#it's not gonna straight up fall apart or anything but it's a lot of sensory overload

[chubbidust]

esper reading

[keiscait]

hey, may i please request a bedroom matchup LOL 😏

she/her, bisexual (men over women (unless it's a big tittie goth gf)

sagittarius sun and virgo rising

ravenclaw 😏

sexual: i like being the top. call me mommy LOL. i also like being topped, i have a major knife kink 😏 im in charge most of the time, however it can change every now and then. when i'm the bottom i want my partner to spit in my mouth 🧎‍♀️ neck and ear bites plz 😏 i'm very vocal 👹👹

things i look for in a partner:

-LOYALTY!!1!1!2!2'

-has to have a good sense of humor

-chill

-very understanding

personality: i'm very outgoing and friendly to most people, but i keep my friend group small. i'm the loud friend of the group and i'm always trying my best to make my friends laugh. i say really weird things at the most random times and i often look really high so people think i'm on something. i'm a good leader though and take charge in the three sports i'm in. (i'm varsity captain in one of my sports!!)

appearance:

plans for future: i'm currently a senior in high school and i plan on going into the national guard or air force when i graduate :). the military will pay for college and i plan on either going into the criminal justice field or information technology field :p

music taste: literally everything except for country. you can catch me listening to dr dre, schoolboy q, blackstreet, and kendrick lamar one minute and then queen the next. i also love my female rap artists 👏👏 90s rock and rnb are also a must. i listen to 00's club music on a regular 😏

Hello and welcome, my dearest Bri! AND ADVANCED HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Wish I could bake you a cake, but all I can do is send some love (੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* Let’s get right to it then! ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

Look who we have here, hon!

Suna Rintarou! (Runner up: Kageyama Tobio)

Suna here has a really cold and icy demeanor, which I think has to be balanced out by outgoing people (like the Miya twins). He likes to act like this dark and brooding person, but deep down, he’s actually just a little gremlin like most of us. 

- Okay okay, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I already know that you’re a Suna stan, but I genuinely could not think of anybody who matches your personality description better, the two of you would just be *aggressive chefs kiss*

- I’m kinda getting an enemies-to-lovers-ish vibe with this dynamic, but also like a partners-in-crime-to-lovers type of deal. Either way, it’ll start out a little bit chaotic

- Has a crush on you immediately, I just KNOW it, but he won’t realize this until later on, and may even totally deny it to himself

- He doesn’t really know when exactly he starts catching feelings for you, but the realization probably hits him when he sees you going about your daily activities

- You could be doing any of your extra curriculars - basketball, track, or marching band - and he sees how much you enjoy it, or maybe even after you just said one of your random thoughts. Whatever makes him feel like he’s getting to know you a little bit better

- it’s when you laugh right after, and suddenly he feels like he’s just been spiked a ball in the face, and he just audibly goes “ah shit.”

- Has no fucking clue what to do at first KDHFKSJHL someone pls help him!!!

- He ends up being a little awkward when he tries to do anything about it, and it’ll all just feel so unnatural HAHAH

- “Let me carry your bag” “No Rin it’s fine I can--” *pries your bag from your hands with way too much force*

- in his mind he’s like “Ah yes that went perfectly 😌”

- he tries to communicate his feelings in little ways like this, hoping you’ll catch on

- No, Suna Rintarou, poking fun at someone is not a declaration of love, but nice try!

- he’ll get so frustrated if you don’t catch on (or maybe you do, and you just want him to say something first), and eventually will straight up yell tell you how he feels

- once you two are together, he’ll still try to act he’ll try to keep up his icy exterior, but trust me, he’s completely whipped for you

- SHARED PLAYLISTS!!!!

- Appreciates that you keep your friend group small, because at the end of the day, he’s still a pretty reserved guy

- Admires your leadership qualities, and will not be insecure and toxic about it, despite what other people believe. He honestly wishes he could be more like you, in that sense

- He’ll be your # 1 fan in everything you do. Will support whatever it is that you want to achieve, and will cut any bitch who tries to get in your way

- boy is in LOOOOOVE

- If he ever gets mad or annoyed at you, just give him the smallest peck on his cheek, and he’ll be all putty in your hands again

- Likewise, I think he’d be so good at making you blush too. It’s not all the time that he does this, but when he does, it’s 1000000% effective

- A FRICKING TEASE SKJDHFDSJFGLSGJ CHANGE MY MIND

- Honestly I love this dynamic so much that I wanna make him your bedroom matchup too, but I feel like that would be a cop out 

~

You were exhausted.

It was never easy juggling all the activities that you took part in - each of them was truly a labor of love. Today was particularly draining because it was, after all, your birthday, and it just HAD TO fall on a weekday. You plonked on your bed and started scrolling through your phone.

Your tight-knit group of friends continued to send you birthday wishes, despite having already done so when you saw them earlier that day. They had sung to you and let you blow out a birthday candle - it was all they could do, given your busy schedules. You looked forward to the weekend you had planned with them and your boyfriend, Rintarou.

Speaking of Rin, you thought to yourself, as a message notification from him popped up.

- You’re already home, right?

- Yeah! Just got here. So tired

- That’s too bad. I was gonna ask you to open the door for me but I guess I’ll just go home

You ran to your front door faster than you expected you could manage, and there stood Suna, a balloon and a box of pizza in hand. He pretended to walk away slowly, making you giggle before you grabbed him and dragged him inside.

He pressed a soft kiss to your temple. “Happy birthday, babe.”

You were giddy, not expecting him to show up. “I thought we were gonna wait til the weekend for my celebration??” 

“Do you not know me by now?” he chuckled. “As if I’d let today pass without doing anything about it.”

You smiled and looked at him for a few seconds. He rarely looks so sincere, and so warm, and you just wanted to drink up every last drop of this moment.

He teased, “But y’know, I guess if you’re too tired, I can totally scarf down this pizza by myself.”

You groaned before dragging him to your room and setting up the playlist you guys worked on together, getting ready for a night in.

~

I hope that was alright, bb! Let’s make our way to the bedroom now ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

For some private time, I’ve invited over...

Oikawa Tooru! (Runner up: Suna Rintarou)

Despite how other people believe he’s a dom, I think he’d be a switch, at best. I think in the bedroom, he’d love to let his partner take control, just as much as loves having his way with them.

- What really gets this fucker going is pleasing people - and who would he love to please more than his s/o?

- He loves how your confidence translates into your bedroom behavior

- I headcanon that he easily falls apart in bed, and would gladly do so for his partner 

- He is s e n s i t i v e. Touch him, kiss him, grab him EVERYWHERE

- LOUD, but a lot of it is trying to get his partner to be even louder

- How does this man have both a praise kink and a degradation kink? Idk but I’m so sure he has both

- Would be totally onboard with your knife kink. He’s super into sensory play

- Speaking of which

- BLINDFOLD HIMMMM SKDJHFSDJFK THAT WOULD BE A SIGHT TO BEHOLD

- Once you ask him to take charge, I think he would still be a service dom

- Knows all your sensitive spots. Made sure to take note of them so that he can get you back for all the times you hit his sweet spots

- Loves mouth stuff. His mouth. Your mouth. Putting stuff in them. Tongue stuff. Loves all of it

- Great at aftercare, just a bit flashy with it. Kind of makes a show of what he’s doing but in the most adorable way

- Delicate with how he handles you after. Or if you’re the one giving him aftercare, would praise you the whole time

- Will hold you til you fall asleep 🥺

~

As a little extra gift, I wanted to give you a dressing room matchup too! 

I think your gorgeous face would look SO GOOD with...

Miya Atsumu! WHAT AN INSANELY GOOD LOOKING COUPLE YOU WOULD MAKE

~

That’s it for now, darling! I hope that was worth all the waiting you did. Thank you for being such a wonderful housemate - don’t hesitate to chat with me anytime. Advanced happy birthday again! (੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭*

Thanks for stopping by! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

[arse-blathanna]

Hnn make me cry bb ♡♡♡ Felix and maybe Locus. It's up to you You can scream all you want, mind games, sensory deprivation, addiction/withdrawal and hope is scary.

This is late. I hope you cry.

There were a lot of things that Felix had been preparing for after he’d been flung off of a cliff on Chorus. 

Well, mostly he’d been preparing for an impact and that had happened, sure. But it wasn’t the only thing that happened. 

For starters, he was definitely dead for a few minutes. Legally dead. Not dead enough that anyone would have gone ahead and buried him, but dead enough that they could say “yeah he’s not breathing anymore and his heart has stopped.” 

The months after had been agonizing, him surrounded on all sides by enemies who all hated him. 

The space pirates had scooped him up from where he’d fallen, taken him off of Chorus and then straight up to Hargrove. None of them knew a word of what happened to Locus, and if anyone did know they were less than willing to give that information up. Why they would all be so keen on protecting the bastard, Felix didn’t know. 

Recovery was slow and painful. Felix was pretty sure that Hargrove was getting him addicted to some sort of experimental painkiller that made him feel like he was underwater half the damn time. Otherwise he felt pretty damn good on it, good enough that he didn’t feel bad about it when he was hoping for his next dose.

It made him worry about what came next, when Hargrove decided that it was either time to put him to use or to cut him loose because he was past the point of usefulness. What happened when he was on some other backwater planet without Hargrove’s designer UltraMorphine to keep him going for a little while longer. 

“Hey.” Felix tried to get his doctor’s attention one day. Total asshole, definitely wanted him. “When do you think he’s letting me out of here?” Felix asked the question mostly because he wanted to know what came next for him. “Because if Hargrove keeps on supplying—”

“You’re a part of an experimental drug trial.” The doctor replied, with a way too calm tone that only really pissed Felix off. “You’re lucky to survive this at all.” 

“And?” Felix slurred, leaning forward in his seat. He barely felt it. He’d been numb for days and sometimes they cut him off from people and everything else entirely for the sake of their little experiments. Felix wasn’t like Locus though. Locus could have handled that shit, but Felix couldn’t. Felix hated having to go too quiet for too long, and he hated having to pretend like he was happy in his own isolation.

Not that anyone really gave a shit about it either way. 

“At some point the testing will be intensified.” The doctor said, too clinically for Felix’s liking. “To see whether you can withstand serious injury while on the medication.” 

“Serious injury.” Felix scoffed. “Like what? Gonna take off my fingers? Skin my arms? Oh, this is always a good one, take out a few teeth?”

“You doubt our methods?”

“I doubt all of you.” Felix told the doctor. “Spineless fucking assholes.” 

The doctor sighed. “Very well.” He said. “I will inform Hargrove that you are ready for the next phase of testing.”

And then he was gone, and Felix was left strung out in a hard bed in a cell for as long as his captors deemed to be fit. 

So what if he started to go a little crazy. Between the drugs and the quiet and the sheet lack of stimulation on any front there wasn’t much that he could do for himself. And then soon he was getting shivers and he always felt cold and there wasn’t anything that he could do about that either. 

When he started vomiting, Felix realized that it was full on withdrawal, nobody was coming for him, and he was fucked. 

Maybe that was part of the trial, Felix tried to reason when he couldn’t stop shaking or shivering. He felt like he’d died, and it was worse that it felt like he’d died when he had died for a bit and had been pulled back from it. He hadn’t felt nearly as shitty when he’d actually died. 

It was all a supremely fucked up game. That had to be it. Hargrove would eventually get him back on the drug, maybe they were trying to test if their SuperVicodin would be addictive. If their goal was to avoid that then they sure as fuck weren’t doing a very good job of it. 

 The shakes and the shivers got worse and worse, and after three days of suffering Felix was pulled from his hole, set down in front of a doctor, and offered another dose of the miracle drug. 

If he took it, the withdrawals would stop for a little while and he’d be able to breathe and live his damn life again. 

If not, then Felix had to look forward to things only worsening until they decided that he needed to be on the drug for the sake of his own safety. 

“You should take it.” The doctor said as he presented Felix with the option. “For your own sake.” 

“Why?” Felix moaned. “So that you can cut my fingers off?”

“So that you will feel some relief.” 

He let out a bitter, angry laugh. Felix could see exactly the game that was being played with him. Hargrove definitely intended to put him through this cycle over and over again until Felix’s body just couldn’t take what was happening to it anymore and he had no choice but to fold and die. 

Any idea of hope that he’d once had was horribly tainted. At best he could look forward to being dumped unceremoniously somewhere on a planet where nobody would ever recognize him. He’d be left addicted without a hope of ever getting another hit, he’d waste into nothing or he’d find himself sharing dirty needles in a gutter somewhere because it was the next best thing he could come up with. 

“You know that you have the power to change this.” The doctor said, like that actually changed anything. What a load of fucking bullshit, Felix thought as the little white tablets from hell were shoved closer and closer into his line of sight. 

Fucking MegaPercocets or whatever the fuck Hargrove had him on.

Fucking Hargrove. 

Fucking Locus for getting Felix caught up in there in the first place. 

There wasn’t any hope of getting out of there, so Felix figured the best thing that he could do for himself was play along and hope that Hargrove was feeling charitable about things. 

It sure as fuck wasn’t like anything else was going to be working anytime soon. 

He took the pills, knowing that he was speeding himself along to a bad ending but also knowing that the alternative somehow managed to be a hundred times worse. 

After he swallowed the pills down and washed them away with water, Felix lasted barely five minutes before he was drifting and slurring his words and falling apart to chemical bliss.

[petri808]

Plea Bargain

@nalulovelovefest 12/3/19

Mahalo @random-rave for the idea :)

Originally for day 1, it morphed into a story encompassing all 8 days of prompts (playful, innocent, desperate, unbearable, ecstatic, teasing, funny, fight).  Lol, it’s the omake you may wish for from FT City Hero ;)  Rated M for NSFW, hot, cheesy police humor & fluff

When he had walked in to his home that evening after a long shift, officer Dragneel hadn’t expected to find a burglar rummaging through his belongings.  

