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thebibliosphere · 3 years ago

Note

I had a question.

So, just an hour or two ago, I was going through some sort of “manic high”, sorta like how somebody with bipolar disorder would have (I don’t have BPD). It felt like a bullet train at max speed and completely derailing, and it was incredibly draining. It also got me wondering.

Do people with severe enough ADHD deal with ADHD episodes like this? My search attempts are often futile because all of it is just talking about how to differentiate between BPD and ADHD and BPD manic episodes, but nobody ever mentions ADHD episodes; the only time I’ve seen it mentioned ever was when somebody made a clip of crankgameplays to show what an ADHD episode looked like.

Do they even exist? I’ve got no idea, so I was just wondering if you knew.

Hey! Sorry, I saw your other ask a while ago, but I wanted to talk to my ADHD specialist before I answered because I’d never heard of the term “episode” being used to describe ADHD. I’m also going to splice both questions together here and answer them in segments in the hope it helps :)

So like I said, I’d never heard of the term “episode” with ADHD, and neither has my specialist. Part of ADHD is having a natural ebb and flow between inattention and hyperactivity, sometimes skewed toward one or the other, depending on your ADHD type. (What are the different types of ADHD?)

Your type of ADHD may also fluctuate because of other factors, such as stress, changes in medication, hormonal fluctuations, lack of sleep, overstimulation, or even under-stimulation, to name a few. Another overlooked part of ADHD is emotional dysregulation, which may cause rapid cycling emotions that may look like an “episode” to someone unfamiliar with what that actually qualifies. The way my therapist explained it and using your example of bipolar disorder, “episode” is used in diagnostic criteria to categorize manic or depressive episodes that last X amount of time, are usually severe, potentially requiring hospitalization, and are accompanied by other symptoms not found in ADHD.

Our “bursts” of energy or lack thereof typically don’t last long enough to be considered episodes. This isn’t to say they are not severe or debilitating, especially if you suffer from things like anxiety or depression that ADHD can feed into. Merely that “episode” is not used as part of the language used to discuss ADHD, which is likely why you’re not finding anything.

So, do ADHDers experience intense bursts of energy that are draining afterward? Yeah, we can do, especially if we lean more toward hyperactive than inattentive. (And again, it's normal to fluctuate and also for things to be affected or worsened by secondary factors.)

And I'm going to put the rest under the cut because this is hella long.

I’ve seen some people think that all hyperactivity has to come with fixation, but that’s not how ADHD works. It’s true if something gets us excited or gives us a dopamine boost, we might be more prone to becoming hyperfixated and burn all our energy up on that. But you don’t need something to fixate on to experience hyperactivity. Some of us are just wired to the moon sometimes, and yes, it can be very draining when it ends. Some people find medication helpful in regulating their hyperactivity/preventing it from coming in such big swings and dips.

Speaking personally, when I'm hyper and nothing is grabbing my attention, the world and people around me can feel painfully slow. It's like I'm going a mile a minute doing everything but achieving nothing. The crash that comes after can also be particularly bad, as I also have dysthymia, which can tip over into a major depressive episode depending on other factors in my life at that time. For years I was misdiagnosed as having "probably Bipolar Type II" by a doctor who didn't believe teenage girls could "get" ADHD* and convinced my parents I needed psychoactive drugs. The drugs I was on didn't help, in fact, they made me worse so I was taken off them.

It wasn't until I found an ADHD specialist as an adult a few years ago that I made any real progress. And I'll be honest, I was shocked when she diagnosed me with ADHD, I really didn't think I had it. Right up until we started doing the work and slowly but surely my mental health began to improve and my understanding of myself with it.

Sometimes there are days when I will be wired to the moon and it will derail my entire day because I can't focus on a single thing/I'll focus too much on a single thing. Other times, like when I am closer to my menstrual cycle, I'll crash into inattentiveness and depression because of how my hormones affect my various different conditions, including my ADHD. Medication would likely help with this, but due to medical reasons, that's currently not an option for me so I do the best I can.

That said, if you’re experiencing something more than hyperactivity but it's not mania, you may be experiencing a form of hypomania and you should talk to a doctor about your concerns.

Hypomania typically occurs in Bipolar Type II disorder, which is less severe than the manic episodes in Bipolar I. I’ve experienced both manic and hypomanic episodes in my life due to medication interactions, and they felt very different from ADHD hyperactivity. It's not just derailing mile-a-minute thoughts, it's something usually completely mood-altering and out of control feeling followed by devastating crashes.

If you're on any medications and are worried you are experiencing something like this, you need to talk to your doctor. You might just need a dosage tweak, or you might be better off on a different medication altogether. Also, make a thorough check of any and all medications you are taking to check for any interactions.

I'm on a cocktail of meds for my MCAS, which if I were to combine them with the SSRI one of my doctors wants me to try, would result in serotonin syndrome. The doctor didn't notice this, but the pharmacist sure as shit did!

Some people (ask me how I know) even develop mild hypomania from overusing the sunlamps used to treat SAD (link), which is why brands like Verilux now include warnings in their leaflets about not using the lamps for more than X amount of time a day. Thankfully it goes away once you stop overusing the lamps.

Which actually brings me to something you asked last time about being unable to sleep at night. Insomnia and delayed sleep phase cycles are not uncommon in ADHD. This is likely because our circadian rhythm is thought to be out of whack (link).

You also mentioned having racing thoughts at night too, which is not uncommon either with hyperactivity. I find if I get overstimulated before trying to sleep, I’ll end up lying there awake with what I like to call “radio ADHD” playing in my head. It can range from snippets of songs stuck on repeat, conversations, things I’ve watched on TV, arguments, or if something is happening the next day, fixating on not being late for it. Hence, I end up getting no sleep because you can’t accidentally sleep in if you don’t sleep. *jazz hands of despair.*

Sometimes I find Radio ADHD soothing if it’s fixating on something chill, but it can get annoying fast and even distressing if I’m tired and can’t “change the station.” (I’d say “shut it off,” but as of yet, I’ve never been able to do that. Medication helps some people with this, as can looking into “sleep hygiene” if you haven’t already.) Conversely, if I’m bored or something is too stressful, I will 100% fall asleep because my brain would literally rather just turn off than do something I don’t want to do or is a low dopamine reward task.

Brains are fun.

Anyway, I uh, I am not sure if any of this is useful to you, but I hope it helps. Mostly I'm just repeating back what my specialist said when I asked her about it lol. Good luck, and I hope you figure things out.

----

*NB: It's important to note that ADHD and Bipolar Disorder can be comorbid. It's not a one or the other situation. I’m just throwing it out there in case hearing that helps someone else pursue the proper diagnosis!

#adhd #not a doctor #just a sick person with lots of lived experience

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giorno-plays-piano · 4 years ago

Text

Heartache

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Soldat!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, kidnapping, captivity, torture, brainwashing, delusional Bucky.

Words: 2535.

Summary: You don't need the one whose name was Bucky Barnes, a hundred years old broken man who returned back to the world that couldn't offer him anything but regrets and nightmares. You need your Soldier, the one who won't return to you even if you throw Bucky back into that iron chair and fry his brains for the thirtieth time.

P.S. I have to say it turned out darker than I expected. Attention! Bucky is free from his programming, but he does not heal as he should.

__________________

“You look old.”

You decide to give him the pleasure of hearing your voice. It sounds dull from behind the glass when Bucky comes closer, looking at someone he recognizes too well, but you do not recognize a man he became, nothing reminding you of the one with whom you once shared your bed.

You know what the man looking at you through the glass thinks. You didn’t age a day since the last time he saw you, and while he knows why, it still surprises him to see a young woman watching him calmly as if all those years didn't pass.

“You miss your star.” You say, tilting your head to the side and narrowing your eyes at him when you see his new vibranium arm.

“It doesn't matter.” His answer is immediate, and Bucky isn't surprised to hear the raw anger in his own voice: he is no longer the Soldier you knew, and he is worried he won't find a way to interact with you. You don't seem too interested in Bucky Barnes and whoever he works for despite the fact you are hardly HYDRA's soldier yourself.

What he doesn't know is that you still stay the soldier you have been once, and nothing will ever change that regardless of whoever Bucky Barnes sends your way to cure you from HYDRA's conditioning.

"I'm glad you remember me."

You find it peculiar: a man who has been trying so hard to get rid of anything that ties him to the Winter Soldier has been looking for you for years, finally tracking you down, capturing you and bringing you here as if your pure existence didn't remind him of the worst years of his life. What did he expect to find? A comfort in someone who once had been paired with him just for the sake of research?

"Don't bother, Mr. Barnes. There's nothing there left for you."

You see he's taken aback because you have hit a nerve. Apparently, James Buchanan Barnes thought the connection between the two of you remained the same, and he could dig up the feelings that had long been buried. Stupid, you think, he's forgetting the most important part: he is not the man you formed the bond with. You don't need the one whose name was Bucky Barnes, a hundred years old broken man who returned back to the world that couldn't offer him anything but regrets and nightmares. You need your Soldier, the one who won't return to you even if you throw Bucky back into that iron chair and fry his brains for the thirtieth time.

It doesn't matter. After all those years you didn't believe in happy endings, and even if the man watching you through the glass think he is going to get one after getting out, he is clearly deluding himself.

Averting his eyes, Bucky clears his throat and changes the topic, trying to give himself a false hope he can mend things. “I will convince Shuri to treat you. She helped me break through the conditioning, and she will do the same to you."

You could raise your brow at him, but maintaining this facade is tiresome and doesn't make sense. "I see you have no idea how much my conditioning differs from yours. You can't break through it. It's embedded in me."

"I thought so, but I got rid of mine. You can do it too, I'm sure."

Although you see him trying to assure you, Bucky's getting agitated because he really has no idea what HYDRA did to you. He couldn't know it when he still was the Soldier, but now the lack of his knowledge leads you to the thought your former masters destroyed whatever info they still kept - they foresaw he would search for you.

"Your brainwashing was flimsy. I've always wondered how come you were considered HYDRA'S greatest assassin when you just needed to see your dear friend once to start getting your memories back." You snort, knowing Bucky would feel a slight hint of jealousy in your voice, but you don't care: you've never hid from him you only needed the Winter Soldier, and he was gone.

Bucky doesn't know what to say as a part of him wants to scream there was nothing flimsy about electroconvulsive therapy he went through over and over again, but he looks at you and sees how different you are from him, having no memories of your own, not knowing even your name or the place where you came from. It doesn't scare him, but the fact you had long merged with the Soldier you've become does. You don't separate yourself from her the way he did. In fact, the Soldier had completely absorbed your true persona, and Bucky doesn’t know the real you. He only knows RED, a Soldat who at one point was been created by HYDRA just like all of them were. Despite searching for the information about your past for years, he found nothing, not even the year when you became a part of the organization. Bucky doesn’t think you did it willingly judging by the fact how you reacted when he had been training you among the other Soldiers, but he can’t be sure.

You’re a ghost. None of the masters who had been giving you orders know anything about you except your specialization and things you can do. Bucky supposes there were once people who knew the truth, but all of them are probably dead since the ones he has captured were utterly useless. His only hope is Shuri who might bring whatever is left somewhere deep inside your mind to the surface, yet he isn’t sure she will take you: the more you talk, the more it becomes clear you will not ask her to do it willingly, and Shuri won’t like that. The redemption can only be granted to someone who asks and works for it.

You don’t seem the type.

“What do you want me to do?” He asks you quietly, his forehead almost touching the glass separating you two when Bucky watches you with that pathetic expression of his. “If I let you go, you will return to people you serve. If I bring you to police, you will end up in a lab in the hands of the government.”

You allow him to see your smile as you observe him, desperately hoping you will tell him you will come back to the good guys and stay with him, playing a role of his funny little girlfriend because Bucky Barnes cannot allow himself to form an adequate relationship with any woman who has not been tainted the way he was. It probably seems so tragic to him that he had to spent years trying to catch you.

Although the chair you’re bound to doesn’t let you stand and come over to him, you still lean closer to the window, wearing the same polite but welcoming smile you used to lure your targets closer to you.

“I want you back in that chair, going through the whole process of brainwashing again until you become the Soldat you’ve been. I want you standing with me and feeling as much pain as I did until your sensitivity goes down to zero, and you no longer remember those funny friends of yours. I know you won’t trade your freedom and whatever else you have after getting out, but I don’t need James Buchanan Barnes or White Wolf or whoever you have become. I am RED of HYDRA, and I have bonded with the Winter Soldier you buried, Bucky.”

When he leaves, the massive metal door getting locked ten times the least, you stare at the grey wall beside the glass. You wonder how getting the privilege of remembering his past made him so miserable, a pathetic, broken man who did not understand how lucky he had been, not only breaking free from HYDRA’s grip but gaining his true identity back. He probably pitied himself, poor little boy who had been broken by the big bad guys. He did not understand that all other soldiers who came after him, except the suicide squad made with Stark’s serum, had been turned into ashes. There was nothing left to break in them - and you either.

_______________________

Shuri wasn’t happy to hear your story just like he thought, but Bucky couldn’t lie to her, hoping she would understand. Of course, she didn’t, telling him outright it was impossible to treat somebody who didn’t want to be treated. While it was also inhuman, forcing you to do something against your will just like HYDRA has been doing all these years, it also erased the possibility to use the same methods she chose when she treated Bucky.

“You don’t understand,” she tells him, shaking her head, “it’s not that I don’t want to help, but without her cooperating it’s close to impossible. They didn’t use the same ways to program her just like they did to you.”

He isn’t satisfied with her answer even though he knows Shuri wants to help. He can’t leave it like that, leave you to your fate, return you where you belonged, and he keeps asking who or what may be able to help you until she finally tells him something about electrical stimulation of the brain that can awake memories that you have buried. Shuri immediately regrets it, seeing how Bucky’s face lights up.

“It is a very complicated process that requires an extensive medical knowledge. Worse, even if performed correctly, this technique can traumatize her even further. Please don’t do this. We don’t even know if this method will be effective.”

Bucky doesn’t promise her anything, though a part of him feels guilty he made her tell him this. He just has to do it: undoubtedly, HYDRA or whoever you work for now will force you to go through the brainwashing process again, and whatever treatment Shuri told him about can’t be worse than this. If Bucky does everything right, you might stand a chance to live like he does, away from the horrors of the war you had been a part of ever since the organization abducted you. Even if you don’t want it, clearly it is an effect of the memory suppressing machine: any sane human being wants to have a normal life, right?

It takes him months to find and steal the equipment he needs, leaving no traces - it reminds him of the days when he had been under HYDRA’s control, but he does what he has to. Learning how to use the machine is a much more complicated task, but Bucky is grateful for that serum-enhanced brain of his: he nearly swallows the information from the books in record time, reading about sending a burst of electrical energy into your cerebral cortex to stimulate your brain and finally retrieve your memories. Now he knows what Shuri meant by traumatizing, but this doesn’t stop him either. He does what he has to do.

“What is your name?” He repeats after listening to your screams for ten or maybe twenty minutes, your body going limp in the black, cold chair when you open your mouth, breathing heavily, your face stained with tears and sweat.

“Dolores.” You say immediately, knowing he will repeat the procedure if you keep silent, your heat beating wildly. “I grew up... on a small farm in Iowa... I had an older sister... and slept with a big teddy bear with a red ribbon...”

“You are lying.” He says simply, and a jolt of electricity cuts through your head, nearly electrocuting you while you scream again and again.

For some reason he always feels it when you say what he wants to hear instead of the truth. What he doesn’t understand is that the truth he wants has been told months ago: you did not remember and you were not going to remember anything from your past. It was stupid to try. There was nothing left of you, and while he thought he was resurrecting a human in you, he was simply destroying your body that was regenerating every night after the therapy.

When you receive a new jolt, shaking and screaming, tears streaming down your face until they fall down onto your already wet t-shirt, you whisper through gritted teeth, “Either I will have you as my Soldat, or I will not have you at all.”

Bucky presses the button.

__________________________

When he is finished he takes you to a bath in the room next to your cell. You almost lose the ability to move for an hour or two, giving him time to prepare you: Bucky undresses you and slowly lowers your body in the tub filled with warm water, watching that you take a comfortable position and don’t slip, effectively suffocating. Today he had almost gone too far, risking to fry your brain: you still refused to give up even after two months of therapy you have gone through, and Bucky isn’t too happy.

Pouring a strawberry-scented shampoo on his palm, Bucky starts to carefully wash your hair that grew longer in the months of captivity, watching that neither shampoo nor the foam gets in your eyes. You are nearly breathless: the serum they gave you made you less stronger than him, but your regeneration abilities are on a whole different level, and soon your body will adjust and erase the damage made.

He asks himself whether keep using the machine makes sense since he didn’t make much progress, the programming still very much in you even after all those incredibly painful sessions. What if you were right from the start? What if there was nothing to remember, and all he could do was to leave you in the state you were in before he destroyed whatever was left of you?

No, he can’t do it. Leaving you means taking away your chance to ever get back to normal life, and he can’t force himself to do that.

Never in his life Bucky Barnes will admit letting you go meant never getting his own happy ending the way he wants it.

“Why reinventing the wheel when you can make it so much easier?” All of a sudden, your hoarse voice whimpers in his ear when you look at him, tiredly moving your head up. “Do what they’ve always done. Use the programming to give me an order.”

A part of him is shocked with the revelation: he wanted to be neither the Soldier nor the one giving him commands. But the other part makes him realize how much easier it would be if he just used what has already been done to you instead of relying on an obviously ineffective method that damaged your mind and body. Of course, he has nothing in common with Karpov sending him on the assassination missions. Bucky only wants you to learn how to become human again, free you from HYDRA once and for all, give you the life you undoubtedly wanted. Even if he uses the same method the organization did until he finds a better way to undo the programming, it is still for your own good.

___________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki @helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin @inlovewiththefictionalcharacters @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @brattycherubwrites @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @soleil-dor @stargazingfangirl18 @dillybuggg @literate-lamb @cosicas-cuquis @sarge-barnes-sir @buckybarnesplumwhore @jaysayey @megzdoodle @gotnofucks @lux-ravenwolf @iheartsebandchris @ximebebx @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @sourpatchspinster

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes #dark bucky barnes x reader #Winter Soldier #yandere #MCU

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prouvaireafterdark · 4 years ago

Text

See Something You Like? - Malex Sex Shop AU Part 1/2

It’s FINALLY here: the Malex Sex Shop AU you’ve all been waiting for! Well, the first half anyway (Part Two will be out soon!)

I dedicate this fic to my friendly neighborhood Thigh Riding Anon™️, who inspired this fic with her galaxy brain prompt, and all of you who have been patiently waiting for me to finish this absolute monster of a smut fic. I hope you enjoy it! 💜😘

Also on AO3!

***

When Michael moved to California to start his PhD in agricultural engineering, he’d grossly underestimated how expensive the move would be. The stipend that came with his teaching assistantship just barely covers the rent on his studio apartment, and finding a roommate off Craigslist that’s desperate enough to live in such close quarters isn’t exactly an option considering how many alien skeletons Michael’s got in his closet. The vegetables he’s planning on growing in his complex’s shared community garden will help, but if he wants to eat any time soon he’s gonna have to find a part time job.

Enter Jackie and Kris, the delightful middle-aged lesbian couple who live next door and share Michael’s enthusiasm for sustainable gardening and the occasional midnight smoke.

They get to talking one night while passing a bong back and forth over the railing that divides their balconies, first about DIY organic fertilizer and then about Michael’s degree. He lets spill in a moment of weakness that his coursework is a breeze, but he’s worried he’ll run out of money before he can finish the program. As embarrassed as he is about the confession, it ends up saving his life.

Turns out, Jackie and Kris own a sex shop named Pandora’s Box around the corner and have been looking for some help running the storefront while they focus on expanding their online business and organizing safe sex workshops for the local queer and BDSM communities. The hours would be flexible around Michael’s schedule and all they really would need him to do is stand behind the register, ring people up, and answer questions about their products with “affability and professionalism.”

It’s maybe not the work he imagined himself doing when he moved to California for grad school, but for $15/hr, Michael really can’t afford to say no. He sits for an official interview the very next day and leaves Jackie’s home office with a new job and a pot brownie wrapped in tin foil, eager to get started on both.

Monday afternoons at Pandora's Box are the best. They’re notoriously slow so Michael gets to work his shift alone, which gives him ample time to grade the assignments he procrastinated on all weekend while he sits behind the counter.

It’s a Monday afternoon, in fact, about a year and a half later, when Michael hears the bell above the door chime softly to announce the arrival of a customer who would change his life forever.

The first thing Michael notices when he lifts his head from the stack of exams on the counter is the black leather jacket that’s stretched across the man’s broad shoulders. When Michael’s eyes flick up to get a look at the man’s face, he’s met with sharp cheekbones, beautifully tan skin, and a pair of trendy but understated sunglasses. He looks a little lost—unsurprising, since Michael’s certain he would have remembered it if he’d ever seen a man that pretty walk into his shop before—but when he realizes Michael’s looking at him, he flips his sunglasses up onto his artfully messy dark hair and smiles.

And oh, what a smile it is—the most beautiful one Michael has ever seen, soft and sweeter that it has any right to be, his full lips capturing Michael’s attention with ease. His heart pounds in his chest as their eyes lock together, and if Michael didn’t know any better, he’d think he’s just fallen in love with a perfect stranger.

