#i grew up with electric stoves like

[lieutenant-sarcastic]

#this will settle it! this will settle the private conversation between two people who barely cook !!!! #weve said stove so many times that it ceases to look and sound like a word #i grew up with electric stoves like #yeah they WORK differently but cooking on the stove is cooking on the stove #ur not special or better than me bc u have a gas stove 😌 #i hope ur gas leaks and morgan freeman has to shooy u thru a pint of milk 😌 /jk #up to something #polls #edit: *Mickey mouse voice* ha ha! I’ve made a mistake! #This post was not supposed to escape !!!!!! Fuck !! #my brother: lol is this about the political shit that happened a few months ago? me: THE WHAT??????

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 5: Artemis, Goddess Of The Hunt]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 6.6k

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“So you smoked grass in college,” Aegon says, pondering you with glazed eyes as he slurps his cherry-flavored Mr. Misty. You’re in Biloxi, Mississippi where Aemond is making speeches and meeting with locals to commemorate the first summer of the beaches being desegregated after a decade of peaceful protests and violent white supremacist backlash. Route 90 runs right along the sand dunes. If you walked out of this Dairy Queen, you could look south and see the Gulf of Mexico, placid dark ripples gleaming with moonshine. “And swore, and had a boyfriend, and presumably, what, did shots? Skipped class on occasion?”

“Yeah,” you admit, smiling sheepishly, remembering. You stretch out your fingers. “I chewed gum, I talked during mass. And I loved black nail polish. The nuns would beat my knuckles with rulers, I always had bruises. I wore these flowing skirts down to my ankles and knee-high boots. My hair was a mess, long and blowing around everywhere. My friends and I would do each other’s makeup, silver glitter and purple shadow, pencil on a ridiculous amount of eyeliner and then smudge it out. If you saw a photo you wouldn’t recognize me.”

Aegon takes a drag on his Lucky Strike cigarette, weightless smoke and the tired yellowish haze of florescent lights. Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth is playing from the Zenith radio on the counter by the cash register. “I’d recognize you.”

“I used to skip this one class all the time. The professor was a demon. I could do the math, but not the way he wanted me to. Right solution, wrong steps, I don’t know. I learned it differently in high school, and I couldn’t figure out the formula he wanted me to use. So he’d mark everything a zero even if my answer was correct. I couldn’t stand that bastard. Then the nuns kept catching me sunbathing on the quad when I was supposed to be in Matrices and Vector Spaces. I racked up so many demerits they were going to revoke my weekend pass, and then I wouldn’t be able to go into the city with my friends. So I stole the demerit book and burned it up on the stove in my dorm. Almost set the whole building on fire.”

Aegon is laughing. “You did not. Not you, not perfect ever-obedient Miss America!”

“I did. I really did.” You sip your own Mr. Misty, lemon-lime. Across the restaurant, Criston and Fosco are eating banana splits—dripping chocolate syrup and melted ice cream all over their table—and passionately debating who is going to end up in the World Series; Criston favors the Cardinals and the Orioles, Fosco says the Red Sox and the Cubs. The rest of the Targaryen family is back at the hotel watching news coverage of the Republican National Convention, something you can only stomach so much of, Otto’s cynical commentary, Aemond’s remaining eye fixed fiercely on the screen as he nips at an Old Fashioned. “I was wild back then.”

“And you gave it all up to be Aemond’s first lady.”

You think back to where it started: palm trees, salt water, alligators in drainage ditches. “My father grew up in a shack outside of Tallahassee. No electricity, no running water, he dropped out of school in eighth grade to help take care of his siblings when his mom died. They moved south to live with their aunt in Tampa, and my father wound up in Tarpon Springs working as a sea sponge diver.”

Aegon’s eyebrows rise, like he thinks you’re teasing him. “Sea sponges…?”

“I’m serious! It paid better than picking oranges or sweeping up in a factory. It’s dangerous. You have to wear this heavy rubber suit and walk around on the ocean floor, sometimes 50 feet or more below the surface.”

