#i think i sort of self medicate with sugar and caffeine otherwise

[13eyond13]

Do you have favorite sweets?

Milk chocolate in general is always my favourite! Toblerone bars and stuff, I have a huge sweet tooth and can usually stomach the super sugary types of treats that some other people sometimes can't

[scapegrace74-blog]

Gratitude

A/N  When we last saw Jamie and Claire, they’d crashed, burned (somewhat literally) and declared their mutual interest in each other in their individual ways.   Whither now, our pair?

All other parts of the Metric Universe are available on my AO3 page.

The song by Big Red Machine (another guest artist!) that inspired the title is here.

June 1, 2018, Costa Coffee, Whitechapel, London, England

“It feels like ye might be avoiding me, Sassenach.”

It occurred to her that Jamie knew her schedule and habits to an uncomfortable degree for him to be at her favourite coffee shop at exactly the point in her shift when she could no longer resist the siren call of caffeine.

Since the fire in their building and Jamie’s subsequent profession of love, they’d been living under separate roofs.  Claire was sleeping on the couch at the home of one of her fellow medical students, and Jamie was bunking down with his uncle.  Their flat had escaped the flames, suffering only smoke damage, but it would be at least eight weeks before the building was declared structurally sound and they could move back in.

Heading to the counter, Claire purchased her usual extra-large oat milk cortado with a fruited teacake, then added a flat black with raw sugar for Jamie.  Settling across from him, she slid his coffee across the tiny table before splitting her teacake and balancing half on his saucer.  He nodded his thanks, but was otherwise silent, waiting her out.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she began, surprising them both with the frankness of her opening salvo.  It helped, she found, to be paying undue attention to stirring her coffee as she spoke.

“That doesna sound like ye, mo nighean donn.   Why don’t ye tell me what part is vexin’ ye, an’ we can see if we canna bash our brains t’gether til we come up wi’ a plan, aye?”

She knew what he was doing.  Cleverly depersonalizing their situation so that she could approach it like any other problem.  Part of her resented his easy manipulation, grounded as it was in how well he knew her.  But there was a secret part of her that thrilled at the emotional intimacy.  To be seen, truly seen, in all her messy complexity, was a novel experience.  Jamie knew the architecture of her heart, all its dark corners and blind hallways.  He must have recognized something worthy, to be willing to so patiently coax her away from her solitude.

Plus, she’d spent the last year training him to leave the toilet seat down.  That wasn’t the sort of work you just walked away from.

“It’s... god, where do I start?  It’s having no idea what it means to be in a healthy adult relationship.  And the crippling fear that if I fuck this up, it’ll ruin our friendship, which is so important to me, Jamie.  I don’t think you have any idea...  Plus our living situation...”

“We arenna livin’ t’gether for the moment, Sassenach,” Jamie interrupted.  He had leaned forward across the table as she stammered through her recitation, and his curls had flopped across his brow in that boyish way they had.  Her chest tightened, torn between affection and blind terror.

“No.  That’s true.”

“With yer permission, I’d like tae make a suggestion.”  At her cautious nod, Jamie continued.  “For the next two months, we willna be roommates.  I’d like tae... court ye...”

“Court me?!” Claire blurted out.  “What, like in a Jane Austen novel?”  She couldn’t help but smile at Jamie as he blushed, but he continued undeterred.

“Aye, like that.  Ye’re used tae havin’ all the answers, Sassenach, but this isna one of yer wee tests tha’ ye can study for.  We’re gonna have tae wing it, and see where it takes us.  But I promise ye, I willna play ye false and I willna walk away.  Will ye at least give this thing between us a chance?  If it doesna work, we can go back tae livin’ t’gether as friends, no questions asked.”

At some point during his speech, their hands had met across the table.  She could feel Jamie’s trembling through his fingertips.  He was scared too, but he was being brave because he felt it was worth the risk.  How could she dare to do otherwise?

“Alright,” she conceded, and his smile warmed her face like sunshine.  “What do you propose, then?  Shall I don my best parlour gown and set out the petit fours, Master Fraser?”