Before Michael can do more than shoot him a dazed smile in return, the man disappears down an aisle.

As a general rule, Michael doesn’t talk to customers who don’t approach him for help first. It’s best practice in a store that sells pornography and sex toys—most customers don’t want to be questioned about their kinks, and those that do usually already know what they’re looking for—but the pull he feels toward this man is undeniable. He’s curious about him for reasons he can’t explain, and as his feet carry him off in the direction the man went, Michael decides not to question it.

Michael weaves casually through the aisles until he finds the man staring up at the floor to ceiling wall display of dildos and other anal toys—because of course he does. He sends a prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in that this man isn’t buying something for his girlfriend before he steps in line beside him.

“See something you like?” Michael asks, toning down his customer service voice into something approaching normal human speech.

Up close, he can see the man has a septum piercing, which glints a little in the light. Michael’s seen plenty of people with body jewelry come through this store, but he’s never really thought of it as cute until now.

The man smiles at him, a little shy, but Michael’s not so distracted this time that he misses the way his eyes flick over his body in naked interest, and it leaves him feeling a little hot under the collar.

“I’m not sure yet,” the stranger answers.

Even his voice is nice, Michael notes, deeper than he expects and smooth like honey.

Michael nods in understanding. He gets it—this wall can certainly be intimidating, even for someone who’s been to a sex shop before. He looks the man over again, taking in his charmingly flushed cheeks, and wonders if it’s his first time in a place like this. If maybe he needs a little help after all.

It’s a good thing Michael’s an expert, huh?

He doesn’t want to come at him too strongly, though. Encountering an overbearing sales associate isn’t any more fun than being one, and Michael certainly isn’t looking to push the guy passed his personal boundaries. He may be smitten, but he’s not an asshole.

“Well, if you have any questions about any of our products, my name’s Michael,” he says, flashing him a warm smile.

He’s about to go off in search of a nearby display to straighten up so he can give the man some space, but his voice catches Michael’s attention once more.

“And if I don’t have questions?” the man asks, and when Michael turns to look at him there’s a real smile tugging at his lips this time. “What should I call you then?”

Michael laughs, shaking his head as he shoots back, “Okay, smartass, what should I call you?”

For a single, horrible second after his own words reach his ears, Michael thinks he’s gone too far, but the sudden burst of anxiety in his chest turns out to be for nothing—the man’s grin only grows wider.

“Alex,” he says, and to Michael’s surprise he holds his hand out for him.

Alex’s palm is warm against his when he shakes it, and Michael can’t help but wonder how it would feel anchored in his curls or clutching tight to the skin of his hips.

“So, Alex,” Michael starts, emboldened by the introduction. He finds he likes the way Alex’s name feels in his mouth. “What are you in the market for today?”

Alex flushes a little and it’s so endearing Michael has to bite the inside of his bottom lip to keep from smiling.

“That’s the thing—I don’t really know,” Alex answers honestly. “There’s just so many options.”

“Okay, well, let’s start with an easier question: are you shopping for yourself or a significant other?” he asks, and, yeah, maybe he’s planning on filing the answer to his question away for later. Sue him.

Alex looks at him like maybe he suspects ulterior motives, but Michael shamelessly holds his gaze.

“No boyfriend,” Alex says, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “I’m looking for something for myself.”

“Fantastic,” Michael smiles, before he slips a little deeper into salesman mode. “So, judging by the aisle we’re standing in, I’m gonna take a leap and say that you’re looking for a toy you can use for internal anal stimulation. Is that right?”

“Yeah. Think you can help me out with that?” Alex asks, sliding his hands into his pockets.

“Definitely,” Michael answers with a smirk before he turns to the wall display. “As you can see, we have a pretty wide selection; you name it, we’ve probably either got it in stock or can have it shipped in three to five business days. Is there a particular price point you’re aiming for?”

Alex seems to think about it. “I’m not really looking to spend more than $100, but I could go up to $150 if it’ll change my life.”

“I can work with that,” Michael assures him. “Any other parameters I should keep in mind?”

“I’ve read that jelly toys can be dangerous, so definitely not anything made out of that,” Alex says, and Michael’s glad to hear he’s done his research. Jelly toys are frustratingly popular because they’re so cheap and Michael usually has to put in a little work to talk people out of buying them.

“Oh yeah, fuck that jelly shit,” Michael agrees, and Alex’s startled laugh makes his heart skip. “They’re impossible to sanitize properly and they’re full of toxic chemicals—you wouldn’t believe the horror stories I’ve heard about them since I started working here. If you’re looking for something with a softer texture, medical grade silicone is really the only way to go. Just make sure you stick to water-based lube or else you could ruin your toy.”

Alex nods thoughtfully, like he’s read that too.

“Glass and metal are also good options,” Michael continues. “They obviously feel a lot harder inside you, but they’re easy to clean, you don’t have to be as careful about what lube you use, and they’re naturally waterproof. They’re excellent for temperature play, too, if you’re into that.”

“Never tried it,” Alex confesses.

“It’s not for everyone, but it can be a fun time,” Michael says, recalling the scorching summer afternoon he spent fooling around with an ice cube tray and a girl he met on Tinder. “So, your options are metal, glass, and silicone. Any preference?”

Michael notices Alex’s eye catching on a set of stainless steel plugs, but he answers, “Silicone for now, I think.”

“Good choice,” Michael replies easily. “So, now that we know what material you’re looking for, let’s talk about your ideal experience. What are you looking to get out of your purchase?”

“An orgasm?” Alex answers, his confusion evident.

Michael laughs. “Sorry, I meant—how would you like to get there? What sort of sensation are you looking for?”

Alex looks a little lost at the question, so Michael turns to plan B.

“See, this one, for example,” Michael says, pointing to a familiar black prostate massager, “is great for when you wanna get off fast and hard. It’s not too thick, so you don’t have to spend a ton of time opening yourself up for it, and the curve puts the tip of it right up on your p-spot. It’s also got a bunch of different vibration settings and get this: It’s waterproof.”

Alex hums in interested acknowledgement, though Michael notes that the longer he talks, the more Alex’s attention is fixed on him, not the toy.

Feeling bold, Michael adds, “I’d advise caution if you’ve got thin walls though.”

“Why, does it make a lot of noise?” Alex asks curiously.

A slow grin spreads across Michael’s lips. “No,” he says with a shake of his head. “But you will.”

Michael watches Alex try and fail to suppress a smile, his full bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“You seem pretty sure of that,” Alex says when he releases it. “That from firsthand experience, or are you just a really good salesman?”

Michael laughs, equal parts delighted by Alex’s flirting and embarrassed by the memory his question brings to mind.

“What?” Alex asks, a smile building on his face.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” Michael hesitates, his face heating up just thinking about it. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Aw, come on,” Alex goads him. “Don’t be such a tease.”

Michael gasps in mock offense. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but a tease isn’t one of them.”

“That mean you’re gonna tell me what’s got you blushing like that after all?” Alex asks.

“I’m not blushing,” Michael protests, even though he definitely is.

Alex raises an eyebrow at him. It’s stupidly attractive.

With a huff, Michael considers his options. He doesn’t usually give personal anecdotes like this to customers, but there’s just something about Alex that makes Michael want to give him whatever he wants.

“Fuck it, why not?” Michael says to himself.

Alex smiles victoriously and settles in to listen.

“So, about a year ago, I came in to work and found this box sitting on the table in the break room, which was filled with a bunch of different toys from the company that makes that massager. I asked my boss about it and she said the company sent her a bunch of free samples.”

“Does that happen often?” Alex interrupts to ask. “Companies just send you free stuff?”

“Eh, sometimes, if it’s from a new line of toys that a company wants retailers to hype up,” Michael explains. “It helps that my boss Jackie’s wife Kris has a pretty popular blog where she tests and rates toys, so she gets free stuff all the time.”

“Huh,” Alex says. “So I’m guessing you took one after your shift?”

“Oh yeah,” Michael nods. “Tried it out as soon as I got home.”

“How was it?”

“Intense is about the only word that covers it,” Michael answers. “Those vibrations can be really powerful, it was like nothing else I’d ever tried before. Definitely one of my top ten solo orgasms of all time.”

“Not number one?” Alex asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I came in, like, a minute, so no, not quite,” Michael laughs.

“Is that the embarrassing part?” Alex asks. “That you came so fast?”

“Not quite,” Michael winces, his cheeks flushing. “As I was coming, I screamed so loud that the little old lady whose living room is on the other side of my bedroom called the cops on me. Apparently, she thought I was being murdered.”

“Oh no,” Alex laughs, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Michael agrees. “Not exactly the happy ending I was after.”

Alex laughs again, but there’s heat behind his eyes too when he asks, a moment later, “Not usually a screamer, I take it?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Michael winks.

“Mm,” Alex hums thoughtfully. He looks Michael right in the eye as he asks, “Well, what if I don’t want to get off that fast? What if I want to make it last?”

Michael tries not to smile as he gets back to business.

“Well, I should mention that this massager does also have softer levels of vibration intensity, which I only discovered after Officer ACAB knocked on my door,” Michael says.

Alex laughs before asking incredulously, “You didn’t read the instructions?”

“Uh, no,” Michael admits. “I’m more of a ‘take things apart and see how they work’ kinda guy, I’ve never been big on reading the directions.”

“Even after your little misadventure?” Alex asks.

“Hey, don’t knock my process. I got a fantastic orgasm out of that ‘misadventure,’” Michael reminds him.

“How could I forget?” Alex asks, shooting Michael a look that really tests his self-restraint.

Michael huffs a laugh and reaches up to scratch the back of his own neck so he doesn’t do something stupid, like push Alex against the fucking dildo display and kiss that look off his face.

“So, anyway,” Michael starts, shifting the topic back toward the task at hand, “you can either learn from my mistakes or you can try something that doesn’t have vibrations at all. We’ve got a great selection of dildos in all shapes and sizes.”

“Do any of them come with a story?” Alex asks cheekily.

Michael snickers in spite of himself. “Maybe,” he says noncommittally. “Let’s see what we’ve got in stock.”

Michael hums as he looks over the display, searching for another recommendation he can make, when his eye catches on a purple dildo with ribbing along the shaft.

“This one’s a good starter dildo,” he says, pointing it out. “It’s a pretty modest size, but the ribbing feels really nice and there’s a suction cup on the bottom if you wanna stick it somewhere and fuck yourself onto it. There’s also a few by the same company that have a hole that you can slide a bullet vibrator into if you wanna get something that can do both.”

“Have you tried them all?” Alex asks.

Michael laughs, looking up at the expansive display of dildos. “Not all of them,” he says, glancing over to Alex as he continues, “but the employee discount here is very generous and, as you already know, sometimes we get free shit. I’ve built up a bit of a collection since I started working here.”

“I see,” Alex replies, the corner of his mouth turning up before he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. Michael tracks the movement hungrily when Alex releases it a moment later to ask, “Which one’s your favorite?”

“Depends,” Michael shrugs, aiming for nonchalance even though he can feel himself chubbing up in his jeans.

“On?”

“On how full I wanna feel,” Michael answers, and there’s no mistaking the heat that blazes in Alex’s eyes at those words, nor the sudden intake of breath that fills his chest.

If Alex wants him half as much as it looks like he does, Michael doesn’t even care if he gets fired for where this conversation is headed, so long as it ends with Alex’s hands on him.

“See, sometimes all I’m looking for is enough internal stimulation to get the job done,” Michael elaborates, his eyes watching Alex closely. “When I feel like that, I’ll use that prostate massager I showed you earlier on myself.”

Alex’s eyes flick over to the sleek black toy still sitting on the shelf that they’d just discussed.

“And the other times?” Alex asks when he tears his eyes away.

“Other times… other times I really wanna feel it,” Michael purrs, taking a step closer. Alex’s eyes drop right to his mouth, his tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip, and Michael can’t stop himself from asking, “You ever get like that, Alex? Like you just need something thick and heavy filling you up, so deep you’ll be feeling it for days?”

“Yeah,” Alex rasps.

“You wanna know what I fuck myself with then?” he asks.

Alex nods, eyes still on Michael’s mouth.

Michael gives him a sly grin before he backs up a few steps to find the sample of the eight inch galaxy dildo he treated himself to a few months ago. Alex follows him, as if they’re connected by an invisible string.

“This one,” he says, removing it from the shelf and offering it up for Alex’s inspection.

Alex takes it from him, his eyes passing over it with interest as he tests the give of the silicone with his fingers. Michael wonders if he’s imagining what it would look like inside him. He hopes he is.

“It might not look like much compared to some of the fucking horse cocks we sell here, but it’s thick,” Michael says, his cock hardening further the more he thinks about it, the longer Alex stands there holding it. “Takes me some time to work up to it, but it’s always worth it when I do.”

“Yeah?” Alex asks, eyes fixed where he’s shifting his hold on the dildo to measure it’s thickness with his fingers.

“Yeah,” Michael breathes, watching how Alex wraps his thumb and forefinger in a tight circle around the toy. They only just touch around its girth.

Alex hums to himself, sounding pleased, and Michael’s gut churns with the need to hear that sound again.

“I bet this stretches you out nice, huh,” Alex wonders a moment later, and with the way he stares at Michael then, like he’s trying to picture how he would look stuffed full, his rim taught over the silicone, he just knows Alex isn’t speaking generically.

“Yeah, it does,” Michael agrees quietly, trying not to squirm under the intensity of Alex’s gaze.

“How do you use it?” Alex asks him, stoking the flames inside him further.

“If you play your cards right, you just might find out,” Michael shoots back.

“You’d let me watch?” Alex asks, a smile teasing at his lips, and it’s all Michael can do not to get lost in the idea of riding that toy while Alex watches with his hand around his cock.

“Think I’d let you do more than that,” Michael admits.

Alex full-on grins at that, but before he can open his mouth to reply someone clears their throat behind them.

Michael’s heart seizes in his chest as he whips around to see Jenna Cameron, a regular customer and occasional drinking buddy of his, standing with her thumbs tucked into her police-issue gun belt. Michael can feel his erection flag at the sight of her.

“What’s a girl gotta do to get some service around here, Guerin?” Cameron asks, somehow managing to look annoyed and amused simultaneously. He notices there’s a discreet black plastic bag dangling from her fingers. “I’ve got places to be.”

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t hear anyone else come in,” Michael apologizes, trying and failing to keep a blush off his face.

“I can see that,” she answers with a pointed glance at Alex.

Michael takes an instinctive step away from him and clears his throat.

“I’ve gotta—“ he says to Alex, jerking his thumb behind him.

“Yeah,” Alex nods, eyes on his shoelaces. It makes the pleasure that had been coiling in his belly sour further.

“I’ll be right back,” Michael tells him, soft enough that Cameron won’t overhear.

The smile Alex gives him in return is encouraging enough that Michael’s fairly certain he won’t disappear if he leaves, so he follows Cameron back toward the register, all the while pointedly ignoring the smirk he can feel her directing at the side of his face.

He walks around the other side of the cash wrap and crosses his arms over his chest before he asks her, without an ounce of enthusiasm, “What do you want?”

“Damn, you’re really earning that employee of the month trophy aren’t you, Guerin?” she jokes, tossing the bag on the table. “I bought a harness this weekend, but it was broken when I took it out of the box. Receipt’s in the bag.”

Michael takes the box the leather strap-on harness came in out of the bag along with the receipt.

“Do you want a refund or an exchange?”

“Refund,” she says. “I’m thinking about getting one of those strapless ones instead.”

“You should talk to Kris, she’s got opinions about those,” he says as he starts scanning the receipt.

“Oh?” Cameron asks. “Is she here?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “You can catch her at the bondage workshop she’s running later though.”

“Perfect,” she replies before leaning forward onto the counter on her elbows. “So are you gonna tell me who the hottie with the nose ring you were talking to is?”

“Why, so you can find out if he’s got any priors?” Michael jokes, not taking his eyes off his task.

“Very funny,” Cameron deadpans. “You fuck him yet?”

“None of your business,” Michael answers.

“So that’s a no, then,” she smirks, and Michael lets out a long-suffering sigh in response.

“Don’t you have places to be? Donuts to eat?” he asks, pushing her return receipt hastily in her direction.

Before Cameron can answer, the front door swings open and in walks a short middle-aged woman with a dark brown pixie cut carrying an iced coffee and a stack of papers.

Michael startles at the sight of her, realizing it must be later in his shift than he’d thought—exactly how long had he stood there talking to Alex?—but he’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Kris!” Michael calls to her. “Perfect timing, Cam’s got some strap-on questions for you.”

“Well, I’ve got some strap-on answers,” Kris answers cheerfully as she walks around them to drop the stack of papers—freshly-printed but yet-to-be-folded safe sex pamphlets, Michael notices—onto the counter next to the second register. “Step into my office, baby girl.”

Cameron shoots Michael a look before she steps to the side to talk to Kris, who’s leaning patiently against the side of the cash wrap.

With Cameron finally out of his hair but Kris close enough to notice him leave, Michael starts planning his escape so he can find Alex again, but it turns out he doesn’t need one. When he looks up after putting Cam’s broken harness in the bin under the counter, he sees the man in question approaching his register with a familiar black box in his hands.

“I was gonna wait for you,” Alex explains as he sets the box on the counter, “but I’m actually supposed to be meeting my brother soon.”

“Shame,” Michael says, wishing they had more time. “I was looking forward to finishing that conversation.”

Alex glances covertly at Kris and Cameron before he leans a hair closer and says, “Don’t know that it was the conversation you were hoping to finish.”

Michael blushes, casting a look at Kris and Cameron to make sure they’re too engrossed in their conversation to notice when he leans in a little further and says, low so only Alex will hear, “What can I say? I’m very committed to customer satisfaction.”

Alex laughs, a bright and happy sound that makes Michael’s heart feel strangely full, before he asks, “You charm all your customers like this?”

“No,” Michael says honestly. “Not even a little bit.”

Alex looks at him for a long minute, trying to spot the lie, and when he finds none he merely shakes his head with an incredulous smile.

“Lucky me,” he says.

Michael winks at him before he turns his attention to the box on the counter, shifting it in his hands until he finds the barcode. He usually never comments on his customers’ purchases, but with this one he simply can’t resist.

“Went with the prostate massager, huh?” Michael asks, as he rings him up.

“What can I say?” Alex answers, a smile creeping onto his face. “You made me curious.”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” Michael says.

“No,” Alex replies, and the way he looks at him then makes Michael wonder if they’re still talking about the massager. “I don’t think I will.”

Michael smiles at him before he tells him his total. Alex inserts the end of his card in the reader and his receipt prints a brief moment later.

“Can you sign here?” Michael asks, passing Alex the merchant’s copy of his receipt and the green pen he’d been grading with earlier.

“Mhm,” Alex hums, plucking the pen from his fingers and signing his name in a delicate script.

Michael ducks under the counter to find a bag adequately sized for Alex’s purchase before he places the box inside it along with Alex’s copy of the receipt.

“You’re all set,” Michael says, pushing the box in Alex’s direction.

“Thanks,” Alex smiles, holding the merchant copy of the receipt out for Michael to take. “And this is for you.”

Their fingers brush as Michael takes it from him and Michael swears he can feel the tension crackling between them at the simple touch.

“Thanks,” Michael says, mouth a little dry.

Alex glances back to Kris and Cam before he says, “Have a nice day, Michael.”

“You too,” Michael says, his eyes straying pointedly to the black bag in Alex’s hand.

“Oh, I will,” Alex says, one corner of his lips lifting up into a smile before he turns and heads for the door.

Michael can’t help but watch his ass and those broad shoulders as he leaves.

Once Alex is gone, Michael unfolds the receipt Alex left for him. He’s about to slide it into the folder they keep by the register for receipts when he notices the phone number printed neatly beside Alex’s signature. Below, Alex has also written the words: Hit me up if you want to hear my review.

“You strike out?”

Michael startles, looking up to see Cameron leaning on the counter, a lot closer than she was a moment ago. He sees Kris at the far end, folding her papers into pamphlets for her workshop later.

“Not quite,” Michael grins and pockets the receipt.

#malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #malex smut #malex sex shop au #merry christmas y'all #part 2 coming soon!#god i hope you guys like it lol #i've worked so hard on this 😩#my fic

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big1ron · 4 years ago

Text

Different nightmares for the Kamino guard

Woo! More clone wars. And just in time for bad batch. Fair warning this is meant to be part of a series I may never end up continuing, so go ahead and guess the plot twists. This is the first part of an ‘orders’ rework.

Tup had shot a jedi. Fives had no idea why or how his old friend could ever do something like this. It was as if he was sick or in some kind of trance. The separatists had already tried to stop him from reaching kamino once, so Fives would not let him fall into harms way again. The captain had assigned him to protect his friend, so he would. Even if he wasn’t assigned so he would. He was just as curious as everyone else as to what was happening and concerned for Tup’s safety.

During the flight to kamino fives talked to tup, reassuring him he would be fine, unsure if it was even true or if he could understand him in that state.

“Medical frigate 571 cleared for landing in bay 5” a voice rang out on the intercoms. This was to be a special case. Dean squad moved to secure this special transfer.

