#this was in wip hell for too long

[robiinurheart33]

Do they know it’s legal now

[tridentkickflipper123]

baby animal

[whampersan]

- all star by smash mouth blasting down the street -

[anghraine]

It's now Thursday, but I was tagged by @brynnmclean in WIP Wednesday and wanted to share my accomplishment! It's for the f/f K/S AU and follows directly from this scrap, just after "That Which Survives":

The skin on S’paak’s fingers itched: not a genuine dermal reaction, nor intense, but noticeable. She wished she could meld with Jess again, just for a moment, enough to see what eluded her rather than fumbling through language. But she was honest with herself: wish hardly encompassed the hunger she felt. S’paak had only once touched Jess’s mind when the captain was fully herself, and then, only at her invitation. Or rather, at her command, since it had been the only way to protect Kirk, Scott, and McCoy from death. Mr. Scott had been on the point of panic when S’paak projected her controlled assurance onto him, McCoy nervous and resistant, but Jess—Jess, whose mind she had forced until her memories returned, S’paak herself reeling from the experience—Jess had looked at her with the same easy trust as ever, eyes steady and focused on S’paak. Nor was it only outwards composure: her mind had been entirely receptive when S’paak reached for her thoughts, welcoming the touch with no emotions more turbulent than curiosity and a certain pleasure S’paak had no time to analyze. She had not remained in Kirk’s mind longer than necessary. She had not suggested another meld; she knew better than that. But she craved it. “You had reason enough to consider the possibility of death,” S’paak told her. “Determining available resources while indefinitely stranded was a logical priority. The away party had no reason to assume the Enterprise would rescue you, or even data to suggest that we had survived.” “Very generous of you, Commander,” said Kirk, looking gratified.

She leaned back in her chair, turning the angle slightly to look more closely at S’paak. But S’paak found her own self-command easy enough to retain, now that she was free of the stabbing anxiety that had tormented her before. Her mind felt clear, and her body spared the vibrating, painful sensations from before, spared everything but that tingle at her fingertips. She even felt untroubled, apart from the puzzle tugging at her mind, and her embarrassed awareness that Kirk had conducted herself more logically in all this than S’paak.

It was not only that Kirk’s conduct had been superior, although it had been, and although S’paak knew Jess was already strained and tired in general. But Jess, trapped in a situation that seemed designed to torment her specifically, had borne the weight of it with far more reason and assurance than S’paak herself had.

Torment—

“In all honesty,” Jess was saying, brushing some lint off her uniform, “we were all tense and worried, and I snapped at them a few times, but we had reason to react far worse than any of us did. Not that I wouldn’t love to hint at some great feat of will in my log, but it wasn’t that. The whole thing seemed too strange and fantastical to completely register for what it was, I think. Even after everything we’ve seen.”

Between one instant and the next, S’paak’s blood seemed as cold in her veins as so many of her crew mates had always insisted it was. At the same time, she felt much as she did when she adjusted the sensors and saw blurry shapes taking crisp, comprehensible form, the data now properly illustrating the paradigm.

The mystery was so clear now: Jessica on the surface, understanding the weight of the crisis better than anyone else could, yet bearing it with startling ease; S’paak, light-years away, oblivious to what the away party faced, oblivious even to Jess’s survival, yet carrying so much dread and tension in her body that she had felt consumed by it for hours, lashing out without reason or provocation. A lever, of sorts, between them, but one these humans would never have encountered.

S’paak knew, without a doubt, that she had forged this, bridged the chasm between their minds. She had done it with no deliberation, intent, even awareness until today: and yet she had done it. Jess could hardly consent to such a connection. She would never have heard of one such as this and could hardly register its effects. S’paak, herself, had only vague knowledge of rare, strange bonds that could operate with such force across such vast distances; certainly hers with Stonn had not done so.

Still, she knew.

[hailsatanacab]

Hiiiiii

I’m so curious about wip 1

Also I have like over a hundred wips and I can’t believe you did this to me 😭😭 /j

hey, you're welcome 😚🫴💕 i can't wait to see all your 100+ wips!

ooh I've had number 1 (a lot can change in a month) percolating for a while now and I've never been sure how far I want to go with it. I have pretty much all of it mapped out and it has the most bittersweet ending that I can't wait to write 😇✨ - anyway, have a wee little snippet :)

———

A month.

That's how long Danny Fenton had made his home with the Waynes before finding out his adoptive family's secret. The cave beneath the manor. Their hidden lives as vigilantes.

It was... a surprise, to say the least. One that he hadn't quite welcomed.

