#a red lionfish because of the poisonous spines | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zippers-flowers-and-wine · 4 years ago

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so im a bit too nervous for kisses...… can I pet all of the mers hair? getting your hair pet or massaged always feels nice, for me at least (please dont murder me im scared)

They all pause, and you can see Narancia vibrate from where he's being held back, Mista's hand (and a tentacle.. Or two... Maybe 5) being the only thing keeping him from launching himself across the glass once again. Giorno smiles serenely when you give him a questioning look. "Although Narancia may be a favoured member of my cluster, I believe he's gone first quite a few times now, let's have..."

His green eyes flick upwards, gleaming as he eyes someone. "Fugo?"

The lionfish blinks, lifting his non-lethal wrist and bicep fins with a curious trill. Making some sort of high pitched squeal, clearly a beckoning calll, Giorno motions him over.

Eyeing his leader warily, because Giorno was often a bit of a asshole trickster, Fugo glides over. "Yes Giorno?"

Even under Fugo's piercingly scrutinizing stare, Giorno's facial features hardly even twitch, although a small flex of his tail may have given him away. Dude would be wicked good at poker if he ever got into that kinda stuff. "Lean down will you? I believe our dear asker wants to give us something."

Fugo purses his lips, squinting so hard that the stripes beneath his eyes scrunch up. It's clear he wants answers, and judging by the way Giorno drifts backwards, the pod's head isn't going to give him any. Sensing that, Fugo glances back at you, scanning your face with a sharp eye but ultimately sighing and doing as asked. You do your best to stay blank, though it's really hard with the most unstable mer staring at you so intently even as he leans within range.

"What is it that you wanted t-"

Willing yourself not to chicken out, and also hoping he doesn't nip at you for surprising him, you shove your hand into his thick hair, making him choke in his words.

Not giving him a chance to pull away, you scratch your nails lightly against his scalp, watching his shoulders droop along with his poisonous dorsal fins and he subtly pushes back into your hands. Your nails are gentle on his scalp, applying barely there pressure in random spots until Fugo shivers under your attention, so you pull back a bit, concerned. He doesn't let you move too far, looping his arms around your waist to pull you against his chest which makes him rest some of his weight against you.

You yip his name, still worried but a subtle vibration that ripples up and down your chest makes you pause. He's... He's purring. You peek up at him, carefully resting a hand back onto his head. Fugo clicks, nuzzling his face into your neck and shivering again. Right, so shivers are actually a good thing. Okay, good to know. Feeling a little braver as you internally awe at him, you reach back up to take in the texture of his hair. It's a little coarse, which is to be expected since he lived in saltwater, but you didn't expect it to have a wavy underside.

Gliding up to his three, hanging bangs, you lightly rake your nails across the skin between them. Its seems to please him, making him almost more boneless than he already was.

Eyeing his ears, you take a breath nd gently scratch behind one. Fugo jolts, purrs becoming nearly thunderous as the fins flare out to give you more room to work. You drag a nail across the thin membrane stretching between the spines, tracing said spines up near the tip as feather light as possible and that seems to break him.

He makes an unintelligible noise, one that's garbled and slurred and he yanks away from you to slink further into the water. Fugo is red from head to toe... Er..? Tail fin? Caudal fin? Whatever, he's blushing brightly, and so are you, and wow all this affection is intense huh?

When you finally get the courage to actually look at him, you find that Fugo looks a little dumbstruck. His eyes are unfocused, staring dazedly at you with a sort of quiet reverence, and he looks really fidgety; rubbing his knuckles, flaring his spines and twitching in his spot. Giorno drifts back into your line of sight, opening his arms and you gawk a little when Fugo happily nuzzles into the somewhat smaller lionfish. Spotting your surprised look, the blond chuckles."Yes, I probably should have mentioned this."

Bruno slithers forth, waving off the young leader. "I've got this, you go bring him down." Giorno nods, turning back to purr and coo at a blissed out Fugo. You can't help the small bubble of worry that blisters up into your throat, choking you with a small amount of guilt.

Like some kind of psychic, Bruno hums, "You're probably wondering what's wrong with him, right?" You nod, skin itching with the need for answers. Bruno reaches out, smoothing a hand across your tensed shoulder as he purrs. "He's fine, just... Hmm? I believe a proper comparison would be to say he's in a sort of "subspace" at the moment." You immediately turn red, unnoticed by Bruno who is turned around to watch their blond leader gently smother Fugo, who is eating the affection up. "Giorno apparently forgot to warn you about that part of our species."

He retreats into himself for a moment, thinking with a hand on your shoulder and the other pressing into a loose fist.

"Alright, it seems like we may have to have a small lesson in cluster bonding." You parrot the last two words back at him, confused. "Yes, cluster bonding." Bruno flicks his body, pulling himself up to rest on the glass. His posture is rather stiff, upright, with his chest subtly puffed out and his hands folded onto his lap. "Touch is a big thing for merfolk, much bigger than it is for humans. In fact, what humans may perceive as harassment, uncomfortably personal contact, or even just a general invasion of one's comfort zone is usually something different for merfolk."

He hums, taking breath before humming. "You see, every touch a mer gives out has meaning. Sometimes it's very straightforward, like if a male wanted to... Inform a female that he was sexually available, he'd initiate some sort of sexual contact." When you stare at him with most deadpan look ever, he demonstrats by resting his weight on one arm, and grinding his hips upwards. Oh... Oh my god.

Satisfied you now know what he means, Bruno resumes, "More subtle things, like shoulder, arm and hand touches are considered friendly, under general contexts and situations." You have a somewhat nagging feeling you know where this is headed. Bruno easily takes note, nodding.