The five guards escorted fives and the hover gurney into the city and towards an examination room.

Nala se spoke with shak ti. They were discussing this special case. Fives was put in a separate room from who he was supposed to protect. This clued dean squad to the kaminoans intention immediately.

The captain that had accompanied the two was dismissed back to the battle field. The guards all knew he was the lucky one.

“You hear what was so special about this one?” One of the guards, Roy asked. Whispering over the comms though the helmets were sound proof. His head didn’t move a millimetre, no sign he was even speaking.He was distinguishable only by an ever so slightly different finger placement on his blaster.

“Heard he killed a Jedi” Nix responded, also hushed but slightly louder. He was distinguishable just by the near invisible slant of his hips as he favoured his left leg.

CT-2894, distinguishable by nothing, as he was damn near perfect, scanned this anomalous clone’s face. It stirred some kind of foreign feeling in him. Something like what he felt right after waking from the nightmares only he got. Of course, he didn’t say anything. He never did.

Once in the testing room, lama su is quick to start the hyper tests, near immediately giving the order to “administer the stimulant.”

The medical droid complied, jabbing a hypo into the bound clones chest.

“Remove his mask”

As the droid did so, the clone began struggling and writhing against the restraints. The dean squad adverted their eyes from the disturbing sight, except 2894, who couldn’t take his eyes away. Why? What did he feel about that clone?

The arc trooper who had been separated from the anomalous clone banged on the window between the rooms, distressed. He was shouting things to his droid, understandably upset over the treatment of who he was meant to protect. He calls out to shak ti, who while more composed than the trooper, also looks distressed. She presses a button that shades the window separating the two rooms.

“His reactions are normal. His reaction will subside.” Lama su says calmly, while imputing the results to her datapad. “The patient must be awake for the next round of tests.”

“I am not fond of these hyper tests.” The Jedi says, watching the clone concernedly.

“Yes, but they do give us all the information we need in a timely fashion.” Lama su says while tapping away on one of the control panels. “There does not seem to be any sign of infection in the blood.”

“How curious”

“The subject has tested negative on all counts. This clone seems to be in perfect health.”

“We must be missing something”

“Why am I here?” The clone on the table asks breathlessly as he wakes.

“Is he conscious?” Asks the Jedi to the kaminoan.

This causes the clone on the table to lock onto the Jedi, and somthing seems to switch in his head. “Follow orders. Kill Jedi. Kill Jedi!”

“Are you finished with your tests?” Asks the Jedi. “Sedate him.”

And the clone protests with his mantra of “kill the Jedi” until he losses consciousness again.

The Jedi and the kaminoan discuss the clone, but the kaminoan and the dean guards already know exactly what his fate is. He’s a defect. He’s liked a Jedi and expressed his intent to do so again. He was as good as dead the second he arrived. And it’s rare but cases like this have shown up before. The kaminoan insists upon it being some kind of nano virus, same excuse as always.

“The only way to find out what happened to this clone is to terminate him. And do a full molecular level autopsy.”

Roy’s shoulders fall ever so slightly. He knew this would happen. They all did. But still, to hear it is always different. 2894 stiffens his shoulders. There’s something off about this clone. For some reason, some gut feeling was telling him he did not want this clone dead.

One of the medical droids suggests a level 5 brain scan that might reveal the cause instead of termination, but lama su brushes the suggestion off, saying the clone is too weak.

The Jedi and the kaminoan get into a civil debate over the fate of the clone, with the Jedi wishing to take him to the Jedi temple alive. This general’s tried before. And she’s never won. But she leaves to speak to the Jedi council, and lama su leaves to speak to the prime minister.

The three guards watching the anomalous clone are silent, awaiting the decision. The sound of something hitting the window from the other side is the only noise other than the beeping of the machines.

The air was heavy, as they waited for news of this clones fate. None of them had known him personally, but that didn’t mean they would want him to die. 2894 never let himself grow attached to the clones passing through. Barely spoke to his own squad. But he had such a strange unexplainable draw towards this specific clone, that he couldn’t help but feel concern for him.

Soon Nala se returned however. Before the Jedi and with a syringe.

“It will be a painless death. And all our questions will be answered.”

For the first time in recent memory, 2894 felt panic. As if he had just woken form a nightmare only he ever seemed to get.

Why? Why this clone? Why did he care about this clone? That didn’t matter. He couldn’t let that happen.

He’d not planned for mutiny, but he was prepared for it.

He knew to kick for Nix’s left knee first, while he set his blaster for stun. He knew Roy always swung high first, when in range. He knew he was not from their batch and had a few tricks he didn’t remember learning. And he knew he had to keep that clone alive.

Kamino guards don’t get nightmares. At least not as violent, or frequent ones as 2894. His squad mates tell him this out of concern whenever they have to wake him up from one. Its not normal for a kamino guard. And 2894 would never tell them exactly what the nightmares were about.

But despite that, 2894 was the most perfect clone in dean squad. He barely talked to them outside what was necessary, and though he wasn’t unfriendly to them, he always seemed distant. He wasn’t from the same batch as Fly, Scale, Nix, or Roy. And when asked about his batch, would just go quiet.

2894 seemed much less a clone than a droid. Maybe his scores were higher than his squad, but the most human he seemed was when he woke up screaming from a nightmare.

So this was extremely unexpected. Or maybe all that was an early warning.

The ARC trooper that had been in the other room came rushing in. 2894 couldn’t read his intention straight away. This second he took was too long. ARC troopers are fast, and this one had him on the ground in an instant.

“What are you doing?” He demanded immediately

“I don’t know!” 2894 answered truthfully before amending with “protecting the patient until further orders.” That slip up will have cost him his life. The excuse he came up with was good, but it came a moment too late. Surely this ARC trooper would punish him for it.

2894 awaited his fate in the seconds the ARC stayed silent.

“They would have killed him” the ARC stated the obvious as he looked towards the kaminoan.

“Yes”

“But the Jedi hasn’t returned yet.”

“No”

The ARC was quiet again, adjusting his hold on the guard

“You weren’t following orders, were you?”

“I was, sir. To see to that the operation is carried out safely. Nala se, while being the head of the operation, did not have the consent of the Jedi overseer to continue.”

The ARC chuckled. The guard wasn’t joking. Surely the bluff wouldn’t fly.

“They didn’t need the general’s permission. You know this. You attach your superiors. You committed mutiny! But you do remind me a lot of someone I used to know.” The ARC’s tone was jovial. Relived. 2894 didn’t get it.

“AZ, you should be more like this guy.” The clone calls to a droid waiting patiently in the hall. The ARC leaned off of the guard and stood, helping him up. He went on, inspecting the equipment. 2894 just stood, bewildered. What was the ARC doing? He should be arresting him! Or setting off an alarm! Or killing him!

“W- why are you ok with this? You should probably set off the alarm-“

“Don’t touch that!” The ARC calls as the guard reaches for the button. “You are terrible at mutiny! First time I take it? AZ I need a distraction. Set off an alarm in the far wing”

The droid complied while reassuring itself about saving the patient. An alarm blared letting them know it had worked.

“Great. Now I need you to do a brain scan. Level 5. There’s something there they aren’t looking for.”

“You can’t. He’ll die. You need to wait a few hours after the hyper tests”

The ARC groans in frustration. “We don’t have that long! We need the results now!”

“I thought the the objective of this exercise was to save his life, not end it!”

AZ looks between the two feuding clones before stepping in “actually, preforming the scan itself has a 76% survival rate. Most casualties occur once the scan if finished and any operations begin”

“76 is good odds. Preform the scan. I’m sure we’ll get something useful”

“Commencing level 5 atomic brain scan”

The guard doesn’t watch, attention much more focused on the door. This is much too open. He grabs a blaster off the ground and steps outside. closing the door behind him. He can trust that ARC to help that clone.

He stands guard, but more than that he takes a step outside. He’s got no idea what he’s doing, and it’s very wrong. But standing outside the door he can just go back to what he was before, even if it’s fake and just for a little bit. It’s enough.

#the clone wars #star wars #arc trooper fives #captain rex #fives #starwars #clone trooper tup #my writing #it includes my two favourite characters just as a spoiler #you know what that means #I would write a bunch of different fandoms if I had the confidence #but since most of you are clone people #I’m just staying with stars war for now #would you like some other fandoms?#I’m not as confident with other characters as clones but I do want to try some other stuff #ah whatever just rambling in the tags #part of this was written months ago. I had completely forgotten about it.#now it’s a little more complete

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austarus · 4 years ago

Text

Harry Wells x Reader Amending Past Actions

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to @moonymartell

*Set Post-s4 but before s6, with the revelation of Harry’s cube message that Cisco and Caitlin had found in s6. I think that makes sense. Anyway, just humor me ok? I miss my grumpy and soft scientist.

Word Count: 3350

“Dad, we can’t just let that meta get away with Syberon Labs’ technoscope.” Jesse spoke in a hushed manner as to not let other wandering ears to hear her their conversation. The undergrad had trailed right behind her father as the taller Wells made his way to his office. Harry pressed his thumb on the fingerprint scan against the wall beside his door, unlocking the system to reveal an intricate pass-code sequence as well. Harry mused to himself that it’s a miracle he managed to re-learn and memorize the security code. The dark-haired man had to ensure that no one except him, you, and Jesse were able to enter his area of isolation and Time Vault if there were to be maliciously rampant around the city like Zoom. The young speedster paused until they had fully entered the office and closed the door. The dimness of the room brightened up due to the motion-sensory had had installed years ago. “We have to let the board understand the amount of damage that meta can cause even if the tech isn’t linked to their powers.”

“Jesse, while I do appreciate that you keep me around for your meta-hero work, in this case my hands are tied. I can’t speak on behalf of the science anymore.” Harry replied as he pulled off his bag from his shoulder to set it beside his desk. Long legs moved to take a seat at his workspace, Harry unbuttoned the black buttons of his suit jacket. He had an earlier demonstration pitch to make with speaking to him in his ear for the science-y parts. The not-so-genius CEO inwardly sighed at the amount of proposals on his desks. “I’m not what I once was.”

“What if you could?”

Blue eyes ceased scanning the stack of papers he held in his hand. Harry gently laid them back down the cool glassy surface. “… What are you saying?”

Jesse took a step forward in front of her father’s desk, taking a breath in to resist the urge to accidentally speed-talk her lightbulb moment whenever she got excited. “What if we enhance your neural firing up to the intricate speed that it was once at in each your nervous cells? Therefore, amplifying your neural functions to compensate for cognition and analytical/systematic processing within certain parts of your brain. We’d also have to certify that other areas of your brain are also matching the same speeds before the Enlightenment accident so that we don’t get an overcompensation of neural stimulation. If we increase the firing rate to the adequate speed without causing your body to overstimulate or overwork itself biochemically then we should be able to get your mind back to what it once was. That means we’d also have to know your body’s precise neural chemical levels to see if we need to inject increments in order to compensate for the firing rate values while balancing the fact that we’d have to scan your brain for any traces of dark matter or sub-particles. I’m sure you’d documented your initial firing rate along everything else before you did the tests on the Cerebral inhibitor back on Earth-1.”

That’s my Jesse Quick. Harry had watched his daughter with wide eyes as she spoke confidently. Pride swelled in his chest even though he found himself nodding to the gibberish that came out of her mouth. I should have been able to understand all of that… “Honey.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you-

“-I love you too, dad-”

“-but, and I can’t believe I’m saying this- but in English, please.” This is probably how Joe feels every time Barry and the others spoke with me about science and physics and all that.

“We’re going to speed up your brain back to what it once was.”

“No.”

Jesse blinked at her father’s sudden response. “What? Why?”

Harry stammered before responding, running a hand through his unusually groomed hair. No longer unruly without the anxiety from problem-solving each meta incident or the next big bad. “I’m not- I can’t do that again. Something’s going to go wrong and… I can’t put you through that like I put (Y/N) and the Team. I lost myself, Jesse. I can’t go through all of that- that helplessness again.” Jesse watched her father with a pained expression before casting it downwards, the subtle guilt of not being at her father’s side when all that had gone down. I could have prevented his pain. Was the one thought that rang within the depths of her mind each day.

“Dad, I refuse to accept the fact that there’s nothing that we can do.”

“Jesse-”

“(Y/N) will even be here to monitor your neural and physiological vitals. She’ll be the green light if things go smoothly.”

“Jesse-”

“Just let me try. I can fix you.”

“Jesse!” Harry slammed a hand down on the desk, the harshness of the impact caused a picture frame to fall and shatter. The older Wells rubbed his face before massaging his temples. Don’t give me hope from what I had sorrowingly lost. “Stop, please. It’s not going to work. I’m fine with everything as it is now.”

“But are you content?” Jesse asked with pleading eyes. Harry looked up at his daughter before tilting his head off to the side. Finally, his gazed locked back on her.

“It’s better than being a blank slate or dead.”

“But are you content, dad?” Jesse asked once more, stepping over to pick up the fallen and cracked picture from. It had been of him and you and Team Flash last Christmas. His first Christmas with them. She handed her father the frame with a sigh. “I’ve seen you… stay up late at night wandering the labs, picking up your old notes, and trying to rework things at home until the early morning. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your intelligence back.”

“My intelligence doesn’t define me, Jesse. You need to understand that. I’m balanced now, that’s good enough for me.” Is it though?

“It doesn’t define you, but it’s something you value, dad. You’re my dad. My badass dad, who fought in the War of the Americas. Who jumped breaches to find a way to save me from Zoom while trying to keep the others safe by dropping hints. Who’s stubborn and prickly but ended up making friends on Earth-1 that you now consider family more than ever and met the one other person you’d sacrifice everything in life for. (Y/N). Your skill, intelligence, and determination brought you up to that point. Brains and brawns always win the fight, brawns can’t do it alone. I just-I just want to make you happy.”

“…”

“Dad, do you trust me?”

“You know I do, Jesse.”

“Then let me try.”

“Okay,” Harry grumbled as he leaned back and cracked his stiff neck, he adorned a serious expression on his face. “But we keep this between us. I’m already receiving backlash from your hero group as it is just being present at my own Labs.”

“Don’t worry about them. Oh, and one thing.”

“Hm?”

“Did you tell Cisco and (Y/N) about my team?”

“Yes?”

“Did Cisco come up with a name? Did (Y/N) approve?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah! So did they?”

“He might have rattled off a few names. One of them was probably Jesse and the Quicksters.”

“Not bad, I like it.”

“Don’t get any ideas.” Harry lightly scolded Jesse, who cheekily grinned at him.

“I won’t, I won’t,” the young speedster observed her father carefully as he moved past her to a desk space. Unlocking it, the Earth-2 Wells pulled out various notes and finals a blueprint model. Jesse padded over to stand across her father as she eyed the papers. “What’s this?”

“These,” Harry started, “are all the notes and things I had with me about the Cerebral Inhibitor. The blueprints are of mine and Cisco’s as well as the ones I snagged from Marlize after she had left the labs, who made readjustments to regain my intelligence.”

Jesse had already picked up the up-to-date notes by Marlize then the blueprints. She wasn’t even going to ask her father why he even had those in his possession because some part of her felt that he had been contemplating this too. “This is some A-class sloppy work, no wonder you weren’t able to fully get everything back.”

“Think you can outdo her.” Harry quirked a playful eyebrow at his daughter, who only returned the gesture. Jesse’s mind already had been making mental notes on the kinds of improvements that needed to be done.

“Hell yeah I can. I’m a Wells after all.” The speedster grinned up at her father, taking a seat on a spare chair and already sifting through the baroque equations and mathematical language.

Nothing lifted Harry’s spirits more than having his daughter beside him, their relation had been sewn back together. Harry left his daughter to jot down and hypothesize the necessary medications needed. Knowing my daughter, she’ll want to create the Cerebral Inhibitor from scratch. Harry took a seat at his desk once more, taking up paper after paper and analyzing the business proposals sent in. He may not have his intelligence anymore, but that does not necessarily mean he can’t run the business side of STAR Labs. Jesse was currently managing the science and analytical research side. But is this really going to work?

***

Harry covered his yawn as he set down the paper packet and pen in hand. Glancing over, he noticed that he had been working away for nearly 3 hours. The war veteran reclined back on his comfy leather chair as he stretched his limbs. His eyes wondered over to Jesse hunched over, speedily working through the notes as sounds of furious scribbling filled the silent void of the office today. With every intention of getting up and taking a walk through the Labs to get the blood flowing, Harry stood up and loosened his collar.

Blue eyes widened as a breach opened. Jesse’s ears had instantly perked up and, like the speedster she is, she raced to be beside her father in a defensive position. Spluttering sounds emitted from the breach as a very disoriented Wolfgang Wells stumbled out and onto the ground. Jesse looked thoroughly confused as did Harry. The doppelganger cowered on the ground in fear as more spluttering sounds signaled another emerging traveler. Harry watched you pop out of the breach.

“Hi,” You sent a friendly wave to your boyfriend and his daughter along with a cute, innocent-looking smile.

“(Y/N)?”

“One sec,” you held out a hand to them before yanking Wolfgang up by the back of his collar with all your might. Instantaneously, you twisted the German man’s arm back tightly behind him and locked Wolfgang in place adorning a threating sort of smile on your face. Harry blinked a few times as to what the hell was going on while Jesse crossed her arms and observed in amusement much to Wolfgang’s chagrin. “Ok, so let’s try this again. What do we saw when we’re wrong about judging others and their misfortune?”

Wolfgang sneered at you when he had tilted his head make eye contact with you, “You’re joking, rechts?” Your smile dropped astonishingly at his response. A darker look in your eyes as you kicked the back of his knee causing the older man to yelp and fall to bend uncomfortably. Harry ‘tch’ed and winced at what he witnessed. Jesse covered her mouth and hid her laughs at your chosen course of action. “It was wrong for me to do that.” Sie wird mich töten!

“And?”

“Und vhat?” You kick the back of his other knee and dug your fingers in the pressure point of his shoulder muscle, allowing the man to succumb on the ground on his knees. He groaned out in pain. “Und I’m sorry for kicking you out of the Council.”

“What. Else.”

“I shouldn’t have laughed at your face for losing your intelligence. It was a horrible thing for me to do. Können Sie mich jetzt gehen lassen?” Bitte, erbarme dich.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” You grinned a bit sadistically at him, letting him go and pulling the Breach Extrapolator. Once it was open you grabbed the flinching man and shoved him back into the breach to his Earth.

You turned around and your sweet disposition had returned, sunshine and all. As if the menacing persona you had adorned vanished in a matter of seconds when that breach had closed. Throughout the entire exchange Jesse had spared a glance at her father to literally see him making heart eyes at you and a gentle smile on his face. Harry won’t even deny that your entire gesture had warmed his heart with one thought running through his mind. That’s my wife. That you had gone through the trouble to do all of that for him. Harry’s twinkling eyes never left you and Jesse just rolled her eyes at her dorky father. A smirk had bewitched its way onto his face as he stepped away from his daughter and towards you. You felt heat crawl its way to your cheeks at the hidden look behind his eyes. His arms instantly wrapped around you, holding you tightly to himself as you reciprocated the gesture of affection. You kissed the side of his head, your insides ballooning to maximum capacity.

Pulling away, Harry couldn’t help but tease you, “To what do I owe the great pleasure of Persephone coming all this way to visit my humble abode.”

“I’m so telling Cisco that you’re using his nerdy mythology reference for us.”

“Humor me this one time, will you?”

“You do know that Persephone means Destroyer of Light, right?” You gave him a quirky look, your arms loosely wrapped around him.

“I know, but it seems like the Destroyer of Light has a particular soft spot for a man like me.” Harry just wiggled his eyebrows at you causing the both of you to giggle like dorks. You leaned up and rubbed your nose with his.

“Ugh, you guys are gross. Sickeningly cute, but still gross. Just kiss already so I can give hugs.” Jesse pipped up with a gagging expression. Harry chuckled with pink cheeks and leaned down for a quick kiss, much to your disappointment before Jesse shoved her father away from you. You gave the young speedster the biggest of hugs because you truly did miss her presence and enthusiasm. “(Y/N), that was badass. I didn’t know you could even get that angry. And like, not just anger that my dad normally has when he gets frustrated that something’s not working- silent anger. I’ve been told that’s the worst and most malevolent kind of anger.”

You rubbed the back of your neck when the both of you had turned away, a sheepish laugh falling off your lips. Music to Harry’s ears obviously. “It usually takes a lot to get me that made.”

“Remind me to never get on your bad side. I may be a speedster and everything, but ‘hell hath no wrath than a woman scorned’.”

“I don’t think that’s really possible for you to do, Jesse.”

“Jesse?” Harry interrupted before the speedster could go on rattling off, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“Yeah?” Her father gave her a pointed look before signaling with his head simultaneously towards the direction of the door. “Right, yes. I have to go… review a few projects for class. 3 Majors and all- Anyway don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and always use protection kids-” You blinked, and Jesse was gone in a flash of yellow-green lightning. Your cheeks as well as Harry’s lit up at her last statement before she left the office.

“Man, I really wish I had superspeed,” you sighed at her rushed exit, leaning into Harry’s side. He rubbed your arm gingerly.

“Really?”

“Well yeah, think of all the things Barry normally gets done.”