“What do people do with sea sponges?”

“Oh right, you would be unfamiliar. You’re supposed to clean yourself with them, like a loofah. Soap? Water? Ringing any bells?”

He chuckles and rolls his eyes. “You’re a very mean person. Aren’t you supposed to be setting an example for the merciful wives and daughters of this great nation?”

“Painters and potters buy sponges too. And some women use them as contraceptives. You can soak them in lemon juice and then shove them up there and it kills sperm.”

“I suddenly have great appreciation for the sea sponge industry. God bless the sea sponges.”

“So my father spent a few years diving, and he fell in love with a girl who worked at one of the shops he sold sponges to. That was my mother. They got married when he had absolutely nothing, and by their fifth anniversary he had his own fleet of boats, a gift shop, and a processing and shipping facility, all of which they owned jointly. They just opened the Spongeorama Sponge Factory this past April, a cute little tourist trap. But my point is that they were partners from the start. My father listens to my mother, and she works alongside him, and it was never like what I’ve seen from my friends’ parents: dad at the office 80 hours a week, mom at home strung out on Valium, just these…deeply separate, cold planets locked in orbit but never touching each other. I knew I didn’t want that. I wanted a husband who was building something I could be a part of. I wanted a man who respected me.”

Aegon watches you as he lights a fresh cigarette, not saying what you imagine he wants to: And how is that working out? He puffs on his Lucky Strike a few times and then offers it to you. You aren’t supposed to smoke, not even tobacco—it’s not ladylike, it’s masculine, it’s subversive—but you take it and hold it between your index and middle fingers, inhaling an ashy bitterness that blood learns to crave. The bracelets on your wrist jangle, thin silver chains that match the diamonds in your ears. Your dress is mint green, your hair in your signature Brigitte Bardot-inspired updo. Aegon is wearing a black t-shirt with The Who stamped across the front. When you pass the cigarette back to him, Aegon asks: “What music did you listen to? The Stones, The Animals?”

“Yeah. And Hendrix, The Kinks, Aretha Franklin…”

“Phil Ochs?”

“I love him. He’s got a song about Mississippi, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware. It’s one of my favorites.”

“And I’m currently getting a little obsessed with Loretta Lynn. She’s so angry!”

“She’s sanctimonious, that’s what she is. Always bitching about men.”

“Six kids and an alcoholic husband will do that to someone.”

Aegon winces, and then you realize what you’ve said. Loretta Lynn sounds a lot like Mimi. He finishes his Mr. Misty and then fidgets restlessly with his white cardboard cup, spinning it around by the straw. You feel bad, though you shouldn’t. You wouldn’t have a month ago.

“Aegon,” you say gently, and he reluctantly looks up at you, sunburned cheeks, blonde hair shagging over his eyes. “Why do you ignore your children? They’re interesting, they’re fun. Violeta invited me to help her make cakes with her Easy-Bake Oven last week. And Cosmo…he’s so clever. But it’s like he doesn’t know who you are. He might actually think Fosco’s his dad.”

Aegon takes one last drag off his cigarette and discards the end of it in his Mr. Misty cup. Now he’s fiddling with it again, avoiding your gaze. “I don’t have much to offer them.”

“I think you do.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do,” you insist. “You can be kind of nice sometimes.”

He frowns, staring out the window. You know he can’t see anything but darkness and streetlights. “I should have been the one to go to Vietnam. If somebody had to get shot at so Aemond could be president, I was the right choice. No one would miss me. No one would mourn me. Daeron didn’t deserve that. But I was too old, so Otto and my father got him to enlist. Now he’s in the jungle and my mother has nightmares about Western Union telegrams. If I was the son over there, I think she’d sleep easier.”

I’m glad you’re still here, you think. Instead you say: “Your children need you.”

“No they don’t. Between me and Mimi, they’re better off as orphans. Helaena and Fosco can be their parents. Maybe they’ll have a fighting chance.”

