#but also like i don’t like spike for attraction reasons and i don’t identify with buffy so there’s no reason for me to care there.

[vulpinesaint]

one thing about people who like spike is that very often they will ship him with buffy and care about him in that way. however i. do not do that

[samwisethewitch]

Banishing Nasty Spirits

If you’ve been following this series of posts, you know why a witch might work with spirits, how to establish a relationship with a spirit, and how to communicate with spirits. What we haven’t yet discussed is how to get rid of spirits that are bothersome, annoying, or malevolent.

I was planning to talk about pathworking and astral travel before getting into banishing, but in light of some asks I recently received on Tumblr, I think it’s important that we take a moment to discuss how to get rid of spirits that, for whatever reason, you don’t want around.

There are lots of reasons you might not want a spirit in your space. Just like with people, some spirits just aren’t a good fit for you and your practice. Part of being a spirit worker is cultivating a “spirit team” of beings that you can have healthy and beneficial relationships with.

Some spirits are mischievous and like to cause trouble. If you find yourself on the receiving end of lots of spirit pranks, you may want to gently encourage them to move along. And there are some spirits out there who just genuinely hate humans and will go out of their way to cause mental, emotional, and even physical harm.

Don’t get me wrong — malevolent spirits aren’t common. In my experience, the vast majority of unwanted spirits are more annoying than dangerous. I’m not saying this to scare you or make you paranoid. But these things do exist, and it would be negligent of me not to mention them in a series on spirit work.

There’s a reason that one of the most common truisms in witchcraft is, “Never conjure something you can’t banish.” If you’re going to be working with spirits, it’s a good idea to know how to banish them just in case. With that being said, here’s how you can clear out any nasties that may be lingering in your space.

Cleansing

The first step is to kick those unwanted spirits out of your space. There are lots of ways to do this, so choose the one that is the best fit for you.

Cleansing with fire and smoke is a very old and very simple method. If this is the way you decide to go, there are several magical substances you can burn to banish spirits. Burning sulfur or asafetida will clear out just about anything, but they both smell awful and are potentially toxic, so you’ll want to get an okay from the other people living in your home, burn a little at a time, and make sure you have lots of windows open. (Some people say sulfur and asafetida will banish all spirits, not just the unfriendly ones, so you may have to invite your spirit team back in later.) For something that smells a little more pleasant, you can try a mix of frankincense and myrrh resin, or burn a mix of dried rosemary, sage (garden sage, not endangered white sage, please!), and bay leaves — but again, make sure you have windows open, because these get smoky. Plus, you want the windows and/or doors open so the spirits have somewhere to go when the smoke chases them out.

If smoking up your living space isn’t an option for you, you can manually clean your space with a wash or powder. If you have hardwoods, you can make a floor wash with water, salt, lemon juice, rosewater, lavender essential oil, and either bay laurel or rosemary essential oil. (This is adapted from an uncrossing bath in the book Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison.) Use this mixture to mop your floors, as well as to wipe down your walls and furniture. If you have a humidifier or essential oil diffuser, diffusing some of this mix would also be a good idea.

If you have carpet, you can make a powder by combining salt, dried lemon peel, dried roses, lavender flowers, and bay leaves. You’ll need to ground this really fine, so I recommend using a coffee grinder or food processor. Sprinkle the powder on your carpet, let it sit for a few minutes, and then vacuum it up. I would supplement this by also diffusing a mix of saltwater with rosewater, lemon juice, and lavender and/or bay laurel essential oil. If you don’t have a diffuser, at least sprinkle some saltwater around the room and on your belongings.

No matter which form of cleansing you decide to use, it’s important to verbally state your intention to banish these unwanted spirits from your space. Tell them out loud that they are no longer welcome here and that they need to leave. Don’t be rude about it, but be firm and speak clearly and with confidence.

After you cleanse your space, it’s a good idea to cleanse yourself as well to remove any psychic ties to the spirits you’ve just banished. The easiest way to do this is with a ritual bath. The floor wash recipe mentioned earlier can also be used as a psychic cleansing bath. Other options include a bath with salt, frankincense, and myrrh or a bath with salt, rosemary, sage, and bay laurel. You can use essential oils for your bath, or add the resins and herbs to a cheesecloth bag and drop it into the tub for easy diffusing and cleanup.

If you don’t have a bathtub, you can cleanse yourself in the shower. Place two cups of salt in a bowl. Add lemon juice, rosewater, lavender essential oil, and either bay laurel or rosemary essential oil. If you don’t have essential oils, you can add dried lavender and crushed bay leaves. Add some of your favorite body wash to create a scrub (if you don’t have body wash, use olive oil). While in the shower, use this mixture to scrub your skin — visualize yourself scrubbing away any psychic gunk you might have picked up.

Protection

Once you’ve removed any unwanted spirits from your space, you want to lay down some protection to keep them from coming back. There are as many ways to ward off spirits as there are witches, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

One option is to create a ward. You can do this by anointing the door frames, door knobs, and window frames of your home with a protective oil blend and/or by creating lines of salt across your doorways and just inside your windows. You can use other protective substances if you prefer. As you lay down these protections, visualize a protective shield around your home, and speak aloud your intention to keep harmful spirits out.

Iron is said to repel spirits. Keep a railroad spike or other large piece of iron under your bed to prevent nightmares and to keep spirits from messing with you while you sleep. There’s an old superstition that says that hammering iron nails into the four corners of your home protects it from spirits — this may not be possible if you’re renting, but you can create a similar effect by displaying a piece of iron in each of the four corners of your home. Hematite is a crystal that is high in iron, so it can be used in a similar way to ward off spirits.

Aloe is said to protect from negative spirits, and to bring protection and good luck more generally. It’s also a common house plant that is easy to care for, so this method of protection is especially great for witches who need to keep their practice a secret. Keep several aloe plants in your home to protect those who live there.

For witches with a crafty side, making a witch bottle is another option for protection. There are lots of different recipes for witch bottles, but the basic method is to fill a bottle with sharp objects, add something from your body, and hide it somewhere outside your home (traditionally buried on the property, but leaving it in an outbuilding works just as well). The idea is that any nasty spirit that comes looking for you will be attracted to the bottle (because it contains part of your body), get caught by the sharp objects, and be trapped. To create a simple witch bottle, fill a mason jar about halfway with sewing pins, then add a bit of your hair and some of your fingernail clippings, and finally fill it with liquid (traditionally, this liquid is your own urine, but if that makes you uncomfortable vinegar will also work). If you want, you can also include some of your favorite banishing herbs, resins, or crystals.

Religious symbols can also keep nasty spirits away. If you identify strongly with a religion, display protective symbols from that faith in your living space. For example: a Christian witch might hang up a crucifix or set out a statue of Archangel Michael, a Norse pagan witch might hang up an image of Mjolnir, a Hindu witch might display a statue of Durga, etc. Sometimes the most effective way to keep nasty spirits away is to let them know that you’re under the protection of someone more powerful.

When dealing with unwanted spirits, the most important thing to remember is that you do not need to be afraid. You are a powerful witch, and you are more than capable of getting rid of them. Be confident in your abilities and know that whatever happens, you can handle it.

Resources:

Southern Cunning: Folkloric Witchcraft in the American South by Aaron Oberon

A Green Witch’s Cupboard by Deborah J. Martin

Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison

Where the Hawthorn Grows by Morgan Daimler

[xcrystalzero]

sun is up

pairing: kaeya x f!reader

summary: who knew that waking up next to a stupidly handsome cavalry captain could be so conflicting?

note: hehe. also this one is a little spicy (not very because i'm shy but still) so minors begone!

The sunlight was hitting your face from the wrong side. With a groan, you threw a hand over your eyes in an effort to block out the intruding rays. Not to much avail of course since sunlight had a tendency to seep in through any opening it was given.

It was warm too, a gentle, unfamiliar warmth that seemed to surround you, seeping into your bones and tempting you again and again with the comfortable lull of sleep.

However, your brain knew that it was morning now and no matter how tight you closed your eyes or how deep you snuggled back into the blankets, you weren't going to be able to go back to sleep.

With a resigned sigh, you let your hand fall back down to your side, allowing your eyes to flutter gently open. The sight that greeted you was no less than disorienting.

You had been right, the sunlight was coming from the wrong side of the room. Maybe because this wasn't your room. Sitting up, your still drowsy brain decided that it was time to take a look around. The room wasn't extravagant, but not quite bare either. That wasn't what caught your attention however.

On the ground just a few feet from the edge of the bed lay a pile of clothing. It occurred very slowly to your still offline brain that some of that was yours. You could see it from here, the worn pants from your Knight's of Favonius uniform and that lacy black bra you had bought a few days ago in an effort to feel just a little more sexy. Oh how you loved that bra.

The other half of the clothing however, was a bit of a mystery. Cocking your head, you identified a pair of brown boots, what looked like black gloves, and fluffy white fur collar. Those seemed familiar for some reason.

It was at that moment that you felt the bed shift slightly under you. With a soft gasp, you whirled around, drowsiness falling away in sudden panic as you prepared for an ambush.

You were not however, prepared for what you did see.

It was no secret that Kaeya was a beautiful man. From the deep navy of his hair to the physique his work as a captain had earned him, he was attractive and he knew it. The sight before you now however, was by far the most beautiful side of Kaeya you had ever seen.

His face was turned towards you, half buried in the pillow his head was resting on, silky strands of hair fanned around him in a deep blue halo. The sunlight that had so rudely awoken you cast gentle rays on his face, turning his tanned skin golden and accentuating the line of his collarbone not concealed by the covers. Perhaps the most majestic part however, was his expression. Kaeya was an expressive man and you'd seen just about every emotion, real or fake, cross his features at one point or another. Now however, all those exaggerated angles were gone and for once in his life, the Cavalry Captain looked relaxed. And then he shifted just a bit, the covers rising slightly to reveal the side of his toned torso.

Relaxed and naked apparently...

"Oh shi-" you smacked a hand over your mouth, eyes blowing wide open in horror as things actually started to register. Kaeya Alberich was in your bed. Or no, you were in his? And he was naked. And you were also definitely naked. And-

Unbidden, images of last night rushed forth and you remembered.

"My beautiful [name], would you be so kind as to join me at the tavern this evening?"

That was what had started it. A simple invitation when you really needed a drink. If you remembered correctly, Kaeya hadn't been much better considering how many bottles of wine you two had gotten through before Diluc had grown cross and kicked you out.

You remembered very well, the midnight wind in your hair and Kaeya's hand on your shoulder as you drunkenly braved the streets of Mondstat. And then somehow, you'd been at his place. You just wanted to make sure that he was safe as you knew all too well the kind of messes drunk Kaeya could manage to get himself into.

Yes, you had just wanted to drop him off. But then he was so close to you and you were breathing in his scent, that stupidly comforting scent that you'd been trying for weeks to ignore. His lips were at your ear and he was asking you something in a desperate, very un-Kaeya voice.

"Please, can I kiss you?"

And you nodded because of course you did. No matter what the logical part of your brain tried to tell you every single time you were near him, you knew. This was what you had been hoping for, dreaming of ever since you had met him. You had told yourself it was impossible, that his flirtatious words were a luxury that everyone got to experience, thrown about with no less care than a comment about the weather.

But now, those words were saved just for you. Whispers of "you look so beautiful like this" and "you're so good for me" spoken softly enough that your doubted even the wind could catch them. And then his hands were on you, cold cryo fingertips tracing up your waist and then to your back as they worked at hooks and pulled you further into him.

And your hands were in his hair and then on the clasps of his corset and the ties of his pants, yanking and throwing as though they were the things you hated most in the world. Perhaps at that point in your life, they had been. And then he had been on you, pushing you down into the bed as you arched upwards to meet him, the feeling of wanting to touch him the strongest thing you had felt in your entire life. And then he had reached down...

And... you had slept with your coworker.

It took all the self control in you not to leap out of the bed immediately as you considered your options. There was no way you could stay around until Kaeya woke up. Or, could you? Again, there was that voice in your brain, begging you to just nestle back into the covers and savor this time you got to spend with him. You had to ignore it. This wasn't anything special after all right? You two had just needed to blow off some steam and had seen each other as convenient.

Kaeya was just that kind of guy right? No strings attached, no commitments.

It didn't matter that just seeing him roaming the courtyard from your office window was enough to spike your heart rate through roof. That when he stood a little too close to you during meetings, you had to ball your hands into fists to resist grabbing the lapels of his jacket and smashing your lips into his right then and there.

"Please..." he had said. This stupid beautiful man was going to be the end of you.

"I just have to get out..." you muttered under your breath, pushing yourself into a sitting position in hopes that action would clear your thoughts. You got halfway off the bed when you heard it.

"And where do you think you're going?"

The world went cold. It took you a moment to work up the courage to turn towards the voice, eyes still wide in surprise as you did. You could have sworn that Kaeya was asleep. Everything had suggested it from the uniform rhythm of his breath to the limpness of his splayed arms.

And yet, there he was, very much awake, one visible eye glinting in amusement at your reaction.

"So the eyepatch stays on during sex..." was the only thought your brain could produce in that moment and you honestly could have slapped yourself.

"G-Good morning Kaeya..." you decided on instead, though it only seemed to amuse the man further as he too sat up right behind you.

"Good morning to you too. And to think you were trying to sneak out just a moment ago without saying anything to me..." He was close again, his breath on your ear sending a shiver down your spine. Slowly, his arms came up, sliding under yours before closing right underneath your chest, pulling you into his.

You wriggled slightly in his grip, breathe hitching as his lips made their way down, grazing against your neck. "I-I thought you'd like that better. Since this... this is just a one-time thing." The words hurt to get out and you felt Kaeya stiffen slight behind you.

Without warning, you were yanked backwards, a soft yelp escaping your lips as you found yourself nestled amongst the pillows once again, though this time, a pair of arms encircled you, caging you in with nowhere to run.

Kaeya's periwinkle eye looked down at you when your panicked gaze flew up to meet his, steady and more sincere than you were sure you had ever before seen.

"Now, is that what you really think of our relationship? I'm hurt..." He reached over, taking your chin gently in his fingers as he angled your head up towards him. "Do you want this to be a one-time thing?"

You gulped.

"No. I want you forever. I want you all the time and I just want you to want me too."

You couldn't say it. You couldn't risk it.

Kaeya must have mistaken your silence of a yes however as he retracted his hands immediately. He pulled himself off of you, settling on the edge of the bed with his back to you. It may have just been that stupid thing called hope, but for a moment, you thought that you say hurt in his gorgeous eye.

"Ah I see, well that's fine as well. For what it was, that was a pretty fun night. Shall we go get breakfast or something?" That had to be pain. He was good at hiding his emotions, but you knew Kaeya better than anyone. He was hurt.

"... no."

"Not a breakfast person? That's alright then, you're welcome to see yourself out whenever you'd like."

"No I don't want it to be a one-time thing. I want you Kaeya, for as long as you'll let me." You didn't know where the words were coming from but when he whirled to face you once more, hope in his eyes, you knew you couldn't stop. "So, please don't make me leave?"

Apparently that was all it took as you barely got a moment to breathe before his lips were on yours. It took you a moment but you returned the kiss, hands reaching up to pull him down into you. His lips were hungry, threatening to devour you if you didn't hold your ground. Unconsciously, you arched against him and through the kiss, you could feel his smile.

There was a strange warm feeling growing in your chest that only seemed to amplify the moment Kaeya pulled away, the most genuine smile you had ever seen from him plastered over his lips.

"Oh darling, you have no idea what you just got yourself into..."

note: maybe i'll write one of these for a bunch of characters... you guys wanna see that?

[yanderedbh-moved]

Kamski x F!Reader x Connor Polyship NSFW Alphabet

NSFW and yandere relationship below, please do not continue reading if this sort of content upsets you.

Word Count 3100

Requests are open, not just for DBH, I’m going to try and write for more fandoms in the future to prevent burn out, so you’re more than welcome to submit other fandoms if you wish! (As a matter of fact I’ve been on a MASSIVE Disney characters/villains kick right now... just saying...)

Donations are always welcome.

Link the similar N/S/F/W alphabet I made for a Connor x F! Reader x Kamski Polyship

Aftercare, are they very doting after sex?

Considering how Kamski is hardly the type of person to extend much sympathy or compassion to you without some kind of ulterior motive. Your expectations for him helping to soothe you after intimacy were low. This is not true, however, but perhaps not for the most wholesome of reasons. See, Kamski loves you in a rather objectifying way, as in you are one of his possessions, and he prides himself on taking excellent care of his belongings, you and Connor both. After sex, Kamski would help to clean you up, get you freshwater, a pain killer, some tea, anything you request to soothe you. He’s more than happy to oblige you with.

Predictably, Connor can’t help but wear his heart on his sleeve when he’s isolated with his lovers. Connor too, would want to help and get you cleaned up, but he would also be at your side, whispering sweet words in your ear, soft praises, and helping to put your mind at ease.

Body Part, their favorite body part of either their own body or yours

Kamski, like any craftsman, is rather proud of his strong hands, and by extension, the hands are always a feature Kamski can’t help but feel drawn to. Kamski can be a rather touchy-feely kind of person as well, so even if the two of you aren’t being sexually active at the moment, it’s tough for him to resist running his hands along your body and feeling your flesh against his. 

Connor and Kamski do share an affinity for the neck. Something about the thin flesh, your throbbing pulse, the body heat, it’s all so alluring to the men. Because of this, it’s nearly a constant guarantee your neck will be covered in bruises and bite marks while in their possession. While it may be a shame to tarnish such a lovely part of you, it will heal in time, and it’s only a matter of time before you’re ready for another fresh batch of scars and marks to cover your neck, collarbones, and chest.

Cum

There’s no one answer when it comes to Kamski. If he’s putting on a show, as in is taking you while he’s recording. (Whether you’re privy to this information or not) If he’s going down on you and another Chloe or two? In cases like these, Kamski loves to make a mess, leave you sticky. In private, it’s another story. The man is most meticulous with the cleanup.

Connor pretty exclusively prefers to cum inside you and wouldn’t really feel comfortable covering you in his seed, making a mess all over Kamski’s nice sheets. Your body is already so lovely in its naked form. Why would he feel the need to cover you up anymore?

Dirty secret

Kamski loves to record you during sex without your knowledge. Not just from Connor’s perspective, either. He likely has at least a few cameras set up to capture the moment at different angles. He imagines on a dull day leaking the footage of you like this, just to see how you’ll react. 

Connor finds the idea of you suffering from a complete and total mind break very attractive. The concept of a human, the one who he loves more than any other becoming nothing more than a braindead, submissive, obedient little toy for the deviant and his master to control. Another of Connor’s nastier tactics around you is isolation. Even though he does his best to appear the sweeter, more loving of the two, Connor punishes you by locking you away in the dark with no one to socialize with. To leave you so utterly depraved that you're practically crawling back to him, begging for forgiveness.

Experience

In a sense, both Kamski and Connor likely had little experience with human women before this relationship. Kamski occupying any physical needs of his own with the Chloes and Connor, never having a desire to pursue anyone before deviancy. However, Kamski isn’t the demure, shy type, and even if he may not have the most experience with a human lover, he’s been waiting and practicing for this moment.

Favorite Position

Considering how easy it is for Kamski to get in on some group action, it’s unlikely Kamski would simply identify as either a top or a bottom. He prefers more than one partner at a time. He wants to feel and experience sensations on more than one feeling all around him and is generally a more switch-type partner himself.

Connor, while still discovering more about sex and his own sexuality, generally prefers to face you during sex but is more than happy to obey orders and comply with whoever happens to be dominant in the situation. What Connor does know is he wants to touch and see you in all your beauty as much as possible.

Goofy, are they goofy or serious during sex?

Kamski really isn’t the kind of partner who would mess around too much before or even really during sex. He’s really such a slow and sensual type, the type of person trying to really commit to setting a mood.

Connor is less picky about this, however, if he senses one of his partners is really trying to set the mood seriously. He wouldn’t want to be disrespectful and ruin that. Though, if he feels you’re getting a little too intimidated by Kamski, he might try to “break character” and comfort you, promise you everything will be alright.

Hair, how well-groomed are they?