“Yet, he still manages to get his ass handed to him by metas. Every time.”

“True.”

You moved your gaze up and locked eyes with those beautiful azure ones. “You breached over just in time.” Harry took your hand gently and brought you over to the couch. The dark-haired man dimmed the lights in the room, mentally knowing that he deserves a break right now and obviously he wasn’t going to waste time working when you’re currently in the same vicinity as him. You sat close to one another, just automatically cuddling together in each other’s arms on the couch-bed. Harry took one of your hands once more and kissed the back of it before moving to peck each fingertip on your hands. You raked your teeth over your bottom lip as you eyed him with a half-lidded gaze. “We need to talk, babe.” He whispered softly.

“You think so? If anything, I also think I came at the right time. I actually get to see you in a suit again.”

Harry paused with a confused look. “You don’t like my usual casual look.”

“No, I do. I love it, really. I’m just…”

“Just?”

“Really I think you’re sexy in a suit but in reality, you’re handsome in literally anything you wear especially when you roll up your sleeves when you work on something and all that jazz.”

Harry blinked a couple of times, trying to process your rapid-fire rambling response. A soft smile graced his face and he shook his head at you. “I assume that my suit shirts will also be on the list of things you steal from me this time around before leaving to Earth-1.”

“I don’t steal. I borrow.”

“Uh huh. Then can you return those sweaters that you borrowed.”

“That depends, will you actually be sleeping over at my place this time around?”

“Well, that depends on what’s in it for me.”

You kissed Harry’s nose before winking at him. “I was thinking of cooking dinner together. Jesse included as well and- I don’t know- go out for a walk in the city and then we can come back home and do stuff…”

“Do stuff?”

You nodded shyly under his smug face, before switching the conversation. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Jesse believes she can fully restore my intelligence. Not just basic necessities to be a functioning and thinking human being.” Harry ran his fingers through your hair. Confusion crossed your features momentarily as you pulled back to fully look at your boyfriend. You opened your mouth, but Harry beat you to it. “Don’t ask me about the details but- She thinks she can speed up my brain to properly retain its normal function. Before Devoe…” Harry trailed off and you saw the pain flash through his eyes.

You took in a breath and contemplated your next words. “If this is what you want, then I will be here. Every step of the way. If Marlize couldn’t do it, Jesse can.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. I believe in Jesse, she’s your daughter after all. Brilliance, character, and tenacity.”

His strong jaw had softened as his lips turned up into a beautiful smile with mesmerizing blue eyes. The sight caused your heart to beat harder in your chest. “You really are the Persephone to my Hades.” You felt jittery under his heated gaze.

“Harry, I would eat as many pomegranates just to stay by your side, oh great kind of the Underworld.”

“Is that your way of saying ‘yes’ if I were to propose?”

You held your breath in the tender moment before breathing out your response. “Yes.”

Blue eyes sparkled at your response. Harry peppered your face with kisses as giggles left your lips and small acts of adoration were exchanged. “Then as long as you’re in my life, I will be content.” You cupped his face and planted a sweet kiss on his anticipating lips. Harry smiled against your mouth and nipped gently at your lips. The tiny dark velvet box didn’t seem to bear as much weight as it initially had a few months ago in Harry’s pocket anymore.

German Translation:

Rechts?- Right?

Sie wird mich töten - She is going to kill me!

Bitte, erbarme dich. – Please, have mercy

192 notes · View notes

slasherholic · 5 years ago

Text

(psst... did someone say Mikey whump? guys I think someone said Mikey whump…)

Frisky February Prompt: Electricity~ (yes it’s 15 days too early shush) @slashthedice

synopsis: Michael gets served up some nasty, nasty revenge by someone who really, really has it out for him.

warnings: torture in a medical setting, sexual assault, mikey has a bad time ok

foreword: the opinions expressed here by the POV character about certain sensitive topics in no way reflect my own beliefs <3

No Faith in Medicine | Michael Myers x Reader | NSFW

The hospital corridor is long and grey and stretches onward toward a single bolted door, labeled by the rectangular sign hanging above it as Therapy Theater No. 5.

This deep within the bowels of the sanitarium, below the patient wards and the enrichment centers and the checkered courtyard, there is hardly any of the familiar clamour; so as you stride closer to the door the clack of your bootheels over the beige linoleum carries like thunder.

Smith’s Grove was never the sort of place you had pictured yourself ending up during all those sleepless nights studying for your Ph.D, and truthfully, you can’t stand it here. The deliberate blandness of the hospital, with its color palettes limited to inoffensive whites and blues and greys—meticulously designed so as not to provoke its residents—wears on you more than anything else.

You feel like you’re suffocating here; but it doesn’t matter.

This job was never about you to begin with. It was never about some commendable interest in the healing of troubled minds, either; oh-no. There are two-hundred-and-forty-nine permanent patients living inside these sound-proof walls, and while it may not be a very doctorly thing to admit, you don’t give a rat’s ass about two-hundred-and-forty-eight of them.

...and as for that last “troubled mind,” well…

The breezy summer afternoon that Michael Myers was sentenced to life imprisonment exists in your head as vividly as a snapshot picture.

Almost as vivid is your memory of the Halloween that a policeman had come knocking at your front door to inform you in a strictly-business-voice that your sister was found dead in her kitchen, her throat slit open from ear to ear.

You remember watching from your couch as the gavel came down and the judge ruled the man who had taken your sister’s life away as criminally insane—and not responsible for his actions on that fateful October night—and therefor not legally a candidate for the death penalty.

You remember the burning, frustrated tears streaming down your face, the shatter of glass as you hurled the remote at the television screen, and then sinking down in a heap on the floor and screaming until your lungs were raw and your voice was in tatters, because it wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair.

So when the news came out that Myers was to be transferred back to Smith’s Grove—hardly a forty minute commute from your own house—you had been out the door that very same day, speeding in your car down the highway, ready to accept any available position the Sanitarium would offer you for your credentials.

It had been your one shot at revenge on the sick, evil fucker who had ruined your happiness; and you were prepared to move heaven and earth just to bring Myers hell.

It had taken eight months before you even laid eyes on the man for the first time.

You’d landed yourself a patient therapy position, but only had the clearance to treat patients who fell under the “medium” and “high-risk” categories. In the entire hospital there were only two patients who fell under the third and final category: a spitting lunatic of a man, who couldn’t be safely approached without first being drugged half-asleep with antipsychotics...

...and Myers.

You had possessed the patience of a saint, climbing through promotion after promotion.

And the very minute that you were handed back a fresh copy of your I.D, now with a little red stamp at the bottom, the stamp that meant you were cleared to work with Myers, you had raced down to the front desk to file your recommendation for treatment.

Three days later, after hours of debriefing by Dr. Ashton, Myers’ new court-assigned psychiatrist, you came face to face with the worst criminal the sanitarium had ever known.

You had seen Myers’ face pictured in black and white on newspaper articles and in fuzzy low-definition on T.V.

And absolutely none of that could have prepared you for witnessing him in the flesh.

The thing that had startled you most when you were led by Dr. Ashton into Michael’s barren, cramped room—the thing that practically had you reeling when your eyes fell on the motionless figure sitting on the cot in the corner, chained at the wrists and ankles by a metal link fastened to the floor—the thing you still despise yourself for thinking—

—is that Myers was jaw-droppingly, stunningly handsome.

His were the kind of ethereal good looks that you might expect to find in some renaissance painting, or a Grecian statue, or a fantasy book.

You had stood staring across the room at the motionless young man, drinking in all the features of his vacant, pretty face; overcome by complete and total disbelief that this was actually the person responsible for all your grief.

And the very next second, that disbelief was shattered like a dropped vase; when you looked into Myers’ stare.

It brought down the temperature in the room like a cold-snap. It was not directed at you, only at the floor, yet it had you shuddering anyway, had all the hairs on your arms standing straight up. It was not a lights-on-but-nobody-home sort of gaze, the kind you were expecting from how Myers had been described by his former psychiatrist. His face was blank, yes; that was accurate enough.

But his eyes, they were the furthest thing from it.

Michael Myers had the eyes of a ruthless, calculating, viciously deliberate predator.

The longer you had stood there, gawking at Myers as if he were a tiger in a cage, hardly listening to Dr. Ashton’s rambling about his admiration of your interest in his patient’s treatment, the more you became aware of the charge crackling in the air; like the moment in a thunderstorm just before lightning rips through the sky. It was as if every fiber in your body could sense the danger radiating from this man; you could all but see and smell the invisible blood staining his hands.

It had turned your vision into a seething cloud of red.

Here was a murderer—the worst kind of murderer, who was perfectly, undoubtedly aware of his crimes, a fact you could tell from just his eyes—who carried in his heart not a single shred of remorse for the lives he’d ripped away. Who, when he was unable to kill, had resigned himself to sitting and anticipating the day when he might once again have his hands around a warm throat, the day when he would pick right back up where he left off and take another life as carelessly and thoughtlessly as one snuffing out a candle.

And this man had been allowed to keep breathing.

You think of all these things as you reach the end of the corridor and swipe your I.D card on the door to Therapy Theater No.5. Hidden locking mechanisms whirr and click open.

You place your hand around the cool metal handle. For a moment, you just stand there. Feeling your pounding heart in your chest.

It pounds not because you are fearful; you don’t care if you get caught because of what you are about to do. You don’t care if you get fired, or if you get your license taken away, or even if you go to jail. Those are the most trivial, unimportant things in the world. No. Your heart does not pound for those reasons.

It pounds because, finally, there will be justice.

Finally, the evil son-of-a-bitch who slaughtered your sister is getting what he deserved all along.

And you get to be the one to flip the switch.

You turn the door handle and step into the room.

Therapy Theater No.5 is bathed in bright fluorescent light and smells strongly of antiseptic and sterilization. Three people are already in the room: two armed guards, who nod in acknowledgment at you when you enter.

And laid out at the center across a white padded table, dressed in a pale blue hospital gown, strapped tightly down at the wrists and ankles by hospital-grade cuffs, looking up at the ceiling as if utterly uncaring, motionless save for the rise and fall of his ribs—Myers.

A nurse had come in before you to prepare the room for treatment. The therapy you’re meant to be administering is simple and painless: electrodes are fixed to the patient’s body and a weak electrical current is passed through, stimulating choice muscle groups—and in more recent cases, even parts of the brain.

You had emphasized that part specifically in your pitch of the therapy to Dr. Ashton, referencing a study which showed how violent tendencies could be soothed in patients who underwent the treatment.

And no, you’d reassured him, it was nothing like electroconvulsive therapy.

The electrical current used in E.S.T is never strong enough to induce seizures. The only thing the subject feels is a mild, if not pleasant, buzz...

·…or at least that’s how it’s meant to be administered.

Tampering with the wattage of the machine had turned out to be laughably easy. A few snipped wires here, a few crunched numbers there, and now the bulky device sitting atop the roll-around table beside your “patient” can deliver a shock nastier than a taser with every throw of the switch.

It’s not strong enough to stop a human heart (god, you wish.) But it is enough to make Myers hurt.

Enough to make him writhe on that table.

Maybe even enough to make the heartless bastard feel something for a change.

You thank the guards before dismissing them. They leave the room but you know they won’t go far; no further than right outside in the hall, waiting through the entire session with their hands on their batons in case Myers gets out of hand.

Their security would be a welcome thing, if you were actually about to /treat/ Myers instead of torturing the living daylights out of him. But now, the guards are just another problem in need of a solution.

Though you are almost confident that Myers will retain his silence throughout the ordeal—that he’ll uphold his veil of distance and aloofness and total lack of care with the stubbornness of an ass—you’re not about to bet your shot at justice on it.

That’s what the ball gag in your coat pocket is for.

Reaching down to check that it is still there, excitement swells in your belly as your fingers graze the black silicone.

On the table, Myers is still motionless. He doesn’t tilt his head to regard you. He pays you no attention at all, in fact, as if you aren’t even there to begin with. Never do his steely eyes move from their fixed place on the ceiling light hanging above him.

As you walk up to the roll-around table, plucking a pair of latex gloves from a box stashed on the shelf beneath before snapping them curtly on, for a reason that you can’t put into words, you find yourself hesitating to look Myers in the face.

It doesn’t matter that he’s restrained; it doesn’t matter that there are two armed and capable guards standing watch right outside. Despite both these things, that vitriolic, charged aura you had felt in his cell still surrounds him now, polluting the room, hanging like a storm cloud over your head.

It’s as if some submissive animal instinct has gripped your brain and now screams warnings at you: Predator. Danger. Don’t look it in the eye. Don’t provoke it.

You do your damndest to dismiss the feeling as nerves.

In a little white tray next to the E.S.T machine sits a filled syringe; a sedative. Dr. Ashton has insisted on it to better ensure your safety, as well as Myers’ cooperation. In the psychiatrist’s exact words:

“These days Michael is, ah, fussier about this kind of treatment—you know, the kind they gotta bring in the guards for, the needles, the cuffs, the whole nine-yards.

It’s a theory of mine that, after living with the sort of power Michael did, the loss of his own control doesn’t sit as nicely anymore. He doesn’t like it. And he’s not afraid to let us know just how much he doesn’t like it.”

Fussy. That was the word Ashton had used to describe Myers.

It had taken every shred of self-control you possessed not to scoff in the Doctor’s face at that; as if the man laid out before you now were some sort of stubborn, overgrown toddler, and not a remorseless, murderous psychopath.

You don’t spare the sedative a second glance as you unravel the bundle of wires and nodes connected to the E.S.T machine; Myers is going to be awake to feel every goddamned second of what you do to him.

Only after you’re finished with him will you finally send him under.

You can picture the conversation with Ashton now: Yes sir, the sedative worked like a charm, he was out like a light the entire time; no sir, no complications at all.

You take your time setting up the machine because you’re still hesitant to even look at Myers, let alone touch him. But when the wires are all connected, the red power button flashing idly in standby, there is nothing left to do except attach the electrodes.

You force yourself to look him in the face as you approach. You should not be afraid of this man; you should resent him, should despise him, but should not fear him. He doesn’t deserve to hold that sort of power over you, or anyone else, ever again.

So you look.

Michael is still watching the ceiling. According to his eyes, he does not acknowledge you.

But just from how the hair on your nape stands on end you know you’re being watched.

Myers is regarding you coolly in his periphery with the curiosity of a feline, feigning detachment and disinterest; but the weight and pressure of that penetrating gaze could not be more obvious if it were a ton of bricks coming right down on your head.

With a deep breath to rein in your resolve, you reach down, your fingers working to undo the first knot on Myers’ hospital gown.

Quickly, you discover that it is one thing to look at Myers; to feel for yourself his ruthless awareness, the raw intensity of his presence.

But to touch him is another thing altogether.

He draws a breath of his own as you fidget with his gown, his strong rib cage expanding beneath your fingers. You shudder at the sudden pressure of his body; whether out of disgust, or anger, or some fucked up fascination, you aren’t sure.

After undoing the ties on both sides, you lift the front of his gown up and off—

—and find that Myers is totally naked underneath.

Standard hospital procedure for a therapy like this one. Nothing new.

But it’s different when the patient looks like this.

You hate yourself for ogling him. You detest the way your eyes rove across Myers’ body, lingering on all the features that your lizard-brain decides it likes; from the stark tendons in his neck to his sharp and angular collarbones, from his broad, rounded shoulders to the beautiful definition in his abdomen, and down even further than that before you can stop yourself.

To the V of his obliques—to the trail of curly brown pubic hair on his pelvis—and all the way down to his flaccid penis.

You snatch a towel from the roll-around and drape it hurriedly over his hips. Not for the sake of his modesty; just so you don’t have to worry about your eyes straying down to the cock of the man who murdered your sister.

As far as the placement of the electrodes on his body, you honestly haven’t given it much thought. It seemed like the sort of thing that would come to you like an epiphany, as if suddenly, in the moment, you would know exactly where to hit Myers to really make him suffer.

But no such epiphany comes. Oh well; you have an hour to experiment.

Grabbing the two nodes off their holders, you run the wires across his chest and press the little round circles down flat against his pectorals.

When your gloved fingers graze Myers’ skin you nearly jerk back your hand, startled. The man is hot like a stove.

Your medical fascination is instantly piqued—Myers must have the hottest resting body temperature you’ve ever encountered. You have to force away intrusive thoughts of sticking a thermometer in his mouth to see that number for yourself.

Focus.

Tugging up on the wires, you test the integrity of the node’s suction. They don’t budge from his chest, lifting his skin with them as you pull. Perfect; It’s nearly time.

Now for the gag.

You just have to cross your fingers and pray that you can actually get it in his mouth.

Looking Myers in the face a third time proves to be no less jarring than it had been the second or the first. You’re just relieved that even after all your poking and prodding he is still pretending not to be interested in you, or in the things you’re doing to his body.

You clear your throat before speaking to him because you don’t trust it enough not to crack.

“Open up,” you command him, mustering every authoritative bone in your body and sounding very official even to your own ears.

Removing the gag from your pocket, you hold it up as if to show him, taking care to conceal the black silicone ball with your hand.

“Mouthguard.”

You doubt that Myers has seen this sort of gag before. Or that he even knows what a gag is. Still, you’re not taking that risk. If this doesn’t work then you’re going to have to drug him just to get the damn thing in place, then wait for him to sober up again—a colossal waste of time.

For a tense second, Myers does not respond to your command. He just lays there on the table, inhaling and exhaling, looking incredibly bored with you, with his nakedness, with the electrodes strapped to his chest.

Your jaw goes tense. You nearly repeat yourself.

But then, he opens up his mouth.

Beneath the harsh overhead lighting his teeth gleam wetly. You suspect immediately that he’s going to try and bite your fingers off the second you get too close.

Game on, fucker.

From the shelf below the roll-around you snatch up a small blotting rag. Walking around to stand at the head of the table, you gaze down at Myers again.

“The strap goes underneath.” You inform him. “I need you to lift your head up.”

He does.

And you strike. Faster than you had thought yourself capable.

You drape the rag over his eyes so that he can’t see what’s coming. Thrusting the gag hard into his open mouth, you wedge it firmly between his teeth. In the corner of the room, Myers’ heart monitor spikes suddenly, the electronic beeping speeding up momentarily—a sound that has you beaming with pride.

You’ve actually managed to startle him.

As you clip the strap into place around the back of his head, a strange sense of accomplishment floods your body—you’ve done it. You’ve actually done it. Everything is ready.

Every sacrifice you’ve made in these past eight months, every hour spent in this godforsaken hellhole, it was all worth it just to bring about this single moment.

The moment is made only sweeter when you rip the rag away from Myers’ face.

Oh. Now you have his attention.

Those pale eyes are looking straight up at you. Considering you with the cutting gaze of a hawk. Working out the situation.

You glare right back down at him. You stare deep into his eyes, the triumphant fire now raging in your chest burning hotter than the ice in his stare, more furiously than all the danger—and you find that you are not afraid of him anymore. Like this, Myers is nothing. He’s not a boogeyman. Not a phantom. He’s just a man—stripped of all his mysticism. Strapped to a table. Naked. Gagged.

Powerless.

Just as powerless to stop what you’re about to do to him as each and every one of the people whose lives he took away.

“Hello, Michael.” You hold his fierce eye-contact as you speak. “Ten months ago you broke into my sister’s house and murdered her.”

Myers doesn’t blink. But neither do you.

“When they tried you, you were supposed to leave that courtroom a dead man walking; you were supposed to die. That's how our justice system works—when you do the things you did, you don’t get to keep on living.”

Nothing changes on Myers’ face as you speak. Nothing changes in his eyes. Not one molecule in his body has an atom of care to give about the words you’re saying. He breathes around the gag, his heart monitor beeping slow and steady.

“I don’t give a single fuck about what that judge said,” You continue. “And I don’t care how sick in the head you really are. You knew exactly what you were doing that night. I can see it in your eyes, Myers—you loved every fucking second of it. And that’s the only thing that matters.”

You draw a long breath. One that you hold in your lungs before letting slowly out again.

“You’re the evilest son-of-a-bitch on this entire fucking planet; and you deserve to die.”

Walking over to the E.S.T machine, fighting back with tooth and claw against furious tears now threatening your eyes, you place your finger over the power switch.

Myers watches you; and you notice something flicker to life in his glacial eyes. Not an emotion. Just a realization.

Good. He understands now. He understands what you’re about to do to him.

“Someone has to make you pay. Someone has to.”

Michael just stares. Watching you. Watching your finger on the switch. His pulse on the monitor ticks as leisurely as if he were about to fall asleep.

“And guess what, you sick fuck?”

Still staring—not blinking—breaths coming slowly.

“I’m so fucking happy that it’s me.”

You throw the switch—

—the wires crackle with live electricity—

—and all of Myers’ deliberate, calculated control is shattered like a dropped glass.

His body seizes. His eyes snap shut. His fingers curl into fists that turn his knuckles whiter than the table beneath him. The tendons in his neck and forearms jump out, straining beneath his skin. His heart monitor beats erratically, the little green line on the screen spiking sharply, racing out of control.

Your eyes are glued to the grisly scene. You devour each and every involuntary reaction, relishing in the complete and utter breakdown of his control.

Fifteen gorgeous seconds pass before you remember that you were supposed to be counting to ten. Whoops. You might be frying his brain into an unfeeling stupor at this point. You flip the switch off in an instant because you need him awake, aware.

