#The Tideline Press

[revasserium]

could we get a protective zoro pretty please! maybe reader gets kidnapped again and zoro comes to find her but we get the actual fighting and zoro being protective? i’ll take anything you write <3

here are monsters

zoro; 1,737 words; fluff, opla!zoro, shockingly introspective zoro, straw hat!reader, fem!reader, vague gore (but not rly even), just zoro slicin' ppl, established relationship

summary: prequel to this fic right here

a/n: *makes vague uncertain hand gestures at opla!zoro*

he’s always known of the monster inside him — always. he’s always known of the hurricane that spins just beneath the cage of his ribs, the thunderstorm brewing beyond the horizon-line of his heartbeat.

when he sees you bloodied, bruises blooming at the edge of your mouth, something inside him snaps like a tideline, ripped apart by the rage of the ocean slamming against the back of his teeth. there’s a jagged bloodlust curdling in his throat as he narrows his eyes, pulls out his swords and swings.

the shing of metal through air shouldn’t sound like music, the dull thunk of bodies hitting the ground, no baseline beat — the bitten-off screams of men as their throats are cut should not sound like the familiar tune to a life-long melody but zoro can’t help the grin that spreads, savage, across his lips as he leans into the rhythm of the fight and lets his body sing.

it would not be remiss to call him monster, so he thinks as he digs the hilt of his swords into the side of an oncoming thug and hears the sharp crack of shattering ribs. he doesn’t wince at the warm splatter of blood as it paints his cheeks. a wide, manic smile pulls at his lips as he swings both swords around in a wide circle to slice through three oncoming bodies, before bringing them down in an arc to bisect another thug from torso to legs.

by the time he turns back around, most of the so-called pirates have already scattered, but one (the leader of the whole sorry lot) still stands, a blade pressed to the smooth expanse of your throat as he snarls, backing away from zoro, nose twitching like a frightened rabbit.

“d-don’t come any closer! or — or else i’ll slit her throat!”

zoro’s lip twitches, his eyes hardening as he stares at the shaking heap of leathers and furs, too much talk and not enough backbone. it’s people like this, zoro thinks, that give pirates a bad rep.

“i’d like to see you try,” zoro’s voice is iron-hard and steel-sharp, a dull throbbing cresting through his temples at the thought of any more harm coming to you even as he catches your eyes. they’re wide and dark and pleading.

don’t do anything stupid.

he almost scoffs. too late.

and then, almost by second nature, the thought comes to him — well, you started it.

the corner of his eye twitches as he sighs, making a show of relaxing his stance, of standing up straight to slip his swords back into their sheathes. he watches as the last thug visibly relaxes — licking his lips as his own grip on your neck loosens.

“t-there see? that wasn’t so hard, was it? n-now — now hand over all the gold you have and i might —”

thwack.

you feel the man’s grip on you slacken completely as you glance up to find the wadou ichimonji impaled through the thug’s head, right in between his eyes, the blade and hilt still vibrating from the force of the hit, nailing the man to the basement wall. you let out a sigh as you jerk yourself out from underneath the dead man’s arms, making a face as zoro reaches down to pull his sword out with a wet schluck.

“tch. just cleaned it yesterday.”

it makes a soft whoomph as he shakes off the worst of the blood dripping from it’s blade.

“sorry… i’ll — i’ll clean it after we get back —” you push yourself to your feet, dusting of your skirt, but a sharp pain in your side makes you stumble, and a second later, zoro’s arm hooks around your middle to keep you from falling.

the metallic tang of blood and the cold scent of steel arrests your senses. the world spins, the floor beneath you swaying like the deck of a ship even as darkness starts to eat at the edges of your vision. you hear zoro calling your name as if through a long, echoing tunnel and you frown, uncertain why he sounds so frantic all of a sudden.

“don’t… don’t forget… the apples…”

zoro stares, aghast as you go limp in his arms. there’s a wild thundering inside his chest as he looks around, his mind racing to catch up to what you’d just said — apples? what the —

he spots them, discarded in a corner by the entrance of the basement hideout — a rough burlap satchel sagging against the wall, filled with waxy red apples, round as the autumn moon and nearly just as big. he stares at them for a full minute before his eyes slowly slide back to you, still lying inert in his arms, though your breathing has evened out and your cheeks are flushed just the slightest shade of pink.

you’re in no immediate danger, he knows, but there’s an unpleasant darkness seeping into the material of your shirt along your ribs and the thing in his chest stutters, the strange pressure threatening to calcify into something very much like panic.

so he takes a deep breath, because master swordsmen don’t panic. those of a calm mind… or what the fuck ever.

he takes another breath and hoists you onto his shoulder, wrapping his arm around the backs of your thighs as he stands up and makes for the exit, reaching down to snag the bag of apples, grimacing as he hooks them onto his free shoulder. they’re heavier than he’d expected.

he’s halfway to the docks before you start to stir and he slows his pace ever so slightly, careful not to dig his shoulder into your still-open wound.

“have a good nap?”

you groan, and he almost grins as he feels you trying to wiggle out of his grasp. he doesn’t break his stride even as he adjusts you on his shoulder and keeps on walking.

“l-let me down — i can walk —”

“nope. don’t feel like it.”

“i’m sorry, okay?”

you sigh, the tension once again leaving your body and for a second zoro worries that you’d passed out again, but the next second, he feels your fists thumping lightly against his waist.

“hm. don’t remember asking you to apologize.”

but he does slow his step. he steps onto the bustling boardwalk, ignoring the strange, lingering looks of passersby as he hauls you bodily towards where the going merry is docked.

“doesn’t mean i shouldn’t.”

he pauses then, bending down slightly to let you slip from his shoulders, keeping his arm wrapped around you even as you slide down the length of his torso to land on your feet. your palms are pressed to his chest as you look up at him, and for a moment, as zoro searches the depths of your eyes, he isn’t sure if he wants to kiss you for being alright or scream at you for putting yourself in danger in the first place.

like this, he can feel all of you pressing against all of him, and the thing inside his chest still feels like something of a monster but at least it’s no longer tearing him apart from the inside out. it beats, uncoordinated, against his sternum, thumping up till he can feel it at the base of his throat.

he lets himself look at you, lets his eyes roam the planes of your face, lingering on the bruise kissing the corner of your mouth. he licks his lips and looks away.

“what the hell were you doing buying so many apples anyway?”

at this, you purse your lips, your lashes fluttering hummingbird quick as you look away.

“uhm… i — i can’t tell you.”

zoro rolls his eyes as he bends down, and in one swift motion, tosses you back over his shoulder. you yelp in surprise as he starts to make his way towards the ship again, seemingly deaf to your protests as you kick our your legs and thump your fists against his back.

“really, warn me, the next time you plan on getting kidnapped for ransom, would’ya?”

but he can’t help the slight smile that twitches at the edge of his lips even as he carries you onto the merry’s deck, kicking open the kitchen door to set you on the long wooden prep table.

because you’re still here, warm and breathing beside him, a bit banged up and bloodied, sure, but alive nonetheless. he’d gotten to you in time.

the creature inside his chest purrs in contentment even as he schools his expression back into a suitable scowl as you pout at him from the kitchen table, saying something about not planning on getting kidnapped, and he quips back something about all this being a bad idea from get.

he allows himself a secret, relieved sigh as he starts to rummage around for the first aid kit he knows is there somewhere, glancing over his shoulder at the sound of your summer sun laughter, watching as you wince and clutch at your wounded side.

how’s he to tell you that with you, the monster inside him starts to feel like much less monster and much more man? and that the day he met you, he stopped thinking of himself as a natural disaster -- only that he might be naturally a disaster sometimes, but something else in all the moments in between.

so he settles for dressing your wounds instead, pressing his palm to the soft expanse of your skin, holding still the shivers that threaten to shake him to his very bones when his fingertips graze against the ridges of your ribs, his other hand resting on the soft plush of your hip.

he settles for kissing you quiet when you start to ramble, because he can’t let himself think of the other things he might want to do to you if you’d let him. he settles, as the monster in him settles as well.

because with you, he knows he is both monster and man, and he knows — judging by the way you smile at him as he pulls back from your kiss — that you wouldn’t have him any other way.

opla!zoro reqs open!

[murfeelee]

IWTV INSP - MerMay Pt2: Siren Nature

"Something was very wrong with Louis. No one else would have noticed but the three royal Pointe Du Lac children had been tuned to each other and Grace could read the tightness in Louis’s walk, the note of falseness in his smile and eyes, and the subtle press of his lips that meant that he was in pain. Louis’s new friend, Mr Lioncourt, had disappeared a few days ago and Louis had been like a ghost ever since. Paul had noticed too, knocking on her door last night, and his theory was that Mr Lioncourt had stolen away Louis’s soul. Grace didn’t believe that, but something was deeply wrong and Louis had rebuffed any gentle attempts to find out what.....  "But when Louis had been at family breakfast the other week, days before Mr Lioncourt’s disappearance, Louis had been scratching and Grace had caught his arm. A bronze scale had come off his skin and Louis hadn’t noticed. Grace had palmed the scale discreetly, so that no one else would see...."

-- Excerpts from Part of Your World, by @weather-mood

MY THOUGHTS & CC CREDITS

MY THOUGHTS

A [FREE SPACE] entry for @vamptember's MerMay VC event!

Just a heads up for those familiar with PoYW: for my gameplay, I've moved ALL of the siren scenes from the fic to Louis' official transformation at the end of the story, into Tidelines; so some of my next posts actually take place out of order from the fic itself.

What I really like about WeatherMood's PoYW fic is how clearly you can see the parallels between siren!Lestat's "deal" with Louis, and vampire!Lestat's "wedding vows" pitch. In PoYW, Les is the Sea Witch who makes a deal with the naive & lovestruck Little Mermaid--it's largely based on Hans Christian Anderson, but with a slight Disney twist. Louis knows Lestat is evil (he massacred Louis' whole ship crew), but Lou also has garbage taste in men. 🤦 But Lestat's deal throws Lou for a loop; it sounds too good to be true, cuz it is. Hans' Sea Witch is more forthcoming about their deal highly likely ending in utter doom; while Ursula deliberately withholds information (her plans to sabotage Ariel & keep her (& King Triton) as a polyp/slave).

Likewise, vampire!Lestat knew good & dang well that Lou had no idea what vampirism really was or entailed; going in blind as a bat into a damned eternity off of nothing but a few "tricks" he'd seen Lestat do (and ofc he compartmentalized seeing Les eat the priests). He turned Lou & babytrapped him so Lou would/could never leave him; just like siren!Lestat traps Louis in a bad deal he knows is anything but temporary/amphibious enough to let Lou to survive on land.

Lestat loves Louis, undoubtedly, but he's also a bonafide monster, ("Is my very nature that of the Devil?"). It's effed up, but Louis loves him, so what can you do. U_U At least Les isn't like Hans' Prince, who treated The Mermaid like trash & loved someone else entirely, only for The Mermaid to willingly die for him anyway, like GIRL. 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦 Take that knife & go crazy! 🔪

CC CREDITS

- Stained glass windows by @deniisu-sims & Abuk0

- Toe claws & eel tails in beta by me

- (If anyone's wondering, I put Loustat in scale-patterned swimming briefs cuz in the fic they don't actually wear clothes. But my blog's PG-17 goshdarnit! 😅)

[bougiebutchbitch]

PLEASE fucked-up-fish!Joker and Bruce having absolute ungodly sex would be top tier

Rating: M Pairing: Batjokes Warnings: uh. many. Mostly gore and cannibalism (does it count as cannibalism, if it’s a semi-human monster doing the eating?)

This is unedited flash fic - please excuse any errors!

The harbour stinks at night.

It stinks at every other hour too, as corrosive concoctions leach from the output sluices of the chemical plants and raw sewage splatters from black-crusted pipes, draining the city's rot like pus from a lanced boil. But at night, there's no breeze. No stir of the thick, soupy air. The stench presses sweaty hands over your nose and mouth, smothering you in effluent and acid.

Batman lands silent on the broad concrete pipe of a storm drain, letting his heavy duffel rest at his feet, and wishes he'd let Alfred pipette a few drops of peppermint essence into his nosepiece.

He's come here several times over the past year. Once a month at first, now twice a week. The frequent exposure hasn't helped him acclimatize. The only way to inure yourself is to line your boots with lead, jump in to the water, and let your lungs fill until you add your own putrefaction to the perfume.

Or to slip, while fleeing the scene of a petty robbery with Batman pounding close behind. To laugh, breathless and bewildered, as Batman lunged for his hand and missed...

Batman shuts his eyes. Breathes in, breathes out.

Then unknots his duffel and pulls out a leg.

The pale flesh looks unreal in the moonlight. Like wax, like clay. But Batman can feel the limb's fleshy solidity through his gauntlets, down to the faint crispness in the soft tissue where it hasn't quite thawed from its stint in the deep-freeze unit at the morgue.

Batman holds it a moment longer, studying the curve of muscle over the tibia and fibula , the dots of hairs that either fell off in the freezer or were shaved away pre-mortem and never had chance to regrow. Reminding himself of the humanity this lump of meat once possessed feels important, somehow. Though he got laughed at, last time he tried to explain why.

He lets go. Down the leg tumbles, down-down-down, until it hits the black.

The water seals over it and reforms without a ripple. One hungry gulp.

After that, the only thing to do is wait. Batman chooses to stay standing, the moon casting his shadow over the greasy tidelines that stripe the soakaway below.

He doesn't need to wait long. He never does.

He's fishing out the second offering - an arm, from a young RTC fatality who donated her body to science - when he hears it. The water doesn't splash against the harbour edge; it slops, a thick and constant sound, oddly perverse, like skin striking skin. But there's always a rhythm to it, steady as a heartbeat. It only changes when something falls in or pulls itself out.

Batman doesn't turn to look. Just unhooks the duffel from the petrified elbow joint and tightens the strings.

A hollow, wet thump echoes from inside the storm drain. As if whatever just emerged from the river just hauled itself inside.

"Hello, darling," it says. "Business, or pleasure?"

Batman shoulders the duffel. He swings down into the tunnel, shining his flashlight into the gloom. Four reflective eyes bounce it back, bright as coins. They all blink in synchrony - then alight on the arm and widen, pupils shrinking to predatory points.

"Ooh," coos the monster, slithering closer. Sleek scales scrape on the rough concrete. The rank stench of the estuary gains an extra touch of acid. "For little ol' me? You shouldn't have." A stroke of an eerie white stomach, concave as that of a famine victim. "A girl's gotta watch her figure."

"You can have it," says Batman, guttural, "if you tell me what I want to know."

That too-wide mouth tilts down at its edges, hiding a disquieting number of serrated teeth. At least that stops the monster from licking his lips. "Business first, huh? No fun. Haven't you heard, Bats - All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?"

"Last time I was here, you told me Jack's dead. Now it's only Joker."

Joker waves one hand as if to dismiss his past words as the rambles of a madman. Which, Batman supposes, isn't inaccurate. The webs between his fingers come down to their tips, where the corpse-pale flesh turns slimy and black as mildew. "Dead's usually what happens, when you push people into this harbour."

"I didn't push you. You fell."

"Fell hard," Joker agrees, clasping both hands to his cheek and fluttering all four pairs of non-existent lashes.

Batman fights not to let his scowl twitch. He walked right into that one. "No games tonight, Joker. I need to know what happened to Murray Alberwitz."

Joker slithers to sit before him, criss-cross applesauce. Joker. Why he calls himself that, Batman can't figure . He certainly doesn't find what happened to this man funny.

From a distance, the mutation seems mostly cosmetic: the freakish white skin, the toxic-waste hair. The dapplings of soft purple scales that coat Joker's long, skinny bare legs. Only when you get close do you notice the really disturbing parts. The fleshy gills opening and closing down the lines of his ribs, the color of infected knife wounds. The grotesque sheen of his skin, like he's half-liquid, held together with mucus and spite. The extra two eyes, situated laterally and inferiorly to the originals, but all the exact nuclear shade of green.

The improbable quantity of meat-ripping teeth.

Joker bares these at Batman in a cheery and utterly horrifying smile. "Whomsy-what-now?"

"Murray Alberwitz. He vanished yesterday, last seen heading home along the dock path after his shift at ACE Chemicals. Here." Batman pulls the photograph from his utility belt, holding it under his flashlight beam. Joker tilts his head, rubbing the sticky webbing between his index finger and thumb back and forth over his top lip.

"Can't say he rings any bells. Big fan of the beard though: points for lumberjack realness. Now, that's business over - onto pleasure?"

Joker leans back, letting his slim legs slide apart. He arches his back so his thin dorsal spines scrape the pipe's interior, concrete on bone. His translucent eyelids slide halfway over his irises, dampening the acidic intensity of his stare - the closest he can come to bedroom-eyes.

Repulsion flickers in Batman's stomach. That's far more welcome than what else flickers there.

