#thank you for the support!! ao far this has been so much fun :)))

[meowpupp]

i dont think you guys understand how much i giggle and twirl my hair when you send things to my inbox.

I LOVE IT PLS NEVER STOP

[lovebvni]

holaaa!! (dr rant + just an appreciation post)

(TW SLIGHT HINT TO GROOMING)

soo i’m shifting soon and i decided that im going to make my first album when i get there (LIKE START JT, DUDE. START IT. IM SO EXCITED) there’s going to b an ep i’m going to finalize when i get there and it will be released on the 26th of the month i get there (as it is kinda a diss on a MAN who was 26 when we dated… i was a minor still.)

i’m also gonna make a family tree because i’m really bored (and i also kinda js wanna see all my siblings yk? im gonna draw them all soon bc like AUGH AJAJDKDJ I MISS THEM!!!)

omgz i’m so excited dude!!

(appreciation below!!)

also i saw billie eilish in my dream last night. one of the funniest and sweetest people i know 😭 SHARK WAS ALSO IN THAT DREAM HES SO SWEET ‼️‼️ god i wish i could hug them today, just right now. yall don’t understand how much billie and finneas have been through together, and im so proud of how far they made it. i love you both, and although you won’t see this post in this reality, i know you will when we r together :DDD u guys make me so happy, so inspired, and just a better person overall. also huge thank you to billie in helping me with directing my music videos and being featured in one of my favorite songs — ripple effect. thank you finneas for just 😭 for keeping her alive, giving her a passion, and being so protective and supportive of her.

i’m so excited to b friends w both of them n js talk to them daily — it’s so fun.

i’m also super duper excited to meet one of my closest friends — nile — in person finally!!!! it’s been like 3 years of shifting together, and i know she’s excited too. i know she’s reading this, btw so i love u sm nile and thank u for being such a great and perfect friend throughout this whole journey. i truly don’t think i would still be kicking without you. i owe you the world, and i know you’re going to be blessed with many MANY things in the coming months, and the years following will be some of your best, but that’s only a taste of what is truly to come.

i’m so proud of you, and i’m also so round of everyone that has been clinging onto shifting even though it hurts. i’m always here for you. i love you all so so much. i want the best for you, and i know you’re going to get it. i’m always here to help in ANY way i can. ask me anything, i promise you i will answer with the wisdom God and the universe has given me!!

i cannot express my gratitude to my father, loki, enough. i don’t know how to even put it into words. he’s been there at my hardest, he’s been there at my best. i don’t think i would actually even be this far without him either. he’s one of the silliest and sweetest people ive ever met. i can’t believe he’s my FATHER you guys!! ITS SO COOL AUGHH

i also have so many people here i need to thank, there’s more that i can think of right now but just know i love and appreciate every one of you guys.

staring with @smellofemale!! you were such a sign when i met you. i don’t think i’ve met a christian shifter — you’re the only one i still talk to if i have! im just so so sooo blessed to have met you. i don’t know what to say, dude! i love you so much. you’re so sweet, so kind, and so inspiring. i love you!

@eneablack although you’re one of my newest friends, you’re another really really inspirational one. you’re so open about your struggles with shifting, even though you’ve had success time and time again. it shows me and many others how shifting sometimes is a hard thing to get used too, even with successes under your belt!

@daisys-reality! if you don’t know them, FOLLOW IMMEDIATELY PLEASE OMGGJAJSN she gives some of the best and most accurate readings i could ever ask for. also her drs (specifically her mermaid one) have inspired me so much!!

@kanachaka UR AO COOL BRO I JS LOVE SEEING UR POSTS AJSJDKDJD

@kazylynn i love u sm!! u rlly show me i can be an inspiration to others, and that’s something i’ve hoped for all my life. i want to be a good, helpful person — and i love you for showing me i can be.

@babybearthepsychic a few months ago you gave me a free reading that was just so accurate and so real. i don’t know if i would still be on this spiritual journey without it, because i was at one of my hardest points then. i cannot believe how just truly accurate and kind you are. i love you so much, you’re doing amazing. i wish i could give you the biggest hug, and i could donate like a million dollars to u rn but i literally don’t have a job 😭

@zipperrants i don’t think i rlly need to explain this… dude i thought u we’re so cool even when u we’re js interacting with @maddies-chronicles and i rlly wanted to interact w u so bad but i was so so scared bro!! and thank u hale for giving me the opportunity to meet them!!

@accidentalshifter YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HOW MANY PEOPLE U REPRESENT IN THIS RESLITY — YOURE ONE OF THE FIRSR ADULT SHIFTERS I SAW ON HERR AND IM SO SO SO SO SOOO FUCKING HQPPY YOURE SO OPEN ABOUT IT! you’re just so free and it’s beautiful. i love you so much

and there are so many more but i just.. im gonna cry i love you all tooo much.. please know u all mean so much to me and i can’t wait to tell u so many stories when i get back, and help u guys shift. i am working so hard to post more, and i pray this post can help me become more active.

so so so much love, to everyone in this community, you’re so wonderful. may the gods bless you.

so much love, peace and joy

the abyss

[akystaracer22]

Jade Furnace Final Chapter!

The final chapter is out Holy shit!

When I tell you this took forever to write you have no idea. I cannot tell you enough how grateful I am that @celticdoggo was here because she did so much of the writing here because I could not. She's an absolute legend and you have her to thank for this chapter.

Jade Furnace has honestly been so fun to write and plan for though, and there was so much worldbuilding put into this (I say this having looked up life cycles of cicadas as well as the different body types of humans) and overall it was a delight to work on. The original plan of Jade Furnace has been expanded so much and I'm really proud of where it is now.

For example, in the earliest stages of JF, the pilgrims were a lot closer to their canon counterparts and weren't that close to Wukong during the journey, however that was changed in favour of propaganda and the absolute chaos that the group is today.

Another thing that was added later on was Ao Lie aka Long Ma! He was always there, but he didn't take as much of an important role as he does now. In the earliest versions Ao Lie didn't actually remember, he was like the other Pilgrims, forgotten.

Final change I'll mention is initially the Jade Emperor's plan for Wukong was to kill him off (Giving Wukong's soul to the Diyu) once JE got his hand's on MK, however the plan changed thanks to some good bad end friend kind of throwing ideas at a wall and hoping it sticks.

I could go on about all of this but I don't want to bore you, so as a final thing some of the comments on the fic actually shaped some ideas regarding character's we'd either forgotten about or didn't have a massive focus on, so like always thank you all so much for your support.

As for the future of the fic we're planning on turning it into a series, however there won't be a fully fledged book for the sequel, rather, there will be a collection of oneshot's placed before, during, and after the events of the book and the events of the first two seasons. The shot's will also cover the aftemath, the loops, before canon, and even potentially as far back as before havoc in heaven part 1 so stay tuned for that.

Thank you all so much, and don't be afraid to comment for anything or shoot me a DM!

[ask-fantasy-sanders-sides]

Announcement from Mod!

      Hello everyone! Mango here <3

      I have a big announcement to make: I'm going to start a Patreon!

      Now, I know that can be a loaded statement, so please don't freak out! The comic is NOT going to change or become private in any way, I'd never suddenly put it behind a paywall. And don't feel pressured to sign up if you don't want to! It's just a chance for you to help support me as a creator and maybe, eventually, make it possible for me to get updates out faster in the future. And, in return, you will get little extra stuff! 

(More explanation under the cut!)

      I emphasize: None of the content you've already been getting on the blog will be restricted in any way!! There will just be fun little extra bits you can gain as a Patreon supporter. 

      And if you aren't interested or cannot, then that's totally fine! You being here to play this game with me, by sending in asks and comments, or just enjoying the au from afar, is support enough! I appreciate the community we've grown so so much, and I am constantly amazed that you guys love this silly tabletop RPG au as much as I do!! <3

      Before I get anything about the tiers or rewards finalized, though, I figured I would ask if you guys had any suggestions for things you would like to see as Patreon rewards? I want this to feel as collaborative as the blog itself, and there's no better way to see what sort of extra content you are most excited about then to ask you directly! Besides, we have quite some time until I'm ready to open the page and get it started (likely not until December).

      I will list what has been come up with so far. If you intend to join me on Patreon (first of all, thank you!!!) and you have an idea for something you would like to see, please send it in to me, or just tell me which of these possible rewards you'd most like me to commit to! I'm not sure how many rewards there will be, (I only have so much time to make them, after all) so I may not be able to implement all of the ones I list below just yet, and I won't know which ones are priorities unless you tell me!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggested/Prospective Rewards:

(will be updated as suggestions come in):

Citizen of Rótaldë ($1 Tier)

Transparent PNGs of the lineart from updates so they can be used as coloring sheets

Access to the Citizen role on the Patreon Discord

Adventurer of Rótaldë ($3 Tier)

Access to a monthly livestream where we'll do a Q&A, and I can doodle requests while we chat

Extra sketches, concept art, and other drawings that don't make it into asks or updates

Access to the Adventurer role on the Patreon Discord

All previous rewards

Noble Council's Apprentice ($7 Tier)

Suggesting and voting on future monster encounters

Peeks at the asks that are being answered in the next update

A list of save-point Artifacts that could be found in the setting, both those that have been used and those that haven't yet been found

Live transcripts of battle scene play-by-play, with the attacks, spells, and abilities used, and the exact dice rolls

Access to the Noble Apprentice role on the Patreon Discord

All previous rewards

Royal Councilmember ($12 Tier)

Early access to Updates and preview snippets 

Extra dialogues and visions that were written up as "possible future" events and never came to pass

Extra details about worldbuilding, lore, and mechanics unique to the Rótaldë setting

Access to the Royal Council role on the Patreon Discord

All previous rewards

Champion of Ao ($30 Tier)

A monthly custom drawing commission (one figure full color, two figure lineart, or three figure paper sketch)

The chance to make an NPC in the story

Access to the Champion role on the Patreon Discord

All previous rewards

[inawickedlittletown]

Baked With Love (Destiel fic) - 3/5

Summary: Dean never met Lisa’s neighbor, but he knew one thing: whoever it was, they could bake. After breaking up with Lisa, the one thing Dean misses is her neighbor’s pie. After finally meeting him, Cas’ pie is not the only thing Dean likes.

On Ao3

Part one

Part two

-

Dean ran into Lisa the very next day when he was getting out of the Impala in front of Castiel’s house. 

“I see you finally called Cas,” she said. “He made you pie, didn’t he?” 

“He did,” Dean said. “Just as delicious as I remembered it.”

“Oh. I figured you were here to pick it up,” Lisa said with a frown. “You can’t bully him into being your personal baker. I know he’s a nice guy, but don’t take advantage of my neighbor.” 

“No, I’m kinda paying him back. Doing him a favor. He has a few loose steps in his backyard. I noticed them yesterday when I was here and I offered to fix them.” 

Lisa’s smile returned. “He wouldn’t take your money.” 

“No. He wouldn’t,” Dean said and left it at that. 

It was better than to admit that Dean would have wanted to do this for Cas even if Cas had taken payment for the pie. 

Lisa excused herself as Dean got into his trunk to grab his tools. He was hoping that the planks wouldn’t need to be replaced entirely, but wouldn’t know yet until he got a closer look. When he was sure he had everything he walked up to Castiel’s house. 

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said when he opened the door. 

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said. 

Castiel kept him company out in the yard. He busied himself with the garden, but wandered over to see how Dean was doing every once in a while, offering to get Dean anything he might need. It was nice. 

Cas hummed and he talked to his plants. He spent a long time checking on all of his plants, attentive in a way that Dean had never known anyone to be with plants. 

The wood planks were not in a horrible state. Dean figured that eventually they would need to be replaced, but they weren’t there yet. So, instead he made work of getting all of Cas’ steps to have better attachments to the supports. It was quick work, but he kept getting distracted by watching Cas. 

“Hey, Cas,” Dean called over when he was on the last step. 

“Yes, Dean?”

“Want to get lunch after this?”

Castiel nodded with a big smile. “That’d be great.”

—

“Let me get this straight,” Sam said. “Well, I guess not straight.”

“Sammy.” 

“You befriended Lisa’s baker neighbor because you missed his pies and then somehow you’re fixing up things around this guy’s house and you’re taking him out to look at possible locations for a bakery this weekend.”

Dean should have known better than to tell Sam about Castiel, but he was just so used to telling Sam everything that it had spilled out. He could feel Sam’s judgement. 

“Sam, we’re friends now. Cas is a cool guy. You’d like him.” 

Sam gave him the kind of knowing look that Dean was practiced at ignoring.

“Dean, you just broke up with Lisa a couple of months ago and this guy lives right next door to her. Isn’t it a little—”

“We’re friends, Sam,” Dean said. 

Not that Dean wouldn’t have minded if it turned into more, but for the moment he and Castiel were just friends. 

“How’s work?” Dean asked. 

“You’re changing the subject, but fine. Work is great,” Sam said. 

At the end of the night Sam shouted: “have fun tomorrow with your new boyfriend!” 

Dean turned. “Not my boyfriend.” 

“But you want him to be,” Sam said. 

Dean didn’t respond. He did kinda hope that his friendship with Cas would develop into more, but it was something he was keeping close to the chest for the moment even if to his brother he would always be obvious. 

—

Dean had fully expected the first hurdle to be getting the financials in place. But Cas already had the money. It made everything easier. 

Apparently, Castiel’s grandfather had been very well off. So well off that when he died, he left a sizable amount of money to his favorite grandchild. 

“He was a writer,” Castiel told Dean. “You’ve probably heard of him, actually. Carver Edlund.”

Dean absolutely did know Carver Edlund. So, his silence at the reveal made Castiel chuckle. 

“You’re a fan, then?” 

“Yeah, Cas. I’m a fan.” 

Dean hadn’t been a reader like Sam was a reader, but that didn’t mean that Dean hadn’t read anything and Carver Edlund had written books in many different genres — it was what had made him so popular — but he’d also written a series of books about two brothers who travelled the world hunting ghosts and other supernatural beings and Dean had been obsessed with them for a long time. 

“Well, my grandfather did well for himself and when he passed and he left me all that money, I knew what I would do with it,” Castiel said. “And when it didn’t work out when Balt and I were — well, I just never touched it.”

The money had been sitting in the bank for years. It gave Cas options. 

So, a week after meeting Castiel for the first time, Dean was once more back at his house, but this time instead of getting out of the car and knocking on his door, it was Cas that gave his car a gentle rap. Dean unlocked the door at once and Cas got in. 

“Hi, Dean,” Cas said, all smiles. “I brought something for you.” 

It was a honey crumb muffin and it looked delicious.

“Cas, you didn’t have to,” Dean said at once. 

“I know. I wanted to.” 

Dean imagined that looking for a place to open a bakery shouldn’t have been fun. Somehow, it was. They looked at places up for rent and a few that were for sale. Cas didn’t like most of them and Dean found issues with others. There was not one that either of them actually liked. 

“What if we can’t find a place,” Cas said after a while. 

“Then we keep looking,” Dean said. “Where did you originally have in mind the first time around?”

“That place where someone opened that hardware store,” Cas said. 

Dean could admit that it definitely would have made for a good location. 

It did take them a few trips before they found the right place. Dean didn’t tell Cas right away that Singer Auto was only a few blocks away, but he was glad for the fact. It was on a corner and only a couple of blocks away from Singer Auto. It had been formerly a dog grooming place, and before that a pizza restaurant, and before that a dry cleaner, but none of those businesses had taken off. 

“And why do you even think mine will?” Cas had asked. 

“Because the grooming place was by appointment only and expensive as all hell. Because the owners of the pizza place were laundering money and serving what amounted to baked frozen pizza. Because the dry cleaner wasn’t very good. Trust me, Cas, one taste of anything you bake and you’ll have customers for life.” 

Castiel put an offer in through a realtor the next day. It had been a month since Dean had met Cas, but it felt like he’d known him far longer. Sam pointed out that that was probably because Dean spent most of his free time with Castiel and Dean couldn’t actually deny that. 

Dean was actually over at Cas’ house on a Friday afternoon when Cas got the call that his offer had been accepted. Dean insisted on getting a bottle of champagne to celebrate even though it meant that he had to drive to the nearest liquor store to pick it up first because Cas just didn’t have any on hand. Castiel’s smile didn’t fade from his lips for the rest of the night. He told Dean all of his ideas. How he wanted to set up the kitchen and the display counters and the kind of mixers and ovens that he’d been researching. 

“It’s really happening,” Cas said eventually, looking at Dean with wide surprised eyes. 

“I told you it would,” Dean said and nudged his shoulder. 

Cas turned so that he was facing Dean, the space between them practically nonexistent. “This is only happening because of you,” Cas informed him before wrapping his arms around Dean’s shoulders. 

Dean hugged him back at once, his arms wrapping around Cas to rest at his back and he never wanted to let go. Castiel had an earthy smell to him, but something flowery too in his hair. He felt amazing in Dean’s arms and they stayed that way in that hug for longer than was socially normal. 

When they pulled away, Cas’ cheeks were pink, but his smile still hadn’t left his lips. 

“Thank you, Dean.” 

“Does that thank you include another pie?” Dean asked. 

Castiel chuckled. “Sure. I will bake you anything anytime anywhere.” 

“Will you marry me?” Dean asked. It was a joke and yet as the words hung in the air between them, Dean knew with certainty that he had never before felt about anything, that one day he would ask that same question without any irony at all. 

—

The thing about Castiel was that for all the time that Dean spent with him, he couldn’t figure out if Cas did want their friendship to be more. Sometimes, it felt like he did. Other times, it felt like Cas saw him as a friend and nothing more and Dean didn’t want to push it. So, he tried to flirt a little and he spent so much time with Castiel, that Sam began to feel a bit neglected, and yet Castiel never indicated that he felt anything more for Dean outside of how his cheeks would get pink whenever Dean flirted with him. 

Somehow, Dean had begun spending every single Friday with Cas. Watching him bake, and helping him clean up all the meanwhile discussing Castiel’s plans for the bakery. He even started driving Cas to drop off baked goods at the shelters and soup kitchens on Saturdays and then they would go out to get brunch. Early on, those Saturdays had also involved Dean fixing things in Cas’ house for him. Once the remodel at the bakery started, Dean joined him there where he could to see how the work was coming along and after a few weeks, Dean started to see Cas’ vision. The large work space in the back with gleaming countertops, the huge industrial ovens, and the giant mixers. 

The front came together slower, but just a few months after the remodel started it was all complete. The last thing to go up was the sign outside that read Angel Bakes complete with a halo floating over the A. 

“Why Angel Bakes?” Dean asked after the sign was up and he and Cas stood outside looking up at it. 

“My name,” Cas said simply. “My mom named me after the Angel of Thursday.”

“Was she very religious?” Dean asked.

Castiel laughed. “No, actually. But I was born on a Thursday and throughout the pregnancy she was sure I’d be a girl and that she would name me Wednesday.”

“Like the Adam’s Family?” Dean asked. 

“I have no idea. Maybe,” Castiel said with the confused tilt of his head that meant he didn’t understand what Dean was talking about. 

Cas, as Dean had come to learn, was brilliant if a bit behind on pop culture. There were few movies that Cas had actually seen and fewer tv shows. Things went over his head all the time and Dean had started — albeit slowly — giving Castiel a sort of education. He’d all but demanded that Cas have a movie night with him a few weeks earlier entirely so that Dean could put on A New Hope and transform Castiel into a Star Wars fan. He was pleased when Cas actually did enjoy the movie. 

“Anyway, I thwarted her plans by being a boy and being born on a Thursday. Dad always said it was the meds that made her loopy.” 

“I don’t know if that’s better or worse than being named after my grandmother,” Dean said with a grin. 

They stood side by side and looked at the sign and Dean couldn’t help the feeling of pride that filled him because he had known Cas for a few months and yet even from the first night, it had been easy to tell that Castiel didn’t feel confident enough to go for it. But a few nudges had been enough to make him decide that yes, he could do it.

-

Part Four

[aomine-ryo]

Hii there...love ur blog.. Thanks for keeping knb tag rolling..i do have some requests...

Sooo whenever you feel like..

Pls consider any of the following..

And yeah Sry for bugging you.. Umm.. But if u do take up any of my request.. It can be like

1)hurt/comfort .. Kise sobbing while boyfriend mine! Is like

"I'm here babe"

2)sickfic..kise collapse due to overwork (modelling/baske) and boyfriend mine takes care of him... Or just a delirious sick Kise with ao taking care of him

♥it can be (1+2) fic as well

Or....

3) Fluff/crack/lemon

Gom have a movie night (or any kind of get together)and Aokise (especially Ao) do a lot of PDA...

Thanku author~san♡loads of love n support.. Waiting in anticipation (●´з`)♡(●´з`)♡(●´з`)♡

Oooh I love all the options ahsjdj I wanna do them all 😭 I’ll do 1+2 for now, but I might do the 3rd one for fun sometime later. I hope you like it!! xx

Scenario: Aomine taking care of an overworked Kise (aokise)

It’d been a while since Aomine had gotten a chance to spend time with Kise. Between modelling, basketball and school, the blonde always had one commitment after the other and it was nearly impossible for Aomine to have him all to himself. It didn’t help that they went to different schools either. However, Kise finally had some free time after a practice game and he chose to spend it with his boyfriend.

Kise suggested that they meet up after his game, but there was no way Aomine was going to miss a basketball match that Kise was playing in- even if it was just a practice match. It would give Aomine the opportunity to see the progress that Kise had made during his practice as well as the ability to just watch him. Aomine would be perfectly content with watching Kise do absolutely nothing for hours, and the ability to watch that model run up and down with his perfect skin glistening with sweat? Yes please.

Aomine got there while the Kaijo team was still warming up and Kise’s face immediately brightened up at the sight of him. He stopped his stretches just to give Aomine an enthusiastic wave, to which he responded with an awkward wave of his own. However, their small moment was quickly cut short by Kasamatsu yelling at Kise to concentrate, making Aomine chuckle as Kise got back to what he was doing. And almost immediately, Aomine noticed that Kise wasn’t putting any weight onto his left ankle. Was his injury back? Once their warmups were over, the blonde wasted no time in running over to Aomine and pouncing onto him and giving him a hug that made him lose his balance for a moment.

“Aomine-cchi! You made it! I haven’t seen you in so long! I missed you,” Kise greeted, voice as cheery as ever.

“Hey, I’ve missed you too, you dumbass,” Aomine smiled, holding onto his waist and giving him a peck on his lips. “Is your ankle okay? It seemed a bit off when you were warming up just now.”

“Huh? Oh that,” Kise remembered the slight ache he felt on his ankle, “it’s nothing, don’t worry about it. Anyways, are you ready to see me absolutely demolish the other team?”

Aomine was very well aware that it wasn’t just ‘nothing’ like Kise said it was, but he didn’t dwell on it too much because he believed that it wouldn’t be too much of an issue since it was just practice. “I know you can beat all those other teams but I know you’ll never beat me,” Aomine teased, sparking the start of their usual back and forths.

The game eventually began and Aomine headed up to the second floor to watch after wishing Kise good luck. As expected, Kaijo dominated the other team with ease. However, that didn’t stop Kise from showing off- Aomine was watching him after all. The amber eyed boy was giving it his all, and Aomine was definitely amused by it, but a small part of him was slightly concerned about Kise going overboard. And just that thought popped into his head, Kise collapsed to the floor all by himself. The game stopped and the coach and a few others rushed to check on him. Of course, Aomine also sprinted onto the court without hesitation.

“What’s wrong?” Aomine questioned as he got there, seeing his red-cheeked and delirious boyfriend on the floor, being held up by the coach.

“He has a fever,” informed Kasamatsu. “Do you mind taking him home and making him get some rest?”

“Home? No!” Kise protested, slurring his words. “I’m fine, I can play more!”

“Don’t worry, I can take him home,” Aomine said, ignoring what Kise had to say.

Aomine took his jacket off and wrapped it around Kise before heaving the blonde onto his back to carry him home.

“You’re such an idiot, you know that?” Aomine scolded as he left the gym while giving Kise a piggyback ride.

