#dogs fmm

[time-travel-incorporated]

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[shit-from-shinola]

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NEUROSCIENCE

Dogs Using Soundboard Buttons Understand Words - Neuroscience News

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@cosmonautroger

I'll Spin You Valentine Evenings - submitted by naamahdarling

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But wait David...

[autovive-industries]

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[kneelingshadowsalome]

It’s been on my mind for a while: your double trouble AU, does each konig know that the other is his younger/older version of himself? Or are they two separate different people to each other? A metaphysical question lol and I can’t get it out of my head

Ahaha it’s a good question!

Yes they are very aware of each other being a different version of the same person ^^ I don’t know how it came to be that there are 2 Königs terrorizing the world, perhaps it was an unofficial government experiment with cloning or some distortion in the space-time continuum like @gremlingottoosilly suggested, I don’t care if there were aliens involved – they’re here and in love with the same woman!

But…

What I’m curious about is how did reader and Colonel!König meet the younger version (since they’re both happily married when young recruit comes around)? Maybe reader expressed her wishes to spice things up with some FMM action one day. And because Colonel!König is lenient and gentle with her and only her – ok let’s face it, he can’t deny anything from her – he kisses her forehead gently, pulls her into his lap, asks, why don’t they go out tonight and choose a victim for her then? :)

Cue to a few hours in at the local bar, Colonel is beginning to think this was a bad idea. His wife is sitting on his lap, trying to get a view of the dance floor filled with people. Mostly drunk, desperate men far younger than him; Colonel could roll his eyes – does she really want some hormone-driven asshole to give her a sloppy, low effort ride? These boys barely have hair growing on their balls yet…

Colonel just wants to go home and bully his sweet wife for hours with some expert tonguework and is just about to offer to take her home when she spots a young man. Immediately shooting up with curiosity, her eyes are shining when she finally sees something that she really likes.

“I want that one,” she says like she’s gotten used to getting anything she wants, even if it’s a person ‐ and since we’re talking about young, pussy-deprived men here, it shouldn’t be a problem to lure someone special into her arms. She could very well go and boop anyone's nose here and they would follow her home like a dog. Even if for some, the prospect of sharing her with a big, older hound might be a bit off putting…

Colonel!König, however, relieved to see that she finally picked her choice so that they can proceed to the awkward proposal, grows pale when he sees who she’s pointing at.

“Can you believe our luck? He looks exactly like you when you were young!”

She’s so excited that she’s giggling, trying to cover her mouth like she sometimes does when she’s feeling shy.

Just imagine the Colonel’s inner turmoil when he immediately recognizes his younger self, the one he thought was dead, now alive before his eyes and looking like a sorry idiot, trying to harass some women and down beers like water.

He doesn’t only look like him, he is him. Young and rough and desperate, a bullied kid who turned into a bully himself when he grew up. Tall and lean and almost succeeding in feigning self-confidence, his younger version looks like the worst kind of tortured fucker who used to hang around on 4chan and blame women for not giving him pussy...

Before he can prevent it, his wife is gone from his lap. Approaching that silly idiot while unsuspecting, tipsy and sweet – fuck, the young man answers her flirty smile with a flash of a vicious grin...

This will be a nightmare.

[austajunk]

Lately I've been imagining this komahinanami scenario, where basically Chiaki tries to give the boys a hint by taking them to her house for a slumber party (my parents aren't home kind of scenario), and playing an 18+ visual novel with a FMM threesome... It works. Also in this scenario Komaeda and Hajime both have a crush on Chiaki with a "why does she hang out with this hot dude" attitude towards each other that they keep hidden to not make her uncomfortable, but they just don't realise that what they feel is actually a crush and not kind of obsessive horny envy, they put two and two together by the end of the night though.

Chiaki has to do the lord’s work and bring two idiots together with the power of video games! Hell yeah! I love KomaHinaNami so much…

Lewd stuff, confessions, eroges and cock grinding below the cut!

Hajime was trying with all his might to pay attention to the game on Chiaki’s computer screen, but every so often, he found his eyes flickering over to the white-haired boy peeking over her shoulder.