“Och, I dinna mean tae be makin’ me call me master quite yet, Sassenach,” he teased, delighting in her blush.  “I’ll be at yer door t’morrow.  Three sharp.  Wear somethin’ comfortable an’ bring a jumper for after dark.”

Finishing his teacake in three large bites, Jamie hopped up from his seat and brushed the crumbs from his jeans.  With a mischievous grin and a cock-eyed wink, he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

“Until tomorrow then, milady.”

Jesus Christ, what had she just done?

***

To her relief, Jamie showed up at Joe’s front door in his usual jeans and Henley, not a frock coat and jodhpurs  He wasn’t even carrying flowers.  Joe tried to buttonhole him with talk of the previous night’s football match, but after a few minutes of polite chitchat Jamie ushered Claire out the door, joking that he’d have her home before curfew.

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of his behaviour.  The Jamie she knew had always been charming, when he wasn’t busy putting his foot in his mouth.  Now she marveled at his apparent ease as they descended the steps into the Tube.

Heading west on the District Line, thoughts continued to assail her.  Was he always this self-confident on a date?  How often did he go out with other women, anyway?  She’d assumed she knew everything there was to know about Jamie, but maybe she was wrong.  Before Frank, her last date had been back in nursing school, and a VHS player and copious cheap beer had been involved.  Despite the over-zealous air conditioning in their train, her palms began to sweat.

“Ye needn’t be afraid of me, Claire,” Jamie’s soft burr interrupted her quiet panic attack.  “I’m no’ going tae suddenly turn into some man ye dinna recognize, just because I’m tryin’ tae romance ye a wee bit.”

Once again, with only a few words Jamie had peeled away her layers of confusion and doubt to strike at the core of what was bothering her.  She forced herself to take a deep breath and immediately recognized Jamie’s scent; a blend of laundry detergent, his vetiver bar soap, and a touch of chlorine left over from the morning’s swim.  It set her at ease.  He hadn’t worn cologne.  His left boot had a frayed lace that had needed changing since March.  His cuticles were as inexplicably perfectly formed as always.  He was her Jamie, and she could trust him to behave in accordance with what she already knew of him, even in this uncharted territory.

“So, where exactly are we going?” she asked after the crackling announcement for St. James Park had died away.

“Would it ease yer mind a wee bit, tae ken?”

“Maybe a wee bit,” she confessed.

“Well, then, how can I refuse?  Have ye e’er been tae the Chelsea Physic Garden, Sassenach?”

***

As it turned out, by some grievous oversight she hadn’t.  Wedged between a high brick wall and the Thames was a three hundred and fifty year old urban oasis, filled with plants that could either treat your ailments or kill you.  Naturally, she was enchanted.  Jamie followed her between the beds and down the shaded lanes of pea gravel, a soft smile held between his lips.

When the garden closed, they walked along the Embankment and over the Thames at Chelsea Bridge, stopping to watch the sun set over the murky water.  A food truck beckoned with its aroma of chips and burgers, which they ate on a nearby bench, going back for extra napkins when their choice in toppings proved especially messy.

It was the least romantic meal she’d ever eaten, and she was soothed and smitten in equal measure.

Washing grease from his hands in a drinking fountain, Jamie turned to her in the half-light.

“Now, I have a verra important question of ye, Sassenach, and how ye answer will determine the future course of our evening t’gether.”

Here it was, she balked.  The hook at the end of the line. The sour amongst so much sweetness.  She shouldn’t have expected...

“Are ye,” Jamie continued, unaware of her inner monologue, “afraid of heights?”

... no different than any other man, with his...

“Am I what?” she blurted, once her brain caught up with her ears.

“Afraid of heights?  An’ a bit of a scamper up some scaffolding?”

Jamie was pointing over her shoulder.  She peered into the night, but all she could make out was the hulking shadow of the derelict Battersea Power Station.

***

It was a convoluted story, but the outline went something like this: the massive coal-fired station, with its four spire-like chimneys, was slated for redevelopment.  Jamie had taken part in an onsite review of the location by the London Fire Service, and had befriended a representative of the developer.  Somehow, this friend had granted Jamie access to the site, which is how Claire now found herself over fifty metres above the ground, climbing a seemingly endless series of metal steps, with her curls trying to escape the confines of a workman’s hard hat.

