Eh… Yes an’ no, I kinda wanna spook him a little bit as payback for all dat unpaid ovatime back in da day, but more importantly; if he knows what’s up, he’ll spoil all our plans an’ hard work for sure!”

“You have my word, I won’t tell him a single thing about this meeting of ours.”

“Dat’s great, I knew I could trust ya!”

After a while, the ink creature unscrewed a different panel, leading to a ritualistic looking room with instruments, a toilet, and a desk in the corner.

“Here’s where ya get off, Henry. If da Shudda’s closed an’ stuck, just holla an’ pretend you’re being held hostage by da music dep. If your “good buddy Bendy” doesn’t break ya out, we will, but we’ll be low key about it so dat mistah ‘Demon Lord’ doesn’t get suspicious. I’m real great at playin’ up da ‘lovable but incompitant henchmen oaf’!”

“Got it,” The wolf slowly climbed out of “Thanks, Wally, and good luck.”

“No prob, see ya on da flipside, Henry!”

[mawadytools-blog]

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[monsterlovinghours]

Okay. You asked for robofizz prompts and I think I have something. Character (reader or OC, totally up to you) works at Loo Loo Land as a maintenance worker for the rides and games. Their day is busy as hell because, let’s be honest, shit breaks down a lot there. But, out of the blue, management makes them robofizz’s new mechanic because he killed the last one. This is the first time they’re meeting the deranged clown and things get pretty, you know, when character tries to fix his sparking wires. 👀👀👀👀👀

oh fuck here we go y’all sluts better buckle up

Ducking behind a row of rigged carnival games, you let your work bag fall to the ground as you took a breather, wiping sweat and what looked like engine oil (but could be anything from burnt sugar to cremation ash) off your forehead. Taking a job as a ride mechanic had seemed like a good idea at the time; get into the park for free, discounts on funnel cake, access to all the shows. All you had to do was tighten a few bolts and make sure nobody got electrocuted too severely. 

But here, like the rest of Hell, imps like you were disposable grunt workers and nobody gave two and a half shits if you were overworked or exhausted. Everything was broken or breaking. You were shocked (metaphorically and literally) your first day when you saw that behind the novelty prizes and shiny veneers, the park was just a rat’s nest of rusted metal, sharp edges, and exposed wiring. Mechanics were routinely crushed or mangled or fried, and within a day another had taken their place. So far, you’d managed to avoid the various death traps and make it a solid month, which made you one of the more senior employees. 

Today was especially busy; there was some important fuck and his daughter at the park today, and orders were to keep the place running as smoothly as possible, though “smooth” was a relative term. It had seen you running like a maniac from one end of the park to the other, your uniform shirt coming untucked from your grease-stained pants as you jogged from one disaster to the next. Predictably, as soon as you had a second to take a breath, your phone went off, the splintering chitter of its message alert drilling into your ears. 

Another mechanic was down, this one working to repair one of the main acts. You groaned, big machines you were fine with, but intricate wiring and robotics? Not your strong suit. And this was the top-billed show, the most loved (or most feared) performer the park had to offer. Fizzarolli himself. You hadn’t seen the show yet, and his ominous circus tent was one of the only places you hadn’t yet been called to to fix something, but since you were currently the most senior mechanic on staff at the moment, and seeing how RoboFizz had just crushed his last mechanic, the job fell unfortuitously to you. 

Fantastic.

You sighed and slung your tool bag over your shoulder, walking briskly through the crowds to hastily erected circus tent, which had been cleared of people for the time being. You took a deep breath before ducking inside, blinking a bit as your eyes adjusted from the bright light of midday to the dim green glow that filled the tent. Some benches were knocked over, a few still had blood spatter on them, but you'd straighten that up later. At the moment, your focus was on the shadowed figure bent in unnatural angles slumped on the stage. His eyes and grinning mouth were lit with the same dull green, and they narrowed to slits when they saw you. 

"Its about ti-time you got here, toots!" He laughed, the sound skipping like a damaged record. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes as you knelt behind Fizz to access his mainframe; at least the rides didn't talk. 

"Yeah yeah, its busy work keeping this shithole operating, sue me." A few twists with a screwdriver, and the panel popped free, exposing the tangled wires and hydraulics, and you groaned inwardly. This kind of detailed work was way beyond your level of experience. 

"Ya waiting for a formal invitation ba-ba-back there, tinker? Get moving, I've got an audience waiting!"

"Hell's sake, keep your bells on. I'm not exactly a robotics expert." Clamping a small flashlight in your teeth, you started to poke around inside the hydraulics, looking for any leaks or broken connections. Not seeing anything right away, you probed deeper, focused on finding the problem in the less than adequate lighting. Had you been more experienced in dealing with robots, you would have perhaps remembered to inspect the outer body for any exposed wiring. As it happens, you did not, and your inexperience led you to brush against an exposed set of wires that threw sparks and burned a dark, circular mark on the back of your hand. The pain made you jerk back on instinct, yelping and cursing. It took you a moment to notice that the posture of the clown had changed, straightening from his slumped position with his head cocked sharply to the side. With the soft ratchet of moving machinery, Fizz turned his head 180 degrees to look at you, and you noticed more quickly now that his stare had changed as well. Before, it felt derisive, a touch irritated behind the ever present smile he'd been programmed with. But now there was more intent inside the green, more interest...almost as if he were leering at you.

"Ohhh," he rasped, "so its gonna be that kind of show?"

You were confused, until you noticed a dot of red within the green, a new light in the mainframe, with tiny lettering indicating what new function your little spasm had switched on. 

18+ Mode On

Your eyes widened as the reality of your little mistake finally began to sink in. It was a well known fact that Fizz had an “adult” mode, mainly for private shows where wads of cash exchanged hands behind closed doors. Sometimes, the crowds at night were bigger than the crowds during the day. Sure, on a lonely night or two, you’d wondered just what a sex-capable robot clown could do and if shelling out a small fortune would be worth it. Now, it seemed, you were about to get an accidental freebie.

“Fuck.”

“That’s the idea, sweetcheeks.” Fizz got to his feet with a whir and a shower of yellowish sparks, his body jerking so that the back panel slammed shut, hiding his exposed mechanics and thwarting any attempt you might have made to switch his mode. From somewhere within the tent, jaunty calliope music began to play, the pitch slow and wavering at first, like playing a record on the wrong speed. “So what’s your ple-pleasure, sweet stuff? Your ol’ pal Fizzarolli can do it all-upstairs, downstairs, butt stuff, you name it.”

“I...uh…” Your entire body felt numb, frozen, unable to do much more than stare as he advanced toward you, looming over you with that malevolent, leering grin still on his fanged mouth. “I’m not...I mean, I don’t…”

Fizz paused, his head once more cocking sharply to the side as he regarded you, then he let out a laugh, the bells on his hat jingling as his head did a complete roll on his shoulders. “Aww, looks like someone’s sh-shy! Don’t worry, tinker,” he growled in a smug, condescending tone, reaching down to pat you on the head. “I’ll take the reins on this one. You just sit back and enjo-jo-joy the show!”

With a sinister chuckle, he lunged for you, wrapping his entire body around you like an electronic boa constrictor, that laugh still buzzing in your ear as he coiled tight, then unwound himself, flinging your body towards the ceiling of the tent. There was barely any time for you to pull breath into your lungs to scream, and then suddenly, you weren’t falling anymore. Something else was wrapped around you, something cold and biting as steel. Around each wrist, each ankle, your waist, and your neck, whiplike appendages were wound, thin and covered in shifting metal plates. You were being held in midair, suspended like a puppet; if the advertisements you’d seen plastered around the park were any clue, you would guess that you were getting a taste of the “real tentacle action” Fizz boasted. Indeed, from within the loose panel on his back was where the appendages seemed to originate. 

As he stalked closer, you gulped, the sickly green glow of his eyes bathing your face and throwing your shadow in harsh relief against the canvas wall. Fizz wasted no time, and with only a deranged giggle as a warning, he shoved his hand beneath the untucked hem of your shirt to slide into your pants, cold hand cupped firmly between your legs. Barely a sound had left you, everything happening so fast you could barely process, let alone react, but a moan left you now, the silk of his glove and the ruffle around his wrist feeling so strange and yet so good as they brushed against your most sensitive parts. Fizz chuckled, or at least, he attempted to, the sound glitching into a series of strange beeps in response to your apparent openness to his touch.

"Boy, hardly touched at all and you're already moaning? You must need it ba-bad, impling." He leaned closer, eyes narrowing, and you shied away from those sharp teeth, so close to your face. Without warning, that hand between your legs began to vibrate, and you yelped, wriggling in your bonds.

"Ohhh...oh fuck…!"

"Like I said," he crooned. "That's the idea-ea-ea." The vibrations cranked up a notch, and you could no longer keep still, your breath coming faster, tail thrashing behind you out of sheer pleasure. Truthfully, it had been a long time; when you were fighting to keep a roof over your head and passing out from near exhaustion the second you returned home at night, there wasn't much time to try and get laid. It was lonely and it sucked, but that's life. Now, touched for the first time in what could have been centuries for all you knew, your toes curled inside your work boots, tears forming in your eyes as your hips bucked against his hand. It was so good, so fucking good, and with every increase in speed, your moans and cries got louder, more desperate, until-

"Ah-ah-ah, tinker, no you don't!" Suddenly that hand was gone, all stimulation withdrawn, and you whimpered. The tentacles around your extremities tightened in response. "You thought I was just gonna let you co-come so soon? Poor, dumb little imp-slut, it ain't gonna be that easy."

You swore, your teeth bared in an impotent snarl, but the clown only laughed, more carnival-striped tentacles unfurling and wrapping around you, the metal cold against your overheated skin. Now fully immobile, you were lifted higher, splayed out, shaking and wanting. The new appendages began to nudge and press around your body, seemingly exploring your form while the clown stepped between your spread legs, hands groping at your trembling thighs. His smirk was near evil, merciless, piercing as a laser as he watched his tentacles divest you of every stitch of clothing, torn and tossed aside without care. The tips of his jester hat brushed along your legs as he leaned closer to your core, mouth opening to graze the tips of his sharp teeth along your inner thighs, chuckling when you writhed, uncertain if you were trying to pull away or get closer. “Please,” you whimpered, not quite knowing what you were begging for, your body reduced to firing synapses and electric pulses of pure need.

Again, that mocking giggle issued from somewhere behind his sharp teeth. “Begging now, slut? You really want it tha-a-at bad, huh?” His open mouth neared your center, and you noticed now that there was heat coming from him, like the brush of warm breath, and saw a faint reddish glow shining from somewhere within his maw. “Want Ol’ Fizz to make you come again and a-again like the greedy little tramp you are?”

“Yes,” you choked out, so far past caring how desperate you sounded. “Yes, please, please, please!”

A soft whir was your only warning before something long, warm, and slippery was sliding between your legs; your body spasmed, jerking against the restraining appendages, your head lifting to see his striped tongue pressing against you, coated in shiny lubricant. He licked experimentally at you, seeing how much pressure you liked and where you were most sensitive, continuing his brutal teasing as the needle-sharp tips of his fingers raked down your thighs, nearly drawing blood. Then that mouth opened impossibly wide, eyes narrowed to knowing slits as that tongue probed at your entrance, nudging against it before shoving inside with no warning. Gasps and choked half-words fell from your lips at the delicious stretch of being suddenly, violently filled, his tongue twisting and pushing, the stripes not just for decoration but denoting a raised, almost ribbed texture. 

When it began to vibrate inside you, you couldn’t help but scream.

He cooed filth up at you, still able to talk despite his mouth being wrapped around you, voice distorted from the vibrations. Yellowish sparks would issue from his limbs as he fought to keep you still, burning against your skin like vicious little kisses. You weren’t coaxed to the edge so much as dragged toward it, your orgasm slamming into you with near physical force. The clench and thrashing of your body didn’t slow him; if anything, the vibrations intensified, more tentacles issuing from him to stroke and tease other erogenous zones, your entire body his to play with, helpless against his ruthless pursuit of your ruin. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he ripped your pleasure from your body with no care to be gentle, teeth and hands leaving marks in their wake. You were his slut, his eager imp-whore, his pretty little toy; at least, you didn’t deny it when he growled these claims up at you. As long as he didn’t stop, you would be anything he wanted.

But while he couldn’t grow tired or drained, you certainly could, and through a veil of tears you begged him to stop, half afraid that he wouldn’t. Fizz paused, then slowly unwound himself from around your violently shaking form, tentacles disappearing back inside the panel they had come from. He regarded you curiously, still grinning as you collapsed in a boneless, shaking heap, unable to do much except pant for breath. Finally, you looked up at him with hazy eyes, your sweaty hair falling limply in your face.

“Didn’t you have a show to do?”

Fizz threw back his head and laughed, the bells on his hat jingling merrily, a stark contrast to the cold, malicious sound of his glee. “Not the sharpest t-t-tool in the shed, huh, tinker? Look around; you a-are the show.”

To your horror, you could see dozens of yellow eyes pinned to your naked form, imps of all shapes and sizes, eyeing you hungrily. The light of day outside the tent was gone, and the depraved crowds that only came around at night had filtered in while you were...preoccupied. Ruby skin turned a mortified burgundy as you scrambled to cover yourself with any scraps of your clothing you could find, but Fizz wrapped his arms around you and hauled you to your feet, his arm secure around your waist as he bowed to his audience-your audience. They began to applaud, some whistling, others throwing out lewd comments. Fizz pulled you into his side, the hand on your waist slipping just a little lower.

“Seems like we make a pretty good duo, dollface,” he rasped, showing off his pointed teeth in a lascivious grin that at your already weak knees nearly buckling. “Whaddya say we gi-gi-give them an encore?”

[didanawisgi]

Medicine’s Fundamentalists

The randomized control trial controversy: Why one size doesn’t fit all and why we need observational studies, case histories, and even anecdotes if we are to have personalized medicine

BY NORMAN DOIDGE

AUGUST 14, 2020

If the study was not randomized, we would suggest that you stop reading it and go on to the next article. —Quote from Evidence-Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM

Why is it we increasingly hear that we can only know that a new treatment is useful if we have a large randomized control trial, or “RCT,” that has positive results? Why is it so commonly said that individual case histories are “mere anecdotes” and count for nothing, even if a patient, who has had a chronic disease, suddenly gets better with a new treatment after all others failed for years—an assertion that seems, to many people, to run counter to common sense?

