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#as an excuse to perform medical abuses.
skelejon · 2 years
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Hi! Genuine question because my sibling is intersex. Also if you don't have the spoons to answer that's okay. Take your time or feel free to ignore me. :)
She said H*rmaphrodite is a specific type of intersex in which one has both sets of genitalia which one or both may have full function.
She never called it a slur around me, just a specific term that should not be replaced with Intersex, as Intersex is an umbrella term, and it's inappropriate to call all intersex people that when it only as a medical term applies to a small subset of intersex people.
Is this correct? I try to stay up to date and informed but when different intersex people give different answers, I don't know who to listen to and trying to research the topic leads to a thousand different answers on what the issue is or isn't.
Thank you for your time!
So this is a weird one. Your sibling is kinda right in that there is an intersex condition medically referred to as 'true hermaphroditism' which involves having ovotestes, which are essentially just made up of both ovarian and testicular tissue in varying amounts.
However, people are moving away from that and using 'ovotesticular syndrome' or 'ovotesticular DSD' as the name instead because of the issues surrounding hermaphrodite as a term. While there aren't enough studies to truly say its very unlikely that someone with ovotestes will produce both viable sperm and viable eggs, you'd need the perfect amounts of tissue and to have external gonads to prevent heat killing off sperm, and then somehow the right levels of hormones to produce either in the first place. Which isn't to say it's absolutely impossible, especially with advancing fertility treatments, just that the chances are astronomically small. A large majority of people with ovotestes are infertile as a result. The term 'hermaphrodite' would imply otherwise and actual true hermaphroditism like is observed in certain animals is considered something that cannot occur in humans, and as a result the term is being phased out of medical literature.
There's also the issue of the implications that people with ovotestes are somehow 'more intersex' than anyone else, which is obviously not true. You can't be more or less intersex than any other intersex person.
To try and sum it up, you shouldn't be calling anyone a hermaphrodite, ovotestes or not, unless they tell you it's alright. Anyone who is intersex can call themselves a hermaphrodite if they wish, as its historically been used to refer to and dehumanize all intersex folks (including calling many 'close-to-female' intersex folks, especially those with clitoromegaly, 'pseudo-hermaphrodites'). It is unfortunately still used in some medical practice and is often used as grounds to perform non consensual surgeries and hormone treatments and so it can be incredibly distressing to have to hear for some folks.
I should add there are also a number of 'dyadic-passing' (for lack of a better word. This is NOT me saying being 'dyadic-passing' is bad or inherently leads to this kind of thinking.) intersex folks that are actually fairly intersexist and will use terms like this to go "oh I'm just normal intersex, not an Actual Hermaphrodite like (insert group of 'less desirable' intersex people)" a little bit like how some gay men will throw more flamboyant gay men under the bus to try and seem like 'one of the good ones' etc.
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workersolidarity · 3 months
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[ 📹 Scenes of chaos and fear after the Israeli occupation forces bombed a school housing displaced Palestinian families opposite Nasser Medical Complex west of the city of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, after displacing civilians from other areas of the enclave. 📈 Current death toll in Gaza exceeds 37'953 Palestinians killed, while another 87'266 others have been wounded since Oct. 7th. ]
🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨
GENOCIDE CONTINUES ON DAY 271: ISRAELI OCCUPATION REACHES OUT TO GAZA CLAN LEADERS, HAMAS WARNS OF RETALIATION FOR COLLABORATORS, ZIONIST COLONIAL SETTLERS CONTINUE RAIDING AL-AQSA MOSQUE, AL-QUDS BRIGADES SAY HOSTAGES ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AS THEIR TREATMENT BECOMES MORE SEVERE FOLLOWING REPORTS OF TORTURE IN ISRAELI PRISONS, SLAUGHTER OF CIVILIANS CONTINUES
On 271st day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 3 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 28 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 125 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.
It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.
This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.
A number of Israeli hostages have attempted suicide in the detention of the Palestinian resistance. This is according to the Al-Quds Brigades, belonging to the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
In a statement, the Al-Quds Brigades said that several Israeli hostages in their care had attempted suicide due to the severe frustration they feel owing to their government's disinterest in recovering their detainees, and due to the deteriorating treatment they are receiving from their captors.
According to Al-Quds, as a result of the horrendous treatment of Palestinian prisoners at the hands of the Israeli occupation army in occupation prisons, including allegations of torture, rape, withholding of food and water, blindfolding, medical abuse and more, the Palestinian resistance group has taken a decision to treat their detainees harshly.
"Our decision in the Al-Quds Brigades to treat the occupation's prisoners in the same way as our prisoners inside the prisons, will remain in effect as long as the terrorist government continues its unjust measures against our people and prisoners. He who warns is excused," Al-Quds said in its statement.
In the meantime, one of the main reasons the Palestinian resistance factions cited for conducting Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th, 2023, was the regular raids by Zionist colonial settlers of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Al-Quds (Jersusalem), one of the holiest sites in Islamic religion.
Those raids continue to occur, with groups of dozens of Zionist colonial settlers storming the compound on Wednesday, while under the protection of the Israeli occupation army.
Local eyewitnesses reported today that groups of dozens of Zionist colonial settlers raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, touring the Mosque's courtyard and performing provocative Talmudic rituals as the occupation army protected the settlers.
The report also added that the Occupation Shin Bet Police stormed the Old City of occupied Al-Quds, turning the area into a military barracks, while hundreds of police were deployed to secure the area, in particular near the gates of the Al-Aqsa compound.
The Shin Bet also tightened security measures at the gates of the Old City, as well as Al-Aqsa Mosque, while imposing restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshippers.
In other news on Wednesday, July 3rd, the London-based Reuters news-wire service is reporting that the Israeli entity has been reaching out to the leaders of major Gaza clans, looking to find Palestinians that are not associated with Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions to oversee the final stages of the occupation's plans in the Gaza Strip, and to eventually replace the Hamas movement in governing the enclave.
Reuters says the Israeli occupation remains under heavy pressure from the United States to bring an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, but does not want Hamas to retain control over the Strip.
As a result, the Israeli occupation's leadership is forming plans for the "day after" the end of the war, including forming a governing structure parallel to the Hamas government that has led the Gaza Strip since 2007, hoping to shape an alternative civil administration involving Palestinians that are not associated with the Palestinian Resistance movement.
Unfortunately for the occupation, this leaves few plausible options, with the current focus being on the heads of powerful Palestinian clans in Gaza, which the Israeli entity has been attempting to woo in recent days.
Speaking with Reuters, Senior Palestine Analyst at the International Crises Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, Tahani Mustafa, says the Zionist entity has been "actively looking for local tribes and families on the ground to work with them."
According to Tahani Mustafa, the Gaza Clans "don’t want to get involved, in part because they fear retribution from Hamas."
The threat is a real one for Gaza's Clan leaders, who fear retribution from Hamas, who, despite the Israeli occupation's determination to destroy the Resistance group, retains its control over large sections of the Palestinian enclave.
Sure enough, a correspondant with Reuters asked the director of Gaza's media office, Ismail Thawabteh, what the consequences would be for those who cooperate with the Zionist regime, who responded by saying “I expect the response to be deadly for any clan or party that agrees to implement the occupation’s plans. I expect the response to be lethal from the resistance factions.”
Occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged the challenges he will face in instituting a new governing structure in the Gaza Strip, claiming his government has reached out to Gaza's clans, but that Hamas "eliminated" them, adding that his Defense Ministry had a new plan, but would not elaborate on it, stating only that he was not willing to bring in the Palestinian Authority to govern in Gaza.
The Palestinian clans are made up of powerful families in the Gaza Strip, ones which do not have formal connections with the Hamas resistance movement, with each clan having a leader known as a "mukhtar", which under British rule, prior to the creation of the Israeli entity in 1948, were heavily relied on to govern.
Following Hamas' rise to power, the clans powers were limited by the religious movement, but were still allowed a certain degree of autonomy, while clans remain influential and own a number of commercial businesses and facilities in the Palestinian enclave
The Israeli occupation already retains contact with Gaza's clans in order to coordinate commercial shipments and deliveries, among other practical issues.
According to Reuters, clan leaders are reluctant to disclose contacts with the Israeli occupation, while others said the mukhtars would not cooperate with the Zionist entity.
One of Gaza's clan leaders that spoke with Reuters said he knew of calls other mukhtars had had with the Israeli authorities, but that "I expect that mukhtars will not cooperate with these games," citing anger with the occupation over its genocide of Palestinians in the Strip, which has killed a number of clan members and destroyed much of their property.
Meanwhile, the slaughter of civilians, along with the destruction of housing and public infrastructure in Gaza, continues into its 10th month as the occupation army bombs and shells various areas of the enclave.
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued on Wednesday with its attacks on the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, bombing residential homes and causing the deaths of a number of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, while local rescue crews were unable to reach sites due to the continued bombardment and gunfire from occupation drones.
In a new atrocity, Zionist warplanes bombed a residential house belonging to the Maqat family in the vicinity of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, after which, local paramedic crews managed to recover the bodies of 7 civilians killed in the strikes, along with 7 wounded victims from under the rubble. The casualties were transported to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city.
Simultaneously, Zionist artillery shelling pummeled the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City, while gunfire from occupation armored vehicles targeted citizen's homes.
Similarly, Israeli quadcopter drones fired at civilians in various areas of Gaza City, in conjuction with the violent artillery shelling of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of the city.
An Israeli occupation fighter jet also fired a missile into the Al-Ghafri printing press on Jaffa Street, in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City, while another Zionist aircraft fired a missile into a residential apartment complex in the Zarqa neighborhood of Gaza City, leaving rescue crews to search the rubble for the dead and wounded.
In the meantime, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is reporting that two civilians were wounded as a result of an occupation airstrike on a residential house belonging to the Kurd family, in the Beit Lahiya Project in Gaza's north, while the wounded were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital near the Jabalia Camp.
The Israeli occupation army also shelled several areas of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, as well as in the Al-Zahra'a area, and the Al-Mughraqa area, coinciding with intense occupation gunfire.
IOF warplanes also continue their bombardment of residential homes and apartment complexes in central and western Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Zionist entity continued its war crimes when it bombed a gathering of civilians attempting to return to their homes in the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of four Palestinians and wounding more than 17 others.
In another atrocity, an Israeli drone bombed a civilian vehicle in the Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp, in central Gaza, killing three more civilians and wounding several others who were taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
In the meantime, areas northeast of the Jabalia Camp sustained intermittent artillery shelling from the occupation army, wounding a number of Palestinian civilians.
The crimes of the Zionist occupation continued with an airstrike that targeted a residential apartment in the Nuseirat Camp, in central Gaza, killing two Palestinians and wounding several others who were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Local civil defense crews also managed to recover the bodies of 7 murdered Palestinians from the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, west of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, including 5 completely charred bodies.
Later, on Wednesday afternoon, the Zionist army bombed a group of Palestinians in the Jahar al-Dik area near Al-Nuseirat, killing two and wounding others who were transferred to Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat Camp.
Due to the continued bombing of public infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip, including water treatment plants, wells, and sewage systems, deep levels of sewage now run through the streets of Khan Yunis, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to reside after being displaced from one area after another, now being ordered into the city by the Zionist occupation army.
As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll now exceeds 37'953 Palestinians killed, including upwards of 10'000 women and well over 15'000 children, while another 87'266 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.
July 3rd, 2024.
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sundrop-writes · 9 months
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Dreaming Of You
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Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader
Part Two: Our Past, Our Present, Our Future
Summary:
After having an argument with Gar that nearly ends your friendship, you decide to finally get over your fear of using your own powers and finally embrace them. If you do things just right, you could finally get everything that you (and Gar) have ever wanted.
Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut, (Slight) Angst and Fluff. Set during Season 2.
Word Count: 18,000
DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist
THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.
Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: general emotional angst (due to the reader and Gar having emotional distance from having an argument at the end of the other chapter), (very light) canon level violence, mentions of medical experimentation/medical torture, the reader character has medical trauma from years of illness, mentions of medical debt, manipulation and emotional abuse (from Doctor Caulder toward Gar and the reader), mentions of burns/burn scarring, mention of the reader being abandoned by her parents, mentions of vomit (no graphic descriptions), the reader character has a seizure, (likely) improper first aid performed for a seizure, the reader has chronic illness/chronic pain, use of prescription medication, the reader is more feminine (wears lacy underwear), the reader has a vagina and uses she/her pronouns. 
This chapter contains smut - both dream fantasies and played out sexual acts. The reader character is mute but all consent is enthusiastic and clear, biting/marking kink, some dirty talk, semi-public sex (having sex in the communal area of a house - also, coincidentally, the sex fic I have read where characters have sex in a space that just happens to have a camera in it), scent kink, oral - reader receiving, multiple orgasms (reader receiving), (slight) overstimulation (reader receiving), hair pulling kink (Gar receiving), it’s implied that the reader and Gar are virgins but it’s not lingered on and it’s not a plot point of the fic, unprotected sex, creampie, penis in vagina sex, rough sex, (idk how to phrase it?) marriage kink/commitment kink, passionate sex/love making, Gar calls the reader ‘wife’ (in a fantasy sequence), some mentions of blood (the reader scratches Gar’s back and draws blood by accident), I believe that’s it. 
A/N: I still think this is one of the most iconic things that I have ever written lmao. I love it so much and I'm so proud of it. Anyway, enjoy the repost.
...
After the argument, you didn’t see Gar for the rest of the day. 
When Dick came in to check on your progress with training, he immediately questioned why Gar was missing. You made up a lame excuse about how he had been feeling sick (which had to be translated to Dick by Jason) and Dick complained that all of you had to learn to ‘work through’ things like illness, but at least he didn’t question why Gar had locked himself in his room for the rest of the night and didn’t come to dinner. 
After you had washed the dishes and sulked through the rest of your nightly routine, you considered knocking on Gar’s bedroom door before finally going to bed yourself - but you just couldn’t bring yourself to face him. 
You had truly hurt him, and you weren’t sure how you were going to recover from it. 
As you laid in bed that night, so strung up with guilt that you couldn’t sleep, you stared at the ceiling. Of course, all you could think about was Gar. 
You thought back to when you had first met him - going over those first days of your friendship in your mind. The undeniable way that the two of you were drawn so close together. In friendship or in that unutterable, constantly denied romance - the two of you were soulmates. 
And you had fucked it all up. 
You missed your best friend so badly. You wondered where it had all gone so wrong. 
… 
You felt lucky that Doctor Caulder had taken you in. 
Before him, before the serum, your last chance at moving out of the palliative care ward would have been offering your body as a live cadaver up for experiential treatment. It was something that might have put a dent in your medical debts, but it also would have meant a lot of pain and torture as your body was used as a trial for vastly experimental medicine and treatments - none of which were guaranteed to prolong your life as the deadly brain tumors grew to consume your brain, seemingly trapping you in a loop of pain and torture for those last few years that you had. 
At the time, Doctor Caulder was a savior to you. 
He used the money he had from his dense inherited wealth to pay off all of the medical debt you had acquired from your lifetime of illness, giving you only one very small catch in the face of this intense generosity. He wanted your consent to try out his serum on you, claiming that it would either do nothing to change your condition, or it would be the magical cure-all that you had been looking for. 
(He conveniently let out the fact that in your state of unwellness, with your weakened body, there was a large possibility that the serum could overwhelm your senses, stopping your heart - but that was a risk he was more than willing to take.) 
Honestly - while you didn’t believe him - you couldn’t bring yourself to turn him down. 
You had no other options, after all. 
After he injected you with the serum and you woke up with your sight fully restored, you were shocked. It had somehow shrunk down the tumor in your brain enough that it was no longer pressing on your optic nerve, and you could once again experience the world in full, glorious vision. 
It was something you were entirely excited by as you arrived at what would be your new home. Doctor Caulder had described it as a ‘vacuum of scientific advancement against the bureaucracy of the world’. Naturally, you had expected some kind of cold looking industrial building, another medical center that you would be trapped inside for years to come. 
You certainly hadn’t thought that it would be a sprawling, gorgeous Victorian mansion in the secluded, peaceful countryside. 
He brought you inside and set down your bag. You were too busy marveling at the details of the architecture, the stunning antique decorations, taking it all in after years of being deprived of sight to truly notice anyone else in the building at first. 
You didn’t notice anyone else there until Doctor Caulder spoke to him. 
“Ah, Garfield, I’m glad I caught you.” 
You turned at the sound of someone’s name being called. Caulder had warned you that you would be living with several other people - people who he had helped and was continuing to help with their ‘unique conditions’. 
When you looked over at him, the person that Doctor Caulder had called Garfield, the only truly unique thing you spotted about him was his bright green hair. That, and the fact that he was startlingly attractive. 
Garfield paused his footing halfway down the hallway as Doctor Caulder spoke to him. When he turned back around to give the man his attention, you noticed that he had a candy bar poking out of his mouth as he held it there between his teeth, and a pair of large headphones over his ears with some kind of handheld gaming system in his hands. He reached up and moved one half of the headphones off to the side when he realized his full attention was needed. Then he bit off the candy bar, moving to shove the rest of it, mostly still wrapped, into the pocket of his large green hoodie. 
“What’s up, Chief?” He asked, his mouth obviously stuck together by the candy and some chocolate slightly smeared on the side of his mouth. 
“Garfield, please don’t talk with your mouth full.” Caulder - apparently the Chief, quickly scolded him. 
You guessed that he found it rude because he was more uptight and proper, more old fashioned. But it was something that you easily found adorable and charming. 
Garfield hung his head in shame and made a clear effort to swallow, running his tongue over his teeth to somewhat clean his mouth before he spoke again. 
“Sorry.” He mumbled quietly. “Did you need something?” 
It was then that he really eyed you up and down, as though he had just noticed you standing there. 
You felt entirely out of place, but tried your best not to look nervous, and simply smiled as his eyes landed on your face. You noticed a small tinge of pink come over his cheeks when he finally made eye contact with you. His eyes made a quick jolt back to the carpet, obviously nervous and not wanting to linger on you. 
“I’m sure you’ve heard Cliff mention my newest patient.” Doctor Caulder told him, gently motioning toward you. “Y/N will be staying with us for the foreseeable future while I explore her condition and any affects the serum has had on her.” 
Garfield nodded at this. The wild tendrils of his green hair bobbed in a very adorable way with the motion, and you suppressed a giggle because of it. 
“I’ll need you to show her around and help her get settled in for now, because I need to go up to my office and work on some notes while everything is still fresh in my mind. I’d like not to be disturbed for the next few hours, is that clear?” Doctor Caulder ordered, his voice calm, but oddly stern. 
Garfield’s face twisted slightly into a frown, as though he was afraid of the possible consequences if he did disturb the man. But nonetheless, he nodded once again. 
“Understood.” He said simply. 
Doctor Caulder gave him a curt nod and then walked up the stairs, leaving you in the hands of your seemingly meek, very handsome tour guide. 
He stepped toward you, and then realized the game console was still beeping in his hands. So he pushed a few buttons, shutting it off, and then he shoved it into his pocket as well before he slid his large headphones to sit around his neck. 
“Hi, I’m Garfield. You probably heard that. But you can just call me Gar. I prefer it.” He rushed these words out in a puff of air, seemingly still very nervous to be in your presence. 
You nodded at this. Before you could communicate in any way that you wouldn’t really be ‘calling’ him anything because of your mutism, he let out a huff - something akin to a nervous laugh and steamed rolled right into more conversation. He didn’t really seem to mind your silence. 
“Y/N, right?” He posed, easily remembering your name from when Doctor Caulder had introduced you. 
You nodded once again, giving him a small smile. 
“That’s a really pretty name. It matches you. I mean- I-” He stumbled over his words, clearly nervous that he had unintentionally said something flirtatious. “I’m supposed to introduce you to everyone, right? Come on.” 
He then took you on a tour of the sprawling house, his chatter filling the air in a most perfect way. The more he talked, the more he seemed to gain confidence around you. He became filled with energy, fueled by the things he was saying. Especially when he spoke about the house and the daily life that he lived there, pointing out the different rooms and where you could make yourself comfortable. His words filled the space so well that he didn’t seem to notice the fact that you couldn’t talk. 
As he took you on the tour, you came across the different eclectic members of the household and Gar introduced you to them. And you very quickly came to realize what Doctor Caulder had meant by ‘unique conditions’. 
If you didn’t have your vision freshly restored in order to see it, you likely wouldn’t have believed it. But they were very real. 
Gar introduced you to Cliff - someone who looked more like a machine than a man, squeaky joints and all. But it quickly became apparent to you that he had a shining personality underneath all that metal, and his humanity wasn’t easily defined by something like rust and bolts. He was working on a half-disassembled car in the large garage, and Gar explained to you how the mostly mechanical man was an ex-racer who had gotten into a bad accident and been put back together by The Chief. 
He then introduced you to Larry - who was in the kitchen, baking some kind of very tall, very impressive multi-layered cake (apparently in celebration of your arrival). He made a comment about you ‘being rather quiet’ and you just shrugged. They would probably be amused later when they found out why. 
Larry didn’t want to comment much or explain the reason that his entire body was covered in bandages, and you understood why. In your mind, you assumed that he had been badly burned and the bandages covered some kind of scarring. The visual reminded you of people who had passed through the palliative care ward with severe burns over their bodies and didn’t survive long because of it. But he seemed to move without pain and he was obviously thriving, so whatever Doctor Caulder had done for him - it had worked. 
Gar tried to introduce you to the last member of the household - Rita - but when he knocked on her bedroom door, he was met with silence. He simply told you that she likely wasn’t feeling well. And that you understood deeply as well. 
The house tour extended down into the basement, because Gar was very excited to show you his room. You couldn’t bring yourself to disrupt his rolling speech or dampen down his swell of excitable energy. 
He was showing you some of his movie posters - something for a movie called Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was a movie you had never heard of before, and you only found yourself truly paying attention in order to learn about it now because Gar spoke about it with so much enthusiasm. 
“-it’s considered one of the first examples of parody ever in cinema, an effort to take horror, something that truly terrified audiences at the time, and turn it comedic. Like shining a light on that monster under the bed so he’s no longer scary. It’s brilliant.” 
Gar rambled on, his breath almost entirely escaping him as his enthusiasm overpowered his lungs. 
You couldn’t help but to feel a swell of fondness as you looked at him. 
His passion was so intensely palpable, it gave you goosebumps. It was a very old film that you likely wouldn’t have taken an interest in. But the way he talked about it - like it was revolutionary, like it was the most interesting thing in the world. It made you want to watch it ten times just to get to know him better, just to have a small taste of the passion that he felt so epically for it. 
You didn’t know it then, but feeling his overwhelming enthusiasm spreading in the air was the beginnings of your very intense crush on him. It was the moment that you started falling for him. 
“You know originally, Lou Costello scoffed at the idea of even making-” Gar suddenly cut himself off, a look of dawning crossing his features. “Woah, I’ve been talking for such a long time, haven’t I?” 
Technically, yes. 
But you would have been perfectly content to stand there and listen to him talk for hours more about this film or any of the others related to posters that he had on the wall. His enthusiasm and the way it was backed up by factual knowledge made him endlessly interesting to listen to. 
In response, you simply shrugged. 
Yes, he had been talking for a long time. But - you enjoyed listening. His tone and the abrupt way he had cut himself off made it sound like he had burdened you with his ramblings, and you weren’t sure why. 
“Sorry.” He giggled, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “I’m probably being so annoying. I haven’t even let you talk about yourself at all. What - what kind of movies do you like?” 
He seemed nervous suddenly, as though he had become self conscious in the conversation. 
You filled with nerves as well, coming to the realization that you would now have to communicate to him that you couldn’t talk. 
You motioned toward your throat, hoping he would be able to see the scar from the surgery that had stolen your ability to speak so long ago. Rather than understanding, Gar’s face knit with confusion. 
“What, did the sea witch steal your voice?” He asked. The action reminded him a lot of that cartoon mermaid, desperately tapping on her throat, trying to explain to others why she couldn’t speak. “Do you need a kiss from a handsome prince to get it back?” 
The words escaped him before he could stop it - and then he realized that it sounded entirely more flirtatious than he intended. 
He bit his lip nervously and you let out a giggle. You became entirely overwhelmed by your own nerves, and your undeniable attraction toward him. If you were feeling at all bold, you might have leaned over and kissed him in that moment. But something in the back of your mind told you that it was rude - that he hadn’t truly meant it, that it was strange to come onto him so soon after meeting him. 
When the awkwardness swelled inside of him, he rushed to speak again. 
“Sorry,” He blurted out. “That was probably insensitive. If you’re really mute, that’s like a disability, and you shouldn’t make jokes about people’s disabilities-” 
You vigorously shook your head, meaning to tell him that ‘no, I liked the joke’. 
But his eyes instantly grew wide, believing that you were shaking your head negatively, believing that he was truly being insensitive and rude. 
You raised your hands and began explaining it in sign language, and he sighed in defeat. 
“I’m sorry.” He said. “I don’t - I don’t understand.” 
Then, a look of dawning came over his face so strong it was almost as if a cartoon lightbulb appeared over his head. He then rushed into the other room - there was some ripping of paper (what you didn’t know was him ripping pages he had used out of a notebook so that you wouldn’t see them). After a moment, he rushed back toward you, thrusting a notebook and a pen in your direction. 
You took it happily, and began writing. 
‘Yes, I am completely mute. Yes, it is technically a disability. And yes, I did think your joke about the sea witch was funny. But… I don’t think a kiss from a prince will fix me.’ 
You passed it to him and after he read it, he gave a small chuckle. 
“Yeah, that wasn’t so smooth on my part.” He said. “What happened? To your voice?” 
You explained it to him. You spent a long time passing the notebook back and forth, explaining things to him about yourself and your life. 
You told him how you had been ill for as long as you could remember, and it had only gotten worse as you progressed into your teen years. And eventually, the mounting medical debt became too stressful for your parents so they abandoned you and disappeared with no way for creditors to track them down. They had left you orphaned in the most cruel way. 
Gar’s eyes danced with tears when he read this. You didn’t know it then, but he vowed to himself that he would always be by your side. He would be the one person who never left you, no matter what happened in life that might try to draw the two of you apart. 
‘Can I ask you something?’ You scrawled out, passing the notebook to Gar with careful curiosity on your mind. 
“Yeah, anything.” He replied. 
‘Why are you here? What is Doctor Caulder helping you with?’ 
You were tempted to add on something about how he ‘looked normal’ - but you didn’t want to accidentally insult him. 
“My condition… it’s uh…” Gar stuttered through his attempt at an explanation, and confusion flooded your features. “It’s probably just easier if I show you?” 
You nodded in acknowledgement that you understood, and Gar put the notebook aside and stood from the couch where the two of you had been seated, talking for hours. 
“Would you - uh - would you mind closing your eyes for a second?” He asked, once again draped in that nervous energy. 
You hesitated for a second, but then complied. You weren’t sure how him ‘showing’ you would go if you had your eyes closed. But you trusted him to harness in that condition - whatever strange ability the serum had given and not let it hurt you. You felt safe around him even though you had only known him for a short time. And you wanted to make him comfortable rather than arguing about it. 
You were curious when you heard some gentle rustling, and you cringed slightly when you heard what sounded like the cracking of bones. You hoped that whatever he was doing, it didn’t cause him any pain. 
Your curiosity became too great and you opened your eyes when you heard a low rumbling. If you weren’t mistaken, it sounded like the purring of a very large cat. 
Shock instantly overtook you when you opened your eyes to see that standing in front of you in the middle of the carpet - rather than Gar - there was a very large tiger with bright green fur. When your sight had been restored, you never, ever thought that this would be one of the first things you would get to see. 
Your first instinct was to pull your feet up onto the couch, and the tiger - which you quickly had to reason was Gar, who had somehow shifted his body into a different form - hung his head in shame when he saw the fear overtake your body. You didn’t want to be afraid of him. You shouldn’t be, right? He had been nothing but kind to you since the two of you had met. He wouldn’t use this odd power to endanger you. 
When you looked into those large animal eyes, you saw nothing but kindness. And you couldn’t resist the urge to step off the couch and lean out, petting a hand gently under his furry chin. 
It was then that you were struck with the realization. The dream you had of being married to a large green tiger - it had likely meant something. 
But you couldn’t bring yourself to linger on it. 
Instead, you scratched under his chin and he purred, and you giggled at the fact that such a large, possibly terrifying animal was so docile under your touch. 
(When Gar transformed back, you would deny that you snuck a glance at him changing back into his clothes. And you would definitely deny that you became obsessed with what you saw.) 
… 
Later that night, you met Rita when she came down to join everyone for dinner. She was a lovely, sweet woman. She was actually the only person (aside from Doctor Caulder) at the table who understood your ASL, though she didn’t seem eager to explain where she had learned it. You knew that everyone in the house had somewhat of a painful past, so you didn’t bother to ask. 
The cake Larry had made turned out beautiful. A towering masterpiece that everyone had to purposefully crane their necks around as they spoke to each other. You couldn’t help but marvel in wonder at it and the rest of the amazing spread he had made. Gar told you that it really wasn’t that out of the ordinary, seeing as cooking was Larry’s favorite hobby. 
You felt slightly bad for Cliff - seeing as he sat with an empty plate in front of him. But he seemed to show up to the meal mostly out of habit, family obligation, and a slight curiosity to get to know you. So you tried your best to answer everyone’s questions and be welcoming to the new friendships. 
You enjoyed the meal well. Everything was delicious, and compared to the food you once ate on the ward - it was heaven. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. 
Larry cut the cake and made sure that you got the first slice - which you selected from the towering variety of many different flavors. He cited that he didn’t know what your favorite flavor was, so he made a good variety as insurance. The taste of lemon was sweet on your tongue and you were enjoying yourself - when one of the lights began flickering. 
It was just a few flashes above your head, just for a few moments, but it was enough to send a sharp pain shooting through the middle of your forehead and instantaneously cause a wave of nausea through your stomach. You dropped your fork onto your plate with a clatter, and everyone craned their necks around the towering cake to look at you. Gar immediately got up from his chair to rush to your side, wondering what was wrong. 
“Are you okay?” He asked quietly. 
Your senses were overwhelmed by dizziness, a horrid feeling that your eyes were churning inside of your skull. Sharp waves of pain radiated out from the middle of your forehead and seemingly caused the world to turn wildly underneath your feet. 
You didn’t know that the harsh unwellness was visible all over your face - from your unpleasant expression to the light layer of sweat that had so quickly formed over your skin. 
You shook your head, attempting to confirm to him that you were not okay. But this only caused the pain to worsen, and you held back a harsh gag, trying your hardest to keep the amazing dinner inside. 
“You need to lay down.” Gar said quietly. 
You felt safe under his touch and you let him guide you as he pulled out your chair. He put one hand around your back and used the other to take your hand as he helped you up and guided you away. You let your eyes fall closed against the harsh light as his hand came to rest on your waist, a calming comfort against the harsh pain throbbing through you. You let yourself lean on him for support as he did as promised - took you to lay down. 
You were partway up the stairs when a voice disrupted you. 
“Garfield.” 
Doctor Caulder called after him harshly, causing Gar to pause his movements. You leaned on the bannister and kept your eyes closed. You had to concentrate hard on willing yourself not to vomit while Gar was distracted with the conversation. 
“This is an important opportunity to study her condition, you should be taking her to-” Caulder began to argue against Gar’s actions, but he was cut off. 
“She needs to lay down.” Gar argued quietly. “She’s had a long day. She needs rest. You can do your studies tomorrow.” 
You didn’t know it, but this was the first time that Gar had ever gone against the man on anything. Doctor Caulder stood there in shock at Gar’s sudden shift in attitude while Gar put a hand on your lower back once again and helped you the rest of the way up the stairs. 
He helped you into bed and pulled the covers over you. And then he got a hot cloth to put on your forehead, and got a bucket to put beside the bed in case you did throw up. It was then that you knew you would never feel properly cared for again unless it came from him. 
When he thought that you weren’t paying attention, half sleepy and half drowned in the pain, he leaned down and laid a gentle, timid kiss on your forehead, right above the cloth. 
Later that night, after everyone had fallen asleep, Gar snuck out to town and picked up a book on ASL. He was especially careful that his teeth didn’t pierce any of the pages. 
He used the rest of the night to study, and he greeted you the next morning with a tray of gentle breakfast food (porridge, hopefully something that wouldn’t aggravate your upset stomach) and Advil. Despite the pain throbbing through your head, you broke into a beaming smile when he signed the words ‘good morning’ to you. 
It was then that you realized just how much you were going to have to suppress your feelings for him. 
… 
Later in the day, Doctor Caulder was carrying out his tests as promised. 
He had you in a different part of the basement - in an area that essentially looked like an operating room. Just seeing the tables and all the cold medical equipment triggered a lot of your fight or flight instincts, but you tried your hardest to remain calm. Especially because Gar was by your side, even though he likely could have been playing video games or doing something else a lot more fun. He told you that he would stay by you the entire time to make sure that you were comfortable. 
You tried to relax and trust the process. 
Doctor Caulder had adjusted the table, propping up the top of it so that it was much more like a chair. And he had wheeled in a large machine that consisted of a series of lightbulbs - something that turned out to be a strobe light, set to make specific patterns. He had taped several electrical probes to your head, ones connected to an EEG machine. Although he knew that this procedure was likely to trigger a seizure, he said that it was important for it to occur because your neurological problems were closely tied to your powers, and the areas of the brain that the serum had affected. He said that it was something important to measure - even if a seizure happened. 
“Just face forward, and keep looking into the light.” Doctor Caulder explained. “It will go through a series of flashing patterns. I need you to try your hardest to keep your eyes open, and stay focused. It’s important that we record your brain activity while this is happening without disruption.” 
You nodded in affirmation. You weren’t looking forward to the pain that it would cause considering that your head was still thumping with a migraine from the night before, but if he considered it necessary, you would do it. 
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gar asked. “How do you know this isn’t just gonna cause more harm?” 
He was standing beside the table, holding your hand, and you were entirely grateful for his presence there. 
He had seen the way you had reacted to a relatively dim chandelier bulb flickering at dinner the night before. He thought that this would be disastrous. 
“Garfield, if you continue to question me, then I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Doctor Caulder told him curtly. “You can’t keep disrupting the process like this. We need to move forward.” 
Doctor Caulder glared at Gar, giving him a moment to make his choice. To see if he was going to speak up and argue or remain quiet. Gar looked to you, wanting to see if you were truly okay with all of this. Nerves boiled in your stomach, but you feigned a smile, and squeezed his hand tighter, assuring him that you needed him there - right by your side. 
Gar then nodded at Doctor Caulder, who stood behind the machine with the lights and turned it on. Gar flinched hard against the lights as they began to flicker. He turned his head away and closed his eyes, but he kept a tight hold on your hand. 
Though it went against every screaming, pained nerve in your body, especially the ones pulsing through your head - you fought to keep your eyes open. Your carefully tuned hearing picked up on the scribbling needles of the EEG machine, Gar’s breathing. You could even hear the electricity sizzling in the bulbs as they went through three long flashes and then turned off. Three long flashes, and then off. 
You survived the first pattern well before it switched to two quick flashes and then a period of seemingly prolonged darkness - something that wasn’t any more than three whole seconds in reality. 
The moment that it switched to the intense, rapid strobing - you felt it. The tingling in your hands, the dizzying haze that said you were only moments away from having a seizure. 
You had no time to warn either of them, especially considering that this was the first seizure you had post-serum, and it had unexpected size effects. 
As your muscles became tight and your body began to violently seize, the house itself began to quake around you. It was as though the building were at the epicenter of a violent earthquake. Later, Doctor Caulder would come to the conclusion that your seizures now caused ‘rapid bursts of psychic energy’ to be released from you, completely uncontrolled by you. He realized that you would be needed to put on a high dose seizure medication to prevent any further incidents. 
In those moments, though, it was chaos. 
Between the shaking of the house underneath you and the unpredictable seizing of your muscles, you quickly rolled off the table. Gar easily caught you in a moment’s notice. Across the room, Doctor Caulder made a similar movement - reaching urgently to catch the EEG machine before it fell off of its own table. 
When the quaking stopped, and you were left quivering in Gar’s arms, he couldn’t help but to feel a rush of disappointment as he saw the obvious play out before his eyes - Doctor Caulder was far more eager to save his data, to preserve the research that you had given him than to actually take care of you - his patient who was clearly in need. 
“What was that?” Gar breathed out, looking from your unconscious face to the surrounding room. He didn’t think that it was a large coincidence that an earthquake had struck at the exact same time as your seizure and had lasted exactly as long. 
“I believe that her powers were responsible for that.” Doctor Caulder theorized. “We’ll likely have to do more research to fully comprehend it-” 
He abruptly cut off his own words when the scribbling needles of the EEG machine stopped. 
Gar began peeling the probes off your forehead and Doctor Caulder only looked up toward you when the EEG flatlined as it was disconnected. 
“Garfield, what do you think you’re doing?” Caulder barked at him. 
“We’re done right now.” Gar said, his voice choked off by his anger. “Clearly, this isn’t helping. She needs rest.” 
Gar resisted the urge to say more. He resisted the urge to berate Doctor Caulder for harming you. He resisted the urge to swear. He resisted the urge to threaten to run away with you - taking away Doctor Caulder’s precious source of research so that the two of you would never be seen again. 
He had no clue that his anger was so intense that it flared up in his eyes, threatened to invoke his transformation against his will. 
He felt calmer when he looked down at you, and petted a hand across your forehead. Although you were forced into unconsciousness because of the seizure, you looked peaceful and calm with your face so still, your eyes closed and your muscles finally relaxed. He hoped that you would feel better soon. 
That was the day Doctor Caulder decided to start keeping a tranq gun near the operating table. 
… 
Things were quiet for a few days after that. 
Doctor Caulder said that he needed time to go over the results of the EEG, and he didn’t want to induce anymore seizures in you for fear that it might bring down the house. So he did let you rest. 
But in the interim, he didn’t check up on you or attend to any of your medical needs. He locked himself in his office to contemplate the science of it all while Gar stuck by your side. He held the bucket and rubbed your back while you puked, he held a hot cloth to your forehead when you needed it. He held a spoon up to your lips to feed you because your hands were too weak after being rocked by such a harsh seizure. 
After a few days, you were almost thankful to Doctor Caulder for it. You and Gar were growing incredibly close so quickly because he refused to leave your side, and you had never felt so lucky to have someone like him in your life. 
You hesitated when Doctor Caulder called you into his office upstairs. 
He made a poor apology for the incident with the lights. He said that he was sorry for causing you pain, but it was ‘necessary’ to explore your condition, to map your brain and find out how the serum had affected you. 
He said that the next step would be further exploring your strange powers. The powers you had accidentally discovered while transitioning out of the hospital. When one of the nurses had been attending to you, you had looked into her eyes, and you couldn’t even fully identify the feeling at the time. But suddenly, you knew this shocking, painful information. One of the other patients on the ward who you had come to know as a friend wasn’t going to live much longer. And when you had asked the nurse about it, she had accused you of snooping, reading through files - because the information was supposed to be confidential. 
But Doctor Caulder - who had witnessed the conversation - easily saw it for what it truly was. An unnatural power given to you by his serum. 
He then called Gar into his office as well - someone you obviously trusted and could work well with. 
He set it up as a game. 
He had written down several things on flashcards. You and Gar would sit across from each other, and Gar would read one of the flashcards, fully capturing the idea in his mind. And then you would use your powers to try and push into his mind - figuring out what was on the card without him ever speaking a single word or giving any hints. 
As you sat across from him, preparing to begin, you were incredibly hesitant. 
‘Are you sure about this?’ 
You wrote this as a message to Gar on one of the blank index cards. They were intended for you to write the answers that you retrieved from his mind during the ‘game’. You intentionally held back with the message, not fully describing your worries. You wanted to ask if he was okay with you breaching the privacy of his mind, but you were worried about Doctor Caulder seeing it, because you knew the man didn’t like to be questioned. 
You flipped it around to show Gar, and he simply nodded after he read it. 
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Gar assured you with a smile. “It’s just a game, right?” He grinned. “It’ll be fun.” 
You didn’t quite think so. But you tried to take on his positive attitude. 
“Let’s begin.” Caulder said. He was standing behind Gar in a very imposing manner, reading the cards as well to ensure that he didn’t flub the answers just to please the Doctor. 
Gar picked up the first card and read it, and he concentrated on it for a moment, making sure that the idea was focused in his mind. He gave a small nod, and then looked up toward you, knowing that he had to make steady eye contact with you in order for you to use your powers. 
Pushing past your discomfort, you did as you had been instructed. You stared deep into those big beautiful brown eyes, and you purposefully breached the surface into his mind. The first thing you were met with was a rich visual of several golden retriever puppies frolicking in a field of grass, happily yipping and prancing around, almost tripping over their clumsy new feet. 