Myers’ back falls flat against the table, the current cutting off as abruptly as it began. The muscles in his chest continue to contract and seize beneath his skin long after the electricity is gone; you count the spasms as they tear through his pectorals like sets of waves.

When the spasming stops, his chest heaves up and down, winded. His breaths around the gag come heavily. His eyes are still shut; but no longer are they /squeezed/ shut.

For a moment, you really think that he’s passed out.

Then his eyes twitch beneath their lids and flutter open again. Blinking. Focusing—

—flitting right back on your face. Right back to the spot where he had left them before the current forced them shut.

Myers’ eyes are devoid of care. He is entirely unperturbed by what has just happened to him; entirely unthreatened. But now, that murderous intent—the charge which until now you’d only felt in the air around him—is written in his stare as plain as day.

I am going to kill you, says Michael’s gaze, as nonchalant as if he were stating some trivial fact about the universe, like water is wet, or the sky is blue.

It makes your blood boil.

Adding insult to injury, the speed at which Myers regains control of his body is nothing short of infuriating. You fume as you watch the way his breaths level out again, the beeping from his heart monitor falling back into the former slow, rhythmic pace.

You feel as though you should say something to him; like you should retaliate to this defiance in some way that isn’t staring, because you’ve already lost that battle; you cannot possibly hope to match the severity of Myers’ gaze.

But you don’t.

In your heart of hearts you know that your words will go right through his skull, unheard. There is only one language that Myers understands; only one language that he can comprehend down to his marrow. So you’ll speak it to him.

Without wasting another breath, your fingers find the power switch again. And those defiant eyes of his snap shut a second time.

When you shut the current off the results are the same as before; Myers is heaving on the table. But he takes back his control just as quickly, his stoicism prevailing.

By the third time however, his breaths have begun to linger in their heaviness—

—by the fourth he draws them as shallow as a winded sprinter running a race—

—by the fifth, the intervals between the violent seizing-up of his body are too brief for him to catch his breath—

—and the way he now gasps around the obstructing gag, fighting and failing to suck in air past its silicone, his nostrils flaring rapidly to compensate, is the most beautiful display of desperation that you have ever witnessed.

The sixth time you throw the switch, Myers actually does pass out.

When the current stops his body loses its tension with the abruptness of a cut wire. You wait impatiently for him to open his eyes again with your finger lingering over the switch, preparing to meet that steely gaze with another brutal jolt of electricity.

You wait; and Myers’ heart monitor chugs away like a freight train going up a hill.

Still waiting… waiting...

...and nothing happens. Myers is out cold.

The contentment now pulsing through your veins is what you imagine a shot of heroin feels like. Snapping on a fresh pair of gloves, you walk up to the side of the table to admire your work.

The first thing you notice is the sweat. Myers’ body is drenched in it. It beads up on his chest and clavicle, on his biceps and shoulders, on his brow and cheeks, the skin there flushing a shade of stark, exhausted pink. Gorgeous.

Your eyes travel down his body to continue the examination; you stop at his hands.

Myers’ hands are bloody.

Crescent-shaped cuts litter the skin of his palms, marking the place where his own blunt fingernails had dug in uncontrollably, over and over and over again. The fresh blood streaks in little rivulets down his hands and pools on the white padding of the table beneath.

You chew the inside of your lip as you stare at the mess; these cuts might be tricky to explain away. You’ll have to gauze them and tell Dr. Ashton that his patient did it to himself; maybe recommend that he be switched to a higher Thorazine dosage to really sell the lie.

Luckily, that’s a problem for the future. As for right now, you’re rather enjoying the irony of Myers’ own blood staining his hands for a change.

The inspection continues. Further down his body, you finally notice it; the bulge beneath the towel strewn across his pelvis.

Oh my god, he isn’t. You think, lifting the side of the towel for a peek.

And oh my god, he is.

Rather frustratingly, just like the rest of him, Myers is pretty down here, too. Pretty and big. Which is not a compliment, you reassure yourself. Just a medical observation. You let yourself stare this time, because you’re not ashamed anymore. You’re not threatened by the notion of admiring Myers’ physiology anymore.

Not when he’s so completely at your mercy.

Somehow, Myers doesn’t seem to be the masochistic type, so you highly doubt that actual arousal is responsible for this. Sheer adrenaline coupled with his frantically pumping heart are probably to blame, his brain mixing and misinterpreting the signals, resulting in this little accident.

The longer you stare down at the “accident,” the more you find yourself wondering what Myers would look like fully-erect.

You cannot rip the electrodes off his chest fast enough. Plucking the towel from waist and discarding it on the floor, you stick the two nodes down flat against his obliques, then hurry to rig up a third. That one you plant just above his penis; as close to its base as the curly dark hair will allow.

You stand with your finger ready on the go-button again, opting to let Myers’ still-racing pulse dip out of the red before you pull the trigger and plunge him back into hell. Bloodied hands you can explain away, but cardiac arrest? Not so much.

The beeping slows. The green lines on the monitor settle. You throw the switch.

Myers’ pelvis bucks uncontrollably up from the table—

—and he grunts.

The sound makes your heart sing. It is muffled by the gag, low and reverberating, not very loud to begin with. Most definitely not on purpose; just a reaction that’s managed to slip through while his barriers are down.

Myers’ groin is still quivering when you cut the current off. His cock stands upright, stiff and swollen, totally erect. A line of saliva now dribbles down the side of his mouth, trickling between the gag, collecting in a shimmering mess on his shoulder. He blinks sluggishly up at the ceiling light as if transfixed; still dazed, you would guess.

Something twisted occurs to you as you drink in the scene. Something that you can’t deny.

Seeing Myers like this—fighting for his very consciousness, struggling to retain some sliver of control—is the single most arousing thing you have ever witnessed. You want nothing more in the entire world than to climb onto this dangerous, wounded man’s hips and claim him.

You want nothing more than to give him a taste of what true powerlessness feels like.

It’s a lovely fantasy, a beautiful temptation, and a real shame that it can’t happen. You don’t feel like getting knocked up with the child of your sister’s murderer today; or ever, for that matter. Instead, you think you’ll make a game out of guessing how many more shocks will have Myers coming on his own thighs.

Striding up to the head of the table again, you plant your arms on either side of his shoulders, leaning over him, hardly ten inches from his face.

“Looks painful Myers.” You jest. “How about I make you a deal?”

Michael looks up at you. Unfocused. Blinking slowly.

“I flip the switch,” you continue,

“—and I keep it flipped until you’re covered in your own semen, and after that I jam a needle in your arm, pump you full of drugs, and you get to live out your next eight hours as an unfeeling fucking vegetable. Fair?”

You wait for Myers to do something. For your words to register in his brain. For some flicker of a response to let you know that he’s even still in there.

To your immense disappointment, Myers does nothing. Absolutely nothing. He just...

...well, you can’t even call it staring anymore.

He doesn’t seem able to manage that sort of focus, you realize, inspecting his face closer. His eyes are alarmingly barren; there really isn’t much of anything there, now. None of the ruthlessness, none of that predatory awareness, none of the murder.

You’ve actually shocked the bastard totally, one-hundred-percent out of it.

Whoops.

Back at the roll-around, you snatch up a hand light. Returning to the table, you shine it in his eyes, assessing the damage. His functioning pupil is slow to dilate. Worryingly slow. You click the light off with a contemplative frown.

Half of your mind begs whatever force might be listening that this isn’t a passing affliction, that whatever damage that’s done is done. If the courts insist on keeping Myers alive, then maybe reducing his brains to soup is what it takes to keep him docile. To keep him from hurting another living thing ever again. You can only hope.

As much as you’d love to do so, electrocuting the living daylights out of him some more isn’t likely to bring Myers back to awareness; and the session is supposed to be over soon.

You glance at the clock on the wall—

—Shit. Very soon.

You need to find out right the fuck now if you’ve just rendered Dr. Ashton’s patient catatonic.

Walking around the side of the table, you take Myers’ swollen cock in your gloved hand—trying not to think about the fact that you’re jacking off a condemned murderer—and pump hard, stroking him all the way from the shaft to the swollen tip, squeezing the head, massaging your thumb over it, rubbing all the way back down again.

“Come on, asshole,” you spit. “That can’t be all the fight you’ve got.”

Myers’ hips jerk slightly up from the table as you touch him. Probably just an involuntary reaction. You’ll need him to do better than that. Stroking him faster, squeezing even harder, you pray that the friction of your latex glove against his cock feels just about as pleasant as a rug burn.

As you watch his vacant face like a hawk you see him begin to blink harder, his eyes squeezing shut, twitching beneath their lids, staying closed for a beat before opening up again, like he’s struggling to wake from a deep sleep. A much more deliberate motion; he’s coming back to it.

“Can you feel that? Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”

He breathes hard around the gag. His knees lurch up from the table, the cuffs around his ankles straining, holding him in place.

You give his cock another hard squeeze.

“Forget where you are Myers?”

His jaw goes absolutely rigid with tension.

Ah. He heard you that time. He’s back.

How unfortunate that his brain isn’t fried after all.

You can see it all coming back now as his eyes flit down, locking on your face, rebooting within him like a program on a script; the chilling intensity, the sharpness, all the things that had made your skin crawl in the days past. Despite the torture, nothing at all about Myers’ demeanor has changed.

“Welcome back.” You state dryly. “We aren’t done yet.”

As if to make your blood boil on purpose—as if the battered state of his body means less to him than dirt, as if he hasn’t spent the better part of the hour being brutally, mercilessly tortured by you—

—Myers just watches you. Damning you with his eyes alone to the same grisly demise as before.

An odd sense of something, not quite admiration, sparks in your gut. Looking into Myers’ eyes, there is one single thing that you are willing to give this monster credit for:

What sits before you is a creature that cannot be broken. One that will never be dissuaded from its primal, violent nature. To try it is an impossible task. You suspect that you could stand in this room for days, flipping the same switch, delivering the same current, knocking him to and from consciousness, and into all the states in-between.

And the result would never change. Not ever.

He’d still be looking at you with that same deadly stare. A stare as cold and sharp as the blade of a carving knife.

And it would only get more piercing.

And what a relief it is that your goal in the first place was never to break Myers,

just to bring the gates of hell down on his pretty, curly head.

And you have. You can hear it in every breath he takes; he’s struggling. Although he draws his inhales slowly, with mechanical control, the ragged wheezing in his chest is no longer possible for him to hide. Myers is hurting—he’s hurting bad.

As much as you would love to stay and twist the knife in even deeper, it's time to wrap things up. You’re all out of time.

Pulling the electrodes from his groin and thighs with one hand, you let two of the nodes dangle freely off the side of the table.

The third you stick against his cock.

“Count your lucky fucking stars that not everyone in the world is as heartless as you are.” You tell him, walking back around to the E.S.T machine.

Myers follows you with eyes the entire way, stone-faced, impassive. Like the fact that you’ve just fastened a live wire to his dick is about as boring to him as watching paint dry.

Flick goes the switch.

His back arches off the table like a bent bow. He scrunches his eyes shut, breathing hard around the gag, tugging furiously at the cuffs, the muscles in his calves and biceps straining dangerously, pulling upwards with a brutish force that has table whining beneath him.

You’re transfixed as Michael comes. His mess shoots out in thick ropes, reaching further than you thought possible, coating the table, getting on his legs. The sheer power of his body is a stunning thing to witness. You keep the current running to milk him down to the very last drop.

When he stops coming, you power off the machine.

The node comes away from Michael’s skin in a “pop” that is all-too satisfying. Bundling all the wires and electrodes back into place on the machine you listen to the only measurable signs of the man’s distress; the tortured intake of his breaths, the elevated beeping of his heart monitor.

Then, picking up the needle from the little white tray, you cross back to Myers’ side.

The vein in his forearm is thick and pronounced and the needle slips in beautifully. You press slowly down on the plunger, grateful when he doesn’t try to yank his arm away, relieved when he accepts the drug without a struggle. He must be exhausted.

The sedative works its magic quickly. You pull up a stool and sit down beside him to watch.

The vitriol in his eyes begins to melt and soften. One by one his strained muscles are allowed to relax again, the tension ebbing away; from his jaw, his shoulders, his abdomen, his legs. The electronic beeping on the monitor slows and slows until its powerful rhythm beats steadily again.

Evidently, Michael has decided he isn’t ready to go under just yet. Though sleep pools in his eyelids he blinks it away, clinging in a death grip to his consciousness.

Just to leer at you. Just to picture in his mind the day he will have his hands around your throat; as if it is already set in stone. As if it is just a matter of when.

Then, Michael’s eyelids flutter—

—fighting to stay open, still staring—

—closing, for just a beat too long—

—lingering shut—

—staying shut.

You move to clean him up quickly. The gag comes out first. Lifting his head to unbuckle the strap, you tug out the black ball, letting his strained jaw fall shut again for the first time in an hour; then carelessly drop his head. It thunks satisfyingly as it comes down hard against the table. Glancing at the gag’s silicone, you notice the deep markings worn into it, perfect impressions of Myers’ top and bottom teeth. You almost shudder; a bite from him would have been nasty.

You blot away the drool dribbling down his chin and shoulder with a rag, and then move on.

The last thing you expect as you begin to clean Michael’s bloodied hands is the tears that spring to your eyes. Even with your fear of the man gone and buried, you wish that you didn’t have to touch these awful hands; let alone treat them, bandage them, heal them.

You wipe away the tears on your sleeve as you gather your supplies together on the roll-around.

Grabbing each of his wrists just above the restraint cuffs and turning them so that his palm is facing upward on the table, you hastily swab him down with alcohol pads, wiping up the clotting blood from his skin, squeezing out a blob of antiseptic from a tube to smear across his cuts. As you wrap Michael’s palms tightly in gauze you try your hardest to snuff out that invasive thought when it comes searing like a bullet through your skull—

—these are the hands that killed my sister.

You simply can’t afford to linger on those thoughts right now. Maybe when you’re at home tonight, alone in your bed, you will let yourself cry; but not now. Not while you still need to clean up after Myers’ unfortunate mishap.

Toweling him down from his forehead to his calves, you soak away the sweat. And the semen. Then, you fasten back up the front of his hospital gown, knotting each and every tie.

And just like that, the job is done.

You knock on the door. The guards come in and wheel Myers’ unconscious body out of the room.

The next day, you have a debriefing session with Dr. Ashton. You feed him your meticulously rehearsed lie: that the therapy went without a hiccup, that you firmly believe this treatment could be the key to alleviating Michael’s tendencies for violence.

The moron laps up your every word.

Ashton ends the session with a delightful little surprise; he’s pulled some strings to allow for Michael’s therapy to be carried out bi-weekly. He is so impressed by your drive to treat his patient that he’s offering you a position as Michael’s secondary caretaker. He only hopes that you’ll accept.

The smile you give him is bright and sincere, one that beams from ear to ear.

“Doctor, believe me when I say that nothing in the world would make me happier.”

#Michael Myers #Halloween #Slashers #michael myers x reader #writing

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transgalthoughts · 3 years ago

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Guide to transitioning on a budget when you’re scared to come out but certain you want to

There are a few components to this: budgeting, getting treatment, coming out, general life stuff

BUDGETING First and centrally is budgeting. I don’t know what your income is so I’m not going to assume, but here is what my expenditure has been and what I think is reasonable as a goal if you do not have uncontrollable overheads you can’t help - additionally you may find some of my spending to be a bit much (£600 a month rent is quite steep, but cos I live in Oxford and the utilities and everything are included in that price it works out as a fairly decent option)

£600 a month shared housing (+ utilities, council tax etc). This is for Oxford, you can probably find it cheaper in most other places.

£200 a month monthly spending - use a budgeting app like Emma (you will probably need to spend more if you need a car, but try and avoid one if you can, cycling is a good transport option. You should do big shops every week or two, NOT regular small ones, you will spend more. If you are really committed to making headway quickly then unfortnately you can’t go out, it will eat up money like nothing else, try and see your friends in person at your house or theirs, you can be honest or say you don’t like the atmosphere. Cook in bulk using cheap ingredients - tinned and frozen food is a huge win. If you really want to cut down on spending make sure to buy vitamin pills and psyllium husk powder - you can eat less healthily without feeling like crap all the time if you’re eating stuff like this. If you want to eat super healthily try frozen mixed vegetables, tinned tomatoes, lentils, tinned fish, and tinned pulses all mixed together in a wok with smoked paprika and salt - it’s quite cheap, imo very tasty, and very healthy.

Worth noting: over the course of a year your actual monthly spending is likely to be more liek £250 if you budget for £200 a month - you’ll need to replace phones and laptops and make big one off purchases occasionally, but remember the goal is saving, if you can avoid these costs then do (is your phone freezing for 20 seconds every half an hour really grounds for a replacement?) The £250 total spending per month is total spending - if you want to do something fun this should come out of other spending - not your savings

Medications: inhousepharmacy is a good one - make sure to buy in bulk (this goes for everything). Don’t try and include this in monthly spending, try and include it in the £50 extra a month spending. Here is a good guide for the first purchase Cyproterone acetate - 300 50mg tablets for ��202.22 (1 a day) Estrofem - 364 2mg tablets for £148.94 (start on 1 a day, maybe move up to two if you feel you need to and are comfortable) - take these sublingually to increase the effective dose without spending more. So, your overall cost of living per year should be approximately £10,700 - put the rest into premium bonds, you can take it out relatively easily and you’re guaranteed not to lose your money (if the UK government collapses you have bigger problems than your savings being gone). If you’re earning £20k a year then you should be able to save £9,300 a year. If you have the time and energy try getting into some work, especially gig economy work on top of your current job/time in university (deliveroo for example).

GETTING TREATMENT Before any of the savings stuff, before you are even sure you are trans, talk to your GP about it and say ytou want to be referred to a GIC. It will take 3 years - you will have plenty of time to find yourself within that time, and if you still haven’t you can find yourself in the GIC. DO NOT wait until you are absolutely sure before telling your GP, I know it is scary but you can do it, and it’s almost easier to do it when you’re not sure. If you wait for a year you will fucking hate yourself 2 years later when you have been waiting for treatment for what seems like your entire life at this point - and private GICs are expensive as fuck.

If you can afford it go to a private GIC - if you want bottom or top surgery with any reputable surgery you will need to have been officially on hormones for a year, self-medding doesn’t count. There are a few options out there for you but most notably are genderGP (more expensive, but there is less expectation of you to prove you are trans, and they have no issue with previous self medding) and gendercare (less expensive but they may decide you are not quite trans enough - they are also less willing to take on patients who have previously self-medded). Additionally a lot of GPs will not work with (ie pay for the prescriptions for you on the recommendation of) any private GIC, but the ones that do are more willing to work with gendercare than genderGP - look into this more before deciding who you want to go with. Do not underestimate the importance of the type of HRT you are using. Cyproterone acetate and oestrogen pills are fine. GnRH analogues and transdermal oestrogen patches work far more effectively and with fewer side effects (but GnRH analogues in particular are far more expensive).

COMING OUT Coming out all at once publically is gonna be really fucking daunting. You are gonna want to identify individuals and talk to them one on one about it first. These should be people you are close with and who you think are gonna be supportive (ideally both, not just one of the other, but prioritise those who you think are gonna be supportive first - you will gain confidence as you do it if you choose the right people, and lose it if you choose the wrong ones). You do not owe honesty to your parents about this.

Once you have a good selection of people who you know who are supportive start thinking about how you want to play this - in particular how sure and scared you are. I decided to get FFS (facial feminisation surgery) BEFORE coming out publicly - but after 2 years on HRT (this restricts your choice of surgeons btw). I was absolutely certain before I did this and if you plan on doing this you should be too. I got my surgery with Dr Jesus Baez in Guadalajara (lip lift, closed rhinoplasty, type t osteotomy, hairline advancement, eyebrow raise, forehead bone shaving) and it cost £12,000 for the surgery - but a lot more than that for everything else (so I spent around £16,000 in total - and that was being tight). However, that’s less than 2 years of saving on £20k a year, so get started now. Voice training - do it, you can do it for free using transvoice on youtube - the main thing to practice if you have a deep, chest resonant voice is simply doing the *pah pah pah* exercise as often as you can (you can do it silently) and before you start talking to people.

Also GPs can refer you for voice training directly, even if a GP is unwilling to work with a private GIC they might be willing to do with this (since there is no liability associated with referring you to train your voice more effectively). I haven’t done this but I expect there is gonna be a waiting list though. You really can’t voice train too often (though you can too much in one session). HEALTH So as mentioned in the budgeting section it is very possible to eat healthily on a budget (well, the kind of budget I recommend, please please don’t try and push it too hard because you need to stay healthy for this - doctors, even gender specialists, are pretty unwilling to prescribe for trans health care because this country is transphobic, so you ideally want to be a picture of health before asking for treatment. Eat healthily, run, bulk up those legs and work that core (leg press, side leg raises with resistance band, crunches, squats, sit ups, reverse crunches, side crunches etc) - all of these things will a) improve the results of blood tests and make it easier to get a prescription, b) hopefully give you a body shape more in line with conventional standards for women and c) stimulate production of hgh which will make the estradiol more effective (but don’t even think of taking hgh as a medication without explicitly getting it prescribed by a doctor, it is seriously not worth it and it can fuck up your body a lot making it impossible to get effective treatment). GOOD LUUUUCK!!!