A year is a long time, after all. At first, the visits were out of necessity. Having discovered what the smalltime criminal nobody he'd chased out to the harbour that night had become - and what he needed to eat, to survive - it only seemed right for Batman to take responsibility. And - sure, he'd allowed himself to show a touch of kindness. But that was because he’d been reminiscing over Harvey's fate, hoping he could spare this man the same pain as he learnt to live with his disfigurement.

Joker had never seemed particularly bothered by his new state of being, though. He'd been far more intrigued with Batman.

And flirty. So very flirty.

Irrepressably, shamelessly. Night after night. Snuggling up to Batman, mouth stained with blood from the bags Batman took from the hospital bank, like he wanted to absorb his bodyheat. Winking at him, two of the four eyes twitching closed. Modelling bikinis he'd stolen from god-knew-which-beach - certainly, there were none local - with the strappy tops hanging off his rake-thin chest. Pouting at Batman; teasing him; ever-determined to make him laugh, as if the horrific left-turn his life had taken the moment he hit the cesspit of chemical waste in Gotham harbor was nothing but one big joke...

But there will be no laughing tonight. No tucking his arm around that gaunt shape, so squishy where it ought to be sharp, Joker's mutated bones bending into his embrace. No strumming down the spinous prcesses that jut from his back, just to make him shiver. No kissing the blood off his teeth.

A trickling stream of rainwater spills along the base of the pipe, moistening Joker's too-soft amphibious skin. Batman wants to lick it off, and the thought makes him want to plunge his batarang into his own mouth and cut out his tongue.

"You're lying to me," he whispers.

Joker's eyes are cold as his blood. "Huh," he says, mild like they're discussing the weather. "Took you long enough to figure that one out."

Batman's swallow pulls at the collar of his suit. Behind him, the water's surface shimmers with oil. It looks so thick you might walk across to the far side of the estuary, where the Narrows shine harsh and sharp as a mouthful of broken teeth.

Batman isn't fooled. Firstly, oil spreads itself to a mono-molecular thinness over water's surface, no way near enough to hold a man's full weight. Secondly, deaths around this sector of Gotham's jagged waterfront have doubled in the past month.

Accidental drownings, according to the papers. Drunks shambling home through the industrial district who totter into the water when they're too inebriated to tell up from down. Workers exhausted from a night shift, stumbling, falling, smacking their heads open on the reclaimed concrete shoreline and adding their brainmatter to the toxic stew.

Batman doesn't believe it. Though he wishes he could.

Drowned men don't show up with bites missing.

You cannot turn a blind eye, Alfred had insisted.

This needs to be dealt with, said Gordon, by you or by us.

They're right. And Batman shouldn't have needed to be told.

"Why? I - I bring you food. I've been helping you! Why would you...?"

Joker shrugs. "Sometimes there ain't a reason, Batsy. Sometimes, the water's just gotta eat."

"If the corpses aren't enough, you could've said! I could get you more." He's sure he could source them from more donors, if he expanded his search radius outside of Gotham.

Now the flash in Joker's eyes is dangerous. He scoots back a little way, into the shadows of the tunnel, rocking up onto his haunches. His bare feet are flat as flippers, the bones oddly elongated, toes joined with a single thick web. He complained once to Batman that the one thing he misses is being able to wear high heels. "Oh, good little Batsy. Feeding his pet. Providing soooo much enrichment in his enclosure, with the regular fuckings."

The harsh words hit Batman like fists. "That's not what's going on here, and you know it."

"Isn't it?"

...Isn't it?

No. No. Joker can't manipulate his way out of this. The appropriate action when feeling trapped in a relationship, concerned that your partner is exerting too much control, is to talk to them and establish boundaries. Not to start eating anyone who dares approach the water at night.

Batman holds up the cadaver’s arm. This is stupid. So very stupid. Alfred told him as much, Dick too.

You need to bring him in. This is the time. Or else, more civilians will be forfeit...

Batman knows that. He knows. But he still can’t help but hope...

“I’ll bring you a whole body,” he says, gruffly. ��Once a week. That should be more than enough. And no more people go missing in the harbour.”

“Sure,” agrees Joker. He’s smiling again. Batman doesn’t like it one bit.

But what can he do?

More than this, whispers a little voice in the back of his head. Batman drives it away.

He passes the arm to Joker - not tossing it, because Joker isn’t an animal in a cage, no matter his delusions. Though that could be doubted, watching him eat. His eyes go utterly blank, nothing in them but hunger as he unhinges his jaw and tears the limb apart, swallowing it in two devastating bites.

Not a pleasant sight. Still, Batman refuses to look away.

“Now,” says Joker when he’s finished eating, wiping the gore on the back of his hand. It leaves a vermillion smear, rudely bright in the pale glow of the flashlight. “Not that I don’t appreciate the UberEats service, but - hey, wait. Have you seen the one about the hot stepson and the UberEats driver?”

“Is this the set-up to a joke?”

“A porno,” Joker explains, shuffling closer again. Batman can smell blood and rotten human meat on his breath. “I thought we could improve on it. I mean, I’m like, freakishly flexible now and there’s some new moves I wanna try - and I reckon the ol’ PornHub’s missing out on the ‘mutant freak’ category. You gotta anticipate the market on these things.”

Batman lets the rambling wash over him. Somehow, despite the bleached skin decorating Joker’s face and torso, the smatterings of amethyst scales on his legs, his lips are still bright red. It’s not just the blood. Physical markings, from the acid that birthed him. Nature’s venemous warning signs.

“Promise me,” he whispers. “No more bodies.”

Joker rolls his eyes like he can’t believe he’s being this boring, and presses his cold, damp lips to Bruce’s. The kiss of a drowned thing, dredged from the harbour floor.

“No more bodies,” he singsongs. “I’ll eat all the evidence, next time. Even though beard hairs get stuck between my teeth. The things I do for you, darling...”

Batman tenses. “Joker...”

But the monster’s already crawled into his lap, kissing him hard and just a touch too toothy, arms locked around his neck and legs around his waist, squirming against him like it wants to burrow inside his ribcage and wrap itself around his heart. Iron fills Batman’s mouth, painted over his tongue by the Joker’s. He wonders, if he nicked his lip on one of those sharp teeth, whether Joker would be able to control himself, or if the feeding frenzy would take over.

He wonders if Joker would mourn, if it did.

But though the night is cold, Joker is colder. Though the stink rolls off the harbor, the death on Joker’s breath is worse. He’s Gotham’s ugliest parts condensed into one monster. He’s killed before and he’ll kill again. He’s in Bruce’s arms, in his mind, in his blood. Permeating him like poisoned water.

Batman kisses him back. He holds him tight as a straitjacket and tries not to think of tomorrow.

[austerulous]

◈   @vaqro said:   ❛ [ massage ] sender gives receiver a massage ( planned, spontaneous, full body, shoulder, etc ) [ for hanzo ] ❜  // nonverbal meme prompts.

In retrospect, he could not say what possessed him.  Perhaps it was simply curiosity.  Maybe it was the saké that warmed the hollow peach-pit of his stomach, or the ache that took root in his shoulders.  His body’s way of voicing complaint, showing its age in creaking joints and clenched muscles, pleading for the compassion that Hanzo vehemently denied himself – but not this time.

Consent had been granted in a solemn nod, and Cole had widened his seated stance, making room for Hanzo to sit on the floor before him.  Hanzo settled there cross-legged, statuesque beneath his sentinel, hands resting on the spread peaks of his knees.  Tight with visible tension, growing tighter still as thumbs rose and fell against the column of his neck, tracing the outline of his spine.  Cole’s cybernetic fingertips were smooth, warmer than he had expected, gentle as those built from blood and bone.

As he worked, Cole spoke about everything and nothing.  His voice was all cigar smoke and honeysuckle, rough and melodic in the same breath.  At last, a pin in the tensity.  It bled away by degrees, in a slow softening.  Lulled by that drawled cadence, Hanzo tipped his head forwards, wordlessly inviting thumbs to climb higher, to rise beyond the dark tideline of his hair and draw lazy circles at the base of his skull.

It was a sleepy and meditative feeling, focusing on those simple points of contact, on how the gunslinger moved his hands.  No longer consciously muzzling his responsiveness, Hanzo’s breathing levelled, his eyes growing heavy with the mounting desire to close – heavy with mounting desire.  Perhaps this encouraged Cole. His touch sank, beckoned beneath the collar of Hanzo’s shirt to soothe all he could reach of his shoulders, loosening knots with his diligent kneading.  Here lay the source of the archer’s strength, here lay the leaden heart of his strain.  

Lips parted in a soft, pleasure-pain hiss as fingers pressed into a particularly tender spot.  It was then that Cole bent his broad body, mantling the archer, bringing his mouth closer to the helix of Hanzo’s ear.  Liquor-stained breath beat hot and sweet as the cowboy’s shadow swallowed the archer whole: That doin’ it for you?

“It is… soothing.”

A retort as weak as water.  Hanzo could almost feel the smirk that pulled on Cole’s lips.

A rich chuckle rumbled out of the cowboy as he returned to his ministrations.  Gently, he untied the ribbon that held Hanzo’s hair in place.  It fell in a shining curtain, sleek as a raven’s wing.  Fingertips lost themselves in that dark tide in search of his scalp, gliding through the fuzz of his salt-and-pepper undercut to rub at his temples, then the joint of his jaw.  

Suddenly, the intimacy felt scorching.  In the black matter of his own mind, it seemed to Hanzo there was a shift in Cole’s touch, that something hungry lent its weight.  A taste, licked from the flat side of a knife, of what it would be like to fuck him – to be fucked by him.  All exquisite, exploratory touches and tenderness and care, a hand tightening into a fist in his hair.  As though he hoped to hide from the shame of such thoughts, Hanzo finally allowed his eyes to close.

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present The Paste Papers of the Golden Hind Press by James H. Fraser. Designed, printed, and bound by Leonard E. Seastone at The Tideline Press and co-published by the Fairleigh Dickinson University Library in an edition of 70 copies. The hand-set type is Butti & Novarese’s Nova Augustea Trump Mediaeval printed on dampened, hand-made Fabriano Pace paper. The book features tipped in examples of paste papers made in the 1930s that were used for decorative bindings by the Golden Hind Press, the private press of Arthur W. Rushmore. It is signed by the paste paper artist, Arthur’s daughter Delight Rushmore Lewis.

James H. Fraser wrote:

“The use of paste papers to cover productions of the Golden Hind Press (GHP) of Madison, New Jersey, the subject of these few pages, followed the usual pattern of discovery, experiment, and application. Arthur and Edna Rushmore and their two daughters, Delight and Elaine, shared varying degrees of responsibility in the printing activity and operation of a 24” x 36” Washington hand press and a 14” x 17” acorn hand press of indeterminate manufacture which occupied corners of the spacious kitchen of their home, Fairview. In the period from the founding of the GHP in 1927 to its closing in 1955 this team produced more than two hundred books, broadsides, and leaflets. This period was also Arthur Rushmore’s most active time with Harper & Brothers, where he was chief of production and design from 1922 and became a director of the firm in 1942. (Rushmore joined Harpers in 1904 and retired in January 1950.)”

View more Fine Press Friday posts.

–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[abbyschoolman]

Last month I went to New Orleans to take part in the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) “Booksellers Showcase” at the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) conference. I was fortunate enough to be one of 40 ABAA booksellers participating. For more about the conference, and upcoming ABAA events, just follow the link below.

https://www.abaa.org/blog/post/2018-rbms

While there I featured an eclectic selection of contemporary art bookbindings, artist’s books, fine press, and pop-ups. Click here for my recent catalogs, including what I brought to RBMS.

Among the artists I showcased at RBMS were bookbinder Gabrielle Fox  and printer Leonard Seastone of Tideline Press. Definitions in the book arts can be fuzzy: Fox sometimes prints and Seastone personally binds most of his Tideline Press work.

Fox’s miniature, Haiku and Other Poems , a limited edition printed by her in gold on Japanese tissue, is one of only three copies specially bound by Fox and happens to be her personal copy. The book is housed in a matching box decorated with a triangular “button” made from Kentucky agate adorned with a pink topaz set in gold. Signed by both Fox and the jeweler, Dennis Meade, it is a precious gem itself.

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The lovely recent collaboration on Ann Muir, Master Marbler is also a miniature. Printed by Seastone, the book was designed by Fox, Seastone, and collector/publisher Neale Albert. This tiny treasure was bound in a unique binding by Gabrielle Fox exclusively for Abby Schoolman Books and is a rare opportunity to own a collaboration by two contemporary book arts masters.

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Leonard Seastone’s interpretation of Ronald Baatz’s poem The Invisible Fly buzzes with interpretive interest, and has been lauded in Parenthesis 33 (the journal of the Fine Press Book Association) by David Esselmont, who said it “simply sizzles.”

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The collection of poems The Delicate Work of Song, also by Ronald Baatz, features ideograms by Guyang Chen. Michael McClintock, President of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, calls Ronald Baatz a “master…in the high art of the short poem.” Seastone’s printing and binding is just as masterful. The boards of Seastone’s binding are quarter sewn old growth Red Cedar, hand fashioned by him to accept the visible leather sewing supports. Lovingly beveled, waxed, and varnished, the boards glow with warmth.

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Seastone’s MFA thesis project, Good Movies, was prominently displayed, too. Seastone describes Good Movies in cinematic terms; its large size mirrors the silver screen, and the reader participates in creating a film noir by turning the page. This oversized book was bound for Seastone by Jack Fitterer in 1988 using Seastone’s prints as the board covering material.

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The blog is back with Eye Candy: Gabrielle Fox and Leonard Seastone #bookbinding #printing #bookfairs #booksforsale #eyecandy #AbbySchoolmanBooks #gabriellefox #leonardseastone #tidelinepress @NYBookGeek Last month I went to New Orleans to take part in the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) “Booksellers Showcase” at the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) conference.

[pugoata]

"How's your hand?" Blake asks, leaning against the countertop. Yang's pajamas are-- predictably-- big on her, and the collar of the t-shirt is a little off-center, revealing a hint of clavicle that Yang definitely doesn't stare at.

"I got off easy," Yang replies cheerfully. She holds it up, waving it once. "Before long, I'll be good as new."

Blake raises an eyebrow. She looks a little more alive than she had during the Uber ride, a little more light flickering back into her eyes. The shock must be abating slightly, and Yang's heart loosens a little, untangling a knot of anxiety she hadn't realized had even been there. Blake would be okay.

"Will it need stitches?" she asks, frowning, stepping closer to see the supplies Yang had pulled out.

"Nah," Yang replies with a shake of her head. She unravels the bandages, pressing the end of it against the wound. Keeping it in place will be tricky, but she knows how to be creative with bandaging. "I just need to be careful with it for a few days, and it'll heal on its own."

"I see," Blake says doubtfully, watching Yang press her hand and the bandage against the countertop, holding it in place as she maneuvers the roll around her hand. "Do you need help?"

"I got it," Yang says dismissively. At the same time, she lifts up her thumb, meaning to catch the new part of the bandage underneath it, but all she manages to do is lose the part she's holding down. The bandages unravel from around her hand, and she groans, frustrated.

"Clearly," Blake says, and, to Yang's surprise, a tired, unguarded smile curls on her lips. A small smile, but it's there nonetheless. Seeing it, Yang finds herself smiling, too. "Just wrapping it up?"

"Yeah," Yang says, resigned. She holds out her hand, and Blake takes it.

[homebody-nobody]

touch me someone

HIIIII it’s your favorite fic writer back from the dead with TWO whole fics real close together maybe I’ll finally become a consistent publisher?!? we can dream. Anyway. JJ and Kiara are my new Bellamy and Clarke I guess so enjoy this VERY angsty smutty hurt/comforty poetic nonsense the idea for which would not leave my brain til I wrote it. Please for the love of god read this bc I actually kind of love it and need validation or concrit or literally any feedback at all bc my none of my irl friends like this show so pls interact/comment 

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ao3

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He pulls away from her, and his eyes are wide but dry as his chest heaves. He looks wild, uncaged and raw, the moonlight turning his blond hair white and his blue eyes into pools of silver. Tragedy and shock have destroyed him, the chains he’d wrapped around his brash, heedless, unending want twisted into shards by an explosion of hurt and grief. He has always been the victim, the boy left behind in empty rooms with nothing but loss and bloody fragments, told to piece himself back together. Finally, they’ve taken the last thing. When he told John B they had nothing to lose, they still had each other. And now, he doesn’t even have that.

But she’s still here.

--------------------

Touch me someone 

I’m too young to feel so

numb, numb, numb, numb 

You could be the one to 

Make me feel somethin, somethin. 

The Phantom went down around 8:30 PM. Or maybe 10:30. Kiara doesn’t remember. She only knows that the hours between then and now have felt like a lifetime and also no time at all. Like she’ll turn and John B will be there, behind her shoulder, laughing at something JJ said, Sarah hanging off his arm; but also like the world is dark and will be dark and has been dark forever. Like the sun will never rise after this. Like the storm took the light and heat from the world just like it took her best friend. 