“Hold it right there!” he flips on a light switch, “you’re under arrest.”

The woman stood frozen a moment before pasting a smirk upon her face.  She drops her bag of loot and holds up her hands, “you’ve caught me officer,” looking at his badge, “Dragneel.”

Drinking it all in, Natsu flashed a fang, my what a score he had here!  Lithe and sinewy the woman’s skin tight, black body suit hugged all the sinful curves she sported.  And how adorable, she even wore an eye mask and cat ears.  He licks his lips as his eyes travel along its length, a yummy hourglass frame and buxom chest, it was a crime in itself that she owned such a body. “You know,” he unhooks the cuffs from his belt, “burglary is a felony young lady and the punishment could be stiff.”  

The woman’s grin only widens, “I think I can handle it.”

“We’ll see about that.” He prompts her up against the couch and pulls her arms behind her back, cuffing the wrists together.  Leaning over his catch, his fingers keep a tight grin on her hip as he brushes his lips over her nape.  “You have the right to remain silent or anything you say can,” jutting hard against her backside, she squeaks when a long solid object makes itself known, “and will be used against you.”

“Please officer Dragneel, I’m sure we could strike a plea bargain that we’ll both be happy with?”

“Hmm,” kneeing her legs apart, “adding bribery of an officer, you must really want to be punished.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “what can I say, I’m a sucker for a man in uniform, but I’d bet,” leaning back she makes a grab for his crotch, “you look even better out of uniform.”

He slaps her hand away. “And you look best, bent over this couch.”

“I know, and frankly I haven’t been laid in a while, so I wouldn’t mind it.”

“Tch.”  Always keeping one hand on her back and a knee on her thigh to hold her still, he frisks the perp.  Running his hands up and down every inch of her body from her calves on up, meticulously scrutinizing junctions and crevasses where she may be hiding something.

“You know that would be easier to accomplish if you stripped me down,” a timber of amusement in her tone. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” gliding the edging of his hand under the curve of her breast, “especially for this area,” and giving the large mounds a squeeze, “there may be illicit evidence hidden away in here.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Oh ho,” he stands her up straight, “that sounds like an admission to me.  You’ve been playing coquette till this point and now you wanna keep quiet?  Didn’t think I’d take the offer huh?”

“Hmph!” she pouts, and turns her head, “Do your worst to me copper!  I’ll never break!” But the slight uptick in the corners of her mouth are telling.

“Thanks for the permission girly, now I don’t need a warrant to search your premises.  Come on,” he grabs the crook of her arm and pushes her towards a back room of the house, “time for your interrogation.”

Once inside the bedroom, officer Dragneel locks the door behind him and makes sure the windows are locked before removing the cuffs from her wrists.  “I’ll put them back on after you remove your clothes.”

“No.”

He cocks and eyebrow, “Do I need to strip you myself?  The faster you comply, the easier this will be for you.”

“Ugh fine!”  Mumbling under her breath, “would’a been more fun if you did it.”

“All in good time. But you may leave the ears on for now.”

She’s about to question it but decides to ignore the comment.  It wasn’t a kink she thought he’d had but eh, whatever floats his boat cause it didn’t bother her.  She slinks her way out of the stretchable fabric, pulling her arms out, passing it down and over to release her chest from its bindings.  All the while he watches, memorizing details he wanted to recall later, his eyes stalking each movement like a predator.  Down the suit travels, revealing her flat little tummy and as it passes her legs, she kicks it off at him, smirking as she does it.  

He growls and motions to her undergarments, “those too.”

“Shall I leave these on?” she runs her hand along her thigh high, heeled boots.  “Maybe another one of your kinks?”

“Off, you could be hiding a weapon in them.”

“Oh no,” she unzips the sides and starts to remove them, “I left those in my other boots.”  Dropping the first boot, “didn’t think I’d have company,” then the removes the second one, “you got off early today.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I’m a burglar,” unclasping her bra and letting that fall, “I normally case my targets, oh and see,” flouncing her breasts, “nothing hidden here.”

“Not too bright to pick a cops house, and I can see that.”

Removing her last vestige of modesty, “Anyways, like I said earlier, I’m a sucker for a guy in uniform.” She throws the thong at his chest, giggling when it catches on his badge.  “Whoops!”

“Whoops my ass!” he grabs her and drags her onto the mattress, cuffing her wrists to the headboard. “It’s not very nice to tease, you know,” pulling the wooden baton from his belt holder.  Running it along her leg to her inner thigh, grazing her sex and lingering at her entrance causing her to shiver, then trailing it against her side, “especially an officer of the law,” before placing it on his night stand.  He unholsters his Glock, ejects the unspent bullet into his hand and the mag, “wouldn’t want ya getting any ideas,” adding it next to the baton.  His belt is next to be unceremoniously tossed onto the stand.

“I was just being friendly,” she purrs.  “Can’t help it if you thought I was teasing you.”

“Tch,” shirking off his pants and tossing it onto a nearby chair.  “Just an innocent criminal, isn’t that what they all say?”  He unbuttons and zips out of his uniform, shrugging off the stiff material, then the bulletproof vest and adding it to the pile of clothes.    

Arching her body and jangling the metal cuffs as she pulls slightly against it, “Mmm,” she bites the corner of her lip, “I was right about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You do look better out of uniform.”

“All the more to torture you with, I’d say.  This technique has been known to elicit confessions.”

“I can imagine.  You expecting me to sing for you copper?”

“Oh, I expect a lot more by the end of this night.”

“Then get on with it,” she settles against the downy comforter in a suggestive manner, “but lose the boxers, or are you going for cruel and unusual punishment, hmm, I’m laid bare, I have my rights, equal treatment an’ all that, so shouldn’t you be naked too?”

“Are you sure, it might add to the punishment.”

“I can handle it… literally,” she winks, “if you let me.”

“No.”

She pouts, “no fun.”

“Enough with the chit chat,” sitting on the edge of the bed.  “Tell me your name.”  She smiles and shakes her head.  “Are you the same person who robbed me last week.”  Silence.  “There’s been a string of burglaries in this area, did you commit those?”  Still not a sound.  “Are you going to tell me anything about your crimes?”

“Nope.”

With a sigh, “Well you leave me no choice,” he gets off and pulls a blindfold out of the night stand, moving to place it on her.

“Hey that’s not fair,” she tries to fidget out of his grasp, but he pins her down and secures it tightly over her eyes.  “But I didn’t get to see the goods!”

“Aww,” he runs the back of his hand along her cheek, “what was it you said earlier, haven’t been laid in a while, feeling a bit horny are ya?  You gave me the perfect method to gain your cooperation.”

She grits her teeth, “that’s cruel…”

“I’ll make sure you are compensated if I’m satisfied with your answers.”

“Come on!” she whines, “let me see it at least once.”

“Alright fine, if you tell me your name, I’ll give you a peek.”

After a brief pause, “Lucy,” she spits out, “Lucy Heartfillia.  Now tit for tat.”

He sits up on his knees to reach over, loosening the blindfold, and remains raised so when it falls from her eyes, his erection is in full view.  She gasps a bit, “impressive… Damn that might be enough to make me go straight.”

“I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever heard.”  He secures the blindfold again.  “Gonna answer my other questions yet?”  She shakes her head, no.  “Suit yourself.”

Lucy can feel the bed shifting telling her that he’s gotten off and she reaches out with the only sensory device she had left under her control, hearing.  Sounds of a drawer opening or closing, rummaging as if he was looking for something.  Something plastic, no or maybe latex?  Was he putting on gloves or a condom, it was hard to tell the difference.  Finally, after what felt like forever, she felt him getting back onto the bed and moving over her.  “Took you long enough, it’s kinda chilly left bare like this.”

“Don’t worry things are about to heat up.”  He settles more of his lower body between her legs, allowing the weight and length of his cock to ride up against her clit.  The heated pressure makes Lucy arch, but his hips keep her pinned.  “Now,” he flicks her nipple and rims it with his tongue, “the way this works,” sucking in the pert little button in and popping it out, “is I’ll continue to play,” squeezing her breast and nibbling the supple flesh, “however I desire,” he moves over to the next breast, teasing in the same manner, “everything but,” moving to the nape of her neck, nipping and biting, he shifts his pelvis and lines up letting the tip, press hard against the entrance, almost pushing in, “this,” then pulls away, settling once more to simply torture her clit, “until you decide to tell me what I want to hear.”

“T-This is extortion…” but when his canines graze against her neck a little deeper than before, she moans, “fucking hell.”

“You can end this whenever you want to.”

“I-I won’t cave, but at least tell me your name…  So, I can curse it!”

He chuckles, “it’s Natsu,” grinding his pelvis into hers, eliciting a gasp, “scream it nice and loud for me.”

But she sucks in her lips, biting down as she shakes her head trying to muffle the moans.  Lucy had targeted the sexy cop who taunted her dreams and now she was paying for it.  Well, depends on how she wanted to view the situation cause frankly, it was turning out to be a play by play of one of her fantasies, minus a few more kinks she would have loved thrown in.

Natsu bides his time toying with Lucy’s beautiful bosoms, massaging and kneading the malleable flesh to his heart’s content while his tongue lavishes her jaunty nipples with wet kisses, and working the fevered skin until it trembled from the slightest touch.  He couldn’t help but groan at the idea of fucking these mounds one day.  Smirking against them, maybe she’ll break in a third time.

He slides a hand up grasping her under the chin and turning her head to the side, “give up yet?” Lucy shakes her head, “I think you’ll need to see the next half of this.”  So, he pulls the blindfold up letting it settle at her crown and he brushes his lips along her jawline, nibbling their way to her ears.  The warm air from each breath wafts over her skin, making the tiny hairs behind her neck and along her arms stand up.  Shivers course through her body with every nip, but when the sharper canines sink into her flesh a tad, Lucy can no longer hold back an amorous moan.  “Oh, that was a tell,” he teases the blonde, peppering her collar with more love bites. She bucks at him, jerking roughly at her constraints.  Natsu stops his ministrations, “Don’t do that, you’ll really hurt your wrists.”

“Then take them off,” she pants.

“I can’t risk that.” Lucy watches him get off the bed and leave the room for a few minutes.  When Natsu returns, using the sash from a robe, he ties them around her wrist, to the headboard, then removes the metal handcuffs.  “There, that should be better, but still try not to pull hard on them.”

“Gee, thanks,” she rolls her eyes.

“You could always confess.”

“No.”

“I’m not complaining,” taking another nibble at her jaw, “take all the time you need…”  Natsu returns to his craft but decides to roam.  Trailing his hands along her sides, “Mmm, I wonder what other sensitive spots I could find…”  As soon as he reaches just under her rib cage she flinches.  “Oh, there’s one.”  

“D-don’t you dare…”

Travelling lower to her hip and feeling her skin start to crawl, he knows he’s getting close, and sure enough as his hands ghost towards her inner thigh, Lucy bucks her hips and her dying laments turn to lust-filled whimpers.  “There we go.”

Skimming along, Natsu marks a path along Lucy’s streamlined frame, trailing plush wet kisses down over her sides, her stomach, pleasing with his tongue, or scraping his nails to trigger ripples.  She alternates between held breaths and loud sighs, eruptions of giggles and fits of impassioned twisting in a bid to curtail or drive him in the direction she wishes.  Natsu, knows she’s growing impatient and doesn’t give in, merely holding her still when she moves around too much.  

And it is.  Lucy’s desperation is mounting, she’s so close to throwing in the towel, yet she holds out in the hopes that eventually all this foreplay will be too much for him to keep up with.  I mean, he’s gotta be hurting too by now, how much bluer is he willing to suffer through?  But, the closer Natsu gets to her core, the more her resolve begins to crumble.  His lips have become fiery stokes, leaving heated embers in its wake fueling the passions coiling at her center.  They tease now at the junction of her legs, her mewls escalating with each touch along her sensitive thighs, but her dying determination is about to reach its breaking point.

“Damn woman you are wet!” Natsu licks his lips slowly watching as her eyes follow every movement, “I bet you’ll taste delicious…”  With his mouth poised over the very essence of her sexuality, he looks up a final time with the cockiest of grins, his tongue perched and ready to play, “any last words?”

“I…” but Lucy shakes her head adamantly, damn it she wasn’t gonna crack!  Her breathing stills and eyes clamp shut in eager yet anxiety-ridden anticipation.

“Okay,” he sits up and scoots himself off the bed.

“W-Wait!”  Her eyes fly open.  “What…  Y-You can’t just… Don’t just leave me hanging!”

“I told you earlier, if I’m satisfied with your answers, then you’ll get compensated.  But you refused so no sweets for the sinner.” Natsu picks up his boxers from the floor.  “Too bad too,” he gives his cock a few hand strokes, “bet you would have enjoyed this reward.”  Shrugging his shoulders, he moves to pull his boxers on.

“WAIT!!  Okay, Okay, yes it was me, I broke in here three times so far.”

“Three?” cocking a brow, “I only knew of two.”

“The first time, I just kinda,” she blushes and turns her face away, “watched you sleep.”

He sits back on the edge of the bed, “a burglar…” tiptoeing his fingers along the inseam of her leg, “and a peeping tom,” when they reach her clit, he drags them across causing her to shudder, “I’ve lost track of all the counts against you.”

“I’m sorry okay!  I swear it wasn’t me who burg’d those other places, I’m innocent of those.  I only broke in here cause I wanted to have stuff of yours as a keepsake.  Please Natsu…” her whimpered prose a sweet melody as she reaches with her toes to probe his thigh, “please?”

