#and if you were to look up its scientific name in a med book

[aledethanlast]

Confirmed TSC opens with Jean having the mental breakdown of his fucking life at Riko's death until Neil breaks his door down like bitch we gonna party tonight

[melon-kiss]

Screaming, Pt 3

Part 1

Part 2

Link to the part three on AO3

__________

“Molly, I’d like you to talk to me.”

And I’d like to be not-post-LSD traumatised. We all want something, don’t we, Mark?

I flash him an irritated look. He was the one who stabbed me with the freaking syringe two weeks ago. I’m still not over it. He surely thinks he did the right thing but I beg to differ. Although... well, it looked like I was capable of killing Sherlock Holmes, who, apparently, is a London celebrity.

Since I’ve opened my mouth (only to scream, but who cares, right?), they bring me newspapers here. It’s nice to get my hands and brain busy but I’m sure they have an ulterior motive for this. Like, I don’t know, a topic for a conversation?

“I know you can do it.”

I sit with my legs pulled up again. I want to hide in the tight space between my thighs and my chest, so I place my forehead against my knees and let out a sigh.

I’ve made it easier for them. Apparently, the connection between my brain and my body has been restored. I swallow my meds all by myself. I eat more. I especially love toasts for breakfast. Sometimes it takes me two hours to chew out two, but I make myself do it because I want this nightmare to be over.

I really start feeling it - the heaviness of my damages. I’ve come to the realisation that I am truly alone and have no idea about myself. I know only a couple of things: my name, my sister’s name and address, my own address, my workplace. My scientific knowledge is intact, so that’s a relief. But I don’t remember who I was for the last seven years (at least!). I don’t know who to trust, who to refer as a friend. I am really lost. I don’t remember feeling so lost ever in my life. I’m like a time traveller - I’m suddenly moved from one place to another and no one gave me an instruction manual. I suspect the Three Horseman of Madness used to be my friends. Though, I can’t help but wonder - how come did I manage to make friends with detectives?

And there’s still the matter of Sherlock himself. I can’t figure him out. He said, he clearly said he was now the one who’d said ‘I love you’ and would get nothing in return. Does it mean he wants to receive something in return? And does saying ‘I love you’ equal loving someone for real? What were the circumstances? And have I said it first?

The number of mysteries here is too much for me.

I’ve gathered more pieces of my memory puzzle. When the content of the syringe begun to work, I remembered myself standing in a kitchen, wearing a colourful sweater, holding a phone in my hand. Every time I try to retrieve more, a wave of anxiety forces me to back out.

“Molly, you’ve managed to break the catatonic state,” the doctor resumed. “Please, don’t let it go to waste.”

I roll my eyes at him.

“Fine,” I reply.

Mark’s eyebrows go way up as he smiles and almost chuckles at the sound of my voice. I sound a bit hoarse. Last time I ‘spoke’, I screamed like in a torture seat. But they must definitely change my meds. They make me feel numb and sleepy but I assume it’s way too soon for such a request.

“What would you like to know?” I ask.

“Well... how are you feeling today?”

I sigh in exasperation.

“Seriously, Mark?”

He shrugs.

“You know what they say - if you want to know how someone feels, ask them.”

I rub my eyes before I respond.

“Sleepy and lazy. These sweeties do much more damage to my brain than LSD has done.” I point at the pills in a small plastic cup on my nightstand.

“If you don’t feel good, we’ll think about finding something better.”

“Thanks.”

We both fall silent. A guilt manages to resurface over the fog of numbness. I look at my palms. They’re normal. My fingers are appallingly bony but they look all right. No injuries. I think about the moment when they were tightly clenched around his neck. I was so close. I would kill him, no doubt.

I thank doctor Mark in my mind. He would be right to say he did the right thing.

“What... wh-what...” I stammer, my breath getting shallow and irregular. “What- what about-“

“He’s all right,” doctor Mark answers, smiling gently. “No permanent damage. A bruise on the neck and bloodshot eyes for a week. I’m convinced he looks good as new now.”

My fingers around his pale neck. His eyes filled with sorrow and guilt. He tried to say sorry.

I try to even out my breath but I fail. Tears burst out of my eyes and I utter a sound that resembles a howl. I press my hand clenched into fist against my forehead. My crying is so intense something inside me cramps and hurts. I catch every breath with a great effort, greedily but barely successful. I feel shrunken. I notice there’s a stream of drool coming out of my mouth. I let it soak up in the sheet.

This is how broken I am. This is how broken I’ll always be.

Broken beyond repair.

“I didn’t want to...” I shriek, rocking a little bit forwards and backwards. “I don’t know...”

“I know you didn’t want to hurt him, Molly,” says the doctor calmly. “You were disoriented.”

Disoriented?

“I’m not fucking disoriented!” I yell, looking at him. I don’t see him too well, my vision is blurry from the tears. I wipe my mouth into my arm. “I am messed up! Hell, I’m fucked up! And this-“ I point my finger at my temple, “This is now fucking useless. If I killed myself, no one would care.”

I let out a sigh. Inhale, exhale. I try to stop the increasing frustration. The tears stop falling down my face. My heart slows down. My breathing finds its rhythm.

“Did you think about killing yourself?”

I shrug, avoiding his eyes.

“No,” I reply sincerely. “But I wouldn’t mind if I died.”

Doctor Mark remains quiet. He stands next to my bed, holding my patient chart and observes as I slowly pull myself together. So this is what’s been hiding behind this catatonia?, I think, analysing my behaviour in last two weeks.

“You’re wrong,” he says eventually. “There is one person who would bring hell on this world if you died.”

I look up at him. He smiles.

“Don’t worry. It’ll come to you.”

He walks out of the room, leaving me clueless.

 * * *

 My reading is being interrupted by a shut of the door in my room. I raise my head up to see him glued to the wall as if he played a spy. He pants heavily and looks at me suspiciously. I frown.

“Erm... hello?”

His body relaxes and he bounces off the wall, slowly striding closer to my bed.

“Hello, Molly Hooper.”

I watch him carefully but it’s difficult since my heart pumps my blood so loudly I can barely hear my thoughts. Not that I have a lot of them. The drugs take care of that. He goes around the bed and stops at my left side. He looks down at me with a sincere interest.

There is a barely visible remain of a bruising (the author being me) on his neck. His eyes look perfectly white, his (lovely) curls don’t seem so floppy. He grins, which, I suppose, is a bit unusual of him, since this is the first time I see him smiling and he’s been visiting me for about two months. Well, excluding the last three weeks. He wears one of his suits with a plum shirt. He looks good. I have to swallow hard to distract myself from the thoughts which begin to cloud my judgment. I pretend to be interested in my book again.

“How did they let you in?” I ask flippantly.

“I’m not exactly following orders by being here,” he replies.

I look up at him.

“What do you mean?”

His gaze freaks me out but I manage not to flinch.

“I’m not allowed to be with you alone. Apparently, you’re a danger to me.”

I put away the book and stand on my bed. We’re face to face. Our heights are equal now and the distance between us is not bigger than ten inches.

“Are you afraid of me?” I ask and I start noticing I’m unable to refuse the urge of looking at him.

“No,” he responds. “Unpredictability is my forte.”

We gaze at each other for a while and the moment’s suddenly gone. But I could swear I saw a spark in his eyes - a spark ready to light a fire.

“What are you doing here, then?” I ask, crossing my arms on my chest.

“I came here to see you,” he replies, following my every move. “I heard the good news about you breaking the catatonia, so I thought it would be a wise idea to talk to you, now that you do talk.”

“You do realise that you’ve made me angry enough to wake me up, right?”

He smirks and I don’t like it. I mean... I like it, but I don’t. I have a bad feeling about this.

“I’m well aware of the fact, yes. Mainly because I’ve done it on purpose.”

My eyes widen and the urge of choking him again suddenly doesn’t feel so distant.

“WHAT?!”

He hushes me, looking at the door behind me.

“Oh, come on, we’re in a lunatics’ house. Talking to oneself isn’t unusual.”

He chuckles, visibly beaming. Did I just... make him laugh?, I think watching his face wrinkle in a pure happiness. I almost forget I was mad at him. Almost.

“So?”

“I’ve been observing your eye movements and microexpressions for weeks. You’ve been slowly opening and I knew you needed a trigger. And I know what triggers you easily, so...”

I think about the time we must have spent together. How well does he know me? Apparently, very well. Papers write a lot about his observing skills and deduction, so I assume he doesn’t need much to get to know somebody. I flash him a smile.

“Thank you.”

Instead of returning the gesture, he does something completely different. His cheerful mood fades away as he locks, almost stubbornly, his eyes with mine. I can count his eyelashes and see every speck in his blue irises. His pupils are wildly dilated. I’m close to forgetting about breathing.

He glances at my lips every now and then.

He leans forward a little bit but backs out in a second. My heart races so fast I’m sure it doesn’t go less than two hundreds beats per minute. And trust me, it’s a lot.

“So...” I whisper, not letting go of the gaze even for a microsecond. “What was the nature of our relationship before?”

“Not sexual,” he replies quickly.

I open my lips a little bit more.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” His voice is weak.

Something new and forgotten wakes up in my body. I feel a pleasant tingling in my lower back and a heat radiating from his skin. My hands are surprisingly hot as I move one of them upwards the left side of his chest. He glances at my palm but gets back to my eyes immediately. My head is so loud with wild visions.

I surrender to the urge and lock my lips with his. They’re soft and it feels like I haven’t done this in ages. He’s tense, not a muscle in his body moves. I throw my hands around his neck but his hands are stiff. I feel like an assailant. I don’t want to force him into anything but he definitely returns the kisses. It looks like he restrains himself.

I tangle my fingers into his dark curls. He closes his eyes a bit tighter and exhales softly. He definitely represses his emotions.

“Oh, come on, just give in already.”

He’s still tense for another three seconds and he finally gives up. His hands land on my waist. His embrace tightens and his mouth opens wider. He lets out a soft moan when one of my legs clenches around his hip. His touch wanders across my back, my hair, my face. He grabs my buttocks and lifts me up, so I can clench the second leg around him. When I feel his hands on my bottom, I utter a pretty loud groan. I am out of control of my body again but this time it’s different. I feel the pleasure of being taken over by it and I voluntarily surrender. I let the heat control me. I like the wild person I am right now.

His kisses slide down on my neck and turns dangerously further, into my neckline. I lean back my head, savouring the moment, the life that has woken up in my body. I definitely have troubles breathing evenly.

He lets go of me and I stand on my bed again, but the kissing doesn’t stop. I take the opportunity and slide my hand down his belly and into his trousers. He stops, looking at me questioningly.

“You really aren’t yourself,” he murmurs.

I let out a quiet giggle.

The door suddenly creaks and my hand find its way out of his pants.

“Mr Holmes, what do you think you’re doing?!” An older nurse looks at us, disgusted.

“Getting physically intimate with the patient, I’d say,” he replies and I try to hide my chuckle.

“This is a hospital, not a dirty motel! It’s inappropriate!” she yells as she comes closer. “And you shouldn’t even be here!”

He steps back from my bed and I sit on it. The nurse flashes me a disapproving look while taking my blood pressure. Not a great timing for this particular measurement, though. He goes in circles around the room; I suppose he has something to walk off. The nurse writes down the result on my patient’s chart and shakes her head but leaves without a word.

But the mood is gone. Once the nurse gets out, he locks his eyes with me but I sense a different kind of tension. I guess he regrets getting carried away. I’m not saddened by this. It seems logical to me, although it really doesn’t.

I think back to the moment when he said not sexual. How can he love me and claim it’s not sexual?, the question pops into my head. Maybe I misunderstood it and he let me kiss him out of pity?

“You once said I loved you,” I speak up. “And that you loved me.”

He nods his head, standing opposite to the end of my bed.

“Yes. But we weren’t a couple,” he replies.

I frown.

“Why?”

He stares. Unpleasantly.

“It’s a long story.” His reply is almost hissed through his gritted teeth.

“I’ve got all the time in the universe.”

He gazes at me expressionlessly. I think he’s calculating the risk or tries to introduce the story the shortest way possible. Somehow, it also seems obvious to me. He comes one step closer.

“I have a sister named Eurus. She’s highly intelligent and even more dangerous. She’s locked up in a institution built for people like her but she’d managed to turn the entire staff there to be her slaves once. She lured me, my brother Mycroft and John Watson there to execute her very cruel plan. Long story short, I had to go through a series of tests, each one of them requiring my emotional engagement. And I’m not really an affectionate person.” It sounds weird since he’s obviously very emotional. “One of my tests was you.”

I raise my eyebrows and he pauses for a minute.

“I’d been convinced that your flat was filled with explosives. Eurus said that she would blow you up if I didn’t make you say ‘I love you’.”

I love you. My heartbeat races, my vision gets a little unstable. I feel a little bit dizzy.

“But you asked me to say it first. To say it like I meant it-“

“Stop it.”

I’m unable to look in one direction for longer than a second. The room dances around me. I clench my fingers on the both sides of my bed. I feel sick and I’m pretty sure I’m going to vomit any minute. My breathing gets heavy.

“What’s going on?”

It feels like I’m going to faint. I lean forward and press my forehead against the mattress. Oh, God, I’m going to throw up, I think in a complete panic.