Later, she’ll learn that John B’s official time of death is listed as 8:34 PM, when they stopped trying to establish radio contact with him and Sarah. Later, she’ll watch news stories about the manhunt for Rafe Cameron and the scandal of Ward Cameron’s property being left to his second wife, rather than his remaining daughter. Later, she’ll get an email from an internet cafe in Bermuda and her whole world will flip upside down one more time. 

But now, she is laying in her four-poster bed, watching the ceiling fan lazily trawl the same, tired circle, listening to the pull-chain tap not-quite-silently against the glass fixture. Now, her hair still damp from the shower that her mother made her take, eyes stinging from sharp wind and tears not yet shed, the inside of her mouth shredded and sore from the hours she spent chewing on her lips, the world is too quiet, too peaceful. The crickets outside sing soft and gentle, just like they have every night her whole life, and the texture of her comforter, the quiet harmony of the night, the soft click and whoosh of the fan -- it all feels so chokingly familiar, like spiralling back down to earth after spending weeks dipping in and out of orbit. 

She wants to scream until her throat is raw, sob and fight and unleash herself on every single adult that hurt John B, that brushed him off or refused to help or wouldn’t listen to him. She wants to gut Ward Cameron for ripping everything away from John B, first his father, and then the gold that was his by right. The gold that was theirs. She wants to rip off Rafe’s skin piece by piece until he’s in shreds at her feet. She wants to eviscerate his father with the same gaff hook he used to rip apart those two mainlanders and ruin John B’s life. She’s so full of hurt and grief and anger that her fists keep clenching white-knuckled in her blankets and she wants to bring down the sky itself. But at the same time, she’s haunted by that same emptiness that followed her after Sarah’s childish betrayal, like she’s watching it all from the outside. 

She can’t sleep. She won’t. Sleep is just an escape, a place to forget, and she’ll have to wake up and remember what happened all over again, remember the rush of hope and the hours of adrenaline and apprehension that ended in a tragedy none of them could have ever predicted. What child foretells death? 

Rolling over, she presses her face into her pillow, smothering herself until her lungs force her to turn her head for air. She opens her eyes, no less heavier than they were hours ago. Her throat tightens like tears are about to well up, to spill over and stain her sheets, but they don’t come. Itchy and claustrophobic, she throws back the sheets and paces over the smooth boards of her room, bare feet making soft noises over the lacquered wood. She has to get out, to make sure that she didn’t dream up the whole goddamn thing. 

She dresses quickly, throwing on denim cutoffs and an old drug rug that cycled its way through at least two of the boys’ wardrobes before landing in hers. She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t know what she needs, but she throws her wallet, her charger, a flashlight, and her water bottle in her beat up backpack, and, on second thought, a toothbrush and some deodorant. She picks up her keds and tiptoes down the stairs, avoiding the creaky eighth stair. 

The key rack is empty, and, chastising herself for believing her parents would leave the car keys out after everything she’d pulled in the last few days, she rocks on her heels, assessing her options. The most prudent one is probably just to go back to bed, given the usual risks of going out at night as a teenage girl, the massive punishment that looms in her future, and, now, the lack of a vehicle. But the thought of returning to her stale room, skin crawling and mind racing at a standstill, makes the decision for her. She slips out the back door, making sure to catch the screen door before it slams, and digs out her bike from next to the garage. The tires could use air and the gears are misaligned, but it still rides, and it’ll get her… somewhere else. 

Her original intention is to go to Pope’s house, mostly because it’s closest, but then she thinks about how she kissed him earlier that afternoon -- and God, was that just this afternoon? There’d be implications, now. Showing up in the middle of the night, throwing pebbles at his window -- it would mean something. So she stands up on the pedals and pushes past his street, floating like jetsam through the night. 

She ends up heading for the chateau, which is where she was going all along. After her family moved to the outskirts of figure eight just before high school, it was the only place that felt like home anymore. She cruises deep into the cut, where even the smell of the air changes, from freshly mowed grass and chlorinated in-ground pools to gasoline and oil, rotting seaweed and the salt marsh. 

The little house sits in the reeds, ramshackle and welcoming as ever, tired and reaching under the moon. It’s empty and forlorn, alone on the edge of the edge, out past the main cluster of the cut, pushed past the tideline, separated from the rest of the flotsam by a freak wave. The Routledge boys never fit in, even with the outcasts, and they made their home like they knew it. Skidding to a stop in the gravel driveway, the sting of tiny rocks against her bare ankles is the only thing she’s really felt in hours. Her heart picks up, skipping over itself as her memory stumbles over all the years seeping out of the wind-weathered boards and the sinking foundation. 

Again, it feels like this would be a moment for tears, like the sight of John B’s house, the memory of Big John’s booming laugh and all the bonfire-scented nights on that sagging porch should mean enough to make something in her crack, to finally shatter the glass walls of shock and let the grief come pouring in. But it doesn’t. She just stares up at the chateau, one part of her aching for the ease of a found family she’ll never get back, the other dreading the fate of the little house. 

The breeze changes directions as she stares up at the rickety shutters and holey screens, bringing with it the tinny sound of music played out of a cell phone in a solo cup, a noise she knows well. Her stomach drops to the hard-packed dirt, crashing there with her bicycle and sending up a cloud of dust. Maybe John B survived. Maybe he made it back to shore, and he’s laying low, doing that stupid, chivalrous thing he does, trying to protect them by not letting them know. Maybe he’s out by the shed in that old metal lawn chair, Sarah in his lap, exhausted and defeated and alive. But as she gets closer, the moonlight glints off tawny waves crusted with sweat and salt, and the momentary, wild hope crashes and ebbs away from the shore. 

JJ hears her, of course, sitting up in the hammock and turning toward the sound of her flat-soled sneakers slapping the dirt. “Hey,” he says, his expressive face, for once, inscrutable. 

“Hey,” she says, slightly out of breath from the sprint. “I thought you were…” she trails off, because he knows. Because he’s the only one in the whole world who can look at her and understand the cathedral dreams and vaulted memories crashing down in her chest. 

“I’m not,” he says, an answer that belies more than either of them knows. JJ gets this look, when he’s seconds away from doing something particularly concerning (and usually criminal). Manic energy lights up in his blue eyes, burning anywhere from mischief to stubborn determination to full-tilt rage. The well-developed muscles in his shoulders and arms refuse to relax, and his hands get so fidgety they lose the coordination it takes to flip the zippo lighter between long, practiced fingers. His face fights with itself, half already spitting with well-steeped anger, the other tired, and broken, and grieving. 

“I noticed,” she responds.  She drops her bag on one of the metal folding chairs, dooming it to a coating of flaky, faded paint. Crossing the grass, hoping her broad strides will disguise the rattling breath in her chest, the shake in her hands, she moves to sit next to him in the hammock, and he shifts his weight to allow her. 

There’s no verbal communication, no squabble about personal space or indignant demands she find her own seat. There never is, not with her boys. The Pogues. It seems so silly now, hiding behind that name for themselves, a name she’d never really belonged to, anyway. He’s holding a lit joint in one hand, a bottle dangling from the other, and he offers her one while swigging from the other. The old favorites of a Maybank in crisis. She takes it. 

He falls back next to her, sending the hammock swinging as he gazes up at the stars. Sarah had known the most about constellations, of the five of them, but JJ knows a fair amount, too, some of the only memories of his mother the nights when she would hold him under the stars, tracing the designs across the sky, her hand wrapped around his tiny one. His eyes keep drifting off the sky and landing on Kiara, eyes distant, bathed in moonlight. 

“He’s not dead,” JJ says, surprising himself as much as her. He sits up, and she follows. He stares at his feet for a while, and she thinks about putting her arms around him.  “I --” he picks his head up to look at her and stops, voice stolen by the hope in her eyes. “I’d feel it,” he finishes lamely, and watches the spark die. 

“The first stage of grief is denial,” she says, and it’s supposed to be at least slightly lighthearted, but it falls cruelly to the crabgrass. 

“You sound like Pope,” he counters, and there’s too much weight to that name to throw it around for long. They’re both thinking of Kiara kissing him, and the memory is pleasant to neither. 

She doesn’t really know why she did that. Maybe it’s because he’s everything she’s supposed to want, intelligence and ambition and ingenuity, everything she tells herself is important in a guy. Maybe because he’s in love with her. Maybe because she’s definitely in love with one of her best friends, and he’s the one who makes sense. She takes another hit and hands the blunt back to JJ. 

“I’d know,” he repeats, and she knows it’s not her he’s trying to convince. He lays back in the hammock, putting the blunt between his lips and dragging deep before tilting his head back and blowing the smoke into the tumultuous night. She looks back over her shoulder, watching his jaw and the movement of his throat as he exhales. Laying back next to him, she tries not to think about the warmth of his skin against hers, the strength of the body pressed to her side. It’s only JJ, the same reckless, stupid asshole who carried that damn pistol everywhere all summer and has a talent for getting into trouble. He’s not giving her butterflies with his proximity, and she’s not thinking about reaching down and lacing her fingers through his. 

Eventually, JJ flicks the roach into the darkness and stands as quickly as he can without tipping Kiara out of the hammock. She starts, not realizing she was dozing on his shoulder until it’s gone. “It’s late,” he says. 

She stands as well, tucking her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt as he kicks at the dirt. “I don’t --” she starts, and the hesitation makes him stop his nervous movement, meeting her eyes. “I don’t want to go home.” He opens his mouth to say something, but she interrupts him. “I can’t go home.” 

“Okay,” he says, after a second. He doesn’t want to be alone, either. She nods, and walks past him, picking up her bag. He follows her up to the house, and they stop at the foot of the stairs to the porch, staring at the buzzing light. JJ takes a stuttering inhale Kiara pretends not to hear, and he goes up the stairs first, wrapping a shaking hand the handle to the screen door. He pauses before going in, frozen, and it isn’t until she lays her hand on his shoulder that he summons the courage to push the door open. 

They knew the place was going to be tossed, but it still hurts Kiara and kills JJ, to see the overturned table and scattered papers, the couch cushions scattered on the floor and the coffee table flipped. He tries to shuffle backwards, to run from the sharp, fresh grief and the deep, familiar ache of loss and violation, but Kie is in the way, and when he turns to escape she catches him, her arms around his shoulders, his clutched around her waist. “I can’t --” he chokes, his face pressed to her neck, “It’s not --” his breath speeds up, his shoulders shaking. “They --” 

“I know,” she says, swallowing down tears, herself, in that same small voice from the night in the hot tub. She knew JJ was broken, on that deep, fundamental level that, intellectually, she could conceptualize, but she could never feel. But that night, seeing the bruises on his ribs, damning as fingerprints, the ghost of his pain, the whisper of breath knocked out and the brush of betrayal, turned her chest inside out. This feels the same way, watching him lose the last shred of some semblance of home to the same kind of mindless anger and selfish authority that claimed the first one. “I know.” 

He pulls away from her, and his eyes are wide but dry as his chest heaves. He looks wild, uncaged and raw, the moonlight turning his blond hair white and his blue eyes into pools of silver. Tragedy and shock have destroyed him, the chains he’d wrapped around his brash, heedless, unending want twisted into shards by an explosion of hurt and grief. He has always been the victim, the boy left behind in empty rooms with nothing but loss and bloody fragments, told to piece himself back together. Finally, they’ve taken the last thing. When he told John B they had nothing to lose, they still had each other. And now, he doesn’t even have that. 

But she’s still here. “Kie…” he breathes. She opens her mouth to reassure him again, but then his hands are on her face and he’s kissing her, deep and rough and desperate. She bursts into flame underneath him, paralysis broken, stupefaction overcome, as the glass walls she’s been watching through crack and shatter at her feet. JJ’s hands wrap around the back of her neck and spread across the small of her back, pushing her up against the door, and she twists her hands into his shaggy, sun-streaked hair. Every desperate question is met with his touch, and she chases it, even as he pulls away in horrified shock. 

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Fuck, Kie, I’m so sorry --” He tries to shove himself away from her at the instant she curls her fists in his shirt, and it almost rips as she pulls and he slams back into her. Teeth clash and noses bump and it’s not perfect or soft or loving, but passion born from desperation and terror of what it would mean to stop. Putting his hands on the door on either side of her face, he pushes himself off of her, even as she tries to yank him back. “What are we doing?” he asks, in a voice that won’t like the answer. 

“JJ,” she gasps, pushing her fingers back up to tangle in blond, salt-sticky waves. “Shut up.” Pulling his mouth back down on top of hers, she gasps into him as his hands come down and frame her ribs, one of his arms sliding around her waist and the other pushing back up into her hair. 

“Don’t you think --” he tries, even as he leans over her, their breathing ragged, his knuckles white in her impossibly soft curls. His forehead is pushed to hers and he can’t pull away any farther, sucked into her gravitational field, helpless to it. 

“I don’t want to think,” she insists. “I want this, I need this,” This momentary pause is already too long, and if he stops kissing her, stops touching her, the tears she’s been holding back will crash over her and they won’t stop. The dark room is loud with heavy breathing as she catches the scent of him, salt and sweat and smoke. “I need you.” 

His grip falters and the momentary relaxation has her pressing herself against him. “Are you sure?” he asks, and this is a choice, now. This isn’t something that either of them can pawn off as a mistake made in the heat of a desperate moment. He wants this, has wanted it, ever since he met her, but he won’t be a decision half-made, won’t take advantage of vulnerability only to become a regret. He’s giving her a way out, knows her pragmatic nature and her anxious need for well-thought plans. He wants her to think, even if she’s desperate not to. 

He’s right, when he almost never is, but she knows that if she waits too long or lets in the doubt that expects her, she will break. “JJ,” she gasps, “Please.” His name, she knows, he can’t resist, not when paired with urgent pleading, and in this way, she makes her choice. He surrenders to her. 

They fall onto the creaky pullout, still set up from JJ’s most recent stay, not minding the sheets and blankets wrought asunder by the angry police search. He can’t let go of her, his hands pushing up her sweatshirt, dragging over her sides and up her thighs, tangling in her hair like he’s drinking her in with his touch, intoxicated with the smell of peach in her hair and the taste of sweat on her skin. Kiara lets herself get lost in him, ride the wave of desire pushing through her, moans and gasps when he hits the right spots and closes her eyes as he lifts her shirt over her head and attaches his lips to her neck, his hands finally coming up to cover her tits, and the long careful fingers she’d spent so many afternoons watching prove adept at twisting and pinching her nipples and leaving her begging for him. 

She almost rips his t-shirt off, pulling his bare chest against her own and letting the feeling of skin on skin light her up, setting fireworks off behind her eyelids. Wrapping one hand around the arm holding him up, she can feel his teeth on her neck, and she knows he’s leaving marks, and, for once, it doesn’t feel like she’s being claimed. She knows what it is -- proof this is happening, that they’re alive and feeling and crashing together again and again. She sinks her nails into his bicep as his fingers skim below the waistband of her shorts, and feels him smirk against her lips. 

“Yeah?” he asks, and the teasing in his voice is tortuous and reminiscent of his old, humorous self, just enough to make her sad for a moment, and when she nods quickly in return, it’s a bid to forget that sadness. His fingers flick open the button of her shorts and as his fingers dip lower, the only thing she can think about, the only thing she can feel, is his touch, his all-consuming presence, radiating heat. The bastard takes his time, her only gratification the press of him against her hip, hot and hard. He teases her through her underwear, and she can’t say she doesn’t enjoy it, arcing into his touch, shocks of pleasure building in incredible anticipation, but he’s going too slow, and he’s wearing too many clothes, still, and the intense want gnawing at her has too much potential to turn into grief. 

“Would you just --” she grunts against his mouth, cut off on a moan as he presses his fingers against her clit. “Fucking -- ah,” he works slow, hard, circles, enjoying himself as she tries to form sentences with his hands on her. “Fuck me already!” Because even this can’t be easy, not between the two of them. Because she’ll always be fighting with him, even with her bare chest pressed against his and his hand down her pants. 

JJ grins, scraping his teeth over her ear. “What,” he says, still teasing, still bittersweet, as he finally pushes his hand into her underwear, “aren’t you enjoying this?” Slowly, much too slowly, his fingers part the lips of her cunt, pressing down over her clit before finding the wetness further down. JJ practically growls as his middle finger dips between her folds and he finds her soaked, dropping his forehead against the forearm braced above her head. “Fuck, Kie,” he moans, and he can’t disguise the wasted crack in his voice. “God, you’re so fucking wet.” He’s already drunk on her, every new sensation dragging him deeper.  

“Your fault,” she stutters as he puts his hands, lean and strong and practiced, to good use, dragging slick fingertips back up to her clit and teasing small circles, rough, calloused skin creating delicious friction. And this -- this is what she was so desperate for, to feel only his touch and the way he pushes her higher, closer to an edge far away from the bleak grief of their every day world. He moans, too, as he dips his middle finger into her and she keens into his mouth, and she’s not thinking anymore, only chasing heat and skin and pleasure, the rest of the night foggy and distant, moonlit and blurred. 

