#I get nervous driving over those tracks even if the warnings come far in advance

[spraklecat]

I like watching the trains go by and hearing the horns and those probably keep the rent down a bit, but god everytime I hear about a derailment/spill because my complex is maybe a thousand feet from heavily used 60 mph double tracks

[antiherocorner]

They won’t dare to bother you anymore...

(This is my first Niki Lauda x Reader fic ever, and my second fanfic in general, ever... English is still not my native language, sorry for the mistakes in advance... I wrote this in one sitting, because I got inspired by my one and only @mymagicsuitcase and her Niki Lauda headcanon... The giving you their jacket one... I read it... Loved it... And this happened... Enjoy <3 )

WARNINGS: little drinking, little swearing, possibly smoking, Hunt is a dick, Lauda is a sweatheart (maybe went a little OOC, I’m not sure... I tried not to but... yeah), Reader is female, no name or y/n is mentioned

Word: 1,7k~

You were excited, but a nervous wreck as well, at the same time. 

You met Niki at a party of one of the other F1 drivers’. A friend of yours had been a good friend of him, whom owned the place, and they dragged you along, quote “You’re gonna die alone, come on! They are interesting people, and you would be just bored in your house!”. So, yeah. That’s how you found yourself leaning to the wall, beer in hand, in a massive living room, observing people in front of you. You weren’t that good in F1, you had been watching it on the TV and following some news, but you were sort of a rookie in that field. You knew some names, especially the ones which were everywhere, either after achieving something big, or having a huge rivalry. Such as Hunt and Lauda. As you were deep in your thoughts, you didn’t see that one of the mentioned drivers was looking directly at you. Also leaning to the wall with a drink in his hands, his curly locks loosely hugging his face, some have escaped from the others, and were fallen in front of his forehead. He thought you looked beautiful in those red dress of yours with a black leather jacket. Even though you looked very awkward and uncomfortable, clearly you felt that you didn’t belong there and looked like that as well, still. There was something in you which captivated him. Like you had power, but you didn’t want to waste it on something, or someone. You didn’t want to just use it randomly. You even looked mysterious. He wanted you. Only to himself. And although it entertained him greatly, that how you slipped away ever so slightly from anyone who came near you, and a visibly pain started to form on your face, like the whole world’s problem was on your shoulder, the temptation to save you from the situation, to wanted to know who you were, was way more stronger. Just as he launched himself of the wall with the foot that was rested on it, he froze in his steps. Someone else was more agile. And forward. And loud. Also drunk.

- Hey, hey, hey! Why is that, that a beautiful woman like you just standing next to a wall at a party? - startled you the one and only, James Hunt, leaning on the wall directly next to you.

- Omm… It just… I’m not a party people I guess… - you answered slightly taken back, shyly.

- Then why are you here, my lady? - he smelled like all kinds of alcohol and cigarette.

- A friend of mine brought me here… - you started but you were cut off immediately by him.

- Really? I should thank them, they brought you to me, a stunning woman who…

- That’s enough, Hunt. You’re clearly making her uncomfortable. Leave her alone. -  A hand grabbed Hunt’s shoulder, and you snapped your head to the direction of whom it might be.

- What? You want her to yourself?! Lauda… Go away, I was here sooner!!

- You’re drunk. There are plenty of ladies who would kindly do anything you say so. Now fuck off. - He didn’t want to start a fight, but he wanted to sound demanding. He really wanted him to piss off.

- Jesus… - and just like that, without a word hi was gone.

You stared at the leaving figure for a couple of seconds before you looked at the other driver in the eyes and realized he was already looking at you, like he was searching for something.

- Are you alright?

- Yeah, I think so… Thank you, Mr. Lauda. - you said shyly.

- Oh please, call me Niki. - the corner of his mouth twitched up a little.

- Thank you… Niki. - you said again, with a slight blush - I think I should go… I don’t want to start more drama, and I have already stayed more than I am comfortable with… My friend will be fine, I just get a taxi or something… - you trailed off, halfly speaking to him, halfly just thinking out loud - I shouldn’t have come… - you added quietly, but he picked it up.

- Wait! Please… Come out with me to the balcony… Get some fresh air. You look a little bit railed up, I don’t want you to leave alone like this, to be honest. - he tried so say it as casual as possible, but he really was worried for you. A little bit. Maybe. He didn’t want to admit it to himself either.

You didn’t know what to say, so without thinking you just nod slightly and let him led you towards the balcony. As you passed by the dancing figures of the party, you felt Niki’s hand touch the lower of your back. He didn’t want to startle you more than this, he just wanted to make sure that no one could bump into you, and you could get to the damn balcony as soon as possibble. Well, that’s what he said to himself in that moment, that was the reason why he touched you, surely. He relaxed a little bit, when you weren’t complaining. And you certainly weren't planning to. On the balcony you just chatted for a while. You told him your name, why you were there, your job, little things like these. In exchange he told you about himself, his job, and how this season was going for him, his plans for the remaining time of the race.  You also told him that you followed his race, the whole season, but you didn’t know everything, or rather didn’t understand everything. You liked cars, but you were no mechanic. There were a whole two weeks until the next race, which took place in the city. He offered you to go with him to his garage the next day. He could show you some stuff which might interest you. He also offered you to drive you home if you still want to leave, so you didn’t have to take a taxi or worse. You weren’t sure why, you just met this man, but there was a spark between the two of you. You said yes to him. For both things.

And now here you were, awkwardly standing at the Ferrari’s garage. During the last 2 weeks, you got to know Niki pretty well. You met him nearly everyday, either in his garage, talking to you while patching up the car, or taking you out to drinking. You weren’t together or anything. But you did liked him. A lot. You could see how he was sometimes stubborn and quick-tempered, but with you, he was way more softer. Although he rather did not show this side of him to anyone else. It was only for you. He wanted you to come to this race, but he didn’t want to drag you into any kind of gossip, which was very common in the F1 family, so you came here alone, he was already here. He got you a full-pass, so you could come to his garage, without anyone stopping you. You couldn’t see him yet, so you just stood there, out of the way of everyone. You felt a hand on your back.

- Well, well, isn’t that the beautiful lady from the that party? You missed me? - fuckin’ Hunt.

- I’m not here for you, Hunt. - you tried to say it as cold as humanly possible.

- Are you mad about our drunk incident? Look, let’s talk about that… - he stepped a few inch closer to you, as you would have liked it, trying to intimidate you.

- Get off her before I run you over with my car. - Niki appeared out of nowhere, his eyes were shooting lightnings. If looks could kill...

- Whoa, easy there Lauda. You really came here for him? - Hunt looked at you in disbelief  - You have an interesting taste… - he trailed off as he walked away, again, no more words, grinning to himself.

Niki went to go after him to hit that grin off of Hunt’s face, but you grabbed his arm.

- Calm down, it’s okay. You have to concentrate on the race. Don’t let him get under your skin. - you tried to reason him, and it seemed to work. You had his full attention.

You only noticed it now, that in his free hand there was a jacket, a red one, just like his suit. He freed himself from your grasp, and showed you the back of the jacket. NIKI LAUDA was printed on it, with huge letters. Without letting you say anything, he grabbed it, and put it over your shoulders. He carefully fixed it, so it looked good on you.

- What’s this for? - you smiled, you liked the jacket that was given to you by him.

- Just to show everyone who you support, so they won’t dare to bother you anymore. - ha said casually, grinning proudly.

- Okay - you laughed - I am only here to only support you.

- Good. - he beamed at you.

You heard a voice calling for attention. The drivers had to get into their cars. Niki was ready to go but before he could have left you, you stepped on your tiptoes, put one of your hands on the side of his face, and gave a little peck on the other side.

- I’ll be waiting for you right here. Fuck Hunt up. - you whispered into his ear.

You moved back, but Niki quickly took a hold on you, before you went to far from him.

- I might be in love with you… Can I take you out to a dinner? - he asked with the biggest grin you had saw on him.

- As a date?

- Yes. - he said with confidence.

- Only if you win… - you smiled mischievously.

- Deal. - he returned the same smile.

He let go of you and stormed to his crew and car. He jumped into his car and put on his helmet. Before he closed of its lid, he looked at you last time. You locked eyes and he winked at you. You blushed deep, but kept smiling as he drove off to the track. 

This is gonna be a good day...

[67impalaandwhisky]

Destiny Is Heaven Sent

Summary: Knowing Dean Winchester since you were fifteen, you’ve always been pulled in his direction. Always wanting to open up the rattled and broken cage your heart lives in. But when the child you’ve been raising together dies, you find yourself closing up the cage of your heart again. And if destiny has one thing for you, it’s to break you down before bringing you back up.

Characters: Dean x You, Sam, Castiel, Bobby, OFC’s, OMC’s, (Ongoing)

This Series Is Set Through Seasons 1-6 With Knowledge That The Bunker Exists

Rating: 18+

Warnings (Ongoing and Will Be Updated): Grieving, Mentions of Rape and Defilement (As Per A Case), Show Level Violence, Swearing, Smut, Impreg Kink, Blood, Fighting, Drinking, Dean Being Dean, Fluff, Angst, Dom!Dean, Sub!Reader

Warnings For This Chapter: Show Level Violence, Fluff

Chapter 5.

"You better not let my insides turn to mush." You tell your best friends as they drive through the dark night towards the scene of the crime.

"We would never let you get hurt, ever. Don't be ridiculous." Dean mumbles as he lowers the music as it blasts throughout the car.

"I'm just saying." You whisper as you tug at your dress.

"Yeah well, don't 'just say' anything. And, stop pulling at your dress like that something is gonna pop out from one end or the other if you keep it up." He barks out.

Throwing his jacket over your legs, you let the scent of his cologne wash over you and you feel your nerves begin to calm down.

"You memorized what he looked like right?" Sam asks as you finger at the green fabric of his jacket.

"Yep. Got it all in here." You say tapping your temple with your index finger before looking out the window.

You watch the odd streetlight pass you by before eyeing the moon. You've always loved how, no matter how close you drive towards it it always seems farther and farther away with each step.

"Since Morley Rosmund was cremated by the state, he must be attached to something. A lock of hair, a locket, something he bled on." Sam says as he flicks through the sheets of paper within his manila folder.

"Maybe he's attached to the old woodchipper that prostitute shoved him through." You comment as the car begins to slow down.

"That would be an issue." Dean mumbles as he pulls up to the nefarious corner.

You want to open the door but your nerves seem raught with determination to stay inside the safe car.

"All we need to find out is where he takes the women. Whether it's his old house, his old office, anywhere. We'll send him packing for the night and go there in the morning to scout it out and find whatever he's attached to." Dean tells you as he hooks his hand behind the passenger seat to look at you.

It's a simple plan. Straightforward like always. You three are a team. There's no reason to let yourself get worked up over nothing.

"We're going to be right across the street. We'll be watching you." Your younger best friend tells you calmly and you look up at both of them before nodding.

"Okay. Let's gank this bitch then." You whisper before opening up the car door.

The gentle chill that blows through the breeze assaults all of your limbs as you stand on the street corner.

You watch Baby do a U-turn before the car shuts off. Dean is watching you like a hawk, eyes narrowed as he picks some skin off his bottom lip.

His gaze is comforting and you take deep breaths as you pace back and forth.

"She looks nervous." Sam comments to his older brother as he angles his head to watch you.

"Yeah. She's waiting for a weird pervert ghost. You'd be nervous too if you were her." Dean answers gruffly as his eyes roam your body.

"Why don't you guys just fuck already?" His younger brother asks as he brings his coffee cup to his lips. 

"Excuse me?" His older brother's voice is deep and low, the threatening baritone creeping into his head and rattling his brain. Dean turns his head slowly to his brother with narrowed eyes.