Say it like you mean it. The colourful sweater, the telephone, the kitchen. I love you. My not-so-impressive stomach content gets closer to my throat.

“I said it then,” he resumes as if nothing happened. “I said and I meant it: I love you.”

I have to force myself into thinking about breathing, otherwise I would be long unconscious. I struggle with the vomit and his voice, his exact voice wanders around my head.

“I tried to make amends because you’re important to me,” I hear him from over my head. “You thought you weren’t important but you do count. You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you-“

“Get out.”

I lean over the edge of the bed, ready to get rid of my stomach content but this is not the moment. I sense his presence and therefore I raise my eyes to look at him. The view of him doesn’t make things better.

“I said: get out.”

His presence irritates me out of sudden. Every inch of his body I was touching a couple of minutes ago seems repellent to me, his voice is like the worst music possible. The scent of his cologne makes me even more sick. I look up at him, fury in my eyes again.

“I’ve choked you once before. What makes you think I’m incapable of doing it again?” I snap at him.

He flashes me an enigmatic glance and walks out of the room.

I throw up extensively and after that, I plop onto my bed, drifting away into unconsciousness.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #227

Thurs Apr 30 2020 [06:34 PM] Wack'd: Another story catalyzed by space objects falling to Earth [06:35 PM] Wack'd: This time a meteor lands in a lake in Pennsylvania [06:36 PM] Wack'd: One of Reed's science friends calls Reed and is like "hey, I know you're big into meteors, wanna come do science and hang out" [06:37 PM] Bocaj: Space needs to stop dumping its junk in our yard [06:37 PM] Wack'd: I mean hey, we do it too. It's reciprocal pollution [06:37 PM] Umbramatic: The Great Space Junk Exchange [06:38 PM] Bocaj: When has a thing earth sent v'gering into space ever caused a problem [06:38 PM] Umbramatic: ...what the fuck were the dinosaurs polluting space with to get what they did [06:38 PM] Bocaj: Its not like we send a hulk of stuff and crash it into gladiator planets [06:38 PM] maxwellelvis: @Umbramatic Tobacco [06:38 PM] Wack'd: @Umbramatic : *Land Before Time* videocassettes [06:38 PM] Umbramatic: dbtgfrh ojgifmhk  hjnl;.'; [06:38 PM] Bocaj: Ha [06:39 PM] maxwellelvis: The real reason the dinosaurs went extinct. [06:39 PM] Wack'd: So anyway the team is going on vacation! Johnny wants to get a tan and Sue is like "let's bring the grill" and I'm like "you're. You're going to Pennsylvania" [06:39 PM] Wack'd: Like yes the caption specifies it landed at a resort but like, c'mon [06:39 PM] Bocaj: CAN Johnny tan? [06:39 PM] Bocaj: He's exposed to heat and light every day of his life [06:40 PM] Bocaj: Can Johnny Storm get a sunburn? [06:40 PM] Bocaj: Also: why isn't his name Blaze? [06:40 PM] Wack'd: Maybe he can choose to but it's unpleasant to use his powers for it and he prefers the old-fashion way [06:40 PM] Bocaj: Hm, acceptable handwave [06:40 PM] Wack'd: Like there's a difference between being exposed to solar radiation from billions of miles off and setting yourself on fire [06:41 PM] Wack'd: Ben is grumpy because Alicia is bogged down with work and can't make it, and his only other friend will be busy with science [06:41 PM] Wack'd: (You'd think he could hang out with Sue and Johnny and Franklin but whatever) [06:42 PM] maxwellelvis: Sandman stopped taking his calls? [06:42 PM] Wack'd: Sandman tries to beat him up on the regular, what're you talking about [06:42 PM] maxwellelvis: Ahh, right, you're not reading Two-In-One. [06:42 PM] maxwellelvis: Okay, there's ONE thing in Marvel Two-In-One that causes an actual change to the status-quo in Marvel; there's an issue where Ben goes to a bar and finds Sandman is also there. So he sits down with him and they talk. [06:43 PM] Wack'd: "Yer off yer meds again, aren'tcha, Flint" [06:43 PM] Bocaj: One of my favorite scenes in the DCAU [06:44 PM] Bocaj: Get rekt that scene of Batman talking to Ace, psychic meltdown [06:44 PM] maxwellelvis: By the end of the issue, Sandman has gone legit, and for like a decade, he stayed so, until eventually some Spider-Man story needed him back on the Sinister Six. [06:44 PM] Bocaj: (Because it implies that Only Batman can human at people is why) [06:44 PM] Wack'd: Decade does seem to be where Marvel status quo changes top out sadly [06:44 PM] Bocaj: I think it was after the clone saga [06:45 PM] Bocaj: During the panic mode 'shit roll it back roll everything back fuck fuck fuck' kneejerk [06:45 PM] Wack'd: Gotta remind people of the good ol days after that stinker, yeah [06:45 PM] maxwellelvis: Then it was close to like, two decades or something. [06:45 PM] maxwellelvis: That's an astonishingly long time in comics. [06:45 PM] Wack'd: Oh wow [06:45 PM] Bocaj: Funfact: Sandman was an Avenger [06:45 PM] Wack'd: Huh! [06:45 PM] Bocaj: Reserve, but still. [06:45 PM] Bocaj: Nice [06:46 PM] Wack'd: If nothing else the idea of him as a sympathetic crook seems to have stuck [06:46 PM] Wack'd: Which is not nothing [06:46 PM] Bocaj: Sam Raimi intensifies [06:46 PM] maxwellelvis: Marvel Two-In-One Vol 1 #86 is the relevant issue. [06:46 PM] maxwellelvis: So it hasn't happened yet at the time you're reading, is the other reason you hadn't heard about it. That issue was in 1982, so about a decade and a half, give or take. [06:47 PM] maxwellelvis: And you weren't far-off with that JLU joke, @Wack'd, says here that a big thing in the issue is Sandman dealing with the trauma of having been merged with Hydro-Man. Which is probably why he's receptive to the idea of going legit. [06:48 PM] Wack'd: Alright then [06:48 PM] Wack'd: ...anyway Sandman isn't. In this one. So [06:49 PM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, this was a lot more explaining for a dumb joke than I anticipated. [06:49 PM] Wack'd: Back to the story at hand [06:50 PM] Wack'd: Ben decides he's gonna go fishing. He's got a floppy hat and a vest and everything. Also: more womanly stereotypes!

[06:51 PM] Umbramatic: i love ben's fishing outfit [06:52 PM] Bocaj: He looks so happy [06:52 PM] maxwellelvis: Fishing hats like that always make me flash back to that M*A*S*H episode where Col. Blake salutes while wearing his hat and hooks his finger on it. [06:52 PM] maxwellelvis: "What are you trying to DO to me?!" [06:52 PM] Bocaj: Oooow [06:52 PM] Wack'd: They fly into Pennsylvania and things have. Escalated.

[06:52 PM] Bocaj: "I don't want to hoard gold, I want to turn people into dinosaurs" "HE KEEPS SAYING THAT" [06:53 PM] Wack'd: For the record earlier cutaway panels show this is a bird that got mutated by the meteor but I got distracted and forgot to post it [06:53 PM] Umbramatic: that pterosaur's wings make me viscerally angr--AND THAT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Somewhere a paleontologist is weeping [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: OR [06:53 PM] maxwellelvis: Oh cool, I didn't know the writers of *Dino Squad* ghostwrote this issue [06:53 PM] Umbramatic: that's me, i'm the weeping palentologist [06:54 PM] Mousa The 14: The bird didn’t mutate, it simply regressed to an earlier form [06:54 PM] Bocaj: HROINK! [06:54 PM] Umbramatic: if it did that it'd be more like a velociraptor [06:54 PM] Mousa The 14: Hroink indeed. Hroink indeed. [06:55 PM] maxwellelvis: Pterosaurs and birds are completely different groups of archosaurs, that's a mutation, Mousa. [06:55 PM] Umbramatic: YES [06:55 PM] Wack'd: Not really sure why this merited a silent panel

[06:55 PM] Bocaj: Just put up an invisible force slide [06:55 PM] Mousa The 14: Artist showing off [06:56 PM] Wack'd: How bad he can draw children? [06:56 PM] Umbramatic: i dunno which makes a better reaction image, franklin's face or the pterosaur's [06:56 PM] Mousa The 14: Or to show Franklin is about to use. THE POWER [06:56 PM] Bocaj: Its not the worst tiny adult i've seen in comics [06:56 PM] maxwellelvis: Unless it leads to another god-child moment, it's a rather pointless reaction image. [06:56 PM] Bocaj: I'm not saying that its all Franklin's fault but I blame Cable on him [06:56 PM] Bocaj: God-child arms race [06:57 PM] Wack'd: So the monster explodes, and Reed collects its gem--EUGH

[06:57 PM] Bocaj: I don't like this. [06:58 PM] Wack'd: Ftr Gideon Carruthers is Reed's science friend. We already have a Gideon so I'll call him Carruthers [06:58 PM] Umbramatic: -screaming- [06:58 PM] Wack'd: To disambiguate him from the rich doofus [06:58 PM] Bocaj: I'd laugh my ass off if he looked just like gideon from gravity falls [06:58 PM] Bocaj: or even gideon from Scotts Pilgrim [06:59 PM] maxwellelvis: I know there's some sci-fi parasite this reminds me of, but I can't think what. [06:59 PM] Bocaj: Captain N mother brain? [06:59 PM] maxwellelvis: Parasite [06:59 PM] Bocaj: She was a parasite on my peace of mind [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Sue takes a moment to check that Franklin isn't traumatized but he's like "we fought and won, just like in the comics!" And then uh

[07:02 PM] Wack'd: Were comics caught up in the Satanic Panic or whatever? Like [07:02 PM] Umbramatic: -screams- [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Seems more like a 50s thing [07:02 PM] Wack'd: Also yeah that sure is a Franklin [07:02 PM] Bocaj: I think Wertham argued that kids couldn't distinguish comics from reality and yeah that was way before this I think [07:03 PM] Bocaj: I think in his book he cited an incident that I don't know if legit or not where a kid tied a blanket around their neck like a cape and jumped off a roof [07:03 PM] Wack'd: Eesh [07:04 PM] Bocaj: Not sure that could be laid at Superman's feet. He very clearly says 'I have alien powers from being an alien' [07:04 PM] Wack'd: Can't wait to see this kid's mutt mutate into MCGRUFF, THE CRIME DOG

[07:04 PM] Bocaj: Duff Dog Oh Yeah [07:04 PM] Bocaj: Suds McDuffie [07:04 PM] Wack'd: This is cool too I guess

[07:05 PM] maxwellelvis: I was going to say, I think a dire wolf is more likely. [07:07 PM] Umbramatic: awoooo [07:07 PM] Bocaj: Werewolves of Slyvania [07:07 PM] maxwellelvis: I really wish the LOTR movies had modeled the Wargs more on dire wolves than hyenas. [07:08 PM] Wack'd: Okay I think we can safely dismiss the idea of these mutations having some kind of basis in scientific reality

[07:08 PM] Wack'd: Paleontologists rest easy [07:08 PM] Umbramatic: FOREHEAD BEAM [07:08 PM] Bocaj: You've never seen a dog shoot a laser? [07:09 PM] Umbramatic: pidge shoots lasers all the time [07:09 PM] Wack'd: Anyway this time instead of the monster exploding Reed spots the parasite on the back of its neck and grabs it before self-destruct is triggered [07:09 PM] Wack'd: Kid gets his dog back and dog stops being a fiend [07:09 PM] Umbramatic: we have to prevent her from doing it to the neighbors [07:09 PM] Bocaj: Duffer... will live [07:10 PM] Wack'd: Reed I, uh, think the forehead laser puts a serious hole in your theory!

[07:11 PM] Wack'd: Also the fuck is the "evolutionary agent"? Is he claiming we have, like, an evolution gland that pumps evolution juice into our bodies that makes us not be weird history monsters? [07:12 PM] Wack'd: Okay so Reed elaborates that the forehead laser is because the parasite gives its hosts psychic powers to make them more powerful so they can steal gasoline to eat [07:12 PM] maxwellelvis: Well, sure, I can see how that- huh? [07:13 PM] Wack'd: "It makes a bizarre kind of sense," says Carruthers, who is also identified as a geologist and so I guess is just rolling with this [07:13 PM] Bocaj: Carruthers: "Its not a rock so i don't fuckin know" [07:14 PM] Wack'd: Sue is upset that Franklin is in danger and weird shit keeps finding them and Reed is like "we do have some quiet times, they just happen off-panel" and Sue is like "you're right, I'm sorry I snapped" [07:14 PM] Wack'd: And she wants a normal life and yadda yadda [07:14 PM] Bocaj: Like that time she played horsey [07:15 PM] Bocaj: REMEMBER THE HORSEY TIMES SUE [07:15 PM] Wack'd: Sue, hold on to your memories of like the first two pages of each recent arc [07:15 PM] Bocaj: Yeah! [07:16 PM] Umbramatic: thbijgthp oknjlph;[m'n [07:16 PM] Wack'd: So they send Ben down in scuba gear to get the meteor which does actually kinda look like it could be a Steven Universe corrupted gem. Unfortunately he brings something back with him

[07:17 PM] Wack'd: Remember: if a character says they want to go fishing in act one they need to catch a giant sea monster by act three [07:17 PM] maxwellelvis: Shai-hulud [07:17 PM] Umbramatic: poor ben [07:17 PM] Umbramatic: he just wanted to turn fish in to blathers [07:18 PM] Wack'd: Reed, being the smart intelligent thing he is, puts this round item down on the floor of a rocking boat [07:19 PM] Wack'd: It cracks open and [07:19 PM] Wack'd: And then Sue was the reverted evolution thingy

[07:19 PM] Bocaj: So whats the 'reverted evolution' of Sue [07:20 PM] Bocaj: Issue 1 Sue where she didn't ever contribute anything? [07:20 PM] Wack'd: Uh. Angry, I guess?

