#i have many nuanced takes on this sort of thing but rest assured i don’t intend to live on this soapbox

[thetriggeredhappy]

before pride month ends im gonna take this opportunity to say. if a transfem corrects you for using ‘dude’ or ‘man’ to refer to her, and you reply that ‘actually dude and man are gender neutral’, consider that she knows this. and she’s correcting you because she doesn’t want to be referred to as gender neutral. she wants to be referred to as a woman. and perhaps - really stew on this one - your reluctance to refer to her with traditionally feminine language, and even to incorporate and co-opt traditionally feminine language into your casual gender-neutral usages in everyday life, are indicative of an internal sexist bias. this is not necessarily in itself a condemnation of your character - but if you feel perfectly comfortable calling someone (regardless of gender) ‘bro’ but not ‘sis’, that’s worth a smidge of introspection.

[meichenxi]

Hey! I hope you feel better soon

We haven't had a good long linguistics rant from you in a while!! How about you tell us about your favourite lingustical feature or occurrence in a language? Something like a weird grammatical feature or how a language changed

If this doesn't trigger any rant you have stored feel free to educate on any topic you can spontaneously think of, I'd love to hear it :D

ALRIGHT KARO, let's go!! This is a continuation of the other ask I answered recently, and is the second part in a series about linguistic complexity. I suggest you check that one out first for this to properly make sense! (I don't know how to link but uh. it's the post behind this on my blog)

Summary of previous points: the complexity of a language has nothing to do with the 'complexity' of the people that speak it; complexity is really bloody hard to measure; some linguists in an attempt to be not racist argue that 'all languages are equally complex', but this doesn't really seem to be the case, and also still equates cognitive ability with complexity of language which is just...not how things work; arguing languages have different amounts of complexity has literally nothing to do with the cognitive abilities of those who speak it.

Ok. Chinese.

Normally when we look at complexity we like to look at things like number of verb classes, noun classes, and so on. But Chinese doesn't really do any of this.

So what do Chinese and languages like Chinese do that is so challenging to the equicomplexity hypothesis, the idea that all languages are equally complex? I’ll start by talking about some of the common properties of isolating languages - and these properties are often actually used as examples of why these languages are as complex, just in different ways. Oh Melissa, I hear you ask in wide-eyed admiration/curiousity. What are they? By isolating languages, I mean languages that tend to have monosyllabic words, little to no conjugation, particles instead of verb or noun endings, and so on: so languages like Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai and many others in East and South East Asia.

Here’s a list of funky things in isolating languages that may or may not make a language more complex than linguists don't really know what to do with:

Classifiers

Chengyu and 4-word expressions

Verb reduplication, serialisation and resultative verbs

'Lexical verbosity' = complex compounding and word forming strategies

Pragmatics

Syntax

I'll talk about the first two briefly, but I don't have space for all. For clarity of signposting my argument: many linguists use these as explanations of why languages like Chinese are as complex, but I'm going to demonstrate afterwards why the situation is a bit more complicated than that. You could even say it's...complex.

1) Classifiers

You know about classifiers in Chinese, but what you may be interested to learn is that almost all isolating languages in South East Asia use them, and many in fact borrow from each other. The tonal, isolating languages in South East Asia have historically had a lot of contact through intense trade and migration, and as such share a lot of properties. Some classifiers just have to go with the noun: 一只狗，一条河 etc. First of all, if we're defining complexity as 'the added stuff you have to remember when you learn it' (my professors hate me), it's clear that these are added complexity in exactly the same way gender is. Why is it X, and not Y? Well, you can give vague answers ('it's sort of...ribbony' or 'it's kinda...flat'), but more often than not you choose the classifier based on the vibe. Which is something you just have to remember.

Secondly, many classifiers actually have the added ability to modify the type of noun they're describing. These are familiar too in languages like English: a herd of cattle versus a head of cattle. So we have 一枝花 which is a flower but on a stem ('a stem of flower'), but also 一朵花 which is a flower but without the stem (think like...'a blob of flower'). Similarly with clouds - you could have a 一朵云 'blob of cloud' (like a nice, fluffy cloud in a children's book), but you could also have 一片云 which is like a huge, straight flat cloud like the sea...and so on. These 'measure words' do more than measure: they add additional information that the noun itself does not give.

Already we're beginning to see the outline of the problem. Grammatical complexity is...well, grammatical. We count the stuff which languages require you to express, not the optional stuff - and that's grammar. The difference between better and best is clearly grammatical, as is go and went. But what about between 'a blob of cloud' versus 'a plain of cloud'? Is that grammatical? Well, maybe: you do have to include a measure word when you say there's one of it, and in many Chinese languages that are not Mandarin you have to include them every single time you use a possessive: my pair of shoes, my blob of flower etc. But you don't always have to include one specific classifier - there are multiple options, all of which are grammatical. So should we include classifiers as part of the grammar? Or part of the vocabulary (the 'lexicon')?

Err. Next?

2) Chengyu and 4-character expressions + 4) Lexical verbosity

This might seem a bit weird: these are obviously parts of the vocab! What's weirder, though, is that many isolating languages have chengyu, not just Chinese. And if you don't use them, many native speakers surveys suggest you don't sound native. This links to point number 4, which is lexical verbosity. 'Lexical verbosity' means a language has the ability to express things creativity, in many different manners, all of which may have a slightly different nuance. The kind of thing you love to read and analyse and hate to translate.

But it is important. If we look at the systems that make up the grand total of a language, vocabulary is obviously one of them: a language with 1 million root forms is clearly more 'complex', if all else is exactly the same, than a language with 500,000. Without even getting into the whole debacle about 'what even is a word', a language that has multiple registers (dialect, regional, literary, official etc) that all interact is always going to be more complex than one that doesn't, just because there's more of it. More rules, more words, more stuff.

Similarly, something that is the backbone of modern Chinese 'grammar' and yet you may never have thought of as such is is compound words. We don't tend to traditionally teach this as grammar, and I don't have time to give a masterclass on it now, but let me assure you that compounding - across the world's language - is hugely varied. Some languages let you make anything a compound; some only allow noun+noun compounds (so no 'blackbird', as black is an adjective); some only allow head+head compound (so no 'sabretooth', because a sabretooth is a type of tiger, not tooth); some only allow compounds one way ('ring finger' but not 'finger ring': though English does allow the other way around in some other words), and so on.

You'll have heard time and time again that 'Chinese is an isolating language, and isolating languages like monosyllabic words'. Well. Sort of. You will also have noticed yourself that actually most modern Chinese words are disyllabic: 学习，工作，休息，吃饭 and so on. This is radically different to Classical Chinese, where the majority were genuinely one syllable. But many Chinese speakers still have access to the words in the compounds, and so they can be manipulated on a character-by-character basis: most adults will be able to look at 学习 and understand that 学 and 习 both exist as separate words: 开学，学生，复习，练习 and so on.

I'm going to sort of have to ask you to take my word on it as I don't have time to prove how unique it is, but the ability that Chinese has to turn literally anything into a compound is staggering. It's insane. It's...oh god I'm tearing up slightly it's just a LOT guys ok. It's a lot. There are 20000000 synonyms for anything you could ever want, all with slightly different nuances, because unlike many other languages, Chinese allows compounds where the two bits of the compound mean, largely speaking, very similar things. So yes, you have compounds like 开学 which is the shortened version of 开始学习, or ones with an object like 吃饭 or 睡觉, but you also have compounds like 工作 where both 工 and 作 kind of...mean 'to work'...and 休息 where both 休 and 息 mean 'to rest'...and so on. So you can have 感 and 情 and 爱 and 心 but also 感情 and 情感 and 爱情 and 情爱 and 心情 and 心爱 and 爱心 and so on, and they all mean different things. And don't even get me started on resultative verbs: 学到，学会，学好，学完， and so on...

What is all of this, if not complex? It's not grammatical - except that the process of compound forming, that allows for so many different compounds, is grammatical. We can't make the difference between学会，学好 and 学完 anywhere near as easily in English, and in Chinese you do sort of have to add the end bit. So...do we count this under complexity? And if not, we should probably count it elsewhere? Because it's kind of insane. And learners have to use it, much like the example I gave of English prepositions, and it takes them a bloody long time. But then where?

Ok. I haven't had a chance to talk about everything, but you get the picture: there are things in Chinese that, unlike European languages, do not neatly fit into the 'grammar' versus 'vocabulary' boxes we have built for ourselves, because as a language it just works very differently to the ones we've used as models. (Though some of the problems, in fact, are similar: German is also very adept at compounding.) But as interesting as that difference is, the goal of typology as a sub-discipline of linguistics is to talk about and research the types of linguistic diversity around the world, so we can't stop there by acknowledging our models don't fit. We have to go further. We have to stop, and think: What does this mean for the models that we have built?

This is where we get into theoretically rather boggy ground. We weren't before?? No, like marsh of the dead boggy. Linguists don't know it...they go round, for miles and miles and miles....

Because unfortunately there isn't a clear answer. If we dismiss these things as 'lexical' and therefore irrelevant to the grammar, that is a) ignoring their grammatical function, b) ignoring the fact that the lexicon is also a system that needs to be learnt, and has often very clear rules on word-building that are also 'grammatical', and c) essentially playing a game of theoretical pass-the-parcel. It's your problem, not mine: it's in the lexicon, not the grammar. Blah blah blah. Because whoever's problem it is, we still have to account for this complexity somehow when we want to compare literally any languages that are substantially different at all.

On the other side of things, however, if we argue that 'Chinese is as complex as Abkhaz, because it makes up for a lack of complexity in Y by all this complexity in X' (and therefore all languages = equally complex), this ignores the fact that compounding and irregular verbs belong to two very different systems. The kind of mistake you make when you use the wrong classifier intuitively seems to be on another level of 'wrongness' to the kind where you conjugate a verb in the wrong way. One is 'wrong'. The other is just 'not what we say'. It's the same as the use of prepositions in English: some are obviously wrong (I don't sleep 'at my bed') but some are just weird, and for many there are multiple options ('at the weekend', 'on the weekend'). Is saying 'I am on the town' the same level of wrongness as saying 'I goed to the shops'? Intuitively we might want to say the second is a 'worse' mistake. In which case, what are they exactly? They're both 'grammar', but totally different systems. And where do you draw the line?

Here's the thing about the equicomplexity argument. As established, it stems from a nice ideological background that nevertheless conflates cognition and linguistic complexity. Once you realise that no, the two are completely separate, you're under no theoretical or ideological compulsion to have languages be equally complex at all. Why should they be at all? Some languages just have more stuff in them: some have loads of vowels, and loads of consonants, and some have loads of grammar. Others have less. They all do basically the same job. Why is that a big deal?

Where the argument comes into its biggest problem, though, is that if a language like Chinese is already as complex as a language like Abkhaz...what happens when we meet Classical Chinese?

Classical Chinese. An eldritch behemoth lurking with tendrils of grass-style calligraphy belching perfect prose just behind the horizon.

Let's look at Modern Chinese for a moment. It has some particles: six or so, depending on how you count them. You could include these as being critical to the grammar, and they are.

A common dictionary of Classical Chinese particles lists 694.

To be fair, a lot of these survive as verbs, nouns and so on. Classical Chinese was very verb-schmerb when it came to functional categories, and most nouns can be verbs, and vice versa. It's all just about the vibe. But still. Six hundred and ninety four.

Some of these are optional - they're the nice 'omggg' equivalent of the modern tone particles at the end of a sentence. Some of them are smushed versions of two different particles, like 啦. Some of these, however, really do seem to have very grammatical features. Of these 694, 17 are listed as meaning ‘subsequent to and later than X’, and 8 indicate imposition of a stress upon the word they precede or follow. Some are syntactic: there are, for instance, 8 different particles solely for the purpose of fronting information: 'the man saw he'. That is very much a grammatical role, in every sense of the word.

The copula system ('to be') is also huuuuuuugely complex. I could write a whole other post about this, but I'll just say for now that the copula in Classical Chinese could be specific to degrees of logical preciseness that would make the biggest Lojban-loving computer programmer weep into his Star Trek blanket. As in, the system of positive copulas distinguishes between 6 different polar-positive copulas (A is B), 2 insistent positive (A is B), 19 restricted positive (A is only B), and 15 of common inclusion (A is like B). Some other copulas can make such distinctions as ‘A becomes or acts as B’, ‘A would be B’, ‘may A not be B?’ and so on. Copulas may also be used in a sort of causal way (not 'casual'), creating very specific relationships like ‘A does not merely because of B’ or ‘A is not Y such that B is X’.

WHEW. And all we have in modern Chinese is 是。

I think we can see that this is a little more complex. So saying 'Modern Chinese is as complex as Abkhaz, just in a different way' leaves no space for Classical Chinese to be even more complex...so....where does that leave us?

Uhhhhhh. Errrrrr.

(Don't worry, that's basically where the entire linguistics community is at too.)

The thing is, all these weird and wacky things that Classical Chinese is able to do are all optional. This is where the problem is. Our understanding of complexity, if you hark back to my last post so many moons ago, is that it's the description of what a language requires you to do. We equate that with grammar because in most of the languages we're familiar with, you can't just pick and choose whether to conjugate a verb or use a tense. If you are talking in third person, the verb has to change. It just...does. You can't not do it if you feel like it. There's not such thing as 'poetic license' - except in languages like Classical Chinese, well. There sort of is.

The problem both modern Chinese and Classical Chinese shows us to a different extent is that some languages are capable of highly grammatical things, but with a degree of optionality we would not expect. Classical Chinese can accurately stipulate to the Nth degree what, exactly, the grammatical relationship between two agents are in a way that is undoubtedly and even aggressively logical. But...it doesn't have to. As anybody who has tried anything with Classical Chinese knows, reading things without context is an absolute fucking nightmare. As a language it has the ability to also say something like 臣臣 which in context means 'when a minister acts as a minister'...but literally just means...minister minister. Go figure. It doesn't have to do any of these myriad complex things it's capable of at all.

So...what does this mean? What does all of this mean, for the question of whether all languages are equally complex?

Whilst I agree that the situation with Classical Chinese is fully batshit insane, the fact is most isolating languages are more like Modern Chinese: they don't do all of this stuff. And whilst classifiers and compounds are challenging, they're not quite the same as the strict binary correct/incorrect of many systems. I'm also just not convinced that languages need to be equally complex. However.

HOWEVER. In this essay/rant/lecture (?), I've raised more questions than I've answered. That's deliberate. I both think that a) the type of complexity Chinese shows is not 'enough' to work as a 'trade off' compared to languages like Abkhaz, and b) that this 'grammatical verbosity' and optionality of grammatical structures is something we don't know how to deal with at all. These are two beliefs that can co-exist. Classical Chinese especially is a huge challenge to current understandings of complexity, whichever side of the equicomplexity argument you stand on.

Because where do you place optionality in all of this? Choice? If a certain structure can express something grammatical, but you don't have to include it - is that more complex, or less so? Where do we rank optional features in our understanding of grammar? It's a totally new dimension, and adds a richness to our understanding that we simply wouldn't have got if we hadn't looked at isolating languages. This, right here, is the point of typology: to inform theory, and challenge it.

What do we do with this sort of complexity at all?

I don't know. And I don't think many professional linguists do either.

- meichenxi out

[mcbitchtits]

verdantrivers reblogged your post “i will not do theme park analysis of the jurassic...”

#do a theme park analysis of the jurassic world movies

so it’s worth noting I only ever saw the first jurassic world, and i thought it kind of sucked, so I never watched the rest of them.

my main reaction, aside from “i need seventy Margaritaville Isla Nublar” shirts, was that their whole park capacity was extremely low and the resort price of getting a single person in the park was going to be, like. $10,000 a day per person. so i think there’s a lot lacking in the sequels by way of the park conceit, but given the rest of the writing that’s not really surprising.

free range ride vehicles? lol. lmao. i mean i guess at $10K a day and negligible hourly capacity it becomes sort of a moot point, but i think the interesting thing about all of that is that the inevitable result is that this “theme park” is actually an extreme luxury resort. not “a luxury extreme resort”, but an “extreme luxury” resort. already the insanely wealthy are the only people who can afford to go, but you know what’s interesting about that? it’s kind of the same problem disneyland has right now.

DL has a capacity problem. they own a lot of land in anaheim but not enough for the number of people who want to go there. so for the past 20-30 years (i’m really approximating here), they’ve been jacking up ticket prices. supply and demand, right? if you only have so much capacity, then to drive disinterest, you increase the ticket prices. it hasn’t exactly worked; disney is so successful in being THE place that people want to go to and return to that there is definitely an amount of “we will pay anything” to go there. and now a one-day park hopper ticket for DL/DCA on a high capacity day are OVER TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. just to get in the door! that doesn’t include parking ($30), or food, or souvenirs. or hotels. the highest DL pass (yeah yeah, it’s not a Pass anymore, whatever) is something like $1400.

and you know what? disney is not disincentivized for their parks to be seen as a “luxury” product. the disney parks are the most consistently profitable part of the entire disney company. and i can assure you that profit is not going back into the parks much; relatively no more than any other product arm gets funding. in fact, in mostly just gets bled dry. (RIP to all the great live entertainment that has suffered lately.)

so what happens when you drive prices up for decades, completely detached from actual value? (unrelated: did you know it costs like $30K annually to be a member of club 33?)

well, you have a new problem: an american “middle class” family is starting to realize that disney dream vacations are way out of their budget. WDW is up there too, not just DL, because the hotels and travel are expensive as hell also. but do you know what the number one predictor of a family taking their kids to disney parks is? if they went as a kid themselves. so what happens when you have a generation of people who couldn’t, who can’t, afford to go? well, we don’t know yet, and also disney doesn’t care, at least in DL, because their problem right now is they have too many people. they jacked up the prices and tried to limit capacity and all that’s done so far is get them sued by passholders! (i don’t imagine this suit will go anywhere, but i’m not a lawyer, so who knows.)

anyway, what does this all have to do with jurassic world? again, I didn’t see the latest two or three or whatever we’re on. so this really lacks significant nuance and is mostly a reaction to the post about how Dominion felt empty because it was suffering the same problems “as a park” that the movie suffers “as a franchise”. I.E. the park designers trying for New and Novel and Big and Exciting when really it’s all messy and empty and totally lacking the critical elements that make it substantial and interesting.

I do agree with that analysis as a franchise problem; I think it haunts almost every franchise, any kind of episodic storytelling-- the urge to up the narrative stakes by upping the risk. I think that’s a mistake though, because 1) you eventually run out of room narratively, if you’re continually successful, and 2) as you grow the scale of the story, you also start moving away from the intimacy of your characters. And it’s very, very, very difficult to maintain a consistently growing ensemble. the characters we see in dominion are flat and empty and the stakes are impersonal and vacuous and there’s no narrative tension anymore because we’re not invested. (theoretically, i say, having not seen it.)

But anyway.

so my understanding is that the company that owns the dinos is doing this in a bid to create Bigger and Better and Newer, regardless, of, you know, ethics and sustainability and safety and whatnot. and the tumblr post is saying that this is a critical part of theme parks, which I think is a little bit inaccurate, or at least enough to bother me, even if it isn’t wholly untrue. theme parks are, generally, always building new attractions, and safety and interest are all parts of what goes into them. advertising the biggest/the fastest is a part of that (and it can get you killed).

but you know who doesn’t have to do that? disneyland.

of course, disney the company wants to see marketing putting up advertisements and driving sales to the park and whatnot. but disneyland has too many guests. they don’t have to actually drive people to come here because their problem right now is they can’t stop people from coming!

so why would Jurassic World have to? people keep coming to see the dinosaurs, generation after generation, enough where they’re willing to pay X thousands of dollars per person PER DAY likely, to do so. at that point, just having dinosaurs really might be “enough” of an attraction. you don’t have to dig into it being a zoo or not a zoo (or nahtahzu), because it probably already succeeds financially at its most central directive, which is get paying customers in the door to see dinosaurs. 

I don’t think Jurassic Park(s) are quite a 1:1 to Disneyland, and when it comes to the storytelling, I can assure you that the limited plot construction makes zero nuanced understandings to theme parks; it’s just the conceit. But I do think it’s interesting that there is this IRL luxury ticket problem, and in my estimation Jurassic World has to be a luxury resort of a kind. I doubt they’re trucking in guests with $50 tickets just to get capacity up; the park couldn’t sustain those numbers.

On the other hand-- maybe this is completely the wrong way of looking at it! Disney also just rolled out the Halcyon galactic starcruiser vacation, which is the star wars immersive experience, and they pitch it akin to their cruise line packages. (From my recollection, it’s all-inclusive sans souvenirs.)

Aaaaaand it’s potentially flopping. It’s $1200 a night, per person. (Roughly.) It’s moderately popular, but the general consensus seems to be that the prices are too expensive to maintain full interest. And it’s not because it’s bad (though, god knows they also suffered from a lot of design cutbacks), it’s just fucking expensive. From observation, after the initial months, reservations seem to have opened up a lot. However! Disney is also hinting that they want to build one in Anaheim, which also could be that it’s popular enough with the wealthier crowd.

And then Disney also just went and did this:

The luxury market may be well and truly solid, and that wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest, since wealth inequality is greater than ever. (Interestingly, I feel like this offering from Disney strikes about right on par with my Jurassic World estimation-- it’s about $10,000 per “park”, or $5000 per day per person. Presumably including flights-- which I would assume the Isla Nublar ticketing would also.)

So! There’s two ways of looking at Jurassic World imo. I really do think they are a luxury vacation in all likelihood, and in that sense you are on a completely different playing field. People don’t buy $5000 gold-plated donuts because they like them, after all. And regardless of that, I don’t think you spend decades building and rebuilding dinosaur parks if they were 1) unpopular on their own, 2) people keep going despite the fact that people have died and the parks have imploded.

OR, and this is more in line with the original plot, it’s all capitalistic roulette. Maybe it’s so absurdly pricey that they can’t attract enough guests and they can’t feed the animals. Maybe they’re cutting corners on design to save money. It’s not impossible. But again, beyond the primary conceit-- it’s a theme park, and the attractions are inherently dangerous to the point of death, beyond mere injury-- the text doesn’t bear out much detail. (Again, I say, having not seen the newer ones.) So all we’re left with is a lot of talking around stuff, analytically.

On the other hand, there is this weird thing about theme parks: they already are inherently dangerous. The animatronics in pirates of the carribbean won’t bite your face off, but you can certainly get injured trying to climb out of the boats. And how much electronic/hydraulic force do you think is behind the motions in one single animatronic figure? Now multiply that to moving a false room that’s bigger than a literal boulder. I mean, hell. The yeti cracked its foundation, and now it’s turned off for esssentially ever. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous! That’s kind of the whole magic of it!

Theme parks and amusement parks and even carny rides are all about perceived risk. There is inherent thrill from walking that line between safety and danger. These are novel problems but they’re not unheard of. I don’t think dinosaurs would really be that much different. It really all comes down to execution, which is different than design (guess who cuts the checks).

Jurassic Park/World is weird, but in some ways I don’t think it’s unrealistic. It really is a matter of hitting the right or wrong market in the right or wrong ways. And where the movie flopped, out of a sense of lacking coherency or relevance or whatever-- I completely think the park could succeed, as an attraction, commercially and profitably. New custom dinosaurs or not.

[dianapana]

SH Day 12- ANBU Black Ops

@sasuhinamonth

たえる Part 2 (taeru=to endure)

Part 1

Rated M, Ninja Universe that underwent some changes (you’ll see that I use major events in the canon world but there is a lot of history that’s altered), OOC (major OOC for Hinata especially)

Warning: self-harm, mental health, sexual harassment, trauma

Hello, dears, I play quite a bit with chronology in this chapter, I hope it's all easy to understand. I made moth things be during summer so around the time of the girl SH month which is why in all the cases you'll see Sasuke is 1year older than Hina, since his bday is in July and hers in December. I hope you enjoy, ~Love Dia

Sasuke, age 23

I think it’s fair for me to say that I’ve been through a lot, not many things shake me anymore and all the things that have made me worried in the past years have had something in common, they were all somehow related to Hinata. I remember when I woke up after the war, I was chained to a hospital bed, placed under a jutsu that blocked my chakra, I was missing a limb and I was on the verge of insanity once more. The only thing that calmed me down was her image. Even without my chakra I searched for hers. She too was in the hospital; I found her signature light purple chakra but it was so faint and small I almost missed it. Seeing her like that made me crazy with worry, once everyone left my room, I broke all the chains and dragged myself to her room despite the pain. I hadn’t thought of her as fragile since our reunion when she was 15. I could barely stand to see her that way, and even if I wanted to stay and watch over her for longer, I could feel Naruto’s chakra getting closer, which meant I had to leave. For the following weeks I could only go and see her late at night, for there was always someone in her room, Naruto, her father, her sister, some sort of nurse or medic. I recovered under a month, yet I stayed until she woke up.

I was the only one in the room when her eyes opened, she looked confused and for a moment I was sure she had amnesia and would not remember me, us. But for the briefest moment her eyes rested upon my figure and recognition was there, relief was there, gratitude, affection and many other nuances that I can never seem to read or fully comprehend reflected in her eyes. I took her hand and kissed the back of it, allowing myself a small selfish gesture before leaving the room to inform the medics she woke up. Sakura gave me a strange, questioning look when I told her Hinata had woken up, but I didn’t care about subtlety at that second, I just wanted them to check her for any issues, I wanted her to be physically fine.

