#a bit of back to school hypo would not be the Worst thing

[grammaticalmustaches]

prof asked for ‘just a few paragraphs’ but im 2500 words deep and every time i try to edit it down i just end up adding more words so unless he replies to my email with an actual word limit hes gonna have to read all 2500 words and thats on him babey

[bakusquadup]

If you could, would it be ok to request headcanons (or scenarios, both are so cool) for a soulmate AU in which both feel something similar to ghost pain of the other's quirk (for example, maybe a cold sensation for Todoroki that intensifies/spreads the longer he uses it)? But for your top 5 characters, please!

Hey babe! As I’ve said before, I’ve decided to go back through and answer some old asks. Sorry for how long this took. I decided to go with headcanons but I ran out of ideas halfway through, so I only did 4 characters, sorry (hope the ones I picked are okay). I set it up so the sensations just feel like ghost sensations when the person only uses their quirk a little bit, but become painful when they use it in a more extreme sense (think Deku at 5% vs 100%). Also, I feel like I’ve done something similar to this before, but I don’t quite remember, so sorry if it seems recycled.

Reminder: requests are still closed. Anyway, enjoy!

-Shelley

Todoroki Shouto

It wasn’t difficult to guess what your soulmate’s quirk, what with the hot and cold sensations you would get running through your body on occasion. The only thing you couldn’t understand is why the heat was exclusively on your left side and the cold exclusively on your right.

For the most part, the sensations were easy to deal with, even pleasant on occasion (bless your soulmate for using the cold half on hot days and hot half on cold days), but sometimes if their quirk was active for too long you would start to get hypo- or hyperthermia.

And at some point, you don’t quite remember when exactly because it took a while to notice, your soulmate just stopped using the heat. You started to notice that you were cold more and more often, never getting the counterbalancing heat that used to come with it. You began to worry that maybe they couldn’t use the heat part of their quirk. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

You figured out who your soulmate was when you were sitting at home, watching the UA sports festival (it was amazing to you that all the students competing were the same age as you). There was one particular fight that caught your attention. Todoroki Shouto vs. Midoriya Izuku.

Personally, you had been rooting for Midoriya-kun. He seemed like the underdog, considering he was destroying his arms every time he used his quirk.

But, you started to notice a pattern as you grew colder and colder while watch the event, mirroring Todoroki-kun’s use of his ice quirk. At first, you chalked it up to a simple coincidence. There were probably other people in the world with a quirk that makes things cold. Part of the way through the fight, however, something changed and Todoroki-kun’s left side lit up in a wall of flames and your body went from cold to burning in an instant.

That confirmed it. Your soulmate was the son of Endeavor, hero prodigy, Todoroki Shouto.

Amajiki Tamaki

Your soulmate’s quirk has always confused you. Sometimes your fingers feel all tingly, like they’re made of jelly, sometimes your back aches with the sensation of a phantom limb, sometimes your toes curl up and your feet go all stiff, sometimes its something entirely different that never happens again. As you got older though, the sensations started to become more consistent.

There was one time in middle school where you woke up in the middle of the night feeling like your entire body was wet or covered in some sort of slime and it was most definitely NOT a pleasant sensation. You had immediately gone to take a shower in the hopes that actually being wet would diminish the disgusting feeling. It did not.

By the time you got into high school, the sensations had become pretty regular in what they felt like, where they occurred, and when they occurred. You were relieved to not experience anymore traumatizing events like what you started calling “the slime night” (only in your head though).

You actually ended up meeting Tamaki through Nejire. As a support student at UA, you wound up befriending her when she came into the development studio to get something to support her arms in battle. She’s a very outgoing person and was very easy to befriend. She eventually introduced you to Tamaki and Mirio.

Beyond that point, it took a surprising amount of time to learn that Tamaki was your soulmate. You knew about his quirk and how it worked, but you were very around when he activated it, so you were never able to put two and two together.

You discovered the truth when you walked in on a class 3B training session and Tamaki had wings out. You had been feeling the phantom limb sensation on your back for a while beforehand, but you didn’t think anything of it initially. It wasn’t until Tamaki put the wings away and simultaneously released tentacles from his fingers that you realized.

You had shouted “wait, Tamaki, you’re my soulmate?” in front of the entire class. Tamaki was mortified.

Kirishima Eijirou

People always told you growing up that you would get an idea of what your soulmate’s quirk was based on the ghost sensations you’d feel when they use it. But, you would just experience weird Charley horses in your body, limbs seizing up without explanation. You had absolutely no idea what your soulmate’s quirk was.

The first time you experienced in your entire body was in elementary school and you had been so surprised that you had yelled out, surprising your friends and the teacher standing before the class. It didn’t particularly hurt, it just felt like your muscles went completely rigid. It made it difficult to continue writing.

By the time high school started, all you had determined was that their quirk seemed to be concentrated in their arms or that they used it in their arms the most because both your arms would cramp up at the same time pretty frequently. It usually went away within a moment, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Unfortunately, once you were in high school, it just got worse. And significantly worse at that.

The number of times your entire body was seizing up increased tenfold and occasionally it would go beyond just seizing up. It would be painful and you would end up falling over, rigid as a board. Whatever your soulmate’s quirk was, it was making your life difficult and you had a bone to pick with them.

Luckily for you, the two of you met halfway through your first year. You were walking around with a group of friends downtown when your soulmate activated their quirk. At first, it was just the normal full-body activation, stiff but bearable. They kept it active for a while though and then it got worse. Your entire body was in pain and you fell to the pavement, your friends crowding around in worry (none of them had problems like this with their quirks).

Concerned about you, a boy in a hero costume raced up to you. He looked like he was made of rocks, kneeling next to you, but his appearance dissolved away after a moment and he looked normal again. It was at that time that your muscles relaxed again and you realized the boy was your soulmate. You had shot upright to yell at him

“You! You’re the worst soulmate ever! Do you realize how much I’ve had to deal with?”

Needless to say, he was surprised.

Midoriya Izuku

You had figured out from a pretty early age that you didn’t have a soulmate because you never got any ghost sensations that everyone else did. Your family and friends tried to be supportive, telling you that your soulmate had probably not developed their quirk yet, but when you were getting a few years into elementary school you had completely given up hope. You didn’t have a soulmate and that would have to be something you lived with.

By the time you reached middle school, you had pretty much come to terms with the fact, settling on either finding someone else without a soulmate or someone who didn’t care about their soulmate. A large percentage of people never get to meet their soulmate anyway.

But it all changed when one day a horrific pain ran through your legs and one of your arms. It was terrible, horrific pain, tearing at your muscles, but then it was gone in an instant.

Your parents took you to a doctor to see if anything was wrong, but you were told that there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of your limbs. “Is it possibly from your soulmate’s quirk?” the doctor had asked. It planted the seed in your mind that it was possible. Unlikely, but possible. It got your hopes up.

You experienced the same searing pain a few times over after that, mostly confined to your fingers and right arm.

You didn’t know how it happened, but it seemed like you did have a soulmate and they had a terrifyingly strong quirk that they had never used before.

Over time, the pain dulled out into the ghost sensations that everyone insisted you would get, much to your relief. It started to feel like a gentle tingling across your entire body, soothing even.

You discovered who your soulmate was in your early thirties when you were saved by the number one hero himself. He repeatedly activated and deactivated his quirk in your presence and you were sure.

On impulse, you had asked him why he had never used his quirk for the first 14 years of his life.

“Were you originally quirkless?”

The color drained from his face.

[ramblinganthropologist]

Inktober 19 and 20 - Breakable and Scorched

Summary: Alistair Shepard’s policy on cooking could best be described as ‘scorched earth’ and ‘total disaster’. Luckily, the Reapers didn’t destroy pizza delivery when they attacked in 2186. It’s a weird retirement, but it’s his. Luckily, he has someone to eat pizza with, even if that companion is a wise ass. 

---

Ok, who was the genius who decided that things you cook with could be so goddamn breakable?

Honestly, it was a miracle he hadn't lost an eye from the flying glass that had once been the measuring cup. Alistair was bleeding, sure, but it was only flesh wounds. The worst was in his hand. With any luck, he would only be picking glass from it for the next hour.

At least he remembered to turn the stove off this time as he backed away from it towards where he kept the first aid kit. Last time... well, he didn't want to think about that. Bo was still calling him an idiot over it.

“Oww.”

His classmates were often surprised he still felt pain. According to them, all his nerves should be used to it after being buried in the Citadel two separate times. Technically, it was only once with this body – that was something else fun to explain to them – but apparently it still counted. Unfortunately for him, he did still feel pain perfectly well in the parts that were still fleshy. Maybe he had less of them than most people, but they felt it well enough to make up for his missing limbs.

It took some fumbling to get the first aid kit open, but thanks to his prosthetic arm he was soon picking through it. A small amount of medigel was resting on the table as he grabbed for the tweezers he kept in there. Maybe not the best for picking glass out, but he had an edge.

Technically, biotics weren't exactly approved parts of medical procedures according to one of his teachers, but they weren't here and his good hand was fucking bleeding everywhere. It was good to feel that hum as his implant kicked in. Really, it had been too long since Alistair had last used them. Civilian life didn't exactly provide many opportunities for implementation, especially since humans were still a little leery about their own species making shit float. With all the exploding eezo since the reapers hit in 2186, more were starting to pop up. Not nearly as much as other species, but they might beat the turians out in twenty years.

It was always fun, beating them in something.

“Oww... shit.” Even with biotics, Alistair had to fumble with the tweezers to get one of the smaller chunks out of his hand. But it came out, and that was good enough for him. Now there were only a few more pieces, and those were bigger. They'd be much easier to get out.

A few more plucks, and soon his entire hand was covered in medigel and patched up with bandages. Alistair finally breathed a sigh of relief as he sunk back into the couch and closed his eyes. Clearly he was getting soft if this bothered him.

Though, after killing a shit ton of reapers, maybe he could allow himself that. After all, it was 2189 and  the fact they could continue to date shit on the calendar was a miracle in itself.

He stayed there on the couch for a few minutes, quietly resting his eyes. School was wearing him out a little, though it wasn't as bad as 2186. Nothing could ever be as bad as that. Still, it was nice he could still feel stressed out about things. It made him feel human.

Just like the hypo that was starting to set in was making him feel. Right... he had been making food before all of this.