[07:20 PM] Bocaj: My idea was funnier and plausibly unfair [07:20 PM] Wack'd: True [07:21 PM] Bocaj: Hope this isn't another situation where Reed is justified in belting her [07:21 PM] Wack'd: Also Reed opens the cracked egg and finds five grooves for parasites to be in like seeds [07:21 PM] Wack'd: So after Sue there's one unaccounted for [07:21 PM] Bocaj: Dun dun dun [07:22 PM] Wack'd: Immediately resolved by it dropping out of a tree and on to Carruthers' neck [07:22 PM] Umbramatic: oh [07:22 PM] Bocaj: Whats tension anyway [07:23 PM] Wack'd: Hm. Reverting made his skin darker. Don't like that

[07:24 PM] Bocaj: I do like the resigned "Yep -- I wuz right" from Ben [07:24 PM] Bocaj: Don't like "uglier than the hulk" paired with the thing you said [07:25 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Carruthers goes after some oil because these things eat oil remember, so Johnny blows up the oil and Carruthers goes flying like in an action movie or a Looney Tune [07:25 PM] Wack'd: Thus knocking him out so Ben can get the parasite off him before he explodes [07:26 PM] Bocaj: Yaa~aaay [07:26 PM] Wack'd: Oh. Oh fuck [07:27 PM] Wack'd: I've been sitting here thinking "but why are the monsters blowing up anyway? How does that benefit the parasites? Surely they'd want to keep the host alive to keep collecting oil" [07:27 PM] Wack'd: Adding to that, Reed postulates time is a factor as to why some explode and some don't [07:28 PM] Wack'd: But, uh. I thiiiiiiink it might be a lot simpler than that

[07:29 PM] Wack'd: If I'm right, Franklin blew up the dragon and the sea monster. He wasn't around for the dog and Carruthers [07:29 PM] Bocaj: Dun dun DUUUUN [07:29 PM] Wack'd: (And probably wouldn't have blown them up if he had!) [07:29 PM] Bocaj: Geez Franklin, geez [07:30 PM] Wack'd: And now he's like "do I...blow up mommy? No, right? I feel like that's probably a no" [07:32 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Sue is not entirely mutated, just got some weird facial deformities and is a little out of it. Reed says its maybe her cosmic ray blood [07:32 PM] Umbramatic: *screams* [07:32 PM] Umbramatic: @ the franklin face [07:32 PM] Wack'd: Haha! VINDICATED

[07:33 PM] Wack'd: Honestly kudos to Moench here for successfully constructing a mystery I didn't know was a mystery until the reveal happened [07:33 PM] Wack'd: That's some good writing right there [07:34 PM] Wack'd: Less good writing: this

[07:34 PM] Umbramatic: so nice work [07:35 PM] Wack'd: Anyway Franklin blows up the parasite without hurting Reed or Sue and is very proud of himself [07:36 PM] Wack'd: And Reed concludes "uh maybe we should figure out exactly hat Franklin's deal is" before the whole team hightails it back to New York [07:36 PM] Wack'd: A happy ending maybe

[07:37 PM] Bocaj: OR IS IT? [07:37 PM] Wack'd: Nope, turns out they have another son [07:38 PM] Bocaj: Benjamin Jonathan Richards you were named after the two bravest men I know [07:39 PM] Wack'd: LETTERS! Everybody loves some letters [07:39 PM] Wack'd: Eric L Watts wants Johnny to fall in love with another superhero and Ben and Alicia to get married. I like one of those ideas [07:39 PM] Bocaj: Is that the one what did happen eventualy? [07:40 PM] Wack'd: I mean both of those happen eventually [07:40 PM] Bocaj: Or is it the one, due to the vagaries of gendered language, that has Johnny come out as queer? [07:40 PM] Wack'd: Ha [07:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Lyja isn't a superhero when she and Johnny meet, though. [07:41 PM] Wack'd: Someone wants to know how Sienkiewicz is pronounced! It's sinKEVitch [07:41 PM] Wack'd: @maxwellelvis He does also date Medusa, so [07:41 PM] Bocaj: He's dated Crystal and Medusa [07:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Good golly [07:41 PM] Bocaj: He dates Nova, not that one, who probably counts if Silver Surfer do [07:42 PM] Bocaj: Huh. This list of romantic partners I've found for him is shorter than you'd expect [07:42 PM] Wack'd: People are kind of tetchy at how much Reed stretches now. Two different letter writers are like "He's not Plastic Man!" [07:42 PM] Bocaj: Hah. [07:43 PM] Wack'd: And people really like the more domestic stuff, specifically how Sue is written [07:43 PM] Wack'd: I'm sure the fact that all the letter writers are dudes is a coincidence [07:44 PM] Bocaj: I'm kind of but not really but a little surprised that Carol and Johnny haven't gone on at least one date. They have a venn diagram social circle and Carol dated Spider-Man briefly which is a similar kind of energy [07:44 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey, look who's making her *Fantastic Four* debut

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: Atonement, chapter 1

Ansem always had a penchant for strays, so it's not at all surprising when he takes in the orphaned child Ienzo. The boy's presence changes everything, far more than Even is willing to admit. Ienzo's brilliance seems promising, but the arrival of a young Xehanort pushes the apprentices onto a dark, cruel, inhumane path which will affect the future of the World. And even once it's all over with--once Xehanort is dead--they still must pick up the pieces, forgive one another, find a way to atone for their atrocities, and struggle to accept the humanity which has been thrust upon them.

Or: Even's journey from BBS through post-KH3 Read it on FF.net/on AO3 ---

The boy is utterly numb, despite the fact that Even’s weaned him off the painkillers. He has not said one solitary word to anyone, has barely made eye contact. His knowledge of psychology is less than ideal, but he knows that the boy is clearly deeply traumatized.

Ansem has barely left his bedside, taking his work in with him, fretting over this or that shred of diplomacy. Even tried to tell him that such stress was not good for the little one; he needed peace, quiet, rest, and likely soon some kind of counseling, once they can find an appropriate person. But Ansem wouldn’t hear it, and once Ansem’s mind is made up there’s no convincing him. What does Even know; he’s only a doctor, he’s only seen firsthand what stress will do to people.

Still, there is the matter of what will become of the boy. As the days pass, Even tries to convince Ansem into making some kind of choice. There are plenty of childless couples in Radiant Garden that would be happy to take him in, despite trauma; he will go down to the agency and personally interview them if that is what it will take to get a decision.

When Ansem finally decides, they’ve moved the boy from the med bay onto their floor. He still has not said a word, but at least he looks one in the eye. Even tries to fill the silences with questions. He is out of practice with children.

“Are you hungry? Would you like some juice? Apple, orange? Would you like to go outside? I’m sure Aeleus would be happy to accompany you. Fresh air would be good for you, it’s such a lovely day. Maybe you can make a friend to play with.”

He is met always with that quiet, one piercing teal eye staring up at me through long bangs. He's itching to cut it--no doubt that hair is no good for his eyesight--but he knows he needs to be careful with this one. Even realizes that he isn’t sure if the boy even knows; what did he see? Did Ansem tell him what happened? He must’ve.

Again, he goes down to his office, that familiar bastion. Ansem's desk is a sea of papers; half bureaucratic, half scientific, a slurry that makes Even wince. “I don’t suppose you have a moment, Master.”

He chances giving me a small smile. “For you, Even, always.”

Sarcastic bastard. “I hate to be redundant, but I have questions about the boy.”

His soft expression hardens a little. “His name is Ienzo.”

“Is he aware of what happened?”

Ansem scratches his beard. “It’s hard to be sure what he’s aware of,” he mutters. “Have a seat.”

It is never good news when Ansem asks one to sit. Even picks up a stack of papers from one of the chairs and sets it down.

“Even, it warms my heart to know you care. I see such tenderness from you so rarely. I wish you would allow it to come out more.”

He wonders if Ansem’ll chance bringing it up. Even wonders if he dares.

Ansem takes a sip of his tea. “The… parallels don’t escape me.”

His expression becomes rather fixed. “I believe I came here to discuss another matter,” he snaps.

He lets it drop; which is good. It means he can keep all of his body parts. “Which is?” He wants to make him say it. Even scowls.

“Has anyone told the boy? Has anyone sat him down and explained his parents are dead?”

“There’s no need,” Ansem says quietly.

“Of course there is. He can’t live not knowing. He can’t begin to recover--”

“He saw them.” Ansem knots his hands and stares at him. “After the Unversed swarm. Aeleus heard him screaming.”

Even feels his heart settle, itchily, in his chest. “...I suppose that settles that.”

“Is that all you wished to speak of?”

“You know it isn’t. Someone has to decide his fate. And it seems that everything I say is taken with a grain of salt.” He was the one who brought it up earlier, but Even almost finds himself backtracking to it--which one of them has parented a child?

“There is nothing to decide,” Ansem says simply. “His place is obviously here.”

“Here?” The blood rushes to Even’s face. “This is not a fit place for a child. He needs the opportunity to go to school--to make friends--”

“We can provide a far higher quality education, one that is on par with his brilliance. You did not get to speak with him… before all this horror,” Ansem says. “He is… he’s beyond precocious. You can see it in his eyes.”

All Even can see in the boy’s eyes is pain. “I must insist otherwise,” he continues. “He will have enough trouble adjusting. The best thing to do would be to get him into treatment, and find a loving family who can provide far more nurturing than we. Now that you’ve finally broken down that disgusting referendum barring homosexual adoption, there are so many--”

“Even.”

He’s made up his mind. Even may as well be speaking to a wall. He is just wasting his breath.

“His parents wanted to be apprentices to make a better world for him,” he says, gently. “I think they would find it a great comfort if we were to devote ourselves to the same.”

He shakes his head. “As a physician, I cannot condone this.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have the authority to make that decision,” Ansem says.

It will always be a bit galling to have Ansem override him. Just because he was elected, he thinks he knows everything.

Ansem the Wise. None of those senators would ever believe his naivete. “I hope you trust me on this,” he says, a bit more gently. “We can give him so much more than an outsider. And if you doubt me…” A heavy sigh. “You think I have not considered the alternatives? Dilan and Aeleus have been asking all over town. There’s no other family.” He leans back in his chair, shifting the red stole around his neck. “I am… trying to draft a curriculum for Ienzo’s education. I would like your input. I also would not mind… any other advice you may have.” He smiles gently. “Think of this as… an opportunity.”

As if the boy could ever replace what he once had. “As you said. I don’t have the authority.”

---

There’s so much to be done, yet here Even is, dallying. The chaise seems to be holding him down, not the other way around. He is exhausted; physically, mentally. He used to find these arguments with Ansem challenging; now they are just tedious.

Things between them have never been the same since--

It does no good to wallow in these matters. He needs to work.

He takes his coat from its hook by the door and slides it on. The smell of bleach is comforting, a sort of nothing smell. He heads down the hallway towards the staircase. Dilan must have been cooking; garlic and onion still hangs in the hall. He is trying to recall the last time he had a decent meal when he hears it. Soft, but unmistakable.

The boy is crying.

Even steels himself and tries to turn away, but he simply can’t. He goes over to the boy’s bedroom door, cracked to let in the nightlight in the hall. “Little one? What’s the matter?”

When he sees Even he flinches, curling tightly on himself. Even approaches him slowly, taking a clean handkerchief from his pocket. “It’s me, Even. We’ve met before. I didn’t think I was that forgettable.” His attempt at joking goes nowhere; Even was never good with humor. “May I sit near you?”

The boy says nothing, his one visible eye swollen and watery. He perches near him on the bed and offers him the cloth. After a moment, he snatches it, but rather than wipe at the tears he presses his face against the fabric.

“Were you having a nightmare?” Even asks him. He’s not sure why he bothers; the boy likely won’t respond. “You know that’s quite alright. It’s okay to be scared.” He sounds like an idiot. “You know you are safe here? Aeleus and Dilan won’t let so much as a mouse inside the castle.”

The boy opens his mouth; for a second Even wonders if he might speak. But he only takes a deep breath.

He has no idea what to say. No idea how to make it better. He glances around the room. It’s minimally furnished; no toys, barely any clothing. Even makes a note to arrange for the boy’s possessions to be gathered from the parents’ home; one heartbeat later he realizes he’s going to have to be the one to do it. But he notices something on the desk (much too big for a boy that size); a storybook, roughly middle-grade. The boy sees him staring at it. “Do you want this? Do you want me to- to read it to you?”

The boy shakes his head, but holds out his hand. Even takes the book and gives it to him.