“I’m not! I can play more! Put me down,” Kise demanded, on the verge of tears. His body was too weak to put up a struggle though.

“Babe your body is literally trembling right now, you’re not going anywhere,” Aomine said sternly.

Kise’s head rested on Aomine’s shoulder in defeat. Thinking that it was the end of Kise’s ridiculous protests, Aomine continued walking towards his house in silence. However, a few moments later he heard a soft sobbing which sent him into panic mode. Did he just make Kise cry?

“Kise? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“My ankle hurts,” he cried into Aomine’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, I’ll put some ice on it when we get to my house— we’re not too far, just hold on for a little longer,” Aomine instructed, picking up his pace. In any other situation, Aomine would’ve been teasing him for crying over nothing, but he was fully aware that Kise hadn’t gotten a proper rest in weeks so he didn’t want to test him.

“Aomine-cchi, I let my team down,” he continued sobbing.

“It was just a practice match. It’s fine. Plus those guys will be just fine without you, they’re all strong,” Aomine reassured, gaining only a hum in response as Kise remained silent for the rest of the walk.

They finally got to Aomine’s house, where he helped Kise freshen up and lent him a fresh set of clothes. Even when he was sick he managed to look absolutely stunning to Aomine. Something about the way that his sweater was oversized on Kise’s small body had Aomine’s heart going into overdrive. All he wanted to do was cuddle him and shower him in kisses, but he didn’t because he was aware that Kise didn’t have the energy for that.

Aomine didn’t know how to cook, so he fed Kise some heated up pasta that his mother had left for him in the fridge before tucking him into his bed. Aomine carefully placed a cold towel on Kise’s forehead as well as an ice pack on his ankle.

“Are you comfortable? Do you want me to massage you or something?” Aomine asked.

“I’m fine. It’s just weird because you’re not teasing me or scolding me for once,” Kise said with a weak smile on his face.

Aomine chuckled and shook his head, “Once you feel better you won’t hear the end of my scolding, just you wait,” he threatened jokingly, making Kise giggle. Aomine sat on the floor by the bed and began to softly caress Kise’s warm cheek, making the blonde feel more at ease as his body began to completely relax.

Kise didn’t say anything for a while; all he did was sniffle. “Aomine-cchi,” he spoke again, voice soft as ever.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t go on our date,” he mumbled as his eyelids got heavier.

Amidst all the frenzy, Aomine had completely forgotten that they were meant to be going out until Kise brought it up. “Oh, that’s alright. We can go some other time,” Aomine replied.

“Really?”

“Of course, you weirdo. I’ll always make time for you, just say the word,” Aomine said, “Now I’ll leave you here to get some rest—“

“No!” Kise said quickly, gripping onto Aomine’s hand. “Please stay here with me.”

“My god, you really are a child,” Aomine sighed as he sat back down and returned to caressing Kise’s cheek. As much as he hated to admit it, couldn’t say no to Kise. “Alright I’ll stay.”

“Thank you,” Kise smiled as he closed his eyes. The room became silent after that. After a few moments, Aomine assumed that Kise was asleep but he remained seated there, watching his boyfriend look as beautiful as ever. “Aomine-cchi,” Kise mumbled suddenly, startling him for a moment. “I love you.”

Aomine felt his heart melt as a dorky smile spread across his face, making him glad that Kise’s eyes were shut. “I love you too dummy.”

.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Lover, I Was Lonesome || Morgan & Deirdre

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @deathduty & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan and Deirdre struggle to find a new normal

CONTAINS: brief mentions of parental abuse, dysfunctional death gals

The day after she’d screamed and fought, Morgan put herself on three different therapist’s waiting lists.‘The strain of the holiday season makes this a very high traffic time for us, unfortunately,’ one receptionist said. To which Morgan replied, ‘Gee no kidding!’ before fumbling with her Decap while the lady assured they’d get to her as soon as possible. Then came the embarrassing Google searches, followed by the books, most with not-so-fun fill-in-the-blank work sections. Between learning about her anxious attachment style and questioning some of the healing codependent advice (why shouldn’t she put her partner’s needs first as often as possible?), Morgan hit her limit within a few hours most days and spent the rest of her time cooking and trying to be normal. She made a lot of casserole, a lot of soup, and spent the quiet hours searching for a conversation that wouldn’t hurt or turn complicated. Today the special was broccoli and cheddar with a soft baguette from the grocery store. Morgan smiled hopefully as she presented the tray. “Hope this tastes as good as it looks. How’re you doing today?”

Deirdre had developed a system, or rather, had devised a plan. She was ready and willing to do whatever she needed to make things okay, and had spent her hours staring off and running scenarios in her head. She could do this, or that and each thing had its risk and success rate and for a while, for the moment, she felt confident she could fix things. She felt hopeful. Caring for Morgan was a thought she welcomed into her mind, far more desirable than the other thoughts that lingered. She straightened up and beamed at her girlfriend as she entered, soup on a tray. “Well it smells great, thank you.” In truth, she was a little tired of the soup, the constant liquid meals had started to make her feel like she didn’t have teeth. Sometimes she snuck around for an apple just to remember how to bite things. But she smiled, shifted, and welcomed Morgan to her. This was part of the plan, and the plan had been carefully thought out. It needed to be perfect. It began in a way she considered simple, with the fae. “I’m doing well, thank you. Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Mirrored District. Did I ever tell you what the fae did for Lydia?”

Morgan set down the tray and busied herself with making Deirdre more comfortable, piling and fluffing the pillows around her and elevating her legs. She didn’t mind Deirdre straining herself where exchanging comfort was concerned, but anything else seemed cruel now. Slowly, she eased herself into Deirdre’s side, resisting the urge to tangle up completely. “Where should I touch you, or is there a tense spot in your muscles I can try to work out? I’m okay with doing that for you, right now.” She gave a guilty half-smile, acknowledging there was no guarantee how long she would feel this way. “And no, or I was too upset to listen. I remember you said it was beautiful, and kind. I am glad to know that much. I’d want that to remain somewhere.” She tried to imagine something kind coming out of the fae funerary rites Deirdre had allowed her to partake in. It didn’t seem possible, but stranger things had happened in this world.

Deirdre shook her head; Morgan wasting her time worrying about her was not a part of the plan. “Oh, it’s fine. You’re tired now, and if you stop suddenly, I don’t think I’ll remember not to look hurt about it. Like that time when you were massaging my back and got that phone call?” Morgan’s back rubs were a strange occurrence; though more welcome as time progressed. So welcome, in fact, that when Morgan had paused to look at her phone, Deirdre had twisted around with such pain and betrayal in her eyes that she rivaled Anya being told she could not have the food from Deirdre’s plate. Needless to say, such a look could be a powerful thing. And her plan was important. But even so, moods to be doting should be answered, especially if it was what Morgan wanted. “Here, take my hand.” Her wrist was still wrapped from the burn (it would scar, much to her chagrin) but her nails had great luck growing back. “It feels stiff from the nails and, you know, it’s fun to hold.” And she didn’t think she’d suffer too greatly if Morgan abandoned her task. “Well, often, the fae plant trees, or flowers or whole gardens, and take great care to grow them in a certain fashion. Not all fae have the same rites, but I’ve found that practice to be the most common form of remembrance.” She closed her eyes. “There’s this beautiful tree for Lydia in the local aos sí.” She opened her eyes and turned to Morgan with a soft smile, more telling in its emotion than she meant it to be. “I wanted to ask if you’d like to come with me to see it, one day. I’d like to take you.”

“Just in my head, my body doesn’t really, you know...” Morgan mumbled in protest, but she didn’t really mind taking on something more chaste and less charged with memory. She settled in and took Deirdre’s hand, carefully massaging the muscles in her palm and fingers. When Deirdre made her offer however, Morgan went stiff. “Are you…” Sure? That sounded so stupid. “I just mean, I know how important those spaces are to you, and what they’re probably going to think of me, and you by association. I don’t want you to get hurt or wind up in some local fae politics mess because of me when we’re not even--” Together. Us. “I don’t want to taint Lydia’s memory or the closest thing she has to a grave for you. You should be sure…” She finally lifted her eyes to meet Deirdre’s and stilled again, jaw slack, as she took in her expression, how openly she dared to want this. Morgan swallowed thick and shivered, feeling her fear rising. “I always want to be a part of your world, Deirdre,” she whispered, just as earnest. “Of course I would like to. I want you to show me everything, I just...you shouldn’t risk your world for me right now. One day when things are better with us, when you’re really, really sure…” She nodded. Yes. Please. Morgan couldn’t think of anything more precious for them to share, and Deirdre made it sound so simple, even effortless she wondered at her inability to grasp it.

“Well, when your head gets tired…” she let the sentence trail off with a kiss to Morgan’s forehead, as if she could bring life and energy back to it—or bring it rest. “We’re not even—“ Deirdre repeated, filling in the gap. She blanched. “A-are we not still dating?” Had they broken up in some silence that she wasn’t aware of? She knew their circumstance now, but even so, she continued to think of Morgan as her girlfriend. She wasn’t sure if she could think of her any other way. Her plan didn’t include it, didn’t consider it. She faltered.  “Oh, uh, I can just tell them you’re important to me then. They should understand that.” She swallowed. “And it’s us. Our world. The fae world is...yours too. You’re not fae, no, but you’re important to me and I’ve already told you that I don’t want to be where you’re not welcome. I won’t let them say anything about you.” Most fae she spoke to already knew she was in love with a non-fae, and she bore their judgement with a smile. “I’m already really, really sure, I promise. But if it’d be better shared when things between us are less….as they are now, I can wait.” She met Morgan’s eyes and grinned. Hope fluttered in her chest, and gratitude mouthed from her lips. “I’m okay with it,” she assured again. She had been okay with it for quite some time. Gone were the days of fear. She loved Morgan completely now, unrestrained. She couldn’t imagine loving her any other way. “You might still get some harsh comments though...but hopefully we can set them right.”

“I don’t know what we are right now,” Morgan said. More than friends, less than lovers in the strictest sense. They cared, deeply, and Morgan knew that the quiet days ahead of them would be spent figuring out how to be better to each other and themselves. But it didn’t seem right to call this by the same name as what they had before. For the earth’s sake, until recently, Kaden had been more of an emotional support than Deirdre in the wake of Lydia’s death. As Morgan held Deirdre’s gaze, squeezing her hand through her fear, she realized that she took a little comfort in having an escape hatch, in the freedom to think of Deirdre as whatever she needed to from one moment to the next. “I think we’re figuring that out. Or I am, at least,” she said.

But Deirdre was certain. To hear her speak of Morgan as someone to turn away from this place for, to find joy in, you’d think nothing had happened between them at all and Morgan’s choice was a foregone conclusion and everything would somehow be alright even though Morgan’s heart still throbbed with hurt, burning to run and hide. Morgan sputtered for words. “Let’s wait, please, ask me again, l-later, I-I—-” Don't understand how this is so easy for you. I just told you I could hurt you again and I have every good reason to, this shouldn’t be easy for you, but you weren’t the one dropped on her ass and shut out so maybe— Morgan shut her eyes, doing her best to block out the sudden deluge of thought. “I’m scared,” she whispered, voice tremulous. “Can we just lay here?”

“Oh.” Deirdre’s eyelids fluttered, blinking rapidly. Her voice was a quiver, small enough to get lost under any other sound. It nearly did; suffocated by their ticking clock. “I understand,” she said, though she didn’t really. Not entirely, at least. There was a small chance Morgan would emerge from her thoughts, and from the passage of time, and decide that she enjoyed being unattached from Deirdre. Her stomach twisted. Her plan began to crumble. “That’s okay.” But it wasn’t really. “I can wait, no matter what conclusion you come to.” And she could, but now her waiting was plagued by strange thoughts. Did she tell people? Would Morgan? Was it wrong to hold her then? Would Morgan be kissing other people? Should Deirdre? Why did Morgan want her here then, if that was the case? What exactly was there to figure out? She asked none of them, and smiled slowly, her brows pulled together. Whatever Morgan came to, Deirdre would accept, what else was there to do? She bit her lip and willed the conversation to move on before she cried quite pathetically about the topic. It was her fault, anyway, and she needed time to parse a new plan in her head.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked. For several things, but for the moment, right then, for speaking of Morgan as her love. Perhaps it was a thing to roll out cautiously now; she’d have to think about it. “We don’t have to talk about that. I’m sorry.” She held her tighter, shaking her hand from Morgan so she could clasp both around her. “It’s okay. Yeah, we can just lay here. I’ll be quiet.” She swallowed.

Morgan buried her face in the crook of Deirdre’s neck, eyes squeezed violently shut. Even if the sad puppy swell of Deirdre’s eyes didn’t give her away, she could feel the other woman hurting underneath her. Morgan considered getting up. Don’t do this, don’t make me feel guilty for what you started, don’t make me sorry for being hurt— But more frightening than Deirdre’s devotion was Morgan’s own frustration. She hurt from her loneliness, from the memory of being shut out and rejected, and from backing away from this. This world Deirdre occupied so happily was so close, Morgan could sink her hand into it, but her skin felt like it would erupt in spikes if she did. Everything was fine a minute ago, she could almost believe in sleep again, almost believe in falling into this piece without having to think about it again,  it was so, so fine. Why was she thinking about running now? Why couldn’t she get a grip and just explain herself? (Because her trust was shattered, and her faith in the future as a matter of course along with it. She knew this, but that didn’t make her prickle with something like self-loathing all the same.)

Morgan tried to distract herself with slow, stiff breaths, wrestling her panicked mind for control as she worked her words as steadily as she could get them. “You don’t have to—I didn’t mean it like—I just need a minute. You have to give me a minute, give me time…”

“I’m sor—“ The words died on Deirdre’s tongue. She loosened her grip around Morgan, freeing her to leave if she needed to, yet steady enough against her if she wanted to stay. Morgan had said a minute, and Deirdre counted dutifully in her head. She didn’t speak anymore, nothing about how it was okay or how much she loved her. Her face held a tender expression, though under her affection, she didn’t offer anything more—no pain, no sadness, no confusion. This wasn’t a part of her plan, and she imagined it, Morgan would have been soothed by the show of devotion. It was a look, I still love you, I still want you, I’m here, we can have this. It had been ten seconds when Morgan hadn’t left, Deirdre’s hold tightened. Thirty seconds, she was still there, Deirdre pulled her in again. Sixty seconds. “It’s been a minute,” she said, loosening her grip again. “Do you need another?” She paused before she started the count again. She dared to try something more bold—or in their case, more gentle. “We can go outside. It’s supposed to be cold tonight.”

Morgan scrambled to sit up. “Yes, I need another,” she hissed. There was no anger this time, only a clenched, earnest effort at self-control. “I need five, ten, I don’t know!” Outside sounded good. Calming. Quiet. Morgan made to rush out of the room, maybe what she needed was in the fresh air, or in more time to herself (stars, she’d had so much fucking time to herself already)—Morgan stumbled, crashing into the wall as she slipped on Deirdre’s cane. Deirdre. Right. She picked it up and fumbled to lean it against the couch within reach. Her hands were clumsy and shaking, but at least when it fell for the third time, it was somewhere close. “Ten,” she said suddenly. “You can find me in the garden in ten and ask if I’m ready.” She looked at Deirdre’s sad, giving face, and didn’t know who she was upset with more. She rushed herself back to the door, calling hoarsely behind her, “I’m not where you are right now. You pushed me away too good and I’m just not there right now, I’m—” Sorry, she wanted to say she couldn’t afford to apologize for this. Morgan ran the rest of the way out of the house. It was funny, even when she curled up on the brittle winter grass, riding out her panic with tearful gasps, she curled her hand against herself as if Deirdre’s was still in it.

Deirdre sat up with Morgan, releasing her from her arms. “I’m sor—“ the words died in her mouth again. She wanted to know what she had done, or what she could’ve. Did Morgan want longer than a minute? Should she not have counted? Her answers came tumbling at her, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from apologizing again. She watched Morgan stumble, and her hands reached out and receded like it were a dance. Every time she wanted to help Morgan, she remembered that she had caused this and pulled back. But every time she pulled back, she remembered that she wanted to help her. “Ten.” She repeated; she could do ten. “I didn’t push you awa—“ She swallowed and shut that sentence down. She had been gone for days not by her own desire, and she had grieved so clumsily not by her own understanding. But the semantics weren’t important. Morgan was hurt still. And Morgan needed time. Ten minutes, to be exact. She didn’t ask where Morgan thought she was right now; the only place she’d ever been was where she loved Morgan devotedly and pure. She didn’t ask what it meant that Morgan wasn’t there. (Would Morgan be kissing other people?) She sat still, she watched Morgan leave, and she counted. After two minutes, she realized ten was a long time to be staring at their patio, and turned to the soup. Broccoli and cheddar was a nice flavour, all things considered. It occupied her until six minutes ticked by. It took another two for her to grab her cane and move outside. She leaned up against the frame, calling out, “are you ready?” She moved closer and asked again in a quieter voice.

Morgan had never timed her bouts of panic before, but she could tell a minor episode from something more serious. By the time Deirdre came out, her tremors had ceased and her mind, so tired, was floating somewhere beyond her dead eyed stare into nothing. Maybe it was with the stars. Deirdre had loved to comment on those. The world unfroze at the sound of her voice and Morgan nodded mutely before she realized it was evening and she was laying in the grass and she should probably use her words. Slowly, she pushed herself up until she was sitting. She did not meet Deirdre’s face but she did call out, “...Yes. Thank you,” with only a little embarrassment about her gracelessness.

Deirdre nodded, she had been prepared to start the count again, but wouldn’t act like she wasn’t happy to be by Morgan’s side again. She dug her cane in the ground and limped over there until she was close enough to throw her cane aside and fall to the ground. “What does it?” She asked, trying to scoop Morgan back into her arms. “Is it holding you too tight? Kissing your skin? Is it my words?” She wasn’t sure she could stop, if the answer was loving Morgan, but she could sidestep her displays of affection, if it would help. And though she might just have been asking to be run from again in trying to figure it out, she couldn’t stop until she knew how to be better for Morgan. She needed her answer, she needed her plan, and if it took another ten minutes and another after that, she’d wait. “Should we not talk about us? Whatever’s better, please tell me.” Her arms found their place around Morgan, anchoring herself against her. But loose, as she learned to, until she knew it was okay.

Morgan sagged against Deirdre without protest. It was nice here, in the curtain of her hair, the soft pillow of her chest. She didn’t rush to speak, just in case something clear and helpful came to her out of the ether. When it didn’t, she said, “It’s just so easy for you. I don’t understand how it’s so easy for you. All these plans, these things you want, just talking about them like of course it’s gonna happen and there’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing that’s gonna go wrong...” The Deirdre she’d first known wasn’t like that at all and she found herself envious at this one’s fortitude. Morgan pressed one of Deirdre’s arms harder into her body. “It’s not holding me, I felt okay when you were. Fuck, it even felt good. Everything about how we were on the couch made me feel like, maybe we can do this, maybe it won’t be so hard. We were together and I felt like I was helping you and you were so kind even after the way I’d just been—” Morgan shut her eyes, chasing the memory. “And then you tell me about this huge thing, this amazing, important huge thing you want to do like it’s already decided, or almost decided, and you were so hurt when I said I don’t know what we are, but how could I possibly know? Everything broke! I was alone for almost a week, I spent days before that thinking you would go from pushing away my hands to not wanting to touch me or be with me at all. It’s not easy for me. None of this is easy and I can’t rush it or skip it. Yes, I still have my feelings for you, but that didn’t do anything to help me before this. And yes, I actually felt safe for just a few minutes, but none of that tells me when or if I’m going to be able to trust you enough to really be with you again. I don’t have that to give. And maybe I’m being stupid, but what freaks me out is—I feel like you’re asking me for that trust that I don’t have and I get scared that my only options are to cough it up or hurt you, or else it’s already being decided for me and I’m just supposed to come around...” Morgan pressed the end of her palm to her eyes, a preemptive measure against tears. She might still be on the downslope from her panic if her avalanche of thought was anything to go by, but Deirdre asked, and Morgan wanted to be good to her.

Deirdre eased them down, against the cool grass. “Loving you has always been easy,” she said, as though that might explain it. “Accepting that love...less so, but now that I have...it’s also easy. In that it comes naturally, at least. Like instinct, like the only thing I want to do.” She stared up at the stars, she missed how easy it was to look at them all the way up there and forget what was happening down below. She’d lost that ability sometime in her youth, when looking at them, all she could think about how much it hurt her neck. But that ease had returned to her sometimes, in moments. “The ones we made,” she said after a while. “You asked me once what stars I liked. It’s the ones we made together up on that roof—the line, the squiggle. I tried to tell Lydia about it once, I don’t think she was so amused. But I like to look for them when I need it, they’re easy to find because they’re always there. It’s like that. It’s easy for me because nothing has changed in my heart or mind; it’s always there.” She closed her eyes, committing herself to the darkness without the line, the squiggle. Her heart thrummed slowly in her chest, each beat seemed to say the same thing—a song to Morgan. I love you, I love you, I love you. “I didn’t mean to make it sound that way. I just offered it. I’m just offering all of this. I don’t expect anything from you. It, um—it was sad to hear that you didn’t know what we were. I’m sorry I didn’t hide that better for you. But you don’t need to have it figured out, or trust me, I’m not asking I’m just...offering. Like you can or you can’t or you can sit in the middle it’s okay to me, all of it.” She sighed. “That’s all I meant.” The line and the squiggle, though steadfast, did not bring her answers. Her heart, though singing, did not give her the words to speak. And her mind, though hopelessly devoted, couldn’t untangle this mess. “Let’s just stay here, outside.”

Morgan shifted in Deirdre’s grasp, restless, until she flattened in the grass so the ground held as much of her as possible. For a while she didn’t speak, but stared up at the stars, trying to decide if she really did need to run again. Was it her fear making her skin itch, or was it her beast? Why did she still feel so relieved to have Deirdre next to her if she didn’t want to bundle herself off to deathly ever after? “It was easy for me too, before this,” she said at last. And it’s not a question of if I—love you.” She barely got the words out, breathing them more than speaking. Every time Morgan felt the words on her lips, she feared she was signing herself away to the unknown or admitting to something criminal. But stars above, she really did love her still, so much so it felt like a liability. There wouldn’t be anything to discuss or wait for if she didn’t. “It wouldn’t be fair to be with you without trusting you. And I don’t think I’d want to anyway, not after what we had before. But I don’t want you to feel like you can’t have your feelings either, even if—” She laughed dryly as she finally realized their completely batshit reversal. “Even if, yes, from my own experience trying to date you, sometimes stuffing feelings that frighten the woman you want to spend more time with is the way to go. You follow her cues, you take her bursts of affection and her sudden silences, you try to figure out when she needs to be followed, when she needs you to keep away…” Morgan shrugged. She couldn’t help the way she was now anymore than Deirdre had been able to back then. “I am trying to be better too. This is at least better than what we did the last time I ran out of the room, right…?” Give me some credit for effort here, she asked silently.

She couldn’t help but look up on their constellations with fondness. “You can see both the squiggles out tonight,” she murmured after awhile, leaning a little closer so she could point them out and trace them with her finger. “There’s the little one, and the big guy. And the crooked bone, the pentagram, the great line…” Morgan lowered her hand, letting it fall next to Deirdre’s. Her fingers twitched, hesitating, but eventually slipped underneath the banshee’s and cradled them. She tickled gentle caresses along her fingers and lightly scratched letters into her palm (D-E-I-R-D-R-E). They had played this game on her shoulder once. Deirdre guessed wrong no matter how fast or slow Morgan moved, and she suspected it was just so they could have another innocent excuse to be touching. She could sense that soft place they’d shared on the couch like fresh cookies from a few rooms over. Not close enough to have, but she could find the way eventually if she tried. If she coaxed Deirdre into touching her hair again, or kissing her cheek, something to thrill her out of her fear... Morgan continued to play with their fingers as she thought. Their hands fit so right, and though the touch was only a whisper on Morgan’s own skin, her heart melted and quieted at once. If their world could just be a starry sky and thin grass and flowerbeds, if they could just fall in the water of memory and things hidden and wash themselves free of the past two weeks, there would be no question of if or maybe. Why did she need these questions so badly when ‘together’ was the thought that soothed her the most? She wasn’t sure, only that she did.