It took him some doing, but soon he was shoving his emergency sugar supply into his mouth. Brain functions would come back in a few moments, but until then he was pretty useless. So, back to sitting on his ass it was. No problems there.

Really, he had been trying to make dinner to avoid his homework before all of this. Clearly, he was getting back into the swing of being a student again with flying colors. It wasn't quite the military retirement he had expected – he hadn't thought he'd make it at all, actually – but it was how his life was going. Maybe he had taken a bit longer to get there, but he was there and that was all that mattered.

“Maybe I should give up on the cooking thing for tonight though...” he had enough scars as it was. Plus, with his last test results, maybe he had earned a little pizza. That order was easy enough to put through. Now he just got to sit back and wait.

And... maybe start on that homework he had been putting off. That was the trade off, wasn't it?

Honestly, Alistair tended to lose track of time when he was studying. It could have been ten minutes, it could have been an hour. The thing that pulled him out of it was a knock on his apartment door. Well, that and his growling stomach.

“Be right there!”

He still had a bit of a limp – therapy couldn't get rid of that completely. But his prosthetic leg was doing a good job of getting him around. Maybe it wasn't quite Spectre quality, but he was retired. At least that  was what he told himself as he stood up from the couch and made his way to the front door at a slightly reduced speed.

Much to his disappointment, it wasn't pizza waiting for him. However, Garrus fucking Vakarian definitely was a nice surprise.

Alistair didn't even think – he launched himself at the turian with the speed of his Alliance days. He didn't quite manage to knock his fiance to the floor, but at least he put in a good effort regardless. Garrus managed to catch him, and the two were against the wall. It was only decency and the reminder they were in the fucking hallway that kept them from, well, trying to fuck in the hallway.

Also the fact Garus fucking Vakarian was in fucking Baltimore when he should have been on Palaven. That was a bit of a kicker.

“Good to see you too, Al.” That was the first thing he said when he didn't have a tongue in his mouth. It had taken some doing to stop making out with him, but that was the price he paid for getting some information. “Guess I don't have to ask if you missed me?”

Alistair snickered as he nuzzled into Garrus' neck – not to make him totally horny or anything, there were children in the apartment down from him after all – and kissed him lightly over some of his older scars. Really, he would have thought he was dreaming. But his injured hand was aching, and so was his bad hip. Those were both great reminders he was awake.

“Ass. What the hell are you even doing here? I thought you said they were running you ragged back on Palaven.”

The turian responded by clucking like an unholy 7 foot chicken. The translator made it sound like laughter, but enough time around him had taught Alistair otherwise. Though Garrus said he didn't sound like a chicken when he laughed, he totally did. Though it was kind of cute too. He needed to do it more.

That was probably where he came in, being Mr. Vakarian's fiance and all. Laughter was kind of his department.

“I may have moved some things around. After all, isn't your birthday tomorrow?”

Fuck, was it?

Garrus saw the look on his face and laughed even harder. “You forgot your own birthday again, didn't you?”

“No.” The blushing gave Alistair away. Though, he eventually relented and grinned sheepishly. “Ok, maybe. School's been keeping me kind of busy.”

He chuckled as well, but that amusement turned to embarrassment as he heard someone clear his throat off to the left. When he turned to look, he blushed even harder. Garrus might not have been the pizza guy, but said guy was definitely there now.

Now what did he want more? His fiance, or food. Processing... processing... yep, the hierarchy of needs won out. Food it was.

“Uh... be right over.”

Garrus was nice enough to not laugh his turian ass off right away as he lowered him to the floor. Alistair was still blushing scarlet as he limped off to pay for his dinner. Sam – yes he knew the guy's fucking name, he saw him enough to know it – was doing his best not to laugh too. He did shoot him a knowing look as he handed over the food and departed. But then he was gone.

And... well, food.

“How many times this week have you ordered pizza?” Garrus was following him back into his apartment. The turian at least didn't look too shocked when he saw a similar box in the bin next to the door. “What a surprise, only once.”

If he was trying to get fucked that night... well, that was probably going to happen anyway, but he was pushing his luck for sure.

“I may have had some issues in the kitchen.” Alistair scowled a little when his fiance snickered. “What?”

Garrus was nice enough to help him grab a plate, but that was also because he wasn't allergic to levo food. It didn't do much for him nutritionally, but he could definitely steal at least a few slice and not have to worry much. And again, did pizza do much nutritionally for people who could eat it anyway?

“Al, your cooking strategy is scorched earth.” He stole a slice and quick kiss before Alistair could swipe him away. Briefly, it made the human wonder what he was actually saying – no way the turian military strategy would have referred to such a timeless classic with anything to do with their recent love/hate relationship partner. “What, it's an effective military tactic. You've still got a little Commander Shepard in you.”

Someone else might not if he kept it up... Garrus was lucky he was so damn cute. And he was a welcome distraction from homework. Alistair would have to get back to that later, but at least he had someone to lean against while he did it. That was enough to almost make it tolerable.

He still had to clean the kitchen from his attempts at cooking after this but... well, turians were great at dealing with the after effects of scorched earth policy. Maybe he could get his fiance to do it while he did his homework. After all, he was feeding him. Maybe he hadn't made it, but it counted.

That was how it worked, right? Damn... he wasn't so good with this sort of thing. Luckily, Alistair had plenty of time to figure it out. That was the bright side of saving the universe. At least he thought so as he settled in to eat some pizza before Garrus ate it all.

Maybe it was a weird retirement, but he was happy to have it – homework and all. Though, he would have to see if he include that last one by the time he was done. Probably not, but the reapers hadn't been able to destroy that either. Guess you can't win them all.

[curvesandtigerstripes]

Year End Reflections (No, I'm not dead)

This year... hasn't been an easy one.

At the beginning of this year, I found out that my body wasn't working right. It was a relief, because I had felt for a while that things weren't right, but it was also scary, and upsetting, and overwhelming. Fast forward to the end of the year, and while some things have gotten better, we still don't have my Graves Disease under control. According to my doctor, if upping my medication for the third time doesn't help, we may have to look into killing my thyroid altogether with radioactive iodine, making me hypo for the rest of my life. I've known this was a possibility from the moment I was diagnosed, but I had been hoping that if it came to that, it would be my choice, not something I'd be forced to do.

I haven't tried to stay healthy in all this, even thoough with my health on the line, it would totally make sense to. I've been stressed, I've reverted to old habits, and consequently I've gained... much more weight than I would have preferred. I'm not where I started, but I've gained back at least half of what I've lost. And part of me hates myself for it, but another part of me is just trying to remind myself that I need to love and forgive myself, because that's the first step to being genuinely happy with myself again.

So, this year has been... a bit of a dumpster fire. Yes, there have been good things - I got to go to JAPAN, for god's sake, and that was fucking amazing - but it feels like everything outside of that has been a bit of a wash. But I'm ready to make a change. I'm ready to start over, so to speak. I'm ready to love myself again. And if I'm honest, I'm not sure if that means I'm ready to be back on here 110%, because I know it's gonna be hard, and I know I'm gonna slip up, and I have a really hard time feeling guilty when I do, like I'm letting people down. But I will try to check in, I will try to be more present.

I will learn to love myself again. That is my goal for 2018.

I'd also like to connect with people on here again, because while I myself haven't been super active, I log in multiple times every day and read so many stories y'all share, and I'm rooting for you, even when I don't say anything at all. So for that reason, I'd like to give a few shoutouts to the people I've been following, who have inspired me, who I've been silently cheering for. I hope y'all see this; if you don't, it's not a big deal, but I do hope you know how much you mean to me (and I'm sure to a lot of other people in this community).

@fatmaninalittlesuit - Dude, I don't even know what to say. I've followed you for years and you have always been such an inspiration, but this year you have absolutely killed it. You've worked so hard, and it's paid off tremendous dividends. I saw your ten selfies of 2017 post today and literally said out loud, "Holy shit, John, you don't even look like the same person - you look awesome!!" You look happy, you look strong, and you always have kind words of encouragement to share with us. Thank you for all you do in this community, and may your 2018 be rad as fuck.

@curvymommy70 - You have been so sweet to me. It seems like every time I've made a post complaining for crying about my circumstances, you've always been there to pat me on the back and reassure me things would be okay. You have been a rock for me in this community throughout the year, and I don't feel like I've done enough to convey how much I appreciate you. Thank you so much for everything, and I cannot wait to see what 2018 brings you (I hope it's only good things). :)

@plussizeadventure - I haven't really said two words to you, but I followed you earlier this year and I'm so glad I did. I know 2017 has been shitty for you too, but I can't tell you how much I love seeing your smiling face on my dash. You are funny, and smart, and determined as hell, and I find myself cheering you on in the face of your challenges, whether it's shitty advisors or cancer. The fact that you can still smile at the end of the day puts things in perspective for me, and if you can find things to smile about, then I sure as hell can too. Thank you for being brave and sharing your story with us - I know I don't always talk often, but I am always rooting for you!!

@mystoryfortheaudienceoftheworld - Another person who I only just started following this year, and now I look back and ask why??? You are such a delight, I love seeing your smile, your passion for life, even when things are rough, and your dancing gifs and videos make me wanna get up and shake it too! You are Hayden are PRECIOUS together, and I am so happy for the next phase of life you two get to embark on. I love seeing you on my dash. Also - and I hope this isn't too weird - you're only about four-ish hours away from me and I wanna be like, let's get brunch sometime! I feel like that would be an awesome meal. :)

@sweetiefiend - I know we haven't chatted in a hot minute, and I'm not in the GG fandom like I used to be, but I just love seeing you on my dash. You are gorgeous and kind and encouraging, and it seems like you've always reached out to me when I needed it the most. Thank you for that, and I hope 2018 is fucking awesome for you.

@sahraylia - My wifey until I die~~ You are always there for me, you are encouraging, kind, loving, patient, and you're not afraid to call me out when I need it - all of which I love you for so, so much. I hope I can be as supportive to you as you've always been for me. You always encourage me to be myself, especially when I need the reminder, and I can never express to you how much that means to me. I love you so, so much, and I hope 2018 is better than your 2017 was. <3

@dysfunctionalkitsune - I'm gonna see you tonight, it's probably inane to but this here, but girl. I am so grateful for you in my life. I never would have guessed all those years ago when we met in middle school that we'd be as close as we are now, but I am so glad we are. You are the fire that keeps me going, keeps me pursuing my dreams, even when I fall off the wagon multiple times per week. You helped us get to Japan this year, you always take me on fun adventures, your thirst for excitement and life is contagious and I'm so glad I know you for it. Having you as a friend means life is never boring, and I love that. I love you so much, and I can't wait to see where our next adventure takes us!