“Well I guess since you’ve complied with my terms,” Natsu crawls back over Lucy, muzzling against her neck, “it’s only fair that I honor the deal.”

“Mmm,” arching her body, “honor, integrity, and all that jazz,” she purrs through the measured kisses along her nape.  “But how bout losing the cuffs?”

He chuckles against her skin, “nice try.”

“Worth a shot.”

Resting more to his side, Natsu slides Lucy’s leg up and over his waist to gain access as he continues ravaging her neck with love bites.  Her succulent moans feeding his actions when he slips a couple of fingers into her entrance, pushing as deep as he can before curling them.  She was still so slick her walls offered no resistance at first, only grabbing hold when he tried to remove them.  “Natsu…” her body churns, hips grinding of their own volition in time with his pumping, she cries out when his thumb sweeps over her clit in a tag-teamed raid.  Harder and harder he plunges his fingers through her channel, adding a third digit to the fray.  This final assault staggers Lucy’s vision with heated and dancing stars, her body contorting when the makings of her climax take firm hold.  Again, his name is cried out to the world, reinforced in a continuous line of babble that only makes sense in her mind.

“My name sounds amazing,” he removes his fingers as she comes down from the high, “coming from those lips of yours.”  Licking his fingers, “mmm, was right about being delicious too.”

Lucy manages a smile as her heaving chest and racked body work hard to balance again, but Natsu gives her sensitive sex little reprieve before he’s right back on top of her, fully vested and plunging his steeled cock into her pussy, swallowing her screams as expletives now replace his name.  It only makes him grin wider.  “Too much?” he teases.  

“Noooo,” is the only word he can make out from her gibberish.

He settles into a smooth repetition, grinding harshly against her center with an upward thrust at the end.  His fingers groping her ass, coveting and lifting to help her meet his momentum. She twists against her bindings, chastising him, wanting so desperately to rake her nails down his back.  “Natsu please undo…”

A crackling sound from a radio, “Central to 348, Hearfillia come back.”

“Oh, hell no!” Natsu grits his teeth.

“Wasn’t…. planning to…. So close…” she whimpers, “so fucking close again…”  Picking up the speed, Natsu pumps faster and harder, practically bouncing her into the mattress.  He can feel the walls clamping down around his cock….  “Natsuuuuu!”  For the second time tonight, Lucy orgasms violently, body twisting and arching while he tries to keep her from bucking him off.

More crackling, “Central to 348, Heartfillia answer your damn radio!”

“I-It sounds urgent Natsu,” she’s still panting harshly, “I think I need to answer, untie me.”

He growls, “But I ain’t done yet!  Fucking Fullbuster can wait!”  

“Untie me Natsu, it’s not like I’m leaving.”

“No!”

“Central to 362, Dragneel where the hell is your partner?!”

“Screw him!  We’re off the damn clock!”

“Natsu come on just untie me so I can shut Gray up.”

“Fuck him, that icy perverted bastard!”

“Central to 348, Heartfillia come back or I’ll send a squad car!”

“See!!  Just fucking untie me Natsu!”

“Ugh!” he reaches up, undoing the knot.  “Goddamn asshole, just hurry up.”

Lucy crawls over and grabs the radio from her nightstand, “348 to central, keep your pants on Fullbuster, what do you want?”

“Central to 348, there was a report of Oracion activity down at the piers, Detective Dreyar is requesting you get down there as soon as possible.”

“348 to central, I’ll finish up what I’m doing and be on my way.”

“Central to 348, any approximate eta?”

Natsu shakes his head at Lucy.  “Um 348 to Central, no I can’t give you that.”

“Central to 348….”  Pause.  “Never mind I assume Dragneel is involved.  Captain Makarov said just get down there ASAP.”

Before Lucy can even put the radio back onto the nightstand, Natsu hauls her onto all fours and rams his cock back into her like a man on a serious mission causing her to shriek from the sudden impact.  The radio clatters to the ground haphazardly beneath the bed.  “Do you…” he impales the blonde sharply, driving over and over, “have any idea how much effort it took,” gripping to her hip bones, “to maintain this erection for so long!”  

“S-Sorry…” her laments mix with carnal mewls, “did I play the part t-too well?”

“Fuck yes!” Natsu growls, “But damn it if didn’t just turn me the fuck on!”  With unrelenting assaults, he plows into the blonde, rocking her senseless.  Losing strength in her arms, Lucy drops forward, biting into a pillow and digging into the sheets to muffle the screams leaching from her mouth.  “And we’ve been so damn busy with work, it’s not like we get this chance often….”  The swings in his hips start to grow erratic, “Oh, god it’s coming….” gritting down, his voice changing octaves, “Luce…” he manages her nickname as the surges ripple through his frame, pulsing with each blast of seed into her.  Natsu pumps his hips in a couple more jerkier attempts before pulling out and falling over spent and tired beside Lucy.  “Fuck that was amazing…”  

“Ugh…” Lucy whines, “I really don’t wanna…”

A crackling sound breaks the din but it’s coming from Natsu’s radio only, with snickering in the background “this is Central to 348 and 362,”and a hint of bemusement in the dispatcher’s tone, “disregard the call for assistance, just check in with detective Dreyar in the morning.  But by the way,” they can hear whistling, cat-calls, and Natsu you stud type comments being yelled in the background, “you might wanna make sure you turn the answer button off next time.”  

The couple turn wide-eyed towards each other and Lucy clambers out of bed to shut her radio off. “Aww fuck!” Natsu runs his hand over his face, “Gray’s never gonna let me live this down!”  

“Just Gray!” she shrieks, “Hello!!  The whole damn department’s gonna know by the morning!”

[flowerfan2]

Bound To Be Together - Ch. 9

McDanno, M, A03 A continuous story of Season 9 codas exploring the bond between Steve and Danny as they grow even closer.

Chapter 9: 9.10

When Danny comes back from his trip to the mainland, Steve doesn’t meet him at the airport.  He isn’t sure he would be able to hold it together on the drive back with Danny and Grace, hearing all about the colleges Grace visited and her unbridled excitement for the future.  Seeing the pride in Danny’s eyes.  Not when Steve’s so strung out, so messed up.

But Steve knows when their flight lands.  Danny texts when he’s on his way over.  He’ll be here any minute.

Steve looks around his kitchen one more time, needing to make sure that there’s no trace of blood left behind, no glaring signs of the attack.  He hasn’t talked to Danny about it, although Steve knows Lou filled him in, once Danny was on his way back to the island already and the crisis was over.

He’s still glad he didn’t let Adam call Danny, even though Danny’s going to rip him a new one for it. At this point Steve probably won’t be able to feel it anyway.

With Joe’s last words, he had praised Steve for looking out for his people.  Steve’s going to take this as approval, from Joe at least, for his decision to keep Danny out of harm’s way this time.  He’ll take what he can get.

He can’t let himself think about whether they might have had better odds at the ranch if Danny had been there.  Because while that might be true, it also could have been Danny bleeding out on the floor, or with a fatal shot to the liver.  It might have been Danny that Steve said goodbye to on an empty field, with the sun painting pictures in the sky.

He can’t let himself think about it, but he’s thinking about it anyway, in whorls and circles and spirals that won’t let him rest.

 He hears the front door open and close, and sags with relief.

 “Hey, babe, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

 Strong arms wrap around his shoulders, and Steve digs his face into the thin fabric of Danny’s shirt. Steve’s thoughts quiet with Danny’s touch, and he wants to bury himself in him and never come out.

 “Kitchen’s floor’s not so comfortable.  How about we take this into the living room?”

 Steve doesn’t remember sliding to the floor.  But right now, he can’t be bothered to figure it out.  He lets Danny help him to his feet, and they stumble together to the couch, settling close, Steve clutching Danny’s shirt in his fists.

 “I’m so sorry about Joe,” Danny murmurs.  “So sorry. He was a good man.  I know how much he meant to you.”

 Steve starts to reply, and chokes on his words, swallowing them and rubbing his face against Danny’s chest.

 “For all his crazy, he was like a father to you.  You loved him, and he loved you too.”

 It’s like Danny can see straight into his heart, the wounded place still throbbing from his loss, and this makes Steve cry even harder.  Danny <i>knows</i> him.

 It’s what makes Joe’s death even worse, because Joe gave Steve the perfect opening to tell him about Danny, and Steve chickened out.  Steve’s falling apart, clinging to Danny like the proverbial lifeboat, counting on him to get him safely to shore.  But Steve is so used to hiding that he missed his chance to let Joe know that he isn’t alone.  Or to give Danny the credit he deserves.

 He’s not sure how to say any of this to Danny.  “I didn’t…” Steve starts.  “I should have…” But the tears are coming in earnest now, hard, wracking sobs, and he can’t get any words out.

 “Shh, it’s okay.  You’re okay.” Danny holds him and rubs his back, until Steve can finally catch his breath.

 “Danny, there’s something… I need to tell you something.”

 Danny sits back, and Steve can see now how wrecked he looks, too, dark circles under reddened eyes.    “Are you taking off again to an undisclosed location to be a target for armed thugs? Because if so, I really don’t want to hear it.”

 “No, I…”

 “Lou said you weren’t in any danger right now, that the Omar situation was under control.”

 “Yeah, as far as I know.”  Not in any more danger than usual, anyway.

 “Well then I vote we wait until morning, for…”  Danny lets out a long breath, and looks away from Steve, face drawn with exhaustion. “Well, for anything.  Especially talking.  Because I haven’t slept in a lot of hours, and I’m guessing you haven’t either.  And I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret.”

 Danny’s trying to tamp down his anger, Steve can tell, in the face of Steve’s abject sadness.  Steve gets it.  He’d be pissed, too, more than, if Danny had kept him in the dark about something that threatened his safety.  He figured at the time that Danny would get over it, but being face to face with Danny’s hurt and echoes of stale fear forces him to remember that there’s more than one way to lose him.

 But Danny’s still holding him, one arm around his shoulders, the other stroking restlessly down Steve’s uninjured arm.  He doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

 “You’ll stay?”  Steve asks.

 Danny’s shoulders slump, and he bumps his forehead tiredly against Steve’s.  “’Course I’m gonna stay, you goof.  Least then it’ll be two against one if some hired assassin comes crashing through your door.  Again.”

 Steve musters what little energy he has left and stands, clasping Danny’s hand as he goes.  They make it upstairs and strip to their boxers without ceremony, climbing under the covers and arranging themselves close, Danny curled protectively around Steve.

 It reminds Steve of the night after the sensory deprivation tank, except then they hadn’t acknowledged what they felt for each other.  Suddenly it’s important to mark the difference, and Steve turns over, cradling Danny’s jaw and pulling him in for a long, hard kiss.

 “Mmm,” Danny hums, pulling back just enough to breathe, while letting his lips slide over Steve’s. “Love you.”

 Danny says it so easily, so matter of factly.  Not lightly – Steve knows Danny would never say it lightly.  But like it’s normal, obvious.  Like it goes without saying.

 Not tonight, though. “I love you too, Danny.  I should say it more often.  I shouldn’t be afraid to say it.”

 Danny, tired as he is, pushes at Steve’s arm and raises an eyebrow at him.  “What’s that supposed to mean?  You say it all the time.”

 Shit, Steve thinks. Sleeping first would probably have been a better idea.

 “Not where anyone else can hear it.”

 Danny starts to argue with him – because Steve has said “I love you” to Danny dozens of times in front of the team.  But not since they’ve been together.  Not with the new meaning, the “I’m in love with you” meaning.  

 Danny flops over on to his back.  “I really don’t think we should talk about this right now, babe.”

 “But I-“

 “We knew we were going to have to deal with it.  Whether to tell anyone, what to tell them.  But honestly, I am so sick with worry right now, worried about how you’re dealing with losing Joe and international terrorists being after you and your whole goddamn Seal team dying on you,” Danny barely pauses to catch a breath, “and at the same time I’m so fucking angry at you for letting me keep gallivanting through the ivy leagues while it all went down…  I really don’t think I could do my best work right now.”  Danny’s still gazing up at the ceiling, but he hasn’t let go of Steve, one hand latched on to Steve’s wrist.

 “Danny, please…” Steve doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say, just that he needs this not to break them, for it not to be too much for Danny to handle.  For Danny to keep understanding.

 Danny turns and looks at Steve, and then gathers him up in his arms.  It feels so good, the strength of Danny’s muscles holding him tight, his stubbly face against his cheek.  It’s an escape right now, he knows it, but he can’t bring himself to turn it away.  

 “I promise you, Steve, we’re gonna work this out,” Danny says, low and intense.  “Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re freaking out about, we’ll work it out.  Together. Like every other time.  Okay?”

 “Okay.”

 *****

Sleep had come faster than Steve had thought it would, and when he finally rouses, it’s to bright sunlight coming through the window and the aroma of strong coffee.

 Danny isn’t in bed any longer, but the mug on the nightstand is steaming so he must have just left it for Steve.  Steve hauls himself upright, his body aching and sore, and sips at the coffee until it’s cool enough to drink it down.

 He can hear Danny downstairs, muttering to himself about something and clicking away on his laptop, so he heads into the bathroom and takes a long, hot shower.  He puts off assessing all his cuts and bruises – there’s nothing major, which is a miracle, really – and dries quickly.  He takes a few minutes to shave.  Maybe if he looks presentable enough, Danny will go easy on him.

 Finally, after pulling on shorts and a t-shirt, Steve pads downstairs.

 Danny’s at the table, nodding as he types.

 “Work?”  Steve asks.