The gaze sets something akin to nervousness in Sam and he gives an awkward chuckle combing his long hair behind his ear.

"I just...I mean… I can see the way you both look at each other." He says with a shrug.

"It's complicated. Don't worry about what me and Y/N do or haven't done." He mumbles before turning back to watch you continue to pace.

"I mean you guys have both liked each other since you guys met. And...Well, you guys always pretend like something between you both doesn't exist." Sam fumbles with his words.

Dean sighs as he pulls his flask out from the inside pocket of his jacket. Taking a swig, he rolls his eyes. 

"I'm not talking about this right now, Sammy. All I do is talk about this shit to you, to Cas, to Bobby, even to Dad when he was still alive. I'm not with her because I don't fucking deserve her. I'm not going to ruin her life like I always do. So, shut the hell up." He barks out before cracking his neck.

Sam nods slowly as he presses his lips into a straight line, "Fine. I just think Y/N should be able to make those decisions for herself too. Y'know?" 

"Shut up, Sam." The fraction of a second that this conversation has gone on, Dean's eyes left you for a minute.

When he turns his head back to the corner, you are gone. 

"Goddammit!" He curses loudly, slapping the steering wheel harshly before shoving the door open and jogging across the street. 

Nothing but the brisk chill of the evening is all Dean can feel. You're completely out of his sight and he puts his hands over his face.

"I'm sorry." Sam apologizes quickly as he joins his older brother.

"If anything happens to her…Fuck!" He curses as his head continuously turns in all directions.

Pulling out his phone, the younger Winchester begins to track the GPS on your cell phone, "I'll find her." Sam whispers nervously as he takes in his brother's broken form.

Dean can feel his heart clenching, his eyes are watering at the mere thought of you being in danger. How could he let you out of his sight?

He promised. He fucking promised. 

This is like Marsh all over again.

Clutching onto the fabric of his shirt over his heart, his head lolls back at the pain and fear that encroaches upon him.

Dean and Sam weren't paying attention when Morley Rosmund came and grabbed you. That you knew for a fact. They were fighting. As per usual. 

The second the man in olden clothes had touched you, your body felt cold and numb.

You could count on your hand the amount of times you've met a ghost this pissed.

You've done jobs by yourself before while your best friends were gallivanting and fighting with every Archangel known to man. This would just have to be one of those times where you suck it up and have to fend for yourself.

You couldn't rely on them always and that's perfectly okay. You can handle yourself, you're strong and capable. 

Ghosts with this angered of a spirit can travel only a certain distance away from their soul-bound item. 

That seems to check out as you're pulled only a block away from that street corner. The office building is old and decrepit. There are many stop work orders on the face of the building as you're pulled inside. 

Grimacing, you step over dead bodies and bones in the first floor hallway.

"This is my office." You hear Morley explain and your breath comes out in puffs of smoke as you wrap your arms around each other for warmth.

"Oh. Lovely." You murmur as the body of a woman around your age lays on the old, varnished desk. 

Your hand reaches for your clavicle and you tug off the old coin pure iron from the necklace before pushing it down into the palm of your hand.

Your eyes glance around the office, trying to find anything that would be the key item for this man to still be bound here. You try to ignore the putrid smell of rotting flesh before the taller ghost is in your line of sight with a feral smile on his face.

His body shifts in and out of this plane of existence before solidifying once more.

"Get on the desk and spread your legs." He commands and you shiver at the roughness of his voice.

Clearing your throat, you sit on the corner trying your best not to touch the dead girl that's there.

"NOW!" The thin glass of the window shatters at his bellow and you swallow thickly as you raise your hand to his face.

Just the thought of touching this dead spirit is nerve wracking but you need to be able to get out of here. You know the building now, you just have to get away.

You press your hand to his face and he shimmers away with a yell. Closing your palm, you jump off of the desk hopping over dead bodies in the hallway. You're so close to the entrance door you can almost taste it.

But, Morley Rosmund is an old, angry ghost. Just as quickly as he vanished, he reappears.

Your breath hitches in your throat as he blocks the doorway and you go to throw the old iron coin at him. Before you can even let the coin slide out of your hand, you're in the air.

Your body travels backward against the wall with a loud thud and you crumple in on yourself with a whimper. You can taste blood in your mouth, can feel your body aching and bruising all over as the ghost advances on you.

Dean is mumbling to himself as he rummages through the trunk.

Hearing glass shatter in the distance, his head jolts up. 

"You hear that?" He asks his younger brother as he grabs his sawed off shotgun.

"Yeah. I got her location. She's not far." The words put gusto into his bones as he rapidly grabs the rest of the materials and weapons he will need.

Slamming the trunk shut, he hauls the bag over his shoulder before throwing a shotgun at his brother.

"Let's go then." He says quickly, ushering Sam to get a move on.

Jogging down the block, it didn't take long for them to find the old, decrepit building you were housed in.

Peeking his head in Dean can see the strewn bodies on the floor, new and old.

"Oh Y/N." He whispers gently as he pushes the door open with the mouth of his gun.

The office door which is cracked and shattered reads 'Mund.' You must be in there.

Stepping over the dead bodies gingerly, the closer he gets to the office with his little brother behind him the louder your whimpers and grunts of pain become.

His jaw clicks and he can hear you cursing out the ghost like a proud sailor.

Kicking open the door, he takes in your half naked body for a fraction of a second before he's shooting the gun at the ghost. The rock salt blasts through Morley Rosmund and he's gone within seconds. 

"Hey. Hey. I got you." He whispers as he jogs over to you.

You whimper loudly, holding your arms out like a frail child and his heart breaks at the sight of you.

"I'm so fucking sorry." He says as he picks you up. Your skin is already bruising and deepening in color as he coddled you to his chest.

"We gotta go!" Sam yells as more glass begins to shatter in the office.

Dean buries your face into his neck as he steps over strewn debris and body parts. You can hear him whispering kind, gentle words in your ear and you practically jump out of your skin as Sam shoots the gun behind you.

"He's one angry son of a bitch." Dean growls as he kicks open the front door.

Stepping down the stairs, the brisk chill of Autumn assaults your half naked body and you groan loudly as Sam shoots the gun once more before closing the front door of the building.

Sammy throws his jacket over your body as Dean jogs back to the Impala with fast feet.

"Did he hurt you? Where did that sick son of a bitch touch you?" The venom in his voice is almost intoxicating to listen too.

"I'm okay." You whisper as he opens the back door of the Impala without a word. 

Throwing the keys to Sam, the younger brother clears his throat uncomfortably. Dean sits in the back of the car with you, he pulls your upper body onto his making sure Sam's jacket is covering your body.

You're still aching and feeling the pain all over but it's also a soft comfort that creeps over your body as Dean runs his fingers through your hair. 

"De?" You whisper as your eyes flutter closed.

"Hmm?" He asks, lowering his head to hear you clearly. 

"When I feel better, I'm going to kick your ass for leaving me alone." You threaten before grimacing and putting your hand to your chest.

His face shifts above you, as if he's been stabbed or shot. Your words cut him to the quick and he can barely nod.

"I would expect nothing less, Candy girl."

You ended up in Dean's bed again that night, which was becoming more of a regular thing than you cared to admit. But, against all of your better judgement, you were okay with it.

You were finally sound asleep when Dean uttered his first words of the evening.

"I'm so sorry." He whispers as he turns towards you.

Your lips are parted, hair splayed over your face as you take shallow breaths during your sleep.

Turning his head to make sure his brother is sleeping, he curls his arm around your form. His thumb grazes gentle circles on your forearm as he watches you sleep.

"I'm so caught up in what to do around you, what to say, how to hide my feelings… It's all getting to be too much for me." He mumbles more to himself than to you.

"I shouldn't have taken my eyes off you tonight. I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention. I don't know what I would have done if you got hurt because of me. God…" His voice is deep and pained. A tear threatens to spill over as he hangs his head.

This would be about the time where he grunts angrily and drinks a beer but he can't leave your side. Not for a minute. 

"I'm getting sick and tired of not having you as mine. Really fucking sick of having to push you away because I'm too goddamn stubborn to do anything about it." He sounds breathless by the end of his monologue. Laying his head down on the pillow, his thumb drifts over your cheekbone once more.

"Then don't be stubborn." You whisper before turning over and facing the window.

Your older best friend's eyes widen and he clears his throat before rubbing at his face roughly with his left hand.

"I didn't...I didn't know you were awake." He whispers as you open your eyes.

You watch as soft grey clouds drift past the large moon that looms over the motel.

"Kind of hard to sleep when your best friend is spilling out his soul to you." You retort quietly, your fingers pull at a frayed string of the comforter that lays over your body.

"So...you heard me?" He asks nervously.

Oh. You heard it all.

Destiny Is Heaven Sent Taglist: @roonyxx​, @deans-baby-momma​

Forever Dean Tags: @akshi8278​

[afriendlyphobia]

Hold Me Tight | p.p

pairing: peter parker x reader

genre: fluff (teeny weeny bit of angst if you squint)

warnings: none

Request: hey, can you make a fluff with peter based on the song shut up kiss me by angel olsen? thank you in advance! —nonny

word count: 2.6k

A/n: thank you for this request and bringing such an amazing song to my attention!! thx a million nonny! and uhhhh hopefully this makes sense???

also i have seen ffh twice now anD IT IS LITERALLY LIKE MY FAVORITE MOVIE??? I have so many ideas for fics now lmao. anyway go see far from home

————————————————————————————————-

“Ughh!” you groaned as you flopped against the surface of MJ’s mattress. Her eyes didn’t leave the book she held above her face even as her body flopped from your weight on the bed.

“You should just tell him the truth.” She shrugged, glancing at you for a second.

“I have.” You groaned again, covering your face with your hands, dragging them down your skin.

MJ has been your friend for several years so she was always there for you with all your troubles. At this point she probably knew you better than you knew her.

She seemed cold and monotonous on the outside, even though she was a genuine and really understanding person on the inside. Sure, she could be a little awkward and say things that seemed harsh, but after getting to know her, you realized she was a friend you’d never want to loose.

“You’ve been hinting the truth.” She sighed, putting her book down and turning to face you. “Guys need you to be up-front with him.”

“Then what am i supposed to say?” You said hopping back up from the bed, returning to pace across the small room like you had been minutes prior.

“Well tell him how you feel for starters.” She sat up while staring at you blankly like she had said the most obvious thing in the world. Which, of course, it was.

“Oh, right...yeah.” You rolled your eyes as you continued to pace. “Hey Peter! So I just wanted to let you know that i know we’ve been friends since we were, like, babies and you probably see me as nothing more than a friend, but i like—no love—wait is love too soon?” You paused your rambling to look at your friend.

“I’d stick with like.”

“Right. Good idea.” You pushed back your hair from your face and took a deep breath. “And i like you a lot. You’re just perfect, attractive, kind, smart—“

“Okay okay, i get it.” MJ laughed and smiled at you, a sight few people got to witness (and live).

“I think its great.” You felt a wave of relief wash over you. “minus all the gushy mess at the end.” You sighed and slumped slightly, stopping your pacing.

“It’s just—hard.” You sat down on her bed again and sighed. “I’ve dropped ever hint i can think of. I’ve practically thrown myself at him. Maybe he just doesn’t like me that way.” You said, voice full of despair.

“Listen i’ve known Peter for a while, and i know that he does not see you as just a friend.” You narrowed your eyes at her in disbelief. “Okay, i’m sixty-seven percent sure.”

“That’s not a very good statistic.” You mumbled, resting your head in your palm.

“It’s better than zero percent.”

“Thanks.” You laughed slightly, attempting to make light of your situation. “I know i should just let it go...but i just can’t shake him.”