"It seems you understand where I'm going with this." He seems amused by your now permanently flushed face, his lips quirked to the side as his small, triangular pelvic fins flutter. "Head, neck and fin contact is something generally reserved for cluster, or even podmates, although it's not uncommon for merfolk to allow people outside of their pods to do so. It sends us into a highly vulnerable blissed out state, as you can see with Fugo." He tilts his head over his shoulder, guiding your attention to said merman.

It seems as if he's mostly recovered, still leaning against Giorno with Mista wrapped around his shoulder. He looks relaxed, although he is still purring hard enough for the water around him to ripples consistently. "I do know, however, that some humans consider it very similar to having sex. That's why I must ask..." You look back at the eel, freezing when you realize that those guarded blue eyes are mere inches from your own.

"Do you still want to follow through with your request?"

#jojo part 5 #merfolk mating rituals #mmr questions #merman abbacchio #merman fugo #merman mista #merman narancia #merman bruno #merfolk jjba

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ghostmartyr · 4 years ago

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how a life can move from the darkness [3/?]

| 1 | 2 |

Summary: Two drug addicts (Eren and Historia) meet in group and decide to be roommates to make their living situation slightly less weird. From there we do the slow burn found family dance mixed in with the struggles and agonies of recovery. Heavy on friendship feels, especially EMA. Eventual yumikuri.

Eren had never really had a problem with anxiety, before the drugs and post traumatic stress. Anger, sure, by his mother’s account, but he was usually on the outside looking in with thoughts of the whole crashing down around their ears. He’d worked out a whole program with Armin during finals and AP tests, and not for his benefit.

Holding the bag full of water, with a very tiny red and black striped lionfish inside, all Eren could think about was what a terrible fish parent he was going to be, and that was if they made it back to the apartment without dropping it.

He was so tiny. It was a he, and he was so much smaller than the ones in all the books and pamphlets and the store. Large enough to catch any bad health signs, but still small, and Eren thought that his preoccupation with that meant bad things for how the rest of the day would go.

“I can…” Historia had offered, belatedly, on their way out of the shop.

“I’ve got him,” Eren had said.

Eren wanted to blame it on the drugs. Hating himself for his problems was an easy, distracting burn, even if he kept saying in group it was something he was working on. Freaking out over tiny things because he’d blown up all the larger things was definitely his own damn fault.

Because this was one of the few problems his head had the wrong idea about, they made it through the door with limited drama. The tiny fish and its bag were safely introduced to the bucket they’d prepped for the bit of acclimating it to the tank water, and then it was just taking the right water out and putting the right water in. No dying fish on the floor, flopping about in a puddle of water too small to breathe. Just him and Historia, methodically going through the steps.

Functional people taking care of their new pet.

Eren had volunteered to take on most of the tank duties, not having the stomach for the live food it would need for the start. Historia could handle feeding. He’d gotten used to looking in on the tank and testing the water. The routine was good for him. Hopefully it would be good for the fish, too.

“Do we have a name yet?” he asked.

Historia, already adjusted to the amount of staring the new fish would be on the receiving end of, shrugged from her side of the bucket. “I’ve never been good with names,” she said.

Eren had named Mikasa’s first cat Acker. Armin had called it a travesty. That had been the word for the day on his calendar.

Eren looked around the apartment surreptitiously. Frieda brought over books sometimes. Most of the front room was still so sterile it could pass for a brand new hotel, and Historia never left her textbooks out. Frieda was a little looser, and liked bestsellers with giant names on the covers.

“…Benjamin?”

“Sure.”

By the end of the day, Benjamin the lionfish was safe in his tank, swimming around the rock features cautiously. It was hard to imagine that he would ever need the massive space, but too much was healthier than too little, and if he was anything like a kitten, he’d pop into adult size before they knew it.

“Eren?” Historia asked, twenty minutes into the silent viewing of the replacement for the wall. “Why didn’t you want a pet that could crawl around?”

Historia mentioned to him once that she had trouble remembering to care. One of the reasons she had for not speaking up much at meetings. That part she hadn’t said, Eren just put two and two together. Sometimes, though, she’d remember. Being the only person she was ever around, usually it got aimed at him. She wasn’t bad at it.

“I’m not a very organized addict,” Eren said bluntly. He’d told Petra the same thing, in early meetings, where he was still kicking himself for all the ways he’d done the addiction part wrong. “If I relapse, I’m not poisoning some animal on the way down.”

“Oh,” Historia said.

There wasn’t much else that could be said about that. Eren appreciated that Historia didn’t try. The silence was comfortable instead of the usual deadness, and even with Benjamin mostly hiding, spending the afternoon hanging out with their new pet felt… normal. Almost like they’d made the choice to get a fish themselves instead of his roommate’s big sister instructing them on how to learn how to be human again.

Armin would have loved a picture. Mikasa, too.

His mood took a dip. Concentrating on the tank didn’t pull it back up very fast. Eren thought of both of them when he’d first grabbed the seashell feature in the front corner of the tank. That had caused its own problems, and Historia was the one who placed it in the tank.

Benjamin peeked out from one of his new hiding places.

Eren snapped a shot. Part reflex, maybe part proud new fish parent.

He didn’t have to send it. He told his racing heart and surging temper that, and kept himself trained on the easy bubbling of the tank, and the swirls where Benjamin’s small spines flicked through the water. He didn’t have to send it.

He wanted to. They’d want him to. That was the whole ugly picture, wasn’t it?

----

The nightmares had never gone away. Hopped up on pain meds, that had been hard to admit. Sober, it was harder to deny. Sober, Eren could remember how much worse the pills had made them. The dreams would wake him up in the middle of the night, just as the prescripted relief wore off, leaving him in a demented haze of pain and desperation.