 “No.  Grace sent me a draft of one of her college essays.  She doesn’t like it when Rachel proofreads them, says she’s too picky.  She just wants to me to let her know ‘if it’s okay.’”  Danny looks up at Steve.  “I have no idea what she wants me to do.”

 Steve laughs at Danny’s perplexed expression, and it feels good.  Danny isn’t lying in wait to ambush him with accusations or threats. He’s just up early, bringing him coffee and emailing with Grace.  Danny’s here for him, just like he said he’d be.

 “Can we talk now?” Steve asks.  There’s not going to be a better time.

 “Sure.”  Danny turns back to his computer for a moment to save his work.

 “Outside?”

 Danny nods, and they go out on to the lanai.  Steve keeps walking down to the edge of the water, until the waves lap over his feet. Danny follows him, hands in his pockets.

 “You’re doing my laundry,” Danny says conversationally, as he comes up to Steve and bumps their arms together.  The waves are soaking the hems of his jeans.  The fact that Danny isn’t protesting more says something about the progress of their relationship that Steve can’t parse right now.

 The sea is glinting in the early morning sun, and the air is already warm.  Steve curls his toes in the sand, feels the soft grit against his skin.

 “Joe’s been living in Nairobi.  Not consulting anymore.”

 Steve’s not looking at Danny, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees him tilt his head, listening.

 “He’s got – had – a girlfriend.  Zahra.” It feels important to say her name. “He told me-” Steve’s voice catches, and he swallows and goes on.  “He told me not to wait as long as he did to find someone.  Said he sat out too long, and I shouldn’t do the same thing.”

 Squaring his shoulders, he turns to face Danny.  “I should have told him, then, about you and me.  I didn’t.”

 Steve sees Danny take this in, turn it over in his head.  He thinks he can pinpoint the moment Danny decides how to respond.  But what Danny says couldn’t have surprised him more if he’d dove into the ocean and swam away like a mermaid.

 “Why?”

 “What?”

 “Why, exactly,” Danny says, moving in front of Steve and putting his hands on his forearms, “why <i>should</i> you have told him?”

 “’Cause it’s not fair to you.  It’s not… right.”

 Danny shakes his head a little, not satisfied with this.  “I’m not upset about that.  That doesn’t bother me, you know that.  That isn’t the issue.  Try again. Why isn’t it right?”

 “Because – it’s just wrong.” And Danny’s right, that’s not the only problem with Steve’s silence.  “Joe wants – wanted  - me to be happy.  I should have told him I was happy.”

 “Are you happy?”

 Steve’s chest clenches. “You know I am.”

 Danny nods, not arguing, a little smile reflecting how this thought could derail the conversation.  Danny does know, and fuck, if that doesn’t mean a lot.

 “You really think Joe didn’t know that?  That you’re in a good place?  That you’re living a good life?”  Danny asks.

 Steve thinks back on their conversations at the ranch, and at the end, by the ponderosa pine.  About Joe’s reassurance that Steve took care of his “people.”  And about an earlier conversation that day, where Joe got him talking about what was going on in his life, and Steve told him all about how he and Danny were famous comic book heroes now, about Charlie’s favorite bedtime story, about how Grace is sailing through high school.

 “I dunno.  Maybe.”

 “Would it make you feel better to tell him?”

 Steve looks at Danny like he’s nuts, but Danny is being serious.  “It’s too late.”

 “Is it?”  Danny reaches over and cups Steve’s cheek.  “You can tell him now.  Or not.  But there’s no ‘should’ in this, no right and wrong.  This – what we have-”  Danny motions between them, then grabs Steve’s hand, “this is ours.”

 Danny pulls Steve down for a kiss, one that leaves no room for doubt.  “We will tell people when and if we’re ready.  The fact that we haven’t done it yet doesn’t make it any less real. Does that work for you?  ‘Cause it works for me.”

 Steve feels something inside him release, something hurtful and worrisome float away on the waves, washed away by the force of Danny’s belief in him.  In them, together.  “Yeah, Danny. That works for me.”

 Steve wraps an arm around Danny’s shoulder, tugging him close, and looks out over the water.  It’s an entirely different view than sunset over the field by Joe’s land, but just like that was for Joe, this place is home for Steve.  With this man.  No matter who knows it.

[dontdowhatisayandnobodygetshurt]

Take 2... ODD NUMBERS

Em you absolute MADWOMAN I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THANK YOU X’D X’D

THIS IS GONNA BE ALL THE ODD NUMBERS FROM THIS POST (feel free to still send even ones in pFFFFffffFFFt) so I’m putting it under the cut!! Gonna be looong!! If you wanna learn random stuff about The Matt, click read more. :P

1.if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

Read: Bird by Crystal Chan. Watch: Sense8. Listen to: this song.

3.three songs that you connect with right now.

this - this - this

5.have you taken someones virginity?

Nope. Not… yet? XD

7.if you could, would you take back your last kiss?

Haven’t had a proper one yet, unfortunately.

9.what was the last concert you saw?

Never been to one, too much noise and flashing lights and people = complete sensory overload and panic attack. Cinemas are bad enough. XD BUT I would be pretty tempted to see Coldplay live!!

11.do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months?

Sweet Cheesus yes please.

13.a song you’d listen to during soft/slow/passionate sex?

this :D jk jk if it was somebody I rlly cared about it would be my favourite song probably

15.do you want to have kids? How many?

*hYsTeRiCaL lAuGhTeR* buddy I can barely take care of my own impulsive ass let alone a kid. But I’m never one to say never, so… I really don’t know. I’m not gonna be the one getting knocked up though, so adoption or… something else, depending on my eventual partner’s gender.

17.do you miss anyone from your past?

Yes. The two people I really miss though were slowly killing me so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ better off!!

19.have you ever broken someone’s heart?

I sure hope not! D:

21.have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?

1) Haven’t had one yet :’) 2) I really really hope I never make them cry, I’ll never intend to. D’:

23.favourite weather?

A nice, cloudy, kinda chilly day with steady rain.

25.do you wanna get married?

Honestly I really don’t mind either way so it’ll depend 100% on my partner. If they want to, sure!! If they don’t, I won’t care. I do have this thing though where I tend to pass out if I stand still for a long amount of time so that’ll be… interesting. X’D my only thing will be that I want the ring bearer to be either dressed up as a Hobbit or to be a v good dog so those are my only conditions to marriage 😂😂😂

27.what’s an inner joke you have with your friends?

Frodo reaction memes. X’D

29.what’s your favorite pasta dish?

Ravioli is pretty hecking good! I’m getting back into pasta recently, I never used to like it bc we used to have gluten pasta and it made me feel sick. But now I can find out which pastas I like!!! :’DDDDD

31.what’s your favorite eye color?

Blue eyes are stunning. It’s funny, my Mum has blue eyes and I’m so bitter that I didn’t inherit them. :((( But rlly all eye colours can be super pretty!!

33.are you a morning person?

Yes in the fact that I LOVE mornings. I can be grumpy first thing sometimes when I’m still half asleep but I get really happy and energetic from overtiredness lmao quickly!! :DDDD

35.what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit?

My boots. I’ve had them forever and I don’t own any other shoes, apart from some runners that are still practically brand new bc I never wear them. XD

37.tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

Okay so normally when I’m awake at 3AM it’s one of 3 scenarios: 1) I got fixated on something and don’t know how much time has passed, or 2) my insomnia has flared up yet again and I am this close to having a mental breakdown because I’m so tired, or 3) I got overtired and now act pretty much drunk and have too much energy to go to sleep. One time I sent Enna three separate rambly stupid asks about her OCs and I was so tired that the next morning I remembered I sent them but I couldn’t remember anything I said. She was super sweet about it. The end. X’D

39.who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?

My Dad. We both love the stars. We were also talking about Pokemon and DND. XD

41.do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

I don’t particularly like it, I prefer just downloading songs now. Mainly because I don’t like a lot of songs from the same band and buying a whole CD or record just for ONE song that I like on it is… meh. XD The last one I bought was an Ed Sheeran CD and it was for my mum.

43.what are your favorite memes of the year so far

I haven’t found any yet that really grab me, we’ll see. X’D

45.what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

I got my Dad a One Direction calendar once. We both hated One Direction. (When the cashier gave 12-year-old me that kind of ‘stupid teenaged girl in love with a boy band’ look I stared right back at her and told her with a straight face we were going to light it on fire. I’ve never seen anyone look so pleasantly surprised in my entire life.) My Dad loooved it. X’DI asked my Dad for a toothpick a week before my birthday once and he didn’t have one. Guess what my “present” was that year. Guess. XD

47.describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

V tol and thoughtful and pretty and talented and nice and spams me and sends me pics of cute dogs occasionally. 11/10 good fren, would befren again. :’)

49.is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

Yup. Should be writing 2 things and maybe doing something else but idk if I should do the thing or not so. Procrastination it is. :))))

51.what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?

Any mutual of mine who just sends me nice messages or asks me stuff warms my heart so much. And anyone who has ever shown interest in my OCs has my eternal gratitude, if y’all ever need a kidney you caN HAVE MINE.

53.what’s some of your favorite album art?

Literally anything Coldplay has ever had ever.

55.do you like concept albums? which ones?

They sound pretty cool but I don’t think I have any favourites…?? Idk.

57.list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

This one (This one. This one.

59.what do you do when you’re sad?

Isolate myself + throw love at my online friends so hopefully they don’t feel like I do. Also drink warm drinks and reading and spending time with my pets bc they always help.

61.what was the best (non-romantic) night you’ve had?

I read this as sex thing wooPS. X’D Best non-romantic night I’ve ever had.. hmm… the night we got our German Shepherd. It was Good Friday. We’d finally gotten our puppy. We stayed up super late watching her toddle around and fall asleep on us. One of my absolute favourite memories. :’D

63.what’s the best piece of advice you ever received?

“You will only find your special someone when you are perfectly happy with the idea of being single forever. You can only be in a comfortable and loving relationship with somebody else when you are in a comfortable and loving relationship with yourself.”

65.what’s your secret dream?

Be in a Marvel movie one day. ^-^” oof

67.three songs that remind you of the person who sends this one

The only things that come to mind are P!nk songs ASDFGHJKL XD

69.three last songs you listened to

Pffft the songs I put on this thing X’D

71.have you ever had a friends with benefits?

Nope but I’d be open to the idea! (i may even have plans with one fren lmao)

73.Is there anyone you would die for?

My family (friends included), my pets, what’s right: if the world could be magically fixed but I had to die I’d do it on the spot.

75.do you give out second chances too easily?

I used to. But then I used up all my second chances on people who didn’t deserve them. Normally if somebody really seriously hurts me, I give them one more chance and make it very clear for them to please not do that particular thing again. Everyone makes mistakes, I get that. But if they do that exact same thing again, I’m normally gone. I’m done with waiting around and getting hurt over and over just to “be a good friend.” That’s not being a friend, that’s being a doormat/punching bag.

77.is this year the best year of your life?

So far, nope. We’ll see though!!! :DDDDD

79.who/what was your last dream about?

I think it was about Shameless?? I heard there was a trans character so I watched just those clips and I think I dreamt about it. X’D

Thank you so much for asking, Em!! ^____^

[shima-draws]

Here it is...the AU I’ve been hinting at lately!!

It’s called Tied Dimensions! I’d give you a basic summary but it’s all already written out below, so you can just read that and get the gist :’) I just think the whole concept is super exciting so.

Read and enjoy!! (It’s from Keef’s POV btw)

My world ended about two hundred and fifty years ago.

We call it World’s Terminus. An unexplained phenomena that plunged the world into darkness and terror, without any prior warning. Nobody saw it coming. Therefore, nobody was prepared. There isn’t much one can do when the world begins to fall apart around them, except run and cower and hide—that is, if you can even make it that far.

I’m what comes after World’s Terminus—what remains of humanity from our planet’s collapse. Billions of people were wiped out from the incident, and the rest were left to rebuild society and start anew. Not that it was easy, considering everything important had been destroyed in the turmoil.

The one really sad thing about my existence is that, even though the world’s population is alarmingly low and needs all the life it can get, I was abandoned. Cast out. Not needed.

I live at a dingy old orphanage on the edge of a broken town, along with the rest of humanity’s unwanted. We’re a gang of angry, depressed misfits who curse what our world has come to, and wonder where it all went wrong. Not that we’d be able to change the outcome, anyway. It’s way too late for that.

This world no longer has any color, not that anybody alive remembers what having color is like. Everything green died, the sky turned a murky gray and all life seemed to be sucked out of the ground like a vacuum. There are still a few artifacts left behind of the world that was before World’s Terminus—but I’ve never seen them. They’re kept in the highest places in society, where the rich and elite live clinging on to the edges of their sanity. Old photographs, paintings and images from the past, the only things left in this world that still have color.

Not that everything has turned completely monotone, of course not. But anything that was once vibrant has none of that brilliance anymore, leaving us in a town full of grays, blacks and browns, and not much else. I have no idea what the color red looks like. Isn’t that utterly tragic?

I spend my days ostracized by the bullies of the orphanage, and ordered around by our so-called caretakers. None of them are kind people, so I’ve learned to do what I’m told without complaint or face beatings.

Any hope I might have had towards escaping this godforsaken place vanished years and years ago. People don’t want to adopt children, they’re too busy figuring out how to survive, how to keep their heads straight on a planet that hasn’t seen the sun in over two-hundred years. Our skies are always gray now, our whole lives are gray. What a boring, dull color.

I’m almost eighteen now. In a few months, I’ll finally be able to break free and cast off, off to some place that doesn’t reek of death and sadness, and at least try to find a place for myself in this world. I’ll no longer have to bow down to the obligations of the people who have raised me, and I won’t have to ever see the twisted, ugly faces of my peers who think they’re everything, when they’re actually nothing.