@starfieldeyes - I don't even know what to say to you, because words seem meaningless. You have been there for me in my worst times, when I sobbed on the phone, when I felt like everything was lost. You've been there to lift me up, wipe my tears, and sometimes slap me in the face and tell me to get over myself - all from hundreds of miles away. You always seem to know what I need when I need it, and I literally cannot express how much I love you & how lucky I am to have you in my life. The college we met at was not a good match for either of us, but I will always be grateful that I met you (and Brittany) there, and I wouldn't change a thing about going there if it means I get to have you both in my life. Thank you. I love you.

@mynameisbirdie - I feel like putting a shoutout here is silly, because you're my sister and all, but I don't know if I tell you enough how much you mean to me. You have become one of my very best friends, and I'm so happy that we are as close as we are. I'm so grateful that I can literally tell you anything and I know you won't judge me. I love that we share our interests with each other and drag each other down into our respective fandoms, I love that we laugh over rip vine compilations and quote John Mulaney to each other, I love everything about us and our relationship. Thank you for always being there for me. I love you so much.

I know there are people that I'm missing, but this has gone on too long already, lol. Here's hoping for a better 2018 than 2017 - for myself, for all my followers, and to whoever might be reading this right now. Let's make 2018 our bitch.

[serpicojones]

Letter to My Grandma

I wrote the following a longtime back on here and then I never posted it.  I am working on a new essay and I noticed this now.  There are some things about this letter that have evolved for me.  For instance, in the letter I refer to my pronouns as They/Them/Their and while I am generally still fine with these pronouns, I now also use She/Her/Hers.  I think that my perspective on presentation is changing some (even while genderqueer still feels like an accurate term even as I also accept trans woman), but all of the details included in this letter were very truthful to the moment that I wrote it.  I hope you can enjoy it and maybe learn a little about me as well as my particular experience with my gender and identity:

Dear Grandma,

I hope that this letter finds you well!  I thought this would be an interesting way to communicate with you.  Perhaps you would like to write or have my mother write a letter back to me.  I am writing to you rather than calling because of the importance of the content of this letter and I wanted to make sure that it was all communicated clearly.  As you know, sometimes communication over the phone can be challenging and I didn't want you to miss anything or feel like you missed anything!

All of my life, my relationship with you has been very important to me.  You have always been a great person to talk about anything in the world with!  My sister and parents are happy to listen to what I have to say about serious world stuff because they love me, but sometimes I've gotten the feeling that they are often just humoring me :-D.  When we have talked it has been different.  I think something that we share has been an overwhelming curiosity about the world.  And nothing has ever been off limits.  I feel sad that in the last few years, we've been unable to spend more time together because of where I live and how often I come to New York.  I'm sorry about that.  Some of the major ambivalent feelings I have about living across the country are cause I wish I could spend more time with you!

So anyway, I'm also sorry if I've been unable to keep you 100% abreast about what is going on in my life.  I appreciate that my mom shares with you a lot of my goings on.  I love you very much and so I really want you to know what's what.  Maybe we can be pen pals!  So let me share a little something with you that I would be happy to talk to you about in depth.  Perhaps you would like to call me or write me questions in the form of a letter.  That is absolutely welcome.

So here it goes...

I will start from the beginning of my pathway of discovery and fill in the details as I go along.

WYOMING

The sad truth about when I moved to Wyoming is well represented in this quote from Moby Dick:

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

I was running from something.  Everything in my life seemed like it had the potential to be a happy one, minus the tough economy for finding work, and yet, I was almost desperately unhappy.  Something was clearly not right and I was restless about it.  I allowed for myself that it was my job prospects that kept me so unhappy, but it definitely felt deeper than that.  Perhaps it also seemed my inability to deal with my own sexuality and relationships, but this was a bit under the surface--deliberately ignored by my conscious mind. I needed to get away from it all and Wyoming was my Pequod.

Accepting a job in Wyoming, a place I'd never been and could barely even imagine was a perfect experience for me.  And for awhile, I was way happier!  I was working on a creative job where people respected me, massaged my ego constantly, in a place that was foreign to me: ripe for discovery and exploration. In addition, after acquiring my own apartment, it was also a new sort of opportunity for me; it was one in which I could experience isolation and solitude.  There were fewer pressures from the outside world in my 2 bedroom 2 floor apartment all to myself.

And so truthfully, I was surprised and shocked that the restlessness was still there even when so much in my life had been transformed.  I was a different person in Wyoming.  I was the easterner city "boy" that everyone marveled at.  There was no pressure from my parents, no pressure from school, no pressure from friends.  Work contained only pressures that I felt confident that I could deal with.  So why was I feeling so restless that I would abandon my apartment in the middle of the night to stare at the star filled high desert sky?

Being truly alone with myself in a post-school, post-future world was devastating.  I call it post-future, because up until that point in my life, I had always held out hope that things would be better in the future.  I had markers of time and progress like tests and grades and watermarks like getting bar mitzvah-ed, graduating high school, etc.

Without those watermarks, suddenly I realized how incredibly long a lifetime is.  As a kid, I could ignore my feelings with the expectation of a greater future and no concept of time in a life beyond childhood and adolescence.  All time could be filled with distractions, mixed with endless hopes and dreams for the future, made safe by a loving family.

Alone with myself for the first time, I could feel the pain that I had been masking in my soul and had refused to face.  AND for the first time, I decided that ignoring the problem as I had tried to do for so long, was MAYBE a satisfactory way to live my short life up until that point, but in the larger scheme of things was immensely painful.  The prospect of living with that masked personal discontent unexamined for up to 60-70 more years if I lived a full life was a daunting and unbearable.  And so finally, I looked inward.

Previous to this moment at subconscious and conscious intervals, a part of myself was always judging every action I did and every feeling I had.  According to this voice in my head, something was wrong with me.

And so, I stopped judging for the first time.  What was actually going on in my head?  Well to start with, my problem that had no name related to my sexuality among other things, but it wasn't purely about my sexuality.  Much of it related to how I saw myself in relation to others socially. SELF-EXAMINATION

The sun rose on a clear September day in Cody, WY.  I heard my neighbor's horse whinny, and quietly I reflected that I had actually never had a single sexual fantasy that involved myself as a man.  Many of them simply involved that act of turning into a woman and imagining masturbating or making a sexy video for the male version of myself.  

Sometimes, the fantasies wouldn't even be sexual in nature.  They would involve finding myself unexpectedly changed into a women and going into work the next day, trying to deal with the consequences or finding that everyone had already interacted with me as a woman, known me as a woman and this was an alternate reality that I would have to adjust to.  Even this, I found titillating for the sexually repressed person that I was.

In elementary school, it was incredibly important to myself internally that I was different from the other kids.  I didn't mind being different!  I craved it.  I loved it, but first and for most, I KNEW IT.  Different how?

I didn't exactly know, but I definitely didn't like to be categorized.  I wanted other people to know it also and it hurt when they didn't.  My worst fear was that I was wrong about myself and I was the same as everybody else.  This was before I learned that being different in the ways that I was was a problem. I couldn't really put my finger on it at the time.  The reason as I can surmise was that I couldn't get out of my own point of view.  Gender was a made up category that made a simple distinction between body parts.  I assumed that everyone basically knew what I did.  Boys and girls were literally the same asides from this one almost taxonomical difference. I was interest in the difference as one of my earlier elementary school memories was when I asked my mother with fascination and obsessive interest what my name would have been if I had been born a girl.  She told me Jillian and I held onto this memory all the way up to my days in Cody.  I was regularly jealous of my sister for some minor gender related reasons that seemed normal, and I also admired and loved her so much so I would let them go!

The ways that I was different became a problem in middle school when all of the kids started acting differently and as puberty set in.  Puberty and the ways that kids began to socialize were super confusing to me!

Everyone else was in on a secret that I had never been privy.  Boys and girls started acting in crazy ways that made no sense to me.  All of the boys, even the shy ones started being sorta goofier about girls.  Most boys were acting on feelings of attraction to girls, even if that only meant by just sharing their thoughts and acting a stupid way with each other.

I didn't understand.  I didn't get the big deal over the difference between boys and girls.  Most boys were acting in ways that I didn't like and wanted no part in.  Truthfully, they were mostly doing stuff that made me not really want to be friends with them anymore.  I wanted to have friends.  Friends were important to me, but the ways in which guys started behaving made me uncomfortable to be around them a lot of the time.  I regularly made exceptions, but was definitely confused and extremely stressed by these developments and in these environments.

Meanwhile, I had (what I felt like was a weird) obsession over girls.  There was some sexual attraction as I started developing sexually later in middle school, but the attraction was always mixed with a sort of envy.  This envy made NO SENSE to me.  I was so confused!  Did other boys have this envy?  They probably didn't?  They didn't seem to have the same feelings I did but maybe I simply hadn't sexually matured as far as they had.  This is when I learned that my ways of being different were a problem, but I would often credit this feeling to not going through puberty as quickly as other people my age.  They were simply better at it than I was.  As I would get older, I would figure it out like they had and get over whatever things I was feeling.

It is around the end of middle school that I was realizing that feeling more explicit sexual desire (often, but not only for girls), was no cure to my discomfort around most boys and girls, sexually and socially.

I did a little self-examination and tried to be open with myself at this early date.  I looked at the few options I had been aware of for things that would make me different.  Was I gay?  This definitely didn't seem entirely correct and men did occasionally enter into my fantasies, but there simply was always women there too.  In these situations, I would be a woman in the scenario.  Was I bisexual?  This I decided was possible.  It seemed to make sense that since I was clearly in my head attracted to women, I couldn't be gay, so I must have been bisexual!  My homophobic young mind determined that while it was ok to be gay, I would pretend that I was straight (which is something that I think a lot of bi kids go through).

I had very little concept of what it meant to be transgender.  The only thing that I was aware of in relation to transgender identities was these joke tv shows Maury Povitch or Jerry Springer where transexual women would come onto the show and be this scandalous crazy person character.  These people thought they were something they weren't and that was that and women were attracted to men, so transexual women had to be attracted to men.