That was where it all started, and it never finished.

Eren didn’t panic when he woke up at three in the morning anymore. He still woke up at three in the morning, feeling blood on his hands and the need to hit things. Lately, his pillow was good enough.

Benjamin helped. He wasn’t awake when Eren would walk out with a blanket and sit under his tank, but it was a weird comfort anyway. He got into a rhythm with the nightmares. Wake up, hit something or don’t, go out and keep the fish company.

Wake up, hit something, go out and spot a creepy shadow outside Historia’s bedroom door, was not part of the system.

Eren was just working out how fast he could tackle the intruder to the floor when they turned around, and a shot of light from Historia’s open door illuminated Frieda.

Who had crept into their apartment at three in the morning to watch her sister sleep.

Eren wasn’t going to tackle her to the floor, but he wasn’t sure he felt any safer.

He could see enough of her face to catch a flinch before the smile he was used to softened the razor edge stillness of the night. She nodded her head down the hallway, back towards the living areas of the apartment, and closed Historia’s door with a silent swish.

Eren let her walk down the hall first. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, but the aftershocks of his nightmare weren’t as comfortably distant as they’d been when he stepped out the hall.

He followed Frieda into the kitchen, where she flicked the lights on at their lowest level. They still hurt his eyes. She sighed and leaned against the counter.

“Did I wake you up?” she asked, gentle as Mikasa’s cat.

The current one had mauled Eren the last time he saw her. A lot of things would be simpler if its owner understood that was the correct reaction.

“No,” he said. “Nightmares.”

She put on her sympathetic parent face. He’d asked, and Historia said she didn’t have any children, but it was not a sisterly expression. There was too much unconditional acceptance for it to be anything but practiced. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

She opened a drawer, pulling out the hot chocolate mix she’d stashed there a month ago. A pan followed, and she walked over to the fridge for some milk. Eren watched until the stress-filled tingling along the back of his neck demanded more than the unsettled disquiet in his stomach.

“What are you doing here this late?”

Another flinch snagged Frieda’s smile. When it vanished, she looked like her sister. He didn’t know her well enough to know if the familiarity was good or not.

“You’re not the only one with sleep problems, I’m afraid,” she said, starting the stove. “I wanted to make sure Historia was safe and sound.”

She made it sound normal. “You do that a lot?”

Frieda cast a tired look over her shoulder, which should have brought on another comparison to Historia, with the number of times he’d watched his roommate stumble to bed, but it mostly reminded Eren of his reflection.

“More than it will do either one of us good to think about.”

It was three in the morning, and his—mom always said he didn’t know how to watch his mouth. “That’s creepy,” he said.

Frieda huffed out a laugh that sounded genuine enough. “I try to be discreet.”

“You don’t think that makes it worse?”

She rolled her eyes at him, but too kindly to put Eren’s hackles up any further. “Eren, this is not behavior you are going to push me into apologizing for,” she said. She took two mugs out of the cupboard. “Embarrassing as it is, my peace of mind concerning my family members is a deal more significant than how off-putting you find it.”

“Historia wouldn’t like it, either,” he said.

“So let’s agree not to bring it up to her, shall we?”

Eren scowled at the floor.

Frieda maneuvered herself to his side of the kitchen and patted him on the head. “Now, about your nightmares. Your mother said they were a nightly spectacle when you were living with her. Have they gotten any better?”

“They’re fine,” Eren said automatically.

“Eren,” Frieda said, “we wouldn’t both be standing here if we were fine.”

He had the suspicion this was how she talked to the kids she worked with. It didn’t make him feel great about himself, but nothing did, really. “Then what about you? You already know all my problems.”

The gentleness in her eyes evaporated, as steady as it stayed in her voice. “My problems are Historia’s problems, so I’m afraid you won’t be getting a word out of me.”

He couldn’t argue that. That didn’t kill the urge. He wished his pajamas had pockets. His hands wanted something to do, and all of the things that came to mind were bad. More generally he wanted to go back to bed if being awake was going to go like this.

A few minutes of silent, distracted exhaustion, which his mom would call stubbornness, passed, ending with Frieda pressing a warm mug into his hands.

“Careful,” she said. “Don’t burn your tongue.”

Eren didn’t take a sip. Frieda took several, not following her own advice going by spasms across her face.

“Are yours getting any better?” he asked. “The nightmares?”

Her mug shielded her mouth. “They’ve been worse.”

They shared in the quiet, for a little bit. Eren half-hoped Historia would wake up, completing their screwed up trio and bringing some balance to the strangeness.

She didn’t, and Frieda left when she finished her hot chocolate.

----

“Frieda will probably be coming by more often,” Historia said, instead of good morning.

It was Eren’s day off, for all of his work, which already made for a rough day, and she was stepping over him to feed Benjamin some guppies. Watching that was not something he needed when he was awake, forget mostly asleep. He blinked groggily up at his fully conscious roommate.

“Why?” he asked.

“The anniversary of our father’s death is coming up.” Historia paused. “She’s sensitive.”

Eren didn’t feel any more awake in the stunned wake of that understatement, but he knew that he needed to be. He rubbed a fist over his eyes and let his blanket fall from his shoulders. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m the one who killed him,” Historia said, answering the question.

Eren thought he was a decent roommate. He kept to his laundry schedule, remembered his nights to cook dinner, checked Benjamin’s water and said hi to him regularly, and didn’t leave out any dishes overnight. The maid service meant a lot of the other things he did right didn’t leave much impact, but he still did them.

He wasn’t sure he was that great a sponsor. Historia helped him through more than he felt comfortable keeping track of. She listened to everything he said in group and at home, and never judged him for any of it. Most of their friendship happened by accident like that. Just having someone there made everything easier for him.