She didn’t have many memories of the war when she was first questioned, but they came back in waves and waves. I could tell that the questions overwhelmed her, much like the people that littered around, there were over 10 visitors in her tiny hospital room, from her father to Naruto, Kiba and many others. I just watched the whole situation from outside her window. I noticed her looking around, searching for someone that wasn’t there. No, it wasn’t me, she knew I wouldn’t be there when other people were, I knew exactly who she was searching for, that’s why I wanted to be close by. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, I knew things would take a turn for the worse soon enough. I saw it, the exact moment the fog raised off of her memories, the moment in which reality hit her, the moment in which the remaining light in her eyes died.

She asked for Neji, Naruto cringed, her father was the one to inform her of his passing. She asked when the funeral was going to be and silence fell onto the room. Sakura tried to slowly explain that the war ended two months ago and all the dead were already long buried. Hinata cried, she cried for her fallen cousin, she cried for missing his funeral, she cried for herself. They all gave her hugs and condolences, they reassured her that none of that was her fault. They all expected her to mourn and soon enough bounce back to the façade she always kept around the people in the village. They were unaware of the emotional depth her sadness could reach. I knew their expectations would never be met, I could tell that the headspace she was in was similar to the night I found her on the forest floor, she had the same look in her eyes as when she constantly begged me to let her die. Knowing all of that, I expected her to make certain choices, yet, despite knowing what was to come, I was unable to help, there wasn’t a single moment in which she was alone for a week to come. And when it all happened, I panicked at the notion of her death and responded wrongly to her actions.

I wasn’t watching her when she attempted to kill herself, I was with Tsunade who kept insisting that I accept their fake arm. I was in the midst of refusing once more, when I could feel a commotion in her room, I left without a word and ran there. The image that was in front of me wasn’t surprising but it was just as heart-breaking. Hinata’s bed was covered in blood, her left wrist was being treated by Sakura but you could still see the long and slim-cut along her wrist, Naruto was holding her other arm trying to put pressure on her wrist to stop the bleeding. It scared me, the amount of blood on herself and the bed, her light-headedness and indifference indicated that she had been bleeding for a long time. She waited for a moment in which I wasn’t there either, she wanted to escape me too. Had Naruto and Sakura been late they might have found her corpse instead. I left the room to calm myself down, I couldn’t cause a commotion. I tried my best to come up with kind and comforting words to tell her later when I would return to her room, but when I did, the image that greeted me, her arms strapped to the bed, made me lose my composure. I screamed at her, I can’t even recall what I said but I know it was very inappropriate, she laughed, she cried. Trying to comfort her with only one arm was difficult, that was the very first moment when I even considered accepting Tsunade’s offer, but in the end I didn’t. I spent every night that followed with her, after the initial shock I was able to recall the words I meant to give her, I knew they weren’t going to miraculously fix everything but I felt that she needed them nonetheless.

She apologized for considering that path and acting on her thoughts. I undid her chains and pulled her to my lap as she talked. “The moment my eyes moved past Naruto’s shoulders and I saw you in the door frame I regretted my choice, I wished I could undo it if only to never have to see that look on your face” I placed my face into her hair and just breathed her in. “I think I understand a little better now…what you felt when Itachi died, when you found out the truth. Our situations aren’t the same but I remember how…” she stopped, searching for the perfect word.

“Crazy? Unhinged? Mad?” I provided, but she frowned and shook her head.

“No, no, none of those…how anguished, sorrowful, wretched you were at the time. You come to me in a very agitated state, I was scared and concerned but couldn’t grasp that feeling. Now I do” If I’m honest I don’t remember how felt at the time, I don’t remember many things about that period of my life, all I know is that I wanted to give up, I thought I had made only wrong choices in my life, but I saw her and I remembered that even I could save someone.

After a few more nights she assured me that she was now mentally stable, her sadness was still very much present, but she had not had any self-harming thoughts. The decision to leave the village was very difficult at the time, but Hinata assured me that she enjoyed our routine and wished to continue it. I left but our correspondence was much more frequent than before the war, I would write her every other day and she’d reply as soon as my messages reached her. It took a bit over 3 months for her to resume her work as an ANBU, and a bit over 8 months in total to convince Kakashi to promote her to ANBU Black Ops. Her missions became more difficult and longer, she even had a mission in Amegakure that lasted half a year. When she first sent me the message informing me of the location of her mission it reminded me of our first encounter after I left the village. Our encounter that summer isn’t a memory I think of fondly, I was cruel, I was insane, I abused my knowledge of her trauma. Whenever I remember my actions, I want to go back and rewind the time, I want to apologize to 15-year-old Hinata, she was meek and fragile and I broke a part of her. She was doing her best to survive and to keep going and I was a huge obstacle in her recovery. When my feelings for her started changing I was always self-conscious whether they were genuine or not, wasn’t I using her? Wasn’t I just feeling guilty?

Hinata, age 15

I am nervous as I pack my bag for this mission, it is my first solo mission ever. 6 months after I became a Jonin and Tsunade finally trusts me enough to allow me to go alone in a mission. The destination is Amegakure and the mission is supposed to last for about to 3 weeks. The difficulty level of the mission is only B which I’d be pretty annoyed at, but the distance factor and the solo factor make up for it so, I am equally nervous and excited. When I told Neji about the mission he was concerned but didn’t show it much for my sake. Instead, he congratulated me and we had a small picnic in the outer skirt of the Hyuuga estate as celebration.

Now I am looking through my dresser for appropriate clothes for the rain to pack, I have to look for another set of kunais just in case and prepare myself a couple of bentos to have on hand. Slowly, the closer the night before my departure gets the less anxious I am, excitement seems to be the winning sentiment.

The morning of, I wake up at 4:30 a.m. and am unable to sleep longer. By the time I am fully dressed and ready to go it’s only 5:00 a.m. and the sun is barely raising, but I decide that it is light enough outside for me to leave. As always whenever I pass through the forest there’s a chill going through my veins and my enthusiasm is a bit dampened, I actively try and avoid that specific place even if it means it will add to the journey time. On the schedule, Tsunade gave me I’m meant to spend 8 days on the road to the village, approximately 4 or 5 days into the village and 8 more days back.

The mission itself isn’t supposed to be that difficult all I need to do is meet with different people in the village give them the scrolls Tsunade gave me and wait for their replies. All in all, there should be no fighting, I’m mostly a messenger but the large amount of people that need contacting made it impossible for a summon raven to deliver the scrolls. My adrenaline rush of being on my own, experiencing what freedom feels like made me speed up during the journey, I took less stops and didn’t even spend the night in one of the Inns I was supposed to. Thus, not only did I depart earlier than planned but I arrived into the village almost a day and a half ahead of the schedule. Since it’s still barely past noon I decide to start the mission a day early and I am able to cover a fifth of the task on the first day.

People usually when talking about Amegakure call it gloomy and depressing, but I enjoy walking around in the rain, the temperature isn’t too high despite it being the middle of a heatwave everywhere else, the smell and sounds of rain also add to its charm. The Inn I’m supposed to stay at for the duration of my mission is on the outside of the village, it is away from the noise of the centre, but not far out enough to say it isn’t part of the village at all. Walking into my room I sit down and finally grasp that I am days away from Konoha, I am alone. The realization makes me emotional; I hadn’t realized how much I needed to be on my own, how good it would feel to put distance between me and everything that Konoha entailed.

Sitting alone in the dark, only with the occasional lightning brightening up my room, I make a decision, I promise myself to only ever come on solo missions. I’ve endured years of discomfort so I deserved to feel this way, if only during missions. I take a shower and go to bed, I’m not as physically tired as I thought I would be after the journey and that worries me. I don’t want the nightmare to come and ruin my mood, but I close my eyes nonetheless.

It feels like barely a second passed when I open my eyes and see the cool light coming from outside. The sun is hidden behind the clouds of rain, but its light still pushes through to an extent. I had no dreams, no nightmares. I rested well and I feel better than I did in many years. I walk barefoot onto the cold wooden floor and I open the window, not caring that the rain is getting both me and the floor wet. I close my eyes and feel immensely liberated, the heavy chains that dragged me down at all times disappeared. Nobody here knows me and I don’t know them, I am but a face in the crowd, this anonymity offers me the independence I never knew before.

I complete the mission in under 3 days. I feel faster, stronger, happier here. It feels like I can do anything and everything. I have about 3 days I can waste in the village, under normal circumstances I’d return immediately to Konoha to get another mission and the cycle would repeat. But I decide to stay here for a while longer, I want to enjoy this feeling to the best of my ability. The day right after completing the mission I simply stay inside and sleep almost the whole day. I’m recharging my batteries which have been on low for 3 years now. I forgot what being well-rested felt like.

The following day I decide to wander around some more. The mission had me walk all over the village’s centre so, I decide to check out its outskirt more. I go and eat delicious food at a small booth owned by an older couple. Due to its relatively small scale Amegakure’s buildings are much much higher than those from Konoha so I climb on top of one that I deem to be among the highest and sit there, in the rain just watching the busy streets, looking over all the sky-high buildings and enjoying the feeling of being unrestrained by people’s gazes and expectations. For the smallest second, I feel someone’s gaze on me but I discard it as being the locals looking at the strange outsider that’s standing in the rain. I refuse to let my mood be dampened, not when I am just as high as this building is.

I return to the Inn and decide to take a shower, tomorrow is going to be my last day here and I feel like time is moving far too fast. I’m rinsing my hair when I get the same feeling as before, like someone is watching me. Before I can dismiss it again, I hear steps behind me, my mind goes blank. I’m suddenly turned around by a powerful hand, before closing my eyes I see a pair of black dead, unfeeling, cold, cruel, scary, scary, scary, scary eyes. I close my eyes and clench my jaw; I can feel tears trailing down my face. I’m hyperventilating, I can’t move, I’m weak, I’m small. I whimper when I feel his hand touching the scar right above my pelvis. The touch transports me back to when I’m 12 and on the ground, my legs no longer support me, the only reason why I’m still standing is because the man is holding my arm in an iron grip. The moment passes and his hand is gone allowing me to fall to my knees and then onto my butt. I have no idea how long I stay there in a trance. When I’m finally able to regain strength in my limbs to feel and make small movements I notice the shower water is freezing cold despite it being set to warm. I turn it off and walk into the room, there’s no trace of the man anymore, he didn’t do anything beyond touching my arm and my scar. Maybe he was simply created by my brain, yea no one was here, how could they be, why would they be.

I can feel myself slipping into hysteria as laughter bubbles up into my throat. I look around the room again searching for proof again and I sigh in relief when I find none. I’m finally calm enough to get dressed but I make the mistake of looking in the mirror. There’s a handprint on my arm where he gripped me. The print is red and turning a weird purple colour in places and yellow in others. He was here. He was real. I take small breaths in order to calm myself, I am fine, I am here, I can’t even picture the face of the man that was here, I try to force myself to forget the handprint, it was just a dream, another nightmare.

I pack my things and leave that very night despite being tired physically, mentally and emotionally. I don’t want to return to Konoha, and I can’t stay here, I don’t know where to go. The freedom I felt before gave me an amazing sense of accomplishment, but now it is a source of unease. I feel lost and like I do not belong anywhere. I feel insignificant. I feel lonely. I close my eyes and just sit on the floor outside of the village, waiting for something or someone to come get me. But nothing happens and the weather is turning cold despite the summer so I pick myself up and start walking wherever the road will take me.

I don’t remember the journey back home, I can’t even tell in how many days I completed it, I didn’t stop at all, I just ran. I ran from the man, the past, I ran from my weak self. I thought myself to be strong now that I am a Jonin, but I froze and was unable to do anything all the same. I need to be more than I am, I need to be stronger, braver, untouchable, more perceptive.

I hate myself for hesitating to enter the Konoha, I hate myself for hesitating to take on a new mission when Tsunade offers it. I hate myself when I have to walk through the halls of the Hyuuga compound, I hate myself when I hide from Neji. I hate myself when I walk into my room and burst into tears. I hate myself for getting my hope that high in Ame only to have them all crash and burn. I hate that I feel more broken today than I did 3 weeks ago.

Sasuke, age 16

I’ve been in a weird mood since a week ago when I saw Hyuuga in the Village Hidden in Rain. I hadn’t heard or seen anything related to Konoha since I left during the Chunnin exam. She was my first contact with it. Hinata Hyuuga, I remember her name clearly, she holds a special meaning to me, she is a life I saved. I saved her back before I was caught up in any business with Orochimaru, when I still thought following Kakashi was the right path to take, back when I was stupid and naïve. I hadn’t thought of her since that moment, but when my eyes fell onto her, I felt proud that she survived, but I also felt the need, the urge to utterly crush her beneath my feet. Her life belongs to me; I saved her so, I have every right to destroy her.

I could tell she was uncomfortable with me there, I felt her flinch as I traced the scar above her pelvis, I heard her whimper when I turned around, and I saw from the corner of my eye, as her legs have in and she fell to the floor. She looked small and pathetic and I felt strong in comparison.

However, now, days later I feel…guilt. I feel as if I used something against her that I shouldn’t have. At the time her image was blurry and not something I paid attention to, but I can clearly see it now whenever I close my eyes. He white skin had almost no imperfections besides the three scars, her eyes were shut tight, her face was red and wet, at the time I gloated at the thought that the water droplets were tears, now I’m hoping they were from the shower. Her long dark hair was wet and clinging to her body. She did her best to hide from me with her hands, with her position slightly bent. She was helpless, she didn’t even try to stop me, she didn’t scream or fight back, she froze in place and allowed me to do whatever I wanted. At the time that too made me feel powerful, I deluded myself into thinking that my presence as Sasuke Uchiha made her cower in fear. Now that I am analysing things once more, I realize it was her trauma that rendered her powerless, it was my presence that caused her fear, but she wasn’t scared of me, Sasuke, but rather of me, a male; she didn’t see me as an individual but as the image of the man that hurt her in the past.

Realizing that in her mind I was equal to that disgusting piece of trash makes me livid. I clench my jaw, pick up the first thing I see, a jar of whatever substance from one of Orochimaru’s labs and I throw it to the wall. The green liquid escapes its container and slowly eats away at the wall and ground, the sizzling noise and putrid smell don’t even bother me. I’m angry at her, I want to find her and scream in her face that I’m not that man. I wanna shake her until she understands. I am mad at her, at myself. Kabuto comes in and curses, he drags me out and talks under his breath, his presence adds to my anger.

“What do you want?” I ask him, I’m looking down at him. I grew taller these past few weeks, taller than him. I want him to pick a fight, I want a reason to smash his face in. The image of his bloody face as he lays unconscious on the ground would bring me the satisfaction I need. He looks mockingly at me, that’s enough to start a fight.

Less than 20 minutes later the fight is over, he’s not unconscious, he’s still standing, more precisely, walking away. But he is bleeding and so am I. The fight didn’t help. I still feel angry, but my anger is slowly being overshadowed by guilt.

The sudden urge to find her and apologize overcomes me, but I dismiss it. She’s long gone…I checked. The two of us won’t meet anytime soon and even if we do, I’ll never apologize, not to her, not to someone that…weak…

Hinata age 22

After sleeping in until 11 after all, I wake up to Sasuke’s face next to mine, I feel at ease, I feel happy. I cup his face and place a kiss over his closed eyelids. I feel his change in breath when he wakes up but his eyes remain closed. His arm comes around my waist and pulls me closer to him, slowly he opens his eyes and offers me a lazy smirk. For a while I forget that we’re in Konoha, I forget everything about people trying to control me. All my worries just disappear with his presence.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks and brushes my bangs out of my eyes. ‘You’ I want to say, but I decide to be selfish instead. I sit up and he does too, I move towards him and place myself on his lap, we are chest to chest, face-to-face. “I am unsure how long they’ll make me stay here. This... sensei job…they could stretch it for months, who knows.” I hate that that’s true, I hate that they’re trying to cage me into the village. “it’s difficult being here for an indefinite period of time, especially since I don’t have out missions to look forward to. So…” I stop talking, rethinking what I’m about to ask, wondering if it’s worth it, but he looks at me with no judgement, he’s waiting patiently. “So…I was thinking. Maybe being here in Konoha would be better…if you were here as well” Part of me initially regrets the words and wants to take them back.

“You want me to stay here until you can go back to your normal missions” he didn’t formulate it as a question so I didn’t reply, mostly because I didn’t trust myself not to say no, to act like it was a joke, so I stay silent. “Ok, I will” his hand is on my wrist and it’s slowly moving up under my tank top. “You should already know that anything you ask of me, I’ll do Hinata” I do know that, but this was something that I had been afraid to ask for a while. Would staying in Konoha be better with him here? It must be.

We talk some more about his stay in Konoha and then proceed to eat a late breakfast. “I passed by the cottage outside of Amegakure on my way to Konoha” that cottage will forever represent my safe space, all my memories in it are out-of-this-world happy. The cottage itself is pretty much outside every territory of every village, it belongs to nobody, yet that’s the place I feel I belong in. I stayed there for my thirst or fourth mission as an ANBU, as usual Sasuke met up with me and we live together there for months. Sasuke and I worked together for most of my missions, we completed them faster than it was estimated they would take and we spent the remaining of the time just being together outside of all the rules of everyone. That was the place in which after much deliberation and inner-fights I decided to put my trust in him. By then we had already expressed our feelings verbally and with actions such as kisses and hugs, but I wanted to move past that because I craved that closeness with someone, I wanted a stronger bond between us, but also out of spite, I wanted to prove that I was able to enjoy sex. I wanted to prove that what had happened no longer affected me. Out first time was a bit awkward, we were both virgins, Sasuke was overly conscious of making me feel comfortable and I just wanted it to be done with so our desired speed didn’t match, but it happened and it was fine. The second and third time around it was much better and now we reached a point in which intimacy with him doesn’t scare me in the least, I love it and it makes me feel amazing. I am aware that I’m not fully over the incident, the close proximity of strange men that I don’t know still bothers me at times, however, I am much stronger and able to protect myself, I am just...wary.

I end my train of thoughts by going back to the memory of our first time and it makes me giggle a little. Sasuke asks me with his eyes what I’m laughing about and my reply is only a smirk, I see the wheels spinning in his brain and the connections being made. I love that after so many years we’re able to just understand each other in this manner. He gets up from his chair and walks around the table to place his hand on the nape of my neck. “I can show you how much I’ve improved since than” he whispers and bends down to kiss me. I smile against his lips and loop my arms around his neck allowing him to pick me up.

I must have fallen asleep again because I am woken up this time by Naruto loudly knocking on my door. He left me alone yesterday because Sasuke was around but I guess even his long-lost best friend can’t keep his attention off of me for more than 24 hours. I look next to me and my heart hurts because Sasuke isn’t there. I tell myself it’s because he felt Naruto so he left, but I still don’t like that.

Naruto keep knocking on the door and I’m sure he’s about to tear it down if I don’t open it soon so I walk to it in my pjs with my hair a mess. When I open the door, he stops in his tracks. “Oh…” his eyes linger onto the scar on my shoulder, he has an obsession with it I’ve noticed. Does he believe that’s my biggest scar…if only he knew. “I didn’t know you were sleeping, I’m sorry”

“After yesterday’s mission the kids have the day off so I wanted to rest” I don’t assure him that it is ok even though I know that’s the polite thing to do. I am bitter and annoyed that Sasuke isn’t there. For a split moment when I woke up, I thought I had imagined his presence.

“I just wanted to bring these to you.” He says and presents me with a pile of papers. “I know you were given them before when Kakashi assigned you as their sensei” hah, like it was Kakashi’s idea. Hokage-sama wouldn’t have pushed me into being a sensei from a Black Ops and we all know that. I know Naruto pulled all of the strings to get me here, however, Kakashi-san is also to blame for allowing all of this to happen “but I think you should really read them well, you said you have a free day today. I can stay here with you and read them together”

I look at him and his easy-going smile. On normal days I’d try and be nice, but all I want to do today is spend my time in peace. “I heard Uchiha-san is back. Are you sure you want to spend the day with me reading about some kids rather than catch up with him?” I feel sorry for guiding Naruto towards Sasuke, but I know Sasuke and if he’s one thing, he’s good at not being found.

Upon hearing Sasuke’s name Naruto’s smile brightened to the extent that it actually hurt my eyes. “I already saw and talked to him today” He left before Naruto came here, was it before we ate? After? When did they meet? “We talked and agreed to go on a mission together this week” He’s leaving after I asked him to stay “We went to Kakashi and already got all the info, so I’ll spend a lot of time together with him and find out all about what he’s been up to in these years and I ---” Naruto keeps talking but I feel suffocated.

[harryspet]

little doe [2] peter parker

[Warnings] aged up peter parker x oc, multiverse oc, peter being domestic af, mj exists but she’s not with peter, doe goes into heat, dd lg dynamic, broken english, some sexy stuff, fingering

A/N: Thank you for the feedback on the last post! 

Like, reblog and let me know what you think!

word count: 2.6k

Peter was an early riser. Not because he enjoyed it but because he was so used to four a.m. calls from Fury. In the morning, he woke up disoriented mostly because he didn’t even recognize the room he was in. It took him a moment to realize all the events of yesterday. Doe, a superhuman from another version of earth, was now living in his apartment. 

“Peter,” although her voice was silvery and light, Peter almost jumped out of his skin. He had forgotten that he had fallen asleep in her bed, mostly against his will. 

“Doe,” Peter clutched his chest because his heart was beating so fast, “Jesus, you scared me.”

The young girl was now sitting up in the bed, her white hair now a bit tangled, and she seemed to worry about the way he was holding his chest, “Peter?” Even first thing in the morning, he thought she was beautiful. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” He assured her as he sat up in the bed. He had to remind himself that he had to adjust the way he spoke to her because she didn’t understand the nuances of the language. She reached out to touch his hand and Peter simply stared as she grabbed it, wrapping her hand in his, “Well … good morning.”

Peter looked at the clock on her nightstand to see it was only seven in the morning. With his other hand, since Doe was still holding his other, Peter rubbed his tired face, “Maybe we should sleep in. Sleep, Doe.”

He gestured for her to lay back down but she raised an eyebrow. He tried to pull his hand from hers but she only gripped his tighter. Looking at her, the girl was clearly wide awake now. Maybe they ran on less sleep on her version of earth. 

Fine, he was used to this. Peter sighed, “We’ll start the day early then,” Peter hoped by noon she’d be tired and they could take a nap. 

Peter moved to climb at the bed and she followed him, still keeping their hands interlaced. “Good morning! Good morning!” Doe exclaimed, practically bouncing. He showed her to the bathroom and, luckily, the functions of the bathroom translated well. 

To say the least, Doe was not shy at all. If it was up to her, she’d hold his hand through the shower, when she was brushing her teeth, and even when she was relieving herself. He had to pry his fingers from her, deciding that he had to lay down the rules or she’d never have any sort of independence, “Doe, I like when you hold my hand, I do,” He squeezed her hand and smiled, “But we don’t need to hold hands in the bathroom.” He shook his head. 

She frowned, of course, but he promised he’d keep the bathroom cracked open as he waited in her room. 

“Peter?” He shouldn’t have been surprised when she arrived in the doorway, completely naked. He stared, only for a moment, and then realized he hadn’t given her any clothes to change into. 

“Stay there,” He spoke sharply and she froze. He looked through the drawer of clothes and pulled out the first dress he could find and then the … underwear. He tried not to look down as he handed her the clothes. 

Peter turned around and released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. 

She tapped his shoulder when she was done and then she was standing there, her wet hair dripping onto her mint green dress. 

He was already drained and didn’t feel like attempting to help her dry her hair. Instead, he said, “Okay, Peter’s turn,” He had a feeling that he might be speaking in the third person from now on. 

She interlaced their fingers again and Peter led her out of the room and down the hallway. The rising sun lit up the apartment thanks to the far wall practically only being made of windows. He told her to sit on his bed and she obeyed without hesitance. She was still bouncing with excitement, ready to begin the day. 

“Stay, Doe. Okay?” Peter raised his hands into two thumbs up. She stared down at her own fingers before mimicking him. 

“Stay,” She repeated. 

He had to admit, though he was glad to get a moment alone, he didn’t like not being able to see her. Peter went on with his routine, changing into a regular t-shirt and grey sweatpants. A lazy Sunday was hopefully ahead. 

Doe had wandered around Peter’s room which didn’t seem to have nearly as many decorations as hers. She wondered why Peter wanted her to sleep in a different room than hers. Were their souls not intertwined? Maybe since Peter was from this version of earth, he couldn’t feel the same bond that she did. 

She found a couple of photo frames. Peter with a tall girl with dark and curly hair. Peter with an older lady who looked just like him and Peter with an older man with a goatee. He was smiling so hard in that one. Doe picked it up, tracing her fingers over Peter’s face noting how young he looked. 

She hadn’t even looked up as Peter returned from the bathroom. Peter walked over calmly, already knowing what she was looking at, “Peter?” She pointed at the man standing beside him in the photo, “You … you,” She searched for the right word, “F-fa… f-”

But he shook his head, a solemn look on his face, “No, he’s not my father. He was a great man though.”