One night after watching one of these shows I had a dream that I was a woman (and this wasn't uncommon usually accompanied by euphoria) and I woke up with what must have been the most clarity about the issue of my youth.  I had a fantasy or follow-up dream (I can't remember which) that I told this to the therapist I was seeing and their response to me was, "Did you ever consider for a second that you are one?  You are a woman?" I freaked out and thought about that show with fear, disgust and (I guess self-hatred) that I--this wasn't real.  I couldn't be a woman because of my body parts and life as a trans woman seemed to be fucking awful on those shows, and being sexually attracted to women the trans women were usually "ugly" in my minds eye.

I never told my therapist and this thought was basically pushed down into my mind until I considered it yet again in Wyoming.

The thing that remained constant as I grew and developed into a young "man" was how envious I was of girls and women.  What they had, I could never have!  I looked in the mirror with a sort of disgust at what I looked like, simply feeling unattractive and embarrassed by any body part or hair that made me look like a man.  I regularly wished I could have been a girl in an abstract way (not a concrete one), but mostly tried to focus on other stuff, dreams for the future.  I felt that when I finally had sex with a woman, I would get it what sexuality was supposed to be about as a "boy" who WAS attracted to girls.

I didn't masturbate or have any sexual encounters with people until my sophomore year of college and part of the reason for this was my overall discomfort.  I had a gigantic crush on the girl that I went to prom with and late that night had the chance to push things further and the more intimate things got, the more my sexual feelings were turned off.  Basically my relationship to my own sexuality was in itself a turnoff.  My relationship with the sexual body part that I have been bestowed was itself a complicated and confused one.  Anytime sexuality became concrete, there was a seemingly unbridgeable gap between what I had and what I needed to make things feel right and stay aroused or feel pleasure.

In my bedroom in the town of 10,000 people in the middle of a sage brush steppe up to the Rocky Mountains, I considered the way that girls had ALWAYS made me feel by including me in a category of men.  I felt literally miserable.  When feminists used to use gender exclusionary language before a wider feminist movement became inclusive of transgender identities, I was restricted and not allowed, alloft without a place to fit in--only a category assigned to me MEN by these trans exclusionary feminists.  But then, I remembered the feeling of a visit I had to Los Angeles where I met my feminist friends possibly for the first time since they had been awakened to their "radical" feminist ideology and I learned about the space for trans identities (fairly recently added to their playbook This was 2012).  I remembered how free I felt among these folks to not be a guy and just to be me.

In the context of all of this, I searched the internet and found out what people said about my fantasies.  I found some very transphobic literature as it was designated as a disorder by the diagnostic and statistic manual created by the American Psychiatric Association and I found some less transphobic content as well.

I learned that transgender identities actually cross a wide range of possibilities and I learned the difference between sexuality and gender essentially for the first time.  I learned transgender folks sometimes identified in between what was called society's gender binary between men and women.  In addition, they had all different types of sexual attractions separate from and within these identities.

I immediately realized that cis gender (what is used to refer to people whose genders assigned at birth agree with the way that they feel), definitely didn’t apply to me.

I took immediately to an identity that I found mentioned called genderqueer.  People choose this word for all types of personal identification reasons.  The attractive part was that it felt like it was between masculine and feminine. Ever since that morning in Wyoming, I have been exploring and developing these thoughts.  It has been a roller coaster of emotions.

I really moved out to Los Angeles because I wanted to be near those feminist friends that I had.  I needed some space from my parents and my family and my long and storied history painfully thinking of myself as a guy, which had become more than simply a habit.  It was like a habit, but a hurtful one, one that always cut me on some level, but to which I had developed a huge amount of useful, distracting and necessary coping mechanisms so that I could lead a full life.

All of those mechanisms did and continue to attempt to derail my progress. When I had a first real sexual encounter with another person, I discovered how incredibly difficult it was to feel pleasure and satisfaction with my appearance in the context of sexual activity and in the context of my body's shape and form. This along with other realizations helped push me into what was one of the worst depressions of my life.  I mourned for my loss of being a "normal guy."  This was a fiction that I had created and still continues to influence the way that I interact with the world.  I also had moments of celebrating the same loss.  GOOD RIDDANCE.

I denied my own identity, the possibility of it even making any sense, the possibility of living a "full life" in my mind leaping out the window all at the same time that I accepted my truth.  These sort of things apparently happen concurrently and sporadically moving forward and backward between different stages of grief.

I legitimately felt like my life wasn't worth living, albeit never explicitly considered suicide.

I loved the way that my feminist friends treated me now that they didn't think I was a cis dude.  I continued to feel incredibly rewarded for my openness in my feelings and the ways that I felt comfortable interacting with the world with this new conception of self.  It was the greatest relief in my life at the same time that I struggled.

The new burden of what living my truth actually meant in the world replaced the previous self-hatred.  This was a duller type of pain, generally more outwardly focused.  And the other pain that grew and developed was the people around me not knowing or acknowledging my truth.  This all happened without any steps I took in order to change the ways I felt about my gender presentation. My concept of my gender identity also developed beyond genderqueer.  I will still use this as an identity label because on a certain level it still feels like it fits, but I can give you a more clear expression of the relationship that I feel I have with gender.

If you were to think of gender as a spectrum and not as a binary and you imagine that that spectrum has masculine on one side and feminine on the other, I would place myself a clear distinct amount of space feminine of center.

  I am not a guy, or a man.

I don't generally care about my personal presentation from an internal perspective when we are just referring to me.  In the context of social spaces however, I care a great deal!  And I have come to realize like a Tomboy who decides she wants to do stuff that is feminine--that same stuff I don't care about--MATTERS TO ME.  In the context of social situations, I really don't want to be read as cis male, even by a coworker or a stranger.  This is something that my mom finds very confusing.  Why would I have a desire to move my gender presentation almost completely into the feminine (at least of center) if I don't care?  This is who I am and they are basically rendering me invisible by dismissing who I am.  Gender really does MAINLY exist for me in the context of social situations, but it also exists in the concept of my physical body as well.

As I mentioned earlier, I suffered from what is called gender dysphoria all throughout my teenage years up until the present.  This was a feeling of disconnect between what my body looks like and what my mind feels like it should look like.  This was often quite triggering to my depression as was the things that I believe testosterone was doing to my mind and feelings.

These things plus my desire to present as female and my panic and depression of that year a year ago pushed me to visit a hormone doctor and begin taking hormone pills...an estrogen supplement and a testosterone blocker.

So hormonally at this moment, I am female.

My friends and family now refer to me as Jamie and it is the name I would like for you to try and call me as well.  Everything in the past and that you have known of me before, and this letter has added up to equal who I am today.

I do still mostly dress the way you'll have remembered seeing me, but I am working on it and increased feminine presentation might make me feel more comfortable with the narrative that is still 2.5 years new to my life as compared to the previous 25.5 years.  It is an adjustment for me as well as other people in my family, but it is just the way that things are.  Whether or not it is a positive change or not, it is constantly developing (my gender identity) and also unavoidable.  As soon as I would give up on this new narrative, I would have given up on the possibility of a happy life.

At the moment I use and tell other people to use gender neutral pronouns to refer to me.  These pronouns are a creation of an alternative culture to mainstream English language so people claim that they are unnatural, but what is really unnatural is the concept of the gender binary that has been so enforced by European and christian society partially as a way to economically and physically oppress women and maintain past and contemporary power structures.

The pronouns I use are: they, them, their

And I would appreciate if you attempted to add them to your lexicon to refer to me.  I am very understanding of folks who mess it up.  Because of my 25.5 year narrative for myself, I occasionally mess up my own pronouns.  It doesn't mean that my new narrative isn't true, but simply that old habits are hard to break.

I may in the future begin using feminine pronouns: she, her, hers, but that isn't right now.  I just definitely don't want to be he, him, his

I am very glad to be able to share this with you and I'd look forward to discussing it further, whether on the phone or by pen pal.

Love always, Jamie 

[archetype-online-blog]

Blog: Less Isn’t Always More: When Long Sentences Aren’t the Enemy

Sometimes, with no small degree of thoughtfulness and care, writing in a meandering style, that is to say with numerous elaborations, twists and turns, and infamous semi-colons, can be an elegant and, indeed, effective strategy.

But when? And how do you do it well?

If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class you were probably taught to internalize certain rules. Less is more, clarity is key, and if you must use an adverb (God help you) do it quietly, and with an appropriate level of shame.

Maybe you managed to take those rules to heart. Maybe you didn’t need to be taught them in the first place, they were so innately obvious. Or perhaps you felt exactly the opposite: that the rules you were told to follow were completely wrong, irrelevant, or at the very least, inapplicable to your specific creative vision. You, dear reader, are a free spirit, a unique individual. Teachers aren’t dumb, and it would be silly to assume they can’t help you improve your writing in some way. But how can they tell you exactly what to do? How can there be strict guidelines for a fundamentally creative process?

In truth, you’re right to be suspicious. Many of the standards we’ve come to associate with “good” fiction, especially those that are taught in high school and college level English courses, aren’t standards at all: they’re strong historical preferences. Take, for example, the golden rule of writing courses the world over: “less is more.” You’ve probably been told that long sentences with too many adjectives are, in a word, wrong. Prose should be simple, clear, and concise. If your reader needs a map to find the purpose of your paragraph, you’ve made a grave and irreversible mistake.

But this preference for clarity isn’t an age-old law of the written word. Take some of the opening lines from Moby Dick:

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

This sentence (or depending on your point of view, sentences) is ostensibly an editor’s worst nightmare. Have you ever seen that many semicolons in one place? Let alone a single sentence that could rightfully be a full paragraph? What was Herman Melville thinking? Or how about this sentence from Carmilla:

“I have said ‘the nearest inhabited village,’ because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf's schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town.”

Would these excerpts be substantially improved if they followed the rules; if they divided their meandering clauses into neat little chunks with periods at the end? They’d certainly look a lot more like what we consider quality writing today, the “tight” prose that writers like Raymond Carver and Ernest Hemingway are famous for. But wouldn’t something about the distinct voice of Ishmael (Moby Dick’s protagonist) be lost if he didn’t think and speak in winding, introspective monologue? Wouldn’t the isolation and desolation of Carmilla’s ruined village lack something if it was communicated to the reader without clause after clause of ornate gothic prose?

Tastes change, and if Moby Dick or Carmilla were published in 2018, they might read completely differently. But different is not necessarily better. In 100 years the standards for “good writing” might be completely unrecognizable to us, but this would no more invalidate the quality of the books we publish today than the existence of Raymond Carver invalidates the existence of Herman Melville.