On the days where I feel more alone and angry than ever, I sneak out the back window and go exploring through the ruins of World’s Terminus.

Not much has happened to our planet after it came to an abrupt end, so things have stayed in tact quite well over the centuries. Old buildings from years and years ago still stand, and it’s in these buildings I like to poke around and see what I can find. The place I frequent most often is the old school building, a couple miles away from the orphanage.

Whenever I walk through the dusty halls and abandoned classrooms I feel this strange sense of nostalgia wash over me, and I desperately wish I could have had a normal life, attending school and making actual friends. My “brothers” and “sisters” at the orphanage don’t count. I’m not sure what having friends is like, but whatever relationship we happen to share is definitely not that.

It’s on one of these days when I come back from my adventures that everything I knew gets turned upside down. Literally.

There’s a visitor at the orphanage, which rarely ever happens at all. That’s the first sign that something is up. Secondly, and much to my immense shock, this stranger is dressed in the strangest clothing I’ve ever seen, and—there’s color. Some weird hue I’ve never seen before, except maybe reflected in the shadows of my eyes. Purple…that’s what I’ve been told what color my eyes are. Or, at least, dark purple.

The stranger’s eyes light up upon seeing me, and I only have moments to take in his short black hair and healthy skin tone before he grabs my hand and shakes it eagerly.

“You’re Keith, right? Keith Kogane.”

He tells me he wants me to participate in a special project with him. Doesn’t really give any more details than that, even when I ask him who he is or where he comes from. The only thing I manage to get is his name—Shiro. Takashi Shirogane, but his friends call him Shiro. So this guy has friends…

Needless to say I’m skeptical, I mean, who wouldn’t be? This isn’t some sort of fairy tale where I’m the chosen hero who gets tossed into a grand adventure trying to save a princess or some bullshit. This world doesn’t work that way. It’s too dreary and lifeless for something that magical to happen to me of all people.

In the end, though, my curiosity wins over my suspicions, so I eventually decide to go with him.

If this turns out to be some sort of plot to lure me out and kill me, fine. It’s not like I have much to live for, anyway. I’ve just been biding my time until something happens—either I die from some tragic accident or finally get out of that hell house of an orphanage and try to make it on my own.

To my confusion, Shiro takes me to the old school building. A sense of apprehension builds up in my gut, telling me that this might be a murder attempt after all. Should I make a run for it?

“I’ve chosen you because you’re special, Keith,” Shiro explains as we weave our way through the halls, kicking up dust as we go. Oh, great. Not this bullshit again.

“You have an ability that not many other people have. That’s why…” He pauses to let out a soft laugh. “Well, you’ll see in a bit. I don’t want to overwhelm you right away.”

We reach the door to the courtyard, where we come to a halt. I gaze at the taller man curiously, with his sharp eyes and strong jaw, and wonder who the hell he is. Maybe he’s just crazy. Maybe he’s some elite bastard who went off the rails and decided to abduct a teenager to play games with him.

Shiro grabs the handle of the door and pulls, which is obviously stupid because these doors open outward, so you have to push them—

A weird click sounds. Shiro jiggles the door handle and, suddenly, slides the door to the right.

What. The fuck? Since when did it ever do that?

“Alright, here goes.” He gives me a smile and with a final tug, pulls it open.

I step out onto the other side of the courtyard door. What I find there is something that immediately brings me to tears.

More colors than I’ve ever seen before in my life greet my eyes. They bloom and blossom and explode in such a vibrancy that it makes me dizzy, crowding in all around and putting pressure on my skull.

The courtyard is teeming with life—grass sways in the wind, there’s the sound of laughter coming from somewhere off in the distance, and an enormous tree rustles above my head, scattering leaves here and there. I look up and see the sun for the first time, blinding and dazzling, so very bright.

It all sort of happens too quickly for me to process, so after instantaneously bursting into tears, I have to crouch down and bury my face in my knees. It’s too much. Too much information, too many colors I don’t know, it’s so vibrant and beautiful—

“Is that Shiro’s pet project?”

“Hey, n—what did you do to him, Shiro?”

Shiro sounds apologetic and slightly panicked. “I didn’t think—he’s overwhelmed. It’s too much for him to process. I’m sorry, Keith.”

“Aw, the poor thing!”

“Well yeah, if you bring him in from a world with no color to this he’s gonna freak out, dude. Sensory overload, you know?”

“Matt’s gonna kick your ass for this.”

“Keith, are you alright?”

My head is pounding and the world as I know it is swaying in front of my eyes, but I nod. Yes. I’m more than alright, I just—

“Hey, take it easy there, man. It’s a lot to take in, right?”

A voice sounds right next to my ear, melodical and soft. I can’t help but peek through my fingers a little.

Sitting in front of me is the most gorgeous human being I’ve ever laid my eyes on. And maybe that’s biased, coming from me, but it’s the truth. Sun-kissed skin and dark brown hair, a mischievous expression and lanky but strong limbs, and once again the weirdest clothing I’ve ever seen are what makes up this mysterious yet beautiful boy that has come into my midst. And the most astonishing thing of all are his eyes, a couple shades darker than the sky. I don’t know what color they are, but I think it’s my favorite now.

The boy tilts his head and beams at me, flashing a pair of pearly white teeth. Around him his friends all smile down at me, bursting, bursting with color. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more breathtaking.

This is…this is…

“Welcome to our world, Keith!”

This is World’s Variegation.

AND THAT’S IT!! TIED DIMENSIONS :’)

To sum things up: Keith lives in a world after the apocalypse, where there is no life, no meaning, and no color. One day Shiro shows up to the orphanage he lives at and takes him into an alternate dimension through the courtyard door that is teeming with life and color, things Keith’s never seen before, so he sorta has a breakdown and gets suuuuper overwhelmed. Like Lance said. Sensory overload it’s too much for his brain (which usually only sees dark colors and shades of gray) to take haha Keith learns that he is a Traverser, someone who can travel between dimensions, or rather what he calls World’s Terminus and World’s Variegation (I know the definition usually refers to plants, but I mean the definition as in “diversity of colors” so yeah haha). Shiro has chosen him to take part in the TDP, Tied Dimensions Project, which serves as a basis for research on both worlds and their connection to each other. However!! Like all of my AUs there’s a big secret behind the research and exactly why Shiro brought Keith to the other world. Throughout all of this Keith jumps back and forth between the dimensions every day, since he legally still belongs to the orphanage and has to go back. He starts to discover what LIVING really means with the help of all of Shiro’s friends, and starts falling in love with Lance. He gets to experience what the world could have been like if World’s Terminus never happened, and does all these amazing things he would have never even thought to dream of before...

Anyway yeah that’s the AU!! It’s really fun to think about and have Keith experience all these new and exciting things and just get overwhelmed about it all the time but his friends are like “It’s okay, we get it, just take a second to sit down and relax and chill” and it’s. NICE

SO YEAH HOPE YOU ENJOYED //JAZZ HANDS 

[mikenips]

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

I got back into bed after having my morning cigarette at three in the afternoon.  Still half a cup of coffee.  Just the right amount of Kahlua.  Enough to catch the notes of rum through the vanilla hazelnut cream.  But not overpowering to the point where you feel like shit for spiking your first drink of the day.  It’s not even five o’clock here yet.  A cigarette always tastes better when you smoke it in bed.  But you gotta get your fresh air somehow.  Probably won’t leave the house today.  Lots of editing to do on the documentary.

Crawl back under the fleece pineapple blanket.  Spoon a lump of sludge into my mouth.  Oatmeal.  Spent a lotta time avoiding the junk.  A coworker turned me onto it during a morning shift when I drank too much coffee on two hours of sleep and couldn’t see cause I hadn’t eaten at all.  I was always under the impression it would fill me up more.  But it’s fuckin’ oatmeal.  Just sits there.  Clumps up in your stomach.  Doesn’t do shit for ya.

Flip open the laptop.  White rocks stuck in the holes over the speaker.  Kief covered keyboard.  I really should finance for a better grinder than that shitty plastic thing I’ve used since high school.  Old reliable.  Works wonders on grinding.  But everytime you shove the top piece back in, clouds of kief mushroom around it.  Settling in puddles of sweat.  Every now and then the fingertips come back stained after a long editing session.

Camera lays next to the bed.  Sitting directly in front of the trash can.  A wall of VHS tapes stacked up next to the black cylinder.  Can only distinguish the different objects by the masking tape.  Chicken scratch Sharpied onto the cream backdrop.  I really should’ve dated all of them.  Not just the subject.  Can better timeline the filmmaker’s journey by knowing when each segment of the film was shot.  And now I won’t be able to track the dates.  Who the fuck saves emails and texts anyways?  Might be able to find a few from Instagram DMs.  But that’s all up to how the artist wants to portray the story.  Should the viewer discover chronologically?  Or should they piece it together and learn with the filmmaker?

Check the Hamtown Rats Facebook group.  It sounds like some gentrifier bullshit.  Young white people moving into a two square mile city.  Starting a Facebook group with all their friends that live there.  Very elitist.  Especially for a town where the majority of the population is below the poverty line and speak English as a second language.  But after all this shit.  More and more people come begging to live in the city that once had a dumpster running for mayor.

That’s literal too.

At least it’s a good way for neighbors to share shit they can’t afford to get on their own.  Posting which alleys have the best furniture to trash pick.  Or what bars have a pop-up kitchen each day.  Or other general bullshit.  Closest thing you can get to commune living here.  Never know what you’re gonna see walking through this town.  Which makes it so much more interesting what the citizens find to be newsworthy.  That’s what you gotta love about this city.  It’s a community of people that didn’t know where else to go.  From the Polish immigrants that founded it.  To the now growing middle Eastern population.  To all the artists and drunks that can’t afford anywhere else.  Everybody is a part of this community.

Last week people were tracking the journey of a wild turkey roaming the streets.

Today.  The first image that pops up through drops of Stroh’s dried up on the screen, the image of a local legend.  Sporting a fur coat.  Mardi gras beads slouching his back.  Bugler and beer in hand.  Only eye contact with the camera was the eyeball earring a friend had made.  Weird how it always looked to the side like that.  Sparkles shimmering in the purple skin around his eyes smeared by a finger with blue eyeshadow.  You never really were sure if he had gotten into a fight or just hadn’t slept in weeks.  Come to think of it.  Nobody ever had heard stories of him getting into fights.  He had a collection of handguns.  But no bullets.  Anything was possible with Bart though.

Barf.  That’s what his friends called him.  The nickname dated back to high school.  The burnouts he was friends with mocking him for puking when they introduced him to grass his freshman year.  Boys will be boys.  A good vomit joke always gets the laughs.  And of course when you tell any guy to stop, they never do.  So the name stuck.  I can still hear him in the interview.  “Fuck the name your family gave you.  Blood don’t mean shit.  I can get a transfusion whenever I want.  A nickname reflects the person others see you as.  And isn’t someone else’s perception of you better than your own?”

He had moved to the city after getting busted with a script full of Vicodin his first year at Wayne State.  Grandma bailed him out.  Mom said he could keep living with her after the bust.  He was an adult now.  Had to make his own decisions.  But he couldn’t bring any junk into her house.  So he got his own place in Hamtown.  Moved in with a girl he was seeing.  The split would happen not much longer after that.  But she didn’t wanna keep the shitty apartment split front and back.  So he took it over.

Sad to see the image.  It was taken at one of his house parties.  Nobody could pinpoint which one.  Not surprising though.  Anything was possible with Barf.

Skim over the stack of tapes.  Find the one labeled “Barf.”  Pop it in the VHS player.  Something about capturing all that stuff on tape.  Seems more real.  Seeing the actual tape move from reel to reel broke down the illusion to me more than watching the Instagram story highlights or YouTube videos that circulated the internet.  With all the fake news out there, you can never be sure where reality and illusion separate.  But wasn’t that kinda the point of art?  Or at least Barf’s body of work.  Pushing the boundaries of reality and illusion.

He was a magician.  Hard way to crack through the art world.  But somehow Bart managed to slip through the cracks.  To the bewilderment of some of the old heads that still were active in the DIY scene.  The urban legends that inspire locals to pick up the axe and start shredding away the stump that still remains.  Bart was slingshot to their status by his peers.  Many of them leaving a much bigger dent on the stump of culture than Bart.  Still, they cited him as a major help to their careers.  As he kept standing in front of the stump.  Curtain held over it.  Hoping one day he’d pull away and it would all be gone.  Some of us, kids my age that were sneaking into his shithole bar underage, believe the stump was never really there in the first place.  These notions were all just in our head.

The snow gives way to the glimmer of a bottom lip grill.  No top.  Mouth hanging open.  Gasping to the tune of “Zig Zag Wanderer” by Captain Beefheart.  Black octagon sunglasses still on in the room dimly lit by rock god prayer candles and ritual candles melted straight to the glass table top.  Greasy hair falling over his face.  Hiding the chain stretching from the industrial piercing in his left ear to the diamond at the lobe.  A knot of baby hair tangled in his right eyebrow piercing.

His head sinks into the penguin pillow.  A gift his grandma gave him when he was a kid.  The white face now gray.  Almost as black as the outer color.  Color chipping off his cracked fingernails.  Purple kimono barely covers his sunken stomach.  Skin detailing the texture of bone.  One floating rib on his right side.  Never was sure how that happened.  “Can’t hold onto everything that hurts you.”  It’s eerie thinking in other people’s voices.