Indeed, some version of the statement, “only randomized control trials are useful” has become boilerplate during the COVID-19 crisis. It is uttered as though it is self-evidently the mainstream medical position. When other kinds of studies come out, we are told they are “flawed,” or “fatally flawed,” if not RCTs (especially if the commentator doesn’t like the result; if they like the result, not so often). The implication is that the RCT is the sole reliable methodological machine that can uncover truths in medicine, or expose untruths. But if this is so self-evident, why then, do major medical journals continue to publish other study designs, and often praise them as good studies, and why do medical schools teach other methods?

They do because, as extraordinary an invention as the RCT is, RCTs are not superior in all situations, and are inferior in many. The assertion that “only the RCTs matter” is not the mainstream position in practice, and if it ever was, it is fading fast, because, increasingly, the limits of RCTs are being more clearly understood. Here is Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., former head of the CDC, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, in 2017, in an article on the kind of thinking about evidence that normally goes into public health policy now:

Although randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) have long been presumed to be the ideal source for data on the effects of treatment, other methods of obtaining evidence for decisive action are receiving increased interest, prompting new approaches to leverage the strengths and overcome the limitations of different data sources. In this article, I describe the use of RCTs and alternative (and sometimes superior) data sources from the vantage point of public health, illustrate key limitations of RCTs, and suggest ways to improve the use of multiple data sources for health decision making. … Despite their strengths, RCTs have substantial limitations.

That, in fact, is the “mainstream” position now, and it is a case where the mainstream position makes very good sense. The head of the CDC is about as “mainstream” as it gets.

The idea that “only RCTs can decide,” is still the defining attitude, though, of what I shall describe as the RCT fundamentalist. By fundamentalist I here mean someone evincing an unwavering attachment to a set of beliefs and a kind of literal mindedness that lacks nuance—and that, in this case, sees the RCT as the sole source of objective truth in medicine (as fundamentalists often see their own core belief). Like many a fundamentalist, this often involves posing as a purveyor of the authoritative position, but in fact their position may not be. As well, the core belief is repeated, like a catechism, at times ad nauseum, and contrasting beliefs are treated like heresies. What the RCT fundamentalist is peddling is not a scientific attitude, but rather forcing a tool, the RCT, which was designed for a particular kind of problem to become the only tool we use. In this case, RCT is best understood as standing not for Randomized Control Trials, but rather “Rigidly Constrained Thinking” (a phrase coined by the statistician David Streiner in the 1990s).

Studies ask questions. Understanding the question, and its context, is always essential in determining what kind of study, or tool, to use to answer those questions. In the “RCT controversy,” to coin a phrase, neither side is dismissive of the virtues of the RCT; but one side, the fundamentalists, are dismissive of the virtues of other studies, for reasons to be explained. The RCT fundamentalist is the classic case of the person who has a hammer, and thinks that everything must therefore be a nail. The nonfundamentalist position is that RCTs are a precious addition to the researcher’s toolkit, but just because you have a wonderful new hammer doesn’t mean you should throw out your electric drill, screwdriver, or saw.

So let’s begin with a quick review of the rationale for the “randomized” control trial, and their very real strengths, as originally understood. It’s best illustrated by what happens without randomization.

Say you want to assess the impact of a drug or other treatment on an illness. Before the invention of RCTs, scientists might take a group of people with the illness, and give them the drug, and then find another group of people, with the same illness, say, at another hospital, who didn’t get the drug, and then compare the outcome, and observe which group did better. These are called “observational studies,” and they come in different versions.

But scientists soon realized that these results would only be meaningful if those two groups were well matched in terms of illness severity and on a number of other factors that affect the unfolding of the illness.

If the two groups were different, it would be impossible to tell if the group that did better did so because of the medication, or perhaps because of something about that group that gave it an advantage and better outcome. For instance, we know that age is a huge risk factor for COVID-19 death, probably because the immune system declines as we age, and the elderly often already have other illnesses to contend with, even before COVID-19 afflicts them. Say one group was, on average, 60 years old, and all the members got the drug, and the other group was on average 75 years old, and they were the ones that didn’t get the drug. Say that when results were analyzed and compared, they showed the younger group had a higher survival rate.

A naive researcher might think that he or she was measuring “the power of the medication to protect patients from COVID-19 death” but may actually have also been measuring the relative role of youth, in protecting the patients. Scientists soon concluded there was a flaw in that design, because we do not know, with any reasonable degree of confidence, whether the better outcomes were due to age or the medication.

Age, here, is considered a “confounding factor.” It is called a confounding factor, because it causes confusion, because age can also influence the outcome of the study in the group as a whole. Other confounding factors we know about in COVID-19 now include how advanced the illness is at the time of the study, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and probably the person’s vitamin D levels. But there could easily be, and probably are, many other confounding factors we don’t know, as of yet. There are even potential confounding factors that we suspect play a role, but are not quite certain about: the person’s general physical fitness, the ventilation in their home, and so on.

This is where randomization is helpful. In a randomized control trial, one takes a sufficiently large group of patients and randomly assigns them to either the treatment group, or the nontreatment (“placebo” or sugar pill) control group, for instance. Efforts are made to make sure that apart from the treatment, everything else remains the same in the lives of the two groups. It is hoped that by randomly assigning this large number of patients to either the treatment or nontreatment condition, that each of the confounding factors will have an equal chance of appearing in both groups—the factors we know, such as age, but also mysterious ones we don’t yet understand. While observational studies can, with some effort, match at least some confounding factors we do understand in a “group matched design” (and, for instance, make sure both groups are the same age, or disease severity), what they can’t do is match confounding factors we don’t understand. It is here, that RCTs are generally thought to have an advantage.

With such a good technique as RCTs, one might wonder, why do we ever bother with observational studies?

There are a number of situations in medicine in which observational studies are obviously superior to randomized control trials (RCTs), such as when we want to identify the risk factors for an illness. If we suspected that using crack cocaine was bad for the developing brains of children, it would not be acceptable to do an RCT (which would take a large group of kids, and randomly prescribe half of them crack cocaine and the other half a placebo and then see which group did better on tests of brain function). We would instead follow kids who had previously taken crack, and those who never had, in an observational study, and see which group did better. All studies ask questions, and exist in a context, and the moral context is relevant to the choice of the tool you use to answer the question. That is Hippocrates 101: Do no harm.

Now, you might say that a study of risk factors is very different from the study of a treatment. But it is not that different. There can be very similar moral and even methodological issues.

In the 1980s, quite suddenly, clinicians became aware that infants were dying, in large numbers, in their cribs, for reasons that couldn’t be explained, and a new disorder was discovered, sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, or “crib death.” Some people wondered if parents were murdering their children, or if it was infectious, and many theories abounded. A large observational study was done in New Zealand that observed and compared factors in the lives of the infants who died and those who didn’t. The study showed that the infants who died were frequently put to sleep on their tummies. It was “just” an observation. But on that basis alone, it was suggested that having infants sleep on their backs might be helpful, and that parents should avoid putting their infants on their fronts in their cribs. Lo and behold, the rates of infant death radically diminished—not completely, but radically. No sane caring person said: “We should really do an RCT, rule out confounding factors, and settle this with greater certainty, once and for all: All we have to do is randomly assign half the kids to be put to bed on their tummies and the other half on their backs.” That would have been unconscionable. The evidence provided by the observational study was good enough.

Again, all studies have a context and are a means to answering questions. The pressing question with SIDS was not: How can we have absolute certainty about all the causes of SIDS? It was: How can we save infant lives, as soon as possible? In this case, the observational study answered it well.

The SIDS story is a case where we can see how close, in moral terms, a study of risk factors and a study of a new treatment can be in a case where the treatment might be lifesaving. Putting children on their tummies is a risk factorfor SIDS. Putting them on their backs is a treatment for it. The moral issue of not harming research subjects by subjecting them to a likely risk is clear.

Similarly, withholding the most promising treatment we have for a lethal illness is also a moral matter. That is precisely the position taken by the French researchers who thought that hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin was the most promising treatment known for seriously ill COVID-19 patients, and who argued that doing an RCT (which meant withholding the drug from half the patients) was unconscionable. RCT fundamentalists called their study “flawed” and “sloppy,” implying it had a weak methodology. The French researchers responded, in effect saying, we are physicians first; these people are coming to us to help them survive a lethal illness, not to be research subjects. We can’t randomize them and say to half, sorry, this isn’t your lucky day today, you are in the nontreatment group.

There are other advantages to observational studies in assessing new treatments. They are generally lower in cost than RCTs, and can often be started more quickly, and published more rapidly, which helps when information is needed urgently, as in a novel pandemic when little is understood about the illness. (RCTs, in part because of the moral issues, take longer to get ethics approval.) Observational studies are also easier to conduct at a time when patients are dying in high numbers, and hospital staff is overwhelmed, trying to keep people alive. They can involve looking back in time, to make use of observations in the medical chart. In such cases, it is crucial that the initial observations about how patients responded to the medications and treatments that the staff had on hand is documented, in as systematic as way as is possible, because there might be clues and nuggets as to what worked.

Exclusion Criteria: Do RCTs Study Real-World Patients?

But there are also problems at the conceptual heart of the RCT. Often the RCT design sees “confounding factors” not simply as something that has to be balanced between the treatment and no-treatment groups by randomization, but eliminated at the outset. For a variety of reasons, includinga wish to make interpretation of final results more certain, they aggressively eliminate known confounding factors before the study starts, by not letting patients with certain confounding factors get into the study in the first place. They do this by often having a lot of what are called “exclusion criteria,” i.e., reasons to exclude or disqualify people from entering the study.

Thus, RCTs for depression typically study patients who only have depression and no other mental disorders, which might be confounding factors. So, they usually study people who are depressed but who are not also alcoholic, not on illicit drugs, and who don’t have personality disorders. They also tend to exclude people who are actively suicidal (because if they are, they might not complete the expensive study, and some people think it is unethical to give a placebo to a person in acute risk of killing themselves). There are many other reasons given for different exclusions, such as a known allergy to a medication in the study.

But here’s the problem. These exclusions often add up until many, maybe even most, real-world depressives get excluded from such a study. So, the study sample is not representative of real-world patients. Yet this undermines the whole purpose of a research study “sample” in the first place, which is to test a small number of people (which is economical to do), and then extrapolate from them on to the rest of the population. As well, many studies of depression and drugs end up looking at people who are about as depressed as a college student who just got a B+ and not an A on a term paper. This is why many medications (or short-term therapies) end up doing well in short-term studies, but the patients relapse.

If you are a drug company (which pay for most of these studies) and you’re testing your new drug, exclusion criteria can be made to work in favor of making your drug appear more powerful than it really is, if sicker patients are eliminated. (This is a good trick, especially if your goal of making money from the drug is your first priority.)

This isn’t a matter of conjecture. This question of whether RCTs, in general, are made up of representative samples has been studied. An important review of RCTs found that 71.2% were not representative of what patients are actually like in real-world clinical practice, and many of the patients studied were less sick than real-world patients. That, combined with the fact that many of the so-called finest RCTs, in the most respected and cited journals, can’t be replicated 35% of the time when their raw data is turned over to another group that is asked to reconfirm the findings, shows that in practice they are far from perfect. That finding—that something as simple as the reanalysis of the numbers and measurements in the study can’t be replicated—doesn’t even begin to deal with other potential problems in the studies: Did the author ask the right questions, collect appropriate data, have reliable tests, diagnose patients properly, use the proper medication dose, for long enough, and were their enough patients in it? And did they, as do so many RCTs, exclude the most typical and the sickest patients?

Note, other study designs also have exclusion criteria, but they often are less problematic than in RCTs for reasons to be explained below.

The Gold Standard and the Hierarchy of Evidence

So, why is it we also hear that “RCTs are the gold standard,” and the highest form of evidence in the “hierarchy of evidence,” with observational studies beneath them, and case histories, at the bottom, and anecdotes beneath contempt?

There are several main reasons.

The first you just learned. It had been believed that RCTs were a completely reliable way to study a treatment given to a small sample of people in a population, see how they did, and then one could extrapolate those findings to the larger population. But that was just an assumption, and now that we have learned the patients studied are too often atypical, we have to be very careful about generalizing from an RCT. This embarrassment is a fairly recent finding that has yet to be taken fully into account by those who say RCTs are the gold standard.

The second reason has to do with the fundamentalists relying on outdated science, which argued that RCTs are more reliable in their quantitative estimates of how effective treatments are because they randomize and rule out confounding factors.

But a scientist who wanted to know if RCTs, as a group, were universally better and more reliable than observational studies at truth-finding would actually study the question scientifically, and not just assert it. And, in the 1980s, Chalmers and others did just that, examining studies from the 1960s and 1970s. They found that in the cases where both RCTs and observational studies had been done on the same treatment, the observational studies yielded positive results 56% of the time, whereas blinded RCTs did so only 30% of the time. It thus seemed that observational studies probably exaggerated how effective new treatments were.

Three other reviews of comparisons of observational and RCT study outcomes showed this same difference, and so researchers concluded that RCTs really were likely better at detecting an investigator’s bias for the treatment being studied, and hence more reliable. Since many scientific studies of drugs were paid for by drug companies that manufactured those drugs, it was not a surprise that the studies would have biases. These reviews formed much of the basis for RCT fundamentalism.

Just because an RCT is performed and published is no reason to assume it doesn’t exaggerate efficacy.

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But here’s the problem: These were reviews of studies that were done in the 1960s and 1970s. Once the observational study researchers became aware of the problem, they upped their game, and improved safeguards.

In 2000, new reviews comparing the results from hundreds of RCTs and observational studies in medicine that had been conducted in the 1990s were conducted by scientists from Yale and Iowa College of Medicine. They found that the tendency of observational studies to suggest better results in treatments had now disappeared. They now got similar results to RCTs. This was an important finding, but it has not been sufficiently integrated into the medical curriculum.

There is another reason we hear about RCTs. As RCTs became the type of study favored by regulatory bodies to test new drugs, they rose to prominence, and drug companies upped their game and learned many ingenious ways to make RCTs exaggerate the effectiveness of the drugs they are testing.