You soon withdrew - even though it was a happy scene that gave you joy, you knew that you had the answer. You had an unconscious grin on your face, and that easily made Gar giggle as you flipped over the message you had made to him and wrote down your answer on the other side. 
‘Puppies’
You lifted up the card and showed it to Doctor Caulder, who took a glance down at the card in Gar’s hand (which said ‘DOG’). He nodded at you, his stern face not flexing for a moment to show any sign of positivity. He picked up a clipboard from a small table on the chair beside Gar and began furiously scribbling. 
“Continue.” He said, not looking up from his fast paced notes. 
Gar looked down at the next card, took the same moment of concentration, and then looked back at you with a small grin on his face. 
This time, rather than feeling like you were committing some kind of crime or doing him a grand disservice, you looked into his eyes and pushed into his mind with a gleeful joy - as though the two of you were sharing a delightful secret. 
The next rich visual you saw featured Gar himself. He wore a pair of tight jeans and a leather jacket with some red tee shirt underneath, and he walked up to a red car - a very fancy, vintage looking car. He opened the door, got inside, and adjusted the mirror to look at himself before he stomped on the gas pedal and the car sped away with a screech. It was a very ‘cool guy’ moment, something that made you giggle because of the stereotypical absurdity of it. 
When you drifted back into the real world, you went to the next index card, and had more of a difficult time figuring out how to phrase your answer. 
You went with:
‘Driving a car?’ 
When you held it up to show Doctor Caulder, he checked Gar’s card, which simply said ‘CAR’. He frowned, and you thought that you had gotten the answer wrong. 
“You have to concentrate more, Garfield.” Caulder scolded him. 
Gar’s face dropped into a frown, and it made your chest twinge with sourness. You thought that a face as sweet as his should never have to frown. 
“You got it right.” He told you quietly, before flipping to the next one. 
You nodded. You hated the way that Caulder treated him. If you could scream at the man, you would. 
Gar waffled for a few moments, looking at the card with blank eyes before he then looked up at you. There was a slight glassiness swimming there that told you he was ready to cry, along with the hesitation of a quivering lip. You wanted to end the entire exercise and simply retreat to the basement to play video games with him, but you knew that Caulder likely wouldn’t let you get away with that. 
So you continued. 
You used your powers once again, purposefully entering Gar’s mind. 
You were surprised by the scene you were met with. 
It was a vision of you and Gar - it was almost like a beautiful painting, like a fantastic daydream. 
You were off in some grassy field, seemingly the same place the puppies had been. Lush greenery, boundless blue skies, warm sunshine that you could almost feel tingling against your skin. The two of you were holding hands - and the most peculiar thing that stuck out to you? 
Your attire. 
Gar was wearing a formal black suit with a green tie and a green vest to match his naturally wild green hair. You were wearing a long, lacy white dress that you couldn’t mistake for anything other than a wedding dress. There was a bundle of flowers looped around your head in a large crown, with a long, flowy lace veil going down your back, and a bundle of flowers in your free hand that wasn’t holding his. 
It was a wedding, a marriage. 
At the time, however foolish it was, you didn’t consider the scene to be any specific desire on Gar’s part. You simply thought that he was trying to communicate the idea - the concept to you. You thought that it was just part of the game. 
When you pulled yourself back to reality, you felt entirely confident in your answer as you wrote it down. 
‘A wedding’
When you flipped it over to show them, you were grinning proudly. 
Gar’s face immediately dropped - embarrassment clutched at his stomach and panic overtook him. Caulder sighed with annoyance as he looked at Gar’s card, which said ‘WATER’. 
Before any further discussion of it could be had, Gar dropped the cards and they scattered over the floor. He rushed out of the room, moving so swiftly that he was practically a blur. Doctor Caulder called after him, complaints wafting through the air. 
You didn’t care to listen to the man. You got up and chased him, almost tripping over your own feet to get to him. 
You caught him as he zipped up his jacket, clearly ready to escape out the basement door and go into town (something he told you he was not permitted to do, but often did anyway). You stepped right in front of his path. He sighed hard through his nose and tried to dodge you, and you stepped in front of him and kept blocking him. Eventually, he was forced to look up at you. 
It was then - when you saw the look of a truly kicked puppy spread across his features, naked embarrassment lingering in his eyes - that the truth clutched at your stomach. You got the sense that what you had seen was truly private. 
Part of you wanted to prod at him about his desires and ask why he had been thinking about that. But a larger part of you worried far more about the fact that you had upset him with the freakish invasion by your powers, and you wanted to remedy it. You wanted to save this amazing new friendship. 
With the index cards and pen still in your hand, you quickly wrote a message to him. 
‘I’m sorry.’ 
You wrote down, and then quickly flipped it to show him. 
“It’s fine.” He huffed, clearly eager to escape the conversation. 
Once again, he tried to dodge around you. 
Once again, you blocked his path. 
And then, you wrote down something else to show him.
‘It’s not fine. I shouldn’t use my powers on you like it’s a game.’ 
“The Chief needs to explore your abilities, right?” Gar sighed quietly. 
‘Not at your expense.’ You reasoned. 
Gar was silent when he came into this information - like this was the first time he had ever truly considered that the Chief’s methods were unethical. 
‘We should make a deal. I shouldn’t use my powers on you unless it’s an emergency. Your mind should be your private space. I don’t get to go poking around in there for fun.’ 
You scribbled this down with haste, feeling very emotional about it. Then you handed it to Gar. 
He gave a small smile and nodded after he read it. 
“That - uh - that sounds fair.” He said, chuckling nervously. “And we… we don’t have to talk about what you saw.” 
You both nodded and dissolved into giggles at this. And then, he took off his jacket, and fired up his X-Box so he could teach you how to play Cuphead to help the two of you forget about the whole thing. 
Back in your room at Titans Tower, so long after those first amazing days of your friendship with Gar - you fell asleep deep in thought about him. You couldn’t stop going over those early days in your mind. Thinking about all the intense kindness he had given you when the two of you had first met. 
Thinking about all of it truly made you realize how badly you had fucked up. You genuinely wondered if your friendship with him would ever have any chance at recovering from the cruelty you had shown him. 
You were genuinely stuck between a rock and a hard place. You thought that if you told him about the things that had happened - about the visions you had seen - even if you stressed to him that it had been by accident, then he would feel that you had violated his privacy. He would be wounded by you seeing into his mind and not reporting it to him right away. He would be upset that your powers had put a wedge between the two of you. And now, he was upset because you had stolen his secrets and you weren’t confiding any of yours in him. 
You were a bad friend. And you didn’t know how to make it up to him. 
You woke up the next day feeling like crap.  
You quickly realized that Gar was avoiding you. He did finally come out of his room because Dick banged on his bedroom door, demanding in a harsh voice that if his illness was really that serious, he needed to get it checked out. And Gar came out shoving a hoodie over his head saying that he was fine - while wearing the saddest expression you had seen over his face in a long time. 
When you placed a coffee cup down in front of him as a peace offering - dark roast filled one third with vegan marshmallow flavored creamer, just how he liked it - he distinctly ignored it. He didn’t even look at you as he got up from the breakfast bar stool, taking nothing more than a dry piece of toast for breakfast before he stormed off toward the training room. 
He placed himself in a secluded corner of the gym with his headphones blasting music, doing harsh pushups and pummeling the punching bag. He was making it very clear that he wanted to be left alone. And even when Dick called all four of you into another room for a verbal quiz on The Art of War (where you wrote down your answers on a white board) - Gar refused to make eye contact with you. 
Even when you drew a satirical comic of Dick’s Robin cape being propelled by a fart (that you labeled ‘pent up aggression’) - Gar’s face didn’t flinch from the hard stone it had been set into. It made Jason snort water out of his nose and caused Rachel to call you both ‘immature’. And it got you a verbal lashing from Dick and three weeks of washing the dishes - by hand. So not worth it considering that Gar hadn’t even cracked a smile. 
Gar’s cold indifference toward you rolled right into dinner. Gar didn’t flinch or try to take sides when Jason and Rachel broke into an argument about what had happened during game night. Jason brought up how stupid the concept of the game had been and he and Rachel began arguing about the rules. 
(“If I’ve never seen the movie before, I should get a new question!” 
“That’s not how it works, dickweed! Trivia is supposed to be difficult because you don’t know the answers!” 
“So not true. Trivia is a test of memory. How am I even supposed to remember the answer if I don’t know the damn source material?!”) 
The argument lasted long enough for you to finish your meal. 
When Dick realized they were debating who was the true loser of the bet you had made, he pointed out that regardless of any bets, you had to do the dishes as punishment for the dumb little drawing you had made. You didn’t care all that much as long as it got Jason and Rachel to shut up - but Jason was all too smug about it as he handed you his plate. Once you had finished cleaning up, something you found oddly calming, a nice distraction from the chaos of the last few days - you found yourself wandering to Rachel’s door. 
Much like you, she didn’t talk about her powers often. 
Especially not since she had been tricked into summoning her demon father to earth and then she had been forced to kill him because of what he did to all her friends - the people she considered family. But you knew that like you, she had some kind of capability to see into other people’s minds - to delve into their memories or walk the long, winding halls of their thoughts. You knew she might be the only other person on earth who might be able to understand what you were going through. Someone who could give you some kind of solid advice about it. 
After steeling yourself with a sharp breath, you raised your hand and knocked, waiting to see if she would even answer. The music that she was playing stopped, and after a moment, she opened the door, a look of surprise knitting over her features when her eyes fell upon you. 
“Y/N.” She greeted you in a quiet voice. “What is it?” 
‘I need to talk to you.’ You signed to her. You had some hope that she would understand what you meant, but her face was immediately overtaken with confusion. 
“I’m sorry - I.” She sighed, quickly cutting herself off, looking for the right words to explain it. “Between Dick’s whole list of mandatory reading stuff, and the sparring practice… I’ve been meaning to, but I haven’t had any time to study sign language,” 
She had genuine regret in her voice, which you could appreciate. 
You exhaled through your nose, a deep sigh. 
You gently pushed past her, inviting yourself into her room to settle in for the conversation. It did frustrate you that ASL wasn’t just a common language that was taught in schools, especially because it was psychologically proven that it was easy for toddlers to pick up on it with their brains being at a developmental age for it. It frustrated you that sometimes it was difficult for you to communicate with the people around you. But you tried not to let it get to you often. 
You got your cell phone out of your pocket, gesturing with it to let her know you would be texting her the things you needed to say. It was a simple, easy system. You invited yourself to sit on her bed, flopping back among the messy, unmade dark sheets as you carefully chose and typed out the words you needed to say. Rachel settled back into her desk chair, turning on her music once more, adjusting the volume to a low hum that settled into the background. You recognized it as the Arctic Monkeys and silently admired her taste in music. 
‘Have you ever accidentally seen something you regret?’ 
You sent the message. It took only a moment to race through cyberspace and you heard Rachel’s phone ping where it sat on the desk beside her. 
She picked up the phone and looked at your message. She then looked back at you with her eyebrows knitted tightly, a mixture of confusion and deep thought pulling them tight together. 
“Well there was that one time I accidentally walked into the bathroom when Jason forgot to lock the door-” She began. 
You cut her off with a raised hand and a pair of wide eyes glaring her down. 
You looked back to your phone and began typing another message, wanting to clarify what you meant. 
‘With your powers. Have you ever seen something with your powers that you didn’t want to see?’ You typed it out quickly, hitting send. 
Rachel read it over, placing her phone against her chin pensively as she contemplated the answer. 
“I… I don’t know.” Her voice was thick with thought. “I used to have these horrible nightmares. Almost every single night. And now I realize that those nightmares are what led me here. And I wouldn’t have been able to stop Trigon if I hadn’t seen those things.” 
Your throat tightened up. 
You and Rachel had never really talked like this before. You almost felt bad asking her for advice, knowing your problems were very different from hers. Quite pedestrian compared to the woes of somebody who had literally stopped the apocalypse and saved your life, and everyone else’s. You were worried about a school girl crush and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. 
“Why, what did you see?” Her curiosity leaked through her lips. She had quickly connected the dots to realize that you wouldn’t be asking questions like this if you hadn’t seen something of significance. 
Naturally, you weren’t going to tell her the details. Not only because the things you had seen were incredibly graphic, revealing, and private, but because you did suspect that she had some kind of small crush on Gar. And you didn’t want to crush her small hope of being with him and make her upset. Especially considering you had seen what she could do when she was upset. 
You opened the one-way text conversation and thought for a moment, carefully contemplating what you would tell her. 
‘I saw something private. Something I probably wasn’t supposed to see.’ You sent the vague words, and she read them over quickly. 
“What, like a sex dream?” She posed. 
There was a laugh on the edge of her voice, as though she was only joking. But the accuracy of the comedic prod scared you. You wanted to change the topic quickly - before she truly sniffed out the truth. 
‘Doesn’t matter.’ You sent quickly. When she saw the three small bubbles pop up, indicating that you were typing more, she simply waited. ‘Have you ever felt weird acting on information you’ve gotten from your dreams? Doesn’t it feel like cheating the system? Like you should just shut up and pretend to be normal?’ 
Rachel sighed, a sharp breath that clung to the insides of her throat. She placed her phone down in her lap and leaned back in her desk chair, swaying slightly with the swivel of the rolling chair’s base. 
“I don’t think any of us can just pretend to be normal.” She noted quietly. 
Rachel’s words were calm and wise. It was something she had probably realized about herself a long time ago. It was a truth you had yet to fall to. You caught glimpses of the future in your dreams, you could see things about people they never dared to admit to themselves. You were in love with a man who could turn himself into a tiger at will, and yet, your heart still cried for something that resembled ‘normal’. 
Rachel saw it written all over your face - that warring. And more of that oddly aged wisdom came pouring from her lips before she could stop it. 
“What’s that saying?” She pondered aloud. “‘What’s normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.’” 
It was a saying you had never heard of before, but it was oddly comforting in those moments. The idea that ‘normal’ means something drastically different for everyone. 
When you didn’t say anything, didn’t pick up your phone to start typing, Rachel continued. 
“I mean, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be the spider, or the fly, but…” 
She trailed off for a moment, getting lost in thought. She looked up at you when she had found the proper words, her eyes filled with a steely determination. 
“Look, somehow, I saved Dawn from a coma.” She firmly reminded you. “She didn’t give me an open invitation to go poking around inside her brain, but she needed me. And I needed her. I know having the ability to see inside people’s minds can be weird. But you shouldn’t just go around pretending you can’t do it because you’re afraid you’ll hurt people’s feelings, or whatever. You could save their lives.” 
You knew the information you had obtained wasn’t exactly life saving, but she had a point. An excellent one. Maybe the reason your powers were acting up like this was because Gar was reaching out to you. Maybe it was because he had felt the same way about you for a long time now and he didn’t have the guts to tell you either. So unconsciously, he was reaching out, trying to show you his feelings so he wouldn’t have to risk getting hurt.  
‘Thank you. That actually really helps.’ You sent the message and gave her a smile, hopping off the bed and leaving the room once again. 
…  
You had some time to kill before going to talk to Gar. 
You really wanted to talk to him this time - truly wanted to conquer everything you had been holding back over these past few days. So you were hoping that everyone else would be in bed asleep so they couldn’t interrupt the two of you. 
You took up some of the time with a nice, long shower. Which was partially interrupted by Jason banging on the bathroom door, complaining about how long you were taking - once again. And you took your time getting ready afterwards. 
You did your hair neatly and smoothed nice smelling lotion all over your skin. Of course, the thought did occur to you that the ‘conversation’ could lead to you and Gar having sex. That’s what had been so prominently on his mind for the past few weeks. That thought likely did influence your decision to put on a pair of skimpy, cute lace underwear and forego wearing a bra underneath your pajamas. A thin matchy cotton tank top and shorts set. 
Your stomach was ripe with bubbles, absolutely full of air and anxiety as you sat on your bed, waiting for more time to pass. There was a book in your hand that you barely knew the name or contents of as you tried to kill more time. Your eyes flicked over to the clock. It was almost one in the morning. Surely you had waited long enough. 
You didn’t bother with socks or slippers, your cold feet eager and quiet on the floor as you sneaked your way to Gar’s room. You were surprised to find empty, his wide open door revealing a messy, unmade bed without him in it. You hovered in the doorway for a moment, almost losing your courage and going back to bed. 
But then your eyes landed on his nightstand. 
There was a wide picture frame holding the picture of him and his parents. And tucked into one of the outer creases of the frame’s wood was something else - two photobooth pictures of the two of you. The pictures were from the first time he had snuck you out of the house to take you to the arcade at the roller rink. You had taken the other two pictures off the set of four, and always kept them in whatever journal you were currently working on. 
Seeing the memento kept so close to him, so dear - it filled you with a fresh wave of confidence and desire. You turned around, determined to find him. Luckily, there weren’t that many places to check. 
The kitchen and living space were empty. The bathroom was empty and the doors to the security room were shut - meaning Dick was likely in there, researching something, occupied. The only other place to check was the training room. 
Gar was in there, putting himself through another rigorous training routine. Clearly he couldn’t sleep with the fight the two of you had still weighing on his mind. And he was quite a sight to behold. 
He was shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxing gloves and black sweatpants that hung dangerously low on his hips. He was pounding away at the heavy punching bag, clearly trying to take out some of the frustrations that you had caused to run ramped inside of him. He was aglow with sweat, the tips of his green hair hanging down in his eyes, sticking to his forehead. His tight abs were slick and shiny in the light in a way that made you want to lick your lips. 
His attire easily revealed the delicious cut V of his hips and even a slight bit of pubic hair where he hadn’t properly tied up his sweatpants, and they were beginning to slip slightly due to his activity. You could see a rather impressive bulge, signifying that he was definitely not wearing any underwear. It swung around freely as he worked, punching hard at the weight bag. You had to force yourself not to become distracted by the movement of that mighty snake inside his pants - especially now that you knew what it felt like against you when it was throbbing and hard. 
He either hadn’t noticed your presence yet or didn’t care to interrupt his workout to acknowledge you.
“If you came to train, don’t let me bother you.” 
Gar huffed quietly when he finally paused his movements for a moment. He sounded so entirely wounded, and the words caused pain to radiate through your chest. He leaned down to pick up his water bottle between the two clunky foam gloves without taking them off. He took a large gulp from it while he not-so-subtly eyed you through his peripheral vision, clearly waiting for your reaction. 
“Apparently that’s all I am to you lately.” 
He added on after he swallowed the water, deadly quiet. His words were barely louder than the metal creaking as the punching bag continued to swing from the residual momentum. But you heard him absolutely clear. 
The sentiment weighed on your heart like a pound of bricks. 
You knew there were no words to explain it to him. You knew he would still be angered at you for using your powers on him without permission, even if it was by mistake. You couldn’t explain how it had been a mistake, how it had only been with him. You still didn’t know exactly why or how it had happened. 
After he gulped down a healthy dose of water, he tossed the bottle aside and rose to his full height. For the first time all day, he finally cast his attention over toward you. His face was set with one of the most sullen expressions you had ever seen. You hadn’t seen him this upset since he had attacked that man back at the asylum. Every bit a kicked puppy, as you looked at him, you tried to find the right words, but came up empty. You almost turned to walk away, almost burned dry of the courage you needed to face this. 
But with Rachel’s words still ringing in your ears, you looked into his glassy eyes, and for the first time in a long time - you pushed into the quiet realm of his mind purposefully. You needed to dig to find something that would help you. Something that could remind you of how perfect you were with Gar. 
You were surrounded once again by the thick, plush world of his own imagination. 
Even if it wasn’t that different from the world you lived in. 
The two of you were in the training room, with him wearing a blindfold as you practiced the unorthodox drill that was assigned to you. You got in a few good hits with the practice sword in your hands, and ultimately tackled him to the ground. 
The two of you ended up in a position that wasn’t too different from the reality of the day before. Though it was playful and light, rather than hypersexual and startled. 
You pinned him down with your thighs on either side of his waist, your hips sitting dangerously above his. Your body weight was balanced partially on your knees and partially on him. You held your wooden sword to his throat, poised in a threat you would never carry out against him. 
He swallowed hard, his throat muscles jerking underneath the wood. You knew it was more because of the rising heat your compromising position was causing him and not because he was actually afraid of you. Or perhaps him being just a tiny bit afraid of you turned him on that little bit more. 
You let out a laugh as you tossed the sword away, leaning in to take off his blindfold and give him a kiss on the cheek. 
“What was that for?” He asked, regarding the unique new affection you had never really shown him before. 
‘Kiss it better.’ You signed, before leaving in and leaving a deeper, more heated kiss fully on his mouth. 
You forced yourself out of the thick, hazy daydream then. 
This was the answer. No words would be able to fix this - you needed to kiss it better. 
‘Kiss it better.’ 
You repeated this to yourself in the real world, confirming it as the truth. 
Gar read the signs you performed and - out of context - it draped him in hopeful confusion. 
He continued to stare you down with that delicately confused look enveloping his features as you marched across the room toward him, your steps over the cushioned mats of the floor filled with pure determination. 
He wondered if he had read your signing wrong, or if you were really planning to kiss him. Part of him thought you were going to hit him, or finally flip out on him for whatever perceived crime he had committed. And when you did it - he could hardly believe that it was truly, finally happening. That it wasn’t some dream. 
You reached up and grabbed him by both sides of his sweat damped head. And after years of waiting - you pulled him into your lips. 
Without hesitation, going on the pure fire in your belly, you kissed him. 
You channeled every ounce of raw need that had built up since the first time he had sucked you into a daydream where he so ferociously kissed you. His shock was evident at first. His whole body went stiff under your touch, which almost caused you to pull away. But a small moan rang out from the back of his throat - something that made you instantly dizzy with need. It made your lips seek out his with even more force, making your grip on his head clamp down as if to not let him escape. 
He began to kiss you back with just as much ferocity as he had in his dreams - echoing out another moan as he truly appreciated the taste of your lips. 
You felt him move but you didn’t open your eyes to look. You heard the tearing of velcro as you gnashed your teeth across his top lip and then latched onto the bottom one. Behind your back, he was taking off the boxing gloves, throwing them somewhere on the floor with a careless, quiet thump. Then his arms were around you, snaking around your waist. His flat palms went up the back of your shirt like impossibly hot magnets and pulled your body to his. He closed the small gap you had left for fear of being rejected - he welcomed you into his world with the utmost sincerity. 
Your shirt stuck to him because of the sweat he had worked up, and you wanted it off immediately. You wanted all your clothes off. You wanted to feel the naked rawness of the bulge you could feel swelling against your hip. But for now, you were too distracted by the other sensations he drowned you in to even consider pulling away to strip down. 
You were too caught up in the wicked work his tongue was doing as it snaked past your lips. You were obsessed with the loving way his hands held you. You lavished in the heat of his body as it radiated out against you like a wildfire. One of his hands was sprawled out in the middle of your back underneath your shirt. The other cupping the back of your head like you were the most beautiful, delicate doll he had ever had the pleasure of holding in his life. 
Eventually, both of you were forced to pull away from the kiss - succumbing to that formidable human breath. 
“Is this real?” 
Gar said quietly, seemingly almost more to himself as he pulled away from your lips. 
You opened your eyes, running a hand down to gently cup his cheek. He felt your gaze on him and opened his eyes. For the first time in days, he stared into your eyes so intimately and the dream became real. 
“Are you forreal right now?” 
These words were a bit louder. 
Not loud enough to break the sacred bubble of hot mingled breaths, spit, and sweat you had created. He wouldn’t dare do anything to shatter this if it was just another sleepy fantasy. But even if it was a fantasy, he still wanted to ask for your consent. That much you realized. 
Hesitantly, you tore your hands away from his glistening, flushed skin to formulate your reply. 
‘I want you.’ You told him simply. 
Without another moment of hesitance, he used the strong hold of his arms around your torso to take you to the ground. 
You wrapped your legs around him upon instinct. Your arms came up to clasp around the back of his neck as your ankles fumbled somewhere on his back. The action unintentionally drew your hot centers closer together. 
Gar bringing you down elicited a surprised squeak from you, which staved off into light laughter as your back met the mats. The laughter was easily echoed by him, deep and hardy. The sound turned into a playful, pleasurable growl into your neck as he ran his teeth along the skin there, nipping, marking his territory. You didn’t think his growling would ever be so sexy to you - but fuck, the noise ran a shock up your spine. It made your pussy clench around nothing and sent a wave of wetness into your underwear. 
This was going to be fun. 
“You have no fucking idea how long I’ve wanted this.” 
Gar grunted into your neck, his voice already deepened by the cloud of his lust. His tongue licked a hot path down your skin into your cleavage. His hands ran down your sides to grip your hips through your shorts, his touch feeling blazen through the material. 
“Wanted you.” He groaned, sounding so lust-drunk already. “You’re so fucking perfect.” 
You had some idea. 
But just hearing him say it, feeling the words vibrate against your skin made you moan for him. It made your fingers dig into the flesh of his shoulder blades. You were desperate for some kind of anchor on the plane of reality to assure yourself that you weren’t lost in the depth of another beautiful dream. 
You were vaguely aware of the fact that there was probably a camera somewhere in the room. Maybe multiple cameras seeing what Dick’s personality was like. Hell, Batman was the one who had designed and built the place and Dick was only teaching you guys what he had been taught. He probably used the footage of you guys training to review your weaknesses so he could make you better - build better soldiers. 
But all those thoughts melted out of your mind the moment that Gar lifted up your shirt. He continued the wet trail with his tongue down the middle of your stomach, stopping once and a while to make sloppy kisses against your skin. You knew exactly what his intentions were when his hands curled into the waistband of your shorts and underwear all at once. 
Your legs fell limp as he started to pull them off. 
A fresh wave of heat surged through you, making you absolutely drunk as he tossed your clothes behind him. He poised himself between your bent knees, kissing up your thigh with a tight hold on it, holding himself up with the other hand. 
“You smell so fucking good.” He growled out, low, heavy under his breath. You moaned out, only getting drunker with his words. “Fuck, I can’t wait to taste you.” 
You didn’t have a moment to sign to him, to give him some kind of encouragement or permission before he was diving in. He got low on his knees, wrapping both his hands possessively around your thighs. He leaned some of his weight on his elbows and from what you could see - canted his hips toward the mats, fruitlessly humping against the softness, seeking some kind of relief. 
He used his hands to spread your legs - not that it was much of an effort. Your legs practically fell open at his touch. You whimpered hard in the back of your throat as you felt his breath fanning out over your wet pussy. A heavy moan swelled on your tongue when he licked a broad stripe across you from your hole to your throbbing clit. 
“Shit, you taste so fucking good.” 
He hoisted your legs over his shoulders so your feet rested comfortably on his back, laying so he was more flat on his stomach, clearly getting comfortable. He laid a few tender kisses on the inside of your thigh. Then he looked up at you with dark, ferocious eyes. 
“Just, ah… smack me on the head if you want me to stop, okay?” Gar told you. 
Clearly, he was saying this for your safety - putting in a failsafe in case you changed your mind or became overwhelmed. But it came off as a sharp, pleasant warning of what was to come. 
Your pussy throbbed and you only ached for him to hurry up, biting your lip as you looked down at him. You nodded briskly, communicating that you understood his words. You had a feeling you most certainly wouldn’t want him to stop. 
Gar’s fingers dug into the tenderness of your thighs as he ducked his head down, latching onto your swollen, needy flesh. He soon brought a whole new definition to the words ‘eating pussy’. Like with everything he did in life, he did with the utmost enthusiasm and passion. He lapped at you, put his beautiful pink lips around you and sucked. He kissed your pussy just as passionately and wholly as he had your mouth. 
He shoved his tongue between your folds and dragged it in long, languid strokes. Clearly he was eager to lap up every last bit of your essence that he could - eager to devour you. He moaned into your pussy, moaned just as loudly as if he were the one being pleasured. It made the vibrations of his tongue on your clit even more deadly. Your hands were on his hair in a minute, both of them grabbing up as much of the gorgeous green as you could and holding tight. The action pulled a rumble from deep in his chest as he was satisfied by the pleasant pain of you tugging at his roots.
“You’re so fucking good.” 
He moaned into you, and you echoed back a high pitched noise that you hardly recognized as your own. 
“Everything about you is perfect. Every inch of you is perfect.” 
His grip around your thighs became even more possessive, his fingers digging into you hard enough to leave marks. Your lust clouded brain couldn’t clock the pain. You could only enjoy the view of his gorgeous hands gripping your skin. He labored over your clit, determined to make you cum. He flicked his tongue hard and fast over your clit as his hot breath fanned over you in quick, lustful pants. The orgasm washed over you so suddenly, a rubber band snapped from his actions. The tension had been built up over weeks of him living inside your mind, torturing you through lustful dreams.  
Your back arched, every muscle in your body pulled tight. Your thighs quivered and spasmed around his head as he continued to grip them hard. Your mouth became a mess of foreign noises that sounded daft and dumb to you but were absolute music to Gar’s ears. 
He chased you hard the whole way through it, shoving his tongue deep inside your throbbing cunt so he wouldn’t miss a single drop of your juices as they flowed out of you. You thought perhaps he might come up for air when your orgasm subsided. The aftershocks were still shaking your thighs, one of your hands falling to lull by your side, the other petting fondly through Gar’s now even messier hair. But it seemed you were wrong. He was just getting started. 
He growled with a feral hunger, the noise making your hips jolt, unintentionally canting toward his face as a whimper fluttered from your lips. He lapped at you in a drunken, lazy way for a few moments before he went back to eating your pussy with a renewed kind of starvation. 
Nipping at your swollen pussy lips in a way that made your entire body jolt, forcing his tongue inside you and fucking you with it while his nose bumped at your thrumming clit. Your second orgasm built up so quickly on top of the first. Your fingers curled in his hair as an unspoken signal to it. The feeling of your nails digging into his scalp only driving him to makeout with your cunt with an even deeper desire. 
He soaked up your practically pornographic moans with reverence. The wear and tear on your extremely damaged vocal cords began to hurt your throat, but the noises were absolutely unstoppable as they poured from your lips. His talented tongue was forcefully driving the moans and whimpers from you. He loved the feeling of your fingers ripping at his hair, leaving a pleasant sting across his scalp. He didn’t let up at all as your second orgasm plowed through you. 
He wasn’t satisfied even as your voice was echoing the wrecked, harsh moans of a third. 
He had you panting, your lungs struggling for air. Your muscles twitching with the excess of adrenaline and electricity. You whimpered pathetically as he tongued over your intensely sensitive clit again. Deciding it was time to give in, you reached over and tapped him gently on the top of the head. 
He looked up at you with those beautiful, wide brown eyes. This time not a lick of innocence or confusion anywhere to be seen - his irises completely overtaken with a deep, primal lust. 
You crooked your finger at him, motioning for him to come back towards your face. He kissed the inside of your thigh a few more times. He unintentionally smeared your sticky wetness, which had gathered on his lips in a heady, thick coating, across your skin. 
“I love your pussy so fucking much.” He murmured into your skin. 
Hearing him spout such filthy words without shame sent another wave of heat rolling through your belly. You had no idea how you were still so needy after cumming so many times, but Gar had easily done that to you. 
You reached over and gently tugged on his hair again, bringing his attention back to you. You suddenly became very aware of the fact that you knew exactly what you wanted, but you didn’t know how to ask for it. Surely, there had to be a sign in ASL for intercourse - but you just didn’t know what it was. You had never felt the need to look it up before now. You decided to improv, knowing that Gar would get the meaning either way. He always understood when it came to you. 
You raised your hands, making a partially closed fist with one hand and sticking your finger into it. You knew that it was probably a rather juvenile motion. To make your point perfectly clear, you mouthed the words ‘fuck me’ in an exaggerated way, hoping it would be easy enough for him to pick up on. 
“You want me to fuck you?” 
He gently shucked your legs off his shoulders, sitting up on his knees. He wiped your essence off his mouth with the palm of his hand, a delighted, surprised expression falling over his features. 
You nodded swiftly, enthusiasm spreading across your face, biting your lip as you could barely contain a giddy smile. 
“I mean, I don’t have a condom or anything… should I go find one?” 
He moved slightly as if to get up and leave you, but you were quick to trap him, hooking your knees around his thighs and squeezing tight. This touch was a good enough signal to bring his attention back to you. 
‘Don’t worry about it.’ You signed to him, firm and final. 
He clearly wanted to question you, but there was something heavy dancing in your eyes, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment by pushing it. 
(You were infertile. Just another thing your illness had taken from you. If it meant this moment with Gar would be a bit more worry-free, then you’d take it. If it meant he would break up with you down the road because he wanted kids that you couldn’t have… then you’d just enjoy the time with him that you were given.)
“Okay.” He breathed quietly. 
Your attention shifted dramatically when his hand moved to adjust his cock in his pants, which was straining harshly through the fabric. It was a long, thick outline like a shadow beaming out from the black fabric, with a damp spot at the tip. Fuck. 
Eating you out had turned him on so much that he was leaking precum into his pants, quite a lot of it. You latched onto your bottom lip at the sight of it. You couldn’t help but to outright stare now that you were allowed to look - lavishing your eyes over the thick, magnetic outline of his beautiful cock. His hand gripped it once more, adjusting himself, trying to make his throbbing cock more comfortable where it strained against the fabric. It made the sight even hotter somehow, and your eyes jumped up to his to see the almost shy look on his face. Even after what he’d done, he was shy about you staring at his bulge. 
‘Show me.’ 
You egged him on, trying to be encouraging. You wanted to play up the obvious desire that you knew was prominent on your face by pouting your lips and batting your eyelashes for him. He raised his hand to the edge of his pants, but his muscles strained, hesitant still. 
As a show of good faith, you sat up slightly, peeling off your tank top, which was now stuck to you with sweat. Your skin appreciated the cool air of the room, and your ego preened at the way Gar’s eyes devoured the newly revealed skin. 
He let out a harsh breath before he stood up on the spot and took his pants down, letting them fall to his ankles and kicking them away. 
“I thought you might laugh at me.” He said quietly, insecurity racking his voice. “Because… ya know… the carpet matches the drapes.” 
Laughing was the last thing you were thinking about doing. 
As you laid there, propped up by your elbows, staring at him, your mind could only focus on how entirely fantastic he looked. His body was so perfect, his muscles built, building up more each day with the training. His whole body covered in perfect, smooth skin, surrounding a gorgeous, filthy prize that you had only dreamed about being this amazing in real life. 
His cock sprang out from a nest of green pubic hair - which yes, ‘the carpet does match the drapes’. But you found that to be nothing to laugh at. There was absolutely nothing laughable about the gorgeous, nine inch monster that stood proudly in front of you - smooth skin covering hardened, gorgeous flesh just like the rest of him. With a drooling, bright pink tip just ready for your lips to be wrapped around it. 
‘Why would I ever laugh at such a beautiful prize?’ You told him, assuring him that you held nothing but admiration and lust for his body. 
A light dusting of pink came over his cheeks, absolute flattery from your words. He dropped down to his knees once again. His cock bobbed so deliciously as he moved, and you knew that would be so whipped by the ability to have it. When Gar realized the power he could hold over you with sex - you would be done for. 
“Jason thought it was pretty funny.” He shrugged, his voice gruff with the memory of it. 
‘Jason is a clown.’ You assured him. 
The conversation was cast aside when he gripped your ankles, playfully tugging you across the mats toward him - something that caused more giggles to erupt from your throat. 
Then, he was hovering over you on his hands and knees once again. With one hand beside your head, the other came over to grasp your chin with two fingers. It was so light and careful compared to his previous touches. He peered down into your eyes, making your stomach seize up with the sheer amount of love and affection he stared you down with. 
If you didn’t feel the same way for him, you might have backed down from the towering might of his feelings. You might have been tempted to run from something so divinely grand and beautiful. But no - you wanted to be his. You wanted to make him yours. 
‘Take me.’ You mouthed. 
Your hands were numb and useless at your sides. Your body was stilled by the cosmic depths of his affection, hoping your silent lips alone would be enough. 
Gar leaned down and swept your mouth into a kiss. His thumb on your chin rubbed sweet circles on your skin as his lips smoothed into yours. Your tongue reached out to eagerly dive into the cavern of his mouth. Soon his touch was gone from your face as your hands woke up to find him, to reach out for the perfection of his body. 
You eagerly sought out to touch his arms, his back, his ass, anything you could reach. He used his hand to hoist your knee gently over his thigh, opening you up to him. Then he poised his cock perfectly at your hot, leaking entrance. 
“You sure about this?” He breathed across your cheek, pulling away from the kiss to ensure your consent one last time. 
You nodded with the most frantic posture you could muster, impatient breaths spilling from your nostrils and pouring across his clammy skin. 
Satisfied with this, he rolled his hips forward. Finally, after weeks - no, years - of waiting in quiet agitation for him, you became complete. 
Even with his massive size, his cock slid easily inside you. 
Your pussy was readied by the many orgasms he gave you, your muscles relaxed and naturally slicked up for him. He fit perfectly like he belonged there, your hot inner walls pulling him in. Your hot cunt clung to his cock in a way that made him groan deeply into your neck. The feeling made his buttocks tense as he pulled together his last ounces of self control to not lose it - to not pound into you like a careless sex doll. You were perfect, and you deserved to be treated perfectly. 
“Fuck, you feel so good around my cock.” 
He groaned, leaning down on his elbows. He trapped you completely in his warmth, pressing his body firmly into yours from chest to chest to where he was smothered deep inside you. 
“You’re so fucking perfect. Fuck, Y/N.” 
You dug your nails into the muscles of his back - hearing your name on his lips with such a gravelly desire making your pussy squeeze around him. After a few restrained moments, he finally pulled his hips back and began to move. It started off as a slow, deliberate grind, a slow drag of his hips into yours, but it quickly became unhinged. Not that you minded one bit. You wanted to tempt that animal inside him - you wanted to see his rougher side.  
The sloppy sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the room as he hammered his hips into yours. The sounds almost completely drowning out the quiet wave of your pathetic whimpers and his possessive growls. He tried to trap the sounds in the skin of your neck, while gnawing mindlessly at your skin, sure to leave some kind of mark on you. 
He was impossibly heavy and hot inside you, hitting all the best spots. His cock drove more electricity into your nerve endings and absolutely milked you for everything you could give. His knees pinned open your thighs where they jolted and jumped, your body so overstimulated from your previous orgasms that they wanted to clamp shut on his hips to keep him from moving. Your unconscious wanted to pin him down and hold him there - wanted to hold him inside you so that you could feel so impossibly full forever. 
And then, just as you felt another orgasm coming to form like a screeching fire in your belly, he dared to raise his head from your neck, dared to look into your eyes. 
Before you knew it, you were tumbling once again through the thick curtain of reality and into his mind. You were pulled against your will into another one of his fantasies. 
In the fantasy, you were on your back, still, completely naked. You were slicked with a sheen of sweat with his thick, pulsing cock deep inside you. But this was slightly different. The material under your back was most certainly a mattress - plush, more giving than the stiffness of the padded floor of the training room. It had an almost too soft layer of silk sheets covering it that your skin stuck to unpleasantly with the sweat. 
Your hands were poised on Gar’s chest, your nails digging into the skin there, leaving light marks. One of the things that stood out most to you about this picture was not the fact that Gar was having a fantasy about fucking you, but the ring on your finger. Seeing as this was his mind, he was the one who had put it there. Quite clearly a wedding ring or an engagement ring. It was beautifully ornate, poised on the correct finger for marriage. It held a bright green stone in the middle - green like a certain someone special to you. 
“Fuck, I love you so much.” 
Dream Gar moaned as he pounded into you, his hips taking on a sloppy rhythm as his orgasm drew near. 
“My beautiful wife. Mine. Finally fucking mine. You’ve always been mine, haven’t you?” 
‘I’m yours.’ 
You found yourself mouthing the words without even realizing it, whipped out of the fantasy world so harshly once again. A very small part of your mind wondered if it had been a small slice of the future that you had seen or if it was simply a conjuring from Gar’s imagination. 
You didn’t have the time to think or care, because your body went into overdrive. The Real Gar’s forehead was now resting on your tits. His hands created a tight grip on your hips as he pounded into you harder, harsher, deep grunts spewing from his lips each time his cock settled back inside you. 
“Please cum for me, Y/N.” His words came out as a whining beg, something so wonderfully small from the man splitting you open on his cock. 
He kissed between your breasts, his thumb coming to rub harsh circles on your clit, sending jolts right through you. 
“Cum on my cock. Please.” 
With the vision still hot on your mind and his words searing through you, the orgasm tore you up like a rabid animal. It was like nothing else you had ever felt in your life - like your entire body was on fire, being entirely consumed by Gar, by his touch, by his love for you. Finally being owned by him, finally having the one thing you wanted, needed most. Finally having him, full and whole. 