“You ever do quads brooooooo…”  His now baritone voice trails off as the nitrous canister falls outta the cradle of his arms onto the dirty carpet.  The fiend in me wants to Hoover his carpets with my nose.  Someone like him probably doesn’t give a shit how much he spills.  Less getting in his bloodstream.  But part of me says he does regular cleaning on his own.

From the TV you can hear Scooby-Doo scratching his ears.  Doesn’t mute the PS2 game.  Just turns the record player up over it.  Gotta have that full sensory overload to really get in the head space.  “You wanna know the real story of how I lost this tooth?”

“Sure.”  It’s always a shock hearing your own voice on recording.

“So I woke up one day with the worst tooth pain I have ever experienced.”  He rips a line of blow without even lowering his shades.  Looks up and smiles.  “Like ‘em?  My buddy left them after a house show at my place.  His going away party on Devil’s Night when he joined the navy.  Used to run this really cool cassette label.  Always did my part by providing him a venue for releases.”

His palms thunderstrike together.  Shakes his hair violently.  “Anyways.  I shoved my whole phone in my mouth.  Capture a nice pic of the inside of my tooth.  Solid black.  So I get it yanked out.  Smoked three packs of Camel Blues through my nose while I waited out the dry socket.  That was when they did that Camel through the decades promo.  Still got some of the packs on my display of empties in the kitchen.

“Anyways.  Fuckin’ sidetracked.  What most people don’t know is I chipped the tooth at Jenkem.  Managed to get this insane Aussie garage band to play while they were touring the US.  Sold out show.  And this one fuckin’ asshole I knew.  Ian.  He fronted some shitty indie band.  Mac DeMarcore type sound.  Until I opened the bar he only knew me as the bowling bartender.  Even though I met him several times before working there.  And the asshole had been to my house for parties!

“All these shitty indie bands lived in the burbs.  But they loved coming to Hamtown and seeing the garage bands.  Made them feel like they were doing something they shouldn’t be.  And they’d smoke cigs at the bar.  Play pinball and pool.  Stand at the front of the pit.  But stand completely still.  Just kinda romanticizing our filth and flaws without having to see it at home.  Ya know.  Where daddy could pay to get them on Spotify playlists for publicity.

“So he begs me to let his band open.  And they didn’t fit the bill.  But they wanted a fuckin’ shit show.  So we gave ‘em a fucking shit show!  Sparked a joint during their set.  Tried passing it to him while he played.  But he refused.  All the homies booed.  Just dumb shit to make them uncomfortable.

“So the headliners go on.  I’m tanked by this point.  I mean.  I was tanked when I unlocked the bar that day.  But now I was just obliterated.  And somebody hit me from behind in the pit.  I fell forward.  Bust my tooth on this asshole Ian’s leather jacket.  That is standing completely fucking still front and center.

“Lost a third of the tooth.  But left a pretty nice scratch on the leather jacket daddy got him that afternoon for his ‘big gig.’”  I’m gonna miss that beautiful smile.  The kind of innocent smile of a child unsure what’s going on.  But knows he’s enjoying it.

[tenscupcake]

electrostatic potential (29/?)

ten/rose. teen this ch. i’m back, baby! hope you guys enjoy this chap, and that it’s at least somewhat worth the wait ;) thank you oodles to amber for the beta and for making this chapter much better! summary: as the doctor and rose traverse time and space looking for adventure, they slowly fall victim to a mysterious energy that can manipulate their emotions. though confused and unnerved by the cerebral affliction, neither of them understands its cause, or realizes that it could jeopardize their friendship. what will it take for them to discover the truth? this chapter on ao3 | back to chapter 1 on ao3

Rose has to hand it to the Doctor for keeping a relatively cool head through all this. Since they returned to the hut, he’s done his best to stay optimistic (which seems almost paradoxical, in itself), and she has taken encouragement from the fact that he hasn’t been freaking out. At least not very much. She expected him to be about a million times more worried than she is about this whole thing, but that’s far from the case. Now and then, small bursts of anxiety mar the ambiance in the garden, but he does a decent job of warding them off.

Much of the time, all his focus is on keeping her calm, and it’s miraculous how well it works. Even after all the training he’s taken her through so far, it still surprises her how much more powerful the Doctor’s mind is than hers. How irresistibly persuasive his gentle suggestions are. Trying to ignore the sensation of calm he’s offering is like trying not to drift off in a cozy bed after a long day. Why resist?

It certainly has been nice to spend a couple of hours lying in the grass with no obligations besides snogging. Normally, she might be a tad sexually frustrated by now, but with the looming questions of her health and the future, neither of them feels it’s the right time for a shag. Without breaking their link, the Doctor checks the outside world from time to time to see if the storm has calmed enough to brave the trip to the TARDIS. But over time, these pauses become less frequent. Whether he’s forgetting, or becoming more and more reluctant to part with her even briefly, she isn’t sure. But whichever way, she doesn’t mind.

The Doctor has a way with this telepathy thing. Time seems to speed up while they’re connected, almost to the point that she wants to tell him to slow it down for them.

She wonders if he would. She thinks it’s within the realm of possibility for a Time Lord to be able to manipulate time itself.

“Not quite.” The Doctor breaks them out of a kiss with a chuckle. They’ve shifted gradually over time: he’s hovering over her, supporting his weight on his elbow rather than crushing her. “I can’t manipulate time without using ethically questionable technology. But I can manipulate your perception of it. It’s difficult, though, and not without risks.”

“Should’ve known.” She grins happily, almost forgetting about her situation. But the golden glow around his tousled hair acutely reminds her of the circumstances, and her smile falters. “Want to check on the storm again?”

His smile falters, too.

“Okay.”

She wishes she hadn’t asked, because within seconds they’re disconnected and heading for the door of the hut.

The storm hasn’t just let up – it’s completely paused. In fact, it’s almost too calm, like they’re in the eye of a hurricane, and the inevitable second wave of destruction could strike any moment. It’s quiet in the absence of the torrential rain and constant crash of thunder, but the sky is still a dark, ominous gray.  The light breeze on her skin is a different temperature than the surrounding air, and storm clouds race through the sky overhead, turbulent currents still on the move. This really could be their only window to the TARDIS all day.

Every occupant of the island has sought shelter indoors, making it feel like a mistake to have stepped outside at all. A calamity waiting to happen. Rose doesn’t find it likely that anything worse can happen than being struck by lightning and nearly dying, but it’s still eerie to be outside. The village and the surrounding beach are so empty, it’s as though they’ve been evacuated pending a natural disaster. A rumble of thunder echoes in the distance with a greenish light, and Rose longs to return to the sunshine and chirping birds of the garden.

The Doctor is holding her hand, at least, but she thinks it’s more to prevent her running off again than for a sense of comfort.

And suddenly, he’s doing a much less impressive job of being optimistic. His worry starts to compound hers as they make their way across the boardwalk, walking at a rate too brisk to be leisurely. And just a minute ago he was doing so well. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that now they really have to confront what happened, if anything did? (Apart from the hundred thousand volts or whatever.) Or that if there is anything wrong, he’s going to have to take action to fix it? Is he thinking back to the last time Bad Wolf was inside her, and he had to sacrifice his own life? Is he afraid of dying again? Should she be?

God, she wishes he would go back to being cool and calm about it. This is a definite downside to the automatic communication thing.

“What is it?” the Doctor suddenly asks, looking over at her in more of a glare than anything.

“What’s what?”

“You’re tense. Walking too fast for you?” He slows down his pace, if only marginally.

“Er… no…” She’s not sure how to respond. She didn’t expect him to pick up on that. Stupid. How much longer will they both continue to underestimate the potency of this thing? They both should’ve learned their lesson by now. Always assume it can transmit. Always. “Just… you’re a bit tense is all. And you weren’t before.”

To her surprise, the Doctor sighs and turns his head to stare straight ahead.

“What’d you want the defense lessons for if you weren’t going to use them?”

“Oi! ‘S not my fault!”

Blimey, he’s grumpy when he’s nervous.

“You’re right. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just… I tried to explain before. You’ve got to actually try to block me out if you want to. If you’re trying to hear me, then you will.”

“I know… just… didn’t have enough time to think about doin’ that is all.”

“You’re right. Sorry. I’m just…”

“Do you not think I’ll be all right?”

“I do.” He turns to her as they stop at the top of the stairs leading down to the sand. “I’m only anxious to find out what’s going on.”

“Okay.”

They’re quiet the rest of the way, but the Doctor doesn’t let go of her hand. The sand is mushy and cold from the rain, but the air is crisp and warm, drier than usual. It almost feels like a new beginning, and she can’t help but wonder if there are more of those on the horizon.

She doesn’t feel any ill effects from this thing. In fact, there have been a few undeniable beneficial effects. She got struck by bloody lightning – and she’s got branching blood vessel tattoos on her arms to prove it – but she’s fine. She’s walking and talking and functioning normally. The Doctor scanned her pretty much everywhere with the sonic and came back with nothing. How’s that even possible?

But even worst case scenario… if there are still some remnants of Bad Wolf in her, didn’t the Bad Wolf bring life? Okay, well, it killed a few Daleks. More than a few. But it saved a bunch of people aboard the satellite. Jack. The Doctor. She always feels guilty that he sacrificed one of his lives for her that day, but on the flipside, if she hadn’t gone back to him, he would have died anyway, and she thinks he wouldn’t have been able to regenerate himself out of that one.

Whatever this is, she wants to believe it’s not a bad thing.

She thinks back to what she’d learned the other day, how strong emotions can overpower unwanted ones from the outside. She concentrates on the optimism and hope these thoughts bring help to cancel out the Doctor’s negativity, and it actually works fairly quickly. She grins to herself, proud of her progress, and doesn’t bring it up again.

With how tenaciously the Doctor is leading her through the sand, it doesn’t take long at all to get back to the TARDIS.

The infirmary has been bumped close to the console room, and before she knows it she’s perched on an examination table, gripping the edges of the the thin, hard cushion to take the edge off her anxiety.

“Why don’t you lie down?” the Doctor says absently as he swipes on his glasses and collapses onto a rolling stool. The first thing he does is get a pair of gloves from a rack on the wall, pulling them on with crinkling and slapping noises that run chills down her spine.

“’M fine,” she insists, gripping the table harder.

He pauses in the middle of searching a drawer of the nearby counter at her tone, glancing over at her.

“I just want you to be relaxed, that’s all.”

“I’m relaxed,” she lies through her teeth.

“Okay.” He resigns that she isn’t going to acquiesce, and starts rounding up supplies from various drawers and cabinets, arranging them on a metal tray. It feels a bit too much like an operating room for her liking.

“Is all that really necessary?”

“What?” he asks, turning to her with an expression of innocence. “It’s not like I’ve got a scalpel or anything, just basic, run-of-the mill diagnostic tools.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” He tears open something plastic as he walks over to her, and holds up the object in question. “Cotton swabs.”

She relaxes a little. Seems harmless enough.

“Open up,” he says.

She stares back at him, affronted.

Confused, he opens his mouth, pointing to it with his free gloved hand.

Oh.

“What are you gonna do?”

“DNA sample. Here, you can do it. Just stick it under your tongue for a bit, that’ll do it.”

He hands her the swab carefully by the very bottom, and she takes it and does as he requested.

“Can’t you figure this out with your hands, or whatever?” she asks as she hands it back to him.

“There’s a lot of information I can get from sensory inputs,” he agrees, taking the swab from her and immediately dunking it into a long tube of clear liquid. He seals a cap over it hastily. “Temperature, respiration rate, pulse… and if I can taste it, mineral levels, electrolyte balance…” He tears open another piece of plastic and pulls out what looks like a toothpick, handing it to her like he did the swab. “One more. Just scrape the inside of your cheek a little. Not enough to hurt yourself, just to collect a few thousand cheek cells.”

She takes it from him and follows his brief instruction, and he rolls away to retrieve something else.

“But I can’t analyze DNA with a simple touch,” he continues his earlier thought. “Or view cellular structures with just my eyes. Glasses or not.” He returns to her, takes the toothpick, and wipes the end of it on a rectangle of glass. A microscope slide, she guesses. He covers it with a square of plastic and sets it on his metal tray.

 He then picks up the tube with the cotton swab and wheels himself over to what looks like a fume hood from her high school chemistry class.

“Expectin’ some noxious gases?” she asks.

“It’s not a fume hood,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s close, though. Biosafety cabinet,” he pronounces with enthusiasm. “It’s designed to protect the sample, not me. I can’t have your genetic material getting contaminated with mine, or that of the countless species of bacteria, viruses, and fungi no doubt floating through the air.”

“Right,” she rolls her eyes at the unpleasant reminder.

He gathers some bottles and boxes from a nearby cabinet and runs them over to the safety contraption. He then picks up a spray bottle from next to it and squirts its contents onto one glove, then rubs his gloved hands together, spreading it over his hands thoroughly.

He extracts liquid from various bottles and vials and transfers them here and there with some sort of high-tech blue syringe device, rushing but never seeming to make a mistake. It’s fascinating watching him work, even though she has no idea what he’s doing.

But when he’s occupied for more than a minute or so, she loses her ability to focus on watching him, and anxiety creeps up on her. She’s optimistic he won’t find anything that indicates she’s in mortal danger. But now that he’s actually collecting samples from her mouth and doing analyses on them that she doesn’t even understand, she’s feeling out of her depth. She has no idea what he may find. She could be a mutant now, one of the X-men, or some other alien invention that’s far from human.

“This sort of PCR would probably take an hour or two in your time,” he calls back to her after a minute, almost as though he knew the silence was becoming uncomfortable. Just hearing his voice is enough to bring her out of the spiral. “But with the equipment I’ve got, it should only take, oh… ten minutes?”