Entire books have been written on this subject, an excellent one being Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients.Since, to bring a drug to market requires only two RCTs showing the drug works, these techniques include doing many studies but not publishing the ones that don’t show good results. But there are sneakier techniques than making whole studies with negative outcomes go missing. There are ways to publish studies but hide embarrassing data; publish the good data in well-known journals and the negative findings in obscure journals; not study short-term side effects; almost never study, or ask about, long-term side effects; or play with measuring scales, so that patients appear to achieve statistically meaningful benefits which make no clinical difference. If you do a study that gives you a bad outcome on your key measure, don’t report that, just find some small outcome that was in your favor and retroactively change the goal of the study, to report that benefit and that alone. Make researchers and subjects sign gag clauses and nondisclosures. Have the drug companies ghostwrite the papers, make up the tables, and get academics, who never see the raw data sign them. This is routine.

The list goes on, and those tricks have often been used, successfully, to gain approval for drugs. Becoming very familiar with these ruses can save lives, because in a pandemic, new drugs will earn Big Pharma billions because the illness is so widespread, and they have a large playbook to draw from. Once two RCTs are selected from the many done to take the drug forward, the propaganda campaign begins, and as Goldacre shows, drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as they do on research. So, to repeat, just because an RCT is performed and published is no reason to assume it doesn’t exaggerate efficacy.

One group of studies, though, that don’t often play by these corrupt rules are RCTs done on already generic drugs, because they are off-patent, and there is really very little money to be made in them. In these cases, when a drug company has a generic rival to what might be a big money maker, there are ways of making that generic look bad. If the generic takes four weeks to work, test your drug against it, in a three-week study (the placebo effect for your drug won’t have worn off yet). If a vitamin is threatening your drug, test your drug against it, but use the cheapest version, in a dose that is too low. It’s an RCT, that’s all that matters.

Despite all this, advocates of RCTs still teach that, all else being equal, RCTs are always more reliable, and teach this by cherry-picking well-known cases where RCTs were superior to observational studies, and ignore cases where observational studies have been superior, or at least the better tool for the situation. They take the blunt position that “RCTs are better than observational studies,” and not, the more reasonable, accurate, and moderate, “All else being equal, in many, but not all situations, RCTs are better than observational studies.”

The phrase, “all else being equal,” is crucial, because so often all else is not equal. Simply repeating “RCTs are the gold standard of evidence-based medicine” implies to the naive listener that if it is an RCT then it must be a good study, and reliable, and replicable. It leaves out that most studies have many steps in them, and even if they have a randomization component, they can be badly designed in a step or two, and then lead to misinformation. Then there is the very uncomfortable fact that, so often, RCTs can’t even be replicated, and so often contradict each other, as anyone who has followed RCTs done on their own medical condition often sadly finds out. A lot of this turns out to be because they have many steps, and because Big Pharma is so adept now at gaming the system. Like gold, they turn out to be valuable but also malleable. A lot of the problem is that patients differ far more than these studies concede, and these complexities are not well addressed in the study design.

The Hierarchy-of-Evidence Notion Does Harm, Even to RCTs

One of the peculiar things about current evidence-based medicine’s love affair with its “hierarchy of evidence” is that it is still proceeding along, ignoring the implications of the scientifically documented replication crisis. True, the fact there is a replication crisis is now widely taught, and known about, but to the fundamentalists, it is as though that “crisis” doesn’t require that they reexamine basic assumptions. The replication crisis is compartmentalized off from business as usual and replaced with RCT hubris.

The irony is that the beauty of the RCT is that it’s a technique designed to neutralize the effects of confounding factors that we don’t understand on a study’s outcome, and thus it begins in epistemological humility. The RCT, as a discovery, is one of humanity’s wonderful epistemological achievements, a kind of statistical Socrates, which finds that wisdom begins with the idea, “whatever I do not know, I do not even suppose I know” (Apology, 21d).

But that beautiful idea, captured by a fundamentalist movement, has been turned on its head. The way the RCT fundamentalist demeans other study designs is to judge all those designs by the very real strengths of RCTs. This exaggeration is implicit in the tiresome language they use to discuss them: The RCTs are the “gold standard,” i.e., against which all else is measured, and the true source of value. Can these other designs equal the RCT in eliminating confounders? No. So, they are inferior. This works, as long as one pretends there are no epistemological limitations on RCTs. The problem with that attitude is, it virtually guarantees that the RCT design will not be improved, alas, because improved RCTs would benefit everyone. In fact, RCTs would be most quickly improved if the fundamentalists thought more carefully about the benefits of other studies, and tried to incorporate them, or work alongside them in a more sophisticated way. That is another way of saying we need the “all available evidence” approach.

The Case History and Anecdotes

Also disturbing, and, odd, actually, is the belittling of the case history as a mode of making discoveries, or what it has to offer science as a form of evidence. In neurology, for instance, it was the individual cases, such as the case of Phineas Gage, that taught us about the frontal lobes, and the case of H.M., that taught us about the role of memory, two of the most important discoveries ever made in brain science.

Here’s how the belittlement goes. “Case histories are anecdotes, and the plural of anecdote is not data, it is just lots of anecdotes.”

First of all, case histories are not anecdotes. An anecdote, in a medical text, is usually several sentences, at most a paragraph, stripped of many essential details, usually to make a single point, such as “a 50-year-old woman presented with X disease, and was treated with Y medication, for 10 days, and Figure 7 shows her before and after X-rays, and the dramatic improvement.” In that sense, an anecdote is actually the opposite of a case history, which depends on a multiplicity of concrete, vivid details.

A case history (particularly in classic neurology or psychiatry) can run for many pages. It is so elaborated because it understands, as the Canadian physician William Osler pointed out: “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” And who that patient is—their strengths, weaknesses, their other illnesses, other medications, emotional supports, diet, exercise habits, bad habits, genetics, previous treatment histories, all factor into the result. To practice good medicine, you must take it all into account, understanding that the patient is not any one of these details, but a whole who is more than the sum of the parts. Thus, true patient-centered medicine necessarily aspires toward a holistic approach. So, a case history is a concrete portrait of a real person, not an anecdote; and it is vivid, and the furthest thing possible from an abstract data set.

A typical RCT describes several data points about hundreds of patients. A typical case history describes perhaps hundreds of data points about a single patient. It’s not inferior, it’s different. The case history is, in fact, a technology, albeit an old one, set in language (another invention, we forget) and its structure (what is included in the case history, such as descriptions of the patient’s symptoms, objective signs, their subjective experiences, detailed life history, what makes the illness better, what worse, etc.) was developed over centuries.

Even anecdotes have their place. We often hear methodologists say, when a physician claims he or she gave a patient a particular medication, or supplement, or treatments, and they got better, “that that proves nothing. It is just an anecdote.” The problem is in the word “just.” Something doesn’t become meaningless, or a nonevent because a scientist adds the word “just” before it. That word really says nothing about the anecdote and a lot about the speaker’s preference for large number sets.

But anecdotes are very meaningful, too, and not just when lives are changed by a new treatment for the first time. This dismissive indifference to anecdotes turns out to be very convenient, for instance, for drug companies. If you are a physician, and you give a patient who had perfectly good balance an antibiotic, like gentamicin, and she suddenly loses all sense of balance because it injured her balance apparatus, the drug maker can say that is “just” an anecdote. It doesn’t count. And in fact, it is a fairly rare event. But it is by just such anecdotes that we learn of side effects, in part because (as I said above) most RCTs for new drugs don’t ask about those kinds of things, because they don’t want to hear the answer.

If we are to be honest, evidence-based medicine is, in large part, still aspirational. It is an ideal.

That’s why the approach I take—and I think most trained physicians with any amount of experience and investment in their patients’ well-being also take—might be called the all-available-evidence approach. This means, one has to get to know each of the study designs, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and then put it all together with what one is seeing, with one’s own eyes, and hearing from the particular patient who is seeking your care. There are no shortcuts.

One of the implications of this approach in the current COVID-19 situation is that we cannot simply, as so many are insisting, rely only on the long-awaited RCTs to decide how to treat COVID-19. That is because physicians in the end don’t treat illnesses, they treat patients with illnesses, and these patients differ.

The RCTs that are on the way may recommend, in the end, one medication as “best” for COVID-19. What does that mean? That it is best for everyone? No, just that in a large group, it helped more people than other approaches.

That information—which medication is best for most people, is very useful if you are in charge of public health for a poor country and can only afford one medication. Then you want the one that will help most people.

But if you are ordering for a community that has sufficient funds for a variety of medications, you are interested in a different question: What do I need on hand to cover as many sick people as possible, and not just those who benefit from medication X which helps most, but not all people? Even if a medication helps, say, only 10% of people, those will be lives saved, and it should be on hand. A medication that helped so few might not even have been studied, but if the others failed, it should be tried.

A physician on the frontline wants, and needs, access to those medications. He or she asks, “What if my patient is allergic to the medication that helps most people? Then, what others might I try?” Or, “What if the recommended medication is one that interacts negatively with a medication that my patient needs to stay alive for their non-COVID-19 condition?”

There are so many different combinations and permutations of such problems—and hardly any of them are ever studied—that only the physician who knows the patient has even a chance of making an informed decision. They are the kinds of things that arise on physician chat lines, that ask questions to 1,000 online peers like, “I have a patient with heart disease, on A, B, and C meds, and kidney disease on D, who was allergic to the COVID-19 med E. Has anyone tried med F, and if so, given their kidney function, should I halve the dose?”

Evidence-based medicine hasn’t studied some of the most basic treatments with RCTs or observational studies, never mind these kinds of individual complexities. So, the most prudent option is to allow the professional who knows the patient to have as much flexibility as possible and access to as many medications as possible. If we are to be honest, evidence-based medicine is, in large part, still aspirational. It is an ideal. Clinicians need latitude, and patients assume they have it. But now the RCT fundamentalists are using the absence of RCTs for some drugs to restrict access to them. They have gone too far. This is epistemological hubris, at the expense of lives, and brings to mind the old adage, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” As long as we’ve not got the best studies for all conceivable permutations, medicine will remain both an art and a science.

So, does conceding as much and giving the clinician latitude mean I don’t believe in science?

“Believe,” you say?

That is not a scientific word. Science is a tool. I don’t worship tools. Rather, I try to find the right one for the job. Or, for a complex task, which is usually the case in medicine—especially since we are all different, and all complex—the right ones, plural.

[nite-shay]

A Helping Hand - Todoroki Shoto x Reader

AN:

Idea: Character finding out their S/O has a prosthetic limb. (Think automail from full metal alchemist).

Sorry for any misspelling or grammar mistakes. 

Todoroki Shoto x Reader

You sighed as you dropped your duffle bag on the floor beside your bed before flopping on to the soft mattress. The dorms were usually busy this time of day. However, the week-long break just started, and most if not all of the students rushed out as soon as the last bell of the day rang.  You were one of the few who decided to stay behind.

That choice was coming back to bite you in the ass. Hard.

If you had gone home, you could meet up with Hatsume, and she could fix this issue you were having. 

With a heavy sigh, you sat up and started rummaging through your bag in search of the object you needed fixing. Your mechanical arm had gotten damaged during your spar with your classmate, Todoroki Shoto. 

Today's assignment was to work on hand to hand combat something you excelled but not your partner. The fight had been going well; however, the fighting was making the class run a bit longer than it should have. So to speed things up, Aizawa allowed quirk usage about halfway through the match. With one final powerful attack, he managed to trap your arm, along with most of your right side, in a mini glacier of ice, thus ending the match and class. 

You knew you were in trouble the moment you felt the cold bite of the metal parts against your fleshy shoulder. Even after he thawed your arm, you weren't able to move it. You rushed off to the support class, as soon as you got changed, praying your friend got caught up in working on a new baby and delaying her departure.

However, you were not that lucky. 

And now here you are with only one arm. 

 It was going to be a long week. 

Instead of lying in self-pity, you decided you might as well try to fix it. It already didn't work, not like you could do anything worse to it. Grabbing your duffle bag and other tools, you headed over to the dining area. The dining table would give you the room you needed, plus it had better lighting. It didn't take you too long to get everything transported, and your work area set up. 

With earbuds in and the volume at a comfortable drown out the world level, you got to work. 

While you weren't the brilliant support tech that built your arm, you could handle a few basic repairs. With no one else being here, it wasn't like you had much of a choice. You even asked Power Loader for help, but since it wasn't his expertise or handiwork, there wasn't much he could do. He did, however, offer full access to the shop and any tool you may need. 

Slowly but surely, you started to disassemble the outer layer of your arm. Between the music and the project in front of you, the world around you slowly vanished. 

An hour later….

Todoroki was making his way back to the dorms after visiting his mother. While his classmates and most of the students left earlier that day, excited to see their families, he decided to stay. He did not share the same excitement when it came to home visits. Though he would miss his sister's cooking. Even the best chefs at UA didn't hold a candle to her home-cooked meals.

As he made his way through the back doorway of the commons area, he was surprised to hear noises… He thought he was the only one left... 

Was that drilling?

Curious, he made his way to the dining area where he could see you hunched over something on the table. 

"(L/N)?" He called out. Thanks to Midoriya and the others, Todoroki was becoming more … vocal with the rest of the class. You were one of the ones he would talk to the most. Mainly because Aizawa assigned the two of you together for training and assignments fairly often. He never understood his reason, but the bi-color haired boy didn't care. He preferred working with you more so than some of his other classmates (*Cough Cough* Bakugo).

Today the two of you had a mock battle during last class. He enjoyed sparing with you; your skills made it a challenge for him. But it also allowed him to be near you without making him feel awkward. He didn't understand why but he enjoyed your company. The battle had been primarily one-sided, with you in favor of winning. That was until Aizawa allowed quirk usage. While you excelled in close range combat, your quirk suited to defend against his long rang ice attack. He quickly overwhelmed you, ending the match.

Soon after the match, he saw you quickly gather your things before running off towards the school. He figured you were in a hurry to leave for the break like everyone else, not to rush back here.

"(L/N) "He approached you slowly, trying to get your attention. You had changed into a pair of black pants and a red tank top. He could also see a folded white rag sitting on your right shoulder. The closer he got, the more he could see what you were working on, some machine parts and hand tools laid scattered on the table. Your seemed foot bouncing an unknown beat as you sat there cross-legged in the chair.  

His upper lip twitches in a slight smirk as he studied the determined look in your eyes. It was the same one you had when you were studying or working on something you didn't quite understand. 

It was cute.

Taking a steady breath, he finally reached out and gently touched your exposed left shoulder.  While he still wasn't one for touch, with you, he didn't seem to mind.  "(L/N)." 