You screamed so loudly it hurt your throat, something you knew you’d be feeling for days afterward. Your whole body shook around him while your eyes screwed shut, your head tilting backwards as the pleasure was exorcized from you. 
You felt a hot dampness under your fingertips that you recognized as blood. In the back of your mind, you realized that you had gripped him hard enough for your nails to cut him - but he didn’t seem to care. In fact, it only spurred him on more, if the deep, ferocious grunts pouring from his lips were any indication. He was absolutely wild as he chased his own orgasm, breath fanning out in hot grunts against your breasts as he bucked wildly into your spent, tired hips, making your muscles twitch with bitter overstimulation. 
“Fuck! Y/N!” He cried out as he came, finally spilling his thick, hot cum inside you. 
You let out a small moan at the feeling. It became even hotter when you felt his cum pooling around the base of his cock, where you were connected, and leaking down between your cheeks. He lingered inside you for a few moments, petting his hands up and down your sides while your hands laid numbly on his back. He pecked small, delicate kisses across your clavicle that were almost an irony to the whole interaction. It made you smile. 
You were quickly falling tired from the massive aerobic exercise and post-orgasm haze, disappointed by the fact that you had to get up and make your way back to bed. You hoped Gar would let you sleep in his. It came as a bitter shock when he pulled out of you, leaving you empty and cold as he moved away from you so suddenly. When you blinked, he was standing, bending over with his back to you as he picked up his pants and righted the legs so he could put them back on. 
What he did next came as even worse of a shock to you. 
“I - uh… I understand if you don’t want this to affect our friendship.” He said, just loud enough for you to hear him. His tone was flat, completely void of emotion. 
“I totally get being horny and just… needing someone. We’ve been locked up here for weeks, and like. Like you said, Jason’s a clown.” He let out a laugh, but it was hollow and tired. He clearly didn’t even think his own words were funny. 
The words were so strange in those moments they took far too long to process through your sex-hazy brain. 
Was he really insinuating that you might go to Jason for sex? Was he trying to… let you down easy? Was he saying that he only wanted to be friends? Friends with benefits? 
Was he seriously saying that he didn’t love you? 
Your head was spinning with questions as you propped yourself up on your elbows, your whole body stiff as those beautiful, orgasmic chemicals faded away. It left you tired, shocked, and… feeling used. Your eyes scanned over Gar’s back as he tied up the drawstring of his pants. You focused on the dark red, deep, partially bleeding marks you had left. You had marked him, whether he liked it or not. You had some claim to him. You should. 
“I’m gonna stay for a while and finish my workout.” He told you quietly. “Do you need help getting back to bed?” 
When he came over and offered you a hand, you brushed it away. For the first time ever, you felt cold and unaccepting of his touch. You felt angry with him. How dare he invite you into his mind, show you how much he cared about you - how dare he fuck you with so much love and passion and then try to brush it all off as if it were nothing? 
‘I’m fine.’ You told him, hoping your coldness could come across in tired, limp handed signing. 
You forced yourself up on quivering knees and then onto your feet. You gathered your clothes where they had been carelessly tossed and shoved them back onto your used, dirty body. You would have preferred a shower first, but you preferred the precaution of drapery in case you did run into anyone on your way to the bathroom. 
“Oh. Okay. Cool.” 
These were Gar’s last words to you before you stormed out of the training room, going to the bathroom to ruminate on the whole experience by boiling yourself in hot, steaming water. 
…  
You thought about it for a long time while you were in the shower. 
Just stood there, under the hot spray and let your mind concentrate on the things Gar had said. He had fucked the living daylights out of you, ate your pussy like it was his fucking job. He was apparently having daydreams about doing so while calling you his fucking wife, and then once it was all said and done - he backed down from it. He told you that he ‘understood’ if you only wanted to be friends. 
He was afraid. 
It was like everything else in his life. He could transform into a fucking tiger, but he was afraid to bite people. He didn’t want to use the fantastic power that had been given to him. For years, he hid away with Doctor Caulder, a man who emotionally abused him and manipulated him. He had been too afraid to stand up for himself, too afraid to leave the house and chase the things he really wanted. 
And with you. He was clearly terrified you were going to reject him. He wanted a life with you, he wanted to worship you. He wanted you and your heart, he wanted your everything. But he was too afraid to voice it. He was too afraid he’d look like an idiot if you didn’t feel the same way. 
That’s probably why he had unconsciously reached out to you, unconsciously broadcasted his fantasies to you whenever you were near. And you’d thought it was your stupid powers acting up. 
Just like with kissing him to initiate that amazing sex - you were going to have to shake off your fear of rejection so that the two of you could be together already. 
… 
You woke up the next morning with a pounding migraine. 
Even with the preventative medications Doctor Caulder had prescribed to you to help with your seizures and migraines, the tumor that still lived inside your brain did get to torture you occasionally. When you lifted your head from your pillow and saw the gray, gloomy sky looming over San Francisco, the raindrops racing down your window, it didn’t take you long to figure out the cause of your pain. You groaned, falling face first back into your pillow, not wanting to get up. 
The ever present pain from coming from your head was topped off by soreness that had spread through your whole body - undeniable evidence that what happened between you and Gar last night wasn’t just another dream. Dreams don’t have consequences. Especially considering that your pussy was aching hard, still sore from having his impressive length splitting you open. On top of it all, your throat was stinging with an almost flu-like ache from having screamed so much through your surgery damaged vocal chords. 
You really hoped Dick would let you have one day off from training. You probably could have gotten through it with just your body being sore. But the migraine was already ravaging you, already turning your stomach sour with systematic nausea. 
You heard a knock on your door and sighed quietly. 
You had just barely hoisted yourself into a sitting position by the time the person entered. Squinting through your tired eyes, you were able to makeout a flash of green and immediately knew that it was Gar. 
“Hey, you don’t look so good. You feelin’ alright?” He knew the look that always settled upon your face when you were overtaken with such intense pain. He hardly needed to ask. “Where’s the bottle?” 
You motioned toward the drawer that held the item he spoke of - your hot water bottle, which you used to help ease the bitter pain of a migraine. He opened and closed a few drawers before he found it. Your eyes gently closed against the harsh light pouring in from the hallway, too sensitive to the light to actually look at him. 
“It’s okay, lay down.” He told you, his voice a comforting lull past the aching thrum in your forehead. He patted your thigh gently through your blanket, and you eased back onto the bed, throwing a forearm over your eyes to block the light. “I got it.” 
He went to the kitchen and filled the rubber bladder with boiling water, returning quickly with it and a glass of water. You took the now very hot water bottle. You gave him a small moan of gratitude as you placed it down on your pillow and pressed your forehead into it. 
In a practiced routine that only spoke to how much he loved you, he closed the bedroom door, blocking out the harsh light of the hallway. And then he walked around the bed to close the curtains, blocking out any potential light from the outside. He placed the glass of water down on your nightstand with a harsh clink that only radiated through your skull so painfully because of the migraine. Then you heard him open the nightstand drawer, digging around for your medication. 
You trusted that he knew which ones you needed right now. You trusted that he didn’t need your advice on how to take care of you. It was something he knew well after so long. 
You felt his fingers brushing your open palm, then felt the round tablets of your medication left there as he pulled away. 
“Sit up and take these.” He said quietly, voice barely above a whisper, as if he was afraid to hurt you with a single decibel. 
He used a gentle grip on your forearm to hoist you into a sitting position, and you swallowed the medication dutifully with the water he’d brought. 
“I’ll tell Dick you need to sit out of training today.” He explained quietly. “You need anything else?” 
‘One thing.’ You signed to him, your hands weak and tired. 
Though your pain was disruptive, and you were glad Gar was not acting any different after what had happened last night, you couldn’t wait any longer before doing this. 
Before he could question what that thing was, you leaned in. Your lips easily found his in the darkness and you planted a smooth, gentle kiss on his mouth. 
‘Don’t wanna just be friends.’ You signed, opening your tired, painful eyes to see his reaction to your words. ‘I love you. I have loved you for a long time now.’ 
A broad smile came across his face, his expression of pure joy practically glowing in the darkness. 
“Yeah. Awesome. That sounds amazing. I love you too.” His voice was slightly louder now, his joy overriding his caution for your hypersensitive, pained ears.
He felt absolutely giddy - this was what he had been waiting for, dreaming of for so long. He wanted to climb in bed with you and lay by your side for the rest of the day. But he knew that he needed to attend to other things, and more importantly - you needed your rest. 
“Get some rest now, okay?” 
He tucked you into bed, made sure the covers were up over your body, full and warm with the hot water bottle under your head before he left the room once again. 
It wasn’t long before you heard voices coming from down the hall. 
“Where’s Y/N? We’re doing balance drills in ten minutes.” Dick’s gruff voice echoed down the hall, very obviously directed at Gar, who he’d sent to wake you up.
“She needs the day off. She’s got a wicked migraine and she needs rest when it gets like this,” Gar told him simply, hoping Dick would respect him at his word. 
“We don’t get days off, Gar.” Dick pressed. “All of us have to train through pain, or injury. Do you really think some psychotic asshole is gonna care if you have a little headache while they’re trying to kill you? Do you think they’re just gonna come back another day? Do you think they’re gonna stop shooting at you if you have to stop and bandage your boo boo?”
His words cut through you, causing a sallow pain to rise up in your chest. It was something you’d been hearing since your childhood - since your treatments and hospital stays had caused you to miss too many days off and your teachers quickly stopped taking pity on you. You had always been told to just work through your pain, that the world won’t stop for you. You considered getting up and just going to training. You wanted to tough it out just to show Dick that you could, that you could puke into a garbage can and keep going, that you could boot and rally. 
You heard footsteps coming down the hall, and in your pain heightened sensitivity, you heard the metal of the doorknob shift as someone put their hand around it. The sound of Dick coming to get you out of bed anyway. 
He didn’t get the chance, though. 
“Leave it, Grayson.” Gar’s voice growled - a harsh, sharp sound that you had rarely ever heard from him before. “You don’t understand what she’s going through, and I won’t have you pushing her until she pukes on the floor just to satisfy your ego. She already trains harder than you ask and you know she could probably kick your ass,” 
You heard a harsh sigh, a deep breath through nostrils - Dick’s surrender. His footsteps disappeared down the hall, and Gar’s followed shortly after. 
Your heart bloomed with affection, awed by the blanket of protection he had put around you. 
You really were his. You always have been. 
...
When Gar was getting dressed after his shower later that day - he came across a small box in his underwear drawer. It was the ring that Rita had given him before he left Caulder House, a very expensive looking vintage piece from her days on set. Gar tried to insist that he couldn’t take something so nice, so sentimental from her. But she had closed it tight into his palm with the promise that it would be yours someday - that he would use the polished emerald ring to propose to you. 
Of course, she saw that big, beautiful, dangerous thing brewing between the two of you from a mile away. Gar considered marching down the hall and giving it to you right then there. But he tucked the box back into his drawer. In honor of Rita’s vision - he would make it old Hollywood, romantic. 
He had plenty of time.
THE END.
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tenpintsofsundrop · 1 year
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Dreaming Of You
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Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader
Part Two: Our Past, Our Present, Our Future
Summary:
After having an argument with Gar that nearly ends your friendship, you decide to finally get over your fear of using your own powers and finally embrace them. If you do things just right, you could finally get everything that you (and Gar) have ever wanted.
Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut, (Slight) Angst and Fluff. Set during Season 2.
Word Count: 18,000
Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist
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List of detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: general emotional angst (due to the reader and Gar having emotional distance from having an argument at the end of the other chapter), (very light) canon level violence, mentions of medical experimentation/medical torture, the reader character has medical trauma from years of illness, mentions of medical debt, manipulation and emotional abuse (from Doctor Caulder toward Gar and the reader), mentions of burns/burn scarring, mention of the reader being abandoned by her parents, mentions of vomit (no graphic descriptions), the reader character has a seizure, (likely) improper first aid performed for a seizure, the reader has chronic illness/chronic pain, use of prescription medication, the reader is more feminine (wears lacy underwear), the reader has a vagina and uses she/her pronouns. 
This chapter contains smut - both dream fantasies and played out sexual acts. The reader character is mute but all consent is enthusiastic and clear, biting/marking kink, some dirty talk, semi-public sex (having sex in the communal area of a house - also, coincidentally, the sex fic I have read where characters have sex in a space that just happens to have a camera in it), scent kink, oral - reader receiving, multiple orgasms (reader receiving), (slight) overstimulation (reader receiving), hair pulling kink (Gar receiving), it’s implied that the reader and Gar are virgins but it’s not lingered on and it’s not a plot point of the fic, unprotected sex, creampie, penis in vagina sex, rough sex, (idk how to phrase it?) marriage kink/commitment kink, passionate sex/love making, Gar calls the reader ‘wife’ (in a fantasy sequence), some mentions of blood (the reader scratches Gar’s back and draws blood by accident), I believe that’s it. 
A/N: This turned out way longer than I intended. But I love it and I really hope that you guys do too!!
...
After the argument, you didn’t see Gar for the rest of the day. 
When Dick came in to check on your progress with training, he immediately questioned why Gar was missing. You made up a lame excuse about how he had been feeling sick (which had to be translated to Dick by Jason) and Dick complained that all of you had to learn to ‘work through’ things like illness, but at least he didn’t question why Gar had locked himself in his room for the rest of the night and didn’t come to dinner. 
After you had washed the dishes and sulked through the rest of your nightly routine, you considered knocking on Gar’s bedroom door before finally going to bed yourself - but you just couldn’t bring yourself to face him. 
You had truly hurt him, and you weren’t sure how you were going to recover from it. 
As you laid in bed that night, so strung up with guilt that you couldn’t sleep, you stared at the ceiling. Of course, all you could think about was Gar. 
You thought back to when you had first met him - going over those first days of your friendship in your mind. The undeniable way that the two of you were drawn so close together. In friendship or in that unutterable, constantly denied romance - the two of you were soulmates. 
And you had fucked it all up. 
You missed your best friend so badly. You wondered where it had all gone so wrong. 
… 
You felt lucky that Doctor Caulder had taken you in. 
Before him, before the serum, your last chance at moving out of the palliative care ward would have been offering your body as a live cadaver up for experiential treatment. It was something that might have put a dent in your medical debts, but it also would have meant a lot of pain and torture as your body was used as a trial for vastly experimental medicine and treatments - none of which were guaranteed to prolong your life as the deadly brain tumors grew to consume your brain, seemingly trapping you in a loop of pain and torture for those last few years that you had. 
At the time, Doctor Caulder was a savior to you. 
He used the money he had from his dense inherited wealth to pay off all of the medical debt you had acquired from your lifetime of illness, giving you only one very small catch in the face of this intense generosity. He wanted your consent to try out his serum on you, claiming that it would either do nothing to change your condition, or it would be the magical cure-all that you had been looking for. 
(He conveniently let out the fact that in your state of unwellness, with your weakened body, there was a large possibility that the serum could overwhelm your senses, stopping your heart - but that was a risk he was more than willing to take.) 
Honestly - while you didn’t believe him - you couldn’t bring yourself to turn him down. 
You had no other options, after all. 
After he injected you with the serum and you woke up with your sight fully restored, you were shocked. It had somehow shrunk down the tumor in your brain enough that it was no longer pressing on your optic nerve, and you could once again experience the world in full, glorious vision. 
It was something you were entirely excited by as you arrived at what would be your new home. Doctor Caulder had described it as a ‘vacuum of scientific advancement against the bureaucracy of the world’. Naturally, you had expected some kind of cold looking industrial building, another medical center that you would be trapped inside for years to come. 
You certainly hadn’t thought that it would be a sprawling, gorgeous Victorian mansion in the secluded, peaceful countryside. 
He brought you inside and set down your bag. You were too busy marveling at the details of the architecture, the stunning antique decorations, taking it all in after years of being deprived of sight to truly notice anyone else in the building at first. 
You didn’t notice anyone else there until Doctor Caulder spoke to him. 
“Ah, Garfield, I’m glad I caught you.” 
You turned at the sound of someone’s name being called. Caulder had warned you that you would be living with several other people - people who he had helped and was continuing to help with their ‘unique conditions’. 
When you looked over at him, the person that Doctor Caulder had called Garfield, the only truly unique thing you spotted about him was his bright green hair. That, and the fact that he was startlingly attractive. 
Garfield paused his footing halfway down the hallway as Doctor Caulder spoke to him. When he turned back around to give the man his attention, you noticed that he had a candy bar poking out of his mouth as he held it there between his teeth, and a pair of large headphones over his ears with some kind of handheld gaming system in his hands. He reached up and moved one half of the headphones off to the side when he realized his full attention was needed. Then he bit off the candy bar, moving to shove the rest of it, mostly still wrapped, into the pocket of his large green hoodie. 
“What’s up, Chief?” He asked, his mouth obviously stuck together by the candy and some chocolate slightly smeared on the side of his mouth. 
“Garfield, please don’t talk with your mouth full.” Caulder - apparently the Chief, quickly scolded him. 
You guessed that he found it rude because he was more uptight and proper, more old fashioned. But it was something that you easily found adorable and charming. 
Garfield hung his head in shame and made a clear effort to swallow, running his tongue over his teeth to somewhat clean his mouth before he spoke again. 
“Sorry.” He mumbled quietly. “Did you need something?” 
It was then that he really eyed you up and down, as though he had just noticed you standing there. 
You felt entirely out of place, but tried your best not to look nervous, and simply smiled as his eyes landed on your face. You noticed a small tinge of pink come over his cheeks when he finally made eye contact with you. His eyes made a quick jolt back to the carpet, obviously nervous and not wanting to linger on you. 
“I’m sure you’ve heard Cliff mention my newest patient.” Doctor Caulder told him, gently motioning toward you. “Y/N will be staying with us for the foreseeable future while I explore her condition and any affects the serum has had on her.” 
Garfield nodded at this. The wild tendrils of his green hair bobbed in a very adorable way with the motion, and you suppressed a giggle because of it. 
“I’ll need you to show her around and help her get settled in for now, because I need to go up to my office and work on some notes while everything is still fresh in my mind. I’d like not to be disturbed for the next few hours, is that clear?” Doctor Caulder ordered, his voice calm, but oddly stern. 
Garfield’s face twisted slightly into a frown, as though he was afraid of the possible consequences if he did disturb the man. But nonetheless, he nodded once again. 
“Understood.” He said simply. 
Doctor Caulder gave him a curt nod and then walked up the stairs, leaving you in the hands of your seemingly meek, very handsome tour guide. 
He stepped toward you, and then realized the game console was still beeping in his hands. So he pushed a few buttons, shutting it off, and then he shoved it into his pocket as well before he slid his large headphones to sit around his neck. 
“Hi, I’m Garfield. You probably heard that. But you can just call me Gar. I prefer it.” He rushed these words out in a puff of air, seemingly still very nervous to be in your presence. 
You nodded at this. Before you could communicate in any way that you wouldn’t really be ‘calling’ him anything because of your mutism, he let out a huff - something akin to a nervous laugh and steamed rolled right into more conversation. He didn’t really seem to mind your silence. 
“Y/N, right?” He posed, easily remembering your name from when Doctor Caulder had introduced you. 
You nodded once again, giving him a small smile. 
“That’s a really pretty name. It matches you. I mean- I-” He stumbled over his words, clearly nervous that he had unintentionally said something flirtatious. “I’m supposed to introduce you to everyone, right? Come on.” 
He then took you on a tour of the sprawling house, his chatter filling the air in a most perfect way. The more he talked, the more he seemed to gain confidence around you. He became filled with energy, fueled by the things he was saying. Especially when he spoke about the house and the daily life that he lived there, pointing out the different rooms and where you could make yourself comfortable. His words filled the space so well that he didn’t seem to notice the fact that you couldn’t talk. 
As he took you on the tour, you came across the different eclectic members of the household and Gar introduced you to them. And you very quickly came to realize what Doctor Caulder had meant by ‘unique conditions’. 
If you didn’t have your vision freshly restored in order to see it, you likely wouldn’t have believed it. But they were very real. 
Gar introduced you to Cliff - someone who looked more like a machine than a man, squeaky joints and all. But it quickly became apparent to you that he had a shining personality underneath all that metal, and his humanity wasn’t easily defined by something like rust and bolts. He was working on a half-disassembled car in the large garage, and Gar explained to you how the mostly mechanical man was an ex-racer who had gotten into a bad accident and been put back together by The Chief. 
He then introduced you to Larry - who was in the kitchen, baking some kind of very tall, very impressive multi-layered cake (apparently in celebration of your arrival). He made a comment about you ‘being rather quiet’ and you just shrugged. They would probably be amused later when they found out why. 
Larry didn’t want to comment much or explain the reason that his entire body was covered in bandages, and you understood why. In your mind, you assumed that he had been badly burned and the bandages covered some kind of scarring. The visual reminded you of people who had passed through the palliative care ward with severe burns over their bodies and didn’t survive long because of it. But he seemed to move without pain and he was obviously thriving, so whatever Doctor Caulder had done for him - it had worked. 
Gar tried to introduce you to the last member of the household - Rita - but when he knocked on her bedroom door, he was met with silence. He simply told you that she likely wasn’t feeling well. And that you understood deeply as well. 
The house tour extended down into the basement, because Gar was very excited to show you his room. You couldn’t bring yourself to disrupt his rolling speech or dampen down his swell of excitable energy. 
He was showing you some of his movie posters - something for a movie called Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was a movie you had never heard of before, and you only found yourself truly paying attention in order to learn about it now because Gar spoke about it with so much enthusiasm. 
“-it’s considered one of the first examples of parody ever in cinema, an effort to take horror, something that truly terrified audiences at the time, and turn it comedic. Like shining a light on that monster under the bed so he’s no longer scary. It’s brilliant.” 
Gar rambled on, his breath almost entirely escaping him as his enthusiasm overpowered his lungs. 
You couldn’t help but to feel a swell of fondness as you looked at him. 
His passion was so intensely palpable, it gave you goosebumps. It was a very old film that you likely wouldn’t have taken an interest in. But the way he talked about it - like it was revolutionary, like it was the most interesting thing in the world. It made you want to watch it ten times just to get to know him better, just to have a small taste of the passion that he felt so epically for it. 
You didn’t know it then, but feeling his overwhelming enthusiasm spreading in the air was the beginnings of your very intense crush on him. It was the moment that you started falling for him. 
“You know originally, Lou Costello scoffed at the idea of even making-” Gar suddenly cut himself off, a look of dawning crossing his features. “Woah, I’ve been talking for such a long time, haven’t I?” 
Technically, yes. 
But you would have been perfectly content to stand there and listen to him talk for hours more about this film or any of the others related to posters that he had on the wall. His enthusiasm and the way it was backed up by factual knowledge made him endlessly interesting to listen to. 
In response, you simply shrugged. 
Yes, he had been talking for a long time. But - you enjoyed listening. His tone and the abrupt way he had cut himself off made it sound like he had burdened you with his ramblings, and you weren’t sure why. 
“Sorry.” He giggled, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “I’m probably being so annoying. I haven’t even let you talk about yourself at all. What - what kind of movies do you like?” 
He seemed nervous suddenly, as though he had become self conscious in the conversation. 
You filled with nerves as well, coming to the realization that you would now have to communicate to him that you couldn’t talk. 
You motioned toward your throat, hoping he would be able to see the scar from the surgery that had stolen your ability to speak so long ago. Rather than understanding, Gar’s face knit with confusion. 
“What, did the sea witch steal your voice?” He asked. The action reminded him a lot of that cartoon mermaid, desperately tapping on her throat, trying to explain to others why she couldn’t speak. “Do you need a kiss from a handsome prince to get it back?” 
The words escaped him before he could stop it - and then he realized that it sounded entirely more flirtatious than he intended. 
He bit his lip nervously and you let out a giggle. You became entirely overwhelmed by your own nerves, and your undeniable attraction toward him. If you were feeling at all bold, you might have leaned over and kissed him in that moment. But something in the back of your mind told you that it was rude - that he hadn’t truly meant it, that it was strange to come onto him so soon after meeting him. 
When the awkwardness swelled inside of him, he rushed to speak again. 
“Sorry,” He blurted out. “That was probably insensitive. If you’re really mute, that’s like a disability, and you shouldn’t make jokes about people’s disabilities-” 
You vigorously shook your head, meaning to tell him that ‘no, I liked the joke’. 
But his eyes instantly grew wide, believing that you were shaking your head negatively, believing that he was truly being insensitive and rude. 
You raised your hands and began explaining it in sign language, and he sighed in defeat. 
“I’m sorry.” He said. “I don’t - I don’t understand.” 
Then, a look of dawning came over his face so strong it was almost as if a cartoon lightbulb appeared over his head. He then rushed into the other room - there was some ripping of paper (what you didn’t know was him ripping pages he had used out of a notebook so that you wouldn’t see them). After a moment, he rushed back toward you, thrusting a notebook and a pen in your direction. 
You took it happily, and began writing. 
‘Yes, I am completely mute. Yes, it is technically a disability. And yes, I did think your joke about the sea witch was funny. But… I don’t think a kiss from a prince will fix me.’ 
You passed it to him and after he read it, he gave a small chuckle. 
“Yeah, that wasn’t so smooth on my part.” He said. “What happened? To your voice?” 
You explained it to him. You spent a long time passing the notebook back and forth, explaining things to him about yourself and your life. 
You told him how you had been ill for as long as you could remember, and it had only gotten worse as you progressed into your teen years. And eventually, the mounting medical debt became too stressful for your parents so they abandoned you and disappeared with no way for creditors to track them down. They had left you orphaned in the most cruel way. 
Gar’s eyes danced with tears when he read this. You didn’t know it then, but he vowed to himself that he would always be by your side. He would be the one person who never left you, no matter what happened in life that might try to draw the two of you apart. 
‘Can I ask you something?’ You scrawled out, passing the notebook to Gar with careful curiosity on your mind. 
“Yeah, anything.” He replied. 
‘Why are you here? What is Doctor Caulder helping you with?’ 
You were tempted to add on something about how he ‘looked normal’ - but you didn’t want to accidentally insult him. 
“My condition… it’s uh…” Gar stuttered through his attempt at an explanation, and confusion flooded your features. “It’s probably just easier if I show you?” 
You nodded in acknowledgement that you understood, and Gar put the notebook aside and stood from the couch where the two of you had been seated, talking for hours. 
“Would you - uh - would you mind closing your eyes for a second?” He asked, once again draped in that nervous energy. 
You hesitated for a second, but then complied. You weren’t sure how him ‘showing’ you would go if you had your eyes closed. But you trusted him to harness in that condition - whatever strange ability the serum had given and not let it hurt you. You felt safe around him even though you had only known him for a short time. And you wanted to make him comfortable rather than arguing about it. 
You were curious when you heard some gentle rustling, and you cringed slightly when you heard what sounded like the cracking of bones. You hoped that whatever he was doing, it didn’t cause him any pain. 
Your curiosity became too great and you opened your eyes when you heard a low rumbling. If you weren’t mistaken, it sounded like the purring of a very large cat. 
Shock instantly overtook you when you opened your eyes to see that standing in front of you in the middle of the carpet - rather than Gar - there was a very large tiger with bright green fur. When your sight had been restored, you never, ever thought that this would be one of the first things you would get to see. 
Your first instinct was to pull your feet up onto the couch, and the tiger - which you quickly had to reason was Gar, who had somehow shifted his body into a different form - hung his head in shame when he saw the fear overtake your body. You didn’t want to be afraid of him. You shouldn’t be, right? He had been nothing but kind to you since the two of you had met. He wouldn’t use this odd power to endanger you. 
When you looked into those large animal eyes, you saw nothing but kindness. And you couldn’t resist the urge to step off the couch and lean out, petting a hand gently under his furry chin. 
It was then that you were struck with the realization. The dream you had of being married to a large green tiger - it had likely meant something. 
But you couldn’t bring yourself to linger on it. 
Instead, you scratched under his chin and he purred, and you giggled at the fact that such a large, possibly terrifying animal was so docile under your touch. 
(When Gar transformed back, you would deny that you snuck a glance at him changing back into his clothes. And you would definitely deny that you became obsessed with what you saw.) 
… 
Later that night, you met Rita when she came down to join everyone for dinner. She was a lovely, sweet woman. She was actually the only person (aside from Doctor Caulder) at the table who understood your ASL, though she didn’t seem eager to explain where she had learned it. You knew that everyone in the house had somewhat of a painful past, so you didn’t bother to ask. 
The cake Larry had made turned out beautiful. A towering masterpiece that everyone had to purposefully crane their necks around as they spoke to each other. You couldn’t help but marvel in wonder at it and the rest of the amazing spread he had made. Gar told you that it really wasn’t that out of the ordinary, seeing as cooking was Larry’s favorite hobby. 
You felt slightly bad for Cliff - seeing as he sat with an empty plate in front of him. But he seemed to show up to the meal mostly out of habit, family obligation, and a slight curiosity to get to know you. So you tried your best to answer everyone’s questions and be welcoming to the new friendships. 
You enjoyed the meal well. Everything was delicious, and compared to the food you once ate on the ward - it was heaven. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. 
Larry cut the cake and made sure that you got the first slice - which you selected from the towering variety of many different flavors. He cited that he didn’t know what your favorite flavor was, so he made a good variety as insurance. The taste of lemon was sweet on your tongue and you were enjoying yourself - when one of the lights began flickering. 
It was just a few flashes above your head, just for a few moments, but it was enough to send a sharp pain shooting through the middle of your forehead and instantaneously cause a wave of nausea through your stomach. You dropped your fork onto your plate with a clatter, and everyone craned their necks around the towering cake to look at you. Gar immediately got up from his chair to rush to your side, wondering what was wrong. 
“Are you okay?” He asked quietly. 
Your senses were overwhelmed by dizziness, a horrid feeling that your eyes were churning inside of your skull. Sharp waves of pain radiated out from the middle of your forehead and seemingly caused the world to turn wildly underneath your feet. 
You didn’t know that the harsh unwellness was visible all over your face - from your unpleasant expression to the light layer of sweat that had so quickly formed over your skin. 
You shook your head, attempting to confirm to him that you were not okay. But this only caused the pain to worsen, and you held back a harsh gag, trying your hardest to keep the amazing dinner inside. 
“You need to lay down.” Gar said quietly. 
You felt safe under his touch and you let him guide you as he pulled out your chair. He put one hand around your back and used the other to take your hand as he helped you up and guided you away. You let your eyes fall closed against the harsh light as his hand came to rest on your waist, a calming comfort against the harsh pain throbbing through you. You let yourself lean on him for support as he did as promised - took you to lay down. 
You were partway up the stairs when a voice disrupted you. 
“Garfield.” 
Doctor Caulder called after him harshly, causing Gar to pause his movements. You leaned on the bannister and kept your eyes closed. You had to concentrate hard on willing yourself not to vomit while Gar was distracted with the conversation. 
“This is an important opportunity to study her condition, you should be taking her to-” Caulder began to argue against Gar’s actions, but he was cut off. 
“She needs to lay down.” Gar argued quietly. “She’s had a long day. She needs rest. You can do your studies tomorrow.” 
You didn’t know it, but this was the first time that Gar had ever gone against the man on anything. Doctor Caulder stood there in shock at Gar’s sudden shift in attitude while Gar put a hand on your lower back once again and helped you the rest of the way up the stairs. 
He helped you into bed and pulled the covers over you. And then he got a hot cloth to put on your forehead, and got a bucket to put beside the bed in case you did throw up. It was then that you knew you would never feel properly cared for again unless it came from him. 
When he thought that you weren’t paying attention, half sleepy and half drowned in the pain, he leaned down and laid a gentle, timid kiss on your forehead, right above the cloth. 
Later that night, after everyone had fallen asleep, Gar snuck out to town and picked up a book on ASL. He was especially careful that his teeth didn’t pierce any of the pages. 
He used the rest of the night to study, and he greeted you the next morning with a tray of gentle breakfast food (porridge, hopefully something that wouldn’t aggravate your upset stomach) and Advil. Despite the pain throbbing through your head, you broke into a beaming smile when he signed the words ‘good morning’ to you. 
It was then that you realized just how much you were going to have to suppress your feelings for him. 
… 
Later in the day, Doctor Caulder was carrying out his tests as promised. 
He had you in a different part of the basement - in an area that essentially looked like an operating room. Just seeing the tables and all the cold medical equipment triggered a lot of your fight or flight instincts, but you tried your hardest to remain calm. Especially because Gar was by your side, even though he likely could have been playing video games or doing something else a lot more fun. He told you that he would stay by you the entire time to make sure that you were comfortable. 
You tried to relax and trust the process. 
Doctor Caulder had adjusted the table, propping up the top of it so that it was much more like a chair. And he had wheeled in a large machine that consisted of a series of lightbulbs - something that turned out to be a strobe light, set to make specific patterns. He had taped several electrical probes to your head, ones connected to an EEG machine. Although he knew that this procedure was likely to trigger a seizure, he said that it was important for it to occur because your neurological problems were closely tied to your powers, and the areas of the brain that the serum had affected. He said that it was something important to measure - even if a seizure happened. 
“Just face forward, and keep looking into the light.” Doctor Caulder explained. “It will go through a series of flashing patterns. I need you to try your hardest to keep your eyes open, and stay focused. It’s important that we record your brain activity while this is happening without disruption.” 
You nodded in affirmation. You weren’t looking forward to the pain that it would cause considering that your head was still thumping with a migraine from the night before, but if he considered it necessary, you would do it. 
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gar asked. “How do you know this isn’t just gonna cause more harm?” 
He was standing beside the table, holding your hand, and you were entirely grateful for his presence there. 
He had seen the way you had reacted to a relatively dim chandelier bulb flickering at dinner the night before. He thought that this would be disastrous. 
“Garfield, if you continue to question me, then I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Doctor Caulder told him curtly. “You can’t keep disrupting the process like this. We need to move forward.” 
Doctor Caulder glared at Gar, giving him a moment to make his choice. To see if he was going to speak up and argue or remain quiet. Gar looked to you, wanting to see if you were truly okay with all of this. Nerves boiled in your stomach, but you feigned a smile, and squeezed his hand tighter, assuring him that you needed him there - right by your side. 
Gar then nodded at Doctor Caulder, who stood behind the machine with the lights and turned it on. Gar flinched hard against the lights as they began to flicker. He turned his head away and closed his eyes, but he kept a tight hold on your hand. 
Though it went against every screaming, pained nerve in your body, especially the ones pulsing through your head - you fought to keep your eyes open. Your carefully tuned hearing picked up on the scribbling needles of the EEG machine, Gar’s breathing. You could even hear the electricity sizzling in the bulbs as they went through three long flashes and then turned off. Three long flashes, and then off. 
You survived the first pattern well before it switched to two quick flashes and then a period of seemingly prolonged darkness - something that wasn’t any more than three whole seconds in reality. 
The moment that it switched to the intense, rapid strobing - you felt it. The tingling in your hands, the dizzying haze that said you were only moments away from having a seizure. 
You had no time to warn either of them, especially considering that this was the first seizure you had post-serum, and it had unexpected size effects. 
As your muscles became tight and your body began to violently seize, the house itself began to quake around you. It was as though the building were at the epicenter of a violent earthquake. Later, Doctor Caulder would come to the conclusion that your seizures now caused ‘rapid bursts of psychic energy’ to be released from you, completely uncontrolled by you. He realized that you would be needed to put on a high dose seizure medication to prevent any further incidents. 
In those moments, though, it was chaos. 
Between the shaking of the house underneath you and the unpredictable seizing of your muscles, you quickly rolled off the table. Gar easily caught you in a moment’s notice. Across the room, Doctor Caulder made a similar movement - reaching urgently to catch the EEG machine before it fell off of its own table. 
When the quaking stopped, and you were left quivering in Gar’s arms, he couldn’t help but to feel a rush of disappointment as he saw the obvious play out before his eyes - Doctor Caulder was far more eager to save his data, to preserve the research that you had given him than to actually take care of you - his patient who was clearly in need. 
“What was that?” Gar breathed out, looking from your unconscious face to the surrounding room. He didn’t think that it was a large coincidence that an earthquake had struck at the exact same time as your seizure and had lasted exactly as long. 
“I believe that her powers were responsible for that.” Doctor Caulder theorized. “We’ll likely have to do more research to fully comprehend it-” 
He abruptly cut off his own words when the scribbling needles of the EEG machine stopped. 
Gar began peeling the probes off your forehead and Doctor Caulder only looked up toward you when the EEG flatlined as it was disconnected. 
“Garfield, what do you think you’re doing?” Caulder barked at him. 
“We’re done right now.” Gar said, his voice choked off by his anger. “Clearly, this isn’t helping. She needs rest.” 
Gar resisted the urge to say more. He resisted the urge to berate Doctor Caulder for harming you. He resisted the urge to swear. He resisted the urge to threaten to run away with you - taking away Doctor Caulder’s precious source of research so that the two of you would never be seen again. 
He had no clue that his anger was so intense that it flared up in his eyes, threatened to invoke his transformation against his will. 
He felt calmer when he looked down at you, and petted a hand across your forehead. Although you were forced into unconsciousness because of the seizure, you looked peaceful and calm with your face so still, your eyes closed and your muscles finally relaxed. He hoped that you would feel better soon. 
That was the day Doctor Caulder decided to start keeping a tranq gun near the operating table. 
… 
Things were quiet for a few days after that. 
Doctor Caulder said that he needed time to go over the results of the EEG, and he didn’t want to induce anymore seizures in you for fear that it might bring down the house. So he did let you rest. 
But in the interim, he didn’t check up on you or attend to any of your medical needs. He locked himself in his office to contemplate the science of it all while Gar stuck by your side. He held the bucket and rubbed your back while you puked, he held a hot cloth to your forehead when you needed it. He held a spoon up to your lips to feed you because your hands were too weak after being rocked by such a harsh seizure. 
After a few days, you were almost thankful to Doctor Caulder for it. You and Gar were growing incredibly close so quickly because he refused to leave your side, and you had never felt so lucky to have someone like him in your life. 
You hesitated when Doctor Caulder called you into his office upstairs. 
He made a poor apology for the incident with the lights. He said that he was sorry for causing you pain, but it was ‘necessary’ to explore your condition, to map your brain and find out how the serum had affected you. 
He said that the next step would be further exploring your strange powers. The powers you had accidentally discovered while transitioning out of the hospital. When one of the nurses had been attending to you, you had looked into her eyes, and you couldn’t even fully identify the feeling at the time. But suddenly, you knew this shocking, painful information. One of the other patients on the ward who you had come to know as a friend wasn’t going to live much longer. And when you had asked the nurse about it, she had accused you of snooping, reading through files - because the information was supposed to be confidential. 
But Doctor Caulder - who had witnessed the conversation - easily saw it for what it truly was. An unnatural power given to you by his serum. 
He then called Gar into his office as well - someone you obviously trusted and could work well with. 
He set it up as a game. 
He had written down several things on flashcards. You and Gar would sit across from each other, and Gar would read one of the flashcards, fully capturing the idea in his mind. And then you would use your powers to try and push into his mind - figuring out what was on the card without him ever speaking a single word or giving any hints. 
As you sat across from him, preparing to begin, you were incredibly hesitant. 
‘Are you sure about this?’ 
You wrote this as a message to Gar on one of the blank index cards. They were intended for you to write the answers that you retrieved from his mind during the ‘game’. You intentionally held back with the message, not fully describing your worries. You wanted to ask if he was okay with you breaching the privacy of his mind, but you were worried about Doctor Caulder seeing it, because you knew the man didn’t like to be questioned. 
You flipped it around to show Gar, and he simply nodded after he read it. 
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Gar assured you with a smile. “It’s just a game, right?” He grinned. “It’ll be fun.” 
You didn’t quite think so. But you tried to take on his positive attitude. 
“Let’s begin.” Caulder said. He was standing behind Gar in a very imposing manner, reading the cards as well to ensure that he didn’t flub the answers just to please the Doctor. 
Gar picked up the first card and read it, and he concentrated on it for a moment, making sure that the idea was focused in his mind. He gave a small nod, and then looked up toward you, knowing that he had to make steady eye contact with you in order for you to use your powers. 
Pushing past your discomfort, you did as you had been instructed. You stared deep into those big beautiful brown eyes, and you purposefully breached the surface into his mind. The first thing you were met with was a rich visual of several golden retriever puppies frolicking in a field of grass, happily yipping and prancing around, almost tripping over their clumsy new feet. 
You soon withdrew - even though it was a happy scene that gave you joy, you knew that you had the answer. You had an unconscious grin on your face, and that easily made Gar giggle as you flipped over the message you had made to him and wrote down your answer on the other side. 