You looked back at your friend who was making a disgusted face and rolled her eyes playfully.

“Don’t you have plans with him tonight?” Her face returned to normal, and she smiled.

“Yeah, his Aunt invited my family over for dinner tonight.” You glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand and suddenly stood up. “Which is in an hour. I gotta go.”

She shook her head in amusement and smiled slightly. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

You nodded confidently and ran out of her room and gave her parents a polite goodbye before jogging towards your house which was luckily only two blocks from hers.

The next hour was a whirlwind of emotions for you as you prepared for the night, the looming thought of your plans making you nervous, then excited, then scared.

You had tried on nearly ten different outfits, deciding that most were way to dressy for a simple spaghetti dinner. Eventually you decided on a loose-fitted, slightly over sized sweater and leggings. Comfy and cute.

You took a deep breath, staring at yourself in the mirror for a few seconds, fixing your hair and checking your makeup.

“Okay...” You sighed. “I’m gonna do it.”

As if on cue, your parents were calling for you, and the ride to Peter’s house began. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far away, just downtown, so you were there before you knew it.

You entered the Parker’s small yet inviting apartment to the smell of garlic, fresh vegetables, and assorted spices. May greeted you instantly with a hug and a wide smile.

She met your eyes with a strangely knowing look. “Peter’s up in his room, y/n.”

You nodded, thanking her politely before walking up the narrow stairs. You then stood before Peter’s door, sucking in a deep breath, you knocked lightly.

“Open.” You could hear his soft voice from inside. The sound of it only made your heart beat faster.

You pushed open the door, putting a light smile on your face as you entered.

“Hey Pete!” You called as you walked in before stopping in your tracks.

Your eyes widened as your face heated up rapidly, no doubt becoming as red as a tomato immediately.

Before you stood Peter, shirt in hand, hair messy, and only in a pair of boxers. “Uh—uh—“ You stammered to apologize but no coherent words came out.

“Oh my god i thought you were May—“ He rambled as he threw on the shirt in his hand and quickly found a pair of shorts.

You however had already turned around and was trying to hide your embarrassment. “S-sorry, i probably should have said something—I..”

“It’s fine! I totally forgot you were coming over...” You turned around slowly, making sure the coast was clear before facing him fully.

Pink dusted his cheeks as well. He ran a hand through his hair and looked down, avoiding eye contact.

You subtly examined his face, eyebrows bumping together as you noticed the cuts on his cheek and rather massive bruise on his temple.

“You look nice.” He said abruptly, as if knowing what you were about to say. He finally made eye contact, giving you a better view of the rest of his face which wasn’t in any better condition.

But his comment threw you off for a second. Suddenly the butterflies began to pool in the pit of your stomach. Eventually you ignored the giddy feeling a took a step towards him.

“You don’t.”

“Ouch.” He smiled at you, hiding his wince when he crossed his arms across his chest.

“No—I mean, you look nice just—ugh.” You pressed a hand against you temple. “Did you get into another fight?”

“No...no!” He shook his head, taking a step forward toward you only for his leg to give out, sending him crashing into you. You barely managed to catch him, his face inches from yours. “...yes.” He groaned weakly.

You pushed him backwards gently, making him sit on his bed. “Peter...you can’t keep getting into fights with those jocks.”

“Yeah...the jocks...” He seemed to be in a daze as he repeated your words.

You huffed and turned to leave his room. “I’ll be back.”

“Wait!” He called, attempting to stand up and go after you, but had to resort to simply sitting still due to his sore body. “Please don’t tell May..”

“I...won’t.” You said reluctantly before leaving to room and walking down the hallway to find the first aid kit.

It’s not like this was the first time you had to patch him up. There had been several times you had come over to hang out to find him with a black eye, bruised lip, blood dripping from his temple, or several pretty bad cuts. Yet, strangely enough, his wounds seemed to heal extraordinarily fast. He said that it was just genetics, but part of you didn’t believe that at all.

You sighed, grabbing the case from the cabinet in the bathroom and went back to Peter’s room.

He hadn’t moved since you left him, but he looked up from his phone with a smile when you entered.

You sat down in front of him on his desk’s chair and sighed in exasperation. “You need to stop getting into fights.” You rummaged around the plastic case before finding some antibacterial cream and wipes.

“I know—“

“You say that every single time, Peter!” You cut him off, refusing to make eye contact. “But all it does is get worse.” You paused for a moment. “I care about you....a lot. I hate seeing you like this.”

He was silent as if he was processing what you had just said, looking away from you as you dabbed a cloth across his forehead, wiping away the blood and dirt.

“We need to talk.” He whispered, a suddenly nervous smile worked his way upon his lips. “I have to tell you something.”

“I do too.” You confessed, finally making eye contact with him.

“You first?” He asked, wincing slightly as you pressed a bandaid over his sore skin. You finally finished patching him up and leaned back in the chair.

Your hands fidgeted in you lap as you tried to think of what to say.

“Pete...listen I..” You sucked in a deep breath, MJ’s advice from before giving you a tiny bit of courage. “This is so weird.” You mumbled under your breath, wishing you had never said anything in the first place.

“Y/n?? Are you ok?”

“No i’m not!” You snapped at him without realizing it. He seemed shocked before you looked away. “I’m sorry it’s just...you drive me crazy.”

You paused, taking several deep breaths. “I like you, Peter. So much. I throw hints left and right and you never seem to get it. It drives me insane.” You blurted out.

You expected him to either laugh at you or be even more shocked; part of you still hoped that MJ was right and he would confess back to you. What he said what not what you expected at all.

“I know you like me.”

Your jaw dropped open for a second before a small bit of anger began to pool in your stomach. “And you didn’t have the decency to just reject me?”

Your head whipped around to face him, eyes narrowed and eyebrows pushed together. “You gave me false hope, Peter!”

The look in his eyes softened. “I was just trying to protect you.” You reached out for you hand, but you jerked away from him.

“Protect? Protect me? From what?” You ran a hand through your hair in frustration.

“From me.” He bit the bottom of his lip before continuing. “Y/n...I really like you too... But i’ll put you in danger.”

“How the hell—?!”

“That’s what i was going to get to. I’m—“ He was cut off by you pressing a finger against his lips.

“Shut up...shut up and listen you me.” You murmured. “I don’t want your excuses. I don’t care what or who you’re ‘protecting’ me from.”

You leaned forward. “I love you. Peter Parker. You and whatever comes with you!”

He swallowed hard, glancing from your lips back to your eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

You could see the desperation in his eyes. Like he had been craving this, but part of him was still holding back. You’d be lying if you said you never wanted him. Your imagination had run wild so many times, and you didn’t want anything more than what was about to happen.

“Kiss me.” You breathed, gaze dropping to his lips as well. The look in his eyes suddenly changed as they flashed with something you hadn’t seen on him before.

He leaned forward, closing the gap between the two of you with no hesitation. His lips were slightly chapped, a strange contrast against your own soft lips.

His hands reached out to grip you hips, pulling you out of your seat and towards him. Hands flying to rest on his shoulders, you closed your eyes shut tightly, savoring the moment since you didn’t know if this would even happen again.

Your back arched slightly, pushing yourself against him. Peter froze for a second before pressing back against you equally.

You gasped suddenly when he grabbed your waist tightly and flipped you over so he was hovering above you on his bed.

He broke the kiss to look back at you, messy curls obstructing part of his view of you. Both of your chests heaved as the tension in the room began to build.

“Y/n...” He looked down at you, memorizing the sight of the girl he loved under him. “I love you too...but i’m scared. I’d hate for you to get hurt because of me.”

“Everyone gets scared, Peter.” You whispered, raising a hand to cup his cheek. “It’s what makes us human.” He closed his eyes, leaning into your touch gently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but i’ll always be here as your friend...or...” You looked away for a moment. “More?”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he smiled. “You really deserve better.” He chuckled in a almost sad manner.

“I just want you.”

His smile faded for a second. “Would you still want me even though i’ve lied to you so much?”

You pulled back your hand from his cheek to smack him (lightly) on the cheek. “I have known you for my entire life. I know you—“

“But you don’t know al of me.”

“Then show me!” You sat up, scooting back away from him. “Stop this pity party and tell me already, dammit!”

“Fine!” He sighed heavily. “I’m...” He paused. “I’m Spider-Man.”

You eyebrows furrowed at his words in confusion. “So MJ was right?” You didn’t realize you had said that out loud until a few seconds after you had said it.

“What? MJ—she knows? Ah shit—“

“No she doesn’t actually know, it was just a hypothesis.”

He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, but no words escaped him.

“Thanks for telling me, Pete.”

He looked back at you, eyes wide. “You’re angry at me?”

You couldn’t help but laugh a little at him. “You’re a dork.” You crossed your legs and leaned forward, your noses barley brushing together. “But you’re the Peter i know and love...being Spider-Man...is fucking cool dude.” You smiled and laughed as you punched his shoulder lightly.

He winced at the gesture and you realized that he was still pretty beat up. “Oh my god i’m so so so sorry—“

“It’s fine.” Peter placed a finger against your lips, mimicking the way you had cut him off earlier. “I’m a superhero.” He shrugged smugly.

“Whatever...” You rolled your eyes at him. “Today was a roller coaster.” You mumbled out of nowhere.

“But its all i’ve ever wanted...” He admitted sheepishly, running his bandaid covered fingers through his messy hair.

“And all i want...” You smirked, a single phrase changing the mood in the atmosphere. The tension began to grow again as you moved closer to him, eyes hooded. “Is for you to shut up, kiss me, and never ever let me go.”

He closed his eyes, making a move towards you before suddenly backing away and staring at the door.

As if on cue, Aunt May opened the door with a wide smile on her face. “Dinner’s ready guys.” She was about to close the door again when she paused and looked at Peter’s face. “Really, Pete? Again?”

He simply shrugged, but she had already left with a huff and an eye roll.

You turned back at him, a mixture of amusement, surprise, and curiosity on your face. “What was that?”

He hopped up from his spot on the bed, seemingly forgetting about his injuries at the mention of food. He tapped his temple before holding out his hand to you.

“Peter Tingle.” He pulled you forwards, a little too eagerly as you went flying into his chest again. He leaned down, pressing a light kiss to you lips. “Now lets go get some food.”

[irelise]

the yew tree 2.4-5/?

Erik has worked with Sebastian Shaw, mutant revolutionary, ever since Shaw rescued him from human experimentation when he was a boy. He is reluctantly enlisted to assist in Shaw’s newest scheme: seducing the wealthy and enigmatic Lord Xavier and claiming his vast fortune. With Shaw posing as Xavier’s doctor, Erik goes undercover as Xavier’s personal manservant to convince him to fall in love with Shaw.

But Xavier has secrets of his own, and it isn’t long before Erik starts having second thoughts about the whole thing…

(the handmaiden inspired au - no canon knowledge required

part one now on ao3!

and click here for the beginning of part 2!)

Warnings for this part: Major warning for suicide and suicide ideation, sexual exploitation of children, depression, referenced human experimentation Rating: M Word count: 4328 Notes: I’ve tweaked the timeline a bit so this part roughly covers Charles from age 7 or 8 up to 12/13. Previous parts will be edited once everything has been finalised! The next part will take us back to (almost) present day with Erik and Shaw. I would super appreciate hearing feedback on whether Part 2 has felt too slow so far since Shaw and Erik haven’t been present - if so I’ll see what parts I can axe and streamline before I post on AO3!

It’s another day. The leaves outside are wilting, brown and dead, and his room is cold. It must be close to winter. Late October? November? He’s lost track of the date again.