"Shit!" You jolted from the chair you were in. Unfortunately, your legs got tangled upon themselves in your rush. Your habit of sitting cross-legged was going to be the death of you one day. Falling away from the hand that had seemingly came out of nowhere, you braced for the impact as your metal arm wasn't currently attached to help break your fall. After catching the wind that had been thoroughly knocked out of you, you look up to see heterochromia eyes. "Oh... hey, Todoroki... what's up?" You grimaced in embarrassment. Of all the people who could have seen your startled cat impression...

Guess it could have been worse... It could have been Bakugo... He’d never let you live it down...

"Sorry… I.. didn't mean to scare you…." He wasn't expecting you to be as startled as you were, so he was slow to respond. His eyes quickly checked over you for any injuries he might have caused.  "Are you…" His breath caught in his throat as he watched you maneuver yourself to face him. 

Your arm…. There weren't two… just one….

Where your right arm should have been… was nothing…

Something glimmered out of his peripheral vision. Glancing over from you, he saw what you were working on. It was an arm… A mechanical right arm… 

"It's uh... Ow… it's fine...:'' You quickly got up from the floor looking at the stunned boy who was glancing between you and the arm on the table. "So.. uhhh… I guess you aren't going home for break, or are you waiting till tomorrow…" This was awkward. You hadn't told any about your arm. 

The teachers knew, but that was beyond your control, and well, ok Midoriya and Bakugo know, but that's only because you grew up with them, so it's hard for them not to know. 

"No. I decided to stay here for the week." He regains his composure before turning his focus solely on you. 

"Oh.. well, uh… same here. I hope you don't mind the company." 

"Not at all." He shifts a bit before asking. "Are you having issues with your…." He trailed off. 

"Oh yeah. It umm.." You cleared your throat before smiling a bit at him. After working with him for so long, you were getting pretty good at reading him. He was uncomfortable and wasn't sure how to proceed. "My arm stopped working earlier today. So I was trying to fix it." 

How did it get damaged?

How did he not know about your arm? 

How did you lose your arm in the first place?

Was he making this awkward for you?

Should he leave? Should he stay?

So many questions ran through his mind. Uraraka and Yaoyorozu had been working him, so he didn't just blurt out his thoughts as much anymore. Well, he still did with Bakugo, but that was for fun. The girls called it 'reading the room.' He wanted to ask you every question that came to mind, but he didn't want to offend you. 

"Do you… need assistance?" He finally settled on. 

"Oh. Yeah!" You beamed at him, making him blush slightly. "As corny as this sounds, I could use a hand." If you hadn't been staring right at him, you would have missed that small twinge of his lip. It was a smile. 

You went back to work as Todoroki sat across from you, silently observing your work. 

While you were comfortable with his silence, you could tell he was not. He had questions, hell anyone would, but he didn't seem sure how to ask or how to start the conversation.

Looks like you would have to take the lead on this one. 

"Can you hold this for me?" You point to the forearm panel with your screwdriver. He followed your instructions flawlessly. You do this a few more times, and this seems to ease him some until he finally began to talk to you.

"Do you always do the repairs yourself?" He quietly asked. 

"No. Typically, Hatsume does, but she left already. It was her father that built my first arm, but this one is her handiwork pretty cool, huh?" You grinned. You were proud of your brilliant friend, as crazy as she was. You have to remind her every time she has a new idea for her baby, that you need an arm, not an arsenal. 

"It is… impressive." 

"Ah, ha!" You announced as you pull out the damaged piece of machinery that was the cause of all this trouble. "There you are, you little bugger!" 

Seeing you smile in victory as you held up the small component made Todoroki's heart skip a beat. The part you held looks almost industrial grade. It made him curious about what could have caused it to become damaged. 

"So how did it become damaged." He asked without hesitation. 

"Oh… well, you see the water spots here." Sitting the item down, you point to the parts you were describing. "It happens when water or moisture gets in it. That caused the gear to seize up, and the rest cracked when the temperature around it rapidly changed." Your description of the damage reminded him in the way of Midoriya. The way he would mumble through his thoughts. 

Water moisture….

Rapidly changing temperature….

He was the one that damaged her arm….

"I really am the hand crusher..." He sighed as he mumbled to himself.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"My last attack… caused your arm to break… didn't it?"

"Yeah... It did..." 

"My apologies… if I had known…"

"If you had known, you wouldn't have attacked me like you did."

He nodded, and that caused her to sigh before putting down her tools and looking directly at him. 

"Do you think of me as weak?" You kept your tone neutral, not wanting him to take your question the wrong way. 

"No, you are one of the strongest students in our class." His response was honest and quick. 

"And now that you know about my arm. What are your thoughts? Would you have gone at me like you did?" You inquired. 

"You… are still one of the strongest.. and no, I would have aimed somewhere else... "

"And that's why I keep my arm a secret. You would have held back."

"But, I damaged it." 

"So what, it can be fixed." You shrugged

"But…"

"Look, I don't need people to hold back on me. I need my friends to come at me with everything they have. Because I promise you this, a villain won't hold back. If they see my arm, that's where they will aim." This wasn't the first time you've had to explain this. 

Friends...

He was silent. He understands your reasoning… somewhat but didn't like it...

"My friends will make me a stronger hero…"

"Your friends?"

"Our friends make us stronger…. I don't think I would have learned or gotten as far as I have without them…"

"What do you mean?"

"Every day with a friend, whether it's in class, just hanging out or in a match, you learn something from each other. The stuff you learn helps you along the way... Take my arm, for example…" You smile. "See, I know these three guys. One is a loudmouth with a foul temper, the other one is observant and kind, and the last one is stoic and very thoughtful. Without them, I would be like my arm was when I first got it, just an arm, nothing special. But thanks to them, I'll become more." You began pointing to different parts on your arm "Sparring with Kat, made me improve its resistance to shockwaves and heat. Thanks to Zuki, I improved its strength and impact resistance." You then grab the small part that he had damaged "And thanks to you, my arm will be stronger against water and ice.  Like I said, my friends make me strong. And I'm not just talking about physically either. My arm is just a physical representation."

He thought long about what you said. Your thoughtful words reminded him of Midoriya, but they're straight forward… a Bakugo trait, no doubt. Suddenly Aizawa partnering you up together made sense. 

But there was one thing you got wrong. 

You were special...  

No matter what...

"So… are we friends?" He managed to ask before he could blurt out his actual thought.

"I'd like us to be… if you want..." You nervously fiddled with the part in your hand. You didn't mean to just blurt out everything you did, but it was too late now. Hopefully, he wouldn't read too much into this. You honestly wanted to be more than friends but, he would need time. You know that. This wasn't something you could rush. 

"I'm not an easy person to be around…"

"Come on, I made friends with the Katsuki Bakugo. I think I can handle you." You chuckled as you extended your arm and balled you hand into a fist hand balled. Todoroki had seen you do this with some of your other classmates. It was a fist bump. "So what do ya say?"

"I'd like that…" He gently touched his fist to yours...

From that day on you, two were inseparable and unstoppable. 

Bonus bit: 

"I'm telling you! Something is really strange about (L/N)." The electric quirk user emphasized to the rest of the group. 

A grumble shut up came from the explosive blonde as he and his redheaded lover walked in front of Sero and Kaminari. 

"Did you not see the tools in her room?" Kaminari continued 

"Yeah! How about the can of metal polish? Weird…" Sero noted.

"Maybe she just builds models? You know like cars, planes or something?" Kirishima chimed in, hoping they dropped the subject that was clearly angering the boy beside him. But to no avail, the two guys behind them continued their conversation.  

"What the hell kind of model do you build with those kinds of tools?" 

"Dude… What if she's a robot?"

"A robot?"

"Yeah! What if she's a robot, and she's here to replace us all with robots!!!"

"You guys really need to lay off the late-night SciFi movies…" Kirishima could see the vein on Bakugo's forehead start to throb… Though the redhead was tempted to let his hot tempered boyfriend go after his classmates, he liked (L/N) and didn't appreciate them talking about you like that, but dinner and a movie sounded better than trying to hide two bodies tonight.

The Bakusquaud composed of Bakugo, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero were making their way through to the dining area. They just opened the door to see you fist bump with Todoroki. Kaminari, Sero, and Kirishima and shocked to see you two sitting there, but Kaminari and Sero are more shocked by what they see on the table.

"AHHHHHH SHE REALLY IS A ROBOT!!!!!" You turn just in time to see two streaks of blonde and black hair run down the hallway to the safety of their rooms.

"You make the strangest friends, Kat….." You teased.

"FUCK YOU!"

Later on…

Bakugo is upset that you are now friends with Todoroki… also slightly upset about your arm but doesn't show it.

Kirishima is shocked by your arm but brushes it off. He tells you later that it makes you look manly and wants to arm wrestle you once you get fixed.

Bakugo and Kirishima fill you in on what Kaminari and Sero were talking about. You laugh but then take this chance to terrorize Sero and Kaminari a bit. Mainly using a remote arm (One of Hatsume's prototype 'babies' she gave you a while back) that would walk around like thing from the Adams family) for a bit before tell and proving to them that no… you're not a robot…  

Thanks for the read! If you want see the other stuff I’ve done, click the link bellow!

MasterList

[sciencespies]

The Ten Best STEM Toys to Give as Gifts in 2020

https://sciencespies.com/nature/the-ten-best-stem-toys-to-give-as-gifts-in-2020/

The Ten Best STEM Toys to Give as Gifts in 2020

In recent years, STEM-themed toys for all ages have flooded the market, making it a little overwhelming for people to choose the most skill-based gifts for the kids in their lives. But a team of engineers has come to the rescue with a recommendation of the most thoughtfully designed STEM-oriented products on the market.

Each year, Purdue University’s INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering turns into a toy testing laboratory as faculty and students run mounds of toys, books and games through their paces. The highest rated products earn a coveted spot on the institute’s annual Engineering Gift Guide, which is now in its seventh year.

“Play is one of the places where we can capture a kid’s imagination,” says Tamara Moore, a professor of engineering education and the executive director of INSPIRE. “For a child to get interested in potentially having a STEM career, you want [to] capture their imagination. Being able to have that freedom to play is really one incredibly important way for this to happen.”

The gifts usually go through a strenuous review process, which includes input from parents and kids that test out the toys. But because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the process looked different this year. It was spearheaded by a team of four undergraduate students that thoroughly inspected, played with and reviewed nearly 100 toys released in the last couple of years, Moore says.

The team looked for toys that embodied the hallmarks of engineering and fostered meaningful skills, like spatial reasoning, computational thinking, innovation and creativity. “And those skills start early,” Moore says. Well-designed toys can expand young learners’ minds and foster these skills throughout childhood development.

For Smithsonian readers, Moore and her team selected their ten favorite STEM gifts for 2020 spanning three different age groups.

0-4 Years

Weights Balance Game

This game comes with a wooden balance beam and a variety of blocks in different colors and sizes. The goal is to add blocks to the opposite sides of the scale without tipping it. The set also comes with a variety of cards that show the various ways the blocks can be positioned, helping kids learn how to follow a basic blueprint. By repositioning the blocks on different parts of the board, kids can develop spatial reasoning skills in an engaging, intuitive way. (Janod, $27.99)

Sweet Cocoon Stacking Stones

The 20 light, colorful wooden stones in this set come in a of number of sizes and odd shapes. Children are able to freely play with the stacking stones and build a variety of structures, from a simple tower to a more complex bridge. Moore says that the “stones are a perfect introductory toy for young children to explore engineering thinking and design,” while also improving their spatial reasoning and building skills. (Janod, $29.99)

My First Rush Hour

My First Rush Hour is a one-player maze game in which a child is tasked with navigating a little red car through traffic. Pick a challenge card out of the 30-card deck and then arrange the cars and trucks on the board to match the card. Then, the player has to drive the car around the other vehicles on the board and escape from rush hour. This game encourages spatial reasoning and problem-solving skills while fostering perseverance. (ThinkFun, $23.99)

5-7 Years

Addy-matic and the Toasterrific

This picture book by Curtis Mark Williams stars Addy, who is not a morning person. To avoid waking up early to make breakfast, she hatches a plan to toast her bread without having to get out of bed. To do so, Addy designs her very own Rube Goldberg machine—a complicated series of steps that accomplish a simple task—with items from around her house. It’s a captivating and fun story that centers around a hallmark of engineering: identifying a problem and solving it creatively. “It expresses the entire engineering process in a way young children can understand and relate to,” Moore says. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $9.99)

Gears! Gears! Gears! Robots in Motion

This 116-piece kit comes with gears, wheels, claws and axles for kids to build their own moving robots. The set comes with instructions to build three different robot models complete with working treads and spinning eyes, but kids can also get creative and build their own. Since this toy has lots of moving parts, they’ll have to figure out how to get the robot’s gears and wheels rotating, which introduces kids to basic physics concepts while improving their spatial reasoning skills. (Learning Resources, $39.99)

Design & Drill Space Circuits

Good circuit toys are hard to find, especially for young kids, but this one is a winner, Moore says. This kit comes with an instructional storybook that walks builders through assembling various circuits using a board, a battery pack, an electric screwdriver and other tools and explains the basics of electricity flow. By following the instructions and employing problem-solving skills, kids can complete 20 space-themed missions—from lighting up a rocket to throwing a party on the moon—outlined in the book. (Educational Insights, $49.99)

Ages 8+

(Potato Pirates)

Enter the Spudnet is a potato-themed board game that introduces kids to the world of cybersecurity and networking without even having them touch a computer. Players receive tasks that they must complete by moving their ships from warehouse to warehouse on the board while protecting their privacy and preventing opponents from attacking them. Cybersecurity is more important than ever, so it’s a socially relevant game, Moore says. It also builds skills in critical thinking, problem solving and design. Plus, it’s just good family fun. (Potato Pirates, $57)

Code Rocket

Code Rocket comes with a small, green microcontroller in the shape of a rocket that connects to a computer via a USB port. When users run the accompanying software, they’ll be coached through the basics of coding through fun tasks, like lighting up certain parts of the rocket, which start easy and get progressively more challenging as young coders develop their skills. Code Rocket uses C++, a common coding language in the engineering world, so it’s a great introductory tool, Moore says. (Let’s Start Coding, $44.99)

(WordStruct)

WordStruct is an engineer’s version of Scrabble. This word-building game comes with 100 letter tiles that players can arrange together to spell out words, but in a 3-D structure. The goal is for players to score the highest number of points by building the most complex crosswords they possibly can. Words can be arranged horizontally, vertically and diagonally, creating an extra level of complexity. This game promotes innovative thinking, spatial reasoning skills and perseverance as players are challenged to think both critically and creatively. (WordStruct, $24.99)

Best Overall STEM Toy

Gravitrax takes the beloved marble run to a new level. It comes with more than 150 pieces that include obstacles like trampolines, bridges, tiles and ziplines, allowing players to build elaborate routes for their marbles to roll down. Kids have the option to follow the layouts that come with the game or design their own. Players will engage spatial reasoning, trouble-shooting, and critical and creative thinking skills in a game that’s fun for adults too. Plus, Moore says this game encompasses several of the engineering skills that she looks for in a good toy, in that “it allows children to explore both through creating their own designs and following maps that have been made [to follow].” (Ravensburger, $129.99)

Having trouble seeing our list of STEM toys? Turn off your ad blocker and you’ll be all set.