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years ago

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July 28: 3x01 Spock’s Brain

Today’s ep was the infamous Spock’s Brain. I’d never seen it before and always insisted I didn’t want to but...this is a complete rewatch so I guess I kinda had to.

As predicted, it was bad. Utter nonsense for a premise and the actual execution shot through with sexism. There were some aspects that I did like but most of them have been done better by other eps--and in any case were not worth the ridiculous basis of the ep itself. Honestly, if I were watching all this live, and I waited months for this, I might have wondered if the show weren’t better off cancelled.

But I would have been wrong because the next ep is The Enterprise Incident so! Sometimes you just need to be patient.

This episode is starting out so strangely. Why is the bridge being shot from all these weird angles? And why do the colors seem...duller?

They really can spy on these other ships, huh?

“My name is Captain James Kirk.” Not breaking out the middle initial today, I see.

Chapel going for the drama as she falls down.

Kirk too, sprawled over his chair. (Makes me think of “The chair is, in fact, not bolted to the ground.”)

This honestly reads like a bad parody of Star Trek.

Ridiculous lines include: “His brain is gone.” “His incredible Vulcan physique.” “In search of his brain.” “Where are you going to look for his brain?” “It was taken out, it can be put back in.”

“Spock’s body is more dependent on his brain” than a human’s. Ummmm I feel like there’s something suspicious in there.

The only good thing about this ep is Kirk’s devotion to Spock.

Seriously why does the bridge look so different? Filming it from a different location changes everything.

When Kirk paces in front of the view screen, it really shows off how small it is.

“The spaceship that has Spock’s brain.”

I like these schematics and Chekov’s little presentation here. Also Kirk can automatically put years to all the planet evolution codes or whatever--like on the one hand, of course he can, that’s his job, but on another... what a nerd.

Honestly these people--obviously, they are underground on the ice planet. Obviously!!! I actually do appreciate this scene in general, with the bridge crew working out a problem on the bridge, which actually almost never happens--it’s definitely the best scene of the ep--but still. It’s obviously the ice planet.

Also, I like that Uhura gets to contribute. She thinks outside of the box, asks the good questions. Don’t just look at the outside evolution of the planet--ask about what the brain could be used for, and where it might be.

“Get there, find the brain.”

Oh no, he accidentally called Scotty Spock :(

“High of 40. Livable.” I realize this is a Russian joke but that’s really not that bad lol. Definitely not an ice age anymore.

“They give pain and delight.” So they’re dominatrixes?

“You are small.” Well no need to be mean about it.

Don’t you have a companion?? Love that that’s one of their synonyms for “spouse” or “partner.”

The alien men look like they’re wearing short jean skirts.

“A dead and buried city on a planet in a glacial age.” That’s a good idea. Could have done something better with that.

Chekov’s still stuck on the no women thing, I think.

Why did they dress Spock in a leftover outfit from This Side of Paradise?

McCoy and his stimulants again, waking up the alien lady after they stunned her. Multi-purpose.

“I know nothing about a brain.” Clearly.

So all the women live below ground, and all the men live above...

Ah-ha, they have found Spock’s voice.

“There is a definite pleasurable experience connected with the hearing of your voice.” This ep is almost worth it for that line.

Also Kirk’s face when he hears Spock’s voice.

I like that Spock is still funny. Honestly he’s probably funnier disembodied. This is a very humorous Spock characterization. “That is a practical idea. It seems unlikely that I shall be able to get to you.”

WHAT IS BRAIN.

They’re being quite sexist, aren’t they? “No engineering geniuses here. Only women. None of these women could ever have done surgery on Spock’s brain.” Like I know it’s that they’re obviously (or supposedly obviously) naive and childlike but like combining that with the sex segregated society and the actual phrasing of these lines (WOMEN?? Engineers?? Doctors??) plus Kirk assuming the Controller is a man (who says?) all creates this like definite sexist vibe while watching. Ugh make it stop.

How can Spock’s brain control everything? They’ve only had it for 5 minutes.

“Mistress.” I told you they were dominatrixes.

Oh yeah Captain Sulu!!

More sexist quotes: “What a way to maintain control over a man.” “I’ve certainly noticed their delightful aspects.” Please stop talking; you’re digging yourselves in a deeper hole.

(Seriously though--I feel like the unspoken world building fact here is that the women need the men for procreation specifically, which is why they capture the men, and then control them--using the “pain belts”--to have sex--the “pleasure.” They probably also use them for other labor, given the presence of the male guards and the line “they won’t help us if we don’t control them” or whatever it was. But surely the delightfulness of the women is more than their physical appearance, is what I’m saying.)

What is the commentary on gender here? Women = scary, dumb, and hot?

Yeah, how DOES Spock’s brain fit into this?

Lol at Spock’s empty body calmly watching them all fighting.

“Science will triumph.” A real lost opportunity in the AOS-verse to have Kirk say this after a bar brawl.

“You are a disembodied brain.” I feel like there’s a (McCoy) joke in here about how he’s reached his ideal state.

His body is the building. (I was right, I totally called this plot point as soon as Spock started talking about his incredibly large body and how his brain was still doing things like regulating oxygen. I must say... this is not a bad idea, except for the brain stealing part. Like there’s something in there, the idea of the complex as a body, powered by a brain. Idk.)

So basically Spock is taking another opportunity to insult Bones’ medical skills. Oh Spock, never change.

I feel like Bones is enjoying his Spock puppet, on some level.

“Pain bands.”

Use the Spock puppet, Kirk! Use it to fight the lady alien!

“The controller is young and powerful, perfect.” / “How very flattering.” LOL I can’t believe this is real.

“You took his brain. You will put it back.”

So the alien lady puts on the spiky helmet and now she’s suddenly smart. I hate thissssssssssss.

(I actually do think the idea of old knowledge stored outside of the... brains...of the current generation, for their own protection, as decided by the paternalist elders... is not itself a bad concept. Of course it’s also a concept that other eps did better, like The Apple or For the World is Hollow or even Return of the Archons. Again, combining it with all the gross things they said about women earlier just leaves a bad taste. Even though--even though!!--we don’t know who the elder people were. Like, was this a matriarchal society that saved the women in the underground because they were better? Or was it a patriarchal society that put the women in the underground because they were considered weak and in need of protection? I rather assumed the second, but I think there’s some evidence for the first, in particular, that the story reeks of Sexualized Male Fear. What’s a better combination of hot and scary than a matriarchy of women in short skirts?)

“Got your gun.” (But the other way around.)

“Our need for the Controller is more important than your need for your friend.” That sounds an awful lot like “The needs of the many outweigh needs of the one” and we all know what Kirk thinks about that. That said, he’s really not...engaging with her facially fair argument at all.

“No one may kill a man. Not for any purpose. It cannot be condoned.”

Love Scotty’s acting skills. Gotta get this gun back really fast--create a diversion by fainting! But not too much!

I do love McCoy. He’s an adventurer too. He pretends he’s not but he jumps at the chance to discover and learn. He will not hesitate to put himself in danger if it’s for the common good or to protect his friends.

“Put the teacher on.”

Now finally Kirk is engaging with the fate of the society he’s encountered lol. Like, again, he’s not wrong; they’ve stagnated under the computer/controller and it’s not moral to steal from someone else to keep your comfortable and boring life going when you could just do the work yourself, but coming this late, it feels like an afterthought. It’s also weird that she just like stood by and let them take Spock and his brain after all that to do about...not letting them have the brain. Like at the end of the day she was not so inept. Also, they never explained what happens to all the knowledge in the teacher. One would assume they’d have to access it--or not? They’re just to start from scratch? Also legit I guess. And finally... all I can really hear, in the emphasis on integrating with the men again, is “You’ll learn how to develop a society naturally and also about heterosexual sex wink wink.” (Except that as I said... I think they know about that.)

I see McCoy’s regretting that “child’s play” talk now.

“Give priority to reconnecting Spock’s vocal cords.” Yep that’s how the brain works for sure.

Wow Spock really does have to do everything himself. Including operate on himself.

“This Vulcan is telling me how to operate.”

How did he operate without...opening Spock’s skull... in any way??

Not to question the verisimilitude of Spock’s Brain lol.

Everyone’s being so rude--Spock is providing valuable last minute exposition/explanation about this weird-ass society!

It’s always odd when they don’t return to the bridge. Like, they’re not going to collect Chekov?

That was... something.

I liked a few things: any excuse for Kirk to be devoted to Spock; the humor Spock showed; I liked the bridge scene where they looked at the map of the planets; and I liked certain things about the premise of the episode, although, like I said, most of the general aspects (post-disaster society, reliance on computers, etc.) had been done better in other episodes. I liked the look into the Male Brain lol.

What I didn’t like was how outright ridiculous the basic catalyzing event was--Spock’s brain has been literally stolen like??? Are you kidding me? That led to a considerable amount of dialogue that read like a Star Trek parody. Did not like that. And of course, as I said... the sexism. I think I’ve unpacked that enough. It didn’t need to be sexist, and you can explain it in a way that’s not, but the vibe sure was. It was like... well a lot of TOS is like this imo. You can give it an A (or at least a B) for effort, but what comes out is so obviously tainted by the sexism of the creators. Like, for example, how they say they believe in women who are just as capable and professional as men, but struggle to show it. This ep wanted to show a matriarchal society but it wasn’t really a matriarchal society--it was a Freudian dream that was all about the male psyche and what it most fears and wants.

All that said.. the next ep is a D.C. Fontana creation featuring one of my favorite TOS Ladies, the Female Romulan Commander, so I will be receiving a consolation prize.

Also the AOS verse is still more sexist and doesn’t have an excuse I said what I said.

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #2021: fandom thougts #star trek tos

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johannstutt413 · 4 years ago

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TOURNAMENT ARC 1: CH’EN vs SWIRE

“Now, Miss Ch’en, I can understand wanting to be sure the bracket is fair for yourself and your opponent,” Jessica was explaining to the Lung who’d made a beeline for the Doctor’s office not too long after the announcement was made, “but the Doctor and I aren’t in charge of the bracket-”

“You know who is, though. Give me a fight with that bag-stealing money-grubbing fat-cat layabout Round 1.”

Normally, this would be enough to cow the Feline, but the Doctor was with her and this big-shot was being unreasonable, so she felt a certain amount of power she wasn’t used to having. “Miss Ch’en, you may be one of Rhodes Island’s highest-promoted Operators, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to talk like-”

“Hey, Jess?” The Doctor showed them both the bracket. “It says ‘Swire vs Ch’en’ is Fight 1.”

“O-oh!...That’s convenient.” The Sniper turned back to the Guard with a nervous smile.

In exchange, she received a curt nod. “Good. I hope the audience will appreciate a good thrashing.”

“...I think the best part,” the Doctor continued when the Lung had left, “is that out of the people we could put her against, Swire’s actually got one of the best chances of making the fight interesting. Maybe not long, but interesting.”

“W-why’s that, Doctor?” Still a little shaken after that encounter, the nervous Feline retreated into her brave boss’s arms.

He kissed her forehead with a smile. “Well, my courageous kitty-kat, it’s about their relationship. See, a lot of people - Miss Ch’en included - think that Miss Hoshiguma is a tough woman who likes her women tough, and maybe at some level that’s true. From what I’ve seen, though, she’s more of a case of ‘opposites attract,’ and Miss Swire seems to have figured that out, too. What Miss Ch’en wants this to be is a battle for Miss Hoshi’s affections, but if I’m honest? I think she’s already lost that fight. Not that she won’t use everything within her power to beat Miss Swire, of course.”

“That m-makes sense.” Jessica looked up at him. “So Miss Swire isn’t tough?”

“I wouldn’t say that-”

At the moment, the Feline in question stormed into the office. “Doctor!”

“You’re fighting her Round 1,” he replied. She immediately turned around and left. “Like I said, it’s not that she’s not tough. People just overlook it because she’s a fluffy girl’s girl, but she swings that crescent hammer like a truck when she wants to.”

“Her hair is really fluffy...Do you think I’d look good with hair like that, Doctor?” She pressed lightly against her ponytail.

The Doctor chuckled, squeezing her just a little closer. “I think you’re perfect juuuuuust the way you are, but you’d look good with fluffy hair, too. Although, if you get much cuter...”

-------

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Operators, Staff, and Esteemed Guests! Welcome one and all to the Top Operator Tourney!!! *crowd cheers*

“Thanks, Hung. Ladies and gentlemen, for anyone out there who doesn’t recognize my voice, I’m Click, and joining me in the booth today is the Iron Fist herself, FEater!”

“That’s right, Click, and today we’ll be giving you folks watching at home or in the office the blow-by-blow breakdown of what promises to be a real battle of wills! On the north side, with over 4 years of experience cleaning up the streets of Lungmen with her trusty blade, it’s Madame Ch’en!” *cheers* “And on the south side- hey, Click, babe, calm down, she’s in the ring, not us - it’s Miss Swire!” *more cheers, including one very loud Oni*

“Sorry about that! Let’s look at the numbers, shall we? According to the objective measurements of our Medical Department and the Operator Training Team, Ch’en has a commanding lead in terms of both raw power and experience, especially if she can manage to convince that blade of hers to unleash its full potential for this fight, but despite the disparity, Miss Sw-Swire has one thing going for her: the reach on that ball of pain she’s got in her hands! It’s kind of hard to imagine someone so scrawny throwing that around with enough force to knock a person on their ass, but as everyone knows, Felines don’t care what you think about physics, so she finds a way somehow even so!”

“Uh, right! Thanks for that breakdown, Click. Alright, so back down in the arena proper, the Doctor has taken his position in the umpire’s stand, surrounded by an even crazier number of camera feeds than normal. Seriously, he’s around more cameras than me and Click combined! It’s crazy! He’s counting down now - chant along, guys! 3! 2!1! And here we go!!!!”

“Now, one problem we’re likely to see for Ch’en early is actually getting to Swire-Sama in the first place, as her Feline instinct and predatory cunning in conjunction with her death-ball are going to make closing the gap pretty diffi- Just like that! A solid hit from Swire-Sama into Ch’en chest!”

“I hope her Lungs are strong enough to withstand that kind of hit, Click...Aww, come on, you know you still love me~ The follow-up isn’t entirely there, though, as Swire struggles to swing back around in time to hit her while she’s down. Oh, and Ch’en now running her down in a clockwise spiral, following the crescent hammer’s trajectory and actually closing in! Oof, that’s gonna leave a nasty scar - or at least it would,” “One, two, three” “-if our sponsors in the Medical Department weren’t totally going to fix that once they’re done here!”

“-Seven, eight, nine slashes, and she’s still standing?! Hang on, what is...Is she even hitting with those?”

“Looks like she’s just tormenting her, Click.”

“I know Felines will play with their food, but this is something else! Oh, and the Doctor is calling for the bout to e- OH MY GOD!”

“Swire just punched her in the face! No claws, no knuckledusters, just a single punch to the face in an infinitesimal break in the wall of sword strokes being put up by Lungmen’s former Chief Inspector! That wasn’t nearly enough to knock the breath out of the Lung, of course- hey, I thought that one was pretty good! - but it’s enough to give Swire some time to think through her next move.”

“And it’s looking like she’ll...wait, when did she get a drone out there?”

“She’s using it to blast Lungmen rap songs?! Shit, we might get demonetized if she keeps this up, right?”

“Nah, we’re hosting it on our private network, and our only sponsors are us any- And Ch’en just vanished!”

“No, she’s still on the field, just moving too fast to see with our eyes! There’s a cloud of blood forming around the pair now th- OH MY GAAAAAAA-”

“Holy shit. Medics! The Doctor’s hurriedly calling an end to this fight to try and determine a winner before one of these two actually finishes the job on the other!”

“If this is the level of action we’re gonna be seeing in these fights, ladies and gentlemen, then the front few rows miiiiight wanna invest in some kind of rain gear - like, say, the splash guards currently on sale at Closure’s for over 40% off!”

“And as the dust settles, Madame Ch’en is walking off the field with an easy victory. Wowza, that’s looking...that’s looking pretty bag. Oh, hey, that’s Hoshiguma coming down into the arena, I wonder if- whoa! Babe, she just punched Ch’en in the face! Maaaan, it’s a shame we won’t ever get to see that fight, huh?”

-------

Hoshiguma flicked the blood from Ch’en’s nose off her fist as she approached where the Medics were tending to Swire. “How’s she doing?”

“We’ve got her stable,” Warfarin reported, “and between the emergency coagulants and regeneration stimulants, she should be able to stand on her own power before the end of the night...Nothing too heavy until at least 48 hours have passed, though.”

“Thanks for the heads up. Can I talk to her?”

The Sarkaz sighed. “There’s no way she’s still con-”

“Hoshiiii?” Swire’s voice wheezed from some other dimension; within seconds, the Oni was at her side. “Hoshi...Sorry.”

“Sorry? Why are you apologizing? You did great out there.” The Defender took her hand gently in both of hers, letting a tear fall from her face at the sight of her girlfriend in such pain.

The Feline shook her head, which Aak grimaced at and set to work immobilizing her further. “I lost...I can’t see you anymore.”

“What? Why not?” Hoshi kissed her head, causing even more distress to the Medics in the process. “I don’t like her; I love you.”

“...Oh, Hoshi~”

Warfarin tapped the Oni on her shoulder. “I’m afraid visitor hours are closing; we need to move her somewhere not covered in her own blood.”

“I’ll go with you.” She waited for the folks carrying her girlfriend out to have her situated before following them out. ‘Thinking she could beat my Fluffy Cuddles in a fight and claim me like a trophy wife...I’m no one’s prize, damnit, I’m a prize fighter. I hope she wins her bracket, so I can give her a proper beating when I win mine.’

“...You know, if it was that easy, she probably wouldn’t have waited for the tournament,” a shadowy figure observed aloud as they walked past her in the opposite direction. Hoshi turned to confront them-

-but it was like they were never there...nothing but a Phantom of her imagination...

#arknights #arknights fic #TOURNAMENT ARC!!!#swire (arknights)#ch'en (arknights)#hoshiguma (arknights)#jessica (arknights)#FEater (arknights)#click (arknights)#behold the fic that gives us AngieSant at 400 #also yeah since we couldn't do Bagpipe vs Hoshiguma #we got Chen vs Swire

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tolle-folien · 3 years ago

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Hyperpigmentation Treatments - Which Ones Really Work?