It threw him off, of course it did. This was meant to be his chance at living a normal life, a chance to leave behind his own heroics buried in the ruins of Amity, and then he had to go ahead and shack up with the birds and the bats, of all people! He just can't catch a break!

But... Well, after several tearful conversations and reassurances that no, he categorically did not have to join the team (thank the Ancients, because there's no way Danny's telling them about Phantom, not yet), things were starting to look pretty alright. The dust was finally settling and it felt like he was beginning to find his feet again.

That was last week.

This week, Bruce Wayne is dead and the family is falling apart.

[cheriboms]

doctober day 19: memory

aka "the first time lone pine doc recognizes the weird little kid hanging around his garage as the future boy who changed his life 30 years ago" :)

[jetlaggingbehind]

bright as the sun ☀️

[flabbergastedpigeon]

~beatrice the golden~

if there's one thing the deen anime did right it was to give the witches cool goat eyes

[mountainashfae]

6 months later, I have finally finished it.

Magnet: Vio & Balthazar edition (obligatory @outeremissary tag)

[rxttenfish]

Merfolk Relationship Hierarchy

Merfolk are hypersocial macropredators. This shouldn't be new information to anyone on my blog, but the sheer extent of merfolk sociability cannot be overstated. Their social nature is the entire reason they were able to become and specialize into macropredatory niches in the way that they have. Their close relatives, the leviathans, are an excellent example of what merfolk might have become if they didn't have their intense communal proclivities — being much more typical, expected examples of a secondarily aquatic large marine predator akin to marine reptiles of the past and whales of the present. Without their social bindings, merfolk might have entirely lost their hands for flippers, would lack their heightened connection to sound and language, and certainly wouldn't have shaped the ecosystems and the world they inhabit in the same way.

For this, merfolk relationships are complicated. They started as a way of forming a simple hunting group and handling life in large colonies, but as merfolk specialized further, so too did their relationships. More and more they focused on interpersonal politics and the complications of maintaining a large social group that was constantly evolving and shifting, which fostered the growth of their intelligence and sapience, which then led back even moreso into needing the ability to maintain and keep up with their relationships.

A merfolk in isolation is not a merfolk at all. While the exactness of this thought varies across their different cultures, it still holds true for all of them. On a literal level, merfolk can and do die of loneliness, their social needs as much of a requirement to them as the need for food or water. If you were to isolate a merfolk, to the point where they could not hear nor see anyone else, then they would endure a brutal one or two weeks, and then die. Every other need can be met, they can be otherwise entirely healthy, but without anyone else around, they cannot live.

On the more metaphorical level, a merfolk cannot exist solely on their own. Most merfolk cultures accept that the individual does not exist, and that there has to be some outside dialogue with other merfolk in order for them to even be alive. The self and identity are inherently plural to them, a multifaceted soul which exists in the bodies and lives of merfolk in a group, and which can't be broken down. Maintaining relationships and fostering them is as essential as feeding yourself, or feeding someone else.

For all of this, merfolk require much higher amounts of social interaction and connection. This is not to say that introverted merfolk do not exist, but they would be introverted by the measure of their fellow merfolk, and not by what humans might judge them to be. Much like how even the most introverted human could not endure the life of a solitary snake or spider, an introverted merfolk could not endure the life of an introverted human. Similarly, even an extroverted human could not compare against an extroverted merfolk.

Likewise, not every social interaction is the same to merfolk, and they maintain different emotional connections with different people, fulfilling a wider assortment of social needs. In fact, it is easiest to think of merfolk social structure as being like one large, interwoven, piece of lace, where each individual merfolk is represented by a single knot. They are all tied together into larger pieces, repeating patterns, all working together to create a singular, complex web of all the ways every merfolk is connected to every other merfolk.

For this, merfolk have different names for each different pattern, each different part at different scales and sizes. All are important, even if some are closer and tied nearer to the individual merfolk in question, and require greater maintenance to keep healthy.

These patterns and connections are, by far, what is most important to a merfolk. While merfolk are fully capable of experiencing platonic, familial, romantic, and sexual connections, it should be stated that this is not what the relationship hierarchy is based off of. They might be a part of that connection, but the connection itself and the place it occupies within the hierarchy is of far greater importance to a merfolk, to the extent that all else pales before it. Any point and connection within this web might be platonic, or familial, or romantic, but even a romantic connection to a merfolk might mean nothing against a platonic or familial connection if the latter outranks the former on their hierarchy of relationships.