“Let me get some light. Bad for your eyes.” He flicks on the lamp at the bedside table. Even figures he’s probably looking for the pictures. Very carefully, the boy opens to a page and looks down. If Even didn’t know better, he’d say the boy was reading; he’s much too young for something so advanced. He watches closely; he can see the boy’s eye moving slowly. “Can you read?” Even asks.

The boy gives him an odd look.

“Did you know most people your age are just beginning to learn?”

Slowly, he shakes his head.

“This is pretty advanced. Did you want something easier?”

He shakes his head again. At least they’re communicating in some small way, Even notes with relief. He can work with yes or no questions. “Did you want something… more difficult?”

For a second, but just one, the pain in the boy’s eyes retreats, replaced with something like a glimmer. Ansem is right.

“I’ll be right back,” he says to the boy. “I’ll get you some more to read.”

He doesn’t have to go far. In one of the small libraries--one of the only ones with children’s books--he finds the ones for older readers. He chooses a few difficulty levels, and once, on impulse, grabs an adult one. Even takes the books back to the boy and places them on the dresser. The boy watches with something like apprehension and anticipation.

“Try this,” he says, handing him the adult novel. “You may like it.”

The boy takes it from him. It’s almost comically large in his lap--is he merely small for his age? He flips right to the first chapter, a smooth, practiced notion. Even waits. He knows the boy can tell he’s being observed, but he doesn’t seem to mind much.

“You can understand all that?” Even asks.

Slowly, hesitantly, a nod.

Again, Even so wished the boy would speak, to get a grasp of his vocabulary. His heart is racing. He longs to test the boy, to see how much he knows and how much is raw intelligence. He forces himself to hold back, but before he can stop it, “Do you know how to write?”

The boy gives him a puzzled look. Even takes a pad and pen out of his pocket. Slowly, with less pleasure than the books, he takes the items. He holds the pen awkwardly, and then with great concentration, writes his name. This isn’t surprising; most five-year-olds knew this. But then in the same breath, the boy wrote out his whole address, replete with surname. The parents must have taught him in case he got lost; how clever. He seems to have wounded himself, tearing up again. Even gently takes the books and pen from him. “I know, little one,” he says. “I know it hurts.”

He knows more than he’d ever care to.

---

One thing is certain; the boy can write. Even isn’t sure how well. But this could be a tool that could help them communicate with him, should this period of silence go on.

“Selective mutism,” Dilan says, with a shake of his head. “Not uncommon in cases of trauma.” He walks over to the white board they’d all been wittering over, considers the equation, and changes out some numbers for others. Aeleus begins tediously working it out. “I am… flabbergasted, though. Does Ansem seriously think this is a good idea?”

“Master Ansem,” Even corrects gently. Dilan rolls his eyes. “And I… am very much on your side, Dilan. I tried convincing him to find the boy a good home, but he wasn’t having it. He thinks he knows best. We are all too busy to raise a child. This place isn’t safe.” He noted, with horror, the many different hazards that existed in their residences alone; the windows aren’t screened in, for one. And the tubs are much too deep.

“Nor do we want to raise a child,” Dilan mutters. “If he wants to… indulge his parental instincts, that should be on him, not all of us. He should’ve just gotten a dog. Goodness knows we can use one.”

“You know how he gets when he’s made up his mind,” Even says drolly.

Aeleus holds up the small board he is working on. “It doesn’t figure,” he says.

“Damn,” Dilan says. “I don’t suppose you have any opinions on the matter?”

“I think it could work if you swapped the imaginary for a radical.”

“Not that, you dolt. Obviously. ”

Aeleus blinks. “I believe if the decision’s been made, then I have no right to comment on the matter.”

Even sits down. His feet are hurting. He feels as if he’s just gotten these shoes; have the soles worn out already? He pulls the elastic out of his hair, to readjust it, only to feel the band pop. He sighs heavily. “I need this compound to work,” he says. “Let’s start again.”

Dilan scoffs. “Why? What on earth are you going to use it for?”

“Something that concerns neither of you.”

Dilan looks at his watch. “Then you can solve it,” he says bitterly. “Duty calls. As always.”

“Is it that time already?” They’ve been here for hours, blathering on and getting nowhere. “Goodness. The boy must be hungry.”

Dilan gives him an odd look, his violet eyes glinting. “Ansem wants a ward, he can feed one.”

Even shakes his head. “He’s been in with city council all morning. Trying to get them to reverse their stance on their veto.”

“They vetoed the referendum?” Dilan asks.

Even pales--Ansem told him that in confidence. “Don’t tell anyone I told you,” he says. “It wasn’t… public.”

“All our progress and we’re still run by a bunch of idiots,” Aeleus says calmly.

“He’s king in title only,” Even agrees. “I must go.”

The boy is exactly where Even left him last night; nose deep in books. At least it is distracting him from his pain and grief. “Have you been here all morning?” he asks the boy. At least, he notes with relief, that his breakfast plate is clean.  “Would you like something to eat?”

The boy seems distraught; he clutches the book.

Even chuckles, knowing that feeling well. “You can come back after you eat,” he says. “You need to keep your blood sugar up. It helps you think more clearly.”

He considers this and, very seriously, nods.

“Alright, then. You best come with me. I can’t keep serving you forever.”

The boy, on uncertain, unused legs, follows him across the hall to the kitchen. He warms some soup Dilan made, butters toast. The boy takes it without comment, eating quickly, Even is sure, so he can return. While he lifts his spoon, the boy flinches and switches hands.

“Is your shoulder aching?”

He seems surprised Even noticed.

“I’d like to take a look at it,” he says. “I’m sure the stitches are uncomfortable. I can make that… better.” He can’t be sure if the boy fears needles; he was unconscious when Even initially doctored the wound.

Again, a small and serious nod. Even takes him by the hand towards the hospital room, sits him on the bed. The boy takes off his shirt without being told, his mouth opening in a small O of pain. Even scrubs his hands and removes the bandages. The wound’s clean, the scars forming beautifully, though they’ll be quite noticeable. He takes a small pair of scissors. “This won’t hurt, but it might pull a bit,” he says.

The boy doesn’t react as he removes the stitches; his eyes have again gone vacant, focusing grimly on the nylon sutures in the pan. Even smears the wound gently with a salve to promote healing, and covers it again.

“Better?” he asks.

The boy shrugs a little, as though testing it. He nods.

“You handled that bravely. Would you like a…” What? Candy? A sticker? Did they even have any of that?

There’s one thing they always have. “Would you like to go see Master Ansem?”

The boy nods again. As they walk towards his office, Even feels the boy slide his tiny hand into his. He feels something like a stab of pain, deep inside, and he has to bite down hard on the memory that wants to come.

He knocks on the door to Ansem’s study. He can just hear the tail end of a phone conversation-- “I will not accept no for an answer. For any amount of dallying about, but not about this. This is the one thing I have authority to change without anyone else questioning me.” The gentle ding of the phone clicking onto the receiver. “Who’s there?”

“Just a little guest,” Even says. He opens the door. Immediately Ansem’s demeanor changes, softening, his rust-colored eyes lighting up with a smile.

“Ienzo! Thanks for visiting!”

The boy seems almost unsure of how to react, but Even swears he can see the beginnings of a smile. “We got our stitches removed and were very brave,” Even says, feeling a bit of shame for the way he spoke, so babyish.

Ansem crouches so he’s eye level with the boy. “That so?”

“Didn’t even flinch. Put up less fuss than Dilan when that erlenmeyer flask burst. If only all my patients were so good.” Ansem takes the boy’s tiny hand and gives it a squeeze. “Well I think that deserves a reward, don’t you? Have you ever had sea salt ice cream?”

The boy shakes his head. Ansem clucks his tongue. “That’s a shame. I think that needs to be fixed immediately. I think we can all use some fresh air, hm?”

Even starts a little. “We’ve none in the castle?”

“Why shouldn’t we go out? It’s a lovely day. What do you think, Ienzo?”

The boy thinks very hard. He nods once.

“Then that settles that.” Ansem takes the boy’s hand. “Surely you’ll come with us, Even?”

Ansem’s gaze is unsettling him, wrapping a fist around his heart. Memory tugs. “Oh, I mustn’t, I’ve been trying to solve an equation for hours.”

“I see. Don’t want to lose mojo.” Ansem smiles. “I’ll bring some back for you. Though it may be gone if you’re not quick about it.” He winks. “Onward and upwards, Ienzo.” He begins whistling softly.

Even watches them leave, the fist around his heart squeezing tighter. I will not think about this, he mutters to himself. I will not--

---

He’s stuck. Again.

It’s not just the numbers that don’t make any sense; neither do the formulas. He’s increasingly convinced he’s just smearing goo around beakers and test tubes, wasting resources that could have a practical application. This isn’t even theory at the moment; it’s madness.

On paper it all makes sense; a being is a body, heart, and will. A body should be simple, is simple. But whenever he tries his method compared to standard IVF, nothing is viable. All he needs is a cell, just one cell. If he can get this, everything will fall into place. If he can make this work, who knew how many lives could be saved?

“...You forgot,” Ansem says slowly, with a chuckle. “How long have you been here?”

He’s startled him; it takes Even a moment to compose himself. “Do forgive me,” he says. “I’ve… hit a wall.”

“Best take a break, then. You may get clarity when you revisit it.” He offers Even the ice cream bar, still in its wrapper. Even removes his goggles and gloves, washes his hands clean, though he’s done no work that dirtied them.

“I do so hope this is only the second one you’ve had,” Even says.

Ansem shrugs.

“Should you hope to have a long tenure, you should take better care of yourself. The last thing we need is for you to go on insulin.”

Ansem laughs. “Pot, kettle, black. When was the last time you left this castle, Even?”

He sighs. “...Touche.”

“Shall we walk, then? You’ve nothing “cooking,” so to speak?”

“I wish.” He takes of his coat. “After you. Sir. ”

“You know you needn’t call me that.” The breezeway, compared to the lab, is cool. “One of the… many things I’d like to accomplish is the demolition of these useless titles. I am a civil servant; nothing more.”

“You do deserve respect. You are my superior.”

“By luck and coincidence.” Ansem shakes his head. “Indeed, were you more extroverted yourself, you might have found yourself in this position.”

“...Balderdash. I detest politics.”

Another laugh. It’s a warm sound, like woodsmoke. Then, he sobers somewhat. The cool night air and the ice cream are making Even a bit cold. He should’ve kept the jacket on. “Even, are you… fulfilled, with what you do? I do not mean to open wounds, but I know you’ve gone through some upheavals. I wanted to… check in. Not as your superior, but as your friend.”

Even stares down at the ice cream, half-eaten. It’s no longer quite so sweet. “That is kind of you,” he says slowly. “I am… happy with my work. The rest will come if it’s meant to. I… do not wish to give too much away, but the project I am working on could do so much good. It could be the culmination of my career.”

“And you won’t give me a hint?”

“Not the slightest. You’re not that lucky.”

Ansem smiles. “I suppose not,” he concedes.

They’re on the veranda now. It’s starting to get dark. They pause at the railing, watching the pinpricks of light below.

“There is so much potential for this world,” Ansem says slowly. “So very much. Our people don’t hunger, there’s not much crime. With the right reforms, we can give this next generation the tools they need not just to grow this world, but to visit… others.”

Even looks up, startled. “Don’t tell me you seriously believe there are others,” he says.

“Even, how can we not? You know the history, the tales of one vast world before it was fractured by darkness. There is evidence everywhere, if only you’re looking to see it.”

“Then how do you propose getting to one of these other worlds ? And what then? What right have we to delve into such matters?”

Ansem squeezes his shoulder. “Yes, Even. Exactly.”

The warmth of Ansem’s palm seems to remain after he takes it away. Even brushes these thoughts aside. “I don’t know why you get so excited over what will surely be a bureaucratic nightmare. Good luck trying to get these people to understand. They barely accept the fact that some people love differently.”

Ansem sighs heavily. “It’s the old guard. They are… dying, or retiring. The new blood is always so much more accepting. Hopefully this will all one day be a horrible memory.”

“That will take far too long,” Even says, but without energy. “Must another generation suffer?”

“Not if I’ve anything to do with it.”

For a moment neither of them speak.

Ansem clears his throat. Even’s not sure why, but he feels his heart stutter, the fist from before loosening the slightest. But Ansem’s words do not warm him. “I wish to take Ienzo on as my ward,” he says softly.

For too long Even does not know what to say. “You can’t be serious. This is… more than taking the boy in. Should you proceed with the adoption, Ansem, he will be your son , legally, emotionally. Have you the time to nurture him the way he needs? You were right.” He feels heat rising in his face. “He… he’s brilliant. He can read --not just Dick and Jane , or what have you, but Shadow of the Morning Star. And he can write more than a child of that age. I… I implore you to reconsider. Not as your colleague, but as your friend who’s known you for years.”

Ansem stares at him. In the semidarkness, Even can’t discern his expression. “Would you feel this way if it were not… for the situation?”

He feels like he’s been punched. For a moment, Even is positive he will vomit. The vitriol comes out in his words instead. “How dare you?” he spits.

“Even--I did not mean it that way--”

He turns and starts walking the other way, long confident strides that don’t make up for the fact that he’s fighting tears. He tries to swallow it down, swallow it all down, because none of this is productive.