By buying a product through these links, Smithsonian magazine may earn a commission. 100 percent of our proceeds go to supporting the Smithsonian Institution.

#Nature

[intact360]

Testimonial on the New Stainless Fasteners

Key fasteners fix the seclusion panels on the building structure and side bolts attach the panels, as well as together they close the voids. These new stainless bolts are an essential part of the structure and also add to its security as well as its resistance to atmospheric representatives. Durability and look must be parts of the entire job and also must be treated as such.

These stainless bolts make the adhering to operations: Drill the panel, drill the steel structure, and also produces the seal cap for the upper plate. This is accomplished by a quick procedure utilizing electric screwdriver devices for determining the depth. Producers supplied various accessories. Bolts are made of a number of type of products, depending upon the called for qualities.

Qualities of bolts:

The product from which they are made differs from high quality carbon steel to austenitic stainless-steel. Drilling heads varies according to different materials and also thicknesses.

Threads made by tapping components might vary according to product type and density. The total size of the fastener will differ depending on the thickness of the panel set.

The merge panels with visible fasteners have actually threaded securing directly under the head to a top cap in case of unpredicted needs. And also securing washer additionally has a seal against the climate. Sealing washers for dealing with roofings, walls or skylights might differ in dimension and material. EPDM gaskets are utilized for carbon steel screws, washing machines, stainless-steel as well as light weight aluminum.

The head of the fastener can be made of steel, metal covered or might entail a head complete shade.

Installment and also sealing

Touching stainless bolts can be supplied with a seal, created in such a way regarding stop water getting in the building with the point of add-on. To ensure optimal performance is important for the bolts to be mounted properly. Fasteners and also gasket seals are created to be well compressed, as according to the sketch. The gun is furnished with a flexible piece deepness dimension, which can be readjusted so as to stop tightening when the brace is set up appropriately.

Longevity & Appearance

The service life of bolts relies on the degree of corrosion.

Stainless-steel bolts or as they are likewise called "stainless bolts" can also be made use of in more different methods any kind of atmosphere where corrosion is a possible factor. Stainless bolts are normally either austenitic (non-magnetic) or martensitic (magnetic). The martensitic stainless bolts steels consist of commonly types 402, 403, and also 410. Corrosion, in turn, relies on product features, inner and also exterior environment as well as structure construction. Long before performance problems may occur various other issues may show up about look or features.

These can be triggered by leaking seals or lack of tinted finishes. Corrosion takes place when there is wetness on the bracket. Corrosion price relies on the accessory, its protection, as well as when product is in contact with humidity as well as heat of the surrounding setting. Every one of this being claimed you must most likely recognize what the best on the marketplace is right currently, as well as make a great selection by selecting it. After all, you do be worthy of to have the best.

Contact Us:

Intact 360

Email: info@intact360.com

Website: https://intact360.com/

External Links:

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[sunevial]

Moving Day

This is once again another case of ‘not exactly a commission, but someone chucking money at me to eventually write about space and magic gays’, except this time, it’s from @hewhowalksbehind. 

Continuation of this.

---

Of all the things Venny missed most about Ylxret at nine thirty in the goddamn morning, it was automated coffee makers. Blearily pouring water down the little spout and pushing entirely too many shiny buttons, she eventually got the machine to start blinking. With a grumble, she slotted a floral patterned mug under the funnel and slumped against the counter. 

Water was boiling, oatmeal was in the new saucepan, spoon was in the sink, bowls were…

She forgot to buy bowls. 

Fuck a duck. 

Groaning, she pressed her hands to her eyes and let out a long sigh. After a shopping trip that must’ve lasted an eternity, she had been running on fumes by the time she had a chance to pass out last night, but apparently even that wasn’t enough to calm her adrenaline addled brain. Her best guess was that she hadn’t fallen asleep until three, and even that was a generous estimate. To add insult to injury, her first night in her new apartment was plagued by restless dreams, fitful tossing and turning, and a blanket that was neither warm or cool enough.

At least the air mattress was comfortable. 

The air mattress was comfortable, and her new plush corgi was cuddly.

A steady drip of liquid gold splashed into the mug, the warm coffee revealing heat activated yellow and white circuitry lines weaving through the painted-on flowers. Not even bothering with milk or sugar, she downed the coffee fast enough to get away with only minor tongue burns and shoveled down instant oatmeal straight from the pot. Throwing both into the sink to wash up later, she scrambled into the shower just long enough to wash off yesterday’s sweat and rub away the smell of what felt like seven layers of deodorant. A fresh change of clothes later, a practical t-shirt and legging combo, and she felt half-way to being a functioning person again.

Which was really convenient considering that things would start arriving in approximately now.

Grabbing both wallet and keys, she quietly slipped out of her room and padded downstairs to the front lobby. Today was Internet access, a ‘do it yourself’ table and chair set, and the cushions for her couch. The couch itself was tomorrow, along with the bedframe and mattress, and the nightstand and dresser wouldn’t be for another week yet. Thankfully, unlike her very much not present bowls, she had remembered to buy a toolkit, so at the very least she would have somewhere else to sit by the end of today.

A quick peek outside confirmed that the Internet people hadn’t arrived yet, so Venny plopped down on one of the lobby couches and quickly scanned for any available wireless hotspots. It would’ve been laughably easy to tap into a password protected connection with a couple waves of her hand, but she knew better than to bum off someone. It was also probably very illegal. 

Eventually, she got ahold of a weak signal from the coffee shop next door, and her com link lit up with a happy beep. Her eyes flashed back and forth as she redirected the electrical signals within the device, ensuring that this much weaker and simpler form of wireless communication would end up being compatible. When she was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be running at a snail’s pace, she pulled and weaved the software code until the screen lit up and the holoprojector displayed a rotating band of images. Smiling triumphantly, she tapped on her email, she still had a hard time believing Toven still used email, and sifted through the various messages she had gotten over the past day or so.

Confirmation from her Internet provider, spam, start day and paperwork for work, coupon for shampoo, more spam…updated delivery day for her larger furniture?

“Due to upgrades in processing time, your order will instead be delivered today around ten AM, we hope to see you then,” she muttered under her breath, suppressing a loud groan and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. On the one hand, she’d have an actual bed by the end of the day if everything went right. On the other hand, this was one more group of people to talk with and one more group of things to do, and she was not convinced that all of the coffee in the world would make either of those things easier. Not much she could reasonably do about that, though, because her damn couch was coming whether she was awake enough to realize it or not. 

Whatever happened next didn’t seem to follow the proper passage of time. Sometimes it moved breathtakingly fast, other times painstakingly slow. All Venny could register through her brain-addled eyes was a never ending blur of paper signing, hauling packages, and telling people she had never met to put things down wherever they could find open space. By the time the last person was out of her apartment, and she could actually gauge the passage of time, it was exactly eleven twenty-four in the morning. She collapsed onto one of the new cushions, a nice olive green that she definitely didn’t remember picking out, and got to thinking.

Assets: She had Internet access that wasn’t siphoned off the coffeeshop.

Consequences: Her apartment was no longer able to accommodate carpet angels. 

Priority one: Bed needed to be set up. She’d like an actual bed.

Priority two: Get the couch out of the center of the living room.

Priority three: Actually build the table so she could eat without standing up.

Problem: She had the energy to do maybe half of the bed set up. 

Slowly getting back onto her feet, she shuffled towards the bedroom, though not before noticing her front door still propped wide open from all of the deliveries. She went to close it, getting about halfway there before the door across the hall opened, revealing Sol’s relatively incredulous face. 

“Morning,” she said, leaning against the doorframe and stifling a yawn. “Lot of noise over there for a weekend morning.”

“That makes two of us,” Venny replied, trying to put on as apologetic an expression as she could muster. “I didn’t wake either of you up, did I?”

She shook her head, lavender curls bouncing a little. “Nah, I’ve been up for a bit, and Clarissa could sleep through a hurricane if you let her.”

“Still gonna apologize,” Venny said, breathing a sigh of relief and laughing a touch. “You know, I didn’t think most furniture places delivered on weekends.”

“Learn something new everyday.” Her eyes glanced towards Venny’s now incredibly messy apartment for a moment. “You settling in okay?”

Venny chuckled, tapping the ground absentmindedly with a foot. Well, she could answer truthfully, she could answer in the socially acceptable way, or she could split it down the middle and hope for the best. “I think so, just need to get used to...all of this.”

“It’s not easy moving somewhere new, even harder when you’re all alone,” Sol said with a sympathetic smile, nodding her head and crossing her arms over her chest. “If you need help getting set up, I’m not really doing anything today.”

Venny blinked a couple of times, shaking her head even as every fiber of her being was saying ‘take up the offer’. As much as she’d love another pair of hands helping out, she’d already taken up enough of Sol’s time between the reading interruption and the grocery care package. Best not to take advantage of her kindness this many times in such a short period of time. Or maybe Sol didn’t care, that she just actually wanted to help and didn’t resent her for it, and this was just a combination of sleep deprivation and anxiety talking. Maybe it was both. It was probably both. “I think I’ve got it handled,” she replied, twirling a twist between her fingers. “Thanks for the offer though.”

All she got in return was an incredulously raised eyebrow.

“Or maybe I’m saying that because I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness again and seem really needy in a time of upheaval and stress,” Venny said with a defeated sigh.

“I wouldn’t be offering it if I didn’t wanna help.” Sol smirked just a touch. “I know my boundaries better than that.”

Venny could physically feel the tension in her muscles drain away as she slumped against her own door frame. “I promise I’m not this pathetic all of the time.”

“You said it yourself, a lot of upheaval and stress, and from what it sounds like, absolutely no sleep either,” she replied with a shrug, popping back into her own apartment long enough to grab her keys and phone. “Alright, where are we starting?”

 “Bedroom, cause I need a bed.”

The two of them quickly made their way to the chaotic bedroom, surveying the bed frame in its various parts and the mattress propped up against the window. Cracking open the new tool box, Sol set to work screwing everything into place while Venny sorted through a veritable hoard of metal rods and support beams. While she had no reason to doubt that Sol could wield a hammer and screwdriver, watching her work was, in a word, beautiful. Sol took to the various tools with a clear familiarity, handling them with delicacy and certainty as she aligned the wooden frame. Venny knew nothing about art, but she knew an artist’s touch.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Venny said, holding a level against the wood to see if any holes needed a quick re-drill or if something had been screwed in the wrong place.

“I’d hope so, I make things for a living,” Sol replied, wiping a little sweat off her brow.

“What kind of things?”

Sol returned with a playful smile. “You get three guesses.”

She allowed thirty seconds to come up with her answers, no small feat with how slow her brain was chugging along. “Artisanal woodworking.”

“Nope.”

“Artisanal metalworking.”

“Nope.”

“Designing prototypes for this exact style of bed frame,” Venny said with a shit eating grin that was probably more of a result of her being half way to slap happy. 

Sol rolled her eyes, closing one as she carefully twisted the last screw into place. “Okay, I’ll admit, second one was closer.”

“So what is it?”

“You’re not gonna believe me,” Sol said flatly, tapping the frame twice for good measure.

Venny pouted, planting her elbows on the footboard and resting her chin on her fists. “Come on, it can’t be that out there.”

“I promise I’m not joking.”

“You could say you build rocket ships and I’m so tired I’d believe you.”

Sol paused for almost ten full seconds. “Funny you mention that…”

“Get out, you make spaceships?” Venny’s head poked over the frame with eyes wide and excitement clear as day on her lips. “You’re with the Wisteria Space Program?”

“Technically I’m in the rocketry department, not the spaceship program, but same idea,” Sol said with a shrug, jumping to her feet and whistling. Similar to yesterday, the wind kicked up, swirling around the room almost as if it was having fun. The mattress slowly but surely floated off the ground, providing just enough lift for the two of them to set it on the frame without straining muscles or having to worry about wingspans. 

“Still, that’s so cool,” Venny continued, grabbing the sheets off of her air mattress and throwing them onto the bed. “I don’t even think I know anyone back home who does that. What do you even do there?”

Sol laughed, grabbing the sheet and stretching it over a corner. “I’d tell you, but that’s classified.”

“Is that a joke or is that actually classified?”

“‘I might actually get arrested for treason’ classified,” Sol said in a completely serious deadpan.

“Anything you can tell me?” Venny asked, head tilted as her hands quickly smoothed out her blue and white comforter over the bed.

Sol thought for a full minute, arranging pillows and plushies absentmindedly as she paced around the small room. The wind followed her, catching her shirt and blowing it in every direction imaginable, almost as if it was thinking alongside her. “Physics. Lots of physics.”

“Dang.”

A knock sounded at the door, and for the second day in a row, Venny opened it to find Clarissa standing there with a large smile on her face. She had no gifts in hand this time around, but she was scrolling through her phone. “Sol texted me she was here helping out, you done stealing my roommate? I need her for something of vital importance.”

“I offered,” Sol called as she emerged from the bedroom.

“She still stole you!” Clarissa shouted back, though with a laugh and smile on her face. 

Venny returned with a grin of her own. “We should be done pretty soon. Though if it’s really that important, I can take care of the rest.”

“It’s not important, she’s just trying to get me to set up a dating app,” Sol said with a sigh and an accusatory finger. “Because my roommate is a nosy bitch who insists on setting me up with every girl she happens to meet.”

“It’s not every girl.” Clarissa huffed indignantly.

Sol’s face told a much different story with how frustrated those eyebrows looked. “You’ve specifically set me up with three of your exes, a girl from your class, and the florist down the street.”

“All I’m saying is that she’s got a great personality and an even better ass.”

“Then why don’t you ask her out?!” Sol exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

“Because I’m already seeing two people!”