That’s not to say that sentences can never be too long. Consider the following excerpt from my (as yet unpublished) novella, Bartleby Goes West:

“Bartleby knew that he had unfinished business, business being his preferred term for acts of incomprehensible brutality, business that stuck to the back of his brain like bits of omelette at the edge of a frying pan, but he knew also that Laura had drugged his drink, Laura who never believed in his dream to join the circus, the dream he had tended to in the garden of his mind since the age of seven, Laura who had stabbed him that night in Reno, stabbed him with the back-end of a rusty box-cutter, Laura who left him to die there, bleeding, with seven box-cutters stuck between his ribs…”

And it goes on. There are many problems with this sentence, but the main one is that the length, combined with its lack of focus, turns the whole thing into the prose equivalent of an 18 car pile up. Without a point, the sentence goes nowhere, and instead of paying attention to any element of the story the reader loses interest entirely.

It’s possible to write something like this well. Take the first sentence of The Crying of Lot 49:

“One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.”

This sentence contains its fair share of digressions and details that seemingly don’t relate to the main idea. Whether it’s executor or executrix, that there was too much kirsch in the fondue, or that Pierce Inverarity had once lost two million dollars in his spare time, while details that are appropriate to the story itself, all seem unrelated to the immediate purpose of the sentence: informing the reader that the protagonist, Oedipa, has been charged with the execution of a millionaire’s will. But because of the way Pynchon weaves the point of the sentence throughout its text, the meaning is fairly obvious. If we remove the digressions, the sentence becomes:

“One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party ... to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor... of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who … still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.”

You can see how the parts of these parts of the sentence that elaborate on the main idea frame the parts that meander off or seem to get sidetracked.

Ultimately, writing in a meandering style isn’t impossible, it just takes a lot of thoughtfulness and care. You can also see now why the Bartleby sentence just doesn’t work: without a framing device, the writing becomes a list of digressions and non sequiturs.

And with that in mind, dear reader, remember not to be too hard on your teacher. Newer writers often struggle to communicate exactly what they mean, and from a teacher’s perspective, strict rules can help guide students into producing work that more closely adheres to what they meant to say in the first place. But at the same time, over-reliance on rules and over-emphasis on the value of “tight” prose can leave a lot of students feeling adrift and unmoored. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt it. And if you love long meandering sentences, if you love books that experiment, that break the boundaries of traditionally “good” fiction, then why not try your hand at writing one yourself?

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[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Floating, Pt13

Word Count: 3128 Tags: @medicatemedrmccoy, @from-kitten-to-kitsune @suzen23smith @outside-the-government @sistasarah-sallysaidso @nymphadora-blurryface @bluebird214

Katie slipped under the covers and snuggled into my side, just like she’d done when she was a little girl. I lifted my arm and settled it over her, drifting back off to sleep without waking fully. In the morning, I gave her a squeeze and shoved her away. She was suffocating me with her heat.

“You can’t do that every night, Katie,” I yawned. She stretched out and nodded.

“First night jitters, Mama,” she agreed.

“Are you sure you’re okay getting to the education centre on your own?” I asked as I sat up at the side of the bed, scrubbing my hand across my face.

“Of course, Mama! I’m not a baby anymore!” She sounded so exasperated that I realized she really wasn’t.

“Then get your tush out of my bed and make me a coffee while I shower,” I teased. She groaned and got up. I made sure she ate breakfast and had her supplies for school before collecting my own things for my day.

“So are you coming for me after shift, or do I come to you?” She asked for what felt like the millionth time. I sighed.

“You come to me,” I replied. “Comm me if you need anything.”

I looked down at the message on my comm and frowned. It was cryptic and poorly spelled. Katie wasn’t normally that way. I didn’t have much of a chance to puzzle through it, as she came through the doors in Mr. Yim’s arms. I dropped my comm and my PADD and ran to the nearest biobed.

“Here, Jung!” I gestured to the bed and he made directly toward it, placing Katie down gentle on it. She was clutching her arm, but frightningly silent. And filthy. Covered head to toe in filth. And smelled suspiciously like a campfire. “What happened?”

“Well, we were testing the combustive properties of various chemicals and apparently the bromine was mislabeled,” Mr. Yim answered. I started cutting Katie’s clothes away from her arm.

“Just the arm?” I asked. “Bromine isn’t normally combustible, what was in the container?”

“Not sure at this point. It extinguished easily with a chemical suppressant and is not continuing to burn, but Katie is already a little shocky,” he offered. He rattled off the assessment he’d done at the education centre, and I focussed on what he was saying as I ran the scanner across her arm.

“I’m going to need to know what it is.” I looked across the room until I saw Christine. “Chapel, I need a burn kit.”

“Dermaline gel or the regenerator?” She asked, opening the supply cupboard.

“Bring both,” I called. She grabbed the dermal regenerator from the cupboard and stopped at the med room for the gel while I gave Katie a pain control hypo. “You’re going to be fine, Katie-cat.”

“It hurts so much I can’t breathe,” she whispered. I looked at Chapel, who nodded and popped an oxygen mask on Katie’s face. I tried to breathe through my mouth. The smell of seared flesh had always bothered me, and was made worse by it being Katie.

“Lay back and breathe, sweetheart, your mom has got you.” Christine smoothed her hand across Katie’s forehead. I cleaned the wound and applied the dermaline gel to the worst part of the burn. Katie shrieked when the gel touched her skin. It was reassuring that she was feeling pain, but the sound knifed into my heart and I struggled to blink back tears.

“This is going to take some time to work, my love,” I murmured. “I’m going to put you to sleep for a bit.” I gave her another hypo to sedate her and went back to work, smoothing the pink gel across the skin. Once the worst burn was coated, I went to work with the dermal regenerator healing the lesser, minor burns. I was just assessing the skin beyond Katie’s arm when I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.

“You should not be treating your daughter, Doctor Erikssen.” McCoy’s voice was stern, and I looked up at him in confusion. He only ever called me doctor when he was trying to be professional. And that was fairly rare.

“You were meeting with the captain, Doctor McCoy. Who else could have -”

“You could have had Chapel comm me,” he interrupted. “Step aside, I’ll take over.” I felt my hackles go up and and I turned to face him, placing the regenerator on the tray table beside me.

“Doctor McCoy, I am perfectly capable -”

“You are her mother. If for no other reason, recognize that I am more experienced at treating,” he paused and looked at the burns on her arm, “nitrogen burns than you are.”

I sighed and stood up, handing the dermaline gel tube to him. “I’m not leaving.”

“I didn’t say you had to,” he snapped. I moved to Katie’s other side, and held her limp hand in mine. I felt a wave of nausea hit me as the adrenaline of treating her started to ebb. The smell of the burned flesh combined with the chemical scent of the gel to become even worse than it initially had been, and I gagged. Leonard looked up at me with a raised eyebrow and softened. I felt a little lightheaded, and imagined I was probably kind of pale, and dropped my head on the biobed.

We stayed like that for hours, Katie sedated on the biobed and me holding her uninjured hand, head laid down beside her. I had somehow already failed her, and she’d only been mine again for a day. Regret washed over me and I wondered if I’d made the right decision, bringing her out into the black. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up into Jim’s concerned blue eyes.

“Bones told me you haven’t moved in hours,” he started.

“I don’t want to leave her.” My voice was dry and cracked with the words. Jim nodded.

“Let’s get you fed. Christine has offered to stay with her, and Bones is planning on keeping her asleep. She’ll never know you were gone.” He laced his fingers in mine and pulled me to my feet.

“I don’t know.” I looked between him and Katie, eyes lingering on my little girl, sleeping peacefully. Her arm was already looking better.

“Captain’s orders,” he insisted. “Come along, Lieutenant.”

I allowed Jim to lead me out of Medbay and down to the commissary. We ate, mostly in silence, not speaking until he brushed a tear from my cheek. “You can’t blame yourself for this.”

“She’s been here one day, Jim,” I countered. “One day.”

“It was just as likely to happen with your parents as it was here.” He was trying to comfort me.

“But that’s the point. No matter where she is, it’s my fault,” I sighed.

“Bryn, Katie is a gifted child. I saw her records. She was going to a science academy this year, regardless of where you wound up. That accident could have happened anywhere. We just need to be grateful it wasn’t worse.” Jim squeezed my hand as he spoke. I flicked at my food and sighed again.

“I’m not really hungry, Jim,” I admitted.

“I don’t know what to say to make you feel better, Bryn,” he shrugged. “But this wasn’t your fault.”

“I appreciate the effort,” I smiled. It was the first real conversation that we’d had, and I thought it was a good start. “I think I’ll go check on her though.”

McCoy glared at me as I walked back into Medbay and took my seat at Katie’s bedside. I picked up her chart and started reading. He snatched it right back out of my hands before I got past my last notes.

“I’m pretty sure I told Jim to keep you away for at least an hour,” he grumbled. “And as you are not her doctor, but her parent, you can’t be looking at her chart. You know that.”

“I am -”

“Not working as a doctor right now,” Leonard interrupted. “So take a deep breath and just be Mama.”

“I hate you,” I grumbled. He smiled.

“Good. That means I’m doing my job.” He winked and squeezed my shoulder. “You don’t have to like me, you just have to trust me.”

“You already know I trust you with my life,” I argued.

“Then trust me with hers,” he chided. His tone softened. “This isn’t a bad injury, Bryn. It’s just a time-consuming and painful treatment.”

“I know.”

“Then go get some actual rest. I’ll comm you at the first sign she’s coming out of sedation,” he ordered. I glared at him again, but went back to my quarters and took a shower, and changed into a clean uniform. I tried to stay away, and prove to him that I did trust him, but I was drawn back to Medbay before the start of Gamma shift. I held up my hand to stop him from chastising me and just sat in the chair at Katie’s bedside.

“I swear, I’m not going to interfere, but I can’t stay away,” I pre-empted him. He nodded.

“Mama, I’m fine!” Katie protested as I fussed over her. Leonard had discharged her when the burn was nearly completely healed, and I had been assessing her range of motion and level of pain every morning since. “It’s been a week. I’m fine. You need to trust Uncle Bones.”

“Uncle Bones?” I laughed. “When did you start calling him that?”