Damn it. The poor Reserve Course student thought this was going to be some sort of game date just between him and Chiaki, but she actually invited her twisted classmate to sleep over with them. And it couldn’t be any more awkward!

Nagito Komaeda followed Chiaki around like a puppy dog, praising her whenever she handed him a tissue or smiled at him. He would give her a wide grin and gently brush off a piece of lint from her shoulder. It was something Hajime could help but to narrow his eyes at, especially when Nagito fired off instant facts about every single game that Chiaki talked about. Was… Was he trying to show him up?

Hajime hurried over to Chiaki’s bed as she set the game up on screens. What was the game again? Something about a succubus demon queen? He had barely paid attention to the title… even if it sounded a little unusual. Instead he was much more focused on finding a better seat to keep close to Chiaki… only to find himself half-plopped on Nagito’s lap.

“H-Hey-!” Hajime sputtered, flushing a bit. Quickly, he slipped away from Nagito as Chiaki’s classmate shot him a bemused look. “I was sitting there next to Nanami.”

“Ah.. my mistake,” said Nagito, his tone carrying a note of arrogance, “but surely you can settle on the floor for now. Nanami-san is so dusty today… tell me, does it all just come from the Reserve Course classrooms?”

Hajime shot daggers at the fluffy-haired bastard in response, his chest bubbling with irritation every time he saw those dull green eyes.

‘What the hell does Nanami see in this guy anyways? Any of her other classmates would be bad enough, but this guy… seriously?’

“I wonder what Miss Class Rep sees in you, you know? Being a Reserve Course student, after all…” Nagito rested his pretty head in his hands, glancing up at Hajime. That smile continued to play onto his face as his eyebrows quirked. “Does she need you to carry her homework for her? Surely you just get in the way of her developing her talent?”

“Oh,” said Chiaki, still connecting the speakers in front of them. She waved Nagito off. “Hinata-kun is just a really amazing friend. I want him to be around me a lot.” She gave a carefree yawn and stretched. “And Komaeda-kun is really good at gaming! And a good person, Hinata-kun! We should be able to combine our skills and have lots of fun!”

Nagito sighed, but gave her a friendly nod. “Oh, I see… that’s nice, I suppose.” His eyes wandered back to Hajime’s chest, seemingly tracing the bulge of his muscles through his tight white shirt. “Hm…”

She hopped up and slid her arm into Hajime’s arm, leading him over to the bed beside Nagito. She sat in between them with her arm still around the chestnut-haired student’s, smiling brightly as the tv screen relayed her desktop monitor.

“Help me choose our character’s path, okay?” She said to two of them… who were still gaping at each other.

“A…Alright.”

What else was Hajime supposed to do? Refuse her? Try to make up an excuse and go home? So he sat down beside Chiaki and tried to enjoy the fact that the Ultimate Gamer was clinging onto him while playing with her controller. In fact, he wanted to get a satisfying look at Nagito’s face since she was cozying up to a Reserve Course Student rather than someone from her own class.

But to his amazement, Hajime found that Nagito wasn’t looking at Chiaki when he glanced over. Instead, that pale face had been turned in his direction. His expression was utterly unreadable but those pretty eyes were boring straight into Hajime’s features as though he were drinking him in.

‘Wh…What’s he looking at?! Do I have something on my face?’ Hajime felt the flush on his cheeks deepen. A swarm of butterflies swirled around in the pits of his stomach. Nagito had such intense eyes. They were tired looking and lowered, but that gaze still captured Hajime entirely. His heart began to speed up inside his chest as he quickly glanced back at the screen.

‘This… This is fine… so he’s looking at me! So what? I’ll just focus on the game…’

And focus on the game, they did. Both boys squished close around Chiaki to try and ignore the tension in the air. Even Nagito knew that it was best to focus on Chiaki since she was so kind as to invite him to play games with her.

But after an exposition about the extinction of the succubus race in the game, the pink-skinned devil girl with voluptuous breasts had entered a green fantasy forest and paused among hearing some wild and vicious grunts in the distance.

“Ah… those sounds…” Nagito uttered, blinking.