She doesn’t even know how much time passes before he’s kissing his way down her body, only that he’s fucked her so well with his hands he has three fingers inside her and she’s asking for more. He pulls his hand away and she lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched noise at the loss of contact, only to end on a gasp when she opens her eyes to see that he has his fingers curled around the waistband of her shorts and his face is hovering near her hips, pupils blown wide as he looks up at her. He asks her something, but blood rushes in her ears as her heart pounds and her chest heaves and it isn’t until his tongue darts out to wet his lips that she realizes what he’s saying. 

“Fuck, yes, please,” she whines, and it feels like less than instant before her shorts are on the floor and his head is between her legs, his tongue on her clit, and she screams, pushing her hands into his hair as his mouth launches her higher and keeps her there, wave upon wave crashing over her until her legs are shaking, and when she feels the pull deep in her stomach and he takes half a second to breathe, she has enough presence of mind to yank him back up, slamming his lips down onto hers, tasting herself there. 

“Inside me,” she gasps, ragged and raw and scraping. “Now.” 

“But you haven’t --” he breathes, and she reaches down, shoving past the waistband of the shorts he’s still wearing, her hand on his cock stopping him dead. 

“Now,” she repeats. And then, leans up to kiss him, slightly softer than before, as if in apology for being so rough, but more as a distraction as her hands unbutton his shorts and shove them down his thighs, her hands finding him again and stroking his cock until he’s gasping into her mouth. “Unless,” she says between short kisses, trying to keep her tone light, even as her cunt aches for him. “You changed your mind?” 

He scrambles out of his shorts and boxers so fast it’s almost funny, but the laugh falls out of her chest as he braces his forearms on either side of her face, pushing her hair back from her forehead and looking at her so carefully it almost hurts. “I don’t have a condom,” he says, uncharacteristic worry trembling in his voice. 

“I’m clean,” she says, her hands reaching up to tangle in his hair once more, to ground her, and disguise their shaking. “You?” 

He nods. “What about --” 

“I have an IUD,” she says, more grateful than ever for her liberal mother and her own presence of mind. 

He licks his lips again, eyes dropping to her mouth before flicking back up to her eyes. “Last chance,” he says, like she’s going to change her mind and push him off of her, run off into the night and leave him here, disgraced and embarrassed. “Still sure?” he asks, like he’s expecting her to say no. She nods without hesitation, caught in his blue eyes, turned cobalt in the half-light. He kisses her one more time, and it’s laden with years of things he hasn’t said, and she surges up with urgency, not ready for the tenderness in his touch. JJ tries to slow her down again, to revel in the moment of bare skin and vulnerability, no matter how guarded it may be, but she reaches down, wrapping her hand around his dick, guiding him closer to her, and he’s falling into her touch, into her orbit, helpless. 

She draws him inside her, his forehead dropping to her shoulder with a forsaken, heavy breath. It’s too soft, this moment before he moves, too easy to break, every sense on fire. The air is too close to her skin, too tight around her arms, like she could rip the fabric of it with the barest movement. She wants to be lost in him again, to feel separate, far away and floating above herself, not so torturously in her body, JJ trembling and present above her. “JJ,” she says, opening her eyes to find his, a split-second mistake, the next word hitching on its way out of her chest. “Move.” 

He does, mercifully lowering his face to press against her neck, the eye contact too substantial, too burdensome to hold. The bubble surrounding them expands as he works her up to that blissful edge with ease, his mouth letting out a stream of filthy words about how good she feels surrounding him. Closing her eyes, she tilts her head back, letting her hands have free reign over his back, his shoulders, his arms and up into his hair, every place she wants to touch him when she watches his ridiculous muscles ripple under his young, tan skin. He shifts his weight, hooking her knee over his hip so his cock hits exactly the right spot with every thrust, and she cries out, racing higher. 

She should have expected that JJ likes to run his mouth -- she only catches parts of what he’s saying, things like ‘so fucking hot’ and ‘sound so fucking good’ and ‘so fucking wet for me’ and as her moans increase in pitch and volume, he growls ���c’mon, Kie, cum for me,” and she falls apart. He fucks her through the aftermath and she barely knows what noises are coming out of her mouth, her nails digging angry welts in his back. Just when she thinks she can’t take anymore, he tenses and spills inside her on a half-broken sigh. 

Her vision sharpens as he rolls off of her, collapsing on the squeaky bedsprings, and the house is too quiet all of a sudden, the air once again too close. Her breath slows, the sweat cooling on her skin in the soft breeze pushing through the wooden walls, the still-open front door. Neither of them says anything, and Kiara can feel him looking at her, his blown out smile too loud in the fallout. She sits up, almost flinching at the light touch of his fingers on his spine when he picks up a strand of her hair. “I’m gonna pee,” she says, finding her underwear and pulling them on, and then, after half a moment, pulling his discarded t-shirt over her head. 

Her head echoes as she steps over the scattered mess to get to the bathroom, like she’s walking through a tunnel. Her legs ache and tremble, and she wraps her arms around herself, numb and falling. She fights tears as she washes her hands. The bathroom is, as always, a deplorable mess, products everywhere and hair all over the sink. Her green bikini top is still on the floor from when she’d forgotten it just the other day, and that girl feels impossibly far from the one staring at herself in the mirror, wearing her best friend’s shirt while he’s naked in the next room. There’d be shame, and guilt, too, if the smell of John B’s deodorant didn’t choke her with overwhelming loss. Bracing her hands on either side of the sink, she can’t hold it back anymore, and sobs spill out of her, harsh and echoing in the small space. 

JJ is behind her an instant, half-dressed in basketball shorts and drawing her into his arms, tucking her close to him, her tears hot on his skin. “He’s gone,” she whimpers. “He’s really gone.” He doesn’t say anything, just guides her back to the pullout and straightens the blankets enough for her to fall in. She curls up on her side, crying so hard she can’t breathe, and he climbs in across from her, pushing one arm under her neck and using the other to pull her against him, his lips pressed to her forehead. 

Tears leak out of his own eyes, silent and soft to her earth-shattering grief. “It’s gonna be okay,” he reassures her, fighting the quiver in his own voice, his chin shaking with the effort of it. He stares into the empty darkness above her head, every jerk of her prone body another crack in his breaking heart. “He’s coming back,” he says, more to himself than her. “He’s coming back to us.” 

When she finally quiets down, the betrayal of dawn is beginning to lighten the sky, the moon fading, and the idea of this night being over feels impossible. For a short while, they breathe each other in, her forehead pressed to his collarbones, his hand trailing up and down her spine. Her head aches and her eyelids fall heavy over gritty, exhausted eyes, but she still fights sleep, stubbornly resisting another day, the beginning of a life without John B and Sarah. “I can’t stay here,” she says, finally, pushing back from him. “I should go home.” 

He reaches up to catch her chin as she watches her hands curled close to his chest, reluctant to go. “Kie,” he murmurs, lifting her gaze to meet his. He moves forward to kiss her, and she flattens her palms against his skin, stopping him even as her eyes fall to his lips. 

“JJ,” she says, an exhale more than his name. “We -- I mean, I --” 

“Shit,” he sighs, and it almost sounds like a laugh, formed from expectations he wished hadn’t come true. “Okay.” His eyes flutter close, and she watches him draw back into himself, close all the doors, like he wants to turn off the lights and pretend he’s not even here. But then, he looks at her again, gently smoothing a curl behind her ear. “It’s just --” he starts, and inhales again, wetting his lips as he struggles to keep his eyes on her deep brown ones. “Can we go back to normal tomorrow?” Her eyebrows push together a fraction of an inch, and he focuses on the wrinkle there, a thousand times easier than holding her gaze. “Please,” he says when she inhales to say something. “I don’t want to be alone.” 

It’s the first time either of them have been completely honest all night, and the most he’s said in hours. “Yeah,” she says, agreeing without thinking. Making it about him instead of admitting to herself that she wants to stay, that she doesn’t want to be alone either. “Yeah, okay.” She allows herself to be kissed, to be held and kept softly. JJ twists his fingers in her curls, skims his lips over her hairline before pressing his forehead against hers. 

He tucks his hand against the side of her neck, his fingers spanning from her ear to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “It’s gonna be alright,” he promises, and they both pretend he’s saying it to her. She’s seen JJ cheerful and stubborn, breaking and angry, seen him a thousand different ways. But never like this, kind and soft, quiet in the grey, grieving dawn. Eventually, she falls asleep under his touch and reassuring whispers. 

The morning is just as sticky and unforgiving as every other that summer, and she wakes up damp and sticky with sweat. JJ is stretched out on his stomach, arms tucked under his head, mouth slack and hair falling over his eyes. Her head still hurts, and now so do her back and thighs, and she stretches her hand out across the rumpled sheets, tracing the red lines she’d left down his back. He blinks awake, closing his mouth and freezing when he feels her touch on his skin. 

“Hey,” she murmurs. 

“Hey,” he replies.

She waits for him to say something, but he just watches her, his clear blue eyes unflinching. She bites her lip. “I should get home,” she says, keeping her eyes on the knuckle tracing over his back, his gaze too heavy to hold. 

“Yeah,” he says, “okay.” Neither of them move. The world waits on a hair trigger, and JJ’s more familiar with this kind of silence than she is. She wants him to break it first, to be the impulsive hothead he always is, to make the choice for both of them. But he doesn’t, and the moment crumbles, and she sits up and goes in search of her clothes. 

He doesn’t say anything until she stoops to pick up her bag, sweatshirt in hand, ready to shove it into the biggest pocket. “Kie,” he says, and she stops dead, looking up at him. She doesn’t know what she wants him to say, but she deflates anyway when he just asks “my shirt?” 

She’d forgotten she was wearing it. Pulling it off, she feels his hungry eyes trace up her bare chest as she untangles the drug rug before pulling it down and arranging it around her hips. She tosses him the shirt, and he holds her gaze as he flips it right side out and tugs it on. They stand on either side of the disheveled living room, daring the other person to say something, move, do anything first. He knows what he wants, what he can’t have, what he’s convinced himself he never will. She remembers the line she drew, the boundary she’d very clearly set. He chooses to respect it while she waits for him to break the rules.

Birds sing in the unflinching morning, and a breeze stirs the hair around her face. She slings her backpack over her shoulder. The sun blazes as gulls call and waves lap against the dock. He tilts his chin back, like he always does just before a fight. She turns to go.

[yzareenxiv]

Midwinter (part 1)

-Several weeks ago-

An empty stretch of beach on the shore of Vylbrand just after dawn. Seabirds call high overhead. The waves roll in over the sand in a steady rhythm old as the star itself. The sea is a little rough, reflecting the pale blue of the clear sky. The beach has clumps of thick seaweed high up along the tideline that perfumes the air with salt even more strongly than the water itself.

It is an empty, lonely, beautiful vista. Aether gathers in a brief flash and a singular tall miqo'te woman joins the scene. She's not dressed for the chill and wraps her bare arms around her chest-wrap clad torso, rubbing briskly at her upper arms as her skin pricks into gooseflesh. High leather boots protect her legs, for the most part, though the shorts that cling to her curves don't help. She doesn't feel the cold for very long. She is her own source of heat, her skin radiating warmth that makes her fingers tingle as she rubs them along her arms. The fabric of her shorts and wrap, the leather of her boots aggravate her, even that bare minimum of clothing almost too much sensation if she allows herself to remain still long enough to notice it. Looking up and down the shore, then turning back to look into the greenery, her gold eyes examine the place that she has found herself with an intense curiosity. Rounded ears swivel and her nose twitches, nostrils flaring as she turns into the wind. Searching carefully, the woman walks up the beach, hopping over the line of seaweed and up to where the undergrowth of the jungle begins, still looking for...something. After another few moments of tense scanning, she finally relaxes with a big, relieved sigh.

Nothing but the sea, the sand, the sky, the birds above, and the flora.

Perfect.

Zareen tips her head back to turn her face to the sun, smiling at the simple sensation of warmth and the play of light over her closed eyelids. She stood there for a few moments, losing herself in the sensual, primal pleasures of cool breeze and warm sun before some inner drive made her lower her head again and look around to orient herself. There, the forked trunk. East. South. Leap up, catch the lowest branch, swing, fling herself through the air to land crouched on a half-fallen tree trunk, the dead wood held at a sharp angle where it came to rest against another tree when it fell. Running up the trunk in a half-crouch, hands brushing the bark and catching here and there when her feet slipped on patches of moss. As she reaches the apex of the trunk, she drops herself down onto her belly and reaches over the side, fishing in the hollow formed between the fallen tree and the one that braces it. There is a brief moment of alarm when she doesn't feel anything- then her fingers brush against the weather-proofed bundle and she lets out a sigh. Catching the strap on the pack, she hauls it out of the hollow, glances over the edge of the trunk to scan the area before dropping it. It lands with a muffled fwump and she follows it a moment later, leaping down from the high trunk and landing with a shoulder roll that throws herself back up to her feet.

Picking up the pack, the weightiness making her sway just a little, she heads back towards the beach with swift, strong strides. Looking up and down the shore again, ears perking forward then swiveling with something close to paranoia. Still empty. No hint of another Spoken on the breeze. She can't stay still for long or she becomes too aware of her body, of the way she is burning, the feel of fabric rubbing her skin, the painful, gnawing ache in her core. To stay clear-headed, she must keep moving and her feet carry her forward before she really consciously commands them to. Down to the tide-line and the huge clumps of seaweed. Dropping the bundle, she surveys the immediate area and begins to set to work. The seaweed is unpleasant against her skin and she grimaces, but the physical work helps to push the blazing fire that pulses in her with every heartbeat a little further back. Clump by clump, armful by armful, the Jaguar starts to clear a wide space along the tideline. The bells pass and she is forced to stop only when her throat burns with thirst. Opening the bundle, she pulls a full water-skin and a serving of trail rations from a smaller pack tucked inside the larger.

The water is warm, tepid, but it is perfect and she moans low when she tastes it. Her eyes flutter shut and she has to force herself to keep to only a few shallow sips before lowering the skin. Tearing a few bites from the antelope jerky, she wolfs down the food before dropping it on the bundle as well and glancing up to measure the time. The shortest day of the year, the sun is already nearly at it's peak and she's only half done. Pressing her lips together, she lets out a snort of frustration and runs her hands through her hair. Nothing for it but to do it, really, and though there is a sudden shiny-sharp spike of grief that lances through her heart at doing this alone, the Jaguar pushes herself back up to her feet to go back to clearing the space she needs.

The bells passed, the sun crawled higher, and Zareen worked as swiftly as she could until, at last, the sun reached it's zenith and the Jaguar's preparations bore their fruit; a huge circle of clean sand is cleared right at the tideline, with a triangular tower of wood forming the scaffolding for a bonfire in the center of it. Stepping back from placing the last bit of wood on the pile, she couldn't help but smile. It felt right, even if she had done it alone. Glancing up at the sun, then down at her shadow, she took off one of her upper-arm cuffs and removed her soulstone from it's setting. The prismatic stone caught the light and shimmered with colors across the surface and Zareen lifted it to her lips. Closing her eyes, she breathed over it and whispered, <"Come to my side, dance with me.">

The stone glowed in her palm and she moved back to the woodpile and crouched down, reaching in as far as she could to deposit the stone at the heart of it. Backing up several paces, she took a deep breath and focused. Her stone ignited, the tinder ignited, the wood ignited, and a plume of smoke and flame flared up into the clear blue sky in a burst of color and life and warmth. Her belly tightened, pleasure making her twitch as the chill wind brushed her back and the heat of the fire warmed her front and for a moment she stood there, eyes half-closing, reveling in the pleasures of the dual sensations. Giving a small shudder, her eyes opened once more and she turned back to the pack sitting on the sand, tail waving behind her in slow curves. There were more preparations to be done before night fell.

=======

The sea was aflame with sunset glory, the slightly cloudy sky above holding so many colors it made one's heart swell and ache at the same time. Zareen sat on the leather that had enfolded the pack, all of it's contents now placed in a wide circle around the fire, arcing to her left and right. The water-skin sat to her left and in her hands she held a jug of liquor, laced with hallucinogens. Nude, now, with the effort of clothing utterly abandoned, she had painted wild, swirling patterns across her skin in reds and golds so she shimmered in the shifting firelight. As the last sun's rays shone over the horizon, Zareen lifted the jug in a salute and let out a wild, ululating cry that rang over the empty beach, then took a long drink of the liquor, throat working as she swallowed a quarter of it's contents at a go. Setting the jug back in the sand, she waited- and waited- watching the shifting shadows of the fire grow as the sun finally sank into the waves and twilight descended.