“You really know how to show a girl a good time, Jamie Fraser,” she grumbled as they came to a landing made out of scaffolding.   Above them, a white chimney ascended into the dome of the sky.

“Ye canna say I dinna take yer breath away, Sassenach,” he teased.

She was about to retort when they stepped around the base of the chimney tower, and all words failed her.

Rolled out far below their feet, the Thames was a black carpet reflecting millions of pinpoint gems skyward, broken by belts of light where it was traversed by a bridge.  Beyond the eastern bend in the river, the City glowed with its eternal hum.  The colossal space taken up by the station was a palpable presence behind their backs.

“It reminds me of yer Uncle Lamb’s saying, about makin’ our present out of the bones of our past.  Twasn’t the original plan, but here she stands, still vital and strong, being remade anew.  An’ a beautiful vision fer all tha’.”

She wasn’t convinced that Jamie was talking about the power station.  

A cool breeze blew off the river, and she shivered.  A jacket still warm with body heat immediately covered her shoulders.   They stood side by side in silence, just taking in the view.

When their hands bumped, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to thread her fingers with his own.

“You’ve set the bar impossibly high for any future dates, you know,” she commented eventually.

“Ye’re only sayin’ that because ye dinna ken what I have planned next.”  His grin was impossibly smug, and she fought the urge to kiss it right off his beautiful mouth.  He must have read the impulse in her eyes, because his face was slowly approaching her own, eyes a volatile mix of hope and trepidation.

Her own eyes fluttered closed in anticipation.  Just as their lips should have been meeting, their was a ductile crunch, and their heads bounced apart with comedic timing.  Their hard helmets had collided.  Jamie swore softly beneath his breath, but Claire couldn’t stop giggling.

“Oh, thank god.  It is you.  I was beginning to wonder.”

***

It was late when they finally exited the Tube, but Jamie insisted on accompanying Claire all the way to the Abernathy’s front door.  She handed him back his leather jacket, feeling suddenly awkward in the brightly lit hall.  The date had been magical, far beyond her wildest expectations, and it felt strange to return to the prosaic reality of their lives.

“Thank you for a wonderful time, Jamie.”

“Twas my pleasure, Sassenach.   I’ve missed ye, these past few weeks.  And I really hope... well, you’ll tell me if you want to do somethin’ like this again, aye?”  His hand went to the back of his neck in a gesture she knew well.  Bless the man, he had no idea the effect he had on her.  It was well past time to let him know.

“I’d love that.  Truly.  I’ve got final exams to study for, but maybe sometime next week?”

"Well then,” he replied, clearly delighted with her response.  “I should let ye get some sleep.  Good luck on yer exams, Sassenach.   And thank ye, fer bein’ willing tae give this a chance.  Twas a day I’ll ne’er forget.”

He began to walk away.

“Jamie!”  He turned around.

“Aye?”

Walking forward to the beat of her pounding heart, she halted when their bellies were practically touching.  Lifting up on tiptoe, she pressed into his mouth.  Time slowed to a syrupy drip as their lips met for the first time.  His rough exhale was the only sound in the cocoon of sensation that enveloped them.  It felt like she was falling through an endless cloud. Too soon, she had to pull away to capture her breath, and the spell was broken.  Judging by his moonstruck expression, Jamie had been equally affected.  She smiled when she realized his arms were still held aloft, like he was trying to hold on to the memory of their kiss.

“Goodnight, James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser,” she purred before she disappeared from his sight.

[consequentson]

Important headcanons to consider:

Can they use chopsticks? Not unless you count using them as walrus teeth -- which he will only do if he is very comfortable with present company and in a particularly dorky mood... but I’m not saying it’s impossible. Dylan’s nerdiness is fathomless, once tapped. But alas... the stony exterior has to crack first.