“Er, Nanami, those sound like..” Hajime didn’t know how to finish that sentence as Chiaki ignored the two.

The succubus main character stooped upon two beautiful men in the forest…entirely naked. One male, a pretty knight with long black-hair, was pounding his cock into the backside of a much more slender, blonde elf-like male against a tree.

“Wah!” Hajime nearly fell off of the bed.

Nagito, too, didn’t seem to know where this was going. His cheeks were just the slightest bit pink but he kept watching with rapt attention.

Chiaki’s eyes widened a bit and she chewed on her bottom lip. But there was nothing more to indicate that she was as affected as her schoolmates. “Wow… he fits it all the way inside of him… they make it look so effortless, but… I don’t think it’s really so easy…” She turned to Hajime, her soft, cotton candy eyes lowering to his crotch. “What do you think, Hinata-kun?”

Hajime swallowed a dry bit of saliva, his heart racing. He didn’t want to stammer out something lame, but Chiaki was playing a porn game in front of them like it was nothing!

But Nagito’s voice cut in before Hajime could come out with it. “Nanami-san! This is incredible! Of course, a legendary gamer such as yourself would be able to get hold of an eroge not available to the general public!”

Chiaki simply nodded. “Mhmmm hmmm.”

With that, Chiaki returned her focus to the stream. Her kitten-like tongue swept across her bottom lip eagerly. Nagito followed suit and turned back towards the game where the voice acting was simulating the heated groans of the characters. When Hajime looked back, he could see the pretty elf male mounting in a mating press, the cock of his human lover splitting his tight, small ass apart.

“He’s taking it all,” said Chiaki. Hajime couldn’t help but to peer down to see her nipples stiffening through her white shirt. Wait… she wasn’t wearing a bra?! When did that happen?!

Hajime’s mouth was so dry and he could help but to quiver. Heat pooled to the core of his body and he felt like he couldn’t keep sitting upright.

The succubus Queen character hurried to the two men once they had climaxed together and sprayed the clean grass with their sticky loads. She pleaded to them to breed her over and over again until she was filled with their virile seed in order to revitalize her race.

The knight and the elf nodded to her and their hands reached eagerly for her breasts, groping them. The demon girl’s skin became slick with sweat from the hot outdoors sun and she was clay in their hands to be molded and played with. They both kissed and licked her, rubbing their erect cocks all over her silky, soft body…

This was starting to get unbearable for Hajime. His pants were so tight in the front. How the hell was he supposed to keep watching this and hide his boner?

“Nanami, I… I don’t think we should… this is…”

But before the rest could slip out, Nagito let out a soft wail and fell to his knees on the floor. His face was entirely red as he raised his hand to tug on Chiaki’s skirt.

“I.. I’m sorry, Nanami-san!” Nagito said, his face swelling with regret. “But I can’t keep going like this…” His eyes switched to Hajime and once more, Hajime found that watchful gaze engulfing his entire body.

When he blinked, Nagito had crawled before him and was now clinging to the front of Hajime’s pants. “I’m sorry, Hinata-kun… this entire time, I w…wanted to…” His fingers swept across the zipper. “May I please suck on your penis? I think… Ha… I can’t stop thinking about you…and this game makes me want you…”

“What-?!” Hajime sputtered, his face glowing. With Nagito’s soft hands stroking his front, he felt all the blood leave his brain immediately. “N…Nanami!”

Chiaki looked at the two thoughtfully and shrugged. “Hmmm… why not, Hinata-kun?” She swept down beside the two. Beneath her low blouse, her breasts swung lower against the fabric. She carefully placed her hand over Nagito’s and helped him guide the zipper down. Then she confidently tugged down his boxers until Hajime’s cock stood in attention before them.

“Nanami, what are you doing?!” Hajime wanted to pull away and cover himself from the two perverts on their knees. He had no idea his best friend was so forward! And Nagito… he had really been watching him like this?!

“Hinata-kun, you’re wet here…” Chiaki cooed. She nodded to Nagito and watched him drop his pants and boxers as well. As he stood, she placed her soft fingers around his cock and used her free hand to explore Hajime’s shaft as well, bringing them closer until their meaty tips touched.