Morgan rolled herself until she was nestled against Deirdre, taking the banshee’s hand to cuddle with her. “This isn’t going to be easy for me. You know my history, Deirdre. I’m going to be a mess about this...” She kissed Deirdre’s knuckles and turned to the stars again. “Maybe we need some new constellations. What do you think?”

A thought rattled around in Deirdre’s head. A desperate explanation that she hadn’t left Morgan by her own choice; those days they spent parted were unfairly stolen from her, and her grief was a new creature she didn’t know how to tame. And then wouldn’t it all be okay? Wouldn’t that make all of it one silly mistake? Did she really need to accept that this could be one long, drawn-out ending? Things should’ve been okay, shouldn’t they have? But she had grown tired of fighting for herself; all she wanted now was to hold Morgan. And if this really was the end, she didn’t want to waste precious moments talking about herself. She shifted and tightened her hold, pulling Morgan flush against her body. “But I can’t have my feelings…” she mumbled, chasing the thought away with a sigh. “No, you’re right. It wouldn’t be fair. And anyway, don’t worry about me, it’s not so bad.” No, it was terrible. It was worse than bad, worse than worse. For a moment, she was lulled into thinking the comparison of this to how Deirdre had once acted would make the weight easier to carry. But this felt personal; it was her fault. She wanted to go back and ask that Morgan if it had felt personal to her then. Then she’d say it wasn’t, and ask if this was. “You want to feel good,” she said plainly, “and I can’t do that for you, not the way you’d need it now. You could get other people to make you feel good. I’m sure you know that already...but I just wanted to say it was okay. It might just be better...so it’s less scary.” Deirdre summoned forth every piece of training she knew about keeping her emotions hidden. She prayed that the tremble in her body and the quiver in her voice was invisible. “I mean you could sleep with other people, if you want.” She thought she did a good job of sounding measured, despite the circumstance. “A-and it was better. Thank you for that. And I’m sorry.” She’d gotten to the point now that she stopped knowing what she was apologizing for—every sentence dribbled apologetically. She might as well apologize for breathing or blinking or being herself; anything to make it right. Maybe time would take pity on her and skip to the end.

But she didn’t want Morgan to feel bad, and so she shut her mouth and dug her face into the crook of Morgan’s neck. Humor bubbled inside of her—wasn’t that what Morgan had tried when she was grieving? But where humor boiled and popped, where she pulled the strength to cover her emotional tracks, guilt toiled. She didn’t like keeping herself from Morgan like this, and especially not when she’d made the commitment to be more honest. It was wrong. It felt wrong. She raked her teeth along her skin, nipping at her shoulder; a distraction that went both ways. She couldn’t tell what Morgan was drawing in her skin, and she couldn’t ask to have it again. She got lost somewhere at the fourth line, so she made her own words roughly against Morgan’s flesh. Symbolically; even Deirdre thought it would be gauche if she started moving her teeth around in the shape of letters. Some acts of devotion were better left in the mind. “I like your mess,” she mumbled there, lifting her head up to take in the stars again. “And it’s fine, however it comes out, whatever you decide…” she trailed off. Sure enough, there were both squiggles, the bone and the pentagram. “I like our old constellations,” she smiled despite the pain that thrummed along her body. “But we can get new ones.” Deirdre lifted her free hand and traced the outline of one—once part squiggle and pentagram. “That one kind of looks like roadkill. See, it’s all flat and there are the ears.”

“Oh. Right.” Morgan burrowed her face into Deirdre, trying not to pout too obviously. I don’t want to sleep with other people, she wanted to say. Which was weird, because if Deirdre wasn’t so steadfastly monogamous, there would be a few friends in town she would consider propositioning for some casual fun. But Deirdre was that way, and Morgan didn’t want to hurt her. Please don’t say this, don’t hurt yourself like this. But could she really say that when she was asking for things to stay more open ended? Wasn’t that just more confusing, more cruel? Morgan shivered. What if they made contingencies for getting through the day more easily? What if Morgan could just stop feeling the echo of her world coming apart whenever Deirdre flexed her devotion like it was this great, infallible thing? “I um...don’t really know that I could...do that with someone else,” Morgan said, doing her best not to sound too upset. “But thank you. For...offering, for what this means…” Another, more distressing thought caught her: what if Deirdre wanted this too? Did she miss being pleasured, kissed, doted on? She wouldn’t, right? She wouldn’t be trying this hard if she felt like Morgan was too much of a broken mess to be with again, right? “Y-you know, it’s not even that I need to feel good,” she tried to explain. Well, it sort of was, she was so tired of her hurt and of herself. Any kind of relief from that with someone would do so much, she couldn’t even imagine it. But she didn’t want to invest her energy into looking somewhere else. She wanted this. “I just…” Need to be less terrified of going to pieces again. Need to feel like she wouldn’t. Not like she had on those days. Morgan shrugged, haplessly. She didn’t feel like it would make any sense, or any difference.

Stupidly, she found herself flashing a wide eyed look of affection at Deirdre as she said she liked her mess. “Really…?” With all the crying and the going from cuddling to panicking because stars forbid she surrender to some euphoric safety so absurdly complete there was nothing to catch her if she fell. Morgan kissed Deirdre’s knuckles again, harder, more urgently. I know it sounds fucked up when I can’t make up my mind, but please don’t give up on me, she wanted to say. Don’t build me a road away from you, just give me time, let me figure out my time… She cleared her throat, swallowing anymore building waterworks and followed Deirdre’s finger paint a new constellation. “Oh, I see it,” she said, beaming through her distress. “And what about that cluster over there, wait, that’s just Mars, but around it, there’s...maybe a chicken foot? Or maybe it’s a funny smile?” She wanted to press herself in harder, but she worried for Deirdre’s injuries, and how much she’d hurt herself for Morgan already. If only their hurt could unstitch itself and reform in a new shape as easily as their made up patterns in the stars.

Deirdre had rolled, more or less, practically, right on top of Morgan. “Hey,” she cooed, trying to stamp Morgan’s thought out. “It’s okay.” She pushed her face against her cheek, pressing her nose there and then her lips. “You could just make out with them. Or—well, it doesn’t matter so much. Just, whatever you need. It’s okay. If you change your mind about this tomorrow, it’s still okay. Or if you don’t want to, that’s fine. I just wanted to make sure you don’t—“ She swallowed, trailing a series of rough kisses back from her cheek to ear. “—stop yourself on my account. That’s all. That’s all.” She wasn’t sure why she was arguing a point that made her insides twist with fear. But by way of her instincts, she felt some manner of distress in Morgan, and moved to soothe it—even though she wasn’t entirely sure what she was soothing, or if she had. She held her lobe between her teeth, tugging gently before she pressed another firm kiss there. The desire to capture Morgan’s lips started small, so small she could ignore it as she lingered there, trying to soothe. But it spread quick and vicious, like wildfire raging up and across her body. It would have been okay if only she didn’t lean back, if only she didn’t catch Morgan’s eyes on her for the flicker they had been. Her body shook. “Fuck,” she hissed and rolled back, still pressed against Morgan as firm and tight as she could be, but now acutely aware of the places they touched; they fit. Their legs tangled, her arm around her, Morgan’s lips against her knuckles. She burned. Every injury faded away until all that was left was desire, longing, and Morgan. It was bound to happen to her again at some point, she figured. But even flush with want, she could put herself aside.

“It—um—“ Deirdre swallowed, her voice was a deep rumble, but she chased the sound away by clearing her throat. “I—I’m not sure I like the funny smile. Feels like it’s laughing at me, and I can’t ask it what’s so funny. But a chicken foot I can deal with. You mean a dead chicken foot, right?” Not that there was any other noteworthy kind of chicken foot. But like this, she could distract herself with the stars. Or so she thought. Even as she lifted her hand to point to a new design, she brushed Morgan and the fire found fuel all over again. She hated the stupidity of it; Morgan wanted time and Deirdre wanted to give it to her but her body could be strangely impatient. It didn’t understand why they couldn’t be together. Now it burned, and the fumes claimed bits of her thoughts. Her fingers curled against the cool grass, pulling it up. She could remember each time they’d laid down—when they’d just kissed, when they’d done more. Over there was where Morgan had her fire for Beltane, where she held tenderly the memory of the Morgan who wept because she’d felt good finally. And, yes, as her body wanted to remind her, where they’d had sex. “That one looks kind of like another piece of roadkill.” She pointed it out. “Maybe a raccoon though, it’s got a long tail—see there?”

Wherever Morgan’s fear lived, it wasn’t where Deirdre’s lips touched her. She pressed into the touches, mewling quietly in the back of her throat as Deirdre sank her teeth into her. She dug her hands into her arm, fastening them together. This was the place she missed, where she was unfolded so carefully, she almost didn’t feel herself letting go at all. She couldn’t stifle the needy whine that came out of her when Deirdre rolled back. Morgan was still close, and she could rest Deirdre’s fingers against her lips and take a fingertip gently to her mouth and imagine that shore in their imaginary world washing over them. She reached for Deirdre’s cheek and stroked it with great care as she spoke. Morgan didn’t need her full sense of touch to know she was hanging on by a thread. Her voice quivered out of control, her hand trembled in her grasp, and for some reason Deirdre was willing to send her off to some woman’s bed if it would make her feel better and break and keep breaking, until Morgan was whole enough to come back on her own. Stars above, she couldn’t bear for them to be like this.

Carefully, she pulled herself close until their foreheads touched, and drew her hand down until her fingers brushed along Deirdre’s lip. She smiled with all the tenderness she had in her. “I did mean a dead chicken foot,” she said with a breathless laugh. “But that’s not what I really want to say. What I want to say is…” So much. Too much. Did Deirdre really love her so much that she would offer up a freedom that would break her own heart? But Morgan knew she did, even if it didn’t make sense. It was in her eyes, in her painful restraint. Her poor banshee, conditioned to withstand so much and falling apart so horribly because Morgan had insisted so many times that her feelings were precious. Would Deirdre take back this gift, maybe? No, Morgan had made her need to choose freely. It wasn’t the outcome she was especially concerned with (her heart would come home to Deirdre’s comfort, or it wouldn’t and she would make do with something much less after all). What Morgan wanted most was to have the power, and the choice. There was comfort there, in being the one with all the cards, but she didn’t want Deirdre’s heart to be one of them. That wasn’t something she wanted to play with or deliberate like it was a neutral object. It wasn’t. Stars help her and her mess, it wasn’t. So what did she want to say? How did she ask for what they both seemed to want so desperately?

“I think what I’m most scared of right now is falling apart as badly as I did again, and I don’t know if that’s something you can be sorry for, or fix,” she said at last. “And whether that’s just this moment and being close enough to really feel you after so long and knowing you’d let me go if I asked, or if that’s how it really is, I think I want to be done punishing you for what happened. Those are different things, see? And, yes, I still want to know what you believe in after all this, what your principles are going to be now, how you want to live with what you did to those people and who you want to be, that’s a really important conversation we need to have, but I don’t want to do it right now.” She paused to brush her thumb along Deirdre’s lip and meet her gaze, trying to gauge how well she was following her. “I’m not, um, not not-scared, like I said, but what I want right now is to take away a little bit of our pain. And I want you to know where I...feel like I’m home. And I’d like to do that by kissing you. Really, really kissing you. I don’t know what to do about what’s going on with me, but I know that much. But only if you want, if it won’t hurt.” Her thumb plucked Deirdre’s lower lip as she lowered her hand to cup her chin. They were so close, they might even be touching already and Morgan just didn’t notice.”You’ve hurt enough. Just tell me…”

Deirdre was sure she was dreaming. The cool of Morgan’s forehead against hers, the feeling of Morgan’s fingers—gentle, too gentle—across her face; all of it was too good to be true. She closed her eyes and opened them again; Morgan was still there, still touching her, still gentle. She looked up to the sky with its lines and squiggles, pentagrams, roadkill and chicken feet; Morgan was still there, still touching her, so gentle. Wasn’t this too much for her? It was almost too much for Deirdre, who didn’t have the heart or capacity to run away from it. “T-the roadkill…” she tried to fill the silence. She felt like begging her; please, please, look at the stars and not me. If she couldn’t kiss her, if she couldn’t love her, this was too much. But she couldn’t summon the words to tell her to stop either. Did it help, she wondered. Did this tenderness not mean the same to her as it did to Deirdre? Questions she would not ask. Instead, she watched Morgan, waiting. Searching her eyes for the answer that would fall out of her mouth a moment later.

It would have been easy to lean in and take what her body burned to have, what Morgan seemed to want to give. But for all of her desire, her heart continued to be stuck in one place. “But what about you?” She asked, sitting up, rubbing her eyes and forcing her body to stop all of its whining and yearning. “If it’ll hurt you more to do it, if it’ll confuse you or tamper with your choices then I don’t….I don’t want to.” She turned to look at Morgan. Her lips parted and drew together into a thin line, parted and thinned, parted and thinned. “I–I understand what you’re saying, I think. But please don’t worry about my pain. It’s fine, it’ll go away. But you–you–“ Her gaze fluttered around their backyard, as if answers might’ve lurked in the shadows. When she turned to look at Morgan again, she asked this time if she was sure. If she knew exactly what she was asking and exactly what it would mean. If she was okay ignoring her fear for the moment. It was a lot for her expression to say, a whole conversation unto itself, but she needed to know. Is this okay? Would it be? Was she sure? “You don’t have to, you know that, right?” Of course she did, of course she thought about that. Maybe they needed to have their conversations first before they crossed this line. They had their practice from the past, and the hodgepodge order of romantic operations they followed. But Deirdre had always liked their mess, their freedom of affection, and she leaned back down beside Morgan, forehead-to-forehead. More than anything else, she knew this: she was tired of all the time she wasted not being with Morgan when Morgan was all she wanted. And whatever it meant to be with her—waiting, not-kissing, holding her in silence—she would do it. There was nothing else she’d rather do. “Will it be just once?” She asked. “Because I can’t—well, I can, if that’s better. But you have to tell me so I can take as much air into my lungs as possible first. If it’s just one, I’d like to make it as long as I can.” She paused. “Only if it won’t hurt you too.”

Morgan probably should have thought of Deirdre’s questions in the half second she’d played this in her mind. But in her surprise, she only went still, following Deirdre’s movements, trying to keep up with her arguments, which endeared her with their selflessness as much as it maddened her, because here they were on the same page with their desire, again, and no one was crying and Morgan’s head buzzed with want, and how could they seriously be waiting while their stars aligned this perfectly and there was no telling how many minutes or hours it would be until they fell out of place again? Impulse control had never been their strong point when they were apart.

“Where I’m at right now is wanting to kiss you more than I’m afraid of breaking because of you,” she said simply. “And yeah, that’s new, and I don’t know how long it’ll be this way but...I mean, we already have safewords and touching games, right?” They didn’t have any for this situation yet, but Morgan trusted herself to come up with one in a minute if she needed to. “We can do things to manage our comfort levels and check in and make us...more safe.” She gave Deirdre a meaningful look that she hoped expressed how much she was trying despite the impulsiveness of her idea. “Tell me to stop or pause and I will. And you’ll do the same for me. Hasn't that always been true anyway?” She knew she was flattening a complicated situation into a few measures for the here and now, but ‘now’ was all Morgan could understand with any confidence. “I don’t ask you for things I don’t want. Which, considering my last few requests, this might seem weird and confusing, but that’s what this already feels like for me! Everything I’ve said to you tonight has been true, I promise!” She laughed sadly, well aware of the contradictions at play. “Even this part, about wanting to kiss.” She brushed her nose against Deirdre’s as she laid back down, welcoming her into her arms. “You can say no, we can go inside and get you cleaned up first, you can do whatever you need, whatever you want. But I don’t feel like it’s gonna hurt.” Morgan let out a shaky breath to steady her voice, hoping desperately that she was right. “I think it’s gonna be like having you back, and having a good piece of us back, too. And I definitely want that one big, long kiss to start with, but I’m feeling very open to more after that too.”

Deirdre nodded; at some point, she’d stopped parsing what Morgan was saying and had been watching her lips. At another, the blood thrumming in her ears had grown so intense she stopped hearing her entirely. Once she understood that this was okay—through some kind of osmosis—the rest didn’t seem so important. She moved, more or less, practically right on top of Morgan, and closed the distance between them. It had been weeks since she’d last kissed Morgan like this—fierce and heady—but her body remembered it just as much as it did breathing. She knew what Morgan liked, how Morgan liked it. She had one hand pressed against the small of her back, urging them closer. And the other tangled in her hair, tugging her back. It was a system of pushing and pulling, one her body ached to explore. Morgan was right, in the end, it didn’t hurt. And it did feel like being home, being them, having a shard of their world back. For as long as Deirdre could keep her mouth to Morgan’s—she would later thank her banshee lungs for their service—she could forget why exactly she wasn’t supposed to take this in the first place. It was always like this, just the two of them. Like they carved their own pocket of space and time and curled up in it together. She kissed her like she loved her more than air. She kissed her like she was sorry for the things she’d done, and hadn’t even done yet. She kissed her like she’d forgiven her for her sins too. She kissed her like revelation and benediction. Then she kissed her like a woman whose lungs were burning, but was too stubborn to part. She imagined that having passed out because she wanted to keep kissing Morgan for longer was funny, but ultimately meant that if there were to be more kissing after, she’d miss it. Now, if her mother had said while drowning her that these were skills she could use to make out with the woman she loved for longer, she would have been notably more excited about it. But she hadn’t, and now panic and old memory threatened to bubble over if she continued.

With a whine, she parted, rolling onto her back as she heaved in air. The world drizzled back into focus. First with the grass, cool and sharp. Then the wind, sporadic and whistling. And finally the sky, brilliant and familiar. Deirdre turned to Morgan, pressing her forehead to hers again. Her lips brushed hers, as if to ask quietly if she was still feeling open to more—and if that openness meant right now. There were mistakes to correct in that other kiss, after all. Things she had to make better. “How are you?” She breathed. “Are you feeling okay?”

Morgan devoured Deirdre’s lips as they kissed. She was starving. Stars above, the ache in her chest was starving the whole time for this: her touch, hard and tender and loving and right; the tickle of her tongue; the bite of her teeth; the home built by the push-pull of her hands on Morgan’s body and Morgan’s needy sounds in reply. There was no history, no pain, and no fear. Whatever between them mingled back and forth was beyond that. Morgan whined against Deirdre’s lips in welcome as much as longing. She could tumble head first into Deirdre like this and think nothing of it til it was too late. It was so easy, the snugness of Deirdre’s hold was almost like warmth, and it had been so long since she’d been warm. With each pull, the gravity around their affection grew heavier, and Morgan couldn’t quite remember why she wasn’t supposed to make herself a wholesale offering, not when this was the best she’d felt in weeks.

When they parted, Morgan stayed where she lay on the ground, gathering her bearings. Her body was still whole, her heart was still quiet, the world was still in place. I am here, she told herself. I am here. I am. I am. I am.

The smile she gave Deirdre as she came close again grew all its own, its tenderness unbidden and unbothered. “I’m okay,” she said, pressing a chaste kiss to emphasize her point. “In fact, I just had an idea for us that I think you’ll like. The first of which involves carrying you back inside. And I’m not accepting negotiations on that one. I can already see your nose turning color from the cold.” Morgan gave it a gentle boop, then sat up, gathering Deirdre and her cane into her ams and carrying her back to the great room. She set her down with care, and, eager to stay latched to her body in case the spell of comfort was broken by distance, settled herself at her side, cheek resting against her shoulder. “This is related, but before I explain anything, can you tell me how your body feels? I know there’s a lot to negotiate between your pain and healing and wanting to be like this, but I really don’t want you to hurt right now, Deirdre.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’m turning color from the cold but—oh!” Before Deirdre could get out some clever words about the heat of her body, she was up in Morgan’s arms, laughing as they moved. It felt beautifully normal for them, and with the ease, a pang of guilt. She remembered now why her body craved Morgan’s with such intensity, and why she couldn’t ask the things she wanted to ask. I missed you, she had wanted to say. I love you. Her laughter fell off her lips just in time for her body to fall on to their couch. Should she not be so happy now, knowing Morgan was still in the place of decision? But she was made blissful by simple things and, namely, Morgan-related things; kissing her, being with her, talking to her, listening to the things she had to say. Deirdre swallowed. “It feels…” she wrapped her arms around Morgan and thought about it. Confusion crawled across her face, but she continued to answer the question. “It feels fine? Good, even...if that’s okay. Light.” Happy. But even if that part was obvious, she didn’t admit it. The body could be such a simple creature, happy when held or loved. It didn’t understand, but Deirdre did. “Uh, you mean the pain from the injuries, right? They’re okay. The more you forget about them, the less they hurt.” And she had forgotten about a great deal in moments prior. “I’m okay, I mean. Are you? Is something wrong? What did you want to say?”  

Morgan lifted her head to kiss Deirdre’s cheek once, then twice, close to the sly curve at the corner of her mouth she so loved to feel against her lips when she was alive. “I’m okay. And what I’m going to suggest we do tonight is hopefully going to help us stay okay. Or um, me, I guess.” She nuzzled her and tried to ignore the constricting feeling creeping into her chest. In their house, the world seemed real again, and she saw the ghost of her begging Deirdre to talk to her playing alongside the ghosts of them dancing and making love and wiping each other’s tears. Morgan fumbled quickly for her phone and brought up the timer app. She set it to three minutes, but didn’t start. “You once told me when I was really afraid of something good to just take it in small pieces, a little at a time. So what if we did that, but with...touching.” She met her eyes slowly, hoping this didn’t sound stupid or insulting. “We take turns, we say how we want to be touched for the next three minutes, and that’s as far as we have to think or agree to go. You could tell me you want me to play with your hair, or whisper in your ear or...anything. Anything you want me to do in three minutes, I’d like to try. And I’ll tell you, you don’t have to guess or worry, because I’ll just be telling you, for the next three minutes, I want you to hold me like you used to and kiss me slow and play with my hair. Please. A-and we can renegotiate if the other doesn’t want to do it, obviously. We don’t have to start the timer until we’ve agreed. And we can call stop at the end of an interval if we need, or before, but it’s just three minutes so I don’t think there’s going to be time for any weird surprises.” She bit her lip, balanced on the edge of excitement and embarrassment. “What do you think?”

Upon hearing this was something that would help Morgan, Deirdre perked up. She half sat up, so she could look at Morgan better, propped up on her elbows. She braced for the worst of it; actually, no more kissing ever, I hate you and your breath stinks (the last part was strange because Morgan couldn’t taste or smell, really, but she worried about it all the same). But giddy from their kiss, she felt like she could take anything--even the stinky breath bit. Still, her relief then, to hear that it wasn’t that, was palatable. Though she felt like she could laugh--did I say that? Actually I meant take the good in really large pieces, like one hour at a time. “May I?” She asked, reaching out for Morgan’s phone. She held it tenderly in her hands and stared at the timer. It took her awhile to figure out how to work the app, but once she got it, she flipped it back around to show Morgan: 00:03:01. “One second extra. Can I ask for that? Just one second more.” She held the phone back out to Morgan and smiled. By any standards, one second wasn’t a lot, but it was just enough. To hold her one second more, kiss her one second longer, feel her here just another second...that felt like its own infinity to her. A small gift, she thought, if it didn’t feel like too much for Morgan. If one second wouldn’t make the difference between good and bad. “I think it’s a fine idea, actually. I like it. If you wanted more than three minutes, you’d ask for another go? And what we’re doing right now, this would count as touching, right? And if you wanted me to stop, you wouldn’t have to say anything you could just...end the timer early.” She paused, her smile grew just a little more. “I like that.”    