Meanwhile, he didn’t even know what it was she’d got hooked on.

The dead father conversation had yet to go well. Partnering it with upcoming anniversaries was a recipe for disaster.

Historia was his friend.

Eren asked the question he’d wondered for weeks. “Was he why you were in juvie?”

Historia was staring at Benjamin devouring the guppies. Her fingertips were dipped in his water.

“I took a plea,” she said. “Frieda didn’t want me to. She said it wasn’t my fault. It was self-defense.”

The suggestion layered in the words made Eren’s blood heat. He didn’t know much about parenting, but if Historia’s father had done something that had made self-defense a plausible defense, the man deserved to be dead, and Eren had half a mind to dig him up and send him right back.

Historia’s closed-off expression kept him from going there, though. That, and a new question. One that he didn’t think he’d have to ask with anyone else he knew. Except maybe Annie.

“…Was it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

More of her rested on top of Benjamin’s tank. The sleeve of her shirt was in the water now. Eren didn’t bother pretending that something like that mattered in the current atmosphere. He kept his eyes on Historia, waiting for some sign of what his job was in a conversation like this.

“I don’t think he wanted to be the person he was,” Historia said. “I don’t think he really wanted to hurt anyone. Even me.”

His job probably wasn’t to tell Historia that he was glad her dad was dead.

“Frieda thinks it was her fault.”

Eren frowned. “How come?” And their father or the murder?

Historia shrugged again, absently casting ripples. “I could get hit by a bus and she’d still blame herself.” She made eye contact briefly, but it skittered away. She kept talking. “She thinks I’m her responsibility. Because of what our father did. Because of what happened. Because of a lot of things, I guess. She doesn’t want to blame it on me, so she makes it her fault.” Historia flicked the water from her hands, eyes dull as the droplets splashed the surface.

“It’s my fault,” she said.

She said it with a lot of conviction for someone who was wrong.

“It doesn’t sound like it is,” Eren said. “It sounds like it’s your dad’s fault.”

Historia looked down at him. “He didn’t get me addicted to heroin, Eren.”

Eren had spent so much time with Reiner that his eyes automatically went to her arms for track marks. She was wearing long sleeves. She always wore long sleeves, now that he thought about it. Even the borrowed baseball uniform had covered her up to her elbows. When he made his way back to her face she was glaring at him.

Putting that aside, because he really was the worst sponsor, Eren tried to come up with something to say that would actually be helpful.

“…You don’t think killing him had anything to do with that?”

Her glower lost its heat. She pulled out of the water and rested her chin on her waiting arms.

“I made a lot of choices, Eren,” she said after a moment. “Whatever else happened, I’m the one who made them.” Benjamin’s spines flashed by as he searched for more food. “You know what that’s like, right?”

That wasn’t a fair question. Anyone who paid any attention at all in group knew the answer to that, and Historia had nothing else to do since she kept her mouth shut the whole time.

“Look,” Eren tried, wondering how much damage it would do if he told Historia her sister watched her sleep occasionally, “I don’t get all of what’s gone on with you and your family, but it sounds like you’re beating yourself up for a mess your dad caused. You and Frieda. If it was bad enough that you killed him over it, don’t you think you can hate him for it instead of yourselves?”

He thought that sounded like the kind of sense the shrink he’d seen had tried on him. That wasn’t a promising sign, but Historia was hearing it sober, and she wasn’t the one throwing up in public batting cage trash cans.

She didn’t show any sign of hearing him.

He didn’t want to be okay with that. It was like when Armin would smile and say thank you for Eren complimenting some amazing thing he did, then turn around and not believe any of it. Eren had spent years thinking Armin listened to that stuff before he learned better. Learning better had taken spotting a lot of hidden tears. He hated remembering it. He didn’t want that for Historia, but he wasn’t the guy who knew the right things to say with this crap. His friends weren’t supposed to be the ones who hated themselves. They were great. A little beat up and then some with Historia, but there wasn’t any reason for her to think doing a few stupid things made her a bad person. She wasn’t like him.

That might have been the better thing to say. Instead they were both watching Benjamin swim around.

When Historia spoke, it sounded like a ticking clock.

“Eren?” she asked. “With your dad… was it anything like…”

“No,” Eren said instantly.

Nausea and guilt swirled in his gut, the ever-present anger soothing it to a boiling point, but he didn’t have time for it if it didn’t feel like helping his friend. His fists were clenched around his blanket, and pushed against something real and dark instead of a stupid tragedy, he could say the fucking words.

He could feel the blood on his hands, and he could see the light leaving his dad’s eyes, and he could hear the cracked and broken watch his mom had given him for their anniversary, and he remembered just fine how it was all his fault.

But no one had tried to send him to jail over it. Because they hadn’t seen guilt as enough of a reason. Because it wasn’t really the same at all.

“It was an accident.”

Historia turned away from him and Benjamin.

“Good,” she said. “It’s worse when it’s on purpose.”

----

The nice thing about having a fish was that something in the apartment wasn’t broken. The tank on its own had already thrown a lot of structure at them to deal with, but with the addition of Benjamin, there was a thing living in the house that was actually happy. Eren had photos.

Photos he wasn’t sending anyone. Historia had her own collection. Frieda wasn’t his to text. His mom might have liked a few, but Eren though after everything, it was kinder not to remind her that she was the only person her adult son felt comfortable contacting. Reiner was a client.

Zeke wouldn’t really care.

They sold aquarium features that looked like baseballs. Maybe that would help. Only that was the kind of dysfunction Benjamin was meant to be a step in overcoming.

Mikasa would like photos.

Armin would too.