Hence, from the smallest unit to the largest, this is (approximately) what the merfolk hierarchy of relationships looks like:

Yuu'itv + Ul’kiha

This can be thought of as the singular knot, as the individual merfolk themselves. This is what is most familiar to landfolk, as it typically does not refer to any more than one merfolk.

To the merfolk themselves, however, this is more theoretical and functional than a real part of their relationship hierarchy to be maintained. This is the building block of identity, the pieces which make up one true self, but pieces which are not as concerning or deserving of as much time as the selfhood itself.

The exception, as you might have noticed, is the inclusion of ul'kiha at this rung. Ul'kiha (in the common-technical language) is loosely translated as the water that runs through someone's gills, but in the plural. Less literally, it refers to a shared breath, a breathing as one. A shared body, in less flowery terms. Soulmates, in the easiest localization.

In short, an ul'kiha is another merfolk and individual who is so close to another merfolk that they are thought of as one person. A plural-becoming-singular, if you might. Other merfolk will treat two ul'kiha as the same person, talk to them as the same person, view their relationships to them as one person. It represents the tightest, closest bond any merfolk can have.

For this, ul'kiha are rare. Most merfolk will never take an ul'kiha in their lives, and for those that do, taking more than one is next to unheard of. Ul'kiha is, likewise, the only instance where a rung in the relationship hierarchy is solely romantic, and the only true crossover between the relationship hierarchy and humanity's views on relationships. While half of ul'kiha will refuse to take any other romantic partner, this is not comparable to marriage either, as the intensity of this connection could be thought of as codependent in a way that's natural for merfolk but doesn't occur in human relationships. While ul'kiha can split up, if one ul'kiha dies and the other doesn't, the living partner is expected to never take another ul'kiha again, and quite often the loss is enough to kill them too.

Miivt'ia

These are the first few knots the initial knot is tied to, and the first true rung on the relationship hierarchy.

In a sense, the miivt'ia is a merfolk's inner circle. These are the people who they are closest to in their lives, who they have a unique and potent bond with. A miivt'ia, likewise, is a group which is exclusive to itself, and all the members of a miivt'ia will feel the same way about each other, and count themselves in each other's miivt'ia.

The closest example we might have to what a miivt'ia is would be the concept of a friend polycule. None of the members inside a miivt'ia are exclusively platonic, familial, romantic, nor sexual with each other, but they have a tight and exclusive bond which is solely shared amongst each other. In fact, each member of the miivt'ia might feel differently about every other member of the miivt'ia and have their own, unique dynamic with every other member, but all are united in the closeness given by being members of the miivt'ia.

Miivt'ia are often formed right as a merfolk is first growing up. Family members can be included in the miivt'ia, but not always, and those included are almost always siblings, cousins, or others who are similarly close in age. Childhood friendships that begin to deepen often become a part of the miivt'ia, as are the most serious of relationships. However, miivt'ia can also be created outside of these formative years, and there are many miivt'ia that essentially act like guilds or a "family" business, being closer than mere coworkers but sharing the same job.

Miivt'ia are the people with whom a merfolk has near-constant contact with. They are expected to live together, and often will share the same job, or similar jobs. All of their personal belongings are considered as belonging to the miivt'ia over any individual, and legally the miivt'ia is the individual upon which laws apply to. A merfolk without a miivt'ia is effectively homeless, and spiritually merfolk consider the miivt'ia to be the soul. Merfolk that go through the Coral Festival (Habp'll pl'qe ane'jhe Oikahj) will go through it together with their miivt'ia. Any children the miivt'ia has or adopts is considered the child of everyone else in the miivt'ia, the members all acting as parents and considering themselves equally as responsible in the care for that child. Miivt'ia are not only expected to be constantly in contact with each other and to participate in everything together, but they are expected to care equally about every other member of the miivt'ia and to feel each other's emotions as one.

For all of this, merfolk are highly loyal to their miivt'ia and will defend the members of their miivt'ia with their life. Any threat to any other member of the miivt'ia is considered a direct threat to all other members and to the individual merfolk's lives, and the loss of any member of the miivt'ia is mourned by all others to the highest degree.

There is a lot of responsibility placed upon those included in the miivt'ia, but the miivt'ia also has an emotional closeness and intimacy that isn't shared by any other merfolk in the relationship hierarchy (except the ul'kiha, see above). Being too overtly close and intimate with a merfolk can be seen as not respecting the miivt'ia and be seen as a threat to the security of the miivt'ia. Likewise, if someone wishes to join a miivt'ia, they will often endure a "courting" phase with all the members of the miivt'ia, where they attempt to forge connections equally as close to and intimate with every other member.