Morgan nodded, “We just go three minutes at a time, taking our turns, until we want to stop. We don’t have to think about how long or short it’s going to be in all. We just take our little steps. You give to me, and I give to you, whatever we’re comfortable with having. And that way...maybe this part doesn’t have to hurt, for either of us. The stopping or the...any of it.” She looked down at the extra second, frowning slightly. Three was what she trusted herself most with. Three was more than one and less than five, which was where things could start to get dicey, she felt. Was it really that measly? Couldn’t it be enough if there was another coming right after? Did Deirdre need more from her that badly? It was just a second. Behind it, yes, there were a million and one wants, but it was just a second. An extra second was a lot less to ask for than a trip to the magic fae village where they might stay an hour and come home a week later. It’s just a second. “You can have one more second, yes. That’s okay,” she said. Then, clearing her throat. “I don’t know about how much just being next to you counts, but maybe it should, or...I don’t know. I came up with this sometime in the last five minutes.” She scoffed at herself, wondering if she was just throwing in another complication. This was too much thinking, not enough kissing, or cuddling, or-- “Can we just try now? What I said before, about holding me like you used to, with me kind of in your lap, and kissing me slow, and my hair-- if that’s still okay, could you please just be doing that? And then you can tell me how you want me to touch you after that?” Her brows met in a timid plea. Her hand clenched around her phone, thumb hovered over the start. Could this be enough? Could this be simple and enough right now?

Deirdre frowned and reached back for the phone, adjusting the time back to its plain three minutes. “No,” she sighed, her voice warm with care, “not like that. Not if it sounds like it just might be too much. Not if what you’re thinking is that it’s just a second.” She eyed the time, devoid of her special second. Guilt surged; what was she thinking? “They add up. Three minutes is a time you decided on to feel safe with, I shouldn’t have asked for more. I’m sorry.” Deirdre shifted, leaning up against the arm of the couch. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember the ways in which she used to sit. She wiggled awkwardly, trying to find it. “Of course we can,” she smiled softly. Three minutes was a lot, three minutes was more than enough. Yet there was something strange about knowing it was numbered; that without fail, in three minutes, it would end. There was a comfort in uncertainty, a hope. Could hope live in three minute intervals? There was something to cling to in the extra second, but not here--not in the three minutes. “Do you want to come closer first? I’ll start the timer as soon as you’re ready.” She smiled, setting Morgan’s phone on the table, her finger hovering over the button. She waited for Morgan’s okay before she pressed it, scooping her love into her arms. Her mind kept its own time, but even with the ticking clock, she was careful not to rush herself. In these moments, she never loved Morgan like there was a number on her mind, and she wouldn’t now. She kissed her slow, as instructed; played with her hair as though she might always; and held her tight, as if she didn’t know what it meant to let her go. In three minutes, they wouldn’t have this anymore. But until then, the world was theirs.

Morgan surrendered to Deirdre’s touch, pulling herself as snugly into her lap as she could. She was everything she had asked for and more, with the care that went with each pull and stroke. The tension in Morgan’s shoulders eased just a little and she moaned little encouragements to her as they kissed deeper, harder. Her hands clenched around Deirdre’s shoulders when the alert on the timer went off. Morgan reached to silence it, then brought her hand back to its spot cupping the back of the banshee’s head. Her lips tingled from the rough pull of the last kisses and the sensation made her grin with a hint of heady satisfaction. “That was really nice,” she whispered in Deirdre’s ear, tracing the tip of her finger around the shell. “It’s your turn, if you want it. I feel okay, good even.” She pulled away to meet her eyes and gauge her response. “You just have to ask.”

Deirdre knew the three minutes would end before the alarm pierced across their air. She kept time in her head faithfully; she had always been good keeping measure. And as she had guessed, three minutes was hardly enough, and there was no extra second to cling to. She closed her eyes, knowing they often revealed far too much to Morgan, and laughed the rest of her thoughts away. Three minutes was better than none, she reasoned. And if this was what Morgan needed to feel safer, then she wouldn’t complain. In truth, Morgan was doing a lot to keep them whole and Deirdre knew she should’ve felt better about it. But it was like this:

Counting time made it real. Marking their ends and beginnings gave them life. In three minutes she would be born to die when an alarm told her to. And she would know, every time, that it would only be three minutes. Not a second more. Then she’d pick from a list of her body’s desires for the most acceptable piece of affection that could break itself to fit in three minutes. And again, she would be born to die. When she was drowned to her mother’s slow internal clock--if she said two minutes, it was never two minutes--it summoned a similar sense of dread. Knowing at the end, she’d do it again. Another three minutes.

But three minutes was better than none. And even if hope couldn’t be born then, perhaps kindness could be. Deirdre opened her eyes and smiled. Her body did thank her for this, and her lips burned with remembrance. But beside her strange distaste for the measuring of their affection, she had a stronger aversion to being made to decide things. There were a lot of things she wanted to do, one was not better than the other. One was not more important. And only a few were acceptable for the moment, even less for Morgan’s current state. “Can’t I just give you my three minutes?” She asked. “I’d rather do what you want and I just...I just want to hold you, that’s all I can think of right now. But it sounds kind of--” Like a mood killer, and more so after just making out. “I’m just a little put on the spot right now.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe you can give me my three minutes to think this over? No--don’t--don’t! That was a joke.”  

Morgan withdrew her hand to give Deirdre a break from her teasing. “That’s okay,” she said. “But I do think...I want you to feel okay asking for things, and for us to be more comfortable making adjustments without getting really sad about it. I know decisions aren’t your favorite, but you don’t have to overthink it. Whatever comes to you at the moment is good. If you wanted me to hold you or just stroke your side for three minutes, I think that would be time well-spent. If this, us, is going to work even better than it used to, we should both probably put at least a little of our energy into thinking of what we want and not just how we can serve each other, as wonderful as that can be most of the time.” She smiled kindly and picked up her phone before settling back against Deirdre’s chest. “But this is pretty spur of the moment, so I hope you know you don’t have to feel obligated to ask for anything just for my...weird game, either. Would it be okay if you just played with my ear like I was before with you and gave me little kisses all over while you hold me for three more minutes? And then we can do something else if you’d rather not keep up with this.”

“But I don’t...want...anything…” Deirdre sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “No, your idea is good. And it’ll help you, and it’ll be good for us I just…” Morgan settled against her and Deirdre’s arms rose up, but hovered around Morgan. If there were going to be rules, she needed them to be clear enough to follow. “C-can I hold you now or should that be timed?” She asked, arms raised and quivering. “It’s just---it’s the time. I can’t know it’ll be three minutes and not a second more. If you just make it less than three minutes, but you don’t tell me how long, that’ll be better. I could do that.” Her arms sagged, victim to gravity. “No, your ‘weird game’ is a good idea, Morgan. I’ve just always enjoyed the...freedom of our affection. Of just doing what felt good one moment to the next. But I know this will be better for you, so I want to try it. And I don’t mind, really. Ironically, it’ll take me some time to get over the three minute part. Because it ends, Morgan. It ends and you know it does and you can feel it and then you have to feel it again. And maybe that feels like a relief to you but it is tormenting to me. But not if I don’t know it. I know so many things, Morgan, but I don’t want to know how this ends.” She shifted again, finally finding her place on the couch. “If you can just let me hold you for some random amount of time under three minutes, I think I’d feel better about it.” She paused and eyed the phone. “A-and maybe if the alert wasn’t so jarring. But at that point, I’m asking for too much, and I shouldn’t, I shouldn't.” She sighed and went back to massage the bridge of her nose. “B-but I can do what you want, I don’t mind doing that. I can do that. I can play with your ear and kiss you over.”

Morgan took Deirdre’s hand from her nose and cradled it carefully. “First of all, unless I indicate otherwise, holding can be a freebie. Secondly, neither of us knows how this,” she emphasized the word meaningfully to hold the two of them and everything they were and could be, “ends. There’s so many possibilities for us, and I think more than a couple of them are pretty good. Thirdly, I will adjust the time the way you’ve asked me to, and I can lower the volume on my phone or set it to vibrate. Fourth: you are allowed to ask for things. I want you, very much, to ask for and tell me what you need and want.” She threaded their fingers together and gave Deirdre’s hand a squeeze. “I’d show you the time as proof, but that would spoil the surprise,” she said softly. “Take a little bit to collect yourself, okay? And you can tell me when to start, if you still want to.”

If she closed her eyes and just let Morgan’s words wash over her, it was like nothing had happened at all. Deirdre blinked, perplexed. Was this how Morgan had felt, earlier? But that was different because Deirdre’s heart hadn’t changed. She stayed still for a moment, watching Morgan. Then, suddenly: “why are you being nice to me?” Was this, perhaps, the moment of affection before Morgan would leave? Those she had almost come to expect now, those brought with them the familiarity of pain. But this kindness was not as habitual as the changing of bandages or cooked meals. This was a special kindness, a girlfriend-kind of nice. “You know what I want,” she said. “As for what I need that’s just...well, I don’t really know. But I don’t understand why you’re--you said that you--we’re not--” She swallowed. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.” But she had no more hands to get to her face with, claimed by Morgan’s grip. Her plea turned desperate, sincere, “what am I supposed to do, Morgan?”

Morgan’s heart sank. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for right now, Deirdre,” she murmured. “There’s no reason to be sorry, you don’t have to be. Hey--” she cupped her face and met her eyes, “I’d like to bring you close to me and wait for your breathing to steady a little. Is that okay with you?” Deirdre’s face was one big look of confusion, but she didn’t withdraw or tense, so Morgan went ahead and shifted them on the couch so she could hold her in a more comforting position. “Those are some...really big questions and I don’t know how many answers I’ve got, but I'm going to think while you breathe how we like to.” Morgan tapped the counting rhythm on Deirdre’s shoulder and tried to figure herself out.

She had thought, when the idea came to her, that their game would be the perfect blend of sentimentality and relationship building practice. Like a model student, Morgan had been attentive to her reading. Not taking disagreements and rejections personally was a little hard (they spent so much of their waking lives together, how could it not be a little personal? How could there not be something for her to change or fix to make things better? Herself better?) but it came to her mind now as she tried to coax Deirdre into breathing steady and focus on what was before her rather than thinking of all the ways she’d dug her heels into the ground about this in the first place. She probably should have cracked open a book or two about managing intimacy before trying this, but at least she was able to tell herself she didn’t really know better than this necessarily...

At last Morgan said, “So, I don’t actually know what you want right now in an immediate, tangible, practical sense. There’s that.” The only short answer she had to offer. Maybe she should’ve thrown in some more adjectives to make it last longer. Morgan sighed and let that go. Just be honest, she reminded herself. “I love you, Deirdre. I need more freedom and space than usual right now because I feel really, deeply broken and I desperately need to heal into a different shape than the one I had before. But I love you, and you are where my heart feels at home. What I want, long term, is a life with you that’s good and makes us both happy and fulfilled. What I want short term, is...kind of a mess, if you haven’t noticed.” She laughed dryly. “And you know, maybe there’s a textbook or three out there that’ll tell me it was a huge mistake, but kissing you in the grass made everything hard disappear and I actually felt strong enough to try something to help us instead of being afraid of our feelings and running or shutting down or lashing out. So, it was good for something, even if it was maybe really impulsive.” Fuck, she hadn’t answered anything outright yet. “I don’t know if I’m making much sense, but I’m being nice because you matter to me and I would rather us stay together than anything else, even if needing some of the stuff I’ve asked for makes it seem otherwise.” She pressed a lingering kiss to the top of Deirdre’s head. “What do you want to do, Deirdre…?”

Though in the moment it felt unnecessary, Deirdre breathed as Morgan had taught her months ago. In. Hold. Out. In. Hold. Out. And as she breathed, she waited and she listened and she noticed: Morgan didn’t sound angry like she had before. She didn’t sound as plagued by fear or hurt. Knowing this, Deirdre found some part of her uncorking, as if it was safe to slither out. Like they might be able to talk like they used to. “Okay,” she breathed, she reached over to the table and grabbed one of the markers she’d used for her whiteboard. She rolled up her robe sleeve and uncapped the marker, screwing it into the back. “I want to help you, Morgan,” she said. This was both simple and true, and perhaps true because it was simple. “But I can’t do that properly because I don’t know what you need.” She started writing on her arm; no touching, no kissing, no holding for too long, no declarations of love. “I don’t mind giving you what you need. If that’s space, or time, or less affection...that’s okay. That’s always been okay. But I can’t understand your boundaries because you haven’t told me. I’m not your girlfriend but you won’t see other people. And kissing wasn’t okay, and we agreed on waiting a week, and then it was. And holding you was sometimes too much but not when done for three minutes at a time? And saying I love you was bad but now it’s fine?” She scribbled around her arm, trying to make amendments until all she was left with was a black mess. She stared at it, hoping it would make sense.

“I want us too, in the long term. And I love you too. And I told you I would wait, and I don’t mind space or time or anything else...and I understand if your mind changes, or if one thing that wasn’t okay now suddenly is...but I didn’t know what was okay to begin with. I don’t.” Deirdre looked up, rolling up her other sleeve, this arm was covered with bandages but she’d write across the bumpy surface if she had to. “I just want to know what I can do; what’s good for you and what isn’t. That’s what I want for the–um–short term, the immediate. Please. I-I know you blame me for—I know it was my fault but I—“ Deirdre sighed and slumped, “I’d just like to do what’s right for us. And I’ve wanted to talk to you, like we always do, but you were so angry or sad or it was too much and I just...I can’t figure it out by myself, Morgan.”

Morgan winced at the black scrawl taking over Deirdre’s bandages. She averted her gaze, mumbling a sad, “I get it, I get it…” She waited for Deirdre to finish before saying anything else. “I swear to you, I didn’t ask for those things to be cruel or confusing,” she said quietly. “I don’t even know what my rules are, they keep changing. Letting go of some of that anger and starting to forgive you the other day helped a lot, I think, but I know that’s not a full answer. I do get it. I’m just...a mess. I don’t know how else to put it. I’m still figuring things out for myself. If I had to guess, as far as today goes, telling me to take a trip with you that might zap away weeks of our life out here was terrifying because that’s a couple’s thing, and a serious risk, and a serious commitment. But kissing only lasts as long as you want it to, and I missed feeling you so much…” she brushed back Deirdre’s hair, massaging her scalp as she did. “I thought it would be good, if I stopped running away from wanting to touch you a little. We were good at that before we were good at being girlfriends, and maybe that could be something to get back that’s not so complicated. And we’d always moved with our impulses before anyway. But if it’s not good…” Back to the drawing board. “Right now, what I know is: I love you is okay, but it feels sticky when I say it sometimes; touching is okay, especially holding, but nothing past third base; involved plans for the future scare me; you can call me whatever you want, but I’m withholding terms of endearment until we’re more settled. I don’t want them to get ruined with my indecision. Other than that…” She shrugged haplessly. “Some stuff I have to be the one to fix.” Her hand moved down to cup Deirdre’s cheek and draw her head upward. “I am sorry I haven’t been able to talk. I just...it was what you said, being angry or heartbroken or scared or whatever else, and I just couldn’t, I was just that broken, nothing that did come out was right, and so I mostly didn’t. And I don’t know if I’m going to psych myself out tomorrow and feel less...me. But I can tell you I’ll try hard not to. Is this...helping? Is this making things worse…?”

“I know.” Deirdre smiled softly, “I didn’t think you meant to be cruel. And I meant it when I said I don’t mind the mess, I just want to know how I can help. Whatever that means for the moment.” She started writing the new rules on her arms as Morgan spoke, finding trouble writing with her off-hand but powering through anyway. “And the kissing...is that only for three minutes at a time?” She looked up. “And I never understood that baseball metaphor but so you’ll have to explain that later, in case I have it wrong. Our impulses are fine, but sometimes your impulses are panicking or hurting and we’re both trying to minimize that, right?” She scribbled some tentative words about that down. “And what about if I say ‘I love you’? Or if I want to say your eyes are like the frozen skin of a corpse? Would it be better for you if I just called you Morgan then, instead of ‘my love’?” She paused. “Do you still blame me? For all of it?” Deirdre looked down at the shaky list on her bandage. “Sad you is easier to talk to, she usually just wants to be held and she nods at least, when I ask her things. Angry you is harder because she doesn’t want to talk about the things we need to, she just wants to be angry. Panicked you is strange, because you’ve always let me hold you when you’re scared, but if what you’re scared of is me holding you...then there’s nothing I can do. Tired you is the one that wants to sleep, but can’t. Most of the time they mix together; you’re sad and angry, tired and scared, sad and angry and tired and scared. Your emotions are important to me, Morgan. And they’re not new to me, even if some displays of them are. But I’ve only known what to do to help because you’ve trusted me. And now that you don’t I…” Deirdre slumped, sighing. “If you could just tell me, even if it’s just to say you don’t feel like talking or that you do feel like talking...I can stop guessing about it. If that’s something you can try to do, I think it would be good.” She closed her marker and offered a small smile. “This is helping, thank you.”

Morgan tried her best to keep up with Deirdre’s questions. Kissing could be longer, but only if she asked for it first. Third base was another way of saying no sex or heavy under the clothes action, but everything else was fine. She wasn’t sure about the terms of endearment. She didn’t know why sometimes they were a comfort and sometimes they made her feel pressured. Same with I love you and the rest, but less so.

It was around this time that Morgan’s body started to curl in on itself. Her head slumped to bury itself in Deirdre’s hair and she held on a little tighter, for her own sake as well as her banshee’s now. “I don’t mean to make you guess…” she mumbled. “I’m guessing too.” At last Deirdre ran out of words for the time being and Morgan shuddered, relieved for just a breath of a moment. “I’m getting overwhelmed…” she said. “I don’t have answers for everything. But I trust you enough to kiss you. I trust you enough to let you hold me almost whenever you want. I—” She hesitated, shuddering. When she spoke  again, her voice was careful and quiet. “I’m trying not to blame you for everything. I know I didn’t always help. I needed you so badly, I was just in pieces and reacting and that didn’t help. And I know you didn’t mean to. But sometimes I walk into a room and it just hurts all over again. And sometimes I get scared, because if you didn’t understand what you were doing then and you couldn’t hear me, what if you don’t realize something’s happening and hurting me some other way and I lose you again. If it happens before I figure things out, maybe I’ll break again. And I don’t want to be the kind of person who ends up on the floor because you won’t look at me or talk to me. That’s why I need to do things differently this time…” Her voice warbled, growing sad. “If you need more answers, we can keep going, but I need a break first. Please… I just don’t know how to explain some things good or at all. Can we do something else for a few minutes? We don’t have to go back to kissing, we can just lay down if that’s better and then pick up the talk wherever you need us to. I know if it feels like too much for me it must be worse for you, but I need a break…”

Deirdre looked at her arm list, the lines shaky but the words clear to her. In her head, finally, she’d been able to create a picture of what Morgan needed. And now that she had it, she could help. Which was all she wanted, really. “No, no,” she smiled and wrapped her arms around Morgan, tight and steady. “This is perfect, thank you. I don’t need to ask you anything else.” All she’d needed was a modicum of guidance from a version of Morgan that wouldn’t shut her out, and then say it was her fault. ‘I don’t know’ was a perfectly acceptable answer but it wasn’t a helpful one, and not all their whims could be obeyed. And not all their instincts would be good. And the thread that the two operated on, once the same, was not one they could walk again. She understood that Morgan was saying they needed better, stronger threads; not a tightrope that led to each other. But it was because of this new shift that she needed to know, and if Morgan wasn’t walking it, then Deirdre couldn’t either. But she’d figure out what was to be done with herself on her own. “No, it’s okay. Thank you, Morgan. Really. I know these were hard questions, but I needed to know, and you answered them for me, and thank you.” She put her marker down and grabbed Morgan’s phone, showing her the timer. “Do you want me to kiss you now? I could do that thing you were saying, with your ears? Or, uh, yeah, we could just lay here.” She glanced over at the timer with a fond smile, as though staring at an old enemy whom the tides of time had softened her feelings for. In reality, three minutes was less terrible when she understood everything else. It would still end, and it would still ring, and she’d still keep count in her head and loathe the rigidity of time...but it wasn’t so bad. Not anymore. She turned back to Morgan, smiling just a little bit wider. “Thank you again,” she whispered, “it means a lot. Thank you.”

Slowly, Morgan unclenched her body and unfurled her legs to stretch over the cushions. She lifted her head, eyes still shut, tried to take a long, satisfied breath. She could feel something familiar and dangerous around the edges of her heart asking, Are you sure you’re not mad? I’m sorry this isn’t better, I’m sorry… Morgan winced, knowing better than to voice that. But it begged that much harder in her silence, and Morgan couldn’t shake the desire for being comforted. At last she lifted her gaze to Deirdre’s and felt whatever sad, hesitant question she’d been working on dissolve in her mind. Her face was so affectionate and warm, her smile glowing with the beginnings of confidence. It told her already, as if it knew she would ask, it’s okay. It’s okay.

Morgan smiled back, small and tentative. Her throat relaxed, and her words suddenly fell out with ease. “I just want to stay close right now, that’s the only part that’s really important to me. But if that’s still okay with you—” Then yeah, the last thing Morgan was going to turn down was the chance to be petted and soothed. “That would be really nice. But you never said what you wanted for yourself. I’m glad that you did something to take care of us. It was good and it does make sense, even if it was a little—” Morgan shuddered and wiped the corner of her eye, still tense from the experience. “But I want to give you something for you. After this, though. Or later. Just...sometime?”

Deirdre had never been great at thinking for herself, about herself, about the things she wanted. It was not selflessness that created her confusion, but a life that refused to value her desires. For years, as far as she was concerned, she didn’t have any, and she didn’t want any. And so, as Morgan mentioned it, she frowned and shifted. “I just want to take care of you; help you,” she said. Which was true, and she knew in some way she’d never be able to worry about herself if her mind was occupied with worrying about Morgan. But as she said it, she knew it wasn’t the right answer. “I—okay. We can do something for me, after. Sometime.” And as she thought about it, her ideas were either thinly veiled ways to make Morgan feel better or actions that were so inconsequential that it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t do them. She shifted again. “I just—“ She swallowed, abandoning the avenue of explaining her desires. She just wanted Morgan to be happy, and she saw nothing wrong with keeping that her singular desire. If she was disobeying her family, then she might as well put her whole heart into it. Unwavering devotion wasn’t new to her.

She lowered herself, pressing her lips to Morgan’s cheek, jaw, neck. Her mind enjoyed being occupied with the woman, and nothing else. There was nothing wrong. She didn’t need anything, and she certainly didn’t want anything. She wasn’t a person, she hadn’t been for a long time now, if ever. She worked her way back up to Morgan’s lips, mumbling there. “Thank you again,” she kissed once for each syllable. “I’m sorry to have asked it so roughly but thank you. You’re doing good; thank you.” And a dozen more for each of these. Her hand found familiarity tangling into and playing with the strands of Morgan’s hair. Her other moved to trace the bones of her features: cheek, jaw, neck. She was careful; above the clothes, chaste. She was dutiful, as asked by Morgan, as performed by all she knew of Morgan’s desires. What more was there to want? She wanted them good and okay again. She wanted what Morgan wanted. If a declaration of love was too much, she conceded: “thank you for worrying about me; I worry about you too.” Her affection was clear enough in the rest of her, all she didn’t say about loving her, wanting her, that it was all okay and that she would stay, was said in touches, breaths and kisses. She could do this, it’d be okay. And she didn’t want anything else. No, not at all.

Morgan’s icy fear melted under Deirdre’s assurances. Gradually, she flowed with her touches, pressing in, sighing, whispering the odd plaintive tease for more (I’m doing good? I am?), and ghosting her lips and hands over where she ached to touch back when she got her turn. The three minutes ended, silent this time, and Morgan thought the sting of pulling slowly back was sweet. Longing was hope in something like this, wasn’t it? Her watery eyes were softer than they had been a long time when she smiled at Deirdre. She reached out for her face, fingertips stopping just a breath away. “Thank you for helping me,” she said. “And for...assuring me, following all my strange impulses, choosing to come back home to me, trying to love me.” She was already leaning in, remembering how she’d decided that they should hold each other for free. It was as much a part of spending time together as looking into each other’s eyes. “I’m good to give to you back, if that’s something you want too,” she said. “And you could show me how you want to be touched, if you feel strange saying.” She offered her hands. “But only if...I mean, I want to be as good to you as I can be. We can just watch something, and I’ll fix dinner in a couple hours and we’ll stay here until you fall asleep, if that’s better. That’s okay. I just...I can give you my love like before right now. I can. But I’ll do whatever you want.”