‘Puppies’
You lifted up the card and showed it to Doctor Caulder, who took a glance down at the card in Gar’s hand (which said ‘DOG’). He nodded at you, his stern face not flexing for a moment to show any sign of positivity. He picked up a clipboard from a small table on the chair beside Gar and began furiously scribbling. 
“Continue.” He said, not looking up from his fast paced notes. 
Gar looked down at the next card, took the same moment of concentration, and then looked back at you with a small grin on his face. 
This time, rather than feeling like you were committing some kind of crime or doing him a grand disservice, you looked into his eyes and pushed into his mind with a gleeful joy - as though the two of you were sharing a delightful secret. 
The next rich visual you saw featured Gar himself. He wore a pair of tight jeans and a leather jacket with some red tee shirt underneath, and he walked up to a red car - a very fancy, vintage looking car. He opened the door, got inside, and adjusted the mirror to look at himself before he stomped on the gas pedal and the car sped away with a screech. It was a very ‘cool guy’ moment, something that made you giggle because of the stereotypical absurdity of it. 
When you drifted back into the real world, you went to the next index card, and had more of a difficult time figuring out how to phrase your answer. 
You went with:
‘Driving a car?’ 
When you held it up to show Doctor Caulder, he checked Gar’s card, which simply said ‘CAR’. He frowned, and you thought that you had gotten the answer wrong. 
“You have to concentrate more, Garfield.” Caulder scolded him. 
Gar’s face dropped into a frown, and it made your chest twinge with sourness. You thought that a face as sweet as his should never have to frown. 
“You got it right.” He told you quietly, before flipping to the next one. 
You nodded. You hated the way that Caulder treated him. If you could scream at the man, you would. 
Gar waffled for a few moments, looking at the card with blank eyes before he then looked up at you. There was a slight glassiness swimming there that told you he was ready to cry, along with the hesitation of a quivering lip. You wanted to end the entire exercise and simply retreat to the basement to play video games with him, but you knew that Caulder likely wouldn’t let you get away with that. 
So you continued. 
You used your powers once again, purposefully entering Gar’s mind. 
You were surprised by the scene you were met with. 
It was a vision of you and Gar - it was almost like a beautiful painting, like a fantastic daydream. 
You were off in some grassy field, seemingly the same place the puppies had been. Lush greenery, boundless blue skies, warm sunshine that you could almost feel tingling against your skin. The two of you were holding hands - and the most peculiar thing that stuck out to you? 
Your attire. 
Gar was wearing a formal black suit with a green tie and a green vest to match his naturally wild green hair. You were wearing a long, lacy white dress that you couldn’t mistake for anything other than a wedding dress. There was a bundle of flowers looped around your head in a large crown, with a long, flowy lace veil going down your back, and a bundle of flowers in your free hand that wasn’t holding his. 
It was a wedding, a marriage. 
At the time, however foolish it was, you didn’t consider the scene to be any specific desire on Gar’s part. You simply thought that he was trying to communicate the idea - the concept to you. You thought that it was just part of the game. 
When you pulled yourself back to reality, you felt entirely confident in your answer as you wrote it down. 
‘A wedding’
When you flipped it over to show them, you were grinning proudly. 
Gar’s face immediately dropped - embarrassment clutched at his stomach and panic overtook him. Caulder sighed with annoyance as he looked at Gar’s card, which said ‘WATER’. 
Before any further discussion of it could be had, Gar dropped the cards and they scattered over the floor. He rushed out of the room, moving so swiftly that he was practically a blur. Doctor Caulder called after him, complaints wafting through the air. 
You didn’t care to listen to the man. You got up and chased him, almost tripping over your own feet to get to him. 
You caught him as he zipped up his jacket, clearly ready to escape out the basement door and go into town (something he told you he was not permitted to do, but often did anyway). You stepped right in front of his path. He sighed hard through his nose and tried to dodge you, and you stepped in front of him and kept blocking him. Eventually, he was forced to look up at you. 
It was then - when you saw the look of a truly kicked puppy spread across his features, naked embarrassment lingering in his eyes - that the truth clutched at your stomach. You got the sense that what you had seen was truly private. 
Part of you wanted to prod at him about his desires and ask why he had been thinking about that. But a larger part of you worried far more about the fact that you had upset him with the freakish invasion by your powers, and you wanted to remedy it. You wanted to save this amazing new friendship. 
With the index cards and pen still in your hand, you quickly wrote a message to him. 
‘I’m sorry.’ 
You wrote down, and then quickly flipped it to show him. 
“It’s fine.” He huffed, clearly eager to escape the conversation. 
Once again, he tried to dodge around you. 
Once again, you blocked his path. 
And then, you wrote down something else to show him.
‘It’s not fine. I shouldn’t use my powers on you like it���s a game.’ 
“The Chief needs to explore your abilities, right?” Gar sighed quietly. 
‘Not at your expense.’ You reasoned. 
Gar was silent when he came into this information - like this was the first time he had ever truly considered that the Chief’s methods were unethical. 
‘We should make a deal. I shouldn’t use my powers on you unless it’s an emergency. Your mind should be your private space. I don’t get to go poking around in there for fun.’ 
You scribbled this down with haste, feeling very emotional about it. Then you handed it to Gar. 
He gave a small smile and nodded after he read it. 
“That - uh - that sounds fair.” He said, chuckling nervously. “And we… we don’t have to talk about what you saw.” 
You both nodded and dissolved into giggles at this. And then, he took off his jacket, and fired up his X-Box so he could teach you how to play Cuphead to help the two of you forget about the whole thing. 
Back in your room at Titans Tower, so long after those first amazing days of your friendship with Gar - you fell asleep deep in thought about him. You couldn’t stop going over those early days in your mind. Thinking about all the intense kindness he had given you when the two of you had first met. 
Thinking about all of it truly made you realize how badly you had fucked up. You genuinely wondered if your friendship with him would ever have any chance at recovering from the cruelty you had shown him. 
You were genuinely stuck between a rock and a hard place. You thought that if you told him about the things that had happened - about the visions you had seen - even if you stressed to him that it had been by accident, then he would feel that you had violated his privacy. He would be wounded by you seeing into his mind and not reporting it to him right away. He would be upset that your powers had put a wedge between the two of you. And now, he was upset because you had stolen his secrets and you weren’t confiding any of yours in him. 
You were a bad friend. And you didn’t know how to make it up to him. 
You woke up the next day feeling like crap.  
You quickly realized that Gar was avoiding you. He did finally come out of his room because Dick banged on his bedroom door, demanding in a harsh voice that if his illness was really that serious, he needed to get it checked out. And Gar came out shoving a hoodie over his head saying that he was fine - while wearing the saddest expression you had seen over his face in a long time. 
When you placed a coffee cup down in front of him as a peace offering - dark roast filled one third with vegan marshmallow flavored creamer, just how he liked it - he distinctly ignored it. He didn’t even look at you as he got up from the breakfast bar stool, taking nothing more than a dry piece of toast for breakfast before he stormed off toward the training room. 
He placed himself in a secluded corner of the gym with his headphones blasting music, doing harsh pushups and pummeling the punching bag. He was making it very clear that he wanted to be left alone. And even when Dick called all four of you into another room for a verbal quiz on The Art of War (where you wrote down your answers on a white board) - Gar refused to make eye contact with you. 
Even when you drew a satirical comic of Dick’s Robin cape being propelled by a fart (that you labeled ‘pent up aggression’) - Gar’s face didn’t flinch from the hard stone it had been set into. It made Jason snort water out of his nose and caused Rachel to call you both ‘immature’. And it got you a verbal lashing from Dick and three weeks of washing the dishes - by hand. So not worth it considering that Gar hadn’t even cracked a smile. 
Gar’s cold indifference toward you rolled right into dinner. Gar didn’t flinch or try to take sides when Jason and Rachel broke into an argument about what had happened during game night. Jason brought up how stupid the concept of the game had been and he and Rachel began arguing about the rules. 
(“If I’ve never seen the movie before, I should get a new question!” 
“That’s not how it works, dickweed! Trivia is supposed to be difficult because you don’t know the answers!” 
“So not true. Trivia is a test of memory. How am I even supposed to remember the answer if I don’t know the damn source material?!”) 
The argument lasted long enough for you to finish your meal. 
When Dick realized they were debating who was the true loser of the bet you had made, he pointed out that regardless of any bets, you had to do the dishes as punishment for the dumb little drawing you had made. You didn’t care all that much as long as it got Jason and Rachel to shut up - but Jason was all too smug about it as he handed you his plate. Once you had finished cleaning up, something you found oddly calming, a nice distraction from the chaos of the last few days - you found yourself wandering to Rachel’s door. 
Much like you, she didn’t talk about her powers often. 
Especially not since she had been tricked into summoning her demon father to earth and then she had been forced to kill him because of what he did to all her friends - the people she considered family. But you knew that like you, she had some kind of capability to see into other people’s minds - to delve into their memories or walk the long, winding halls of their thoughts. You knew she might be the only other person on earth who might be able to understand what you were going through. Someone who could give you some kind of solid advice about it. 
After steeling yourself with a sharp breath, you raised your hand and knocked, waiting to see if she would even answer. The music that she was playing stopped, and after a moment, she opened the door, a look of surprise knitting over her features when her eyes fell upon you. 
“Y/N.” She greeted you in a quiet voice. “What is it?” 
‘I need to talk to you.’ You signed to her. You had some hope that she would understand what you meant, but her face was immediately overtaken with confusion. 
“I’m sorry - I.” She sighed, quickly cutting herself off, looking for the right words to explain it. “Between Dick’s whole list of mandatory reading stuff, and the sparring practice… I’ve been meaning to, but I haven’t had any time to study sign language,” 
She had genuine regret in her voice, which you could appreciate. 
You exhaled through your nose, a deep sigh. 
You gently pushed past her, inviting yourself into her room to settle in for the conversation. It did frustrate you that ASL wasn’t just a common language that was taught in schools, especially because it was psychologically proven that it was easy for toddlers to pick up on it with their brains being at a developmental age for it. It frustrated you that sometimes it was difficult for you to communicate with the people around you. But you tried not to let it get to you often. 
You got your cell phone out of your pocket, gesturing with it to let her know you would be texting her the things you needed to say. It was a simple, easy system. You invited yourself to sit on her bed, flopping back among the messy, unmade dark sheets as you carefully chose and typed out the words you needed to say. Rachel settled back into her desk chair, turning on her music once more, adjusting the volume to a low hum that settled into the background. You recognized it as the Arctic Monkeys and silently admired her taste in music. 
‘Have you ever accidentally seen something you regret?’ 
You sent the message. It took only a moment to race through cyberspace and you heard Rachel’s phone ping where it sat on the desk beside her. 
She picked up the phone and looked at your message. She then looked back at you with her eyebrows knitted tightly, a mixture of confusion and deep thought pulling them tight together. 
“Well there was that one time I accidentally walked into the bathroom when Jason forgot to lock the door-” She began. 
You cut her off with a raised hand and a pair of wide eyes glaring her down. 
You looked back to your phone and began typing another message, wanting to clarify what you meant. 
‘With your powers. Have you ever seen something with your powers that you didn’t want to see?’ You typed it out quickly, hitting send. 
Rachel read it over, placing her phone against her chin pensively as she contemplated the answer. 
“I… I don’t know.” Her voice was thick with thought. “I used to have these horrible nightmares. Almost every single night. And now I realize that those nightmares are what led me here. And I wouldn’t have been able to stop Trigon if I hadn’t seen those things.” 
Your throat tightened up. 
You and Rachel had never really talked like this before. You almost felt bad asking her for advice, knowing your problems were very different from hers. Quite pedestrian compared to the woes of somebody who had literally stopped the apocalypse and saved your life, and everyone else’s. You were worried about a school girl crush and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. 
“Why, what did you see?” Her curiosity leaked through her lips. She had quickly connected the dots to realize that you wouldn’t be asking questions like this if you hadn’t seen something of significance. 
Naturally, you weren’t going to tell her the details. Not only because the things you had seen were incredibly graphic, revealing, and private, but because you did suspect that she had some kind of small crush on Gar. And you didn’t want to crush her small hope of being with him and make her upset. Especially considering you had seen what she could do when she was upset. 
You opened the one-way text conversation and thought for a moment, carefully contemplating what you would tell her. 
‘I saw something private. Something I probably wasn’t supposed to see.’ You sent the vague words, and she read them over quickly. 
“What, like a sex dream?” She posed. 
There was a laugh on the edge of her voice, as though she was only joking. But the accuracy of the comedic prod scared you. You wanted to change the topic quickly - before she truly sniffed out the truth. 
‘Doesn’t matter.’ You sent quickly. When she saw the three small bubbles pop up, indicating that you were typing more, she simply waited. ‘Have you ever felt weird acting on information you’ve gotten from your dreams? Doesn’t it feel like cheating the system? Like you should just shut up and pretend to be normal?’ 
Rachel sighed, a sharp breath that clung to the insides of her throat. She placed her phone down in her lap and leaned back in her desk chair, swaying slightly with the swivel of the rolling chair’s base. 
“I don’t think any of us can just pretend to be normal.” She noted quietly. 
Rachel’s words were calm and wise. It was something she had probably realized about herself a long time ago. It was a truth you had yet to fall to. You caught glimpses of the future in your dreams, you could see things about people they never dared to admit to themselves. You were in love with a man who could turn himself into a tiger at will, and yet, your heart still cried for something that resembled ‘normal’. 
Rachel saw it written all over your face - that warring. And more of that oddly aged wisdom came pouring from her lips before she could stop it. 
“What’s that saying?” She pondered aloud. “‘What’s normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.’” 
It was a saying you had never heard of before, but it was oddly comforting in those moments. The idea that ‘normal’ means something drastically different for everyone. 
When you didn’t say anything, didn’t pick up your phone to start typing, Rachel continued. 
“I mean, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be the spider, or the fly, but…” 
She trailed off for a moment, getting lost in thought. She looked up at you when she had found the proper words, her eyes filled with a steely determination. 
“Look, somehow, I saved Dawn from a coma.” She firmly reminded you. “She didn’t give me an open invitation to go poking around inside her brain, but she needed me. And I needed her. I know having the ability to see inside people’s minds can be weird. But you shouldn’t just go around pretending you can’t do it because you’re afraid you’ll hurt people’s feelings, or whatever. You could save their lives.” 
You knew the information you had obtained wasn’t exactly life saving, but she had a point. An excellent one. Maybe the reason your powers were acting up like this was because Gar was reaching out to you. Maybe it was because he had felt the same way about you for a long time now and he didn’t have the guts to tell you either. So unconsciously, he was reaching out, trying to show you his feelings so he wouldn’t have to risk getting hurt.  
‘Thank you. That actually really helps.’ You sent the message and gave her a smile, hopping off the bed and leaving the room once again. 
…  
You had some time to kill before going to talk to Gar. 
You really wanted to talk to him this time - truly wanted to conquer everything you had been holding back over these past few days. So you were hoping that everyone else would be in bed asleep so they couldn’t interrupt the two of you. 
You took up some of the time with a nice, long shower. Which was partially interrupted by Jason banging on the bathroom door, complaining about how long you were taking - once again. And you took your time getting ready afterwards. 
You did your hair neatly and smoothed nice smelling lotion all over your skin. Of course, the thought did occur to you that the ‘conversation’ could lead to you and Gar having sex. That’s what had been so prominently on his mind for the past few weeks. That thought likely did influence your decision to put on a pair of skimpy, cute lace underwear and forego wearing a bra underneath your pajamas. A thin matchy cotton tank top and shorts set. 
Your stomach was ripe with bubbles, absolutely full of air and anxiety as you sat on your bed, waiting for more time to pass. There was a book in your hand that you barely knew the name or contents of as you tried to kill more time. Your eyes flicked over to the clock. It was almost one in the morning. Surely you had waited long enough. 
You didn’t bother with socks or slippers, your cold feet eager and quiet on the floor as you sneaked your way to Gar’s room. You were surprised to find empty, his wide open door revealing a messy, unmade bed without him in it. You hovered in the doorway for a moment, almost losing your courage and going back to bed. 
But then your eyes landed on his nightstand. 
There was a wide picture frame holding the picture of him and his parents. And tucked into one of the outer creases of the frame’s wood was something else - two photobooth pictures of the two of you. The pictures were from the first time he had snuck you out of the house to take you to the arcade at the roller rink. You had taken the other two pictures off the set of four, and always kept them in whatever journal you were currently working on. 
Seeing the memento kept so close to him, so dear - it filled you with a fresh wave of confidence and desire. You turned around, determined to find him. Luckily, there weren’t that many places to check. 
The kitchen and living space were empty. The bathroom was empty and the doors to the security room were shut - meaning Dick was likely in there, researching something, occupied. The only other place to check was the training room. 
Gar was in there, putting himself through another rigorous training routine. Clearly he couldn’t sleep with the fight the two of you had still weighing on his mind. And he was quite a sight to behold. 
He was shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxing gloves and black sweatpants that hung dangerously low on his hips. He was pounding away at the heavy punching bag, clearly trying to take out some of the frustrations that you had caused to run ramped inside of him. He was aglow with sweat, the tips of his green hair hanging down in his eyes, sticking to his forehead. His tight abs were slick and shiny in the light in a way that made you want to lick your lips. 
His attire easily revealed the delicious cut V of his hips and even a slight bit of pubic hair where he hadn’t properly tied up his sweatpants, and they were beginning to slip slightly due to his activity. You could see a rather impressive bulge, signifying that he was definitely not wearing any underwear. It swung around freely as he worked, punching hard at the weight bag. You had to force yourself not to become distracted by the movement of that mighty snake inside his pants - especially now that you knew what it felt like against you when it was throbbing and hard. 
He either hadn’t noticed your presence yet or didn’t care to interrupt his workout to acknowledge you.
“If you came to train, don’t let me bother you.” 
Gar huffed quietly when he finally paused his movements for a moment. He sounded so entirely wounded, and the words caused pain to radiate through your chest. He leaned down to pick up his water bottle between the two clunky foam gloves without taking them off. He took a large gulp from it while he not-so-subtly eyed you through his peripheral vision, clearly waiting for your reaction. 
“Apparently that’s all I am to you lately.” 
He added on after he swallowed the water, deadly quiet. His words were barely louder than the metal creaking as the punching bag continued to swing from the residual momentum. But you heard him absolutely clear. 
The sentiment weighed on your heart like a pound of bricks. 
You knew there were no words to explain it to him. You knew he would still be angered at you for using your powers on him without permission, even if it was by mistake. You couldn’t explain how it had been a mistake, how it had only been with him. You still didn’t know exactly why or how it had happened. 
After he gulped down a healthy dose of water, he tossed the bottle aside and rose to his full height. For the first time all day, he finally cast his attention over toward you. His face was set with one of the most sullen expressions you had ever seen. You hadn’t seen him this upset since he had attacked that man back at the asylum. Every bit a kicked puppy, as you looked at him, you tried to find the right words, but came up empty. You almost turned to walk away, almost burned dry of the courage you needed to face this. 
But with Rachel’s words still ringing in your ears, you looked into his glassy eyes, and for the first time in a long time - you pushed into the quiet realm of his mind purposefully. You needed to dig to find something that would help you. Something that could remind you of how perfect you were with Gar. 
You were surrounded once again by the thick, plush world of his own imagination. 
Even if it wasn’t that different from the world you lived in. 
The two of you were in the training room, with him wearing a blindfold as you practiced the unorthodox drill that was assigned to you. You got in a few good hits with the practice sword in your hands, and ultimately tackled him to the ground. 
The two of you ended up in a position that wasn’t too different from the reality of the day before. Though it was playful and light, rather than hypersexual and startled. 
You pinned him down with your thighs on either side of his waist, your hips sitting dangerously above his. Your body weight was balanced partially on your knees and partially on him. You held your wooden sword to his throat, poised in a threat you would never carry out against him. 
He swallowed hard, his throat muscles jerking underneath the wood. You knew it was more because of the rising heat your compromising position was causing him and not because he was actually afraid of you. Or perhaps him being just a tiny bit afraid of you turned him on that little bit more. 
You let out a laugh as you tossed the sword away, leaning in to take off his blindfold and give him a kiss on the cheek. 
“What was that for?” He asked, regarding the unique new affection you had never really shown him before. 
‘Kiss it better.’ You signed, before leaving in and leaving a deeper, more heated kiss fully on his mouth. 
You forced yourself out of the thick, hazy daydream then. 
This was the answer. No words would be able to fix this - you needed to kiss it better. 
‘Kiss it better.’ 
You repeated this to yourself in the real world, confirming it as the truth. 
Gar read the signs you performed and - out of context - it draped him in hopeful confusion. 
He continued to stare you down with that delicately confused look enveloping his features as you marched across the room toward him, your steps over the cushioned mats of the floor filled with pure determination. 
He wondered if he had read your signing wrong, or if you were really planning to kiss him. Part of him thought you were going to hit him, or finally flip out on him for whatever perceived crime he had committed. And when you did it - he could hardly believe that it was truly, finally happening. That it wasn’t some dream. 
You reached up and grabbed him by both sides of his sweat damped head. And after years of waiting - you pulled him into your lips. 
Without hesitation, going on the pure fire in your belly, you kissed him. 
You channeled every ounce of raw need that had built up since the first time he had sucked you into a daydream where he so ferociously kissed you. His shock was evident at first. His whole body went stiff under your touch, which almost caused you to pull away. But a small moan rang out from the back of his throat - something that made you instantly dizzy with need. It made your lips seek out his with even more force, making your grip on his head clamp down as if to not let him escape. 
He began to kiss you back with just as much ferocity as he had in his dreams - echoing out another moan as he truly appreciated the taste of your lips. 
You felt him move but you didn’t open your eyes to look. You heard the tearing of velcro as you gnashed your teeth across his top lip and then latched onto the bottom one. Behind your back, he was taking off the boxing gloves, throwing them somewhere on the floor with a careless, quiet thump. Then his arms were around you, snaking around your waist. His flat palms went up the back of your shirt like impossibly hot magnets and pulled your body to his. He closed the small gap you had left for fear of being rejected - he welcomed you into his world with the utmost sincerity. 
Your shirt stuck to him because of the sweat he had worked up, and you wanted it off immediately. You wanted all your clothes off. You wanted to feel the naked rawness of the bulge you could feel swelling against your hip. But for now, you were too distracted by the other sensations he drowned you in to even consider pulling away to strip down. 
You were too caught up in the wicked work his tongue was doing as it snaked past your lips. You were obsessed with the loving way his hands held you. You lavished in the heat of his body as it radiated out against you like a wildfire. One of his hands was sprawled out in the middle of your back underneath your shirt. The other cupping the back of your head like you were the most beautiful, delicate doll he had ever had the pleasure of holding in his life. 
Eventually, both of you were forced to pull away from the kiss - succumbing to that formidable human breath. 
“Is this real?” 
Gar said quietly, seemingly almost more to himself as he pulled away from your lips. 
You opened your eyes, running a hand down to gently cup his cheek. He felt your gaze on him and opened his eyes. For the first time in days, he stared into your eyes so intimately and the dream became real. 
“Are you forreal right now?” 
These words were a bit louder. 
Not loud enough to break the sacred bubble of hot mingled breaths, spit, and sweat you had created. He wouldn’t dare do anything to shatter this if it was just another sleepy fantasy. But even if it was a fantasy, he still wanted to ask for your consent. That much you realized. 
Hesitantly, you tore your hands away from his glistening, flushed skin to formulate your reply. 
‘I want you.’ You told him simply. 
Without another moment of hesitance, he used the strong hold of his arms around your torso to take you to the ground. 
You wrapped your legs around him upon instinct. Your arms came up to clasp around the back of his neck as your ankles fumbled somewhere on his back. The action unintentionally drew your hot centers closer together. 
Gar bringing you down elicited a surprised squeak from you, which staved off into light laughter as your back met the mats. The laughter was easily echoed by him, deep and hardy. The sound turned into a playful, pleasurable growl into your neck as he ran his teeth along the skin there, nipping, marking his territory. You didn’t think his growling would ever be so sexy to you - but fuck, the noise ran a shock up your spine. It made your pussy clench around nothing and sent a wave of wetness into your underwear. 
This was going to be fun. 
“You have no fucking idea how long I’ve wanted this.” 
Gar grunted into your neck, his voice already deepened by the cloud of his lust. His tongue licked a hot path down your skin into your cleavage. His hands ran down your sides to grip your hips through your shorts, his touch feeling blazen through the material. 
“Wanted you.” He groaned, sounding so lust-drunk already. “You’re so fucking perfect.” 
You had some idea. 
But just hearing him say it, feeling the words vibrate against your skin made you moan for him. It made your fingers dig into the flesh of his shoulder blades. You were desperate for some kind of anchor on the plane of reality to assure yourself that you weren’t lost in the depth of another beautiful dream. 
You were vaguely aware of the fact that there was probably a camera somewhere in the room. Maybe multiple cameras seeing what Dick’s personality was like. Hell, Batman was the one who had designed and built the place and Dick was only teaching you guys what he had been taught. He probably used the footage of you guys training to review your weaknesses so he could make you better - build better soldiers. 
But all those thoughts melted out of your mind the moment that Gar lifted up your shirt. He continued the wet trail with his tongue down the middle of your stomach, stopping once and a while to make sloppy kisses against your skin. You knew exactly what his intentions were when his hands curled into the waistband of your shorts and underwear all at once. 
Your legs fell limp as he started to pull them off. 
A fresh wave of heat surged through you, making you absolutely drunk as he tossed your clothes behind him. He poised himself between your bent knees, kissing up your thigh with a tight hold on it, holding himself up with the other hand. 
“You smell so fucking good.” He growled out, low, heavy under his breath. You moaned out, only getting drunker with his words. “Fuck, I can’t wait to taste you.” 
You didn’t have a moment to sign to him, to give him some kind of encouragement or permission before he was diving in. He got low on his knees, wrapping both his hands possessively around your thighs. He leaned some of his weight on his elbows and from what you could see - canted his hips toward the mats, fruitlessly humping against the softness, seeking some kind of relief. 
He used his hands to spread your legs - not that it was much of an effort. Your legs practically fell open at his touch. You whimpered hard in the back of your throat as you felt his breath fanning out over your wet pussy. A heavy moan swelled on your tongue when he licked a broad stripe across you from your hole to your throbbing clit. 
“Shit, you taste so fucking good.” 
He hoisted your legs over his shoulders so your feet rested comfortably on his back, laying so he was more flat on his stomach, clearly getting comfortable. He laid a few tender kisses on the inside of your thigh. Then he looked up at you with dark, ferocious eyes. 
“Just, ah… smack me on the head if you want me to stop, okay?” Gar told you. 
Clearly, he was saying this for your safety - putting in a failsafe in case you changed your mind or became overwhelmed. But it came off as a sharp, pleasant warning of what was to come. 
Your pussy throbbed and you only ached for him to hurry up, biting your lip as you looked down at him. You nodded briskly, communicating that you understood his words. You had a feeling you most certainly wouldn’t want him to stop. 
Gar’s fingers dug into the tenderness of your thighs as he ducked his head down, latching onto your swollen, needy flesh. He soon brought a whole new definition to the words ‘eating pussy’. Like with everything he did in life, he did with the utmost enthusiasm and passion. He lapped at you, put his beautiful pink lips around you and sucked. He kissed your pussy just as passionately and wholly as he had your mouth. 
He shoved his tongue between your folds and dragged it in long, languid strokes. Clearly he was eager to lap up every last bit of your essence that he could - eager to devour you. He moaned into your pussy, moaned just as loudly as if he were the one being pleasured. It made the vibrations of his tongue on your clit even more deadly. Your hands were on his hair in a minute, both of them grabbing up as much of the gorgeous green as you could and holding tight. The action pulled a rumble from deep in his chest as he was satisfied by the pleasant pain of you tugging at his roots.
“You’re so fucking good.” 
He moaned into you, and you echoed back a high pitched noise that you hardly recognized as your own. 
“Everything about you is perfect. Every inch of you is perfect.” 
His grip around your thighs became even more possessive, his fingers digging into you hard enough to leave marks. Your lust clouded brain couldn’t clock the pain. You could only enjoy the view of his gorgeous hands gripping your skin. He labored over your clit, determined to make you cum. He flicked his tongue hard and fast over your clit as his hot breath fanned over you in quick, lustful pants. The orgasm washed over you so suddenly, a rubber band snapped from his actions. The tension had been built up over weeks of him living inside your mind, torturing you through lustful dreams.  
Your back arched, every muscle in your body pulled tight. Your thighs quivered and spasmed around his head as he continued to grip them hard. Your mouth became a mess of foreign noises that sounded daft and dumb to you but were absolute music to Gar’s ears. 
He chased you hard the whole way through it, shoving his tongue deep inside your throbbing cunt so he wouldn’t miss a single drop of your juices as they flowed out of you. You thought perhaps he might come up for air when your orgasm subsided. The aftershocks were still shaking your thighs, one of your hands falling to lull by your side, the other petting fondly through Gar’s now even messier hair. But it seemed you were wrong. He was just getting started. 
He growled with a feral hunger, the noise making your hips jolt, unintentionally canting toward his face as a whimper fluttered from your lips. He lapped at you in a drunken, lazy way for a few moments before he went back to eating your pussy with a renewed kind of starvation. 
Nipping at your swollen pussy lips in a way that made your entire body jolt, forcing his tongue inside you and fucking you with it while his nose bumped at your thrumming clit. Your second orgasm built up so quickly on top of the first. Your fingers curled in his hair as an unspoken signal to it. The feeling of your nails digging into his scalp only driving him to makeout with your cunt with an even deeper desire. 
He soaked up your practically pornographic moans with reverence. The wear and tear on your extremely damaged vocal cords began to hurt your throat, but the noises were absolutely unstoppable as they poured from your lips. His talented tongue was forcefully driving the moans and whimpers from you. He loved the feeling of your fingers ripping at his hair, leaving a pleasant sting across his scalp. He didn’t let up at all as your second orgasm plowed through you. 
He wasn’t satisfied even as your voice was echoing the wrecked, harsh moans of a third. 
He had you panting, your lungs struggling for air. Your muscles twitching with the excess of adrenaline and electricity. You whimpered pathetically as he tongued over your intensely sensitive clit again. Deciding it was time to give in, you reached over and tapped him gently on the top of the head. 
He looked up at you with those beautiful, wide brown eyes. This time not a lick of innocence or confusion anywhere to be seen - his irises completely overtaken with a deep, primal lust. 
You crooked your finger at him, motioning for him to come back towards your face. He kissed the inside of your thigh a few more times. He unintentionally smeared your sticky wetness, which had gathered on his lips in a heady, thick coating, across your skin. 
“I love your pussy so fucking much.” He murmured into your skin. 
Hearing him spout such filthy words without shame sent another wave of heat rolling through your belly. You had no idea how you were still so needy after cumming so many times, but Gar had easily done that to you. 
You reached over and gently tugged on his hair again, bringing his attention back to you. You suddenly became very aware of the fact that you knew exactly what you wanted, but you didn’t know how to ask for it. Surely, there had to be a sign in ASL for intercourse - but you just didn’t know what it was. You had never felt the need to look it up before now. You decided to improv, knowing that Gar would get the meaning either way. He always understood when it came to you. 
You raised your hands, making a partially closed fist with one hand and sticking your finger into it. You knew that it was probably a rather juvenile motion. To make your point perfectly clear, you mouthed the words ‘fuck me’ in an exaggerated way, hoping it would be easy enough for him to pick up on. 
“You want me to fuck you?” 
He gently shucked your legs off his shoulders, sitting up on his knees. He wiped your essence off his mouth with the palm of his hand, a delighted, surprised expression falling over his features. 
You nodded swiftly, enthusiasm spreading across your face, biting your lip as you could barely contain a giddy smile. 
“I mean, I don’t have a condom or anything… should I go find one?” 
He moved slightly as if to get up and leave you, but you were quick to trap him, hooking your knees around his thighs and squeezing tight. This touch was a good enough signal to bring his attention back to you. 
‘Don’t worry about it.’ You signed to him, firm and final. 
He clearly wanted to question you, but there was something heavy dancing in your eyes, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment by pushing it. 
(You were infertile. Just another thing your illness had taken from you. If it meant this moment with Gar would be a bit more worry-free, then you’d take it. If it meant he would break up with you down the road because he wanted kids that you couldn’t have… then you’d just enjoy the time with him that you were given.)
“Okay.” He breathed quietly. 
Your attention shifted dramatically when his hand moved to adjust his cock in his pants, which was straining harshly through the fabric. It was a long, thick outline like a shadow beaming out from the black fabric, with a damp spot at the tip. Fuck. 
Eating you out had turned him on so much that he was leaking precum into his pants, quite a lot of it. You latched onto your bottom lip at the sight of it. You couldn’t help but to outright stare now that you were allowed to look - lavishing your eyes over the thick, magnetic outline of his beautiful cock. His hand gripped it once more, adjusting himself, trying to make his throbbing cock more comfortable where it strained against the fabric. It made the sight even hotter somehow, and your eyes jumped up to his to see the almost shy look on his face. Even after what he’d done, he was shy about you staring at his bulge. 
‘Show me.’ 
You egged him on, trying to be encouraging. You wanted to play up the obvious desire that you knew was prominent on your face by pouting your lips and batting your eyelashes for him. He raised his hand to the edge of his pants, but his muscles strained, hesitant still. 
As a show of good faith, you sat up slightly, peeling off your tank top, which was now stuck to you with sweat. Your skin appreciated the cool air of the room, and your ego preened at the way Gar’s eyes devoured the newly revealed skin. 
He let out a harsh breath before he stood up on the spot and took his pants down, letting them fall to his ankles and kicking them away. 
“I thought you might laugh at me.” He said quietly, insecurity racking his voice. “Because… ya know… the carpet matches the drapes.” 
Laughing was the last thing you were thinking about doing. 
As you laid there, propped up by your elbows, staring at him, your mind could only focus on how entirely fantastic he looked. His body was so perfect, his muscles built, building up more each day with the training. His whole body covered in perfect, smooth skin, surrounding a gorgeous, filthy prize that you had only dreamed about being this amazing in real life. 
His cock sprang out from a nest of green pubic hair - which yes, ‘the carpet does match the drapes’. But you found that to be nothing to laugh at. There was absolutely nothing laughable about the gorgeous, nine inch monster that stood proudly in front of you - smooth skin covering hardened, gorgeous flesh just like the rest of him. With a drooling, bright pink tip just ready for your lips to be wrapped around it. 
‘Why would I ever laugh at such a beautiful prize?’ You told him, assuring him that you held nothing but admiration and lust for his body. 
A light dusting of pink came over his cheeks, absolute flattery from your words. He dropped down to his knees once again. His cock bobbed so deliciously as he moved, and you knew that would be so whipped by the ability to have it. When Gar realized the power he could hold over you with sex - you would be done for. 
“Jason thought it was pretty funny.” He shrugged, his voice gruff with the memory of it. 
‘Jason is a clown.’ You assured him. 
The conversation was cast aside when he gripped your ankles, playfully tugging you across the mats toward him - something that caused more giggles to erupt from your throat. 
Then, he was hovering over you on his hands and knees once again. With one hand beside your head, the other came over to grasp your chin with two fingers. It was so light and careful compared to his previous touches. He peered down into your eyes, making your stomach seize up with the sheer amount of love and affection he stared you down with. 
If you didn’t feel the same way for him, you might have backed down from the towering might of his feelings. You might have been tempted to run from something so divinely grand and beautiful. But no - you wanted to be his. You wanted to make him yours. 
‘Take me.’ You mouthed. 
Your hands were numb and useless at your sides. Your body was stilled by the cosmic depths of his affection, hoping your silent lips alone would be enough. 
Gar leaned down and swept your mouth into a kiss. His thumb on your chin rubbed sweet circles on your skin as his lips smoothed into yours. Your tongue reached out to eagerly dive into the cavern of his mouth. Soon his touch was gone from your face as your hands woke up to find him, to reach out for the perfection of his body. 
You eagerly sought out to touch his arms, his back, his ass, anything you could reach. He used his hand to hoist your knee gently over his thigh, opening you up to him. Then he poised his cock perfectly at your hot, leaking entrance. 
“You sure about this?” He breathed across your cheek, pulling away from the kiss to ensure your consent one last time. 
You nodded with the most frantic posture you could muster, impatient breaths spilling from your nostrils and pouring across his clammy skin. 
Satisfied with this, he rolled his hips forward. Finally, after weeks - no, years - of waiting in quiet agitation for him, you became complete. 
Even with his massive size, his cock slid easily inside you. 
Your pussy was readied by the many orgasms he gave you, your muscles relaxed and naturally slicked up for him. He fit perfectly like he belonged there, your hot inner walls pulling him in. Your hot cunt clung to his cock in a way that made him groan deeply into your neck. The feeling made his buttocks tense as he pulled together his last ounces of self control to not lose it - to not pound into you like a careless sex doll. You were perfect, and you deserved to be treated perfectly. 
“Fuck, you feel so good around my cock.” 
He groaned, leaning down on his elbows. He trapped you completely in his warmth, pressing his body firmly into yours from chest to chest to where he was smothered deep inside you. 
“You’re so fucking perfect. Fuck, Y/N.” 
You dug your nails into the muscles of his back - hearing your name on his lips with such a gravelly desire making your pussy squeeze around him. After a few restrained moments, he finally pulled his hips back and began to move. It started off as a slow, deliberate grind, a slow drag of his hips into yours, but it quickly became unhinged. Not that you minded one bit. You wanted to tempt that animal inside him - you wanted to see his rougher side.  
The sloppy sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the room as he hammered his hips into yours. The sounds almost completely drowning out the quiet wave of your pathetic whimpers and his possessive growls. He tried to trap the sounds in the skin of your neck, while gnawing mindlessly at your skin, sure to leave some kind of mark on you. 
He was impossibly heavy and hot inside you, hitting all the best spots. His cock drove more electricity into your nerve endings and absolutely milked you for everything you could give. His knees pinned open your thighs where they jolted and jumped, your body so overstimulated from your previous orgasms that they wanted to clamp shut on his hips to keep him from moving. Your unconscious wanted to pin him down and hold him there - wanted to hold him inside you so that you could feel so impossibly full forever. 
And then, just as you felt another orgasm coming to form like a screeching fire in your belly, he dared to raise his head from your neck, dared to look into your eyes. 
Before you knew it, you were tumbling once again through the thick curtain of reality and into his mind. You were pulled against your will into another one of his fantasies. 
In the fantasy, you were on your back, still, completely naked. You were slicked with a sheen of sweat with his thick, pulsing cock deep inside you. But this was slightly different. The material under your back was most certainly a mattress - plush, more giving than the stiffness of the padded floor of the training room. It had an almost too soft layer of silk sheets covering it that your skin stuck to unpleasantly with the sweat. 
Your hands were poised on Gar’s chest, your nails digging into the skin there, leaving light marks. One of the things that stood out most to you about this picture was not the fact that Gar was having a fantasy about fucking you, but the ring on your finger. Seeing as this was his mind, he was the one who had put it there. Quite clearly a wedding ring or an engagement ring. It was beautifully ornate, poised on the correct finger for marriage. It held a bright green stone in the middle - green like a certain someone special to you. 
“Fuck, I love you so much.” 
Dream Gar moaned as he pounded into you, his hips taking on a sloppy rhythm as his orgasm drew near. 
“My beautiful wife. Mine. Finally fucking mine. You’ve always been mine, haven’t you?” 
‘I’m yours.’ 
You found yourself mouthing the words without even realizing it, whipped out of the fantasy world so harshly once again. A very small part of your mind wondered if it had been a small slice of the future that you had seen or if it was simply a conjuring from Gar’s imagination. 
You didn’t have the time to think or care, because your body went into overdrive. The Real Gar’s forehead was now resting on your tits. His hands created a tight grip on your hips as he pounded into you harder, harsher, deep grunts spewing from his lips each time his cock settled back inside you. 
“Please cum for me, Y/N.” His words came out as a whining beg, something so wonderfully small from the man splitting you open on his cock. 
He kissed between your breasts, his thumb coming to rub harsh circles on your clit, sending jolts right through you. 
“Cum on my cock. Please.” 
With the vision still hot on your mind and his words searing through you, the orgasm tore you up like a rabid animal. It was like nothing else you had ever felt in your life - like your entire body was on fire, being entirely consumed by Gar, by his touch, by his love for you. Finally being owned by him, finally having the one thing you wanted, needed most. Finally having him, full and whole. 
You screamed so loudly it hurt your throat, something you knew you’d be feeling for days afterward. Your whole body shook around him while your eyes screwed shut, your head tilting backwards as the pleasure was exorcized from you. 