Kamski, who lived as a bachelor before he started this relationship, likely would’ve kept himself well-groomed “just in case.” He wants to sell people on his image of the perfect, polished, and well put together protégé. Leaving no detail unaccounted for. He, too, holds a preference for other people to be well-groomed. It’s a useful short handed way to show him you’re doing your best to be presentable, clean, and worthy of him. Connor, on the other hand, is nowhere near as strict as his partner is. However, he’d likely be more inclined to try different things or change details of his appearance if his partner were to request so.

Intimacy, Are they romantic in the moment?

It depends, with Kamski, but as for Connor, he feels most aroused and most in the mood for intimacy when he knows he’s the one giving you pleasure or when you’re the one yearning for him. Because of that, Connor is easily more inclined to take things relatively slow, communicate, whatever it is he thinks would work the best between the two of you. 

As for Kamski, he’s a bit tougher to read. Even as a yandere, and even if he is madly in love, he doesn’t ever wear his heart on his sleeve and is seldom easy to read. He likes to keep the tension high during sex and have your full attention on him, so imagine he’s more the type to shock you with a little rough play, draw blood or leave you needy and desperate after edging. 

Jack off, masturbation headcanon

Kamski is known for working long hours into the night or pulling allnighters in the name of productivity, and because of that, he feels no shame in relieving a little tension during breaks between projects. Even though he could use any android he desired to do the work for him, Kamski likes to watch the recordings he has of you having sex without you knowing you’re being recorded. Kamski is likely the type to flip flop between voyeurism and exhibitionism frequently.

Connor actually jacks off more than expected. As someone new and just coming into his own sexuality, he is still a little timid and self-conscience about some things and finds masturbation a more discrete way to explore and try out new kinks he’s curious about. 

Kink, one or more of their kinks

As mentioned above for Kamski, he flops back and forth between enjoying being watched and watching others without their knowledge. However, he also has an intense praise kink.

As of right now, Connor still falls into the “is willing to try anything once” in terms of most kinks. However, what he has noticed is the way he feels his arousal spike whenever your eyes widen and fill with fear. The way he can practically feel your adrenaline spiking is delicious to him and makes his feel so powerful and domination over you.

Location, their favorite place to get dirty

Neither would want to take you just anywhere, so the two would both likely agree the best place for intimacy is in the bedroom. However, Kamski likes to take you out to the pool and tease you while you’re in a skimpy bathing suit. Teasing you by undoing your top and brushing up against the bare skin of your flesh, pulling you onto his lap, that sort of thing.

Motivation, what are some big turn-ons for them?

Obedience! Not to say they don’t see the appeal in a bratty partner. However, compliance, weather forced or not, is just so pleasing. Connor loves explicitly when you’re begging for him specifically, as it really boosts his ego as a newly deviated machine. While Kamski, on the other hand, finds nothing hotter than watching you be taken by Connor, as well as maybe a Chloe. Both humans and machines under his complete control.

No, something they’re unwilling to do

Kamski is not ready to be a father. Pregnancy is strictly off the table. He might’ve suffered from a rougher childhood than one might expect, and because of that, he finds himself very taken back and almost scared around children. He doesn’t like the idea of you ever using the child against him, either. (Imagine if you were to ever threaten to leave with the child. He knows he wouldn’t be able to remain in control if you were to do this.)

As for Connor, he wouldn’t want to share you with another lover outside of the household. (It took him a while to come around to trusting the Chloes with you, but little by little found himself opening up to them.) He is also very turned on by the fact he stole you away from your past life and your old lover. As far as he’s concerned, your old life with others is over now.

Oral, preference in giving vs. receiving, skill level, etc.

Kamski and Connor both definitely prefer receiving. However, Connor wants to make sure you’re enjoying yourself as well, and Kamski would like you to know what a capable lover he really is. 

Pace, are they fast, slow, rough, gentle, etc.?

Both prefer to keep the pace slower, whether this is between just two people or several different parties are involved. Though while Kamski may take his time with things, that doesn’t always mean he’ll treat you gently, and if you test him, Kamski won’t hesitate to lash out and teach you just what happens when you try and disobey your master. 

Connor certainly has the potential to get just as rough but prefers to not use physical force unless he really has to. It’s a subtle power play against Kamski actually because he knows, even if the two of them are keeping you here against your will, if Connor treats you gentler out of the two of them, you’ll subconsciously warm up to him more, and maybe even start to genuinely start to trust in him. 

Risk, are they willing to experiment?

Absolutely! Kamski loves to mix things up with the three of you to keep you guessing and unsure how to behave around them, and loves to analyze the reactions you give and learn even more about you. While Connor is just as happy to be the one to shyly ask you to try something new out on him, as well as to plot against you with Kamski. Both are equally rewarding for him, making him all the more difficult to read.

Stamina, how many rounds can they go?

Typically speaking, Kamski isn’t the type to limit himself to just one round. However, if you’re clearly exhausted or don’t appear to mentally focus yourself entirely on the sex, he finds himself far less inclined to continue. And he might even show you a rare moment of tenderness, snuggling your body up against his and making sure you’re soundly asleep before leaving the bed. 

Connor is somewhat similar to Kamski here. He tries his hardest to be very in tune and aware of his partners’ needs, and because of that, can pick up on any chances of going another round with you, or if he should dial things back a little and let you regain your strength and let you sleep, rather than to push you too far.

Toys, Do they own any toys, or are they averse to this?

It really goes without saying, but if there’s one thing Kamski and Connor are in firm agreement on, it’s being very in favor of the idea of using toys. While Connor isn’t too interested in porn outside of the bedroom, he might, out of curiosity, of course, watch and research to see what he can learn and try out on you and Kamski later. 

Neither would feel much shame about this either, considering they are both relatively secular men in their own right. They see nothing wrong with the idea of enjoying some more perverse technology to test out on you. While this is a massive turn on for the two, it’s also important to know, if they really were testing out some new gadget on you, Connor would urge you to use a safe word, just in case something went wrong.

Unfair, are they likely to tease?

It really goes without saying. However, Kamski is very much the type of person who would tease his partner. Both before and during sex. Even if he does prefer to keep a slow and sensual mood during intimacy, that doesn’t mean he won’t edge, tease or deny you to help get you extra worked up and needy for him. 

Connor is far, far less likely to act this way. However, if he’s being guided by Kamski, then he wouldn’t hesitate to obey his master and force you to service both men all night long without returning the favor. However, he’s much easier to convince to go easy on you, even if he may enjoy watching you struggle much more than he would confess.

Volume, how loud are they?

Kamski not only isn’t too loud himself, but he also has little interest in loud partners. He finds little pleasure in the idea of you screaming or overemphasizing your natural reactions. What Kamski loves most is the shyer, hesitant reactions he can work from you and Connor. 

Connor prefers to listen to his partner and hear what they sound like rather than drown them out with his own volume. Also, he might think it’s merely proper or more natural for the male partner to be so quiet, considering he’s been studying Kamski as a mentor. 

Wildcard, any random headcanon

Kamski, the mastermind, even though he cares deeply for Connor, wouldn’t hesitate to put him in danger as a means to get to you. Imagine a scenario where Connor was left to watch over you while he was away, and Kamski learns Connor let you out of the house while he was gone. Kamski wouldn’t hesitate to hurt the android as a means to get to you. Even if both men terrified you, Connor was by far the lesser evil here, and knowing that because you left the house, now Connor is hurt would really guilt you into becoming far more compliant with Kamski in the future.

X-ray, what’s going on under those clothes?

Kamski prefers to keep both his lovers and himself in high quality, practically tailor-made undergarments. It’s not that he thinks you need to be all dressed up to be beautiful, but rather, it’s the control he truly loves. The way he can order you around, as though he programmed you himself.

Connor is more than happy to obey here. He prefers to keep himself a perfect, loving image of his creator, considering it an honor to wear such comfortable, lovely garments. While Kamski isn’t too interested in seeing you wear his clothing around the house, he loves it when you wear Connor’s jacket, or if you were to let the Chloes style you.

Yearning, do they have a high sex drive?

Kamski is, to his core, a secular man. He’s never been the type to deny or to downplay the desires of his flesh, and as someone who sees himself as something of a god-like figure in this world, it’s only fair that he indulges in all the most refined pleasures life has to offer. And by extension, he likely sees Connor as something of a disciple to him and would want to show the fledgling deviant all the benefits of indulging in human desire.

Connor, as a new deviant, can’t help but be at the mercy of his own irrational desires. While he is allowed far more freedom to come and go and live an independent life than you have, he would never want to search out another partner sexually. Even if Kamski were to suggest matching Connor with his own personal Chloe, it’s unlikely Connor would feel the same intensity and attraction he feels with you two.

Zzzz, how fast will they fall asleep after sex?

Given his admirable work ethic, Kamski is something of an insomniac. He is no stranger to pulling allnighters, pushing past drowsiness in the name of progress. Because of this, he’s not too skilled at lulling himself to sleep. It’s possible either to see curling up with another warm body helpful to relax Kamski and is just the trick to help him drift off. Alternatively, he might just not be much of a sound sleeper, and even if you and Connor are curled up at his sides, Kamski will be tossing and turning well into the night.

Connor likely would want to stay awake for a little while after sex. He enjoys the way your warm body still clings to his body. Even in slumber, he treasures the way your sleeping body is so precious and tranquil, something for only him to enjoy.

(also, the talented people over at @detroitbecomeyandere have a lot of Somnophilia content featuring Connor. If you’re interested, give them a follow. They deserve it)

[rotteneldritchhorror]

Fair enough on both paragraphs lol, it’s like 7am where I am and I haven’t slept and I don’t plan on doing so

Now I shall list headcanons because I’m a demented queer who cannot handle straight people existing in media

First, the classics; Bobby is (obviously) pan and is nonbinary/genderqueer and xenogender (that man(?) hoards evil genders- he found out that autistic queers were coming up with villain genders and decided it was his time), also he definitely uses neopronouns (he/it/fuck/evil/vile/thorn/chaos) for the name reason, oh also autism, ADHD, anxiety, C-PTSD, BPD and HPD

Bryce is also pan, but also demiromantic (her only romantic relationships being with a man she fell in love with after mostly sexually charged and escapist dates but soon got to know him enough to love him, and a man she knew from childhood and only started dating in the first place to feel needed and wanted? Cmon), also autism, both C-PTSD (from her mother- just- childhood) and PTSD (seeing Donovan dying), and BPD (and probably more)

Elmer is gray-aroace and pan and is an Agender boy (also he/they/it/null pronouns, also autistic and an anxiety disorder that would be much more THERE if he had a heart but that’s obvious)

Blame is bi and aroflux (he definitely fell in love with Duke during a spike of romantic attraction) also definitely has a smaller preference for women than he’d like to admit- he acts like he’s “basically straight but twinks can be hot ig” or whatever but he likes men more than he’d like, also ADHD and autism (at least AS blame, George has more things mentally ill about him but ya know-)

Eddie/Blah Blah is pan, nonbinary and transneutral, also definitely had schizophrenia that was triggered by the whole ‘constantly force fed/accidentally doing a hallucinogenic like it was candy’ thing, also autism, ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, IED, BPD and bipolar. Don’t ask me why, I just love him and feel the need to dump every disorder I know way too much about from my spin in mental illness/disorder onto characters I love

Paisley is a pan transfemme Demigirl she/they and I love her (also she’s half Spanish because I just find the idea that she fucking said “bitch you know I don’t speak Hispanic” as a Hispanic person so funny and strangely endearing) (also the Bryce & paisley besties thing, but you know that), also autistic and ADHDer

Also, because I can’t control myself, Noah is a transneutral ghostgender agender boy who uses he/they/it/that and has ADHD and autism

You know I believe (correctly) that Cathy is bisexual and aromantic, but also she has ADHD, anxiety and IED

We also know that Sam is canonically a deeply closeted gay, but he’s also demisexual (he’s one of the few canonically gay characters that don’t really refer to having sex, especially not that often, and I needed to do something with that), also, as you said, autistic (with ADHD)

Delmar (yes- shhhhh) is bi and demiromantic, also genderqueer/nonbinary and transneutral- look me in the eye and try and tell me that he’s not on HRT this very second, you can’t! (Also ADHD and probably autism and a personality disorder or two)

Arlo is bi and a genderqueer man/demiboy (he’s not connected enough to manhood to fully identify with simply being a man) is is just full of disorders- but also! Definitely also physically disabled, no one knows other than maybe Manjusha but he has a hard time walking long distances and has extremely bad balance and for a short while after he came out of his coma he could barely move his legs- also DEFINITELY has a lot of memory issues and general developmental and cognitive issues both because he missed most of adolescence and adulthood but also because of the head injury, maybe also Alice In Wonderland Syndrome from said head injury/brain damage— I have a lot of thoughts

this might be a controversial take but fuck it

drawing any brandon character white or super light skinned weirds me out

[hinnyxromione]

“Out of No Where” Harry/Ginny Claim Debunked

So, I usually do not feed into the argument that Harry and Ginny’s relationship came out of nowhere claim because first of all, I’ve always seen it as a misadvised, unjustified argument that stemmed from what the movies presented. However, since I’m quarantined in my house and I’m a social psychologist in training, I questioned whether or not there was a way to quantify Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter’s relationship to find whether or not this “out of nowhere” claim is justified. 

To develop my hypothesis, I did a literature review from social psychology academic, empirical studies on infatuation, relationships, and love in both teenage samples and young adult samples. From that review, I found a popular theory in infatuation which states that what we deem as “crushes” develop at an exponential rate (an example depicted below). 

Think of the x-axis (horizontal line) as the time passed. Think of the y-axis (vertical line) as the number of times a person thought of the person/item of interest. The red line is what we’re interested in. In the exponential graph below, as time passes, the rate of growth in number of thoughts increased “exponentially.” So in a way, think of the corner of the red line as the point in which the subject has identified that they have a crush on the person of interest. After that crush has been identified, the number of thoughts related to that person increases substantially due to the addictiveness and fascination associated with infatuation. Of course this makes sense when we think about our obsession with the Harry Potter franchise. The more we realized we loved it, the more we thought about it. (Or I assume you’ve had this experience being that you’ve read this post to this point).

Hypothesis and Measurement:

So how does this relate to Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley? My hypothesis was that Harry’s crush on Ginny would develop in a similar pattern throughout the six books leading up to their first kiss. To test this, I quantified Harry and Ginny’s relationship through the number of pages the word “Ginny” appeared in the books. Now hear me out: the books for the most part are told from Harry’s point of view (although written in third person) with exceptions in chapters such as the first chapter in the Goblet of Fire, and first chapter in the Half Blood Prince. Therefore, every time the word “Ginny” is mentioned reflects the number of times Harry acknowledges Ginny’s presence in the situation/setting. The number of times Ginny’s name appears can also relate to the strength of her association (or friendship) with Harry, which in my belief is vital in the understanding of Harry and Ginny’s relationship development. 

Limitations of the measurement that should be considered before we discuss the results: (1) since I’m using the number of PAGES that Ginny is mentioned, this number could be different from book to book depending on year of printing, size of the book, size of the font, etc, (2) “Ms. Weasley” or “Ron’s sister” and similar references were not counted, and (3) I used pages because I thought using the number of times Ginny’s name appeared was influenced by dialogue/relevance to the scene. Obviously Ginny’s name will appear more in scenes that she is the focal point of (aka Chamber of Secrets) which is hard to compare with in books where she is not the focal point (like in Prisoner of Azkaban). I hoped by standardizing the number to the number of pages, we’d get a more comparable number that we can use to analyze between book to book.

Results

The following graphic shows the results:

So, was my hypothesis supported? It’s hard to tell. 

Ginny Weasley was mentioned on three pages in the first book which makes sense; they hadn’t met, and she was only seen on platform 9 3/4 in the beginning and the end of the book.

In the Chamber of Secrets, she was the focal point of the climax of the story so obviously she would appear in more pages. Interestingly enough, “Ginny” was mentioned on 25 pages before she was taken to the Chamber at the end of the book.

Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire makes sense because she was not an intricate part of the plots of those books. She is also in the year below Harry so she was not in class with him and therefore is not in many settings where she would just be off-handedly mentioned as being present.

The Order of the Phoenix is the surprising finding. Her name was present on more pages in the fifth book than it was in the actual book where Harry confesses his infatuation for her. This is the portion that really throws the wrench in my hypothesis. However, after thinking about it more, it makes sense, and here’s why. Have you ever watched tv and noticed that the same commercial is on at every commercial break? This is purposeful because of the repetitive exposure effect; the more you see something, the more likely you are to be inclined to purchase that item. There’s a similar effect in infatuation research; the more positive experiences you have with a person, the more you are likely to develop positive feelings for that person (either friendship-related or romance-related feelings). Therefore, it makes sense that Harry would develop some sort of relationship with Ginny when she’s present in his life that many times in a year (127 times). Is it positive? For the most part, his experiences with Ginny in the fifth book are positive in that his experiences with her, even if they are negative in nature like in the Ministry, they are not negative between Ginny and Harry. 

Now why is she mentioned fewer times in the sixth book? After re-scanning through the book, there are many more scenes in which Harry is looking at Voldemort’s memories with Dumbledore which take up a lot of the book. That makes sense, of course, because that is the main point of the book. Ginny is still mentioned on 1/6 of the pages in the sixth book. While in the Order of the Phoenix, Ginny is mentioned on 1/8 of the pages in the book (it’s 200 pages longer than the Half Blood Prince).

Now, in terms of plot, what would dictate the reason behind why there is such a spike in Ginny’s presence during the fifth book? How about this:

“Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more--myself.” (Pg 647 in Half Blood Prince)

Although never explicitly stated, it can be inferred that this conversation happened in the summer before Order of the Phoenix when Hermione and Ginny were rooming together at 12 Grimmauld Place. After that, Ginny made the effort to relax a bit more and show Harry that she has relaxed more around him. This means that she would have more positive, comfortable experiences with Harry which Harry might take more notice in. 

In addition, it’s important to note that there are a lot of moments that are left out of the books. Obviously, JK Rowling wouldn’t include every single day of the school year; that would make the books incredibly long and cause the books to lose their focus. This means that moments like the exploding snaps game Harry and Ginny had together after the chamber which we learned about in Cursed Child, or the enjoyable afternoons in the sixth book, were not present to include in these results. Also, more mundane events where interactions between these characters could have occurred, such as daily meals where nothing of importance to the plot happens, were also left out because how many times do you really want to read about Harry’s breakfast habits? These events could also show how many more occurrences Harry and Ginny had together and would change how these results appear.

In conclusion, Harry and Ginny’s relationship development makes sense when viewing it from a social psychology stance. Their relationship did not occur out of nowhere, in fact it makes sense that their relationship would develop in the way that it did when analyzing the number of events Harry and Ginny experience together pre-infatuation. In other words, his infatuation developed because of how much time he spent with Ginny in his fifth year. This of course does not even touch on the attractive qualities within each of them that make them compatible in the first place.

Continue arguing all you like about the development of Harry and Ginny’s relationship, but to me, it was done realistically and with common sense when it comes to driving the main plot of the story. I’m logging off and will not discuss this anymore. (I know I didn’t cite the social psychology studies but it’s tumblr and I really don’t feel like doing that right now)

[carewyncromwell]

Ficlet: Educational Decree #23

@drinkyoursoupbitch mentioned enjoying Lawyer!Carewyn, so...I decided to write this not-so-quick not-so-little fic drabble, featuring my MC, Carewyn Cromwell, and her Surrogate BBBFF, Bill Weasley. This is set in May 1996, circa the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and right after Voldemort’s return has been fully revealed to the Wizarding World.