What do they do when they can’t sleep? Depends on the verse / Dylan’s age. Self medication is a general umbrella term for most of the things he’d do -- smoke, drink, engage in otherwise irresponsible activities... but with age and maturity, he narrowed it down to mostly drinking. If he just can’t sleep but is in a decent mental state, he loves binging on documentaries on Netflix or some other streaming service in the dead of night just so he can surprise the people he knows with intelligent facts just casually slipped in at some point. Norman thinks he’s sooo smart. Pfft.  (Really, Dylan’s just amazed with nature. Why do flowers get the certain colours they do? Why are there so many different kinds of birds? Is there seriously a mouse that howls like a wolf and kills and eats scorpions...? Nature’s badass.)

What would they impulse buy at the grocery store? Besides booze? Sour candies, anything apple-cinnamon or baked with blueberries, or any really nice cuts from the butcher... ... honestly, most foods. But Dylan has a surprising sweet tooth considering his teeny tiny obsession with dental hygiene.

What order do they wash things in the shower? Hair, body, private bits, rinse everything, and then face, and one more rinse.

What’s their coffee order? Depends on his mood. The darker his mood, the darker his coffee....... or, he could just be having something really sweet or rich on the side. If he’s just having coffee, no food, he actually likes cream and sugar; no need to get all angsty with the caffeine, son. Give him those caramel or chocolate mint flavor shots and he will thank you with a tip.

What sort of apps would they have on their smartphone?  Oh, this one’s tricky for me because I don’t have a cell phone irl... but I imagine Dylan would have Facebook and Instagram, veeeery rarely updating his Facebook (if ever) and only really updating his Instagram with captionless, hashtagless photos of random stuff he likes every now and then. I’m not gonna lie... Dylan’d probably like Pinterest, too. He likes the DYI stuff -- learning how to do things with his hands, on his own... he’s a strong, independent man who don’t need no Martha Stewart telling him how to live his life.

How do they act around children?  Reserved as heeeeck. Even with Katie -- he’ll always hold onto her, be perhaps a smidge over protective, especially around others... when he’s at home alone with his daughter, though, that’s when he more flourishes as a parent -- or if they’re off having an adventure, doesn’t necessarily have to be at home. Then he’ll be goofy and give new meaning to the words “dorky, devoted dad.” But yeah, around others, he’s still like “ehhhh” just kinda wants to hold Katie’s hand and smile and nod to the other parents but let Emma do most of the talking.

What would they watch on tv when they’re bored and nothing they really like is on? Nature documentariesss. Some other documentaries, too -- but yeah, those are definitely the ones that’d surprise people. Otherwise, he enjoys action-adventure flicks, the kind that take you outside of the real world and suck you in and make you forget about your life for a few hours.

Tagged by: @wreckadai Tagging: @humanflynn if you haven’t done it there yet, @scarcesplendor, and @likepapertowns for Arianna if you want!

[askariakapo90]

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[viralhottopics]

Dishing the dirt on detox | Jay Rayner

A self-confessed glutton, Jay Rayner has always been wary of the January detox. But after talking to experts and sampling some of the products, hes discovered the truth is even worse than he imagined

Sunday afternoon in the darkest days of early January and I am sitting on the sofa, my face caked in a mixture of clay mined from deep below the Atlas mountains and organic rosewater from the Dades Valley. My cheeks and brows are a mess of coagulating geography. I am giving myself a home facial, courtesy of Facetox, a product originating from Leeds which promises to Extract, Pull & Detoxify. The box says its cruelty free, but doing this to myself feels rather less so.

In my hand is a steaming mug of Dr Stuarts Liver Detox naturally caffeine-free tea, containing dandelion root, centaury herb and milk thistle. The tea promises to get it out your system without saying exactly what it might be. Before applying the mask I drank a glass of lemonade the colour of an outflow from a flooded coal mine. It is produced by Press London, is 0.05% activated charcoal and has the word detox on the label.

The face mask starts drying out, pulling my skin taut underneath. I begin to feel a bit of an arse, because the one thing all these products apparently claim to do detoxify me, purge me of poisons is the one thing they cannot do. Yes, I may have indulged over Christmas: drunk deep, eaten broadly, hit the sugars and the fats like a train ramming the buffers. But I know nothing with the word detox on the label will mitigate any of it.