You felt a hot dampness under your fingertips that you recognized as blood. In the back of your mind, you realized that you had gripped him hard enough for your nails to cut him - but he didn’t seem to care. In fact, it only spurred him on more, if the deep, ferocious grunts pouring from his lips were any indication. He was absolutely wild as he chased his own orgasm, breath fanning out in hot grunts against your breasts as he bucked wildly into your spent, tired hips, making your muscles twitch with bitter overstimulation. 
“Fuck! Y/N!” He cried out as he came, finally spilling his thick, hot cum inside you. 
You let out a small moan at the feeling. It became even hotter when you felt his cum pooling around the base of his cock, where you were connected, and leaking down between your cheeks. He lingered inside you for a few moments, petting his hands up and down your sides while your hands laid numbly on his back. He pecked small, delicate kisses across your clavicle that were almost an irony to the whole interaction. It made you smile. 
You were quickly falling tired from the massive aerobic exercise and post-orgasm haze, disappointed by the fact that you had to get up and make your way back to bed. You hoped Gar would let you sleep in his. It came as a bitter shock when he pulled out of you, leaving you empty and cold as he moved away from you so suddenly. When you blinked, he was standing, bending over with his back to you as he picked up his pants and righted the legs so he could put them back on. 
What he did next came as even worse of a shock to you. 
“I - uh… I understand if you don’t want this to affect our friendship.” He said, just loud enough for you to hear him. His tone was flat, completely void of emotion. 
“I totally get being horny and just… needing someone. We’ve been locked up here for weeks, and like. Like you said, Jason’s a clown.” He let out a laugh, but it was hollow and tired. He clearly didn’t even think his own words were funny. 
The words were so strange in those moments they took far too long to process through your sex-hazy brain. 
Was he really insinuating that you might go to Jason for sex? Was he trying to… let you down easy? Was he saying that he only wanted to be friends? Friends with benefits? 
Was he seriously saying that he didn’t love you? 
Your head was spinning with questions as you propped yourself up on your elbows, your whole body stiff as those beautiful, orgasmic chemicals faded away. It left you tired, shocked, and… feeling used. Your eyes scanned over Gar’s back as he tied up the drawstring of his pants. You focused on the dark red, deep, partially bleeding marks you had left. You had marked him, whether he liked it or not. You had some claim to him. You should. 
“I’m gonna stay for a while and finish my workout.” He told you quietly. “Do you need help getting back to bed?” 
When he came over and offered you a hand, you brushed it away. For the first time ever, you felt cold and unaccepting of his touch. You felt angry with him. How dare he invite you into his mind, show you how much he cared about you - how dare he fuck you with so much love and passion and then try to brush it all off as if it were nothing? 
‘I’m fine.’ You told him, hoping your coldness could come across in tired, limp handed signing. 
You forced yourself up on quivering knees and then onto your feet. You gathered your clothes where they had been carelessly tossed and shoved them back onto your used, dirty body. You would have preferred a shower first, but you preferred the precaution of drapery in case you did run into anyone on your way to the bathroom. 
“Oh. Okay. Cool.” 
These were Gar’s last words to you before you stormed out of the training room, going to the bathroom to ruminate on the whole experience by boiling yourself in hot, steaming water. 
…  
You thought about it for a long time while you were in the shower. 
Just stood there, under the hot spray and let your mind concentrate on the things Gar had said. He had fucked the living daylights out of you, ate your pussy like it was his fucking job. He was apparently having daydreams about doing so while calling you his fucking wife, and then once it was all said and done - he backed down from it. He told you that he ‘understood’ if you only wanted to be friends. 
He was afraid. 
It was like everything else in his life. He could transform into a fucking tiger, but he was afraid to bite people. He didn’t want to use the fantastic power that had been given to him. For years, he hid away with Doctor Caulder, a man who emotionally abused him and manipulated him. He had been too afraid to stand up for himself, too afraid to leave the house and chase the things he really wanted. 
And with you. He was clearly terrified you were going to reject him. He wanted a life with you, he wanted to worship you. He wanted you and your heart, he wanted your everything. But he was too afraid to voice it. He was too afraid he’d look like an idiot if you didn’t feel the same way. 
That’s probably why he had unconsciously reached out to you, unconsciously broadcasted his fantasies to you whenever you were near. And you’d thought it was your stupid powers acting up. 
Just like with kissing him to initiate that amazing sex - you were going to have to shake off your fear of rejection so that the two of you could be together already. 
… 
You woke up the next morning with a pounding migraine. 
Even with the preventative medications Doctor Caulder had prescribed to you to help with your seizures and migraines, the tumor that still lived inside your brain did get to torture you occasionally. When you lifted your head from your pillow and saw the gray, gloomy sky looming over San Francisco, the raindrops racing down your window, it didn’t take you long to figure out the cause of your pain. You groaned, falling face first back into your pillow, not wanting to get up. 
The ever present pain from coming from your head was topped off by soreness that had spread through your whole body - undeniable evidence that what happened between you and Gar last night wasn’t just another dream. Dreams don’t have consequences. Especially considering that your pussy was aching hard, still sore from having his impressive length splitting you open. On top of it all, your throat was stinging with an almost flu-like ache from having screamed so much through your surgery damaged vocal chords. 
You really hoped Dick would let you have one day off from training. You probably could have gotten through it with just your body being sore. But the migraine was already ravaging you, already turning your stomach sour with systematic nausea. 
You heard a knock on your door and sighed quietly. 
You had just barely hoisted yourself into a sitting position by the time the person entered. Squinting through your tired eyes, you were able to makeout a flash of green and immediately knew that it was Gar. 
“Hey, you don’t look so good. You feelin’ alright?” He knew the look that always settled upon your face when you were overtaken with such intense pain. He hardly needed to ask. “Where’s the bottle?” 
You motioned toward the drawer that held the item he spoke of - your hot water bottle, which you used to help ease the bitter pain of a migraine. He opened and closed a few drawers before he found it. Your eyes gently closed against the harsh light pouring in from the hallway, too sensitive to the light to actually look at him. 
“It’s okay, lay down.” He told you, his voice a comforting lull past the aching thrum in your forehead. He patted your thigh gently through your blanket, and you eased back onto the bed, throwing a forearm over your eyes to block the light. “I got it.” 
He went to the kitchen and filled the rubber bladder with boiling water, returning quickly with it and a glass of water. You took the now very hot water bottle. You gave him a small moan of gratitude as you placed it down on your pillow and pressed your forehead into it. 
In a practiced routine that only spoke to how much he loved you, he closed the bedroom door, blocking out the harsh light of the hallway. And then he walked around the bed to close the curtains, blocking out any potential light from the outside. He placed the glass of water down on your nightstand with a harsh clink that only radiated through your skull so painfully because of the migraine. Then you heard him open the nightstand drawer, digging around for your medication. 
You trusted that he knew which ones you needed right now. You trusted that he didn’t need your advice on how to take care of you. It was something he knew well after so long. 
You felt his fingers brushing your open palm, then felt the round tablets of your medication left there as he pulled away. 
“Sit up and take these.” He said quietly, voice barely above a whisper, as if he was afraid to hurt you with a single decibel. 
He used a gentle grip on your forearm to hoist you into a sitting position, and you swallowed the medication dutifully with the water he’d brought. 
“I’ll tell Dick you need to sit out of training today.” He explained quietly. “You need anything else?” 
‘One thing.’ You signed to him, your hands weak and tired. 
Though your pain was disruptive, and you were glad Gar was not acting any different after what had happened last night, you couldn’t wait any longer before doing this. 
Before he could question what that thing was, you leaned in. Your lips easily found his in the darkness and you planted a smooth, gentle kiss on his mouth. 
‘Don’t wanna just be friends.’ You signed, opening your tired, painful eyes to see his reaction to your words. ‘I love you. I have loved you for a long time now.’ 
A broad smile came across his face, his expression of pure joy practically glowing in the darkness. 
“Yeah. Awesome. That sounds amazing. I love you too.” His voice was slightly louder now, his joy overriding his caution for your hypersensitive, pained ears.
He felt absolutely giddy - this was what he had been waiting for, dreaming of for so long. He wanted to climb in bed with you and lay by your side for the rest of the day. But he knew that he needed to attend to other things, and more importantly - you needed your rest. 
“Get some rest now, okay?” 
He tucked you into bed, made sure the covers were up over your body, full and warm with the hot water bottle under your head before he left the room once again. 
It wasn’t long before you heard voices coming from down the hall. 
“Where’s Y/N? We’re doing balance drills in ten minutes.” Dick’s gruff voice echoed down the hall, very obviously directed at Gar, who he’d sent to wake you up.
“She needs the day off. She’s got a wicked migraine and she needs rest when it gets like this,” Gar told him simply, hoping Dick would respect him at his word. 
“We don’t get days off, Gar.” Dick pressed. “All of us have to train through pain, or injury. Do you really think some psychotic asshole is gonna care if you have a little headache while they’re trying to kill you? Do you think they’re just gonna come back another day? Do you think they’re gonna stop shooting at you if you have to stop and bandage your boo boo?”
His words cut through you, causing a sallow pain to rise up in your chest. It was something you’d been hearing since your childhood - since your treatments and hospital stays had caused you to miss too many days off and your teachers quickly stopped taking pity on you. You had always been told to just work through your pain, that the world won’t stop for you. You considered getting up and just going to training. You wanted to tough it out just to show Dick that you could, that you could puke into a garbage can and keep going, that you could boot and rally. 
You heard footsteps coming down the hall, and in your pain heightened sensitivity, you heard the metal of the doorknob shift as someone put their hand around it. The sound of Dick coming to get you out of bed anyway. 
He didn’t get the chance, though. 
“Leave it, Grayson.” Gar’s voice growled - a harsh, sharp sound that you had rarely ever heard from him before. “You don’t understand what she’s going through, and I won’t have you pushing her until she pukes on the floor just to satisfy your ego. She already trains harder than you ask and you know she could probably kick your ass,” 
You heard a harsh sigh, a deep breath through nostrils - Dick’s surrender. His footsteps disappeared down the hall, and Gar’s followed shortly after. 
Your heart bloomed with affection, awed by the blanket of protection he had put around you. 
You really were his. You always have been. 
...
When Gar was getting dressed after his shower later that day - he came across a small box in his underwear drawer. It was the ring that Rita had given him before he left Caulder House, a very expensive looking vintage piece from her days on set. Gar tried to insist that he couldn’t take something so nice, so sentimental from her. But she had closed it tight into his palm with the promise that it would be yours someday - that he would use the polished emerald ring to propose to you. 
Of course, she saw that big, beautiful, dangerous thing brewing between the two of you from a mile away. Gar considered marching down the hall and giving it to you right then there. But he tucked the box back into his drawer. In honor of Rita’s vision - he would make it old Hollywood, romantic. 
He had plenty of time.
THE END.
...
Final note: yes, I used to be @/pinkchubbiebunnie.That is still my username on AO3, and this is my new blog. This is one of my old fics, so please don’t accuse me of stealing it if you see this. I have added some new scenes and elements to it (hence, why I have split it up into two parts) so if you recognize me by this fic and if you’ve read it before, I hope you enjoy re-reading it in its newly improved form. Feel free to follow me if you’re interested in my fanfiction and thoughtful discussions of the media that I enjoy.
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yeahiwasintheshit · 5 months
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so i watched john cassavetes' 'a woman under the influence' the other night, and hooboy was that an intense movie. with an amazing performance by gena rowlands as mabel. and peter falk is great in it too. but boy is this a hard watch. you just feel bad for all these people, especially mabel. shes clearly a person in distress and she just doesnt have the people in her life that can help. not only cant help, but make her situation worse. what adds to the intensity is the way its shot, it almost feels like a documentary of this family. natural light, natural performances, natural dialogue. rowlands and falk really become these people. the thing is you also really like them. falk's character nicky really does some horrible horrible shit, and you end up feeling like hes the one mentally worse off by the end, because almost every decision he makes is wrong. but he clearly loves his wife, who is a very sick person, he just doesnt know what the right thing to do is. theres no excuse for his abuse, its bad, and hes a lousy father, but falk is such a charismatic and sorta lovable presence, you dont necessarily forgive him, there just arent any villains in the movie.
theyre just this sad family who are dealing with this mental illness, that they dont really understand, nor does the society around them. when she goes to the hospital for 6 months, and the day she comes back and nicky invites a house full of people to celebrate, you just want to strangle the guy, but its coming from a pure place of wanting to make a normal house, but its so hard to watch. plus the doctor who commits her seems to have encouraged the party, so thats another part of it, but what a bad decision. then theyre at the table and hes yelling that he wants her to have a normal conversation, and this poor woman is locked and stuck. she doesnt know what to do. the gif above is so heart wrenching. shes saying this to her father, and ooof it knocks it right out of you. that whole final third of the movie is notched up to a level 11, which is like watching a horror movie. everyone does the wrong thing for this suffering woman, and she reacts accordingly. its also hard to watch it from a 2024 perspective cause you know she could prob live a better life today with the right meds, and the right medical information for her and nicky to deal with her illness.
anyway ive been sitting on writing a review of it cause i almost didnt know what to say, cause its a lot. and maybe thats part of the problem. there are parts of the movie that are at an 11 for so long you almost shaking watching it. its a good movie with an amazing, and shocking and almost too real performance by gena rowlands (who is still alive today. shes 93) in parts it really does feel like a horror movie youre watching between your fingers. but it is really good. worth watching for her performance alone
john cassavetes is considered the father of independent movies, and i think this may be considered his best movie. he was nominated for best director and rowlands was nominated for best actress that year. so im glad i watched it, but dont have any plans rewatching anytime soon at least.
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artsycervidae · 2 months
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I finished my short story. It's set in the Boku no Hero Academia universe, but the cast consists of OCs. Heed the trigger warnings; this is intended to be a thriller/horror, so it's exploring heavy themes. Though these are also themes touched on in the series itself, tread with care.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Graphic imagery, Unreliable narrator, Ableism (internalized and external), Chronic illness, Attempted murder-suicide, Attempted suicide mention, Severe depression, Animal death, Familial Abuse (specifically child abuse at the hands of the mother), Codependent relationship between family members, Longstanding acts of harm/sabotage, Quirk eugenics, Stalking, Organized crime, Body horror, Theft of personal belongings, Abuse of prescription drugs, Dosing/poisoning of someone's food
     Sato Hikaru came to consciousness unwillingly. He was at first aware of the coldness tickling his feet and legs, so he balled up to retain what little heat he insulated beneath seven layers. It didn't matter-- he was awake now. The blurry red digits on his alarm clock seemed to glow through his eyelids even when he rolled to his other side; the room was devoid of personal affectation, so the light bounced off the bare, eggshell walls. He flopped back over and stared back at the clock. 4:16 am. He supposed that was early enough.
     Hikaru pat blindly for his laptop, found its power cord, and carefully pulled it toward himself along the floor. Still partly under his mountain of blankets, he logged onto his email and went into the drafts where he had prepared a sick note: something believably miserable about being unable to eat or sleep, but still coherent enough to assert he could work remotely. Mysterious pain and nausea wasn't uncommon given his medical history; so long as he didn't wear thin on his coworkers' graces, nobody would begrudge him for staying home. His agency performance reports were already encrypted and attached so that he only had to send them. Then he went into the work calendar and helpfully logged his absences ahead of time so that he could receive meeting notes. Each and every sick day had to cause as little disturbance as possible.
     One of the benefits of being under the Hero Public Safety Commission's employ: as an office-holding, audit-accurate salaryman, there was a benefit of the doubt afforded to him automatically. This was further buttressed with behavior. He had never before been tardy-- ever. He didn't play hooky like others had. He attended mandatory dinner parties. He was civil, clean, and convenient. Unfortunately, not everyone could be relied upon for such predictability.
     When the streetlight directly outside his window elbowed its way through his curtain, he picked up his phone and texted his mother to give her the same overnight illness excuse-- this time, embellishing a sleepless night of 'work catch-up' spent with his nose to the grindstone. Then he abandoned his phone beneath the blankets, slipping from his cocoon to pluck pajamas out of a nearby heap of clothing. The truth about his work was that all this and next months' assignments were drafted to near completion, sitting prettily on his harddrive for the chance to defend his reputation. There were some bits and pieces of information left blank for future application, but all the mundane busy work had been taken care of two weeks prior, during a particularly animated frenzy to get as much bullshit out of his way as possible. So long as he drip fed his supervisor with satisfactory and timely submissions, he could continue to devote the rest of the month entirely to his true work.
     In the bathroom, he unscrewed the hoses from to the faucets, rolled them up, and properly stored them on the hooks he installed in the corridor. That way he could close the door as he readied for the day. Not that he needed the privacy. He no longer shared this space with anyone, and didn't intend to make room. He just liked to see closed walls on all sides of him and know he was secure, if only in the bathroom and at his most vulnerable.
     Once he was cleaned and dressed comfortably, Hikaru replaced the hoses then wandered the darkness of his apartment. He unconsciously stepped to the side of the bundled cords lining the hallway, placing his bare feet one after the other to avoid tripping on or dislodging anything. He started by staking out the living room, which was furnished. The locks on his front entrance were still engaged. The door to the patio (which was more like a windsill with how narrow it was) was locked and shuttered. A laundry pole scavenged from the trash was jammed solidly into the track for additional security. Even so, he didn't relax. He always acted with a vague image in his mind of what would happen if he lowered his guard.
     This brought him to the 'study,' the spare bedroom that all the hoses and cords fed into; also a room which his mother always insisted he keep available for her. Nevermind that she hadn't been in Japan for longer than twelve combined hours in the last two years since she ran off. Sato Hanami was probably already planning how to make her next escape: they were supposed to go shopping and grab lunch together before she moved on to her next event... but before she could cancel plans on him, he left her high and dry first.
     The last night they were really together was meant to celebrate his acceptance into medical school. They had arrangements at a fancy restaurant, tickets to a theater play, and each other... but he couldn't appreciate it. Frankly, the cracks in their foundation preceded that night. Hikaru, for a long time, had felt his mother was keeping more from him than the potential identity of his father. Despite the unanswered questions and sidestepped conversations, he respected his caretaker's authority and secrecy even when it involved him. But he was freshly eighteen and due his own share of responsibility and respect.
     That was the night he told her he knew he had a Quirk. Rather than react with equal enthusiasm, bafflement, or disbelief, she nervously batted the subject around. It may as well have been a typhoon on the other side of the world. Then she 'innocuously' got up to use the restroom at some point. Hikaru waited-- their entrees going cold on their plates-- for twenty minutes before he realized she was gone. She picked up his phone call, already in the cab and babbling some story about being summoned to America: she was to co-host a lucrative wellness tour with her longtime friend. She was on her way to dine with ultra rich celebrities interested in the procedure of her treatments. When he tried to insist to her again that he needed her to guide him, to help him understand what he was now and how to handle it, she snapped: "Don't tell me about it! Shut up." It took him aback so much, he obeyed automatically. She nervously filled the silence, "... Besides, it's taken so long to show itself, it's bound to be a busted one." Each insistence was another stab to the heart, and he quietly assented until she ended the call with a small silence and an exasperated sigh: "... Work hard, no matter what, okay? I can only stay away so long."
     So befuddled and frustrated was he, that he went home and sold the furniture from their bedrooms. He was so disgusted with her. With himself. She loved him as any mother loved her son, but she especially adored when he ached for her approval to the point of hysteria. She did this often, especially when it came to his school career-- dangled a tantalizing prize in front of him before throwing it over the ledge, hoping he would jump off after it as some extravagant expression of devotion. Needless to say, his grades were flawless. But this was different. His mother overshot her mark; he knew something she hadn't, and she ran instead of taking him seriously. Instead of doubling his efforts to gain her attention, he stopped playing her games.
     He never told her about her former bedroom. Nor did he share that he'd dropped out of that medical school and began his career as a desk jockey for the government. She had been told, surely: a career change wasn't as easy to hide as a personal interest or private thought. Shortly after he began working is when her checks started coming in. It was their first line of communication since she 'fled' Japan, and he let them pile up in the cubby he kept by the door.
     He waited for her to be the one to message him first-- those first weeks had been filled with playing a façade for the world, succumbing to depressive crying and anxious fits when he was safe at home. When she finally texted, it took all his willpower not to respond immediately. Not that it mattered: he would soon learn that she never stayed anywhere for long. Even if she remained in the country, she was skipping like an airborne stone across the surface of the globe.
     He almost envied her freedom of movement. She seemed so unrestricted, though he knew she was with Iwamoto Kaede: she was his mother's 'dearest confidant,' fellow wellness guru, and probably the one who Hanami convinced to accompany her, expanding their 'career' to the horizon. Hikaru still harbored both gratitude and a grudge for that. He never liked the way Kaede hovered around their lives, as if being a close friend and neighbor wasn't enough.
     But with her gone, his surveillance had to be careful. They operated from her 'empty' apartment, though Hikaru knew there was someone in there at most times of day. He'd never heard or seen them, but he knew they were there as surely as he knew his organs existed despite hiding inside his body.
     His mental fortitude nearly unraveled with the isolation. For a while, he was convinced that he was the one Hanami was running from. Why else would she have left in such a nervous hurry? It wasn't that he was unimportant to her-- it was that he was dangerous.
     She was scared of him. Of what he could be. And rather than discourage him, this fantasy instilled him with autonomy and independence. He made changes to his life. He reflected on himself.
     After confirming the integrity of his lair, he stopped outside the study door and stared at the doorknob. He had to shed the alibi of that cowardly man: someone who went straight to work and then straight home, who bought all his necessities once a month without fluctuation, who was always the one apologizing when someone deemed him inconvenient. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and entered.
     His eyelids fluttered rapidly, adapting to the lilac-blue lightboxes. Plastic tarp crinkled underfoot. The only similarities this room held to an actual study were the row of composition books stacked against the wall, various pens of many colors contained in a nearby cup, and the apartment's provided router installed into the ceiling corner. Otherwise, it resembled mostly a greenhouse: rows of potted, pooled, and hanging plantlife filled the room wall to wall with very little space for their caretaker to tiptoe through.
     Hikaru went to the notebooks and selected the topmost one, plucking a blue pen from the cup. Then he cast out a gentle "Good morning," to his companions. He worked his way through the nursery, weaving between leaves and stepping over water hoses. The plants were weeded and inspected. He was only making the first subjective notations before he got into the real work: the testing and sampling, which gave him concrete results. Numbers to back up his theories.
     Blackout curtains kept anyone from asking questions about the artificial lights that stayed on all day and night, and he budgeted all other use of his electricity by charging everything at work on the occasions he went in. He was running dangerously low on battery packs. Perhaps on his next commute, he would stay the night with the excuse of making up for his absences. At least all the work that mattered was on paper: untraceable, easy to take with him anywhere, written in shorthand, ready to be burned at a moment's notice-- the greatest complications were his rebellious carpal tunnels, which would inconvenience him during productive flows. He began to wear wrist braces regularly. Despite how long he coasted under the radar, people eventually noticed. By then, however, he was as good at lying as his mother-- even better at omissions and excuses.
     He was lucky his wrist began to cramp when it did, for once. He put his work down and meandered, loosening his brace to hang by his thumb. Sighing, he rolled the joint in slow circles and stretches. He was caught between the study and hall when he heard the front doorknob click. His skin jumped as the intruder's entrance was abruptly stopped by the other locks. "For the love of--" a familiar voice uttered from outside before Hikaru could bolt for the matches and set the building aflame. Then the doorbell began ringing.
    "Coming!" He hollered to his impatient guest before racing clumsily for his bedroom. He snatched up his phone after flinging the blankets aside. Several missed texts. A couple missed calls. All from Mom.
     He couldn't believe it. His head buzzed, nearly afloat with fear and excitement. What was she doing here? What was he going to do about this? He couldn't think-- didn't have the luxury. His body moved of its own accord. Once he passed the study threshold, he had to revert to Sato Hikaru again. Above all else, he knew he must keep these lives separate. He walked to the front door and unlocked the chain, the deadbolt, and the barrel bolt. The knob, of course, had already been unlocked via a spare key.
     He opened the door right as Hanami's finger hovered over the bell button again; she startled and her filtered mask shifted on her grinning cheeks. "Hikaru," she sang out, "you're still in your pajamas! Did you oversleep?" As she was saying this, he squinted against the sun blazing behind her shoulders. Had he truly been making observations and notes into the afternoon?
     "Mom, what are you doing here?" He asked, and although he treated her with a consciously cordial distance, he wanted to welcome her back home with an embrace. Two years ago, he would have been desperate for her to show up out of nowhere like this. It wasn't hard to feign illness-- he was trembling, physically fighting himself as he stepped aside to let her in. "Did you come here from the airport on your own? Haven't you been keeping up with Japanese news? It's dangerous to go around alone--"
     "What? Nonsense," she replied, shifting her convenience store bags into her other arm. "All Might may be retired, but he was still the number one hero, and always will be in my mind so long as he lives." The irony of those words: invoking a hero whose presence had never once shone light onto their horrible situation made Hikaru frown.
     "But the random sightings of those things-- those Nomu--"
      "I won't be listening to any paranoid drivel, Hikaru. If I want that, I'll turn on the TV." (His armpits prickled-- he had sold that long ago for money, for his nursery. He wondered when she would notice all the empty spaces in their home.) She moved to pat his face, but he swiftly stepped to her burdened side in an attempt to take the groceries. "Oh-- dear, you don't have to do that." The gesture successfully distracted her and she took command by moving into the kitchen, setting down her bags and removing her mask. "Wow, it's so dark in here." But when she flicked at the light switch, it didn't turn anything on. Nor did it obey when she aggressively tried three more times.
     "I don't have light bulbs, Mom. Migraines."
     "Right," she seemed only marginally discomforted by how poorly she fit back into this life. She returned to her bags, rifling through them in search of something. "I thought you would be hungry. You work so hard and rest so little when you're unwell... even as a kid, you were always sneaking out of bed, trying to squirrel yourself away in dark, quiet places to read. Oh!"
     She turned around with a paper packet. A chill rooted itself along the curve of Hikaru's spine at the sight of it. This could spoil the whole visit. "For you," she said, amiable and at ease. "You've got the flu, right? I talked to a doctor friend of mine-- this will help you sleep it off. And probably help with those migraines!"
     "Thank you," he said softly, trying to seem more pleasantly surprised than quietly horrified. She must have sensed his cautiousness-- there was always the chance he wouldn't let her touch him again, so this was her thinking three steps ahead of him. He didn't expect her to go so far as to procure him a prescription or behind-the-counter medication. It was too obvious, too dangerous... unless it wasn't. He wanted to take a look at it, but she didn't hand it to him either. Rather, she set it in front of her with the produce and pantry goods.
    "I brought you tea, too."
    "Thanks, Mom." Under the guise of setting up his electric kettle, he watched her unpack dinner ingredients. "... How was Sydney?"
     She stuck out her lower lip in theatrical disappointment. "I was in Sydney last week, dear. I came in from Paris." He knew it would hurt her feelings if he wasn't obsessing over her every movement. They had to watch out for each other-- nevermind that she was the one who left him.
     "How was Paris?" he smiled, glad to gave gotten a reaction from her that wasn't completely staged.
     "Boring. I missed you the whole time."
     The sincerity softened and humbled him. "I've missed you too, Mom." ... Was he being too cruel? The fact she showed up in a time of need meant she was trying. She was even filling the quiet for him, breaking the ice by launching into a story about a little Parisian café she frequented with Kaede.
     When he tried to fall into routine next to her, she looked at him. "Go sit!" she insisted, and he remembered his white lie. He continued to watch her work from the couch, his arm stretched along its back. She cracked open the window curtain first for some natural light to see by. Then she spoke to him as she washed, cut, and assembled ingredients. "As I was saying, Kaede's daughter was recently engaged, so we had a drink to celebrate. We also got them a nice bottle of dinner wine," she gave a little chuckle, "they might have need for it. Kaede said that their first goal after the wedding is to start growing their family."
     "Give the couple my congratulations," Hikaru said warmly, though he hardly knew Kaede's daughter or her partner. He doubted they were real.
     "Have you been seeing anyone?" his mother asked suddenly and shamelessly.
     "No, Mom," he sighed. "I'm busted and broken, remember?"
     "You're not--!" she argued defensively, rounding about and casting a vicious gesture with an unsheathed knife. The motion had been so abrupt that they both felt the air crackle. A past recrimination lingered unspoken before she turned back to chopping vegetables. Hikaru could have pressed it. But the last thing he needed was an explosive argument-- much less the forced, heartmelting reconcilation in its aftermath. He resisted the urge to needle and squirm under her skin, to annoy her the way she annoyed him now.
     "... No, I'm not seeing anyone. I'm Quirkless, so I'm at a disadvantage."
     "So what? What does that have to do with dating?"
     This was the invisible wall they broke their noses upon. Although her Quirk was supposedly dubbed "Empathy," sometimes it felt Hanami was anything but. Or perhaps she relied too much on the Quirk to bother with context anymore. She needed only touch someone and she would be granted the knowledge of their emotional state, their physical well-being, and their memories. Her Quirk appealed to human desire-- to be immediately understood, to have needs and wants realized without the work of expressing it. It couldn't hurt that she was a natural beauty: petitely formed, clear-skinned, dark-lashed, and pouty-lipped. Meanwhile, her son was comparatively average: soft-bellied, beetle-browed, pockmarked, and gloomy-faced. Even though she was over fifty, she had an uncanny knack for makeup and lighting. She looked like a movie star in public, while people barely spared Hikaru anything longer than a brief glance. He struggled to explain this concept, despite appreciating his privacy. "Mom, I have boring looks, a boring job, and boring hobbies. On paper, I'm Quirkless; even if I found someone I was comfortable telling personal information to--"
     "Hardly personal," his mother muttered.
     "--then it's not like anyone would have an optimistic view of me. The only people who make me feel wanted are the ones who like me... at a disadvantage."
     Hanami paused. Strafed past the implication. "Well... I'm your mother, so it's my job to make sure you're happy and settled in life. Someone who can't give you the support you need in this time of your life isn't worth your time anyway."
      He stared at her. She was too engrossed in measuring out bouillon. He understood the message: he just didn't know what she expected him to say. *'Sure, Mom. After all, that's what the people watching us want, isn't it? They want whatever I have. They want what my father had.'* He wondered if she was really giving up, or if she had simply forgotten all the pains and suffering he'd been through.
     Well, he still remembered the innumerable meetings with Quirk professionals. His world had flipped upside down with every sheepish diagnosis, every nuanced discussion that Quirks were still actively studied, that humanity learned more every day. She wanted to be sure: It was imperative that every doctor that saw him support her alibi. And her scheme worked. Each one said the same thing: Quirkless kids were becoming more common, and it was possible to be born with an 'average' amount of toe bones and still be Quirkless. It wasn't a direct correlation after all-- human evolution was messier than that.
     When the children at school sensed an otherness in him, the bullying began. Then the constant moving. Then the sicknesses. His immune system succumbed to the stress, weakening his body so that he couldn't leave bed. His primary sickbed companion besides his mother was his childhood friend-- an adopted Shiba Inu named Koyubi.
     Every morning, when there were only doctors' visits and existential crises to awaken to, he could only be comforted by her immediate presence on his stomach. Her square head tucked perfectly into the groove of his arm, and her worried little brows puckered anytime his breathing went shallow. Hanami hated the dog to be on their furniture, but Koyubi's unwavering faith in him made it easier to live. He would pat the empty space at his side, specifically reserved for the canine. She never bounced or jolted him-- her clambering was sweet and polite, and she wanted nothing more than to rest with him... So constant was her loyalty that she too became sick. She must have contracted something from him, his mother said, and she quarantined them both. Then Koyubi died in the other room, when she ought to have fallen asleep next to him.
     Surely Hanami remembered the suicide attempt of his adolescence shortly after, when he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It wasn't about the dog-- not entirely. His world was shrinking, his future slipping through his fingers like sand before he had the chance to appreciate it. He could feel himself, as a tangible thing deteriorating, eroding. The suicide attempt and depersonalization, followed by long sessions of therapy and reduced freedoms, was never in the past for him, even after he persevered through the worst of it... As a child, he had already grappled with the harsh truth that nobody's life was really their own.
     He couldn't bring himself to believe Hanami would actually forget any of that. She had seen his suffering through it all. Everything she did, she did for him, because she loved him and wanted him to be safe and happy.
    But then, if she loved him so much, why did she let him believe he was Quirkless for so long? Why was it that when he confronted her with the truth, she ran, absconding across the globe to get away from him? Why did it take him 'falling ill again' to draw her back into his life? He once believed she was his greatest advocate. But that was wrong-- he held no possession over this woman until he uncovered her most shameful secret: it had always been his life in her hands, and she wasn't used to the roles being reversed.
     "What about that girl, Izumi?" His mother asked, apparently stubborn on this particular subject. "The one who gave you the spider plant?"
     "Mom, we were just schoolmates. I haven't spoken to her since graduation." Of course, because Hanami had never cared to actually learn the inner workings of his life, this was a huge leap in logic. Izumi was his only friend when he rejoined society. Everyone else greeted Hikaru politely and that was all-- his desk had been empty for the majority of his transfer. It may as well have remained that way. But she had gotten him a small plant as a 'welcome back' gift, though they had only met at the beginning of their term. She offered to help him catch up on assignments before finals, not that he needed it. His mother's carrot-and-stick approach to childrearing had elevated him to an intelligence above his peers.
    But he never forgot the kindness with which she offered him help. Almost every day, she would coast by his desk and make her offer. She didn't put it upon him or assume, and neither did she feign blindness to his hardship. He had secretly used Koyubi's ashes as fertilizer for her plant, which felt right to him at the time; taking care of something else made him want to kill himself less. Koyubi lived on through the spider plant. What it represented to him became something irreplaceable: it wasn't just for him to nurture, nor was it a distraction from his compulsive mental unraveling. It was a seed of thought, germinating into a tangle of unburied lies.
     That plant was still alive and well in the study. He had taken care of it religiously, hoping to dry and press its blossoms to show his appreciation to Izumi. But rather than sprouting tiny bone-white flowers, it had produced a bud that opened and dropped a little calcium deposit on his floor. He asked Izumi about it, whose psychometric Quirk could identify small objects. He told her he found it not far from the potted plant, but she laughed and shook her head. 'Your puppy was probably teething nearby and the tooth came off into a chew toy,' she said with an assuring smile. 'I didn't know you had a dog!'
     After that, he could never have a normal relationship with her-- much less a romantic one. She knew too much.
     "Well. What about your neighbor down the hall? Watanabe?" She snapped herb leaves into the steaming Dutch oven. "You two seemed close." By which she meant, she had become envious that her son was outgrowing her company. And still, she was expected to shrug him off onto someone else.
     "Watabe?" Hikaru corrected. "She moved away before you left. That's why she brought me that peace lily." The flower had been her grandmother's. At first Hikaru was against accepting such a gesture, but Watabe made it clear that it would mean more for him to have it. 'Really, I have a rotten thumb,' she'd said, by then fatigued. Life and its hardships was slowly sapping her natural warmth and loveliness. 'I'm so busy putting things in storage and helping my family arrange the funeral-- I'm already killing it with my negligence.' She hadn't been wrong, so he accepted the lily. He never saw Watabe in the halls again, but returned the flower to its former beauty and health in her honor... and over time, in place of the stamen, a meat-encrusted phalange grew from the pale cupped petal.
     "Whatever happened to that lily?" His mother asked, suddenly deciding to give a shit about the mundane details. She took the opportunity to take a good look around the apartment, faltered, the corners of her mouth twitching down. "What happened to the TV?... Where are all your plants, Hikaru?"
     He slowly rose from the couch, wiping his clammy hands onto his fabric pants. "... I sold the TV. The plants are in my office, Mom."
     "Oh!" She was surprised and almost let it slide, but now the gears in her head were working. She returned to the soup and stirred up its contents. "... All of your plants? Do you have the space for that?" Even though he couldn't see her face, he could envision her eyes darting as she fumbled with the impossibilities. If she wasn't regretting her actions now, she never would.
     May as well get it over with.
     "My home office, Mom."
     She paused for a moment. "Oh. Do we share a bedroom again? We haven't done that since you were--"
     "No, Mom. I have my room and my office. That's it." He hesitated before awkwardly muttering, "Well, the bathroom and hallway and--"
     "Where am I meant to sleep then." It was a question, but spoken with such seething vitriol that Hikaru could only sigh. It was as he thought: she wouldn't reconsider her behavior. Not now. Not ever.
     "Did you really leave for two years and expect me to keep that absence open for you?" He wasn't talking about the room.
     Hanami wouldn't deign to respond. Once again, asking for her thought process was taken as a passive aggressive barb. She slowly opened the cupboard where the bowls were stored. She spooned out soup then brought the servings to the wall-attached bar table, which separated the kitchen and the living room. Hikaru circled the couch to the two stools, but Hanami remained standing on her side of the bar.
    "Well... you can just throw them out. Make room for me." She stirred her spoon around the bowl and dipped her head low enough that Hikaru felt safe glancing past her.
     The paper package was open. He hadn't been watching close enough.
    "Hell no."
     Her head jerked up again at that. Her eyes boggled out with such nausea, a coldness washed plunged down on his head. "Why can't you convert it into a bedroom again?"
     "I got rid of the bed. I need somewhere to do my work, Mom."
     "Why can't I share your room then?"
     "I don't have furniture in there either."
     "What?!" She shook her head in disbelief. "Why would you do that?"
     "Because I could!" He nearly lost control of his volume. He cleared his throat and mimicked the way she formed an endless spiral in the soup, just so she could see how stupid she looked. "I'm not a toddler anymore, Mom. I'm a grown adult and I want my space. I haven't been cashing your checks, either. You can take those back. I got a job so I can support myself."
    "But your sicknesses--"
     "Don't start," he warned her. And for once, she seemed to listen. After all, he hadn't had a real sick day since she'd been gone. Without her anxiety polluting his life and body and decisions, he had gained his strength back all on his own and lost his parasitic neediness. He was thinking clearly for once about all the things his mother said that didn't make sense. All the things she did-- supposedly for his benefit-- that only made him worse.
     "You wouldn't have to anymore," she insisted. "I make enough that you don't have to work at all!"
     "I like to work."
     "We could move out," she decided then and there, "find a seaside condo!"
     "I like this apartment."
     "Most men would like for their rich parent to take care of them, you know," she teased, as if comedy could make this any less uncomfortable for him.
     "I don't. It's embarrassing."
     "Your disrespect is embarrassing."
     An awkward quiet punctuated her bluntness. Hanami smoothed her cinnamon-hued hair down and came out with her concerns. "Maybe... you could at least convert it into a bedroom for a roommate. It doesn't have to be for me."
      "Mom," he groaned, inwardly rolling his eyes and dropping his shoulders.
    "You don't have any friends to rely on if things go badly Has anyone at work even messaged you to make sure you're well?"
     "What does it matter to you?"
     "I'm your mother," she said, as if that meant anything. Her face slacked, and she looked at him solemnly. "I love you... I know we've had our fair share of secrets between us, but that doesn't mean you can do this alone. It's been just you and me for as long as you've been alive, Hikaru. I've kept you safe for this long, suppressing that Quirk of yours so that there's no target on your back... Doesn't that mean anything?"
     He should have known better than to hope. Of course this wasn't about them-- it was always about her. If she did the minimum what she was told to do (such as raise a boy with a rare Quirk and encourage his reproduction) without cooperating with demands, then she couldn't be blamed for anything. Her conscience was clean now that he was an adult: she meant to leave him on his own. Hikaru stood with his untouched soup. "Thanks for the dinner," he said dryly. This was the final mercy he would give her. She had pushed them to this breaking point-- but he cared for her so deeply that if she backed down now, he would at least pretend to forget. He couldn't forgive her, but he could spare her.
      She didn't take the hint. "Hikaru, tell me what's going on. Why are you acting so cold to me? Don't you love me anymore?"
     "Let's not keep secrets then," Hikaru began, his voice aloft with unrestrained bitterness. "Since you're so willing to make amends, I have questions of my own. What are you hiding?" As he moved, so did she. She rotated her body so that he was never behind her, turning fully from the table as he approached the sink.
     "What?" Hanami cocked her head.
     "You never did ask about my Quirk. You didn't even want to know how I found out about it. The first thing you did was get as far from me as possible." He dumped the soup down the drain slowly. The overcooked vegetables plopped and disintegrated into a mass, clogging progress. "... I'll get to the heart of it. I know you're scared of what I could be. So I have to wonder..." He looked her in the eye. "Who was my father?"
     Her breath hitched, and with a glistening in her eyes, she whispered, "Don't ask me that."
     "Why can't I know?"