“Even, I’m sorry. I truly--”

He stops. His hair, with nothing to restrain it, hangs around his face like he’s some kind of lunatic. “Children are not playthings,” he spits. “They’re not pets. Everything you do has an impact. Everything. ”

“I know. How can I not know this? I deal with consequences every day, Even. You may have had a human child, but my child is this town. Every day, I make impossible decisions. Every day, I  have to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“Then why am I the one who’s been looking after him?” he asks. “Where have you been?” His heart is beating painfully fast.

“I had hoped this would help you--none of us have been able to reach you--”

“You don’t know what’s best for me.”

He expects Ansem to argue, but all he says is, “Do you?”

He clutches his elbows tightly, trying to choke down the wave of pain.

“I’m sorry,” Ansem says. “Truly.”

Even can’t look at him. He turns away. “I must go. Do what you wish. You always did.”

It’s a pain like rivers.

---

There’s a knock at his bedroom door. A dull, insistent pain beats the inside of his skull. “Go away,” he says to his assailant.

The response is another knock. “I do not wish to be bothered. Kindly leave.”

Another knock. Anger heats the pain inside of him, and he vaults off the bed with the intent of telling off whoever it was. He gathers the words under his tongue, opens the door, and sees nothing.

Something tugs his free hand. Even looks down. It’s the boy. “...Little one?” he asks, trying to smooth and soften his face. “What are you doing here? Are you hungry?”

He shakes his head.

“Is your shoulder hurting you?”

Another no.

“Then what can I help you with?”

He holds out his hand towards Even. With a sigh, he takes it.

The boy leads him to the small library. “When did you come here?” Even asks him. The response was a shrug. “You haven’t been wandering on your own, have you?” Another shrug. “This place is far too big for you to be off on your own. You could get lost… and we might never find you again.”

The boy seems not to be listening. He crosses over to a shelf and points upwards. Even understands. He gestures to a certain volume, and the boy nods.

“What on earth do you want with this?” he asks the boy, but hands him the legal volume anyway. The boy goes over to one of the chairs, hops up, opens the book, and begins searching. Even reads over his shoulder, noting the speed and almost the grace with which he finds the section on “adoption.” “I suppose Master Ansem told you, then.” God, the bastard is really going through with it. “How do you feel about this?”

The boy looks up at him, considers this, and nods once.

“Wouldn’t you rather have a nice family in town? Some parents who--”

The boy’s shaking his head, the pain in his eyes leaching onto his face.

Even crouches down to his level. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

He nods once, blinking tears out of his eyes. Almost automatically, Even reaches out to wipe them away; both he and the boy seem startled by his touch. “If you’re sure,” he says softly. “But if you’re going to be here indefinitely, we need to figure out some system so you can talk to me. Have you ever spoken?” Likely too complex a question for the boy to understand, but something in Even seems to intuit his understanding.

The boy nods.

“Is it that you won’t, or can’t?”

He thinks about this. He holds up two fingers to indicate the latter.

Even considers this. “I’m sorry,  I’m going to touch you,” he says. He feels the boy’s throat, seeking some irregularity, finding none. “Would it be alright with you if I took a closer look? With machines? It won’t hurt, I promise.”

The boy shrugs.

“Well, then. Come with me, Ienzo.”

So that’s that, then. He is no longer an aqueous entity, no longer just a noun. Only then does Ienzo become real to Even.

---

"...Sit right here."

Ienzo looks so small against the table, and he shivers. He looks at the x-ray machine with a morbid curiosity.

"I'm going to take a picture of your throat. Just to see if everything's working the way it should." He guides the machine into place. "Don't move. It'll only be a moment." Ienzo barely stirs, staring at the ceiling as though he's done this a hundred times. Even frowns. "Ienzo, has this happened to you before? Where you were talking and all of a sudden you couldn't?"

Slowly, he nods. "I do wish you had told me." He takes the shot, because, well, the boy's already in position. "I can take a look at your medical records. You've been to doctors, yes?"

---

It takes a little bit of digging, to get Ienzo's records, but working under the king does give one certain advantages. Ienzo has been to many doctors, it turns out, for a variety of reasons. Headaches, sensitivity to noise and textures and smells, anxiety, panic attacks, and the wavering ability to speak. Nearly all of them noted his brightness, as well as his shyness. Reading the notes, it becomes obvious to Even--

Patient, while bright ( he does so detest physicians who use that "while" as if they go hand in hand) seems to be somewhere on the autism spectrum. Referred parents to a special education facility and offered medication. No further action needed.

Things have just become more complicated.

---

Even finds himself reading about it voraciously. To help Ienzo communicate is a problem to solve; rather than his messy, theoretical work. Autistic children can develop selective mutism, sometimes as a trauma response; Dilan was right. But there's no easy way to break the cycle except, perhaps, through therapy, and Even's absolutely not qualified. He figured manual language would be the most useful, but none of them have the time to learn. When he asks Ienzo if he wants to try that, all he gets is a shrug.

Ienzo solves the problem for him. He approaches Even in his bedroom and plunks down a small whiteboard, the same they use in their work. A pen clatters down next to it. "...Where did you get this? ...Never mind. I don't want to know." Hopefully it had nothing important on it. "So you can write?" He gives back the board and sees him struggling.

Yes. The writing is messy and childish but legible.

"We must work on your penmanship."

OK.

---

Before this, there's a matter of things being settled. Considering Ansem's status, the court hearing is basically ceremonial. Who wouldn't trust him? Such a sweet and caring man to take in the poor child, didn't you hear? It takes all of twenty minutes and three signatures for Ienzo to become Ansem's son. They celebrate with ice cream; Even finds himself scrubbing the blueness out of Ienzo's clothes. Brilliant as he is, he is five.

They take the remainder of Ienzo's things, as well as anything that might be important--a few photos, some documents. Ansem places the home in a trust under Ienzo's name, should he decide he wants it when he's able to make such decisions. His parents were comfortable, not rich; there is not much else to take care of.

They do not take him, as it would doubtless be traumatizing; Ansem tells him afterward, gently. He can't look Even in the eyes, still, but for Ienzo Even will be civil. The child does not need more stress; neither does he.

Ienzo scribbles something feverishly on the board. What about the plants?

"The…" Ansem frowns.

Ienzo exhales heavily, erases. Her plants.

Even does not have the heart to tell him that in the weeks that passed, the plants all died; even the heartier, desert blooms. He wonders briefly if they can feel their missing caretaker; but they're just plants, after all.

So why does he find himself lying? "The neighbors are taking care of them," he says. "But would you also like to learn a little bit about what makes them grow?”

Even never studied botany thoroughly; that was Aeleus. Aeleus and Ienzo work together in the greenhouses, dirt and bulbs, propagating stems, whispering in the science of it, the Mendel’s peas and punnett squares. Ienzo seems to find something soothing in the work, and Even understands why; learning his mother’s craft must be something like catharsis. Anything to tide him until they could find a proper therapist.

And so Ienzo’s education begins.

---

The boy’s brilliant; Even’s never seen anything like it. He reads and he reads and he reads and he seems to remember nearly everything. Facts, numbers, all seem to make sense to him. Even sees him blooming slowly.

“He’s… phenomenal,” Even says to Ansem. “I knew he was… but to see the proof, as it were--”

Ansem smiles. “You do see why I couldn’t let him pass us by?”

He sighs. “I still… disagree. But I believe we may be able to make this work. The one thing that I do not wish to compromise… He needs therapy, Master. The studies and the gardening make a wonderful distraction, but you do not live near us. I can… hear him, at night. He has nightmares. And… sometimes I’ll be teaching him, when all of a sudden he breaks down in tears. I’m positive it’s no temper tantrum.” Even’s aware of how grammatically improper his sentences are. He bites the inside of his cheek.

Ansem nods. “I agree,” he says. “I will… see if my peers know of anyone qualified. We also have to consider… the other aspect of Ienzo. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.”

“Of course not. His needs will be… different.” He stands, strands of hair slipping free from his worn elastic. “Please consider it.”

Ansem touches his shoulder. “Believe me when I say it’s my priority.”

When he pulls it away, Even again feels warm. “I shall see you later, then.”

“Yes. I’m going to be tutoring Ienzo, so I may as well join you all for dinner.”

“Yes.”

He gives Even another solid once-over. “Are you alright?”

“I have been… tired,” Even says. He forces a smile.

“These things do take a great deal of energy, do they not?”

“For you especially. Between your work, the research, and now the child--”

“I’m managing. I always have. Best do it while we’re still mostly young, eh?”

Even smooths the wrinkles in his jacket. “Quite. Well, I take my leave.”

---

For a little over six months, life continues in this vein; juxtaposing research with childcare exhausts Even to no end. More than once he falls asleep at the dinner table, only to have Dilan tease him mercilessly.

"One would think he's your ward, not Master's," he says, with a nasty smirk.

The thing is, Dilan's right. Ansem devotes as much time as he can for the boy, and Ienzo is clearly enamored with him. But two or three hours here and there isn't enough to cover the scrapes, the nightmares, the sicknesses.

Which is why for Even the memories become harder to avoid; they creep up in his dreams, and he wakes up, an emotional and illogical wreck. But he needn't burden the others with his woes. His absence prior to Ienzo's appearance was telling enough.

Ienzo continues learning in leaps and bounds; quickly they realize that they can't possibly expect to hold him to a grading system. But while he engages highly in their STEM work, he still never stops reading fiction.

"I believe he could benefit from some training in the humanities," Even says tiredly. He's been coming to Ansem's study more and more, less for his own cajoling of resources than for Ienzo. "He loves stories. He'd enjoy it immensely."

"We might make a writer of him yet." Ansem chuckles. "Leave it to Ienzo to want to learn the one thing we have no expertise in."

"He's certainly stubborn as all get out." He rarely takes no for an answer and pursues what he wants with recklessness, regardless of what Even or the others ask of him; more than once Even's had to scold him for trying to get into the freezer for more ice cream. All he ever gets in response is a scowl. "I don't suppose you've made any progress?"

Ansem sighs and runs a hand through his hair, mussing the neat slick. "I'm afraid the situation is more dire than I realized. My predecessor failed to mention in her reports the state of mental health care in this city, leaving me with piles of unanalyzed numbers. Needless to say, we're in something of a crisis."

"So there's no one?"

"No one other than overworked, under-educated social workers. All they'll tell him is to "hang in there!"" Ansem grimaces. "I'm trying to put the groundwork in place--but you know how slowly these things go. Lives are at stake--more than just his."

"But his is the one I witness day in and day out. There has to be something that can be done."

Ansem sighs. "Have you spoken to him about it?"

"Interpersonal relationships are not one of my strengths.”

"I'm not so sure. The boy clearly cares for you. He writes about you all the time."

Even raises an eyebrow. "I do not believe it for a moment."

"Believe it, or not."

Even frowns, feeling his face heat. If he were reading Ansem's tone right, the king might just be… jealous. "He cares for you too," Even remarks. "You should see how excited he is to spend time with you."

Ansem laughs. "I don't suppose when you accepted your role here you figured coparenting into it."

It's the word choice, "coparenting" versus "childcare", that throws Even off. "Er--no." He looks into the cup of tea Ansem offered him, still untouched. "Though I never expected you, of all people, to desire a family."

Ansem shrugs, dropping his eyes. "I had never considered it," he admits. "But I also know enough to trust in the ways of fate, should it hand something to me."

"Fate." He shakes his head. Learned scholar, and Ansem believes in that nonsense. "In which case, it surely has a sense of irony."

There’s a pause, one long enough for Even to consider taking his leave. Finally Ansem says, “It may help you to speak of such things too.” His eyes are so gentle.

Even is too tired to come up with the Pavlovian rage he’s developed. “I do not desire my personal life to intermingle with my work,” he says instead. He sips the tea to avoid saying anything else; it tastes terrible, and he flinches.

“Even, how long have you and I known one another?”

“Too long, apparently,” he says.

“The way we all live and work--there’s no room to isolate parts of oneself.” He reaches out across the desk, takes Even’s hand, and gives it a squeeze. It’s the touch more than anything, unexpected and warm, that shakes him, brings the wetness into his eyes. He takes his hand back.

“I should go,” he says.

“Even--”

“How many times do I have to make this clear? I do not wish to speak of it, and considering you are my superior, you should respect that professional boundary. It’s unbecoming.”

Ansem sighs heavily. “You’re right. I apologize.”

“I must go. It’s time for one of my lessons with Ienzo.” He turns. It hurts when he swallows. “Good day.” He shuts the door to Ansem’s study, but not quickly enough to blot out his parting words--

“I hate seeing you in pain.”

---

Pain is not useful; so he keeps it at arm’s length. Like any wound, left alone it would eventually heal. Anyhow, he has ways to fill his time, more than he thought possible. On top of his nebulous research for this new project, he is occasionally required to assist the others (it’s only polite) should they need his expertise. Dilan, in particular, loves to waste Even’s time, having him check and recheck his equations. To a degree Even understands this need for things to be watertight--in civil engineering the slightest thing off could literally take lives--but he finds it utterly exhausting. Aeleus’s own work--architecture plans for the further expansion of the city--is of course stuck in a bureaucratic backlog, awaiting votes from the council and populace alike.