Charles burrows deeper into his blankets, resolutely not looking at the clock on the mantle place. He knows he’s expected at breakfast soon, and after that Uncle will take him to the reading hall. Perhaps they will finish the volume on the girl and her schoolmaster. Or perhaps Uncle will lead him to the back of the room, down the trapdoor and into the impenetrable steel walls of bunker. Range tests, he had overheard from Uncle’s mind yesterday, accompanied by a picture of needles and snarling wires.

Somewhere, a bell chimes. Charles closes his eyes.

He’ll get up later.

***

Everyone says he’s a clever boy – even Uncle. Charles wonders why that is. He feels slow and stupid most of the time, drifting hazily somewhere above his own body, unsure if he’s thinking his own thoughts or if it’s someone else’s thoughts pouring through his mind right now. It’s only during his tutoring sessions that Charles feels lucid, and even then he feels guilty for enjoying them, knowing it’s just another way Uncle plans to use him once he’s developed enough knowledge to be an asset.

“Very good, Charles,” Dr. Essex tells him after one lesson. “You’re reading well above your level. Soon you might even be able to help with our work! I can teach you how to design your own experiments, isn’t that exciting?”

“Yes,” Charles says obediently, although he doubts Uncle will ever give him that kind of control. Dr. Essex pats him encouragingly on the arm, and Charles tenses, waiting for Dr. Essex’s touch to go…other places.

He’s read the books. He knows how these things are supposed to happen.

Dr. Essex smiles. “Now, turn over to the next chapter and we’ll start discussing how our current understanding of environmental epigenetics might allow us to salvage something from Lamarck’s utter mess of use-disuse evolutionary theory …”

***

Uncle’s hand rests warm against his back as Charles flops bonelessly onto the ground. The floor of the bunker is icy cold against his cheek. His head swims.

Voices. Everywhere.

Fuck. What had Uncle put into that serum?

“Come back to me, Charles,” Uncle’s voice coaxes him from somewhere far, far away.

Charles hurls himself deeper into the whirlwind of thoughts and minds. Vaguely, he’s aware of a meaty palm slapping across his face. The crack of a belt. Then the coolness of an antiseptic swab against his upper arm, followed by the prick of a needle.

He awakes some time later in his own room. Someone had bathed him, changed his clothes for him, tucked him in. He wonders if they had done other things.

Charles closes his eyes again and tries to return to unconsciousness.

***

He’s replacing me with that boy.

Maybe it’s better this way.

***

The lab again. His bare chest is cold. Uncle is done with him for the day, but he doesn’t unstrap him from the examination table.

“I’m arranging your debut,” Uncle tells him.

No, Charles thinks. “Okay,” he says.

“What would you like to read?”

Behind the walls that shield his mind, Uncle’s amusement curls dark and poisonous, just as it had during all those times he had told Charles to go cut his own switch. Something in Charles flares.

“I really would rather not,” he says coolly, imperious.

“Oh, Charles,” Uncle sighs. “You agreed to cooperate, remember? You chose to be here.”

Charles turns his face away and refuses to answer.

Uncle turns away. His footsteps echo through the bunker, growing fainter and fainter.

The doors slam shut.

Alone in the dark, Charles rubs his wrists bloody against the restraints. Time is meaningless. He’s left there until his stomach gnaws clean through itself from hunger, until his heart starts racing uncontrollable in the claustrophobic darkness, until his bladder is so full that he can’t hold it in any longer and he has to lie there in his own piss, red-faced with shame, his eyes burning and prickling.

He won’t cry. He won’t.

***

“…You will remember at all times that you have lost all right to privacy or concealment…”

He studies. He goes down to the lab. He reads. He loses track of the date again.

The night of his debut comes. Uncle dresses him in a schoolboy’s uniform, a relic of the life he had led before the mansion. He follows Aunt into the reading room. It’s fuller than ever before, with almost a dozen men lounging about the seats, each smartly dressed in a suit and tie, smoking and talking among themselves, indistinguishable from each other. As he walks to the dais, their attention presses suffocatingly down on him. Nice legs – cute face – virgin? – has Marko fucked him yet – Charles breathes out slowly, trying to block out the images of himself straddling them, being pushed to his knees...

Aunt’s face is beautiful and serene, her painted lips curved into an enigmatic smile. Her mind is a flawless, polished mirror, letting nothing in, letting nothing out.

Charles copies her as well as he can.

“…In your presence I will never close my lips completely, or cross my legs, or press my knees together…”

He reads as Uncle had taught him – smoothly, like a ribbon, like a silken rope – with just a touch of virginal shyness. The men lean forward. Their lips are parted, their legs spread, their eyes hungry.

“…My one and only duty is to lend myself. My body is not my own…”

***

What will happen when he doesn’t have need of me anymore?

***

The trees are stark and bare when Uncle leaves on a business trip. Charles sees freedom stretch gloriously in front of him: no readings, no tests, no disciplinary measures. He can spend all day with his nose buried in a book and no one will care. Dr. Essex has been giving him more and more advanced material lately, and Charles thinks that if only he can show everyone what he’s reading, show them how science can explain even the strangest and scariest things, then people won’t be so afraid anymore. They won’t hate people like Raven and Hank and Angel. They won’t hurt people who are different.

Instead, Charles sleeps in. Ten, twelve hours. Fourteen. Time loses meaning.

He sleeps until he’s tired from too much sleep, until his back hurts and his eyes are gritty and sore. There’s a constant throbbing ache at the back of his eyeballs. His temples. The base of his skull.

Sometimes people try to wake him. But he learns quickly that if he just closes his eyes again and mumbles something about being sick, they’re quick to leave him alone.

He thinks something might be wrong, but it’s easier to just sleep.

***

It hurts. Charles curls up in his blankets, clutching his head. It feels like – like someone is driving a knife through the side of his head. Every single movement makes his head pound and he bites back a whimper, fingernails digging into his scalp like he can reach inside and rip the pain out.

Without warning, his bedroom door slams open. Uncle looms in the doorway, returned from his business trip. Charles is supposed to be at the lab with him right now. “You’re late,” Uncle growls, and Charles flinches away.

“I’m sick,” he whispers.

He shrinks deeper into the blankets as Uncle’s heavy footsteps come closer. Uncle presses one hand to his forehead, feeling for fever. Even that small motion sends another spike of pain flashing white behind Charles’ eyes. His head throbs in time with the rapid, nervous flutter of his pulse.

“Your temperature’s normal,” Uncle says dismissively. “Don’t lie, boy, I know you’ve been lazing around in bed for days. Get up.”

“I can’t!”

Uncle drags him up anyway, forcing Charles to stumble along, eyes squeezed shut. Everything is so bright and loud. “So much fuss over a headache,” Uncle mutters to himself as he shoves Charles through the reinforced doors of the bunker, “it’s a miracle anyone puts up with you. Go on. Strip. Get on the table.”

The harsh lights of the bunker are blinding. There’s a sour taste at the back of his throat, his stomach roils; without warning, he starts to retch, choking on watery fluid and acid.

When he’s done, Uncle backhands him across the face. Charles stumbles and falls. He could climb back to his feet, but what’s the point?

“Why?” He asks weakly. The pain stabs deeper than ever. “Why are you even doing all this?”

“Table. Now.”

Charles has enough of obeying. For the first time in his memory, he consciously wills the power inside him to reach out, to scoop out Uncle’s thoughts and feelings. Uncle always has walls around his mind but Charles batters at them now, reckless in his despair.

The walls shatter.

It’s like falling into an ocean storm. Uncle’s emotions crash over his head, waves black as tar and flecked with bloody foam. Hatred, disgust, fear…

Lust. Greed. Want.

Charles tries to detangle their minds, but it’s Uncle who holds onto him, forcing picture after picture into his head of all the things he wants to do to him.

“Stop it,” Charles gasps, still lying on the floor. He tries to scramble away, horrified. He can’t. He can’t.

Abruptly, the flow of images stops. Walls slam around Uncle’s mind again, and he looks down at Charles scornfully. “Found what you were looking for, boy?”

Charles hugs himself, shaking. His head feels like it’s about to explode. “I don’t understand,” he babbles, too worn-out to care about making sense. He floats somewhere above his own body. “You don’t make sense. You hate me so much, but you still– you still want me. And my powers. I felt it.”

Uncle’s hands scoop him up like he weighs nothing. He walks the short distance to the examination table, ignoring Charles’ weak thrashing as he dumps him onto the table and begins to methodically secure him in place with the straps. Moving around so much hurts. By the time Uncle starts attaching electrodes to his scalp, Charles had closed his eyes, trying to keep still. Even then, the bunker’s lights stab harsh and bright through his eyelids.

“Hmm,” Uncle says after a while. “No significant changes in brain activity that I can see. But I don’t think you’re faking your symptoms, are you?”

Obviously not. But talking to Uncle never helped before, and it won’t start helping now. As Uncle muses over the tests he should run next, Charles retreats deeper into his mind, returning to his memories of Raven and Hank and Angel. It’s only fair – right? That what happened to them is happening to him too? It’s all his fault. He should have done something sooner. Something more.

It’s fair.

***

He’s spending more and more time with the boy.

I’m being replaced.

***

The headache goes away. Then it comes back. Again and again, an endless cycle without rhyme or rhythm. For the first few months Charles preoccupies himself with keeping a journal in his child’s scrawl, tidy for his age, trying to narrow down the cause of the stabbing headaches. It’s almost like a puzzle. For the first time in months, he’s excited by something. It feels good to have a problem he can work on.

Time passes. Nothing changes. Why bother, he thinks once, setting down his pen and resting his head against the crook of his folded arms. He’s so tired.

Slowly, the entries dwindle, then stop.

His bedroom is dark, the curtains drawn. Uncle has learnt to leave him alone on these days, when the pain interferes too much with the tests and his reading comes out clumsy and lifeless. In a way, these are his most peaceful days. Charles drifts somewhere above his own body, disconnected from the small, pale boy on the bed. Thoughts hum all around him, quiet enough that their emotion is dulled, and they wash over him like waves on the shore of a pristine white beach, lapping harmlessly against his bare feet.

Sometimes, he wishes he could drown in those waters.

Sometimes, he wishes for a lot of things. It’s worst on those days when he guiltily sinks into the minds of the mansion’s inhabitants and the people of the nearby town, curling up wary and cat-like at the back of their skulls, seeing through their eyes and savouring a brief taste of their lives.

More than anything, he wants to find others like him. People who are…different. But they’re better off somewhere else, somewhere far from Uncle. In every mind he encounters, he implants the quietest of suggestions to stay away stay away stay away from the big mansion in Westchester…

(He never, ever tries to enter Uncle’s mind.)

***

Charles freezes the second he enters the lab, whirling around to face Uncle, shocked and afraid. “You promised,” he says accusingly.

“Oh?”

“You promised! You won’t run the tests on anyone else! I can feel him, you have a boy in the cells!”

Uncle gives him an approving look. “Your range is improving. Come with me. Shall we meet him?”

The boy is sitting docilely in the cell. He’s drugged; Charles can recognize the glazed look in his eyes and the strange floaty feeling of his mind. Even when Uncle unlocks the cell, the boy doesn’t so much as glance their way.

“Why is he here? What do you want with him?”

“You remember all those tests we ran on your brainwaves.” As Uncle talks, Charles can’t help rubbing at his scalp, remembering the clinging electrodes and the prick of needles. “I think I’ve identified specific patterns that manifest whenever you use your unnatural ability. Today, I’m going to induce those patterns in that boy. We’ll see if anything interesting happens.”

“You can’t– you promised–!”

Charles doesn’t like the way Uncle is smiling. Not one bit. “So I did. But I can’t let this boy go now, can I? He knows too much. Unless…”

There’s a trap closing around him, but better him than an innocent. Charles braces himself. “Unless?”