“See?“ Chiaki murmured, smiling gently. “You should let them join. They feel good together, right?”

Hajime swallowed. His cock… his own cock was brushing against Nagito’s. It felt strange… but good. He wanted to rub himself against Nagito, to jerk off against his body like the characters in the game. His mind was already flashing with the images of pinning the slender student down and mounting him. Then he wanted to follow it up with planting his cock in between Chiaki’s amazing breasts and fucking them, watching them bounce like crazy.

“Hinata-kun… your dick is twitching against mine,” Nagito whispered hotly. A bead of sweat trailed down his neck. He jerked his hips forward and grinded his tip against Hajime’s rock-hard length. “Aheh… the Succubus Queen has brought us together…”

He nodded to Chiaki, whose head was perked up to run her tongue along Hajime’s cock as it pressed to Nagito’s tip. She then moved and kissed along until she reached Nagito’s girth, peppering it with lewd licks.

Hajime sighed… but then he smiled. His hands fell to Nagito’s waist, pulling him closer as Chiaki kissed both of their cocks. Their heads pushed together past her lips, breaching her warm, wet mouth.

“It looks like she really did…”

[shit-from-shinola]

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[gravityr00m]

[autovive-industries]

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[union-catalog]

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[imagineclaireandjamie]

Flood my Mornings: Found

I know, right??? Thank you for bearing with me while I’ve taken a wee ten month sabbatical! And thank you, too, for dropping in every now and again to remind me of how much you love this story. It means the world! - With love, Mod Bonnie 

This story takes place in an AU where Jamie travels through the stones two years after Culloden and finds Claire and his child in 1950 Boston.

FMM Master List 

Previously: Hectic

Found

Early December, 1952

.

“Hey, Mummy?”

“Yes, pumpkin?”

“Um! Why come—”

“How....”

“—How come my hairs is all gray in all tha’ pictures?”

One grammar victory at a time.

“Cameras only can show things in black and white. Ours, anyway.”

Taking pictures was always great fun; poring over them once they’d come back from the developer, a joy, particularly coupled with Jamie’s still-sharp wonder in their implicit magic. Actually following through with organizing them into albums, though? A bloody-hateful chore I’d managed to put off for nearly a year, this time. The red album already held Ian’s first six months or so, but most of his subsequent life had accumulated in lazy shoeboxes and (better late than never) now lay scattered around Bree and me in a shiny arc on the living room floor. 

“Wouldn’t them—those pictures be better if it was all the right ones?” She popped up from hands and knees to shove a fistful of ginger curls toward me. “The good colors?” 

“Absolutely! Maybe someday.”

She nodded once, satisfied. “You should go tell them to.”

“Tell who?”

Shrug. “Camera people.”

“I’ll write Mr. Kodak right away.”

“Good. Which picture’re we doin’ next?”

“Hmmm....” It came out more like a ‘heeeeeee’, since I was grinning with complete, albeit exhausted joy at my unstoppable eldest. 

“How ‘bout THIS one?” She came up with a snapshot from the Fernacre Halloween party this year: Jamie beaming as he held Ian securely atop Kugel, one of the newer horses. 

“Oh,” I moaned, heart squeezing as I held the photo next to the page showing Ian at four months, fuzzy-headed and drooling happily with his hands clapped together. “Bree, when did my tiny baby become a grown-up boy?” 

“He izzzz a baby, Mummy.”

“Well, yes, but....”  

But oh lord, to see his infant photos again, compared with the walking, sometimes-talking little man across the house! Where had all the baby fat gone? When had the generic softness of his features been replaced with cheekbones and Jamie’s dimpled chin?! Jesus H. Christ, it made me want to curl up and sob for days and then get down to business making another one. (Except, no, absolutely not). 

“He IS a real baby,” Brianna was saying, with a sass that spilled over into guilty-glee: “He still poopies in his pants!”

“Touché, lovey,” I giggled along with her, rifling through our pile to make sure I hadn’t missed any from Ian’s birthday. “OH! This is pure Ian, right here, don’t you think??”