The glass door opens, and a man walks into the Dairy Queen with his two sons scampering behind him, all with sandy flip flops and carrying fishing rods. The dad is at least six feet tall and brawny, and wearing a Wallace For President baseball cap. You and Aegon both notice it, then share an amused, disparaging glance. You mouth: Imbecile bigot. The man continues to the cash register and orders two chocolate shakes and a root beer float. At their own table, Criston is mopping up melted ice cream with napkins and telling Fosco to stop being such a pig.

“Me?!” Fosco says. “You are the pig, that spot there is your ice cream, do not blame your failings on poor Fosco. I have already let you drag me to this terrible state and never once complained about the fried food or the mosquitos. And that thing out there is not a real beach. The water is still and brown, brown!”

“For once in your life, pretend you have a work ethic and help me clean up the table.”

“You are being very anti-immigrant right now, do you know that?”

Aegon begins singing, ostensibly to himself. “Here’s to the state of Mississippi, for underneath her borders, the devil draws no lines.”

“Aegon, no,” you whisper, petrified. You know this song. You know where he’s going.

He’s beaming as he continues: “If you drag her muddy rivers, nameless bodies you will find.”

Now the man in the Wallace hat is looking at Aegon. His sons are happily gulping down their chocolate shakes. Criston and Fosco, still bickering, haven’t noticed yet.

“Oh, the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes.”

“Aegon, don’t,” you plead quietly. “He’ll murder you.”

“The calendar is lyin’ when it reads the present time.”

“Hey,” calls the man in the Wallace For President hat. “You got a problem, boy?”

Aegon drums his palms on the tabletop as he sings, loudly now: “Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of, Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of!”

In seconds, the man has crossed the room, grabbed Aegon by the collar of his t-shirt, yanked him out of his chair and struck him across the face: closed fist, lethal intent, the sick wet sound of bones on flesh. Aegon’s nose gushes, his lip splits open, but he isn’t flinching away, he isn’t afraid. He’s yowling like a rabid animal and clawing, kicking, swinging at the giant who’s ensnared him. You are screaming as you leap to your feet, your chair falling over and clattering on the floor behind you. The man’s sons are hooting joyously. “Git him, Paw!” one of them shouts.

“Criston?!” you shriek, but he and Fosco are already here, tugging at the man’s massive arms and beating on his back, trying to untangle him from Aegon.

“Stop!” Criston roars. “You don’t want to hurt him! He’s a Targaryen!”

“A Targaryen, huh?” the man says as he steps away, wiping the blood from his knuckles on his tattered white t-shirt, stained with fish guts. “All the better. I wish that bullet they put in Aemond woulda been just another inch to the left. Directly through the aorta.”

Aegon lunges at the man again, hissing, fists swinging. Fosco yanks him back.

“Are you gonna call someone or not?!” Criston snaps at the girl behind the cash register, but she only gives him a steely glare in return. This is Wallace country. There’s a reason why it took four years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to finally desegregate the beaches.

“We should go,” you tell Criston softly.

“Yes, we will leave now,” Fosco says, hauling Aegon towards the front door. Then, to the cashier: “Thank you for the ice cream, but it was not very good. If you are ever in Italy, try the gelato. You will learn so much.”

“I can’t wait ‘til November,” the man gloats, ominous, threatening. His sons are standing tall and proud beside him. “When Aemond loses, you can all cart your asses back to Europe. We don’t want you here. America ain’t for people like you.”

“It literally is,” you say, unable to stop yourself. “It’s on the Statue of Liberty.”

“Yeah, where do you think your ancestors came from?!” Aegon yells at the man. “Are you a Seminole, pal? I didn’t think so—!” Fosco and Criston lug him through the doorway before more punches can be thrown.

Outside—under stars and streetlights and a full moon—Aegon burst out laughing. This is when he feels alive; this is when the blood in his veins turns to wave and riptides. You didn’t think to grab napkins from the table, so you wipe the blood off his face with your bare hand, assessing the damage. He’ll be fine; swollen and sore, but fine.

“You’re insane, you know that?” you say. “You could have been killed.”