One note about Carey’s involvement with the Order -- due to her baggage with Dumbledore and her own inherent pacifism, Carewyn is not an active member of the Order of the Phoenix, at least not in the traditional sense. She does help them in her own way and on her own terms, but Carewyn hasn’t served as any kind of representative for or agent of the organization, fought in any conflicts with Death Eaters, or even attended any Order meetings in person. Most of the aid she’s provided the Order is through leaking intelligence to them through her old friends Tonks and Jae and in going out of her way to serve as legal council to Fudge so she can write and work on cases that she would know well enough to subsequently dismantle at the proper moment. Carewyn has also kept known associates of Dumbledore like the Weasleys and the Hogwarts staff at arm’s length and not spoken to them much at all, so as to not give Fudge reason to question her loyalties or look too deeply at her activities. Therefore Carewyn and Bill -- keeping an eye on the greater good -- have not shared direct correspondence for nearly a year, which has definitely been hard on both of them, as after Rowan’s death, the two have come to see each other as their respective best friend.

~~~~~

The Ministry of Magic may have been in a state of confusion thanks to the revelation of Voldemort’s return -- but no matter how chaotic things were, or how many enchanted memos flew through the air, Bill Weasley was never not going to stick out like a sore thumb.

The ponytailed Cursebreaker towered over many of the employees scrambling around him as he climbed into the lift that led to the other levels. He could feel several side-long glances his way -- no doubt interested in his violet-black leather jacket with silver spiked shoulders and the Peruvian Vipertooth fang earring in his right ear.

‘Maybe I should’ve drank some Polyjuice,’ he thought sheepishly. ‘Come disguised as someone else.’

But he brushed the thought off. As good as it would’ve been to not attract as much attention, he knew he didn’t want to waste time. The Ministry having finally come around to the idea of Voldemort’s return meant that Carewyn presumably no longer had to walk on eggshells and pretend not to know everybody -- and, well, there was a lot to plan. Bill knew Carewyn would want to know everything that had happened, and now that the truth had come out, he wanted to be the one to tell her. If nothing else, Carewyn would definitely prefer a private meeting with him than one with Dumbledore.

“Level Two,” said the cool, serene female voice of the lift as it came to a stop. “Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Auror Offices.”

The cage-like door clattered open, and the employees in the lift came streaming out, fighting with a flood of equal size trying to take their place. Before Bill could climb out himself, however, he noticed a familiar mane of bright pink hair in the crowd of people pushing their way into the lift.

“Tonks!” said Bill.

The Metamorphagus looked up, and her face broke into a huge smile at the sight of him.

“Bill!”

The two exchanged a short hug.

“What in the world are you doing here, mate?” Tonks asked incredulously. “Gonna stick out just a touch in that get-up, aren’t you?”

“I already am sticking out,” Bill laughed. “Is Carewyn in her office?”

Tonks’s face grew a bit more serious.

“No, she’s on Level Nine -- Courtroom Ten. The Wizengamot’s discussing a challenge made to Educational Decree Number 23 -- you know, the one creating the High Inquisitor post? Apparently they summoned Carey as an expert witness.”

“Because she helped Fudge with a draft of that decree,” surmised Bill.

Tonks nodded.

“Well, I’ll go on ahead and find her down there, then,” said Bill.

He sidled back into the lift, and Tonks came up to stand beside him as the cage doors closed and the lift began to move again.

“Wish I could come with you,” said Tonks softly, “but I’ve got a meeting with Remus right after work, I can’t be late.”

Bill cocked his eyebrows amusedly. “A meeting? Do you call all of your romantic rendez-vous’s that, Tonks?”

Tonks’s face darkened in a blush even as her face broke into a huge white grin.

“Oh, don’t tease! It’s for the Order,” she mumbled a bit more shyly.

Bill laughed.

The lift came to a stop.

“Level Eight,” said the cool, serene female voice. “Atrium.”

The doors clanged open, and the mob of employees flooded out. Tonks strode out of the lift too, waving to Bill over her shoulder.

“Say hi to the ‘General’ for me!” she said with a laugh.

Bill waved back, grinning at the reminder of Diego’s old nickname for Carewyn. The Dueling Champion had started calling her that after she and the others started the Circle of Khanna back in the day -- though Diego often punctuated it with modifiers like “brave General” or “kind General.”

The doors closed, and the lift began to descend again. Bill was the only one left inside now, so he could actually stretch a bit without hitting any of the dozen people fencing him in on either side.

‘Carey stayed in Fudge’s good graces this last year so she could sabotage him wherever she could -- keep him from grabbing absolute power, and help us fight You-Know-Who,’ Bill recalled. ‘So she no doubt wrote that draft of the decree with the intention of having it challenged.’

Something rubbed Bill the wrong way, though.

‘The Wizengamot summoned her as a witness, no doubt to defend it...but why would they even bother defending it? Fudge has been proven wrong about You-Know-Who. And why is Carey just an expert witness, when she could have made the challenge herself?’

“Level Nine,” said the cool, serene female voice of the lift as it came to its last stop. “Department of Mysteries.”

The cage door clattered open again, and Bill climbed out.

Level Nine was unique among the floors of the Ministry for its reflective black-tiled walls and ceilings. Bill’s leather boots clapped against the floor with every step, the sound echoing off of every surface down the hall behind him as he walked.

He turned a corner and found Courtroom Ten. Trying to be as quiet as he could, he turned the silver doorknob in the center of the door and inched it open.

“...position was created for the welfare of the students, was it not? To better regulate and enforce the standards for their educators -- the professors put in charge of their care?”

Bill identified Fudge’s blustering voice at once, though it sounded much shakier and more feeble than usual.

“...That was supposed to be its intent, yes.”

‘Carey!’

Bill sidled into the room, settling down into the half-full stands of the courtroom so he could see.

Fudge sat up near the head of the Courtroom’s box seats, spinning his lime green bowler hat in both hands in his lap. The top seat, however, which belonged to the Chief Warlock, was once again occupied by Albus Dumbledore, dressed in embroidered lavender robes and a matching pointed hat. Bill also noticed his younger brother Percy -- as Junior Undersecretary -- sitting in the Head Scribe’s Chair, in the far right corner. Percy, true to form, seemed to be purposefully avoiding Bill’s gaze.

On the floor, a young man with dark hair and a set of white-collared brown pinstripe robes who Bill recognized as ex-Ravenclaw Prefect Chester Davies sat at the prosecution’s table. And sitting in the witness chair at the center of the room, dressed in high-necked, flowing forest green robes and gold star-like earrings, was Carewyn. Her ginger red hair was shorter than Bill remembered it, only reaching her chin, but her lipstick was as ruby red as ever. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her shoulders were low, making her appear incredibly uncomfortable.

Bill frowned. He’d never seen Carewyn slouch like that before...

“And -- and there have been...concerns over the years,” Fudge pressed, though he kept glancing anxiously out the side of his eye up at Dumbledore beside him, “letters sent by parents of the students, expressing concerns about...previous staff appointments at Hogwarts, yes?”

“Objection,” said Chester Davies rather coolly. “The witness is here to testify about the legality of the measure, not to give justification for why it was written.”

“Sustained,” said Dumbledore airily.

His light blue eyes drifted down to Fudge, and although they weren’t at all sharp or reproachful, the Minister flinched all the same. Dumbledore then looked down at Carewyn, inclining his head slightly.

“Miss Cromwell...your legal counsel was that there was nothing on the books forbidding the creation of the High Inquisitor position -- is that correct?”

Despite the slight discomfort in her posture, Carewyn kept her eyes solidly on Dumbledore as she spoke.

“Yes, Professor.”

“So in your view, it would not be illegal for the Ministry to influence the way Hogwarts is run -- to circumvent the authority of the school’s own Headmaster?”

“I could find nothing on the books outlawing it,” said Carewyn solemnly. “There is no law forbidding the Ministry from regulating Hogwarts’s educational practices, staff appointments, or lesson plans. However one personally feels about Educational Decree Number 23...”

She inclined her head respectfully to Dumbledore.

“...I would conclude that it was legal.”

Fudge’s face was twitching as if he wanted to smile, but seemed too afraid to when he glanced around at Dumbledore and the rest of the Wizengamot on either side of him, whose faces were all decidedly stony.

Dumbledore’s eyes flickered from Carewyn to Chester Davies at the prosecution table and back. Then he gave Carewyn a short, respectful nod in return.

“Thank you, Miss Cromwell. Mr. Davies -- you may now cross-examine the witness.”

Chester rose to his feet, his shoulders straight back and tall. He strode around the table slowly, but with purpose, his robes billowing slightly behind him as he came up beside Carewyn, his arms folded behind his back. His eyes never rested on anyone in particular -- instead they hovered somewhere in the area of the abandoned far corner of the stands.

“Miss Cromwell,” he said, his voice very cool, “when Fudge first approached you for legal counsel, why did he want the High Inquisitor position created?”

“O-objection!” Fudge stammered. “That’s a prejudicial question!”

“Overruled,” said Dumbledore calmly. “It’s a factual question -- one I’d quite like to know the answer to. Proceed with your answer, Miss Cromwell.”

Carewyn had shifted her gaze over to Chester. Although Chester wasn’t looking at her, she kept her eyes locked on his face.

“...He said...that he wished to keep Dumbledore in check,” she said very quietly.

Both the Wizengamot members and the gallery startled to mumble amongst themselves. Bill noticed a reporter with an uneven light blond haircut and a snake tattoo on his arm in the stands scribbling notes furiously. Even Percy paused in his writing, glancing up at Fudge uneasily. Fudge’s face had flushed the shade of a fine red wine.

Chester’s eyebrows rose. Though he kept his gaze on the abandoned far corner of the stands, quiet confidence rippled off of him as he strolled leisurely to the other side of Carewyn.

“Had Albus Dumbledore been charged with any crime by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?” he asked.

“Objection!” said Fudge again. “Completely irrelevant! We’re discussing the decree, not Dumbledore!”

“Overruled,” said Dumbledore. “Miss Cromwell’s previous answer has linked both you and me to the decree, Cornelius. Proceed, Miss Cromwell.”

“No,” said Carewyn.

“Had Albus Dumbledore been under investigation for a specific crime by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?” asked Chester.

“Objection!” Fudge burst out, sounding both more frustrated and desperate. “This line of questioning is highly inflammatory -- ”

“Overruled,” Dumbledore cut him off very smoothly. “The truth can often be inflammatory. Proceed, Miss Cromwell.”

“No -- though he was placed under Ministry surveillance.”

“Objection!” whimpered Fudge. “We’ll need to cross-examine that claim -- ”

“Overruled. Our examination of the witness is through, and she’s merely stating facts of the case. Proceed, Mr. Davies.”

“And,” said Chester, his voice a bit sharper now, “was the High Inquisitor position filled again, once Dolores Umbridge -- with the passing of Educational Decree Number 28 -- replaced Dumbledore and became Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?”

“Objection!”

“Overruled.”

Carewyn inclined her head slightly, her blue eyes narrowing slightly upon Chester’s face seriously.

“No.”

Chester’s mouth had spread into a small smirk by this point. He’d stopped in front of Carewyn and faced her at last, his dark eyes gleaming with triumph.

“Interesting. So the High Inquisitor position -- which, the Minister has stated for the press was there to ‘keep order’ and ‘address the falling standards at Hogwarts school’ -- was no longer needed as soon as Albus Dumbledore left his position as Headmaster. Even though Headmistress Umbridge would go on to try to forcibly remove Professor Rubeus Hagrid from the Hogwarts grounds -- an attempt that resulted in severe injury for Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall...and even though the Inquisitorial Squad created to assist the High Inquisitor had not been disbanded and was actually given more authority after the fact...the position of High Inquisitor no longer needed to be filled. No further effort was needed to regulate Hogwarts’s educational practices. Once Dumbledore was gone, so too was the need for the position...and therefore the decree.”

Fudge’s flushed face had turned a dark purple.

“Objection!” he squeaked.

“Overruled,” Dumbledore said very quietly, but very firmly.

“Regulation is legal,” Chester plowed on, pacing slowly across the room without looking anyone in the eye, “as long as it’s consistent. There can be no singling out of individual citizens, particularly when it’s not in the pursuit of legal action. Regardless of the Minister’s distrust of him, Dumbledore had not been charged with and was not under investigation for a specific crime...so there would’ve been no probable cause for his personal activities to be regulated. Regulating educational policy, therefore, would only be legal as long as the regulation was consistent across the board -- if the High Inquisitor position both regulated Albus Dumbledore and Dolores Umbridge’s decisions as Head of Hogwarts school.”

“Object -- ”

“Overruled.”

“And so,” said Chester more fiercely, his gaze flashing up at Fudge with visible reproach, “the High Inquisitor position, and the decree that spawned it, was created for the express purpose of silencing political dissidents...namely one in particular -- Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.”

Chester then turned to Carewyn, his expression becoming much less harsh but no less severe.

“Would that be legal, in your opinion, Miss Cromwell?”

Carewyn stared Chester straight in the eye. Neither one of them blinked.

“No,” said Carewyn at last, very firmly. “The targeting of a private citizen with no legal justification would violate multiple laws, including the Third Clause of the Wizard’s Code of Civil Rights.”

Fudge’s face had lost most of its color, blanching to an ill grayish-white. The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth turned up in a very tiny, dewy smile.

Chester’s eyes narrowed slightly upon Carewyn’s face, almost softening.

“Thank you, Miss Cromwell. No further questions.”

Carewyn got to her feet. She looked like she wanted to say something to Chester, but decided against it and simply nodded, heading back up into the stands. She noticed Bill sitting in the rows, but did not move to greet him, instead taking a seat in the row behind the prosecutor’s table, away from the rest of the spectators.

Chester turned fully around to face the Wizengamot, unfolding his arms from behind his back at last.

“Members of the Wizengamot,” he said lowly, “I do not make this case with any desire to achieve political points. If nothing else...the danger we now find ourselves in makes it imperative that we set aside political squabbling. Whatever one’s opinion is of the Minister of Magic or his legislation...”

He shot a side-long glance at Fudge, as did many other members of the Court.

“...this is not the time for retaliation, but for justice. Educational Decree Number 23 was illegal both in its creation and especially in its execution -- and so it must be expunged forever from the law, and we must act to ensure that nothing like it ever is created again. This decision must be so universal that it sets a precedent -- one that, unlike the one this decree set, is one that evokes positive change. Hogwarts doesn’t need ‘regulation’ now -- it needs protection. We all need protection. So vote with your conscience. End this chapter of Ministry ineptitude and in-fighting...and start a new one, having made up for the mistakes we’ve made.”

Chester glanced at Fudge one more time, this time meeting his eyes. The Minister looked away uncomfortably. The young attorney then inclined his head respectfully to the rest of the court.

“Thank you.”

He took his seat at the prosecution table. The room was silent for a moment, before Dumbledore addressed the court.

“All those in favor of the decree being upheld?”

No one moved. Not a single member of the Wizengamot raised their hand -- not even Fudge, who kept his eyes locked on the bowler hat clutched in his trembling hands.

The reaction was so stunning that the spectators in the gallery began to whisper among themselves. The tattooed reporter in the stands scribbled some more notes furiously.

“All those in favor of overturning the decree and -- by extension -- declaring it illegal under Wizarding Law?” said Dumbledore.

A sea of hands rose into the air. Fudge did not raise his hand -- he’d clearly decided to withhold his vote -- but he for once remained completely silent, his entire posture shrinking visibly in his seat.

“Then we are decided,” declared Dumbledore, a pleased twinkle in his light blue eyes. “Educational Decree Number 23 is abolished. Court is adjourned.”

He lightly tapped the gavel twice on the table in front of him. Everyone started bustling around to leave the Courtroom, including Carewyn and Chester, who left together. Bill hurried to catch up with them, even as the crowd of spectators devolved around him.

He finally caught up with them as they climbed into the lift.

“Carewyn!”

Carewyn and Chester turned around. Their eyes both lit up in recognition.

“...Bill,” said Carewyn, visibly taken aback. She glanced at Chester out the side of her eye very quickly before asking, “What are you doing here?”

Bill came to stop next to them in the lift, a smile prickling at his features. “I heard the Wizengamot had summoned you, so I thought I’d pop down and watch the court proceedings...going up, I suppose?” he added lightly, “Allow me.”

He punched the button for Level Two.

“Glad I did too,” Bill continued casually as the gate-like doors closed. “That was quite a case!”

Carewyn leaned back against the side of the lift, crossing her arms.

“...Yes, it was. A foregone conclusion, some would say, given Fudge’s current level of popularity -- but the law isn’t supposed to be a popularity contest.”

“True,” said Chester. “Just because Fudge was cruel in how he targeted his political rivals doesn’t mean we have to be.”

Bill’s gaze slid over to Chester.

“...I didn’t know you were an attorney now, Chester. I haven’t seen you since...”

“...I left school -- I know,” finished Chester with a polite smile. “I’m rather new to it, actually. I only started practicing last month.”

“I was the one who suggested Chester take the case,” Carewyn added, also smiling slightly.

“I hope you were pleased with the result,” Chester shot back with a wry smile.

“It did turn out the way we hoped, anyway. Though I would’ve preferred if our roles had been switched.”

“We can’t all be on the winning side of things.”

The lift came to a stop.

“Level Two,” said the cool female voice again. “Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Auror Offices.”

The three climbed out.

“Oh, Carewyn, before I forget,” said Chester, “I left some paperwork for you in my office -- I thought it might be useful, for your next case.”

“Thank you,” said Carewyn, “I’ll go and fetch it.”

“I have to be heading out myself...could I steal a bottle of pop from your office, before I go?”

“Of course. I left the file I borrowed in my right desk drawer too.”

“Much obliged.”

The exchange was very quick and clipped, and yet there was something almost pointed in the glances they shared -- as if they were saying something else entirely that only they knew.

Carewyn headed off down the hall, presumably toward Chester’s office. Chester strolled down to the first door on the right, which led to Carewyn’s office, and opened it, glancing over his shoulder at Bill.

“Do you want to wait here until Carewyn comes back?” he asked politely. “It should only take a few minutes.”

“Yes, I would,” said Bill.

Bill followed Chester into the office, and the attorney closed the door behind both of them.

Carewyn’s office was unusual among the Ministry of Magic’s offices in how charming and remarkably pretty it was. It was very tiny, incredibly organized, and impeccably decorated, with mint-green painted walls and a charmed skylight that showed the image of the London street above them, including the passing feet of the Muggles presumably walking overhead. It also included several Muggle appliances, such as a waffle-maker and a tiny fridge -- Carewyn had said in her letters that she and her coworkers often worked late nights, so sometimes Talbott, Tonks, or Ben (who were Aurors and a Hitwizard respectively) would pop in for a before-dawn breakfast after one of their assignments.

Chester sat down in the wheeled office chair (another unique Muggle item) and rolled it over to the fridge behind the black desk. He opened it, pushing aside the items inside to reach the very back.

“Can I get you some orangeade, perhaps?” asked Chester casually. “Carewyn always keeps a bottle or two in stock.”

Bill smiled broadly. “Of course. You know it’s my favorite, Carey.”

Chester -- or rather, Carewyn, in disguise as Chester -- took out a bottle of orangeade, her face breaking into a broad smile and her dark eyes sparkling, as she opened the bottle and handed it to Bill.

“When did you figure it out?” she asked.

“Back in the courtroom,” said Bill. “You’ve never slouched like that when you were uncomfortable. You used to shrink a bit, when you were younger...but you always look away when you’re the least bit uncomfortable. You don’t keep eye contact like that. Then you started talking, and...”

Bill grinned.

“...even though it was Chester’s voice, I could still hear you in there.”

Carewyn grinned broadly. She rolled the chair around so she could fetch a can of Vimto Cola for herself. She opened it with a click and took a sip.

“It’ll only take a few minutes before I turn back into myself again,” she said. “The case went on a bit longer than I expected -- I had to cut my closing arguments short, if I didn’t want to quickly rush back to the prosecution bench and drink some ‘water.’”

“Yet you still won everyone over,” said Bill as he lowered the soda bottle from his lips. “Well, except for Fudge, but...none of us expected to win him over.”

Carewyn sighed. “True. I’m glad he had the decency to step aside at least. He clearly saw there was no point in wasting his vote -- it would only make him look worse politically, to be the only one standing up for his decree.”

“Do you reckon he’ll resign?”

“I’m positive. This trial broke him a bit, I think. It really gave him a good look at how much he’s destroyed his reputation forever.”

Carewyn took another sip. Bill considered her for a moment, his eyes lingering on Chester’s dark hair.

“I have to ask, though, Carey...why did you do it? Why didn’t you just challenge the decree yourself? Why replace Chester?”