This was from just last week, from the packet Jamie had picked up on his way home yesterday. No special occasion: just our sweet, sweet boy standing in the doorway to the back garden, beaming with a magnetic smile even as he shyly resisted any coaxing to come out, blanket over his shoulder and pressed comfortingly against his cheek.

Somehow, he alone had managed to miss the gene for curly hair. His was still thick, though, brown and unruly as mine, with a tendency to poke up in little cowlicks every time you turned your back (and good bloody luck to anyone that tried to come at him with a comb and triggered a caterwauling to wake the dead). His eyes—dark honey—were slanted, seeming even more so as he grinned at the camera. So like Bree and yet so much his own. 

Resemblance wasn’t the only difference between my little ones, for Ian was less tempestuous than Brianna, to say the very least. Whereas she had seemed to exit the very womb inclined to speak (or howl) her mind with a fierce, vocal confidence in herself, Ian Fraser was a more subtle charmer. He got what he wanted by lavishing snuggles and carefully-placed puppy-dog eyes on his target, speaking his few words when necessary, but usually content to wheedle in his own way, or else let Bree do the talking for him.  

His own unique spirit, I marveled, running my thumbs against the glossed edges. Bree was, in a word, intense; her brother..... what? More shy by contrast, absolutely, but I’d always hated the milquetoast connotations of that word. He wasn’t at all skittish or morose; when in his element, he could be as boisterous as she, and if he sometimes preferred to play by himself in a group of friends, it always seemed to be by choice, not exclusion. In fact, I’d observed that he even spoke more when on his own, when he was absorbed in organizing a Gathering of the cuddly toys, or making tiny stick-villages in the garden, narrating his playtime in a mixture of English, Gaelic, and (the vast majority) Toddler. It was only when someone was watching that he would flash them a sheepish grin and start keeping his thoughts to himself. 

No, see, Ian’s quieter nature bespoke something beneath it, something that always struck me as remarkably developed and complex for a child of his age. Cunning, I’d call it, or some deep, satisfied knowing—slyness, in the best way! His twinkling eyes often seemed to so, so sweetly say, ‘You can’t make me do what you want, Mummy, but I sure do enjoy watching you try!’ A strain of the MacKenzies, I thought, not for the first time. 

“Hey-Mummy?” My little Fraser had her brows scrunched up as though contemplating murder, poring over the blue album from the shelf under the coffee table. “I dinna remember this pictures.”

“Those are of you as a baby,” I grinned, “so you were too small to remember.”

“Well....then...Da! He must—!” She nodded, full of budding conviction. “He remembers a whole, whole-lot, then, cause he’s really big!”

"Ah—” My lips hurt as little fizzles escaped from between them. “You’re not wrong, smudge.” 

“Uh-huh, I know.” 

She had flipped open to the middle of the album, to a series of snowy shots taken when she was...what...sixteen months old? We had gone sledding for the first time, and Ms. Byrd had captured the fleeting joy of it so perfectly. Little Bree’s jack-o-lantern teeth bared in glee above her muffler, the point of her elf-bonnet tickling my chin. My own hat had flown off into the wind, curls a blurry cloud above us.

She turned the pages to the left, going back in time. Cackles erupted at the images from her first birthday, elbows and eyebrows deep in chocolate cake, then she straightened gravely at the evidence of some of her exuberant early steps. “Was I walkin’ as good as Ian?” she dared me. 

“Very well! Though he did start sooner.”

“Hey-Mummy?”

I inhaled through a secret, tired smile. Eighteen hundred times a day.  At least. “Yes, Bree?”

“Hey-Mummy, where’s Da?”

“Putting Ian to bed.” I glanced at my watch. “Which means you, sweet pea, need to get your pajamas on, and—”

“NO, where is he in heee-rrrrre?” She lifted the album, glaring. “Where I was the baby?”

My jaw was open as though I’d started to say something. If only I knew what it might have been. Maybe then I’d know what came next. 

“See-look,” she insisted, turning the thick pages of the other album and pointing emphatically.

Jamie, showing Ian around the house on the first day he’d come home with us . 