“Impressive.” She tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work.

“I know,” he cocks his head to the side. Only a small, sealed vial of liquid in his hand now, he walks over to a large cube-shaped piece of equipment on a nearby counter, presses a button, and places it carefully into a rack that ejects itself from the side. He types furiously for a few moments on a user interface mounted on the front, eyes glued to the small screen. “This primer too…” he mumbles to himself. “Cover all our bases.”

She decides not to ask any questions about this particular process, figuring he’ll tell her the important stuff when he’s ready.

“Right!” he exclaims, whirling around just as a green light flashes on the machine with a crescendo of beeps that remind her of the sound the washing machines at the laundromat make when they begin a cycle. He claps his hands together, and walks back over to his tray of instruments. He places the tray on a small cart by the counter, and rolls it the few feet across the floor until it’s next to her table.

Much to her dismay, the tray has a needle on it.

“What’s ‘at for?” she asks,

“Blood sample,” he answers matter-of-factly. “Arm,” he adds, tapping the end of the cart.

She grumbles, but sets her forearm on the cart. She covers her face with her other hand, and turns her head resolutely away from her arm, even though he hasn’t started anything yet.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

“I just don’t want to see it, all right? I don’t like needles. Or blood.” She huffs angrily.

“Rose, just out of curiosity, what sort of tests did you imagine me doing?”

“I dunno! Less invasive ones?”

“Fair enough,” he concedes. “I promise, though, I’m very good at it. I have a touch more experience than your average phlebotomist. It’ll just be one teensy little poke.”

“Right.” He ties a strip of latex tightly around her bicep.

“You know, I actually don’t need much blood. If you prefer, I can prick your finger.”

“No, that’s worse,” she says.

“I agree. More nerve endings in your fingertips.” There’s some clattering of supplies on the tray. “Make a fist.”

She does, wincing a little at how sweaty her palm is.

“Rose Tyler, single-handedly took down the emperor of the Daleks, but can’t handle a needle,” he quips.

“Shut it.”

“I’m afraid I need both my hands, but you can hold on to whatever else you want, if you’d like,” he offers, an olive branch.

On his suggestion, she reaches her hand out, keeping her eyes firmly shut, until she finds his hip, then reaches her hand around and squeezes his bum.

“Woah!” he jumps a little. “Maybe not the best idea to startle someone who’s about to stick you with a needle?” He chuckles a little.

“Sorry.” She relaxes her grip, but can’t help cracking a smile.

He lightly presses a couple fingers into the dip of her elbow, shifting in tiny increments. A cold, wet piece of cotton rubs against the skin he just touched, and alcohol burns her nose.

“There’s really no better way to do this in the future?” she asks.

“I’m afraid humans don’t ever develop the ability to spontaneously bleed,” he says through another round of chuckles. At least her silly questions are inadvertently lightening his mood. “All right, little pinch.”

It’s really not so bad. Every other time she’s gotten blood drawn it’s been worse. It’s a little pinch, like he said. But she still squeezes his bum a little for good measure.

“Okay, about ten seconds…” She feels a slight tug on the needle as he attaches a vial. “Relax your hand.”

She doesn’t try to count, fearing it’ll only make it seem longer, but it is fairly soon that the needle slips back out.

“There we are. Done.” He presses a cotton ball against her elbow, and places a piece of tape over it to hold it in place.

She opens her eyes and looks down at the harmless ball of cotton.

“Not so bad, eh?”

“S’pose not.”

He swipes up the dark red vial from the tray and walks over to another piece of equipment, adjacent to the first.

“What’re you gonna do with this one?” she asks. She winces a little, holding her other hand against the cotton and tape as her skin starts stinging. Damn needle.

“Basic blood panel. Well, basic for my standards, not the standards of 21st century Earth. Might take a little longer than the PCR.”

Next, he pulls out what looks like a Gameboy and various white cords that resemble Apple headphones.

“All right, now I really need you to lie down,” he says as he approaches the cart and sets the device down.

“Why?” she asks, apprehensive.

“I’m gonna do an electrocardiogram, and you need to be relaxed and stay relatively still for it.”

“You can’t do that with the sonic, or somethin’?”

“Rose, why are you opposed to this? It’s completely painless.”

“It’s not gonna help you figure out what’s changed, is it?”

“Rose,” he continues calmly despite her defiance. “You’ve just been struck by lightning and you got overdosed with adrenaline, can I please just check your heart?”

She sighs angrily. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

Rose lies back reluctantly.

“You’ll also need to, erm, take your shirt off.”

“Seriously?”

The Doctor sighs, but takes her hand.

“Rose, I cannot get all the information an ECG provides just from the screwdriver. I can get simple information – blood pressure and heart rate, for example, but nuanced electrical impulses require a little something extra.” He gazes into her eyes and softens his tone to his most persuasive purr. “I just want to make sure you’re all right. It’ll only take a few minutes, and I promise I won’t make it awkward. Okay?”

“Kay,” she agrees, unable to resist those eyes.

With one light squeeze of her hand and a smirk, he turns away to give her a measure of privacy. He pulls the cart further up along the edge of the table, and busies himself with pulling the ends of the wires out of plastic wrappers.

Figuring she might as well get it over with, she wrestles her shirt off and lies back down.

She exhales deeply and slowly, trying not to be embarrassed. He has seen them before, after all. But it’s awkward now, somehow. The circumstances are too cold and professional.

He turns around, and he only glances down briefly to ensure the task is done, but she thinks she sees his cheeks flush with a tiny bit of pink.

Without letting his gaze linger, he picks up the first cord and peels off a sticker, then places the sticky pad near the middle of her chest without so much as glancing at her breasts. She’s not spending even the slightest effort on maintaining mental barriers, either, but she doesn’t feel the faintest flicker of arousal from him.

She can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed, even though she would feel awkward if he was getting aroused. But she tries not to dwell on it. It’s no surprise to her that he is good at turning himself off when he wants to.

The pads are small. Smaller than ones she’s seen on TV shows. No larger than a dime. Future technology, she assumes.

A second pad goes only a couple inches from the first, on the other side of her sternum. Four more along her ribs, just beneath her left breast, close enough that it makes her breath catch several times. But the Doctor still seems unaffected, as though he’s really just a random cardiologist and she’s just a random patient.

“Okay, just hold as still as you can. Try not to take deep breaths, and no talking.”

He punches in a few things on the device, then sets it down on the cart and stares down at it, rather than over at her.

“Should only take about two minutes.”

He periodically pushes buttons and swipes his fingers across the little screen. Rose is anxious enough that she counts a few seconds go by, but once she gets to thirty and he still hasn’t glanced over, she just closes her eyes. Without him talking to her, or even looking at her, in his effort to avoid potential awkwardness, it feels like he’s not even there anymore, and her thoughts take a downward turn again.

He’s taken blood and cells and spit and now she’s tethered to a bloody machine. She’s starting to feel more like an experiment than a human. It’s chilly in here, too, to the point that she’s suppressing shivers. The cold, clinical atmosphere of this miniature medical facility has seeped into her bones. Tests are properly running now. No turning back, deciding she doesn’t want to know. Mere minutes until they give definitive answers. What if he does find something bad? Could the results of one of these ‘run-of-the-mill’ diagnostic tests be her death knell?

It feels like more like ten minutes have passed when the Doctor finally looks away from the tiny screen.

“All right, all done.” He removes the electrodes from her skin carefully, as though peeling a plaster from a wound. Once they’re all gone, he reaches for her shirt and hands it to her before quickly turning around again. “Completely normal.” Rose breathes a sigh of relief she hadn’t realizes she was holding. “Somehow,” he adds, as though he can’t believe it.

“That’s good, right?”

“Yes,” he assures her, glancing up at her face. “Very good. Just a few more things to check while we wait on the results of the others.”

He reaches for the tray and picks up the microscope slide he’d smeared with her cheek swab, and heads over to a different counter with a microscope.

She’d forgotten she let down her tenuous barriers, because she suddenly feels a spark of nervousness from him again. It’s not like she didn’t already know he was anxious; he’s never such a mute except when he’s both severely worried and focused. She worries her own spirals of anxiety are worsening his, but only briefly. He does have much stronger barriers than she has, and could easily block such a signal if he wanted to.

It only takes him a fraction of a second to adjust the microscope, and he takes off his glasses to peer into it, twisting a few knobs with delicate precision until he finds the right position for viewing.

“Nothing remarkable here.”

He straightens up and pulls the slide out. He reaches for a clear bottle, and squeezes a drop of liquid on the slide, then does the same with another bottle of dark purple liquid. Both droplets on the slide, he covers it with a clear slip once more and places it back under the lens. After several more seconds of peering into the eyepiece again, he steps back and runs a hand furiously through his hair.

“That’s impossible,” he mutters to himself.

“What?” she asks, alarmed.

He doesn’t answer. A machine beeps, and he runs from the microscope over to the contraption that made the washing machine noise earlier, scanning the text on the screen.

“What?” he spits out at the screen, his trademark of frustrated bewilderment.

“What?” she repeats herself, angry and impatient now.

“Your DNA it’s… it’s still 100% human, but…” He dashes back to the microscope, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“But what?” she gets up this time, walking cautiously over to him.

He remains silent for a few long seconds, staring into the microscope again.

“Impossible,” he repeats when he finally pulls away. When he turns around, his eyes are wide, his lips parted in shock. He finally registers that she’s standing there, waiting, and he begins to try to explain, though it’s full of jargon.

“This serum,” he snatches up the clear bottle and holds it up, “is a cocktail of biological signals to speed up the cell cycle, along with nutrients to make accelerated growth possible. And this one,” he holds up the purple bottle, “is a powerful oxidizing agent. It damages DNA, creates additional mutations to accelerate cellular aging by a specific magnitude. Relative rates are known for most known species in the universe. At least as of the year 62700 or so.”

“The point,” she reminds him.

He takes a deep breath, stopping the incessant flow of words. “Rose, your cells aren’t aging at all. At least not visibly. They look how a Time Lord’s would. It appears there are new protective mechanisms in place, or your existing ones have been significantly enhanced.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, if your cells aren’t aging, you aren’t aging. At least not at nearly the same rate you should be.”

“I’m not aging?” She pauses for a moment, brainstorming the implications of that. “I’m like you?” she asks with a flicker of excitement.

Another machine dings, and the Doctor leaps over to it without responding to her question. He scrolls down the screen so fast she doesn’t know how he’s actually reading anything displayed on it.

But when he turns away, he looks even more awestruck.

“Normal, everything is normal. How is it all normal?” He looks positively unsettled by such a notion.

“Oi, don’t seem so disappointed that there’s not bad news!”

“No, I’m not!” He tries to assure her, unconvincingly. “It’s not… it’s just that… hang on.” Suddenly, he dashes out of the room altogether, his trainers crashing down the hall.

Rose growls audibly, frustrated that he isn’t finishing any of his thoughts and leaving her hanging like this. It’s her life on the line here.

But it’s only a few seconds before they come pounding down the hall again, clutching another handheld device. This one is black and covered in antennae like something from the original Ghostbusters.

“Sit down,” he commands with a nod to the exam table, either bored with or too impatient for politeness anymore. She does it anyway, hopping back up on the table and holding her breath for whatever he’s about to do. “Hold still,” he adds, stopping about two feet from the table.

Easier said than done when she’s close to hyperventilating.

He punches a few buttons on the device and points the antennae in her direction, and it makes a few bizarre noises – from whirring to whooshing to crackling – that go on for several long seconds.

And for several more agonizing seconds after the ruckus ceases, the Doctor stares down at the small user interface, utterly silent, his face contorting more and more with shock and confusion.

“That’s impossible!”

“WHAT IS IT!?” She demands, finally raising her voice.

“This device, it –” he shakes it in the air “ – measures electromagnetic radiation. All sorts. Most existing wavelengths, in fact. It also stores a database of the electromagnetic signature of thousands of living creatures – humans included. But your signature, that is, your signature now, has no match in the system.”

“What’s that mean?” her voice jumps an octave in panic.

“You have more energy coming off you than any human should. More than any organism should, actually, save for species like me. It’s far closer to the signature of a Time Lord than a human. A Time Lord or maybe –” he cuts himself short, and starts furiously pressing buttons again.

“Maybe what?”

“Protoplasm,” he says without looking up.

“Proto-what?”

“The TARDIS.”

“What?”

“Rose, the TARDIS. I told you this ship’s alive. But she’s got loads of energy signatures most living creatures don’t. Like protoplasm.”

“What’s protoplasm?”

“Morphologically unstable organic matter,” he explains, scrolling through something on the device. “It’s what allows the TARDIS to travel through space and time the way she does without her computers exploding. And what allows her to exist in a different dimension, and change the layout of the interior on a whim – Aha! TARDIS! Here it is! I manually input these data second I bought it. Didn’t come standard – this is hardly Gallifreyan technology. But I knew it’d come in handy someday.”

He starts laughing enthusiastically as he walks to the side of the table so she can see the tiny screen.

“Look at this, Rose. This is mad. Here you are” – he points to a squiggly graph that resembles a readout from a heart monitor – “here’s a reference human, and here’s the reference TARDIS I installed. You’ve got fingerprints from both. A perfect mixture of the two!” When she looks over at him, the Doctor is smiling like a lunatic the way he does when he single-handedly discovers something unique and astonishing.

“You’re happy about this, so I’m guessing I should be too?”

“It’s the TARDIS, Rose. It must be. From when you were Bad Wolf. Some residual energy must have been left behind, dormant. Hidden. But when that lightning hit you, it must have activated that presence. Not to such a degree that it would burn up your mind again, but just enough to cause changes at the cellular level. The perfect balance.”