Even admires the way Aeleus always makes himself useful; in this period he takes over Dilan’s guard shifts, and looks after Ienzo. Even believes he can sense something of a bond forming between the two. Aeleus always did have endless patience. He works in the garden with Ienzo, cultivating the blooms the boy bred. One such afternoon he happens to pass by and sees Ienzo on Aeleus’s shoulders, trying to catch butterflies. “That’s a Danaus plexippus,” Even hears him explain. “A monarch butterfly. They migrate here this time each year. That’s why I make sure there’s so much milkweed. It’s what the babies eat, where the adults lay their eggs. I think you’ve got one. Be gentle, okay? We just want to look at it. Don’t touch its wings.”

It’s the most Even’s heard Aeleus say in one go, he realizes. He approaches slowly, so as not to disturb them. Aeleus sets Ienzo down and takes the net from him.

“Look at the patterns. You can tell by the shape of the wings this one’s female. The males’ wings point more downwards. Nobody’s sure exactly why they migrate. But not every mystery is meant to be solved by us. You ready to let it go?” Aeleus opens the net, watching the butterfly go up, and up--Ienzo waves to it. “It’s going to go join its friends.”

Ienzo turns slightly and notices Even. He smiles a little.

Aeleus nods. “I figure a little taxonomy couldn’t hurt.”

“Nothing learned is wasted,” Even says.

“Everything is alright?”

Is there something on his face? In his eyes? “Oh, yes. I was taking a little stroll. Forgive my intrusion.”

---

Why can’t he figure this out?

It’s the closest he’s gotten since beginning this fool’s errand--the cell actually fertilized, but it did not begin to undergo mitosis, quickly degraded, and died. All of his calculations support it living in these conditions. Something’s missing, and he’s no idea what.

He’s pondering the dead cell yet again when he hears his door bang open. “Come in, why don’t you,” he says sourly.

Dilan’s in his guard uniform, his face flushed, sweaty. “He’s not in here with you?” he asks, a trace of panic in his voice.

Even raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been alone all morning. What on earth is the matter?”

He’s breathing hard. Even goes over to the mini-fridge and pours him a glass of water. Dilan drinks it in one swallow. “We can’t find the boy. He’s disappeared.”

If the castle is full of places for small children to hide, then the city might as well swallow him whole. A sharpness tugs at Even’s chest, a hot flush of fear. “He was supposed to be with Ansem this morning. Ienzo must have slipped away when he turned his back.” He throws aside his lab coat. “Let’s go.”

They search for hours, the three of them; they get some of the cleaners to assist as well. It feels like vanity, to keep calling his name--could he even respond? What if Ienzo were hurt, or in danger? Could he scream? They pore over the castle for what seems like an eternity, checking every wardrobe and closet, the gaps below the balconies, the strange tricks of architecture. He’s nowhere to be found.

“Let’s try town. Maybe someone’s seen him,” Dilan hedges.

Even wonders if this is all in vain. Finally a shopkeeper admits to seeing a silver-haired boy in the clothing Even left out for him this morning, but she says that when she tried to speak to him, he ignored her. They follow the trail out into the residential district. It’s there they find him, finally, crouching in a patch of flowers. Even runs over to him. “Oh thank god,” he says, over and over again. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?” He gives Ienzo a once-over and finds with immense relief that, aside from a scraped knee and some dirt, the boy is unharmed. Ienzo seems shaken; again his eyes are vacant. “Did someone hurt you?”

He shakes his head weakly. He gestures over Even’s shoulder. It’s the house. Of course. He must’ve tried to come home.

“Oh, little one, why didn’t you just ask if you wanted to come here? We’ve been worried sick, looking for you. You shouldn’t be out on your own.”

Ienzo sniffles a little, his eyes watering. His hands tremble. He points to the pad sticking out of Even’s pocket, and he hands it to him. Why did you lie about the plants?

“The--” It clicks. “Dilan, take a look at the house.” He nods and turns towards the door.

Ienzo keeps scribbling. The pots are all empty. You didn’t give them away. They died.

“I--” It feels terrible, to be caught in this lie. “Little one, by the time we got here it was already too late. I didn’t have the heart to tell you. You already lost so much.”

Ienzo seems to not know how to respond; he gives Even back the pen and pad.

“The door’s still locked, but it looks like he crawled in through the window,” Dilan says. “I’ve secured it.”

The boy is so deflated now, so exhausted, tears running disjointedly down his face. He does not fight when Even picks up him; he lays against him limply. Once they are finally back at the castle, Even runs him a bath and puts him in bed. In all this time Ienzo does not try to communicate. Finally, Even concedes. “Ienzo, I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. But do you understand why I did it?”

The boy turns on his side, away from Even.

He sighs heavily. “Try to get some rest.”

His own body is so heavy, so unwieldy. He drags himself slowly to his quarters. He needs sleep more than anything; perhaps a stiff drink as well. Normally such substances are out of his realm of interest, as he tries to think as clearly as possible. But tonight he needs to think a little less. He reaches into the cabinet for the cheap bottle of whiskey Dilan gave him one birthday, finds it mostly empty, and gives up. Tea will have to do.

Even feels strangely numb. He probes the sensation idly. He knows he should be concerned; sadness is one thing, numbness could be pathological. Which is the last thing he needs. He realizes that he, too, is rather filthy, from all the digging in the near unused parts of the castle. But he cannot find the strength to go bathe. Cannot find the strength to do anything, it seems.

There’s a knock at the door. He does not respond. Best let them think he’s asleep. The thought of crawling in bed while so dirty appalls him. Perhaps he’ll just sleep in this chair.

The door opens. “Even? Are you awake?”

Ansem. He takes a deep breath.

And finds himself yelling. It’s a surprise to him, too. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Searching like the rest of you--”

“He was with you, he was supposed to be with you!”

“I turned my back for a moment to take a call--”

“Do you know what could have happened?” His spit tastes like copper. “He could’ve--fallen out a window, or down the stairs, or someone could have taken him. He’s a child, Ansem. You can’t expect him to know these things. Why on earth weren’t you paying attention? I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t--”

He notes how haggard Ansem looks; his shoulders sag. “Even. My friend. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry’s not good enough.” He can feel the heat in his face. “Now leave me be.”

“Even--”

“ Get out. ”

The tone of his voice is enough, and Ansem flees. He drops himself back into the chair, wretchedness choking him. And promptly bursts into tears.

It feels strange to cry, after putting it off for so long. Alien. Inhuman.

---

He gives Ienzo space, after that. Even does not know how else to apologize. He leaves a book for Ienzo to read, one he liked as a boy. Ienzo seems to tolerate his presence, but the tentative bond they built seems to have weakened.

No matter. The boy is not his son. His opinion of Even should not matter.

He turns back to his work, back to the walls that face him in his experimentation. He makes careless mistakes, misses errors he wouldn't have normally. Even feels unwell.

Something is missing.

So he reads. He turns away from numbers, towards a story that ultimately doesn’t matter. He understands why Ienzo reads so much. It’s an easy way out. He’s delved into one of these volumes in the sitting room when he hears the voice.

“Even?”

Startling. Unfamiliar. He looks up slowly and sees Ienzo.

“It’s back,” the boy says simply, and leaves.

[escritoraulquii]

Gray Traces

Voltron: Legendary Defender | Sheith | T | 1.5 K | En español | AO3

So, I did a little something, kinda, because I just translated it from a not-that-new work I had in spanish.

I hope you like it!

~

It started with a little gray line appearing in the curve of his right thumb, a slight and a not-really-there pain making him aware of it. He thought it wasn’t anything important, noticing that as time passed it disappeared until being almost invisible. He still could see it if he searched it attentively and in the right light.

Then it was a splash in his left knee and in the base of the palm of his hands, near the inside of his wrist. It was really similar to the scratch he did to himself against the pavement when he fell from his skateboard, the scorch mark burning every time the fabric grazed it or the water passed over it when he showered. However, these splashes didn’t hurt as that, although he could feel them as injuries, somehow.

The splashes didn’t disappear like the line in his thumb did. Those scratches in his hand and knee stayed dyeing his skin with a gray that looked very akin to storm clouds. And when he mentioned them to his father while they were talking and remembering those injuries that they had made to themselves through life and the scars that had stayed, he noticed that his dad couldn’t see them.

He did point out the whitish marks and the creases in his skin that he made himself in moments of carelessness or fearlessness, telling him, for example, when he fell from the kitchen table, trying to catch a moth that fluttered in the ceiling, his arm falling in the edge of the bar and breaking the skin in a vertical line, long but superficial. Or when he almost had caused him a heart attack at accelerating his neglected, turned on motorcycle and crashing it in the entrance deck, an injury opening up in his leg against the wood and not being that serious as his panic had screamed.

His father couldn’t see them, nor even through the reflection of the mirror, so he had to accept to live with the doubt. A sigh escaped from his mouth every time a new gray trace appeared in his skin.

It was sometime after he was left alone that the marks started to concern him more than it had ever before.

One day he woke up in the darkness of dawn, his breaths coming out shallow filling up the silent emptiness of his apartment and a horrible but inexistent pain in several parts of his body making him flinch out of his sheets and get tangled more than escaping from them. When he tripped out of his mattress, he noted that his right arm, from the fingertips to way over his elbow, was painted in that faded gray, paling sickly his skin.

And looking up to the mirror, he felt his blood go cold at the line crossing over his nose, from cheek to cheek, with all the intention to divide his face in two.

Even though he had lived asking himself, and seconds later ignoring, where those marks came from, it wasn’t until that moment where his loneliness had overwhelmed him and the only reason he found for his own existence was the mere fact to continue surviving, that he determined to get an answer of its origins.

For weeks, seeing himself in the mirror and finding that mark in his face, already dissipated and not that startling in his reflection, brought him more relief than concern. Each day he woke up with the fear that his gray arm and all the little, crisscrossed lines in his torso and extremities had disappeared, leaving him with nothing more than sadness and misery that left his father’s death.

One day, unfairly, his heart almost stopped when the color came back to his right hand and most of his forearm, the only thing still marked like a barbed wire was just after his elbow. And the pain, more than outsider, felt empty.

The rest of the marks were still there, and it became an habit to trace them with his fingertips when his mind maundered through his life problems and the existential question concerning the gray parts in his body, as if establishing a physic contact with them could bring him closer to the answer he wanted.

And so, the line over his nose became his symbol of courage, granting him that fixation and strength to achieve what he wished for.

It was after healing from an assault attempt that somehow the answer came to him.

“Ex-cuse me.”

He looked up from the reportage of the magazine he took from the cafeteria basket. He wasn’t even one of those people whom read magazines, being more interested in scientific documents and text books, but the word ‘soulmate’ in the cover had grabbed his attention.

The person beside his for-one table was glaring at him with a very deep frown behind circular glasses, her hands resting in her hips in an aggressive stance. He had seen her before, he recognized her from his physics classes, but he had never been good with names.

“Yeah?”

He jumped away when she took another step to him, using in her favor the difference in heights provided by him being seated down and she standing up. If they were both standing, he could easily surpass her by a head.

“Could you, if you’re so kind,” she started with harsh tone, her nose scrunched in disgust that he was very used to, “stop doing that? You’re being a jerk.”

He blinked a few times, opening his mouth and moving his head slowly from side to side; afraid that making it in normal speed could enrage her more.

“What?”

He flinched when she got another step too close, this time making his chair scratch the floor.

“Stop. Doing. That,” she demanded through clenched teeth before throwing a gesture over her shoulder, “You’re bothering him!”

He followed up the movement of her hand to a group of people in the center of the cafeteria, encountering expressions really similar to the one the girl in front of him was shooting him, and his heart stumbled at the only one having a nervous and ashamed air.

It wasn’t because his hair was of the same white that the stars casted, or because he had the most beautiful gray eyes he had ever seen; it was the scar that crossed his face, over his nose, an identical copy as the gray line that he had in his own face.

His fingers twitched with the need to trace it, with the desire to stroke his and bring out a blush beneath it. He then noticed that his fingers were already positioned mid-caress over his nose, ever since he had read in the magazine about connections through the soul and destined encounters, minutes before the girl had come to him to defend that man from the apparently rude stranger that couldn’t keep himself from emphasizing the startling scar someone had in their face.

His eyes inevitably fell to the prosthesis that had as his right arm, most of it hidden beneath the sleeve of his shirt, and he heard the papers in his hands crush in his fist, remembering the gray color and the sensation that he had for several months before returning to normal and almost causing him a heart attack.

He looked up to the stranger’s eyes, noting how realization washed down his expression while observing carefully the right side of his face, eternally marked by the scar crossing his cheek, and how something similar to a nervous tick made him reach over to his own jaw with his prosthetic hand, his knuckles tracing vaguely the width of the scar he had in his skin.

A few years ago, it had passed through his mind that the gray traces in his body existed because another person was the one that was suffering those injuries, and he had discard it immediately because it horrified him thinking that someone else was painting his body with scars of their own, that his skin was marked up by someone else’s pain, that someone was about to die and he couldn’t do anything more than just ask why those marks appeared.

He remembers, even, asking himself, in the confusion of the meds that the hospital gave him, if the scar that will be in the side of his face forever had arrived to the skin of someone else, painting it in a color he ignored and causing a feeling that he will never know of.

But now he knows.