     "It's for your own good."
     "I don't want my own good. I want the truth."
     "Then it's for my own good!" she cried. "Do you want to hurt me?" Her voice had sharpened to a sleek edge, defensiveness creeping into her words.
     "Fine then. Dad's off the table." He stepped closer and noted how she didn't shrink away. She was scared, but not of what he could do to her. She believed she had him outmatched if it came to a physical altercation. But she still held back, giving him the upper hand somehow... "Tell me about you, then."
     She blinked innocently. He went on. "I know Empathy isn't your real Quirk. I know that Sato Hanami only officially existed at all twenty-one years ago. And that her entire history is fabricated." Sato Hanami, as an identity, was only a little more than a year older than Sato Hikaru. "Whoever falsified your information did a messy job. I'm surprised I'm the first one in the HPSC to notice... but I guess they have more 'friends' to wave those concerns off for you."
     She didn't answer for so long that he wondered if this was how she planned to salvage this nightmare: to get her purse from off the kitchen counter first, bid a farewell excuse for her next event, and she would be gone. Maybe for another year or two. Maybe for only an hour, returning at the ripe opportunity to find Hikaru in the throes of regret, malleable and desperate.
     Hanami squeezed the countertop edge until her knuckles paled. "... Why are you doing this?"
     "Answer me or get out."
     He saw her consider it. Saw her eyes flicker to the door before she heaved a sigh. "... Think carefully about whether you want this or not."
     Hikaru dropped his bowl into the sink with a clatter, and before he could grab her and force her out of his apartment, she started: "My name used to be Kumagai Misato. You probably know me better as Vitality." This made him sink into the counter himself. He stared at her, trying to recognize the former hero. She stared back, knowing he wouldn't.
      His suspicions had been off. Perhaps it was his bias. He'd assumed she'd been a villain, or some no-name civilian snatched from her home. The fact she used to be so high-profile gave him further reason to hesitate. But he'd had enough of her kicking out his every attempt to gain freedom. "It's nice to finally meet you, Kumagai," Hikaru said dryly. "When were you planning to tell me that my Quirk is an offshoot of Biohack?"
      "Don't act like this." She couldn't look at him. She was staring right past his elbow, to the cold stove and its unwanted nutrition. "I still raised you. I'm your mother, and I'm due that respect at least."
     "... Someone changed your appearance. So they didn't want you to be recognized."
     Her lips twisted in mock dismay. "Give me some credit... I didn't want to be recognized." Her eyes briefly glanced to the leftover soup on the stove. Hikaru drew the connection between her plastic surgery and the readily available prescription pad: hot anger washed down his body, realizing that she had means of subtlety which she never shared.
     Their blood relation couldn't be argued. The confirmation of her true Quirk suddenly filled in part of the puzzle for him: like Empathy, Biohack allowed its user to interphase with a living thing and procure a mentally itemized list of its target's components, statuses, and logistics. The most outstanding and vital difference was that Biohack operated on a cellular level: Vitality couldn't produce or evaporate new matter, but could 'persuade' microscopic lifeforms to override their natural lifespans.
     With a power like that, given enough work and resources and practice, she could probably help cure cancer. She could be tinkered upon and made into a walking bioweapon. Instead, she was playing a pretend game of house, a warden's simulacra of a mother, soothing yet antagonizing a child's pain, snipping the wings of his unpracticed ability. "And I bet Kaede is your handler. Or," and his eyes narrowed at her, "your work driver."
     Hanami-- Kumagai, whatever-- smiled. He steeled his heart against her approval. "Technically she was our handler. But there's no point in keeping a close eye on a Quirkless citizen." Just like that, the power structure changed. He realized now that his biggest mistake was confiding in her back then. "Relax. I'm not going to tell her."
     "How can I trust you?"
     "Because I still haven't told her all this time," Hanami--Vitality-- huffed. "Because I've been doing all I can to keep her away from you as you figure yourself out."
     Hikaru tried not to find himself distracted. Just because she was being cooperative now did not absolve her of past actions. "... How many of our family members are our actual family?" Not that blood relation meant much to this witch, but not everyone was as callous as his mother.
     With another twisted smile-- so proud, but so resentful-- she said, "You've been quietly mapping your way out of the dungeon. Good boy. It's good to know how many soldiers you'll have to fight through to get out. The answer is: none of them... they've never been our allies."
     He had guessed as much. Before Hikaru had become 'reclusive and unfriendly' in his spiraling health, the Sato family gatherings were mandatory; he had assumed his 'relatives' grew tired of accommodating his needs. Not that he would attend again, if given the chance. Now he knew 'reunion' meant submerging himself into a pit of vipers. The only thing that made such events tolerable had been his mother: the one who always made sure there were wheelchair options, who held his things when he became winded, and who knew when to guide him somewhere dark and quiet when the onslaught of stimulation drove him to silent suffering. Little acts of consideration held the stretched seams of their bond together.
     "They're not so smart." He couldn't help commiserating with her, maybe out of some misplaced sympathy still clinging to the wrinkles of his heart. "I always got the feeling they never knew exactly what you told me about my dad."
A 'second-removed aunt' would suggest his father died before he was born, and then suddenly a 'distant cousin' around his age would insist they had known of him after Hikaru's birth. It was a gas leak, someone recalled, and another would wonder if it was an explosion, and someone else would combine the theories to a gas-based explosion. Their dodginess always put the spotlight on his mother.
The only thing Hikaru knew for certain was that even if he asked his own mother about his absent parent, it would produce nothing helpful. She would either clam up completely, overwhelm herself with her own crying, or refuse to answer anything with any certainty. She was like this with everyone, and for the longest time, because he never wanted to hurt her, Hikaru let that sleeping dog lie.
Until she hurt him first.
Before he could open his mouth to ask how she met his dad, she moved. He moved too. In that second his mother lunged for him with an arm outstretched, he reeled back wildly across the counter. His hand found purchase and he swiped out at her with the chef's knife. "Stay back!"
Neither of them harmed each other. As seasoned and experienced as she had been, his mother chose not to strongarm him. All she'd had to do was knock the knife from his hand and seize him. She could inflame the cells in his lungs, turn the water vapor into a pathogen (depending on how good she was), and give him pneumonia. She could make his bones porous and let his legs snap under his own weight. Or maybe she could just flip a switch in his head. He truly didn't know what kind of person Vitality had become in this new life... he didn't know what she was willing to do to survive.
Instead of doing anything of the sort, she looked at the knife. And then she burst into tears. He stood there as she sank down to her knees, bawling like a child. All the while, she babbled on about how she never wanted a motherhood like this. She loved him, she was trying so hard, and she was sorry that she failed him. She was frightened that any day, the people watching them would realize they'd been conned. They would come to take Hikaru away, and she was powerless to stop them. The world would only get worse.
"I'm sorry," Hikaru said, crouching next to her. He left the knife on the counter and scooted closer. His mother was so slim. She had curled her arms around herself so tightly that she seemed to be crushing herself down smaller and smaller. In his mind, he held her and hid his face in her hair as she cried. They were both victims of their mutual circumstance...
'This is exactly what she wants.'
His insides felt hollow when he caught himself. He nearly fell for it. She could have done anything in that moment's weakness. Immediately, he pulled away and got back to his feet to look down on the sight. From an elevated view, he could see all the moving parts. The abandonment, the big fight, the melodramatic apologies. The medicated soup neither of them ate-- for after all, she never intended to dine with him. This was not a meeting of equals. His mother could have simply left the packet on the counter... but she had to take control of him. She needed to have control of something.
He began to clean around her, letting her sit and sob on the kitchen floor. He couldn't build up the strength to abandon his post, so he took his time tossing out the food, tidying the dishes, and putting things away. Eventually her wet hiccupping stopped, and he glanced her way before a horrible nausea rolled his stomach. She watched him with an openly curious expression, her nose and cheeks pinkened. Her eyes shone with tears, yet there held in them a sharpness... a bitterness that he had not done the proper thing and comforted her, like any son would do. She hated that he didn't trust her.
A dim memory flashed before him: fat baby hands patting her back as he sang to her her, 'It'll be okay, it's all okay,' in an astringent waiting room. She held his little hands and squeezed them. He took one back to cover his mouth as he coughed. And then that same glimmer of inspiration appeared in her eyes.. The recollection blended with all the other examinations he had undergone, though he knew without doubt this was one of the first ones. This was the important one, he realized by way of hindsight: it decided their entire, mangled future.
He wished he was capable of Empathy instead. If only he could tell when she was lying to him and when she was sincere. For so long, he battled with the idea that his suffering had been at the hands of his mother. His mother, the one who worked harder than anyone else to keep him comfortable and safe, she who had never before left his side. Had she been protecting him, or was that an excuse to keep misery as her company?
He knew the night would be cold. He began to fill his electric kettle with water, preparing to make her a large serving of tea to keep her warm on her way to the airport. "I can't let you stay here," he told her. "Especially not if Kaede is expecting you at your next charity dinner." He didn't want to go out... but he still ought to protect what mattered to him, so he planned his route back after accompanying her to the train station. He was loathe to give up his sentry, terrified that by drawing him away from the apartment some fiend would infiltrate his privacy, but... he still loved her, even after everything she had done.
She could be so quiet when she wanted to be. If he hadn't turned to prepare her tea at the table, he would never have caught her in the hallway, staring at all the cords and hoses. She reached for the door that his other self hid behind.
He must have scared her. It was one thing to grab for a weapon, any weapon, in the face of potential danger. It was another to vault over the bar, graceful and gravely swift. Without thinking, he grabbed her by the wrist. She let him yank her, and did not scream or cry or wrench herself away. In that instant, he felt something slam into his sternum-- a sudden ghost pressure that made him release her and stumble back. They froze again, caught in another disjointed conflict. They watched each other, more or less unmoored as they processed everything. She had felt the hand-laid mental wall he built up against her, knew now what he was capable of. Whatever fears he was feeling, whatever his problems might be, she was no longer privy to them. He had categorically shut her out, compartmentalized into a 'public' personal file that only knew Hikaru to be a sleep-deprived workaholic.
"Please leave it alone," he requested. "That's private."
---
Hikaru began to cough during their walk. Softly at first like clearing his throat, but the fits soon became frequent. Hanami seemed to consider offering her tea, but decided against it. Instead, she gestured vaguely with the thermos he gave to her: heads up. He was grateful for that-- after all, they now had company. Two people were behind them. The lurkers from Kaede's apartment he assumed, and supposed another two would be waiting for them at the station. He kept his mask on, and they didn't dare to speak or even look at each other as they walked, instead pretending to ignore their invisible surveillance.
It took all his self-restraint not to turn on her in their last seconds. The vile desire to hurt her as much as she had hurt him still hummed just under his skin. He considered shoving her onto the tracks just before the train pulled in-- causing a scene that would force the faceless henchmen to react. He wondered what would happen if he ever needed to run. He considered what it was like to destroy yourself completely, to be reborn anew... how would he leave everything he knew behind and try to get out of reach before the walls shrank in on him?
"... I never knew what to do with you, you know," Hanami murmured under her breath, so that only he could hear. "You were always the kindest, smartest kid I knew. Kids half your age could hurt your feelings... I knew if anyone else got a hold of you, they would render your heart into pieces and you wouldn't stand a chance."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he muttered back.
"You're welcome," she said, and they were quiet again until the train pulled up. "The tour will last another year. You have until then. Goodbye." How considerate of her, to keep it brief. To buy him time. But as she stepped into the train, his heart stopped in his chest, and he found himself calling to her.
"Hey."
His mother glanced back. Either time slowed, or she sustained this gaze for several deliberate seconds. He couldn't tell. He stepped past the yellow line and wrapped his arms around her body. She tensed, then relaxed, settling her arms over his shoulders. With his face so close to her ear, he asked, "... Your doctor friend... they're the same one who did your surgery, aren't they?... Who are they?"
She pulled away and scrutinized him. Then tilted her head forward, as if to ask one final time if he was certain he wanted to know. He didn't budge.
She slipped out of his hug, brushing his hair from his face using her wrist. His nausea settled only fractionally. "Body Shop," she said in English. Then she turned and walked back into the train, the doors closing between them.
As the train pulled away, Hikaru felt it take a piece of him with it, unraveling his insides like a busy spool. When he saw the three figures stand and close in on the woman before he lost sight of her completely, his head spun with delirious rage and fear... even though he knew she wasn't so easy to corner. She would squirm out of the pan before determining whether it landed her in the fire or not, and deal with the consequences then. Before her absence took more than he could stand to lose, he cut her free, turned, and walked away.
---
He made it home after dark, just in time to fall into an uproarous hacking, his bones aching for relief, muscles burning with exertion. He wheezed air into his lungs laboriously and went straight to the kitchen sink for a drink of water. There, he found the disembowled paper bag next to the sink, right where it had been forgotten.
He grabbed it, sought identification to no avail, then tore open the rest of its contents. All the medicine was gone. He took a moment to stare down at the mess, considering what might have happened if he just pretended he hadn't noticed. Would she have eaten if he did? Or was all of her effort for him and only him?
He couldn't return to his work. The chance of contaminating his specimens was too great. He would have to finish scrawling his reports and measurements down by his dying phone's flashlight, away from them all... to be alone was torture, but he wasn't as selfish as his mother was.
So he went back to the bathroom and scrubbed down. Spending that energy was necessary, but his strength waned. By the time he was in his hazardous material suit, his throat was scratchy and his body was shivering. Hikaru weakly approached the study, opening the door slowly so as not to overexert or jostle himself. He picked up his notebook and looked out over the room.
The spider plant hung overhead, a small tarp catching Koyubi's puppy teeth as they bloomed and fell. Arms protruded from garden pots with fingers lifting and curling with invitation. Brown-eyed Susans rolled around with no particular field of vision and blunk their yellow-petaled eyelashes now and again. A human spinal column-- or at least, a rope of nerve tendrils soon to become a spine-- braided its length along a custom trellis. A brain floated in an artificial pond like a lily pad, the stem rooted to the muddy bottom. Organs grew in wall-mounted, and tight-lidded aquariums: the brackish water beheld lacy scum and mold rings diversifying into innumerable flora and bacteria, converging into a singular whole.
Any sane person would have thrown the plants out immediately and never so much as looked at a cactus. But using his Quirk made him feel better; even the most vicelike grip on his brain now was lessened by the presence of his plantlife. It was as though there was something excessive in him, poisoning him, and by nurturing his garden to its anatomical apotheosis, there was less of that something. It was rewarding. It was euphoric. The only thing he wanted to do was grow, study, and learn. He was good at it, and it presented a puzzle in a language only he could parse.
But he knew it was a two-way street. He couldn't risk getting all of them sick, or all his hard work would be for nothing. "Goodnight." His farewell sounded tinny in the confines of his hood as he shuffled out the door.
By the time he was tucked into bed, Hikaru's chills were so severe that the shivers shook his handwriting. He could only reflect on his previously collected data and marvel at the possibilities of his Quirk. The variables were endlessly fluctuating: all his creations were vulnerable to soil composition, water levels, light intensity, bodily fluids... he reread the section regarding biological material. Hindsight and obsessive studying had cast light some of the mystery.
According to the Quirk singularity theory, the combination of hereditary genes could combine into more complex, powerful Quirks. A lineage of autonomic-override Quirks, such as his mother's, could lead to interesting combinations. But he couldn't explain the plants... the only inheritance that remained of his father, the most nebulous aspect of his power.
Hikaru understood why someone would want his Quirk. Growing bodies came incredibly naturally to him. Over time, as sweat and skin mixed into the nutrients, the microscopic formula became stronger. Semen, as awkward and uncomfortable a phase it had been, worked fractionally better than sweat or saliva. Blood was easier to extract though, and paper cuts were easy enough to explain.
But the more ineffable aspect was the proximity to his plants: the way he knew they were sick or dying, because then he too would wilt. His strength correlated to theirs. There was more to his Quirk than merely imbuing it with his essence... if it were so simple, then he wouldn't be a hostage in his own life.
The spider plant's first blossom was the revelation: he was as much a victim as his mother, and the things he did to explore his options came from a need to save himself. He wasn't proud of it, not entirely. But he also hadn't hurt anyone. He had taken hair from strangers' sweaters, stolen misplaced beverages, and even gone so far as to filch used dental picks from the trash, for their saliva. Was it such a crime to be thorough? Were people really so fond of their discarded napkins and bandages? He had to be sure-- he had to prove to himself that there was a rhyme or reason to his experiments, so he randomized the test subjects. He wanted to see how precise his Quirk could be.
Thanks to all the groundwork, he had a project and a hypothesis. Could he be criticized for being thorough? And given tonight's revelations... it would be possible.
In another life, maybe his mother could have trusted him. They could have talked it over together, and maybe he wouldn't have to do this. The only way he could think to trace back his Quirk to a different progenitor-- without anyone knowing anything about what he had done or planned to do-- was to recreate his and his mother's and dissect the differences.
In a matter of time, Hikaru would know whether or not he could grow a Quirk. He would find out more about this 'Body Shop,' and he would escape the confines of his cage.
One day. One day.
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tfdtreasurer · 2 months
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This is a part 2 to this ask.
Erigam
Now we're getting to the real rarepairs. Erigam. My initial judgement is: mmmmmmmm it's pretty alright. I don't think it's anything to super write home about, but I can see how they make a funny pair. I admit to a lack of ideas for their dynamic mainly stemming from the fact that I don't feel I know too much about Gamzee as a character. Normally if I'm not that much a fan of a character to go to such depths of analysis I'll do with Eridan, I'll delegate to other people's interpretation. The problem with that for Gamzee is that people are super divided on him. Even those that are more charitable to him, which I tend to lean to because my overall interpretation of Homestuck, tend to be divided in their interpretation. So, I guess I'm on my own on this one.
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The Dynamic
To start: Gamzee's character, in my view. My general sense about him is that as a result of parental neglect, he was taken in by the subjugglator ideology, which triply represents a gang environment, esoteric spiritual cult, and at the same time, mainstream evangelical religion. So, you kinda know he's gonna come out of it severely fucked up. I'm not like psychiatrist or anything but I also wouldn't rule out some weird psychopathology going on as a result of it. I tend to lean that way though because how faygo and sopor allude to alcohol and drugs respectively, and thus it seems to imply that through his substance abuse, Gamzee was self medicating for the more dangerous parts of his personality. But two very fucked up things canceling each other out isn't a very stable situation. As I will always say, Doc Scratch is the manipulative, abusive guardian of the trolls, and like how Vriska was manipulated directly by using her ego, and Eridan manipulated by her trust in history, Gamzee's constant associations with puppets are not just for kicks, and he's been very deliberately wound up like a spring, to be unleashed when the moment is right. If you trust my analysis about Eridan's villainous turn, that it's like film (jack) noir, Gamzee's is like a jack (noir) in the box. So, we can start to see how they make a decent duo symbolically and as villains.
There's also the question of what to consider when analyzing: red or black? Well, god gave us quadrant vacillation for a reason, so why not dip our toes in both.
As a dynamic, I can certainly see where caliginous feelings arise. This is reaching back into some of my primeval analysis of Eridan, shit back from when I was a kid and was first reading homestuck, back to my first reasons liking her: Like how a lot of the trolls are meant to represent kinds of online archetypes, I saw Eridan as representing the archetype of militant atheist. Constantly insistent on the fakeness of magic, including Gamzee's belief in miracles, makes it pretty clear how they would come to disagree and potentially despise each other. True believer v non believer. Faithful v faithless. To put into more Homestuck terms: Gamzee is pure prospit, optimistic, credulous, oriented in favor of creation; Eridan is pure derse, cynical, skeptical, oriented against creation. Creationist, anti creationist. Like, you can get it, there's only so many ways to put it I guess, but all of it works as an excuse for the kismesissitude angle.
Villain Duo
Normally, I like analyzing Homestuck with the idea that it did not originally intend to end so cynically, with so many dead children, and many of our protagonists being under-developed as characters. I also tend to choose murderstuck as the point of divergence from canon, as it allows the big trio of Vriska, Gamzee, and Eridan to perform the moral wrongs that are vital to their characters, while also being the narrative spot to prevent everybody else dying, and setting up both the time and space for everybody to develop positively under Karkat's leadership, which is a defining part of how things could've turned out for the better. For this post though, I'm not gonna make it all sunshine and rainbows, because I think for the most fun with Erigam is less immediately about their redemption from their villainous roles in canon, and much more their blundering cartoon villainy together as a pair.
While Eridan's run as villain was a lot more short lived, but they're both notable for being the two only "true" villainous troll kids, left unredeemed and unforgiven by the narrative by the end. Eridan, at least in my biased opinion, works well as a villain. She's capable of the same menace as Jack Noir, but unlike him, is more talkative, when dialogue is Homestuck's strength. So, for this hypothetical, we're just gonna extend Eridan's lease in the narrative, and let her be another long term villain. It's a good thing to do, because one of Gamzee's weaknesses as a villain is the relative obscurity of his "why." He's a puppet doing things for the forces that use him, but at the least, it'd be nice to know his opinion on the whole thing. Having a character that is a villain alongside him, and especially one that will endlessly argue with him, gives the narrative plenty of space to flesh out his motivation and exposit important information for the audience. For how they bounce of off each other, it's good that they're both vulgar. It's good that they're able to at least promote their own supremacy over each other's castes. Imma be real though, it's bad that they're both purple. Gamzee is a headache enough to read at times. Idk, let Eridan lose her fuckin shit for real this time, go truly off the deep end, grimnoir mode, for no other reason than to make her text black.
As I discussed in their dynamic, these two are very nearly diametrically opposed in motivation, which makes their kismesissitude obvious, but why they would team up as villains together not so much. It's simple: cahoots. Like her relationship with Vriska, Eridan's reason to work with her kismesis is an alliance of convenience. You can have a lot of fun with two villains that work together but not to the same ends. It provides a lot of interesting push and pull, and for the sake of narrative, ways for heroes to poke holes in their villainous plans. For example, Imagine the scene where one's villainous monologue to whichever of the ensemble protagonists is disrupted by the other, and they erupt into an argument that serves as deus ex machina for the protagonist escaping or making their way to their objective. Imagine the comedic potential of cutting back to them at whatever moment you need. At the same time, imagine the thematic potential of a character with false god tier, and a character who doesn't even believe in the reality of god tier powers.
Til Death Does Them Part
I know what you're asking: Where does the vacillation come in? Well, in this hypothetical, besides it just possibly being interspersed during their villainy, I would say the main thrust of red romance would coincide with whatever potential for redemption that the narrative deems to give them. Because y'know, they're still children, still being manipulated by darker more powerful forces, we can sympathize with them even as they do wrong things. Even then, Gamzee is still comedy and tragedy. And like those Greek plays of old, while a comedy may end in marriage, tragedies typically don't. Oftentimes redemption requires sacrifice, and what is better to embody both the marriage ending of comedy and deadly ending of tragedy than their marriage, or symbol thereof, happening simultaneously as their final act of sacrifice that redeems them? I can certainly imagine a symbol of marriage common in Homestuck, and a character with a free finger for it, and the how the destruction of it would be pretty thorough in destroying the wearer too (I'm suggesting that Gamzee put a ring on Eridan as they fall into a volcano together, if it wasn't obvious).
Maybe you don't have to end it like that. Maybe you want to go deeper with their story and let them be redeemed in life. The switch from amusing antagonist pair to amusing side characters is perfectly fine in terms of having fun with it. Now, is it as poetic as the comic-tragic ending? Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Conclusion
Well I started this saying that I can see them as funny and then accidentally analyzed my way into a huge bummer ending. Just couldn't help myself. I'm a English major, I see a character that alludes to sock and buskin masks and immediately start thinking of their bittersweet ending. But the ship does absolutely have narrative potential, and while it maybe depends on a controversial understanding of Gamzee, I will bump it up to "cute" tier.
Remember folks, the ask box is open and free. You too can goad the moron behind the screen into typing... Shit, that's ~1500 words shipping Erigam. c'est la vie. Well you can get me to write this much about your ship of choice is the point. I also do non ship stuff. Whatever random nonsense as long as it's Eridan related.
Next up: wwixards!
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rou-luxe · 20 days
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🎫 any oc, feed me the lore
@lycemagee elsie crumbs!!
cw themes of cannibalism, abuse mention, child neglect
my excuse for elsie lore drop let's go
she was raised by a single parent. this parent, a cannibal, used her cursed ability (her tears) as a numbing agent on the victims. chelsea was a kid and thus couldn't do anything about it. it was the way she lived. very little moral compass.
parent didn't really care about chelsea. she could literally do anything inside the house, but couldn't leave or talk to the victims.
no formal schooling, all received from books in the family library. picked up some medical skills from the parent. did a lot of housework around the house (cooking, cleaning, mending clothes, etc.)
experienced physical abuse from the parent if she disobeyed or didn't perform well enough. this is where her people pleasing behavior and aversion to physical touch originate. due to her lack of human contact, she's still socially awkward and childlike
the victims were kept alive so "they were as fresh as possible". chelsea had to cook them for the parent, she ate whatever she could find in the fridge that wasn't made of human
eventually, the parent's source of "food" shut down. when the parent turned on her, she poisoned the parent and left. elsie fabricated her new identity and faked her way into becoming a governess before she worked as a seamstress with scala.
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chronic-creation · 5 months
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I wrote this for my college English class. I was eventually chosen out of hundreds of students to perform it live in front of an audience. It's a true story.
TW: Domestic Abuse
Seizing The Day - Destin Cramer
The day that I left Josh was the worst day I possibly could have imagined. We had been together for five torturous years. I spent most of our relationship attempting to soothe his explosive episodes. His blood would boil until his face turned pink, the vein in his forehead throbbing as venomous words would drip from his lips. Living with him for so long, I felt hopeless, especially the day I left.
            That day was just like everyday that I was with him. Except, that day, we were living out of a hotel room. The walls of our previous apartment were haunted by the sounds of our screams, and the neighbors refused to put up with it any longer. We caused too much of a disturbance. So, the landlords didn’t bother renewing our lease, and we couldn’t find anywhere with our bad credit. I had been unable to work for years due to my nerve pain and PTSD. Josh had been unable to work because he was “tired.” I knew he was just lazy.
            Josh, my fiancé, a 23-year-old man child, was sitting on the unmade hotel bed, sheets strewn across the room, coffee in hand. His eyes narrowed at me as he noticed my eyes open to the sunlight streaming across the small hotel room. “I couldn’t even wake you up! We missed the apartment viewing!” His voice thundered against my tired ears.
            “I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep at all last night. I had to take my sleeping medication. It must have knocked me out,” I muttered, pulling my aching body up from the pristine mattress to confront the demon that haunted my every waking moment. His face held a strong resemblance to a small child who just sucked a lemon for the first time, while simultaneously looking like a constipated old man.  
            “Well, you should have woken up. If we can’t find a place to live now, it will be all your fault!” his voice echoed against the empty hotel walls. It seemed extra pitchy and annoying today.  My service dog, Meatball, whined as he got louder. It seemed like even she agreed that he was being obnoxious today. She stared at me with her big brown eyes, begging for me to get him to shut up.
            “That’s not true. And I really can’t talk about this right now. I just woke up. You could have gone without me to see the apartment,” I said desperately attempting to avoid another argument.
The day hadn’t even started yet. I dragged my feet across the old red carpet. The fabric was rough against my feet, and I was grateful for the sensation to focus on as I felt a psychogenic seizure starting. I was diagnosed with “Stress induced seizures” a few years into my relationship with him, and to this day I believe he was the cause of them. Though of course, I did have another one when I found out my favorite band, My Chemical Romance, reunited. Perhaps I should blame it on that.
            “We’re going to be homeless for even longer now just because you were too lazy to wake up on time! I couldn’t have gone without you; you would have gotten upset if I left you behind!” I sighed deeply as his yelling penetrated my concentration.  “I really can’t do this right now. Stop yelling at me! I just woke up and I can’t have a seizure to start my morning.” I felt the anxiety swirl in my stomach, rushing its way up my throat, threatening to choke me. Josh was very aware of my seizure condition, but that didn’t mean he was ever respectful about it.
            “You can’t always use that as an excuse! You fucked up, and now we’re going to be homeless. Just apologize for not waking up on time!” His face grew more and more red. Oddly enough I remember thinking that he looked like a radish in that moment.
            “Just stop screaming at me! Please, I can’t handle this right now!” I started shaking, the stress rising in my body, and I could feel it approach the threshold. My hands were unable to stay still as I poured the store-bought coffee into the paper hotel cup. I heard his screaming grow louder as the world around me started to blur into a dark cloud. I felt my legs give out beneath me, and I felt the rough texture of the floor scrape against my face.
            I suddenly felt my vocal cords erupt as fear washed over me. I couldn’t control my body anymore. The tremors clenched every muscle in my body, straining all the strength I had against me, twisting me into horrific positions. I was a husk of anxiety and despair. I heard someone screaming “Please, Stop!” repeatedly. I hung onto that voice- my voice; hoping that I would come back to full consciousness when the screams ended.
            Suddenly, my voice was muffled, and I felt my breathing get heavier. I tried to see out my eyes. The suffocating darkness surrounded me, as I shook uncontrollably, I was unable to catch my breath. That isn’t normal I thought to myself.  I heard the door slam and the room got quiet except for my desperate sobs and gasps to get air. The seizure was straining every muscle in my body, causing an unbearable burning. I focused on the pain, and I slowly found myself climbing back into my body. I felt the feeling of control return to my stomach, then my legs, then arms, and eventually my hands. Desperate for air, I reached up to my face attempting to push whatever it was out of the way. My hands connected with something soft. It was a pillow. He had put a pillow on my face in the middle of my seizure.
            Shaky and exhausted, I pulled my phone out of my pocket only to discover that it was wet from the coffee I spilled. I wiped my hands and phone off on my pants and quickly told my friends what had happened. My fingers mistyped as I shook, still feeling off I texted on our group discord “He put a pillow on my face while I was having a seizure.”
            I ran into the white hotel bathroom and turned the shower on to drown out my voice. I hopped in the video chat section as I pressed my back against the door, just in case Josh came back. I cried as quietly as possible as I waited for them to answer. What felt like an hour passed until my friends’ voices broke through the noise of the shower and my sobs.
            “You’re going to move in with me, and you don’t have a choice,” My redheaded best friend, Julia, said sternly. Julia was my closest friend in the group chat, and she lived only 3 hours from me in San Diego.
            “What? I can’t do that on my own. I have nothing. I have no money, bad credit- I mean, Josh has access to all my bank accounts!” I said, panic oozing from my voice.
Morgan interjected, “Don’t worry about that- I’ll take care of it. You just need to break up with Josh and get in the uber that I order,” I could see her wispy brown hair in a messy bun as a cigarette dangled from her worried scowl. She was the “mother” of the group, constantly giving us stern advice, but always from a loving place.
“I’m scared- he won’t let me leave if I just say that I’m going to Julia’s.” Tears filled my eyes
“Goddamn it Destin,” Morgan raised her voice, “you can’t stay there, he could have killed you! If you don’t leave today, I will fly out there and pull you out by your hair!”
She was right, if I stayed something like this was bound to happen again. How many injuries from these “accidents” could my body really sustain? I was falling apart already. It was only a matter of time before he killed me and blamed it on my mental illness. How close was he really to smothering me with that pillow? I didn’t want to stay and find out.
            “Okay, can you guys stay on the phone with me while I leave?” I sobbed softly, whispering in case Josh was close.             “Of course, lets just go get your stuff.” Julia pushed.
I opened the door to the dimly lit hotel room. I sighed and pet my cats, knowing that this would be the last I saw of them. I had gotten them with Josh, but I knew Julia was allergic. Mama purred against my hand, not knowing my fate. I was going to leave this time. I didn’t know what the future had in store for me, but it had to be better than whatever level of hell this was.
            Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door and my breath hitched. It was him, it had to be. He must have forgotten his key again. Idiot, I thought as I brought my phone with my friends anxiously waiting on the other line. I held the phone between me and the door like a shield. I opened it to see Josh’s smiling face holding two plates of food. “Honey, I think you need to relax, I got you some food, and tonight I wanted to take you on a really nice date.” His sickly-sweet voice rang out against the tension in the air.
            My eyes narrowed into daggers as I realized what he was doing. He was attempting to get me to forget what just happened using bribery. I opened the door for him to come in.
“Actually, I’m not feeling well. I don’t want to go out tonight, and I need to talk to you about what just happened.” He looked at my phone as I spoke, noticing our audience.
“Yeah, we can talk, but I don’t want your friends listening.”
“I want them on the phone for this…” my voice quivered, along with my confidence. “What’s going on?” His voice darkened as he realized the seriousness of the situation.
There was a long pause as I drew my breath. The tension hung in the air like knives.
“I’m breaking up with you. I’m taking the dog and I’m moving in with Julia.” I stated bluntly. I didn’t care if I hurt him anymore. I was tired. This relationship was a dead limb, rotting on my body as I struggled and begged it to come back to life. It needed to be amputated and I was now my own surgeon. His screams broke my realization
            “How could you do this to me? We’re a family! We’re supposed to be together no matter what! You can’t take Meatball!”
            “Today you put a pillow on my face during a seizure. Last year you gave me multiple concussions. This was the final straw.” I stated, ice in my voice as I shoved random articles of clothing in my bag. He grabbed my phone out of my hand, screaming profanities as he attempted to stop me from packing. Usually I’d be scared, but that day, with my friends backing me up I knew I’d be okay.
            “Let me go Josh, or my friends will call the police.”  I pushed past him, grabbing my phone out of his hand as he attempted to fight me off, now only halfheartedly as he realized that I was serious this time. I pulled Meatball along behind me. Without missing a beat, she followed, wagging her tail as we left the monster behind.  I cried violently as I ran out the door, dragging my few belongings with me. I felt a wave of grief wash over me as I shoved myself and Meatball into the back of the black tesla that waited for me outside of the hotel. Meatball licked my hands, attempting to calm me down as we left the hotel behind, her blocky head nudging into my legs the whole ride. We drove across the barren southern California landscape for three hours and I allowed the emptiness of the scenery to fill me with a sense of relief and terror as I realized this was the beginning of an entirely new life.
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lexosaurus · 2 years
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Everything Was White: Part 18
[see all chapters]
read on: [ao3] [ffn]
Summary: After being accidentally revealed to the public and taken away by the government, Danny deals with the aftermath of his time with the GiW.
---
There was a video in the morning. A hidden paparazzi camera, he found out. The video was sold to TMZ and subsequently reuploaded to every social media site within the hour.
“Danny Fenton can walk?!” was the caption of the one Danny was currently watching on TikTok. It was a video of him approaching the stairs, and—ugh—struggling to climb them. He could see Tucker’s (fake) smile and Sam’s concerned oversight. His legs wobbled as they ascended each step, his gate abnormal.
And as internet culture dictated, the comments were sure to point everything out.
ok but why do his legs look like that 💀💀💀
>don’t be gross, he’s clearly got some medical issues
My cousin is paraplegic and Danny walks similar to him.
Y’all are freaking out like there aren’t videos of him already in physical therapy 🤦
Wtf happened to him?
I know this isn’t supposed to be funny but it kind of is
>stfu he’s a minor
>>So? He’s a celebrity, he can take it
These comments are horrible. This kid clearly got abused during his imprisonment and has suffered lasting damage, and there are people here who think it’s funny because he walks differently now? That’s disgusting, and as a disabled person myself, it’s horrible to see so many comments and likes making fun of him. Surprise, disabilities affecting motor function make people look different when they perform said motor functions. Grow up.
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. This was exactly what he was afraid of. It was the entire reason why he had been avoiding walking in public.
He hadn’t even seen anyone around them. Had someone followed the van all the way to Tucker's house? Did this mean that Tucker and his family were going to get stalked too? 
Ugh, ugh! This was horrible. And now he had to go to school where everyone would have seen that video too?
Fuck. 
He peeked out his window, and beyond the recently installed tall fence lining the property, Danny could see a circle of paparazzi and media vans parked along the sidewalk.
This was insanity. It wasn’t like this was the first video of him walking in general; there were videos and pictures of him at PT. Sure, he was being supported by the other physical therapists and equipment, but he was still walking. It just happened that this was the first video taken of him in public, which Danny guessed was enough for the algorithms to grab hold of.
His family was so lucky the neighbors seemed understanding of the media circus that was now their life. Although, Jazz had mentioned bringing cookies over to a few of them before…
“It’ll die down,” Danny reminded himself. “Once they get bored, they’ll move on.”
But even that sounded like a lie the more he said it. Because unless another half-ghost stepped into the public eye, it didn’t seem like there would be anyone to take the spotlight off of him anytime soon. 
He checked Twitter and…yep, he was the top trending topic on there too.
Fucking hell, did no one have anything better to do?
His inbox was flooded, and his notifications were worse. Danny was glad he had turned off all social media alerts on his phone ages ago. His phone would have probably caught on fire with the rate he was being tagged in tweets.
He closed his eyes and exhaled, breathing just like his therapist had taught him. In, two, three…out, two three.
Okay, so what if everyone knew what he looked like when he walked now? It wasn’t like he could keep this hidden forever. If anything, his physical therapists were probably just relieved he’d finally ripped the band-aid off because now he had no excuse to continue avoiding walking in public.
And was that really a bad thing? More practice meant strengthening his muscles, which meant that he would be closer and closer to ditching the walker for crutches.
He absentmindedly scrolled through his notifications, until one blue-checkmarked name caught his eye:
Izaak Adams @izaakadamsCongrats to @dannyphantom for kicking ass in PT! It’s amazing to see the progress you’ve made since I saw you last. Soon, you’ll be outpacing me! Keep working hard 💪
Danny frowned at the screen. Had that guy met him? As far as Danny remembered, he hadn’t met any celebrities since his release. Was this guy lying for clout or something?
Danny clicked on his profile and read his bio. “Paralympic Gold Medalist and Video Game Enthusiast” 
Paralympic gold medalist? Why did that ring a bell?
Danny racked his memories for anything, but he drew a blank. Did he know this guy? Or maybe he was reading too much into this tweet?
A knuckle rapped on his door. “Danny?” came Jazz’s muffled voice. “You awake?”
Danny looked up. “Hey, Jazz? Do I know a guy named Izaak Adams?”
Jazz opened the door to reveal her baggy sweats and messy bun. “Huh?”
“Izaak Adams, a paralympic athlete?” Danny held up his phone. “He tweeted at me almost like we’ve met?”
Jazz’s confused frown was replaced by a look of surprise. “Yeah, I remember, you have met him!”
“Really? When?”
“At the hospital one time, he came to visit? When you were first learning to use your wheelchair.”
Fragments of that memory hit him, and on instinct, Danny cringed. Oh yeah, how could he have forgotten what an underweight, stuttering, dazed mess he’d been? Ugh, how embarrassing.
Jazz stifled a giggle. “Oh come on, it was cute! He was so supportive and patient.”
“Yeah, but—”
Jazz shot him a doting glare. “Danny, anyone looking at you could see that you were in intense recovery. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting the Phantom when he went to meet you. Cut yourself a bit of slack.”
Danny looked back down at his phone. “Yeah. You’re right.”
He contemplated what to do for a few seconds before an impulsive, teenage fuck it crossed his brain. He shrugged, opened the tweet, and hit reply.
Danny Phantom @dannyphantom Replying to @izaakadamsThank you for the support! Better watch out, I’m coming for your title as the gold medalist in Hospital Hallway Racing.
There. That was equal parts easygoing and funny enough to show the press and public alike that no, he wasn’t self-conscious about the way he looked, fuck off.
Jazz glanced down at her phone and snorted.
“Good response?” Danny guessed.
“Perfect. Now get ready for school!”
---
As expected, the police were escorting the paparazzi off the property when he arrived at Casper High that morning.
It wasn’t like Danny was able to use his walker at school anyway.
Still, the murmurs from classmates followed him into the building, and the sideways glances to outright stares trailed behind him in the halls. 
Fantastic. Just when he thought his classmates might be getting used to him, the world had to backtrack. Part of him wanted to turn around and snark, “Fascinating news, guys, the elusive creature known as the halfa learned to walk! What an amazing step in evolution this was!” But he bit his tongue. His wit wasn’t worth whatever backlash the internet would make of it.
Danny rounded the corner and spotted Sam and Tucker hanging around their lockers. Their fight and the weight of Sam’s unresponded text were still fresh in his mind, but he took a deep breath and pressed forward.
“Hey, guys,” Danny said awkwardly.
They turned around, apprehension etched on their faces.
“Hey, Danny. What’s up?” Tucker asked.
If Sam looked desperate to say something, Danny wasn’t going to entertain her. “Nothing. My morning’s been uneventful as usual.”
Tucker fidgeted with his cap, looking sheepish. “I honestly didn’t see anyone around yesterday. They must have been hiding behind the bushes or something.”