“Make him forget. I know you can do it.”

Charles looks at him, teeth clenched. “That’s what you wanted to do all along. You don’t really want to run tests on him at all.”

“Reading me again, boy?”

“No,” Charles snaps. “Just logic.” He’ll never read Uncle again. Ever.

“So? Are you going to do it?”

“I can’t, I don’t know how to. My power doesn’t…”

Uncle scoffs. “Don’t be silly. I know what you can do. You’ve been manipulating the staff, haven’t you? When you don’t want to be found, they don’t find you. When you want to be left alone, they leave you alone.”

What? “I haven’t! I wouldn’t!”

“Enough of your lies. Unless…” He crouches down. Charles makes himself meet his eyes, and Uncle smiles darkly. “Now this is interesting. You must be doing it unconsciously. You’re such a good boy, you wouldn’t be using people on purpose, would you?”

“I’m not like you,” Charles retorts, and immediately regrets his boldness. But Uncle only chuckles.

“Good boy. Now. Are you going to do it or shall I get the machines ready?” Uncle jerks his head at the boy inside the cell, then grips Charles by the shoulder and turns him around, forcing him to look at one of the machines, a hulking monstrosity bristling with wires and probes. Charles has been in it before. He knows it hurts.

“If I do it… You’ll really let him go?”

Uncle smiles the smile of someone who knows they’ve already won. “I will. You must know you’re the only one I’m really interested in, Charles. My good boy.”

Charles nods tightly. Uncle unlocks the cell door for him, unceremoniously shoving him inside. Charles feels a spike of panic, wondering if this is all a ploy to lock him away forever, but Uncle leaves the door open.

The boy inside the cell stirs. “No,” he mumbles, “don’t wanna.”

“Shh.” Charles rests a hand on the boy’s forehead. They’re about the same age, the same height – the boy even looks like him. Uncle must have spent ages picking him out.

Charles looks into the dull blue eyes and pushes, falling into the boy’s hazy thoughts. He’s from the town. An orphan. No one will miss him if he disappears. He’s been here since last night and all his memories are dark and muddled. He hasn’t seen Uncle’s face clearly.

It won’t be hard to take those memories. To wind them up like fragile old cobwebs and rip. Maybe it would even be a nice thing to do? The boy can’t be afraid of something he can’t remember.

But Charles can’t. Instead, he visualizes a white shroud draping over everything the boy remembers since yesterday evening. He bundles all those memories up carefully, very carefully, smoothing them into a peaceful white void. It’s the kindest thing he can think of doing.

Don’t be afraid, he tells the boy, mind-to-mind. Just sleep, okay? You don’t have to worry about anything when you’re asleep.

He pulls back gently, and when he opens his eyes again, the boy is sound asleep. Uncle watches him with a frown, and Charles meets his eyes evenly. He feels curiously calm. He’s done something which shouldn’t be possible. He’s done something he shouldn’t have done. He’s just changed someone’s mind, maybe forever. “What are you going to do with him?”

“I’ll have someone drop him off where we found him. He’ll be asked a few questions when he wakes up, we’ll see if he remembers anything.”

“Okay.” Charles takes a step forward. His eyes never leave Uncle’s. “But you broke your promise.”

Uncle doesn’t say a word.

“Don’t do it again.” His head is pounding. “If you do it, I’ll break my promise too.” He wills Uncle to listen. “Don’t do it again.”

“Fine.” Uncle’s voice is strangely hollow. “We’ll both keep our promises.”

***

Uncle comes to his bedroom the next night, when the grounds are dark and the moon the thinnest of slivers in the sky. Charles draws the blankets tightly around himself as he sits up, his heart thumping rabbit-fast. He crosses his legs and presses his knees tightly together. Uncle gives him an amused look, but then his mouth thins.

“That boy from yesterday… What did you do?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

Uncle’s eyes glitter; he looks – intrigued. “His mind is empty. He can’t stay awake. What did you do, Charles?”

Charles’ own mind whites out. From very far away, he hears himself say: “What do you mean, empty?”

“Empty. You scooped everything right out of him.”

No no no. This is all wrong.

“I didn’t, I can’t have…”

Uncle must be lying. He must be. Just like he – he lied about Raven and Hank, he must have, Charles has looked and looked and he hadn’t found anyone who knew them, much less killed them…

“I didn’t!” Charles insists, and Uncle shakes his head pityingly.

“Get some sleep. We’ll run more tests tomorrow. You can’t let this happen again.”

***

He just –

He wants to sleep.

He doesn’t want to wake up again. He wants it so fiercely that his chest hurts.

***

He doesn’t have a use for me anymore.

He won’t leave loose ends lying around.

***

Adults, Charles had long ago learnt, enjoy showing off their children. His mother had done it, presenting him at dinner parties where her friends could praise him on his good manners and his academics. (Of course, that was before she had him packed off to boarding school where he wouldn’t disturb her.) Now Uncle is doing it too. After another successful night of reading – where did Aunt go? She was there just a moment ago… – Uncle has wrapped a paternal arm around Charles’ shoulder and is now in the process of introducing him to all his associates.

“A lovely voice, truly remarkable,” one of them compliments him with a tip of his wineglass. “You’ll give us marvellous entertainment in a few years’ time.”

How dare he. Charles isn’t a – a thing, a songbird to perform on Uncle’s command. He won’t be here in a few years’ time. He’s about to snap–

But his power had already reached out of its own accord, slipping across the man’s mind and coming away tarred with his eagerness to humiliate, to dominate. Charles averts his eyes and gives him a bland smile. “Thank you, sir,” he says.

Polite. Demure. Charming, but with little personality. Someone of absolutely no interest.

“Meek little thing, isn’t he?” One of them says to Uncle. His mind is red and cruel, his eyes raking hotly over Charles’ body. Charles can’t help shrinking back, and Uncle draws him closer, possessive. The man continues: “That’s no proper way for a boy his age to behave. You should let me train him out of it.”

He doesn’t need shame in his position, the man is thinking. His mind is filled with sense-memories of Aunt’s white skin splitting open, the coppery spray of blood, the curves of her body spread out on display.

Charles musters his best smile, boyish and innocent. “Uncle gives me so much training, I can’t possibly take on more.” He leans against Uncle suggestively even as he tries not to shiver, his skin crawling.

The man chuckles and waves him away, sufficiently entertained.

And so it goes. For each new man he’s introduced to, Charles skims lightly over their mind and adjusts accordingly. He flows from mood to mood, from virginal innocence to polite, well-bred formality to lively charm to something…else, a being of coy smiles and alluring glances loaded with meaning, the sort of nymphet he’s read to all these men about. Asking for it, just look at him, one of the men thinks, his eyes fixed on Charles’ lips.

Charles holds onto the comforting thought that Uncle is too possessive to let any of these men touch him.

Eventually, the night ends with Aunt still missing. Uncle personally brings him back to his bedroom, his hand a constant heavy pressure against the small of Charles’ back. “Let me help you get ready for bed,” he says, and Charles can’t stop trembling. In the darkness of the room, Uncle has him stand by the bed as his fingers go to the first button of Charles’ collared shirt.

He stands deathly still as Uncle undoes the buttons one by one. As his shirt falls unceremoniously to the floor, Charles closes his eyes.

Is this going to be the rest of his life? Forever?

***

I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.

Charles huddles in his bed, arms thrown over his face, shaking uncontrollably.

I need to get out of here.

Just let me escape.

Please. Let me escape.

I’ll do anything.

His cheeks are wet and hot.

I don’t want to wake up again.

***

The next day, they find Aunt’s body. She hangs from a silken rope, her neck snapped, her feet dangling off the ground. Above her, the yew tree looms black against the boundary of the estate.

 5. “Did you kill her?”

“Did you?”

He and Uncle stare at each other in the harsh sunlight that slants through the windows of Uncle’s study. Charles is the first to look away.

“I can’t help you anymore,” he says. “I’m never using my telepathy again.”

“You think you did it? Influenced her?”

“I don’t know.”

He could look. Uncle’s mind is walled up tight as always, but he’s stronger now. He can break down those walls. Uncle has the means and – he knows from the stray wisps of thought he had stolen from Aunt’s mind – he has motive.

He could look, but he doesn’t.

He’s too afraid of what he’ll find.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Uncle is saying. “You’ve always had poor control, and we’ve recorded plenty of incidents where you subconsciously use your telepathy. A whole library’s worth of them, in fact.”

“I’m never using it again.”

“You can’t turn it off,” Uncle says frankly. “You’re using it even now, aren’t you?”

It’s true. It’d be like trying to turn off his hearing – utterly impossible. Even if he can’t read Uncle he still gets a faint sense of his presence, a prickling awareness at the back of his mind that he can’t sever.

“I’ll find a way.”

“Why? Your gift is a wonderful one. Imagine if everyone could communicate mind-to-mind like you do – no more misunderstandings, no more wasting hours on arguments…”

No more fear of the unknown. No more fear of those who are different.

It’s so hard to remember why those things are important, but Charles clings to them the best he can.

Uncle continues: “Really, your only problem is your control. You may never develop it to a sufficient level, so you see why it’s important for you to stay here. At home. You’ll have a hard time finding a place more isolated than this mansion. Can you imagine what’ll happen if you lose control in a city?”

Charles looks out of the window mutely. Uncle nods. “That’s right. And I do promise you, Charles, if I can’t find a way to control your telepathy, I’ll help you get rid of it. One way or the other. Do we have a deal?”

Outside, the yew tree is a dark stain on the grounds. Charles thinks about a fluttering rope of silk, a noose.

He has an escape if he’s brave enough to take it. He always had. Maybe it would even be the selfless thing to do. Nothing good can come from giving Uncle more and more chances to run experiments on him.

“Do we have a deal?” Uncle barks, impatient.

Charles has never been brave enough. “Yes,” he says quietly.

(next part)

[relbyshock]

Amy Winehouse, Princess Diana, Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Aileen Wuornos, Angelina Jolie, Adolf Hitler, Darrell Hammond, Pete Davidson, Winona Ryder, Vincent Van Gogh, Tommy Tiernan….

What do they all have in common? Apart from being famous figures, they all suffer(ed) or were rumored to have suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder.

Hey, me too.

I’m over the moon to have something in common with Princess Di (apart from our shared plight with bulimia), but I have to say, I’d rather not have anything in common with Aileen or Adolf…..

Borderline Personality Disorder is a confusing term to say the least. On the borderline of what and what? Well, in the ‘30s, it meant you fell somewhere between psychosis (untreatable) and neurosis (treatable).

Great, that’s reassuring.

Come the ‘70s, BPD sufferers were described as being very emotional, needy, difficult, at risk for suicide, and to have an “overall unstable level of functioning”.

Check. *sings “Welcome to My Life” by Simple Plan*

We also have rapidly fluctuating mood swings, unstable self-image, and a fear of abandonment. This disorder wasn’t even recognized by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) until 1980.

Today, we know far more about BPD – “neurosis” is no longer used in the diagnosis, and BPD is no longer considered a psychotic disorder.

 So what are we then?

Crazy?

Hormonal?

According to my family, yes. But in reality, the problem lies within our brains. Let me nerd out here for a minute:

The Amygdala (Ah-mig-dah-lah) is composed of two almond-shaped parts of the brain, deep in the medial temporal lobe, that regulate fear and aggression. People with BPD have amygdala’s that are noticeably smaller than that of a healthy person. The smaller the amygdala, the more overactive it is.

Like short guys with bad attitudes, or what I like to refer to as “little man syndrome”.

And then we have the Hippocampus – no, not pachyderm college. The hippocampus is responsible for spatial orientation (not falling over), long and short-term memory, and emotional regulation. Put simply, the hippocampus chooses the correct response to environmental events: Fight or flight.