And it was mostly surprise.

That man, too gorgeous to be true, wasn’t touching his cheek as other unpleasant people had with the left side of their faces when they have seen him face to face. He was touching it as if the scar was on his own skin and not on the skin of some stranger he saw in the cafeteria, as if he was more used to seeing it day to day in front of the mirror and not in another person face.

His expression full of wonder suddenly went to one with a saved-up constant concern, as if he was aware of all the scars he had made in himself in moments of danger, fearlessness and stupidity.

And then he knew: that person knew him better that any other person in that world.

He jumped up from his seat when his understanding reached the knowledge, and ran up to escape in an attempt to escape that overwhelming feeling that was filling his chest.

“Wait…!”

[imamessofawriter]

Tododeku Week 2017

Day 1

Theme: First impressions

Quote: ‘Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man or woman’ - Arthur Schopenhauer

A/N: I know this is late but I so want to submit something, and will try catching up to the rest. It’s not explicitly Tododeku or hardcore but there are hints. Also, this is not proofread.

Warnings: AU – University setting.

@tododeku-week

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The Zoologist and the Psychologist take an art class

U.A university was known for its tough curriculum and advanced learning. They were also known to throw students out of their comfort zones, alas that is why Shouto was fidgeting with his pen in his seat, waiting impatiently for the class to start so it can end, as his advisor thought it would be funny to watch the young adult suffer at the hands of art 101, along with a lot of freshman.

He stared at the door and saw another freshman enter, this one looked calm but jumpy and a nervous wreck at same the time. He had the deepest green eyes that could see through everything, as if he knows everyone's deepest secrets. Slowly he scanned the hall and found the nearest emptiest seat, which just happens to be next to Todoroki himself.

“I-is t-this seat taken” he squeaked, shaking slightly as if Todoroki will attack him. Smiling softly as he gave the boy a closer look, he noticed a sea of freckles decorating the boy’s cheeks, adding to his charm. “It’s not taken, you can sit if you want” he answered, secretly glad the someone decided to sit next to him, ignoring the scar that covered half of his left side.

Setting his books on the table and flipping the pages, Todoroki couldn't help but notice how much the notebook has been filled, there were also words he have never heard of before and some scientific words were thrown here and there. If Todoroki had to guess he would say either this boy belonged to a scientific department or was a med student, which also put the boy into a same position as him. “I’m Midoriya” the boy introduces, “Midoriya Izuku”

“Todoroki, Todoroki Shouto”

“Okay…” Izuku sighed as he looked at the front of the class, waiting for their teacher to start the lecture. Neither boys were really paying attention and Todoroki couldn't help but notice that Midoriya wasn't really taking notes of the lecture or what the professor was saying, instead he was writing something else, upon closer inspection it looked like an analysis of the professor, the way he talks, walk and handles himself, he also couldn't make a word from all that insane muttering.

Midoriya knew that the person sitting next to him was watching him, his notebook and also somewhat alarmed of his muttering as he came to several analyses at light speed. It also seemed to spread through class and the students next to him were becoming annoyed, and lowered his voice, writing his last conclusion before closing his book and leaning back to hear what the professor was saying.

Both students looked lost as the person who will be the death of them rambled and rambled, on and on about things they don’t care, about the importance of art. Really, they didn’t care. All they want is to pass this class and preferably with good grades, given the fact that they are both terrible artists.

“So, the first assignment is 15% of your final grade, you have to pair up with someone, you are not kids I hope you know what to do” the professor announced, both Todoroki and Midoriya glanced at each other at the same time, having only met less than two hours ago, they had a strong chemistry between them. “You will have two weeks till the deadline, your assignment will be to write a paper no less than 10 pages about two historical or revolutionary art movements of your own choice, do not copy and paste, it needs to be in your own words, plagiarism will result in an immediate fail”

A collectivity of groans could be heard from the students as class was dismissed, it was only natural as most of them were freshmen during their first week, with no friends whatsoever. “So, should I give you my number or Email, or both? Yeah both. If we find something quick before the others take any topics that can easily exceed 5 pages each, also if we take into account a page for an introduction, another for a conclusion and one for references, that would make it easier. Well since I have a break until the afternoon I could go to the library and look for some topics, but that depends on you Todoroki-san” he kept on rambling, forgetting to include his partner in the conversation, “sorry I tend to mutter a lot, a bad habit that I need to work on”

“It’s alright, I have a two-hour break until my next class” Todoroki answered as they made their way out of the lecture hall, backpacks slung over their shoulders, “Just a little curious, what do you major in?”

“Hnn… me, I’m studying psychology, you know social sciences” Midoriya replied, rubbing his neck awkwardly, “were my notes weird, I was told that they are creepy multiple times”

“Oh”

“Yeah oh” Midoriya chuckled, deflated and kind of offended by the reply.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I actually thought you were studying medicine or something, but that was pretty detailed and spot on” Todoroki backtracked, trying to cheer his new friend, for some reason he wanted to be friends with the freckled young adult even though he hated socializing, “I didn’t even notice some of the habits that you wrote, perhaps I might pick up that analyzing brain of yours, wait, I meant that the way you analyze if pretty spot on and maybe by hanging out we can rub off on each other”

“…”

“That sounded wrong, god why is this difficult” Todoroki groaned as he watched Midoriya look at him as if he wanted to laugh at him.

“It’s okay Todoroki-san, we’re both socially awkward people, I get what you mean” Midoriya chuckled, waving a hand in the air, “you asked me about my major but what about you, if I’m not mistaken your father must be Todoroki Enji, a doctor and director of the Endeavor Hospital?”

At the mention of his father’s name, Todoroki couldn’t help but stiffen for a moment which was immediately caught by Midoriya who took a mental note not to mention Dr. Todoroki ever, was he not on good terms with his father. That would make more people who can’t stand the doctor, even his own son can’t tolerate him. “Unfortunately,” was the dual haired boy’s reply with a tone filled with resentment and hate, “but I’m majoring in Zoology”

“So, you’re not going to be a doctor like your father? Even though I heard many murmurs as we left class on how you were a med student or something, you’re pretty famous you know”

“No, I want to be either a vet or you know someone who goes into the wild to protect and save endangered animals” Todoroki laughed, “I prefer animals over humans at any given time, I feel like maybe I will hurt them, you know with this curse I have”

The way he spoke made Midoriya look at him with both admiration and sadness, the tone the boy had used indicated that animals were nicer to him than any human was. Could that scar on his face be caused by human directly? Or was it an accident? He didn’t know but he was curious. The way his dual eyes lit up as he mentioned being a vet then sobered at the mention of humans made Midoriya want to wrap his arms around him and tell him everything will be alright.

“you know there is a quote by Arthur Schopenhauer that says ‘Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man or woman’ Shouto, can I call you that since you seem to not like your father much and I know that I’m jumping to conclusions but let me tell you that your love for animals make you a better person than your father and most people, so don’t you ever say that you have a curse or hurt people, you are a good person Shouto-Kun, and I believe I overstepped my boundaries”

Todoroki could only look at awe at Midoriya, the intensity and determination in his voice, the way he knew that Todoroki can’t stand his own father without the latter saying a thing about it, other than that curt response. He really wanted to be friends with this boy, this guy who saw him Todoroki Shouto not as Dr. Enji’s son, he saw him as his own human being.

“Want to go grab something to eat, my treat” Todoroki asked, and the smile on Midoriya’s face couldn’t get a bigger as he nodded eagerly and they both made their way towards the nearest diner, as a new friendship or perhaps something more blossomed between them.

A/N: Hope you like it, really have no idea of what I wrote and I love Tododeku. Also let’s be honest if Midoriya wasn’t a hero he would definitely be a psychologist.

[coolgauravkashyap7800-blog]

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[theconservativebrief]

Two Kickstarter campaigns between the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2017 set out with relatively modest goals: Each intended to raise around $20,000 to create products that claimed to relieve stress. Instead, both made millions and ended up helping to create an entire economy out of the treatment of anxiety with simple items.

The first, the Fidget Cube, raised nearly $6.5 million and predicated the most omnipresent toy trend of the following year, the fidget spinner. The second, the Gravity Blanket, raised $4.7 million with the promise of a better night’s sleep.

Neither went viral because a corporate behemoth like Mattel or Amazon decided to blindly diagnose the entire country with anxiety — they became so popular because regular people came across a video and donated with the belief that the devices might actually work.

Both, however, helped give rise to the growing anxiety economy, composed of adult coloring books, aromatherapy vapes, essential oils, and other products designed to calm us down. And though these items often have little, if any, scientific data supporting whether they really “work,” their explosive popularity sends a clear message: Americans are anxious as hell, and we’re trying to buy our way out of the problem.

Anxiety is quite possibly the defining characteristic for not only my own generation, but everyone alive at this particular time in history. It is already the most common mental health disorder in the US, affecting 18.1 percent of Americans each year and nearly one-third of Americans over their lifetimes, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and the National Institute of Mental Health. And it’s quickly getting worse among college students: The American College Health Association found in its annual survey that in 2011, half of undergraduates reported they felt “overwhelming anxiety.” By 2017, 61 percent did.

There are plenty of places to point fingers: your phone, the president, climate change, the recession, FOMO, divorce, social media, student debt, terrorism, the 24-hour news cycle, the economy, “the economy,” living farther from family, toxins in your gut, too many choices, too little sleep, too little sex. Or maybe we’re just overdiagnosing anxiety and actually, everything’s fine.

Unfortunately for the millions who do suffer from anxiety, everything is not fine. Though the disorder may be affecting a growing number of people, finding suitable care is increasingly difficult due to funding cuts for both treatment services and research programs and a generally broken health care system.

So it makes sense that more people are turning to digital therapists, meditation apps, and even tampon brands in lieu of access to medical care. Media companies have been built around the mental health crisis, while videos designed to calm us down go viral. Even our most primitive need — sleeping — has somehow become a fun, sexy industry.

As a member of that near-one-third of Americans with an anxiety disorder, none of it surprises me. My desk is filled with random bouncy, squishy, or clicky objects that have no use other than being futzed with, and cataloging them all makes me feel like a person who is laughably unfit for modern life — particularly when I live in New York, one of the most stressful cities on the planet. But it also makes me the Platonic ideal of a consumer of our era’s most marketable products.

Denver brothers Mark and Matthew McLachlan were tinkering with the idea for a few years: It would be a small toy, one that wouldn’t look out of place in the average office, that workers could click, flip, and spin. It would be intended not to help them escape the monotony of cubicle life but rather to give them something to fiddle with discreetly in order to better focus on actual work.

In September 2016, that idea became the Fidget Cube, which ended up becoming the 10th most funded project on the site of all time.

That was thanks to a few factors: a slick, well-produced satirical video that went viral when major Facebook pages like NowThis and Unilad began sharing it, a near-universal message (most of us have experienced the urge to fidget), and the novelty of an entirely new kind of product. After all, as Matthew explained to Vox over email, this was a time when “the phrase ‘fidget toy’ was not a household expression.”

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The spinning toy that was to take over classrooms was not the same one shown in the McLachlan brothers’ viral video. Due to trouble with manufacturers thanks to the unexpectedly massive scale of the Kickstarter campaign, the official Fidget Cube was plagued with delays, by which time the market had already been flooded with knockoffs.

Plus, there was already a cheaper toy ready to take its place: the fidget spinner, developed in the early ’90s by a Florida inventor named Catherine Hettinger. She had an autoimmune disorder that caused muscle weakness, and with a 7-year-old daughter at home, she wanted to create a toy that could distract and soothe young children.

After shopping the spinner to multiple toy brands, she secured a patent and even had a meeting with Hasbro, though the toy giant ultimately decided against producing it and let the patent expire in 2005. Later, variations of the fidget spinner were marketed by small manufacturers as therapeutic aids for children with ADHD, anxiety, and autism, but by late 2016, versions of spinning toys made with materials like stainless steel and titanium were being sold for as much as $199.

Even if the Fidget Cube had lost some of its edge in the market, by Christmas 2016, Forbes claimed fidget spinners as the “must-have office toy for 2017,” and in April 2017, they became the second-most-popular item bought on Amazon, right after the free 30-day Prime trial. Though it’s impossible to say how many have been sold, the payment platform Square, which is often used by smaller independent retailers, noted that while in January and February of 2017, only about 30 fidget spinners were purchased each month, by the end of May, 151,241 were. The market research firm NPD estimates that at least 19 million were sold, with others claiming more than 50 million.

Eight-year-old Tom Wuestenberg plays with a fidget spinner in a park in New York on May 23, 2017. Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Spinners were a massive hit with children: They’re fun and cheap, and you can do cool tricks with them on YouTube. But they certainly owe the cube that came before them a big thanks for helping fidget toys rise out of their clinical niche.

Around the same time, another Kickstarter was blowing up. In the fall of 2016, the small media company Futurism, which covers science and technology, was attempting to build a new revenue model in the face of an increasingly competitive pool of advertiser dollars.

The newly created product team noticed that articles about the science of sleep and stress were getting a lot of traffic. In the process of brainstorming ideas, the team tossed out the idea of a weighted blanket. It would be around 10 percent of the user’s bodyweight (available in 15-, 20-, and 25-pound versions) and consist of a polyester cover atop a cotton inner shell filled with plastic pellets, providing the weight.