Doe raised an eyebrow, “Sad?” 

Peter nodded, “Yes, but not because of Doe,” He tried to assure her. 

She pressed a hand to her chest to say “my” and then tried out the new word again, “F-Father, he leave.” He hadn’t even thought about the Family she was probably missing. She had grown to like him so easily that he hadn’t even considered it. 

“Your father? He left?” She nodded but he had the idea that “leaving” to her meant something different. Something darker. He wasn’t sure how to talk to her when there was such a barrier between them, “I’m sorry.”

Peter grabbed her hand this time and Doe smiled. Then she moved closer, leaning into him and, out of instinct, Peter wrapped his arms around her. 

Perhaps that barrier was just in his head. It seemed that this, their touch, was all each other needed in that moment. 

+

He had poured Doe a bowl of cereal as he made a cup of coffee and some toast for himself. And, like everything else, Doe didn’t like the way he did things. She wanted the toast and coffee and, when Peter insisted she eat her own meal, she climbed into his lap and started to eat his food. Really, it was most likely because she didn’t want to sit in her own chair. 

The dimension she was from must lack the concept of personal space. They weren’t together, she couldn’t just sit in his lap platonically. She shouldn’t be comfortable with him seeing her naked and he definitely shouldn’t have liked it.

Realizing he had to lay down the law once again, he lifted the girl and returned her back to her seat. Besides that, he did not want to see her with caffeine in her system, “Your chair, your food,” He told her before returning to his seat, “My chair, my food.”

She scowled at him, picking up her spoon, “Peter i-is . . . mean.”

Peter froze, in the middle of taking a sip of his coffee. She was learning faster than he expected, “I’m not mean,” Peter spoke, sounding offended, “You are a brat.”

“Not brat!” She didn’t understand what it meant but knew it was an insult, “Peter is brat.”

Her hands curled around the spoon tightly as she grew frustrated. Peter suddenly remembered that he hadn’t given her the suppressant pills. He stood up from his seat, “Doe, eat your cereal,” he spoke sharply, “Now.”

She took a few breaths as if to calm herself down before dipping her spoon into her cereal. Of course, she thought it was delicious. All this was only to prove some type of dominance over him and Peter decided he couldn’t tolerate it. 

Peter walked into the kitchen and opened the small kit that Pepper had given him. It had several weeks worth of pills as well as some sedatives in case she lost control. He collected two pills and a glass of water. 

When he returned to the table, she had finished her food but she was staring off sadly. He held out the pills to her and she simply stared, “Doe is not brat,” She told him, sounding resolute. 

“No, it was mean to call you a name, I’m sorry” Peter sighed, setting down the glass of water, “But Doe has to listen to Peter. Peter is in charge and he will take care of Doe.”

“Doe is sorry.”

He gestured to the pills again and she took them from his hand, swallowing them before grabbing the water. “Good girl,” Peter brushed his hand through her hair and she blushed, “How about we watch a movie?”

+

If they had a version of TV in Doe’s dimension, she certainly didn’t act like it. She was entranced by pretty much every movie he put on the TV and they had gone through several of the Star Wars and Terminator movies. Despite them being his favorites, she wasn’t nearly as impressed as when they got to the cartoons.

The giant blue genie on the thumbnail intrigued her and then he watched her fall in love with both Princess Jasmine and Abu. She was crying, holding his hand tightly, as Aladdin gave the genie his freedom, “Again!” She shouted her new favorite word as she forced Peter to play the movie again. “Please,” She added quietly and Peter only laughed. 

And that’s how they ended up watching Aladdin three times in a row. Luckily, as it played for the fourth time, Doe rested her head on Peter’s stomach and began to doze off. 

Peter gently moved her head to rest on a pillow before standing and covering her with a blanket. He had a missed call from MJ that he hadn’t wanted to take while he was alone with Doe. Peter walked to his office and slowly shut the door. 

“MJ, hey-”

“Ned told me everything. I knew you were hiding something, Parker,” She interrupted him and spoke in her usual cool, monotone voice, “You’re keeping a literal alien in your apartment? Did something in your brain ever say ‘hey, that might not be a good idea’”

“You want to meet her, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Peter smiled, walking over to the window, “You realize that her existence disproves a million known scientific theories. She’s probably valuable too. I bet a bunch of countries would be interested. You’d probably never have to work another day in your life-”

“You talking about selling her to a foreign government is not convincing me to let you meet her.”

“Fine, sorry,” MJ continued, “Here’s something that will. You know literally nothing about girls.”

“That’s not true!” Peter exclaimed defensively, “I’ve dated … I dated you for christ sake, MJ!”

“That is highly debatable,” MJ laughed, “Anyways, I can help! Feminine projects, did you think to buy those?”

Peter was silent for a moment, “Well …”

“Does she have bras that fit? Things to do her hair?”

Peter raised an eyebrow, “Do you even have those things yourself, MJ?”

“I’ll see you soon, Peter,” MJ said before hanging up and Peter only pressed his lips into a thin line. Peter knew she’d keep her word and, knowing her, she probably had her own key to his place. 

When Peter walked back into the living room, he heard Doe calling for him. Well, that nap lasted quicker than he thought. As he made his way to the couch, he realized something was very wrong. Her face and skin had turned a shade of red and she looked like she was hyperventilating, “Peter,” She gasped, tears in her eyes. 

He rushed to her side, flinging the blankets away as he tried to find where she was hurt. He saw lines of blue, like electricity, running beneath her skin. He gulped. He couldn’t find any physical wounds but she was writhing as if something in her core was wrong. She clutched her stomach as she continued to moan his name. 

“Doe, Doe,” He was panicking, it was their first real day together and it was already going so wrong. She didn’t answer, only moaned his name. Peter cursed, pulling out his phone to call Pepper. 

Peter placed a hand on her forehead, she was burning, “Please pick up, please-”

“Peter, is everything okay?”

“No, something happening to Doe. She’s burning up and she’s holding her stomach. I think something's very wrong.”

“I’m not sure what it could be … I’ll have a doctor sent over. If he can’t figure it out then we’ll have to run some tests. A sedative will help while you wait,” Peter was already running to the kitchen, grabbing one of the needles. He might vomit in the process, but he would do anything to ease her pain. 

He expected her to be afraid but her mind seemed to be elsewhere. As the needle entered her arm, she winced and began to cry even more. He put the syringe on the coffee table before sitting on the couch and lifting the girl into his lap. 

“I’ve got you,” He spoke softly though his heart was racing fast, “I’ve got you.”

She shifted reaching a shaky hand to touch his cheek, “Peter,” she spoke again, “hot.”

“I know, you must have a fever, Doe,” He couldn’t understand how she had gotten sick so quickly, “Just rest, the sedative should kick in any moment.”

She didn’t close her eyes, she shifted, positioning herself so she was straddling his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling her face into his neck, and Peter wrapped his arms around her. They were so close that he was starting to feel that heat too. This was more than a fever, Peter thought, but as he held her he could feel some of the heat melting away. 

“Peter,” He felt her breath against his neck and a shiver went down his spine. That’s when she started to move her hips against him, “Hot … please Peter …” She was begging now. 

His hand fell down to her thigh and he felt her bare skin as his hand rose up her dress. He could feel her nodding and she grinded harder against him, “Doe,” he was begging now, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stop if she kept going, “Doe … I can’t.”

Then she bit at his neck and then kissed the spots she bruised. She reached back to grab his hand, moving it so it was positioned between her legs, “Please,” she begged, and he felt the heat of her sex. She held his hand there, grinding against his hand now, “Take care.”

Heat. 

The need to be … relieved was causing her sickness. He followed his instincts, now beginning to move his fingers in a circle against her most sensitive part. She lifted her head, tilting it all the way back. “Thank you,” She mumbled over and over and he watched as the color came back to her skin. 

She shook as she finally reached a climax and as she moaned his name, Peter’s eyes darkened. 

She breathed heavily and her skin was cold against his as she fell back against him, “Peter .,, t-thank you,” She whispered. She rested against him and he knew she was sleeping now. 

It seemed he was more powerful than the sedative.

+

Thank you for reading! My idea for Doe is that, in her universe, there’s an A/B/O type of dynamic in society. 

Please reblog or send me an ask if you’d like to be added to a taglist! My request are OPEN so if you have a specific peter drabble you want me to write then I can! Also, if you have any ideas/wishes for this series then feel free to send me an ask too. 

part 3 is up!

[synthmusic91]

thoughts? kjfhlkjdfh asking bc i rb'd the original post from u a bit ago because i agreed w/ original poster but i just saw this rb of it and wanted to know what u thought. ciaran(.)tumblr(.)com /post/652413157345820673/there-is-a-genre-of-posts-thats-obsessed-with-the

well first of all i hope this isn't a bait ask. this reply really doesn't deserve the time and effort i put into refuting it, but there was a point in time when i was emotionally confused by these..."arguments", so whoever u are, anon, i hope this is helpful. i also recommend some distance - literally, "go outside and touch grass", which is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it needs to be done. anyway, here's my "analysis":

for context, here's what the post in question said:

and the tags:

at a high level, we can see that what ciaran is saying doesn't really respond to what OP was talking about. for this reason, i'm not going to bring in much of what OP said, because it's uncontested in this context, and look at ciaran's reply. i'll try to break this up...

EDIT: i had a long-ass response here, but then i realized it was dumb because the source material is dumb. i cut out most of it, but here are the highlights.

"there is a genre of posts that’s obsessed with the notion that fandom is something much larger, more prevalent, and more able to affect the way media is processed and consumed, than it actually is in reality."

so, as we can all see on tiktok and, indeed, on the electronic lore olympus billboard that takes up a side of a literal skyscraper, fandom is no longer the niche thing that "fandom olds" make it out to be. also, we can't ignore how many (white) fandom players go on and work in the industry (cassandra clare, whoever wrote 50 shades, man idk much of anything so there's probably many more). so this comment is sort of myopic. and since this is what characterizes the rest of the reply, well...it's not great.

also don't look up lore olympus; it's basically a dd/////lg fanfic that happens to be one of the most popular series on the line webtoon app, which is rated for teens...and for $1 to the creator's patreon, you can view not sfw p*dophilic art, so. also obviously i didnt do that; there was a video essay about this. i can't find it though

"ironically but understandably, these posts are made by people who are so terminally fandom-poisoned that they ascribe phenomenal power to it, and think of it as some great evil that must be defeated (by making posts on tumblr, which is obviously a very influential thing to do)"

"fandom-poisoned" is such a nebulous term, especially since it appears to mean "has had some really significant, (in this context) bad experiences with fandom." this is, first of all, a huge assumption to make about a stranger, and second, not the own they think it is. i'm just going to link this post, and hopefully you can see how it relates.

anyway, the "making posts on tumblr is meaningless" is um...interesting, seeing as off the top of my head i can think of two very influential tumblr blogs that talk about really important issues, Gradient Lair and Red Light Politics. I don't know as much about Red Light Politics, but Gradient Lair is frequently cited by academics (not getting into academia nonsense now but... -_-). also, they sound more pissed that the original post did gain traction, but whatever. this paragraph doesn't really make sense, but nothing here does, because i wasn't given much to work with.

"...and then because these people have basically no imagination and unfailingly pick on others for their own faults, they project their own experiences on everyone they perceive as being more ‘in fandom’ than them,"

jesus christ. i'm going not say anything about the tone of this because i put too much effort into this for some rando to call me a cyberbully.

i think what they're thinking about is how there appear to be some "fandom critical" people who try to, holistically, "ruin everyone's good time" by "stirring up drama" about popular fandom artists/writers/whoever else idk. oftentimes these people will also make jokes about fandom whatever, seemingly picking on random people's interests.

however, if you look at the long history of fandom racism, fandom's normalization of p*dophilia, and even general fandom harassment, and then you look at fandom's visceral, unwarranted reaction to criticism regarding these things, you can quickly see that disillusionment towards fandom is entirely reasonable. as for the joking, well...this an oversimplification but not everyone needs to like what you like. it sounds like they just need to get over themself.

and go “You, a 27 year old queer blogger who is into [tv show/anime/movie] an embarrassing amount, are now going to be the face of Capitalism” with no self-reflection or critical thought given to how fucking cringe it is-"

so, i'm regretting putting so much effort into this because this is so fucking long and i have to analyze this nonsense...it feels like i'm back in my feminist thought class. nightmarish. but anyway, this seems to deal with- [CUT FOR LENGTH. nothing important was missed].

EDIT 2: actually here's a summary of what I had. it deserves better than to be a response to this nonsense, but first it detailed how this took 1. the op's post and 2. a comment that we don't even know if op agreed with and misinterpreted that, and threw quite a fit about this- and i hate to say this because this term is misused so often by redditors, but- strawman.

I then went on to discuss how, for example, PoC can uphold systems of white supremacy. while obviously no person of color is going to be the "face" of white supremacy, the discussion still needs to be had, especially within that group. similarly, while fandom constituents may not be the face of capitalism, there needs to be a discussion, within fandom, on how they support and are defined by capitalist (and other) systems.

it was really too good of a point to be making for this trash reply. I could go say more, but I'm still trying to stay on topic, unlike ciaran.

"to act like random people on the internet, end users with no influence over corporate decisions, are the ones personally responsible for the fact that late-stage capitalism has destroyed popular art and culture in an increasingly sordid attempt to make money."

we've been over the "no influence" bit - because in fact fans do have influence, especially since media creators are literally fans, etc etc. i'm tired of people acting like they have no power and using that as an excuse to support and perpetuate harmful, easily avoidable behavior.

also, to act like the nebulous system of late-stage capitalism is the only cause of bad media is ludicrous. first of all, someone has to make these so-called "corporate decisions", and the people making artistic decisions are, again, overwhelmingly members of "fandom." this comment is really trying to keep marvel trash and lore olympus-esque nonsense in the same atomic, indivisible category lest someone catches a whiff of nuance.

"the above post is a great example of this phenomenon because op admits freely that they only think fandom is destroying media because they have been spending more time in fandom and thus have an over-inflated sense of its importance in greater culture. posting your own Ls indeed."

i'm so tired. this person literally has 120 works on ao3 like...who is spending more time in fandom.

and the tags:

#i assure you that fandom has no bearing on my actual real life #and if it does on yours. then that is your problem #it's also a very funny problem to

now this is just egregiously tone deaf. you do not need to do more than a cursory google search to find a bottomless well of examples of fandom harassment, threats, doxxing, and violence, much of which is racially motivated. you can see why it would be bad to make fun of this. 

also the way that “fandom has no bearing on their actual real life“...120 fanfics on ao3. 120.

conclusion:

the reply clearly misinterprets of op's point, and as such, does not refute it. they responded to another issue altogether, which is that of the sanctity of their ~coping mechanism~ or whatever it is. their argument in this respect was, in my opinion, delusional and pathetic, especially given that they wrote it on someone else's unrelated post.

FINAL NOTE: i cut out lots of this because the reply went in so many different directions, so some stuff might not make sense. let me know if you have any questions.

[whenimaunicorn]

An Ill-Advised Wager

 The lurid tale of how I lost my dignity in a bet to a pirate captain, and how in return he gave me my first orgasm that very night.

Fandom: Black Sails Characters: Charles Vane x Original Female Character (Ranger crew member) Words: 8874 Rating: Explicit Content Warnings: I don’t think there are any; the consent is very clearly negotiated. Dirty talk, oral and p/v sex that gets slightly rough.

“Your bid.” Captain Vane’s deep voice purred across the table at me, his cards held at a careless angle in front of his chest.

The lamplight flickered as the ship swayed. The captain’s quarters were lit just well enough to see the cards by, and for me to try and read the faces of the other players. At this particular moment, I was not concerned about Jack and Anne; the only countenance I cared to read was Vane’s. This, this seemed like the time to make my move. “I’ll bid—” I had to stop myself short when I glanced down, my fingers finding only one thin coin left to my name. I frowned down at it.

“Just about out of options,” the captain observed, leaning forward with the hint of a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Not much left to bet.”

I pulled a face and tossed the coin toward the center of the table. “It’ll have to do. Just means I’ll be coming back a little slower after I win this hand.”

Vane regarded me from under heavy brows. “You would’ve bet more on this one, if you had it.”

My eyes flashed to his and I gave him only a quick nod. Better to appear like I was pretending to be more confident than I felt; in my experience that seemed to be the best way to bluff our Captain.

“What if I let you wager something else?”

I lifted a brow at him, trying to look skeptical. In truth, I was jumping to accept any deal he proposed; I was that certain that I would win the round. What with the queen I had hidden up my sleeve. “What could I have that you want?”

“Nothing you have to part with.” He settled back in his chair. “But if you wanted to wager a night in your bed, that would be something I would consider to be of great value.” He inched forward quite a few glimmering stacks of his own coin, showing how he would match the bet. Just the kind of large take I was saving that card for.

It was hard to keep my face impassive, so taken aback was I. I quibbled, to stall for time, and let the rest of my mind catch up with the escalating situation. “My bed is a hammock surrounded by your snoring, unwashed crew. Not sure you want to share that tonight.”

“Fine, then wager a night in mine,” Vane countered. His eyes glittered as bright as the gold as he waited for my response.

Jack Rakham coughed loudly. We both completely ignored him, staring each other down.

Was the captain serious? His deep-set eyes did not waver as he watched every nuance of my reaction. I didn’t have time to think about whether I believed he actually wanted to sleep with me. I pushed back my own foolhardy, burning desire, the one that I had always carefully hidden from him, and decided that it didn’t matter, anyway. I wasn’t going to lose. I could sort out the rest later.

“Done.”

Vane pushed forward a pile of coin so large that it made Anne suck in a breath through her teeth. I did feel my own cheeks color at the idea of what he would pay for me, were I for sale. “Show ‘em.”

I let my cards spill to the table, my hidden card now switched in and completing a high-value set. The only way I could possibly be beaten would be…

Vane laid his own hand across the table. Too many kings smirked up at me from that row. My stomach sank.

Vane drew his glittering stacks back to his edge of the table. Then he reached out and swiped up my own last coin between two long fingers.

I could have said something. I’d been counting the cards; there shouldn’t have been that many kings left in the deck. But I knew Jack habitually counted cards as well. If I said something about Vane’s foul play, Jack was likely to point out that I was cheating, too. Maybe that would have been enough to end the game right here, declare the round moot and undo the terms of the wager. Maybe. But I looked across the table at the way Vane was staring at me through his eyelashes. I imagined what it would feel like to be pinned underneath that body on his big bed, and after that I couldn’t say anything at all.

I turned and poured myself a drink.

He didn’t gloat. He didn’t tease, he didn’t try to touch me, he didn’t say one word about the terms I had just agreed to. The game went on without me. What did that mean? The captain had never indicated this kind of interest in me before. Was it just a power move, just part of the game?

I kept stealing glances at his face. Every time, he caught me, and gave me heavy looks back, until I felt as flustered as a schoolgirl. Jack kept the conversation going, talking about anything but the wager that had just transpired. He was almost babbling, really, and shooting me concerned looks whenever he thought Vane wasn’t looking. Anne’s face was smoldering; but she always looked like that. No way to tell if she was furious with the captain, or with me, or if she was thinking about something completely different.

I couldn’t hold Vane’s eyes, now. I looked anywhere but his face whenever he was staring at me, and even ignored when he tried batting at my foot with his under the table. I had been very careful never to invite being looked at in a sexual way by any of the men on this crew. I was lucky to have found as much acceptance as I had, here. Certainly Anne had paved the way for that, but I knew the balance was precarious. I had decided that I had to be untouchable; that would be the only way to fit in with the men without causing problems. Or having to fight off constant advances. And now here Vane was, about to ruin my reputation. I shouldn’t have been so cocky.

“Well, it does seem like it’s time to retire,” Jack said, staring forlornly into the mouth of the rum bottle. He upended it over his mug without gaining more than a single, final drop. He and Anne started scooping their remaining coin into purses.

I, having nothing left on the table, looked at my hands awkwardly.

They rose, and I thought to stand with them, but the captain cleared his throat and I dropped my butt back into the chair. Anne paused at my elbow, staring down the curtain of her hair at me. “You can leave with us,” she challenged, turning her baleful eye to Vane. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“’Course she doesn’t,” Vane growled at her.

At the same time I straightened, and replied to her half a beat later. “I wouldn’t welch on a bet.”

Anne furrowed her brows down at me. I think she may have been trying to look supportive, but her face had forgotten how to be soft. “Don’t sit well with me. Backed you into a corner, he did.”

“Come along, darling,” Jack said, wrapping one arm around her and attempting to tug her away. “I am certain she can take care of herself.”

I fixed Jack with a pointed look. “Not a word to the crew about this.”

Rackham drew himself up, exaggerated affront painted across his features. “What, are you implying that I gossip? I’ll have you know that I am extremely tactful. I know when to keep my mouth shut. There is an art to knowing when a thing is to be said, and when a thing is to be forgotten, and I assure you—”

Anne leaned her head toward me. “He won’t say anything.” From the way her hand fisted in Jack’s collar, it was clear she would be making sure of it.

When the door closed behind them, the sound of the latch clicking into place seemed loud as a bell. Vane had settled back into his chair, idly playing with a coin across the backs of his fingers. Looking at me like he was waiting for me to do something. It was embarrassing, really, how good he looked to me right then, his powerful frame smoldering in the chair, the strong lines of his face perfectly warmed in the lamplight.

I looked away. I had been resisting thinking those kinds of thoughts about him for so long, it was hard to break the habit now. I lifted my cup just for something to do with my hands, but it was already empty.

“Shy?” his voice crackled through the silence. “I suppose I should have expected you to be shy.” That irritated my pride, so I mustered my courage enough to glare back at him. Vane’s eyes were only laughing at me a little; mostly there was an unexpected kind of caring, a softness for me to be found there. “Haven’t done this in a while, have you?”

No reason not to tell him the truth. “No.”

His fingers flicked under that coin again. “Not a virgin, are you?”

“No.” I suddenly couldn’t bear the tension, and started stripping my arms out of my jacket. “Let’s just get this over with, then.”

Vane raised a single, scarred eyebrow. “Get this over with? That’s not really what I had in mind.” That throaty voice of his was so seductive. I should have been annoyed at the implication he was going to drag this experience out, but damn if my heart didn’t start beating a little faster.

“Yes, I am sure you are planning to take full advantage.”

He frowned, still not moving toward me. “What are you trying to say.”

I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what the whores are telling you, but I’m a free woman out here and I’ll give you the truth. Sex doesn’t feel as good for women as it does for men.”

“Is that what you think.” He didn’t look offended, or ruffled at all by my flat statement. There may have even been a little pity touching his eyes. “Who told you that?” He reached out for my hand, resting on the top of the table, and I let him have it.

“In my experience, it never seemed that enjoyable.” His fingers squeezed softly between mine, as playful as they had been with that coin. He was listening to me, but trying to loosen my mood at the same time. “And I’ve never heard any respectable woman say anything different.”

“Well there’s your problem right there. Listening to respectable women. They only fuck respectable men, and those fuckers don’t know what they are doing.”

He lifted my hand from the table, leaning forward when I did not let myself be drawn nearer to him, and touched it to his lips. The kiss between my knuckles lingered, so much more than the polite gesture it was meant to mimic. Especially when his breath rushed out over my skin. I’m certain what I was feeling had started to show in my face. The way he was talking set off things I hadn’t really felt in years.

“You’re worried about what the men will think about you.” He spoke over the back of my hand, continuing to play with my fingers between his.

“Someone is bound to notice if I don’t wake up with my shift.”

Vane smiled. “Let them hear about the terms of the wager, then. I’ll tell the men that you spent the whole night wrapped up tight in the blanket, wouldn’t even let me touch you. That you played me just for the chance to sleep on a real mattress.”

I smiled, despite my sour mood. “Generous. But if that’s the case, perhaps I might actually do just that.”

He squeezed my hand. “That is certainly within your right. But if I’m not getting anything out of this, you’re sleeping on the floor.” We stared at each other for a long moment, both calculating. “But. If you decide you want to honor the spirit of the wager, and not just the words, I promise that I will make certain this is very, very enjoyable for you too.”

With his fingers laced tightly between mine, his thumb spread tantalizing circles across my palm. I felt my face getting hot as I stared across the edge of the table at him. He was absolutely letting me out of the requirement to do this, and at the same time making me actually want it. I was almost starting to believe he could do as he said, too. That he could make it feel different than that last time I had allowed a man to touch me, based on his unwavering confidence alone, and on the way my body was responding. His thumb stroked up the inside of my wrist with a surprising, exquisite delicacy.

“Why don’t you come sit next to me on the bed. Just to see how it feels. And whether you want to stop after that or not, I’ll tell the men that your legs remained firmly crossed.”

I still wasn’t answering, but I could no longer summon the words to say no. I had never seen Vane’s face like this, not directed at me at least. So… intent. And yet tender. I was starting to believe he actually wanted me, that this wasn’t just some victory to achieve on a whim, some conquest he devised because we were out on the open ocean and there were no whores in sight to appease him better. He looked at me like he was really trying to see me.