It might have just been Venny’s ears, but she swore she heard laughing from somewhere else in the apartment. 

“Alright, alright, you can have your roommate back,” Venny said, holding back a belly laugh as best as she could. Never in her life had she’d been so grateful to hear two women loudly arguing about female love interests. Her family had been concerned with her moving to Toven, knowing that not every place was as accepting of non-heterosexual identities as Ylxret. New Haven had a better track record than most, though, and conditions were certainly getting better as time went on. If nothing else, seeing her two neighbors argue about sapphic love affairs in the hallway was a good indicator that she had nothing to worry about here. “Hope the app set up goes well.” 

“I’m not setting up the app,” Sol declared with a flat tone, going over to the boxed up table and cutting away tape like a woman scorned. “I’ll get a date on my own damn time.”

“I mean, if you’re looking for someone else to add to the list, I’m into women,” Venny joked, smiling at Clarissa. She watched the pink haired woman’s eyes light up, and hastily threw up her hands. “Not that I’m looking for a relationship, I’ve just moved and I think that might’ve been me not having normal social barriers up due to lack of sleep.”

Sol audibly groaned in the background. “Damn it, you’ve given her ideas.”

“Well that’s even better! You’re new in town and need to see the sights, and I know a great little place Sol could take you for lunch,” Clarissa said, pulling out her phone and rapidly texting. “I’m sending you the directions now.”

Venny blinked a couple of times, finally just realizing the full ramifications of what she had just done. At least she knew now never to open her mouth when she was this sleep deprived, or at least, not do so when possible romantic relationships were involved. Feeling the heat rapidly rising to her face, she shot a glance to Sol, desperately trying to find a way out of this increasingly awkward situation. 

With a sigh, Sol pulled out her phone and rubbed her temples. “I’m really sorry about this.”

“Don’t be, it’s my fault,” Venny said, smiling sheepishly. “I’m really not in the place to be thinking about that anyways.”

“Then think of it like a friendly social,” Clarissa said with a large, not at all innocent smile, eyes darting first to Venny. “You need to meet people-” Her eyes flashed towards her roommate. “-and you need to get out more. Win-win situation!”

Sol’s eyes narrowed in challenge. “Clarissa-”

“Venny, what do you think?” she asked, smiling wide and oh so sweet. So this was a game for them both, a sort of give and take war between them, and this is the moment where she was supposed to choose a side. Her next move decided the winner of this match between these two equally stubborn individuals. 

She was already on the edge of the diving board, might as well take the jump.

“What’s the food like?” Venny asked, putting on her best innocent smile. 

Sol sighed in defeat, grumbling and pulling out her phone. “Stir fry and dumplings. Let me know when you’re free.”

Clarissa grinned with a smile that could split the sea. “It’s a date!”

[atths--twice]

Oh... this was a chapter I had thought of so often and wrote and rewrote so many times in my head. I hope you all enjoy it...

Maggie goes to visit Mulder with a plan. Some changes need to be made and she’s going to help him figure out how to approach them. 

Chapter Ten 

Healing Power of Sunshine 

February 2015

It was an unseasonably warm day in early February as Maggie headed out to visit Fox. She rolled the windows down in her car, wanting to feel the spring like air, and the scent of it, made her make a split second decision.

Exiting the highway, she drove to a hardware store for supplies she would need for a new project. The last few weeks, she had been finding little projects for Fox to do around his house. The shed in the backyard had been organized, his things no longer stored in cardboard boxes, but in sturdy plastic totes.

They had worked together to clean out and wipe down the kitchen cupboards, throwing out any expired food. She made sure everything was put back in its original place, not wanting things to be different when Dana inevitably came back, as she knew she would.

Fox added some shelves in the downstairs bathroom to hold his things while he continued to use that one primarily. He had balked at this task, as simple as it was.

“Mrs. Scully, I am not handy with things. I’m more of a … planner and supervisor of said projects. Tools and I, we don’t exactly get along,” he said, shaking his head apologetically.

“Nonsense,” she said, placing the toolbox she had picked up in his hands. “I have complete faith in you.”

He looked at her before finally agreeing, and disappearing into the bathroom. After some swearing and some loud banging and hammering, he called her into the bathroom to show off his work, proud of his success.

With the toolbox in tow, she then had him fixing wobbly items around the house that simply needed a screw tightened. As they did, they talked about Dana. Not her now, but when she was younger. He did not speak much during those times, but his smile and happiness was evident. She knew he enjoyed those times with her, hearing about how Dana had been as a child.

A new project would be a good idea, she thought, pulling into the parking lot, and heading inside the large hardware store. She walked around a bit, looking at the patio setups they had on display. She looked at kitchen and bathroom displays thinking of possible future projects and then she moved to what she wanted.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” a man’s voice asked her.

She turned and found a young man with a kind smile and bright blue eyes. She smiled at him and told him what she was looking for and he nodded, telling her to follow him. He showed her the different types they had and she said she needed the simplest one possible. He laughed and showed her a kit they had, and she took that one. He said she would need a drill, and she told him she had one already, but thanked him.

She grabbed other things they would need, also some candy she knew Fox liked, and headed to the register. Items purchased, she put them in the car, and headed over to the house. She was excited for this particular project and the idea she had begun to formulate. There was also something she needed to discuss with Fox and she hoped he was willing to hear her out.

She pulled up to the house and found the front door open, the screen door letting in the warm day. The squeak of the door made her turn her head, seeing Fox coming down the stairs, a smile on his face.

“I know it’s unlikely, but if you happen to have an apple pie in that basket ...” he said reaching for the basket of food she always brought with her. She laughed and shook her head, his face falling in mock sadness.

“No apple pie,” she said, still chucking. “But there is a peach cobbler.” He exhaled a happy breath and she smiled.

They carried all the things from the car inside the house and put them on the table. Fox took out the food and opened the lid of the peach cobbler, taking a big sniff. He moaned and licked his lips, his stomach growling. She laughed as she reached for plates and glasses.

They ate lunch and then some cobbler, Fox making satisfied noises the entire time he ate it, looking at her as he took his last bite and shaking his head.

“Mrs. Scully,” he said as he licked his fork clean. “Seriously, that is one of the best cobblers I’ve ever eaten.”

She laughed and patted his hand as she stood from the table. “You say that anytime you eat a cobbler I’ve made,” she said, taking their plates to the sink.

“And I mean it,” he said, leaning back in his chair, rubbing his stomach. “Every cobbler is better than the last.” She laughed again, washing their dishes as he put away the food.

“What’s this?” he asked, and the turned her head to look at him. She rinsed off the last dish and set it in the dish rack. Grabbing a dish towel, she dried her hands off, as she turned around.

“It’s a clothesline kit. I’d like to put it up in the backyard, today,” she said, putting the dish towel down.

“A clothesline?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “My grandmother had a clothesline and so did my mother. When we have the ease of simply throwing clothes in the dryer, we forget the work that used to go into doing laundry. It used to be that a windy day like today, was considered a good laundry day.” She laughed as she remembered those days of sheets, towels, and clothes blowing on the line.

“My grandmother had a clothesline,” Fox said quietly. “I remember watching her hang the sheets up and running through them or hiding and believing no one could find me.”

She smiled at him and nodded. “It’s definitely something that sticks with you. And there is something about sleeping on sheets that have hung in the wind and the sunshine. You can smell it when you lay down and close your eyes.”

He nodded, looking down at the kit again. Her stomach clenched and she took the plunge of what her secondary plan was for the clothesline.

“Fox?” she said softly. He looked up her, meeting her eyes. “Fox, I ... I think it’s time for you to move back upstairs.”

He stared at her, his hands stilling as he held the box. She held his gaze and smiled kindly at him, hoping this was the right decision and did not push him in a backward motion.

“I know … I know it’s hard to imagine, believe me I do,” she said, thinking of how hard it was to sleep in her bed the first time without Bill. “But I also can see the change in you from the first time I came to visit. You’re doing better, Fox. I think this would be a good step to doing even better.”

He dropped his head and she saw his leg start wiggling, the sure sign he was nervous. She remained quiet and waited for him to process what she had asked. After a couple minutes, he nodded, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well then, we need to get to work,” she said with a smile. “You get the tools together, I’ll strip the bed, and then we’ll get this done together. We will need the drill I brought over last time, a screwdriver, and a knife to cut the rope.” He nodded and went to find what they needed. She smiled and went upstairs to get the sheets.

The bathroom windows were opened, and the breeze was blowing through the newly opened bedroom door, as she filled the washing machine. She could hear Fox moving around outside, getting ready for their project. Closing the laundry room door, she stepped out the back door and joined him in the backyard.

He had a step ladder up and the tools in a bucket he had found. He walked out of the garage and came over to her.

“So, I’m thinking we connect it to the shed there and then to the house. That should be good, yeah?” he asked and she nodded. They set to work and as they did, he shared a story about Dana with her this time.

“So, let me see if I understand this correctly,” she said shaking her head. “You’re saying that a man was controlling the weather because he was in love with a woman and she didn’t know?” She laughed and shook her head again.

“It’s true!” Fox said, putting the hook for the clothesline pulley into the house. “He was in love with a woman named Sheila but he had never told her. They were very good friends, but she never saw him as more because she didn’t know how he felt. He tried to tell her, and she told him she was in love with me, someone she had just met. She even kissed me.” He shuddered, apparently the kiss not one he enjoyed. Maggie laughed hysterically and he joined in, putting on the pulley and threading the rope through it.

“Mrs. Scully, I was flabbergasted, couldn’t even think what to do to stop her. And as she did, Scully came around the corner and her face ...” he shook his head and stopped talking, simply standing there.

“Sometimes nothing happens for a reason,” he said quietly a couple minutes later. He shook his head again and resumed what he was doing. She waited for him to explain, not wanting to push.

“Holman, that was the man’s name, he had asked for my advice on what to say to her, telling me, he figured the way Scully and I gazed at one another, that I was more of an expert at dating,” he said with a laugh. “I gave him the advice and told him I did not gaze at Scully.” He looked at her and she grinned.

“Fox Mulder, you told that man a flat out lie,” she said with a laugh and he hung his head with a nod. “When was this?”

“Uh, August of ... ‘98?” he said, thinking about it as he put a hand to his mouth. “Yeah, about then.”

“So, after Dana was ill,” Maggie said, her eyes on him. He nodded. “After I walked in to find you holding her hand, sitting close to her, and kissing her hand before you left the hospital room?” She smiled at him and she knew he knew what she meant.

“How could I tell her then?” he said quietly, looking in her eyes. “It would have seemed like I’d given up and I wanted her to know that I loved her before she died. It was not the right time.”

“Nothing happened for a reason?” she asked him. He gave a small smile and nodded. “Love is not nothing, Fox.”

“It’s not what I meant,” he said, shaking his head. “I know it seems we wasted so much time denying what we wanted, but ... I think it was more that we were becoming worthy of each other. Life was lining up to happen when it was supposed to. But, Mrs. Scully, if I was given a chance to do it over again ...”

He looked down and then back up at her, tears in his eyes. “If I knew then what I do now, I still wouldn’t change a day. Even this moment, this time,” he swallowed and let out a breath. “I just need to become worthy of her again. It’s the very least I can do for her.” He was quiet and she knew this was her moment. He had opened the door and she would make sure it stayed that way.

“Fox, I think ... I think it would benefit you to see someone,” she said, her heart pounding.

“Mrs. Scully?” he said, confusion showing on his face. “After what I just said, you want me to see someone?”

She laughed and covered her face as she realized the mistake. “No, no, Fox,” she sighed. “I meant, see someone as in a therapist. Someone that can help you become worthy of you. You need to remember your own worth, Fox. I think until you do, you won’t believe you are worthy of Dana.”

He stared at her, blinking but saying nothing. “I’m happy to help, Fox. To be here as I have been these past few months, but we don’t talk about everything. This is really the first time we’ve spoken at length about Dana as she pertains to your life, and not just her as a child,” she said, careful with her words, saying but not saying what she meant. “You need to talk to someone who you feel comfortable telling anything and everything. I don’t want to stifle you, it will not benefit either you or Dana.”

She held his gaze and he finally nodded slowly. She was not sure if that meant he would see someone or that he understood that they certainly did not talk about everything. She touched his hand and looked at the rope in his hand. He smiled and continued working on the clothesline.

When it was done and at the correct height, she went to get the sheets and towels she had washed. She put them in a basket, grabbed the clothespins she had purchased, and went back outside. Fox met her after putting away the tools and they hung the laundry together. She smiled as she watched the breeze catch and pull them. She felt Fox slip his arm around her shoulders and she put hers around his waist. He hugged her tight with his one arm and she closed her eyes.

She loved this man so very much. This man who was undoubtedly created to be the person her daughter loved. She knew he had his faults and of course, in this moment, things were not right, but he was a good man and one she was proud to have as part of her family.

He released her shoulders and crossed his arms. “I’d say this work calls for another piece of cobbler,” he said, looking at her. She laughed and nodded her head in agreement.

They had the cobbler and a cup of coffee, and she decided to keep things light with more stories of the past. She told him of the time when Dana was six and came home with her dress dirty and shoes scuffed because some boy had pushed her down on the way home.

“She cried, because she loved those shoes, and she thought they were ruined,” Maggie said. “I took them and cleaned them, getting the majority of the scuff marks out. I asked why that boy had pushed her, but Dana would not say, only saying it would all be okay. For two days, she came home with her dress dirty and her shoes messed. I cleaned them every time and watched Dana as she did. She only cried that first day,” Maggie told him. “The next two days she was silent, determination written all over her face.”

She paused, remembering how she wanted to help, but Dana was determined to do it herself. “I followed a few steps behind her the next morning, wanting to see who this boy was who had pushed her. At the bus stop, I saw a boy walk up to Dana and pull her hair and my heart ached, watching this bigger boy hurting my girl. He tugged once more, and Dana spun around. She yelled at him to stop, and he pushed her, but she did not go down. She steadied herself, threw down the book she was carrying, put her hands on his chest, and shoved as hard as she could,” Maggie said with a smile. “He fell back and she stood over him, yelling at him that if he bothered her anymore, she would push him again. He lay there looking at her and then she stuck out her hand to help him stand up. He took it and then stepped away from her, his head down. After that day, she never came home with scuffed shoes.”

Fox grinned during the entire story, and then laughed hard when it was over. He told Maggie of watching Scully take down men twice her size when they had training exercises. Apparently, she had started early and that was one reason she had the upper hand.