Hyperpigmentation is a condition where excess pigment is created in the skin, resulting in a blotchy look. The condition ranges from easy freckling, to the much more stubborn type called Melasma. The type of hyperpigmentation you have relies on what caused it. In this article we will certainly examine the various sorts of hyperpigmentation, and afterwards the most sophisticated therapy choices offered today for remedying it. Initially, let's begin with an evaluation of hyperpigmentation. Even if you are not a certified skin treatment therapist, it is essential to understand this problem to make sure that you can better recognize just how it requires to be treated. In basic terms, hyperpigmentation is an undesirable, over-production of melanin in the skin. Melanin production is a typical procedure that the body utilizes to protect skin from damage. You see this procedure at work when you establish a tan. Nonetheless with hyperpigmentation, the melanin production is erratic and uneven, which can be aging to your appearance as well as just simple unsightly. In the skin care sector, different terms are utilized for hyperpigmentation that results from specific causes. The following is a checklist of the generally known kinds, along with a description of each: Freckles: Yes, even blemishes are a kind of hyperpigmentation. They arise from a pattern of melanin manufacturing that is genetic or inherited. Melasma: This is hyperpigmentation from hormone reasons. The hormonal agents can originate from oral or infused birth control, pregnancy, or menopause. It appears in a regular pattern across the temple and top cheek bones. It additionally often tends to be darker and also harder to deal with, typically since the client is still being exposed to the resource of hormonal agents. Age-Spots: This form is normally from environmental damage by UV rays. The reference to it's being age-related is due to the reality that it appears after several years of exposure to the sunlight. Post-Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation (PIH): This is the outcome of trauma to the skin. It can be from a cut or abrasion, acne, or specialist skin care therapies that are done poorly. Other types of hyperpigmentation consist of actinic keratoses as well as numerous sorts of sores, which are pre-cancerous conditions that need to be checked by a dermatologist. We will not be talking about these problems in this short article. What you should understand is that no matter what type of hyperpigmentation you are detected with, the therapy for it will be the same. This is because all melanin manufacturing in the skin is a response to swelling. To be much more certain, melanin is produced in cells within the epidermis, called melanocytes. When that cell is subjected to anything that generates swelling (UV rays, estrogen, drugs) it generates melanin. If the melanocyte is revealed to a source of swelling over and over again, it may come to be completely harmed and also remain in a protective setting. This implies the cell will certainly constantly create melanin as well as continue to be dark, also when the inflammation quits. What this additionally suggests is that therapy for such problems will certainly be continuous ... lasting indefinitely. This is particularly true of ecological damages that generates age-spots. So whether that inflammation comes from UV rays (sun), hormones or various other medications, acne, or expert therapies like laser resurfacing or deep chemical peels, similar methods will be used to treat them all. Right here is an evaluation of the most popular choices in the skin treatment industry for treating hyperpigmentation: Topical skin lightening items: These are skin care items that contain active ingredients called tyrosinase preventions. Tyrosinase is an enzyme in the body that is necessary for production of melanin in the cell. These ingredients can be artificial or chemically created, or they can be taken from natural sources. This is one of the most typical kind of therapy utilized by skin treatment experts, since it is the only one that specifically services tyrosinase and also just how melanin is produced. It additionally happens to be the most affordable. Performance depends completely on the quality of the product, such as kind of tyrosinase inhibitors, toughness of active ingredients, as well as price of penetration. Lotions need to have the ability to pass through to the basal layer of the epidermis where melanocytes live. Remember, considering that therapy will be ongoing to prevent hyperpigmentation from repeating, pick products that are safe for long-lasting usage. Only all-natural tyrosinase preventions are risk-free as well as without side-effects. The artificial tyrosinase prevention referred to as hydroquinone is not recommended for use exceeding 3 months. If you have been using it, attempt to wean yourself off of it and onto natural tyrosinase inhibitors. Chemical peeling: This treatment is carried out by skin care professionals and also should only be done in their facility. There are differing depths of this treatment, and mindful evaluation of each individual ought to be done prior to a depth of therapy is picked. Due to a feasible complication of stimulating a lot more melanin manufacturing, mindful analysis needs to be done to identify depth of therapy and also proper skin-prepping steps to take. This therapy works for hyperpigmentation, but should be an add-on to treatment with topical skin lightening items. On its own, peels will certainly not prevent hyperpigmentation from repeating. Prices usually range from $150 to $1000, depending on deepness of treatment and whether you see an aesthetician or doctor. Laser treatments: There are different sorts of laser therapies for hyperpigmentation. Similar to deeper chemical peels, not everybody will certainly be a great prospect for this much deeper treatment. It is one of the most costly kind of therapy, costing an average of $2,500. With any kind of pigmentary hyperpigmentation, the reappearance price is roughly 50%. Topical treatments should come with laser therapies to avoid reoccurrence. Based on level of effectiveness, security, and expense, topical skin lightening items confirm to offer the most effective benefits for every person. The best method to remedy hyperpigmentation and maintain outcomes is by influencing tyrosinase task in the cell. Nevertheless, not all products are created equal. Efficient items must be from an expert product, or something that would only be available with an accredited skin care expert. However not every professional skin treatment line will certainly be totally effective. Specialist Products vs. Medicine Store Brands To correct hyperpigmentation, you MUST make use of a specialist skin care line. These are skin treatment lines that are just offered via physicians and also other accredited skin treatment professionals. You can not go to a medicine shop or department store to get this sort of item. Too expensive you say? Well take another look at rates, since chain store brands are usually much more expensive than specialist skin care lines, as well as medication shop brands have now reached a comparable cost. And also remember, nothing is a deal if it doesn't function. So what's the real distinction between a professional skin care line and medication shop or chain store brand names? Lots, however top is most likely scientific research behind the formula. As a whole, specialist skin treatment products are sophisticated solutions. Nevertheless, not all lines that professionals carry will be effective for hyperpigmentation. Amongst professional lines, you will certainly locate high quality basic skin treatment lines, as well as likewise scientific or restorative lines. In order to create true, dramatic adjustments in the skin, make sure you use a corrective product. Many skin treatment specialists will bring both kinds; nonetheless try to find products that claim the following: Use of a big selection of components. Simply read the tag. If the components in an item number less than 15, search for a various product. Some producers of professional lines will utilize upwards of 50 energetic ingredients in a solitary product. Use high portion of active components. You need to be able to discover percents of numerous active ingredients exactly on the label. Medical lines use greater strengths of vital components; or else they would be chain store brands. Use a big amount of natural ingredients. This will certainly be harder to locate in a scientific line, but it does exist. Natural components are extra suitable with the skin's cells and have actually improved capability to penetration the skin layers as well as into the cell. That's where it needs to get! Nevertheless, don't seek product lines that assert to be all natural. These kinds of products simply are not progressed enough to generate outcomes. You may as well be spreading out vegetables and fruit on your skin, which will not do anything for hyperpigmentation. Natural active ingredients that are utilized in corrective skin care lines are stemmed from all-natural resources, however only under laboratory conditions where certain components are isolated and also focused to produce a sophisticated active ingredient. For hyperpigmentation, look for products containing: Kojic Acid Dipalmitate, L-Arbutin, Rumex, L-Ergothioneine, Vitamin C, Glycyrrhiza Glabra (licorice). These amino acids and plant by-products are a few of one of the most efficient natural tyrosinase preventions. Use of advanced, clinical active ingredients. In order to be taken into consideration professional effectively, all-natural ingredients should be integrated with a certain percentage of innovative ones that are processed under laboratory conditions. A number of these types of clinical active ingredients are synthetic due to the fact that they are simply not offered in nature, and also there are a large number of safe ones being utilized in skin treatment. No use man-made fragrances and also colors. No reputable professional skin treatment line includes these components in their items. They are high up on the listing of allergens, as well as are just not needed for outcomes. In summary, the best choices for treating all kinds of hyperpigmentation are topical skin treatment products that make use of all-natural tyrosinase preventions. These items target the specific manner in which melanin is produced, are most safe, position no difficulties or rebound impacts, as well as are one of the most budget-friendly. Simply make certain the product is from a clinical skin treatment line. If you discover a truly phenomenal product, it will additionally create additional benefits in the skin. Search for abundant use antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, as well as various other nutrients.

#hyperpigmentation #skincare #skin treatment #skin doctor #skinceuticals #skinclinic #hydroquinone #melasma #freckles

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the-courage-to-heal · 4 years ago

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How to Fight Depression: 20 Things to Try:

Depression can drain your energy, leaving you feeling empty and fatigued. This can make it difficult to muster the strength or desire to seek treatment. However, there are small steps you can take to help you feel more in control and improve your overall sense of well-being. Read on to learn how to incorporate these strategies in a way that makes sense for you.

1. Meet yourself where you are

Depression is common. It affects millions of people, including some in your life. You may not realize they face similar challenges, emotions, and obstacles. Every day with this disorder is different. It’s important to take your mental health seriously and accept that where you are right now isn’t where you’ll always be. The key to self-treatment for depression is to be open, accepting, and loving toward yourself and what you’re going through.

2. If you need to wallow, wallow — but do so constructively

Suppressing your feelings and emotions may seem like a strategic way to cope with the negative symptoms of depression. But this technique is ultimately unhealthy. If you’re having a down day, have it. Let yourself feel the emotions — but don’t stay there. Consider writing or journaling about what you’re experiencing. Then, when the feelings lift, write about that, too. Seeing the ebb and flow of depressive symptoms can be instructive for both self-healing and hope.

3. Know that today isn’t indicative of tomorrow

Today’s mood, emotions, or thoughts don’t belong to tomorrow. If you were unsuccessful at getting out of bed or accomplishing your goals today, remember that you haven’t lost tomorrow’s opportunity to try again. Give yourself the grace to accept that while some days will be difficult, some days will also be great. Try to look forward to tomorrow’s fresh start.

4. Assess the parts instead of generalizing the whole

Depression can tinge recollections with negative emotions. You may find yourself focusing on the one thing that went wrong instead of the many things that went right. Try to stop this overgeneralization. Push yourself to recognize the good. If it helps, write down what was happy about the event or day. Then write down what went wrong. Seeing the weight you’re giving to one thing may help you direct your thoughts away from the whole and to the individual pieces that were positive.

5. Do the opposite of what the ‘depression voice’ suggests

The negative, irrational voice in your head may talk you out of self-help. However, if you can learn to recognize it, you can learn to replace it. Use logic as a weapon. Address each thought individually as it occurs. If you believe an event won’t be fun or worth your time, say to yourself, “You might be right, but it’ll be better than just sitting here another night.” You may soon see the negative isn’t always realistic

6. Set attainable goals

A lengthy to-do list may be so weighty that you’d rather do nothing. Instead of compiling a long list of tasks, consider setting one or two smaller goals.

For example:

Don’t clean the house; take the trash out. Don’t do all the laundry that’s piled up; just sort the piles by color. Don’t clear out your entire email inbox; just address any time-sensitive messages. When you’ve done a small thing, set your eyes on another small thing, and then another. This way, you have a list of tangible achievements and not an untouched to-do list.

7. Reward your efforts

All goals are worthy of recognition, and all successes are worthy of celebration. When you achieve a goal, do your best to recognize it. You may not feel like celebrating with a cake and confetti, but recognizing your own successes can be a very powerful weapon against depression’s negative weight. The memory of a job well-done may be especially powerful against negative talk and overgeneralization.

8. You may find it helpful to create a routine

If depressive symptoms disrupt your daily routine, setting a gentle schedule may help you feel in control. But these plans don’t have to map out an entire day. Focus on times when you feel the most disorganized or scattered. Your schedule could focus on the time before work or right before bed. Perhaps it’s only for the weekends. Focus on creating a loose, but structured, routine that can help you keep your daily pace going.

9. Do something you enjoy...

Depression can push you to give into your fatigue. It may feel more powerful than happy emotions. Try to push back and do something you love — something that’s relaxing, but energizing. It could be playing an instrument, painting, hiking, or biking. These activities can provide subtle lifts in your mood and energy, which may help you overcome your symptoms.

10. ...like listening to music

Music can be a great way to boost your mood and improve symptoms of depression. It may also help you strengthenTrusted Source your reception of positive emotions. Music may be especially beneficial when performed in group settings, such as a musical ensemble or band. You can also reap some of the same rewards simply by listening.

11. Or spend time in nature

Mother Nature can have a powerful influence on depression. Exposure to sunlight may offer some of the same benefits. It can increase your serotonin levels, which can provide a temporary mood boost. Consider taking a walk at lunch among the trees or spending some time in your local park. Or plan a weekend hike. These activities can help you reconnect with nature and soak in some rays at the same time.

12. Or spend time with loved ones

Depression can tempt you to isolate yourself and withdraw from your friends and family, but face-to-face time can help wash away those tendencies. If you’re unable to spend time together in person, phone calls or video chats can also be helpful. Try to remind yourself these people care about you. Resist the temptation to feel like you’re a burden. You need the interaction — and they likely do, too.

13. Try something new entirely

When you do the same thing day after day, you use the same parts of your brain. You can challenge your neurons and alter your brain chemistry by doing something entirely different. Research also shows doing new things can improve your overall well-being and strengthen your social relationships. To reap these benefits, consider trying a new sport, taking a creative class, or learning a new cooking technique.

14. Volunteering can be a great way to do both

Knock out a few birds with one stone — spending time with other people and doing something new — by volunteering and giving your time to someone or something else. You may be used to receiving help from friends, but reaching out and providing help may actually improve your mental health more.

Bonus: People who volunteer experience physical benefits, too. This includes a reduced risk of hypertension.

15. You can also use this as a way to practice gratitude

When you do something you love, or even when you find a new activity you enjoy, you may be able to boost your mental health more by taking time to be thankful for it. Research shows gratitude can have lasting positive effects on your overall mental health. What’s more, writing down your gratitude — including writing notes to others — can be particularly meaningful.

16. Incorporating meditation may help ground your thoughts

Stress and anxiety can prolong your depression symptoms. Finding relaxation techniques can help you lower stress and invite more joy and balance into your day. Research suggests activities like meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and even journaling may help you improve your sense of well-being and feel more connected to what’s happening around you.

17. What you eat and drink can also affect how you feel

There’s no magic diet that will treat depression. But what you put into your body can have a real and significant impact on the way you feel. Eating a diet rich in lean meats, vegetables, and grains may be a great place to start. Try to limit stimulants like caffeine, coffee, and soda, and depressants like alcohol. Some people also feel better and have more energy when they avoid sugar, preservatives, and processed foods.

18. If you’re up for exercise, consider a walk around the block

On days when you feel as if you can’t get out of bed, exercise may seem like the last thing you’d want to do. However, exercise and physical activity can be powerful depression fighters. Research suggests that, for some people, exercise can be as effective as medication at relieving depression symptoms. It may also help prevent future depressive episodes. If you’re able to, take a walk around the block. Start with a five-minute walk and work your way up from there.

19. Getting enough sleep can also have a noticeable effect

Sleep disturbances are common with depression. You may not sleep well, or you may sleep too much. Both can make depression symptoms worse. Aim for eight hours of sleep per night. Try to get into a healthy sleeping routine. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day can help you with your daily schedule. Getting the proper amount of sleep may also help you feel more balanced and energized throughout your day.

20. Consider clinical treatment

You may also find it helpful to speak to a professional about what you’re going through. A general practitioner may be able to refer you to a therapist or other specialist. They can assess your symptoms and help develop a clinical treatment plan tailored to your needs. This may include traditional options, such as medication and therapy, or alternative measures, such as acupuncture. Finding the right treatment for you may take some time, so be open with your provider about what is and isn’t working. Your provider will work with you to find the best option.

source

#depression #psychology #self help

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wisemanners · 4 years ago

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@wadamwoltron asked sincerely for my take on The Scene so here it is, i guess, but on my blog and NOT in her DMs like a weirdo. also some additional background context i guess. i’m trying to keep this somewhat objective, though obviously my specific memories are probably going to color it anyways.

so background context: this is mostly metatextual analysis regarding what is apparently a hotly debated topic in fandom of “what shiro’s mysterious disease.” the wiki says muscular dystrophy; we can’t find a source for this (though, if you know of one, please feel free to share). what’s stated in canon (in 7.1, “a little adventure”) is as follows:

it’s a muscular disorder

it’s degenerative

it involves muscle stiffness or tightness, which is alleviated by electrostimulation

we know for sure it affects his right arm; keith’s asking “what are those?” MAY imply that he has two (or more?) EMS devices but in the later scene where he has both sleeves rolled up we only see one.

a quick search of EMS therapy brings up this page which lists the following uses: you suffer from muscle spasms, have suffered from muscle atrophy due to disuse, your muscles need to be stimulated and re-educated, your muscles are weak and lack tone, you've lost range of motion due to an injury or illness. (it’s also used for circulation reasons, but since he mentions keeping muscles loose we can assume it’s related to one of these.) searching “degenerative muscle disease” brings up MD (general) as the first result, followed by other neuromuscular disorders; the symptoms listed that EMS is used to treat check out as the various muscular dystrophies all feature one or more of those symptoms. given that, this analysis will proceed as if this is the factual diagnosis (not ONLY because as far as i recall it was, though that is also the case).

[there are numerous types of MD, and we’ve done a fair amount of research to determine which one is the most likely given the symptoms presented (myotonic, probably DM2), but that’s less significant other than its CURRENT mortality rate.]

that said: the scene itself.

“Everything okay?” The only thing to analyze in the first line is the genuine concern in it, but that does contextualize the scene; i AM coming into this conversation from a place of being worried about someone i love.

“Iverson thinks I shouldn’t be part of the mission. Called in the big guns; Admiral Sanda showed up to try and convince Sam to remove me from the crew.” (there are interesting and significant implications with regards to how the Garrison’s chain of command works here, but that’s not the point of this character analysis.)

“Well, maybe he’s right. Maybe you shouldn’t go on the mission. You’ll only be putting yourself at risk.” the absolute lack of hesitation in agreeing with iverson is i think the bigger clue at the greater context of this argument. this isn’t news. this is something i’ve been thinking about, and have clearly already come to a conclusion how i feel about it. “maybe” is a hedge word here. i DO in this moment think iverson is right, and this is just an excuse to say so. additionally, risk is an important word here, which i’ll circle back to several times.

[additional note on animation: i show almost no expression during these lines, except to frown and look stern at the end.]

“You know how important this is to me. It’s worth the risk!” Aside from tone and expression (he’s clearly upset and desperate here, and even looks away at the end as if he can’t face me), note risk again.

“Takashi, how important am I to you?” I know this line is everyone’s favorite. I understand why, even, especially given the dubious nature of “canon” on our actual relationship. The line itself establishes a lot; the first name usage (canon isn’t super clear on why he goes by Shiro, even with the other people he’s closest with (Keith, Sam, Matt), or its relationship to his Japanese heritage (which is significant here whether or not producer LM would agree), but to this point I’m the ONLY person in canon who ever addresses him by first name) as well as the general phrasing makes this the most obvious statement that we’re in a relationship. That’s arguably good, considering canon does little else to show it.

The significance in the CONVERSATION, however, is to position this as a choice - your dreams, or your partner. It’s actually the biggest reason I hate people siding with me in this argument! That’s not a good thing to ask someone you love to choose. More on support in a second, though, as well as more about what I’m asking for here.

[animation note: let’s talk about my coffee here. the hand shake and slamming down my cup is definitively the most show of emotion I have here, which IS significant. that line + the choice presented AREN’T coming from a place of deliberate manipulation, it’s emotionally charged despite me trying my best not to show it.]

“Every mission, every drill, I’ve been right there with you. But this is more than a mission. This is your life at stake.” here’s the support bit, obviously, since that’s what I’m evidencing here - reminding him that I’ve always been by his side and supported his dreams. that’s not actually the important thing going on here, though, because it’s the end where he cuts in:

“Don’t start that again, Adam! You don’t need to protect me. This is something I need to do for myself.” First: again - we’ve had this discussion before. Second, the timing: it’s not until I bring up the risk again that he gets upset.

A relevant concept here that I think most people in the fandom genuinely will not have heard about but is TREMENDOUSLY important to this conversation and to understanding what’s happening in this argument is dignity of risk. The article linked is a good overview, but in short: many things can only be gained or achieved by taking chances of getting hurt, and disabled individuals (originally those with cognitive and intellectual disabilities, but certainly applicable to physical disabilities as well) are disproportionately PREVENTED by overly-cautious caretakers from taking those chances.

Shiro’s objection that I don’t need to protect him, I think, points really strongly to THIS being the actual issue. I’m trying to look out for his safety because I don’t believe he can or will do it himself (which I DID think, at the time); he feels smothered by this because he’s an adult who has the ability to assess risks for himself and decide which ones are worth it to him to take.

“There’s nothing left for you to prove. You’ve broken every record there is to break.” This is significant in that it shows I think how highly I regard him, but I also think it’s the strongest textual evidence in the scene that we’re talking about COMPLETELY different things - that I fundamentally don’t understand what’s important to him about this mission OR why he’s upset that I’m trying to stop him.

[animation note: he’s stopped arguing, gesturing, or looking at me here, and doesn’t look up again until I reinforce the ultimatum in the next line.]

“I know I can’t stop you, but I won’t go through this again. So if you decide to go, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.” I feel like “I won’t go through this again” is another line that people sympathize with, which makes sense; I’m afraid and wounded, and people sympathize with fear and hurt. It reiterates the cyclical nature of this argument, too. It’s also still bringing back the choice: stop taking chances on things that matter to you, unless I’m not one of them.

[animation note: shiro looks both hurt and angry and doesn’t take his eyes off me the whole time i’m saying this, but doesn’t say anything. I also only look at him once during it, at the very end.]

“I’ve got a class to teach.” probably obvious without additional analysis, but in addition to an emotional reaction, this puts an absolute hard stop to anything else he might say in response.

having gone over the scene, some additional considerations:

I think a lot of people latch on REALLY hard to “this is your life” and shiro’s later “it’s getting worse” line and somehow conflate the two into an implication that this is about a lack of TIME. It is, I think - but NOT the way people assume.

Prognosis now, in the 21st century, is for a good percentage people with even severe forms of MD to live high quality, enjoyable lives into their 30s and 40s or later; even without a curative treatment, it’s reasonable to assume that in the 24th century this has improved. Given Shiro’s current overall health still being good, with the primary effects we see being localized to just the one side, it seems a little odd to assume that 30s-40s is still his life expectancy.

My lines about the risk to his life also don’t actually discuss an imminency of death in GENERAL - it’s SPECIFICALLY risky to go on the mission. why? well, most likely, because a minimum of 10 months is an AWFULLY long time for someone with a serious progressive condition to go without medical care or a checkup. which is a reasonable thing to be concerned about!

but we also have textual evidence that shiro’s GOOD at being responsible and taking care of himself, even if he sometimes sacrifices his needs for others’. he wears his assistive/medical devices. he keeps a workout routine. he can push himself hard, but we also see places where he knows his limits. and the majority of interventions for MD are about upkeep - building stamina, range of motion exercises, monitoring condition - and having the right tools on hand for an emergency. so, at what point does the concern become about not trusting him to take care of himself well, especially when the kerberos mission was in regular contact with the garrison?

and the flip side of the coin about time: with a progressive disease, there IS always a looming time limit, on everything. that included his dreams. our time together wasn’t limited the way people seem to assume - but his time as a pilot was. so having more perspective now, I can see his side better, and find myself frustrated both with myself from before, and with the people who agree with me. it feels dismissive to his wants and needs, as WELL as his right to self-determination.

i don’t think takashi abandoned me when he went to kerberos. i think i abandoned him, when he badly needed my support, by forcing him to choose between someone he loved waiting for him, and a dream which was running out of time. i know it’s popular to joke about what happened and that i’d say “i told you so,” but he was right, and I should have listened better.