Carewyn bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes drifting away as she placed her soda can down on her desk.

“The Prophet’ll be going on about Chester taking down the decree,” said Bill, sounding almost disappointed. “He’ll be getting praise for what you did.”

“And that’ll help him get more cases in the future,” Carewyn said simply. “I need more allies in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement -- good lawyers who won’t cow to people like Fudge. And if I was in the witness chair instead, I could appear as a neutral observer -- so when I invariably sided with the prosecution, I could bring the case for the Decree crashing down.”

“But you weren’t in the witness chair. Chester was.”

“Yes. I actually gave Chester a file that he could use in the case, while I sat back...but he refused. He said that I deserved to present my case in front of a jury, after how much work I did. So after a lot of coaxing, we decided I would present my case -- disguised as Chester.”

“So you did all this just to help Chester with his career?”

Carewyn’s eyes lingered on the bookshelf in the corner.

“Not entirely,” she admitted.

She clearly seemed to regret that her decision wasn’t solely based on that kind of selfless rationale. She rested her hands on her desk, interlacing the larger fingers belonging to Chester.

“Even if Fudge is no longer in power, the Ministry’s still packed to the gills with his supporters, as well as people who were willing to just scrape and grovel at his feet. It’s safer for me to interact with you all now, but I can’t afford to lose my stable position just yet -- the truth’s come out, but the Ministry isn’t any less treacherous. Dolores Umbridge hasn’t even lost her job here, even after everything she’s done as High Inquisitor. On the contrary...there are rumors circulating she might even return to being Senior Under-Secretary in the future.”

Bill was aghast. “What?”

Carewyn looked just as displeased. “I’m angry too...but there’s nothing I can do. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement can’t charge her with a crime even if the decree making her High Inquisitor has been declared illegal, since she was merely appointed to the position. She had no hand in creating it...at least none that I can prove in a court of law. She’s been put on temporary administrative leave...but that can be overturned by the Minister for Magic. Fudge probably won’t stick around long, and he probably wouldn’t bring Umbridge back for fear of damaging himself further...but I wouldn’t put it past his successor to quietly put Umbridge back in her old post, given her experience as a ‘loyal subordinate.’”

Carewyn could not disguise her clear disgust with the situation, even despite the coolness of her voice and expression.

“I hate that woman,” she said very lowly and coldly. “I hate her with every fiber of my being.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed as he nodded. “I know how you feel. After everything Harry’s told us about her, it’s clear she’s an absolutely horrid person.”

Carewyn looked up, her eyebrows knitting together. “Yes...how is Harry? I heard he was here at the Ministry, when...”

She trailed off, but Bill knew what she meant.

“He’s doing as well as to be expected, from what Ron’s said in his letters. Though I suspect the loss of Sirius is probably hitting him very hard.”

Carewyn bowed her head. “...Yes, of course. He...was his only family left, wasn’t he?”

Bill nodded. Carewyn closed her eyes sadly -- even if she had yet to meet Harry, it was clear she felt very deeply for him, in that moment.

Bill reached a hand out over the desk and took Carewyn’s hand (which of course at the moment was Chester’s), offering her a smile.

“He’s still got all of us, though,” he said reassuringly. “And well...I reckon the two of us know better than anyone how friends can become family.”

Carewyn’s expression softened noticeably. She gave Bill’s hand a tight squeeze.

“We do.”

Her eyes welled up with emotion despite the calm of her face.

“Bill...it’s so good to see you,” she said very quietly.

Her voice betrayed emotions that she never would’ve felt brave enough to show in school. Despite the levelness of her tone, it was so warm and soft -- full of sincere caring.

Bill’s eyes filled up with some tears as he squeezed her hand back.

And as Bill held her gaze, he noticed her eyes changing color -- lightening from a dark brown to a pretty blue.

“Guess it’s time,” he prompted her. “Do you need to change?”

“I suppose so,” Carewyn said dryly. “Chester doesn’t have hips like mine...I reckon I might tear his pants, if I don’t. Mind turning around a minute?”

“No problem.”

Bill turned in the chair so that his long legs were propped up on the arm, resting an arm on his knee so that he could then proceed to lean his chin on his hand and glance away. He heard Carewyn murmur, “Auravelum,” under her breath, presumably to obscure her desk from sight.

There was a lot of shuffling. After a couple of minutes, Carewyn murmured, “Evanesco,” and Bill looked up as the silvery blue curtain she’d conjured vanished.

And there she was -- dressed in flowing forest green robes just like the ones Chester had been wearing while disguised as her, and grinning broadly up at him through a ruby red smile.

Bill’s face broke into a larger grin, his brown eyes sparkling at the sight of his best friend. He got up, swept around the desk, and snatched her up in a huge hug.

The two of them were a funny sight -- a gangling, leather-dressed Cursebreaker with a fang earring and a ponytail hugging a tiny, lady-like witch with makeup and conservative dress robes -- but they clung to each other with an almost fierce kind of affection, laughing happily.

“I have so much to tell you,” murmured Bill. “I hardly know where to start...”

Carewyn’s lips spread into a smile even as her own eyes welled up with tears. “I don’t have as much to tell, I’m sure, but...I’ve missed you so much.”

“Me too,” said Bill. “Not being able to write, or visit -- having to just stay in touch through Tonks and Jae -- ”

“ -- and for a whole year,” Carewyn agreed. “I know.”

She reached up as high as she could, even going on her tiptoes, so she could hold the back of Bill’s head. Bill held the back of her head too, squeezing her tight.

“Are you really engaged now?” asked Carewyn curiously.

Bill was a bit startled. He smiled a bit sheepishly over Carewyn’s shoulder.

“Oh, ah...yeah. You heard about that?”

“No,” said Carewyn uncomfortably. “I...sort of sensed it. In your thoughts.”

Bill pulled away to look at her better, a bit affronted. “Carey!”

Carewyn looked very apologetic as her gaze drifted down to rest on Bill’s shoulder rather than his face.

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t actively using my Legilimency, it’s just...gotten so sensitive now, in this line of work. And I suppose it was one of those things you really wanted to tell me, because I kept seeing you holding a ring, and...well, you asked me to be more open with you, about things.”

Bill’s face was flushed slightly, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling wryly.

“...So I did. Kind of took some of the wind out of my sails, though.”

Carewyn shot him a cool look through her own light blush. “I’m sure you’ll get back at me for it at some point.”

“Rest assured I will,” said Bill with a grin. “Maybe at the wedding.”

Carewyn blinked in surprise. Then her eyes widened, softening visibly.

“...Are you inviting me?”

“Of course I am!” Bill laughed. “There’s no way in Hell I’m going to let you get away with not being part of it. Actually...”

Bill’s face flushed a bit and he brought a hand up to rub his neck self-consciously.

“...I was...wondering if you’d maybe...if you wanted to...if you’d sing something, for it.”

Carewyn’s eyes widened. “Sing at your wedding?”

“Something for our first dance,” mumbled Bill, smiling shyly through his darkening flush. “Would you?”

Carewyn covered her mouth with both hands, trying to hold in her emotions.

“Of course!” she breathed, her voice oddly high in her throat. Clearly she was very touched.

She quickly grabbed both of Bill’s hands in hers, her blue eyes shining.

“Of course I’ll sing for you...both of you.”

Bill’s flushed face was as bright as a sunrise as he beamed.

“You can pick the song,” he said, his smile becoming a bit more cheeky. “Even something stupid, if you want.”

Carewyn laughed behind her hand. “No way! I am not going to sing something stupid for my best friend’s wedding!”

“Aw...but ‘Agadoo’ is a real jam, isn’t it?”

“It’s complete and utter rubbish and you know it, William Weasley.”

[an-aroace-wisp]

“I love younger me, she was so naive and endearingly idiotic but genuine and tried her best. She was also on occasion, really fucking funny.

Looking back, there were signs I was aroace wayyy back to before I was 6 years old. So basically my whole life, and if I had the terminology before I would've been identifying as aroace for a whole lot longer than I already have.

A common aspect of experience is feeling broken, because you don't experience attraction in a way that society mandates. Sometimes this can spike impostor syndrome in me, because this wasn't the case for me. I never felt broken. I just felt unique. Hopefully, this can spark hope in other people having more positive awakening stories too.

As a kid, I would always hide my eyes whenever something romantic happened in front of me - on TV and even my parents - and never really liked being kissed. This is pretty standard when you're 7 years old, I think, but the thing is it never changed. One of my most distinct memories in Grade 1 was when I was playing in the playground with my best friend. My friend J, had a crush on another one of my classmates (T). That lunch she'd been talking about how much she "loved" him in the way that 7 year olds do, and how she wanted to date him but she didn't like how close this other girl was to him. I distinctly remember saying: "I'm never going to get a crush! dating is too complicated!" and like promising myself that I'd never crush.

As expected, for the next 7 years, I never did get a crush. I was confused, because there were lots of pretty people around, and I also had several squishes, but never felt about them the way everyone else seemed to. I genuinely thought I was just stellar at keeping promises to myself, or that I'd blocked off my heart to it. I remember the first time I truly pinpointed that I never got crushes. I was walking home from the beach at the seaside when I was like 9 years old. Of course, I was told that it probably wasn't healthy, but like the stubborn child I was I shook it off because, I was happy, and it didn't seem to be doing harm. I rejected so many boys and every time I explained to them that I couldn't return their feelings, I'd made a promise to myself when I was 7 and it just stuck.

You see what I mean about little me being an endearing and naive idiot. But it was the only thing that made sense to me, and so I stuck with it.

I spent 7 years since grade 1 never picking up when someone crushed on me, or anyone else crushing on other people. When I was 14, I only found out that my friends were dating when they came out and told me "We're pan and we're dating" which was such a blindsight. I did not see either coming in the SLIGHTEST because attraction and romance have always been like my last priority. I still HATE watching sex scenes, I get uncomfortable when watching people kiss either irl or in movies (though I do love romance as a subplot in novels, I prefer slow-burn bc they tend to have a solid platonic base first. I would kill for more stories with QPRs). In high school, I only found out my close friends dated AFTER they broke up. This was a regular occurrence.

But it never bothered me, and I never felt broken. I was different to everyone else, but it wasn't the only reason I was different. I was the homeschooled kid, the kid with weirdly loving parents who were spiritual and jack of all trades. Later I was the weird smart girl from a different country, the girl who wasn't popular but was liked by everyone, who had weird hobbies and unique outlooks on life. And I had a really good friendship circle because I embraced those changes.

I remember in… grade 9?. I was talking to someone I had a mutual friend with about dating and attraction and stuff, and he mentioned he may be ace (years later I think he was probably more aro, but neither of us had the terminology back then, and I've since lost contact) and explained what it meant for me. I was like "waiiit a second. That sounds like me!" And so I googled it further and spent several months where I got used to the idea, but something else felt off. Because I didn't relate to the experiences I saw. I must've been something else? But ace fit, so I stuck with it, until I discovered aromanticism by accident. From there, and it took about a year to properly become comfortable in the identity, I IDed as aroace, looking into micro labels to find something more. Nowadays I'm happy with just the aroace label, out and proud to anyone and everyone, and I've even helped some of my friends figure out they're aspec too! :D”

[kazimakuwabara]

Playing the Part

Summary: Hiei and Kuwabara go under cover for a mission. (A Hieibaraweek story. :> a fake relationship kinda? Maybe? 2600+words)

****

Hiei sipped the wine in his glass and tugged gently at the golden chain in his hands.

The tall, scantily clad, muscular figure joined him on the overstuffed couch, or cushion. The thing Hiei was curled comfortably against was really more of a giant pillow, rather than a couch. Hiei tugged the chain again, guiding the person without words, instructing with a pull of a lead, that he expected the figure to drape themselves around him.

Which, nervously, cautiously, eagerly; they did.

Hiei raked a hand through coppery curls and trailed his fingers down their face until he had their chin. He turned their face, tilting it to view at every angle, and appraised him with a slightly wistful smile. Gorgeous. They were absolutely... exquisite.

‘Now what?’ Kuwabara’s annoyed voice prattled in his head, the pout tangible in Hiei’s mind, though Kuwabara’s face remained placid.

Hiei tugged the chain until Kuwabara fell in his lap, and Hiei set about petting him like he was an overly large cat. His hand roamed down his curls, that spiraled and spilled softly around his crown, so different from that pompadour Kuwabara had sported years ago. Down, down, and down Hiei’s fingers stroked, going down the expanse of Kuwabara’s back, before starting all over again. Even if Kuwabara didn’t wear a pompadour anymore, he still usually slicked his hair up in some style.

Hiei never got to play with Kuwabara’s curls in the light of day.

‘We wait for our target to notice us,’ Hiei answered Kuwabara’s projected thoughts, ‘he’s always looking for slave owners to join his little trafficking club. We find him. Trick him. Stop his human trafficking ring. Murder him and his fellows brutally. Make up an excuse as to why we murdered him. rather than brought him in to Koenma. And then we go home, with you still in this outfit for my personal use. End of story.’

Kuwabara sighed in Hiei’s lap annoyed, and sour.

‘We are not murdering this asshole... even if he deserves it, Hiei.’

“Don’t sound like that my pet… I’ll let you choke on me later,” Hiei said aloud, ignoring Kuwabara’s projected scolding.

Internally his mind reached out and reminded Kuwabara, ‘You must act the part of an obedient slave for this plan to work. Don’t give yourself away by sighing like that!’

‘Who’s plan was this anyway?’ Kuwabara’s mind grouched, as his body shifted to curl and settle against Hiei, tucking himself against Hiei like an adored pet.

‘Kurama’s. You liked it when he pitched it,’ Hiei thought smugly.

He pressed the cool wine glass against Kuwabara’s bare back, and was rewarded with a small gasp and shudder. Hiei’s eyes flashed delighted at the sound, and Kuwabara had to make an effort not to glare at Hiei.

Hiei could tell.

‘I didn’t realize what part I would be playing!’ Kuwabara thought petulantly, while his eyes looked demurely up at Hiei. He licked his lips as if itching to press himself against his master, and it looked rather convincing.

If Kuwabara tried, he was a decent actor.

‘Oh? Would you rather be the master and I the slave?’

When silence answered him, Hiei threw back his head and laughed.

A few of the party-goers looked over, brows raised, and then eyed Hiei’s wine cup. Some sneered and looked away, others continued to stare, while the looked to Kuwabara, eyes slowly scanning the man’s form. Those people would turn the eyes away eventually, they knew they had to.

‘Fool. The person we’re after is a demon. He would not be interested in a human owning a demon, no! He seeks someone likeminded like him, a demon who owns a human. He’s looking for someone who he can either do business with, or who he can sell his stock too. Even Yusuke was aware of that!’ Hiei's chuckling continued through their connected mental link, a power Kuwabara had honed with his friends over the years.

For some reason, even since his teenage years, Kuwabara always was able to reach Hiei the longest and clearest with his telepathy. Their ability to communicate clearly, at great distances, and for long stretches of time was why Koenma had suggested they pair up for this mission, working on the inside while Yusuke and Kuwabara hovered far enough away to be undiscovered, but near enough, if backup was needed.

Kurama supposed it was Hiei’s Jagan that allowed his and Kuwabara’s psychic abilities to connect so strongly. Koenma agreed to this, and offered no guess of his own. Yusuke thought it was just a curse of bad luck, and Kuwabara was stuck working with Hiei, just so he could be laughed at in this awkward situation.

Kuwabara and Hiei had different thoughts about why they could communicate so well, but the only two who knew those reasons were them. And for now, that was how they wanted it to stay, even if others were beginning to suspect.

Hiei idly stroked a hand down Kuwabara’s bare arm, trailing it from his shoulder to his elbow, before beginning the stroke again. It was delightful to openly handle his human like this, and he was beginning to think they should be less secretive about their relationship. If he was allowed to touch his lover so freely, why was he hiding it to begin with?

Kuwabara and Hiei had been altered a little in appearance for this case.

Hiei had allowed his hair to be cut short and style by Shizuru, who had been delighted to work with his hair. It had proven hard for her, but she had been immensely satisfied when she was done. He still had the familiar spike of hair, it just didn’t give him, “an extra half a foot of height,” as Shizuru described it. Hiei had been placed in a fine military-like uniform, in the colors of gold and red. It came with an equally as flashy gold and red cape, one that dragged to the floor. The outfit was not Hiei’s taste, but as Kurama pointed out, that was the point.

Kuwabara, however, was very much dressed to Hiei’s liking.

Kuwabara wore no shirt, and harem pants, but golden glitter had been rubbed into his body to accent his attractiveness, and make his alabaster skin, stand out even more. The golden glitter also served to hide identifiable scars, like ones he received in the Dark tournament. It also, with an ingredient added by Kurama, hid Kuwabara’s scent and made him smell different, like earth, spices, and dried flowers.

Nice, but not the Kuwabara smell Hiei liked to press his nose against in the morning.

‘Citris. Sweat. Rain. Honey,’ Hiei thought, Kuwabara glancing at him slightly confused. Hiei smiled at Kuwabara, and continued to appraise Kuwabara’s new looks.

His hair had been brushed clean of all his hair gel, and styled to one side. He had complained when Shizuru shaved one side of his head, but with his curls flopped over to one side, Hiei rather liked the look. Kuwabara did have shoes, though there were shackled at his ankles, with enough of a chain to allow him to walk. The chain was weak enough for Kuwabara to break in an emergency, but passed as a real chain up close. There was a golden collar at his neck as well; that came with a lead shining like a golden thread. It hummed with spiritual energy seemingly to be ominous and something that could control Kuwabara, but that too, was fake. Kuwabara’s wrists were also bound in the fake chains like his ankles, giving Kuwabara the look of a powerful creature that had been captured and tamed.

It was all very convincing.

The only thing for them to do now, was wait and not blow their carefully crafted covers.

Hiei continued his lengthy pets of Kuwabara’s body, sipping his wine, and eying people around the room, when he wasn’t lustily looking at Kuwabara, trying to make Kuwabara blush. Kuwabara was doing surprisingly well right now... but again... Kuwabara was a pretty good actor.

His “death” at the hands of Toguro, had been very (too) convincing back in the day.

Someone glanced by, a finger stuck out to drag over the shoulder of Kuwabara’s smooth skin. Hiei growled in warning, and the finger withdrew, never even touching the human. Hiei sighed, satisfied with that.

It was nice sitting here like this with Kuwabara.

People were giving him glances, eying Hiei’s possession with envy and desire, but no one dared to approach or take it. The growls scared off the ones who thought they could sneak a casual touch, or meet Kuwabara’s eye. This pleased Hiei to no end. He liked their gazes of greed and jealousy, and liked even more that when they looked at him, they lost the will to challenge Hiei for Kuwabara.

This was a fun game, with something even more exciting rested in his arms.

Hiei sincerely hoped Kuwabara’s look would survive long enough, for Hiei to enjoy it in Kuwabara’s bed.

‘Will you stop petting me!’ Kuwabara’s thoughts seethed, hot and angry bubbles in Hiei’s head.

‘No, we’re playing a part remember?’ Hiei thought back pressing his wine glass to Kuwabara’s lips.

Kuwabara flushed, but let Hiei tilt his chin back and feed him a long pull of wine.

‘You’re enjoying this so much,’ Kuwabara grumbled in Hiei’s head.

Kuwabara’s heart had picked up a beat. He was fighting off his own arousal, which was why he was so grumpy, or so Hiei assumed.

‘Yes. As much as you enjoy looking at me,’ Hiei thought back, taking his glass so Kuwabara wouldn’t choke.

Kuwabara coughed anyways, and his pale cheeks flooded with color.

Ahh, there was the blush Hiei wanted to see. He looked around and felt tension leave his shoulders after a quick scan. He didn’t want to share Kuwabara’s blush with anyone else, that was Hiei’s alone.

Hiei longed to bite the color of those cheeks. Gently, and teasingly. He would trail his lips down Kuwabara cheeks, to his throat, and leave those marks he wasn’t supposed to leave, behind in a sloppy trail. And Kuwabara would moan sweetly, and breathily, a sound Hiei liked very much when Kuwabara was making them. And if Hiei trailed his lips down to Kuwabara’s throat, right near where his shoulder and neck met, he would have Kuwabara moaning and offering himself out like a favorite treat.

‘Stop that! Stop thinking those things, I’m getting all the imagery!’ Kuwabara squeaked inside Hiei’s head, his face scarlet, and eyes wide.

Hiei yanked on Kuwabara’s chains, drawing Kuwabara’s hands closer.

‘Don’t resist now, or the chains will break and give us away,’ Hiei thought teasingly as he leaned for Kuwabara.

Kuwabara’s eyes were still wide, though there was an undeniable eager spark shining inside of them.

‘You’re not really going to…’ Kuwabara’s mind murmured wonderingly, and inside Hiei’s head he saw a memory from Kuwabara’s perspective.

It was of their first kiss, a kiss Kuwabara had placed gently on Hiei’s mouth.