He kissed my hand one time more, then rose from his chair and crossed to the big bed nailed into the wall at one side of the cabin. I wondered briefly if it were the original, a luxury afforded to naval captains, or if Vane had put such an ostentation in himself after he took the Ranger. He sat down on the edge, caught my gaze one more time, and then set to taking off his boots.

“You’ll…” my voice warbled through the cabin, higher and weaker than I had wanted it to come out. He paused his movements, looking up and waiting for me to find my words. “If I want to stop, if it doesn’t feel right, you’ll let me?”

He straightened, his face going soft and sincere. “Of course. You are a free woman. The last thing I want you to feel is trapped.”

“Then,” I said, letting the warm relief that rushed through me at his words show in a little smile, “I suppose I might come sit next to you… Keeping my legs crossed.”

Vane winked, and finished pulling off his great, big boots. Mine were not as fine as his, and would slip off much more easily when the time came, but I did not want to promise anything by pulling them off this early. Instead I just sat in my chair a moment longer, enjoying the view of my strapping, handsome captain loosening his own clothing, readying himself for bed.

I wasn’t ready for his eyes again, when he finally looked up at me over his outstretched hand. “Come here.”

The mattress sagged underneath me as I sat down, but Vane was heavier and had already pulled it into a deeper valley, one that threatened to drag my hips down against his by gravity alone. He flipped his long hair over his shoulder as he turned his upper body to face me, and his scent filled my nostrils, rich and beguiling.

The truth was, I had wanted Captain Vane from the moment I laid eyes on him. Pursuing that thought had just never seemed like a good idea, especially once he took me seriously enough to allow me, a woman, to join his crew. Nor had I thought it very likely he would ever return my affections. Given my chosen profession, I didn’t think myself feminine enough to catch a man’s real interest.

But when Captain Vane ran the backs of his curled fingers down the side of my face, I felt desired. He touched me the way one would treat a proper lady, not grabbing or groping. His fingertips came to rest under my chin, tilting my mouth up toward his. I thought for a moment he might even ask to kiss me, the fearsome pirate captain himself, who never hesitated to take what he wanted in any other context. It was there in his eyes, the question, as he watched how I reacted to the parting of his lips.

My body leaned toward his, fractionally, past all my insecurities, and that was all the signal he needed to duck his head and press his lips against mine. His pressure was tender, but it was bold too, as his mouth parted wide enough to seize my lower lip between his. My insides reacted immediately, a fire kindling that made me wilt and straighten somehow both at once.

He didn’t push me into the bed. His desire was there, smoldering behind the working of his lips, but he held it back and kissed me thoroughly, while his hands played over the sides of my face.

I was burning up inside. There was a voice in my head telling me to end it here, that it was smarter to be the untouchable one, that I would come to regret this. But those thoughts only served to immolate me, to make the heat Vane was drawing out of my core more obvious, the desire for more of him more immediate every time I considered pulling away.

I gave in to gravity, and let the line of my hip roll down against his. Vane’s strong arms gathered me up, pulling my chest in against his as he kept kissing me. The angle was sharper now, pulling my neck long as my chin lifted to chase his kisses, my jaw opening almost without thought to allow his hot tongue to press past my teeth. I pressed open palms against his broad chest, hardly daring to satisfy my long-held craving to explore the heavy muscles to be found there.

One of his hands, previously content with stroking my face and curling through my hair, now traced curious fingers down the column of my neck. I shivered, knowing that the passion building between us was about to cross over into indecency.

But it had been a long time since I had been trying to live the life of a “decent woman.”

Vane pulled his mouth away from mine, his fingers halting their descent at the level of my collarbone. He traced up and down along that delicate line as he looked into my eyes. “Enjoying yourself yet?”

I was a little bit breathless, but still maintained enough poise to tilt my head coquettishly. “Still deciding.”

He smiled and leaned into me again. This time his lips were more insistent, reassured perhaps by the lightening of my mood. He cradled the back of my head with one hand, that arm holding me scooped in against his body, while his tongue delved my mouth and sought out mine. The other hand slid down the side of my body, playing over my ribs, tugging at my waist to pull me tighter against him.

I was glad that he had not immediately sought out my breasts. A long strip of cloth bound them down firmly under the man’s shirt that I wore every day of my pirating life. I was now… self-conscious about how unwomanly his hands were going to find me.

In truth, it had mostly been liberating to give up the trappings of femininity, and I was in love with the freedoms that living in a man’s shoes had given me. Right now was the first time in a great long while that I found myself wishing for a proper corset. Not for my own benefit, but only to be certain that my captain would find me appealing.

The play of his hand across my lower back reassured me on that last count. So did the look in his eyes when he pressed his forehead into mine, searching me with a fire that went beyond simple lewdness or curiosity. With a deep, slightly labored inhale, he began to open the buttons on my shirt, watching my reaction closely the whole time.

I wanted this. I couldn’t even imagine pulling away now. And though I feared that the sight of my chest strapped flat would be less than enticing for him, I was overcome by the desire to be seen. By him. To reveal myself to him. I opened the last few buttons of the shirt myself, and sat up straight as he pushed it down over my shoulders.

“I know why you hide yourself,” his voice rasped in the small space between us. “Why you braid your hair back tight, dress like the rest of us.” His eyes flashed back up to mine from under his brow. “And I think it’s smart. To not be a woman on this ship.” His fingertips traced up my belly, ran over the strip of cloth wound over my chest. “I’ve also seen the way you look at me.” A fresh thrill ran through me. He was seeking the place where he could loosen that binding. “And it occurred to me tonight, that you might be wanting an excuse. A way for this kind of… contact to be both possible, and deniable.”

My breath sighed out between my lips as I raised my hands up behind my back, freeing the end of the fabric and beginning to unwind it for him. Vane took over almost immediately, strong hands brushing over mine as he took the edge of the cloth and finished the unwrapping himself.

The sudden freedom made my breasts tingle; that, and the weight of Captain Vane’s gaze upon my completely nude torso. My nipples hardened before he even touched them, his hands scooping up from underneath with a soft sort of appreciation. When his thumbs brushed over the peaks I shivered. “Sensitive, are you?” he commented, and kept his touch gentle.

I closed my eyes and leaned into the feel of his powerful hands massaging my peaks. I felt his lips run across my cheek a moment later, then they were nipping down under my jaw, exploring the side of my neck. As he made his way down his bulk pushed me slowly backwards, until I had to reach back and hold myself up with one hand flat against the mattress. When his hot mouth closed over my nipple I arched my back and gasped. The sensation had sent a burst of unexpected pleasure straight down through my core, something sinful and tantalizing that had me wondering if perhaps the whores were not always faking the noises they made.

I looked down at Vane. His eyes were closed, brows lifted in an expression of rapt pleasure as he suckled on my tit, his head bent sideways to reach it and an angle that could not possibly be comfortable for long. I ran my fingers up his back, and my captain sighed with obvious pleasure. “Come up into my lap,” he coaxed.

With one last lick at my breast, he leaned back into a squarer posture and beckoned me to follow him up with insistent little tugs of his hands. When I realized he wanted me to straddle him I felt my face heating up. I had never been that wanton with a man.

His eyes were more hooded now, dreamier with pleasure but also narrowed, focused on his desire in the same way I had seen him look at a rich prize just before we raised the black. “Still shy?” he asked, echoing his earlier accusation, and it had the same effect on me for a second time.

In a surge of contrariness, I pushed my hesitation aside and swung my leg over his lap, sinking my knees into the mattress on either side of his hips. I held onto his shoulders for leverage, realizing too late that I had caught a few locks of his long hair in the process. I lifted my hand quickly and smoothed it back for him. I hadn’t even realized how tenderly I pushed the errant lock behind his ear until his clear, brilliant eyes flashed up at me and marked the moment. They were breathtaking, those eyes, fringed with lashes that would make them almost womanish were they not so deeply set into an aggressively masculine face. And something about this angle, him looking up at me now, softened them in a way that tugged at my chest. I almost forgot to speak my retort to his challenge. “Really, Captain, when have you ever known me to be timid?”

“Never before tonight.” He reached up to wind his fingers through a few of my own braided locks and pulled my face down for a kiss.

It was magnificent, and terrifying, to kiss Captain Vane like that. To be pushing down on him, having control of the angles, and yet to be so aware of being half-naked in a position that made every part of my body quite conveniently available to him. My hands scooped at his face while his roamed freely across my entire back, down my flanks and over my thighs, making me acutely aware of the unladylike spread of my legs, with no possible way to close them. So much for keeping my knees pressed firmly together tonight.

My fingers scrambled down broad shoulders as his scooped up the front of my body. It felt entirely unfair that he still wore his shirt, which was keeping his skin from me, and I told him as much. Vane stopped caressing me just long enough to strip it up over his head, exposing miles of rippling, tanned torso that I barely got to admire before it was hidden from my eyes again in the press of his body into mine. Rather than returning to the kiss he dove straight for one of my nipples, capturing it with more brash, self-assured confidence this time, his tongue circling with ease now that I was more conveniently lined up in front of his face.

I let my head fall back, overcome with that tugging, insistent heat that seemed to draw a line straight through my middle and down into my womanhood. I felt my legs tighten some against his waist, my hips bucking wantonly to close the little space that was left between us. It was so unlike me. And yet, it felt so thrilling. So indulgent. Just as a life of piracy should feel.

Captain Vane helped himself to my tits until I was positively melting in his lap. Our hips had started up a furtive, fractional rhythm that ran a counterpoise to the rocking of the ship. Like they thought they could get away with something that my mind wouldn’t catch them doing. I ground down more firmly into him, just to show them I was still boss, yes I was still in control and I wanted to be doing this too. Vane groaned into my chest. “Keep that up, love, and you’ll find yourself on your back faster than you thought possible.”

And I liked the sound of that so much that I did it again, pressing myself down over something that felt amazing against my tender, sensitive parts, something that I would have assumed was his hip bone if I wasn’t already feeling both of those against my inner thighs. Which meant that it was his—

True to his word, Vane scooped me up around the waist, popped me into the air with a thrust of his hips, and rode me down onto my back closer to the center of the bed. His hair spilled over both shoulders, curtaining us, and he dragged that hard length against me until I whimpered. He cocked his head, studying my face, my reaction to that.

I took a shaky breath in through my mouth, considering the moment as well. I actually felt…eager, to try letting a man do this to me again. My body was flushed, and languid, and writhing beneath him even when I thought I was lying still. Especially after the way he had flung me over, like it was only a trivial effort on his part to throw me around.

He must have been watching all this play across my face, for Vane’s next words were to purr “Is that how you like it, love? A little bit rough around the edges; want to feel me taking what I want?” He pressed his hardness between my spread legs, and it should have been insulting, an outrage, but because it was him it only stoked my passion to greater heights.

When I couldn’t find the words to answer in any way other than rocking my hips to match the motion of his, he dropped his head to kiss me. Deep, savoring kisses, ones that seemed, blessedly, to be meant to give me as much time to think as I wanted. Our bare chests slid against each other softly, and I allowed my hands to explore the planes and angles of the heavy muscles that before now had only fascinated my eye. Vane’s body was magnificent. And I thought, as I lay there, that being smashed underneath it might be the best possible way to enjoy it.

And so I whimpered, just a little, when he rolled off me, and settled in along my side without breaking the kiss. My body followed, seeking to keep our chests together, but I stilled when I felt his callused hand slide down my belly. “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this body from me. I want to see all of it. Take off your trousers,” that rumbling voice urged.

I felt timid again, even as the heat bubbling up between my thighs caused me to press them together. I understood the meaning of the word “wanton,” now, as this burning feeling threatened to overwhelm all sensibilities. It still felt like something that perhaps I should not do, to allow myself to be completely naked in this dashing captain’s bed.

Echoes of an old life, that voice was. My new, pirating self did exactly as she pleased. And she, she said to that old voice: well, we did lose a bet. Only one honorable thing to do now.

Vane’s fingers were playing with the buckle of my belt, his smoldering eyes watching, waiting for me to react.

I appreciated his patience, the way he seemed to be willing to go at my pace, though his gaze brimmed with the promise of what he could unleash upon me once I dropped my last guard. The guard which at this point appeared to be symbolized by that clasped belt. His neck bent, a few locks of hair cascading over his face, so he could lay tender kisses on the skin of my shoulder and chest. He started to speak in between those kisses. “I won’t take you tonight,” his lips brushed the top of my breast, “if you truly don’t want that.” He nipped at my belly, just above my navel. “But perhaps you will allow me—” he kissed my flank, just below the edge of a rib, “—to do what I can to make you want it.” The last kiss landed in a tingling place just above the waistband of my trousers.

I lifted my head, keeping the rest of my body still underneath him. “I thought that’s what we were already doing.”

Vane straightened a little, and held my gaze while his hand came creeping up my leg, grazing along my thigh before hovering just above that hot place between my legs. His nimble fingers plucked a little at the fabric barring his way.

“Oh,” I gulped. Desire crashed over me like the surf of a rising tide. Yes, I wanted to feel him touch me there. And if he was saying that removing my trousers was not necessarily a promise that I was ready to let him push his cock inside me… I kicked my boots off so fast that the cabin echoed with the twin sounds of them crashing to the deck.

Vane helped me with my belt, then leaned back on one arm to watch me reveal the rest of my body to him. I pushed the last of my clothes down to the floor, eager to be rid of them now, then paused where I sat perched at the edge of the bed. I looked over my shoulder at my captain, hoping that the curve of my back, and the swell of my bare hips, appeared enticing to him.

His eyes were indeed clouded with lust, and his chest expanded with a deep inhale when I took the long, plain braid of my hair between my hands and began undoing it. Removing the final piece of what I had been using to hide my softness, my femininity. I watched him watching me, as I freed my hair, and I felt beautiful.

He reached his hand out to me, so many silent promises in his eyes, and I climbed across the bed to him. He kissed me soundly, fingers tangling in the loose tresses now freed around my face, and then he guided me to lay on my back beside him.

His hands slid over my body, firmer, more confident now. This was no longer coaxing, entreating: now Vane was conquering. He squeezed and savored all my curves, and his body pressed closer, more hungrily into mine, his mouth eating at me like the sweetest fruit.

And then his hand crept between my legs. His palm covered my mound, stilling me, letting me get used to the idea before his fingers started to move. I moaned my uncertainty into his mouth and he soothed me, humming a calming noise as he stroked at my sex and opened me up slowly.

I had only ever experienced rough fingers there before, greedy grasping that hurried to make the way clear for an insistent male desire. Vane’s touch was entirely different. His face hovered close to mine, watching my every reaction as he explored carefully, his fingertips gliding through the slickness at my entrance and pressing up to something else, a spot that concentrated all that heat that I had been feeling in my loins and made it bloom to unimagined heights.

My eyes widened in surprise. Vane seemed a little amused. “Has no man ever touched you there?”

I shook my head.

“Ever touched yourself there?”

My face burned at the very suggestion, and I denied it vigorously.

“Respectable women,” Vane chided, “are missing out on so much.” He rocked his finger in a little circle over that bud of pleasure, and I could only squirm and wail underneath him.

I clung to him as he worked me over, too far gone in the wash of desire from it to be embarrassed at the way my fingers dug into his arm, not even certain what I was begging for. I needed relief, but I didn’t want him to stop; the pleasure was burning, overwhelming, and I quite simply did not know what to do with myself. Vane’s face smirked down at me through all of it, every time I could bear to open my eyes and look up at him again.

My mouth let loose some sort of desperate, mewling sound when his fingertips left my body. I looked up at him just in time to see two of his long fingers disappear into his mouth, coming out coated in spit. Those slick fingers returned to my sex in a gliding plunge that parted my lower lips. The pleasure came easier now, less impaired by sensitivity and friction.

Vane’s eyes locked onto mine as I felt one of those fingers start to press inside me. A buzzing, welcoming heat gathered all around that invading finger, and though I kept my gaze on my captain’s face my awareness was all internal, focusing on how it felt to let him open me.

He kissed me again, once that finger was buried deep inside, and his lips kept anchoring mine as he dragged it softly in and out, simulating the movements I was certain he was burning up to be able to do with something else. Something much, much larger. I was surprised to find that the idea was more tantalizing than terrifying, now that Vane was taking so much time to get my body to warm to him.

He released my mouth so he could press his lips into the side of my neck, still rocking that finger rhythmically in and out. I could no longer say it felt like an invader, as pleasure bloomed all around it. I was surprised to find that I was even craving something thicker. The memories of my past, somewhat painful encounters with penetration had even taken on a perverse allure. I wanted to feel that again, now. “I’m…”—I had to pause and wet my throat, realizing how dry it had become from panting breaths—“I’m ready now, I think.”

Vane lifted his head, regarding me coolly. “Ready for what?”

“For…” I stumbled on the words, but I made myself say it. “For you to take me.”

“For my cock?” he specified firmly, bluntly, his intense eyes still looking a little bit amused around the edges.

I swallowed, and met his gaze bravely. “Yes.”

“No you’re not.” He shook his head and drew his finger out of me.

“What?”

Vane ignored my sputtering and started to slide down the bed alongside me. “Trust me, darling.” A smile flitted across his usually-stony face, making him look almost boyish as he shook his head at me. “It’s clear that you don’t even know what pleasure is, yet. Please, allow me to show you."

He tugged at my leg and I let him pull it wide. I was confused, and embarrassed, but I did trust him. My sworn captain. I’d let him show me what he meant.

Vane lifted my leg and put it over his shoulder, as he dropped down to his knees on the deck beside the bed. My face started to burn as hot as my loins when I realized he was positioning his mouth right above my sex, his breath already warm upon it. He turned his head and kissed me first on the inside of my thigh. “Relax.” His eyes flitted up, seeking mine. “Remember I promised, to make this enjoyable for you?”

His rich voice calmed me, and I nodded swiftly.

“Then let me try a few things. Tell me when I’m doing something that you like.”

His mouth was hot. So, so hot, and slick, when he fastened it over my mound in a devil’s kiss and slid his tongue alongside that secret pearl that was making my head spin. Vane pulled my legs apart a little wider, settling his bulk more comfortably between them, and then his tongue started flickering, back and forth against me.

My head flew back, my body curling to get closer to him and further away at the same time. What was this delicious, overwhelming feeling? The slide of Vane’s tongue was stoking that fire inside me higher than ever. I reached down and ran my fingers over his hair. I must have pushed him harder than I thought, because his tongue stilled and he drew back just far enough to speak. “Too much for you, love?”

“I…I don’t know.”

He hummed sagely as he pressed his lips against me again, the tail end of that vocalization making my toes curl as I felt it in my core. He licked more slowly this time, tongue circling that bud of pleasure as his hands stroked up and down my bare thighs.

The pleasure was more bearable this way, and I let a little encouraging moan slide past my lips, to let him know. It was embarrassing to hear myself make such a sound, but the reward of Captain Vane’s rocking tongue was well worth the price to my pride.

He kept on steadily, and something started building inside me, underneath his tongue. The pleasure was growing into a ball of heat, of tension, something that made me restless and yet entirely unwilling to move away from that sinful mouth. I squeezed my thighs around his head instead, curled my knees over his shoulder, flung my arms over my face, whipped my arms down to clutch at the sheets. I didn’t know what I needed, didn’t know what to do. The one thing I was certain of was that I did not want Vane to stop.

There was something that I suspected this pleasure might be, what it was leading up to. I had heard the men joke, of course, mostly accusing each other of being unable to make a woman do this. I had heard the whores faking it. But I never thought I was the kind of woman that it would ever happen to, that would feel this. Orgasm. The possibility wasn’t spoken of in the respectable home of my youth. I had thought, in fact, that it might be a lie that men told to each other, that women could melt into a burst of pleasure the way that men did when they made their final release at the end of the act. Because I had never heard women speak about it to each other.

But I learned that night, my body was indeed capable of this too. Captain Vane showed me, with a relentless tongue that brought all that rising tension in my core to a breaking point, a snap of passion that made my whole body seize up as I was carried away in a thundering wave of ecstasy.

His tongue slowed, but did not stop, after that wave broke inside me. He lapped every last drop of pleasure from between my thighs, until I sagged into the mattress, and stopped squeezing him so tightly.

I looked down just in time to watch him rise from the deck, wiping his mouth with one hand before reaching down to push off his own trousers. His cock sprang to attention, straining hard and oh so large, even though I was the one who had just gotten all the pleasuring. “You are magnificent,” he murmured as he climbed over my body, distracting my eyes from the spectacle of his erection as he pressed his forehead into mine.

I met his gaze almost helplessly, my parted lips unable to form words as I breathed hard, still roiling in the eddies of pleasure left in the wake of what he had done to me. The mattress sagged with the weight of his knees between my legs.

There was pride in his eyes as he examined the mess he’d made of my composure. “Now, you’re ready to be fucked,” he declared. He caressed the back of my thigh, pulling me open wider. “With your permission, of course.”

And in that moment, I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. My loins burned in a fresh rush as I angled my hips toward him. I reached one hand up to caress the back of his neck. The other slid down his belly, pushing through thick curls to claim a prize of my own.

Vane’s cock jumped in my hand as I wrapped my fingers around the smooth skin of his shaft, thrilling at the iron hardness that the soft surface covered. He groaned in my ear when I squeezed it, and sucked in a breath when I slid my palm over the weeping tip of him. “Do you want it?” he whispered, voice too tight to speak any louder, and I shivered at the sound of how he was struggling to hold himself back.

“Yes,” I confessed to his cheek, breathing in the rich, deep scent of him. My blooming cunt was aching for him now. “But,” I said, hand clenching on the back of his neck as he had already started to move over me, “I don’t want a child.”

He surprised me by kissing me then, suddenly and soundly. “I won’t let my seed go inside you,” he promised to my lips. “But I want,” he growled, “I need to feel you for a while.”

My consent breathed past my lips as I pressed my body up toward him. Vane’s hand replaced mine at the base of his cock as he leaned in to line himself up.

He dragged his tip through the wetness that coated the outside of my sex, before finding the place where he started sinking in. I was ready for the pain, and was surprised to find that it didn’t come, not the way it had felt with my less-skilled lovers before. Vane’s cock hung longer and thicker than I had ever seen before, and so I had feared the worst. But my body welcomed the stretch of him. Especially since he was working himself in so slowly, dragging back after every inch he gained, even spitting in his hand to add more moisture and ease his passage.

“Look at me.”

I couldn’t open my eyes at first, so overwhelmed was I with the slide of his cock, plumbing deeper and deeper inside me with every rock of his hips. When I finally did, and caught his brilliant, hooded eyes gazing down at me in absolute lust and affection, an even sharper passion bloomed in my core. It was a primal feeling, animal and strange and yet so deeply, truly right. Charles Vane was making me his. With a soft cry I yielded something I didn’t even realize I was holding back, and the entire length of him bottomed out inside me.

He kept his face close, he kept his hips close. He rocked in tiny movements, the softening of his eyelids showing his pure enjoyment of the sensation of being inside me.

But it was so much. So very, very much; the pressure close to pain as he filled me to my limit. Every time he rolled his hips, it felt a little better. “Move,” I breathed. “It feels better when you move.”

His deep voice rumbled in agreement as he pressed his forehead against mine and made his rhythmic thrusts longer, rocking like the waves against the shore, pulling more than half his length out before sliding inevitably back in. Pain kindled into pleasure under that steady motion, and I sighed in sweet relief.

“Feels good to be fucked properly, does it?” he teased into my ear, and I realized I had let my eyes close again as I sank into the ecstasy. He kissed my cheek and then lifted up a little above me, giving himself the leverage to snap his hips a little faster, a little harder.

I was panting now, my whole body getting hot as I writhed and offered myself to him fully.

“You never answered me before. How rough you’d like me to get.” His pace increased just a little even before I could answer, his hands curling around my hips.

I had always feared men’s roughness, during this act. But with Vane it felt totally different. And the coiled violence in his arms, the way he was so easily able to put lesser men in their place, certainly those were some of the things that attracted me to him the most. “How am I to answer a question like that?” And then, another thought arrested me: “How rough do you like it?”

Vane’s hips slowed, so he could pay attention to my face as he considered. One scarred eyebrow lifted. “I do like a woman with a little fight in her.”

Well. That, I certainly was. You don’t find a place on a pirate crew without a good measure of ferocity. But I considered my position. “Hard to fight you when you’ve already got me speared.”

I smoothed my hands along his flanks, faking a caress, then pushed them against his ribs while squeezing my thighs around him, twisting my hips in the way that I would use to throw a man off me in a fight. In my current predicament, however, it served only to drive Vane’s cock inside me deeper, and I broke off my attempt with a ragged moan as the sharp pleasure of it overwhelmed me.

I thought I heard the captain chuckle under the sound of my own cries. He scooped up my wrists and forced my hands up over my head, driving himself into me with more savage stabs.

The way I felt when Captain Vane overpowered me like that gave me all the answer to his question that I needed, my insides blooming and tingling all over again. I didn’t like making noises, did my best to keep these mewling wails quiet, but it was so hard to control myself underneath this.

“You like to feel me hold you down, don’t you?” Vane rumbled in my ear. His fingers flexed against my wrists, emphasizing how fully he had me pinned.

I did, but I still had a little fight left in me too. My mouth sought his for a kiss, scraping hard, then my teeth sank into his lip.