Ears perked, swiveled, and bright gold eyes slowly closed. The lonely sands came alive with whisperings, murmurings, shiftings. A sudden sound of chiming bells. A quick bark of laughter. Voices speaking in a tongue nearly vanished from this star. It was all still indistinct but undeniably *present* and when her eyes opened they were *there*. A circle of family and friends- shimmering dream-shapes of all the people she loved, laughing and conversing, drinking and eating, their forms rising from the small artifacts and gifts that she had placed so carefully around the fire. The fallen Jaguar were the most numerous, the jewelry they had sent her away with glinting gold in the sand, firelight caught in the metal. But there were others- her Family, her friends, her lovers. Fallen and living alike. Summoned not in truth, but as she remembered them, as she saw them, beings of light drawn from the shadows.

Her memories, her magic, her love, brought them forth in shifting details that the drugs heightened and her heat heightened and her inner-self heightened until she was suddenly caught up in it, herself. She laughed and drank, watching Sarangerel arguing playfully with one of her Jaguar cousins. Her mother was deep in conversation with C'arha, the two speaking of combat styles, Ayanga and Dunrai and C'tolemy sat together with her cousins and her brothers as Grandmother spun them all a fanciful Jaguar tale of adventure, and men, and goddesses, A'sana and two of Zareen's sisters laughed and spoke brightly of raising cubs. Delesta was flexing for one of her aunties, an uncle ribbing the two women playfully. Bremwyda was telling a story about sky pirates to a fascinated audience that included Ganbaatar and Twi. Melody and Kaj and Grandfather were with the cubs- all of the cubs, those of the tribe and those of the Family, playing games of peek-a-boo and catch-the-tail. Siroh'a was singing, or telling a tale, though she could not quite make it out, and a small cluster of men and women listened. Across the fire, the furthest from her and nearly out of sight, a man with one blue eye and black hair watched the proceedings with a smile, though his figure was faded and the details were indistinct. The whole of the Jaguar, the whole of her Eorzean and Eastern family, past and present, brought together in an impossibility of time and space and understanding.

She sat, and drank, and watched, and listened, and celebrated. She laughed and argued and listened to the stories and told some of her own. She dined on jerky and tasted the myriad spices and flavors of all the places she had travelled. And the moon rose. And the stars shone. And even as she lost herself in the vision some internal sense was marking time.

The jug was empty. The moon was high overhead, at it's peak, and the assembly around the fire fell silent as all eyes turned to her. The waves crashed and the great bonfire crackled and burned and fell in upon itself in a huge shower of sparks that rose up and up and up and as she watched them glitter she heard the low, low sound of distant thunder. Grandfather picked up the sound, his voice so deep a bass she felt it in her chest. Then Grandmother. Then one by one, voices lifted and she did not know if she was hearing her family from this side of the River, or the other shore, or if it was the voices of her ancestors in her soulstone, or if it was the voice of the star, or if it was her own- but in a swell of sound she was lifted to her feet.

The Jaguar began to dance. Her voice, their voice, all voices, rose and fell in a song so ancient she could not have translated it, but she knew it's meaning. Praising the darkness in all it's forms- shelter and menace, magic and fear, the unknown drawn aside, the Mysteries, and the promise of rest. She sang of endings, of regrets, of tragedies. She sang of mourning. She sang of loss. She danced around the fire, weaving in and around the small trinkets that had anchored her visions, and as she danced and spun, as she stomped and leapt, as her body undulated, each person became a shimmer, a glow, wrapping around her figure and trailing her motions in shining afterimages of iridescent magnificence. She circled each item, gathering the memory, picking up the trinket, placing it on her body, then moving to the next. In towards the fire, out towards the darkness, weaving between the two as the wind began to gust across the beach and the rising tide crept closer to that bastion of light.

The first revolution complete, her body adorned with jewelry and hair pieces and trails of light and memory, the Jaguar danced faster, kicking up sand and seawater as her motions became more violent, more powerful. Her song continued, full of fire and storm, blood and bone, the clashing of bodies, the clattering of weapons, the song of steel. She sang of sex, of sweat and blood and cum, of bodies moving together, of passion, of birth-giving, of life at it's most primal. She stalked around the fire, she pounced, she rolled, she spun and dodged and pursued. The trails of light along her limbs became flames, arcs of lightning, tendrils of darkness. Sweat began to streak her skin, the gold paint running, smearing. Her claws pierced her palms and blood flowed in arcs and swirls around her footprints in the sand, closing the circle, calling her power, calling to the land, calling to the sea and the earth and the sky, the fire and the storm and the darkness, the jungle, the beating of her own heart, her inner light.

And she danced.

And she circled the fire.

And she sang.

And the moon began it's descent, the stars beginning to fade, and her voice grew hoarse and her limbs grew leaden as her song spoke of protection, and guidance, and love, and remembrance, and forgiveness, and apologies. Of goodbyes. Of letting go. Of the ending of seasons. As she danced, tears streaked her cheeks and her song broke with sobs before continuing, rising, falling, breaking, rising. Her steps faltered, resumed, never stopping, always moving forward, and around- circling the dwindling flames. The trails of light around her began to fade- little by little, bit by bit, the memories were released, the vision faded. The tribe first, disappearing into mist, then the fallen and lost of her found family, and finally the images of those who still stood with her faded, and faded- and stayed. Just at the edge of her vision, refracted by her tears, sitting in their places around the fire. Distant but present, witnessing the ritual, the rite, the story that one lone woman was writing on an empty beach with her body and her voice and her magic and her memories and her sweat, tears, and blood.

The sun breached the horizon and thunderheads crowded the sky and at that first touch of the new dawn Zareen collapsed to her knees before the embers of her fire and tilted her head back, her song half-whispered, her voice long-since gone and yet full of hope and gratitude and joy and love. Always love. The visions of her family and friends and loved ones faded away- the night was done and she would see them again, soon. The light had returned. A new dawn. A new chance. A new future. Thunder rolled loud and long overhead and the light shone against the storm clouds- gold against the deep grey. The exhausted miqo'te sat back on her heels, her head fallen back, her tail limp, her eyes closed- and when the next burst of thunder sounded she opened her eyes and began to slowly, painfully, carefully push herself up to her bleeding feet. Her legs wobbled as she walked slowly, feet dragging through the sand, making her way through the ring of dark-scorched embers until she could reach in to the heart of the burning coals and lift her soulstone up out of the ashes. Cradling it to her chest, she turned- and fell, legs giving out beneath her. Rising was harder this time and it took her several tries before she was able to get her feet under her again and make her way slowly out of the circle the flames had created. As she reached the edge, the storm broke overhead, and rain pelted her skin, evaporating, rising in a mist around her as she made her way into the jungle and the shelter she would find there.

[tiliamericana]

Muay Thai 1.01

[Read Ahead] [Mirror]

Silence hung in the air, heavy for its awkwardness. Did she need to say something? She probably did.

“Uh, thank you for coming,” she said, eventually.

The two women nodded back at her as they collected their water bottles. One of them waved, and Nairi waved back, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she watched them leave. After a moment she realised that that was probably creepy, and averted her eyes, walking over to her front desk as though she’d left something there that she needed to consult.

The little bell over the door made a pleasant noise as it swung open and shut again, and Nairi looked up, watching her first and only beginner judo students walk down the street.

She watched them until they moved past the frame of the front window, then glanced down at what was actually on her desk. The two forms for her new judo students on top of her notebook, clunky clamshell laptop in the compartment under the topmost surface of the desk, and a stack of mail next to the forms.

The large digital clock on the wall next to her head said she had fifteen minutes until her Krav Maga class was due to start. Nairi doubted the bell would be ringing for any interested students though; the judo women were the only biters in the two weeks she’d been open.

The top two envelopes were junk mail addressed simply to ‘the owner’, and Nairi dropped them in the wastepaper basket without a second thought. Movement caught her eye and she resisted the reflex to look up—it was only her reflection.

Mirrors were a necessary part of any dojo; you had to be able to see what you were doing to know you were doing it right. The long walls of them in the rooms had been why she’d bought the old dance studio in the first place. All of the places she’d trained and learned and taught in had been filled with activity and other people though, you got used to the movement when it was always happening. She just didn’t like to be alone with herself.

The building was old, janky by the standards of the gentrification that was slowly creeping up the street, and the first floor was made up of two large rooms that were ideal for her purposes. The front faced onto the street with the glass walls and doors, and the second was only a little smaller and behind a door, which would be useful if she ever had students in want a private sparring space. The only adjustments she’d really had to make downstairs was ripping out the barres and replacing the flooring.

The back room also had the interior staircase leading up to the second floor. Nairi had added a door with a lock at each end of that, considering that was where she was living. The renovations upstairs had been more intensive; stripping out the mirrors, adding a couple of walls, installing everything needed for a functional kitchen and a bathroom that consisted of more than a sink and toilet that looked like they’d been sized for pixies. The end result had been a large living space and two smaller rooms either side of the newly expanded bathroom.

Floor number three, the last, had been identical in layout to the second, but Nairi didn’t have a use for it and wasn’t entirely certain what to do with it. She’d installed another door on the stairs leading up to it and left it locked, tucking the key away in her pantry. The ‘front’ entrance was next to the pantry in the kitchen and lead out onto a rickety little structure that could generously be called a balconette with a bare set of aluminium stairs leading down into the side alley that bordered the building and where she parked her car. It was probably meant to be the fire escape.

Nairi wasn’t entirely certain what was supposed to go in a ‘real home’, one you weren’t planning to leave, and the magazines her kitchen contractor had given her didn’t look very lived in. After about a week of staring at the blank walls and counters she’d gone out and bought a fern for the kitchen and moved her punching bag up to sit in the corner of the living room.

The fern was already dead. The only other arguably decorative item she had in the apartment was her calendar with her dutifully circled dates for each quarterly reminder to change her locks.

The last envelope was larger, heavy card stock with a ‘DO NOT BEND’ sticker under the stamps. She’d been waiting for this one and bent to open the first drawer, pulling out the shrink-wrapped frame she’d bought in anticipation of its arrival. She tore away the plastic wrap and popped out the backing carefully, wiping down the glass with the bottom of her shirt before setting the frame face down on the desk and picking up the envelope.

She tore away the envelope tab and tilted it towards her hand, gently shaking the certificate out into her hand. A brief inspection showed nothing folded up or out of place, and she gently pressed it into the frame, setting the back into its slot and folding the tabs down.

That done she checked the door again, making sure no hopeful students were about to open it up and walk in before she ducked into the back room. The bell didn’t ring in the time it took for her to cross the room and open up the cupboards where she kept the floor mats, pads, and the stepladder.

She took the stepladder across to the front desk, unfolding it and setting it against the wall. She should figure out the sound system, probably, she thought idly as she picked up the frame and stepped up to hang it on the wall next to its twins. It was too quiet.

The first two certificates declared that Nairi Smith was qualified to teach the martial arts of Krav Maga and Judo to a brown belt level, signed by teachers at a school from across town. The third and newest was from a gym a little closer and decreed that she was able to teach Muay Thai as a black and gold level instructor. Both schools had cheerfully agreed to grade any students she sent their way if it came up.

Most of the people she’d met while actually learning Muay Thai didn’t really see the point in using colour grading to advertise how ‘good’ you were, but the way she was teaching demanded a certain… Aesthetic. People liked having markers to determine their progress, and she’d started in Judo, so she understood the impulse.

When she glanced back at the clock as she stepped off the ladder, there was still eleven minutes until her Krav class was due to start. And no hopeful students. The temptation to just call it, to flip the ‘closed’ sign on her door and go upstairs so she could order take out and stair at the ceiling was overwhelmingly strong. She pulled her eyes away from the door that would take her upstairs and set about to try and do busy work.

Putting the stepladder back and restacking the mats she’d knocked over while moving it killed another four minutes. Examining the frames next to the desk and making sure they were hanging evenly ate thirty seconds. Booting up the laptop and checking her emails took a minute in loading, and another minute in refreshing. She resisted the urge to start pacing up and down the dojo.

A shadow walked past the front window and Nairi glanced up with forced casualness. It was a pedestrian, pausing outside her door to check road traffic before jaywalking over to the 24-hour Japanese restaurant opposite. It was a good little place; she’d certainly eaten enough of their tempura at three AM to judge.

Three minutes.

Nairi pushed her fringe away from her face again and frowned, tugging her hair tie out of her ponytail. Her hair was the longest she could remember it ever being, hanging in a straight, black curtain down about her jawline. With an inch-long tideline of bleach around the bottom. She crossed the room to stand in front of the tall mirrors and forced herself to look in it so she could tie her hair back again. Her fingers moved brusquely, and she did her best to ignore the way the motions translated into tugging tension across her scalp. Dark eyes blinked in the mirror in front of her as she worked, not really processing her own reflection. One minute left.

The cuff of her long-sleeved shirt had shifted up past her wrist revealing tattooed skin. She tugged it back down to cover the ink without looking at it and headed back to her the desk. The clocked ticked over to seven o’clock as she walked, bringing a cheerful ‘ping!’ of a noise and no students for Krav Maga.

She should really wait for a few minutes, just in case. People were late all the time.

Nairi flipped the sign on the door to ‘CLOSED’ and switched off the lights, cloaking the room in sunset and shadow. She fetched the laptop from the desk, tucking it under her arm with the power cable, before crouching and retrieving her keys from the bottom drawer, which was secured with a combination lock.

Instead of crossing through the back room she went outside from the front and locked it externally before going around the corner and up the outside stairs to get into her apartment. The less she was in the habit of using her interior staircase, the less likely it was that anyone would notice that you could access her home like that.

Realistically she could probably get away with changing the locks on that staircase every six months instead of every three; the exterior locks presented an existing challenge. Though, if someone was going to be familiar enough with her habits to use the interior access then they’d probably bypass the entry locks by virtue of being a benign part of her routine—like a student, or a delivery person.

Better to keep them on the same change rotation, then. She could always consider off-setting the months if she wanted the extra security.

Nairi paused in the doorway to the kitchen, taking a moment to consider the light levels before flipping the ceiling lamps on and locking her door behind her. All of her doors were fully open where she’d left them, and her doorstop was still on its mark. She set the laptop on the kitchen counter and picked up the stack of takeaway menus from next to her microwave, padding towards the couch as she started to leaf through them.

This area was heavy on the East-Asian food which was nice. It was easy to get sick of pizza, and they usually fucked up and put meat on it anyway. Once she got tired of rice she could just swap to noodles and vice versa. The Indian place a couple of blocks away looked good for tonight—they did a good paneer.

The young woman on the end of the phone sounded extremely bored. “Saag paneer with saffron rice, a garlic naan, and two bhaji,” she rattled off with practised ease. “Can I get a name for the order?”

Nairi hesitated, giving herself a moment to stare at her ceiling and take a deep breath. There was no reason to lie to a teenager working takeaway. “Nairi.”

If the teenager noticed the pause, she didn’t comment. “Great. That’ll be sixteen dollars and ready for pick up in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks,” said Nairi hanging up the phone and bringing her total social interactions of the day to three whole people. Four, if you counted the fact that she’d have to go to the restaurant and pay when she picked up her dinner.

Class was completed and food was cooked. The apartment was eery and silent, and Nairi sat there for about a minute before she caved and turned the TV on just to have some background noise. A news segment was playing; grim-faced anchors discussing a brutal murder with a uniformed police commissioner.

Nairi blinked, stock still where she was sitting on the couch with the remote pointed at the TV, the thoughts in her mind distant and hard to reach. The camera cut to show yellow tape and her fingers moved without any direction from her brain, pushing the channel one over. Canned laughter played over a crowded kitchen set, immediately sliding into white noise in Nairi’s periphery, and she un-tensed, setting the remote down again.

She picked up the laminated sheet next to it, looking over the grid labelled with the days of the week across the top. Down the side were hour long blocks starting from one in the afternoon, and the squares were blocked off with labels for Judo and Krav Maga with different colours for the difficulty levels. Nairi picked up her marker and cleaner and got to work fitting Muay Thai into the schedule, ignoring the sitcom happening in front of her.

Later, lying on her back with the light from a talk show playing across her face and the empty take out containers on the coffee table in front of her, Nairi tilted her head a little to watch the clock on her microwave. It ticked over to twelve-oh-one, June 26th, and she sighed, wishing herself a quiet happy birthday.

[areyoureadyforsomemeatballz]

Cast Away (2): Hello! Anybody?

Summary: After a mission gone awry, you end up stranded on a deserted island. While you know that you have the skills to survive in the desolate paradise, you’re not sure if your heart will.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 1,400

Warnings: Everyone’s favorite assholes. Bucky gets upset about his past, but nothing is described in detail for now.

A/N: Welcome back my dudes! I was amazed by how many of you seemed excited about this series. This idea has been on my mind for so long, but it felt completely self-indulgent. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who’s here for Bucky on the beach.

“Cap! We’ve gotta get out of here,” Clint shouts from the pilot’s seat. “This storm is going to tear this bird apart.”

Steve breaks from repeating directions into his comm to shout at Clint. “I’m not leaving without them.”

An explosion rocks the sea to the side of the plane. Steve presses the lever to lower the rear ramp, ready to jump in the water and search for you and Bucky. Natasha pulls Steve away from the tail of the plane and plants him in a seat.