Deirdre met Morgan’s fingers with her own, leading them the rest of the way, letting them greet her face. “Loving you is a choice I make glady, and not one at all--all of it, in the same breath. It’s a matter of fact.” The fondness had gone to her head, and in the moment, she’d forgotten why the Deirdre of days past refrained from such explicit words of love. “You don’t have to do that…” Her voice was warm. Tender. A no, let’s focus on you instead. Morgan had been denied her love for longer than Deirdre ever wanted, and she was keen to fill the space. “And how can I ask you to kiss me, hold me, touch me, when your heart has ached?” When three minutes was all Morgan could handle at a time and their affection had to be played like a game. How could she, when it was clear enough to her that someone else needed it more? She pressed her palm over the organ in Morgan’s chest that no longer thumped its fast, steady rhythm. “I can’t ask, Morgan. Your love is precious to me, and you needn’t strain yourself for it. Whatever it is you want, whatever it is you’d like to give, I will have gladly. But you’ve been through so much, and so much still yet lingers in you; the power it takes to remember how you once were, what you once had and could do when so much uncertainty plagues you, is too great for me to ask you for.” She thumped the old beat of Morgan’s heart against her chest. “You’re good to me just doing what you do. You don’t need to kiss me to make anything fair, you don’t need to love me like you did before when you find yourself with the energy to. I am not a plant you forgot to water. I am a woman who loves you, and I’ll be fine just like this.” She smiled, drawing her hand back. “Which is to say, I understand you’re hurting, Morgan. Your heart deserves rest. Love me as you want to, not as I ask--and if you can’t, if you find there’s no love you can give, don’t worry about me. It’s okay, Morgan. Right now, you can be selfish. All of it’s okay.”  

It took Morgan a moment to understand what Deirdre was saying. Don’t take it personally, she reminded herself, trying not to wilt too much. The more Deirdre went on, the more it became clear that her no that wasn’t a big ‘you’re taking too long and now I don’t trust you, so there’ kind of no, but something more complicated that maybe even buried a conditional yes. “But I want you to ask. I mean, not if it hurts, and obviously I’m...it must be kind of shitty, not knowing which me you’re gonna get, but the answer right now is going to be yes.” But that wasn’t everything. “It’s not like you’re a strain, I mean sometimes the stuff I carry makes other things feel hard, but--” That wasn’t the heart of it either. Morgan went quiet and leaned closer against Deirdre, chest to chest, searching for the simplest way down through her hurt. “I wanted to love you back so badly, before you disappeared,” she whispered. “For you to let me. For you to...want me. I think I went crazy trying to find the right, magic thing that would make you see me right or decide I was good enough or...I don’t know what anymore, it was stupid, but I would’ve given anything to be able to give to you and have it mean something. I know you were just hiding your injuries now, but...” She swallowed thickly and gave a resolute smile, trying to remind herself even as she coughed up more gooey, awful hurt, that she would not lose her shit and take things to heart if Deirdre decided keeping things one-sided was better. “It’s different if there’s something in you that doesn’t feel right with me touching you while I’m like this, if it hurts or it’s confusing or something else. But I don’t want you to be afraid or guilty if you want me. Because I do too. I’ve missed...I’d just really like to, and to know it’s good.” She met her gaze slowly. “Can wanting to make you feel good for a little while be selfish too?”

Vaguely, Deirdre knew she had a way of speaking that was coated in too much metaphor and thick with confusing language. It was like a fae to never say anything plainly, she was told. But Morgan had always been so good at translating her mind that there was a manner of freedom she found in speaking simply as she wanted to. She didn’t need to decode her mind, a task she often struggled with anyway. “Is it not like how I think it is?” She blinked, “to me it’s...like this: you’ve cut your hand. What kind of a person would I be if I asked you to pick something up for me? Shouldn’t you rest your hand?” Deirdre sagged as Morgan went on. No, it wasn’t like resting her hand at all. “I did love you back…” She mumbled quietly. “I was trying to let you, I just didn’t want you to worry. I did--do want you. It wasn’t ever not good.” She raised her arm, surveying her list. Being asked for what she wanted wasn’t something Morgan had told her before, and she hadn’t put it down. To say she wanted to touch Morgan was one thing, to say she wanted Morgan to touch her was another. The hand was cut, wasn’t it? Why wouldn’t it rest instead? As much as Deirdre ached to give Morgan everything she asked for, this was one thing she could not do. Her desires weren’t so simple, they never found voice easily. “What am I supposed to feel, if not afraid or guilty?” She dropped her arm, and its rules that she thought were supposed to help her. “It’s not that I don’t feel right with you touching me, it’s that I don’t feel right asking for it. I don’t want to--I don’t want--I--” She paused. “I don’t want.” She shifted, frowning and deciding she might as well just say anything and move them past this. But as she opened her mouth, no desires could form on her tongue. She thought about the hand. What about the hand? Why wasn’t anyone thinking about the hand? “I do want you, and I do feel guilty, so I won’t ask. I can’t ask.” Deirdre shifted again, frown growing. “Why is it important that I ask?”

Morgan shrank inwards, her reminder playing in a loop. “You’d just never pushed me off you like that before, and you wouldn’t explain. I didn’t understand...” she whispered. But litigating the details of their mistakes wasn’t what she wanted to be doing. Morgan gathered herself and spoke more clearly. “For me it’s like I’m stuck. We were walking somewhere, holding each other like we always do, and then you fell and we both went down and let go or lost each other or something but now you’re ahead of me and I’ve got my feet stuck in a hole or tar or something and all of it hurts, staying in and sinking or trying to get out, all of it. But I want to get out. I need to. And I want you to help me get out of this stupid hole, if it won’t pull you back down with me.” She shrugged. “You could tell me instead, if thinking about it that way makes it easier.” She scoffed at herself, knowing the semantics were really not the point. “Maybe being so desperate to know anything you wanted over those weeks is part of it, but I...I really want to know when I touch you that it’s really for you, really what you want and not just another stupid wild guess or projection or a gross one-sided thing. And if we’re going to heal better, I think you really do have to come around to letting yourself want and expressing that, eventually. I’d kind of hoped this would be an easy one to start with, but we don’t have to do that tonight, okay?”

It was simple, very simple. All Deirdre had to do was say something she wanted for herself, something Morgan could give her. She opened her mouth. I want you to hold me. No, the holding was free. Her lips pulled back down into a frown before they parted again. I want you to play with my hair. No, how could she ask for something like that. It’d only be three minutes, and what if Morgan didn’t want to? What if it was too much work? Too much pressure? What if she grew too fond of the feeling of Morgan there and couldn’t bear the pain of losing her? Deirdre’s face twisted with pain. A kiss was too much to ask for, too serious. Anything else was too little, and would’ve been done anyway. And then there was the matter of the three minutes, the problems she’d had with it before arose again. This Morgan wanted her now, but what of the Morgan tomorrow? Would she resent the affection Deirdre asked for? Like the first kiss she’d wanted when coming home. Like the anger that seemed to follow the times she first asked Morgan to come to bed, before she learned to stop asking. “Couldn’t you just touch me and then I could tell you that it’s okay? Why do I have to--” She swallowed, shifted. If they were going to heal, as Morgan was saying it, then she needed to ask for things. But she didn’t want to ask for things. She didn’t want things. She didn’t want to ask. She just wanted Morgan to be okay. She opened her mouth. All she had to do was ask for something, and that didn’t seem so hard. She wanted a great many things: Morgan’s fingers intertwined with hers, absently against her skin in a way that was so soft--too soft--and just for her. Their legs tangled together where they couldn’t be told apart or undone. That easy way Morgan smiled, happy and ignorant to pain. The way Morgan looked at her, with love unspeakable, just for something she’d said or done and her own puzzling, trying to figure out what had done it this time, if it was anything at all. Where Morgan loved her just because. She wanted their lips, pressed together and pressed to skin anywhere they could, and just the places they knew the other liked. She wanted them, as they were; free and happy and timeless. But that wasn’t something she could ask for.

“I’m sorry,” Deirdre slumped, sinking to the couch and trying to curl herself between it and Morgan. Morgan had hoped, and Deirdre could not deliver. She could just say anything, she knew. Hold my hand. Squeeze my fingers. Poke my side. Just anything to make it feel like it was just for her, but none of it was honest. There was one thing she had grown comfortable with admitting she wanted, and from there all of her other desires had started to take shape. But she couldn’t have that thing anymore, and all she could do now was wait until Morgan’s foot wasn’t stuck anymore. “We can just lay here,” she said, wondering if that counted for asking for something. The defeat in her voice couldn’t have sold it as much of a desire, though. How could she want things when Morgan was hurting, and why was the concept so wrong? Morgan herself had said Deirdre was ahead of her, and the rich ought not to eat while the poor starve. Or so the metaphor went in her own head, but she couldn’t find the words to explain. “Or we can do something you want. But I can’t….I don’t want--” She closed her eyes, hissing at herself.  

Morgan sank down, hiding her face on Deirdre’s chest. She was struggling to keep her face even and confident. Deirdre would feel the tears building up at the corners of her eyes, but maybe if Morgan kept her voice even and she didn’t see, it wouldn’t make her feel worse. Don’t take it personally, don’t take it personally… She couldn’t help but feel as though her hand had been slapped away. Why was this hard and complicated? If they couldn’t feel better, they should at least get to have things be simple. Straightforward. Morgan sniffled as silently as she could and pressed timid hands around Deirdre, reminding herself that they held each other for free. (But what if Deirdre didn’t want it? What if it hurt? Would she be pushed off again, after all this?) Morgan waited until she was sure she could trust her voice and said, “I want to give to you without being in my head about it, wondering if I’m doing it wrong. I want it so badly. But not at the expense of your comfort. I don’t want you to hurt anymore, I don’t mean to. I want you to be okay. I want to make this better...” She just also wanted to feel like she was doing something good. She wanted to be loved and trusted enough to be allowed to love back sometimes and not have to makeguesses. But she could deal. Try differently. She could, at the very least, try to be fair to both of them. “You don’t have to be sorry, it’s okay. We can just lay here. Make things easy. It’s okay. It’s okay…”

A better woman could have done it. A better woman would have no trouble declaring her wants and needs, would be less wildly sensitive, always say the right things. Deirdre trembled, quietly, she begged herself not to have these thoughts; she was tired of them, and she wanted to be good. But if there was a better world, where her actions sat well and everything was okay, she hadn’t found it. And if there was hope, she’d forgotten the way. She wanted to be good now just as she had for months, when would she realize the problem was with her? Morgan’s turmoil was born out of the factors she couldn’t control, and beg herself as she did, the truth of it grew increasingly clear in her head. It was her own hand that she’d cut, and she picked things up so pathetically with it—but it didn’t heal, it hadn’t healed. If it did, it’d only bleed again. “I want to give to you without being in my head about it either,” she said. And her head was such a terrible place to be. “If I figure out how, I’ll let you know.” Focussing on loving Morgan and fixing them was as welcome a distraction to her searing self-hatred as anything else, but loving Morgan wasn’t something she did well, as it turned out. She couldn’t just say what she wanted, stupid and simple as it was. She couldn’t have risen out of her grief long enough to be good, she couldn’t pick her broken body up and run home. It all made perfect sense when it was her fault, but it didn’t offer any bit of the control she so desperately desired. She couldn’t help it, she couldn’t help anything—Morgan, Regan, Kaden. She was a terrible banshee and a worse person.

Deirdre shut her eyes tight, tears still escaped under her lashes, rolling down her face. The last voice that begged to be rid of these thoughts cracked and yielded. She thought she could lay still and quiet and make things easy. She thought she could do at least that much. But to lay, as Morgan said it was okay, she would’ve thought there was just one thing she could do right: nothing at all.

[ussjellyfish]

fic: work-life balance pt 4 | AoS| Philinda | mature (wheee!)

Note: Thank you so much for your support, likes, comments, kudos, I’m having a fantastic time writing this and it means so much to me that people enjoy it.

Summary: They've been friends for years but only got to be a couple for weeks before he died last time. How do they move forward as partners?

read on Ao3

Interdisciplinary Seminar 209 - Working in Partnerships

Her apartment smells like waffles when she wakes up. Phil's gone to the kitchen to cook, and the other side of the bed is cool. She leaves the bed naked, grabbing her robe from the closet. Phil's standing over a waffle iron that was not in her apartment yesterday, coffee in hand. He smiles at her in his pajamas, hair ruffled, wearing his glasses.   

"Morning."

"You weren't kidding about waffles."

"They're fun."

"They smell good." 

He circles the island, touching her shoulder. "Sleep okay?"

"It's nice, having you here."

"Because I'm warm?"

"And you cook." She turns into his arms, wrapping her hands around his neck. "I'm used to you already."

"I'm not going anywhere."

She kisses him, because then she doesn't have to talk. He always leaves. He doesn't want to, but he dies on her. Now he's back and they're really not in dangerous places but- does he want to stay? Can they really do this? They're good at being friends, partners, but they only ever got to be together for a few weeks in Tahiti. That was without jobs, without family, without anything to worry about except each other. Of course that worked. She couldn't mess it up. 

Phil strokes her cheek. "Hey, so, which of us is anxious?"

"What?"

"There's a knot in my stomach like a ice ball."

"Must be the coffee." 

He holds her hands, walks her to the table. "Sit, have some tea. What is it?"

"This is great."

"It is." Phil takes a moment, staying into her eyes. "And that bothers you."

Melinda wraps her hands around her tea, staring at the empty plates he's already set. "We don't get great."

"We do, we did, Tahiti--"

"Was wonderful until you died."

"I'm not dying now." 

He's not. He's healthy, whole. There's color in his face and he carried her up from the garage. He could barely stand at the end. He's fine. He could stay. They could really be together, get married, go to the movies and grovery shop and spend decades together. 

They could, but they're still them. They're not really good at domestic, staying in one place or relationships. Between them they have more than a handful of failed loves, almost including each other. 

She shouldn't say it, but she does. "But you died. I watched."

He winces, reaching across the table to touch her hand. "I'm sorry."

She shakes her head, starting to take a sip of her tea, then stopping. It's not fair to blame him, but he is him. He made the same choices. "It's not even the dying, I got through that. It's that you chose."

Phil pulls his hand back and that hurt. She can feel the little cracks, like ice.  "I had to."

She should be better than this, but he's wrong. "You didn't."

"Wait a sec." He heads to the kitchen and returns, dropping a hot waffle onto her plate. Phil pushes the butter and syrup towards her, and points at the berries. "Eat while you yell at me."

"I'm not yelling."

"Maybe you should, might feel better." He takes a bite of his own and smiles, all gentle, apologetic. She can feel his remorse well up inside of him, and the affection beneath it. He loves her, and it's bright, almost too much so, like the sun over the clouds and she can't protect herself. 

"You chose to die."

"Daisy needed to save the world."

She stares at her fork, then her hands, and looks up. "I don't care." 

He nearly drops his own fork, eyes widening. "Oh?"

"I would have let the world crumble to save you."

Phil takes a breath, and her frozen knot of anxiety melts with his, twisting her stomach. "I know."

"Do you? Do you really know? I would give up everything for you." She would have let the planet crumple like wet paper if she got to keep him with her. That's terrifying. She's trained her life to save people. To serve, to give of herself until there's nothing left, but some part of her drew the line at him. She can make peace with Katya's death in Bahrain. She can grieve for Andrew and move on, but she can't face a universe without Phil Coulson. 

He toys with his napkin, twisting it in his hands. "You're too good for me."

"No."

"You are."

"Phil--"

He leaves his chair, circles the table and leans on it, right beside her. "You chose me, you always chose me. I don't."

"You don't have to, you shouldn't." She doesn't deserve that. Happiness is too fleeting for her, always has been. These beautiful days are going to leave, he's going to leave. She only has herself and people she looks after. That's all she's allowed. 

"Hey. If we're going to do this, us, I want to do it right. You and me, not for weeks, but for years, decades, I want to see your hair go grey, finally, at ninety." 

He's still too nerdy for her, except it's perfect, because if he was serious, she wouldn't be able to smile now. 

He doesn't know what he's asking. She can't look at him, because her eyes will give everything away. If she hasn't already radiated her worries through him. "It might not be that simple."

Slipping down, he kneels in front of her, hands on her lap. "Let's try it. You and me, for as long as we have."

"This feels like a proposal."

"Maybe. A little." He blushes a little so it wasn't what he meant but there's hope in his chest. That sings out through her so loudly that he might as well say it. 

"Do you want to?"

He kisses her hand and stands up, kissing her forehead as well before returning to his chair. "Kind of. Should do it better."

"Give me a few days?"

"That's not no."

He would always get a yes, and she smiles, weary and hopeful, almost dizzy with love. "It's not no."

"Okay then." Phil centers himself, and something in him finds a home. His resolve soothes her. There's a confidence- no- a choice. This time, now, when they don't have to save the world, now he can choose them. Her. "Should we talk about something else?"

She points with her fork at her plate, taking another bite. Talking around the waffle in her mouth, she smiles. "These are good."

"Better than take out?"

"I've never tried the Academy's waffles."

"Sneak some home and we'll compare."

"The company's better here."

"Good." He gets up again and returns with another waffle, setting it on a plate between them. 

"How many people are you cooking for?"

"They freeze."

Melinda nods. "You're staying long enough to start filling my freezer?"

"Frozen pizza and ice cubes isn't really enough."

"I think I have some pork buns."

He tears the waffle in half and adds half to her plate. "Eat."

"Phil, they really are good."

"Took me forever to get the recipe right."

"Oh?"

"It's all about egg whites, finding the right balance, but the first few times you try it just says 'fold them in' and that's not helpful."

"It doesn't sound helpful."

"You'd fold them like a shirt, wouldn't you?"

"Or a towel. My laundry skills are fine."

"Your laundry skills have never been in doubt."

"I'm glad you can give me credit somewhere."

"Your linen closet is impeccable."

"Thank you." 

He clears her plate, but lingers, touching her shoulder. She sighs, content, even in the pit of her stomach. He might have something more permanent than just allowing the Academy to think they're married in mind, but he'll wait. He's never quick with things, so a few days could easily be weeks. That's fine. This is all right. If they're going to choose each other, they should do it when most things have been said. 

Tugging him down by his pajama shirt, she kisses him, deep and slow. This they don't have to wait for. She has time this morning and for once she's not wishing desperately for a nap. Phil sets the plate down on the far side of the table, giving his full attention to what she's doing to his mouth. 

"Well, good morning," he teases, catching his breath. 

"It is." Melinda leaves her chair, opening her robe a little over her chest and pulling his hands to her hips. He strokes her skin through the thin fabric, running his hands up towards her waist while he looks at the table. The sensible thing to do is drag him back to the bedroom and tear off his pajamas, but it's a sturdy table. She takes a step back, pressing her thighs against the wood.

"Here?"

"You want to wait?"

He lifts her up, setting her on the table as he opens her robe as if unwrapping something precious. His rush of arousal brings color to his face and settles hot between her thighs. He wants, she needs, she demands, he offers: it all spins in her head. Colors and sensations, chaotic, desiring-- holding onto his shoulders helps keep her head from spinning and the sensation frustrates her. She's been lightheaded hundred of times, usually because she's bleeding, but this time she doesn't have that to blame.

"You okay?"

She hums in response, pulling him closer with her legs behind his back. 

His thumb brushes her cheek and he kisses her again, too gentle. "Suppose it's too easy to figure out what I'm thinking now." 

"I have a few ideas."

His thin pajamas leave very little to the imagination, and they're definitely sharing the same heat, even if her head's struggling to connect to the rest of her. 

"Should we?" he starts to ask, sliding his fingers up her bare thighs. 

"What?"

"Are you- birth control--"

She kisses his neck, making it impossible for him to finish a thought, let alone keep asking if they need to be careful. "You can't get me pregnant right now."

He rubs his thumb over her thigh, staring at little, pausing, and she sighs, tilting her hips closer to his hand. That distracts him. Phil toys with her a few moments longer, not touching but close, so close that the heat of his hand taunts her. He distracts her with kisses, with his tongue on her breasts, but she wants and he's ready and they touch, deepen, melt--

She grabs his back, digging her fingers into his muscles, tugging him close, rocking her hips against his. 

She moans, sighing into her skin.  "I missed--" 

He doesn't let her finish, and she loves that about him. He slips within, full, hot, familiar. Nodding, she arches her back towards him, head spinning with pleasure instead of the other thing. He guides her thighs closer to the edge of the table, parts her legs, shifts the angle and there- fuck-- his hand dances over her clit, teasing, promising and it's quick, but it's been forever and days and being in contact was so necessary that it ran over their skin like static. His rising orgasm heats her neck, pulsing through her while he thrusts. 

She gasps, panting, teetering on the brink of her control. It's too soon, but he's so close she can taste his release and they've been orbiting each other, growing closer like missiles. They needed this.

She crashes and he groans and she tightens, holding him until he thrusts again, the orgasms. Her teeth tingle as her blood rushes hot, filling all of her, even the foggy corners of her brain. He holds her close, letting her slump against him while she catches her breath.

"You're incredible."

Kissing his neck, then his shoulder, she creeps back to his mouth. "We can do better."

"Do we need more practice?"

"Just like cooking, I imagine."

"Imagine is right."

She glares, then drops her robe to the table and slips off, walking naked towards the bedroom. "I can let you imagine by yourself if you'd rather."

"Practical experience might be more fun."

"Then get your clothes off, Phil." 

He meets her in the doorway to her bedroom, catching her waist. He kisses her neck, then down her shoulders, moving her hair out of the way. "I remember wanting to do this in Tahiti."

"You did."

"It wasn't the same." He runs his hands over her hips, teasing. "I couldn't pick up you up and put you on the table."

"That was nice."

Phil kisses her, insistent, hungry, wanting, and she melts into him. He's half-hard again against her stomach, and he'll need time. Her head's a little foggy, but it's so much better than being exhausted that she can't explain. Maybe not up against the wall this time. 

She leads them towards the bed, letting his hands wander her skin while they kiss. He has so much more strength than Tahiti, and there's nothing to fear. No waiting darkness for them. They can take their time, enjoy it. There's no bitter. 

"I'm going to need a few minutes."

"I'm sure you can find some way to entertain yourself." She leads him to the bed, tugging him back. He starts to sit, but she shakes her head. "You can be on top."

Phil's eyes widen. "You're always--"

"You're special." 

"Oh I am?" He's teasing but her heart trembles. He's everything. She loves him, and being in love, letting go is so hard. She doesn't deserve it. She can't-- Believing is so hard for her and so easy for him. 

Phil's hand runs down her stomach, stroking lower, delicate and playful. "I can think of a good way to pass some time." 

"That's why you're special." 

He brushes her breast with his other hand, toying with her nipple. They're a little heavy, even sore. Does he feel that? Did she share it? He softens, turning his focus downward. He guides her onto the bed. "Sit." He parts her legs, kissing her inner thigh while she runs her hand through his hair. 

Phil glances up at her breasts, kissing her chest once before parting her thighs. Has he noticed they're different? He spent so much time with them... she can't worry about that. He's here and they shouldn't waste this time before she has to go to work. She puts the thought away, focusing on Phil and this moment. He adored making her orgasm in Tahiti, leaving her gasping while they waited for him to recover. It wasn't minutes there. He was tired. 

Now he's full of life. 

He kisses his way up, opening her up with his fingers before he finds her clit with his tongue. She moans, panting while he slips his fingers inside. He curls them up, in, sliding deep because she's so wet, wanting. 

"Phil--" She digs her hands into his hair, pulling him closer, trying to get him rougher, more pressure, but he's a tease. He softens his tongue and she could flip him away and finish it herself.

Or wait. Tremble. Beg. 

"Please." 