Vane growled into my mouth and jerked me up off the bed almost irritably. I kept my legs wrapped around him tight, an almost ornery urge leading me to try and confound his attempt to reposition me. But that only made it easier for him to scoop me completely off the mattress as he knelt up on the bed. He wasn’t satisfied just with that, however. His powerful arms secured me close as he stepped back onto the deck, then turned and slammed my back into the bulkhead wall. He pinned me there, my feet up in the air, and resumed fucking into me.

I thrilled at the strength of this man, though the angle was savage. “Mmm, yes,” I mewled against his cheek, “throw me around.”

He gave me a few more good hard thrusts against the wall before he spun me over to the table where we had so recently been playing cards. He removed his cock from me with shaking effort, only so that he could manhandle me around and bend me over the flat surface. My cheek pressed into the finely polished wood as his cock punctured me again, so thick that I still felt every last inch of him going in despite how stretched I had already become for him.

His deep voice rumbled in pleasure above me as he fucked as hard and fast as he wanted. I felt my body coiling around him, his tip slamming at an angle that awoke something dazzling deep inside me, and I wondered if he was going to make me feel that breaking point again. My throat squeezed out his name, over and over again, hoping he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t shift, wouldn’t break this delic—

Another orgasm crashed over my senses, locking up every muscle in my body as I squealed through my teeth into the wood. Vane made a guttural sound in response, his rhythm stuttering. He pulled his length out of me and I sobbed at its loss, but understood why when something warm and wet started streaking along my back. I reveled at the evidence of his pleasure as my body still shook with my own.

I heard him sigh deeply, felt him draw his slick-tipped cock across the base of my spine. Then he leaned over me, dropping his forearm onto the table beside my face and then collapsing his head on top of it.

We panted in unison for a while, recovering from the intensity of it all. When Vane tilted his head to peek at me through disheveled strands of hair, his eyes were alight.

“I’m going to have to have you again.”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“Not immediately,” he clarified, his hand stroking up the clean part of my back, “but this was too good to be just once.”

“Better hope your luck holds in the next card game, then,” I teased. “Though I know, by the way, that luck had nothing to do with it.”

Vane smirked. “Can you blame me, with such a lovely prize on the table?”

I laughed, given that I was currently still laying, naked, on that very same table. Then I got serious. “I don’t like how it would look to the men, me fucking the captain. It changes things.”

Vane leaned in closer, until my whole world was his brilliant eyes, as blue as the bay at Nassau where we’d be arriving soon. “Then you’ll just have to get very good at being quiet.”

Captain Vane Masterlist

[davidlynchschreibner]

*Today I found this silly little story slice buried in my computer files. It was written before it was apparent Lukas was growing a beard so was fed primarily by my own feelings about the joy some trans men experience if/when we can grow facial hair. Very self-indulgent and poorly written but as our fandom has quieted recently I thought perhaps it would be a nice contribution? I don’t know. Might as well share it.

Whiskers on things other than kittens

or, David grows a beard

As the summer of his first year of film school approaches, David is immensely enjoying the dark recent addition to his jawline. He's waited so long for it to fill in fully from scattered whiskers to patches of hair to an uninterrupted band. After spending what seems an eon impatiently noting how much more he was shaving away as the months advanced now at last he can savor the fruit of his body's labor. A beard makes him feel handsome, mature, and more settled in his body than before. In comparison to other major notes in the rising chord of his transition it is a low and quiet one, yet he feels the resonance in his bones. Like all else he has worked for this with every psychologist appointment and prick of the syringe. He can allow himself to wear it proudly. Every time he catches his reflection in a mirror or window he experiences a little flare of confidence that pushes his shoulders back and lifts the corners of his mouth. Facial hair does not a man make by any means but this feels like his inner self is growing outside the skin it's been trapped in for so long. He can see the tangible evidence of his journey with all its strife and victories--- and so can the rest of the world.

He's not the only one who is pleased. Half the students in his film classes eye him appreciatively, charmed by the combination of sharpening features and warm energy. As he comes into himself his appeal increases accordingly. People have liked him in the past--- even flirted with him at times--- but he has never felt so positively noticed. After years spent compressed by his desire to not be seen he finds air fills his lungs more fully when his posture relaxes. The chitinous shell of the frightened boy he once was is fragmenting, peeling, and falling away to reveal a more fully realized young adult. Some of the girls turn a little giddy when he speaks to them and it is strange with newness but makes a flicker of pleasure spark inside him every time. Small validations fortify the foundations he is building to house him, making a place to live that he doesn’t have to run away from. He’s happy here. Matteo finds his developing reputation of resident 'hot guy' very entertaining and will tease him about his supposed powers of seduction (with occasional exaggerated displays of being effected) until David crowds into his boyfriend’s space and silences the annoying ribbing with kisses.

It's rather hypocritical of Matteo to tease considering no one is as attracted to David as he. It's of course not just the beard, as he was equally infatuated when David had gone through a period of being entirely clean shaven. But the increase in self-assurance this new look inspires does seem to drive Matteo to distraction on a regular basis. Sometimes David catches him staring openly with a hooded, enraptured expression and restless fingers. If they're alone David will tilt his head and smirk until Matteo is so flustered he has to get his hands on his boyfriend. In public, Matteo restricts himself to draping his body over David like a heavy blanket and sneaking a kiss to the newly roughened point where a pulse thrums steadily. It is not new to be so tactile in their appreciation of each other, but there is a fever in Matteo’s cheeks that rises when he observes how his boyfriend begins to show himself more openly. They never did spiral into the slow disinterest of some established relationships and it seems that will not be happening anytime soon. Matteo thinks David is the hottest guy in the world and reminds him every day in myriad ways.

The first time David finds himself unconsciously stroking his chin while he edits footage he jerks to a stop and laughs incredulously at himself. It’s a ridiculously cliche thing to do and he feels acutely embarrassed afterward. But sometimes in a moment of absent-minded contemplation his hand makes its way up. He expects Matteo to mock him for looking pretentious the first time he’s caught, but surprisingly the other boy does not. His bemused expression softens into the familiar tender smile that says ‘I love you’ without parting lips. Then he returns to his game and never mentions it after. Indeed, he seems to find the beard just as enjoyable to touch. In the mornings, when Matteo is sleep-soft and resisting attempts to wake him, he strokes the scratchy strands framing David's jaw with his fingertips. Sometimes he'll rub his cheek against the texture, affectionate and possessive as a cat. David huffs in exasperation at first but soon it becomes just another weird but endearing thing Matteo does. He never can find it in himself to reject any form of affection the other boy gives him be it a hug or a kick. Eventually he likes it so much that he wonders if he will ever decide to be bare-faced again.

One night they are lying tangled together beneath the quiet observation of the moon and David breaks the long silence to ask if Matteo likes him better with the beard. The words are drawled nonchalantly but the brittleness that dysphoria makes of his ego creaks in the undertone. He doesn’t need this sort of reassurance often, less and less as time goes on, but may always find occasions for it. The conflict between wanting to be seen this way and the worry that he lacks without makes a sharp cramp of overexertion seize in his chest. Matteo lifts his head from where it has been resting beside David’s and gazes with all the patient understanding people often don’t expect he possesses. The two of them know every dip and swell of each other’s voices now and nothing is hidden when something is not spoken. Matteo responds with quiet certainty, ‘You like you better.’ David waits, knowing instinctively that Matteo is taking time to find his words. ‘I like you most being happy however you want to be.’ Then he smiles and burrows into David’s shoulder, making stupid little grunting sounds like he’s trying to wrestle a pillow into shape. David swallows against the knot of emotion in his throat.

‘Being a man’ is a bewilderingly intricate definition unique to each person. It is not a list or a diagnosis or a quiz with an answer key. David has tried many times to articulate its broad strokes and nuances to professionals and peers alike, yet found it cannot be confined to succinct sentences. He can collect as many indicators as there are days in a year but all told it is simply that he knows he is. It only increases in complexity because he is still discovering what it means to him. No part of his body will ever make him more or less who and what he is. But there are things he grasps and holds close as affirmations. He likes expressions commonly understood as masculine and needs without negotiation to alter the shape beneath his shirts. His facial hair doesn’t make him more a man, nor a person of more worth or quality. But he feels the power of reclaiming what his first puberty tried to take away from him whenever he grooms the borders of his beard. The person reflected back at him in the mirror looks more like he feels inside. And he’s starting to really like that guy.

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Also on AO3

Chapter 7: Martin

Martin is ready to go now.

It’s late—it was late when all this started, but it has to be closing in on midnight now. He’s wrapped up like a mummy, and he’s only not in complete agony because one of the very nice paramedics got permission from the doctor at whatever hospital to give him some painkillers. He’s still in pain, but it’s fainter, more muffled. He’s tired and he’s, well, drugged, and it’s hard to think straight, and he just wants to get some rest. He wants to go home, or at least somewhere quieter and less...wormy than here. Somewhere safe.

He’s seen movement and flashing lights through the translucent plastic sheeting that is the quarantine tent, heard voices and shouting that he can’t quite make out, but it all seems to have mostly died down by now. Martin wonders how he’s going to get anywhere, much less home. He wonders if Tim and Sasha made it out of those tunnels okay, if the other is all right. He wonders about the scream.

But nobody will tell him anything, only that he is not infested and needs to keep the wounds clean and needs fresh air. They tell him a lot about how to recover from what’s happened to him and a bit on what to expect about that process, but nothing about what’s going on beyond the four walls of this tent, and it’s worrying Martin. A lot.

“What time is it?” he asks the paramedic currently standing with him. Her partner has stepped outside and may or may not be talking to someone, probably from ECDC. He’s at least ninety percent certain they showed up for this, considering the situation, which is a very mild way of putting it.

Before the paramedic can answer, the second one steps back into the tent and nods. “All clear. Everything’s settled...Mr. Blackwood, just to be clear, you are declining transportation to the hospital, correct?”

“That’s right.” Martin has been asking them to just give him the paperwork already for what feels like this side of forever.

“All right, go ahead and sign here, please.” The second paramedic hands him a clipboard. Martin’s hands are bandaged and it’s hard to hold a pen, but he manages it. He signs without really looking at what he’s signing. The paramedic studies it and nods. “That’s all in order, then. You’ll need to keep the bandages clean and dry, and you may need to go back to your regular doctor for a checkup...”

He rattles off more instructions for looking after himself and his wounds, but frankly, Martin is too tired to listen to all this again. He hopes whatever new information is included isn’t going to be too important, or difficult to figure out; Martin’s usually pretty good at taking care of others, but that’s the point, it’s always someone else he’s looking after. Maybe he’ll just have to think of himself as “someone else”. It’s going to be some time before he’s allowed back to work, he knows that much at least, so he’ll have plenty of time to figure out how to look after himself. Not like there will be anyone else to.

Something of all this must show in his face, because after a minute, the paramedic’s face softens. “I know, it’s a lot to throw at you right now. Don’t worry, I’ve already told your partner all of this.”

“My...?” Martin looks up, confused. He doesn’t have a partner. Who could be out there claiming that? The only one he can think of is the other, and surely he wouldn’t be so foolish as to come out in the middle of...all this.

“Yeah, I told him to give me a minute to debrief you and make sure you didn’t want transport.” The paramedic tucks the clipboard under his arm. “Do you think you can walk on your own?”

If he can’t, Martin’s not about to admit that out loud; they won’t let him leave if he can’t, and he doubts they have crutches handy. “I think so, yeah. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” The paramedic smiles. “You’re a lucky man, you know.”

“I know.” Martin only has to think about Timothy Hodge to know that. If the system had triggered any slower, he might have ended up too far gone to save, even if the CO2 had worked.

The paramedic winks. “’Course, he’s luckier. Take care, Mr. Blackwood.”

“Erm, you, too.” Martin bites his lip to hide his confusion and slides carefully off the stretcher. The painkillers help, but he’s still a little unsteady on his feet. He wobbles at first, but manages to make it to the edge of the quarantine tent without too much difficulty.

He steps outside and shivers. Apparently the tent blocked a lot of the night chill out; it may be halfway to June, but the nights are still cool and Martin wasn’t wearing his sweater when everything went down. It’s still in the Archives...he hopes. Assuming his little fire didn’t spread. Assuming Jane Prentiss didn’t cover the whole place in...whatever that was. Assuming...

“Martin!”

Martin looks up in shock to see Jon coming towards him, eyes wide and panicky. Behind him are—thank God—Tim and Sasha, both looking none the worse for wear. Tim and Sasha should be there, of course, but Jon...Jon went home hours ago, it’s late, he needs his sleep. It has to be a hallucination.

“Jon?” he says anyway.

Jon stops in front of him and reaches out like he wants to touch his shoulder, then stops himself, eyeing the bandages. “Are you all right? The paramedic said—”

“I—I’m fine.” It’s a lie, sort of, but Martin figures Jon doesn’t actually want to hear the nuances of that. “Apart from the...holes.”

He shivers in a sudden gust of wind, and Jon unfolds something under his arm. “Here, I—you left your sweater in the Archives, I—do you need a hand?”

Martin blinks in surprise. Is Jon sick? Is this even really Jon? He wants to say yes, to see how far this will go, but there’s enough of a height difference between the two of them that he finds himself saying, “I think I’ve got it, but...thanks.” As he takes the sweater, he manages to ask, “What are you doing here?”

Jon plays with the cuffs of his cardigan. “I—I came back to get those notes I was looking at before I left, I meant to take them with me and...I don’t know, I suddenly felt like I had to get them right away. I got back here and I found...” He gestures back in the direction of the Institute.

Martin struggles his way into the sweater and looks around. There are police cars, officers prowling about. The ambulance is packing up, and there’s a man in a white hazmat suit, minus the helmet which is under his arm, talking to one of the police officers. He mentally runs through the list of other flashing lights he saw through the walls of the tent, the voices he heard in the Archives, and surmises that there was a lot more chaos an hour or two ago.

“You should be sleeping,” he says instead, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

Tim’s snort is practically elephantine, and Martin looks at him briefly. Jon just shakes his head. “I couldn’t—I realized you weren’t part of the crowd and that must mean you were still in there, and I—I had to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m all right.” Martin straightens up, despite the stiffness, and manages a smile. “I should...probably try and get home, I guess. If the trains are still running and all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jon gives him a look that’s almost reminiscent of his usual stern scowl. “I’ll give you a ride. I—I need to get your statement anyway, and...best to do it somewhere that...isn’t here.” He glances over his shoulder. “That goes for you two as well. Especially you two.”

“Are you guys all right?” Martin asks anxiously.

“We’re fine.” Sasha manages to give him a smile, coming a little closer to him as she does so.

Tim nods. “Well, we’re not hurt, at any rate. It’s...a lot.” He pauses. “Tell you what. My place is closest. Why don’t we all go there? I’ve got plenty of room and we can...debrief or whatever it is we need to do.” He grins, a pale imitation of his usual confidence and cheek, but enough to make Martin feel a little better, anyway. “Besides, we never got that sleepover in the Archives. Might as well do it in my living room.”

Tim’s up to something. Martin’s almost sure of it, but he’s honestly too tired to care. “Yeah, okay, sounds good.”

“Come on, then,” Jon says, turning towards the curb.

Martin starts to follow, and his knees buckle. That fast, Jon turns around and tries to catch him, but unfortunately, Martin is about a head taller than Jon and outweighs him by a good amount, so now they’re both falling. Luckily, Tim steps in and takes Martin’s other side, keeping them from pitching to the ground. “Whoa, there. Come on, nice and steady then.”

The three of them shuffle like an awkward, six-legged beast towards the curb, where a nondescript car that’s seen better days sits haphazardly parked and glared at by several officers. Jon opens the passenger side door, and Tim lets go of Martin slowly while Jon helps him settle into the seat. There’s a gentleness—almost a tenderness—to his actions that Martin isn’t sure he’ll survive. Never mind the worms, he’s going to die right here in this car because Jon is being nice to him.

Not to say Jon’s never been nice before. He’s been better—less tense, less angry—since Martin burst into his office and dumped a literal can of worms onto his desk. And there’s been a definite softening since Martin admitted he lied about his job history. But this level of concern, of care, is new, and Martin’s still not sure he isn’t hallucinating the whole thing.

He’s barely aware of Tim giving Jon an address, of Jon brusquely assuring him he knows where that is. He’s more concerned with not passing out or aggravating any of his injuries. He doesn’t know how many worms tried to burrow into his body, but he’s just thankful he’s not infected.

“Was the fire too bad?” he asks, feeling a little anxious.

“No, it was fine.” Jon’s voice is soft, reassuring. “Confined to a trash can, from what I could tell. I—I admit it wasn’t my primary concern when I went in. Elias said it looks like it was set to trigger the fire system.”

“It was. I just...didn’t want it to get out of control.” Martin takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t—”

“Martin, no. It’s fine. If—” Jon tightens his grip on the steering wheel briefly. “It’s fine. You did the right thing. Pulling the alarm wouldn’t have done anything but clear out the building, if there had still been anybody in there. It wouldn’t have set off the system.”

Martin nods slowly. Then his brain catches up with what Jon said. “Wait, Elias was there? When? How?”

“I presume he gets an alert from the alarm company. I don’t know. He was already there when I arrived.” Jon glances over at Martin, his beautiful brown eyes still worried. “He’s the one who told me Tim and Sasha were in there.”

“How did he know?” Sasha blurts.

Jon’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror, then back to Martin, before returning to the road. “He said he overheard Tim talking about it.”

There’s an audible frown in Tim’s voice when he speaks, but Martin can’t spare the energy to try and turn his head. “Okay, now I really think he’s got the place bugged. The only person I mentioned it to was Sasha, and we were in the Archives at the time. It was right after she got back from lunch—right after you showed me that statement you found.” He pauses. “Or was that you?”

This time, Martin does turn his head, to see Tim regarding him seriously. “No. Must’ve been the other.”

Tim nods. “Thought as much. I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Jon asks. “The other what?”

Martin opens his mouth to explain, but Tim beats him to it. “Tell you when we get to my place. Don’t want you wrecking the car ‘cause you’re distracted. Make a left right here.”

Jon subsides and continues driving, but he keeps shooting glances at Martin that make him thoroughly nervous. He hates keeping secrets from Jon—from anyone, really, but especially Jon—and he really should have told him about this one right away. But the other’s caution had rubbed off on him, and he had kept his mouth shut. Now it’s going to be another stress about losing his job...despite the other’s reassurance that he won’t.

Even if he doesn’t lose his job...what if he loses Jon’s trust? He doesn’t think he’ll survive that.

Finally, Jon pulls the car to a stop in front of Tim’s house. Or at least, Martin assumes it’s Tim’s house, since he directed them there. For all he knows, this is some completely random place and Tim’s playing one of his jokes on them, but he doubts it. Tim undoes his safety belt and opens the door. “Come on in, everybody.”

Sasha gets out from behind Martin, too. Martin manages to get his safety belt unfastened, but when he goes to open the door and climb out, he can’t help the small, pained noise that escapes him when he tries to stand. He presses his lips together tightly and swallows down on the pain, desperate not to be a burden, to prove that he’ll be fine when—inevitably—Jon drops him home or he manages to hobble to the nearest Underground station and get there himself. He can do this. It’s just a few steps.

“Martin?” Jon’s suddenly there beside him, one hand out uncertainly. “Here, let—let me give you a hand. You’ve got to be stiff at the very least, sitting cramped into that space for so long. I should have pushed the seat back before you got in—that’s why Sasha sat behind you, I’m sure, her legs are shorter...”

“I’m fine,” Martin insists, or tries to, despite the fact that he’s leaning heavily on the roof of Jon’s car for support and that’s really not helping the pain from the holes under the bandages. “You don’t have to.”

“Maybe not, but let me help you anyway,” Jon says. He sounds like he’s trying to summon up his usual brusque and stern facade, but the genuine worry in his eyes makes a lie of that. Martin doesn’t know what to think about it, but he can feel his ears getting hot.

“Sure, okay,” he hears himself say softly.

Jon slips an arm gingerly around him, draping Martin’s arm around his shoulder. Martin tries not to lean on him too hard, but Jon takes more of his weight than Martin would prefer as they limp towards the front door. When Tim, who’s in the process of unlocking the door, realizes what’s going on, he abandons the keys and comes back to help. Since he’s closer to Martin’s height, it makes things easier.

Sasha pulls the door open for them, holds it so they can maneuver in, then shuts the door behind them as Tim switches on the hall light. “Here we are,” he announces, his voice maybe a bit louder than necessary. “Home sweet home. Come on, let’s get settled in the living room.”

It’s not a very long hallway, but still, Martin is definitely ready to sit down by the time they shuffle awkwardly into the living room. There is, he’s relieved to see, plenty of seating available. Apart from two wing chairs flanking a window and backed by a bookcase, there’s a comfortable-looking sofa, a matching love seat, and an oversized armchair. There’s also someone standing next to the love seat, one hand pressed into its back. Jon stops abruptly and nearly sends Martin tumbling to the ground, his entire body stiffening.

“It’s all right,” Tim assures him. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Jon repeats incredulously.

The other smiles, but there’s something sad about it. “Hello, Jon.”

“Who—what are you?” Jon demands. There’s an edge to his voice, something between anger and fear that stirs a feeling of protectiveness in Martin’s chest, which is not helpful at the moment since he can barely stand on his own, let alone stand between Jon and anything that might be trying to kill him.

“I’d really like to sit down right now, if nobody minds,” he says.

“Sit. Everybody,” Tim adds. He takes most of Martin’s weight and helps him over to the armchair, which turns out to be a recliner. “Put your feet up if you need to...Jon, Sasha, you sit too. And you,” he adds, gesturing to the other. “I’ll go make tea. Or break out the whiskey. We might need it.”

“Not a good idea for me,” Martin says softly. “Painkillers.”

“What, you don’t think the possibility of a good time outweighs the risks of an overdose? Kidding,” Tim adds quickly, holding up both hands as Jon turns a glare on him that makes the ones he directed at Martin and his work pale in comparison. “Only kidding.”

“Tim, sit down. We don’t need tea right now,” Sasha says, gesturing for everyone to either sit or calm down or both. “Maybe later.”

She takes a seat on the far end of the sofa, by the door; Tim comes over to sit next to her in the middle. The other moves carefully around the love seat and sits down on the end closest to where Martin sits. Jon remains standing, still glaring at the other.

“What are you?” he repeats.

“Human,” the other says. “As far as I can tell, anyway. At least as human as you are. But if you’re asking who I am, which I think was your original question...I’m Martin Blackwood. From the future. And I’m here to help save the world.”