The whole idea does make me smile, says Dr Donal ODonoghue, professor of renal medicine at Manchester University and president of the Renal Association, because it is cobblers. There is nothing like this which will improve your bodys detoxification system.

Nor does there need to be because of what butchers would call our offal, and Ill call our kidneys and liver these organs have that whole detox business covered for us. The liver processes what we put into ourselves. The kidneys then filter it out. There is nothing we can eat which will improve liver and kidney function, says Dimple Thakrar, spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association. As long as you are eating a normal, balanced diet your body will do exactly what it needs to do. Without our liver and kidneys we would die of poisoning, she says. The whole notion of detox is not merely redundant but, to put it in technical terms, a dumb-ass symptom of a deep well of scientific illiteracy which enables sane people to believe whatever unsubstantiated, anti-modern, counter-intuitive, make-it-up-as-we-go-along, bottom-feeding blather thats shoved in front of us.

Mud, glorious mud: Jay Rayner tries a facemask which, the packet says, will extract, pull and detoxify

And yet the myth of the January detox endures. Cosmetics companies spew forth literature on products they promise will purge your skin of all the poisons they have absorbed merely by living in the 21st century. Juice companies offer detoxifying cleanses. You want your liver to be as shiny and fresh as a newborns? Someone somewhere believes they have a product for that. Reputable newspapers OK, the Daily Mirror fill their pages with hokum and woo about the need to re-alkalise your system by eating plant algaes which help your body detoxify quickly.

The obvious response is to mutter a fool and their money and move on. Certainly, purifying yourself is a quick way to cleanse your wallet of money. That Facetox pack costs 24.99 for seven masks and, according to Dr Tamara Griffiths of the British Association of Dermatologists, will not detoxify you at all. Nothing applied to the skin will do that. It may take off some dead skin cells, but thats not really the same thing, she says. The tea is 4.40 a box. The activated charcoal lemonade retails at 6 for 330ml.

The odd face mask or drink of tea isnt going to do you any harm, but there can be a darker side to it if you go for a whole regime and choose the wrong one. This month a paper in the British Medical Journal reported the recent case of a 47-year-old woman admitted to hospital, suffering from seizures brought on by low sodium levels in her blood. She had been undergoing a herbal medication detox, alongside drinking vast amounts of water, green tea and sage. She recovered entirely once her sodium levels were returned to normal, but otherwise might indeed have been cleansed, if only from the face of the earth. The paper reported another case of a man who experienced fits after undertaking a similar regime.

It frustrates me when people bang on about detox, says Thakrar, because it can actually cause harm. The evidence suggests that by following a so-called detox, especially ones involving fasting, you can damage liver enzyme activity and therefore damage your bodys ability to detoxify itself. Likewise, she says, reducing calories for the short term can reduce your metabolic rate and you can end up putting on more weight in the long term.

I show her literature from a company offering tailor-made juice-cleanse packages delivered to your door for hundreds of pounds which they say will detoxify your body and reset your metabolism. They proclaim celebrity endorsements from the likes of Madonna, Georgia May Jagger and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Theres no evidence to back up any of the claims, Thakrar says. Theyre nonsensical. I suppose the positive is that youd get a lot of fruit and vegetables, but were adults and we have teeth. We dont need our food juiced. Plus, you could end up consuming enormous amounts of sugar. Wheres the protein? Wheres the calcium?

You would think there would be laws covering this sort of thing, and there are. Any health claims made for food or cosmetics have to be backed up by scientifically rigorous research which is then assessed, since 2007, by the relevant European Union body. In the case of food it is the European Food Safety Agency. Applications for a valid claim of a detoxifying effect have been made for a dozen foodstuffs, including grapefruit, seaweed and a rice vinegar extract. All have been refused. But, as Im told by David Pickering of the Trading Standards Institute, which has responsibility for messages on packaging: It is very hard to police the health-claims market, not least in the age of the internet when products might be coming in from places where regulation is different.