That was where the consequences of Benjamin being the only living thing in the house that wasn’t broken came in.

Eren could watch him swimming for hours, even if he and Historia had both learned that they shouldn’t give themselves permission to do that. Benjamin was alive, and beautiful, and he was theirs. An undeniable positive they were responsible for. There was some peace in that.

Only he couldn’t show anyone who would care. Because of all the things he’d screwed up, he’d had to go for the one thing he should have been willing to suffer anything to protect. He’d turned them into just another broken thing.

Eren sorted through his pictures under the soothing bubbling of the tank.

Broken things got fixed sometimes.

Didn’t they?

----

“I have a problem with making amends.”

THWOCK

“It’s not about working up the nerve, or thinking of a way to do it.”

THWOCK

“I know I have a lot to make up for, and I’m going to.”

THWOCK

“The problem is…”

Eren slammed the tennis ball into the ragged community center wall.

THWOCK

He hated meetings.

“The problem is,” he’d said, feeling like the child he was, whining about kindergarten arguments instead of any of the real, violent issues burning him alive, even though they were all the same damn thing thanks to his everything, “they’re going to forgive me.”

He hadn’t stuck around after that. He should have, and he knew he should have, but it wasn’t going to do the group much good having to pick up a folding chair going through a window or a person, and that’s where the talk was headed.

He’d walked outside, found the tennis ball, and started attacking the wall instead.

THWOCK

He didn’t know what he’d expected, bringing it up.

Like everyone was supposed to feel sorry for him? Commiserate? A circle of people who were trying to get back on their feet, they were supposed to give him advice about rejecting everyone who’d tried to pull him back up?

THWOCK

Or maybe they’d hear all that and agree with him, and stop trying to make the burn of hunger in his veins okay, or act like it wasn’t there, and tell him he never should have even tried to make his way out of the pit as long as he was bringing all the scum he’d picked up on the bottom back up with him.

THWOCK

He hated meetings. So much.

THWOCK

He ran a shaking hand through his hair, the other one numbed with the force of the tennis ball pounding back into it. The tingling felt good. It felt like all the pain he’d been too much of a coward to face.

He threw the ball again.

THWOCK

Historia showed up at some point. A small shift out of the corner of his eye. He tossed the ball her way, and she caught it. Yelena and Zeke had both asked her about joining them for baseball practice. She hadn’t gotten back to them, but Eren had helped her buy her own glove and break it in.

She threw it back, and Eren caught it, and it was like being small and playing catch with his brother while they still had a dad to watch. Back and forth. No conversation because there was nothing to say.

“Do you want to talk?”

Eren didn’t feel very bad when his next throw almost hit her face, and he hated himself and her and the cracked asphalt under his shoes, and wondered if he’d stayed and ate one of Petra’s awful cookies if he’d still be thinking about pills, and how they felt sliding down his throat.

Historia threw the ball back, and Eren caught it.

“They text you a lot,” Historia said. “Your friends.”

The ball almost went over her shoulder.

Historia didn’t take the hint. “I don’t think they’re going to give up.”

Eren gripped the tennis ball. He didn’t throw it. He thought about popping it with his bare hands, and part of him was frothing to start tearing and ripping the damn thing apart because it was there and whole and he fucking wasn’t.

“They should,” he said hoarsely. It was as close to human as he had left.

Historia was considering the wall more than she was looking at him, with the pause in their game of catch. That should have worked to keep the impending meltdown from bubbling over. It was, maybe.

Then she said, “They love you,” and Eren lost it.

He launched the tennis ball right at her, caring very little what she chose to do about that, and shouted. The words scraped his lungs raw. “I know!”

It hit like a hurricane, tossing his sanity and hate and pain through his chest and the rest of him without care, torching the darkness and letting it bleed straight out of him. “I know they love me! I know they’re the best friends I could ask for! But they’re my best friends, and I don’t want them anywhere near a fucking waste of space like me! That’s all I have left to offer them, and they should fucking listen instead of trying to make all of this okay again!”

His eyes were burning. His everything was burning, but his eyes were reaching back into his throat and tightening it around all the words he’d wanted to scream since Zeke took him to rehab.

He screamed them. “I stole pills off Armin’s granddad! That’s how they found out! I stole my best friend’s grandfather’s meds because I couldn’t get through an hour-long visit without fucking myself up!”

The tears were coming and Eren couldn’t care. “And that wasn’t enough. That wasn’t enough to convince them they should all stay the fuck away from me, so they just keep trying instead of hating me!” His voice cracked.

“They should hate me. I...” His fingernails dug deep into his palms. He hoped they bled. “I hate me.”

Stillness found its way back to the empty community center parking lot. He stared down at the ground while his hands shook and he tried to keep the tears from turning into sobs . Gravel shifted around the rough area Historia was planted in, too painfully close and too far away.

He heard her take a breath. Maybe take a step away or towards him.

THWOCK

Pain exploded across Eren’s face, the unexpected force of the blow sent him tumbling to the asphalt.

The tennis ball bounced better than he did.

He was on the ground, clutching his eye, every punch he’d ever taken popping back to life in his scrambled nerves. It had been too long since he’d fought anyone, or even sparred, and the familiarity of brute force crashing into him was gone. All the practice and built up experience collapsed and let his body wail like this was all new.

It hurt.

Historia’s storming footsteps brought her next to him. It wasn’t for comfort.

“Don’t say that.” Her voice was throaty and beyond cold, chilling Eren’s insides, almost distracting from the stunned realization that Historia had just thrown a tennis ball at his face. Hard. Her inhales came sharply. “Don’t.”

Eren opened the eye not covered by both of his hands. He saw a very blurry, starred world full of grays and a spot of bright yellow where Historia was standing. It took a moment for the focus to come back, and for enough tears to leak out for that to matter.