Though they’d been around for decades, weighted blankets were, until then, generally used to treat children with autism or adults with PTSD, among other disorders. Futurism’s prototype, called the Gravity Blanket, was different: Like the Fidget Cube, it took a previously niche clinical tool and adopted the aesthetics of a slick startup to market it to a mainstream audience with the promise that it could relieve stress and anxiety.

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“It felt like an interesting time to bring a physical product that wasn’t necessarily pharmacy-based or med-tech based, but just a really simple solution to a bigger population, and part of the strategy was to elevate the look and feel of it, too,” explains Mike Grillo, the president of Futurism’s product division. “Anything you saw prior to Gravity that was a weighted blanket was very clinical-looking, and I think would turn off the general consumer, so we worked hard to find the right fabric and came up with a pattern and really elevated it, both from a product perspective and then from a brand perspective.”

On top of its $4.7 million Kickstarter campaign, to date, the company has sold more than 70,000 blankets at a retail price of $249. Gravity succeeded thanks to similar factors as the Fidget Cube: good design, universal appeal (who hasn’t had trouble falling asleep?), and the product’s novelty. And it too was succeeded by many knockoffs on sites like Amazon.

Like the Fidget Cube, it took a previously niche clinical tool and adopted the aesthetics of a slick startup to market it to a mainstream audience

Meanwhile, other startups were creating conversations in the mental health space, like TalkSpace (the chat-based therapy app) or Calm (the meditation app whose goal is to become the “Nike for the mind”). “They’re more tech-focused, of course, not necessarily physical products, but all of these non-pharmacological, non-medical offerings for people to relieve their stress,” says Grillo.

There is also the fact that this was in 2016, arguably the most anxiety-inducing year in recent cultural memory (besides, well, the year after, or maybe the current one). Indeed, Futurism came up with the idea for the Gravity Blanket just a month after the US presidential election, in December 2016. When I ask whether it was an attempt to capitalize on the cultural moment, Grillo agrees, to an extent. “It truly felt like it was the right place, right time,” he says. “I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, we have to hit this while the iron’s hot,’ but it certainly felt like the right environment to go out into the market with something like this.”

To claim that the explosion of anxiety-quelling products was a direct effect of the election would be an oversimplification of trends that were already in place, however. Anxiety disorders among the general population were already on the rise, and mental illness was already becoming increasingly more socially acceptable to discuss. Plus, brands like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop had piqued the cultural interest in non-medical and alternative forms of treatment.

But the year was a turning point that helped create the groundwork for these sorts of startups to take off.

With millions of dollars to be made in the anxiety product economy, there arises the question of whether anyone actually should. One woman who has weighed this more than most is Meredith Arthur. She’d been working at a series of increasingly dysfunctional San Francisco startups while at the same time experiencing worsening migraines. It took five therapists and a specialized clinic before a neurologist told her, a few days before her 40th birthday, that she had generalized anxiety disorder. Like many who finally receive the diagnosis they’d always unconsciously known they had, she felt a deep sense of relief.

“I immediately knew it was true,” she says. “[My neurologist] picked me up off the earth, turned me around the other way, and set me back down. I was like, ‘Oh, okay. That’s what it is.’ Now, of course, because I have generalized anxiety disorder, what did I do next? Okay, research.”

That research eventually formed the foundation of what would become Beautiful Voyager, the online community she built for “overthinkers, perfectionists, and people pleasers.” When she launched the site in 2015, she recalls people receiving the idea with subtle condescension. “People were quiet. There was some, ‘Good for you, Meredith!’” she says with a laugh. But by the time the fall of 2016 rolled around, she noticed a shift in the way people talked about mental health.

“It was a watershed moment, where everyone was like, ‘It’s okay to be completely distraught.’ If I get in deep about it, I think of it as ego disillusion. I had to get over myself.”

Sister Charlene Favreau attends an adult coloring book event in Burlington, Massachusetts, on June 14, 2015. Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

In order to cover the cost of running the website, which also includes paying writers, Arthur has a retail section on her site, where people can buy items like weighted blankets from a seamstress in Illinois, coloring books, sleep masks, and a millennial-pink pillbox. As far as she’s aware, it’s one of the only communities/marketplaces devoted to people with anxiety, which gives her a heightened sense of responsibility to its members.

As a matter of principle, she’s upfront about where the profits go: There’s an entire section on the site devoted to the topic (she keeps 10 percent of sales; the rest goes to the manufacturer), and an updated list of every single item sold on the site. “That’s the only way I feel good about it,” she says. “Otherwise, you’re shifty. You’re trying to make money off people.”

Here is the truth that goes largely unspoken in the growing space where capitalism meets mental health: None of it actually solves the underlying problem, even if it helps assuage the symptoms. Last May, Gravity was forced to change the language on its Kickstarter, which claimed the blanket could be “used to treat a variety of ailments, including insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as circumstantial stress and prolonged anxiety,” after the news site STAT questioned Kickstarter about the claims, which appeared to go against recommendations from the US Food and Drug Administration. The new version simply said that the blanket could be “used” for those conditions.

And what very little research has been done on the benefits of fidget toys is largely predicated on the act of fidgeting itself rather than the specific tools used to do so. As Vox wrote at the height of spinner mania last spring:

There is some evidence that encouraging children with ADHD to squirm and move their limbs can help direct their focus rather than making them sit still. But that study looked at kids’ physical activity, not a small spinning device that barely requires any movement. And kids without ADHD didn’t benefit from the extra squirming.

Dr. Anna Lembke, a clinician and associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, explains that to date, nobody really knows for sure how these products work, besides the fact that they can help distract us.

“What’s key with these fidget toys is that they are physical,” she says. “So by engaging this hand motion, we reconnect with our bodies, which often has a calming phenomenon. You can achieve the same thing through exercise, right? People achieve a similar thing through meditation. The mechanism is slightly different, but basically what’s happening in meditation, for example, is you’re focusing on the breath. In focusing on the breath, you’re focusing on your body. And your physical functions are redirecting your focus away from these abstract thoughts that can be so debilitating.”

So, yes, meditation apps may help us meditate, and meditation may reduce anxiety. Weighted blankets may calm us down long enough to fall and stay asleep, which will help us feel better the next day. And fidget devices can distract us so that instead of ruminating on negative thoughts, we’re expending mental energy on something physical.

But no product will solve the underlying causes of anxiety, or ADHD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, or autism, whether it’s a $5 gas-station fidget spinner or a $250 blanket meticulously designed and focus-grouped by advertising professionals. That’s a far bigger task, involving: therapy (often difficult to access), medication (often expensive), or complete lifestyle overhauls that involve fitting exercise and healthier habits into our daily lives (often really, really hard).

So a weighted blanket it is. “We’re not understanding how to deal with [mental health]. Instead, we’re throwing products at it,” says Beautiful Voyager’s Arthur. “It’s very American.”

To be fair to fidget spinners, however, it can be difficult to treat mental health issues even with the tools backed by the best scientific evidence, including the ones Lembke uses with her patients: cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs, such as Lexapro or Prozac), and lifestyle changes like diet, exercise, or creating a more heavily structured schedule.

“We’re not understanding how to deal with [mental health]. Instead, we’re throwing products at it. It’s very American.”

When I started therapy a year and a half ago, I expected my therapist to challenge my methods of fidgeting and physical distractions, developed over a lifetime, as unhelpful ways to avoid facing my underlying issues. Instead, she ended up doing the opposite: Over the course of a few months, she gave me a strip of wax-like putty to morph into shapes, a large stone to hold as a means of separating the concept of my anxiety from my actual self, and a smaller one for little reminders. It turns out that having the stuff did, in fact, help a bit, if only for a few moments at a time.

So when I first heard the term “fidget spinner” in the early months of 2017, I knew it was going to be extremely my shit. The first time I spun one, at a bar in Brooklyn, I joked that I’d never connected with a human baby as much as I’d connected with this. I rapidly acquired five of them.

But here’s the problem with using “fidgeting” as a marketing strategy: As any true fidgeter knows, you don’t need to spend money on a new object to futz with — objects simply appear, and you fidget with them. By the time the spinner craze was over, I’d long replaced them with a pile of other gizmos.

The author’s assortment of desk items. Amelia Krales/Vox

Yet the space only appears to be growing. Gravity, for instance, was able to expand its line to include melatonin spray, weighted sleep masks, a cooling duvet, a collection of infrared-ray-emitting loungewear that promises to help with muscle recovery, and an upcoming “mindful alarm clock,” which lets you sleep with your phone outside your bedroom but still connect to your phone so that a select few people will be able to reach you in an emergency.

The Fidget Cube and the Gravity Blanket raised millions of dollars because they diagnosed people with a simple problem: Have you ever felt a weird desire to fidget with random objects? Of course! Do you have trouble falling asleep? Who doesn’t?

Now that many more of us are aware — that we’re stressed, that we’re anxious, that we’re not getting enough sleep, that anxiety is really bad and will doom us to an early death so we should really take care of it, which of course makes us even more anxious about our own anxiety — it makes sense that our immediate impulse is to buy stuff that promises to deal with it so that we don’t have to. And if fidget spinners and weighted blankets haven’t quite been doing it for you, chances are there will be even more anxiety-quelling doodads to spend your money on in the very near future.

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Original Source -> Fidget spinners, weighted blankets, and the rise of anxiety consumerism

via The Conservative Brief

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[caption id="attachment_60332" align="alignnone" width="620"] Photo by Becca Matimba[/caption] When you feel a bout of back pain creep in, is your first instinct to lay down and relax on the couch? You may want to rethink your backache Rx. “Our body responds to movement extremely positively and in a number of ways,” says Eric Robertson, PT, DPT, a board-certified clinical specialist in orthopaedic physical therapy and a spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association. To name just a few: staying active promotes circulation, organ function and delivers nutrition to your joints. All of those things combine to prevent back pain — but they can also help treat aches when they arise. So if you’re a part of the 80 percent of adults who will suffer from back aches, listen in: New guidelines from the American College of Physicians suggest non-drug options are best for beating back problems. And that includes exercise for back pain relief. Here are seven reasons why being active may be your saving grace. RELATED: 5 No-Equipment Back Exercises You Need in Your Life

7 Reasons You Should Exercise for Back Pain Relief

1. Exercise helps you recover.

The majority of back pain isn’t serious, says Robertson. In fact, most cases last a few days to a few weeks and heal on their own, according to the National Institutes of Health. That’s why experts generally recommend continuing your daily activities when you feel discomfort. For example, if you walk your dog in the morning, keep up your pup date. If you’re a runner, go ahead and fit in that 5K. Keep in mind, there are a few clues that your back pain is something you need to see a doctor about, says Robertson. Make an appointment if you have unrelenting pain and no position feels comfortable. And take note if you have any neurological changes in your legs (like tingling, numbness or weakness) or experience any bladder or bowel issues. RELATED: 5 Exercise Modifications to Ease Lower Back Pain

2. Running strengthens your spine.

Speaking of running, science shows it has your back. A 2017 study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that a regular long-distance running regimen improves the health of intervertebral discs (which help absorb shock to the spine) by keeping them more hydrated and nourished. The researchers also found benefits from jogging, speed walking and regular walking. The key for all of the above: running with good posture and technique. (You can brush up on that here.) RELATED: Why I Started Running — And Never Stopped

3. Core work keeps you stable.

Core exercises aren’t all about that six-pack. One review in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science found that core strengthening, specifically, was superior to resistance training when it comes to alleviating chronic lower back pain. The muscles of your midsection include those in the front of your body (aka your abs), the muscles in your back and around your spine, as well as your hip muscles, pelvic floor and diaphragm, says Robertson. “These deep, supporting muscles help stabilize your back as you move,” he says. Make ‘em strong to move your spine sans pain.

4. There's nothing like total-body strength, plus cardio.

A program that combines strength training and walking can boost spinal function and reduce pain in overweight individuals, according to recent research. That’s likely because it helps balance and strengthen back muscles, as well as boost blood flow to tissues in the area, which can speed healing. In addition to bettering back health, this cardio and strength combo program also burned body fat, which may help reduce the load on the spine, too.

5. Yoga is like a gentle back massage.

With its soothing poses, breathing techniques and relaxation benefits, fitting in a few oms can do good for your spine. In a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers compared people taking weekly yoga classes, visits with a physical therapist, or standard education (such as a self-help book on back pain). After three months, the yoga and physical therapy groups experienced similar improvements in pain levels and were less likely to use pain meds. Time to say namaste. RELATED: 8 Yoga Poses to Help Ease Lower Back Pain

6. Tai chi is a back-bolstering activity.

With roots in Chinese culture, tai chi is a sequence of slow, meditative movements, which help reduce more than just your stress levels. In a 2016 review of 18 randomized controlled trials that looked at tai chi for chronic pain conditions, researchers found that it can relieve lower back pain after 10 to 28 weeks of practice.

7. Staying couch-bound stymies healing.

Staying in your seat all day can affect your ability to heal quickly and that can lock you into a cycle of pain, says Robertson. “When you stop moving in an effort to protect the joint, over time, the joint becomes more sensitive. The result is that you need less stimulation to make the body part hurt again,” he explains. The remedy to prevent a touchy, irritable back from getting worse? Get up and get moving.

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