Dhe'jny'p usae

If the miivt'ia was the smallest initial pattern any relationship can have in the larger weave, then the dhe'jny'p usae is the actual shape of that pattern, when something becomes not just an oval, but a petal on a flower.

Dhe'jny'p usae, in common-technical language, is closest translated to "drift family". Humans might recognize the dhe'jny'p usae as being something similar to friends. They are not as close as the miivt'ia, but they might represent the next nearest thing, being a close emotional connection with associated responsibilities. The dhe'jny'p usae would be the closest other miivt'ia to the existing miivt'ia, acting as neighbors or close-knit family. If the miivt'ia had children, then they would be expected to provide care and look after those children alongside their own, and would cycle wider, communal responsibilities with the miivt'ia. Miivt'ia and members of the miivt'ia would hang out with and spend a lot of time with their dhe'jny'p usae, and this forms the base of wider merfolk sociability.

While the dhe'jny'p usae would be excluded from the private, domestic matters of the miivt'ia, they might still be gone to for emotional reassurance, or to simply have someone to talk to. Dhe'jny'p usae are expected to help in providing food for each other, and will switch out communal duties that require a layer of intimacy with each other, and legally are considered very similar entities. While they wouldn't share all personal belongings like the miivt'ia, they might share what counts for money, and be responsible for dividing it up among themselves. Dhe'jny'p usae, likewise, might live together in larger communal houses and share chores among themselves, but this might be considered closer to the individual members of a household, and its not as intensely expected for them to live together as the miivt'ia.

Dhe'jny'p usae are likewise the most common place to find what we might think of as typical merfolk romantic relationships. Dhe'jny'p usae more easily come and go, leaving and entering a merfolk's life, not solely remaining there for life like the miivt'ia, and for that, it's not uncommon for merfolk to have romantic and sexual relationships with their dhe'jny'p usae.

Faa'nek hus'llu

If the dhe'jny'p usae were the equivalent to people living in the same house, the faa'nek hus'llu is closer to the neighbors. These are acquaintances, support-friends, those that they are close to, though they maintain a degree of separation. If the dhe'jny'p usae was a flower, then this is the daisy chain, the interlocking patterns which form a distinct function.

More than anything else, the faa'nek hus'llu can be thought of as the connective tissue. They bridge the gap between the intensely bound and closely connected dhe'jny'p usae and miivt'ia, and the wider social community of merfolk. They do not bear the brunt of the emotional responsibility and are free to come and go in any merfolk's life as they please, but there is still a degree of familiarity here, a sense of belonging. While dhe'jny'p usae might live in the same communal house, faa'nek hus'llu live in the same town, neighborhood, community. The responsibilities they bear are far more physical, often serving as shifting turns for communal guard or repair duties, ensuring that everyone gets their turn taking care of everyone else.

The downside is that faa'nek hus'llu enjoy far less emotional connection and intimacy. What is shared and offered is far more obvious and physical, and far less detailed than that which other, closer relationships would receive. They might know someone is tired, and they might know someone is in grief after losing a member of their miivt'ia, but they wouldn't be able to navigate the emotional complexity beneath that. Trying to do so can be seen as a threat, either to your own dhe'jny'p usae and miivt'ia, or to theirs, demanding familiarity which has not been earned nor received.

A'antiu Muur'l

This is the far end of any merfolk's immediate social connections. The a'antiu muur'l is not merely the knot, nor the petal, nor the flower, nor the daisy chain, but the sides of the lace itself, the largest part that fits together with all others.

This is the community as a whole. It is a town, a city, a city-block, more of a legal entity than a social one but a social one nonetheless. The a'antiu muur'l is far more location-based than the other rungs on the relationship hierarchy, and merfolk only truly change their a'antiu muur'l with a change of physical location. The a'antiu muur'l is the community from which community names are given, and the a'antiu muur'l is to the commonfolk what a royal lineage is to a royal.

The a'antiu muur'l in common-technical best translates to "song family", and to a merfolk, this is because it is intended to include everyone that a single merfolk might hear at any given time. They are strangers to the individual merfolk, sure, but they are all singing together and speaking at the same time, and working to build the same song together to flesh out life and the place in which they live, so there is a degree of emotional connection. It is abstracted emotional connection, yes, but it is emotional connection all the same.

Merfolk might even include physical landmarks as part of their a'antiu muur'l, such as in the case of their singing buildings, or for a particularly endearing local landmark. This can include a large reef, or mountain, or entire mountain range, but so too can it include the one weird shady area where all the kids hang out that the adults don't want them near.