Hiei had been angry and refusing to believe Kuwabara’s feelings, and Kuwabara had steeled himself and kissed the shorter man to prove it. Hiei had brandished his sword at Kuwabara, and yet the human still reached for him for a kiss. Chaste and sweet. Hiei had dropped his weapon, hissing with anger, want, and need at the touch. Kuwabara still kissed him, heat pouring from him waves, his lashes wet, but no tears trailing down his cheeks.

His kiss, soft as it was, had been filled with so much want, desire, need, and most of all love, Hiei had been stunned. Stunned enough to accidentally cut Kuwabara.

Hiei’s blade had left a thin cut along Kuwabara’s collarbone, something that was an even smaller scar now. But Kuwabara’s lips had burned and seared into Hiei leaving the demon desperate for more. A sweet kiss to end his loneliness. A promise Hiei had wanted.

It was a good memory.

Hiei chuckled audibly and kissed Kuwabara firmly.

‘I’m going to kiss you, but not so chastely as that first night,’ Hiei thought hands roaming over his lover’s body greedily.

Kuwabara gasped, hands flexing against Hiei's chest, mouth opening to allow Hiei inside. Their tongues met and it became a duel for dominance. Kuwabara relented, but teased Hiei with his mouth, shyly trying to pull away, with a coy look filled his eyes. Kuwabara was trying to tempt him, and damn it all if he wasn’t doing a good job at it.

One of Hiei’s hands was in Kuwabara’s hair, curling into the curls and gripping him by the root. Kuwabara squirmed, intentionally brushing his thigh against Hiei’s groin, feigning innocence, but full of intent.

Hiei could feel the taunt behind the tease.

Kuwabara’s hands dipped low and slipped inside Hiei’s shirt, trailing upwards.

Hiei broke the kiss to laugh in delight. Kuwabara was feeling so bold. If only he could get Kuwabara to be all over him in public like this again.

‘I’m going to be covered in gold body glitter and everyone is going to know what we do together,’ Hiei thought, before biting Kuwabara’s ear. He breathed in it, heard and felt Kuwabar’s shudder; hissed as he heard Kuwabara’s breath hitching.

‘You want them to know?’ Kuwabara wondered back. his thoughts tinged with lust.

Hiei sank his teeth into Kuwabara’s throat, biting but not yet sucking. ‘You think I don’t?’

“You never stay with me after,” Kuwabara whispered audibly, hands shrinking inside of Hiei’s shirt, no longer tracing upwards.

“You humans and your need to confirm everything with words,” Hiei hissed back in Kuwabara’s ear before his tongue suckled against the shell of said appendage.

Gentler, softer, “I would not have allowed you inside me if I didn’t want you as well. I would have slaked my lust in you only, and never looked at you again. I look at you, I watch you, I want you. But I can’t let others see I cherish you... they’ll take you away just to taunt me. They’ll threaten you...” Hiei’s hands stroked Kuwabara’s back, he was no longer paying attention to the mission.

He was not Kuwabara’s master, he was Hiei. A demon who had fallen hopelessly in love with this lumbering fool who smiled sweetly, and made love like a trained courtesan.

‘I want people to know I want you. I want people to know you’re mine. I’m happy. You make me happy. But I do have enemies... enemies we’ll have to share if we’re out in the open.’ Hiei thought.

‘Bring them on!’ Kuwabara thought defiantly.

Kuwabara’s heartbeat was deliciously fast. He pressed himself to Hiei, the large man yearning to swallow Hiei up and absorb him. Hiei wanted to do the same. Considered having him right here and now, Kuwabara was dressed as a slave. No one would stop him. But that was a foul thing indeed, that was happening to real people, people like Mukuro, people that they were trying to save.

And that alone quieted Hiei’s lust. He sighed a little bitterly.

“Master,” Kuwabara said soft and hot in Hiei’s ear, and Hiei’s attention immediately went back up, “Someone is looking at us,”

‘He’s here,’ Kuwabara thought, all business, and warm lustful feelings tucked back inside again.

Hiei sipped his wine and pressed a sincere kiss to Kuwabara’s temple. They needed to have a real talk later, something Hiei wasn’t looking forward to, and yet was. But if it needed to be done to make Kuwabara understand how Hiei felt, then so be it. And if Hiei needed to accept Kuwabara was in this, as his partner... well Hiei would have to learn.

Hiei did not throw anything away that was worth keeping, and what Kuwabara and he had… well that was worth keeping.

Turning his eyes towards Kuwabara’s line of sight, Hiei settled back in the couch, a hand continuing to stroke Kuwabara's bare arm.

And he waited, ready to get this mission under wraps.

There were better things, and a better person he could be doing right now.

End

[starkerdayss]

                                         A DROP OF POISON

Chapter 1/Chapter 2

“Look at what you did”

“What I did? You were the one who brought me here”

“Me? Did somebody force you to step into that portal?”

Beside Peter’s bed, the two versions of one person argued, getting dangerously close to screaming. Their voices resonated in what Tony called ‘baby’s bedroom’, where the man had installed a pretty advanced device that turned Peter’s moans into high pitched sounds, forcing him to hear himself while the man got his way.

It was just… serving another purpose right now.

Still, the amplifiers eventually woke Peter up, two eyes slowly opening as they remembered what they had previously seen and refusing to believe it until they focused on what was now his boyfriend’s back and his boyfriend’s little version’s hair.

He frowned in annoyance, and a little whine escaped his mouth, attracting the attention back to him. It took him a few seconds before speaking again.

“So… this is really happening?”

Tony nodded slowly and extended his hand to take Peter’s small one into his, caressing the back of it with his thumb, not knowing that their movements were being followed by little Tony, who was still trying to figure out what exactly they were.

“Then, if he’s staying here, with you, with us…” started Peter, really wishing he didn’t have to do this “we need to stablish some ground rules”

“Fair enough” spoke Tony, turning around to face mini Tony, who was nodding already, walking to the other side of the bed and taking a small, half empty bottle of lube from Peter’s nightstand and inspecting it, turning Peter’s cheeks into a red mess. Tony received wide eyes staring at him from the bed, pleading at him to take control.

Tony wasn’t fast enough, though.

“Rule number one, don’t take my stuff. Or Tony’s” hissed the young man, moving to the other side of the bed and taking the bottle from his hands, putting it in the nightstand next to his side, inside a drawer, and closing it hard enough to break. He was already exhausted from dealing with him. “Can- can you take him to the kitchen or something while I get my shit together?”

The Real Tony looked at his boyfriend and nodded, eager to comply. He acknowledged that he was being talked to because of the little submissive connotation of Peter’s words. Apparently, it didn’t matter where they were, or what situation they had gotten themselves in, Tony was always going to be the one who dominated.

Both versions left Peter’s room, one after the other, and as soon as the door closed, Peter pushed the covers away and stood up, walking to the window and looking outside. He remembered very vividly how he had felt when he had stepped outside of his home. Something had been out of place.

And that was the moment an idea was planted in his mind.

What if mini Tony hadn’t come alone? What if he had brought something else into this world, into this dimension, with him?

A lot of time must’ve gone by because he felt someone knocking on the door, and then Tony, his Tony, appearing from the door crack. “You alright? You’re not going to pass out again, are you?”

The young man smiled and turned fully around, running a hand through his hair. This was going to be way more complicated than he thought.

“Mini me apparently knows how to cook” sighed Tony.

Peter raised his eyebrows. “Really?”. He got a nod as an answer.

“He prepared something for us. I wouldn’t really eat it if I were you. I-I know myself. I can’t cook, Peter”

It was pretty obvious that Tony was trying to lighten up the mood by relying on humor, but Peter wasn’t really having it.

There was a big chance that he was going to have to tell May what was going on, and that implied telling her about being Spiderman, which he wasn’t really excited about. He could always lie, but one, he sucked at it, and two, there was no way she let him stay at Tony’s house for a week or two without a reason whatsoever.

“Common, Petey, let’s go talk in the kitchen. I also don’t trust myself walking around our home and having access to a lot of things that…” he interrupted himself as he remembered that he had left the lab open and available, tons of experiment resting in the shallow surface, ready to be touched by curious and reckless hands, “…can we please go?”

Technically, sitting in front of your boyfriend, who’s sitting beside a small version of himself, wasn’t really a typical Parker afternoon. Still, he knew that he had to be there, otherwise, Tony could make a bigger mess than he had already done.

He needed Peter’s rationality.

The intruder was eating his own creation with eagerness, letting the two others know that he hadn’t eaten in a while. Peter tried really hard not to stare. It didn’t work.

He looked… a lot like Tony. Well, he was him, but he looked… sad. Ever since the anxiety had taken a part of the man’s sanity, their relationship had become the one that two grown men would be having. Didn’t mean it was less fun, though, it just meant that he knew Tony more, the rough, raw Tony. And if that meant holding him through nightmares and whispering into his ear that everything was going to be fine, then he wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

Now, as his eyes went from Little Tony’s eyes, to his hands, to the way he was sitting, to the spikes in his hair… it all felt really surreal. It was like he had someone else’s memories, especially because he felt weirdly attracted to the young version of his boyfriend.

He chose to pretend it was because of that same reason, though. He had always been attracted to his Tony. Besides, it’s not like mini Tony wasn’t cute. He had soft skin, plump, pink lips, fiery eyes and god forgive him, “pullable” hair.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer” muttered the other young man, without looking at Peter but at his food as it went inside his mouth, glancing at the other Tony from the corner of his eyes. No regrets.

Peter rolled his eyes and threw the napkin on top of the table, laying back on the chair. “Do you have to be such a fucking smartass?”

“Woah” started young Tony. “You let your boy toy speak to your guests with that language?”

Peter had never seen someone move so fast. In a matter of seconds, his Tony had his other self taken by the shirt, lifting him up and throwing him against the kitchen counter, their faces pressed together, anger and impulsiveness meeting. “You don’t get to talk to Peter that way, you hear me? Little shit”

“Tony!” screamed the third person in that room, standing up from his chair, trying to gesture to Tony to stop.

“You’re from another dimension, asshole, I can easily kill you and nothing would happen in the dimension I care about”

“Alright, calm down! It was joke. Peter, sorry. Do you forgive me?”

The two versions of his boyfriend looked at him. One expecting forgiveness and the other looking for moral support. Peter gulped. The scene was rather hot, if he had to put it in blunt words. It was really hard not to stare. How could he not forgive him when he was looking at him like that? Jesus Christ.

“I- yes, Tony, I forgive you” hesitated the young man, at what mini Tony smirked up at the older version of himself. Tony let go of him and returned to the table, going back to the plate of food his other self had cooked for them.

“Okay, I- I need to have some rules around here” continued Peter, sitting back down. “Besides what I already told you in the bedroom, I can’t be calling you both ‘Tony’, so, baby, you’re going to be Anthony, and you- you’re going to be Tony” finished Peter, pointing at the other Tony.

“You could’ve called me ‘daddy’, Peter” mumbled the man with his mouth full, sarcasm dripping out of the corner of his mouth.

Mini Tony looked at Peter and smirked, every second getting more and more details about whatever they were, gathering them all together. Peter blushed and hid his face in his hand. “Second, Anthony, you need to keep your decency, okay? I don’t want to, uh… flash Tony”

“That wouldn’t be the worse thing, now, would it?” added Tony, making Peter blush even more when he winked at him. Anthony looked to the side and gave Tony a dirty look that clearly said, ‘that’s property’. Peter felt like the trophy wife.

“Third, no fighting. Different dimensions, still civilians. If we have a problem, we talk it out”

Both nodded, not looking at each other because of the fear of breaking the third rule two seconds after it was stated.

“Fourth, Tony, you have to stay here. In case anyone asks… you’re Anthony’s long-lost grandson or something”

“I’m not that old, Peter”

“You certainly look like you are” fired back Tony, finishing his food and cleaning his mouth with a napkin.

“Alright, whatever. You two discuss that. Fifth and hopefully last… Tony, you need to keep us updated. Tell us about your dimension, so we can try to identify it and send you back somehow”

“So far it’s pretty similar to yours. I just- I haven’t seen any angels yet”

Anthony choked on his food and looked at Tony, his eyes wide. “You haven’t seen what, now?”

“Yeah, the angels. Do they come out at night or what?”

Anthony turned his head to look at Peter, communicating without saying any words. They both knew that the danger behind the new discovery weren’t the angels, but their antonyms. Demons.

Apparently, both Peter and Anthony had spent so much time together, that they got to the same conclusion at the same time. What if the portal hadn’t been properly closed? What if instead of just Tony crossing…, other creatures did? What if instead of angels, demons collectively crossed the dimension border?

There was only one person that was going to know what to do, and he wasn’t arriving in two weeks. Technically, if Anthony tried hard enough, he could find him. Maybe even the people behind the man’s power, but that included doing a little road trip.

“Why are you looking at each other like that?”

“I won’t leave you alone, Peter” whispered Anthony, leaving the fork back on the plate.

“Do you rather leave him alone here with all our stuff?”

Silence.

“I’m right here” exclaimed Tony, glancing between the two other men there.

Their options were very limited, but as we all know, both their priorities were to keep the world safe. And demons were clearly a threat to not only humans but to the superheroes that were supposed to look after those very same humans.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Peter nodded and stood up, picking both his plate and Anthony’s, carrying them to the kitchen sink and then coming back to pick Tony’s, though he did that last thing with less disposition. He sighed and turned the water on, ready to do the dishes.

“I’m going to go, then. I should be back in two days max”

The young male turned around and looked at his boyfriend up and down, then nodded again, trying to appear way stronger than he really was. He didn’t know how he was going to deal for two entire days with the mini version of the man he loved.

Before he knew it, Anthony hugged him from behind, then kissed his neck, hiding in the crook of it and sighing loudly. “I’ll miss you”, but the young male could barely answer when the door was closed. Tony, his Tony was gone.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?”

It took Peter a second, but he finally turned the water off. “We don’t have angels” he started. “We’re worried, though, because since neither of us know anything about portals, or dimensions, or whatever… maybe something crossed with you. Angels, demons, any other creature that you think is normal and we don’t actually have here”

Tony nodded. “Is there any way I can help? I mean, I’m the one that knows how angels look”

Slowly, Peter approached the table and sat back down, staring. “I think we should leave that to Anthony and Doctor Strange. They will know what to do”  

“You do know I’m the same person, right?”

“But you don’t have the same knowledge as my Tony, so, it would be very risky to let you do whatever you want”

The silence after that sentence was unbearable, but neither of them knew what to say. Peter felt like he was back to being the awkward kid at school, which he was for mostly all high school, until his friends came along and so did the Avengers. The rest was history.

“I- I have a few things to do for school, so, I’m going to go to my room. You can, uh, watch TV or something. Just- don’t mess anything up. Anthony is very careful of where he leaves his stuff”

“This place is a mess” replied the other young male.

“Yeah, exactly. It’s Anthony’s mess, don’t re-mess anything”

“Got it”

Their eyes met for two seconds too long, but Peter was strong enough to look away and stand up. “Okay” he muttered as he made his way towards his own room, closing the door and sitting on his bed.

Soon enough, though, he got tired. It was really hard to think about math equations when you had a literal small version of your actual fucking boyfriend sitting around and doing god knows what.

He stood up and ran his hand through his hair, approaching the mirror and staring at himself with a slight feeling of disgust.

He wanted to look good.

He wanted to look good for someone who wasn’t Anthony. And he understood that it was harmless, because nothing was going to happen, but it seemed ridiculous to him that even when having all the love in the world and literally all the sex he wanted, he would still unconsciously think of giving into someone else’s touches.

He would’ve stayed inside his room if it weren’t because he heard a drawer close. His mind immediately went to one of Anthony’s projects and the possible destruction that his guest could bring.

He left the room almost jogging, only to find Tony in the kitchen, bent over the counter and giving Peter his back. His feet stopped immediately, nervous even when he had no reason to be.

“You-”

“I can’t physically imagine the other me using this, so... they have to be yours”

The words didn’t make sense to Peter, especially because Tony was facing the other way. “What are you talking about?”

A wolfish laugh came out of Tony’s throat as he slowly turned around, something hanging from his index finger. “Tell me, Peter...” started Tony, making Peter’s throat dry when he realized what the young man was holding. The bright yellow panties he had stained with cum so many times, slightly ripped in the back by forceful hands and two words written in pitch black. Little Princess.

“Are you a little princess?” finished Tony, smug smirk.

Peter couldn’t help it but moan.

[ckcker]

Fear of Being There

The scientists put 3D glasses on a cuttlefish I read in an article, which I pair with the unread email from a friend of twelve years sitting one tab away, it appears to partly be a link to some video.  Feeling brave, I gather speed and push to the open email, purposefully ignoring all of the friend’s written message to zoom into the thumbnail of the video link they shared with me, which shows on one side of the thumbnail the shocked open mouth of a drag queen reacting to what I assume to be the most heinous transgression.  On the other side, a porcupine’s needles blasting from inside the mid-section of what appears to be a burmese python.  “How could this scenario have ever happened,” I ask myself as I don’t click, then scan the message written above the link:

“are you still in Kansas City??”

“I saw our high school English teacher walking in the park with a huge clump of moss stuck on her ass, I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a long time”

“Carrie is in NA now and I never see her.  also I adopted a dog”

“I’m sad I haven’t heard from you in a long time but I respect that you are just doing your thing, doing what you think is best for you, I love you.  enjoy this video of a drag queen screaming as she watches a porcupine impale a boa constrictor from the inside, it really made me laugh.  It’s not real”

“I would love to visit some time if you’d have me, I would love a long road trip, no pressure.”  

All I ever felt towards this person was worry; they were frequently to be found painfully descending the valley of some knotty, unlubed parabola.  Suicide often seemed on the table though it was never openly discussed, and what was discussed and unburdened between us never seemed to offer this person any relief.  But, I had not seen them in almost two years — still, I worried.  The gristle of sympathy.  Though now I could only think this person a bit stupid for not electing revenge as the only compatible solution.  They wallowed, tried to make inroads on the community around them, multi-tasker, all I did was worry, wonder if there was no chance for them.  On my better days I in fact stopped worrying because I resolved to believe that there was no chance for them.  On worse days I used to encourage them to online date, to take classes in some technical craft and escape minimum wage, incredibly coming from me who has yet to escape minimum wage, I bloated them with the most despicable general advice most likely invented by some phantom community and popularized by rotating day time talk show cryptids.  I surprised myself, the self-help industry deluge came spilling readily from my own mouth, I had no other advice to give. No effect.  I had no idea what could help someone, I did not respond to the e-mail, the scientists put 3D glasses on the cuttlefish to study if it uses stereoscopic vision to hunt, love that.

I responded to the email by going out for a long walk.  The walk proceeded as planned.  And then, in front of my eyes, the glistening juice of a misdirected frappé bronzed itself on the sunlit sidewalk.  It was June.  The person who bought then dropped it when attempting to give their companion a lil sip seemed one or two involuntary grunts away from the most amateur keening. We did not know each other and passing by I said nothing, in another hour and a half it would be sunset and that was the daily alarm for my worst and most stupid memories.  

Walking without a plan for a couple miles had led me to nothing specific: a popular cafe with drive-thru option, and the entrance to some truncated nature preserve with an ample parking lot, that I barely observed.  The humiliated and frappé-less melody of the forlorn customer began to spread over my shoulder, I averted my gaze from the nature preserve to treat it as if an attractive face I was intimidated by.  The only use for such a pathetic nod to wilderness in an urban area should be frequent alien abduction.  I knew better than to hope for that, I was not a good multi-tasker and did best with a single plan of attack.  And I already had a good plan, through subtle make-up I was looking older by the day (more like the month).  Pretty soon I would dye my hair grey.  I considered it was something the young people of the era liked to do and not for the reason of appearing aged.  In fact, more than anything this coalition of young and old visual signifiers increased the proof of their wrinkle-free faces and accentuated the domineering stylistic awareness inherent to youth in a, unnaturally long energy-sucking sigh, capitalist country.  I continued to high step forward like a finickety markhor in a fugly mood. Then, finding myself facing a hard-to-cross state highway I concluded, “oh, haha…ok, ah……that’s fine” and turned back towards the unused nature preserve parking lot, “I am almost too far away from home anyway.” I sat on a curb on the side farthest away from the road.  Looking across the street I saw that the customer and friend had started to kiss.  A simple solution to the loss of the drink.  His body turned awkwardly, I allowed myself to espy the torque of the male’s twisted cargo short pocket and felt very little.  I was turned away from the forest preserve entrance, at sunset I would have the executioner’s urge to once again survey and prepare my Doha nights.  