Historia was wearing a look he didn’t recognize from the mirror. Or from anywhere else.

“You shouldn’t hate yourself,” she said. Shaking. Meeting his eye solidly and shaking. Eren didn’t know why that, of all of it, made him want to start really crying. “I don’t know the right words, or how to convince you, but… don’t. That’s…” Something struggled to life in her face. “No one should feel that way.”

He was crying.

There was also blood dripping down his nose. Eren smudged it away with his thumb. They both watched more of it drip onto his jeans. Historia’s hands made a halfhearted motion to help, then seemed to realize she couldn’t do much about blood.

She didn’t try to hug him. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

He missed Armin. Suddenly and as desperate as any of his vices.

He missed his friends.

[next]

#drug au #fic #mine #long post

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raneinspane02 · 4 years ago

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Lair Review!

Five dragons for @santana-fr below the cut!

Jaqen

I never would have guessed that chartreuse would go so incredibly well with crimson, but here’s living proof. And I don’t usually like scales, like, at all, almost never, but it’s very subtle on her!! It blends well with chartreuse’s accent color, and is hidden somewhat by the accent in the best way possible.

Speaking of the accent, wow. It’s incredible. Props to the artist for one but for two, the orange-gold accents on the body of it really complement the gold trimming on the wings and tie it into the almost yellow underbelly from the poison! The blue provides good contrast, and I love the way you’ve broken it up a little with the scarlet wooly coat. The flowerfall helps keep the whole outfit balanced, preventing the underbelly from being too prominent and out of place. Lovely dragon!

Tuyet

It is. So hard to only choose five dragons of yours lol they’re all so lovely!! But Tuyet caught my eye because of her simplicity. You can’t even see her secondary, and I didn’t check her tertiary lol. She’s so pretty! The white/grey combined with the pale tans and browns is something I never would have thought of. The accent is one I actually used to have and didn’t like very much, but I adore the way you’ve utilized the cloudy wing apparel. It keeps it visible so that it doesn’t overpower the whole wing! The Ice Tome would usually be a bit out of place purely because of its green-blue edges, but alongside the blue in the wings (not to mention her eyes) and silver anklets it melds with the rest of the outfit astonishingly well.

The pearly earrings are really nice. I honestly was expecting the silver recolor based on the rest of her color scheme, but it’s a very nice touch! It’s slight enough to avoid being a centerpiece but different enough that it doesn’t blend in. And I’m always a sucker for antlers, lol

Zale

Oh man. I saw him and was just blown away. The fins from his accent match the edges of the fin jewel apparel and make the lack of wing apparel irrelevant. The gold jewelry adds something I’m having trouble describing, something that stands out from the rest of his outfit without throwing a wrench into it. It helps to tie in the green in the accent without simply being more green.

Also, I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but the color of his spines and legs matches the silver in the fin jewels almost perfectly. Were it not for that, the silver lining of the jewels would be almost jarringly out of place.

And the stained is so subtle!! I didn’t think he had a tertiary at first, but when I saw that he had stained I went to scry what he would look like without it. The difference is subtle for sure but I really like it! It mutes his primary and secondary just enough to keep him from being brighter than his apparel.

Aya

Again with the use of scales!! Not usually a fan but it’s well done here, giving her more expression. I absolutely adore the barbarian’s clothing on her; they’re definitely large, bulky pieces, but they keep her from being overtaken by just her primary and secondary colors. Beige poison can be super tricky to work with, so well done to you!! Keeping it in check from being too busy via apparel and a plainer secondary was a good move imo. (also, it brings out the flecks of green in the accent!)

I’m not sure if this makes sense, but in my opinion, the green ties the whole dragon together beyond just keeping her from being super busy; it’s as if you’ve taken the whole rainbow and lowered its saturation. The red, the “yellow” (beige), green, and blue just work together. A fascinating dragon all around.

Tybalt I gasped aloud when I saw him. Noxtide is a top-tier gene, lionfish can be tricky, and I’m so, so weak for ghost, lol. The power pack matches the necklace and tail rings super well, and the ridged brows it gives him are perfect for the faceted eyes, as well as the ghost. It’s really-- I’m in awe of how incredibly well coordinated he is. The apparel matching the accent of lionfish, the underbelly of the lionfish being ever so slightly off from the color of ghost so they both remain distinct from each other yet still match, and the flowerfall and fairies blending in so well that, despite being on a spiral, he isn’t overly busy or hard to see in the slightest.

#flight rising #rane's lair review

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mexicanalesbiana · 6 years ago

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5. Poisoned

Spring 64th, 589?

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Aia chanted like it was a prayer to anything that might listen; her spines melted back into her body, her stripes were rippling as they swam back to the splashes of vitiligo all over her skin. Winning the fight hadn’t been worth this. ‘Not you, not you, anyone but you, not you –’

Chittiri was staring at her arm, the thin slice through the feathers, absolutely still. ‘Ow,’ she said. ‘Fuck.’

‘Hold on, just – hold on, fuck –’ Aia said, counting seconds in her head as she scrambled for her spell ring. This was bad – this was beyond bad, this was worst fucking case scenario –

In lionfish, their venom was excruciating, but ultimately not deadly. In a lionfish Finkin, however, the venom production was kicked into overdrive, each spine deadly on its own, and for someone as small as Chittiri, even a nick could be deadly. With her magic fully spent she couldn’t even heal herself.

Chittiri was staring up at her, dark red eyes wide, her wings folded back; she reached for Aia’s hands.

‘No, don’t. It’s fine,’ Aia was saying, her words tumbling over one another like dropping stones, ‘It’s fine, I’ll make it fine, just – hold still –’

‘Captain.’