Ian, in my arms in the hospital bed with Jamie at my shoulder, smiling down at us with Bree on his lap.

She thunked the album down, half on top of the other, contrasting the very first family photos I possessed: just the two of us, meeting one another in the morning light of that lonely, heavenly hospital room. “Where’s the Da-ones for me, Mummy?”  

“Da…he...” 

Damn it. 

“....He wasn’t there when you were a baby.”

Brianna blinked twice, and her eyes went fierce as she cocked her head. “Wasn’t?”

“No. He wasn’t.”

“Why wasn’t he?”

“He was away at—at the war when you were born.” 

Seeing the questions stacking up behind her eyes, I tried to explain, though my blood was thudding in my ears. “You know how Miss Della’s beau Peter is a soldier? And how he has to be away in Korea? That's like where Daddy was, too. He…” My voice cracked a little. “He was away, and didn’t get to meet you until you were Ian’s age.”

“Da was-not away!” Bree insisted, though her eyes were wide, unaccustomed doubt creeping in.

“He was, though, darling,” I whispered. “You don’t remember because you were still very little when he came back.” 

I turned the pages slowly, past those scattered glimpses of our early days, when we were the Randalls, then the Beauchamps. “Da was—” Goddamn it, what was the bloody story? “—captured, and we were told he died.”

I thought she hadn’t heard me. I cleared my throat and started to repeat myself, more audibly this time, but I glanced down and my heart clenched so hard the tears broke through. For, my little warrior’s face had completely fallen to despair. “....Daddy died?”

“No! No, no, no, sweetheart, he didn’t, but he was….lost....for a long time.”

She sucked in a breath, almost a gasp, all trace of fierceness gone as she searched my face. “Was he scared?”

I could only nod, the tears stinging, squeezing the walls of my throat. “But, one day, he did come back. He found us and he got to meet you. His wee lassie. See?”

Jamie, on our second wedding day, so very thin in his suit, but glowing as he held little Bree in his arms, looking down at her with unrestrained, awestruck  tenderness.

“You made him — make him  — so happy, lovey,” I whispered, pulling her close onto my lap and against my heart as I turned the page. 

The two of them, stretched out on this very couch, both their mouths open as they slept, her cheek smushed cozily against his chest.

I pressed my own cheek against her head. “He’d loved you the whole time he was lost. Getting to finally meet you was....” I flipped over to Ian’s first photos, pointing to Jamie. “Just like how happy he was here, when he met baby Ian for the first time.”  

“Mummy....I dinna—” Her voice was choked, tears streaming as she whispered: “I dinna w-want Da to be lost when I w-was Ian.”

“Ohh, love, sweetheart, I—”

The door from the kitchen opened. “Alright, Bree, your turn for—”

“DA!”

By long instinct, he dropped to a crouch to let her run, sobbing, into his arms. “Christ, what's this, then, cub?” He rubbed her back, coaxing brightly to ease her worries, his expert skill. “Heyyy, lass, there, now.....Dinna be troubled so, wee love—tell me what’s amiss.”

She couldn’t say anything coherent at first, but at last, she choked it out. “I dinna want—y-you to b-be—lost again!”

“I’m no’ lost, Brianna,” he nearly laughed. “I’m here, see? Safe and—”

“Mu—Mummy said you were dead and l-lost when I was littlest and–I don't—dinna—w-want—you—to—ever— ”

“Och, no, lass,” he moaned at once as he pulled her tight against his chest and rose to his feet, his eyes meeting mine with an understanding that ached in us both as he saw the tracks of my own tears. “Never. Not ever.”

He swayed with her for a very long time as she sobbed into his shoulder. His eyes were closed and I could barely hear what he murmured into her hair: 

“That was the saddest time of my whole life, mo chridhe....” In Gaelic: ‘I'll never be parted from ye again...nor your mother... nor Ian…...I swear it.’

“She’s truly growing up, then,” Jamie whispered, softly rubbing Brianna’s back where she lay curled up asleep on the sofa behind us. “That she can feel things so in her heart…..” He turned from her to lean fully against the bottom cushions, resting his arms on his knees. “It makes me want to weep, Sassenach. All the sadness that awaits them in the world....That I could keep all of it at bay.”