You may be wondering if I was dropped on my head as a child. The answer is yes – frequently – but the chances of minor brain trauma causing BPD are slim.

The causes of Borderline Personality Disorder are unclear. It seems to involve genetic, brain, environmental and social factors. There are rumours that people with BPD have issues with serotonin production, which has been linked to depression, aggression and having a hard time controlling “destructive urges”.

As for environmental factors, those who have been a victim of emotional/physical/sexual abuse, as well as being exposed to chronic fear or distress as a child have a high likelihood of developing BPD. This is because our relationship with our parents and family has a HUGE influence on how we see the world, and how we feel about other people.

Gals are also diagnosed 3 times as often as guys. You’ve gotta wonder if that’s due to the fact that men tend to be more weary of the doctor, therefore avoiding a diagnosis altogether. This is pure speculation.

Shall we take a dive into the “Signs and Symptoms” as listed by Wikipedia?

-Markedly disturbed sense of identity

-Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and extreme reactions

-Splitting (black and white thinking)

-Impulsivity

-Intense and uncontrollable emotional reactions that often seem disproportionate to the event or situation

-Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships

-Self-damaging behavior (ie, substance abuse)

-Distorted self-image

-Dissociation

-Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse or rage

We are also aware of the intensity of our negative emotional reactions, and since we can’t regulate them, we shut them down completely. What my doctor and I refer to as feeling “flat”.

BPD sufferers are also extremely sensitive to real or perceived rejection. Let’s explain with a meme, shall we:

*looking at an unanswered text from 12 minutes ago*

You: They must be in the shower or just busy, they’ll respond when they have a chance.

Me: Ok well they were active on Instagram 6 minutes ago and they just posted a snap story….they’re ignoring me, why do they hate me? What did I do? Are they mad at me? Should I send another text to get their attention or is that too needy?

If you’re annoyed just reading that, TRY LIVING IN MY BRAIN.

I annoy myself.

I feel grief, overwhelming shame and humiliation where others would feel mildly embarrassed. A minor inconvenience such as cancelled plans takes me from excited to absolutely miserable.

In the past, an unflattering photo on Facebook has caused me to reevaluate my self-worth, and even my life.

The Sickboy podcast explained it beautifully: Borderline Personality Disorder is like having a third degree burn on your emotions. I feel that. Everything hurts me just a little bit more than the average bear (or human).

Why am I telling you this? Because boys and girls, today is Bell Let’s Talk Day here in Canada. I’ll include the link at the bottom. Basically, in 2010, Bell began a new conversation about Canada’s mental health. They’ve enlisted such figures as Howie Mandel, Michael Landsberg, and Clara Hughes to share their stories of struggle and strength in the face of mental health.

I thought today was as good as any other to address the stigma surrounding mental health, but more specifically, the stigma around BPD.

I can’t pretend to know all the answers – I’m not and won’t pretend to be a psychiatrist. But this is what the world looks like through my lens.

If someone honks at me while I’m driving to work, I’m upset ALL DAY. I never want to drive again, I want to pull over and cry, or turn around and go home.

If I get a moderately rude email, my brain fills with cutting, angry, and just plain mean remarks to respond with. “I’m sorry your father never hugged you as a child” is not a suitable response to a professional email, but that’s where my brain goes.

When I make plans with friends weeks in advance and they bail 10 minutes before, I am a heap of inconsolable sobs for the rest of the evening, and even into the next day. This plays into the fear of “real or imagined abandonment”. My BPD brain does not care that something came up or you’re feeling under the weather. BPD tells me that you hate me and you never want to see me again and you were just pretending to like me this whole time and you’ve finally made your escape. My logical brain tries to tell me that it’s ok, and we’ll plan something for another time, but usually, my BPD brain wins the fight.

When I get nervous and start to ramble trying to tell a story and my mom cuts me off with “Anyways.” I want to crawl in a hole and die, but I also sort of want to throw a plate at her face. My mother is a saint, so why do I feel this way about her sometimes?

Let’s get back to the causes of Borderline Personality Disorder. Dad, Mom, maybe stop reading here…or don’t…but here’s your warning. You aren’t going to like this next part.

I was severely neglected as a child. Not physically – I had food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over my head – but emotionally and mentally. The minor relationship I did have with my father was marked by him coming home from a long shift (as a firefighter) and starting a fight with me about my weight, my shoes at the front door, my marks in school, and more often than not, “why are you always crying?!”. My mom also worked full time at a stressful sales job. So by the time she got home, she didn’t want to have to deal with anyone else’s issues.

So when I would have issues with anything from being bullied at school to just having a ‘bad mental health day’, I had nowhere to turn.

See, my brother and I were latch-key kids. We got home from school at least an hour before my parents got home from work. He and I never got along, so some sort of fight would ensue, and by the time our parents got home, he had made me cry. I was deemed dramatic and sent away to my bedroom, while the 3 of them would eat dinner together (usually something I refused to eat – like meat – which would be another reason to fight).

I’ve voiced this to my mom before, and she remembers my childhood very differently than I do.

As long as I have been alive, I have come second to my brother.

No, honey, we can’t go to (insert activity I wanted to do) because Maxx has hockey/a book report due/needs a ride to the bike track, etc.

Every dinner or event we went to was with HIS friends and THEIR parents, who ended up becoming my parents’ best friends (still to this day). I was always the only girl; so naturally, I stayed with the adults, because the boys wouldn’t have me.

But the adults didn’t want me there either. I felt like a constant annoyance.

Thinking back on it, I realize that I may not have been as unwanted as I perceived myself to be. Remember, BPD brains are sensitive to even slight facial expressions and tones of voice. But, when I voiced this to my parents, that I felt unwanted, and why couldn’t we do things with my friends and their parents, etc. I was told that I was being ridiculous.

Enter: Invalidation

Invalidation is the number one cause of BPD, according to my psychiatrist. Growing up in an environment where nothing you do is good enough will cause you to internalize everything.

I have no memories or examples of healthy emotional behaviour or relationships. In our house, we got the point across by screaming at or just plain ignoring each other. So when I get hurt, or I feel let down, I have absolutely no idea how to deal with my feelings. Further reinforcing my belief that the world is full of bad people who are out to ruin your day and be unkind, because that’s all I’ve ever known.

Research shows that if you already experience these difficulties as a child, experiencing trauma as an adult could make things worse.

Dad - now is really the time to stop reading.

(Sometimes I feel like I live inside the DSM definition of BPD)

At the age of 21 – fresh out of college and trying to start my career in the fashion world – I was sexually assaulted. Cue the downward spiral.

I didn’t report. I didn’t seek help. I confided in a close friend, and was called a liar. But that’s a story for another time.

So I buried that part of me so deep, that sometimes I could convince myself that it never happened. Sometimes.

I reached the end of my rope in 2016. I knew that if I didn’t seek help, I would not survive. I finally went to my doctor and spent hours with her, just sobbing and telling her everything.

She hooked me up with a psychiatrist, and put me in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, and started me on an SSRI (anti-depressant) immediately.

As of today, it has been 1172 days since the assault. I only told my mother this past summer.

Since reaching out for help, I have begun to repair the relationship with my parents. My mom and I are closer than ever, and my dad and I are working on it.

As I write this, I feel the judgements pouring in. But I have decided that this year, I don’t care. I am not ashamed of my story. I will no longer hide the things I have been through in order to make others more comfortable. I will not keep my pain to myself because it’s easier for others if I stay silent. If bearing my soul can help even one person seek the help they need, then I have succeeded, and all this pain has been worth it.

The long and short of it is SPEAK UP! There is nothing embarrassing about mental illness. If you aren’t feeling right, there are people who care and are here to help you, including me. The first step is to tell someone.

The best advice I can give is to find your people. People who trust you, who lift you up, who validate your feelings, who listen and take you seriously when you say you’re having a bad day. I have spent the past year painstakingly building my support system, because the truth of the matter is, I can’t do this alone. And that’s ok.

Today and every single day, be kind to each other – it’s the only thing that matters.

https://letstalk.bell.ca/en/bell-lets-talk-day

[spacefaringviking]

Humans are Eldritch Horrors: Biomechanical Technology

Okay so this is a long one, be warned.

I’ve been on a binge between Wikipedia and YouTube, looking up extremophiles, protists, and “intelligent” slime molds that have potential for biomechanical applications.

Imagine if you would, that this biotechnological trend is picked up as a norm for humanity as a whole. Biological material is not suited for every application, true. But graphene, being made purely of carbon, can be integrated into both biological and technological systems. Certain multicellular and monocellular organisms can metabolize heavy metals. Slime molds and human neurons can be surprisingly efficient computers.

Imagine sea sponges designed by humans to build skeletons out of iron, cadmium, or a gold-titanium alloy instead of calcium. Imagine stomatolites building shells for massive spaceships out of the “waste” materials from mining processes. Imagine spacesuits made out of chitin and a bioglass reminiscent of that which tardigrades produce. Instead of air tanks, whole miniature biomes that produce oxygen at a rapid rate when fed biomass.

Essentially, the Engineers from Prometheus. Or like, 99% of H.R. Giger’s work.

Now imagine throwing black hole reactors, Alcubierre/EM/Fold/Quantum drives, mass accelerators (for weapons or other uses) and quantum computing thrown in a big ol’ mixing bowl with biomechanical fuckery. And no horror show biomechanical stuff, but like sleek, fine lighting, no jagged edges, no skulls and pure horror, no wet and nasty slimy shite (aside from the slime molds and several production processes…), but like, upstanding and respectable stuff, beautiful sleek lines mixed in with angles that are a bit too perfect…

Then introduce this to aliens who adopted a purely technological path.

—————- —————- —————-

Xyrhum had seen nothing like it before. About [500 kilometers] away from the jump-entry point of this system, straight off the prow of his corvette, was a [10km] long construct. It was a sleek structure that conjoined its long, near perfectly-straight pair of “prongs” in a semicircle at one end. It bowed out near the semicircular end and was riddled with ridges and bumps and grooves all along its sleek and organic body lines. It emitted a rumble that could be felt more than heard, even inside a ship of this size this far away.

Xyrhum tapped his feelers on the armrest of his chair, the armor at the tips of his appendages making near-deafening clacks and taps in the utter silence of the bridge.

“Pilot, perform a wide maneuver around the structure. Advance no further than [350 kilometers] from it. Do not get too close. Operations, engage stealth.”

“Aye, commander,” replied both officers.

Xyrhum turned to his communications officer, who was staring at him in a mix of anticipation and apprehension. “Communications, perform a passive scan of the structure.”

He turned to the co-pilot. “Retract any hardpoints besides the scanner.”

The communications officer piped up.

“Sir, the construct… It knows we’re here. I’m picking up a tight-beamed signal emanating from the… whatever it is.”

“So, our stealth drives mean nothing,” quipped the commander. “Drop stealth.”

“Dropping stealth.”

“For all intents and purposes, this appears to be a First Contact situation. Prepare the data packet, and begin the ‘friendly contact’ signal. Start with the [Algebraic] equa-”

The ship lurched forward suddenly, cutting off the commander and accelerating at an uncomfortable speed towards the construct.

“Pilot, we have breached the [350km] mark and are accelerating at an unsafe speed toward the construct. Desist this instant!”

At that, the pilot raised his arms from the console. “This is not my doing, commander. The forward engines are at zero acceleration. Inertia dampeners are trying to fight but are overcome.”

“So, these aliens want a more face-to-face first contact.”

“It would seem so.”

“Communications, any changes on the construct? Has it deployed anything our active scanners can detect?”

“Several portions of its surface have shifted. There are numerous structures raising from its hull, but I detect no radiological spikes. If those are weapons, I’d imagine this to be more a threat display than anything else.”