“It’s fine, Tuck,” Danny said. “It’s not like this wasn’t going to happen soon anyway. And besides, the—the embarrassing part is done now.”
“It’s not embarrassing, Danny,” Sam rebuked. “It’s admirable if anything. The comments I’ve seen have been very supportive.”
“Sure, some of them.”
“Most of them.”
“Sam, I appreciate the pep talk, but it’s fine. Really.” When Sam’s adamant expression refused to let up, Danny reiterated, “It’s fine. There are other—other videos of me walking online. This is just the one every–everyone saw. I don’t care.”
“Good.” Tucker closed his locker door. “In an incredibly important change of topic, we never saw the new Dead Teacher movie!” 
“You guys didn’t watch it?” Danny asked.
Tucker gave Danny an incredulous look. “Without you?”
“I don’t know, I figured me being out of commission was enough of an excuse.”
“Did you not read my texts? I said we weren’t gonna watch it without you. Really, Danny, do you think so low of me?”
Danny tapped into his bullshit meter, trying to gauge if Tucker was lying—it wouldn’t be the first time—but for once, nothing pinged his radar.
“We should just marathon the whole series now that they’re all on Netflix,” Sam said. “You guys can come over next weekend and we can play them in my home theater.”
“You, Sam, have a truly wonderful brain,” Tucker said.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll believe it when you can say that while eating a salad.”
“Don’t push it, woman.”
“That’s what I thought.” Sam rolled her eyes and turned to Danny. “You up for it?”
Danny hesitated, his hold on his wheelchair tightening. “I thought I wasn’t allowed at your house?”
“Yeah, but you’re a—oh…right. I forgot.” Sam slapped her hand to her forehead and groaned. “Damn, I forgot you don’t have your powers still. Shit, sorry, guys.”
“I don’t have a fancy home system or anything, but you guys can come over to my place,” Tucker offered.
“Thanks, Tuck,” Sam said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Principal Ishiyama stare at him for a moment too long before scurrying down the hall.
Weird.
He tried to shake the uncomfortable squirming in his gut. “Yeah, Tuck, sounds good.”
“And this time…” Tucker leaned down cheekily. “Maybe you can try to not kill yourself getting to my bedroom.”
Sam and Danny both reacted immediately, shouting a chorus of “Tucker!” and “Dude!” They briefly made eye contact before Tucker’s evil cackling snapped Danny back to focus.
“That’s a cheap shot! No fair!” Danny moaned. “You can’t—this—this is bullying.”
If anything, Tucker grinned wider. “Fine, then next time I won’t save your sorry ass from a life of embarrassment the next time you try to launch yourself to the top step because you’re too lazy to climb up the stairs.”
“You have a lot of stairs!”
“My house has a perfectly reasonable amount of stairs.”
“No, I call foul,” Danny protested. “You’re literally picking on the disabled kid. Unreal.”
Tucker patted Danny’s shoulder. “Sure, okay, ghost boy.”
“That was a very dangerous move, though, Danny,” Sam said. “You could have fallen.”
“Eh, cut him some slack. Walkers are really annoying.”
“Don’t encourage this, Tucker!”
“I got your back, Danny.”
But Danny wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. Something else had caught his attention. A deep laugh, one so familiar it had sent a shockwave of ice shooting through his veins. If it weren’t for the chip, he was sure he’d be covered in ecto-frost.
He stared across the hallway, his breath frozen in his throat. Time slowed around him, and the conversational voices of Sam and Tucker melted away into the background.
No...it couldn’t be…
He must have been hallucinating. His mind was playing tricks on him. There was just no way that he was actually here in the hallway of Casper High.
No way it was true.
But it was.
There, in full view of the entire student body, was Operative O himself. His white suit gleamed against the dull cream and red of the high school. He stood against a row of lockers with his chest out, sunglasses covering his eyes, and a smirk splayed on his lips as he conversed with Principal Ishiyama.
No.
No. 
Danny needed to run away. Flee. Get out of sight. 
But he couldn’t. It was as if his wheelchair was cemented to the ground. He was trapped, staring at the man who had made it his life’s work to ruin Danny’s.
It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
Operative O’s head turned until it locked onto Danny. His smirk widened and his sunglasses positively glistened. He brought a hand up above his shoulders and waggled his fingers at Danny.
Fear was replaced by hot anger. That bastard was waving as if he and Danny were longtime friends. 
“Hey, Danny?” Tucker poked his shoulder. “Isn’t that…?”
The unsaid question hung in the air like a dark cloud.
Sam’s expression hardened. “What are they doing here?”
But Danny was seething. His stomach churned in fury, and the corners of his vision tinged green. Adrenaline spiked in his veins, and he could feel his core screaming against its restraints.
Before he could so much as think, Danny was whizzing down the hall. When he got close enough, he abandoned his wheelchair altogether, pushing himself up and gripping onto the lockers for support for the final few steps. Ishiyama gave him a warning look, along with a subtle shake of her head, but Danny wasn’t listening to her.
If it weren’t for this fucking chip, he probably would have transformed into Phantom right in the middle of the damn hall.
“What the hell are you doing?” Danny hissed. Despite his fury, his palms were clammy against the metal lockers.
“Why if it isn’t Danny Phantom. What a coincidence it is to see you here.”
Operative O’s slimy voice pierced him at once, and Danny nearly crumpled to the ground. Memories came rushing back, transporting him far away to a dark, musty place where the air smelled putrid and his skin was wet and sticky. Where he never knew what time it was, where his stomach felt sick with hunger, where he begged for anyone to find him, rescue him.
“I’m doing a routine inspection. Your school installed ecto-shields, and it’s my job to make sure they’re working properly. Nothing that concerns you,” Operative O purred, leaning in to pull what appeared like a dog tag on a silver chain from his pocket. “And might I congratulate you on how wonderful it is to see you walking again. If we were back at the research center, I would even give you a little treat.”
Danny’s blood ran cold, and he stopped breathing.
Operative O chuckled, standing back up and slipping the chain out of sight. “Now if you don’t mind, Ishiyama, I’d like to see those shields you mentioned…”
Danny’s ears rang, that laugh echoing over and over like a broken vinyl. He looked up, but Mr. Lancer had inserted himself in front of Danny, blocking O from view. The world tilted, and Danny gave up. He rested his head on the locker just in time for Sam and Tucker to catch up with him, their voices muddying into the background. The world was spinning, the entire hallway was probably watching, and Danny was just trying not to throw up. 
A heavy hand fell on his back, and Danny barely caught the low murmur in his ear. “...my office?”
Danny nodded, not sure what he was agreeing to, but just knowing he had about five seconds to get out of the hallway before he was going to faint on the floor.
Thankfully, the hands were strong, and they held him upright as they guided him forward. Sam grabbed his arm, steadying him as well. Mr. Lancer said something, and Danny recognized Sam’s protesting tone in her response, but Lancer’s voice was sharper.
Sam huffed and squeezed his arm, and then his friends were gone just in time for what sounded like helicopters to womp in his ears and the spinning to reach a climax. He was pushed through the door and immediately felt his hand hit something behind him.
Danny collapsed onto his wheelchair and gasped, taking his first breath of air in too long. But his throat tightened again and he panicked, trying to breathe through the coffee straw that was his lungs.
A hand once again landed on his back, and a voice spoke soothingly into his ear.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Mr. Lancer said.
Danny shook his head and clawed at his shirt. Was his shirt choking him? Had the Operatives drugged him again? Is that why the world was spinning, why his arms were shaking so violently?
“It’s okay. Breathe, you’re okay.”
Danny clutched at his core, demanding whatever flickering bit of invisibility he could muster at whatever limbs were the closest. He couldn’t cloak his entire body in it, but the small whispers of his core powers were just enough to not send him into a complete meltdown.
“Why?” Danny finally gasped out. “Why?”
Mr. Lancer didn’t answer. Danny didn’t know if this was because he didn’t actually know the answer or if he just felt like Danny shouldn’t hear it.
Danny’s throat squeezed tighter. He glanced down at his bag and could feel the weight of the emergency pills. He was desperate for one. But he couldn’t, not in Lancer’s office.
Mr. Lancer pulled his chair beside Danny and sat down. He kept his voice low, whispering “it’s alright, it’s okay” as he waited for Danny to get himself under control.
But as soon as the dizziness ceased and the world righted again, Danny’s ragged breaths melted into sobs.
He bent forward, hiding his face in his hands. He could taste the ghost of the red bag on his tongue, and he could feel the plastic tube being shoved down his throat, cutting off his oxygen supply as it reached for his stomach. He felt the pain in his back, his chest, the phantom nerves in his legs firing off any way they could.
He felt Operative O thread his fingers down his torso, exploring the blank canvas prime to decorate with green.
“I didn’t want it,” Danny choked out. “I…”
His stomach turned, and he clamped his hands over his mouth, gagging. 
Mr. Lancer was quick to react, shoving a waste bin under Danny’s chin just in time for Danny to empty the contents of his breakfast into it.
Mr. Lancer’s hand was on his back, rubbing circles as Danny’s head lurched forward once again. He coughed, spitting bile and stomach acid into the bin. The warmth in his body had never felt so uncomfortable before, so dizzying.
Danny shook his head, mumbling, “I didn’t want it.”
“I know,” Mr. Lancer responded quietly. 
“I didn’t—I just—I just wanted the granola bars. It wasn’t my—” Danny choked on his voice. He shook his head, trying to force out the memories that flickered past the back of his eyes.
He just needed to reach his hand out and grab the granola bar. That’s all he needed to do. So why couldn’t he do it? Why did his mistake cost him the last shred of the dignity he was still clutching onto?
A fresh wave of tears fell from Danny’s eyes. “I—I’m not…” I’m not a dog, he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.
Because he would be lying if he said he truly believed it. 
“I’m sorry,” he said instead. Because he was sorry, truly, for continuing to be a burden on Mr. Lancer, a teacher Danny had spent the past two years disappointing over and over, a teacher who’d been forced to babysit him in detention dozens of times, a teacher who had now twice had to deal with him being an emotional fuckup.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” 
But that was a big fat fucking lie if Danny had ever heard one. And he should know, he was the master of lying.
---
His parents didn’t try to make him talk when they picked him up from school that day.
Danny was too busy staring out the window unseeing to talk anyway.
He didn’t remember getting inside. Couldn’t remember transferring out of the car or going into his house.
Maybe he should’ve been thankful that the wheelchair was autonomous now. Or whatever his doctor would tell him.
He blinked, and he was on the couch with a throw blanket over his body. Jazz was next to him, staring at the television as some reality show played. Danny’s gaze followed hers, and he didn’t miss the way her eyes noticed his movement. But he didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he much preferred to watch…
What was he doing?
There was this stillness over his body, in his mind. It was…quiet. Light. 
It was nice.
He recognized this feeling. This lightness in his limbs, the calm in his body. The lack of pain, lack of burning from his nerves and muscles.
It was just. Relaxation. Pure tranquility.
He remembered then, the emergency pill he managed to sneak while Lancer and his parents slipped into another room to talk. And then a different pill his parents handed him moments later.
One that he’d taken while he was shaking, his body in shock, desperate for an ounce of relief.
When the world stopped, it was euphoric. The fog returned, blanketing his mind and shielding him from the realities just outside the door. He relaxed, accepting the fog like a long-lost brother. It stayed with him for hours, and he cherished every second of their time together, but now it was bidding adieu.
But this time, the loss didn’t seem so bad. There was no pain, no stress. It was only the calm with no storm to follow.
He closed his eyes and sank into the couch. He was tired, and the cushions and blankets felt so nice. He wasn’t in the cell—not even close—he was home with his sister. Safe, protected.
“Thanks, Jazz,” he murmured.
She didn’t respond, but he knew she heard him.
“What show’s on?”
“Survivor,” she said. “A rerun. Not sure which season.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The television droned on, and Danny heard the contestants bickering about…something or other.
Heh. That sucked for them.
“M’sorry.” Danny yawned. “Sorry for…you know…I hope I didn’t ruin your day. You babysitting me.”
“It’s fine, Danny, It’s not your fault. They shouldn’t have been there.”
“I don’t know…it sounds like they could be there.”
He heard Jazz shift beside him, and his eyes peeked open to see her attention fully diverted from the show.
“Danny—”
“Where’s Mom and Dad?”
“They’re with the lawyer.”
“Okay.” Danny’s eyelids felt heavy, and wisps of his core tickled his chest. “I need the chip out.”
She was quiet again.
“You understand why,” Danny said.
“I do.”
“I need Mom and Dad to—to remove it. If they don’t…”
“I wish I could help,” she said quietly.
“Then convince them. They won’t listen to me, I’m a ghost. You heard them, remember? I’m…my Obsession is influencing my brain. And…” He looked at the ceiling. “And, well, maybe it is. But Operative—the Guys in White were still there today. And I…I think I’ve seen them before today too. I thought I was…but no, I think it was them.”
Tears glittered in Jazz’s eyes.
“You have to convince them for me.”
“I’ll try my best. We can talk to them tonight together.”
Danny shook his head. “It’ll never work if I’m there. They think I’m crazy.”
“They don’t think that.”
“They’re scared of me. Or, the half of me they don’t like.”
“No.” Jazz wiped her eyes with her sleeves. “No, that’s not true.”
“I’m not deaf, Jazz. I heard them. Remember?”
“They love you so much, Danny. I promise. They’re scared for you.”
“What’s there to be scared for?” Danny pressed his finger into his thighs, feeling only the strange sensation of pressure in return. “It’s not like…I don’t know, it’s not like I’m banned from—banned from existing. That’s what the court case was all about, right?”
“Right.”
“And I’ve been in therapy for months. I go there every day. They know I’m not going to—to hurt myself.”
Jazz pressed her lips into a thin line. “I know.”
“So why don’t they?”
“This summer was…” She sighed. “This summer was hard, Danny. We’d all do it all over again if it meant getting you under legal protection, but the period you were gone? That was—it—” Her voice broke. “Not knowing if you were alive or dead, not hearing a word about you for weeks? That was terrifying. The last thing we remembered was you being carted off by the Guys in White and SWAT teams, knocked out, electrocuted, and then you were gone. Just like that. And when you were finally brought back to us…”
His eyes felt too dry for once. His body was too calm to rewake that pain.
“I know—I know it was so much worse for you. I know our experiences outside don’t even begin to compare to yours. I understand, and they do too. But in the flash of an eye, their entire world changed. They’re coping.”
“Their coping is going to get me killed, though.”
“The government can’t touch you.”
Anxious Danny might have snapped at that. But Anxious Danny wasn’t here right now. He continued in the same bland tone as before, “You have no idea what the government is capable of.”
Jazz’s expression tightened.
“If their reasoning for not giving me back control over my core is—is just that this summer was hard for them, then that’s a shit excuse. And it’s going to get me killed. That’s really—really…that’s really it.”
“I know. I’m not making excuses, I’m just explaining what’s going through their heads.”
“Then you need to talk to them. Because at—at this point, I’ve said everything I can.” 
Jazz mopped at her face again, nodding. “I know.”
Danny reached his hand out, gently lowering it to her arm. He felt her stiffen before her free hand shot down to clutch his.
She was trembling.
“I need you, Jazz. You’re…you’re my sister. I need you to be on my side right now.”
“I am. I’ll try. We can bring it up tonight as a united front. I’ll lead the conversation.”
He gave her arm a gentle squeeze before breaking off the contact. He sank back into the cushions, closing his eyes. “Thanks.”
Jazz sniffled beside him.
---
Dinner was a quiet affair that evening. The painkillers had worn off, and Danny was itching to escape upstairs to lie down.
But Maddie insisted that he eat, so he picked at his bowl of noodles, not bothering to hide the fact that he really didn’t feel like putting anything down his throat at the moment.
Thankfully, his parents didn’t seem to want to fight him tonight.
“So…” Danny started.
Maddie took the bait. “We met with the lawyer today.”
“Okay, and?”
At Maddie’s despondent look, Jack took over, placing his hand on hers. “The government can’t touch you legally. We want to make that very clear. No matter what, they can’t take you.”
“But…” Danny prompted.
“But as far as everything else goes, at this current moment, we can’t do anything about them showing up in the same buildings as you.”
Danny wanted to laugh. Or cry. 
Or both.
“We tried to file a no-contact or a restraining order,” Maddie said. “But due to the current laws, we can’t get anything. If the agents physically hurt you, then we might have a case. But unfortunately, as of right now, our hands are tied.”
“Nothing can be done,” Danny muttered numbly. 
“I’m sorry, son,” Jack said. “We’re going to continue to see what other paths we can take. We won’t give up, I promise.”
Danny had always known that the Guys in White weren’t finished with him, that they were on a mission to cleanse the world of all things ecto. He knew that no matter where he went, they would follow.
But it still hurt to hear.
“So that’s it,” Danny said. “I just have to wait till they hurt me in front of everyone.”
“We’ll never let it get to that point,” Maddie said.
Danny shook his head, his eyes staring blankly at the table. “Okay.”
Because what could he say to that? He couldn’t just pretend like this was fine, like he was fine with this. Because that would have been so insane of a lie that not even his dad would have bought it.
Jazz’s eyes flickered between them. “There’s also the other thing we talked about before dinner, Mom.”
“I know.” Maddie looked to Jack for support. He gave a solemn nod, and she pressed forward, despite looking like she’d rather do anything else. “We know that your…halfa psychology makes situations like these difficult for you emotionally.”
Danny’s mood darkened instinctively. Any mention of his ghostly Obsession with his parents had a tendency to turn sour.
“I know that things haven’t exactly gone the way you’ve wanted them to. And I hope you understand that everything we’ve done has been for you and your safety.”
Yeah, because I’m so ‘safe’ that I can’t even defend myself, Danny internally quipped.
“We know that…protection…is something that’s important to you. And Mr. Lancer said that you, um, struggled after the confrontation,” Maddie said.
“I had a breakdown,” Danny stated, his dead tone surprising himself.
“Right,” Maddie said awkwardly.
“Jazz mentioned that the situation has gone directly against your core,” Jack said. “And we’re worried about that too.”
There was one way they could fix this, but Danny wasn’t going to be the one to say it. They knew what he was thinking.
Maddie sighed. “We were wondering if there was anything that you wanted to talk to us about. About this, your core, any of it.”
Danny didn’t let a single muscle twitch in his face. No way did they deserve a clue—not after they were the reason that Danny was completely defenseless against the Guys in White today.
They sat at the kitchen table listening to the hum of the fridge. The grandfather clock that Jack had built ticked on, each click seeming louder than the last. 
And finally, Danny shrugged.
“Well,” Jazz said. “I think Danny has done a really good job at upholding his end of the bargain. And now we’re at a point where continuing in this trajectory is going to actively hurt his progress in therapy.”
“And we agree to a certain extent. But honey…”
“But nothing, Mom. We’ve talked about this: Danny is as much of a human as he is a ghost. It’s not fair to him or his psychology that he’s spent months without access to his core. And with the government making bolder moves such as this, it’s important to Danny—and me too—that he is secure.”
Danny didn’t like being talked about as if he were a test subject, but if this was what it took to get his core back, then so be it.
“The government is not going to touch him. Not unless they want to be sued to hell and back for violating court orders,” Maddie said.
Oh, he could scream. 
“I’m not talking about that; I’m talking about how this affects Danny’s mental health. The whole point of the chip was to give him the safety he needed to heal, but the issue is that now the chip is actively interfering with the entire reason it was created.”
“But to go from zero to full powers right now…” Maddie drifted off.
Jack nodded. “I agree, it’s too much.”
“Well, you guys are the scientists. Figure out a way to adjust the power level on the chip, then.”
Danny’s eyes narrowed, snapping to Jazz. Just what in the world was she saying?
Jack pondered her proposition. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.”
“I know.” Jazz leaned back and folded her arms in that annoying fashion she did when she thought she’d won.
“Hun, I don’t even think that’s possible. To access those mechanics on the chip, we’d need to extract it from Danny,” Maddie said.
“Maybe!” Jack snapped his fingers. “This chip might not be flexible, but I bet we could build one that was! And we’d be able to remotely configure it!”
Immediately, Danny felt sick.
Apparently, Maddie didn’t, judging by the way her eyes lit up. “And then we could even program it to slowly fade its power levels! Oh, Jack, that’s brilliant.”
“Aren’t you glad you have such a genius for a husband?” 
“I am!”
“Don’t worry, son, we’ll get you fixed up in no time!” Jack gave him a thumbs up.
Danny was careful to not let the mask slip from his face and betray how truly revolted he was by this plan.
A chip that let his parents remotely set how much control over his core he had? He couldn’t think of anything more dystopian.
Perhaps noticing his silence, Maddie prompted, “Honey?” 
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Danny admitted.
“You can say anything on your mind, dear. This is…we’re a team.” 
Even as she said those words that had been repeated so many times before, her voice sounded unconfident. 
Danny could have laughed at the irony.
“You already know what I’m going to say.” Danny’s eyes traveled up from the table until they pierced hers. “There’s nothing else.”
“Yes, and you understand why we can’t just give you free rein of your ghost powers, right?” she asked. 
No.
“Yes.”
“And you know that—that you’re still safe, right? You’re still protected in the meantime?” Maddie asked.
He wasn’t safe.
“Yes, I know.” 
“The law is final, son,” Jack said gently. “They can intimidate you all they want, but they will never be able to touch you at all.”
“Sure.”
“And pretty soon, you’ll start to have your powers back. Okay?” Maddie said.
Danny looked away. “I was just scared. That was all.”
---
Danny glared at the name on his screen. Never in his wildest dreams could he ever have imagined he would be willingly seeking this scum of the Earth out, but he had no other choice.
He was down to his last few pills, and with the escalating boldness of the Guys in White, there was no way he was going to make it out of this intact.
Grumbling for the tenth time, he pressed the call button and brought the phone to his ear.
Later on, he would be disgusted at how quickly Vlad picked up the phone. “Daniel!” he said, his voice too cheerful. “What a lovely surprise!”
“Yeah, lovely.” Danny’s tone was anything but. 
“To what do I owe this pleasure? Does your mother miss me?” 
Danny closed his eyes, remembering Vlad’s warning about his calls being tapped.
“Gross, no, shut up about my mom. I’m…I need help. With a school project.”
He could feel Vlad’s grin on the other end of the line. “A school project, you say? That seems a bit bland of a request.”
“In—in science. I had an idea, but I need resources. And you’re…rich.”
“Science? My, that is interesting! If you don’t mind me asking, Little Badger, why not just ask your parents for assistance?”
Cocky bastard. 
“I feel bad. They’ve—they’ve done a lot for me, and…I know they’re busy. They were meeting with the lawyer today, and I just don’t want to—to bother them. With this. And I know you…from your college days, you have experience and your old gadgets still.”
“Surely your parents have some old gadgets in their shed you can toy with.”
“Most of those are fried. You know how my dad gets.” He knew that Vlad was just trying to pick at any loophole in their conversation, and he needed to play along, as much as he hated it. “I wan–wanted to show the school that I’m okay. You know? They have me in these—the Learning Center, and I wanted to prove I can handle real classes again. I need something to impress them. Especially after today, I just…I don’t want them to think I can’t—I can’t handle myself.”
There was a brief moment of silence on the other line before Vlad hummed. “I see. Well, you know I am a very busy man, Daniel.”
“Yes, but…”
“However, I suppose since you reached out, I would be delighted to help my favorite nephew with his assignment. Does tomorrow after school work for you? I can pick you up if so.”
Danny’s eyes widened. “Yeah. That’s fine, I don’t have PT. There—it’s just that I’m under…I get picked up by my mom.”
“I see. So would I have to contact the school to pick you up instead?”
“No, I don’t—I don’t think so. I think I can ask my mom.”
“Alright, well, hopefully dear Maddie and my old friend Jack won’t be too jealous that you’ve asked me to help you rather than them. Do tell your mother hello for me, alright?”
“Whatever,” Danny grumbled. Then, remembering the code, he slapped a fake smile on his lips and bared his teeth into the receiver, “Thank you, Vlad! I’ll see you tomorrow!”
“Ta!”
---
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Thanks so much for @imekitty for doing beta work while mid-NaNoWriMo. That is insane so please appreciate her thank you 💚
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lazlolullaby · 9 months
Text
wish rewrite but Queen Amaya has a minor influence on the plot, aka: Divorce arc! + Bonus song context changes
(it sucks that a person with so much potential was put in the story but just utilized as the Villain's sounding board. You could have replaced her with an animal sidekick! She could have been a classic evil cat! Anyway.)
Tl:Dr: Amaya and Magnifico's relationship is utilized more in the movie for both plot and character development.
Plot: the same but Amaya is having a mid life crisis and relationship issues with Magnifico, giving them both more depth than "childhood trauma made me a control freak + evil book possession" and "I'm the indicator that something is going wrong with my husband".
(tw: verbal and emotional abuse tactics.)
Movie opens on a book. It's not adorned or flashy, just a simple journal. Amaya is writing in it, narrating.
Teen Amaya arriving on a boat with a small group of people. She looks up, enraptured by the stars but no one else does and she's left alone. There's no voice, but you can see that she says "I wish". Then someone calls for her and she leaves. The next night Magnifico appears from the forest, performing magic.
Then we get "City of Rosas" montage going through years. Amaya as the singer, giving the tour. You see the 7 friends interact with her as quick help, then Asha pops up, first next to Amaya then taking over the tour guide spot.
There's a quick establishing walk around the Castle. Amaya checking in on the 7, the servants and people. Everything is going well! The Castle is humming along perfectly! Amaya doesn't need to lend a hand, or explain what's needed. She's a bit of a workaholic and doesn't know what to do with herself.
She ends up in the kitchen with the 7 and Asha. Dahlia gets a check in, her new medication is working well so she's just got her crutch today instead of a full wheelchair. Asha is told "you care plenty, but don't let it blind you." Asha is the one who says that her grandpa Sabino is having his 100th birthday. And wants his wish granted.
Simon is sleepy, everyone is concerned. Amaya excuses herself.
She goes to Magnifico. "Mi rey. You need to give Simon's wish back. He's not well."
"You mean grant it? what do we need Knights for? We're perfectly safe!"
And with Sabino - "there's nothing that needs changing! I'm all the inspiration the Kingdom needs!"
There's hints that Magnifico doesn't like people too much. "we have to keep these safe. They are the best parts of our people." Implying that he just likes what he can choose and control out of people.
And cue "At all costs" as a duet between Magnifico and Amaya. Starting as a love song addressed to Amaya, but then his focus shifts to the Wishes. Her face falls as she realizes that he won't do what she asks. And she leaves.
(what happens when your picture perfect life falls apart? When the job you have chosen, put your whole body and soul into, doesn't need as much time or effort? When the person you love, that you have partnered with for over several decades, doesn't have the same goals you do anymore? Doesn't value you like they used to?)
Only to find Asha was eavesdropping the whole time. "Wait. Are you. Having an argument? I thought you were happy?"
"we are. It's just difficult right now. It's a disagreement. We're fine."
Cut to Asha in the kitchen gathered with the 7. "They are not fine." So. Lighthearted scheme to get the Queen and King back in love by setting up a romantic date.
The lunch date fails. Amaya asks questions, probing more into Magnifico's self serving logic. He launches into "This is the Thanks I get?" (Less of a solo tantrum, more of a mocking dialogue between them.) And shuts her down. Amaya is stricken.
"if they break up, who gets the Wishes? Who's in charge? I don't think divorce is a thing that Royalty goes through!"
They retreat - Magnifico to a wish granting and Amaya to the kitchen. Asha wants to convince Amaya to keep going, keep pushing for the wishes.
"Has he always been like that?"
"Magnifico - oh he always wanted an audience. He hasn't changed since the day we met. He was fun. We needed that support, people who believe in him, in our rule. back then, when there were so many unknowns."
"But it's not back then anymore. We deserve our wishes. Maybe if we can show him that a dangerous wish won't be so bad, he'll come around!"
"Asha, don't tell me-"
"my Grandfather Sabino! He just said wanted to play the lute, right?"
"not exactly..." Amaya felt the true nature of the wish, to inspire.
"what more time does he have! My father already lost out on his wish! I'm not letting anyone else lose!"
"this is what I can do. For now. Go home."
"I can't wait for this change. Until I'm 18? Then what? I'm just supposed to give up my wish like everyone has? Be like Simon?"
Amaya doesn't have an answer to that. Asha goes home. She talks to her family and has her solo "This Wish" song.
The Star shows up. But as in the concept art, it's a mute boy! He starts the animals singing "You're a Star" - and eventually joins in once he gets the hang of talking. "Here I are!" Is his first line.
Once that's over, Star explains. "The Stars grant Wishes. Sometimes they come down to help out personally. But that was a while ago. I want to find them, but you're the first person in a long time to make a wish on a star." They make a plan to release the Wishes themselves.
Meanwhile, Magnifico and Amaya see the light show from Star coming to the Kingdom. Amaya has vague recognition, Magnifico is mad. "Absolutely not. No one is stealing my Wishes from me."
Amaya takes this time that he's distracted to find Simon and Sabino's wishes. She sings a solo version of "Knowing what I know now" with more personal touches and she sends the wishes down the dumbwaiter.
Asha sneaks Starboy into the Castle. Gets her friends to help. They open up the dumbwaiter and find the wishes. Simon gets his back, starts to feel better. Asha grabs Sabino's and runs.
Magnifico starts to build up power. He gathers the town and tells them that there's a rogue magic user on the loose.
Asha brings the wish to Sabino. And he immediately starts to inspire people to question Magnifico. (Seriously. That was the easiest thread to follow through. And it didn't happen!!! What- who dropped the ball?)
Asha regroups with her friends. Does the full "knowing what I know now" song. Runs away to distract Magnifico while her friends release the wishes.
Star looks at Amaya - "your wish wasn't granted. There's a trick to it, if you want to hear." Amaya looks sad again.
Big courtyard confrontation. Magnifico has been absorbing Wishes to get more power.
"I haven't granted my first wish. A lot of them, actually. I won't leave." Magnifico stands his ground.
"unless I retract it."
"you won't." Magnifico laughs. "Who would love you? You're past your prime, far too bossy-"
"You. Wanted love?" Asha asks.
"I was younger than you are. I had lost everything. When I came here and looked at the stars, I thought I could have anything I wanted. And I wanted love. After everything that happened, I wanted love. That was only mine. But not like this."
"we love you. We see you. Even if you can't do magic or fix everything. We love you." Asha and the 7 say to Amaya.
So she reaches into Magnifico, pulling out her wish herself. Everyone sees that and starts to pull theirs from Magnifico.
And it leaves him as a slip of a silvery man. Star taps on him and Magnifico turns completely into his silver white star form. "That's where you've been!"
"so Stars can't stay on earth for too long or they'll go mad?"
"pfft. No. It's just this guy. C'mon let's get you some perspective." And Star takes him away into the sky.
It fades into a picture that Asha is drawing. Her and Amaya are making a book to explain what happened.
Amaya narrates the ending, telling us that it doesn't really end.
The 7 friends and Asha are made apprentices to Queen Amaya. Amaya starts to give the Wishes back, setting people up to achieve their dreams. Star pops back to say hi and go and grant more Wishes.
The handwritten book closes and Amaya stamps "Wish" on the cover with leather tools.
The end
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fayythe · 1 year
Text
Divine Love: Chapter Two
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Henry Cavill X OFC
Summary: Rhylan Daines property of the United States Government, the training she took on, the beating, and pain was all manipulating her to loose her body autonomy, they tell her to eat a certain way, talk, walk, act. Nothing is hers, how can she escape the torture her life has become? Now an semi-active black ops Navy Seal working for the CIA struggled to make peace with her past.  She was always told that every life she took, every person she tortured, and every soul she crushed was for the greater good, but how is more violence supposed to help the world?  How can acting help her stop being forced to kill?  How can finding love help her find herself? Only time will tell...
Trigger warnings: Slight Alcoholism, Assault, Kidnapping, Blood, Skin Branding, Heavy Depression, Drugs, Undiagnosed eating disorder, Forced Eugenics, Talk of Genocide, talk of war, talk of gore, Hospitalizations for medical reasons, Mental Health issues, Hitman/murder unrecognized by law, Profanity, Military Brutality, torture, terrorism, violence, scars, seizures.
Rhylan's Tattoos
Rhylan's Body Scars Diagram
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There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death. Whether it's the mundane violence we do to our bodies by overeating toxic food or drink or the extreme violence of child abuse, domestic warfare, life-threatening poverty, addiction, or state terrorism. – Bell Hooks.
Chapter 2: Насилие
Насилие...Russian...violence
Few Days Later 
"So, Rhylan, how did you get that scar on your chest? It's quite large" James asked.
I was sitting on 'The Late Late Night Show', in the somewhat comfortable interview chair on a stage captured by a large audience all around the stage. I was wearing my strawberry blonde hair its natural straight down to my waste, some slightly overpriced black skinny jeans, a vintage band t-shirt and my black combat boots the ones gifted by my general's wife.
Nelia talked me into this appearance, I truly didn't want to be around people let alone on stage in front of people I didn't know. "It will be good press!" She said, trying to talk me into it, the whole 'good press' idea is always her excuse to force me into new environments I wasn't familiar with.
When I walked on the unfamiliar stage, I found myself exanimating everything I could. Every exit, every person, each security guard all lacking a weapon to defend. My military instincts were on overdrive, the lights, the cameras, the crowd laughing, everything gave me the worst bombing headache.
But the questions, the questions about the military I wasn't mentally prepared to answer. But I had to, people were going to spend their time trying to figure out the answer to my questions their own way.
I looked at James again, my brain on overdrive.
"I got shot in the field, I was alone, I had to perform surgery on myself to get the bullet out." I nearly choked out my explanation, remembering the pain, remembering the metallic smell of my blood, the fight I had to keep staying alive.
"Wow... that's some story, can you share anymore?"
I looked off in dazed, trying my best not to quiver at the thought of that mission.
"It's probably best not to." I spoke.
James nodded, looking back at his notes.
"Let's talk about something a bit more fun, people don't really know much about you!" He clapped showing his excitement.
I chucked, "My favorite color is black, if you didn't already know"
"Ha! I can see that, when you first walked on stage, I thought you just walked out of a hot topic." James joked and the crowd laughed.
"What's hot topic?" I questioned.
I'm not joking, what it is it? Did he mean hot pocket? That's a food...man I'm hungry, I'd eat a hot pocket right now even though I absolutely hate them. Nasty things.
The crowd laughed again and so did James.
"Okay, where are you from?"
"Houston" I pushed back a piece of my hair that fell out from behind my ear.
"Oh wow! You don't sound like you're from Texas. Do you still live there?" James asked, I nodded, I'll probably live alone in my house with my dog for a longtime...or forever.
"What is someone from Texas supposed to sound like?"
"I don't know maybe a bit of country tinge"
I laugh, "People from Texas especially the main cities don't generally sound like billies', is that assumed by everyone from another state that isn't the south, or just British?" I asked which made the crowd laugh, James just shrugged with a joking smile on his face.
Alright, I can play that game too.
I looked at the crowd, putting my best hick country accent I can manage which wasn't as bad as I had hoped.
"Alrigh' y'all dis' is wha' Mr.Corden thinks I should soun' like"
Everyone breaks down laughing all over again.
The rest of the interview wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I couldn't help myself from barely staying still towards the end of the interview. My flight home was so close, I could almost feel the horrible Texas humidity, and as much as I hated it, I missed it.
I was finally able to leave, my hatred for California was still at large from my previous experiences.
People didn't want to admit it, but California was corrupt, industries, politicians, even Hollywood, everything was twisted and coverups and bribes were at large in everything.
As much as I hate spending money, I chose to fly private, luckily though since I'm still considered an asset of the country the plain was US Government issued, untraceable, and completely off any commercial flight lists. Just what my mind needed, for the last few weeks my mind was a high alert. I found myself constantly looking for exists, vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and exploitations.
Nelia was the one to drop me off at the off-grid plane port in the middle of nowhere. Before she left, a guy in a slick black suit wraparound sunglass, secret service, told her to "forget the place existed or she will no longer exist."
I kind of laughed, threaten Nelia? Yeah, this guy has got to be dumber than a box of rocks to threaten her.
And I was right, before my next thought a hand reached outside from the driver's side window to grab the shirt collar of the man leaning down.
I didn't hear exactly what was said, but as soon as the man stood straight and Nelia drove off the man was glued to the same position, I could practically see his eyes burning through his glasses.
It took a few seconds for him to shake out of it, but then he was able to walk towards me and take the bags I was carrying.
"I think I'm in love with her." He spoke walking up the steps of the plane.
"Well that was one heck of a start to a relationship."
We got into the plane, I took my shoes off and sat one on the fancy leather chairs buckling up for takeoff, the man sat in front of me.
"I was under command to let her know. Doesn't mean I wanted to say it."
The man spoke funny, like weird...thinking about it and connecting the dots in my mind
Michigan, he was from Michigan.
I looked at him, he sucked at not showing emotions, which meant he was complete shit at his job. No wonder he isn't CIA, or maybe even FBI, it be somewhat a better option than secret service, lame.
But hey, at lease he's not homeland security. Don't get me started on those fuckers.
Sidenote, he was under command?
"Command of what? Who?" I asked pressuring the man I didn't know.
He just took of his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and pointer fingers, then folded his sunglasses neatly and putting them in his suit pocket.
"He told me you'd ask—" The man started,
"What 'He' as a male, son of a bitch" I slapped my thighs, that fucker.
"Then he said you'd be pissed off, and determine the details quickly"
"Yeah, Yeah, I get it. It was Dean. I know. Fucker. Next time you see him, I need you to do two things, first; lick your finger, get it nice and wet then stick it in his ear—or his ass, then I want you to kick him in the balls once he's off guard."
Who is Dean? Oh right that.
When I was first inducted into the Navy, my scores were off the charts. So much so they made me take ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test) three times before they would believe that I wasn't cheating.
I don't understand how I scored so high, but the test score was near perfect, and I was able pretend I didn't have a learning disability growing up. Luckily, they never found that out.
I probably wouldn't be where I am today. To be honest, I wonder what life would've been like.
I was seventeen when I first joined, my mom and stepdad weren't happy about the idea and refused to let me join at first. They felt like my choices on career path changed to much and signing a contract for a job I couldn't get out of when I got bored wasn't a smart choice.
Plus, I was a girl. In my stepdads eyes, girls couldn't be successful soldiers, they weren't meant for it, strong enough for it.
Let's just say, I proved him wrong.
But it wasn't his choice, and I honestly didn't care what either of them thought and ended up forging my mother's signature on the application documents as hers was the only one that mattered. I found out later that they called her to confirm they have her permission, and she didn't deny it and gave the permission to continue with medical and psych evaluations, dates for bootcamp, and training.
I had already graduated high school around that time early and spent my time before bootcamp training my ass off.
Dean was the only person there to tap me out.
I didn't know who he was and what he wanted, I was just a new sailor and I wanted to get in a ship and sail away from my problems.
It was then I was taken to a...illegal off grid operation ran by the CIA; you know right after they blind folded me and drugged me.
I could still remember feeling of the chains...
July 2004
Bright lights.
So bright...
I tried to lift my hands up to rub my eyes, but I couldn't.
Instead, the sound of clinking metal filled my ears... chains.
I tried to move my legs, again the sound of metal, heavy metal.
My eyes shot open; my corneas blinded I was still sluggish...I felt...high?
I pulled on the chains, I had to get out.
This man, he could be a serial killer or some shit.
The amount of emotion I was feeling, rage, anger, fear, it was all overwhelming.
I pulled on the chains until my wrists were bleeding and my left ankle was dislocated.
Fuck being double jointed.
Just then a tall man, maybe a little over six foot walked through the electronic sliding doors in a crisp expensive looking suit, something I could never afford. Interesting a classy serial killer, was he going to eat my body too?
At least he was going to a silver fork and knife, I thought, still pulling on the chains.
"Rhylan Daines" He spoke drawing my given name out unnecessarily, he threw a manila folder on the table and pulled out the chair sitting right in the front of me.
The way he sat, the way he looked, something was off. This man wasn't a serial killer, well he could be, but not the normal ones you see on shows and movies. This guy was professional, I sat observing him, his watch was expensive it was a gold Rolex with diamonds around the face, well over twenty thousand dollars.
His haircut made his head look like a pineapple, it was stupid as shit, he was a marine... or maybe at one point he was. But why keep the haircut?
Semper Fi bitch.
I found myself bucking the chains straining and centimeters from his face that I could smell his coffee-stained breath, gross.
I couldn't help myself, the rage and anger, the pain I felt in my wrists and now my ankle from it snapping back in place as I stood. I want to hurt him. Kidnapping, drugs, physical restraint this guy must've been stupid.