The arrival of sunset did not derail my day, but it always succeeded in sequestering my concentration so as to remember that, perhaps, time — I felt fully sick of telling myself about it.  I would prefer an obsession more traditionally fun, there was something about the way the eyebrows (with near-unibrow between) met the sharp lines at the top of the hyrax-like nose of Q.C.’s gradually-hot-to-me face.  I did not spend too much time thinking on him, I had little control over my eyes when in his presence. Worse, attempting to appeal to him would mean calling off the whole ambitious deterioration project, which was fully under my control/the best path forward.  I did not spend much time thinking of him when not in his presence and the collective shimmy of maple tree leaves in the breeze appealed to my left side as it carried on through the row of trees behind me.  A sparrow bopped around the swath of thick grass to my right and was not interesting at all.  I knew I felt this about the sparrow because I turned away from it quickly.  Finally I rotated towards the nature preserve entrance.  Was this an opportunity for me to snag a poesis?  I wanted to be home in my bed alone.  I also wanted to pretend to be thriving, inspired and free.  I wanted to try to see the world for the first time again.  

I got up and started towards the forest path with the confidence and direction of the professional managerial class.  To appeal to Q.C. would involve a gravitational u-turn, I would have to cut my hair better, with more style and intention, I would have to once again attempt to wear clothes that mostly fit my body, with careful monitoring of the area where jeans could be hit firm with zested glute.  I would have to invest much mental analysis into determining how to embody his desire.  I would have to keep emphatic track of my body language and reactionary expressions when near him so as to appear at least some low level of confident and laid back.  The antithesis of an angry errant stump, sucking vengeance through an ancient straw lined with obsidian spikes that clacked ominously against dentures I did not need.  I could not appear as “depressed for two.” Again, and worst of all, I would have to deselect the only source of direction for the future, my only true idea for satisfaction: the pursuit of my literally new age.  My only chance to repair my original timeline, by controlling my own time.  The old tension between wanting badly to be noticed and desired by others, and wanting that definition of freedom which is the refusal of all external attention, both approval and disapproval, in order to bring about the most contained stability — of course that tension ran me ragged once again.  That wan zit, it really seemed scripted at this point, I worked very hard to send it to the background.  My body clearly sensed this when it activated the release of an ear wax ball the shape and weight of a gently used cheek piercing stud.  The feeling associated with its premiere and gruesome launch was similar to just catching the last concrete appearance and subsequent fadeout of a semi-interesting-but-ultimately-unremarkable ghost of a 52 year old coffee mug.

I entered the forest, which began with a layer of joyless mulch.  The opening of the trail had dimensions so wide even the most sexually depraved plant had little chance to gak its repressed gropeage on a passing body.  I looked up as I walked, realizing the only animal likely to be spotted here, at this time of day, would be a bird.  Perhaps I might see a hawk or turkey vulture.  My survey resulted only in the very soft swaying of stacked green branches in front of striated and unremarkable clouds.  After watching this gentle tableaux for about thirty seconds, I wanted to more than violently shake an in-his-prime Ansel Adams, ask him what in the unconscionably labyrinthine fauxhawk I’d just seen. Would he have looked twice at this sky — my glance still directed upwards, I heard its scabrous chirp before I saw it, and then I saw it and immediately hated its presence: a sparrow had landed on an oak branch forty feet above my head and wanted to stay there.  I refused to let it observe me, turning to it I suddenly screamed in the timbre of an aggressive synth orchestra hit.  Continuing my walk after compartmentalizing its non-reaction, I wondered how I might make these natural surroundings matter to me.  They made no inherent argument that profoundly engorged the fun bags, perhaps because I was generally hooked into things by chaos, aggression and arguments, not by continuity or bucolia.  I could identify the simpler trees at least.  Of course pines and maples were easy, birch too.  I could usually confirm oak and cherry through guesswork. Otherwise I wandered through a forest in a skein of unskilled silence, in some beta-level abyss that was never fact-checked.  I didn’t know if having the names of mosses and wildflowers and mushrooms made it easier to appreciate the woods I forced myself into.  That I recognized and questioned such absences in myself was part proof that I felt a large component missing in the ongoing construction of respect for humble surroundings, and part recall of an inherent tendency to not care much about my own construction.  Against the spirit of the times, I spurned the concept of “personal development,” both in the thought directives I gave myself, and in the level of base inertia and hatred of fitness that exposed me as down-low sirenia.  “Personal development” — I did not trust the idea.  But moderate walking was acceptable to me and I continued to walk.  All trees beside me were suddenly activated by a quite beefy breeze from inside the forest.  Mood was present.  And along the audio effects of the wind in heavy leaf-covered branches, I thought I heard a rustling in a different tempo one-hundred feet further along the path.  A clench shuttered my body.  Once, I was reckless.  I entered badly lit hotel rooms brimming with silhouettes of animatronic movements.  I took pills handed to me, only asking after I swallowed them what they were (bottom tier migraine medication).  These days nearly any situation outside my apartment brought the inflamed trance of cautious thoughts.  Where I seemed to hear the sound I saw nothing but the continuation of breeze, and felt fully the irregular welts of my prey mentality.  

But I did not turn to exit.  The introduction of humidity into early summer pumped a new game in me anyway, the godforsaken thirst for some swell of “possibility.”  Against my addiction to titanium cowardice, flicked this vague and acidic proposition for adventure — that most rancid word of careerist travel influencers and successful stunt doubles.  Heavy hot air seemed to ferment a perennial wildness of feeling that, in other weather conditions, remained neatly veiled in self-suck.  I hated that I could still be easily infiltrated by this hormonal illusion of “anything can happen,” despite all my malevolent associations with the phrase.  It was important to make a list of all the things that are possible. “Anything can happen” was a sloppy mantra full of menace and probably popularized at some point in the late 20th century to sell mini frozen bagels with pizza toppings.  The list of all the things that are possible is the list of most crucial truth, it is a list that serves as sublime prep for someone who has been through the full consummation of “anything can happen,” when the thing that happened was a mind-shedding, unmentionable thing.  I knew the culture at large was heavily against such a distrust of possibility, as the concept suggested monumental change and always for the better — the potential of fortune.  I also knew it was against the cosmetic grafting of extra skin to make what I suddenly decided to refer to as ‘my boys’ look especially wrinkled and saggy.  I stood still and surveyed the way partial sunlight glazed on and off the nearest bush of presumably poisonous berries.  I briefly turned around and took in the forest entrance in the distance, and beyond it the suggestion of abridged midwestern meadow, now also washing in and out of sunlight with an unpunished laze, that I felt very unused to.  Nowhere else in my life, to which I paid attention, obeyed that kind of rhythm.  This statement was immediately wrong and a direct contradiction of my slow motion lifestyle.  I allowed the statement to stand because its wistful gush was enjoyable, roughly spiritual, and juicy.  

It brought thoughts of a nightmare I once had that eventually, through sustained lack of action, curdled into just a dream, a dream that had a trolled atmosphere of never-ending.  A dream that felt three years long.  A nightmare-incubated dream that appeared seven months after that moment of apex possibility and only the second dream after.  

There was a group of us.  We were in a house, we didn’t know we were in a slasher movie, we had thought it was a self-liberation biopic.  We were pursued by a presence we did not expect.  But every time there was a shot of the killer, the killer had been deleted in post.  Only a tense and expectant camera followed us around, and we screamed at empty spaces at the top of the staircase and in corners of rooms.  Dissonant music accompanied us, which, now knowing we were in a horror movie, we expected and rolled our eyes at. But we never saw the killer and nobody ever died.  

I also remembered the first dream I had after the event, it was very short and involved me waking up at 7am to give a dog one cup of dry food.  The density of hanging leaves in the forest began to inch a feeling of haunch and ceiling overhead, the light landing on the settled foliage only in splatters of rhapsodic dag.  The inevitable feeling of being alone in the woods, despite the steady wash of faraway highway motors, is intimacy with something.  You believe you are not being seen, when small and mundane animals see you, it means absolutely nothing.  With a bear or mountain lion in the mix, at last you will truly feel “seen.”  I was in a freely neglected and shrunken nature preserve on the edge of a midwestern city, I did not think it was possible to be seen by a bear and so I did not feel like I could be noticed.  Thus I felt intimacy.  

The content of that intimacy had zero intellectual value.  It was only the comfort of being fully hidden, safe and alone.  I was impressed by how much thick cover the trees supplied since the preserve itself was state park theater.  The trees hid me from the sky, repressed my existence from something that could watch me.  I basked.  I thought of the substantial bulge of an older male in tight-fitting jean shorts.  In this context of feeling unseen, it seemed the thru line of my consciousness in bringing up such an image was the keyphrase, “something hidden.”  The intimacy began to retreat as a counter.  Again, my head disenrolled me from a healing terrestrial feeling; it looked at nature with vast inexperience, it pursued a perspective of mountainscape print out.  I tried to recover the hypnotic sap of that momentary solitude and continued walking. Of course the interruption of erotica in mind is one of the more iconic nature moves.  And yet for some reason it seemed to unravel the hallmark atmospherics of a more investigative mystery.  Such a divide was proven by watching my pivots of attention between two tickles.  For instance, on one side, direct observation of a boner. The other side, fog covering an empty island highway at night.  I thought I knew well the narrative arc of a priapism, and I thought I did not yet know much about the carnage in my seeping memories.  It seemed obvious — of the things that controlled me, I prioritized with meaning the one I did not know much about.  And instinctively, being alone under thick canopy felt like good setup for that kind of self-irrigation.  I thought of the bulge again then saw another sparrow and after it reasonably bopped about for a skoach I suggested to it, “get away from me fuckface.” Again it did not move.  

I walked several paces off the path and leaned against a definite oak trunk, wondering if my old person stage makeup was still intact, glancing towards the voyeuristic rays of sun slipping through the trees, well diffused and beginning their noticeable descent.  I listened.  After approx. twenty seconds of listening I heard the long-churning spew of a motorcycle gunning down the road about a quarter mile away, somehow powerful enough to overwhelm the peaks of forest ambience with its quite rascally discharge, hunh, the streaks of horrific classic rock revival spraying after it.  I thought, “stop subverting me,” then felt the newly introduced stance of someone in my peripheral vision.  They did not advance or retreat but did fidget.  Probably, I could not be sure without glancing directly, pretending to look up something on their phone.  They seemed about fifteen feet away from me, I considered if I would have to kill them in self-defense.  

“How’s it going?” a man’s voice directed at me from the trail, giving me permission to look at him directly.  A balding but well-maintained buzz of greying black hair, glasses, a thin white-yellow-green-black button down tartan print department store shirt tucked into leather belt and loose fitting blue jeans, the eye eventually and uncontrollably being led down to the neon pink, orange and yellow running shoes with white laces low-key dusted in a sampling of diaphanous schmutz.  My “hi” was squeezed out with full defenses.  The man did not say anything back but immediately enacted some plan of his, made obvious in his eyes that pressed on my face with an unmistakable singularity. He pursued unbroken eye contact to evaluate the potentiality of the interaction. I responded by looking away, remembering it was a powerful move in the game. I also refused to believe he thought me attractive enough for whatever in-development future passed through his turgescent nethers.  As a mature adult, I was no longer available to rawk out with my cawk out but clearly the cast of desperation on the man made it possible for me to appear sexually acceptable, as evidenced by his not leaving.  Nor did I imagine that he produced much foregrounded desire in an m4m community; lastly he probably stayed because he was closeted.  I tried to maintain an appearance of clueless indifference, comparable in chillness to deciding to write ‘U R’ in a text message the same moment you observe a plastic bag fly in the wind towards a sleeping stray cat. Since the man did not leave or say anything, I also waited another 7-10 seconds in silence and downward glance.  Yet this tactic, usually so effective in social settings, had failed, and so I looked at him again.  And again the charged stare of non-verbal magic.  The humid air was beginning to slightly cool as the wind filled the space between my collar and neck, suggesting it might rain soon.  But behind the man’s head the sun, flanked by fleshy lard-swept clouds in various indigo exposures, was still visible.  I hoped if the increase in gusts continued that they might produce a temporary bald spot on the crown of my head as I said, “why are you looking at me?”

He did not immediately respond, but severed all links with my eyes.  I watched his glance minutely dart from one close location on my face to the next, “do you have makeup on?”

Each generation, freer than the last. The man did not know the answer for sure, but that he had noticed something was confirmed.  Very exciting, I beamed internally.  I controlled the beam.  There was still so much work to be done.  

Towards the man I projected breathtaking displeasure.  I assumed the keyed up tone of someone wanting to be regularly shared on the internet: “I’m just trying to enjoy the forest on my day off sis so don’t—” and shut off inexplicably, though recognizing as the system recoiled that the implication of this man’s advances had lightly cracked some automated timecode in my lower lefthand corner of frame.  My body — I had only felt it all of a sudden.  Shoulders were arched forward to protect my underbelly, chest was swollen and stuffed with the debris of a delayed reaction of terror, single inconsistent tingle in left leg suggested the tiniest strobing marquee aimed at the brain, suggesting “run.”  I had thought, this is not a dangerous situation at all.  A little unusual but not something I haven’t experienced before.  Something I could refuse and easily walk away from.  

The body had behaved differently.  Sunset mounted.  The body had believed it was going to die.  I hadn’t even noticed.  Internal monologue always suggested much to investigate when looking for a solution, it presented long interconnected hallways and sliding doors, considerations of escape and tactical movement.  It berated the body for not reading the situation correctly or at all, it hated the body’s spontaneous and inept mechanisms.  It relished any reference to the phrase “bassackwards” but in this case the body was right.  If I was to be killed by this person was still up in the air, I leaned towards no, but the body had not been reacting to my imminent death, only suggesting how relaxedly I pretended to advance through commercial district sidewalks, gas station candy aisles, cruisy chip bag-strewn forest preserves as if I’d never been reorganized by some sort of adaptation of death in which you survive. There was much work to be done, much work, to make the hair of my eyebrows more profuse and unkempt.  My nose hair, which was way too thin and manageable, samesies.  It was with the failure of a deep breath that the gauze of that summer sunset coaxed me back into the scene, despite the marquee now reading “Run II: Darkest Before Dawn.”  The man had not known how to respond to my ejection from the clapback.  I took stock, the forest appeared momentarily still and squirrelless.  His energy seemed as if grappling with the possible realities of what I was.  If crazy, at least in the way that interferes with verbal communication, I was no longer an option in his “mmm………damn”-ridden design.  If crazy but able to continue clear conversation, or if so shy as to appear only intermittently awkward in conversation with strangers, I was still a highly available mark.  

“Do you like it here?” he asked.  It seemed that micro makeup and abandoned sentences were not considered dealbreakers for someone in his position.  My body continued to want to leave and I stayed, he took a few steps forward, staring again with that binary intensity where the recipient must commit to its endgame or flash exit.  

A strap broke in me: I suggested, “I hate it here.”  The comment reached him. He looked as if to be re-processing me under a blank face but maintained his slow approach.  I was answering his questions coherently and so I was incredibly sexy, perhaps.  “I’m not doing well,” I followed up, using a long-acting smile-to-smirk succession in an attempt to muffle it.  

This was ignored, “I’ve got a pretty big one,” silence, breeze, sunset, wow — squirrel, “what are you looking for out here, alone?”  

Silence, squirrel, “you know where you are, right?”

Breeze, trees, sunset, reggaeton in the distance, instinct erupted — I stepped forward. “It’s not yet time for my annual anal,” my voice cracked.  “In fact, it won’t happen this year, or ever again.”  

A pause was produced, though it was clear he didn’t quite grasp my meaning.  I stood still, now staring at him in order to properly knead the info.  Finally a look of understanding on his face — “oh, I’m sorry” and he exited back up the trail, all spells dismantled.  

I remained in the woods.  I looked at the squirrel.  I even yearned to see a sparrow, uninterested in knowing why.  I allowed the intellectual regulations to rest, I listened to the joyous pump of prancing squirrel feet on twig-bedazzled forest floor.  I looked at the sunset, while blocking the word “beautiful,” and liked it.  I walked to the path, turning away from the exit with the rush of a recently liberated preteen spray-painting an anarchy symbol on the door of a rusty abandoned sedan next to discontinued freight train tracks that are overgrown with weeds and yellow wildflowers.  I wanted to walk deeper into the woods, I wanted to be in the woods when it got dark.  I wanted to be alone and without a mind.  Knowing it was untrue, I nevertheless proposed to myself, “I think I could cum just from being alone for 3 weeks.”  After a feisty fifty or sixty steps around the curving path, I met chain link fence separating the forest from a row of backyards and their respective single family homes.  I thought of the cliche of an evil character in a kid’s movie laughing maniacally for some time then very suddenly stopping to present a severe and unamused face.  It surfaced as a whimper.  

[higuchimon]

[fanfic]  Unholy Desires:  Chapter 5

Tailmon wasn’t sure of how long she’d spent watching the apartment and the little girl in it. She knew that she needed to go elsewhere – to track down the Eighth Child. Those were her orders and she never failed an order or a mission. At least she hadn’t in a very long time.

The scar under her glove didn’t itch anymore. But she remembered when it had, when it spent months in healing.

“A reminder to obey me, at any cost,” Vamdemon-sama told her those many years earlier. It wasn’t the only one she had. What the gloves didn’t conceal her fur did. And when the scars weren’t seared into her flesh, they were seared into her heart.

She would have to do something soon. Either start searching again or leave her – leave here – to find a place to grab a little rest. Vamdemon-sama surely wouldn’t begrudge her a short catnap – except he probably would, unless she managed to get some results to bring him before that.

Tailmon cast another glance towards where Yagami Hikari played with her beloved cat. She told herself she wasn’t envious. She knew she was lying. It didn’t matter in the long run. If this girl was the Eighth Child,, then she wouldn’t be around much longer. And if she wasn’t – she probably wouldn’t be anyway, because Vamdemon-sama would kill them all eventually.

Before she could go much farther on that train of thought, she spied something moving through the air towards the apartment. At first she wasn’t sure what it was – only that it was reasonably large. Then she refocused and her eyes widened.

The Chosen? What are they doing here like that? And – with Wizarmon?

She wanted to head back to Vamdemon but before she could move far enough, Wizarmon turned towards her. He knew she was there; he’d been by earlier that night. And now he gestured towards her.

“What do you want, Wizarmon?” Tailmon flexed her claws. “And why are you associating with the Chosen Children?” Was this treachery? Did he intend to betray Vamdemon-sama?

Wizarmon floated closer to her. “I will explain it all to you. But please, come here.” He hovered in place and she tensed even more. If he wasn’t betraying them, then what was he doing? Was he leading them into a trap, or trying to?

She didn’t expect him to start talking about their first meeting or to stir up the memories she’d long since put to rest, about how she’d sought all of her life for someone, and never known who it might be. Until she found Vamdemon – or he found her – and he began to train her into being the perfect servant he wanted.

“What does any of that matter now?” Tailmon wanted to know. “What do you know that you’re not telling me, Wizarmon?”

“That I think I know who you’ve been searching for. You don’t want to obey Vamdemon – no more than I do. I’ve followed you, not him, all this time.” Wizarmon looked from her back to the Chosen on the balcony. She followed his gaze, realizing now that one of them, the one she thought was Hikari’s big brother, lay sound asleep, his partner hovering over him.