“No chances. Raise shields to maximum.”

“Aye.”

Just as the shields arced to life and covered the ship in a shimmering protective shell, a flash pulsed from the side of the construct, and the ship went dark.

“Report!” Exclaimed the commander, as he began drifting out of his seat.

“Engines and main reactor have spun to zero,” reported the Ensign. “Weapons and scanners offline. We’re drifting without a gun, sir.”

“Damn. Life support?”

“Compromised, but active. Backup reactor coming online. We’ll have full life support, gravity, and lights in [30 seconds] and counting.”

A slow, purplish ghostly wave drifted through the bridge. It passed over every nook and cranny in the room, and tingled every atom in the commander’s body as it passed over him.

“What in the hundred hells was that?”

“Unsure, sir. Hazard a guess, I think we were scanned.”

The ship continued to move toward the construct without spin or deviation. A tractor beam…?

A smaller construct broke off of the hull of the larger ship. It drifted away for a good [minute], seemingly inactive. It suddenly pulsed to life, bright bluish-white lines dancing into activity along its fine and sleek oblong shape. Along its horizontal equator, a line of light traced from the aft end to the fore and culminated in a point of light at the nose. The point of light then moved as the new construct maneuvered to be edge- on with the commander’s craft. The point of light slid along an invisible tract and aligned itself with the craft.

“It’s looking at us,” piped up the communications officer.

At that, the smaller craft deployed long, thick arms from its bottom, unfolding them in what appeared to be a threat display. It swung its aft around with no visible propulsion as it dissapeared above the commander’s ship. Moments later, the ship shook and shuddered. Clanging sounds and depressurization alarms could be heard throughout the ship.

“What’s happening? Ensign, report!”

“Multiple depressurizations in non-critical areas. Crew quarters, medbay, and bridge are secure. We have been captured by the alien vessel… and we’re moving again.”

“Sir, scans for biological activity have… returned. This… ship… whatever it is… it’s hardly mechanical at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that this structure is alive. I’m reading intense biological activity. The outside of the ship is a heavy-metal composite in a carbon-based organic lattice.”

“Living ships? Tractor beams? Emissionless propulsion? Gravitic signatures? What next?” the commander mumbled under his breath.

Everyone was silent as the smaller craft guided the commander’s ship through several [hundred meters] of white-lit oval-shaped corridor. From the port and starboard viewports, he could see a menagerie of other creatures fast at work in the corridors of the vessel. There were strange four-legged things scurrying about and hefting containers of sorts in the low gravity. There were tall bipedal hulks with bowed legs walking along the gangways of the corridor and staring at the ship intensely. They appeared to be aiming at the vessel. Protruding from the floor and ceiling of the corridor were circular domes with spindly appendages jutting out of one side. They tracked the ship’s every movement with a glaring red eye. Turrets?

The ship began to slow as it drifted toward a flat circular platform. Three figures stood in a room separated from the platform with a thick plate of glass, flanked by two of the large bipeds seen moments ago. The craft that had latched on to the commander’s vessel guided his ship forward into a cradle of armlike appendages. A blue field of arcing electricity shot out from the panels above and held the ship steady as the arms enclosed around it. The cradle that held the ship descended from the ceiling and brought the ship to rest on the floor of the platform. Several tendrils rose from the floor and embedded themselves in the ship’s hull.

Suddenly, the ship’s system sprang to life. The docking runtime ran through its paces and the docking hatch opened. A thick hollow tube, ringed with grasping appendages, extended from the wall and affixed itself to the docking hatch. With a thud and a hiss, pressure was restored in the ship.

“Welcome to Gilgamesh,” said the computer.

“How does the computer know the name of the vessel?”

“It was hacked,” said the Ensign. “None of the officers or myself can control the ship. We’re locked out.”

The emergency lights on the floor came to life and led to the airlock.

A voice crackled from the communications panel, causing the communications officer, who was already on edge, to leave the bridge in a nervous wreck.

The center of the five figures in the room adjacent to the ship stepped forward, and began to speak in fluent Union Standard.

“We apologize for the forceful… apprehension… of your vessel. We hope this transgression can be forgiven. However, you entered our space withojt consent and refused to answer any of our hails. The transgression aside, we have been eager to meet an alien race for some time, and did not want to lose out on such an enriching opportunity. We did not expect them to be so… rudimentary, however.”

The commander rise from his chair and stepped to the forward window of the bridge, and met gaze with the figure. “Who are you? How can you speak our language?”

I am a member of the human race. We utilized complex mathematical algorithms to decrypt your computer, and merely gutted a cantelope to get the berries of your language.“

"Gutted… A what?”

“Did that not make sense?”

“…not at all.”

“Ah. It is not a perfect system, mind you. We hope to resolve this.”

“Your peaceful intentions aside, while appreciated, do not excuse your actions. You realize that by seizing a military scouting vessel, hacking it, and taking information without consent, you have not only broken several rules of first contact etiquette, but have committed acts worthy of declaration of war?”

“Humanity does not seek war with anyone. We have outgrown such petty practices. However, and we remind you, you had entered our space, unannounced, in an armed vessel, which warranted a rather forceful response from us. We seem to have stepped on each other’s toes. I do not advise escalation.”

“Or?”

At that, an arm unfolded from the wall and aimed a spindly protrusion at the ship. The protrusion began to glow blue as the air began to ripple from heat.

The ship-board AI chirped to life; “Warning: radiological signature detected.”

“That,” the Human quipped.

“Very well.”

“Please, come aboard. We welcome you peacefully. We wish to discuss many things with you, as well as terms of reparation and harmonious relations.”

The crew departed the ship and crossed through the boarding tube. The air was surprisingly dry and warm.

They entered the room through an airlock of iris-style doors, unfolding with a slight cracking and the sound of sliding stone. The three figures, standing at a whopping [2.5m], stood in the center of the room, flanked by their [5m] behemoths.

The center figure departed the group, flowing robes rippling as it waltzed effortlessly toward him. It stopped at a close, yet respectful distance of [6m].

Suddenly, the plates that composed its cranium shifted and split, hissing out a steamy gust of air as it opened and neatly folded away. What it revealed was the true face of the human; a round head, with pinkish-gray soft skin, nearly hairless and featureless. On either side was a flesh protrusion, full of ridges and bumps, angled forward. Atop its head was a tuft of… hair? It had a rather flat face with a gentle ridge above its pair of forward-set predatory eyes and a protrusion in the center of it all with two holes. Beneath that was a horizontal slit composed of two fleshy lobes. The lobes peeled back to reveal a set of bony protrusions.

“I am Heyatha, the commander of this frigate. It is my honor to greet you, Commander Xyrhum, on behalf of humanity. There is so much for us both to learn from this meeting.”

Submission by the amazing @bartwelchii

[spiritualesoterichighlevel]

Enlightenment Issues

In 1974 Hans Burgschmidt was sixteen years old, living in the Canadian Prairies, working in a photography studio darkroom, elbow-deep in chemicals all day long. "Is this what life is about?" he asked a high school friend. "You need to meditate," was the reply.

Not long after, Hans attended a lecture at the local library, where a man in a suit spoke about the scientific benefits of relaxation. He pressed Play on the industrial-sized U-Matic video player and there was Maharishi Mahesh, the Indian yogi who initiated the Beatles into the mysteries of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and launched the meditation careers of thousands of Western devotees.

"An infinite ocean of peace and love and happiness awaits you," said the radiant Maharishi, with his flowing hair and his garland of flowers. "What's not to like?" Hans thought, and got in touch with a local TM chapter.

Soon after he began his meditation practice, exactly as advertised, he found himself transported from his parent's basement into a shimmering inner space of light and colour and bliss. "Eventually you get so expanded and the mantra becomes so refined that you are taken to the silent source of thought – it was wonderful."

Hans was hooked. Next, he enrolled himself in advanced courses and in the late 70s he left for Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, hoping to become a teacher.

But somewhere along the line Hans became disenchanted. Maybe it was the dubious "levitation" training, or the dogmatism of his fellow teachers, or the "almost abusive" way the school administrator overworked their staff. "The discrepancies between what was promised and what was really happening kept growing," Hans told me. "Eventually I had to move on."

Thus began Hans' long career as an itinerant spiritual seeker. He hit all the New Age mainstays: Osho and then Da Free John in the 80's, trance channeling and primal scream therapy and past life regression in the 90's.

  But the same pattern of finding the limits of the guru or the practices kept repeating itself. Finally in 2006 he met a teacher he could trust – one of my own teachers, in fact – the Buddhist scholar and future neuroscience-consultant Shinzen Young. "No BS, real down to earth, just an ordinary guy teaching a well-crafted version of techniques that have been tested by Buddhists for thousands of years."

The technique was vipassana, one important – and increasingly popular – aspect of which is known as "mindfulness."

"I found it invigorating," says Hans. "It was much more active than other techniques I had learned, I could feel the power of it."

The Shadow Side of Meditation

Everything was fine, until three weeks after his first retreat, when, in Hans' words, "something changed." My sense," says Hans, "is the technique precipitated something that was already there. I mean I had done a lot of meditating in other traditions by then. They softened me up. Whatever the case, I don't think it could have turned out any other way."

Hans was at home making his bed, when the room suddenly appeared "very far away." But the room hadn't changed; he had. The part of Hans that had once looked out at the world, the core we take for granted as the "self", had without any warning disappeared.

To understand what happened to Hans, you need to understand something about how meditation works in general, and vipassana in particular. Most meditation techniques are designed to shift a person's orientation from a limited personal identity to the broader ground of their experience.

Vipassana does this by deliberately and systematically untangling the different strands that make up our sense of self and world; in the Pali language (the ancient Indian scriptural dialect of Buddhism) the word "vipassana" means "seeing into" or "seeing through."

Practicing vipassana, you have more space to make appropriate responses, and more space, too, around your looping thought-track, which can dramatically reduce stress and anxiety as well as raise a person's baseline levels of happiness and fulfillment.

This is one reason why mindfulness has become the technique of choice for thousands of clinicians and psychotherapists, and there is now a considerable body of scientific research demonstrating these and other benefits.

Yet most of the clinicians who so enthusiastically endorse mindfulness do not have a proper understanding of where it can lead. The fact is that mindfulness in large doses can penetrate more than just your thoughts and sensations; it can see right through to the very pith of who you are – or rather, of who you are not.

Because, as Buddhist teachers and teachers from many other contemplative traditions have long argued, on close investigation there doesn't appear to be any deeper "you" in there running the show. "You" are just a flimsy identification process, built on the fly by your grasping mind — a common revelation in meditation that happens to be compatible with the views of many contemporary neuroscientists.

In fact, the classic result of a successful vipassana practice is to permanently recognize the impermanence (anicca), the selflessness (anatta), and the dualistic tension or suffering (dukkha) of all experience, which may sound like an Ibsen play, but this is the clear empirical understanding that many otherwise sensible practitioners report.

For most people this shift is the most profoundly positive experience of their lives. In the words of Shinzen Young, "it allows a person to live ten times the size they would have lived otherwise, it frees them from most worries and concerns, it gives them a quality of absolute freedom and repose."

But once in a while, something goes wrong. In Buddhism this is known as falling into "the pit of the void." Young is more modern: "Psychiatrists call it Depersonalization and De-realization Disorder, or DP/DR. I call it 'Enlightenment's evil twin'."

For Hans, what began as confusion and disorientation led within a few hours to extreme panic. The emptiness was ominous – in his words, a "deficient void." One moment the world seemed far away, the next it was too present, a "barrage" of overwhelming sensations. "It was like I had no protective filter or skin – sounds and sights became incredibly abrasive.