Talking to the companies in this country responsible for detox products and their marketing is not always a rewarding experience. In a south London branch of Boots I find racks of multi-vitamins. While none of these say they rid your body of poisons, the sign above the shelves does say Detox. Boots tells me it was a mistake, and left over from an installation put up in 2007 and would be taken down immediately. I ask the manufacturer of Dr Stuarts Liver Detox tea, based in Storrington, West Sussex, how it detoxifies the liver and what research they have to back up the message that it could get it out your system. Arran Elliott of Dr Stuarts replies: We have decided to abstain from commenting on this matter. Oh.

Its tricky to work out when detox became a necessary cure for lifestyle rather than genuine poisoning. Illustration: Eva Bee

Ed Foy of Press London, which manufacturers the activated charcoal lemonade, is more forthcoming. First, we dont make direct claims about their impact on a persons body, he tells me by email. As we know this would put us into a category of therapeutic regulation and would be beyond our remit as a consumer food company. Indeed it would, though he goes on to point out that charcoal is used in other clinical detoxifying processes. Perhaps, but is that any excuse for turning out a lemonade which looks like pond water?

As to the justification for putting the word detox on the bottle, this is apparently a massive category error on my part. Apparently and its worth reading this explanation in full I was confusing the publics vernacular use of detox in common parlance and the medical term detoxification. Today, if someone says I am doing a January detox they mean that they are cutting out negative factors in their consumption habits, such as alcohol, smoking and foods rich in sugar, fat or salt. Therefore when we talk about detox to a consumer the consumer understands we are promoting the preferential consumption of healthier products rather than harmful ones and not referring specifically to the process of detoxification by the liver and or kidneys.

Say what? This is my mistake? The fact that detox is short for detoxification and that, in every dictionary the word is defined as variations on the removal of poisons from the body has nothing to do with it? I make myself another cup of Dr Stuarts Liver Detox tea to see if that will calm me down. It doesnt. I study a pack of cleansing detox foot pads made in China for Organic Guru. You bandage them to your feet while you sleep and apparently the active ingredients vinegar, plant powder and something called minus ion work wonders. The main functions according to the pack are detoxification beauty, clear physical beauty, stimulate metabolism, enhance immune function. Not bad for 6.99. If it wasnt utter tosh.

Detoxification does, of course, have a medical meaning, involving treatments for narcotic addiction or overdose. It is, therefore, tricky to work out when detox became seen as a necessary cure for lifestyle rather than genuine poisoning. However, according to Dr Alun Withey, historian of medicine at Exeter University, it is less a modern phenomenon than a notion that reaches back to our pre-pharmacological past. There is a striking similarity between modern media ideas of detox and 17th-century versions of medical treatments to drive out the bad things, he says. The literature of the period, including that by renowned herbalist Thomas Culpeper, is full of remedies against a surfeit, he says. Culpeper in turn recycles a lot of stuff thats centuries old about restoring the body to balance.

Judy Swift, associate professor of behavioural nutrition at Nottingham University, also sees a link with the past. If you go back to the early Christian period there is the strong idea that the pleasure food gives you is a temptation and we rise above these things because we are not animals. We prove our moral worth by not doing it. Modern notions of detox echo all this. However, she says, there is also very much a link to modern health policy. While the medical fraternity may laugh in the face of detox products, she points out that government health advice eat five portions of fruit and veg a day, avoid certain fats, cut out the fizzy drinks is hardly dissimilar. The message of that advice, she says, is that to be healthy you have to work at it. It requires denial. It has to be medicalised. It has to be hard won. Which sounds very much like a juice cleanse or gargling with sooty lemonade.

After I wash off my clay detoxifying face mask, I study my skin. It is a bit pink in places, but otherwise there is no difference from before, which makes sense given my skin wasnt poisoned in the first place. It merely serves to highlight the sadness of people landing themselves in A&E with seizures as a result of an ill-judged detox they thought was good for them. I run myself a bath and pour in bright orange granules of Total Detox Bath Potion, the colour of childrens sweets. Made by a company called Ancient Wisdom, they are apparently infused with potent aromatic oils and cost 4.74 a pack. They give the water a yellowish tinge, like someone has peed in it. I settle back and wait for the poisons to dissipate from my body. Nothing happens.

Still, its a nice bath.

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from Dishing the dirt on detox | Jay Rayner