He sucks, brushing her clit against his chin, his lips and sparks rush behind her eyes. Pleasure builds, threatening, taunting- can she share it with him? Can she hold it back? Control slips from her, falling away and he knows, so he slows his hand, he licks instead of sucking and without the pressure it's like she's lost the air in the room.

"Dammit, Phil, please."

Harder, tighter, closer- he's such a tease. He loves that. He wants her to beg. She rocks closer and he pushes her back. One hand runs down her chest, squeezing her breasts, running his palm over her stomach. His hand inside curls a little deeper, rougher and her head spirals. He sucks again, hot and sweet and she twists her hands in the sheets, arching her back.

He pauses.

Of course.

"If you stop now I will kill you."

And she could, in several quick ways, slow ways, but he knows better. He likes the brink, the begging, the tension. This time, she can share it with him. Project her desire, desperation, longing, that maddening--

Orgasm hits hard, rushing up from her belly, blooming hot behind her eyes. Melinda might share that too, she's not sure how her abilities work with such things. His eyes are dark when she opens hers, and he strokes her cheek, kissing the sweat from her forehead. He pulls back but she tugs him in. He'll give her a minute, bring her water, hold her--

Or he could take her again, press her into the mattress, fill her. She opens her thighs, wraps her legs around his, pulls him over her. 

"Melinda--" 

"It's all right."

"I can feel you." He kisses her, resting on his elbows. "It's incredible."

"You were incredible."

"I was, wasn't I?" He smirks, lowering his hand to slip his cock inside of her. 

Her body's still trembling from the last, but she can control that, pull him in. Her teeth tingle and he's heavy over her, hot inside. He thrusts, brightening the stars behind her eyes. She arches into him, tilting her hips, letting him take her deep, He moans, panting in her neck. She digs her fingers into his back, holding him close, pulling him in, sharing that wanting- needing- completeness. 

Melinda focuses on her affection, her love, her desire, and lets him feel it. She drops her control and meets his eyes, pouring her soul into him, heart and body. For a second they breathe as one, overlapping before they crash. He orgasms, hot and deep, and she laughs, moaning and content

"That's a hell of a thing," he says, breathless in her arms. "That's what it feels like for you?"

"Just with you."

"Melinda-" 

"You're the only one who've I've been able to share that with." 

"It's intense."

"You okay?" 

He laughs, kissing her forehead. "You'll have to give me more than a minute."

Curling into him, she sighs, closing her eyes. "I have class in an hour, meetings after that."

Phil toys with her hair. "That's a lot."

"This is my slow day." She snuggles in, taking the time she has.

"It's a lot."

"Yes."

"Are you all right?" He asks so sweetly that her chest aches. 

"Tired."

"I've never seen you this tired, and I've seen you during three week deep over assignments where no one slept."

"We were younger." 

"We're not that old."

Phil chuckles. "Speak for yourself."

"Hey, I'm older than you now."

"What?"

"Think about it. You're from more than two years ago. I'm older, so I'm tired." 

He sits up, resting on his elbows. "That's all it is?"

"Mmm-hmm." She kisses his chest, eyes still closed. "I'm all right."

"Let me help."

"You are helping."

"This is all you need?"

She strokes his chest. "This is nice." 

He sighs, and she can picture his face without looking. That face means she needs to open her eyes. She lifts her head, meeting his gaze. 

"How can you help?"

"How many classes are you teaching?"

"Several."

"May--"

"It's fine."

"And meetings, you must have at least three a day." 

"Meetings aren't new, Phil."

"I know, I know." He lifts her face with his hand under her chin. "I'm good at meetings."

"You're not the director of the Academy."

"I could be her right hand."

She laughs, resting her hand on his chest. "Are you offering yourself a job?"

"You've been everything I needed, for years, decades. You were my council, my support. Let me support you."

She sits up, her hair falling heavy over her shoulders. "Phil--"

"You don't have to answer right away, just, think about it. You're carrying a lot. You're exhausted. I can help. I know SHIELD. I know you. I'd be good at it." 

Melinda kisses him, smiling as she shakes her head. "You'd be great at it." 

"Think about it in your meetings."

"When I think about you, I'll think about much more fun things than work." She kisses him one more time, then leaves the bed. 

"Well that's a great use of your meeting." 

She ducks into the bathroom, cleaning herself up. He'll probably distract her more if she takes more time to get ready. He's still in bed when she returns, smiling, flushed, very pleased with himself, as he should be. She starts getting dressed and he watches, patient, fascinated, and still very much enamored with her. That tingles on the back of her neck, warm and wonderful.

Buttoning her blouse, she returns to the bed to kiss him. "Offering to do my work with me is one of the sweetest things you've ever done."

"Thanks for not asking me to shoot you in the head."

She shuts her eyes, smiles, laughs in relief. "You couldn't handle that."

"Not at all." He stands up, chooses her earrings and hands them over. "These ones."

"Thanks." Melinda kisses him again, standing on her tiptoes and pulling him close. This should give him something to think about all day. "See you tonight."

[smallblueandloud]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for the writing ask- I AM SO SORRY I COULDNT STOP!!! xoxo

aaaah these questions look SO GOOD thank you so much <3 <3 for this ask meme, which will be open all weekend!

1. tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

i pulled open all of my WIP google docs for this and my laptop started whirring ominously, lmao. this is going to be a Little Long but i love talking about my wips so who cares!! (under the cut because EXCERPTS)

guys and dolls but gay - very, very casual rewrite of guys and dolls if sky masterson was a woman. i’m loving how chill i’m being about this one because it’s so much fun to not have to worry how i’m going to write lyrics in a not-weird way and just focus on the story. this one’s first because it’s theoretically closest to being finished.

sky, laughing: “oh? people. all the people you turn down every day. well, i imagine there’s someone out there that’ll catch your eye.”

sarah, stiffening: “...yes, there will be.”

sky: “and what might this person be like?”

sarah: “he will not be a gambler, for one.”

sky does not miss the pointed pronoun. “i’m not interested in what he won’t be, i’m interested in what he will be.” she sits down on the desk, in a pointedly masculine pose, and sets her fedora next to her - at her most Hot Queer, basically. “how will you know when he gets to you?”

my fic for the aos rarepair fic exchange - i can’t give any plot or ship details, for obvious reasons, but it’s 1.3k and i’m having fun with it!

steven roadtrip of destiny - canon divergent fic set at the end of steven universe future where steven goes on a roadtrip instead of... canon. it deals with some heavy emotions and it’s also a character study so it’s tentatively shelved until i get around to rewatching suf. but i am projecting on steven like crazy and it’s really, really cathartic. it’s taught me a lot about myself too lmao.

He’s never been anonymous before. He kind of likes it. It means he can fold his arms on the table and put his head down without Pearl worrying about his posture, or someone asking him if something’s okay.

In the last few months, he’s grown to hate people asking him how he’s doing, or if he’s okay. He always ends up lying, because he doesn’t want to worry them, and he ends up feeling worse.

Probably because it’s more of him supporting other people without supporting himself.

He should have told someone how he was feeling. He should have reached out. Sadie could’ve helped him. Lars would’ve listened. Connie would have hugged him and then found him the appropriate mental health professional.

(God, Steven wants a hug. Also the appropriate mental health professional? Whoever that would be.)

untitled aos fic - i don’t want to give a lot of details because :eye emoji: and also i don’t know much about what the plot of this is going to be anyway, lmao. but here’s an excerpt:

daisy “that actor who doesn’t shut up about data harvesting” johnson (@daisyquake) tweeted: two weeks :eyes emoji:

Elena Rodriguez | Seven Cents S2 Streaming On Netflix Now! (@yoyorodriguez) retweeted and added: the problem with being friends with daisy is that you SHOULD have some insight into what her tweets mean but you still have no idea

Fitz (@justfitz) retweeted and added: Try being married to her

untitled star wars twins fic - because i am a total and massive nerd. i’m just kind of stuffing everything i have feels about from the post-anh era into this and planning on figuring it out later? i’m really loving talking about the culture of alderaan (and the culture of the survivors) and also i just love writing luke and leia’s relationship... so much......

(no excerpt for that one because i’ve basically posted all of it in various posts lmao)

aos ds9 au - i’ve posted a LOT about this already and i want to keep the plot a surprise but fsk is in this and married and half the cast is aliens, what else do you need in life.

“Good morning,” says Jemma, coming into the room with her hair wet and her uniform crooked. “Hello, darling.”

“Hi,” says Daisy, turning her face up for a kiss. Jemma obliges absently as she walks past, looking around the room.

“Has anyone seen my hair clip?”

“No,” say Fitz and Daisy in unison.

and of course, last but never least in my heart, chapter 3 of the magnum opus - writing this is on hold until my brain decides to stop hitting me over the head at every possible moment, but there’s like... 2k written so far? it’s. it’s going.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Coulson, and makes quick work of the right gauntlet. It’s only halfway through the left one that his fingers slow and he says, quietly, “Simmons designed these, didn’t she?”

She lets out a quick breath. “Yeah.”

He stays quiet for a few more seconds, finishing up the last of the straps, making sure they’re tight enough. Finally, he says, “She should be helping you with these.”

Daisy pulls her arms back and swallows down some words, or maybe a couple of feelings, or maybe a sob. “Yeah, well.”

2. tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

the last sentence of the magnum opus!!!!!!!!!!

no, lmao, i’m gonna try to be serious. i really, really want to write some librarians fic in the near future? also MORE OF THE SENSE8 AU. i’m DYING to write some stuff about that. especially sam’s cluster, for some reason? Let’s Make Him Suffer (Comedically)! one day i’m gonna finish that list of what cluster/situation each song is about and then it’ll be over for all of us!

3. what is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

i spent about eight months imagining a scene where riza hawkeye was really injured and mustang was holding her in his arms (basically the promised day scene but with more privacy) so does that count?

hmm, just for some other possibilities: glinda telling dorothy about elphaba, laura somehow seeing or speaking to natasha during catws, a good omens au of the good place (specifically the ”i don’t even like you!” / “you doooooooo” scene), kencyrath au of star wars (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE, except setting up the first scene alone would take 7k, but i want to talk about leia and luke and their MESSED UP TRUST ISSUES in this au).

oh, also, something about star trek tng where jean-luc and beverly and jack were in love and then jack died and picard left. more specifically a scene set during the pilot episode where jean-luc very cordially offers beverly the option to transfer off the enterprise, that he wouldn’t dream of holding it against her, and beverly very cordially telling jean-luc to go fuck himself. i want to write 30k of that broken triad. i want it so bad. i dream of that fic. maybe one day when i find myself with a completely empty month or two, i’ll binge all of tng and Write Some Stuff.

4. share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

since you and i have tww in common, i’m gonna do a tww fic! otherwise i’d have to reread literally every fic i’ve ever written, lmao.

(this is long but i put this post under the cut so i have RIGHTS. also consider this a sneak peek for the j/d fic in the sense8 au?)

“It’s okay,” says Helen. She sits for a moment in silence, seeming thoughtful. “The Congressman and I are in the same cluster,” she says eventually. “I’d- I supposed that’s easier on the Secret Service?”

“Yes,” says Donna. “The-”

She stops herself from saying anything further. President Bartlet and the First Lady aren’t exactly quiet about who’s in their cluster, especially with senior staff, but that doesn’t mean she should go talking about it in an unsecured room in LA, of all places.

To cover for her blunder, she gives up something else: “The same with Josh. They got really lucky with him, actually. It’s just him and me, so they won’t have to worry about anyone threatening the Chief of Staff through the barista in the local Starbucks.”

Helen looks up from the Ohio numbers she’d drifted back to, a slow smile creeping up on her face. “Josh is in your cluster?”

“Uh-” says Donna, feeling like national security wasn’t worth whatever she’s just blundered into. Oops. “Josh- Josh is my cluster, ma’am.”

She catches her mistake the second it’s out of her mouth, but Helen doesn’t call her on it, more focused on other revelations. “No wonder you two look at each other the way you do!” she says, sounding delighted. Donna shuts her eyes, praying for this to go away. It’s not that she’s ashamed of Josh - it’s just so, so complicated, and other people never think about how difficult it was. Still is.

i’m just... i really liked the idea of donna fumbling and having to reveal this to cover up for what else she was going to say? i don’t know why i’m so charmed by this. i think it’s because it would be impossible in the show - you can’t show what someone was going to say on television, not without a lot of setup and very careful scripting. it’s just a really fun situation to write about and i’m really proud of this conversation in general.

also helen santos was a dream to write and i love her a lot. i kind of want to write one of the fics in the series about her and her cluster solely because like... look at her. she’s a delight in literally every scene. i love her.

5. what character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

daisy johnson!!! i love writing daisy johnson!!!! she is the most adhd character i’ve ever written and i literally just have to transcribe my own inner monologue and it works perfectly!!!!!

Swing shift: 1600 hours to 2400 hours. Daisy always ends up getting back to her quarters at like 0030 hours, when Jemma is asleep and Fitz is reading some kind of technical journal. Then she has to eat replicated pizza, alone, and freshly replicated pizza is actually pretty hot but it feels cold at that time of night, like, spiritually.

6. what character do you have the most fun writing?

...whoops i literally just answered that lmao. uh. i also really love writing sky masterson in the guys and dolls fic? she’s just weaponized hot queerness in a suit and i love her for it. she is intentionally trying to seduce this repressed lesbian and it’s really funny and also really hot of her and it’s so much fun to write.

also, i wrote chidi for the tgp fic and it was possibly the most fun i’ve ever had with a pov, although that was also because i was purposefully trying to mimic the tone of the show. i still think that line about michael and a grenade is, like, the funniest i have ever been in my life. but chidi’s panic was surprisingly easy to write? all of tgp’s characters have such STRONG voices, it makes writing fic ridiculously easy as long as you don’t get stuck on a plot for six months.

7. what do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? would others agree?

oof, this one is ALWAYS tricky. uh? uhh?? i’m going to ruin everything by saying this but i basically alternate between the same two sentence structures and i am really frustrated about it. i also alternate between the same two styles of endings and i always use the same beginning (set scene, main character pov, thoughts-as-exposition, back to scene).

BUT ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE i like to talk about emotions and relationships and character development!! i have my “queer subtext goggles” superglued to my face, lmao. i like to think about how characters must have felt about things in canon and how it must’ve influenced them. i like making people deal with the consequences of their actions, especially how it’s influenced they themself. i also just really, really like writing people who love each other, whether it’s romantic or platonic or anything in between. i just want them to be happy! i just want them to stick together! doesn’t matter what fandom, i stand by it.

[angry-slytherin]

I Don’t Need Much Saving(But You’re Gonna Heal My Wounds)

[T, Dousy, 917 words, Chapter 1/1]

Daniel was looking for a nurse, but maybe he got more than he bargained for.

[Written for AOS AU August: Day 5]

READ ON AO3

or below:

“Excuse me? Miss, are you a doctor?” Daisy whips her head to the left, following the voice coming from room 248.

“Sorry, no. I’m from the IT department. But I can get a doctor if you want,” Daisy smiles kindly. The man shakes his head, smiling back. Daisy is taken aback for a moment. Happy moments are frequent in this building, but not happy people.

“That’s alright. I was just- ah nevermind. I probably shouldn’t keep you.”

Daisy finds herself weirdly averted to leaving. “I can stay. I have time,” she shrugs, then holds out her hand. “I’m Daisy, by the way.”

“Daniel,” the man shakes her hand. “I know you’re wondering why I’m here. I mean you’re obviously working. Me, I’m the guy in the hospital bed.” Daisy takes a seat at the foot of his bed. “Car accident,” he meets her eyes, “just needed a little bit of brain surgery.”

Daisy laughs jovially, “I’ve been working here a long time. I’m no surgeon, but I know that brain surgery is never little.” She grins at the bandage wrapped around his head.

“Well I’ve been through worse,” he says it tightly, like he wants to share but can’t tell if he should. She nods, letting him know it’s okay.

“Lost my leg in combat. Pretty nasty send off for a limb, but I make due. I have an excellent prosthetic,” his lips quirk slightly.

“You served?”

“Only one tour. I’m on full disability now. Funny, I don’t feel disabled. I just feel like I have a fake leg,” his small smile appears again. Daisy feels her chest blossom.

“I was an army tech. For three years. I grew up in the foster system, and at the time I thought it was my only escape.”

“Wow. And was it?” Daniel asks.

Daisy’s face contorts with confusion, “Was it what?”

“An escape. From the life you thought you couldn’t get out of.”

Daisy smiles, then lets out an awkward sigh. “Mostly it just gave me some serious PTSD. But I found my family there. So...I guess it was.”

Daniel nods, “I’m glad. So how did you get into working IT for a hospital then?”

“My- this guy who is basically my dad helped me find a job after I left the service. I had the skills with computers, so here I am.”

“Here you are. Wasting your precious time on some guy who had brain surgery.”

“I don’t think I’m wasting my time. I’m where I want to be,” Daisy pats the bed.

“Sure,” Daniel scoffs.

“I mean it. I’m not just entertaining a recovering man for fun. I mean maybe a little, but you seem...nice. Anyways, what do you do now? You know, normally, when you aren’t having brain surgery or crashing your car.”

“For the record, my car was crashed into, and I’ve already had brain surgery. But usually, I play middleman in the governor's office. You know, helping solve great big issues like who should’ve picked up what litter. The boring stuff all goes to court, anyways,” he winks.

Daisy laughs, “Hey, that’s kinda neat. I fix computers which tell you how close or far someone is to failing health everyday so...I’d say litter might win.”

“Ooh,” Daniel mock hisses, “yeah, litter wins.”

“Has your family visited you at all?”

“No family. No siblings, my parents are dead, and no cousins or aunts or uncles or anything. No one from the military ever stuck. My therapist called those friendships ‘trauma bonds’.”

“I think I might have had a few of those too. So no one at all?”

“No. I had an ex who I was friends with, but she moved once the man who is the love of her life came back after being declared M.I.A. I’m happy for her.”

“You should have someone by your side.”

“Well, I’ve got you now.”

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere,” Daisy smiles. She can tell he’s the kind of guy who usually does this for other people. She finds herself wanting to be his person, his support system.

So naturally Daisy finds herself spending more and more time by Daniel Sousa’s side for the next week as he continues to recover. It’s a Thursday, when he’s discharged.

“You’re going home?” Daisy leans against the doorframe. Daniel looks up from where he is zippering his bag.

“Brain’s all healed. You look like you are too,” he nods to her jacket and purse in her arms.

“Yeah. Just about. Want a ride? Might be better than a taxi for your first trip out.”

“That would be great, thanks.”

Daisy and Daniel finish collecting his limited belongings from his hospital room, and eventually make their way to Daisy’s car.

“Ready?” Daisy quirks an eyebrow. Daniel hesitated for a moment, before slipping into the car. Daisy follows in suit.

After they get on the road, Daisy’s anxiety levels rise. She begins tapping a finger against the steering wheel.

“Everything okay?” Daniel asks.

Daisy shrugs, “Are we still going to talk? I mean now that you no longer need a bedside company?”

Daniel sighs, then laughs wholly.

“Daisy Johnson, you are not getting rid of me.” And thank god for red lights, because Daisy takes her eyes way off the road, and kisses Daniel Sousa.

“That was nice,” she smiles as she pulls away. He says nothing, just smiles back.

“I think we’re still gonna talk,” Daisy says slyly as she turns her attention back to the road.

[springmagpies]

For the AoS Ask Game: answer all the ones you haven’t been asked so far 😛😹 (if you feel like it obvsly)

Alright! Sorry it took me so long but this was a ton of fun! Thanks! 🥰

Agents of Shield Ask Game: My Complete Answer List

Coulson

May

Daisy: what is a name you always liked or wished you had?

I actually really like my name but I always loved the name Katie.

Fitz: what is an invention you wished existed?

I have said this before and I’ll say it again, I would love a dream translator. Just a device that you put in your ear or something and it types the scenes that you make up in your head. It would make writing a whole lot easier.

Jemma

Mack: what is your favorite 80s movie?

The Goonies!!! Hands down favorite 80s movie. It’s also just one of my favorite movies in general. My dad always gives me a hard time because I was terrified to watch it and would flat out refuse to because I thought the DVD cover was scary. Now it’s my favorite movie and a 100 years later he still teases me about it.

Elena: what would you say to the past version of yourself if you ever ran into them?

I would tell past me that it was going to be alright, that she’s loved, and to not doubt herself so much. I think future me would say the same thing to me now but it is always important to hear.

Deke: what is your favorite fruit?

Okay, I’m cheating and putting more than one. Watermelon, strawberries, and grapes.

Hunter: what are your favorite things to do with your friends?

I love to just sort of be with my friends. Talk and hangout with a show in the background. Play board games. It’s sort of our go to for hanging out.

Bobbi: can you speak multiple languages? what language can’t you speak that you wish you could?

I wish I could speak multiple languages! I’m trying to learn French, but I am not the best at it. I would also love to learn Spanish and Chinese. Can I just wish to speak all the languages?

Lincoln: would you want to be able to see your future? why or why not?

Nope! I am a strong believer that seeing the future is not a great idea. Life is about choices and--as cheesy as it sounds--the journey. Skipping ahead and catching the end or the middle just does not sound fun to me. Also, the future is never as it seems so you never truly know the context of what you’re seeing.

Robbie: what’s your dream car?

I would love a Volkswagen Beetle or Bus. My dad worked on Volkswagen cars a lot when I was little and so I have a soft spot for them.

Ward: what’s the dumbest lie you ever told?

The one that came to mind isn’t necessarily a dumb lie but it was dumb because of how obvious of a lie it was. In high school I lived with my aunt and uncle and one night my boyfriend at the time was sneaking out of the house. I rounded into the living room and my uncle was just sitting there watching Iron Man at 1 in the morning and he asked me why I opened the front door. I said that I thought I saw a cat. Yeah, I still haven’t lived that one down.

Aida

Enoch: what do you love about your best friend/friends?

I was talking to one of my friends about this yesterday. The thing I love about my friends is that we never fight with fear but always with love. No matter what stupid things we argue about we aren’t afraid of losing one another over it. We all can collectively speak our minds without fear of being hated or something silly like that. Also, they are just the kindest people in the world and super supportive. I could really go on and on.

Raina

Koenig

Donnie: what’s your favorite type of weather?

I love a warm day with a cool breeze. Like it’s just about to rain sort of weather.

Radcliffe: what’s an accent you always wanted to be able to do?

Scottish! I cannot for the life of me do a Scottish accent and I think they are the coolest things ever! My accent is pretty plain (probably because it’s the one I’m used to) so I really wish I could do a lot of accents. Sort of ties into my dream of speaking many languages.

Izzy: what is something in your life you are willing to fight for?

Friends and family for sure. And in a general sense, things I’m passionate about.

Davis: if you could visit any planet, what planet would you want to visit first?

Mars probably. I mean, I would love to visit Saturn but when my friends and I ask each other this question my one friend always says “that’s a gas planet, you can’t walk on them or anything.” So, Mars.

Piper: where’s the coolest place you’ve ever been?

I haven’t been a lot of places, but of where I’ve been I would say Hawaii. It was beautiful!

Trip

Cal: what’s a song that always seems to get stuck in your head?

Most Disney songs will just pop into my head randomly and then refuse to leave. Recently it has Go the Distance from Hercules.

Joey

Kara

Lucy: do you believe in ghosts?

Kind of? I believe that things leave a print of themselves on the world through memory and things and that their energy does as well. I don’t really believe in phantom figures or anything, but I do believe that there is that energy there.

Flint: what’s something you want to change about the world?

The inequality in the world. Racism, sexism, homophobia, these things--and many more inequities--have been a part of society for hundreds of years and they should not be allowed to continue anymore. They are prevalent in day to day life in ways that barely appear to some on the surface but have terrible lasting effects on people. I want to be part of the movement of squashing these things and moving towards equality, and be a part of keeping this movement going until there is actual peace, actual equality, and not just a new news story. I want to become more aware of how to use my privilege to help others, be an ally to these movements. And I want to create a world where people aren’t shot in the street by supposed “enforcers of the law” for being black. I know that this is just an AoS ask game, but these are things I believe strongly in and there are many great posts with links and many places you can donate. This is just one of the posts that I’ve seen that include places you can donate. 