"Where the fuck am I?" I spat in his face.
He didn't even flinch, which made me angrier.
"I'll tell you, but you have to calm down first, and sit down." He was calm, like he knew I couldn't and wouldn't hurt him.
"Calm down! —You drugged and kidnapped me, you son of a bitch! And you want me to be calm." I smiled, the crazy drugged sleepy smile. "Your funny" my voice was low.
"I will kill you."
I wanted to wrap the chain around his neck and watch the life fade from his eyes. I've never felt that before, the feeling of being in fight or flight and now that I was experiencing it was overwhelming.
He just smiled back, leaning closer to my face.
"I'll give you a chance to channel that anger, rage. You just have to listen."
I spat in his face leaning back in the chair, the pain in my ankle still at large.
"I'll give you that one, but if you do it again—" he pulled out a napkin from his suit pocket wiping his face.
"Talk"
"Well let me introduce myself first I'm-"
"I don't give two shits who you are, I want to know where I am and what the hell you want."
He just smiled, "I'm Dean Sawyer, General Dean Sawyer."
I rolled my eyes biting through my lip letting the metallic taste flood my mouth.
"Okay Dick, what do you want."
He looked off in the distance towards the mirrored window I now knew someone was on the other side of, then he opened the thick folder sitting in front of him pulling out...pictures...
"We've been watching you, perfect military standard testing scores, top two percent in athletic evaluation, section leader in basic training, high language skills, adaptability, and so much more."
I just starred blankly, while my emotions were on the highest drive I've ever felt in a longtime, with parents that thought you not to show any emotions you become good at hiding everything and learn to feel in secret if not at all.
I looked back at Dick and shrugged my shoulders. So? What's so special about me? I'm a nobody, or at lease I try to be.
Dick placed the pictures in front of me, there was pictures of me everywhere, training for bootcamp, walking home, driving, jogging, all the way up to today when I took my speech pledging my life to my country.
My jaw clinched so hard I'm surprised I didn't break a tooth.
"You were stalking me?"
"Well, I like the word observing. But stalking seems like an appropriate word to use, but don't worry it wasn't me."
Mr. Dick here sucks at reassuring people.
I crossed my arms. I'm getting tired of this bullshit, he's stalling.
"I work for the CIA, the counterint-"
"I know what the CIA is."
What does the CIA want with me? I'm a seventeen-year-old from Texas, newly indoctrinated Navy Sailor running away from life. Maybe he's bluffing, I observed his face and mental checklist of signs of someone lying.
Sweating ×
Wondering eyes ×
Stuttering ×
Fidgeting ×
Vagueness √
Over sharing ×
Crossing off all the signs of lying in my mind except one vagueness, while it could say something it could be explained if he was actually CIA.
"Well. We have a job for you, a special job. To put your talents at good use." He continued.
Talents?
"I need more details than that." I said, shaking my head.
"Right." He started, pulling more pictures from the folder... oh great does he have pictures of me showering or taking a shit. Man, this guy is a creep.
"Now the images I'm about to show you are highly classified. If you don't accept the offer, you are to never speak of what you saw or what happened her. Ever."
I shrugged, it's not like I have anyone to tell I don't have any friends.
I'm not even joking.
I nodded finally leaning closer to the table as he flipped over the pictures. The first picture that caught my eye was of a child no more than ten... she seemed to be middle eastern her hair was long and beautiful, but she was frail, and her body was bruised. She was crucified.
My eyes stung, my cousin Allie coming to my mind, how could someone do this?
The next picture was of some type of wear house, children chained to beds...mostly females. It was a child brothel...
Disgusting.
I scanned over the other pictures. Dirty politicians, news articles, bank statements, trafficking rings. The states weren't the only dirty places in the world.
Everywhere was guilty of something.
I pushed them off the table, I didn't even say anything. I was too angry. While Dick did kidnap me...and drug me I was too in my mind to say anything. The pain those children suffered, the people, women, civilians.
"It's time the government acts, but it has to be done privately. I believe you'd be the perfect first candidate."
Privately? Action? First Candidate...I took in a breath.
"I'm the head of a private project only a handful people know about. The goal is to train you to be the best there is, while your previous life will be wiped from everything, you have a chance to change the world." He continued.
Change the world, every word repeating in my head. I was drowning.
Am I really thinking about doing this? This is crazy.
"What would this entail?" I asked.
I'm hesitant to hear, killing people could I even do this? Am I strong enough to push myself like this?
The man intertwined his fingers, "missions, all over the world."
"What type of missions."
"Assassinations, framing, undercover work. A little of everything."
"Isn't that illegal?"
Dick took in a large breath. "Everything we'd be doing would be illegal, which is why this is an off the books CIA operation. Project Death Star."
I paused my entire body freezing, they wanted me to be the first soldier in an illegal CIA operation, me a seventeen-year-old.
I started to sweat slightly, remembering how growing up I was told I would never get anywhere, especially in the Navy.
"I joined the Navy to be in the Navy, to be a soldier—" I started, trying to convince myself to not want to take the offer.
"And you will be, just think of it as team six...just on crack," Dick shrugged his shoulders.
Team six was the elitist navy seal group in the navy known by the public, while I always thought they were interesting it was never my mission to become a seal. Realistically, when I first joined my plan was to be a submarine technician though I didn't find out women weren't allowed on submarines until I was already at bootcamp.
To say I was angry was an understatement.
When my drill sergeant asked me what I wanted to do in the Navy because no ship was going to want a little girl on it, I told him it was submarines.
He laughed, actually laughed.
But you see, I've always had a bit of an anger issue problem. I was a shitty child and even a shitter teenager, constantly in fights and arguments with everyone, teachers, other students, and my parents.
I didn't start picking up the pieces of my life until a Navy recruiter showed up at my school to present and encourage everyone to at least talk to a recruiter to see if they were qualified. It was then I felt I found a reason to push myself to be better and even a reason to live, and an opportunity to leave my shitty home life.
So, when the drill sergeant laughed at the fact I wanted to work on submarines, it broke all control I built over the last few years of training myself to be the best I can.
Before he knew it, he was swept off the ground and I had his head between my legs screaming for him to tap out, four other male recruits had to tear me off of him. His nose was bloody, and he was laughing, the fact that he found it funny only made me angrier.
"You're gonna get somewhere with that Daines." He spoke.
After my 10-mile punishment, He pushed me, he became my mentor and taught me leadership, teamwork, everything he knew. I looked up to him, he became the true father I never had.
Drill Sergeant Cade Mitchel.
Wait—"You're gonna get somewhere with that Daines."
Going to get somewhere with that?
I smiled. "Cade. He was a plant, you sent someone to observe me." Proud of myself, I uncrossed my arms and sat back in the uncomfortable metal chair.
Damn my ass was numb.
"Wow, I'm impressed. Cade was a plant, but just because he was doesn't make him any less deserving of your trust. He was very impressed for your skills, not to mention being able to catch him off guard." Dick pulled out a document from the folder, a stapled packet of paper with chicken scratch covered in it and placed it in front of me.
The top had my name—
Rhylan Daines.
General information, my birthday, testing scores, highschool GPA, my attributes, and personal notes. There were words that stood out to me the most it made my eyes burn, I've never been called or referenced as any of these things in my life.
Determination, courage, great leadership, untrusting—
The list continued, there was a few that were questionable to be considered 'assets' but otherwise the notes of what I confided with him showed every thought if what went through his head when I told him things that I wanted to keep private.
Things that made me the way I am...
A part of me was angry about it, he was faking everything. Someone I trusted as a mentor, as an adoptive father, who put my pins on me in my inauguration just a few hours ago, wasn't there for me on his own will, but as a will for another.
It was all fake.
But when I really thought about it, I was comforted by the fact he didn't see the negative things I saw about myself. While he found my trust issues a great asset, I found them annoying and it was a daily struggle to speak to people, strangers, anyone that didn't give me a reason to offer them my trust. While he found my stubbornness and loyalty strikingly intriguing, I never knew I was considered stubborn. I never had anyone tell me.
Loyalty on the other hand was something I always wanted in a friend, therefore it only made since I was able to reciprocate.
I was interesting seeing another person's point a view of me, as I always figured I wasn't enough of what they call 'friend material' and it was hard enough to figure out why people didn't see me worthy enough of their friendship.
But don't even talk about romantic relationships with me. They're a joke.
"He thought very highly of you, he's gone for now, but you'll see him a few days."
"Can I—" I started, picking up the packet.
"You can have it; we have another copy."
I nodded glad I didn't have to ask to keep it or give him a reason to.
Looking back at him, I started to finally calm even though I was still chained to the desk I finally felt I was where I was supposed to be in life.
"What type of training?" I asked, folding the packet into a neat square, and slipping it in my back pocket.
"We'd be sending you to complete BUD's, which is normal for navy seals, the only difference is you won't be able to leave until you complete, and there will be an extra few lessons."
Okay. This is a...start. I wouldn't say a good one, but it's a start.
Dick continued, "It will also be an accelerated course. Normally BUD's is about a year long, for you it'd be six or so months. Depending on where you are in the course and how you're progressing."
"I have a buddy that's going to be training you privately, you'll be the only one there."
Wait, normally seals are teams, but then again this isn't a normal situation. None of it is.
"I'm the only one?"
He nodded, reaching in his pocket pulling out a key standing from his chair and walked over to me. At first, he offered me the key, but I just gave him my hands to uncuff, "You'll be the first for now, once you're ready we plan to let you choose the next recruits, though the full team will only be four more."
He offered me the key again to uncuff my ankles from the chair.
"Do you accept this offer?" He questioned, his eyes following me ask I stood.
I was about 5'9 which was short compared to his 6'3 frame, but I guess guys that are abnormally tall stand out in the crowd. Which made him, unable to blend in—or he's just too old, the man looks like he'd been sitting in a bath for two years straight all wrinkly like that, stress truly does age people.
I shrugged, "Do I really have much of a choice now. You practically told me everything." I looked over at the mirrored window, giving those behind the glass a playful salute.
"But I'm seventeen remember, not an adult yet." I walked up to the mirror, I looked like shit, and I was starving.
"Not legal remember." He joked.
That was a lame joke. This guy needs lessons.
Not that I could do any better.
"When do I leave?" Change the world remember, rather start now then later.
"In a week."
Well, this is going to be the longest next six months of my life.
December 2015 (Present Day)
"Hey, Rhylan time to get up." I felt someone nudge my shoulder and immediately all my instances were at full drive, and I found myself swiftly grabbing the unknown object; a hand, from touching me, soon I was standing with the man in the suit in my grasp his arm wrapped under and around his back and my knee in between his spine.
I blinked and let go suddenly. What is going on with the me... I shook my head again.
"Don't fucking do that." I yelled. This is why I don't like people touching me, ever, I don't care if the plane is on fire, or you were stroking out there was very few people in the world who could touch me and one of them wasn't this random man and his duped gold crested suit.
"Look I'm sorry, you fell asleep, and you looked like you needed it. Damn man that hurt." He rubbed his shoulder circling his arm socket. "Next time you do that again. I can't promise you'd still have your life." I spoke looking for my carry on.
The plain had landed in Houston in some small private plane hangar, it was December, yet it was still hot outside, and humid as always from what I could tell from the wet concrete outside. Growing up here, I hated it, I hated the heat the bipolar weather, the people, the crime, anything, and everything.
While I still do, this is where my family is. I don't have anywhere else to go, or anyone else to go to. For where my mind and mental state is now, I don't think I'd be able to take care of myself without my family a few minutes away from me.
I couldn't find my bag anywhere.
"I already but your stuff in the car. Let's go I'm supposed to take you home."
I shook my head, "No, I can find a ride, uber something." I said, I don't want to be trapped in a car with this man I didn't know for forty-five minutes on the way to my house—the only true place I feel safe.
"Yeah right, this a private plane hanger from the United States Government, yeah right. Uber." He laughed, as much as I wanted to insist, but he was right. It was dangerous for anyone to know about this place, though looking around the place looked familiar, but I couldn't place my finger on it.
Oh well. I just wanted to get home.
The car drive was long, to this day the highways of Houston still give me the worst new driver anxiety even though I had been driving for a good fourteen years give or take with the change in career the prospect of people driving me around everywhere still made me nervous. I had been gone so long filming mad max in South Africa and Australia the difference between their and my hometown often made me miss the pure humid heat Houston had to offer.
My hand tightened around my phone.
I should probably message my mother; I shook my head. Nothing good will come with that.
When the car finally rolled up to a stop in front of my house the filling of peace, I've been thriving for ages flooded through me.
Just before I open the door, the man in the stupid suit spoke, "Hey, wait"
"What?" The word sound harsher than I intended.
"Dean says you owe him one. He'll be contacting you soon."
Fuck.
I opened the door anyway, "Tell Dick to shove it."
When I took my leave, that's what it was a leave. While technically I am still active duty but because the operation wasn't on the books legally, I was able to bend the rules, take large gaps in absences from duty, do things my way.
I had to figure out a way to get away, and it was ironic I was able to get an acting call for that. They can't put me undercover if the entire world has seen my face. Can they?
I pressed my finger on my scanner disarming the security alarm for a moment to open the door. The sound of nails on the hard wood floor and huge blob of fur running to me. "Hey Lucky lue, hey buddy." I dropped my bags and got on my knees while I was smothered in dirty breath kisses.
Luther. I was stranded in the forest of Bulgaria for a little over a month, I couldn't leave the forest because people were going after me. But somehow, a tiny little black and white fur ball puppy came after me, chose me. I still don't understand how he was able to find me, but his loyalty and the fact he made me not alone.
After I was rescued, I insisted to bring the puppy with me back home to the states, which Dean wasn't very happy about. My entire training meant for me not to care or love anything, I think that's the moment he realized I was straying away from him, and the hell he put me through.
I put Luther through all sorts of military dog training, he was some type of German shepherd and Keeshond mix which made sense from the terrorist organization I was following from Germany to Bulgaria. Luther was loyal to me but found it hard to be loyal to anyone else, he loved running and working. Even if it was hunting bad guys.
After many months of training, Luther was certified in tracking, explosive detection, patrol, search and rescue, and attack. Some used more often than others, I still made sure he remembered what to do, so we did simulation rescue missions often he made sure to find his favorite duck toy every time.
I ran my hands though his soft fur whispering I love yous and I missed you. My home manager Sydney must've taken him to the groomers before I came home which made sense for his big blow out.
I walked up to the counter seeing a paper with a note on it, from Sydney.
"Dean messaged me to let me know you are on your way home. I made food for you for the week it's in the fridge, will be back on Sunday to make more food for the week. I slipped your mail under your office door."
-Sydney
I smiled, Sydney knew if she didn't make me food for the week, I'd only eat MRE's and Dairy Queen's chicken tender box. She has always been very good at her job, even consulting with a nutritionist so I could get the right amount of protein and vegetables to keep me going sense I work out so much.
I was lucky to find her, and I still agree I should give her a raise, but she won't let me and says I pay her too much as it is.
She's in her late forties, both of her children are in college, and she's divorced. I constantly tell her she can take some time off and go on a vacation, but she likes her comfort zone and prefers to spend her time reading my books. She's been like that for a while.
I made sure to give Lue a treat seeing he was a good boy while I was gone for so long, I think next time I'm going to take him with me even though I can't tell you how safe a trained military dog would be in a situation he wasn't familiar with.
I unloaded my bags putting the dirty clothes I had in the washer and putting the clean ones back in my closet. Opening my office door, the lights of the room immediately turned on and my triple monitor supercomputer powered set up woke,
"Good morning Mrs. Daines, its nice to see you again." The computer spoke.
I took off my leather jacket putting it on the coat rack next to the door, "Arthur, It's Rhylan, we've been over this."
Maybe coding him to always be polite was a bad idea.
"Yes ma'am. How was you flight home? I could not find you on any commercial airflights."
"Dean sent a private plane for me." I said, I slipped my shoes off lining them next to my other sets of black combat boots, I swear I have a problem with boots. "Ah General Dean Sawyer, would you like me to send him a passive aggressive thank you note, as always?"
I laughed, "No, It's okay. He will be contacting me soon. Though send Nelia a message, tell her I got home safely and thank you, while your are at it send her a delivery of her favorite flowers. I don't remember what they are, do you?" I sat in the chair in front of the computer.
Arthur took a moment to respond, "Nelia Wainright's favorite flower is Gardenia, an order has been placed, an a thank you message has been sent."
"That's good. Okay, give me a run down of all the things important since we last spoke." I said cracking my knuckles.
"It has been five months, twenty-six days, and twelve hours since our last update. Would you like the detailed version?"
I pulled at my desk drawer revealing my handgun case and cleaning kit, oh how I have missed you. The feeling of protection I have coded in my own program is sated when I carry, nowadays guns are too easy to come by not just in the states but in countries civilians believe it is impossible to obtain a weapon.
"Go for it' I said, taking apart the gun and begin cleaning. Gun's can never be too clean, and this one, this one went all around the world with me has taken the life of so many extremists all over the world I would probably cry if the inner barrel were to rust.
Arthur paused
"In the past five months one thousand two hundred eighty-nine dollars and ten cents has been taken out of your personal account to pay for subscriptions. Is this number, correct?"
Holy fuck, I need to stop pressing buttons.
"I'm sure it is Arthur keep going."
"Ms. Sydney has used her card to make purchases, the total was three hundred forty-six dollars and thirty-nine cents. Should I pay it off?"
I was surprised the costs were so little, I always tell her to use to for anything she would like.
"What were the purchase?"
Arthur commanded the computer to bring up the bank statement, he also opened a folder containing all the receipt Sydney scanned in, the rate the intelligence was flipping through the scans made me dizzy.
"It seems many of them are cleaning and pet care products. The most recent purchases conclude of steak, bell peppers, jalapeños, twelve-ounce chicken breast –"
"Yeah, I get it, it's food." I spoke, digging caked gun powder out of the crevasse of the handle, I must've been half asleep when I cleaned this originally.
I continued picking at the gun powder, I couldn't even tell you why it was there this gun didn't use much gunpowder. I looked up at the triple monitor screens, Arthurs program was running facial recognition on my outdoor cameras, every delivery man, every pet, neighbor, everything. I looked back down at the handgun in my hand putting the parts back together, I knew Arthur wouldn't find anything.
You may call me paranoid, and I might be. The problem is I have enemies in the world, enemies that would do anything and everything to hurt me and the people I love, not only do I need a safe space to feel at ease, but I need to know that the people close to me do too.
My house is a fortress and my future home build will be even more high tech.
Arthur is coded to scan constantly throughout the day and night, and alert me for any suspicious activity in my area or around the house in general, therefore I knew the results would turn up negative and there was nothing to worry about.
"There seems to be no suspicious activity as been recorded within the last five months."
I nodded; my ego swelled; I was right. I win at this coding came now don't I?
"Anything else?" I questioned, watching Arthur close his previous computer windows, and bring up the data from the bitcoin rig I set up a while back. Mostly because I was bored, but now it's been a steady source of income.
"Roughly thirteen point five seven bitcoin has been successfully mined since your last withdrawal. The total worth translated is two hundred twenty-five thousand one hundred seventy United State dollar."
I choked. That's a lot of money, I didn't expect it to be that much.
I did the math in my head, "Take eighteen percent and put it into my savings account—" More math, "Take the rest and donate it to my usual charities."
It's money I don't need, there's a point where money doesn't help and only becomes more of a burden with taxes. Not to mention, bad things happen to people with a lot of money all the time.
"Would you like to make the donations anonymous?" Arthur asked.
I thought about it, would I? Is it selfish to want to put my name on it, to get praise from people I didn't know? But my mind kept trying to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal, I wouldn't see the praise, It's not like I had social media of any kind.
"Make it anonymous."
I'm not going to change the way I do things because I made my name public, I don't want to change myself.
"The transaction has been complete. Do you need my assistance any further?"
"No, just monitor me while I'm in Texas. I want to know anything and everything."
The computer dinged signaling the program has accepted my order and the ceiling lights dimmed an array of colorful desk lights turned on displaying a plethora of colors from the rainbow. "What game are you interested in playing?"
I put my gun case and cleaning kit back in the drawer, "Surprise me"
I put my headset as I watch the logo for the game the coded system choose to appear, World of Warcraft.
Oh home have I missed you.
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Text
Pleasure, Pain, and Power Chapter 15
Chapter 15 Rut Day One
Summary: Cont. of Chapter 14. It’s the first official day of Ren’s rut, and the only thing on his mind is taking care of and breeding his Jasmine.
Contains: Physical/mental abuse, possession, piss, feederism, humiliation, inhuman genitalia, rut, breeding, mentions of medication, somnophilia, DEAD DOVE
NSFW
MDNI
The next few days consisted of Jasmine forcing Ren to take his medication, despite his insistence he doesn’t need them. He would take it, go to work, and come back ready to start his rut. Jasmine did all she could, almost resorting to hiding his pill in meat or cheese. It’s when he started nipping at her is when she finally gave up on it. One day, she woke up to a disgusting, awful smell. Dawn had just come, and Ren’s alarm hadn’t even gone off. Yet there he was, at his edge of the bed, pissing on the sheets. After waking up and getting over her blatant shock, she spoke up. “Ren? Fucking excuse me? What are you doing?” He quickly turned his attention to her and almost pounced. “Pet, you’re up! You looked so beautiful while you were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you. Good morning…” He dragged out his last sentence, and slowly pulled the covers off of her. He used them to cover up his stains, which didn’t do anything about the smell. Makes sense why he put down a mattress cover, but God that’s gross. She got up to use the restroom, but Ren came around to her side of the bed and forced her back down. “No, Pet, you can’t leave. Stay here where it’s safe, and warm, and comfortable!” He had a wild look on his face that was only amplified by his recent shedding and eye bags. “Ren, I was just getting up to use the bathroom, alright?” He gestured to the spot he just used and smiled. “No, Ren, I want to use a toilet. Is that…okay?” His expression fell, and he looked mad. “Sure, fine, use it. Why don’t you rip my fucking heart out too while you’re at it?” Jasmine had become expectant of his outbursts, but didn’t think he’d get so possessive over using the bathroom. “…you want me to piss in the bed? Really?” He nodded, a small smile returning to his face. “The nest, but yes, I do. It’s ours, after all.” His tail wagged at the mention of it being theirs. He loved having her as a pet, but now he wanted her to indulge him. Jasmine looked down, seeing the bulge growing in his sweatpants. “Okay Ren, how about this, I’ll…mark our territory now, but next time I use the toilet.” He smiled and pressed himself against the mattress. God this is so fucking humiliating.
Jasmine shifted and squatted over the foot of the bed while trying to avoid where she actually sleeps. Ren intervened, bringing her knees down and arching her back slightly. He had a perfect view of her, and couldn’t stop himself from humping the mattress. What the-I don’t even think I can go like this! She let her mind escape into another world, trying to distract herself. Ren waited patiently for her to start, and Jasmine could feel his gaze burning into her ass. She took a deep breath and relaxed herself, thinking of a running waterfall and a trickling tap. It wasn’t too long before she could feel a trickle run past her lips and onto the sheets. “Fuuuuck yes, good girl.” Ren spread her cheeks and watched her go, licking his lips. This cannot be happening, he’s done weird shit before, but this is just gross. He was breathing heavily while he watched, and Jasmine squirmed at the invasive attention. She finally moved away from him when he bent down and sniffed her heat. “Ren, I’m going to go make some coffee, you want some?” She tried distracting him as best she could from her performance, shifting the topic to something more human. Ren grabbed her thigh, smiling, but not answering her question. “I have something for youuu~” He scurried off to the closet and Jasmine sat up on the bed. He brought back a black box with a light orange ribbon and placed it in front of Jasmine. “Open it!” He bent over the bed and his tail swished back and forth. Jasmine slowly pulled apart the bow and lifted the lid up. Dammit, I need to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt, what the Hell was I expecting? She looked down at the fox ear headband and matching tails. Unlike many of the other gifts he’s gotten her, these were relatively basic, as there were no bows, lace, or gems attached. They were simple, yet hyper realistic, fox themed ears. One of the two tails had a black strap meant to go around her hips, and the other had a gold butt plug attached at the base. Both were long and fluffy, and the ears were on a secure looking headband. “You…want me to wear these, sweetie? Not any of my other underwear?” He quickly nodded his head, and nudged the box towards her. “I don’t want you in anything else, just this.” Jasmine lifted the ears and placed them on her head. Ren got up on the bed and adjusted them, kissing her forehead. “Now the tail! Do the banded one first.” He lifted up her night dress as Jasmine undid the clasp on it. She tried ignoring his wandering eyes and touchy hands while she strapped it around herself. She slid off the bed, stood up, and did a spin for Ren. “Hmmm yesss, good girl! I love it!” He grabbed her hips, brought her close, and shoved his face in her neck. Alright, I need coffee before this keeps going.
Ren followed Jasmine to the kitchen while keeping his hand on her the whole time. She started the coffee maker, took some eggs and bacon out of the fridge, and lit up the stove. She had turned away for just a second, only to look back to see Ren eating raw bacon right out of the bag. “Ren, please wait for me to cook it first. I’m not kissing you again till you brush your teeth.” He put down the strip, mid bite. “I promise it’s good like this, it’s even better for you! Try it.” Jasmine took the strip he held out to her and placed it in the pan, letting it sizzle. “No, sweetie, I’m not eating raw meat. You know I can’t do that.” Jasmine turned her attention to the stove and started whisking eggs together. She had to swat Ren’s hand away a few times when he reached for them, but gave up when he popped a whole raw egg in his mouth. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll go away. Or, at the very least, stop annoying me. She did just that, so Ren held her from behind and pressed himself against her ass. He followed her across the kitchen, and she tried to ignore his blatant dry humping. “Let’s eat in the nest, Pet!” Ren finally let go, grabbed both plates, and nudged her towards the “nest”. Thank God I didn’t brew him anything, he does not need coffee right now. As they entered, the smell hit her like a brick wall. Ren was all too happy to cuddle up in the bed and start eating. Jasmine hesitated, but figured it was best to follow along with him. She picked at her food and held her breath, while Ren wolfed his down and put his plate on the floor. He watched Jasmine eat, encouraging her to do so slowly. When she finished he hopped up and ran to the kitchen. He brought her fruit, snacks, chips, and insisted she eat more. He’d go back and forth between staring at her mouth and belly, and even put his hands on her to rub at her stomach. “Ren? What’s this for?” He looked up at her, smiling. “I want you bigger, of course! You’d be so beautiful with a bigger waist.” Jasmine told herself over and over again it was just his rut, but she feared this behavior would last longer than a week.
After she ate more than she really could, Ren threw the wrappers and plates on the floor and pushed her back onto the bed. He started kissing her jaw, her neck, her chest, then her stomach. “Fuck…I can’t wait any longer, I need you, Pet~” He brought her legs up and shoved his nose in her lap, making Jasmine gasp. He sniffed and licked at her till she was moaning and wet. He slowly humped the mattress again as he groped and kissed up and down her thighs. When he deemed her wet enough, he tore off his pants and rubbed himself against her entrance. Jasmine looked down and gasped, his cock was reddish and his knot was already bigger than usual. She didn’t have time to question or comment on it before he rammed it into her, making her scream in pleasure and pain. “Fuuuuck! Ren-ah, I-ow!” He ignored her scream and focused on ramming into her, all while tearing up her hips with his claws. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, grunting and whining into her ear. It felt more like being attacked and bred by a wild animal rather than making love to her partner, but of course, that’s what a rut is. It’s messy, erratic, and dangerous. Ren could barely keep a steady pace, unlike how he usually does, as he could only focus on going fast and hard. It wasn’t long before he climaxed into Jasmine, spilling his hot cum inside her, and knotting her in the process. It felt like hot lava, and her walls burned from his engorged knot. His hips sputtered and she wrapped her legs around him, trying to get him to stay still and ease herself into the pain. He collapsed on top of her, and the two caught their breaths. Jasmine was about to speak up, to tell him to calm down or that it hurt, but Ren had caught his breath and started rutting into her again. His knot kept him inside her as he thrusted his cum deeper and deeper into her womb. “Ren-unh please-aah calm down!” She was used to him being rough with her, but he would usually slow down if she asked. Instead of obliging, he growled in her ear and kept humping into her like a rabid animal. I’m going to be nothing but a doll for him to bite and cum into, and that’s all I’ll be for the next week! I don’t know if I can take it, I don’t…ahhhh~ Despite the pain and obvious humiliation of being a half step above a fleshlight, the pain Jasmine felt soon turned to pleasure, and could feel herself getting wetter. I’m nothing…but a doll…for this animal to bite…and cum into…and that’s all I’ll…ever be… Her sanity was already slipping, and she started to get off to the humiliation.
Ren came inside her two more times before finally slowing down. Jasmine was a mess, with tears and drool struck across her face. They were both breathing erratically, but could rest now, even with Ren’s knot still inside her. “S-sorry, Sweetie, I’ve been a little pent up lately.” Jasmine’s brain had turned to mush, but she still managed to respond. “S’okay Ren, I…I get it.” They cuddled and waited for Ren’s knot to go down. When it finally did, he pulled himself out, and Jasmine felt his cum drip out of her. Ren must have felt it too, since he immediately bent down and tried shoving it back in with his fingers. “Ren! No, bad boy.” Jasmine smacked his hand away, and Ren looked shocked. “Sweetie, you know I’m not actually going to get pregnant…right?” Before meeting him, Jasmine had had a Nexplanon bar inserted in her arm as her choice of birth control. It’s the only reason why she’s lasted this long with Ren without already getting pregnant. He looked down at what he was doing and apologized. “Sorry Pet, I guess I got a little carried away again.” He blushed and smiled softly at her, wiping his hand on the sheets beneath him. He got behind her and threw his arm around her waist. “So, what do you think of this so far? Think you can take more of me?” Jasmine sighed and gripped his arm, pushing herself back into him. “If it stays exactly like this and you don’t get any more intense? Sure, I can handle it. That isn’t going to happen, though, isn’t it?” Ren chuckled and took a deep breath, taking in her scent. “No, Pet, it’s not going to stay this way, but I think it’s cute how you think it might.” The combination of her scent, her naivety, and just the thought of himself getting more intense made Ren hard again, and he was ready for another round.
The rest of the day was full of fucking, feeding, and Ren trying to get Jasmine to use the bed as a bathroom again. Although he was acting like a feral animal, he would have moments of sanity in between orgasms. They didn’t last long, and he would soon go back to furiously humping her each time, but Jasmine appreciated the moments of softness that came with it. She was even sort of warming up to his rut. Ren did all the work, he licked and bangaged her wounds, and she was served food in bed throughout the day. He even offered to carry her to the bathroom, which in hindsight was just a way for him to follow her in and watch her like the creep he is, but she still appreciated the spoiling. The day was coming to an end, and Ren could feel his body crashing from exhaustion. He barely ate all day, despite Jasmine offering him her food. He made one last run to the kitchen and came back with a pint of ice cream for Jasmine, and raw chicken and pasta for himself. He teared into the chicken with his teeth, transfixed on Jasmine, who was delicately eating her ice cream with a spoon. He used his hands for everything he ate, so Jasmine forced him to wash up after. She took him to the bathroom, washed his face and hands, and he begrudgingly thanked her. After that, they both fell into bed and fell asleep for the night. Throughout the night, Jasmine could’ve sworn she felt Ren grinding against her, but chalked it up to a strange recurring dream of hers. They were both so tired, neither of them noticed Jasmine’s phone buzzing with a text message.
Notes: I am so incredibly sorry, I just started writing and couldn’t help getting weird with it. I hope you all enjoyed it, there will be more piss to come :( Anyways, those of you with a breeding kink are gonna go crazy for the next few chapters, just you wait!
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ajmakoko · 3 months
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So we all know doctors are cops (and so are professors)
And we all know police cops have a type of moral and legal narcissism* that causes them to objectify the public, leading to abuse for moral or legal transgressions, whilst still excusing their own transgressions
Likewise doctors have physical and moral narcissism that lets them abuse their patients, especially fat ones, one with pain, ones who use substances, ones with mental health issues, eating disorders, any one who bothers them even slightly- i have yet to meet a sober doctor. Like one who wasn't on a performance enhancing medication of some kind. Propranolol, Ritalin, Vyvanse, Xywave, benzos, opiates, etc, etc, etc... Yet if their patients did that, even as prescribed, we'd be scrutinized. But they are the saviors who help us (yet somehow they end up being the barrier to us accessing healthcare and tend to kill us)... And just like regular cops, they sexually harass their patients too :) It's awesome! I have been sexually harassedby 3 different doctors, including as a minor. Just like real police have issues with sexually harassing people.
And if you can't see exactly how intellectual and moral narcissism in academia follows this trend of objectification and abuse (including sexual abuse), let me know and I'll explain it.
*I'm not talking about narcissistic personality disorder/diagnosis, im talking ab narcissism as a general cultural trait
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zigidaoma · 9 months
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so i'm at about one and half weeks of being completely sober
I'll be turning thirty-one this year and after the last couple of years of struggling with daily drinking, i decided to start off the new year by going completely sober.
i have a long history of using many different substances since high school. I go from snorting pills to smoking cigarettes to drinking to robotripping, smoking weed to syn. all the stupid shit i can put into my body with varying degrees of damage that comes with doing different substances.
I have an excuse for every time i started up on something new and an explanation behind every week to years long spiral i've ever taken. i've gone through withdrawals that in hindsight where probably life threatening but at the time i still felt young and invincible and i'll be damned if i don't do what i want to do. I've been wrapped up in the court system and had mandatory AA meetings and social worker counseling's that i gleaned nothing other than "i'm not like the others you talk about" because i was always able to stop one habit when i wanted to. I would know i was doing more than the average person and i would still keep on doing it because i knew when i actually wanted to quit i would. and generally speaking i usually did.
I know my approach is self medicating over NEEDING to put something in my body. you could argue that addiction and self-medicating are the same thing. maybe it is, i don't really know since i'm not some specialist in it but i know that for me, i don't feel like my relationship with substance use is like other people i've talked to who've walked back from addiction or are in the throws of it. the closest i've felt is a craving for a cigarette in a hard moment. I know i slip back time and again when life gets hard but it's never been to feel better, it feels, to me, to function. to self-medicate in a way that people with a doctor would. i just didn't have a doctor.
i had a psychiatrist back in middle school, before i ever even dared try something i knew as a child shouldn't use. i frequently didn't like the way my medication made me feel, i was ignored on that front, and other than making me more manageable for the adults in my day to day life[teachers, coaches, ect], i didn't function better. my grades were still bad, my room was still a mess, my goals and ambitions non-existant as i tried to scrape away parts of myself to fit the standard mold of what i should be able to do at my age.
and then i had one psychiatrist who started me on a host of heavy medication all at once, and my mom, the social worker, wouldn't even let me know where the medication was kept in the house. she would simply bring me my cocktail in the morning after i woke up and i would take them with a glass of water and get ready for school. one day, following this routine, i became violently ill. I ended up in the hospital and was told i had overdosed on my prescribed, meticulously administered medication. The psychiatrist accused me of abusing my medication, the doctor who was treating my physical symptoms was telling me that all of my issues where because i just needed to start eating elderberries. they both got into such a tug of war about it we had to stop seeing both doctors and my medical team was hauled over by my mom.
but the damage was pretty much done. it was clear to me that no one cared if i was happy, no one cared if i was functioning. That was when i decided to start self-medicating.
and that started what has now been essentially half of my life of using substances as i saw fit to accomplish what i wanted. since i was sixteen i haven't gone more than a week of not using something to self sooth, focus and rally myself into taking on the world. it has been my cornerstone for socializing, initiating, finalizing and performing the most basic functions to take care of myself. I've always had alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and pretty much anything else i could get my hands on to create my desired outcome of myself.
as of this moment, i quit nicotine[for the fourth time] four months ago, i had been socially smoking weed and would occasionally have a cup of coffee at work for the last couple of years so that one wasn't too hard to just cut off these past few days, and this is the longest i've been without a drink in the past three years.
i occasionally did everything aforementioned in great excess in my early twenties but felt like i had figured out how to manage on a supplemental amount as i matured.
I have had little withdrawal from drinking, just not being able to sleep much the first few nights. i've otherwise come to realize that i'm not really working through a physical dependency so much as a mental one. I still am hesitant to put myself back in to a psychiatrists seat but i feel that the problem is less the substance and more so myself. i imagine i'll drink at some point again, but when that is is up to the wind. i keep feeling like this exception to things, negatively and positively.
Obviously i'm still very early on this journey of sobriety and i'm trying to be reflective and look at it in a way that hasn't worked the last 15 years. i've been functioning and i've accomplished things and i've fallen and i've had horrible losses and it feels like few wins at times. I dont feel that i have substances as a part of my identity like some people who struggle do. I don't feel like it's this physical craving[since quitting alcohol all i've craved is a cigarette in passing moments, oddly enough], i've just been thinking about how this is the cleanest i've kept my system in so many odd years and it doesn't really feel all that different. I don't feel like i'm describing it all that well but i guess i just thought quitting would be harder? i thought things would somehow become easier in some ways? other things would become more difficult? the scales would tip somehow in some way that i had just barely been keeping at stasis through my regular use. but not much has changed. i get the same amount of stuff done as before. my hobbies and interests has held fast, socializing is about the same, my job has not become easier or harder to maintain, it seems like almost no one has noticed that i have quit using unless i have said otherwise to the matter. i dont know if i want this big change i thought would happen from becoming sober but it feels anti-climatic for it all to stay the same sans substance use. maybe i'm too early in the game to call it as i see it.
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lillianeshaw · 10 months
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Obstetric violence in the daily routine of care and its characteristics
Jardim, Danúbia M. B. and Celina M. Modena. 2018. “Obstetric violence in the daily routine of care and its characteristics.” Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem 26.
“Obstetric violence portrays a violation of human rights and a serious public health problem and is revealed in the form of negligent, reckless, omissive, discriminatory and disrespectful acts practiced by health professionals and legitimized by the symbolic relations of power that naturalize and trivialize their occurrence.”
Gestation (pregnancy) is no longer understood as a physiological event of life, but one that requires excessive control. In the birthing scenario, women are controlled by their environment and surrounded by institutional rules and protocols. These controls make them discredit their capacity to give birth. 
Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals obstetric violence is a global issue; women are being assisted in a violent manner everywhere in the world. They experience situations of mistreatment, disrespect, abuse, negligence, violation of human rights by health professionals, especially during delivery and birth.
Half-naked women are left in the presence of strangers or alone in unfriendly settings, in positions of total submission with open and raised legs in stirrups, and their genital organs exposed. Many women are frequently denied the presence of a companion of their choice, receive little to no information about various procedures performed during their care, are subjected to routine and repetitive painful vaginal examinations without justification, are deprived of their right to food or walking, must undergo frequent use oxytocin to accelerate labor, and suffer unconsented procedures such as cesarean surgeries, episiotomies, artificial rupture of membranes, prophylactic intravenous medications, and fundal pressure.
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Though experienced by all groups, women of low socioeconomic and educational status, ethnic minorities, adolescents, substance users, homeless women, and women without prenatal care experience significantly more adverse health outcomes and mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth.
Following the stereotype that women’s knowledge, and that of birthing women in particular, is inferior and unreliable due to their more emotional and irrational nature, technology and medical staff become the most reliable sources of knowledge in the labor room.
The WHO has typified forms of obstetric violence into five categories: 1) routine and unnecessary interventions and medicalization; 2) verbal abuse, humiliation, or physical aggression; 3) lack of resources and inadequate facilities; 4) practices performed by residents and professionals without the woman’s permission after providing her comprehensive, truthful, and sufficient information; 5) discrimination on cultural, economic, religious, and ethnic grounds
Obstetric violence is a feminist issue. Patriarchal oppression has led to the under-evaluation, oppression and objectification of the female body, limiting the power and way of expression of women. Labeled as reproductive bodies, women’s subjectivity is annulled and they are deprived of any right of choice. 
Professionals attempt to justify acts of obstetric violence through explanations of work overload, scarce of human resources, physical and mental exhaustion, and lack of adequate infrastructure in institutions. These excuses demonstrate a lack of commitment of health professionals and allow for ethical relationships between patients and providers to become inhuman, highly technological, and invasive. 
Women are suffering in silence without knowing they were violated. Women are lacking in knowledge of their sexual and reproductive rights, making them unable to recognize whether or not they suffered violent acts because they blindly trust their caregivers. 
It is fundamental to give visibility to the problem with the creation of channels for denunciation and accountability of the different actors involved which have contributed to the issue of obstetric violence. The creation of laws, ordinances, and public policies to protect women against obstetric violence, and acknowledgement of their right to care free of violence and autonomy over their bodies must be pursued. 
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