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 12/1/20

Cutie and the Beast, Vol. 1 | By Yuhi Azumi| Seven Seas – This looked cute, and gave off a very My Love Story!! vibe, but I was wary of the fact that one of the leads is in his late twenties and the other is a senior in high school. That said, unlike a lot of other romance titles from Japan that adore this sort of couple, the manga makes their age difference the main conflict. He’s a famous pro wrestler, and getting involved with a girl her age, even if she is eighteen, would be career-killing. On the other hand… these two have fallen hard for each other almost at first sight, and can’t stop texting, calling, meeting up, etc. Now, how this will play out I’m not sure. Pretty sure they’ll get together, but I bet his career does take a big hit. Nice to see the manga address it, though. – Sean Gaffney

How Do We Relationship?, Vol. 1 | By Tamifull | Viz Media – “Opposites attract” is a common enough trope, but it is utilized to great effect and with notable complexity in How Do We Relationship?. The manga follows two young women in college as they begin dating each other—the somewhat shy and innocent Miwa and the much more boisterous and experienced Saeko. Navigating a new relationship is rarely easy and a romance between two women has additional sets of challenges, as Saeko in particular is very aware. While Miwa and Saeko’s deepening feelings are obviously core to the story, their relationships with friends and classmates play critical roles as well. One of the things that impressed me the most about the first volume of How Do We Relationship? was just how believable and realistic all of these different relationships were. The characterization of the leads is wonderfully nuanced, too. I’m really looking forward to reading more of the series. – Ash Brown

Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 9 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – Most of this Komi volume revolves around Valentine’s Day, which as always presents the author with a conundrum: how do I make them give chocolates and be the cutest couple ever without actually making them a couple or having them confess? Rest assured, though, fans of Komi and Tadano will find endless scenes to love here. My favorite may be Tadano’s sister trying to get him to admit his feelings, then being rather annoyed when he actually comes close to doing so. Fortunately, as the title suggests, Komi is not very good at communicating, so things stay the same for now. Still, I suspect we need something to shake things up. Perhaps a new love interest could magically arrive soon? – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 25 | By Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – Shigaraki’s backstory is as terrifying and traumatic as you might imagine—let’s just say the hands he wears aren’t just for show. So it’s back to our heroes, who are practicing how to do hero interviews (Midoriya’s goes as badly as you’d expect) and also preparing for the next round of internships. Oh yes, and celebrating Christmas, which is adorable and also has Eri Santa. As for internships, Nighteye is dead and his agency is too busy to take him in, and Best Jeanist is missing, so Bakugou’s in limbo as well. Todoroki suggests an obvious idea: all three of them could intern with the best dad ever. All of this is clearly setting up a huge battle in the upcoming books, but it’s fun to see. – Sean Gaffney

Ossan Idol!, Vol. 1 | By Ichika Kino and Mochiko Mochida | TOKYOPOP – Adapted from a light novel, Ossan Idol! is the story of Miroku Osaki, a virginal, pure of heart, and unemployed 36-year-old who has spent the last decade as a shut-in. He’s always been overweight, but once he discovers a love of dance, he starts training at a gym with Yoichi Kisaragi, who was once overweight himself. Soon, Miroku is buff, handsome, and charming and the karaoke video he accidentally uploads to the internet becomes a viral sensation. The volume concludes with a famous producer declaring he’ll turn Miroku into an idol, and not just him but Yoichi (41) and dancer pal Shiju (40), too. All in all, this is a pleasing bit of fluff that I don’t have a lot to say about either positively or negatively. I will probably check out volume two, at least, to see where the story goes. – Michelle Smith

Sadako at the End of the World | By Koma Natsumi and Koji Suzuki | Yen Press – The premise of this one-volume manga—What if the girl from The Ring ended up in a post-apocalyptic world?—made me wonder if it would be horror or melancholic like Girls’ Last Tour. It’s pretty much both. Sadako, particularly once the artist gives her a tablet to communicate with, is not as scary here, and the girls she’s with are an innocent delight. But as they meet the few remaining people in this world along the way, there’s a definite sense she’s also going back and doing what she does best to each of them. The ending tries for sort of a fourth-wall-breaking thing but I think it was simply there as the author wasn’t sure how to end it after the cast was gone. A good read overall, though. – Sean Gaffney

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Vol. 13 | By Kagiji Kumanomata | Viz Media After reading my brief of the last volume, I feel a need to eat my words. The combination of this new volume and the currently running anime have made me realize: yes, there is real character development here. Syalis at the start of the series was a gag character who would murder at the drop of a hat. Here, while she’s still extremely flaky, she’s doing her best to unite humans and demons, even if this means completing all the Demon Lord’s paperwork—in ONE DAY. Even better, when the Cleric waffles on about his feelings for her and the reason he ran away from the castle, Syalis points out something: who she likes is her own decision. Our Sleepy Princess is all grown up! – Sean Gaffney

Sweat and Soap, Vol. 4 | By Kintetsu Yamada | Kodansha Comics – There’s a chapter of sex here, in case you were looking for that, but for the most part this series would rather deal with the sweet tensions of a young couple in love trying to negotiate how to do that and still be attentive to the other partner’s needs. Their couple-ness is now generally known to the office, though we have not quite told the parents yet—I suspect that will be next book. More importantly, they are talking about moving in together, something that requires charts and sticky notes, because these two are organized and also adorable. And they are also still very much desiring each other as well—the sex here is hot. One of the best romance mangas to come out in 2020. – Sean Gaffney

What the Font?! – A Manga Guide to Western Typeface | By Kuniichi Ashiya| Seven Seas – This is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. A young woman is told to layout a presentation, but has never done this before. While studying Western fonts, she falls asleep… and meets personifications of many of them, both Serif and Sans. Each font has a personality, they talk about themselves and their history, and then we move on. If you’re expecting Hetalia antics, look elsewhere—there’s no plot to speak of, and the fonts are not the most riveting characters. If you do want to learn about the differences between Western typefaces, though, this is a good enough guide for you, though I suspect it works even better in Japanese. – Sean Gaffney

Whisper Me a Love Song, Vol. 1 | By Eku Takeshima | Kodansha Comics – The cover of this volume is quite striking, and it led me to believe that this would be somehow different from your standard “high school girls in love” story. Unfortunately, it really isn’t. Yori Asanagi is a talented singer who fills in with the light music club band for a performance at the entrance ceremony Himari Kino is attending. Himari promptly informs Yori she’s fallen for her at first sight and Yori believes she means it romantically (instead of merely as a fan), and instantly falls in love herself. Characterizations here are shallow, particularly for Yori’s would-be bandmates, and there’s just not much going on that’s especially interesting. The one exception is that Himari’s enthusiastic appreciation for Yori’s singing is seemingly helping her to overcome some confidence issues. I’ll give this one more volume, I think, to see how it develops. – Michelle Smith

You Are My Princess | By Hiroto Kujirada | Futekiya (digital only) – Itsumi Tachibana is a scary-looking guy who secretly loves kitties. He’s surprised when the princely student council president, Seima Takajo, confesses romantic feelings for him, and suspects he’s being made fun of. After spending more time with Takajo, however, and realizing he’s the only one Takajo allows himself to be unguarded around, Itsumi’s feelings change. Plot-wise, You Are My Princess isn’t terribly unique. The guys get together, they have sex in the final chapter, the end. What makes it special, though, is Kujirada-sensei’s clean and expressive artwork, the nonverbal storytelling, and the little moments in which Takajo drops the facade and reveals real vulnerability. And also kitties. In the end, I enjoyed this cute story and look forward to more by this creator! – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #450

Top Ten Characters with the Best Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes

As I’m writing this, it’s officially Star Trek: Discovery day; the first episode of the new season is up on Netflix and ready to watch. Given how little time I manage to find for watching anything that I want to watch, I’m cautiously optimistic that I can get to see it this weekend, but we’ll see; my lovely wife might want to finally catch up with Star Trek: Picard first, which for some reason she never finished. Regardless, I’m excited, and I wanted to write about Star Trek again.

The new Star Trek series have been a bit of a roller coaster, because whilst they’ve both generally been very good, they’ve certainly had their odder and more controversial moments, and neither of them has consistently felt like classic Trek. If I had to be critical, I’d argue that there are plenty of darker adult-tinged sci-fi shows at the moment, including ones set in space, but not that many that follow the day-to-day travails of a starship crew, which as always been Trek’s raison d'être. However, both shows have succeeded in giving us some compelling stories and – especially in the case of Discovery – a fantastic cast of new characters to celebrate. Great characterisation has been the cornerstone of Trek since the beginning, and no doubt one of the reasons why it still resonates to this day, from the “Holy Trinity” of Kirk, McCoy, and Spock, through to the wonderful and insanely empathetic Saru in Discovery and Captain Sexpot Rios in Picard. The fact that we’re now in a new time period, with no established history to try to tie the narrative to, means Discovery 3 is in a great place to give us some great new stories.

Anyway, to celebrate all of this – the new season of Discovery and my overall love of Star Trek characters – I’ve decided to go back to the Next Generation well and talk about just that: characters. TNG famously hit its stride when it started focusing each story through the lens of the different characters on the show, so that we tended to get a “Worf episode” or a “Riker episode”; even the best eps, the biggest and most epic, really had a tendency to hone in on one or two characters specifically, such as the all-time classic “The Best of Both Worlds” really being about Picard and Riker, or “Yesterday’s Enterprise” being a much-belated Tasha Yar episode.

But which characters have the best episodes? That is, if you know an episode is focused on a particular character, how likely is it that it’s going to be a belter? Can you reasonably say one character was better served than another in terms of the quality of “their” episodes? Well, yes. Yes you can. That’s this list. That’s the whole thing.

So this list is basically which characters have the best episodes, or are more likely to. It’s not a list of my favourite characters, or even really a list of the best episodes overall; it’s just, well, who got to chew scenery the most on the bridge, basically. Now, I really feel like I should end this blurb with an appropriate Star Trek quote, but I must have used “Make it so” and “Engage” before, so I’m not sure what else to say.

May the Force be with you, I guess.

Picard: Yes, of course; he’s the star, he’s the stand-out actor of the bunch, he gets the best episodes. If it focuses on the captain, you can rest assured you’re in for a treat. Whether it’s an epic mythology-enhancing saga or – even better – a slower, sadder meditation on life, Picard’s episodes are engaging. Chortle. Also if there’s room for a classic Picard Monologue, all the better; I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about Patrick Stewart, but the guy can chew scenery. Key episodes: The Best of Both Worlds, The Drumhead, The Hidden Light

Worf: Worf’s complex backstory offers a lot of opportunities for great stories, with the caveat that pretty much all of them focus on Klingon history or the contrast between his heritage and his place in Starfleet. Issues of familial loyalty rub up against quasi-Shakespearean dynastic dramas, often with high adventure. You can assume a Worf ep is a good one, despite the fact that quite a few of them are also about Alexander. Key episodes: Sins of the Fathers, Redemption, Birthright

Data: everyone’s second-favourite emotionless nerd on Star Trek, Data’s eps are almost uniformly great, and often poke at what it means to be alive. There may be a bit of ground retrod as we examine the notion of humanity, or sentience, or emotion, but his episodes are always interesting, and often very funny, and Brent Spiner is a continuing delight. Key episodes: The Measure of a Man, The Offspring, Brothers

Q: is it cheating to include a recurring guest star? Maybe, but I don’t care. John de Lancy is just phenomenal as Q, one of the best Trek characters, and so good he became a My Little Pony. He’s arch, he’s hilarious, he can take the show into new directions; he raises questions of fate, or of the concept of divinity; and underneath it all there’s a malevolent streak, a genuine sense of danger exemplified in his first appearance. Pairs very well with Picard, naturally. I didn’t like the Robin Hood episode, though. Key episodes: Deja Q, Encounter at Farpoint, Q Who

Riker: he’s a Kirk-esque horn-dog ragamuffin with a heart of gold and a fist of steel, so there’s always a lot to love when William T. takes the helm (see what I did there?). Often issues of loyalty, or duty versus personal wishes, arise; he’s frequently putting his life on the Enterprise above his career. But he’s also a very moralistic character, so quite often he’ll be trying to do the right thing in tough circumstances. Key episodes: The Pegasus, Future Imperfect, Frame of Mind

Crusher: always a stand-out supporting character, Crusher has some great episodes focused on her too; usually quite a self-righteous sort who puts the immediate moral obligation above her own safety or duty to Starfleet, which raises lots of interesting, thorny questions. She’s a smart cookie, exemplified in the astounding Remember Me; her relationships with her son and with Picard are good to explore too. She also shagged a ghost, but let’s try to forget about that. Key episodes: Remember Me, Attached, Suspicions

Wesley: pigeonholed somewhat unfairly due to a few ropey first-season episodes, Wesley Crusher is actually an interesting character whose stand-out storylines offer a good deal of nuance and intrigue, as well as exciting hi-jinks, insights into the Federation, and – should you go that far – weird magic Jedi stuff. He gets a nice romance with Ashley Judd, we unpeel his relationship with Picard over multiple episodes, and the bloom comes off the rose in spectacular fashion when he gets to Starfleet Academy. Wil Wheaton was a good young actor and was sadly underserved by the show, but at least we get these eps. Key episodes: The Game, Final Mission, The First Duty

Pulaski: say whaaat? Yes, she’s only in the show for five minutes, but Doctor Pulaski gets a few crackers under her belt in that time. A bit like Crusher would later, she often excels when standing up to authority and presenting herself as a moral arbiter. Interestingly, she’s not always right, and it’s a fun dance to watch. She’s also been round the block a bit, adding facets to her relationships with other characters, particularly Riker. And, of course, she flirts with a bunch of polygons when Geordi and Data cock up the Holodeck. Key episodes: Elementary, Dear Data, Unnatural Selection, The Icarus Factor

Troi: sadly suffering in the face of a bunch of soppy romances and storylines involving her mother that are, shall we say, an acquired taste, Troi still gets some good stuff, mostly later in the series’ run. Taking her out of her comfort zone, making her a spy or an investigator, or giving her some proper dramatic meat, works wonders. Also once she was a cake. Key episodes: Face of the Enemy, Eye of the Beholder, Dark Page

LaForge: oh, Geordi. I love Georgi, but he kinda got done dirty a little bit. Always an interesting and dependable secondary character, unfortunately the bulk of his episodes as a primary character tend to revolve around him being a bit of a jerk or a bit of a creep. Obviously the most heinous sin is making a computer program based on a real person and then, well, trying to shag it, but he also has a tendency to be a dick to anyone new in Engineering. He’s even a bit of a dick to Scotty! I sometimes think the writers never quite had a handle on Geordi’s character; is he a young tech genius with poor social skills? Is he supposed to be arrogant? A wannabe lothario who’s just really unlucky? Anyway, like I say, I still love the guy to bits, and LeVar Burton is fantastic, but of all the main ensemble, his are the flakiest solo episodes. That said, the three listed here are all belters. Key episodes: The Next Phase, The Enemy, Relics

Anyway. There we are. I’ve still, as of going “to press”, not watched Discovery season 3, and my wife’s still not watched the end of season 1 of Picard. Any day now…!

[belladonnaandulriched]

amped and wired, part two | chapter one: break my body

It had been two days since Lars and I returned home from the City and I had no idea when he wanted to return home to the Bay Area. While I had been relishing in every moment I was in bed and taking my sweet time in getting up: the feeling of having all the blankets wrapped around me like I was a burrito of some sort. I always buried my head into the real soft part of the pillow: it all cradled me like my mom's arms. I always woke up toasty warm and feeling soft.

He seemed more adept at lounging on my couch forever than making an effort to get back home—and I thought I had my lazy moments. If it was any compliment to him, he didn't deserve to be left out in the cold like what happened to me. But for two full days now, I had gotten up and found him lazing on the couch, right on top of one of my blankets in his plain T-shirt and pants; at least he took off his shoes—I think he only got up to take a piss whenever he could and wanted to. The second morning I woke up to get myself a cup of coffee and check on him, he remained in the same spot as the night before, even when I told him “good night.” Really, I don't think he even so much as moved.

At one point, I looked into his face from clear across the room and I wanted to pat the sides of his face or maybe bitch slap 'em a li'l bit but I knew it was to be a bit too much at that time. Those green eyes seemed to gaze off into nothing, kind of like how I felt the moment I hung up the phone from Charlie. His arms dangled about him like the arms of a marionette puppet without its master. His body looked heavy and small at the same time: sluggish, if you will, like one of the many Mayas after he knocked their heads off.

Every now and again, I thought of asking him how he felt, and every single time, I thought he would reply to me in the worst way possible. I sat at the kitchen table humming to myself and thinking of drumlines to put down once I stole a moment in a studio when I thought of his drumming. But he didn't seem so intent on making any kind of movements such as that even vaguely possible.

Eventually before dinner on that second night, I strode up to him with a fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach, and yet it needed to be done. He lay there on my couch with his arms folded over his chest and his face glazed over like he had been spinning around in too many circles. It was the most he had moved in two days.

“Alright, Lars, it's been a coupla days,” I started at a quick clip, “do ya mind tellin' me what's goin' on in that head of yours?”

He didn't reply: he continued to stare up at the ceiling with that blank expression on his face. I ran my fingers through my black curls, such that I could feel their dried out roots. I needed a shower, or a drink of water. Or both.

“Lars,” I said in a low voice. “Lars.”

He didn't move or make a sound. He just lay there like he was stoned out of his wits, but his eyes were way too clear. I frowned at him and I was unsure if he could even see me. There was a faint little nugget of light in those green irises, but nothing to write home about. I sighed through my nose and doubled back to the kitchen to start on making something for the both of us. The least I could do was make him something, given the night before I just made myself something: I would have asked him if he wanted anything to eat for himself but he didn't even bat a lash at the notion of me eating two helpings of chili solo.

Given it was rather cold that night with that freezing torrential lake effect rain making its way in, I was in the mood for something traditional but I didn't feel like ringing up my mom especially since the night began falling upon us. But I needed something to warm me up, something to coax me back into bed.

Something with pasta and some tomatoes. The real meat and potatoes.

I kept that in mind as I whipped up a big pot of angel hair and some tomato sauce—I wished for my mom's meatballs there with me, but it was either eat it there while it was all still hot or let it get cold (ew!)

I slung a dish towel over my shoulder even though I wasn't much of a cook so to speak, but it was good enough, though. I lingered over the top of the pot of sauce, and rested my hands on the edge of the counter, and took a whiff. I'm a simple Italian boy: I make something with tomatoes, I've gotta smell it. I closed my eyes and relished in that nice smell for a moment before I went to tell Lars about it. I still had the towel over my shoulder as made my way into the next room.

“Lars, I made some spaghetti—you want some?”

He still didn't reply. I finally buried my face in my hands and let out an exasperated sigh.

“C'mon, Lars, ya gotta eat!” I insisted, and I made my way into the next room. I stood over him with my hands on my hips. I wasn't much taller than him, but I was the one standing over him. I knew what he was feeling, but I needed him to eat, especially since he hadn't eaten anything or even so much as had a drink of water in the past two days alone.

“Lars,” I said in a firm tone of voice. “Lars!”

He parted his lips a tiny little bit and a soft mumble emerged from the back of his mouth, except I couldn't exactly hear what he said. I stopped in place, and then I wondered if he was saying something but his mouth was too dry. I crouched down next to him.

“What was that?” I asked him in a softer tone. He made the noise again: it sounded as though he had something stuck in his throat. I ran my tongue along my bottom lip and I realized that I needed a drink of water myself.

“What'd you say? C'mon, man, help me out here.”

Lars closed his lips and swallowed it down. He rolled his head to the side.

“Lars,” I said again; his eyes were closing. “Lars! Lars—hey, c'mon, man, wake up!”

He fell asleep right there.

“Lars... Lars!”

I reached for the sides of his face and patted him several times.

“Come on—come on!”

I reached down for the side of the blanket and gave it a good yank. Fell right on my ass and bumped my knee on the bottom of the couch.

“Ow! Damn!”

I looked up to find he hadn't budged or even so much as changed his expression. I fetched up an exasperated sigh and stood to my feet, albeit my knee and the lower parts of my legs all throbbing in pain. I fixed the towel on my shoulder and ran my fingers through my hair again. Yeah, I definitely needed a drink of water to go with my pasta.

I made my way back into the kitchen and served myself a plate, complete with lots of tomato sauce. My mom's meatballs definitely would have been the finishing touch on it, but I didn't have much other choice. I drank down a big glass of water to go with it, but I knew I would have to shower, too, seeing as I had no chance to do so yesterday or the day before when we made our return.

I had two helpings seeing as I wanted to give some to Lars, but he hadn't said anything about it so I helped myself. The second time I added some grated parmesan on top for a little more of a nuance.

Afterwards, I rinsed off my plate and put away the rest in the fridge. Since I had a two large helpings of it, my jeans were feeling a little extra snug than normal. In fact, my stomach had a little more tightness than usual. I was warm—a little too warm. And soft.

Granted, it wasn't that late, but my bed called me from the kitchen there. I ran my fingers through my curls again, but that time I reached over with my other hand to switch off the light. The whole place engulfed with dim light from the lights and the orange reflection of it all on the clouds outside. I lifted my arms over my head to let my belly hang out a little bit and then I made my way towards my room.

“Do you think I should call my mother?” Lars asked me, and the sound of his voice sliced through the silence so quickly, it made me jump. But I caught myself and fixed the collar of my sweatshirt. I looked over at him and his eyes staring back at me through the darkness.

“Well—do you need to call her?” I led him into it.

“I do not know. And I do not know what to tell her, either. Like, what am I supposed to tell her, 'hi, Mom. Is Dad around? Oh, nothing... just gone depressing and everything...”

I frowned at him even though I knew he couldn't see me.

“Is there still some pasta left?” he asked.

“Yeah, there's plenty. I was just about to go in here and chill for a little while before I go to sleep.”

“It's not even that late, though.”

“Yeah, but I'm very full and warm, so...”

“Ah. Feeling relaxed.”

“Besides, you gotta eat, man. I banged my knee and my shin on the couch tryin' ta get yer ass up.”

“I know you did.”

“Well, why didn't you?”

“'Cause I'm an idiot. That's why.”

“Lars, you're not an idiot. You're not. Trust me. I'm the idiot here.”

“You?” He seemed appalled by that.

“Yeah. The biggest idiot you've ever seen.”

“Joey, you're a fucking badass, man. You're a hero.”

“A hero? No, no, no, nah, nah, nah, nah. No. No freaking way.”

“You are, though. You don't realize it right now, but you are in fact a hero.”

“Do you want some pasta or no?”

“I might as well.” Even though it was dark, I could smell the disappointment on him from there. I strode over to the lamp next to the chair and switched it on: golden yellow light washed over the room, and in time for his sitting up from the couch.

“By the way, I hope you can forgive me,” he started again. I turned around to face him with my eyebrows knitted together.

“For what?”

“Taking up your couch.”

“You're not takin' up anything, Lars,” I assured him.

“Really?”

“Really. Really, really.”

He groaned in his throat and he stood to his feet. I watched him make his way into the kitchen for a plate of pasta himself, and then I sank down on the couch myself. His laying there for as long as he did gave it an extra touch of softness. I heard him shuffling about in there but I found myself figuring out the cushions a bit more right then. I spread my legs and leaned back: softer than normal. Lars tenderized this thing. It helped that I was extra full so I could relax to of great extent right there.

Speak of the devil, he returned to the front room with a small plate of it in one hand and he took his seat next to me.

“It's not my mom's but—” I shrugged at him. “—what're ya gonna do.”

He once again stayed in silence. In fact, the whole entire time he ate it up, he was silent. I had one arm up on the back of the couch and my legs spread wide open.

At one point, he looked over at me with his mouth of those slender little noodles with a bemused look on his face. His eyes flicked down to my thighs and my crotch and then he examined my body. He swallowed the bite.

“What?” I asked him.

“Nothing. It's just—it's good to have a quiet moment for once.”

“I know, right?” I chuckled at that. “How is it, by the way?”

“It's delicious. Perfect, like it just... hits the spot.”

“I was in the mood for sump'n traditional,” I confessed with another shrug of the shoulders. “By the way, you gonna be fine out here? Y'know, sleepin' tonight? I know you did it the first night we got back, and then last night, too.”

“Actually, I was—I was wondering if—” He paused.

“Wondering if what?” He nibbled on his bottom lip.

“What?”

His face fell.

“Lars?”

The room was silent, save for the tiny beginning droplets on the roof overhead.

One of the best things ever, I don't care what happens to me in life, is falling asleep when your stomach is nice and full and the rain hits the roof in torrents. It will never get old and I was wishing for that right then and there: just take off my clothes and climb into bed and relish in the warmth while listening to the rain over me.

“I was wondering if you would—allow me—to—bunk with you tonight.”

“Like, in my bed with me?”

“Yes. We can sleep head to toe if you wish.”

“Uh—um—yeah,” I said, reluctant. “Yeah, we can do that. It beats sleepin' out here by yourself.”

“Exactly! I was feeling alone for a bit there before you turned off the light.”

“Well, why didn't you say somethin'?”

“I didn't know how to break it to you, especially after all that's happened.”

“Lars, look at me...”

And he did.

“I've got a feelin' that you and I are gonna be here a while,” I told him with a clearing of my throat. “That is until—sump'n happens. I dunno what, though.”

He set his fork down on the edge of the plate and took another look at me.

“You done?” I asked him and I held out my hand to take his plate.

“Yes, but I'll take it, though, Joey. Don't worry about it.”

He stood to his feet and I watched him make his way over to the kitchen. I stayed there on those extra cushions for a moment before I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at the mouth of the hallway and saw something moving over there. I fetched up a sigh and I knew it had to be either Vera or Mrs. Snow coming forth given the sun had gone down and the rain was falling over our heads. I had to find a sweet spot, a little pocket of time to tell Lars about the ghosts here, otherwise who knows how he would react?

He returned to the front room with his long hair tousled a bit and his face in a daze.

“You alright?” I asked him.

“Oh, yeah. I should ask you that, too, though.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip.

“Joey—? Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I live with ghosts,” I said up front, with no strings attached.

“Ghosts? Like—actual entities of the dead? You live with ghosts?” He chuckled a little bit at that.

“Yeah.”

He burst out laughing.

“What's so funny?”

“There's no such thing!” he declared.

“Yes, there is! I live with four of them!”

“I am sure you do, Joey. That pasta in your belly is starting to getting to you a bit, methinks.”

“Why would I bullshit about that sort of thing, Lars?” I demanded while keeping my arm up on top of the couch. “By the way, did you actually just say 'methinks'?”

“Methinks so!” he cracked, but I rolled my eyes at that.

“Lars, I'm serious. There are four ghosts here: a little girl, an old man, a nurse, and a woman about our age.”

“Why, of all places did they choose this little apartment, though?” he asked with another low chuckle.

“Hell if I know. They just kinda came with the place as far as I know.”

“There is an Indian reservation near here, though.”

“Yeah, I know there is. My mom and my grandma used to take me there when I was a little boy.” I hesitated for a second, and then I realized what he meant by that. “Wait. You don't think—”

“It's possible. You know the whole thing about building things upon an Indian burial ground and whatnot.”

“Yeah, but there's nuthin' upon the actual graveyard, though. It's just a blank stretch of grass with some open trenches and a couple of trees, but that's about it.”

“Oh, I see.”

“See what?”

“It's open air.”

“It's not open air.”

“Sounds like it, though.”

“But it's not!”

“Are we gonna go to bed or not?”

I opened my mouth to say something but no noise came out. The sole noise came from the rain on the roof, which then picked up. The best thing ever and I was squandering it.

“Yeah. Let's.”

I stood to my feet and I felt the pasta weigh down inside my stomach. I clasped a hand there to steady myself.

“And I thought I liked to eat,” he joked.

“Eat, sleep, kick ass, repeat,” I told him as he made his way into my room. He was first to switch on the light to which he laughed again.