She told him of Dana’s first crush and how devastated she was when he did not return her feelings. Maggie had been ready to walk into her room to speak to her, when Melissa stepped in front of her and gave her a look, before shutting the door. Within minutes, the sad crying she had been hearing, had turned to laughter. Melissa and Dana had come out of the room, Melissa letting Maggie know they were heading out to get ice cream. Maggie and Melissa had shared a smile as Dana was putting on her shoes. No more mention of that boy was uttered again, but Dana and Melissa shared secret looks after that day, and Maggie had sighed as it seemed Dana was growing up before her eyes.

She told him of the day her father tried to teach her to drive. She had always been her father’s favorite, even if he never said so out loud, but in this one arena the two had locked heads.

He wanted her to take her time and drive around parking lots to get the feel of the car and how a person and machine became one. She rolled her eyes and said that was ridiculous, but realized it was the only way he would agree. Bill smiled at Maggie as he left, even being so bold as to wink.

“I swear, Fox, I knew exactly what he was up to in that moment. He wanted her to get fed up and forget about driving, so he was going to make it as boring and tedious as possible,” Maggie said, shaking her head at the memory of that wink. “His plan seemed to work too, because not long after they left, Dana came home in a huff and went upstairs, slamming her door. Bill came in a few minutes later, a huge smile on his face, apparently happy with her anger.” She shook her head, remembering how he had been so smug and happy with what had happened.

“I didn’t say anything to him, but that night, when Bill had fallen asleep, I took the car keys and knocked on Dana’s door,” she grinned at Fox and he grinned back. “I motioned for her to be quiet and showed her the keys. She understood, putting on her shoes and a jacket. We drove to a parking lot close to the house, and switched places. I let Dana drive around the lot a couple of times, to see how she handled the car. She did wonderfully, so we drove around town, just her and I, late at night, laughing and having a great time.” She smiled at Fox again, and he laughed softly.

“It wasn’t that Bill didn’t want her to learn,” Maggie said, getting up and rinsing out her coffee mug. “It was that he felt he was losing his little girl. She was growing up and if she learned to drive … well she wouldn’t need him as much, and of course he didn’t want that. But he wasn’t going about it the right way either, and so they were locking heads.” She sat back down and sighed, continuing with the story.

“The next morning Dana came downstairs and smiled at me, before hugging her father. She told him she was sorry for how she acted the day before and that she would like to have another driving lesson. She winked at me behind his back and I had a hard time not laughing,” she said, chuckling now. “We  never told Bill about those secret night drives. He always boasted he had taught all his kids to drive and I just smiled.”

Fox smiled as he finished his coffee and she her story. He got up and took his mug to the sink, then turned and leaned against it, his head down. He sighed and then looked up at her.

“The sheets are done by now, I’m sure,” she said, changing the subject, as she smiled at him, and he nodded.

They went out together and found the sheets were certainly dry. Maggie smelled them, closing her eyes, thousands of memories tied to that scent. The towels were also dry and together they took everything upstairs.

Fox had a moment of hesitation at the bedroom threshold, but then he joined her, dropping his armful of laundry on the bed. They folded the towels, put them away, and then made the bed. Maggie watched him looking at the bed, his shoulders slumped, before he looked up at her. She smiled and nodded at him. He nodded back and they went downstairs.

He walked into the middle of the living room and stopped. “Uh ... what you said earlier about therapists,” he said, keeping his eyes on the floor. “I think it’s a good idea, as much as I truly don’t like the thought of it, I can’t deny it would be … helpful.” He cleared his throat and looked up at her.

“I’m happy to hear that, Fox,” she said with a smile. “I have a list of names.” She walked over to her purse and took out the piece of paper she had brought with her. “I was talking to some friends and they suggested some people that might work out, people they know or have used in the past.” She came close to him and handed him the paper. He took it wordlessly and looked it over, taking a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said quietly, looking up and nodding at her. She squeezed his forearm and stepped back.

Sensing this was a good time to make her exit, giving him time to think, she began to gather her things. He did not move from his spot, his eyes still on the paper. She picked up her keys, put them in her pocket, and walked over to him, touching his arm.

He raised his eyes to hers and she smiled. “I’m proud of the progress you’ve made today, Fox,” she said softly. “I know it might be hard to sleep in there tonight, but I think it’s time, and a step toward healing.” He nodded and smiled slightly, putting the paper in his pocket, and pulling her in for a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for so many things, but mostly just for being here.”

She stepped back and held his face in her hands. “That’s what family does. It shows up,” she said patting his cheeks. He nodded and she stepped back.

He walked her to her car, shutting the door as she got in and buckled her seatbelt. “Next week, I hope to have heard you’ve contacted at least one of the people on the list,” she said, giving him her best mom stare.

He chuckled and stepped back from the car. “Yes, Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

“Good,” she said, putting the car in reverse and beginning to back up. She waved as she drove down the driveway, her heart lighter than it had been in a while.

The air was still warm in the late afternoon sun as she drove toward the highway. He had been open to her suggestions, all of them, and for that she was incredibly thankful. She smiled and then her breath caught.

“He called me Mom,” she said out loud. Yes, it had been in a teasing tone, but it was the first time he had called her anything other than Mrs. Scully, despite her repeated insistence he call her Maggie.

“Mom,” she said again. “I like the sound of that.” She smiled as she entered the highway and headed for home, the sun painting the sky a beautiful color of pinkish orange.

She turned the radio on and hummed along with the music, her heart full of hope and love for the man who was beginning his journey back to himself, and back to the woman he loved for longer than even he may be aware.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she said, praying once again that the ending to this story was a happy one. “It all happens for a reason ...”

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: Cracks in Time Chapter 25

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: Cracks in Time Chapter 25 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 25/? SUMMARY: A little girl escapes the Time War when the Timelord’s return in “End of Time Part 2″. The newly regenerated Doctor must now raise the little girl while trying to find out why cracks in time keep following them around.

They made it to the laboratory and the Doctor sealed the door. “Elliot, you and your dad keep your eyes on that screen. Let me know if we get company”. The Doctor tossed the stopwatch to Amy. “Amy, keep reminding me how much time I haven't got”.

“Okay. Um, er, twelve minutes till drill impact”, Amy told him.

The Doctor walked up to Tony. “Tony Mack. Sweaty forehead, dilated pupils. What are you hiding?”

Tony opened his shirt to reveal green veins crawling up his neck.

“Tony, what happened?” Nasreen asked.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pressed it to the veins, scanning them.

“Alaya's sting. She said there's no cure. I'm dying, aren't I?” Tony asked.

The Doctor transferred the results to the machine in front of him. “You're not dying, you're mutating”.

“How can I stop it?”

“Decontamination program. Might work. Don't know. Eldane, can you run the program on Tony?” Eldane nodded and helped Tony into one of the decontamination pods.

“Doctor, shedload of those creatures coming our way. We're surrounded in here”, Mo told him.

“So, question is, how we do stop the drill given we can't get there in time? Plus, also, how do we get out, given that we're surrounded? Nasreen, how do you feel about an energy pulse channeled up through the tunnels to the base of the drill?”

“To blow up my life's work?”

“Yes. Sorry. No nice way of putting that”.

“Right, well, you're going to have to do it before the drill hits the city, in…”

“Eleven minutes forty seconds”, Amy supplied.

“Yes. Squeaky bum time!” the Doctor said, running over to the controls.

“Yes, but the explosion is going to cave in all the surrounding tunnels, so we have to be out and on the surface by then”, Nasreen told him.

“But we can't get past Restac's troops”, Rory reminded them.

“I can help with that. Toxic Fumigation. An emergency failsafe meant to protect my species from infection. A warning signal to occupy cryo-chambers. After that, citywide fumigation by toxic gas. Then the city shuts down”, Eldane said.

The Doctor turned away from him and ran a hand through his hair.

“You could end up killing your own people”, Amy told him.

“Only those foolish enough to follow Restac”.

Elise walked over to the Doctor and took his hand in hers. He gave her a soft smile. She was so innocent and didn’t understand. He was the one who had killed the Timelords. Her family. Her. He’d have to tell her eventually.

“Eldane, are you sure about this?” he asked. Someone else was about to make the same decision he did.

“My priority is my race's survival. The Earth isn't ready for us to return yet”.

“No”.

“Ten minutes, Doctor”, Amy told him.

“But maybe it should be. So, here's a deal. Everybody listening. Eldane, you activate shutdown. I'll amend the system, set your alarm for a thousand years time. A thousand years to sort the planet out. To be ready. Pass it on. As legend, or prophesy, or religion, but somehow make it known. This planet is to be shared”.

“Yeah. I get you”, Elliot told him.

“Nine minutes, seven seconds”, Amy said.

The Doctor rushed over to the controls. “Yes. Fluid controls, my favorite. Energy pulse. Timed, primed and set. Before we go, energy barricade. Need to cancel it out quickly”. He soniced the controls.

“Fumigation pre-launching”, Eldane said.

“There's not much time for us to get from here to the surface, Doctor”, Rory told him.

“Ah ha, super-squeaky bum time. Get ready to run for your lives. Now”.

“But the decontamination program on your friend hasn't started yet”, Eldane said.

“Well, go. All of you, go”, Tony told them.

“No, we're not leaving you here”, Ambrose said.

“Granddad!” Elliot yelled, running to him.

“Eight minutes ten seconds”, Amy said.

The small family said their goodbyes as the toxic fumigation started.

Amy checked the screen. “They're going. We're clear”.

“Okay, everyone follow Nasreen. Look for a blue box. Get ready to run”, the Doctor told them. He soniced the door and it opened. “I’m sorry”, the Doctor told Eldane.

“I thought for a moment, our race and the humans…”

“Yeah, me too”.

“Doctor, we’ve got less than six minutes”, Amy told him.

“Go. Go! I’m right behind you!”

Elise wanted to wait for her father, but Rory grabbed her arm.

“He’s coming. Come on”, he said.

Elise nodded and took Rory’s hand as they ran for the TARDIS.

“Toxic fumigation is about to commence. Immediate evacuation”.

They finally made it to the TARDIS and the Doctor unlocked the door. “No questions, just get in. And yes, I know, it's big. Ambrose, sickbay up the stairs, left, then left again, Get yourself fixed up”.

Mo, Elliot, and Ambrose ran inside.

The Doctor turned and they saw a crack in the wall.

The one that had been following them around the universe.

“Not here. Not now. It's getting wider”, the Doctor said.

“The crack on my bedroom wall”.

“And the Byzantium. All through the universe, rips in the continuum. Some sort of space-time cataclysm. An explosion, maybe. Big enough to put cracks in the universe. But what?”

Amy checked the stopwatch. “Four minutes fifty. We have to go”.

“The Angels laughed when I didn't know. Prisoner Zero knew. Everybody knows except me”.

“Doctor, just leave it”.

“But where there's an explosion, there's shrapnel”. He pulled out a red handkerchief and ran over to the crack.

“Doctor, you can't put your hand in there!” Rory told him, holding Elise back.

“Why not?” The Doctor stuck his hand in the crack immediately cried out in pain.

Elise tried to run towards her father, but Amy grabbed her other arm.

“Argh. I've got something!” the Doctor yelled.

“What is it?” Amy asked.

He pulled his arm out, the piece of shrapnel in the handkerchief. “I don't know”.

“Doctor?” Rory asked.

They turned and saw Restac crawling towards them.

“She was there when the gas started. She must have been poisoned”, Amy said.

“You”, Restac said, trying to lift her gun.

“Okay, get in the TARDIS, all three of you”, the Doctor told them.

“You did this”, Restac hissed. She raised her gun to shoot the Doctor.

“Doctor!” Rory yelled. He pushed the Doctor out of the way and got hit.

“Rory!” Amy screamed, dropping to her knees beside him.

The Doctor knelt on the other side of him. “Rory, can you hear me?” he asked.

“I don't understand”, Rory said.

“Shush. Don't talk. Doctor, is he okay?” Amy asked, “We have to get him onto the TARDIS”.

“We were on the hill. I can't die here”.

Elise sat down next to her father and grabbed Rory’s hand. “Rrrry”, she said. It had been so long since she had spoken that she couldn’t make her mouth form the rest of the letters. “Rrrry”.

“Don’t say that”, Amy told him.

“You’re so beautiful. I’m sorry”.

With that, Rory took his last breath and stopped moving.

“Doctor, help him”, Amy said.

The light from the crack crept towards Rory’s feet.

“Amy, Elise, move away from the light. If it touches you, you'll be wiped from history. Amy, move away now”, the Doctor told her.

“No! I am not leaving him! We have to help him!”

“The light's already around him. We can't help him”.

“I am not leaving him”.

“We have to”.

“No!”

“I'm sorry”. The Doctor grabbed Amy and pulled her away from Rory.

“Get off me!” Amy screamed through her tears.

The Doctor dragged Amy to the TARDIS, Elise following.

“No!” Amy yelled as the Doctor closed the door, sonicing the lock. Amy continued to scream as she pounded on the door. “No! No! No! No! Let me out. Please let me out. I need to get to Rory. That light. If his body's absorbed, I'll forget him. He'll never have existed. You can't let that happen”.

The Doctor pulled a lever and the TARDIS engines started up.

Amy ran up to the platform. “What are you doing? Doctor, no! No! No! No!”

The Doctor grabbed the hysterical woman and pulled her away from the console. If the Doctor hadn’t been so worried about Amy, he would have noticed how Elise was staring at the TARDIS door with a blank look on her face.

In the future, it would be something that frequently happened when she was unable to process what she was feeling. She would just space out until someone brought her back to the present.

The TARDIS landed roughly, knocking the three of them to the floor.

“What were you saying?” Amy asked.

Mo and Elliot came down the stairs. “I have seen some things today, but this is beyond mad”, Mo said.

Amy grabbed the stopwatch. “Doctor. Five seconds till it all goes up”.

They all ran outside in time to see the drilling machine explode.

“All Nasreen's work just erased”, Amy said as they walked back to the church.

“Good thing she's not here to see it. She's going to give Tony hell when they wake up”, Mo said.

Amy nudged Elise towards Elliot.

Elise walked up to the boy.

“You’re going then?” Elliot asked.

Elise nodded.

“Do you think you’ll ever come back?” he asked.

Elise shrugged.

“Goodbye then”, he said. He leaned forward and kissed Elise on the cheek, causing the young Timelord to blush.

She walked back over to Amy who teased her, “Aww. Elise has a crush!”