“Will we ever tell them differently?”

His head swiveled around, surprised. “Tell them what, mo ghraidh?”

“The truth.” The word was a ball of ice in my stomach. “About....everything. The stones... How we met. Who you really are.”

“I confess....I had assumed we never would tell them.” 

“When it was only me and Bree, I had thought...well, it was a vague thought, only....but I assumed someday she would know. Now, though....it doesn’t seem as simple, somehow.” 

“Aye.” His chest rose and fell heavily as he ran a hand backward through his hair. “In truth, ‘tis indeed a weight on my heart to think that they might never know all the dear memories—only the wee fragments, disguised as they must be.”

About Lallybroch. Jenny and Ian. All their little cousins. Murtagh. Brian and Ellen. Names the children knew, but only a surface-version; a bedtime story about people in a faraway land who were now lost; no more real than any other; far less so, with no photographs or brightly-colored illustrations to prove those people had existed. 

Still more....might they never know what their father did for them at Culloden? Of the sacrifice and pain we both chose on that day? 

“But we must bear it, no?” he was saying sadly, even as a half-hope grew in his eyes. 

“How can they ever truly know us, Jamie,” I said, “understand us without knowing where we’ve been? What we’ve been through?” I thought of my own parents, shrouded in so much mystery, so much not known; unknowable, now. 

“Perhaps...when they’re older? When they might be trusted to keep such a big secret, we might tell them. Though....” he considered. “They might both be fully grown before t’would be the right time for such a—"

“And yet, that’s the other side of the coin.” I hated this; scolded myself for being the devil’s advocate of cloying gloom. “It’s like adopted children that aren’t told until adulthood. If we wait so long, won’t they resent us for keeping such a monumental thing from them? The truth of who they are and how they came to exist?” My eyes must have looked as hopeless as Bree’s. “What do you think we should we do?”

A pause, then his mouth twitched in a weak attempt at a smile. “I wish I kent the certain path, Claire. I do.” Any light in his eyes ebbed. “In truth, we rob them — and ourselves, forbye — of something dear no matter the choice, aye?”

It might have lingered, the worry. It might have been a cloud over us throughout the fallen night. Instead, our eyes met and we softened in unison. He leaned his forehead against mine, pulling me closer to kiss my cheek. Many years stood between us and that day, should it ever even come. 

I was about to rest my head on his shoulder, but a photo caught my eye, right there by my ankle. 

It was barely in focus, fully half the image a diagonal, black nothingness, a childish finger covering the lens. Still, it had been captured at precisely the right moment, before Jamie or I had had time to react. 

Both of us were in pajamas in front of the stove, my hair an absolute wreck (though, when was it not?), the cup of tea in my hand in serious danger of slopping over the side, since Jamie had me by the waist and was working to pull me close. His head was bent to my neck, his grin sweet and roguish, though his eyes were hidden. Mine were closed and my head was thrown back, as though no other damn thing in the world mattered but the moment’s silly joy. 

I cradled it between us and spoke the simplest version of the ache within me.

 “I’m so happy you’re not lost anymore.”

[sneek-m]

Monthly Listening: March 2020

It’s been a rough time, but we got through another month. Here’s what I checked out in March. Here’s also a playlist for the month. 306 songs!

2020 albums

Anna Takeuchi -- Matousic (Teichiku)

Arca -- @@@@@ (XL)

Aseul -- Slow Dance (Astro Kidz)

Ayami Muto -- Mirrors (Tsubasa Plus)

Bad Bunny -- YHLQMDLG (Rimas)

Bed In -- Rock (Space Shower Music)

Bktherula -- Love Santana (Shop FMM)

Blanck Mass -- Calm with Horses OST (Invada)

Brandy Clark -- Your Life Is a Record (Warner)

Cardo -- Game Related (EI$G / TFM / BYLUG)

Caribou -- Suddenly (Merge)

Cidergirl -- Soda Pop Fanclub 3 (Universal Music Japan)