Aegon pats your cheek twice and grins, blood on his teeth. “The world would keep spinning, little Io.” Then he starts walking back towards the White House Hotel.

~~~~~~~~~~

When the four of you arrive at your suite, Aemond, Otto, Ludwika, and Alicent are still gathered around the television. The nannies have taken the children to bed. Helaena is reading The Bell Jar in an armchair in the corner of the room. Mimi is passed out on the couch, several empty glasses on the coffee table. ABC is showing a clip they recorded earlier today of Ludwika travelling with Aemond’s retinue after he made an impassioned speech condemning the lack of recognition of the evils of slavery at Beauvoir, the historic home of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis. The reporter is asking Ludwika what she thinks makes Aemond a better presidential candidate than Eugene McCarthy, as McCarthy shares many of the same policy positions and has an additional 15 years of political experience.

“This McCarthy is not a real man,” Ludwika responds, her face stony and mistrustful. “He reminds me of the communists back in my country. Did you know he met with Che Guevara in New York City a few years ago? Why would he do such a thing?”

Now, Otto turns to her in this hotel room. “I love you.”

Ludwika takes a sip of her martini. “I want another Gucci bag.”

“Yes, yes. Tomorrow, my dear.”

“What happened to you?” Aemond asks his brother, half-exasperated and half-concerned. Criston has fetched a washcloth from the bathroom for Aegon to hold against his bleeding lip and nose. Aemond is still wearing his blue suit from a long day of campaigning, but he’s taken out his eye and put on his eyepatch. His gaze flicks from Aegon’s face to the blood still coating your left hand. On the couch, Mimi’s bare foot twitches but she doesn’t wake up.

“There was a Wallace supporter at the Dairy Queen,” you say. “Aegon felt inspired to defending you.”

Aemond chuckles. “Did you win?” he asks Aegon.

“I would have if the guy wasn’t two of me.”

On the television screen, Richard Nixon is accepting his party’s nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida.

“He’s a buffoon,” Otto sneers. “So awkward and undignified. Look at him sweating! Look at those ridiculous jowls! And he comes from nothing. His family is trash.”

“Americans love a rags to riches story,” you say. And then, somewhat randomly: “He loves his wife. He proposed to Pat on their very first date, and she said no. So he drove her to dates with other men for years until she finally reconsidered. He said it was love at first sight. He’s never had a mistress. And jowls or no jowls, his family adores him.”

Aegon turns to you, still clutching the washcloth against his face. “Really?”

You nod. “That’s the sort of thing the women talk about.”

There’s a knock at the door. You all look at each other, confounded; no one has ordered room service, no one is expecting any visitors, and the nannies have keys in the event of an emergency. Fosco is closest to the door, so he opens it. A man in uniform is standing there with a golden Western Union telegram in his hands. Alicent screams and collapses. Criston bolts to her.

“It’s okay,” you say. “He’s not dead. Whatever happened, Daeron’s not dead.”

Otto crinkles his brow at you. “How do you know?”

“Because if he was killed, there would be a priest here too.” They always send a priest when the boy is dead. Aegon glances at you, eyes wet and fearful.

“Ma’am,” the soldier—a major you see now, spotting the golden oak leaves—says to Alicent as he removes his cap. “I regret to inform you that your son Daeron was missing in action for several weeks, and we’ve just received confirmation that he’s being held as a prisoner of war in Hỏa Lò Prison.”

“He’s in the Hanoi Hilton?!” Otto exclaims. “Oh, fuck those people and their swamp, how did Kennedy ever think we had something to gain from getting tangled up in that mess?”

“But he’s alive?” Aemond says. “He’s unharmed?”

“Yes sir,” the captain replies. “It is our understanding that he is in good condition. The North Vietnamese are aware that he is a very valuable prisoner, like Admiral McCain’s son John. He’ll be used in negotiations. He is of far more use to them alive than dead.”

“So we can get Daeron back,” Aegon says. “I mean, we have to be able to, right? Aemond’s running for president, he’ll probably win in November, we have millions of dollars, we can spring one man out of some third-world jail, right?”