The Doctor walked up to the two of them and picked Elise up. She nuzzled his neck with her face and grabbed onto his bowtie as they walked back to the TARDIS.

“You're very quiet”, Amy told the Doctor.

Across the hill there stood only one figure, unlike earlier.

“Oh. Hey, look. There I am again. Hello, me”, Amy said, waving. She then got very sad.

“Are you okay?” the Doctor asked.

“I thought I saw someone else there for a second. I need a holiday. Didn't we talk about Rio?”

The Doctor set Elise down. “You two go in. Just fix this lock. Keeps jamming”, he said, pretending to have trouble opening the door.

“You boys and your locksmithery”, Amy said, entering the TARDIS.

Elise looked at her father for a second. He was hiding something, but what, she didn’t know.

“Go on”, he told her.

She entered the TARDIS and went to her room, where she finally allowed herself to cry and mourn for Rory. She had just started to like him and now he was gone. She had many questions, but her number one was this: Would it always hurt like this?

[lovesickirby]

Diy Tutorials to Sew Homemade Masks : Cloth Face Mask for Coronavirus Sa...

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[rogerinatrash]

Kitchenaid Stand Mixer Tilt Head : Why Best ?

Review Zojirushi Rice Cooker review mini kegerator Tankless Electric Water Heaters Wall Mounted Electric Fireplaces Best propane grill Best Keurig Coffee Maker Wonderwash Portable Washing Machine leupold binoculars for hunting Panda Portable Washing Machine Best Portable Charcoal Grill Lasko Digital Ceramic Heater Best Electric Fireplace Wall Mount Big green egg smoked spatchcock chicken A Guide to Manual Coffee Brewing Salter Ultimate Accuracy Scales Wood Fire Stove For your Room Queen 8 inch Memory Cuisinart 360 Griddle best french press stainless steel Sun Joe Snow Blower Rheem Tankless Water Heater Cauldryn Coffee Travel Mug Honeywell Wifi Thermostat Heated Seat Kit Best wood stove Portable Buddy Heater upright vacuum cleaner Gourmia 6 qt digital air fryer Nectar Mattress Mr coffee electric kettle Cuisinart Slow Cooker Brinkmann Gourmet Charcoal Smoker GE Burner Gas Stove AquaTru Water Purification System Review Best Pillow Protector Vegetable Dicer Kerosene Heaters - Gas Heaters Fabric Shaver clothes folder instructions casper king mattress reviews Char Broil Smoker Grill Review Cauldryn Coffee Travel Mug Ezstax Clothing Organization System Best Bidet Toilet Seat Electric Pressure Best Ceiling Speaker How To Vacuum Seal Food Mr Coffee Grinder Metal detector coils Rice Cooker Lifetime Compost Tumbler Remove Urine Stain From Mattress Shark Handheld Vacuum Cleaner Pure Komachi Knife Power Air Fryer Xl Porcelain Enameled Steel Bathtub Automatic Egg Cooker Instructions Wicker Storage Bin The Casper Mattress snowshoe Delonghi Space Heater Snow Joe Snow Blower Yimby Tumbling Composter Review Food Vacuum Sealer Breville Toaster Review Cordless Electric Kettle Cobb Grill Review Best hanging organizer Frameless Sliding Shower Door Best Portable Gas Grill Reverse Osmosis System Reviews Beach Sand Scoops for Metal Detecting? Evo Skis Automatic Bread Maker Baratza Burr Coffee Grinder Review 2020 Gas Air Compressor Camp Stove Toasteri Make Smoked Cheddar Cheese Snowshoe for Beginners Best Cordless Sweeper Heating Knee Pad Smeg Gas Range Best Samsung Microwave Best Sewing Machine Best Motorcycle Chain Breaker Tool Emberlit Stove Review Sand scoop for metal detecting Smeg Dishwasher Nostalgia Hot Dog Toaster Best Digital Alarm Clock Compact Combo Washer Dryer Camp Stove Toaster Best Snowshoe Garrett Edge Digger Zenith Trim Puller Racing Wheel for Playstation 4 Asunflower High Chair Reviews Usb Digital Microscope Reviews Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Animal Review Best Axe For Splitting Wood Breville Electric Kettle 3 Drawer Dresser White Pactool Gecko Gauge Clamps Knife Pouch Philips Avent Fast Baby Bottle Warmer Pulled Pork Shredder Claws Leather Knife Pouch Lightweight Easy Fold Stroller Coffee Travel Mug Fenix Pd35 Flashlight Vs Fenix Pd32 Flashlight Folding Shovel Military Wooden High Chair Lightweight Easy Fold Stroller Best Pulled Pork Shredder Claws How to Use Auto Ranging Digital Multimeter Irwin Locking Pliers Puredown Pillow Review Oxo Tot Sprout High Chair Knife Block Set Stainless Steel Electric Baby Bottle Sterilizer Led Stand Light With Milwaukee Makita Impact Bit Set klein parallel jaw grip SUNAVO Induction Cooktop Camco Eaz-Lift Slide Out Support Camco Water Bandit Dewalt Push Lock Pliers Small Utility Tote of Charcoal Felt Brother MFC-J6935DW Inkjet All-in-One Color Printer Jeep Cherokee Sport Stroller Master Lock M175 Measuring Cups and Spoons Set Weigh Safe 180 Hitch 100% Original Peet Boot Dryer Camco Rv Sewer Hoses Stainless Steel Soap Dispenser Predator 3500 Inverter Generator Polyscience Sous Vide Searzall Torch Attachment Small Stainless Bamboo Cheese Board With Cutlery Set Baby Beach Tent Pop Up How Gravity Works Culinary Blow Torch Review Ski Tuning Vise Reviews Camco 50 Amp Surge Protector Andersen Hitches 3220 Delixike Large Magnifying Lamp With Light Polyscience Sous Vide Professional Creative Series Predator 3500 Inverter Generator Reviews Wheelchair Controller Car Driveway Best Cordless Air Pump Bead Breaker for Tires Titan RV Sewer Hose Kite Harmar Mobility Lift for Car Hamilton Beach 3 in 1 Spiralizer Pond Pump for Waterfall Tribest Sousvant Sv-101 How to Change Outdoor Wall Lights AquaTru Water Filter Kitchenaid Artisan Stand Mixer Usb Postal Scale Searzall Torch Attachment Small Bamboo Cheese Board With Cutlery Set Baby Beach Tent Pop Up Platypus Gravityworks 2.0L Filter Culinary Blow Torch Ski Tuning Vise Camco 50 Amp Surge Protector Andersen Hitches 3220 Delixike Large Magnifying Lamp Polyscience Sous Vide Professional Wasserstein Water Sensor With Alarm DEWALT Tool Box set Tacklife Paint Sprayer review Trimaco Canvas Drop Cloth PHZ Adult Bike Helmet Review Heavy Duty Wagons and Cart Sun Joe Cordless Leaf Blower Firman Generators Review Wheelchair Joystick Gc 2 Bridjit Curb Ramp Set Best Cordless Air Pump for Tires Perfect Tools for All Size Tires Titan RV Sewer Hose Kit Harmar Mobility Lift for Car Hamilton Beach 3 in 1 Spiralizer Pond Pump for Waterfall Sun Joe Cordless Air Compressor Review Camping Shower head 18 Inch Stanley Fatmax Tool Bag Makita Cordless Flood Light Louisville Elite Aluminum Attic Ladder Alpcour Indoor Bike Trainer Stand Pocket Hole Jig Green Elephant Utilitent Best Hot Air Popper for Popcorn Smart Electric Scooter Azio Keyboard Unboxing Instant Water Balloons How to Fill 100 Gold's Gym Vinyl Dumbbell Set 40 Lbs Genuine Epson 125 Black Ink Cartridge Instant Water Balloons Gold's Gym Vinyl Dumbbell Set Genuine Epson 125 Black Ink Cartridge Best Stainless Steel Coffee Maker Oster Bread Maker Honeywell 5 2 Day Programmable Thermostat Yeti Rambler 20 Camco : Rv Sewer Hose Support Sunbeam Electric Heated Throw Blanket Dyson V6 Motorhead Cordless Vacuum Apple ipad Air 2 Best Fiber Optic Tool Kit Akg K612 Pro Headphones Best Indoor Thermometer Best Nose and Ear Hair Trimmer 18-inch Laptop Case Modern 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[wehavethoughts]

Upcycle! Review!

Upcycle! Turn Everyday Objects into Home Decor: 50 Easy DIY Projects By Sonia Lucano English: Sarah Levin Photos by Fréderic Lucano Weldon Owen, 2016. Originally Détournez les Objets du Quotidien (Hachette Livre) Farrow & Ball thanked for the paints

RATING: 3 out of 6 sweet geese

What an attractive cover, especially for Millennials! Fruit crates are painted white and assembled like building blocks to form a unique, quirky bookshelf, housing books with aesthetic bindings and a random assortment of small house plants in a seemingly-found collection of pots. Peaking into the frame is a wooden chair. The two pieces of furniture have ‘vintage' patinas, not too crisp but not dusty and dank. For the eye that lingers long enough, a multi-wood shoe horn sits quietly on a low crate.

Upcycle! An exciting word for those committing themselves to a more sustainable lifestyle. Smaller but still centered are the famous letters, DIY, a huge keyword for young poor people today, although unfortunately mostly limited to young educated white women who seek the satisfaction of making something on their own (which is totally fine). I have many words regarding 'DIY' which-- to your luck-- I will save for another time. I bring up the loud and large Upcycle! because the word in particular excited me to select the book in the first place. That excitement grew as the subtitle informed me that I would learn how to turn “everyday objects into home decor.” I love home decor, but I also love using what I already have. For me personally, resourcefulness is a product of being conditioned to avoid waste, that is, to use or eat or do what you had paid for, because money was precious. 

Upcycling is a great 'movement' and concept: rather than produce more STUFF, we can use what we already have. It's different from simply thrifting because you often change the material object's intended function, though not necessarily. Thrifted objects are found; upcycling requires work. DIY projects similarly require work, but don't necessitate that the materials are all found (e.g. "just buy some twine and you're all set!").

The social momentum building up DIY and upcycling is positive in America because Americans really ought to have stopped consuming and producing STUFF yesterday. Additionally, there’s a widening class gap, and more people are having to 'make do' with what they have. I don't make this distinction lightly: there are founts of these same design practices that are wealthy and artisanal, whereas others are, simply put: provoked by poverty. The former isn't "wrong" or "bad," and I don't think it's helpful to make these kinds of value judgments. However, this discussion brings us to my most critical reaction to this book: nobody has this sh*t at home!

The book Détournez les Objets du Quotidien couldn’t have been published with the everyday person in mind, even though the subtitle (in English) informs the potential reader that they would learn how to transform 'everyday' objects. Many of the projects, as aesthetically pleasing as they are, require absurd supplies, including: bell-shaped metal lamp hanger, strips of natural leather, plaster, “black hanging-lamp light cord with socket and light bulb,” carbon paper, wax pellets, number stamps for leather, bags of cotton filling, an S-hook, “dusty-rose matte wood paint,” “11 mother of pearl buttons 11/16 inch diameter,” 80 x 40 inch quilt batting, canvas luggage straps, and porcelain light bulb socket with mounting bracket. Additionally absurd are some of the required tools: electric screwdriver, crowbar, jigsaw, an auger bit, an awl, a double boiler, a label-maker, 1-inch diameter drill bit, 1 1/8 inch crochet hook, plaster, leather-craft roller, sewing machine, and staple gun.

You might be saying to yourself: I have some of those, you're being too harsh, DesignMod. But I too have some of these objects. What you are noticing, though, is your privilege. (Don't be scared, just breathe.) You are in a position where you have things, things that arguably you would only need for the specific project at hand. That's all. But this is my problem with this book: the projects and designs require non-ordinary, non-everyday materials. The book in its mission is a) deceitful and b) not accessible to a large audience.

My frustration can be summed up looking at the preface:

"While recycling today is trendy, I want to take it even further...not by decorating our homes with second-hand objects, but by starting with everyday objects that we have at home or can find easily." 

Great, sounds good!

"I propose that you 'upcycle' or repurpose these objects, so common and ordinary that we lose sight of their decorative potential: crates, wood pallets, white cotton sheets, glass jars, wine bottles, tin cans, white dishes, lampshades, and more." 

Okay, I need to stop the author here. WOOD PALLETS?? I don't have bonus wood pallets laying around the house. I can understand empty wine bottles if someone in your household drinks. The first chapter starts off with wood pallets as the base material, suggesting that you go out asking grocery stores if you could take extras (definitively not at home). Other supplies come with recommended stores (e.g. white boxes from IKEA) which is also antithetical to using your own objects and inadvertently capitalist in it’s promotion of specific large retailers (as opposed to an individual artisans or ‘your local vendor’). 

"Here are fifty ideas for easily transforming these objects into budget-friendly design creations that will add a 'rustic chic' flair to any home's decor. No need to be an expert in do-it-yourself crafts. All that's needed is the desire to implement the projects in the book." 

This gets me to my final criticism: the book lacks creativity. Whereas the author or designer is creative (yet still adhering very much to trends), they do not encourage creativity whatsoever on the part of the reader. Materials are suggested with specific colors and dimensions. The back pages include any lettering printed out that you can tear and copy onto your project, exactly like what you see in the book. I don't see this as a positive: a) we all end up with the same stuff, b) the reader isn't learning anything in terms of lettering but also in terms of figuring out how they'd do a project, and c) the book subconsciously promotes consumerism by denying the reader the opportunity to determine their own project.

The book does offer a few guidelines for those attempting the projects, such as estimated duration, difficulty level, and technique applied. Ultimately, suggesting you add "since 1775" arbitrarily to a white plate implies a greater devotion to the superficial aesthetic of contemporary design, rather than actually considering where objects come from, how we engage with them, and our broader systems of production and consumption.

Overall, I did learn upcycling tips from this book, but in the end, I was profusely disappointed. If you really need very strict guidelines in your creative projects, as well as have the financial resources to gather all the required tools and materials, then you might like this book. I find it quite narrow, unoriginal, and inaccessible. I rate it 3/6 geese, because it is easy to read, the aesthetic is current, and there are lovely photos. 

With loving curiosity, 

DesignMod

[yarenonlan]

Diy Tutorials to Sew Homemade Masks : Cloth Face Mask for Coronavirus Sa...

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Diy Tutorials to Sew Homemade Masks : Cloth Face Mask for Coronavirus Sa...

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