The small blond one held an egg tightly, while his own partner, evolved to Angemon, stayed at his side. And – wasn’t one of them missing?

Her eyes drifted over to Hikari again. Deep inside, Tailmon knew that she didn’t want to hurt the girl. Just the thought of Vamdemon getting anywhere near her made the fur on Tailmon’s back spike up and she wanted to lash out in the girl’s defense.

Oh. She wanted to protect her. She wanted to keep her safe.

She wanted to be her partner.

“Wizarmon,” Tailmon all but whispered his nae. He guided her over to Hikari, setting the Digivice in her paw – where had he got that from? It didn’t matter. All of her training told her that she needed to get away, back to Vamdemon-sama, telling him what happened, that she knew who the Eighth Child was.

All of her heart told her what to do and she followed it, unable and unwilling to deny her destiny when it stood in front of her.

“Hikari?” This time she murmured the name. Hikari had stood beside her sleeping brother, worry and fear in her eyes. Now she turned towards Tailmon, and warmth blossomed within.

“Tailmon?”

Tailmon held the Digivice out, and Hikari reached for it, their movements guided by something far deeper and far stronger than themselves. As Hikari’s fingers brushed across it, it lit up brilliantly, and the Chosen stared in awe.

“You are the Eighth Child,” one of the girls said. She glanced back down at the sleeping brunet. “Taichi’s going to love this.” She shook her head then adjusted the blue hat on her head. “So now what do we do?”

“Now we need to go find the Crest and Tag. Vamdemon has them.” Wizarmon pulled the one he’d been given out. “These are only fakes, though they are capable of reacting to identify Hikari. Do not trust anyone who has one of these that isn’t me or Tailmon.”

Hikari wrapped her mams around Tailmon – perhaps she’d already done so and Tailmon just hadn’t noticed until now – and looked at Wizarmon. “Can you help my brother?”

“All that can be done for him is wait until sunrise. If that’s when he was told to awaken, he won’t wake up any sooner. Vamdemon’s powers over those he’s feasted on are great, and I doubt that his spawn would be any different. But he should be fine when he does wake up.”

Tailmon wasn’t certain if she’d heard what she thought she did. “His spawn? He did something to the Child of Courage?” She could recognize them all now that they were close enough. She hadn’t spent as much time trying to get rid of them as PicoDevimon had but she could at least identify them.

“Yes and no. He turned the Child of Friendship – Ishida Yamato – into his vampire slave. And Ishida Yamato bit him,” Wizarmon said, gesturing towards the sleeping brunet. “I’ll explain more on the way. We have to get the Crest and Tag before Vamdemon returns to his lair.”

The redheaded Child of Knowledge shifted forward. “And what are we supposed to do?”

“Don’t follow us. You need to stay safe from Vamdemon until we can retrieve the Crest and Tag.” Wizarmon turned towards Tailmon. “And one of you should keep that Digivice until we come back with that. Be careful.”

Tailmon nodded, giving Hikari another hug. “I’ll come back soon. You watch over your brother. That would keep her safe – that was what Tailmon wanted and there wasn’t any way she was going to let Hikari follow her into the depths of Vamdemon’s lair.

Wizarmon helped her into the skies; she didn’t possess the power of flight, but he formed another of those enchanted spheres around her and the two of them set out for the lair. Part of Tailmon suspected if the brunet had been awake, then he would have followed them. He seemed like that sort of person.

But now she kept her focus on all the changes that had unfolded in the span of minutes and on what was going to happen. If things worked out even slightly close to good, then before dawn came they would at least have the tools to defeat Vamdemon. He couldn’t move around in the sunlight, so once the sun rose, they could bring the Chosen here and destroy him when he wasn’t able to resist as much.

“Wizarmon,” she said quietly as they crossed over the city. “What happened to the Child of Friendship?”

“Just what I said. I heard it from PicoDevimon, so I can’t say how accurate it is, but it’s obvious that Taichi was bitten by someone. Vamdemon would have turned him, but since he’s not, it had to be someone else.” He hesitated before he kept on. “His new spawn is a Healer – and I think ” Again, hesitation. Then Wizarmon continued. “I think he’s Piemon’s offspring.”

Tailmon was already a white cat Digimon, but now she knew that she paled even more. Her paws flexed. It had been some time since she’d last seen Piemon, but she remembered him vividly from when Vamdemon had her escort him on visits to the clown monarch.

“Does he know?” Then she recalled – times when Vamdemon stared a bit too intently at some of the Chosen. Old stories that she’d heard, about how humans and Digimon could do a thing and that meant the resulting entities were some sort of odd hybrid or half-breed or crossbreed or something. “Do any of them know?”

Vamdemon had watched the oldest one, the one with the blue hair, more than the others. She'd noticed one or two things off about him as well. Very subtle, perhaps not for human eyes to see, but no Digimon looked with human eyes. Before, when she’d had no humans to compare to, she hadn’t known what off could be. Now that she’d seen so many more, it began to slowly slot into place.

“In a way I believe that he does now. Or so I was told – it appears that he now refers to himself as Anbumon. What else he knows I can’t say. We’ll need to get him out from under Vamdemon’s control before we can find out anything.” Wizarmon floated along in silence for a little longer. “And we should tell the others once we have the time. They shouldn’t find out by Vamdemon telling them. Or worse, by Piemon telling them.”

Tailmon wasn’t going to utter a word against that. But she put that in the back of her mind for the moment as they approached the lair. One of Vamdemon’s Bakemon guards floated back and forth on march, but Wizarmon took care of him quickly enough with a claim that they were the next shift. With the key handed over into their grasp and Bakemon heading off for a good morning nap, the two of them approached the door cautiously.

“He’s either keeping it in his coffin or on himself,” Wizarmon said as they headed down the slick gray stone steps. Faint echoes of their footfalls came back to them, sending chills all up through Tailmon. She’d never noticed how empty and terrifying this place was before. Maybe it had something to do with not really belonging here now. As if she ever had.

“If it’s on him, then what do we do?” Tailmon wondered. That would be the worst case scenario. Worst case tended to happen a lot around Vamdemon.

“Then we do what we can to get it off of him as soon as possible. He’s gong to know that we did this.” Wizarmon approached the door and unlocked it, the two of them entering in carefully. There rested Vamdemon’s coffin, currently empty.

I wonder if he plans on making another one for his spawn? Tailmon knew that he didn’t sleep in this when they’d been at home. The sun didn’t cast its lights on his castle there. Vamdemon chose its placing for the fact those mountains remained dark at least the bulk of the day. He’d been safe no matter what. Here he had to remain out of sight of the sun. Would his spawn be the same way?

Wizarmon dug underneath the pillow and pulled out the Tag and Crest. Just the sight of it thrilled Tailmon and she couldn’t wait to get back to Hikari with this.

“Well now, what is this?” A voice she knew far too well – Vamdemon – spoke and she took a step back, turning towards the door. There stood Vamdemon himself, tall and imposing and filling every scrap of the door.

Perhaps even more terrifying was who stood slightly in front and to the side of him. She hadn’t even heard him approaching. He didn’t look quite as he had before – his hair now streaked with the telltale marks of a corrupted Healer and the smile his lips twisted into displaying a pair of fangs as sharp as Vamdemon’s. In his eyes there wasn’t a hint of mercy or compassion.

“I think we have a pair of traitors, Vamdemon-sama,” Anbumon said, his voice as cruel as that of his sire and his progenitor. “Do let me taste them.”

To Be Continued

Notes: I have to work through the important canon things before I get to the fun non-canon things like Anbumon and Taichi making out. Or whatever they’re going to end up doing. Vamdemon sadly won’t politely poof into dust to facilitate the shippy things. Darn vampire.

[retrauxpunk]

sv 6.01

i just watched the very first episode of silicon valley season 6 and below you will find my very spoiler-y thoughts! non-spoiler thoughts: OH MY GOD.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

SO MUCH HAPPENS THEY’RE NOT FUCKING SHITTING AROUND ARE THEY

okay so obviously richard’s speech was fucking brilliant. got some hamilton vibes too. very nice. tapping into the national mythos as well. that’s a sure way to resonate with policymakers/the public.

THERE IS SO MUCH JARRICH CONTENT AND ALL OF IT IS ANGST holy fucking shit oh my god jared’s anguish about his distancing from the centre that is richard? it HURTS like it is obviously making him unprofessional and it’s super sad and like, not really cool in a professional context, but oh golly i feel sorry for him :((( and there is SO MUCH OF THIS WTF

oh god the way jared’s initially unhappy and sticks by his moral guns when richard floats the blackmail idea? and then HE CHANGES HIS TUNE when he sees that by agreeing to this he can be close to richard again and get that emotional intimacy that he craves? END ME

;____________;

it’s so terrible and flawed but like yeah i see it, spot-on characterisation basically in fact it feels like a fic tbh it was so DRAMATIC unghhhhh

thank god you hear jared admitting to being a ‘craven yes-man’ due to his desire to be close to richard, like, okay, i’m glad you recognise what’s happened thank god ;___; my poor baby bird

DRIVING TO THE HOSTEL WHEN HE THINKS HE’S DRIVING TO HIS CONDO FUCKING KILL ME this is too much there is so much jarrich angst fuck me

approaching the incubee! whose name i’ve forgotten because it’s something awkward like ... guart or something. OH MY GOD!! WHAT WILL HAPPEN! surely he’s not gonna stop playing a role at pied piper.

why didn’t richard call jared in to talk about the disaster of colin when he first found out? maybe because he thinks of it as a tech issue only ... maybe becuase jared’s been doing more distant-from-richard stuff due to his COO role ... maybe dinesh and gilfoyle and monica just happened to be nearby

and oh god COLIN’S A FUCKING SNAKE

HE WAS FINE IN THE SEASON 5 

NOW HE’S A FUCKING KNOB

NOOOO

ugh i liked him in s5

also oh my god oh my god his meeting with his board fuck him c’mon pied piper how are you gonna exact your revenge and spike this little toerag

COLIN’S THING ABOUT HIS GAMING SETS PERMANENTLY LISTENING

okay i know for a fact that that’s not a possible thing with today’s technology with mobile phones and stuff? like when everyone talks abt how google’s listening all the time and shows you ads, that’s not a thing that happens for a tech reason IIRC like it’s just not ... currently plausible.

so i was a bit HMMM when they put that in there. like. is it that it is possible with gaming headsets and gaming PCs for some reason? 

the reason i care abt this is because i like sv to be technologically accurate where possible and if this is a super implausible thing they’ve put in there just to further the privacy issue plot then it annoys me because it’s scaremongering and it’s gonna make people think it’s a concern when it’s not really. but idk maybe i’m wrong and it is technically possible?

THAT SAID i gave it some thought and it could totally be (i think?) that this permanent-listening thing is not super plausible now but in sv universe it’s possible because colin has richard’s legendary compression. i imagine the compression would make it much easier for devices to be always listening and saving that data to a server somewhere? hmm

CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT THEY DO ABOUT COLIN

big questions though, you see richard and jared walk in on that meeting, then it cuts to jared driving ‘home’ and it’s like ...... what did richard do? i wonder.

can’t wait to see how they deal with this because i want colin to eAT ShIT

i feel like they should make a distinction between ‘collecting user data’ in the sense of ‘anonymous usage stats’ and ‘personal conversations’ because the former is something that sooo many programs/apps do today and that’s pretty normal? like chrome sending crash statistics ... and i think this is a big enough difference to make clear. because sending things like crash stats is pretty anonymous and that kind of ‘user data’ (idk if anyone in the tech world refers to this as user data but i imagine general viewers might?) being collected to improve software functioning seems pretty innocuous to me afaik and it’s only the personal/identifiable user data being collected that is you know super skeevy.

that said maybe richard/pied piper’s whole thing is not collecting any data AT ALL and that includes anonymous crash statistics. i don’t remember if this was every specified.

HMMM 

oh yeah and the gilfoyle and dinesh AIs was a pretty fun subplot. i was a fan of that.

GOD THE SCENE when gilfoyle turns round like ‘stop why would you give the AI access to your contacts’ firstly gilfoyle is hot almost always and in that one specific scene, the way his left hand is resting on his knee/thigh UGH that was ........... a really attractive hand??????? ahh just. (this isn’t even lewd, his hand was nowhere near his crotch or anything just -- the way his fingers were splayed was oddly nice-looking.)

ok i’m gonna......... end this post now that i’ve made it weird bye guys

[dimples-of-discontent]

Don’t you think Jensen always denying that dean is bi is because it hits close to him? Like Dean’s behaviour around men and Jensen’s around Misha is kinda similar so?

Hello Nonnie,

Whew, oh boy! Ok, I got this ask in a few different forms so hopefully one answer can serve for them. 

The first thing I’m going to do is remind everyone that Jensen has never commented publicly on his sexuality at all and that, therefore, it’s none of our business. It never is, actually, unless someone brings it up themselves and indicates that they wish to discuss it. That’s just a rule for life. Private is private, even if you’re an actor. The second thing I’m going to do is assume that you know what kind of blog this is and that I backstroke through the garbage fire pretty regularly including speculating about Jensen and Misha. So, yes, I am guilty of engaging in this type of posting. 

But there’s rules! The main rule being that these things we say for our entertainment (curiosity, whatever) in fandom spaces are never in a billion years to be brought into the actors lives in any way. Do not ask them about it. Do not show them posts or fic about it. Do not tag them in Twitter posts about it, even if those are adorable posts collecting all the Cockles cheek kisses or whatever. Fandom spaces are ours; they’re imagined communities and we behave differently in them than we would in the real world. 

Plus–again this should be obvious–we’re just posting shit we infer from a very limited viewpoint. Jensen and Misha give us a lot to work with (hoobooy they do!) but we’re seeing them in the public eye, at cons mostly or on livestreams. We have no freaking clue what they are like alone…and that’s how it should be.

And now that I have attached that upfront (I know I do this all the time and that if you read a bunch of my posts you may be getting sick of it…apologies, but RPS is very tricky and I feel like I need to foreground some of the boundaries for newcomers) let me put a cut below which you will find my thoughts on this.

It’s no secret that Jensen has a very high degree of character bleed with Dean–he straight-up admits that. I wrote a long post that’s been going around about how Jensen views Dean very experientially, knowing what Dean knows and doing what he thinks Dean would do, and about how that makes it tough for him to distinguish what he thinks of Dean from what DEAN thinks of Dean. Dean is a part of Jensen, as he has said.

What’s slightly less obvious, though intuitive, is that Jensen is a part of Dean. The vulnerability that Dean has had from the beginning is, to my mind, all Jensen. A lesser actor, or a lesser sweetheart, in that role would have made Dean pretty unsympathetic with his sarcasm and his machismo and his dumb, smirking face. To me, this is the same thing that happened with James Marsters on “Buffy.” He was supposed to be a straight-up villain, in just a couple episodes, but audiences went nuts for him. He got more episodes but Whedon still wanted to keep him a villain…except that James couldn’t keep that vulnerability and uncertainty and humanity out of the character. So instead we got a love story and a big, ol’ redemption arc. (I realize that it also sounds like I’m describing what happened with Misha and, in a sense, I am.)

Now, Jensen is a better actor than James Marsters (even though I think James is an amazing actor…and I love that he dropped out of Juilliard), but I’m willing to bet that what James did with humanizing Spike was more deliberate than what Jensen did with Dean. I think Jensen feels things intuitively about Dean and that he just goes for it without additional self-reflection. That’s why when he’s called out on something that he hasn’t deliberately chosen to do–like many of the bi!Dean or Destiel moments–he’s confused and slightly defensive. He makes some deliberate choices, obviously, but especially at this point he’s going on mostly instinct and doesn’t HAVE to examine those choices.

That is, unless we ask him to. I think often his encounters with questions about playing Dean a certain way (bisexual, in love with Cas) DO ask him to reflect on himself and ask himself why he made particular choices. And that’s not easy to do, especially onstage and in front of a crowd!! It’s like we’re always going, “Ok, Jensen, so clearly your instinct is to [insert non-hetero thing here]…why IS that?”; no wonder he will freeze-panic and sometimes say something thoughtless and/or rude! (Personally, I would like us to stop asking, largely for this reason.)

So, I suppose my answer to your question is “yes, exactly.” I think Jensen is an intelligent, meticulous, and thoughtful actor. I also think, subconsciously, he channels a ton of himself into Dean and that his being defensive of certain aspects of Dean (e.g. his sexuality) is indeed also his being defensive about those aspects of himself. Look at how much more easily the other cast members are able to analyze their characters, including comments about their sexuality. Just this weekend (at Jaxcon) Rich pretty much confirmed that he sees Gabriel as non-straight (pansexual?). Jared has said that he sees Sam as straight but that it’s ok by him if other people don’t. Ditto Misha about Cas (though he usually gets asked about his being Ace). And, yes, that is Jensen’s party line on the Dean question too. “You have your version and I have mine.” But his reactions to it are, to me, notably different from the rest of the cast.

I haven’t mentioned Misha yet but, well, if there’s any time we see Jensen acting non-straight it’s around Misha (in character or not). I’m not fully on the train for “Destiel is Cockles’s fault” because “Destiel” is a complex phenomenon 10 years in the making. But I’m not ever going to deny that their chemistry was a huge part of it taking root and growing. And it’s impossible–absolutely fucking impossible–not to notice the overlap between the trajectories. The first time Jensen met Misha was the first time Dean met Cas; they were both freaked out by this kind of alien being as much because he inspired “weird” feelings in them as because he was so “weird.” Jensen had Misha’s handprint applied in makeup before he met him just like Dean was branded by Cas. They had kind of an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers thing. They experienced some kind of betrayal and breakup and then a tentative reunion. They’re basically married now. 

So, yeah, when Jensen is asked about Dean’s sexuality I do think he experiences it as a question about his own sexuality. And when he’s asked about Cas I do think he experiences it as a question about Misha. And, as others have said, either he’s been subtly playing Dean’s attraction to guys (including Cas) the whole time or he’s kind of lost control of himself and enabled his own attraction to men, and particularly Misha, to creep in unintentionally. (Note that I don’t think that makes him a “bad actor”; like I said, I think he acts Dean very intuitively at this point so his decisions may be unexamined but are not “bad” choices.) 

This is already long, so I’m not going to comment here on what I think of Jensen’s sexuality. Well, actually, you’ve stayed with me so long that I feel I owe it to you. The short version… I do think that Jensen isn’t straight. I think he’s a guy who thinks of himself as straight even though he sometimes hooks up with dudes. The fact that that is inherently not straight doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t think it’s a big deal (though he used to, and that panic can still get activated). He doesn’t care about the labels and he finds the idea of seeing himself in the LGBTQA acronym ridiculous. 

He and Misha may argue about this. It is, after all, a form of enormous privilege as an incredibly attractive, cis-het, white dude to just choose not to join a marginalized group. I do think that’s one reason he and especially Danneel support a lot of LGBTQA causes. (I don’t think she and Misha are straight either and I think they probably don’t self-identify that way.)

Maybe in another post I’ll go more fully into the long version of sexuality speculation. It’s such a delicate thing to do and I want to do it as respectfully as possible and I just don’t have the energy at the moment. I have written about this before, though, if you’re looking for more; I have a tag for “jensen is not straight” and (I think) “jensen is bi” although I dropped that b/c it was too definitive. There’s also one for “sexuality speculation” and “misha is not straight” and “misha is bi” (same reason for the tag change…too definitive.) 

Remember the rules, though, and keep everything respectful and confined to our own lanes.

[inanawesomewave]

FIVE MINUTES INTO SHERLOCK AND CHILL AND THE EMPATH GIVES YOU THIS LOOK