“Rogers, you’re no help to them if you drown,” Natasha says. “Clint, go.”

“No!”

Clint follows Natasha’s command and the jet shakes violently as he maneuvers it over the storm. Steve grips the armrest hard enough to leave imprints in the thick metal, his jaw clenched almost enough to break teeth. Natasha’s saying something, but he can’t force himself to listen. Her hand resting on his forearm snaps him out of it.  

“We’ll find them, Steve.”

“Then why are we flying the opposite way?”

Natasha lets out a long sigh and moves to the copilot seat. “Tony can help locate them. He’ll know what to do.”

“Not if they were still on that ship.”

“They made a choice. We can’t change that.”

You topple out of the boat and onto the warm sand, unable to fully stretch with how stiff your clothes are. You pull off the top of your uniform, leaving you in an undershirt and your tactical pants.

“I thought it would be harder to get you out of your clothes,” Bucky’s voice sounds off from behind you.

You roll your eyes but don’t turn around to face him, meaning you don’t notice the dark blush on his cheeks. You pull your collection of weapons out of their various holsters and lay them out on your top.

“It took a tropical storm.”

“Again, it was easier than I thought.”

You flip around quickly and fall into Bucky’s chest, not realizing how close he was to you. “I can’t do this! I’m not dying on this fucking island with you as the person I talk to.”

You scoop up your weapons and toss them into the boat, keeping a few of them on you just in case. You then try to pull the boat out of the tideline, but it doesn’t budge in the thick sand. Strong hands wrap around either side of yours on the metal and pull the boat back easily. You duck under Bucky’s thick arm and stalk off toward the trees.

Bucky’s footsteps are almost silent on the sand behind you and you wonder if he usually makes a conscious effort to make noise. “Where are you going? I don’t think we should wander off alone. This place could be dangerous.”

“I’m going to guess were the deadliest things here. And if by some miracle I think getting mauled by a jungle cat sounds a lot less painful than dealing with you.”

You press past the line of trees and on the edge of the beach and head deeper into the forest. You can see Bucky following you out of the corner of your eye.  You let out a deep sigh but don’t bother telling him to leave you alone. After about twenty minutes of walking, he clears his throat.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

You glance over at him. He’d lost his tactical jacket at some point and was left wearing a thin white tank top that accentuates his narrow hips. Little brown waves have fallen out of his bun in the front, framing his face. Before he can question your look, you train your eyes on the trees in front of you.

“I’m looking for a Hilton or a Best Western,” you mutter. “Or maybe a phone booth?”

He rolls his eyes. “Why are you so difficult all the time?”

“Oh my god! You are one to talk, Mr. Smarmy,” you shout. “You can never leave well enough alone. For your information, we are not going anywhere! I am looking for water. Me. Alone. Get it?”

You glare at him as you continue down the narrow path. His hand shoots out to stop you and you yank away from him, losing your footing. His hand circles your wrist before you can land face first in a deep puddle.

“Will you quit doing that?”

“I’m sorry, but I think the words you’re looking for is thank you,” he says. “Or did you want to end up fallin’ in that?”

He nods toward the pool of water and your anger is all but gone. You pick up your pace and just beyond a thicket of trees is a crystal blue spring surrounded by a crop of rich plant life. A light breeze picks up, dancing along your skin and you take a grounding breath. You run to the edge of the cool water, grinning as you splash in the shallows.  A waterfall flows into the lagoon from the rocky cliffs ahead of you, the soft sound soothing you further.

“You’re lucky we weren’t coming from that direction,” he nods toward the cliffs and pauses when he sees your wide smile. “What am I missing here?”

“It’s fresh water,” you say turning to him, unable to keep the smile off your face. “We may not be dead after all.”

“The team will come for us well before we’d die from dehydration.”

“It only would take a couple of days, especially in this heat.”

His brows pull together and his bright eyes cloud over. “That’s not right.”

“What do you mean? I don’t claim to be a survival expert but it’s like three days tops, Barnes.”

His fist clenches and the sound of grating metal fills the quiet alcove. “Forget it. I’m going back to the beach. I need to take apart our guns before they rust.”

His movements are unsteady as he turns and hurries back to the path to the beach. It’s your turn to follow him and you grab his shoulder when you catch up. He shakes your touch off with a low grunt.

“Barnes stop.”

He keeps his head down as he walks faster.

“Barnes.”

You can see the tension in his shoulders, as if he’s a spring that’s about to snap.

“Bucky!”

His feet falter as he stops walking, and he curls in on himself. His large body falls against a nearby tree for support. You circle around in front of him and hold your hands up in surrender.

“You have to talk to me.”

He grits his teeth and keeps his eyes off your face. “I don’t have to do anything.”

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry that it came out that way. We’re kind of stuck with each other, though. So, I’m here if you want to talk.”

Bucky pushes his weight off the tree and makes a wide circle around you, still avoiding looking at you. “There’s nothing to say. You’re not my therapist and you’re sure as hell not my friend.”

You stay rooted in your spot as he walks away. After a minute, you find yourself leaning against Bucky’s tree. A few tears fall down your cheeks and you can’t help but feel stupid. Why would Barnes trust you with anything? It didn’t matter that there wasn’t anyone else for hundreds of miles. You’re left hoping that he was right about the team being on their way.

You make the last bit of the trek back to the beach deciding on how to approach Bucky. He’s sitting on the hard metal bench in the lifeboat, stripping his weapons to check for water damage. Miraculously, there are a few buckets on the floor of the boat despite the rough weather you’d all survived. You reach in and grab one.

“I uh- I’m going to head back to the spring and get us some fresh water,” you say quietly. “I’ll be back soon.”

With that you turn on your heel and back into the forest of trees. Bucky’s eyes are trained on you after you turn and he watches until he loses you in the sea of leaves.

[graaaaceeliz]

Untitled Tarzan-Batman (no capes crossover)

First awareness was the urge to cough; second that of bright light; third that wherever the pirates had dumped him he was in unfamiliar land with unknown predators and variables. The jungle grew to the sky, starting with a very few shorter shrubs on the sandy knoll he lay on. Exerting great effort, he hauled himself upright and saw what he had suspected to be: they had dumped him on the beach, just above the tideline, with nothing to his name and no indication of where he was or how long he’d been there. One thing that was for certain, however, was that he was stuck on this forbidding new land for better or more likely worse for the foreseeable future, short as that future appeared to be.

Setting himself firm, Bruce hauled himself painfully to his feet, head swinging like a night on the town, and set off treading North in search of fresh water. The temperature of the air and the angle of the sun indicated that it was late afternoon, probably around six, not that he could really tell, and that he was facing West. Soft white sand shifted underfoot, and despite the stress of the situation he found himself trying to remember the last time he’d been in a place so beautiful, so immersed in nature and free from human interference. It must have been some time, he mused as he flipped a twig with his shoe, considering he’d spent the last four years in Boston. It would have been in Nanda Parbat, with his dear departed Talia, where the deserts stretch out like a soft rolling sea and the dawn sun sparkles off the dew.

Of to his right – the East – stretched the forbidding beautiful expanse of what he assumed to be African jungle. On his left, the West, the endless Atlantic Ocean. What a fine kettle of fish he’s caught this time.

It only takes a couple of hour’s walking before he encounters a brook, tumbling over shining stones down to the incoming waves. Idyllic. Still problematic, however, as night is fast approaching with no place revealing itself as a safe haven – although that’s a suspiciously broken stretch of undergrowth up ahead. Pressing on Bruce reaches it in a matter of minutes, discovering uncomfortably that at some point very recently a group of men – women too, maybe – have inhabited this little clearing.

“Godammit,” he swears loudly, just because he can, “I should not have taken this job.”

“Mon ami,” comes a voice from the dark looming blur at the back of the clearing, “You should not swear so.”

Bruce feels justified in shrieking.

The voice just laughs at him.

“Tarzan,” and oh marvellous this unknown entity not only has a friend but is French. Bruce does not speak much French. In fact, his last attempt at French got him very nearly thrown from the restaurant Alfred had treated him to for his 25th birthday. Bruce picks up a few words such as ‘careful’ and ‘scare’, and thinks that whoever this Tarzan that he can’t see is must be being gently scolded for frightening him. He can feel sharp hidden eyes on him.

Out of the dark hobbles a man, not older than forty but struggling to walk and covered in horrible looking scars and scratches. Bruce darts forwards to lend his arm but a blur from one of the trees hits him full-on, barrelling him backwards to the ground. As his ears clear his eyes refocus and he sees a man, a white man, wild looking, face full of threat.

“AGH! I’m sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt – uh – lo siento, no, wait, um,” he stumbles to a verbal halt, eyes caught in the hard grey of this wild-man’s. He blinks first (an uncommon experience, given Talia lived with ninjas and Bruce had out-stared several of them).

The wild-man, Tarzan, grins. “Bonjour.”

All in all, Bruce’s faint is understandable and justified.

[bougiebutchbitch]

Have you ever written anything for MerMay?? 🥺 Because I would fucking OBLITERATE PLANETS to read how you'd describe a human and a mermaid falling for each other orcoughcoughorfuckingeachother, like a mermaid AU (or merformers AU in a transformers case) for any fandom? Even if you only wrote, like, one paragraph, literally anything, I'd eat it up!! I'm such a sucker for that kind of thing and if you ever do some type of writing commissions I'd throw so much money at you dude.

BROOOOO THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME KDFLGHKLJDFHLGKDFHGKJDFG

Thanks for the prompt!

A note: I can't promise to fill every prompt, but this one caught my fancy!

T-rated, 4180 words of merman!Obito/Kakashi. I have no self control. Help.

#

Kakashi loves the sea.

To listen to it: the hush of foam over shingle and sand, the curl and slap of waves, the cries of the gulls and the bellow of the wind.

To smell it: the brine and saltspray, the faint mineral odour of wave-tumbled pebbles, the sulfur of rotting weed.

To touch it: paddling in cool pools piled high with colourful stones, watching tiny shrimp dance around his toes. Feeling salt prickle in the grooves on his palms and on his fingertips.

He loves the sea until he doesn't. Until it steals from him.

#

"Take my eye," says the boy, smiling as he dies. The broken mast lies on the deck, crushing half his body, squeezing out his blood. "Then I can see the world with you. It's a gift."

The sea folds over his mangled corpse, once they've pried it free. As the waves gulp him down, Kakashi vows he's done with loving the water forever.

And yet, it seems the water is not done with him.

#

The dreams start in flashes.

Crushing blackness. Eternal dark. Shadows so deep and vast they have weight.

Kakashi wakes floundering, strangled by his sheets, unable to scream and unable to breathe, soaked with sweat and convinced he has the entire ocean pressing down on his chest.

He tastes salt. But it's only tears, leaking from his red left eye.

Kakashi screws his knuckles into his scarred lashline, hunched in his bed. The weight eases slowly. It's no relief. His body feels far too light now, like gravity has given up on him. The walls of his father's big lonely house are so very far away.

He doesn't try to go back to sleep. He gets up instead, wrapping his blanket around him. He pads out of his house and along the shore.

Daylight tames the sea, makes it appear domesticated. Night holds no such illusions. Pebbles growl as they're sucked back in the riptide, the rumbles of a hungering stomach large enough to eat the island Kakashi calls home.

He still sails out on the boats every morning. Of course he does - he has to. Konoha is a bright and beautiful village, built into the chalky cliffs, surrounded by green-blue sprigs of sea-poppy and petrel nests full of tiny white eggs. But Konoha’s prosperity is born of the ocean, and as such, none of its children may live a life without salt in their lungs.

The sea gives, Minato would tell him, as he and Kakashi steered their wasen for the teeming waters around the reef, where the catch was fat and plentiful. And the sea takes, too.

Kakashi understands this. But that doesn't mean he has to like it.

He crouches on a slick grey rock at the edge of the water, bare toes digging into algae. "You take too much," he tells the creeping tideline, as it rises up and up and up the stone. “And you don’t give it back.”

The water swallows his accusation, like it swallows everything, and grants him no reply.

#

Kakashi loses Rin to the water too, loses Minato and Asuma and a hundred more. He dismemebers Minato's wasen, lining up the boards, methodical and neat, rebuilding it into a larger ship of his own. He hires three local children to help him haul in the urchin-pots and the ground-trawling nets - and, when he finds out that two of these children have no families of their own, his father's house becomes a little less empty. As, perhaps, does he.

Anyway - Kakashi grows, and the dreams grow with him. Stretching like the scar through his left eye from where a storm snapped Minato’s mainmast, so long ago, and a splinter tore him open, forehead to chin.

He lost an eye that day. Gained another, yes - but lost so much else, besides.

When he sleeps, those brief flashes of the underwater world combine. Now he sees long stretches of summer-blue shallows, bubbling with coral and miniature fish. The glimmer of the sunset from below, like oil has been poured over the waves and set alight. He doesn't love the sea anymore, but something in him must do, because there's a joy he can't quite quantify in those dreams. More than once, he's caught himself falling asleep with a smile on his face, wondering what he will see.

A shame that smile never lasts to morning.

His mind dives deeper, darker. A white ghost drifts through the black. Kakashi can just make out the tattered frill of a flipper, a tail: the hollowed corpse of a whale, half-eaten by scavengers, sinking slow through the depths.

Hunger twists in his guts. He unhinges his jaw, lunges forwards -

And jerks awake, sprawled over his sheets. Panting. Clutching his chest, lungs burning like he just tried to breathe underwater.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Focuses himself, grounds himself, like he does before he has to sail through a storm. Can't hear the sea. Just the faint snores of Naruto and Sasuke in the room next door.

Salt water dribbles from his red left eye. Kakashi has to touch his teeth to make sure they're blunt and human.

#

Some days, he toys with the idea of desertion. He could walk away from his village. He could march inland with an oar over his shoulder until a farmer mistook it for a shovel, and then he would know it was safe to settle down.

He could take his boys with him, before the sea steals them, too.

Yet those thoughts never manifest in action. Naruto and Sasuke - Sakura too - they all adore life on the water. Kakashi would be depriving them of that, if he bundled them up in the night and fled for the distant hills.

He'd be depriving himself of something too. Of what, he's unsure - until one bright summer day when they take the boat out past the reef.

#

He has sailed far from shore many times before, with or without his kids aboard. Nothing about the day sparks danger. No piling cumuli, no warning hint of ozone on the air. Only endless blue anticyclone skies, a few clouds scudding along the horizon line. Flat seas and gentle breezes. The wind is barely enough to belly their sail as they pass over the drop-off, where shallow blue water turns to bottomless black, like they're sailing into the sky at night.

It's the perfect day. Until it isn't.

Naruto and Sasuke lounge on the deck, arguing about who can swim under the boat fastest, aft to stern. Sakura alternates between taking her turn at the rudder and scolding them. As the competition is hypothetical, and no one seems inclined to hurl anyone else over the side, Kakashi pays the children little mind.

Even if they did jump in, they wouldn't be in much danger. They're all strong swimmers. If anything, Kakashi is weakest of them, as nowadays he only goes in the water in times of necessity. But still, his children know that they're only to go overboard after securing his permission. He's seen too many go down and not come up, and he wants to watch them every moment they’re immersed, wooden life ring to hand.

That life ring won't save them today.

When the wind changes, he smells it before he feels it. It no longer blows seawards, drawing up the rich aroma of the village: roasted tuna, steamed rice, woodsmoke and clay tiles baked by the sun. When Kakashi sniffs the air, he smells only sea.

His shoulders stiffen. Behind his patch, his red eye, which does nothing but hallucinate and cry, sets up its usual pre-storm ache. Bad weather rising.

There's no sign of it. The whole world is flush with summer. It could be his imagination. It could be superstition. It could be any number of things...

"Captain," whispers Sakura. Always the most perceptive of his crew. "What is it?"

Kakashi glances at the other boats. The bay bustles with bright rectangular sails, bobbing about without a care in the world. They dip in and out of view behind the reef, as the waves lift Kakashi's little boat and drop it, and lift it and drop it again.

Bigger waves than just a moment ago. Bigger again, now.

Kakashi's ship is furthest out. No others are close enough to offer aid. Konoha has rules about this, anyway - getting the catch to shore is your first priority, and you never risk certain death by going back to save your fellow sailors.No heroes among seamen.

The wind picks up, spinning them widdershins as the waves slap at the reef again and again. Kakashi's fists clench.

"Make for shore," he says.

The tone of his voice catches Naruto and Saske's attention. They scramble upright, shoving each other as they take their places at the sail.

Naruto asks - "Captain? What's going on?"

The summer warmth on Kakashi’s back fades. Behind him, on the horizon, the clouds tower into black anvils, growing like an oncoming tsunami wave. Eclipsing the sun.

"Go," is all he says. The children blanch. They’re quick to obey, skipping their ship over the water like a flat stone.