Ghray Uw'ghta Faahl

In common-technical language, the ghray uw'ghta faahl means "all-body". It is far more theoretical than the others, being spoken of to promote a sense of universal connection, but is not something that's quite so easily envisioned in turn.

In essence, the ghray uw'ghta faahl refers to all merfolk. All of their connections, each a'antiu muur'l, each faa'nek hus'llu, each dhe'jny'p usae, each miivt'ia, and each yuu'itv. Each and every merfolk is included, down through time, because each and every merfolk has had an emotional connection, and thus each and every merfolk fits into the ghray uw'ghta faahl.

Thus, the responsibilities here are far more abstracted, and far more represent the responsibilities all merfolk have to each other. This includes their hospitality culture, yes, but far moreso it includes a sense a dignity and a need to recognize that each merfolk has someone else and belongs somewhere within the ghray uw'ghta faahl. It's a source of recognition, and of community, and of understanding.

How much it actually fulfills that role, as ever, varies, but the thought and theory and gesture is still there, all the same.

[ryelleart]

This has been sitting in my drafts since 2021. I don’t think I’m ever gonna finish it 😭

[acochleola]

Just had to say that I adore your spn comics like EVERY SINGLE ONE is a banger idk how you do it

Ohhhh, thank you 💛 💛 💛

I put a lot of thought into comics and i'm really happy you like them!! 💛💛💛

[faeyun]

you guys are gonna hate me… cause i know i still need to get other wips of and chapter one of between twilight skies out… but i NEED to start this tlou wip or i might die

[bulletbilltime]

Took me like a week... but I have a first draft of nearly 7k words for a new fic 😵

[ronsenburg]

WIP Wednesday- here's the first seven pages of the next chapter of tactility for anyone following along:

“Dimitri hasn’t been made aware, yet.”

It’s the first thing that Profess—that Commander Eisner says as she strides across the room to the replicator installation on the wall, leaving Sylvain floundering from where he stands, a mere two steps through the office door.

For a long second, Sylvain thinks he might be hearing things. Not only for the words—which make less than zero sense to Sylvain, actually—but because he’s not sure he’s ever heard her refer to them all by their first names like this before. It feels like she should still be calling them ‘cadet’ and chiding Sylvain for the lack of effort on his latest report. The sudden familiarity is off-putting. He blinks, still a little shell-shocked. “What?”

“... Bergamot?” Commander Eisner asks instead, and glances back over to him with a mild and expectant look. It takes an additional two full seconds for Sylvain to realize that she’s asking for his tea preference, that he hasn’t just quietly lost what was left of his mind standing there in the entryway to her office. Eventually, though, Sylvain catches on. With no mental energy left to marvel at how she remembers something so specific, he nods.

The lack of articulacy doesn’t seem to be a problem for someone like the commander. She simply gestures to the empty chair in front of her desk—as austere and uncomfortable looking as they come—and says, “sit.”

Replicators really are incredible things; it only takes five seconds or so to materialize the tea Commander Eisner requests, the molecules arranging themselves obediently into existence with a whirl of machinery and sparkling lights. In that time, Sylvain has somehow managed to will his feet into movement. They carry him dutifully across the floor and deposit his body into the waiting chair in a motion that, while overall effective, is distinctly lacking in grace. When the commander joins him, placing a delicate porcelain teacup down on the surface of the desk before him, it’s all he can do to watch her take her first sips with metaphorically bated breath, the steam from his own untouched cup rising in swirling plumes between them. Eventually, however, her teacup rattles back down against the saucer.

It’s only then, when the silence is reaching critical levels of unbearable, that she speaks.

“I wasn’t sure that Ensign Fraldarius would be coming,” she begins, her tone still flat and even, like she’s remarking on the state of the weather, not upending the last five years of Sylvain’s life. “When he and I last spoke—well. You know Felix. He was adamant that this ship was the last place he ever intended to step foot on. I chose not to burden Dimitri with his refusal.”

“When you last spoke?” Sylvain repeats, dully. Someone is going to need to cut him a little slack, here, if they’re expecting to get anything coherent out of him anytime soon. It sounds a lot like the Commander is implying she’s been talking to Felix regularly over the past five years, but that’s crazy, isn’t it? Felix was gone without a trace—Sylvain would know. He’d exhausted a good amount of hours and one too many favors that first year, only to come up empty handed every time.