“I'm afraid to ask,” I confessed to him.

“There's no ghosts in here, Joseph.”

I fetched up a sigh at that. They were reticent to come out because the light was on, I just knew it. In fact, once I doubled back to switch off the lamp in the living room, I was met with a slight chill, one that ran up my arms and my spine. I knew it wasn't from the window given I had closed it just prior to the rains entering the area.

“Joey?” Lars called.

“Coming.”

I returned to my room in time to find him crawling under the covers with no pants on.

“Okay, so how we gonna do this,” I wondered aloud.

“Head to toe,” he insisted.

“I know—I just don't know which way we're gonna have to lay here, though.”

“Here, I'll sleep this way—” He crawled towards the foot of the bed and lay down on his side. He lay the side of his head on the soft part of the mattress.

“You gonna be okay right there?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

I squinted at him, to which he lifted his head and gazed at me with those little eyebrows of his raised. I lifted a finger and doubled back to the front room once again for a pillow from the couch. I felt the chill once again, but it was the least of things on my mind at the moment. I came back to the room once again with it in both hands.

“You're not gonna suffocate me with that thing, are you?” he asked me with a look of fear in his eyes.

“Nah, you'd haveta beg me to do that to ya,” I assured him. “Lift yer head—”

He raised himself up on his elbow so I could slide the pillow underneath his head, and then he lay back down.

“That's better. Thank you, Joey.”

“I just didn't like the idea of you laying there with nuttin' to support your head. I mean you saw me gettin' up back there.”

“Yeah, but that's your belly. We're talking my head here.”

“Hey, if we were talking heads, we'd be in gray woolly suits and barefoot, mmkay?”

“Given it's the same it ever was, too,” he pointed out.

“Exactly!” I stripped off my shirt and folded it up before putting it away in the dresser drawer. My eyelids were feeling heavy and I was feeling heavy and ready for bed myself. It wasn't that late, but it sure felt like it. I crawled underneath the covers next to Lars—he had his back to me, which meant I would have the backs of his legs pressed against my chest. And then I reached up to switch off the light.

“Oh, damn,” he muttered.

“What?” I lay my head down on my pillow.

“Dark in here.”

“Dark and lovely,” I corrected him as I nestled down under the covers. I brought the blankets up to my ear and closed my eyes. Between the warmth in my stomach, having him next to me, and the rain on the roof, I was quick to fall asleep.

I found myself in the warehouse, the one down in the City where all of that butchering went down. I was laying on top of the table with my arms outstretched on either side of me. Someone stole my clothes: I looked down and saw a big light the size of a truck tire hovering over me. It took me a second to realize it was an x-ray machine. Someone was giving me x-rays without giving me some kind of protection.

I rolled my head over to see a guy hovering over me. I couldn't see his face given the sheer extent of the shadow in there. But I could see his hands, the size of dinner plates, and his fingers, long, spindly, and pointed with razor blades. I wondered what he would do to me, that is if he did anything to me.

I watched him linger closer to me.

“What're you doing?” I demanded. He didn't answer: I felt something brush against the sides of my neck. I looked on either side of me to find someone had also cut my hair at the roots. My hair! I had no mirror on hand but I knew didn't look right.

But that was the least of my problems right then.

The man moved in closer to my stomach, right underneath the x-ray light. Those fingers shone bright like shiny brand new knives underneath that pallid light. The pointed tips grazed against my skin: light as feathers but sharper than any knife I had ever encountered. A gentle caress was enough to break the skin.

I didn't feel any pain. At first.

And then he caressed me again.

It was enough for my chest to rise but I couldn't make a sound.

He did it again, and that time he used both hands. He sliced me open with no anesthesia and no regard for my body. I could feel those claws tearing into my flesh and my organs. I could feel him messing with it all. I looked down without moving my head to find my skin fanned out from my midsection, each layer spread out like lace.

“He's perfect,” said a woman next to me.

“I'm glad you brought him in,” he told her in a soft voice, “this is what he gets for being such a little play thing. The outsider looking in. This is what he gets.”

I writhed in pain but it was useless, especially since I had been strapped down to the table.

“Such gorgeous flesh,” said the nurse. “Perfect for clones.”

“I almost don't want to clean it,” said the man as he sawed through my hip bones. I was wide awake and hemorrhaging, but I witnessed the whole entire thing. Every slice. Every hole made by the points of his fingers in my intestines and in my stomach. I could feel my organs oozing out with each puncture. Sawing through my bones felt like sawing through something celery. Or a raw potato. I had become both meat and potatoes to this guy.

Cutting me open without any remorse for what he had done to me.

“Poor beautiful little boy—thinks he can get away with being so rude,” the nurse taunted me; I had no idea if she was Mrs. Snow or not, but who gives a shit. I felt him slicing down my legs, and in between my legs. It was like one of those slicers you'd see at the meat department in the grocery store, except I was on the slicing end.

“Take his flesh,” he told the nurse. “It's delicate and lush and healthy. He's perfect for cloning.”

“What should we do with his blood?” she asked him.

“Save it. It's been caught here, see? As for his hair—those black curls—take it to the seamstress for some sewing. We can't let any part of him go to waste.”

“But what about the rest of his corpse, though?”

I couldn't hear what he was saying because the pain was so monumental, so overwhelming, that I couldn't scream. I had been torn open and torn apart. Sliced apart and butchered like a carcass. My blood spilling over the edges of the table and down into buckets because they knew what would happen. My insides mutilated and used like they were nothing. Torn to shreds for nothing more than being me.

I couldn't scream given he was about to tear into my lungs and my throat. But I screamed anyway. I screamed as he broke through my ribs and punctured my lungs.

I was a dead man but I was screaming at the top of my lungs anyway.

If Charlie could hear me scream from miles away, then surely the dead would, too.

I shook myself awake and I stared into the darkness. I was met by the sound of the rain on the roof and Lars' gentle snoring. It took me a second to realize he pressed his heels against my stomach, which still felt very full. Careful not to wake him, I shifted over onto my back. I rested my hands on my stomach to feel the warmth and also if I was still intact.

The whole image of it haunted me to no end. Every time I closed my eyes I envisioned... that.

That warehouse. That everything about it inside of it. The things and stuff and stuff about things. Tearing my body apart for the sake of making clones.

Clones. Maya. Everything going down in ruins.

I lay there flat on my back and stared up into the darkness. I wondered if the clones had backed off a little bit because I needed to rest for a little bit. And I knew Lars wanted to, too. But then again, they were clones. They went haywire after a day and neither of us knew why.

I was too tired to ruminate over it so I relaxed a little bit more. I kept picturing it on the backs of my eyelids. The blood, the guts, the bones breaking and splintering apart with each cut of those knives, everything. At least it was a dream.

I felt something brush against my foot. I figured it was just Lars' hair as it fanned out from his head, but then I felt it again, and that time I felt it on my right foot rather than my left. I opened my eyes and glanced down to my feet. Even in the darkness, I made out sight of her head and shoulders as they rose up over the edge of the bed. She had this faint silvery glow to her that wasn't too bright, but bright enough for me to realize what she was doing.

Her gaping eyes. Her hair in the form of streamers behind her head as if she was underwater or caught up in a strong breeze. Her tattered dress, which made me think of girls who went to a girl school. She raised a finger to her lips and the black holes making up her eyes bled like mascara.

I ran my tongue along my bottom lip. It was the first time I had ever really gotten a good long look at Vera, given she always spooked the hell out of me. But even just laying there, I still felt spooked within her presence. I watched her fade away into the darkness.

I was alone again with the sound of the rain on the roof and Lars snoring. And at some point, I managed to fall asleep again.

[mysticmylifeisamess-enger]

As Regular As Clockwork

Pairing: Jumin/Reader

Word count: 3,365

Summary: Jumin is a man of many talents. Though saying no to you wasn't one of them.

A/N: So here was an art trade for someone since they mentioned on twitter wanting a fic of MC teasing Jumin with the cameras in his penthouse bc there’s plenty for Seven but not enough for him and my horny ass jumped at the opportunity because who am I if not a slut for Jumin Han

It should also be worth mentioning that this would be a good example of what you’d be receiving if you commission me ^^ here’s the info on that

Not safe for kiddos below the cut

When it came to work, Jumin was much like a clock. Precise in every action and gesture, punctual to any meeting he attended, and methodical, as if his every movement was timed. He’s often compared to a robot, but not even a robot, no matter how advanced it is, could be as meticulous as him.

He was also predictable to those that would observe closely. Anyone that sat down and watched long enough would pick up on just how he worked. Though there were very few people in his life who took the time to truly understand this pattern; a less than handful amount that truly understood the way he worked in, and even out, the office.

You, on the other hand, not only took the time to observe, but to even put to memory these patterns. He welcomed you into every aspect of his life and you took this as an opportunity to get know him beyond the things even he wouldn’t notice. At any given moment of the day, you could tell anyone what Jumin must be doing with almost perfect accuracy. Though the moments that always intrigued you were the ones where his attention was turned somewhere else.

From your observations, he’d look over the documents on his desk, mark down any revisions, place it in the outbox on the corner of his desk, and repeat the process for a few hours. At exactly 2:32 pm, in the midst of his work and 13 minutes short of his scheduled daily meeting, his eyes would glance over the monitor on his desk— open to the CCTV in his penthouse— and smile to himself to see the white coat of his beloved pet before he continued onto his pile.

It made you wonder just how he looked at the screen when you weren’t around and instead on the other side of it. Did his gaze linger just a bit longer? Was his smile just a bit wider at the thought of seeing his loving partner? Or would he even look at all, considering the original intent of this camera was to watch after Elizabeth? But what you really wanted to know was whether you could use it to break that precious, commendable concentration of his.

His greatest gift, what truly made him the heir extraordinaire that he is, was how steady his focus could be. It was a little shaken up at your arrival, but he was able to manage after a while, finding you to be the new center of his focal point. You always admired this about him, a trait that he fully used to learn everything about you in no time, especially when it only seemed to heighten once you two became intimate.

But to find a weak spot, a vulnerability in his everyday flow that you could easily pervade proved to be your hardest task as a spouse yet. Weeks on end and you had yet to see an opportunity.

Until one morning. One morning that you woke up to find his grasp on you just a bit tighter than usual. His every word as you two had breakfast together had an underlying need to it. And the usual goodbye kiss you sent him out the door with seemed much more covetous, tugging at your bottom lip as he pulled away and leaving you weak in the knees at his departure.

‘Bingo,’ you thought to yourself, biting back the devious smile that threatened to spread.

~

The end of his pen tapped against the desk incessantly, fidgeting with it between his fingers every once in a while before they signed away at a document and repeating the process. It was unlike him to be so restless, as if his hands couldn’t stay still and needed to find some sort of occupancy to them.

His usual three-piece suit felt much more restricting than usual, shifting uncomfortably in his seat every so often. His hand constantly found its way to the tie around his neck, loosening it just a bit every time. It made him wonder whether they were dry-cleaned correctly or if he had hit some sudden growth spurt at 28.

Every sound behind the closed doors of his office seemed much louder than they actually were, testing at his patience at every little tick. In particular, the wall clock that hung above the door sounded as if it was right in his ear, ticking continuously with no end in sight.

And in all these subtle nuances, you happened to sit on the forefront of his mind. With every thought, every scenario his imagination would drift into, and every bit of semblance he’d fixate on, his restlessness would only get worse.

It started innocently, wishing he could have convinced you to come along for the day. Your presence sitting patiently on his office couch, getting up occasionally to plop on his lap and give him a quick kiss. Your fingers carding through his locks as they always did. Lips moving from his to the corner of his mouth, pressing along his cheek slowly until it was just under his jawline. Lingering for a second until your tongue darted out to press a wet kiss on his neck, shifting to straddle him between your legs.

The pen in his hand snapped in half, bringing him out of his thoughts. Luckily, it was a simple bik pen— plastic and disposable compared to the others that sat on his desk. A frustrated sigh passed his lips, throwing the pen away as he noticed the time on the clock. 2:31 pm, 14 minutes before his scheduled group meeting and right on time to glancing at the CCTV for a quick revival in energy.

Sure enough, he saw his lovely cat perched on the cat-tree and sleeping soundly, smiling softly at the sight. His eyes then went to scanning the rest of the room for your presence only to see nothing, demeanor falling just a bit at that. He had hoped to see you, to sate this need of his with simply knowing that you were home and waiting for him.

Just as he was about to close it, he saw you walk into sight. Slow, precise steps as you walked through the space, silk robe lazily draped over your figure and coming off your shoulder. Intrigued, he continued to eye you as you sat yourself on the living room couch, getting comfortable right within view. Your hands went to the tie around your waist, undoing it to reveal the lingerie you had on underneath— a lacy two piece he carefully chose for you— and he felt his breathing hitch at the sight.

He pondered whether he should be spying on you like this, but his eyes just couldn’t seem to tear from the screen; absolutely enamored by every curve and dip of your skin he could see. Before he could even think to close out, your legs spread apart in plain sight of the lens and your eyes flicked between the phone on your side and up to meet his own.

Your hand slid between your thighs and rubbed tight circles over your panties, the other hand coming up to your chest and pinching the pert bud over your lacy fabric. You were clearly moaning, head thrown back in pleasure. He could only imagine the sounds you were making, his hand moving down to palm over his pants at the growing erection.

His other hand moved to the phone on his desk, quickly dialing your number and pressing it to his ear. Leaning back in his seat, he could see your phone light up and the small smile on your features as you went to pick it up.

“Hi honey,” your voice answered on the other side, punctuating your words with a breathy moan. He could see the sly grin on your face deepen as your hands still clearly rubbed over your panties, biting your lip before you continued, “Weird of you to call in the middle of work, what’s going on?”

He knew your teasing tone all too well, smirking to himself at your faux innocence. It was endearing to see you act so ingenue when your actions were so contradictory. Though he decided to play along, wondering just how long you could keep up this front.

“I thought I’d check up on my dearest,” his voice low and sultry “Make sure that you’re behaving.”

“Well,” you paused, emphasizing the silence with a drawn out gasp as he watched your fingers drag over your sensitive nub, “I can assure you that I’m being very good.”

“Is that so?” he asked, though you could hear the upturn of his lip, “And what exactly are you doing?”

“Thinking about you.”

At that, he couldn’t fight the low, breathy chuckle that reverberated in his chest, his hand moving from his clothed shaft to the buckle on his belt. Just as he tugged on it, a knock at the door startled him up straight, coughing between a ‘yes?’ to hide his previous tone. To hear how flustered he was only encouraged you to moan against his ear throughout.

He quickly composed himself, putting on a poker face as the door opened slightly only for Jaehee to pop her head in. The only evidence of his previous actions was a flushed face that only grew deeper to hear your lewd sounds on the other side.

“Mr. Han, I apologize for interrupting, but you have a meeting in 10 minutes.”

“Assistant Kang,” he started, steely gaze moving between the monitor and door, “I’m taking care of an urgent matter at the moment. If I’m not out in time, apologize on my behalf and assure them that I’ll be there soon.”

From his peripheral, he could see you stripping the layer you had, baring yourself to the camera as you continued your ministrations. His cheeks deepened in color at this dirty little secret and he was thankful that only he could see.

“Alright, I will, just please don’t keep them waiting long,” she said simply before closing the door behind her.

“Yeah Mr. Han, don’t keep them waiting,” you teased, drawing out your words and eliciting a low groan from him.

“Then you’re going to have to do exactly as I say,” his voice as commanding as it was deep, hand moving to undo his belt in one fluid motion.

“Oh,” you mused, “And who said you could take the lead on this?”

He let out another small laugh, amused at this change in character.

“Am I supposed to ask for permission?” his words sturdy in their silent demand, but hitching as his member met the cool air. You couldn’t see it, but you could imagine the smug smile on his face.

“Well no, but I thought it’d be nice to have the upper hand for once,” he could see the pouty expression on your lips and he couldn’t resist, not when you looked so enticing.

“Alright,” he finally said, “Whatever it is you desire of me, I will gladly do it.”

“Good,” you said just above a whisper, watching as your expression shifted to a sly smile, “Take a picture for me.”

“A picture? Of what exactly?” he questioned, obviously baiting for a specific response.

“Well I don’t think it’s fair that you can see all of me so clearly,” you continued, emphasizing your words with a drag of your fingers over your thigh, “Shouldn’t I get a peak too?”

“If that’s truly what you want,” his grin deepening, “Then your wish is my command.”

To see your simper smile and body writhe slightly at his words made him bold. He found it all too entertaining, not only that you were able to get him to do something so lewd and so out of his character, but that he would hand the world over to you on a silver platter if he could and that this was what you wanted. You wanted to see him, to have an intimate reminder of just what you do to him. And he was more than happy to indulge you.

He moved the phone against his ear to navigate to his camera, pointing it towards his view. One hand holding the base of his shaft while the other snapped a picture and sent it your way. The tinge of embarrassment would have taken over had he not heard your impressed gasp, seeing you smile as you gazed at your phone.

The picture itself wasn’t entirely steady in true Jumin fashion, but you could see every little detail that practically made you water at the mouth. The precum glistening and dripping from his tip, plump and reddened head you knew had to be sensitive to the touch, and every ridge and vein taut and outlined perfectly. Though the most impressive had to be his length— long, thick, and sturdy as it stood fully erect. Your digits truly couldn’t compare, thrusting them into yourself as you imagined his cock in its place.

“I’ll assume you’re pleased with the photo,” he said watching you closely, though you could pick up the hint of smugness in his tone. To see you trying to find purchase, uttering his name between gasps, he felt a bit of pride swell in his chest. The hand around his base gripped and slowly stroked, letting out a low moan to let you know exactly what he was doing.

“Very,” you teased back, “You have a lot to be proud of, Mr. Director.”

“Really?” he purred, thumb circling his tip and spreading his precum, “I could say the same about you.”

“The only thing I’m truly proud of is how hard I’ve made you,” your words practically dripped like honey as he hung on to every syllable, languid strokes timed with your own movements.

“Are you touching yourself right now?” you asked, catching him off guard, but that didn’t stop him. You could hear his labored breathing, the small moans that rippled out at your words, followed by a small, confident chuckle.

“And if I was?”

His words almost seemed like a challenge. A test to see how long you could keep up this act, to see how long it would take until you handed control back over to him as he desired. But that wasn’t something you could easily give up, especially not now and especially not when you practically had him at the palm of your hand.

“Well I just didn’t take you for someone that would do that in your own office,” you offered, a faux shock in your words.

“It just makes me wonder what you would do if I was there. If I just happened to be under that desk right now.”

At your words, his mind quickly went to the vision of you on your knees below his desk. Letting out a low groan, he couldn’t help but imagine your hand taking his place. And to hear your name under his breath had you biting back a wide grin.

“If only I could be right there, between your legs,” your words egging him on to increase his pace, breathy moans accentuating your pauses, “Tasting every bit of your cock, tongue sliding up from base to head until I’m taking it all in, gagging at your every thrust. And lapping up every bit of your cum once you finish.”

His head lulled back at your graphic descriptions, relishing in every little detail with a low groan. You truly had a talent for riling him up like you were and using something as simple as his imagination to drive him wild.

“But what I truly want is to be sprawled on your desk, completely on display for you. Having your way with me the way you always do, my nails raking down your back as you thrust into me over and over,” your eyes closing shut as if you were just imagining it, “Your hands pinning me down in place until I’m begging to touch you again.”

The pumping of his hand increased to a brutal pace, hips jerking up meet it. He tried to suppress his moans, but it was no use, letting them slip much like his restraint.

“And to call out your name, loud enough for the entire office to hear so they know just who is pleasing me so well, who I truly belong to,” you half-whispered, following it with a small laugh to hear just how ready he was to collapse with every gasp he sucked in through gritted teeth.

All the images you painted in his mind had him reeling, thinking of how truly unfair this current situation was. He could only watch as you touched yourself from afar, unable to provide the touch and feel he was longing for. And all while your voice teased him from the opposite end of the line. When agreeing to this, he gave you an inch and you took a mile before he could even realize.

“MC, you’re walking a fine line,” he cautioned, though the broken moans that followed his words had made you dauntless. You knew exactly what he meant by that, but it didn’t stop your almost taunting demeanor.

“And here I thought that you’d do anything I desired,” you pouted, feigning an innocence he could see right through. He knew you had a point, he did hand power over to you, but he didn’t realize just what it would do to him. How incessantly you planned to bait him or how badly he wanted to see you wriggle under his own control.

But he couldn’t quite deny how much he loved it. And all he wanted right now was a release; entirely deprived of your touch but needing just that bit of release.

And there was something incredibly pleasing about hearing just how desperate he was for you. The coveted heir-to-be on the other line—  a successful, educated, and completely composed man who is constantly commended for his strong will and unwavering focus— was a complete moaning mess that found himself aroused with your every word and every action. He was practically subservient to anything you asked of him and you wanted nothing more than to give into just what he wanted, knowing he was so close.

“Come for me,” your words just above a whisper, but firm in their command.

His eyes squeezed shut, feeling the coil in him tighten with every unrelenting stroke. His body jerked forward a bit at the oncoming release, writhing in pleasure as he called your name breathlessly. The internal clock he solely depended on had practically stopped without a care, instead focusing wholly on you.

It didn’t take long for him to unravel, letting out a strangled moan as the warmth in the pit of his stomach burst. His cum spilling and collecting in his hand, body in tremors as he came down from his high and leaving him a disheveled mess. His shallow, ragged breathing the only sound between you two.

Your own movements had slowed down, almost coming to a halt as soon as you noticed that he had reached his breaking point. Looking back up at the monitor, he could see the sly smile form on your face before you broke the silence.

“Look at that, 2:44. Right on time for your meeting, looks like I’ll have to leave you here. Good luck dear, I love you,” you practically chimed, a complete 180 from the previous few minutes. And before he could find the words to respond, you quickly hung up. From the camera, he could see you throw your robe back on, blow a kiss to the camera, and saunter off and out of sight.

He sat at his desk, completely dumbfounded and mouth hanging in confusion. You had practically left him a mess, both physically and mentally, and he loved every second of it. Though it left him completely depraved without truly sating his previous need for you. In fact, it made him much more worked up. And the only thought running through his mind was just how he was going to punish you for this as soon as he gets home.

[admiralty-xfd]

an unremarkable dog

What happened to Daggoo?

I traumatized quite a few readers when I had Daggoo run away in Culmination so this was my response story to that. Rest assured, he’s fine. :) 

It was the redheaded woman who rescued me. She couldn’t keep me, I suppose, so the tall man took me in. I know he only let me into his house because he loved the redheaded woman. I’m just a dog, I know, but I’m not stupid.

Before you ask, yes, I can see red. We don’t see colors the same way you humans do, but we sense them. And the redheaded woman exuded “redhead.” I’m not sure how we do it but it’s something in the attitude, and we are especially attuned to it.

I haven’t been alive for a very long time, but I have learned that you humans are funny creatures. You make a lot of noise at each other, and about each other.

You see, dogs don’t communicate the same way humans do. We react to feelings more than words. We can understand human intent almost entirely by instinct. But it’s hard for us to comprehend words or convey them verbally. We simply aren’t equipped with the tongues and lips we need to express them.

So dogs talk without talking, most of the time. We talk with our eyes.

The redheaded woman and the tall man weren’t like most humans; I knew that right away. They didn’t talk too much. They usually just looked at each other, a lot. It’s the reason I liked them so much from the very beginning: I could understand them in a way I hadn’t been able to understand other humans. It felt fated, like I was meant to be with them. I don’t think they realized it, but it gave the three of us a very strong bond from the start.

What I couldn’t understand was why they behaved that way. It wasn’t that I minded it; on the contrary, it was refreshing. What I minded was the impact it had on the two of them, because I think the truth of the matter is humans need to talk. You were blessed with opposable thumbs, and you were blessed with this gift of being able to communicate verbally. You’ve opened yourself up to nuance and subtlety, which we dogs can’t quite grasp because we never get to practice.

Remember what I said about being attuned? Well, I was, to the both of them. I sensed their love for each other, even though they didn’t seem to express it the way lots of humans did. Their actions seemed to be in quiet defiance of the emotions they were withholding.

These particular humans, who I came to learn were called Scully and Mulder, were not my first. First there was the man who took me to the lonely place, who talked quite a bit, mostly to himself. I didn’t like the lonely place. The humans there put me in a cage and there were other dogs around me, most of them just sad, or sometimes crazy. The people at the lonely place were kind, but they just didn’t seem to have much time for any of us.

Then the lizard man took me away from that place. He was kind as well and I enjoyed his company. His skin was rough but he was gentle, and the short time we got to spend together was pleasant. He talked to me and I learned things from him, especially when he left me alone in that room with the television on.

I like television. It opened up new worlds to me, like pictures of parts of the world I’d never seen, and humans interacting in ways I’d certainly never seen.

At first it was just humans mating. He watched that quite a lot. All different ways, some of which I’m pretty certain you can’t make pups by. I find it fascinating that there are so many varieties in which you humans mate. We dogs really just do it the one way. So… that was interesting.

But then the mating stopped and there were other things on the television: humans talking and yelling and hugging and dancing and smiling and… living. I really liked watching that. I didn’t understand a lot of what was happening, but there was a general feeling I got every once in a while when they all seemed so happy.