‘Where the fuck is it –’

‘Captain.’

‘– I know it’s here it has to be –’

‘Aia.’

Aia froze, looking up at Chittiri.

‘Dumbass. I’m fine,’ Chittiri said. Her words were sharp but her tone soothing; around them lay the bodies of the last of the pirates the two of them had been flushing out from the caves beneath the seafort. It had been supposed to be an easy job. Aia supposed all catastrophes started out that way. Chittiri took her hands, and Aia let her, mostly because they were coming up on the thirty second mark and Chittiri wasn’t paralysed, much less dying.

‘What…’ Aia started to ask, then trailed off, because she wasn’t sure what to ask to get the answer she needed.

‘Okay, look, at the beginning I didn’t know you well, so don’t judge me,’ Chittiri warned.

‘This sounds like something I’m going to be judging you for, Medic,’ Aia said on autopilot.

‘Shut it, Captain. Point is, I saw you were a lionfish Finkin and you seemed to have anger issues –’

‘I do have anger issues.’

‘– shut it, Captain – so I got hold of some lionfish Finkin venom.’

Aia paused.

‘Which was hard as hell – you’d think there’d be more of you guys floating around, what is with that? – but anyway, yeah. I’ve been inoculating myself over the past few years. It still hurts like a bitch, but hurt isn’t harm. I’m okay, Captain.’

Aia stared at her.

‘…Captain?’ Chittiri said, waving her hand in front of Aia’s face. ‘Tell me you’re not having a panic attack, I’m too tired for a panic…’

She went quiet as Aia dropped her head forward to stare at Chittiri’s hands around hers. Greys from all over the spectrum shimmered in the feathers; her fingers were so small on Aia’s skin. Aia watched as Chittiri moved her hands to hold Aia’s properly, lacing their fingers together. On the left, lionfish orange was warm against the storm-coloured feathers. On the right, Aia’s vitiligo white was ghostly in Chittiri’s hold.

‘…Captain,’ Chittiri said quietly, unusually serious. ‘I’m okay.’

‘I thought I’d killed you,’ Aia replied, voice blank. ‘I thought I’d killed you, and then… what would I do then?’

‘Whatever you did before I joined the ship,’ Chittiri tried to joke, but sighed after a second. ‘Aia. I'm okay. Let’s just get out of here, get paid, kick someone’s ass for misleading us about how many were down here, and get back to the ship to sleep. I plan on sleeping for a week.’

‘You never sleep for more than four hours in a row.’

‘Neither do you, Captain, but we can at least try,’ Chittiri retorted with rolled eyes, then added, ‘don’t give me that look, I said ‘we’ and that means you’re going to bed too, you’re just going to have to put up with it. Come on. Let’s go.’

#whumptober #injury #oc: aia mbaste #borrowed her (future) girlfriend from my friend #chittiri is a smol birb who only heals you if you ask nicely #or if you have nice lady muscles #Aia doesn't know that last part yet tho #this is what you get for not doing background checks on your employees aia #homebrew: chirron #proser writes #undecided point in the future ergo non-canon #but also #-shrieks-

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thebeakerblog · 8 years ago

Photo

This Indo-Pacific fish was first spotted off the coast of Florida in the 1980s and 90s, probably because of aquarium releases. While it certainly looks tropical, the critter has proved remarkably resilient in cooler waters, and now, can be found seasonally as far north as Long Island Sound. Be careful if you see one, its poisonous spines can deal out the pain. Today, enjoy some facts about the red lionfish (Pterois volitans):

Slow-moving and pretty obvious to spot (just see above pictures!) lionfish tend to rely on their unusual colors and scary-looking fins to discourage predators from eating them.

They like to eat a lot. In some areas where lionfish are a non-native species (i.e. off the coast of the United States) that’s become a problem because lionfish can consume over 50 different species of fish, throwing local ecosystem out of balance. They also munch on shrimps and crab.

If you see a lionfish, please don’t touch it. Its venom (delivered via more than a dozen different needle-styled dorsal fins), can be extremely painful, causing nausea and breathing problems in humans.

Reproduction happens quickly. According to the University of Michigan, twelve hours after fertilization the embryo begins to form and six hours later, the head and eyes of the new fish become partly developed. Thirty-six hours after fertilization, larvae hatch and are already good swimmers!

The fish tend to be solitary for most of their life. Lifespan is about 10 years in the wild. And while the fish are considered invasive in many parts of the world, lionfish are an important (and very popular) aquarium fish, bringing in a lot of money for the pet industry.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Source: United States Department of Agriculture, Wikimedia Commons, National Ocean Service: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Geographic, University of Florida: Florida Museum, Lynch, Patrick, J., “A Field Guide To Long Island Sound,” University of Michigan: Animal Diversity Web: red firefish)

#wildlife wednesday #oceans #red lionfish #invasive species #fun facts #animals #eastern united states #atlantic ocean #pets

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mrbobgove · 8 years ago

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Lionfish Culling in the Cayman Islands

I saw my first lionfish during my open-water diving course in Koh Tao, Thailand. The instructor was excited — it was a rare sighting. Not so in the waters of many Caribbean islands today. These fascinating fish feature characterful faces with jutting lips and a mane of sharp, poisonous spines. Air sacks even allow them to hang upside down within a cavern. But their beauty is deceiving, at least in Caribbean waters: invasive lionfish have become a gigantic problem on many, if not all, of the region’s reefs. Native to the Indo-Pacific, these invaders threaten the Caribbean ecosystems which they have overrun. To help address the problem, lionfish culling has taken hold across the region, including in the Cayman Islands.