#

They're almost back in the shallows when the squall reaches them. When the large wave slams their vessel violently to the side. When Sasuke's grip jars from the rope, and he tumbles down the steep incline of the deck, towards the gnashing, frothing waves.

Almost.

The sea beneath them is still black as a tarpit, and just as capable of sucking them down. Kakashi doesn't hesitate. He barks an order to Sakura and Naruto - "Hold tight!"

They might or might not hear, over the screeching wind. Doesn’t matter. No time to be sure.

He dives.

The water parts around him like it's welcoming him in. A cold shock, like lightning running him through.

Kakashi is prepared for it. Overcomes it. Hones his focus, carding the water, kicking down deep. Following the trail of bubbles. Reaching for the grasping white hand...

He catches it. Hauls Sasuke up, into his arms.

Not losing this one. Not this time.

Never again.

They break the surface with a mutual gasp, right next to the ship. A wave swings it towards them. Kakashi shoves Sasuke up so he can grab on, heaving him halfway out the water on god-knows-what strength. Sasuke coughs and splutters, so far from the cool little boy who refuses to call Kakashi captain. He latches onto the rail so tight his hands must cramp.

The sea smashes and screams. Up the boat rocks, hauling Sasuke away from Kakashi, out of his arms.

He has to let go.

He can't drag him down.

The next wave crashes over his head, sucking him under. Smashing him into the keel.

His eyepatch is gone - dragged off at some point during his initial dive. Kakashi didn't notice when he lost it. The saltwater stings his grey eye, not his red one - Kakashi sees all too clearly through that.

And what he sees is death.

The bottom of his boat high above him. The churning tumult at the water's surface. The chaos, the lashing wrath of the storm.

So wild, so angry. Not like down here.

Here, everything is peaceful. Smooth. The world is tinted a pale, delicate blue, as if it is overlaid by a thin-cut sheet of sapphire. So beautiful, this underwater paradise. A mad part of Kakashi - that little boy who loved the sea - wants to gasp out in joy, breathe it in.

But he can't - he can't, he can't. He's lost too many this way. He can't let Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke lose him, too. Can't let them lose their love for the sea, as he lost his...

Bubbles stream from his lips. Pluming up away from him, towards the surface. Kakashi kicks against the current, swimming after them. He scrabbles at them with his fingers, as if they might form a ladder that he can pull himself up to safety.

Impossible. He's too late. Too deep. The wave ploughed him far below the surface, smacked the oxygen from his lungs. He hit the keel hard - blood laces the water around him, leaking from his temple, his ear. It's over. The dizzy swirl in his vision is just the start of the end.

Kakashi pulls at the water, but it's so much stronger than he is. He fights and he fights, but he cannot win.

He should be terrified. Drowning is one of the worst ways to go.

At the very least, Obito was spared such suffering. He was already dead when he hit the water.

Yet as black occludes his vision, Kakashi realises he too might die with a smile on his face. He wants to get back to his kids. But other than that, he has no real regrets. No real purpose. A part of him always knew it would end this way. He's been waiting for this moment his entire life. Waiting for the sea to claim him, too.

Which is why it's such a shock, when it doesn't.

Something wraps around him. A fishing net? Arms? The jaws of a scavenging shark?

What about that pressure against his spine - is it the bottom of the ocean? Or a sturdy chest, cradling him close?

He can't look, too weak to even turn his head. Whatever happens next, it doesn't matter. He stares up at that faraway surface, distant as a dream, and longs to see his children one more time. Equally, he longs to let go, to drift down to join the whale carcasses and feed the monsters that dwell in the deep.

"Don't you dare," says a voice. Low and melodic, reverberating through the water like whalesong. "Not yet, Bakashi. Not yet."

Kakashi's obviously dead if he's hearing him. No sense fighting it any longer. He lets his eyes, black and red alike, drift shut.

#

More dreams. Stranger, this time. He is himself, yet he's also looking down at himself, like he's undergoing an out-of-body experience. He looks too small, drifting underwater, white hair floating above him. Shrunken by the vast enormity of the oceans.

Kakashi wakes. Then immediately rolls onto his side, drags down his clinging, sodden mask, and vomits up half the ocean.

"Ugh," he groans.

He knows the coastline as well as he knows the constallations that saillors use to navigate. Still he's so disorientated that it takes several seconds for him to place where he is.

The reef is exposed at low tide. The ocean stretches out before him in one direction, storm-lashed in the distance yet eerily flat nearby, reflecting the sky like a plate of glass. Behind him lies the bay, the beach, the village.

No sign of the ship - Sasuke must've had to knock Naruto out to stop him diving in after Kakashi. At least, that's what Kakashi hopes happened. No other bodies washed up on the reef beside him. He can't think of his kids under the water, bleached and bloating, rotting slow.

The scratch of the coral against his hands grounds him, It's sore, like a thousand tiny razors are cutting his skin. The surface is almost as rough as the arm around his waist, which curls tighter as Kakashi finishes spitting out salt and acid and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

Wait.

The arm around his waist.

The giant, heavy arm. The white hand on his stomach, cold as a dead fish, webs between the fingers and the thumb...

Kakashi goes very, very still.

He's heard the stories. Of course he has. Strange things lurk in the cracks and crevices of the ocean floor. Sometimes they swim up to the surface. Sometimes they get curious.

Sometimes, they develop a taste for human flesh.

Kakashi swallows. His fish-gutting knife is still in his thigh holster. If he can reach it...

Another webbed hand seals around his wrist before he can free the blade.

"Hey now," grumbles the monster. "I just saved your life, Bakashi. Is that any way to treat an old friend?"

Its voice sounds like those pebbles at the beach, grinding together in the riptide. Deep and hungering. Breath breaks over his neck, stinking of rotting meat.

But Kakashi doesn't care. Because the monster called him Bakashi. And only one person ever did that.

Slowly, he twists in its arms, careful not to shred his soft, human flesh. And stares at the monster.

For that is what it is. A monster, undoubtedly so. A giant tail drapes off the edge of the reef, webbed with old scars. Gills ripple along its muscular sides, granting soft pink glimpses under its gunmetal-grey skin. And its teeth - god, its teeth.

But it is a monster with one red eye.

Kakashi reaches out without quite meaning to. He makes to cup its cheek, hesitating just before he makes contact. His fingers tremble - or perhaps that's an optical illusion, caused by the saltwater streaming non-stop from his left eye.

It can't be him. It's stupid to even consider the possibility. The sea gives and the sea takes, but the sea doesn't give back again. What is lost will never return.

But Kakashi has seen driftwood weathered and petrified into stone. Has seen fossils filled with opal, glittering from inside cracked pebbles. The sea takes, yes, but the sea also transforms. Maybe it's drowned delirium talking, but who is he to say that the water can't work the same magic on a dead boy? That it can't rebuild him, fill in his gaps, replace his broken parts?

The beast before him measures twice his size in every direction, boasting the easy streamlined strength of an undersea predator. Broad shoulders, thick trunk, powerful tail. On the longitudinal axis, half its body is white as dead fishbones. On the latitudinal...

Kakashi's gaze trails down to where the humanoid abdomen distorts into sharkskin.

"Oh," he says. Then: "Obito?"

Obito leans his cheek into Kakashi's hand. He sighs, low and rumbling. His lashless eyes quiver shut.

His face is so cold. All of him is - cold as the sea. How must Kakashi feel to him? A furnace? How long has it been, since Obito - if this truly is him - last felt human warmth? Human touch?

"Bakashi," he whispers. There's so much contained in that word. Too much.

Kakashi still doesn't know what to make of this - doesn't know if he's dead or dreaming, if he's in his own world or the next. But right now, soaked in seawater and shivering, sprawled on a reef in the arms of a gigantic sharkman who may or may not be his resurrected childhood crush, there's simply too much to question.

He opts to roll with this, rather than letting the how and the why drive him mad. If they're both alive, they can get to all of that later.

"Crew," he manages. His throat burns from hacking up all that seawater. His wet mask dangles around his throat. Usually he'd shy from the thought of anyone seeing his face, but since Obito has appeared before him in all his mutated, gill-chested glory, mouth bristling with multiple rows of serrated, triangular fangs, it feels rude to hide himself away. "My crew. Are they -"

"Safe. Back in the village." Obito pouts when Kakashi withdraws his hand from his face. What an odd expression. Boy and monster, overlaid. "I can't take you back to them. They're gonna have to come find you."

Kakashi frowns. Regardless of whether his old friend has returned from the dead, those are his kids, and he needs to see them with his own eyes before he’ll believe that they’re safe.

Obito holds up a finger, halting his protest. The webs are translucent grey with just a touch of turquoise, making them gleam like wet kombu under the sun.

"Think about it. If I showed up and plonked you unconscious on the beach, I'd be harpooned before I could speak a word in my defence, right?" He rubs the back of his head. What Kakashi thought was hair is actually a crown of sharp black spikes, like an uni shell. "Which - yeah, I get it. Of course they'll want to defend themselves, considering what's to come. And what I've done..." His voice trails off, his gaze drifting far away, like Kakashi's does sometimes, when he remembers rowing furiously out in his little dinghy to the wreck of Minato and Kushina's ship, too late, too late... "But - but it's all for the best! It will be, I mean. I promise. Everything that’s coming, it’s to help you, not hurt you. You have to trust me on that."

Kakashi’s head still hurts. Blood cakes one side of his face, turning itchy as it dries. Obito's words are all fuzzy, stitching themselves together in orders that don't make sense.

What's he saying? Wouldn't the village be glad to have one of their lost souls returned to them, no matter how changed?

Obito clacks his jaw shut. A blue shimmer darkens his cheeks, a blush in the wrong shade. "I - uh - I just - forget all of that! I wasn't supposed to come to your rescue, okay? But I did it anyway, so you'd better be grateful, Bakashi!"

Kakashi is still trying to make sense of Obito's previous speech. "I'm grateful," he murmurs. "Thank you."

The blue tint gets bluer. Bluer again, when Kakashi lets his head rest against Obito's scarred, strong chest. Thank you. Did he ever say that to Obito, when they were children?

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just focus on breathing. I'll stay with you until the ships start coming out again, just to make sure your pathetic little lungs are still functioning."

A smile twitches at the corner of Kakashi's mouth, like it always does when he feels himself drifting down into deepwater dreams. "Kind of you."

"It's not kindness. It's pity. You looked so fucking pathetic, flapping about, sinking like a bit of trash dropped overboard... Ugh. It was embarrassing."

The storm is over. Gulls emerge from their cliff roosts. They swirl up on thermals, squawking an accompaniment to the high jangle of tackle, just audible from the faraway harbour. Sun warms Kakashi's bare face. He snuggles back against Obito, watching the lazy flick of his tail in the water. Fighting this weird, childish urge to stroke it - he doesn't want to slough the skin off his palms.

He still has so many questions. If Obito's alive, why didn't he come back earlier? Even if he didn't want to return to the village, for whatever reason, why not swim up alongside Kakashi's boat? Why wait until now?

But almost-dying turns out to be a fairly exhausting procedure. All his body and mind want to do is rest.

"Must make a nice change," he says, lashes drifting shut. "Me being the embarrassing one."

Obito huffs and gives him a sulky squeeze. He could probably crush in his ribcage if he put his mind to it, with those arms. Weird thought. Kakashi doesn't know why he likes it.

"Shut up, Bakashi. Just rest."

Since he became captain of his own crew, Kakashi has grown used to giving orders, not following them. But hey. It's been a weird, upside-down sorta day. He lets himself limpen, breath crackling wetly in his chest, and waits for his usual visions of the open sea. He's not unsurprised when he dreams instead of laying down a little human, brushing webbed fingers over their scarred eyelid, then sliding back into the water, easy as a knife through the belly of a fish.

Kakashi shakes himself awake again. Just for a moment.

"Thank you," he whispers. This time, he's not talking to Obito.

He's not sure if he'll ever love the sea again. Not in the simple, unassuming way he did as a child. But love is as ever-changing as the ocean itself: different every day, unpredictable, dangerous, deadly.

The water doesn't love him. It doesn't love any of them. That is what makes it so horrifying, and so beautiful, too.

But perhaps, every now and then, the ocean decides it does love one of the many boys who are fed to it, from villages like Konoha all the way along the coast. And for that, Kakashi is more grateful than he can comprehend.

He glances over his shoulder, to where the tiny fishing boats are daring to venture out of the harbours. Then rolls painfully onto his side, coral scraping through his salt-crusted, sun-dried shirt, and watches the grey dorsal fin flit out between the waves, until it sinks beneath and disappears.

[gemmasianpowellphotography]

Winter Photo Fest 2021

22.01.2021

After attending all the guest talks over the last few weeks, I have enjoyed each one in different ways and taken different valued points from each. Here are a few of my favourites. 

Frances Scott

Frances grew up in Orkney and moved to Glasgow to study for four years at The Art School. Her work is around landscapes and journeys of personal significance. With Frances's heart and mind back home and not in the city, she moved back home and worked as cabin crew with Loganair. Whilst working in the skies Frances had a lot of time to admire the aerial views, this was one of her inspirations for her project “Tidelines” where she recorded shots on her iphone and GPS on coastlines. It was important for her to leave her hometown and then comeback and told us that knowing a place and having a clear satisfaction was important. Frances would take her Mamiya 645 (ISO125) and one roll of film IlfordFP4. She enjoyed the element of surprise on her personal work when developing the film and while out walking did not want to get too carried away with shooting but rather take a smaller number of shots and spend more time enjoying her surroundings. Recommending to us the use of sketch books and physical edits. When doing a body of work it is key to show off one or two images but keep the rest close to yourself, do not put all the work out at once. 

Her influences include Bernd and Hilla Becher and Mark Ruwedel. Speaking about the publication, Stone Built by Gunnie Moberg and quotes by poet Rosemary Sullivan. 

Frances has won various awards and held solo and group exhibitions since 2008. She has grown from strength to strength with books and publications he most recent  called “Undertow”. 

https://frances-scott.co.uk/

Lesley MacGregor

Lesley's work includes seascapes, architecture, modern art and urban textures. There are various things I took from the work including the work of editing. Using Adobe Photoshop to change images from colour to black and white and the use of creating layer masks. Shapes, angles and contrasts within her work is a strong feature. The tilt shift lens are used when it comes to architectural shots and she sketches out a photograph to create different levels of contrast. She has won the IPA Gold award in 2020 for Buildings and told us her favourite place to shoot in the world is Iceland. After travelling there on three different occasions each time is different and she got totally different approaches with her work. 

Lesley gave us a few very useful hints and tips:

When it comes to working conditions, work with what you have

Process your work in different stages, its ok to walk away from editing and come back to it after a short while, this helps view perspective. 

Create a network and build relations, ensure you get your work out there. 

Be patient, enjoy the process of being a photographer, do not be too focused on other markers on your progress. 

Stay true to who you really are

I particularly liked her quote “photos are like a pieces of fabric, you need to be gentle with them as they are fragile little things”

https://www.lesleymacgregor.com/

Elaine Livingstone

Elaine is a well established portraiture, documentary and press photographer from Glasgow. As a 3/4 year student she got herself a job with The Sunday Times and in 1999 landed a job with The Sunday Herald. She has worked in papers industry for over 10 years. In the early years as a student she was drawn to telling a stories both within portraiture and documentary style work and this has not changed. Currently, for the past 5 years has worked full time basis Monday to Friday with Glasgow Lives on a portrait series of the people of Glasgow an insight into their lives. She also spoke to us about her time in the Congo shooting documentary work of female farm workers, her work in 2016 in America where she shoot people in New Orleans and Washington around the time in the days leading up to the presidential elections where Donald Trump was campaigning and had won as well as her commissioned work with Gandolfi Fish Café in Glasgow whereby she shot members of the staff in a series of work. 

Elaine spoke of the Creative Entrepreneurs Club as a networking source. As a freelance photographer she spoke of the hard work and determination that is required to succeed in such a role as she does her own finances and accounts as well as taking the photographs. She holds strong importance to ethics and work ethics quoting “you have to fall asleep in your own head”. 

Elaine is most as ease while with a camera in her hand and struck me as being very humble, down to earth and true to herself. I look forward to seeing more of her personal project work she had mentioned coming up in the future. 

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/whats-on/glasgows-grit-influenced-me-snapper-12031880

https://www.instagram.com/elainelivphoto/?hl=en

One of my overall top picks from the series of talks the last few weeks was this mornings with British fine art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten. I loved her style, work, attitude and down to earth character. She gave us a real insight into her work, her shoots, the commercial side of photography and her thinking behind the scenes with lighting and objects choices within her images. 

Julia was bold, open and honest with us about the highs and lows of the photography industry and her own journey as well as advice on how we can aim to stand out from the crowds and be unique. I admire her most recent projects - CONToRTION and The World Within. 

https://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/info.php

[grifalinas]

“All right,” Moira murmured. “I understand.”

The world vanished without warning. Moira found herself plunging down headfirst into dark waters; the waves, big, roaring things, pushed her down even more. She struggled and kicked desperately for the surface, and came up coughing in the trough of two enormous waves. They crashed into each other right where she’d been, and she was pushed once more into the deep waters.