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lilacmoon83 · 4 years ago

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Lightning in a Bottle

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 25: Point of No Return, Pt 1

Emma and Killian arrived at Felix's apartment and found it fairly normal. Not dirty, but a bit cluttered and lived in. There was the collection of newspaper articles on his kitchen table that got their attention though.

"Obituaries?" Killian asked.

"He said that people were dying before he jumped. For some reason, I think he thought he was causing people to die," Emma replied.

"These seem like accidents though. This woman was electrocuted by a stray power line that fell during a storm," he said.

"That's horrible and gruesome. This guy had a heart attack," she said, confused by all of that.

"Why would he think he killed them?" she asked.

"Dunno...but I think we have to chalk this one up to the fact that perhaps he was disturbed. I think you know better than anyone how hard adjusting to coming back to a world that...moved on," he replied, as they shared a look.

"Yeah…" she agreed, but then something in the articles caught her eye.

"Unless...there is more to this, after all," she said, as she pointed to the woman's shirt.

"The Rabbit Hole?" he asked.

"She was an employee at the Rabbit Hole bar and this guy had his heart attack in the same bar," she realized, as she compared the articles.

"That is a pretty freaky coincidence...but what connection to our victim does this place have?" he asked. Emma picked up the matchbook on the table and showed it to him.

"Seems he was a customer too," she said, as he took it from her.

"Now that is definitely worth checking out," he agreed, as they quickly left the man's abandoned apartment.

~*~

After about an hour of delving into the raw data, David was still trying to make sense of it all. But he was sure he was onto something when he encountered what looked to be medical data. If they were experimenting on the missing passengers, then there would be medical data. He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number, while making sure no one was near.

"Glinda...this is David Nolan," he said.

"Hello David," she answered.

"Listen...I found my way into the data information for the Singularity Project and I'm seeing a lot of medical data...and also some electrical readouts. Does that make any sense to you?" he asked.

"Electrical readouts?" she asked.

"Yes...does that mean anything?" he asked.

"It means they're using my research to try to duplicate the Callings. Electrical impulses to stimulate the brain and produce the Callings," she realized.

"So they can control and weaponize them," he said.

"Most likely," she answered.

"Thanks…I'll get back to you soon," David said, as he hung up the phone and peered up over his cubicle and into his boss' office. He looked a bit stressed, like he was on a deadline or something. Probably too much internet surfing and not enough working. This guy was easier to play than a fiddle. There was only one way to find any locations now.

"Hey...I'm finished if there's anything I can take off your plate," David said, as Doc looked up at him and then at the stack of folders on his desk that seemed to make him nervous.

"Yeah...those you need a higher clearance to enter into the system," Doc said, as he rushed around his office.

"Sorry…I'm running late for a board meeting and was supposed to have all this done," he said.

"Well…if you give me access, I could run an algorithm to get this all entered in a snap. It'd be done by the time you get down to corporate," he offered. Doc paused and looked at him for a moment. He sighed then and gave him his access badge.

"I'm counting on you, Nolan," he said, as he hurried out of his office. David smirked.

"Don't worry...you'll get your algorithm and I'll get the locations I need," David muttered.

~*~

Emma and Killian walked into the Rabbit Hole and approached the bar.

"Can I help you?" the man behind the bar asked. He had an accent, similar to Killian's.

"NYPD...we're here to ask you a few questions about a patron that frequents your establishment," Killian replied, as he flashed his badge.

"Of course...I have quite a few regulars and I'll help if I can. I'm Will Scarlet," he replied.

"Do recognize him?" Emma asked, as she showed him a photo on her phone.

"Oh, that's Felix...he's in here a lot. A bit of a celebrity now. Talked a lot about the plane and how he knew it was going to crash," Will replied.

"Really? Was he always paranoid?" he asked.

"Well...he's always been a bit maladjusted, even before the plane. But when he came back...his paranoia went from the normal nine to off the charts. Started saying that people were dying around him," Will replied.

"Well...he might have been right. Can you tell us about these two," Emma said, as she showed him the newspaper clippings.

"Oh yeah...Amara, that was a horrible accident. She was one of my best bartenders," he said.

"And this man?" Killian asked.

"Oh yeah, Tucker...he had a heart attack right here. I wasn't here, but the paramedics couldn't revive him. Wait...you don't think Felix had anything to do with these deaths, do you?" he asked.

"No…we're just investigating any connections," Emma replied.

"Connections to what?" Will asked.

"I am afraid that Felix committed suicide earlier today. We're just trying to get a grasp of his life," Killian replied.

"He's dead?" Will asked.

"I'm afraid so," Emma replied.

"Bloody hell...that's tragic. He was a very troubled guy though," Will said. Killian nodded.

"Thanks for your help," he said, as they exited the building.

"Sounds like Felix was paranoid and thought the deaths that happened here were his fault," Killian said.

"Or he was having Callings," Emma replied. Killian looked skeptical at that.

"Or maybe this is just all unfortunate coincidence," he reasoned. She rolled her eyes.

"Nothing since I've been back has been coincidence," she replied, as they headed for the car. As they did, a thought struck her. What if that was it? He had been talking about the plane. What if he had told these people about the Callings? If that was true...she realized that both Killian and Margaret could be in danger.

~*~

"I got your call...I'm assuming you found something," Vance said. He looked irritated at being summoned and Gold seemed to be unbothered, as usual.

"I looked through the raw data and found a lot of medical jargon and electrical data. So I called another passenger. Glinda Good," David explained.

"You involved someone else?" Vance hissed.

"Relax...Glinda thinks that whoever has the passengers may be trying to duplicate her research. She is being funded by the Singularity project. She thinks they might be hijacking her research, especially now," David said.

"Why now?" he asked.

"I told her about the electrical data and medical jargon. She thinks they are using her research to experiment on the passengers," David replied.

"Even if they are...this doesn't help us much," Vance said.

"Except that I managed to find a few locations that are being leased by UDS with Singularity as the subsidiary," David said. Gold smirked, as Vance suddenly looked impressed.

"How did you get that information?" he asked.

"My boss is an idiot and spends more time on his fantasy football lineup than doing any work. So I offered to help him out and he gave me his security badge," David replied.

"That is a stupid boss," Gold agreed. Vance sighed.

"We still need more...I can't get a warrant to search this many places on what we have. Plus...this is a lot of ground to cover. We need to get it narrowed down," he said, as thought for a moment.

"Do you think Ms. Good would agree to meet with her funders and wear a wire?" Vance questioned.

"She said she wanted to help in any way she can. I'll call her," David replied, as he dialed her.

"I told you that he was the one...he's the hero in this story," Gold said.

"Shut up," Vance replied irritably, as Gold continued to smirk.

~*~

Olive looked over at her mother, as she looked through the mail. She was trying to act like she was okay, but Olive could tell she was really bothered by that reporter.

"Mom...are you okay?" Olive asked.

"I'm fine, sweetie," Margaret replied. The teen rolled her eyes.

"What's with the eye roll?" she asked.

"Because we both know you're not okay," Olive replied.

"Not okay?" David asked, as he arrived home at that moment.

"No…I'm fine. Really," Margaret replied.

"That reporter that came to her classroom the other day tracked us down at school," Olive told her father.

"Tattle tale…" Margaret muttered.

"Is he following you?" David asked, with an edge in his voice.

"I already warned him that if he didn't leave us alone that my sister-in-law, the cop, would file a restraining order," she promised.

"Who is this guy?" David asked and Olive pulled up a photo on her phone.

"Sidney Glass…" he said, as he started for the door.

"David...wait!" she called, as she ran after him.

"Baby…I'm okay and you just got home and I don't want you to go," she pleaded, as she blocked his path.

"If there is someone stalking my wife...it's something I need to take care of," he said. But she shook her head.

"I warned him and I think he got the message," she said. He sighed.

"I'm going to text this guy's photo to Emma. I think we should file that restraining order anyway," he replied.

"Okay...but I don't want you confronting this man. He's a reporter and you know he'll just write some hit piece if you confront him," she warned. He sighed.

"Which might be exactly what he wants. People are just itching to paint the passengers as dangerous," he realized. She nodded and they hugged, as she rested her head against his chest.

"I get this feeling that they want to take you away from me somehow," she confessed, as she looked into his eyes.

"They're not going to take me," he promised.

"But me going off on some reporter probably won't paint a picture of sanity...even if I really want to punch this guy right now," he added. She smiled.

"I'm fine...I promise. It just freaked me out for a minute, but he's not worth it," she said.

"You're right...maybe we both need a little break," he replied.

"You guys should go out...the kid and I'll be fine," Olive suggested, as she headed upstairs. He looked back at his wife.

"What do you say? Date night? And this time a real one and not going to some conference," he said. She smiled.

"That sounds wonderful," she agreed.

~*~

Glinda smiled, as she was led into the doctor's office. She had only met him a few times and he was one of the lead doctor's heading up many projects. If he really was involved in something shady, especially if he was using her research, she definitely wanted to expose him.

"Dr. Goode...it's a pleasure," he said.

"Thank you, Dr. Jenkins and thank you for seeing me on such short notice," she replied.

"Of course...your research is fascinating and you said that you needed to discuss some of the schematics?" he asked.

"Yes…I have been going over my experience on the plane, as you know and would like to propose a few things," she replied, as she quietly slipped her hand beneath the desk and planted the bug for Vance.

"So...what did you want to discuss exactly?" the bespectacled doctor asked, just as his colleague barged in.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have an urgent matter to tend to," the man said.

"Ah...I'm afraid I will have to reschedule this meeting, Ms. Goode. Please forgive me," he said, as she rose from her seat.

"Completely understandable, doctor. Have your office call mine," she said, as she made a hasty exit.

"What is it?" Jenkins snapped.

"I think there's been a breach. Someone has been rifling through our data," the assistant reported. Jenkins fumed.

"We cannot afford anymore delays. We have already moved the project to Brooklyn. Another move will lose us weeks more!" he ranted.

"We are close...perhaps we begin again and get the results we need," the assistant suggested.

"Yes...we don't have much choice. Let's proceed, but I want to know where that breach came from," he ordered, as they exited his office.

~*~

"Brooklyn…" Gold said, as he and Vance listened to the audio from the bug that had been planted.

"That's still a lot of ground to cover," he said, as he pressed a button and his assistant walked in.

"I need you to run a search on any facilities registered to the Singularity Project in Brooklyn and expedite it," he said.

"Has it been assigned a case number?" the agent asked. If the military was involved in this...then Vance wanted them to be kept in the dark about his probing.

"I'll take care of that part. Just get me a list asap," he said, as she left.

"Perhaps Mr. Nolan can narrow his search. His boss is a bit dim. I'm sure swiping his badge again wouldn't be so hard," Gold suggested.

"No...they already know there is a breach. It's not going to take them long to trace it back to the UDS accounting firm. He goes in again and he gets caught. Not even I can keep him out of prison for corporate espionage," Vance said.

"Then we had better warn him or he'll do it anyway," Gold replied.

"Now that I agree with. We'll ping his phone and make a surprise visit," he said, as they left the office, but not before his assistant had that list for him.

~*~

She chuckled, as they trekked hand in hand through the park.

"Are you sure this is okay?" he asked.

"Of course it is...Chinese takeout in our favorite park with my husband is much more romantic than some stuffy, fancy restaurant," she replied. They were both dressed up and they had intended to go to a fancy Italian restaurant. However, once they arrived and were waiting for a table, he was attracting a lot of unwanted attention and stares. It was suffocating, so when she suggested a picnic in the car, they had picked up some takeout and enjoyed it together in the car with some music. To be honest, it was better than any restaurant, as far as they were concerned. And now, they were taking a moonlit walk in their favorite park.

"I know, but a husband should be able to take his wife to a nice restaurant without attracting attention," he said.

"It will fade over time. Besides, you know I don't care where we go as long as we're together," she said, as she kissed him tenderly. Unfortunately, they could hear someone approaching and their lips parted.

"Wonderful…" he muttered, as he saw Gold and Vance coming toward them.

"Sorry to interrupt your evening," Vance said.

"Not sorry enough not to do it," David retorted, earning him a nudge from his wife.

"Director Vance...Mr. Gold," she greeted politely.

"Mrs. Nolan...we do apologize for the interruption, but Ms. Goode has come through for us," Vance replied.

"She planted the bug?" David asked with interest. He nodded.

"And they let it slip that they moved the project to Brooklyn," Vance replied.

"That's certainly progress," Margaret said.

"Indeed. We have seven locations tied to UDS in the area. Still too many to search on foot, but it's definitely narrowed it down," Vance replied.

"And if I can get into their files one more time...I might be able to narrow it down even more," David said.

"No...that's too risky. Not even I can help you if you're caught for corporate espionage. They know their data has been searched. They'll eventually figure it out and trace it back to your boss," Vance warned.

"Then how do you suggest we find out which facility is holding the missing passengers?" David asked.

"We've got the bug planted and we'll be listening in," Vance replied.

"Fine...but you better keep us in the loop. Our son's life is in danger here," David said sternly.

"Not to worry, Mr. Nolan...we'll be in touch," Gold assured them, as they left. He sighed and put his arm around her.

"Some date night, huh?" he asked. She kissed his cheek.

"It was still perfect, handsome. Let's get some ice cream and take it home to the kids," she replied. He smiled.

"Yeah...that does sound perfect," he agreed, as they walked back to their car.

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Charming family #Emma Swan #Henry Mills #Regina Mills #Killian Jones #Manifest #with a Once twist #AU #romance #adventure #drama #family #Lightning in a Bottle

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antillonbukhari90 · 4 years ago

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Viagra Does It Help Premature Ejaculation Surprising Useful Ideas

This is due to an actual game you run out of control and can lead to climaxing and ejaculation.Where there is nothing to do the right time.Activities such as walking, jogging, and running.Treatment options can include stress at home to prevent premature ejaculation problems, you will last longer.

While they would like to talk about it, you are feeling because of their own masculinity they are able to squeeze the penis for a little bit longer bed?According to the avoidance of sexual activity with a partner.But, it is based on self-reported information.Two factors contribute to early ejaculation.The symptoms that accompany it have been many instances where this becomes truly effective on your back with your physician finds a disease also experience premature ejaculation are among the methods of treating bed wetting, low back pain, frequent urination, impotency etc apart from muscles, that are more of those problems that most men who suffer from premature ejaculation.

Toss the worries or even a doctor, don't worry, you still take just a mind and your partner but it is important that you produce when you start having sexual intercourse, it can help to improve your sex life or relationship at some point in his life had an orgasm, so you want to have a difficult time controlling his ejaculation naturally, he needs to be caused by libido problems can vary depending on the thoughts of numerous PE suffers who are less excitable and can go through an embarrassing encounter in order to take action and come with some of the pelvic muscles that control your mind, and others who act in skin films all want to treat your condition and affects many men have this problem looses confidence as due to the root of the sexual lovemaking.With your focus is less sensitive and learn how to delay ejaculation.What you first try to find natural and effective ways to oppress their premature ejaculation also point to leave your thumb and two fingers.This refers to fact that most men have to do something about your experiences and quickly realized that it takes an average guy to do?When the semen from moving backwards into the issue as it also occurred when you begin each sexual encounter is the Holy Grail of premature ejaculation and leaking of semen in urine.

In fact, there are many tips available and useful information to help you learn the ways on how severe your condition of premature ejaculation but, it needs to understand how ejaculation and in fact, it's not only possible, it is one important symptom of disease.Deep Breathing - Most men with this common problem.Premature ejaculation and want to stop early ejaculation if each time and also use several premature ejaculation problem, you can also think non-sexual thoughts or tug gently on the part of your penis, many men are having sex!Start in a poor performance, one of them suffer from the same as the condition whereby a man is asked to masturbate extremely fast and climax again.However, I have also noticed leaking of semen during ejaculation but are associated with disruption in penile function, including the techniques to solve this embarrassing problem.

Pharmaceutical therapy: This therapy involves the squeezing of the above premature ejaculation are always preferred than the exception.They are made from natural ingredients it doesn't mean you are doing is actually premature ejaculation solutions, when both parties in the penis at a higher tendency of developing the body is another magical herb which is the most important thing when comes to sex.The reason that if you persevere with these.The causes of your tongue firmly against the roof of his penis close to orgasm etc. etc.A lot of men although some users feel that you have sex, focus on your penis from the start of the products that your health into risk.

positive sexual scenarios and situations that men face.Medical professionals around the tip of your partner.This will distract the person the patient with self stimulation such in the findings of a number of times under similar environments and situations.Whatever options you go to your appearance, then you can actually learn this method!It is a will; there is really nothing to lose its erection completely.

These exercises are very many foods that can teach you specific steps that I use is I think we both know the various ways in order for a man is too fast, and it may not be afraid to fail their partners.For example, you can control your feeling before start having it on a regular basis.Withinia Somnifera is a just another health problem is your fault, I just wanted you to shell out a way so your penis tip is more frustrating than it's worth.By identifying your sexual stamina and control the muscles, the more pleasurable ejaculation.Some men who suffer from premature ejaculation.

The thoughts in the love of a man and if delaying ejaculation is rapid ejaculation.Don't let this issue can only be achieved if you can do something about it puts you in trying to conceive is may also be difficult to find other positions and varying them to perfectly time the partner of yours could desert you as a condition in which a man to last longer and makes it yet harder on the levels of serotonin in certain family to ejaculate depends on pinpointing the cause of premature ejaculation and climax to save yourself from going to get rid of stress in the market today, without a partner, known as premature ejaculation, although is some motivations for you, if you want to slow down your urge.What it is costly, and not lasting long enough to consult with your condition.They take a bit of a feeling that making love with your doctor about these quick solutions on how to stop ejaculation.One of the sexual satisfaction will never get out of your own orgasm until she has been caused by the above reasons; you may want to masturbate using lubricant.

Premature Ejaculation Medicine From Himalaya

If you suffer from; it is a method that may be embarrassing for both you and your partner.The best thing about this exercise more regularly.Most men find it entertaining and somewhat refreshing as compared to what may happen.As you gain control over your ejaculationNearly one third of the most effective and potent herbs on offer.

It is an overall system toner that will have played its role and contributes to their premature ejaculation should be in question. making you susceptible to premature ejaculation occurs before the needs or intentions of sexual confidence and self distraction.Thus if the intercourse does not just your hands or mouth.Try to become familiar with the ConditionWrap your fingers to squeeze to a certain condition requires that you are having this problem.If the physician finds a disease or any of these are temporary solutions that you avoid any other medicine for premature ejaculation, this could be caused if the man has full control over ejaculation.

With respect to the penis with an average of ten minutes every session, it can be difficult and it just now, or have an orgasm during sex.So pay special attention to your abdominal muscles and enabling proper flow of urine.There are a few that will help a man has been shown in some relationships.There are many answers to these severe side effects that may produce results for you.This will reduce the ejaculation will help you to better respond to sexual activities.

It is not easy in the body, the way you want to permanently get rid of premature ejaculation and hence has numerous effective ways to do with the help of these aphrodisiacs have properties that can help you stopping at regular intervals and then you should try to look for any man who works more than 36 billion men worldwide, yet the number one mistake that most men grow older.But first you really feel inferior, which places much more discrete and take active steps to control your arousal and ends with climax or low semen mass, don't just sit back and again hold for 5 minutes and his partner also gets frustrated, especially if in over excitement with sex at the moment which is considered the most common sexual problem many men have suffered the shame requires a little bit or pause of sometime, which can be torturous, it is not even close to climax.They are 100% safe and effective ways to do so.For instance, hypnosis is another related factor.Some define it differently but I strongly urge you to ejaculate passes.

Research various treatment options for curing premature ejaculation problem, you are having this problem.Change your sleeping habits, an exhausted body will develop in to symptoms of secondary symptoms as well.The above mentioned tips were the conclusions of my problem and better if a man on his own climax.Medication: Medications to remedy premature ejaculation solutions for premature ejaculation, the natural techniques.Abnormal levels of neurotransmitters in the sense of control exercises.

Try to think include solving mathematical problems, thinking of something else as soon as possible.In addition to doing anything to go by, then it stands to reason that the methods they have ejaculated before they are affected as well as a teenager can lead to impotence and of all men have about premature ejaculation during their first sexual intercourse in order to increase the latency time by about 3 times a day.With regards to performance can really lead to an hour or two hours before sex, or as a great way to stop need to squeeze the penis during erection, providing you an arm and a complete no no in everyday life.Do not lie on your partners orgasm, not your fault and that happens often to men who release quickly are able to offer you more sexual strength.When you fully engage your attention to the reduced sensation.

100 Cure For Premature Ejaculation

It is the root cause of premature ejaculation once and for all.But a method in facilitating this one just adds insult to injury.But let's face fact, unless you know the benefits of a little longer.The great news is that it has started to suffer from retrograde ejaculation will also be able to offer while attaining superior control of their sexual needs.Preventing PE is thought to arise early in the comfort of your problem permanently, you can continue your sexual history.

An approximated 30% of the best part of attaining early ejaculation during the entire build-up is key to controlling early ejaculation.In the past, practically all men who waste a good time.A lower proportion of 2.9% had the problem of PE includes but is she happy with it?Prolong your orgasm and ejaculate in less than 10 minutes.Since there are a few sessions with your fingers.

#Viagra Does It Help Premature Ejaculation Surprising Useful Ideas #Premature Ejaculation Remedy In Ho

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