I write a lot on this post about self diagnosis, the aspirational notion of sociopathy, sociopathy as wish-fulfilment, and the danger and offence that comes with throwing the term around and applying it to you or anyone else based off some deeper darkness you feel you or someone else has. But things are serious. I want to go into depth, so we really know where we are. It feels ASPD is one of those things that people need, and people hate. But I want to remind you, it’s still a mental illness, and it still comes with pitfalls. We’re not just spending all day languishing in our own seductive power, or having perfect control over every aspect of our lives. We’re not working on Wall Street, devastatingly attractive, hitting every target and charming everyone we meet from the word go. I talk a lot on this blog about the real pain of it, and I hope that this is a place people come for real discussions about the disorder. In that spirit, it’s time for another rundown on what ASPD is and what it is not, and the easiest way to do that is to rely on the criteria in the DSM-V, the diagnostic guidelines that clinicians in the Western world have to follow for this diagnosis to be made. Because that’s how it works, there’s a list of things and if you do the things then you have the thing. If you don’t do the things then you don’t have the things. It’s not as easy as watching Sherlock and admiring Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance, or identifying with other villains in fiction -- they are written for you to empathise with them. The best villain is created with just enough humanity that you want to feel for them, see the good in them, and the purpose of this in good fiction is to make you question yourself, your motivations and your limits. Emily Bronte wrote Heathcliff in such a way that whilst he is motivated by only vengeance, obsession and hate, you want to like him, and you want to rescue him. Feeling that way does not make you a sociopath. It makes you a human being who is responding to art in the way the art hoped you would. So let’s run through.  1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. So this one basically means, you’re committing crimes, disrespecting authority in an outward manner, refusing to accept any kind of dominant law or force, and violating legal boundaries in however way you see fit. It’s not something you switch on and off, nor is it something exclusively motivated by personal gain. It doesn’t mean “I once stole a lipstick from a shop”, it is a pervasive, repeated pattern of behaviour that doesn’t ease off when the motivation disappears. It’s not the same as thinking it. Just because you think that in a certain situation you’d behave psychopathically, it doesn’t mean you are. If your sociopathy or psychopathy depends on a special set of circumstances to function, then it doesn’t exist.  2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure So again, this doesn’t mean isolated incidents. It’s not about sometimes talking someone round to something. Psychopaths tend to lie and con, and anecdotally I’ve found that sociopaths do one or the other in excess, mine was always conning. What this meant for me was the conning was the game, and the success of the conning was the goal. If you are only doing this every so often and it has a clear motivation other than just doing it for the sake of it, you are not a sociopath. 

3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead This is quite a universal symptom that can apply to a lot of mental illnesses, so fair enough. There’s many reasons why someone would have no motivation to plan ahead. And the impulsivity we’re talking about here, again, is pervasive. It’s not the impulse to do something slightly out of the ordinary for a change, and whilst addictive behaviours are often comorbid with ASPD, this criterion means that your impulses are ongoing, hard to control, and are causing problems in your life. Impulses may be violent or disruptive, they may come from anger, they might be harmful. The impulse to spend an extra £20 on clothes isn’t a personality disorder. It’s treating yourself, and it’s nice to treat yourself. 

4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults If you don’t understand rage, you don’t understand ASPD. I’ve written a lot on here (and, disclaimer, I’m not fitting the entire description of ASPD on my own personal experiences exclusively, I’m going off research, speaking with other sociopaths, case studies, etc.). It’s not a very well controlled rage. It’s not sensible. It’s not considerate. It’s not clever. So a recent article I read said that sociopaths and psychopaths live with two different kinds of rage: there’s baseline rage, and then rage that has been provoked. This means that naturally, if a situation arises where conflict could exist, we will take it. But it also means, we’re angry as shit all the time anyway. It’s pathetic, I know that, but it’s there. We’re just angry. It’s exhausting. It’s physically tiring, and we would stop it if we could. You can walk away from it, that’s fine. You don’t have to understand it. But this is, for me at least, the cornerstone of ASPD. It’s simmering, endless, impotent rage that stems from a deep held belief that conflict is everywhere, that conflict is safer than no conflict, and that we have to come out on top at all times. No sociopath is sitting there thinking, “I’m sure it’ll work out for the best”, or “I wonder what a morally good person would do?”. We are (see above) impulsive, quick to react, easily provoked, and lacking in empathy. Rage is real. It’s constant, and sharp.

5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others Getting drunk every so often or taking a bunch of cocaine is called enjoying yourself. Inviting dangerous people into your home and involving other people in a dangerous lifestyle because you have no will to help or protect them because you don’t care about yourself and you also have no empathy is ASPD. 

6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations We can’t keep jobs. We wish we could. We’re impatient jerks who don’t know what a good thing is, because we’re cynical. Don’t go to work because you’re anxious? See a doctor about your anxiety. Don’t go to work because you have no respect for your boss and the mere fact they told you to answer to them has spiked that rage again? Maybe you have ASPD.

7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another. I’m not going to labour on this one too much but for Christ’s sake, everyone says and does hurtful things from time to time and when we do those things, it makes sense to rationalise it, because that’s a human way to protect yourself, it’s normal. Going out of your way to cause harm, to push people away from you, to watch someone hurt, and to feel extremely justified in that with no room for, “but what if...?” is ASPD. If someone’s pissed you off but you know that arguing with them would make them feel worse, you don’t have ASPD.  I’m writing this because I cannot fucking hear it any more. I go to therapy. I am exhausted by myself. Anger has worn me down, I look tired, I have a suspected overactive adrenal gland that my therapist agrees is what happens when you spend your whole life on edge. It’s isolating, we get lonely, we don’t know how to have normal relationships, we’re unable to show the ones we care about that we care, then we trick ourselves into not caring. We make ourselves lonely, we’re in pain. And that’s not to say that if you don’t have ASPD you’re not in pain, but remember what a personality disorder is - it’s something that gets in the way of you living your life. If you’ve not received a diagnosis, and you’ve not done anything where a diagnosis had to be made, and you’re not getting arrested, or pushing everyone you love away, then don’t worry. You’re not living with ASPD. And you know this pro-self dx, “well not everyone has access to a psychiatrist” argument? Well I don’t have access to an oncologist, and that’s because i’ve never needed one. That doesn’t mean I can diagnose myself with cancer, it means the lack of an oncologist in my life is a pretty big clue that I do not have cancer.  It’s still a mental illness, and you’re still appropriating someone else’s struggle. You can’t have bipolar disorder without mood swings, and you can’t have agoraphobia if you’ve never had a panic attack, and you wouldn’t try to shoehorn yourself into these diagnoses because they’re not cool or sexy. If you’re trying to redefine sociopathy so specifically you fit into it, worse -- if you’re trying to tell diagnosed sociopaths how they should be experiencing their sociopathy based on your wishful thinking, ask yourself if you would sit down with a schizophrenic and tell them that, despite having never hallucinated or experienced a delusion, you’re really just like them. 

[impracticaldemon]

Sake for Saito

by impracticaldemon for Saichifest 2019 Day 3 (Birthday!) Prompt Words: ~ 2700 (was supposed to be 500, but who am I kidding)

Author’s Note:  This is a romp, pure and simple.  Happy birthday to my dearest Chibi Saitô! With major appearances from Souji and Harada.  Also: Lamp-san.  Drunkeness.  I think Souji spiked Saito’s drink.

Sake for Saitô

“You think so too, don’t you Sano-san?”

Harada tilted a quizzical eyebrow at the green-eyed man slouched against a wooden pillar nearby, but didn’t answer.  ...Although he had a fair idea what Souji was getting at.  In the courtyard below, Saito was methodically slicing apart cylindrical practice dummies with deceptive ease, the three-foot steel blade barely slowing as it passed through the tightly packed straw and knotted cord.  Not far beyond him, somebody wearing a pink kimono had stopped sweeping the flagstones to watch.

“Do you suppose the others have noticed?” Okita continued, as if the tall red-head had responded in the affirmative to his first question.

Harada shrugged noncommittally.  So they were talking about Saito’s interest in Chizuru-chan.  He’d thought he was the only one who’d paid attention to the unusual care the reticent captain took around the girl, and the way that he allowed her to invade his privacy.  Saito had a knack for making himself sort of... invisible... when he didn’t want people’s company, but Chizuru could always find him.  

Mind you, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Souji was aware - the First Division Captain was extremely observant, and he was closer to Saito than he was to anyone, even if the bulk of their interactions involved sparring, joint patrols, and silence on the part of Saito.  Souji adored Kondou-san, but Saito was the person he treated most as a friend and a - Harada searched for the right word - a peer.

“Hijikata-san might have an idea,” he told Souji at last.  “You know how he is - he’ll curse you up and down, but behind it all he worries a lot.”

Okita snorted derisively.  “Well, he wouldn’t have to worry so much if he could learn to take a joke - or just lighten up in general.  One of these days he’s going to snap, and start stomping around the compound telling people to cut themselves open for the crime of enjoying life.”

“He can get a little too intense,” Harada conceded, trying not to laugh out loud at Okita’s vivid imagery.  Souji’s latest prank had involved a distressingly identifiable caricature of Hijikata shouting ‘If you have time for fun, then you have time for work!’ and ‘Mother knows best!’  Shinpachi was still snickering over it, and Harada suspected that Heisuke had somehow saved the original copy and stowed it in his futon.  (With Heisuke’s luck, Hijikata would find it there, but Harada had already made plans to search the younger captain’s room that evening while he was out on patrol.)

“Point is, it’s Hajime-kun’s birthday today.”

“Okay - yeah, you’re right, now that I think about it.”

“And he’s trying to avoid a party, as usual.  Not that he minds going out drinking, he just doesn’t like being the centre of attention.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Vice Commander Grumpypants has his fundoshi in a twist over something and won’t allow us to go out to Shimabara tonight, not even for his favourite boy.”

“Gee, I wonder who pissed him off... Souji.”

“No idea - not like it takes much.  Besides, Shinpachi’s right - he’s being way harder on us than he is on those kiss-ups that Itou brought with him.”

“Mm-hm.”

There was a break in the conversation, such as it was, as both men stopped to watch a new development in the scene in the courtyard.  Chizuru had come forward with a folded cloth, and appeared to be trying to give it to Saito.  Saito looked surprised - which was saying something - and then there was a very quiet conversation that Harada and Okita couldn’t hear, followed by Saito gingerly touching the cloth to his forehead before tucking it around his neck, under his scarf.  Chizuru was beaming.

“Bet you a jar of sake that he’s blushing.”

“No bet.  Geez, Souji, who do you take me for?  Although I admit it’s kind of a weird concept.”

“Seriously.  I suppose she made him a towel or something.  Okay, but listen to me - I need you to help me out.”

“Oh?”  Harada eyed him warily.  Souji was smart, and a damn good swordsman and officer, but they didn’t always see eye-to-eye on where to draw the line between funny and malicious.  On top of which, Souji just about never asked for help with anything, so this was either serious, or dangerous, or both.

“Kondou will let us have extra sake at dinner to celebrate Hajime-kun’s birthday, and Chizuru-chan is planning to make Saito a wonderful tofu meal - if such a thing exists, now that I’m not allowed to add extra flavour.  But I was thinking that maybe you could touch base with that friend of Chizuru-chan’s - the one Hajime-kun knows, because he helped her out or something?  Didn’t you take Chizuru-chan to see her one time?”

“I could try, but why on earth--”

:”Because I think it would be a lot of fun to see his reaction if we get Chizuru-chan all dressed up as a girl to serve his meal and pour his sake.  As a birthday present, of course. But anyway, I’m not allowed to go out much right now thanks to Hijikata-san either babying me, or yelling at me, so...”

Harada stared at him.  He agreed with Souji that Saito had feelings for Chizuru, although exactly what Saito felt and how deeply was something of a mystery.  He also agreed that Chizuru was attracted to Saito, although that idea bothered him a bit, for reasons he had no intention of sharing with Souji, assuming Souji hadn’t already figured that out too.  But regardless of his own feelings, he wasn’t sure why Souji wanted to undertake such a complicated prank, just to embarrass - or possibly embarrass - Saito and Chizuru.

“Bottom line is that you want Chizuru in women’s clothing at Saito’s little party here tonight at dinner?  And you want her to serve Saito so that you can see if it cracks that stoic look of his?”

“No, I told you, I want to do it as a present, Sano-san.”  Okita gave Harada a very mischievous look.

But there was something a little fake, or overdone, about that look, Harada suddenly thought.  And that suggested something rather odd:  maybe Souji did want to give Saito a birthday present.  After all, in the normal way of things, a guy would be pretty happy to have a girl he admired sit with him and pour his drinks, especially if he didn’t want to ask her to do it himself.  Sheesh, why did Souji have to make things so complicated!

“Okay, I understand.  Though you could have just asked directly, and without the mystery.”

“Fine - although I maintain that I did ask you directly.  So, Sano-san, can you find some halfway decent women’s clothing for Chizuru, so that we can gift Hajime-kun with her feminine presence tonight?”

“It’s dangerous to do something like that here at headquarters...”

“Come on...  You don’t want to sound like Hijikata-san do you?”

That evening, Yamazaki and Shimada were given a very unusual assignment:  they were to guard the approaches to the small room used for meals and meetings by Commander Kondo’s Shiei Hall faction.  The secret of the rasetsu was one thing - tonight they were guarding Chizuru’s identity as a woman from the prying eyes of Itou and his men.  Yamazaki was so conscious of the importance of the secret that he’d barely even twitched when Okita had told him to feel free to use lethal force to prevent discovery.  He’d already been considering that approach himself.

In any event, the evening meal was graced by a charming, if rather diffident young woman.  There had been no real need for Harada to go to unusual lengths to procure a woman’s kimono, but he had ended up consulting with Osen-chan regardless, and had enjoyed the enthusiasm with which she had embarked on the endeavour of finding something ‘appropriate’. Hijikata had been vehemently - and quite reasonably - opposed, of course, but Souji had already spoken with Kondo-san, and that kind-hearted man had been firm in his resolve to allow Chizuru to drop her disguise for a few hours.  He had also personally asked Chizuru to assist with the party, which had reassured Chizuru, and raised him even higher in the estimation of several of the captains.

Saito had been as stoic as usual when he had first come in to discover a party being held in his honour.  Only a widening of his dark blue eyes - and a quick glance at Hijikata - had indicated his surprise at finding Chizuru in woman’s clothing, although various persons present had noticed that his gaze kept returning to her while she was serving the meal.  However, he had finally lost his composure when Chizuru had knelt beside him and offered to pour his drinks for the evening.

“Thank you, Yukimura, but it isn’t necessary.”

“Think nothing of it, Saito-san!  Happy birthday!”  The smile she directed at him had been bright and warm and entirely sincere.  There had been a measurable pause before Saito responded.

“Thank you, Yukimura.  Happy birthday to you, too.”  His expression had been distinctly glassy.

There was a ripple of laughter, and even Hijikata had been unable to contain a broad smirk.  Kondo had grinned openly and chuckled.

“Ah, um, it’s not my birthday, Saito-san,” Chizuru stammered, disconcerted.

“Seriously, Hajime-kun?  And you haven’t even started drinking yet!”

“Heh - happy birthday, Saito!  Here’s to many more good fights, and plenty more sake!”  Shinpachi raised his own brimming cup.

“You said it, Shinpat-san!  Happy birthday Hajime-kun - I’m glad I have somebody to spar with other than these old men!”

“Happy birthday, Saito,” called Harada, raising his cup in salute while at the same time ruffling Heisuke’s hair rather more vigorously than usual.

The various good wishes and friendly jibes roused Saito from his glazed state, and he reddened and began thanking people in turn.  He had to work hard to avoid staring at Chizuru, though.

Some considerable time later, Yamazaki stepped into the room to inform Hijikata that nobody from the Itou faction had bothered to come check up on the Kondo faction’s drinking party.  He was a little surprised to see Chizuru pouring sake for Saito, and Saito smiling at her in admiration.  It might have surprised him less had he been able to hear the topic under discussion - although ‘discussion’ was the wrong term.

“The legends around old swords are indeed at least as interesting as more common folk tales, Yukimura.  You are very perceptive.”  Saito held out his cup for more sake, which Chizuru dutifully provided.  Saito was barely flushed, and his diction remained excellent - he didn’t seem to be drunk.  His next words dispelled that illusion.  “I would also like to say that you look very nice - very very nice, in this kimono.  And your hair.  Your hair looks different than usual, but it’s very nice too.”  He turned gravely to the small lantern set not far from Souji, who sat on his other side.  “I don’t know why you want to talk about swords, when I need to tell Yukimura how pretty she is.”

Chizuru was speechless - and very red - but Okita jumped right in.  He hadn’t had much to drink, and the situation was too good to resist.

“I agree with you, Hajime-kun.  Somebody has to tell Yukimura how nice she looks right now.  You know what though?”

Somehow, Saito managed to focus on him.  Unbeknownst to Chizuru, Okita had been supplementing Saito’s drinks all along, so that the Third Division Captain had now had far more alcohol than anybody else present.  “What ...Souji?”

“Well, I think you should take Chizuru-chan outside to tell her how nice she looks.  She gets pretty embarrassed sometimes, and I think she’d like a break from the party right now”

Saito’s head swung back around to Chizuru, who looked openly concerned.

“Ano, Okita-san.. Saito-san probably needs to get to bed...”

Okita chortled.  “Do you hear that Hajime-kun?  She--”

But Saito was getting to his feet.  He extended an imperious hand to Chizuru.

“Come with me, Yukimura.  The fresh air will help you - will help to clear your head.”

Those who were still mostly sober watched with interest as Saito dragged Chizuru out of the room by the hand.  Yamazaki shot Hijikata a slightly panicked look, but the Vice Commander merely nodded to him.

“Go with them.  Let me know if anything unusual--or unusually stupid--happens.”

“Hai, Fukuchô!.”

Outside on the engawa, Saito and Chizuru stood hand-in-hand looking up at the stars.  Saito was drunk enough not to be entirely sure what he was doing, but not so drunk that he couldn’t feel the small, warm hand in his.  He liked it.  In fact, he liked Yukimura.  She was very pretty, but what he liked best was that she was brave, and hard-working, and kind, and respectful of others, and -

“Um, Saito-san?”

“Yes?”

“I n-need my hand back... soon.  Because I need to go clean up the dishes.”

“I understand.  But it’s my birthday, so it is important for me to do what I want.”

Behind them, in the shadows, Yamazaki coughed politely.  Chizuru stiffened, and started to turn.  However, before she could address the quiet ninja - although she had no idea what she could say, at this point - Saito gently took her face between his strong, lean hands, and kissed her on the lips.  Then he drew back, looking startled.

“Oh...”

He tastes of sake, Chizuru thought wildly.  Well of course he would, at this point. It was embarrassing, but she would have liked a longer kiss.  Her heart was beating wildly - Saito-san had kissed her!  Although she wasn’t sure that he would remember it the next day...

“S-Saito-san?  Um--”

“I’ll get him to bed, Yukimura-kun.”  Yamazaki’s voice brought her out of her daze, and she felt her cheeks suffuse again with colour.

“Y-yes, Yamazaki-san, of course.  That seems like a good idea.  Do you want my help?”

“You need to return inside, Yukimura-kun.  You are too visible out here.”

“Did I tell you that you look pretty?” Saito demanded suddenly.  “Because you do.  As pretty as an old period, Bizen-crafted short-sword - the kind worn to court as an honour piece.  And you’re even practical, too!”

He was staring at her intently, as if she should understand everything.

“Um, yes, Saito-san!”

There was a gasp, and then Souji collapsed against the open shoji door frame in helpless laughter.  Harada stood behind him, and Nagakura too.

“Th-there you have it, Ch-Chizuru-chan!  Saito thinks you are as pretty and as useful as a sword! Wh-What more can a man say?”

Saito frowned, apparently concerned - or annoyed - with all the people.  Despite Chizuru’s attempts to politely extricate herself, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer to him.

“You need more rest, Souji,” he told a nearby wooden support pillar in serious, almost dangerous tones.  “I’ll look after Yukimura.”  He peered down at Chizuru.  “Do you want me to look after you, Yukimura?” he asked, abruptly sounding wistful.

“Ah, well, yes, Saito-san - but first you should let me look after you! ... Because it is your birthday.”

Saito looked away for a moment, and this time he seemed truly take in the various onlookers.  He slowly surveyed Yamazaki, Okita, Harada, Heisuke, Nagakura - and now Hijikata and Kondo.  Hijikata had slid open the other half of the shoji door. 

“Hey Hijikata-san!  Guess what?  Hajime-kun thinks Chizuru-chan is pretty.  Cool, huh?  I want to be Saito’s attendant at the wedding.”

“Shut it, Souji.  Saito - escort Yukimura to her room; Yamazaki - make sure they get there unseen, then get Saito to bed.  Everyone else - party’s over, go away.”

Yamazaki made sure that Saito and Yukimura had no difficulty returning to the young woman’s room.  He then did his best to look away when Saito took Chizuru in his arms and kissed her.  Again.  It was embarrassing, especially since they both knew he was there.

“Good night, Yukimura,” said Saito.  “I hope you sleep well.”

“Good night Saito-san!  Happy birthday, again!”

After she had gone in and closed the door, Saito wandered into the small garden.  Yamazaki followed him, and then stepped out in front of him.

“I’m sorry, Saito-kumicho, but I have orders to get you to bed.”

“I know.  Ikuzo, Yamazaki.”

“Hai!”  Yamazaki hesitated, then added:  “Happy Birthday, Saito-san.”

[END]

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