How long she struggled she wasn’t sure, an endless cycle of surfacing and being pushed back down. She was dizzy from the impact of the waves, from the lack of oxygen; her throat was raw from choking on water; spots danced across her vision, making it even harder to see and orient herself, even if there was anything to see.

She couldn’t think clearly, and she doubted that she could keep this up for much longer. Surely this storm had to stop soon? But even as the thought flitted across her mind, she knew it wouldn’t. The storm was there to kill her. It would keep trying until it had. And it would, eventually. She couldn’t even keep her head above water long enough to catch her breath, let alone think of a plan.

so stop thinking

Well, it had worked before. Moira surfaced again, and didn’t bother trying to orient herself this time. She retched water and took a breath as quickly as she could, just in time to be forced under again. This time she didn’t fight it, just stilled herself. Stop thinking. Okay. No thoughts, just feelings. Instinct. listen to your gut, moira

And she knew what she had to do.

Go deeper. 

All right. Go deeper.

She surfaced one last time- time to grab one more precious lungful of air- and dove, before the waves could even crash down on her. She’d always been a strong swimmer; now she drew on that and started swimming, away from the surface and the waves and the air, away from uncertain death and toward a more certain ending.

It was absurd. She was going to drown. There was no air, the water pressure alone would kill her, and she could only go so deep before the air in her body made her buoyant-

The trouble with not thinking is that sometimes you do foolish things. Moira knew what she had to do to go deeper, so she did, and tried not to look at the bubbles escaping to the surface, her last glorious air, and kept pushing. She had four, maybe five seconds of consciousness left in her. She was going to die. But she had to go deeper.

And then... blackness.

-/-

Moira woke on a strip of sand in a calm sea, soft, gentle waves lapping at her waist. She hauled herself to her hands and knees and retched, spilling water and bile onto the sand below her, that was washed away as the waves pulled themselves away. Every part of her body ached, lit on fire as she moved even a fraction, but she ignored that and forced herself up higher on the sand bar, high above the tideline where a few dry seagrasses had taken root.

There was nothing more to be done. There was nothing more that could be done. Her strength gone, and stamina spent, she collapsed into the sand and lay there.

-/-

She wasn’t sure why she woke later. She still felt as bad as before, and still as exhausted- there was a tug at the back of her mind, bringing her to consciousness. Something was coming- she needed to be awake-

She pushed, pulled, and prodded herself until she was sitting up, staring out at the sea. There was nothing else to stare at- dark overhead, dark below, it was a wonder she could see at all, but she’d given up trying to understand the lighting in this place.

It felt like an eternity of waiting, and may well have been, with no way to gauge the passage of time- and then she saw the little canoe, bobbing along gently on the surface of the sea, paddled by Milo. She felt like crying, and probably would have if there’d been any water left in her body to shed. She sagged, and then forced herself to her feet, forced herself to wave her hands until he saw her.

His face lit up, and Moira would swear it go brighter just from the impact of his smile. He turned the canoe toward her little sand bar, and she dragged her weary body down to the water’s edge to meet him, and sat down. It would be awhile before he got here, and she was tired.

It was another eternity, but a far more buoyant one, before Milo’s canoe eventually scraped on the sand. He stepped daintily out of it and pulled it farther up onto the shore, then knelt beside her and wrapped his arms around her, squeezed. She found his hands and rested her own over them, laid her head on his shoulder, and wished she could cry.

“My brother?” she managed to croak, when he’d finally let her go.

He held up one finger, then moved back over to the canoe and reached inside, hauling her brother up over the side and pulling him down into the sand. He was unconscious, feverish, and as Milo plopped him into the sand his head lolled to one side.

“Moira...” he mumbled, and Moira reached out to rest her hand on his cheek.

“I’m here, Robbie,” she assured him. He didn’t wake, but his head leaned into her touch.

Milo was reaching into the canoe again; he straightened with a pouch of rations in one hand, a jug of water in the other, and his smile was back. He brought them to Moira and sat with her while she ate, reaching out to rest his hands over hers in between bites so that she wouldn’t eat too quickly, all the while smiling.

When she’d finally reached the point that she felt a little better- the point where she knew if she ate more she’d be sick- she gave Milo a weary look.

“So what now?” she asked.

Milo raised his hands in a shrug. He had no more idea than she.

Moira sighed, handed the food back to Milo and moved over to her brother. She rested a hand on his forehead, then lay down in the sand and curled around him. She pressed a kiss to his temple and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, and closed her eyes.

“Keep watch, Milo,” she murmured. “I’ll think of something later.”

[summeroftim]

I tried something different and wrote a short story. I don’t know how I feel about it but you can read it if you’d like.

 Toby opened his eyes. He lay in bed and gently waited for the room to come into focus around him. He reached blindly over the side of his bed, searching for his phone on the ground. His eyes squinted as they adjusted to the white light of the screen. He scrolled through various social media accounts, both relieved and disappointed that he had no messages to reply to. He slowly got out of his bed, which was just the tiniest bit too low to the ground to do so comfortably. He threw his phone onto one of his pillows, where it made a small slapping sound as the flip case snapped open and shut. He didn’t make his bed.    

 Toby got ready in silence. The flat was dark but he didn’t mind. There was something intensely romantic to him about waking up in the darkness of the early morning, and allowing the rooms and spaces of his life to slowly illuminate with natural light. He enjoyed the simple rituals that the morning brought with it. He boiled water, and spooned ground coffee into his french press. He retrieved a white mug from the cupboard, and waited for the coffee to brew. He relished these daily pleasures that made him feel intensely human. Sunlight started to filter in through the window, highlighting the tiny dust particles that swam around the room and melted into the steam rising from his coffee mug. Toby didn’t eat breakfast. He wandered around the flat, taking the white coffee mug with him as he brushed his teeth and dressed himself. He rinsed the mug and placed it in the sink before he left. He stepped outside and locked the door behind him. Soon it would be autumn, and droplets of condensation would cling to the fly-screen door in the early morning chill. As he walked towards the train station, he was greeted by a familiar face. The grey cat trotted alongside Toby on top of a small, brick fence next to the sidewalk. Toby had a reasonably good idea of who owned the cat, but it was universally accepted that it belonged to the neighbourhood. The cat would often wait at Toby’s door and soak in the sun. Occasionally, it would even come inside and inspect the contents of the flat. Sticking its nose into every corner of every room with the unabashed curiosity seen only in animals and very young children. Toby knew for a fact that the cat did this to several houses along the street. Toby didn’t know the cat’s actual name, so he called it Elvis.

 Toby arrived at the train station and shuffled down to one end of the platform. He watched as people slowly filled the space around him, their heads bowed over phones and tablets. A few people read books. He always tried to catch a glimpse of what books people were reading. Sometimes he’d see people with books that he himself had read and enjoyed. He always wanted to talk to those people, but he never did. The train pulled in and Toby found a seat. He could hear the blare of music coming through cheap headphones somewhere further down the carriage. A man opposite him swore softly as liquid dribbled out of his traveler mug and left a stain on his pink tie.

 Co-workers uttered suffocated greetings as Toby trudged into his hazy office block. A mountain of paperwork jeered at him as he sat down and robotically turned on his computer. He scratched the back of his neck with his thin, stubborn fingers and sighed as he dissolved into the routines of his workplace. This was more or less a standard day for Toby. As was usually the case, he decided to leave the office at lunch. He sunk his teeth into a very tired sandwich and listened to the rhythm of shoes clicking on the pavement around him as he sat on a bench a few blocks down from the building where he worked. He came back to the office a little earlier than he had to, and chatted with Christine and David. He liked them both very much. Toby often felt like he was simply a worker bee. A drone, making up part of a bigger hive, indistinguishable from everyone else in the office space. But every so often he’d share a moment with his colleagues and would realise that such simplifications were untrue and served no purpose. When they left the office that evening, Christine would go and play pick up football in the gardens for an hour or so, and David would swing by the florist where his mother worked before going home. Under the light of the office everything seemed washed with grey, but Toby knew that there was colour there, too.

 The next day started much the same as the previous one had. Toby left his sheets and pillows in a scuffled heap on the bed as his coffee brewed in the kitchen. Elvis watched him from across the street as he walked towards the station. Toby got off the train at the central hub and walked towards his office building. Suddenly, however, he was stopped by an unknown force. He was struck by an intense and overwhelming desire to never go to that building ever again. He hastily made his way off the street, gesturing apologetically to the people who he had stopped in front of. He wrote an email on his phone and sent it to the office explaining that he was taking a personal day. He preferred to send an email and not to call, since he always thought he could feel people judging the sound and tone of his voice over the phone whenever he took a day off. His heart was thumping under his shirt and his mind buzzed as he walked aimlessly around the city streets. He ducked into a nearby cafe to compose himself. He sat and nursed a coffee for longer than it stayed warm. He watched people line up for their drinks and go about their days, and it made him think of the time he had spent traveling in his early twenties. He had enjoyed very little about Paris. At the time, he had wanted simply to explore, but the city had felt dirty and unwelcoming. One thing he did remember fondly, however, was watching the people of the city. Many of the cafes there had tables which faced outwards towards the Parisian streets, so one could watch the people and the traffic amble by. Toby had liked to fill in their stories in his head. It made him feel connected to something larger than himself.

 Midday came and passed and Toby decided to take the 109 tram to Port Melbourne. He got off at the last stop and made his way to the beach. He passed a few bars on the way there, all of them filled with businessmen and woman sharing drinks over their Friday meetings. There were a lot of salmon shirts and tinted sunglasses. The sky was swirling overhead as Toby approached the beach. It had been a nice morning, but in typical Melbourne fashion a cloud cover had rolled in and only a few, brave people walked along the shoreline. Toby zipped up his jacket, and took off his shoes and socks. He rolled his pants up above his ankles before jumping down and sinking his toes deep into the sand.

“Swim it off,” his father had often said to him when he was younger. Toby’s father had believed that just about anything could be remedied by the sea. That the ocean’s waves could nurse back to health even the most feverish of minds. Toby’s father had been a tall man, and a champion swimmer in his youth. After Toby had been born, his father had brought his family to the sea. There they had remained for a time, growing idle in a small, sun-washed town near the Prom. As a boy, Toby had always swum between the flags, despite his father telling him he could do whatever he wanted. There had been many occasions where Toby’s father had stood on the shoreline watching his son in the ocean, urging him further and further onwards. As if in some vain hope that the ocean would adopt the boy as its own, lifting the burden of fatherhood from his shoulders and allowing him to swim freely once more.

 “Swim it off.” The words echoed in Toby’s memory as he wound his way along the shoreline. The scathing ocean air filled his nostrils as he thought of the beach-side home of his childhood. A decade has passed since he had left it in search of a future in the languid laneways of industry. Australians shared a rich connection to the land and to the sea but Toby couldn’t help but feel apart from it. He felt like he didn’t belong in his own country sometimes. He strode along the shoreline and didn’t think about his father anymore. He kicked aside small shells and washed up cuttlebones, leaving their broken remains to rest alongside the deep footprints he made in the sand as they curved away into the distance behind him. He walked upwards away from the tideline where the sand wasn’t so wet and sat down, linking his arms across his knees. He watched the small waves roll in and out. “What am I doing?” He whispered softly underneath his breath. He pressed his palms forcibly into his eyes and slowly dragged his fingers down his face. They passed over his patchy stubble and pulled at his skin before they came to meet each other under his chin. “This isn’t me,” he murmured. He wasn’t speaking to anyone other than himself, but by saying the words out loud he gave them power. He stood up and slapped the sand off his clothes. His mood had turned for a second time that day. He had spent the morning away from the office because he had been flooded by a sense of dread that he didn’t fully understand. Now, however, as he made his way back along the beach, he felt a sense of power creeping through his body. His feet sunk into the sand with every stride, and he felt the small rocks and individual granules rub between his toes. Eventually, he returned to the pavement where he had started from, and methodically put on his socks and thick-soled shoes. He considered briefly going in to the office, as it was only 3:00 pm, but decided against it. He had taken the day off, after all, and he was going to use the rest of the afternoon to do something indulgent and unnecessary. Twenty minutes later he stumbled down the steps of the 109 tram near King Street, and headed towards the aquarium.

 Toby paid his admission and made his way down a dark, blue hallway. The school day was done, and any excursions were well finished by now. There were a few tourists and families, but for the most part Toby saw very few people as he made his way through the watery corridors. He tried to stop and absorb every display and exhibit that he passed. In particular, he loved the information panels on the creatures found only in the deepest parts of the ocean. He read of fish whose eyes looked outwards from inside translucent bodies, as well as biologically immortal jellyfish that cycled continually through different stages of sexual maturity. He shuddered briefly as he imagined floating in the depths of the sea, never experiencing natural light for all eternity. Hearing footsteps, he looked up from the information panel and noticed a woman, probably in her late twenties and maybe a couple of years younger than he was. She was wearing a cardigan over a blue shirt. Her hair was either black or dark brown, Toby couldn’t tell under the dim, atmospheric lighting of the deep sea exhibition, and she wore it in a messy bun. She flashed a very brief smile towards him, before moving back down the corridor from where Toby had entered the room. Suddenly slightly embarrassed at being at the aquarium by himself, Toby moved on towards the big, central display room.

 Toby looked upwards as he entered the glass hallway. The entire walkway was in the middle of a colossal underwater habitat. Completely enclosed by water on all sides, Toby watched as a manta ray settled on the roof of the walkway, its white underbelly directly over his head. He continued along the corridor to the central room, from which several other corridors branched off. There was a large bench in the middle of the room. Toby sat down and looked at the watery world that surrounded him. The lights in the room bounced off the water and threw distorted patterns over every surface. Waves of dim, yellow light danced down Toby’s face. After a time, he stood up and walked closer to the giant glass wall. A huge bank of coral towered above him. Anemones were scattered up and down its face. Small fish darted in and out between them, while bigger fish floated aimlessly nearby. Tiny shrimp scuttled around the floor of the giant tank. In the distance, a nurse shark glided noiselessly as it patrolled the enclosure. Toby’s focus constantly shifted. He found himself looking at each fish in turn, down to their smallest detail, before expanding his vision and observing each of them as part of their larger ecosystem. He didn’t know which view was more beautiful.

 Suddenly, Toby became aware that he was no longer alone in the room. The young woman with the messy bun who he had seen earlier stood not far from where he was. Toby noticed that she was quite tall. Aware that he was looking at her, she turned to him and said “Don’t worry. I’m not following you, I work here.” She flashed the same, small smile she had earlier, and tapped a faded plastic name tag pinned to her shirt. Toby couldn’t read what it said in the soft lighting. Slightly embarrassed and taken aback, he let out a half laugh before turning back to the glass wall of the tank. She watched him for a short moment before turning to walk away down one of the various corridors that extended from the central room. As she turned, Toby called out to her, “can I ask you a question?” “Of course you can,” she replied, as she swivelled around to face him. “In this big tank,” Toby gestured to the room around him, “with all these fish, what stops them eating each other?” “Well,” she said, considering the rest of her answer, “a lot of careful thought and planning goes into an exhibit like this. Most of the fish in here are what we call ‘off-diet’ to the bigger inhabitants, which means that they are species that the predators wouldn’t normally eat. More than that, though, is that the sharks you see in here are very lazy, and we keep them well fed. If a shark doesn’t have to expend energy to eat, it won’t.” Toby nodded thoughtfully and walked right up the glass wall, so close that his face was nearly pressed against it. His eyes locked onto two, tiny purple fish that danced together around the coral bank. They had flashes of bright yellow under their fins. Toby inhaled and turned again to the young woman but she had left to pursue her other duties. Toby inched his phone out of his pocket and saw that it was nearly 6:00 pm. He made his way through the rest of the aquarium exhibits and headed home. He didn’t see Elvis anywhere along the street as he walked to his flat but he didn’t mind. He turned the key and let the weight of the day flood over him.

 The next morning came, and Toby slowly stirred to life. He had slept deeply and quietly. After a brief moment of confusion he realised that it was Saturday, and that he didn’t need to be anywhere. Still in bed, he propped up his pillows and sat upright. He thought of the aquarium, of the young woman, and of the purple fish. He reached down to one side of the bed in search of where his phone should have been before he realised that it wasn’t there. He looked across the room and saw that it was still in the pocket of his pants, which he had hastily slung over his desk the previous night. Toby groaned slightly before getting out bed and extracting his phone. He opened up Google, entered a search for “purple fish with yellow fins,” and swiped across to the image section. He scrolled for a time but failed to find anything that matched the fish that he had seen the previous day. He began to think that perhaps he was misremembering what the fish had looked like. After a while he gave up, and placed his phone down on his desk. He went to the kitchen and put some coffee on to brew. While he waited, Toby returned to his bedroom and fluffed the pillows on his bed. He placed them neatly on top of each other, and pulled the sheets up high.