“He asked me to come in every day after your shift so he can check on me without worrying you. I probably was not supposed to tell you that. Anyhow, a few days ago, Jim came in looking for you. So he talked to Uncle Bones about me and you, and kept calling him Bones. It’s the best nickname ever,” she explained. “But he’s grumpy and fussy like Pops is, and it just felt right to call him uncle. Like I call Kara auntie.”

“And is he okay with that?” I questioned.

“He hasn’t told me not to?” She asked back. “He kinda seems the type that would tell me to stop, you know?”

“He definitely is.”

“I like him, Mama. He gives great hugs and -”

“You hugged him?” I was astonished. He was always so uncomfortable when I threw my arms around him. And I’d done it to him a lot. I got a somewhat perverse pleasure from making him squirm, so any time I thought a situation called for a hug, I would wrap my arms around him.

“He hugged me,” she corrected. “And he’s good at it. He gives Dad hugs.”

“Dad hugs?”

“The kind of hug you give, only he’s a guy, so it’s a Dad hug.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Honestly, Mama, keep up.”

I sat back and watched her finish getting ready for school. After her accident, she hadn’t even hesitated to go back and try more experiments. She had waved off my concern with a nonchalance that I initially thought was foolhardy, but really had been quite brave. She hadn’t got that from me. I’d been carefully avoiding my anti-grav drills with Leonard since my panic attack. She was an excellent lesson in determination, and I realized that I was learning more from her than she might be learning from me. It was time to face my fears and emulate my ten-year-old’s behaviour. I rose from the couch and kissed her forehead.

“You’re okay getting to class?” I asked, as I did every morning.

“Mama!”

“Have a good day.” I gave her a squeeze and headed to Medbay. Leonard was already at his desk, reading his PADD. I couldn’t see a cup, so I made us both coffees and headed into his office.

“Katie thinks you’re awesome,” I offered, putting the cup down in front of him. He glanced up, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” he muttered.

“She said you give Dad hugs,” I pressed on. His cheeks flushed, just a little.

“She’s a good girl,” he deflected.

“Are you available tonight for an anti-grav drill?” I asked. He hadn’t pressed my avoidance, like he somehow sensed it was too much. His head shot up in surprise, and he put the PADD down on the desk.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Katie’s got plans to work on some robotics thing with a couple of the other kids tonight, so I’m free,” I offered.

“And you don’t want to spend that time with Jim?” He asked.

“I’d like to face this fear again before it becomes insurmountable,” I explained. He nodded.

“Okay. I have time.”

“Thanks, Uncle Bones,” I teased with a wink. He rolled his eyes.

“No.”

“I think it’s cute.”

“From Katie, sure,” he agreed. “Not from you. Go check on Ensign McKay.”

I forced myself to stay busy all shift to keep my mind off the drill, and keep my anxieties at bay. Katie and I went for a run when she got in from school, an activity I’d only just learned she enjoyed. Keeping up with her definitely kept my mind off the drill. I let her have the shower first so she could get ready for her study group, and then dragged myself through the sonic myself. We headed to the education centre together.

“How late do you figure you’ll be?” I asked.

“A few hours at least. We’re building fighting robots,” she explained.

“And this is for school?”

“It’s basic robotics, Mama.” She rolled her eyes. “If we can make these robots, we get to move on to trying out our skills robots. I’m going to start with a housebot that will change sheets and make beds.”

“Okay, comm me when you are done.” I watched her run to her friends and start talking excitedly about their plans. Mr. Yim stepped over to me and smiled.

“She’s fitting in well, and she’s exceptionally bright,” he started. “She may qualify for early entry to the academy if she keeps this up.”

“Well, we’ve got a few years before we need to be concerned with that,” I laughed.

“Now’s the time to start, Doctor Erikssen,” he contradicted me. “She could go at thirteen or fourteen.”

I sighed and felt my mouth turn down. “But I just got her back,” I sighed.

“The sooner she goes, the sooner she can come back as an officer.” He winked. “You’re right. She’s got a few years before the option opens. But with your permission, I would like to challenge her as much as she can manage. Because she is bright enough.”

“Is there anyone on board who was an early entry?” I asked. “It would be nice to talk to someone who’s experienced being that young at the academy. For me and for Katie.”

“I’ll try to find out for you.” He agreed. I excused myself and made my way to level seven to meet Bones. He was looking at the time on his comm when I stepped off the turbolift.

“You’re sure about this? You’re late.”

“I was talking to Jung Yim about Katie.” I nodded. “She’s doing well.”

“She’s very bright,” he agreed.

“It’s only been a week,” I protested.

“She’s very bright, Bryn,” he laughed. “Come on.”

I followed him to the cargo hold and waited for the gravity to turn off. I took a deep breath when Scotty’s voice informed us the gravity was going off, and closed my eyes. I forced myself to think about swimming instead of the gravity being gone, and the nausea wasn’t quite as extreme. I opened my eyes and saw Leonard staring at me. I took another deep breath and pulled myself forward like I was doing a breaststroke from one side of the room to the other. Every time I felt a wave of vertigo or panic, I stopped, closed my eyes and breathed until everything started to settle. I was halfway back across when Scotty’s voice warned us that the gravity was coming back on. I felt the panic well up inside me.

“Trust physics. Trust physics. Trust physics.” I repeated it over and over and over, my voice barely above a whisper, my eyes squeezed tight shut. I let out a startled squeak as I felt myself moving faster than I thought I should be. “Trust physics. Trust physics. Trust physics.” I must have been saying it louder than I realized because suddenly Leonard was holding my hand. The tips of my toes grazed the floor, and I opened my eyes and looked down right as my feet settled completely. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and then felt a wave of triumph wash over me.

“That was much better,” Leonard commented, letting go of my hand like it was on fire. I looked down at my feet and up at the ceiling of the cargo hold in wonder. Then back to my feet. Then at Leonard.

“That was fucking horrible!” I exclaimed. “But I didn’t die!”

“If you can keep your shit together consistently, maybe we can consider a medbay simulation.” Leonard was getting ahead of himself. I laughed, still giddy from my first success.

“How about we see if I can do this a second time before you start planning the scary shit?” I asked. “Now gimme a Dad hug!” I threw my arms around him and he pulled me in close, resting his head on the top of mine. I laid my cheek on his chest and sighed, content.

“You should try to catch up with Jim while you have some time.” His voice rumbled against my cheek. I leaned back, still in the circle of his arms, and smiled up at him.

“You’re a good man, Leonard McCoy,” I told him. He rolled his eyes.

“Hardly. But I’ll take the compliment while you still think so,” he retorted. I shook my head and turned out of the hug. I checked my comm for messages from Katie, saw that I had none and sent one to check in with her. I got a short response from her that basically told me she was having too much fun to be worried about how long she was going to be. I send Jim a quick message to see if he wanted to meet for a drink and was gratified by an near instant response inviting me to his quarters, which was followed almost as quickly with a response that he would he happy to meet me at the cantina for drinks if that was what I preferred. I had already selected his level on the turbolift and just kept on course. He opened the door and smiled, gesturing for me to enter.

[mckirkish]

The Sight of the Stars

(Okay! So this is my super, abysmally late Star Trek Network Gift Exchange gift for @orsonkraennic. I’m sorry this is so late! Life and school and I started one, but then didn’t like it so switched and...yeah. I tried to incorporate two of your prompts, and I hope I’m able to make you smile! Thank you for being so understanding. Anyways, Enjoy!)

“I love you.”

The first-time Jim had said those words to Leonard, he hadn’t paid much attention. “You have a concussion,” he’d informed Jim, and slipped his pen-light back into his coat pocket before going to prepare a hypo to reduce some of the swelling. “Save your confessions for the next person who gives you an orgasm.”

Jim had opened his mouth to say something, no doubt to protest and reiterate his undying affection, but Leonard had forestalled him by pressing the hypo against his neck with a tad bit more force than strictly necessary. “Now go on back to the dorm, and no sleeping until I get home all right? I’ll need to check you again before you go passing out.”

“Ow! Shit!” The mournful look Jim had sent him spoke of absolute heart break, which Leonard didn’t believe for a second.

“Quit being a baby and get,” he pointed toward the door.

“I’m getting. I’m getting,” Jim shot back with a slight shake of his head. “See you at home, Bones.”

~ * ~

“I love you.”

The second-time Jim said it, Leonard really should have been prepared – but honestly, he was fairly certain it had been the concussion that first time. Celebrations with Jim had a tendency of ending one of two ways: both of them passed out on any horizontal surface in the dorms, or Leonard being woken up at some god-awful hour in the morning as Jim snuck back into the dorm.

Really, it wasn’t that different this time.

Leonard groaned softly, and rolled so he was actually facing in Jim’s direction, only to find himself staring straight into Jim’s eyes. “Jesus, Jim,” he cursed, scooting back and nearly falling off the far too narrow bed.

Jim grinned his cocky grin, and chuckled as he flopped an arm over Leonard’s waist and pulled him back from the edge of the mattress, and much closer to Jim in the process. “They’re called single beds for a reason you know,” he pointed out – sounding far more sober than either of them had a right to be.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Leonard muttered, and shifted on the mattress until their legs were tangled together and his own arm was draped over Jim’s waist.

Now firmly anchored and secured, Leonard let his eyes fall shut again, ready to give himself over to blissful unconsciousness so he could regret all this when he was actually sober.

“I mean it, Bones,” Jim spoke into the silence again, and Leonard had to bite back a groan.

“You’re drunk, Jim,” he muttered, drunk enough himself to admit that he was too scared to open his eyes because he knew damn-well that Jim would be staring at him with those baby-blues that made Leonard forget how to think straight.

“No I’m not,” Jim protested.

At that, Leonard did crack an eye open.

“All right, maybe a little.”

Leonard snorted.

“Okay, maybe a lot. But you said to save my confessions for the next person who gave me an orgasm, and I did.”

Leonard tensed, suddenly feeling far more sober than he had a second ago. “Jim…” he said softly, carefully, trying to figure out what the hell he’d just walked into. He pushed himself up on an elbow and stared down at Jim, squinting slightly in the dark of their room.

“No. No. Nevermind,” Jim blurted out before Leonard could organize his thoughts. A hand pulled at his shoulder, and Leonard collapsed back down onto the mattress. “You’re right, I’m drunk. Don’t know what I’m saying. Forget I mentioned it.”

It was a lie. Leonard knew that, even in his current state. Jim knew exactly what he was saying. Knew exactly how much sex he hadn’t had in the last month. Still, Leonard settled back down and pressed his face into Jim’s neck.

He probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.

~ * ~

“I love you.”

This was becoming a habit, and Leonard wasn’t sure if he hated it or not. It was certainly hard to ignore the way Jim looked at him when he said it, or the warmth it spread through Leonard every time he heard those three little words.

Unfortunately, he knew he couldn’t say it back, not when Jim kept springing it on him in the worst situations.

“You’re upset, Jim,” Leonard said softly, wrapping his arms more firmly around Jim’s shoulders.

Jim sagged into Leonard’s chest. He pressed his face against Leonard’s clavicle and released a shaky sigh.

Gently, Leonard rubbed Jim’s back, letting the silence settle over them. This was going to become a tradition too, Leonard could feel it. Not that he could blame Jim, having your birthday on the same day your dad died, no wonder the kid didn’t want to celebrate, got touchy at even the mention of the day.

“You never believe me,” came a muffled voice from Leonard’s chest. “I do, you know. I lo-”

“Jim,” Leonard cut him off, his voice gentle but firm. “You don’t-” He sighed and shook his head, cutting himself off. He couldn’t say for sure that Jim didn’t mean it, maybe he did, but neither of them, Jim included, could trust those feelings or thoughts if they could only be voiced when Jim was in some sort of vulnerable state.

“Bones. Seriously.” Jim raised his head, eyes slightly red from the tears he’d been suppressing all night.

“Seriously, Jim,” Leonard cut him off again with a shake of his head. “Don’t. Please, just…just don’t. I can’t…if you can only say it when you’re out of your mind, then it’s not real. Not the way you think. I’m here for you, kid. I’ll always be here for you. So…let’s just…let’s sit here, have a drink, and put on a holo or something, okay?”

A frown tugged at Jim’s lips, but eventually he jerked his head and pressed his face against Leonard’s neck again.

Leonard sighed softly, and turned his head to press his lips against Jim’s hair.

~ * ~

“I love you.”

The words blow across Leonard’s ear, and he shivers, stepping out from under Jim’s arm draped around his shoulder. “Jesus fucking Christ, Jim. You’re going to give me a heart attack.” At this point, Leonard knew he shouldn’t be surprised. After Jim’s birthday, it seemed like every time he turned around Jim was telling Leonard that he loved him. It was flattering, honestly, but also more than a little embarrassing. Honestly, Leonard didn’t know if he dreaded the next declaration, or secretly looked forward to it.

Okay, he did know, but he wasn’t sober enough to admit it this time.

“Do you believe me yet?”

Leonard sighed and shook his head, a small smiled tugged at his lips. “You know, Jim. You saying it every five minutes tends to diminish its impact.”

Jim huffed at Leonard and rolled his eyes. “I can’t say it all the time, I can’t say it when you think I’m vulnerable. When can I say it so that you’ll actually believe me?”

At that, all Leonard could do was sigh. “I don’t know, kid,” he admitted after the silence seemed to stretch on forever. He shrugged. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Jim loved him, he just wasn’t sure that Jim’s idea of love was the same as everyone else’s. Plus, it was hard to ignore the fact that they’d both been incredibly vulnerable, at rock bottom, when they’d met. Of course, they would gravitate toward each other and-

Damned psychology degree, he never should have taken it. It made him overanalyze things far too much.

“Earth to Bo-ones,” Jim sing-songed, and Leonard twitched. “There you are. Look, don’t sweat it. I’ll figure out a way to convince you. Just you wait. Leonard Horatio McCoy, I’ll make you fall in love with me.”

Leonard groaned. “Is that a threat?” he asked.

“Nope,” Jim grinned and winked at Leonard, making his heart squeeze uncomfortably in his chest. “It’s a promise.”

God help him, he was doomed.

~ * ~

It became a game. By now it had gotten to the point where Leonard couldn’t even be sure if Jim meant it anymore. Between exams and his second residency, and Jim’s only accelerated schedule and his habit of falling in and out of beds whenever the wind changed, the random confessions were getting less and less frequent – though thankfully their time spent together hadn’t suffered too much.

The past week, however, had been more taxing than most. It felt like Leonard hadn’t seen his bed for more than five minutes for the last seven days, he was fairly certainly he hadn’t actually seen Jim in all that time either.

It was starting to get weird. Leonard missed Jim’s presence. Not that they had to do everything together, but they usually at least passed each other once a day.

Now, however, by the time Leonard got home it was well past midnight, and all he wanted to do was pass out for the next fourteen hours straight – and he actually had a break in his schedule long enough to accomplish that task.

Jim wasn’t home, again, but Leonard ignored the slight pang that caused and settled for rolling himself up in his blankets and greeting blessed oblivion.

“Bones.”

Leonard stirred groggily, pulling his blanket up higher in an attempt to convince himself that he was dreaming.

“Bones. Hey, Bones. Are you awake?”

Flopping over on his other side, Leonard cracked one eye open to glare balefully at Jim. “I was,” he drawled out, his accent thick with exhaustion and annoyance.

“But you’re not now,” Jim said, far too pleased with himself.

A sweatshirt flew across the room and smacked Leonard in the face. “Dammit, Jim!” he snarled, pulling the fabric away from his face in order to shoot another unimpressed glare at his friend. “What the hell time is it?”

“Somewhere around 0300,” Jim answered, clearly distracted.

A pair of sweatpants followed the sweatshirt, though Leonard managed to snag them out of the air before they actually hit him in the face. “I’m going to kill you,” Leonard growled, dropping the clothes onto the floor and tugging his blankets up over his head. “I only went to bed three hours ago.”

Shortly, the blankets were tugged off his head, and Jim shoved the sweats at him again. “Come with me. I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

Normally Leonard would have said no. Normally Leonard would have told Jim just where he could shove it. But he was awake now, and Jim had that secret little pleased smile dancing around his lips, and he hadn’t actually seen Jim in a week and-

Leonard sighed and rolled out of bed to pull the clothes on. “This better be worth it,” he cautioned. “Or you’re going to find out just why it’s such a bad idea to fuck with a doctor. I know a thousand different ways to make you suffer, Jim.”

“Yeah yeah,” Jim chuckled, leaning on the door frame and watching with dancing eyes as Leonard struggled into the pants. “Hurry it up, old man.”

Grumbling under his breath, Leonard shoved his arms into the sweatshirt, and let Jim tug him wherever the hell it was that they just had to go at three in the fucking morning.

Jim led him up. Up to the very top of the dorm building.

One eyebrow slowly rose, and Leonard glanced questioningly at Jim.

“This way,” Jim urged.

At the edge of the roof was a small nest of blankets and pillows – that Jim had undoubtedly pilfered from somewhere because Leonard knew for a fact all their blankets and pillows were accounted for. “What’s this?” he asked as Jim tugged him forward, then proceeded to flop down into the nest.

“I want to show you something,” Jim said earnestly, and patted the spot next to him.

Well, he was here now, might as well humor Jim. “All right,” he muttered, and sat himself down next to Jim.

A soft smile blossomed on Jim’s face before he lay all the way down, head cushioned by both the ill-gotten pillows and his arms.

“What did you want to show me?” Leonard asked, torn between annoyance and curiosity.

“Lay down,” Jim answered simply.

There really wasn’t any choice but to comply.

Leonard lay back, pillowing his head on his arms like Jim, his gaze directed upward. “What’m I lookin’ at, Jim?” he asked in confusion.

“Just wait.”

Suddenly the lights all across campus went dark. The darkness rolled across the bay until all of San Francisco had disappeared.

“What in the hell did you do?” Leonard demanded, bolting upright.

“This wasn’t me. It’s scheduled,” Jim said, tugging at Leonard to lay down again. “It happens once a year, they rotate it so no one knows exactly when it’s going to be. They’ll be out for an hour, system reboot and check to make sure there’s no bugs.”

Leonard didn’t move.

“I swear, it wasn’t me. Come on, Bones. Just…just trust me, okay? Lay back down.”

Slowly, hesitantly, Leonard complied. He sunk back down onto his elbows, and then onto his back, his gaze still fixed on Jim.

“Look up,” Jim breathed softly.

Leonard did, and felt the breath rush out of his lungs. Stars. Millions of them. They twinkled in the inky black of the night sky, the band of the Milky Way cutting across the horizon. “I’ve never seen so many,” he admitted softly. There were too many lights in the city. Too many lights pretty much anywhere on the planet. But now, encompassed by darkness, looking up into the black that Leonard feared and Jim yearned for- Well, he could sort of understand it now.

At least a little.

“Lordy,” Leonard breathed out at last.

Jim shifted a little closer to Leonard. “They’re something, aren’t they?” he asked softly.

Leonard turned his head to look at Jim, but Jim wasn’t looking at him, he was completely captivated by the light of the stars above them.

“You know,” Jim continued softly. “I feel like I don’t know anything, nothing with certainty at least. I’m always jumping from one place to another, never sure where I’m going to land, or what’s going to happen to me when I get there. For awhile there, I was just waiting until the ground swallowed me up. But, well, whenever I look at the stars,” Jim smiled softly. “The sight of the stars makes me dream.”

Leonard was captivated. Truly captivated. He’d never seen Jim like this, but then again, maybe he had, he just hadn’t realized until now.

“Jim,” Leonard said softly, pulling Jim’s attention away from the sky and back down to Earth; to Leonard.

“Mmm?”

Leaning closer, Leonard smiled and brushed his lips over Jim’s. “I love you.”

[ramblinganthropologist]

Inktober Day 4 - Spell

Summary: What was it that Alistair felt that day back on the Normandy shuttle when his hands ran blue with Turian blood? He doesn’t know, but maybe two assholes from a hell planet might be able to help him figure it out. Maybe they can do something besides kick his ass for a few hours. (Mass Effect - Dragon Age crossover)

---

There was something about magic that made him want to smash someone's head in. Maybe it was a stress reaction?

Sweat dripped down Alistair Shepard's forehead as he hid behind the roughly erected barrier, a short length of wood clutched in his hands. He had no gun this time to help him, and they had taken his omni-tool as well. All he had for defense was this dumb stick against... well, a literal mountain of a man.

The book had said Hawke was scary. Apparently both of them were.

“I think you scared him off, Moses.” The gremlin was talking. She didn't sound to be scampering around at the very least, so he didn't need to worry about surprise attacks from about his shoulder area. Of course, she could always spot him and dive bomb – there was a lovely cut from that on his arm already. “Want to call it a day?”