“What are the chances of that?”

At Rose’s question, the Doctor’s smile fades as he’s struck with yet another epiphany. His eyes go wide.

“Maybe it wasn’t chance.”

“What?”

He circles around to the front of the table again and his eyes zero in on hers. He’s standing so close his thighs are touching her knees.

“Earlier, you said you felt like something told you to run.”

Rose gasps, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Could have been Bad Wolf all along. Leading you straight into the lightning strike just like it led you back to the Game Station. It planned this from the beginning.”

“Oh, my God.” She gasps out a few breaths, trying to process everything. “You sure it’s not threatening my brain, or anythin’?”

“One hundred percent positive.” He nods resolutely, leaving no room for doubt. “That’s what I was checking for.”

“Oh, my God,” she repeats, and a brilliant smile breaks through her nervous frown. “Doctor, what does this mean, though, really?”

“It means you won’t live to be a hundred, you’ll live to be a thousand, maybe ten thousand. Maybe indefinitely. It means you’ll never get degenerative diseases like cancer. It means… it means…”

“It means I can stay with you,” she finishes.

He exhales in disbelief, and it’s almost a chuckle. His expression is torn, like he wants to both laugh and cry but neither is winning out. His eyes sparkle with happy tears; trembling breaths disrupt his gorgeous smile. He runs his hands down his face, smearing some moisture on his cheeks, and takes in a ragged breath like the next one could be a sob.

“Forever,” Rose adds softly.

Suddenly spurred to action, the Doctor brings his mouth down against hers. His hands reach up to cradle her face, gentle but unyielding, as though they never intend to let her go. His lips move with the unrestrained passion he so often holds back. But it’s not rough or rushed, but sweet and tender, as though she’s the most fragile of gifts. Thankful she’s already sitting down, Rose wraps herself around him, losing herself in the soft caresses of his lips and the way his thumbs stroke her skin, in all the possibilities their future holds now. The last of the tension in her muscles melts away. Their minds gently and easily intertwine with the renewed physical closeness and they bask in relief together, and dream peacefully of a life without the threat of mortality.

When they finally break apart to catch their breath, they giggle at each other briefly, but then the Doctor turns somber.

“If you want.” He shrugs, as though he’s indifferent, but she knows better.

Evidently, so does he, because his serious façade cracks almost instantly, revealing a huge smile beneath it.

Rose shakes her head and pulls the Doctor’s mouth back down to hers.

[dvbermingham]

Chapter 13: Tamago

I coughed myself awake from a dream where bugs had crawled down my throat. In front of me in the night darkness was a small kid holding a blanket whose face I couldn’t quite make out. A familiar city hum, commercial trucks catching every light, the occasional Atlantic Ave L.I.R.R. The apartment itself was silent. In the dream I was sitting on the side of a lake, tops of my feet burning. Someone was fishing in the shallows nearby, laughing and telling me to get in and see. See what? I don’t know, but I liked the beach. I put my hand down and felt the sand between my fingers. When I picked it up again my fingers were crawling with dusty sand bugs, prickling around and flapping their wings, then. crawling on my legs, then all over my head. They were swarming me and on purpose and I feared angering them so I stayed perfectly still, even holding my breath, like it was the only thing keeping me alive. They crawled over my tight-shut mouth and nose. I held and held, I thought they were going to sting me, felt the stingers or fangs or mandibles or whatever they had going for them unsheathed and positioned over my face. With the first stab my head finally broke open, my mouth gasping for air, I breathed in deeply and in they went, back of the throat, choking me awake.

“Jeez kid, where’s your mom,” I tried to say, but nothing came out.

The kid ran away.

I laid back down. I breathed deep through my nose, trying to grab some air. Who the fuck was that guy fishing? Then the pain. I felt like my face was wearing a migraine like a mask. It throbbed in every orifice. The kid came back with water. I drank it down in three gulps and said thanks. Migraines out my eyes. Then the kid took the glass and refilled it and came right back.

“Thanks again kid,” I said after chugging the second glass, my voice back again. “Is your mom home?”

“She’s asleep.”

“Oh. What time is it?”

The kid didn’t respond.

“What day is it?”

Again the kid didn’t respond.

“What’s your name?”

“Gwen.”

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Gwen shrugged.

“Alright, well listen kid, I’ve got a splitting headache. Any chance you might no where the bathroom is? I could use a freshen-up.”

Gwen pointed.

I checked out my face in the mirror. Like a dirty cleat. Studs where there were no studs before. Bits of turf stuck in newly formed crevices. Postcard from Thugsville. I was impressed with myself, truly. Despite my total failure as a bodyguard,  the fact that I could withstand such a beating without ever really feeling much pain was a silver lining I was sure would keep me in the business at least a couple more years.

I opened the medicine cabinet as much to get the mirror out of my face as to snoop around for some pain meds. There were a lot of labels. The labels didn’t have the name Vicky Felix on them, someone else’s. My eyes couldn’t focus. I gave up, splashed some water on my face and hit the lights.

When I came out of the bathroom she was standing there, leaning against the wall in the dark, wearing what I could only guess was a silk nightgown. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, just freshening up. Look pretty good don’t I?”

“Help you find anything?”

“Just some aspirin.”

She went to the medicine cabinet and took out a bottle, then another, then came back with a handful of pills. “Here ya go. You’ll need to wait a little longer for the good stuff,” she said. I scarfed them back without thinking about it.

“Want some breakfast to wash those down?”

“It’s early huh?”

“Four. But you’ve been asleep for about two days.”

“What?”

“I mean, you got up and walked around, but it wasn’t going well. You almost knocked over my fig tree. I gave you something to knock you out a bit longer. Thought you needed it.”

“Oh. Well, thanks. I appreciate that.”

“Class starts at six, so I’m usually up about this time. Gotta get Wendy ready for school. You have kids?”

I thought for a moment, maybe too long, and she seemed to get nervous she had overstepped. A commercial truck ripped down Atlantic flashing high beams through the windows, lighting her face for just a moment.  “You’re both in school?” I asked.

“We never stop growing.”

“What’s the…”

“Mechanic school. Motorcycles. Honda’s mostly, at least at first. I work at a shop part time in the afternoon, taking classes in the morning. Doesn’t pay much but I life insurance makes ends meet. I want to open my own place. By women, for women. You get laughed at pretty hard as a woman when you try to get involved. It’s intimidating for new bikers, and it shouldn’t be. So I’m getting certified, gonna open up my own place by November.”

“And what about Gwen?”

“We’re still on the alphabet with her.”

“Listen,” I said, hoping to spill my feelings as soon as possible. “I want to thank you for helping me out back at the club. It was a rough night.”

“You’re a good dancer, Lou, with a good face. I didn’t want those assholes dragging you back inside. We’ll find a new club next week, how’s that sound?” were gonna come out of there any second, and you didn’t seem up for any more rounds in the back of that club.”

Miraculously my jaw and teeth and tongue all worked together just fine when it came to chewing and swallowing. Lucky me, she said. She’s seen guys that didn’t get so lucky. She fed me coffee, eggs, bacon, grapefruit, orange juice, more coffee, and more bacon, and as I ate my way back to health the sky started its new pastel beginnings. She offered me sausage but I declined out of politeness.

“What was a guy like you doing there anyway? It didn’t exactly seem like your scene.”

“Work. I’m a bodyguard. I was guarding someone who was looking for someone. I guess we found him.”

“I take it you two were supposed to leave together then, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And yet you chose to leave with me instead,” she said, possibly winking, I don’t know. As I said, my eyes were a little bleary. But she sure sounded like she was winking.

“Who were you guarding?”

“No one you know.”

I was struggling with keeping up my end of the conversation while also chewing my breakfast. My face could only handle so much after that beating, and neither of us liked how much I was drooling on the table, so she said she’d talk. We laughed about it, that’s old age for you, the kind of stuff we better get used to, uncontrollable drooling on our eggs. The gradual decline of our bodily functions, I think was how she put it. She said that when working with motorcycles you meet guys who forgo or forget their helmets, one fall and their brains stop working quite the same. They’re still alive, but everything is messed up. The worst of it, well, that stuff is just plain tragic — broken spines, blindness, the cement simply taking your skin right off your body. But then there’s the minor stuff, well, relatively minor. The kind of stuff you don’t hear much about or it becomes myths and legends but its all true — guys lose all sense of direction, will just ride in circles around a block thinking they’re on a full tilt chopper boogie straight north. Or a sense of temperature, as in, they feel extreme cold and hot in mild environments. Some have hyper-sensitivity to noise, have to wear ear plugs at all times. The noise isn’t in their head, it’s just that they’re hearing is extra-sensory, like a super-hero, only this is just a curse that makes normal life a living hell. Most of them can never ride again.

Gwen was eating her cereal and bananas. I could tell by the way she held her spoon right up to her mouth and could still maintain eye contact with her mom that she was listening to everything.

When the sun finally came up Vicky said she had to go to school, but that I was welcome to stay the day and rest. “Gwen’s friend will be there around 8 to take her to school. She’ll be fine until then.” She wrote down a number on a piece of paper. “This is the number for Hadrian. He’ll be here around nine. He comes twice a week, helps out around the house.” Then she wrote another. “And that one is mine.” She smiled, touched my face tenderly, then winced. I couldn’t feel a thing. “Sorry. I thought…it’s so spongy. Maybe you should go to a hospital.”

“No, I’ll be alright. I’ve had worse.”

I laid back on the couch, let the apartment spin around me. I imagined I was the center of a clock, two hands spanning outward from my chest, swinging in circles around me. Gwen was the big hand, twirling around, unquestionably thrilled to be alone in the house. She was singing, asking me questions and never waiting for an answer. Like whether there’s a boardwalk around every ocean and if the moon’s always in the sky even in daylight. Eventually there was  knock on the door, Gwen squealed and ran to open it, said hi to her friend and the two of them ran off, slamming the door on the way out. My face still pulsed raw, the blood vessels blocked up, no where for the rivers to run, the pressure all built up. I stood up to try to reroute the blood, to no avail. I looked through throbbing holes in my head at her book collection, then her family photos. There was a man in some of them, but most were just pictures of Gwen. I only made it about five minutes before I collapsed back on the couch and fell into that sweet semi-conscious state that I’d learned to love in my middle age.

[kuriboo]

I don’t want to be ashamed of myself. I don’t need other people to be ashamed of me. That’s the last thing I need. People already believe little enough of me as is, so it’s just easier to pick and choose what i show of myself to mitigate it. You can already see that i’ve been a disaster since i caught mono in high school and never recovered, i graduated college and never have been able to get a job since, i fall apart during every family gathering because of sensory overload and migraines, it’s just easier that you don’t get to know that i’m not straight and i’m not cis

I have no interest in being mourned while I’m alive. I have no interest in anyone trying to pray the queer out of me. I don’t need to tell everyone to live my truth and be happy. In fact, I’m happier keeping quiet. Only a handful of people I’ve met in the flesh get to know, only one relative gets to know, the people who get to know are special and that’s that on that. It’s not a question of “shoutout to people who aren’t out of the closet yet” bc those positivity posts are certainly good and def have their place but it makes me feel like i gotta tell the whole family someday and i don’t and i won’t. And it doesn’t make me any less queer and it would just cause upset if i said anything and no part of it would make me feel any better.

Look. I used to get six hours of sleep a night. I ised to wake up at 6 am every week day, and i couldn’t do it by myself because i was a child and it was rough but i could do it. I was functional. I’d be on the bus by 6:45 am and often not get home until 6:30 pm or later. I used to be a public speaker, and it was scary but I could do it and sometimes do it well. I used to sing in front of people by myself. I was always sensitive to noise and lights, but I could get by. The point is, I used to be a damn hard worker. Even after I got sick, and struggled to recover in the aftermath, I had even higher grades in college than high school! I’m not a lazy person.

I’m exhausted. Everything takes energy, some of it physical, some of it emotional, some of it mental. I’m pretty tapped out on all of it and I don’t get much refill because I don’t get restful sleep. Applying for jobs takes energy I don’t have a lot of the time and it’s harder to justify when I’ve gotten so many rejections that I just don’t feel good enough anymore. Social settings are hard. They terrify me. I can handle them but it takes energy and I just don’t have it. I won’t deny I’m extremely depressed. I’m trying to fight it. I’m trying to go outside. I’m trying to do more things with people that aren’t gonna overload the senses. I get a lot of migraines and that taps out a lot of energy too.

I’m not lazy. I’m not incompetent. Not as much as I think I am. Not as much as some people like to think I am. I’m a hard worker and I’m pretty fucking competent at a lot of things. That just doesn’t make much of a difference when I haven’t gotten a good nights sleep in five years, and I have to constantly fight myself not to spiral into thinking I’m either faking it or it’s somehow my own fault. It’s very easy to start thinking like that. It also only makes it all worse.

I...deserve better than this. And I’m a better person than I think. I just don’t have the energy to live up to the potential that does exist, and that I know exists. That doesn’t mean I can’t be that person anymore either. I just can’t give up fighting for it, and even if I can’t do anything else. I’m going to fight. I have to. Even when I have nothing else, I have that. I’ve fought hard just to get this far. I’ve been fighting for my own health this long and if I can’t do anything else, I’ll fight for it longer.

The goalposts are just different.

Once I figure out how to make my brain actually let me sleep again and I start getting actual good sleep, then you motherfuckers better start running because I’m gonna be too fucking powerful and I’m not going to let myself feel bad about myself anymore.

I’m gonna be really fucking good at shit and I’m gonna be so fucking successful and I’m gonna take up space without feeling bad about it and I’m gonna be the coolest motherfucker in the room.