Tess

Sarge: what is something about you that you think is badass?

I think that my kindness is pretty badass. At least I try to be kind and I think that’s a badass quality. I can’t fight baddies with my physical strength, for you see I am a weakling with twigs for arms, but I can be kind.

[putschki1969]

Hikaru Tsumugu ~ Live Report

Notes: Got a 2-hour train ride ahead of me so I thought I’d use the opportunity to write up a little report. Please note that I was very exhausted during the live so I wasn’t able to pay as much attention as I usually would. Also, I didn’t know 7 out of the 17 performed songs so I had a hard time appreciating them properly. I didn’t cry which kinda surprised me. Maybe I was too tired. Hikaru did get a little teary eyed during the Kalafina section but aside from that, she was mostly happy and excited. Overall I think this live was much more powerful and cheerful in comparison to Hikaru’s birthday event from last year. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t as tearful. Then again, I know quite a lot of people who were sobbing like crazy. Anyways, let’s get this thing started:

Goods: I didn’t buy much tbh. The pamphlet, the tapioca set, the pen and the badges. The other stuff looked a little cheap if I am being honest. A little disappointed with the quality of the pamphlet. Quite expensive but very thin and it’s made up of some sort of rough paper material. Some pages have ugly printing marks (;_;)

Stage production: Pretty simple I’d say. The musicians were lined up on either side of a small staircase. There were some walls in the back and curtains/fabrics on top. They played the PVs of Hikaru’s songs during each H-el-ical// performance, it was nice to have the lyrics on screen to sing along. and for the other songs they mostly used elaborate lighting.

Hikaru’s look: As you can see from the pictures, she had her hair down for most of the live. It was styled very nicely with big curls. She wore a bold red lipstick. The live started with her wearing the white gown/coat. Pretending to take a drink, she went to her little table and all of a sudden she started stripping XD (it was like the Blue Day “signal” performance). She quickly dropped the coat during her MC before “Fili” and revealed a sexy red dress which was very reminiscent of the old Kalafina days (laces, corset style). After the instrumental she returned with a long blue dress that kinda reminded me of Kalafina’s 9+ONE denim style outfits due to the colour scheme. For her anisong section she surprised us once again by dropping the dress and revealing the sexiest outfit ever!!! Black high waisted leather pants and a black leather bralette. *nosebleed* During the encore she wore a black denim skirt and a long sleeved H-el-ical// shirt. Her hair was up. I wish they would have sold that shirt too since it looked much nicer than the normal t-shirts she was selling. As for shoes, she wore shiny black pumps with white laces. Speaking of laces, laces were definitely the main theme of her outfits that night. The coat, the dresses, her leather outfit and even her pumps had laces everywhere. Guess it all boils down to Tsumugu = Spinning. In her pamphlet you can see all the threads spinning around so I guess she was trying to go for the same vibe regarding her fashion. So glad Hikaru was kind enough to provide pictures of everything!!

Musicians: Everyone was in such a good mood!!! Gussy (Hikaru’s composer and one of the guitarists) was particularly hyped, he seemed to be really into it. Was a lot of fun to watch them perform.

Overall sound: I think for the most part, the live sounded great. Hikaru was in good shape and sang her songs well. If you don’t like the studio version though you won’t like the live version either. Hikaru pretty much used the same singing style which she used for the recording. The backing vocals were playing in the background to create a little more harmony. I think Hikaru was far more concerned about having fun rather than delivering a technically perfect performance! Hence, she ended up sounding a little off key or frail at times. Nothing that took away from the performance though. With someone as engaging as Hikaru I really don’t mind if the singing is less than flawless. Just seeing her having a blast was making up for any missed notes XD Wasn’t a particularly big fan of her anisong section because I didn’t know the songs and she got quite shouty there but I guess that was on purpose. Apart from some slightly screechy shouts she also did some very powerful shouts!

Random observations: The live was completely sold out! BANZAI!! The goods were also sold out (including the H-el-ical// CD). So happy for Hikaru’s “major debut“. I hope many people will watch the anime so she can have a lot of success as H-el-ical//. As has already been established, Keiko and LiSA were there to support Hikaru. They sat in the first row of the second floor (at the very left). Akihiro Tomita was also there. I think he might have taken up the role of producer. Masayuki Ohashi was also there. He was the one taking the picture of Keiko and LiSA. Then we have Takeshi Kato of course. I am expecting a SPICE live report very soon. When Hikaru did her infamous goods corner she also introduced her CD. Once again she mixed up Kalafina and H-el-ical// when she said that there were eight tracks by Kalafina included (during the SPICE broadcast she also mixed up the two if you can remember). It was super cute. Old habits die hard.

Amanhecer: Great start for the live, I LOVE this song. She sat on top of the stairs and sang it beautifully. It almost seemed like she was sparkling in her white coat. Like an angel.

Splendore: The pace really picked up here. Hikaru was running around on stage, jumping up and down. It was amazing to see her so happy. You can tell she was born to be a solo performer (something that cannot be said about Wakana XD).

粉雪 (Cover: Remioromen): Didn’t know the song but it was quite beautiful. Hikaru did a great job. Definitely one of the more memorable performances of the night.

WINTER SONG (Cover: Dreams Come True): Another song I didn’t know, unfortunately I didn’t particularly like it. Can’t really remember any details.

Fili:The first unreleased song from the CD. I loved it. Hikaru said it made her think of the earth. Too bad I can’t listen to my CD while I am in Japan.

Avaricia: Probably my second favourite H-el-ical// song. Awesome performance. Her dress was perfect for the more mature and jazz-y vibe of the verses. But of course my favourite part of the song is the chorus!

yolcu: Hands down the best H-el-ical// performance of the night (and my favourite song so far). This is such a good song!! Can’t believe how much I loved it! The way she was pushing her arm in the air, I literally felt power surging through me. Also, damn, Hikaru was so sexy moving to the exotic rhythm in her red dress.

Instrumental: That was kinda all over the place, didn’t really like it. It started with some sort of extension of “yolcu” and then it became very slow with just Hirotaka Sakurada and the violinist. Then the pace suddenly picked up again and everyone was playing. No idea if it was a special song or them just playing random stuff. I didn’t recognise it.

ARIA & blaze & sprinter: The Kalafina section was super special as expected. Hikaru said that she consulted Yuki Kajiura on the matter, about whether or not it would be a good idea to sing Kalafina songs. Everyone agreed that she should sing them if she wanted to, after all, they made these songs together (as long as the songs aren’t released on DVD/BD I am guessing Hikaru is free to sinf as many Kalafina songs as she wants). Only fitting that she should sing them. Also, her live is called “Tsumugu” which means spinning. It’s about the future of H-el-ical// which she is spinning right now but also about everything that has been spun so far and of course that includes Kalafina. It was just Hikaru, Saku-chan and the violinist. They used the acoustic arrangements from past performances. “ARIA” sounded different from her Birthday Event performance though. It was even slower and more dramatic. I LOVED it. Every time I hear a new version of “ARIA” I fall a little more in love with the song and Hikaru. If you have seen that short snippet of “blaze” in the 10th Anniversary Film then you get an idea of what it sounded like. “sprinter” was super emotional. Not as tear-inducing as during the Arena Live or during Hi’s B-Day Event but still, incredibly powerful. I definitely teared up and so did Hikaru!! “ARIA and sprinter” were shortened considerably since Hikaru didn’t sing any Kajiura-go parts. For the most part she also didn’t sing the Wa/Kei lines. I think she sang“blaze” in its entirety though (except for the bridge).

History Maker & Paradise Lost & 青空のナミダ: I have a hard time saying anything about these songs. I knew “History Maker” from the Birthday Event but the other two songs were completely new to me. No idea how the originals sound like but Hikaru certainly knew how to make the songs her own. I just wish she would have chosen songs better suited for her voice. Occasionally her singing sounded quite off. Or maybe I am wrong and the original songs simply sound like that. Most popular anisongs sound quite noisy to my ears. Whenever I am in Akihabara I have to cringe due to the loud not very pleasant sounding music playing in the background (I feel like it’s always something by Ao Eir or LiSA...no idea)...Hikaru was sexy as hell with her leather outfit so I mostly focused on that. Thank God I brought my binoculars. She was really bad-ass during the anime secret so it was a joy to watch.

Existence: I don’t remember anything about this song tbh, except that it had a very rock-ish vibe. I actually thought it was another anisong at first but then I kinda recognised Gussy’s trademark style and concluded that it must be the other unreleased H-el-ical// song. I probably won‘t be relistening to this a lot.

pulsation: Nice powerful ending! Nothing else to say about it.

EN

This is me: I had heard that song before but I couldn’t really place it. Either way, it was a very engaging performance! There are a lot of ooohhh parts in the song, Hikaru would sing one part and the audience would sing the other part. Everyone had a blast!! This was probably the most active song of the night in terms of audience interaction. Otherwise the audience was pretty tame I would say. Everyone remained seated during the entire live.

TSUMUGU: Not as emotional as I had expected, however, the lalala at the end killed me. We didn’t really sing along properly (neither were we asked to) but it was nice to have everyone waving. More teary eyes but no proper tears.

[auduna-druitt]

Jim’s Kids

Fandom: Star Trek AOS

Pairing: McKirk

Word Count: 1903

Rating: Teen

Beta’d: none

Perma tags: @feelmyroarrrr, @wonders-of-the-multiverse, @pinkamour1588, @goodnightwife, @ryon1101archive, @captainsbabysitter-blog, @medicatemedrmccoy, @mrkrychek, @southernbellestatues, @goingknowherewastaken, @emmkolenn, @landlockedastronaut, @eyeofdionysus, @bookcaseninja, @haveyouseenmymind @revengeofthespacenerd, @reading-in-moonlight, @bubblegum-star-trek

McKirk: @pinkamour1588, @thefanficfaerie, @medicatemedrmccoy, @imoutofmyvulcanmind, @frostingsfics, @nasanatmfers, @lurkch, @bonuskaart, @illogical-potato, @future-kat-lady, @eyeofdionysus

Jim sat down on the couch in his and Leonard’s quarters and grabbed his PADD. Leonard was due back soon and all Jim wanted to do was snuggle up beside him and sleep. He’d already changed into a pair of sweatpants but had foregone a shirt. Reports were boring. He’d been looking at them all day but he really needed to finish them or Spock would be on his case.

Right on schedule the door opened and Leonard walked in. He headed straight to Jim and kissed him on the forehead before turning and heading into the bathroom.

“Good day?” Jim asked without looking up.

“I’ve had worse.” was the reply from the bathroom as the sound of running water reached his ears.

“That’s good to hear. That mean I won’t be seeing anything fun in the reports?”

“Not particularly. Ensign Jonas was the most interesting case that came through but that was a basic case of hypoglycemia. She hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch for some reason.”

Jim frowned and glanced up as Leonard walked out of the bathroom in sweats and an old academy t-shirt. “Ensign Jonas? Which one is she?”

“Picked her up last time we docked at home. She’s one of Scotty’s. Bright little thing.”

“Is that appropriate?”

“What? Oh, she’s about four foot eight, too thin for my liking, and she has dark hair and big brown eyes.”

“Is that a personal or profession preference?”

Leonard sat down beside his boyfriend and put his arm around him, “Purely professional Jim. I have my eye on a certain blonde ships captain.”

Jim smiled and settled in beside him. They sat in companionable silence while they looked over their respective reports and journals. Jim finally broke the silence twenty minutes later, “What was her first name?”

“Who?” Leonard asked running his hand through Jim’s hair.

“Jonas. You didn’t say what her first name was.”

“Oh. Kylie. Kylie Jonas.”

Jim mumbled something under his breath and went back to the PADD in his hand but a few moments later he had launched himself off the couch. Leonard frowned and dropped his PADD. “Jim? What is it? Something wrong?”

Jim shook his head and gestured to the PADD he’d tossed aside as he rushed out the door. Leonard glanced down at what Jim had been reading. “Shit.” Pushing himself off the couch he took off after his boyfriend. “Jim!”

Standing in the turbo lift anxiously waiting for the doors to open Jim was oblivious to the looks he was getting from the two girls from communications. The one couldn’t stop staring at his bare chest and the other was shaking her head at his bare feet. As soon as the doors opened to engineering he took off running again.

“Captain? Where’s the fire?” Scotty called after him as he ran past his chief engineer.

Looking around frantically he finally spotted the person he was looking for. Leonard was right. She was tiny. Already on the verge of tears he ran over to her and wrapped his arms around her.

She let out a high pitched squeal and tried to twist around to see who had grabbed her. “What...who are you? What do you want?”

“Jim!” Leonard ran up behind him and grabbed him by the shoulder panting. “You’re scaring the poor girl.”

Releasing her Jim shook his head as she turned to face him. “Captain Kirk?”

“Kylie...we survived...I told you we would. I told you they’d find us.”

She frowned and looked at his bright blue eyes brimming with tears. “JT?” she asked slowly.

He nodded and she wrapped her arms around him, “We thought you died...They wouldn’t tell us where you were...we didn’t even know your name...we were so scared after they took you away.”

He put an arm around her and stroked her hair gently. “It’s okay Kylie. We survived. We were the lucky ones.”

Leonard stood back and watched Jim with the ensign and he couldn’t help but see the thirteen and ten year old kids huddled together in that cave.

After a few minutes Jim broke away from the ensign and smiled, “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m just sorry I couldn’t find you sooner. If you need anything you know where to find me and my door is always open to you.”

When he finally pulled himself away from her and headed back to his boyfriend. Leonard walked him back to the turbolift and together they rode back up to their deck in silence. Returning to their room Jim went straight to the bed and laid down. Leonard sat down on the bed beside him and played with his hair. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not right now.”

“Okay. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Jim nodded and closed his eyes as a tear rolled down his cheek.

Six months later Leonard led Jim down the street toward their favorite park. He’d told Jim that he had a surprise waiting for him but Jim had been reluctant to go. He never wanted to leave the house on the anniversary of the Tarsus massacre but somehow Leonard had managed.

Jim was dragging along behind him but he was there and Leonard knew he would want to see what he had planned for him. “I promise you Jim you will like this.”

“Leonard, do you know what today is?”

“Yes Jim. I know exactly what today is. That’s the very reason I did this today. You can’t keep hiding from your past. I know you want to, I know it’s painful, but this will hopefully change that.”

“Boooones…..” Jim whined.

“No. I went to all the trouble to do this for you, you are going.”

Jim sighed heavily and let Leonard drag him around the last corner. “It better be good.”

Leonard stopped halfway down the block and turned to face him, “Why don’t you look up and see for yourself.”

Looking up Jim scanned the park, there were more people there than he had ever seen before. Kids were running all over and he spotted a couple of familiar faces, “What’s Spock doing here? Who are all these people?”

Leonard threaded his arm through Jim’s and smiled, “Well, the family is here for support but the rest of them you have to meet. I think you’ll understand in a minute.”

Leading Jim into the crowd of people and over to a small platform he motioned to Uhura who joined them and picked up a mic. “You want to do the honors doctor?”

“I arranged it, you’re the contact.”

Nodding she held the mic up, “Everyone? Can I have your attention please?” She paused a moment as the chatter died down and everyone turned to face them, “Thank you all for coming out today. I know that it wasn’t easy for some of you to be here. I’d like to introduce someone to you. Someone you may remember.”

She held a hand out to Jim and he frowned when Leonard nudged him forward. Uhura’s fingers closed around his wrist and she tugged him forward gently. “This is Captain James T. Kirk but you may know him by a different name.”

Jim looked out into the crowd and spotted Kylie standing toward the edge of the crowd. She smiled at him and gave him a little nod. “My kids….” he said quietly.

Uhura stepped to the side and Leonard moved up behind him, “Jim?”

“These are my kids…”

“Yeah. Your kids and their families.”

Jim stood almost frozen on the spot and the crowd of people shifted. Slowly a small handful of men and women moved toward him. They smiled up at him and Kylie stepped forward, “Jim, Do you remember everyone?”

Jim nodded and stepped down from the platform. “I don’t….I don’t know who to hug first…”

He didn’t have to choose. They closed around him in one big group hug. When they stepped back he looked at each one just taking them in. Shaking his head he wiped his eyes and laughed, “You guys grew up on me.”

“Thanks to you JT. If you hadn’t saved us we wouldn’t be here today. We owe you so much…”

“No. You don’t owe me a thing. I’m just so glad to see you all. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye. They told me we would stay together. They said I would be gone for just a few minutes. I didn’t know they were taking you all away.”

Leonard sat on the edge of the platform while Jim talked to his kids and was gradually introduced to their spouses. As he got farther and farther away from the platform meeting parents, brothers, sisters, at some point he lost track of who was even related to who. Someone handed him a drink and someone else handed him a plate of food. He sat on the grass under a tree with his “kids” gathered around him. They ate and shared their lives with one another. Jim smiled at the faces around him so happy to have his kids together again and to see them happy and safe and well fed. Once they had finished eating and had cleared their plates away Jim looked around for Leonard. He hadn’t gone far, he was still sitting on the platform but he had been joined by a couple of toddlers.

Nearby one of the many sibling, or was it a cousin?, was standing with a fussy baby. Leonard stood to his feet and gently approached her. Jim smiled when the tired young mother handed the baby to his boyfriend. He watched as Leonard held the baby in his hands and bounced it gently while talking to it. He couldn’t hear what the brunette was saying but there was no doubt in his mind that it was the most adorable thing he’d seen his boyfriend do.

Leonard glanced up and caught Jim’s eye. They exchanged smiles before he looked back at the now quiet baby. About five minutes later Jim had a baby in his arms as well and the chubby little boy would just giggle every time he blew on his little round tummy. Making the little guy giggle for about seventeenth time he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Make a friend?”

Jim turned and smiled at his boyfriend, “Even better. This little guy is one of my grandkids. Can you believe it? I’m a grandfather!”

Leonard shook his head and kissed him on the cheek. “You look amazing darlin’.”

“Thank you. You’ve met Kylie, but have you met Rhett and his wife Samantha? This little guy is theirs.”

Leonard nods to the couple, “Hello.”

“This is my boyfriend and I think I saw...yeah there’s his little girl over there. “ he said pointing to the picnic tables where Chekov and Sulu were entertaining some of the older kids.

“It’s nice to meet dad’s boyfriend. I’m glad he has someone and I believe I’ve met your daughter. She’s a smart kid.”

Leonard stared at him for a moment and then shook his head, “I’m glad I have him too and thank you. She gets her smarts from her grandmother.”

Rhett nodded, “Mama McCoy? Dad has told us about her. Sounds like you’ve got a great family. Lots of support.”

Jim smiled and put his arm around Leonard’s waist. “I do and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

[sweetlittlelie48]

[Translation] BUBKA (Feb’19) Goto Rara interview

It’s been a (long) while since the last time I posted on tumblr.

To be honest, I didn’t plan to release this translation upon her grad announcement but...well, here I am. She’s the type of going all out on everything she does anyway,so I’m happy for whatever choice she made. In this interview, she said she loves living a busy life. Maybe she’s found that university life is busy enough lol (or maybe planning to study abroad??) Enjoy reading!

The reason of “gap”

- It’s the first gravure shooting after you came back.

Rara: Thank you so much! (clap)

- Your expression is somehow…

Rara: Has it changed?

- I guess it looked pretty relaxed.

Rara: It was fun! I was really looking forward to it. It was a shooting session and I was also the only one there, I thought ‘I wonder what it feels like?’

- It was also the first time for the photographer to shoot for this magazine. Felt so frantic (laugh)

Rara: Though it was her first time, she conveyed her heedfulness well and also concerned if it went as what she planned. I really look forward to how it will be published.

- We think that it’s quite good. Well, you came back on stage on Nov.6 after half year of absence, but wasn’t the feeling different from before?

Rara: I was very nervous since it was a long time, but beyond that, I felt sorry for members that they need to remember new position as I came in. So, I was worried how everyone would think.

- And how was it actually? What did they think?

Rara: There were some who seems to have it tough but still said “welcome back” to me. I’m glad. There were also some members that I meet for the first time (laugh)

- You were apart only in that period of time. How did you spend your days?

Rara: I went to school and went to cram school as it is on my way home. For weekends and summer vacation, I went to cram school all day. Though I passed university’s AO entrance exam, I also thought of it in case AO is futile. The pass rate is also not much different from general entrance exam. So, I studied like I was going to take general entrance exam.

(T/L note: AO (Admission Office) entrance exam = the admissions office of a university decides who is admitted based on the student’s application, interview and an essay test.)

- Like an ordinary high school girl.

Rara: Very ordinary (laugh)

- How about your consciousness of being “SKE48’s Goto Rara”?

Rara: None. But, even when I’m in SKE48, I’m not so conscious about it. That’s why…(laugh)

- Hahahaha

Rara: I don’t mind it at all

- However, we think that there must be something different between an ordinary high school girl Goto Rara and SKE48 Goto Rara.

Rara: Umm, of course there was always the sense of urgency. Going to school in the morning, getting out of class early for work, going to work and getting back home late at night, then going to school in the morning again. Since it was like that every day, so without SKE48, maybe the sense of urgency had disappeared. But, instead of that, I need to study. So, it was another kind of difficulty.

- Exam was certainly tough. And in SKE48, you also had difficult time, right?

Rara: Yep, yep.

- (Matsui) Jurina-san was also on hiatus.

Rara: There was also 10th anniversary.

- That’s right. When you came back, is there any point that makes you think SKE48 atmosphere has changed?

Rara: Umm, I guess it hasn’t changed. But, I heard from senior’s opinion regarding the movie “Idol” that there’s a gap (of view) between early gens and later gens towards SKE48. I was like “Ahhh…”

- “Ahhh…” (laugh) I watched it, too. In that movie, the so-called “early gens” are the ones who decide SKE48’s direction, right?

Rara: Yeah.

- The movie was portrayed that the aiming direction should be equally decided by SKE48 as a whole.

Rara: Yeah.

-About this, actually, I wonder if the gens like Rara-san’s gen and the later gens would feel constrained. I became a bit worried.

Rara: Umm…how should I put it? But, everyone has their own dream, everyone has their own thought about the future, it’s separate. I think it’s different in each individual. It doesn’t have to be all the same. For me, I really love SKE48 that everyone becomes one when performing a live performance. So, when it comes to live performance, there are no such things like “gap” or “individual”. We did it with the thought that ‘I will not lose to seniors’, with the same feeling as them. We enjoy just as much as them.

- “feeling” or “the feeling of a gap”, of course it’s not what we can see with eyes, especially, for the receiving side.

Rara:Yeah, right.

- This is difficult, though (laugh)

Rara: The longer I stay in SKE48…The more I think that seniors really put their lives into it. Talking about the weight (of the feeling they have for SKE48), I think it’s absolutely different. Well, we have different way of living. Therefore, if someone tells me “(the feeling is) different”, then it certainly is different.

- I couldn’t agree more.

Rara: For example, giving that there were 2 choices, as the time passed by, it became as 1. The weight (of feeling) would get heavier, right?

- This is such a substantial conversation, talking about ‘Is this the only way?’ ‘Isn’t it so?’

Rara: Yeah. Since I still haven’t watched the movie so I don’t know what was being said there. I wonder whether that is “the feeling of a gap” or not. But from my point of view ‘even though there are a lot of differences, do we hold the same feeling when we work as SKE48 or perform lives?’ I thought to myself. I don’t think we are losing to seniors on this point.

- Working in a group called ‘SKE48’, performing live shows and lightening up together with fans, all of these feelings have never changed.

Rara: Even those other young gens, I think the feeling of fun hasn’t changed. I’m also like that.

Things I noticed

- You are having fun, everyone is also having fun because it’s “Rara”, right?

(T/L note: Rara’s name contains the word “fun/enjoy” )

Rara: Yes (laugh). However, up until now, I have thought that it’s fine as long as I can have fun. Even in theater stage performance…because I’m a shy person, I couldn’t make eye contact with fans. Is it called response? Right? I’m really not good at it. Since I couldn’t look them in the eyes, I always look far ahead.