“Might as well.”

It was a trap, Alistair knew it. However, he was exhausted from running from them and starting to feel a little light headed. Enough times behind a wall had taught him what it felt like when he reached his limit. He was beyond that point and heading for a full on crash. Worst of all, his opponents barely had a scratch on them.

It was a piss poor showing, but damn if he had the proper equipment he wouldn't be getting his ass kicked so hard.

“Come on, Shepard, you're embarrassing yourself. Why don't you come out and we can finish this like grown ups?” Hilarious, coming from an imp of a woman who didn't even stand five feet tall when she was in her heavy armor. “I'm getting bored and you do NOT want me coming to find you.”

“You don't.” The mountain's voice was as deep as he expected it to be, but was there amusement there? “Besides, I see you.”

Fuck, he should have considered aerial.

Alistair barely had time to react – he rolled out of the way just as the bright purple of a blade slashed down where his shoulder would have been. His opponents had found him and had him basically against the wall. With both of them in their armor and one wielding a glowing sword... well, rock and a hard place was putting it mildly.

The imp was grinning as she rested her sword against her shoulder. “Give up yet, Shepard? Cause I'm getting kinda hungry here.”

Hungry and bored, always a wonderful combo. Alistair didn't back down, however. Instead he just gripped his stupid piece of wood tighter. It might not have been an assault rifle, but it was going to have to do for now.

Now... what the fuck had he been taught? Focus... focus...

And then came the bolt of lightning that shot straight out of the staff.

“Shit!” The imp was already three feet back and out of harm's way. “I think that's a sign you get the idea about primal magic. How do you turn this damn thing off?”

The room blurred, and they were back in the featureless training area they had been in for the last hour. Alistair sighed and slumped against the barrier he had been hiding behind. Sweat was pouring down his face, and both his hands and the staff were trembling. It was a miracle he was even standing on his feet at this point.

A small hand held out a towel. It was attached to Avery Hawke, one of his trainers. Well, trainer was putting it on a bit thick – her job was really just to annoy him enough to make him forget military training.  His actual teacher was her younger brother, the large man he knew as Moses Hawke. Right then, both of them looked pretty pleased.

Which, honestly, kind of pissed him off as he wiped the sweat from his brow. They looked to be in perfect condition. Meanwhile, he was sweating enough to look like he had gone swimming. His head definitely was – his mouth and tongue had gone numb.

If he was guessing, his blood sugar had to be around 40. What a lovely thing, biotics and mages both being prone to low blood sugar. It was like they were basically the same category of fighter differed only by culture.

At least, that was the theory that had stuck Alistair Shepard and two of Thedas' most infamous book protagonists in a training room. Mostly it meant he ran around and tried to fire off spells they taught him on the fly. The lightning had only worked the second time – otherwise it was just getting his ass kicked.  

“Shit, I got you pretty good didn't I?” Avery whistled as she examined his bleeding arm. With the low blood sugar, Alistair had forgotten all about it. He... should probably get some medi-gel for that. “Moses, mind helping the guy out?”

Moses nodded, but nudged his older sister. “Go get snacks for both of us.”

“Oh, bottoming out? On it.”

And the gremlin was gone, leaving Moses and Alistair alone. The large mage didn't have any medi-gel in his hands, however. In fact, he didn't have anything at all. Instead, he placed one of his large hands over Alistair's bleeding wound and just... sort of hovered it.

“Stay still. It's going to tingle.”

And then there was the light that came with the mentioned tingle. It felt more like his entire arm was on fire, but Alistair didn't move an inch. Instead, he watched with wide eyes as his skin started to knit together. Within seconds, his arm didn't have a scratch on it. Hell, there wasn't even a scar. When he prodded the skin, it felt whole. Maybe it was a little tingly, but it was like it had never been cut.

His mouth was dry as he tried to speak. “What- shit... blood sugar. No good when I'm hypo.”

It was a miracle he was making sense at all. Had he been wearing his omni-tool, Alistair would've known how bad his blood sugar currently was. Instead, he just had to guess. He wasn't shaking yet, so that was a good sign. Of course, he could nosedive into that soon enough. Hopefully wherever Avery was, she was moving her tiny legs as fast as they could go.

Moses kept his spot by the barrier, and he was too high up for Alistair to see his face without breaking his neck. To say he was hard to read was putting it mildly. It wasn't as if he was a small man, but being on the ground when his body was rebelling didn't make things easy. He just had to assume the big guy was ok.

Always a bad assumption to make, but it would have to do.

“It was healing magic.” Was he a mind reader? “That one is part of the creation school. We haven't gotten to it yet.”

No, it was all chucking fire balls, dodging walking bombs, and walking ass first into hexes. None of those he was particularly good at, but he was pretty good at getting hit with them. Honestly, it was amazing he was still standing. Creation school had been the first one not to totally suck, so it was alright by him.

Their conversation was interrupted by someone throwing a juice box into Alistair's lap. Avery beamed down at him, then lobbed one up to her brother who caught it with practiced ease. Then she settled onto the barrier quite like a cat, content to sip at her own box of juice.

It was apple, but who the fuck cared Alistair needed carbs.

Within a few minutes, his brain started working again. There was still the tingle on his arm that had yet to reside. Prodding it told him it felt like, well, normal flesh. Even with his brain back in functioning order, he couldn't tell anything different about it. Still, he had seen it get sliced open. Hell, his blood was on the floor. But... well, he couldn't argue with results.

“Aw, damn, I wanted to see his face when you healed him.” Avery sucked at her juice box indignantly. “Did you use the spirit stuff or the regular sparkles?”

Alistair picked up his head as he watched the two Hawkes converse. It didn't manner the answer – normal – but something popped in the back of his mind. He looked back down to his healed arm, and then to the blood.

Where... had he seen something like that? It...

And then he blinked back surprise as the memory surfaced. Part of it had been buried away, but there was just too damn much of it to forget. It came back first with the smell of blood. Not his blood, or even human blood. No, this stuff was blue and came from a Turian. And just like that... he was back.

---

Shit, he was losing too much blood.

“Stay with me, Garrus, we're almost back at the Normandy!”

Garrus couldn't answer. His face was literally hanging on by a thread on the  right side, and he kept spitting up blue blood. They had managed to keep him from choking on it back at Omega, but his condition was only getting worse. He might just die right there in the shuttle, so close to the Normandy and yet so far.

Really, it was a miracle he was alive at all. He took a rocket to the face without medical aid until precious minutes later. Somehow he still had blood to lose in the mess that had once been the right side of his face. And oh, he was losing it fast.

And of course, it being Cerberus, there wasn't a drop of Turian blood on the shuttle. They'd be lucky if the Normandy had any at all.

Garrus was looking up at him, vision hazy as he flitted in and out of consciousness. His breathing was ragged, the blood flow wasn't stopping. Any more of this, and he was going to shut down completely. Yet they had run out of medi-gel just patching the biggest holes up. There was still so many small ones left, it was like trying to patch a sieve.

A sieve he cared so fucking much about...

Alistair pressed down hard to give Garrus a few more minutes. “Come on, Archangel, you're not going to die on me! You survived fucking Omega on your own!”

But Garrus couldn't answer his barb back – his omni-tool showed the Turian's vitals were getting worse by the section. There was only so much blood a body could lose, even if it was covered with metal and the knees bent all wrong. There was just no way to stop all the bleeding. He was dying on the floor of the shuttle and there was nothing Alistair could do.

He had lost people before on the battlefield. Hell, his entire unit had been eaten by a goddamn thresher maw. Blood and death was something Alistair was well used to by now. But there was something about all that blue blood and who it belonged to that was making it hard to breathe. It wasn't a panic attack – they didn't make his vision go light.

Let me help.

Bo? No – the larger marine was berating the shuttle driver to go faster. The two of them were in a right shouting match. Besides, the voice didn't sound like her. Instead, it made his entire body tremble. He felt lighter than ever before. Was he passing out?

Trust me. We can do this.

It felt like a trance. Alistair placed his hands over the largest wound, dangerously close to a vital artery and millimeters away from ripping open from the pressure. How it hadn't was beyond him – it had been nicked by the rocket.

His palms felt warm, and it wasn't from the blood. His entire body felt the tingle that made his hair stand on end. When it went away, it was like everything ha been sucked out from his hands. Yet, when he pulled them away...

the damn hole was, well, whole.

Garrus was still bleeding from a million other places, but the biggest risk had seemingly closed up on his own. Even better, they were docking on the Normandy where Chakwas was waiting to roll the Turian into emergency surgery. The walls and floor of the shuttle were painted metallic blue, but Garrus stilled twitched and moved as they loaded him up on the gurney. For the moment, he had survived. Now it was in the doctor's good hands.

Alistair's hands were just trembling instead as he watched, sitting in a mix of blood and his own sweat. His mind had gone numb, and his omni-tool was alerting him that his blood sugar was dropping to the low 50's. Still, he kept looking down at his hands, so coated in blood. He still felt the tingle.

What... was that?

---

“Hey, do you think he's dead? Should I poke him?”

“Don't. He might break your finger and I don't have enough lyrium to heal both of you.”

“Oh, you're no fun. I was going to do it with the flat of my sword or something.”

Alistair's brain clicked back on just as the Hawkes finished their conversation. It still wasn't on full function, that would take more sugar and time, but he was at a point where his tongue finally started working again. Hell, he could even string sentences together if he wanted to do so.

Carbs – what couldn't they do?

“Could you teach me healing magic?”

Moses had a small collection of empty juice boxes by him and was starting on another. Still, he put it down for the moment. Thanks to the angle he was sitting at, Alistair could see his face. He was... intrigued, maybe?

“Healing's one of the hardest schools. You either have it or you don't.”

Alistair managed a shrug as he felt his brain click back on completely. “I think I'd do better at it than nearly electrocuting Avery. Besides, it's the only one you haven't shown me yet.”

And maybe there was something to it – Moses had said something about the spirit stuff. Maybe that's what he needed to learn about. After all, it was hard to forget... whatever that was back on the shuttle. Though, he wasn't about to tell them that. He was pretty sure hearing voices wasn't great on their planet either. But maybe if they helped folks stay alive they could slide a little.

Maybe not; he was talking with the Hawkes after all. Varric hadn't lied that much. But at least it might get him out of getting his ass kicked for a little bit. He was always happy for that.