Christine and the Queens -- La Vita Nuova EP (Because)

Cloque. -- Naked Blue (VAP)

Code Orange -- Underneath (Roadrunner)

Coremagazine -- Titbit EP (self-released)

Dokkoise House -- Floating House (Ohagi)

DPR Live -- Is Anybody Out There? (Dream Perfect Regime)

Eunki -- Undefinable: Love

Foodman -- Dokutsu EP (Highball)

Four Tet -- Sixteen Oceans (Text)

Gigi Masin -- Calypso (Apollo)

Haru Nemuri -- Lovetheism (TO3S)

Hilary Woods -- Birthmarks (Sacred Bones)

Hook -- Crashed My Car (GC)

Irreversible Entanglements -- Who Sent You? (International Anthem)

Itzy -- IT’z ME (JYP)

J Balvin -- Colores (Universal Music Latino)

KALMA -- Teen Teen Teen (Jvckenwood)

Kamisama Club -- Jura (Kanikani)

Kaela Kimura -- Zig Zag (Jvckenwood)

Kelsea Ballerini -- Kelsea (Black River)

King Krule -- Man Alive! (True Panther)

Knxwledge -- 1988 (Stones Throw)

Lil Uzi Vert -- Eternal Atake (Atlantic)

Loathe -- I Let It In and It Took Everything (Sharptone)

Los -- NO Love (WhiteHouse / Empire)

Lucky Kilimanjaro -- !magination (Dreamusic)

Lucy Gooch -- Rushing EP (Past in the Present)

M!LK -- Juvenilizm Seishun Shugi (SDR)

Magical Punchline -- Magical Supermarket (Dreamusic)

Mariana Montenegro -- La Mar (self-released)

Mashinomi -- Tsuranatte Odoriva EP (Pony Canyon)

Metome, Uratomoe, Speedometer -- Dark, Tropical. (P-Vine)

NCT 127 -- NCT #127 Neo Zone (SM)

Nicolas Jaar -- Cenizas (Other People)

Omar S -- You Want (FXHE)

Peder Mannerfelt -- Like We Never Existed (Voam)

Pantha du Prince -- Conference of Trees (self-released)

R.A.P. Ferreira -- Purple Moonlight Pages (Ruby Yacht)

Raspberry Bulbs -- Before the Age of Mirrors (Relapse)

Sadness -- Atna EP (self-released)

Sejeong -- Plant (Jellyfish)

Sightless Pit -- Grave of a Dog (Thrill Jockey)

Sik-K -- Officially OG (H1GHER)

Soccer Mommy -- Color Theory (Loma Vista)

Suso Sais -- MFM Mix 012 (Music from Memory)

Triangulo de Amor Bizarro -- Triangulo de Amor Bizarro (Mushroom Pillow)

Ulla -- Tumbling Towards a Wall (Experiences)

Violet Cold -- Noir Kid (Emin Guliyev)

Vladislav Delay -- Rakka (Cosmo Rhythmatic)

Waxahatchee -- Saint Cloud (Merge)

The Weeknd -- After Hours (The Weeknd XO / Republic)

Windy & Carl -- Allegiance & Conviction (Kranky)

WNC WhopBezzy -- WW3 (WNC Da Label)

Xydo -- X (groovl1n)

YeYe -- 30 (Rallye)

You’ll Melt More! -- Surpriser (You’ll)

Young Nudy -- Anyways (self-released)

Yuka Ueno -- Konya Atashi Ga Naitemo (King)

Yumi Zouma -- Truth or Consequences (Polyvinyl)

Non-2020 albums

Aiko -- Akatsuki No Love Letter (Pony Canyon)

The Future Sounds of London -- Dead Cities (Astralwerks)

Kinki Kids -- F Album (Johnny’s)

Mac Dre -- Thizzelle Washington (Sumo / Thizz Entertainment)

Richie Rich -- Seasoned Veteran (UMG)

Tokyo Shoki Shodo -- Sweet 17 Monsters (Cherry Virgin Records)

Tomomi Kahara -- Storytelling (Orumok)

The Treacherous Three -- The Treacherous Three (Sugar Hill)