But, impossibly, Commander Eisner nods. “About eight months ago. He was with the Klingons, then, on Zuva Bon. But there’s been nothing since. We weren’t anticipating his arrival this morning—I thought it best to speak with him myself before making Dimitri aware of his presence aboard. You would have been the next to know, I’m sure.”

There’s a faint roaring in Sylvain’s ears that seems to have nothing to do with the nacelle engine partially visible outside the window to his left. His gaze drifts toward the expanse of space stretching behind it, thoughts unmoored, as the sound grows louder and louder with each passing moment. Eventually, the volume of it blankets the rest of his senses, the rhythmic thunder overriding any lingering, rational thought.

But, of course, it’s not really a noise at all. Just the sound of his own pulse rushing rapidly past his ears.

“—Sylvain?” the commander asks, at some length. When he glances back to her, she’s watching him with her head tilted to the side again, as though his reaction is a puzzle she’s tepidly interested in attempting to work out.

“So you’re saying this whole time,” he starts, voice forced into what Sylvain can only hope would be called a casual cadence, “you knew where he was?”

The angle of Commander Eisner’s head sharpens only fractionally, her eyes unblinking. “I keep track of all of my former students, yes.”

“Commander, you had to know that I—that we were trying to find him. You could have said something.”

“It was Felix’s direct request that I keep the knowledge of his whereabouts to myself. As his life was never in any real danger, I saw no necessary reason to betray that trust.”

“That’s not–” Sylvain cuts himself off, feeling more than hearing the anger building in his voice. Of course, it would be someone like the commander that Felix would reach out to. Someone as blunt and unbound by traditional social graces as Felix, someone who would keep a secret as a matter of duty. Prophets, they had so much in common; Sylvain should have considered it from the very beginning. He could posit all day over why Dimitri, infinitely higher than any of the rest of them in their former professor’s graces, wouldn’t have chased down that particular lead… but shifting the blame was never going to change the fact that Sylvain hadn’t even thought to ask.

Commander Eisner blinks her mild eyes in his direction, once, and then once again for good measure, waiting with a blasé politeness for the impending conclusion of his sentence. For a second, Sylvain considers it; imagines letting all that anger spill through the cracks of the fingers so desperately trying to hold it back.

…But what would be the point?

“You know what, never mind,” Sylvain says instead, standing. There’s an edge to his voice that he can’t quite smooth away behind his smile, as cooled as the untouched cup that sits on the desk between them. “Thanks for the tea, Commander. Think I’m gonna make it an early night, lots to do tomorrow. You get it.”

Her face shows no surprise; she simply offers him a perfunctory nod and moves to walk him out.

“Sylvain.” Commander Eisner says just as the door slides open before him. If his demeanor has had any effect on her, she doesn’t show it. Her tone is as businesslike as ever. “The ship that Ensign Fraldarius arrived on this morning was the S.S. Palinurus. The docking permit might be of some interest to you.”

Sylvain doesn’t respond.

The door closes behind him with that same, decisive sound.

The computer doesn’t have a cabin assignment on file for Felix, yet, and can’t locate him when Sylvain asks. Unsurprisingly, Ingrid is also no longer on the ship. For a moment, Sylvain considers the absurd: sprinting off the ship and back onto the station, searching every lounge and hangar and temporary lodging assignment until he finds them, until he succeeds in cornering Felix like the spooked animal he insists on imitating and forcing some kind of explanation. It’s an impossible fantasy for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Spacedock One spans a truly insane amount of, well, space—searching it thoroughly would take more hours than there happened to be between now and departure. With Sylvain’s luck as it currently stood, he’d still be trudging through some maintenance corridor, unaware of the passage of time, when the ship took off into the vastness of space with Felix tucked away onboard.

And anyway, if chasing after Felix was what Sylvain truly wanted to do, he should’ve gone with Ingrid in the first place, right? Pulled himself together, staunched the cocktail mixer of emotions that Felix’s appearance had pierced through him like a knife wound, and got on with the interrogation. But Sylvain had learned a few things from chasing after Felix for a good chunk of their adolescent life: namely, that Felix never gave up shit if he didn’t want to. You could run and beg and throw yourself on a metaphorical funeral pyre right in front of him and it wouldn’t change anything… until Felix decided it did. Stubborn wasn’t a strong enough word for it; Sylvain wasn’t sure there was a word strong enough for it in any language in the entire galaxy. What good would it do, chasing him again, except to have the pleasure of watching the exquisite angles of Felix’s face turn away from him yet another time? How many times can you swear devotion to someone who clearly doesn’t want you before it becomes downright pathetic?