Hearing the phone ring was like someone running a thousand volts of electricity through me. I also had feelings of being stretched and twisted inside out, like I was morphing into some kind of animal. I had no idea what was happening – I thought maybe I was getting premature Alzheimer's."

Over the next few months Hans spent hours with Young on the phone, but despite the counseling, none of his symptoms went away – if anything, he says, the selflessness, the rawness of sensations and the associated fears became even more disconcerting. One by one, all the meaningful parts of Hans' life dropped away: his love of photography, of art, even his sex drive.

"I lost my will to do anything – none if it had any meaning. You could say that I no longer understood existence. I would wake up in the morning and go 'OK, this is my body, this is me, and I guess I'm doing this but I no longer understood it. I no longer understood agency, what makes other bodies move, what animates life.

Sometimes there was a wondrous quality to this bafflement – I felt the awe and the mystery – but most of the time it was aimless and tormenting."

Was Hans experiencing a slow-motion nervous breakdown unrelated to his meditation practice?  Or was the experience of depersonalization triggered by meditation?

He was able, just barely, to keep working, although he says he has no idea how he was able to do this since, in his words,   "I often couldn't understand what people were saying – all I would hear is the weird texture of their speech patterns, there was no meaning to any of it."

His own responses, too, came as a surprise. "At times I would hear myself speaking and I had no idea where the words were coming from or what they meant. I felt like an imposter."

The Dark Night of the Soul

Hans is not alone. If the very real benefits of mindfulness add up to the good-news mental health story of our time, then, like so many good things, there is also a shadowy seam, an experience known popularly as the Dark Night, after the writings of the famous Carmelite mystic St. John of the Cross.

More meditators and practitioners are beginning to speak openly about the challenges associated with practice. The importance of this cannot be overstated, for there are those in the scientific community who believe that taking these reports seriously may one day provide key insights into both mental illness, and the mystery of contemplative transformation. They may in fact be very different expressions of a single underlying dynamic.

Some researchers are already studying this. Willoughby Britton is a meditator and a clinical psychologist at Brown University. After encountering some of this difficult territory herself, she began an ambitious research project to document the full range of phenomena that can happen as a result of practice. The initiative is called "The Varieties of Contemplative Experience".

Over the past three years, Britton and her colleagues have conducted detailed interviews with over forty senior Buddhist (and some non-Buddhist) teachers and another forty or so practitioners about challenges they've either experienced themselves, or, in the case of teachers, seen in their students.

The study's current research design cannot answer the question of what percentage of practitioners run into problems, although Britton did tell me that serious complications that require inpatient psychiatric hospitalization probably affect less than one percent of meditators. "Milder, more chronic symptoms," she says, "will be higher – but no one knows how high."

The full range of symptoms, from mild to intense, include headaches, panic, mania, confusion, hallucinations, body pain and pressure, involuntary movements, the de-repression of emotionally-charged psychological material, extreme fear and – perhaps the central feature – the dissolution of the sense of self.

But, as she reports in a recent interview, the most surprising finding for Britton has been the duration of impairment, which she defines as the inability of an adult to work or take care of children.

"We've been deliberately looking for worst-case scenarios, so I expect this number will go down as we get more data, but right now we are finding that people in these experiences are affected for an average of three years, with a range of six months to twelve years."

Britton has found that two demographics seem to be affected more than other: young men aged eighteen to thirty, who, in the way of young men, go for months-long retreats in Asia and pursue hardcore practice and log ten to twenty hours of meditation a day. "We had to create a "Zealotry Scale" says Britton, dryly, "it was such a major predictor."

The other large group, she says, is middle-aged women. "These ladies have been going to, say, Spirit Rock Meditation Centre for last ten to twenty years, have a nice hour-a-day practice, and then seven or ten years into it something happens."

The situation is complicated by the fact that a period of difficulty is actually a perfectly normal part of many meditation practices. A well-meaning therapist might label this pathological, when what might be more helpful to the "patient" is guidance from an experienced meditation teacher.

Within vipassana traditions, some classic texts talk about the "dukkha ñanas" – challenging stages that are actually a sign of progress. These are a natural response to the layer of mind being exposed; with a teacher's help, the student can move through their Dark Night in a matter of days or hours. Indeed, some teachers argue that the skills practitioners acquire in coping with these passages are often the very ones that allow them to progress to more liberating stages of the path.

Shinzen Young writes, "It is certainly the case that almost everyone who gets anywhere with meditation will pass through periods of negative emotion, confusion, disorientation, and heightened sensitivity to internal and external arisings. The same thing can happen in psychotherapy and other growth modalities. For the great majority of people, the nature, intensity, and duration of these kinds of challenges is quite manageable."

According to Young, the real Dark Night occurs when, as in Hans' case, a practitioner has difficulty integrating insight into selflessness. This is something he says he has only ever seen a few times in his four decades of teaching.

Perhaps surprisingly, Britton's research has so far not revealed any clear associations between meditation-related difficulties and prior psychiatric or trauma history. Problems can occur in individuals with no identifiable red flags; conversely, individuals with multiple red flags (bipolar disorder, trauma history, and so on) can do intensive retreats without any difficulties whatsoever.

"We have to be careful," Britton told me, "about jumping to conclusions and excluding people prematurely from meditation's possible benefits. My personal opinion is that the place where we need most help is not in identifying at-risk people so much as improving support systems."

Britton gets two to three emails a week from people looking for help, so this is something she thinks a lot about. "Just talking about the experience with someone and hearing that none of it is new … this has a hugely positive effect on people.

That's eighty percent of what needs to happen. Just normalizing the experience." To that end, she has already founded both a space and a website to provide resources for practitioners in need, and also to educate teachers and clinician about the full range of meditation' effects.

"Length of impairment is directly related to how much access the student has to a good teacher. Many of the people I've spoken to have been through dozens of therapists and meditation instructors and most have no idea what to do."

Young has his own techniques for helping meditators work with Dark Night phenomena. Hans adds one more: serious fitness. "Pilates, weight-training, yoga – I now do it all. For me, I finally figured out that I needed to integrate these changes into my physical body. Ultimately this is what turned the corner for me."

Seven years after his drop into the pit of the void, Hans is arriving at a better place. Not a normal place, mind you – and here his laugh is a bit hysterical: "What's normal? I still live in emptiness and wake up every morning with no idea who I am."

But he no longer gets panic attacks, or feels ten thousand volts of electricity irradiate his senses every time the phone rings. His sex drive has returned, and with it a new longing for a relationship. He also has a strong interest in helping others manage similar problems.

"So much of it is about patience," he says. Over the past seven years, the words of one teacher kept circling around in his head: "If life gives you nothing you want and is not on your own terms, would you still have the generosity to show up for it?"  There's no easy "yes" to that question.

[newstfionline]

Irma slams into Caribbean, hurtles toward Florida.

By Joel Achenbach, Francisco Alvarado, Sandhya Somashekhar and Mark Berman, Washington Post, September 7, 2017

MIAMI--This could be The Big One, again, and everyone knows it, and if people here are getting a bit frantic, that might not be an irrational response. Hurricane Irma is about as big as a tropical cyclone can possibly get, and the latest computer models show it aimed at South Florida as if following directions by GPS.

There are more than 6 million people in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, all concentrated between the beach and the swamps. Many have been streaming north on Interstate 95 or Florida’s Turnpike, and gas stations have plastic bags on the pumps. The region’s airports were slammed, and it had become difficult to score a seat on any airplane, going anywhere.

“I’m nervous, and I never get nervous in storms,” said Jane Llewellyn, a rental car sales agent at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and a resident of Miami Beach. She said Irma seemed more “aggressive” than Andrew in 1992: “It’s just so massive and it’s just so fast, and it’s just so hot here. It’s going to get worse.”

Irma is an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane that had sustained winds of 185 mph as it ripped through the Caribbean on Wednesday, battering the northern Lesser Antilles and Virgin Islands, and leaving nine people dead and dozens more injured in its wake. The storm next headed toward Puerto Rico, where some residents are preparing to be without electricity for as long as six months. Although the storm’s center passed north of Puerto Rico itself, the hurricane still delivered lashing rain bands, damaging winds and warnings of flash flooding.

On Wednesday, Irma hit Barbuda in the Leeward Islands, territories and commonwealths stretching southeast from Puerto Rico. A weather station recorded sustained winds of 118 mph and a wind gust to 155 mph before the instrument failed, according to the National Hurricane Center, which called the storm’s conditions “life-threatening.” One death was recorded on the island and the country’s prime minister said 95 percent of all properties sustained damage.

Irma was far more deadly on the French Caribbean island territories of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy. France’s interior minister said at least eight people were killed in the storm and 23 others were injured.

This hurricane’s 185-mph maximum sustained winds are the strongest recorded for a landfalling hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, tied with the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday evening that Irma remains powerful and that Puerto Rico should expect hurricane conditions through Wednesday night and could see as much as 20 inches of rain in some places. The storm is projected to pass by the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba in the next two days before it could make landfall somewhere in South Florida on Sunday, though intense winds could begin long before that.

With the storm still days away, it was relatively unusual for the people of South Florida to go into full-on storm preparation mode. But this is a scary hurricane at a moment when anyone paying attention to the news understands what a big storm can do.

On Virginia Key, at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, professor David Nolan was putting heavy plastic over computer terminals, in case the roof leaks during the storm. He said his family plans to drive to Atlanta, while he’ll ride it out behind storm shutters at his home in Coral Gables. But that plan could change, he said. Lots of people are still thinking this through.

The mood in South Florida, he said, “is frantic.”

“Anxious, frantic,” chimed in his colleague, senior research associate Brian McNoldy.

McNoldy, who contributes to The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, called up the model forecasts and showed how Irma is expected to move in more or less a straight line toward Florida, west by northwest, but then hang a sharp right to the north. That track could send it right to McNoldy’s cubicle and on up the Gold Coast, as if the storm were trying to grind away a century of urbanization.

“That’s extremely bad,” he said. “That’s basically every East Coast Florida city. This could easily be the most expensive U.S. storm if this happens.”

He hastened to add, as all forecasters do, that a forecast four or five days in advance is typically off by something like 185 miles, and Irma could still veer west toward the Gulf or stay east and never make landfall.

But it could also go right up the center of the peninsula.

The Florida Keys are particularly vulnerable. Monroe County, home to the Keys, began mandatory evacuations of tourists and visitors Wednesday morning. The county’s 80,000 residents were ordered to evacuate beginning Wednesday evening.

Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said mandatory evacuations would begin Thursday at noon for people in the eastern portion of the county that runs alongside the Atlantic Ocean.

“This storm is bigger, faster and stronger than Hurricane Andrew,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) said Wednesday, emphasizing that even with Irma’s uncertain trajectory, officials were preparing for a direct impact. “Do not sit and wait for the storm to come. It is extremely dangerous and deadly and will cause devastation. Get prepared right now.”

People across Florida who planned to ride out the storm were clearing store shelves of water, food and supplies, and people trying to drive north had to search for gas--and hotel rooms. Many streamed to South Florida’s airports.

Florida’s peninsular geography makes flight the best way to flee an oncoming hurricane, but there are only so many planes to catch.

By early Wednesday morning, it was hard to get a seat on a plane going anywhere. Seats that were available still for purchase at Florida airports were often exorbitantly expensive, in the range of $2,000.

Some of those who were leaving said modern technology, and modern communications, helped inform their decisions--and made them easier.

“Back in the 1800s, people wouldn’t have had a warning,” said Renee Gray, flying with her husband, Mitch, to their home in Nashville after evacuating from Islamorada, in the Florida Keys, at 4 a.m. “Today we’ve got warnings, and we have to take advantage of that.”