Lionfish arrive in the Cayman Islands

Divers first spotted red lionfish in the Cayman Islands in 2008. It has since spread rapidly throughout the region. It’s unclear how they first got here, but lionfish tracking suggests that the problem began in Miami. Theories range from deliberate pet disposal into the sewers to aquarium damage from hurricanes.

In the Caribbean, the lionfish, like many accidentally or deliberately introduced species, has no natural predators. Starting when they’re one year old, female lionfish can release between 10,000 and 30,000 unfertilized eggs every four days, year-round. They are voracious predators. They can consume prey up to just over half of their own body size, and their stomach can expand up to 30 times its normal volume. Divers and researchers have found dead lionfish with dozens of small reef fish in their stomachs. This combination of reproductive frequency and insatiable appetite has led to an explosion in lionfish populations across the Caribbean.

Lionfish culling

Cayman’s first response was the Lionfish Rapid Response Task Force, which encouraged divers to catch lionfish alive in nets, to be finished off by a dive knife or studied further. But with 18 venomous spines across the back, dorsal, pelvic and anal fins that contain a neuromuscular toxin that can necrotize the flesh of a diver or swimmer who touches them, the plan soon changed.

By the time I joined the Task Force, the thinking had evolved. It is illegal to import spear guns into Cayman because the government is keen on marine preservation, although some historic guns that belong to local families are floating around. The Department of Environment prevailed upon the government, however, to allow the import of some Bermudian sling spears. The spears are two-foot-long, three-pronged poles, with a rubber band that propels the spear from your hand to impale a fish.

Bermudian sling spears are not the most accurate, and divers must get quite close to avoid the lionfish’s quick response times. Despite seeming sedate, they can move remarkably quickly, their spines pulling back like a dog’s ears. They can disappear into the ironshore’s cracks before you have chance to hit them. Willing volunteer recipients watched a video explaining the lionfish menace and obtained a police-clearance certificate to receive one of the spears before lionfish culling began.

Recruiting local predators

Initially, the DOE tried to encourage local predators, primarily grouper and snappers, to eat lionfish. Divers fed them dead lionfish from the spear tip, hoping that they would develop the instinct to hunt lionfish. So far, snappers and grouper will gobble lionfish up off your spear and clearly like them, but haven’t begun to hunt the fish themselves. Instead, these predators have learned that divers sometimes provide food and now follow them looking for a handout on several dive sites. Nurse sharks even join on a few sites, like bloodhounds on the hunt.

They aren’t the only sharks who show an interest, and it is now a rare lionfish culling dive on the East End of Cayman that doesn’t see a reef shark investigating what we’re up to. As the sharks have become more inquisitive, even daring to take a lionfish or two off the spear, the culling ends when we first spot the sharks. Because of the shark presence, only dive staff culls some of the sites.

What next for lionfish culling?

The increased shark interactions mean we can no longer feed lionfish to smaller predators. The DOE is rethinking its strategy of handing out spears, and volunteers must now capture lionfish in opaque containers, often homemade from old water containers. A funnel provides a valve for trapping the fish. Even before this directive, most divers took containers on culls because lionfish is a firm white fish that’s tasty in ceviche or when grilled.

Local dive shops and businesses, including a local supermarket chain, arrange regular lionfish culling trips in exchange for a subsidized dive. The Cayman United Lionfish League runs regular culling competitions. These promote culling and eating lionfish to put to good use mankind’s knack for wiping out species that they find tasty. Restaurants on island promote various dishes involving lionfish, popular among both tourists and locals.

The culling appears to be having a positive effect. Divers rarely see lionfish on common dive sites, and culling trips are returning smaller hauls. When I started culling on the East End, a boat of divers would catch 150 to 200 lionfish. Now we return with 80 to 100. In the west, the lionfish are certainly cannier. Those that have had a close call in the past are wary of divers. They will often slink into a crevice before you can get within range. As their numbers have fallen, dive shops will occasionally anchor in sandy patches that have sometimes never been dived before, hoping to find a motherlode of lionfish.

However, it’s a case of trying to hold back the tide. While we see fewer lionfish at recreational diving depths, it seems they are just going deeper. The problem spans the entire region as well. Diving in Cuba a year ago, I spotted several lionfish. They’re breeding there without restriction, along thousands of miles of coastline. The epidemic has already taken a terrible toll on Caribbean diving generally.

What can you do?

So, what can you do? Many Caribbean dive centers offer culling courses. Even if you cannot get a spear due to local restrictions, you can spot for the cullers. But it’s not just the diving that helps. Ask for lionfish in restaurants when visiting and source them in your local supermarkets. Make sure of course that they’re not from the Indo-Pacific, where they belong. This will help generate revenue and interest beyond enthusiastic divers who are trying to do their bit. Our propensity to wipe out species through greed can finally be put to good use.

On the flipside, you can help avoiding any other fish caught in the Caribbean, or eating fish in general. If you must eat seafood, please stick to so-called sustainable species. Taking fresh fish from the ocean is wiping out stocks that are not meant purpose. Every grouper, snapper, or parrotfish on the menu is one that could be breeding in the sea and replenishing stock that the lionfish are diminishing.

By guest author Jez Snead

The post Lionfish Culling in the Cayman Islands appeared first on Scuba Diver Life.

from Scuba Diver Life http://ift.tt/2lXAJdc

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wayneooverton · 8 years ago

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Lionfish Culling in the Cayman Islands

Lionfish arrive in the Cayman Islands

Lionfish culling

Recruiting local predators

What next for lionfish culling?

What can you do?

By guest author Jez Snead

The post Lionfish Culling in the Cayman Islands appeared first on Scuba Diver Life.

from Scuba Diver Life http://ift.tt/2lXAJdc

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