But that’s kind of the person Sylvain is, when you really got down to it. The kind who never learns, the kind who’s always game to throw themselves against those rocks just one more time, in case the outcome is somehow different.

At least, that’s how it was when it came to Felix.

Sylvain sighs, slides his fingers up through the mess of his red hair, and leaves his head right there in his hands.

He should sleep.

Instead, he sighs and shuffles over to the computer panel at the desk to send a communication to Ingrid that says, simply:

?

It’s about the only thing he can do. That is, until he remembers Commander Eisner’s words.

It’s simple enough to pull up the permits for the ships currently docked at the station, to find the ship that she’d named. The fact that it’s a simple civilian transport ship is somewhat surprising to Sylvain—it feels more in character for Felix to have boarded a passing cargo freighter or commandeered a war bird right out of the sky. Most of the details listed are so numbingly standard that Sylvain has to wonder what the commander could possibly have thought would be relevant. In fact, he reads the permit in its entirety three times before he sees it. Subtle, two words, completely insubstantial to anyone that isn’t Sylvain; they make his heart suddenly start to race.

Port of Departure: Ashalla, Bajor.

—

STARDATE 62354.08

“This is a shovel talk, isn’t it?” Sylvain asks, trying valiantly to keep his voice light as they duck through a disguised maintenance door in the main corridor. A panel just beyond warns ‘DANGER! Authorized Engineers Only Beyond This Point’. When he swallows, Sylvain’s throat is unusually dry.

Glenn is smiling as he glances back over his shoulder; Sylvain doesn’t need to be a telepath to understand that it isn’t actually a friendly smile, despite appearances. Glenn may be the more outwardly agreeable of the Fraldarius brothers, but Sylvain has no doubts that, if he wanted to, Glenn could kill him just as easily as Felix. Easier, probably. Less of that pesky sentimentality to get in the way.

Oh well, it was a good run. Mostly.

“Not sure what you’re talking about, Gautier. There a reason for me to be giving you a shovel talk?”

There isn’t, which is the most ridiculous part of all of this. At 17 years old, Sylvain has already had more than his fair share of angry older brothers threatening to push him out an airlock when he invariably broke their baby sisters’ hearts. He’d deserved those talks. Mostly because none of those little sisters had ever actually meant anything. Glenn, though… Sylvain would laugh, but he’s pretty sure he’d only end up choking on the irony.

Instead, Sylvain steps gingerly over a four inch wide cable that snakes its way across the path and says, “depends on how often you’ve been reading my mind, I guess.”

About as honest as it gets, for Sylvain. There doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to lie when the person you’re lying to can (literally, telepathically) see right through it. He could try—it might make him feel better about the mess he’s been making of what was formerly his personal life for the past four months—but Sylvain has a new policy when it comes to his feelings for Felix. Namely? That they exist.

Sylvain isn’t blind; he’d always known Felix was pretty in an angry, pointy sort of way. But that was his best friend, you know? Seemed weird not to shut those kinds of thoughts down right away. Only, it'd become an increasingly more difficult task as the days went on. It wasn’t Felix’s fault, but he sure as hell wasn’t making things any easier on Sylvain, either.

It’s little things like this: Felix starts tying his hair up one day, so Sylvain spends an unintentional half an hour staring at the tiny hairs that escape the bun and fall along the skin of his bare neck instead of taking a test. Felix misses a spot of gravy in the corner of his mouth during lunch, so Sylvain spends an embarrassingly long moment imagining himself climbing over the table and licking the spot clean before he gets ahold of himself and points it out instead. Felix goes for a run on the promenade early one morning, his face flushed with exertion and a sheen of sweat beading on his forehead, so Sylvain spends half the day wondering exactly what he’d have to do in exactly what way to get Felix looking like that for him. And that’s just the physical stuff, things hormones can explain away.

Sylvain tries even harder not to think too long on the way his pulse starts fluttering even more irregularly when he catches Felix laughing faintly at one of his stupid jokes, when Felix grabs for his wrist to pull him out of the path of an open maintenance hatch. It’s a problem that no amount of meaningless sex with strangers seems able to scare away so, for the past three weeks, Sylvain’s stopped trying. And see what it’s getting him now?

“Don’t be stupid,” Glenn says, and for a second, he sounds enough like Felix that Sylvain has to blink. They take a left at the next fork. “I can’t do any of that stuff.”

… which is exactly what a secret telepath would say in this situation, Sylvain imagines. But if that’s the story Glenn is sticking with, what’s he gonna do? Torture it out of him?

“So we’re just two guys, going on a walk through the off-limits maintenance corridor of a Federation starbase. You know, like guys do.”