I liked that feeling.

Another thing you humans should know about yourselves is that you never tell us your names. You sort of leave it up to us to figure that out. And you rarely say them to each other, either. So it can take us quite a while to decode which words within the torrent of human language coming at us all the time are actually names.

The tall man and the redheaded woman weren’t like that. They said their names to each other all the time. Mulder. Scully. Scully, Mulder. Mulder, Scully. It was easy to pick up. These are obviously very silly names, but I liked the way they would say them.

And they called me Daggoo, so that is me, I guess.

It was really nice at first; they let me into the house and played with me, and yelled “Daggoo!” quite a bit until I started liking it, really liking it. They had kind voices. They smiled and laughed and the woman just looked and looked at the man and smiled some more. I don’t think she saw me watching her, and the man certainly didn’t see her watching him. But I saw it.

See? That amazing canine insight.

But then something terrible happened: she left, and the man was sad. Every few days she would come again, and it was as if she brought the happiness with her, and then she’d leave again, taking it away. I didn’t understand. They were happy when they were together, but day after day she would leave. And when he was sad, I’d crawl into his lap and lick his face.

In spite of this, I liked living with Mulder a lot. He was kind and gentle, and he kept me warm and fed, so I didn’t have much to complain about. He had a nice, big yard, with tall grass and lots of flying bugs to chase. He didn’t have a fence, either, so it was clear he trusted me not to leave him. And I had no desire to.

He had large hands and a particular way of scratching behind my ears, which I really loved. Humans don’t realize this, but the way they pet is like a fingerprint; it’s different for every person. Just one more thing we dogs can sense.

We fell into a nice routine, Mulder and me. Most days he would put on a suit and leave for the entire day. I had the doggy door, so I could go outside when I had to, and mostly I slept upstairs on the bed anyway.

But there was one day he got home very late and seemed to be sorry I’d been alone so long. The next day I met Dennis, who was a youngish human who came every day to feed and play with me. A couple times I even got to go to Dennis’s house, while Mulder was away for what I can only assume were some important human work activities.

I wondered about Mulder, a lot. He seemed lonely all the time, unless Scully was at the house. Lots of days he would tell me “Scully’s coming over, Scully’s coming over,” as he scratched me behind the ears and smiled. It was the happiest I saw him, when he said this. And I liked seeing Mulder happy.

That’s another thing about dogs you may not know: we live to see our humans happy. It’s really the only thing we want out of life. When you’re happy, so are we. And as much as I knew Mulder cared for me, when Scully wasn’t around, I wasn’t enough. He was hurting, and when he was hurting, so was I.

One night after many weeks of this, both Mulder and Scully came back to the house. They were wearing dark clothes and were both very sad (although Scully was pleased to see me), and Mulder was carrying a small jar, which he placed on the mantel.

They were here together, but they weren’t happy. Scully went upstairs and I followed, eager to play. But she went into the shower and I could hear her crying.

I’d never seen her go into Mulder’s bedroom before. Something must have happened that I couldn’t understand. But that night, all three of us slept in the bed, his arms around her with me snuggled in the middle. They may not have been very happy that night, but I certainly was. And in that moment I had my moment of clarity, my epiphany as you call them: this was exactly what I wanted. The three of us, together always.

I was certain this house I’d grown to love had been a home once, a real home, before I arrived. And I vowed I would do whatever I could to help Mulder get that home back. I would do what I could to get Scully to stay.

This story is a bit too long for tumblr so click here to read the rest!

[complexion-me]

Interview : Dr Will Kirby, Dermatologist

Dr Will Kirby is a board-certified dermatologist and the Chief Medical Officer for the nation's leading aesthetic dermatology group, LaserAway.

1) Who/what inspired you to become a dermatologist?

From a very early age I was attracted to science because, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had a lifelong love affair with nature. But I was a late bloomer in the field of medicine and didn’t become a dermatologist until later in life. See, I wanted a career that allowed me to work with my hands as well as my brain and it took me a while for me to realize that specialization in dermatology would allow me to be both technical and cerebral. To wit, I’ve always incorporated artistry into everything I’ve ever done so I’m very fortunate that my life journey has led me to the field of aesthetic dermatology specifically. But there is a misconception that when someone is considered an expert in his or her field, their rise was preceded by a bolt of inspiration but that is just not always the case; While some passions are erupt spontaneously through an inspirational moment, others just evolve slowly and grow over time…and the latter was certainly true for me.

2) Laseraway is the biggest aesthetic dermatology group in the nation. Could you tell us what someone who visits a Laseraway clinic can expect?

You don’t became the nation’s leader in aesthetic dermatology by accident. We take a tremendous amount of pride in customer service and offer only the highest quality, cutting-edge technology. With 13 board certified dermatologists and more than 450 allied health care professionals, our medical acumen is unparalleled and when you add in a commitment to patient safety, you having the winning recipe for the highest level of patient satisfaction. To answer the question, from the time a patient enters a LaserAway clinic until the time they leave, they can expect the absolute best care in the aesthetic dermatology industry.

3) Tell us a bit about the selection process when you’re thinking about offering a particular procedure at your clinics?

It is important to note that aesthetic dermatology is a nuanced business and that with injectable aesthetic treatment and energy-based device procedure hyperbole is ubiquitous while quality, reproduceable results are rare. As such, our vetting process is detailed and thorough. That said, we leave no stone unturned meaning we try absolutely everything but LaserAway never offers fad treatments, trendy procedures, or jumps on the bandwagon. Any patient visiting us rests assured that they are getting gold-standard treatments from the best injectables and devices available.

4) Your skin looks amazing! Could you walk us through your skincare routine?

I detect no lies - my Skin does look amazing and I fully acknowledge that fact! LOL. But you, or anyone else reading this interview, can have amazing skin too! There isn’t some sort of special potion that I have that's unavailable to the population! I just use good quality products very, very consistently and I supplement them with energy-based device treatments at LaserAway!

So allow me to lay out my simple skincare routine:

In the evening I wash my face with a gentle wash and warm water. It really doesn’t matter what wash you choose and anyone who tell you differently is misleading you. Washes just simply don’t matter much as they aren’t in contact with your skin long.

After letting my face air dry or after drying it with a hair dryer on the cool setting I apply a pearl sized amount of My Hero. It's a retinol serum that increases surface cell turnover. See, human adult skin cell turn over takes, on average, one to two months to completely replenish itself and retinols speed this process up but I still remind everyone that you have to use retinol products for a minimum of eight weeks before you start seeing a result. If you are consistent then your skin will eventually look smoother, softer, and more supple with the use of a nightly retinol.

Each morning I gently cleanse my skin with either cleansing wipe or again with a wash.

I then apply a sun protection product with a minimum of an SPF 30 rating. If I’m going to the beach then I use an outdoor product  like a SunScreen Stick from SkinBetter but if I’m just going to work I use something like Alastin HydraTint. 

And now please allow me please loudly emphasize two points:

A) Most people use way too many products! So, If you haven’t used a product that you in own in the past six months them you should discard it! Only purchase products you need and love and don’t purchase every single thing you see!

B) You can spend a lot of money on good products or a small amount of money on good products! So, don’t think you have to break the bank to get the right products in your bathroom!

5) You’ve recently launched your very own line of skincare. What made you formulate your own range and how does it differ to what’s currently available in the market?

Like many dermatology practices, we used to curate products from a variety of different skincare companies and offer them for sale to our patients. But that was a source of extreme frustration for us because while we really, really liked many of the products, we simply didn't love any of them for our patient population. See, we listened to our patients: We recognized that they were our best advocates and that their number one priority when selecting products to purchase and take home was the ability to maintain their excellent in-clinic treatments results longer. As the leading aesthetic dermatology group we eventually acknowledged that we needed to carve out the time and money to create a skincare line that was formulated with the goal of complementing our in-clinic services. And thus, after many years of patient focus groups, skincare research and laborious testing, LaserAway Beauty was born!  So, to answer to more concisely answer your question, there are many, many great skincare products available in the market but laserAway Beauty Products the single best choice for patients already receiving energy-based device delivered aesthetic dermatology treatments… and that's the differentiator in this saturated skincare market!

6) What are some of the in-office treatments you get on a frequent basis?

I am the least hypocritical dermatologist you’ll ever meet! See, I practice what I preach and in the interest of full transparency, I get an IPL (intense puled light) treatment every six months and I typically get a Clear + Brilliant every two months and alternate with a Fire & Ice Laser Facial every two months as well.

7) What kind of patients do you turn away, if any?

The bane of any aesthetic dermatology practice is the patient with unrealistic expectations. Any reasonable person recognizes improving skin fitness it takes time, energy, emotion, and a commitment. But we live in a society of instant gratification and the truth is that some patients aren’t going to be satisfied because they want impossible results. When we realize someone isn’t going to be a good fit we provide them with appropriate education and polity, but quickly, turn them away.

8) In regards to the future of dermatology, what are you most excited about?

If you ask me to predict the future, I’ll politely ask you to review the past. See, the word ‘doctor’ is derived from the Latin word ‘docēre’ which means “to teach”. So, while I am a board certified dermatologist, I’m more importantly a teacher and my job is to educate. Mentoring is a time-honoured tradition that many in the field of aesthetic dermatology seem to have forgotten but I strongly suspect that the future of dermatology will see a return to the placing a premium on education and that's why I train not only dermatology residents, but registered nurses, physicians assistants, and nurse practitioners. To get more granular, I’m of course predicting that our field will continue to evolve from a technical standpoint but I also strongly believe that we’ll also see a return to mentorship so future clinicians will have a well-balanced, more individualized aesthetic educational foundation upon which they can grow personally and professionally.

9) For someone who’s on a budget, what are your tips for great skin?

If you were trying to improve your athletic fitness level, you wouldn't start off by buying the most expensive athletic shoes, immediately running a marathon, and then expect to wake up the day after with the perfect body. Well, the same analogy applies to skin fitness. See, improving your skin or maintaining already great skin doesn't have to be expensive but it does take a commitment and patience. I always implement a hierarchal approach utilizing the least expensive and most effective options coupled with education and encouragement. We know that UV exposure is awful for your skin so start by immediately committing to strict  sun avoidance on the face via a wide-brimmed hat, sun glasses, and a daily SPF product. At night simply start using a retinol product. It really is that simple. Start with those two easy, inexpensive concepts and then slowly educate yourself and expand to more exotic offerings from there!

10) Can you leave us with some words of wisdom? What else should we know?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t bow down to my teammates. While our clinicians are the best in the business, our legal, human resources, service/tech, marketing, patient outreach, sales, and executive teams all kick ass too. LaserAway makes this look real, real easy but our company is the amalgamation of the best individuals in the dermatology industry and you will not find a group of more intelligent, ethical, hardworking, dynamic individuals. Life is too short to work with people you don’t love and I’m of the strong opinion that the main reason that LaserAway is supremely successful is because of our corporate culture! I jump out of bed every morning excited to see what Team LaserAway will accomplish!

Credits

https://www.laseraway.com/

https://www.instagram.com/LaserAway

https://www.instagram.com/drwillkirby1

https://twitter.com/DrWillKirby

[janeofcakes]

FJW: Chapter 11

** Sorry, everyone, I know it’s been a while. Let’s just say it’s been a hell of a week. My nerves are shot. How will yours fare after this chapter? I dare not say. Don’t want to give anything away. (knowing smirk) **

Sherlock sits in the back seat of Mycroft’s sleek, black car. He stares out the window, the toes of one foot tapping the car floor impatiently. His long fingers tap out a pattern on his knee. He watches the city streets with keen eyes as they near Baker Street. Though he can easily hide most of the signs, the truth of it is that Sherlock Holmes has never been this nervous before in his life.

It has been two months since Sherlock first spent the night in John’s hospital room. After it, he spent every Saturday with John, day and night. Rosie was disappointed at first when Sherlock explained that she could not stay as well, but she found it more acceptable after learning that she would spend each of those nights at Molly’s flat. Lestrade was often there too. He and Molly had struck up a romance over the five years John had been unconscious and Rosie loves spending time with both of them. Likewise, Sherlock has spent every day with John, and Rosie joins on the weekends. He has taken some time for cases, but only tens. He has even attended physical and occupational therapy on occasion. John has taken each as an opportunity to work even harder and has never disappointed. All of which leads them to today.

Sherlock glances at John with anxious eyes. This is the first time he has been out of Mycroft’s top security hospital in over five years and he appears to be taking it very well. He has been glued to the window for the entire trip. John’s body has literally vibrated with excitement since Dr. Hoover informed them he would be released on Thursday, a mere four days away at that point. They had all known the announcement was coming, but Rosie had squealed anyway. She had thrown her arms around John, who was all smiles and thanked the doctor. Sherlock had been excited too. Overjoyed, in fact. Until the cold, hard reality of their living situation lept to the forefront of his mind.

John has no place to sleep. When they last shared 221B, before the Fall, before Mary, John had the upstairs room. The room is now Rosie’s and has been for nearly five years. There are no other bedrooms in the flat. That leaves only Sherlock’s king-size bed. At first, Sherlock had no idea what to do. He certainly couldn’t sleep with John, no matter how close they had become. They had nearly kissed eight more times since that first night Sherlock stayed with him after he awoke - one time every week since. Sherlock is beside himself. If John remembered more, that would be one thing, but he hasn’t. Not about Sherlock. Not about them.

Parts of John’s association with Molly rushed back to him the moment he saw her when she returned Rosie that Sunday morning after the ‘campout’. It was nothing overly dramatic and ended in laughs all around. Still John recalled nothing about cases with Sherlock or her helping them. John also remembered a great deal of his friendship with Lestrade upon seeing him, but nothing about cases or Sherlock. He even had memories of his sister, Harry one evening while speaking with his nurse called Harriet. Sherlock spent the rest of the night comforting John after telling him Harry drank herself to death two years after he had been shot. John was so alone that night. He’d lost a sister he couldn’t even remember. He still knew next to nothing about Sherlock and huge pieces of his life evaded him. Sherlock held him in his arms and John cried on his shoulder, whispering about the panes of glass growing darker. It is the only time Sherlock has seen John anything less than optimistic and determined to recover fully.

“Sherlock?”

“What?!” the detective snaps out of his thoughts to find he is staring at John, who is looking back with a note of concern on his face.

“You okay? You look worried.”

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just…” he sort of waves his hand absently, hoping he can get away with it. To his relief, John smiles and pats his knee.

“It’s all going to be okay,” he assures him. “I know Dr. Hoover said I might remember a lot seeing the flat again, but we know what to do and Rosie is at school. It’ll be okay. God, it really is amazing how well she’s handled this. How much of it she understands.”

“I have always fully explained situations to her and in the same way I would any adult,” Sherlock tells him matter-of-factly. “I provide definitions for words she doesn’t know. It has increased her vocabulary tenfold.”

“It’s remarkable,” John nearly interrupts, his face sincere. “You’re remarkable. You’ve done it all on your own and she’s such an intelligent, well-spoken child. She really is very much like you.”

Sherlock huffs a short laugh and gives John a small smile.

“She is like you. Brave, motivated, determined, occasionally grumpy.”

“Okay, okay,” John laughs. Sherlock laughs with him and moves his own hand to rest over John’s. His friend tilts his head to the side and gives Sherlock a warm smile. “It’s all going to be fine.”

At that moment, the car stops and they hear the driver climb out. He walks to the boot to unload the single bag John has from the hospital. Sherlock opens his car door and steps out onto the pavement before turning back to offer a hand to John. He takes it and grabs onto the top of the door with the other hand, hefting himself up and out of the car. Once John is on his feet, Sherlock passes him the walker the driver has pulled from the boot. He takes it and makes a few steps for 221. Sherlock takes the bag from the driver, thanks him and lets him go about his business. When he turns back to John, his soon-to-be flatmate is simply staring up at the building with a strange expression on his face. Sherlock steps closer.

“John? Are you all right?”

“I...I remember popping down for scones in the morning,” he sounds far away as he gazes at Speedy’s.

“Yes,” Sherlock waits. Will he remember anything more? The answer is apparently no, or nothing John is willing to share because he turns his head to Sherlock and jerks it toward the building with a smile.

“Let’s go in, shall we?”

Sherlock nods and they walk to the door, Sherlock moving faster than John. He unlocks it and calls for Mrs. Hudson, who holds it open while Sherlock helps John up the three steps. They hang their coats on the hooks at the bottom of the stairs and begin the slow trek up the seventeen steps. Mrs. Hudson goes on ahead with the bag, unlocks the door to the flat, and hurries inside.

“I’ll put the tea on,” they hear her cheery voice echoing down from the flat and give each other a knowing look. With a grin on both their faces, John shoves Sherlock a little with his shoulder and then looks up the stairs.

“Well, let’s get on then, shall we?” he sighs.

While John needs the walker to keep steady for walks of any length, he does quite well on his own for short ones and will be quite capable inside the flat. Stairs are another matter entirely. Or rather, this many stairs is another matter. He goes up and down a set of four stairs in physical therapy very successfully, but this flight far exceeds that little case. Still, John does his best and gladly accepts Sherlock’s help when the need arises. By the time they reach the top and turn to enter the flat, John’s right arm is draped over Sherlock’s shoulder and he is visibly exhausted.

The two men stop in the sitting room. John’s eyes immediately scan the area for any detail that will help him remember. Sherlock glances toward the kitchen door where Mrs. Hudson bustles around, but is soon looking back at John. John, who just looks around in wonder. Sherlock watches silently, taking in every nuance of his demeanor. A corner of John’s mouth curls.

“It’s different,” is all he says.

“Having a child in residence changes things,” Sherlock replies pleasantly. He swallows. “You remember?”

“Sort of,” John answers. His forehead crinkles. “It’s hard to explain. More of a feeling than a memory.”

He starts into the room proper, needing Sherlock’s help only as a result of his fatigue from climbing the stairs.

“My chair,” he whispers, stopping suddenly in disbelief. He turns astonished eyes on Sherlock. “I can’t believe you still have it.”

Sherlock glances toward the chair. He never had the heart to get rid of it. It was like a part of John, a part of what they were together and to each other. He could not stand to see it anywhere but in this flat, in its place. Deep down in the illogical reaches of his brain he believed one day John would sit in it again as long as he kept it. And now here they are.

Almost as soon as John is seated comfortably, Mrs. Hudson walks in with a tray of tea things. She sets it on a small table nearby and fusses over him.

“Well if that isn’t a sight for sore eyes,” she remarks as she pours three cups and adds milk to John’s, sugar to Sherlock’s, and nothing to her own. She hands a cup to John, kissing him on the head as she does. “It’s so good to have you home again, dear.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

She smiles and pats his cheek, looking very motherly indeed. Sherlock has pulled up the desk chair and gestures to his as Mrs. Hudson gives him a cup. They thank each other and sit, Mrs. Hudson in Sherlock’s chair and the detective in the desk chair.

The three of them chat for quite some time. It’s nothing important or particular, but Sherlock is never bored. Every few minutes, John discovers some small nugget of knowledge from the past. He tells them both with wonder in his eyes each time he shares a short and sometimes vague memory. Strangely, Sherlock isn’t even scared that John will suddenly remember more telling items or unpleasantries. He is too caught up in John’s curiosity and slow discovery.

Before they know it, the door to the flat flies open and Rosie dashes in. Her coat is missing and she flings her school bag onto the sofa, leaping onto John’s lap.

“Daddy!” she pulls him into a tight hug and kisses his cheek.

“Hello, sweetie. How was school?”

“Good,” she replies with a grin as she squirms down and jumps for Sherlock. “Papa!”

Sherlock scoops her up easily and they hug tightly. Mrs. Hudson does not fail to notice the love and adoration in John’s eyes, and not just directed at Rosie.

“Your maths exam, Watson?”

“Twenty out of twenty,” she beams. “A perfect score.”

“Excellent work,” he kisses her cheek with a grin. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Me too,” John laughs. “I just can’t believe they already have exams at this level.”

“Good job, dear,” Mrs. Hudson adds as all of them laugh. “You have a sharp brain. Just like your papa.”

“Helloooo,” a voice calls from the door. They all look to see Greg Lestrade sauntering in their direction, wearing a smile. “Someone left me to hang up her coat at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Watson,” Sherlock says in a deep, but playful tone. He looks at his daughter with narrowed eyes. “Was it you?”

Rosie grins and scrunches up her shoulders to her ears, looking at him almost timidly but too jolly to really maintain it.

“Yes,” she says in a growly little voice while she laughs sweetly. “I was so excited to see you and Daddy. I’m sorry, Uncle Greg.”

“No worries, love,” Lestrade waves a hand. “I wish I could still get up the stairs so fast.”

Rosie and Mrs. Hudson share a giggle. Greg and Sherlock smile with them, but Sherlock’s fades away the instant his eyes slide to John’s face. It is screwed up in panic and drained of color. His eyes are wide and frightened, his brows raised high, his lips parted. It looks as though he is struggling to speak, struggling to put all the pieces together in his mind.

“John?” he begins quietly. If Rosie wasn’t on his lap, he would be at John’s side.

“You,” John breathes, his eyes locked on Lestrade. “Greg.”

Lestrade is completely taken aback. John has seen him before. He visited him at the hospital a handful of times and John has never reacted like this. The DCI is completely unnerved. Still, he moves toward John and reaches out a hand.

“John? John, what is it?”

“And you,” the doctor’s eyes dart to Mrs. Hudson with an almost accusatory air and he raises a hand to point at her. “He was going to kill you. Both of you.”

Sherlock’s blood runs cold. Without taking his eyes off John, he begins ushering Rosie from his lap. She gets to her feet willingly, realizing something is very wrong.

“John, it’s all right,” he says in a soothing tone. He begins to rise slowly and cautiously. “It’s long since over. The man is dead.”

“Both of you and…” John’s breaths are coming fast and shallow. The remainder of the color drains from his face. He is white as a sheet as he whispers, “me.”

Sherlock is standing now and two steps closer to John. He does not want to approach too swiftly, knowing John’s military instincts could kick in. Mrs. Hudson is on her feet as well. Sherlock jerks his chin toward Rosie and the older woman inches to the side and slips behind him to stand with Rosie. It isn’t that he believes John dangerous, but he wants to prevent Rosie from seeing anything she needn’t.

“You!” John says urgently. His voice is suddenly loud, in spite of his breathlessness and rapid pulse. Everyone fixes him with startled expressions. Sherlock schools his own to project cool and calm, even as he screams inside.

“John…”

“It’s okay, mate,” Lestrade says, creeping closer. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt anyone.”

“John,” Sherlock reaches a hand to motion for Lestrade to stop and then takes another step himself. John’s eyes have filled with absolute terror and sparkle with tears. He blinks and one breaks loose, falling down his pale cheek. He swallows hard and struggles for words.

“You. You were on the roof. Of Bart’s.”

Now Sherlock’s eyes fill with horror. He can practically hear the window in John’s mind shatter as thought Moriarty himself had swung a sledge hammer.

“No!” his hands are out in front of his body, reaching for John, palms out. “No, John, don’t watch! Don’t see it. Find a curtain. Close it off.”

“This is my note,” John’s voice catches. Tears fall from both eyes just before they roll back and John topples forward. Sherlock surges to him and catches the shorter man in his arms. Lestrade jumps to his side and helps lower John to the floor and onto his back.

“Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock looks to his landlady, “cold water and a flannel.”

She nods and disappears. Lestrade is loosening John’s collar and undoing the top buttons of his shirt. Sherlock presses his fingers to John’s pulse point, eager to determine his heart rate when he feels a small hand on his shoulder. He turns his head quickly to face Rosie with her tear-stained cheeks and frightened eyes.

“Is Daddy going to be okay?” she asks in a small voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Yes,” Sherlock twists and wraps his arms around her. She does the same, her head on his shoulder and her eyes on John. “He will be fine, Watson, just fine. He’s remembered something upsetting and it overwhelmed him. We talked about this. Remember how I defined overwhelmed?”

“Yeah,” she nods, “and panic attack.”

“Yes. Yes, sweetheart, but he’ll be fine,” Sherlock pulls back to look her straight in the eye, his hands on her shoulders. “He’ll be fine. I will see to that and I never lie to you.”

She smiles a little and nods. Sherlock touches his nose to hers and holds it there for a moment.

“Daddy has fainted,” he looks into her eyes again very seriously, “like Linus in the pumpkin patch. Daddy just needs to rest.” He smooths back her hair and gives her a reassuring look. “We can play games and show him your school papers tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” she nods bravely, looking more sure of herself again. Mrs. Hudson rushes in with a bowl of cold water and a flannel. She places the bowl on the floor next to John and begins soaking the flannel. Rosie watches for a moment and returns her gaze to Sherlock. “For his head?”

“Yes,” he cannot keep the pride from his voice when he answers.

“Can I hold it?”

“Yes,” now the corners of his lips turn up. “Yes, of course, Watson.”

@echosilverwolf @technicallywiseoncns @vvaticancameoss @cow-mow@philliphooper@whodwantmeasaflatmate@swissmissing@gloriascott93@kingdomofbrokenhearts@srebrnafh@thetranslucentwallaby@britishaccentfan@plasticstrawsmuggler@spazzz32@absentmindedsstuff@shuukichan @annecumberbatch @maeliandmyself