- You were staring far ahead although it’s theater (laugh)

Rara: It’s embarrassing!! But, the things like ‘not looking because I’m shy’ or ‘enjoying it’, I think maybe it’s my own satisfaction. It may sound extreme, but even in handshake events, I would wear the outfit I like rather than the one that would please the fans. I am who I am. It’s like I don’t want to be tainted. When fans told me something, I would go “yeah, yeah…but!” However, once I tried to pull away from it, when I thought that I want to fulfill my dream, the power from fans that are supporting me is definitely indispensable. I began to think that I have to return it properly to those people.

- Because there are people who support you, you keep being an idol. Something like that?

Rara: Yeah. ‘Because I am like this, nevertheless’ I continued just like that…You may understand if you are 15 years old (laugh). Looking at it now more calmly, that was unfair. Wasn’t it only me gaining one-sided? Didn’t I return anything?

- You gained it, anyway. (laugh)

Rara: I felt strongly that I gained it even if I know it’s one-sided! So, for the people who are supporting me right now, though they may think that it is okay for me to gain, I can’t leave it like that. I want to return it.

- Even doing something embarrassing.

Rara: Huhu…yes (laugh) Argh, it’s embarrassing. I really adore people who can do something like flying kiss or wink! It’s cool!

- Cool (laugh) How about try doing it?

Rara: That can’t be! No way, no way, no way! I still can’t make eye contact properly. Even in handshake events, some also said “you divert your eyes”. I talked to them while I was looking away.

- Being idol is tough.

Rara: It’s tough! (laugh) If I were not an idol, I wouldn’t mind about this at all.

- During your hiatus, was there any moment that you thought ‘it’s fine even if I’m not coming back’?

Rara: Um…No.

- Something like ‘isn’t it fun to live like a normal university student?’

Rara: I never thought of that. I never thought living a normal life is fun. I think I wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Maybe, it’s because I have been living a busy life all along, I don’t like lazing around at home.

- If you were not an idol, is there a way to not laze around at home?

Rara: But I have no interest in clubs. Even though I once entered a very strict club, I still felt ‘so boring’ (laugh). There were also many unreasonable things. I really hate that. So, I wanted to come back quickly when I was on hiatus. It wasn’t enough for me.

- So you are not sending mail (SKE48 mail) so frequently (laugh)

Rara: Huhuhu! Yes, not frequently (laugh). I was told that I can send it whenever I like so I send it when I feel ‘I’m so tiredddd’

- Did you watch anything about SKE48? General Election, for example.

Rara: I watched it! When I was on the way back from cram school, they were announcing Senbatsu and Suda (Akari) san didn’t get called yet. Then, she got 2nd place! At that time, I was in tears.

- Why was that?

Rara: Well…I was so happy. I was happy when Suda-san got 2nd place. And at that moment when I knew that (Matsui) Jurina-san got the 1st place, I was really happy. I was like ‘this is so nice’ because I love both of them.

- Actually, many things happened when you were not here. Did you contact with any member? Obata (Yuna) san also wrote on Twitter ‘That dork is back’

Rara: Nihihihhi! Yunana (laugh). There wasn’t any member that I talk with all the time but there were some that I talk with quite often, like Maayan (Sugawara Maya). I knew that Maayan entered AKB48 Senbatsu.

- Time flies (laugh). Since Rara-san is back, what is your goal hereafter?

Rara: I want to do works involved with speaking! In the future, my dream is to become an announcer.

- It has been this one all along, right?

Rara: Though it has been this all along, it has never been so clear. I want to try a lot of things but when I was on hiatus, I watched “Dodesuka!” (a news report program on NagoyaTV), there was an announcer called Natchan-san (Shiojiri Natsuko). I always got a lot of power from her. It’s amazing that she can make people think ‘I will do my best today, too’ even if she can’t see them. So, I decided that I want to be announcer.

- Ohh, you will definitely make it.

Rara: Ah…maybe (laugh). I feel strongly that I want to become announcer.

- We are looking forward to Goto Rara who is back as idol. And, please make your dreams come true.

Rara: Yes! Ah, it was so much fun, today! I want to see the photos soon.

[bloojayoolie]

Advice, Ali, and Bad: When you want to show off your marks from knife play but don't think that would do When you realize a bunch of people here have similar kinks as you, but then realize that everyone here seems to be playing online and/or monogamous and you're a poly sub that needs physical contact. redd it When the friend that just played you twice in one night at the dungeon opens group brainstorming on mean things to do to you. iredd i well K. ireddt 344 ubmitted 2 months ar d 40 Flufty | Fuckable NSFW 19 comments share save hide give award report crosspost Submitted 2 months ago by 40 Flutffy Fuckable NSFW 25 comments share save hide give award report crosspost Fuckable N5EW 78 comments share save hide aive award report crosspost JUNE I-g d 40 Fluffy | Fuckable S. 47 points 2 months ago I got flogged on a St. Andrew's Cross and then she and another friend did wax play on me while I was blindfolded and she cut it off with a knife... And d 23 points 2 months ago 40| Fluty | Fuckable S while I was dropping and sleepy she started brainstorming "What other I can't wear my bra because itchy healing lines! It kinda feels like I'm hiding a secret... mean things can I do to Allie?" So far... Needles, sounding, fire play, blood cupping (maybe), orgasm torture (not denial), and Ummm insertions and strapon play. I have to clear some of this with my polycule. So far they all approve. t 17 points 2 months ago 40 Fluffy Fuckable Wtf is "knife play"? turns out I had an audience... I don't mind. Also H g 40 Flufty Fuckable 32 points 2 months ago Bdsm/kink play where one person takes a blade and drags it over your skin, with or without cutting. 3 points 2 months ago That... sounds really hot, except for the needles (whee, phobia). As Without cutting it can be fear play, predicament bondage, or sensation play. You can actually leave welts without drawing blood if you have a sharp enough knife. With cutting all of that still applies, but add blood and pain. long as its all safe. Although, what is blood cupping? 50 points 3 months ago HX x I'm a masochist, so I have long shallow cuts across my chest. H 401 Flufty | Fuckable 22 points 2 months ago When you've been single for over a year and the only physical contact you get is from your dogs :( Small incisions and then cupping over them to pull out blood by vacuum. In this case she wants to do that and then flog me while I'm sensitized by it. This is on the 'maybe' list because blood is a soft limit (almost a hard limit) for me normally, but I trust her. -frustrates sub sounds- When you miss having a dominant irl but are scared to even look for one due to how it ended last time. reddit Submitted 4 months ago by NSFW 11 comments share save hide give award report crosspost permalnk save report give award reply H 7 30 points 3 months ago just make sure not to cum on your cats ed 40 | Flufty | Fuckable permaink save parent report give award reply HM 18 points 2 months ago permalink save parent report gve award reply Ah. That sounds really intense and painful. All of this hot BDSM is more things I'd probably enjoy watching. I think wax play is about as painful as I like. 24 points 3 months ago Lots of cat qirls around here looking to get cummed on . - Lyra/Kitten/Mommy slut for ur juices HRT started 2019-1-11 4 points d 40 | Flufty | Fuckable 17 points 2 months ago I'm... Not a pain slut, but I'm a bit of a masochist... ed 40 Flufty Fuckable 11 points 2 months ago Needles came up because I really want to get my nipples pierced be willing to traln dd What I do with my pussy none of your concern and she thinks her ple And she loves marking people but scars are a hard limit for me HA Knife play is yes please, but cutting is a 'no'. It's a very fine line. (ao) HJ a 3 points 2 months ago 2.1 point 3 months ago HS Hey we got the same name (though mine spelled "Ali"). Represent I don't even have a dog to get physical contact from. permalink save parent report give award reply d 40 | Fluffy Fuckable 3 points 2 months ago It's short for Allison! :) HA n 27 points 3 months ago Poly switch transbian cuddleslut here We exist I swear. m 8 points 2 months ago H f just want to hug all the catgirls 14 points 3 months ago t H My gods, that sounds like a hell of an evening. I love seeing other keen Poly switch transbian cuddleslut doms, it makes me up my game. She does sound veeeery keen! Am glad to hear your going to have fun! t mel Hey, a e Sometimes female, sometimes enby, always kinky 5 points 3 months ago d 40 Fluty | Fuckable S. 18 points 2 months ago H There's a few of us I'm still floating a bit, 2 days later. We need to do negotiation some. She can't own me (my polycule would lose it and I love them) and that makes things a little odd. We're not romantic either. We're good friends and her alpha primal resonates wildly with my pet and prey drives. H No - LyraKitten/Mommy slut for ur juices | HRT started 2019-1-11 4 points 20 points 4 months ago Subby Introverted Kitten permalink save parent report gve award reply me too thanks (except inm actually bi not lesbian but bi culture is just I'm so sorry.... I'm sure you will find someone that will take good care of you! saying gay/les to fit in easier) t HH n I get that, sometimes a partner just clicks! Hope the comedown wasn't too hard on you. The solution I've found worked with my cule is having playmate status with folks, sort of commitment but only in a playtime sense (and the emotional responsibility with it.) 1 points 2 months ago pemalink save report give award reply pemmalnk save parent report give award reply d. 40 | Fluffy Fuckable 0 points 4 months ago H Le ph 3 points 3 months ago I feel silly and selfish because I have romantic partners, but my D/s aspects are a large part of who I am. Hell, I'm still with my old dominant on a non D/s basis. Clone, get back in containment! Basically, her PTSD and emotional issues got on top of her over the summer and instead of dealing with it she ended up abusing me pretty heavily ending with a breach of trust that left me dissociative and feeling 40 | Fluffy | Fuckable S-12 points 2 months ago ed worthless. .9 points 3 months ago Mine is complicated for two reasons: 7 months later I'm still not sexual with any of my rl partners really and I miss sub space and that feeling of belonging... And I don't even know how to go about looking for someone as a poly transbian even though I Poly Domme lesbian here we are a thing lol I have 3 partners I live with One used to be my domme, but couldn't handle the the kink community. am active 5 points 3 months ago responsibility it entailed. permairk save parent repart gnve award reply Another I'm still working out dynamics with because both of us are sub bottoms (different types) and neither of us pursue. Yes hello. If it's your girl friend who you have had for years. Do the sex at me a Subby Introverted Kitten 10 points 4 months ago C again as we commonly do. I'm so sorry.... don't feel bad. It's not silly or selfish to miss being a part of who you are... finding a new dom, I have no experience so I don't know how to help... as for permalink save parent report give award reply Things are cleared now with all but that last and I'll talk to her tonight or tomorrow. k 6 points 3 months ago Hs What 401 Fluffy | Fuckable nalun 12 points 4 months ago d n 7 points 2 months ago Oh, I dont Just needed to say something... I think the wives are tired of me having emotional breakdow can see how the history could make things complex, I'm . glad it's all been okayed with two of them, let's hope for H Je a 5 points 3 months ago the third! Then go have some fun. :P same here except sub! e Subby Introverted Kitten 6 points 4 months ago HC Hey... You can't control your emotions, if they don't want to help you through them then maybe they don't deserve you... ed 40I Flufty | Fuckable 11 points 2 months Fun either way. Just mooooooore fun with approval. Insertions and orgasm torture need approval and well... Being strapped to a table with a Hitachi bound against me and getting tortured sounds like heaven. pemalink save parent report gve award reply j 4 25 MTF, mega submissive, has a cuddle kink 6 points 3 months ago 40 | Flufty I Fuckable S6 points 4 months ago H9 Poly people unite <3 cross while filled, I have 3 partners. 1 is trans. 2 are cis female. We all live together. All, including me, suffered emotional or physical abuse when younger. They support me. They care. But if all we did was discuss our emotional issues we'd never get to the bottom of them and we still wouldn't be 'fixed' in any way. I could tell any of them that I need to cry at them and they'd be happy to listen and comfort me. It would also add to their emotional burden at a time when we've all been on the edge of breaking down. It's been a rough 2 months Not my best picture, but I dyed a huge black stripe in my hair last night and couldn the over conditioning to go away before sharing >.< (redd.it) submitted 4 munds bide give award report crosspost 5 comments sha n4 points 2 months ago HH That sounds like a lot of fun, you've given me some ideas too... My own 'cule may have say thank you at some point. here. o come pemaink save parent repart grve award reply 2 points 4 months ago I'm sure they all still love you and care about what you are going through. How elser are you supposed to fix your emotional issues if you don't talk to someone about e Subby Introverted Kiten d 40 Fluffy | Fuckable 4 points 2 :) if you want to bounce thoughts or anything feel free to pm. them... HM Oh gosh that pic hits hard... Feels like when I try to sub my emotions take over and as much as I crave it I end up bawling and scared at the slightest punishment even though I love my Dom.. He k 2 points 2 months ago Hey, little off topic and feel free to decline to answer. A few months ago I started dating two wonderful girls, and there has been talk of moving in togetherelationship, and I'm urious looking to r When you lost count at 10 already but your partner goes "congratulations, you're multi-orgasmic" and you realize she's nowhere near done yet. Submitted 3 months ago by - NSFW 56 comments share save hide give award report crosspost future b y ts 561 are going to work, is there any advice you can offer? d 40 | Fluffy | Fuckable permalink save parent report give award reply 40| Flufty 4 points 2 months Fuckable It really depends on you. We all share a bedroom. Two beds. We've had them pushed together at times for cuddle piles but right now they're separate for the convenience of a walk way. Then all our clothes go in our offices because there's no room for dressers in the bedroom pemaink save parent report give award reply 2 points 2 months ago Thank you, that's a great help. I was thinking two beds might be the answer myself but then I got in my own head about if I was just being insane... I'm sure we'll make it all make sense when it comes to it. 40 Fluffy Fuckable 2 points 2 H9 I lost count but... Gods.. gonna pass back out now.... d 40 | Flufty | Fuckable 151 points 3 months ago was near tears and too tired to scream anymore and just.. Unnnnnnnnffffff... I'm I'm starting to actually like my hair these days (40yo, 22months hrt) hotted d months 00 by ge When we had three, a California King bed worked, but someone always got stuck in the middle and overheated (usually m comment share save hide give award report crasspost permalink save parent report give award reply e 67 points 3 months ago HP it or was it after an op or anything? Holy fuck, NICE. Did you work up k 2 points 2 months ago tHe Yeah, trapping someone in the middle was also playing on my mind, constantly like 'what if they're too hot' 'what if they need to pee in the middle of the night what if they toss and turn'... I guess I just need to stop overthinking it and go permaink save parent repart grve award reply d 40| Flufty | Fuckable S 149 points 3 months ago Does not having sex for several months due to emotional instability and stress count as working up to it? I'm non-op, so no operation involved. I've been able to hit 2-5 with a lot of luck and work since about 6 months in. Mostly luck. with the flow? Tonight, my partner told me she was stone butch for the evening and I wasn't allowed to touch in response, then basically played me like a piano with the magic wand and toys and wouldn't let me orgasm for awhile. Then she ramped things up and up while still backing off every time I got close until I was basically just a needy puddle... then hit my switches all at once and wouldn't stop for a bit even when I was begging. By then I was hypersensitive and she let me calm down for just a minute and - 40 | Fluffy | Fuckable s 2 points 2 months ago Yeah.... You usually figure out what you need. Two beds with the then began teasing and realized I was still going, so she started very gentle and then kept ramping up on different places and backing off again. walkway is nice. Sometimes I miss. the huge cuddle pile while sleeping but not overheating and being able to go pee are pretty awesome Favorite memory tonight *after I suddenly came again without any idea why and sort of lost a few seconds*: permaink save parent repart gve award reply Her: "You are such a girl." Me: "What?" Her: "You just came because I told you I love you."Me: "Was that what you said?" Her: "Uh huh... and you looked really confused and went 'What the fu-" and came again." Me: "I love you too..." Also: "Oh god no stop what are you doing' isn't your safe word so I'm gonna keep going." The sexual revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[agl03]

Okay I'm totally going to need you to convince me how this is going to be okay because right now I actually feel pretty sick. I don't see how they have enough time once they leave the framework for Fitz to deal with this trauma. Fitz has killed a woman now, even if he wasn't aware he was doing it. And if he tortures Daisy, I just don't think I can watch that. To come out and have their happy engagement would be wrong and rushed. When do they get to heal? Where is the payoff???

Hi Anon!  And anyone else who needs this…

Its Going to be Okay!

This story isn’t supposed to be happy or fun, we are in a reality built by a crazy, evil book influenced, programmed by the questionable Dr. Radcliffe, and obsessed with becoming a real girl AIDA here.  She has twisted each and every single character.  Fitz and May more than anyone else. 

I’m just going to run down my major points here.  I hope it helps.  Again I am not ashamed to say that I am still enjoying this arc.  Its uncomfortable and frustrating as all get out.  But it has me rooting SO HARD for Fitzsimmons right now.  For the entire team right now. 

Fitz partly a distraction:

We all know that something the writers do is the fake out.   They have us looking at and focused on one thing so we literally don’t see the truck that is coming at us from left field.   Season 2 for example.  When Real Shield made their move it looked like they were our big bad of the season, that would be the arc.  When in fact it was Jaiying and the Inhumans that were the bigger threat.  So right now they have the fandom so wrapped up in Fitz….that we are ‘missing’ that thing over in left field about to hit us.  A betrayal is coming guys and its going to hurt.

Fitz has been brainwashed:

This is not our Fitz.  Period.  Iain said at Wondercon that they were two different people.  Two different characters.  Radcliffe said when talking to him, he talked about our Fitz as a different person, because he was.   We saw over and over throughout the episode AIDA manipulate him.  I see things like taking his hand, asking for him to protect her, of vocalizing they are trying to take him from her as the triggers.  You know how we know he’s been brainwashed…how down right TERRIFIED AIDA was of Radcliffe talking to him.  That Jemma was taken out of the picture even before she could be a factor in his life.  That AIDA boasted that she had manipulated this world and those in it to meet her needs and wants.  Yes, she fixed a regret but each regret built on her fantasy.

With Fitz this goes well beyond fixing a regret.  I still believe that initially making him the son his father wanted was just step one in AIDA’s process.  AIDA took him as her own. 

Everyone is Dark:

We’re not done yet here guys.  We have more oh please no moment coming with everyone coming.   And yes, Fitz is one of the most drastically different and one they are making sure to highlight but I am uncomfortable with everyone.

Coulson:  Yes he’s breaking thanks to Tahiti but he still let Hydra take off with one of his own students.  The big reason I think we have Coulson back is he is getting that “you did make a difference/Shield needs you arc here”.   Mace is not the leader that Shield needs…he wasn’t in the real world and he won’t be here. 

Mace:  I am really worried about this version of Mace.   While he is doing the right thing I’m afraid he’s going to do some things in that quest that aren’t good.  Not to mention that he is a massive threat to the lives of May and Fitz.  He will kill either one of them given a chance.  He almost reminds me of Jaiying a little here with the “One of us” comment from the promo especially makes me thing of this.

Mack:  He will do ANYTHING to protect his daughter (and low key worried how he found the Resistance so easily here guys).  He sold out Daisy.  But what was very interesting was his view on Inhumans.  When we first met Mack he was ‘against’ them for lack of a better word.  It was work with Daisy, Coulson, and Shield that helped him change his mind and become one of their greatest protectors.

May:  Has been twisted as much as Fitz has.  She has been in there the longest.  Gone through the most ‘reboots’ of the Framework.  It was her team that beat up Daisy.  It was her that manipulated Mack using Hope. She is number 3 in Hydra and is a huge threat to her own team as well as a target.

Ward:  So leery of Ward.  I really fear Jemma will be who he betrays again.  And its also interesting he could have gotten a shot on Madame Hydra there…#1….instead aimed for Fitz Hydras #2.  Just saying guys…our master manipulators might be at work again here.  For him if it comes down to giving up Jemma to save Skye…he’s going to give up Jemma to save Skye.  Just as Mack gave up Daisy to save Hope.

They are their own worst enemies: 

AIDA is likely the worst villain they have gone up against, a horrid culmination of everyone they have faced before.  She isn’t dumb she built this world for HER.  She is using loopholes to her advantage.  Otherwise I firmly feel that everyone but Fitz would already be dead.  So since she had to keep them alive she manipulated (even bragged to Radcliffe that she’d done it) those regrets for her gain.

She also has been in everyone’s heads.  She’s been around the team before. She knows they are the biggest threat to her when they are working together as a team.   So she either split them up or turned them on each other. 

She has also made them each others dragons.  It is clear now AIDA is in Madame Hydra.  She knows right where Mace and the Playground is but allows the Resistance to continue because it feeds into the manipulation.  Especially with Fitz, its another thing he has to protect her from.

I discussed in my meta last night that AIDA seems to be trying to make it so the team won’t ‘want’ to save Fitz (more lies, more manipulation).   Here he’s The Doctor, Mace won’t bat and eye if he can kill him  Isn’t going to give Jemma the resources she needs to get him alive.  AIDA has painted Jemma as the villain.  Leaving Jemma pretty much alone now in trying to save him (oh look another parallel).  She has Coulson for now but I’m betting he will be pulled away too soon by saving Daisy or getting to May.

She took Fitz as her own:

A lot of what AIDA has done was to build this world how she wanted.  To get who and what she wanted, and she wanted Fitz.  Someone who would love and protect her.  Made her happy.  Her interaction with Radcliffe very telling.  We said that Fitz treating her like a person would come back…and boy has it ever.  She also wanted someone that loved and protected her like Fitz did with Jemma…so she took Jemma’s place.  May too, she’s ‘rewarded’ May with a high position because I believe May respected her, liked her, called her brave.

But in taking Fitz in so many ways we really do have an epic love story set up here.   Jemma is going to have to fight to get him back.  I feel like part of that whole spectacle on the island with Agnes was for show.  That AIDA knew Jemma was there  set up that whole thing with Agnes so Fitz would see it.  Try to shake Jemma, make her think that he was too far gone,.  It also took away the little support Jemma had found.  Leaving her alone in trying to save him.  AIDA is scared as heck of Jemma and her saving him.

AIDA also doesn’t have him fully yet.   Fitz says he would cross the universe for her but he HAS done it for Jemma.

Fitz is in there:

In the horror of feels that was last night we saw Fitz peeking through more than once.  And every single time we saw it it was because Jemma was in the mix either in person or in a picture.  And only with Jemma, May, Daisy, and Radcliffe had no effect (though Radcliffe planted seeds, very important seeds). 

Aside for Coulson who is aided by Tahiti we haven’t seen anyone else ‘break through” at all. 

May:  Came into contact with Fitz, Daisy, and Mack…nothing. 

Mace:  Came into contact with Jemma, Mack, and Coulson…nothing.

Mack:  Came into contact with Daisy, May, Mace, and Coulson…nothing.

Engagement is Endgame:

When we look back at interviews from Loeb, Jed, and Mo they have been hinting at this arc all season.  And they have been setting up an engagement for Fitzsimmons all season too. 

“This young man as you have never seen him before” that was what Leob said at SDCC and also where we first heard the ‘reward’ talk.  And we have seen them pay off everything so far. And coupled with the timing of Jed’s quote in EW, engagement coming up in 15, hints all season, and getting their middle names.  I think once they are out they aren’t going to risk it again.

“It could happen.  If they ever get back together, that’s something that could happen in their future.”

And I’m sorry to say this but this is TV, A drama at that, we have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get this kind of pay off.  That is part of why we are now tearing our hair out and crying until Jemma gets him back.  And when she does the pay off will be worth it.  Look at what we got after Hogface.

The Fallout:

AOS has never ‘dealt’ with trauma and recovery very well.  Even Daisy’s recovery a victim of the Ghost Rider Arc.  It is often done over hiatus or “off camera.  Now we have a situation where its the whole cast that will have things to deal with.  So yes, we will miss seeing it but because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. 

We can also have the healing ‘begin’ in the Framework, especially for Fitz as he helps get everyone out or plays a part in stopping AIDA once as for all. 

Sorry that was a lot but I hope it helps.  Just remember its always Darkest before the Dawn and our Sunrise is coming guys.