The look that Glenn throws back over his shoulder, while still not quite warm, is at least not especially murderous. “Something like that.”

Finally, after what feels like an hour of avoiding live power conduits and engineers alike, they exit the maintenance corridor into a large room that houses one of the station fusion reactors. It glows faintly in front of them, unnaturally blue-tinged and humming, better than any sign for saying ‘hey, watch the fuck out!’ But all that imminent danger is lost on Glenn; he steps forward and out onto the balcony platform, draping his arm casually over the edge of the metal balcony.

After only a moment of hesitation, Sylvain joins him. When he glances over to Glenn with his eyebrows lifted in question, the light in the room has tinted Glenn’s eyes a bright, radioactive blue.

“I’m… worried about him,” Glenn says at length, voice halting, as though he isn’t sure whether he should be admitting this out loud. He isn’t looking at Sylvain anymore, either, his eyes fixed on the reactor buzzing below them. Ever the Fraldarius. “The inhibitor injections aren’t working anymore, he’s developing a tolerance too fast. If they keep upping the dose, it’s going to kill him. But if they stop…”

Glenn doesn’t need to finish that thought. Sylvain’s seen first hand the agony that Felix experiences on the days before the next doses, when there isn’t enough of the chemicals left in his system to help filter out the emotions of everyone else around him. One or two people, Felix might be able to handle. But a whole station? A thousand plus people all experiencing the full gambit of emotions at any given moment? No chance. On those days, Felix mostly stays cloistered somewhere down here with the fusion reactors, as far away from everyone—including Sylvain—as possible. It’s probably for the best, even if it has always made Sylvain feel like a shitty friend.

“I’ll be joining the crew of the U.S.S. Duscur next week. There’s not much I’ll be able to do for him from there, especially with him off on Bajor for who knows how long.”

Sylvain is frowning now. “Bajor?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Glenn asks, eyes sliding over to meet Sylvain’s with the kind of contemptuous incredulity that makes Sylvain feel like the biggest idiot to ever leave orbit. “There’s a betazoid there who Dad thinks can help. The transport leaves this afternoon.”

The weight that settles into Sylvain’s stomach is less like a stone and more like the entire planet of Jupiter and the gravity well surrounding it. Glenn is saying something else, something about keeping an eye out and communications but Sylvain’s brain is a little hung up on the complicated calculations surrounding distance and time between the maintenance corridor, his rooms, and the station docking ring.

“Hey, great talk,” Sylvain says suddenly, probably interrupting as he backs up quickly with a salute that’s meant to act as a hasty goodbye. “Let’s do it again sometime, yeah? When you get back. Good luck with the tour!”

Halfway through the door and about half a step from tripping over the nearest cable, Sylvain almost misses Glenn’s sigh.

“Guess you’re both idiots, then.”

It takes Sylvain less time than calculated to pack a bag. Makes sense, though; this is the kind of idiotic plan that only works so long as you stay in motion, your brain too focused on the act of putting one foot in front of the other to recognize the whole foundation is built on presuppositions with just a dash of selfishness mixed in. If he stops, he might have to wonder if Felix will really want him there. If he hesitates, he might have to guess what kind of message this split-second decision will really send. So, yeah. No time to wonder what kind of weather they’ll be having on Bajor in the spring—Sylvain throws the essentials hastily into a duffle before slinging the whole thing over his shoulder and starting off down the corridor.

It turns out Glenn’s idea of ‘afternoon’ is a little more broad than Sylvain might’ve anticipated. Hard to make a sweeping maybe-romantic gesture when the civilian transport you’re trying to catch moments before take-off is actually a cargo freighter delivering a few dozen pallets of self-sealing stem bolts before hightailing it back out to Ferengi space. The few weird looks he gets from the crewmen who watch him scramble through the doors are nothing compared to the relief Sylvain feels when he realizes he hasn’t actually missed the transport entirely—it just happens to be docked one platform over and isn’t leaving for another two hours.

That’s how Sylvain ends up in the doorway of the Fraldarius’s quarters twenty minutes later, blithely ignoring the knowing smirk on Glenn’s face when he steps aside to let Sylvain through. Not a telepath my ass, Sylvain thinks loudly in his direction, just in case, as he makes his way to Felix’s room in the back.

Well, no going back now.

“Heard you’re headed to my neck of the quadrant, huh?” Sylvain says, letting a shoulder fall against the door frame beside him with a soft thud, the perfect picture of feigned nonchalance.

[halazar15]

wife

(WIP)