The captain continues: “Tomorrow when your family returns to New Jersey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be there to discuss next steps with you. I’m afraid I’m only authorized to give you the news as it was relayed to me.” He entrusts the telegram to Otto, who rapidly opens it and stares down at the mechanical typewriter words.

“I have to pray,” Alicent says suddenly. “Helaena, will you pray with me? There’s a Greek church down the road. Holy Trinity, I think it’s called.”

Obediently, Helaena joins her mother and follows her to the doorway. Criston leaves with them. Otto gives his new wife a harsh, meaningful stare. Ludwika, an ardent yet covert atheist, sighs irritably. “Wait. I want to pray too,” she says, and vanishes with them into the hall.

As the captain departs, Mimi sits up on the couch, blinking, groggy. “What? What happened?”

“Go with Alicent,” Otto tells her. “She’s headed downstairs.”

“What? Why…?”

“Just go!” he barks.

Mimi staggers to her feet and hobbles out of the hotel room, her sundress—patterned with forget-me-nots—billowing around her. The only people left are Otto, Aemond, Fosco, Aegon, and you. The fact that you are the sole woman permitted to remain here feels intentional.

After a moment, Otto speaks. “You know, John McCain has famously refused to be released from the Hanoi Hilton until all the men imprisoned before him have been freed. He doesn’t want special treatment. And that’s a very noble thing to do, don’t you think? It has endeared him and the McCains to the public.”

Aemond and Otto are looking at each other, communicating in a silent language not of letters or accents but colors: red ambition, green hunger, grey impassionate morality. Fosco is observing them uneasily. Aemond says at last: “Daeron wants to help this family.”

“You’re not going to try to get him out.” Aegon realizes.

Aemond turns to him, businesslike, vague distant sympathy. “It’s only until November.”

“No, you know people!” Aegon explodes. “You pick up the phone, you call in every favor, you get him out of there now! You have no idea if he has another three months, you don’t know what kind of shape he’s in! They could be dislocating his arms or chopping off his fingers right now, they could be starving him, they could be beating him, you can’t just leave him there!”

“It’s not your decision. It could have been, had you accepted your role as the eldest son. But you didn’t. So it’s my job to handle these things. You don’t get to hate me for making choices you were too cowardly too take responsibility for.”

“But Daeron could die,” Aegon says, his voice going brittle.

“Any of us could die. We’re in a very dangerous line of work. Greatness killed Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Huey Long, Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Vernon Dahmer, Martin Luther King Jr., does that mean we should all give up the fight? Of course not. The work isn’t finished. We have to keep going.”

“Will you stop pretending this is about America?! This is about you wanting to be president, and everything you’ve ever done has been in pursuit of that trophy, and you keep shoving new people into the line of fire and it’s not right!”

“Aegon,” Otto says calmly. “It’s unlikely we’d be able to get him out before the election anyway. Negotiations take time. But if Aemond wins in November, he’ll be in a very advantageous position. The North Vietnamese aren’t stupid. They wouldn’t kill the brother of a U.S. president. They don’t want their vile little corner of the world flattened by nukes.”

“Still, it feels so wrong to leave a brother in peril,” Fosco says. “It is unnatural. Of course Aegon will be upset. We could at least see what a deal to get Daeron released would entail, maybe his arrival home would be a good headline—”

“And who the fuck asked you?” Otto demands, and Fosco goes quiet.

“Okay, then tell Mom,” Aegon says to Aemond. “Tell her you’re going to pretend Daeron made some self-sacrificial vow not to come home until all the other POWs can too. Tell her you’re going to let him get tortured for a few months before you take this seriously.”

Aemond replies cooly: “Why would you want to upset her? She can’t change it. You’ll only make her suffering worse.”

“What do you think?” Otto asks you, and you know that he isn’t seeking counsel. He’s summoning you like a dog to perform a trick, like an actor to recite a line. He’s waiting for you to say that it’s a smart strategy, because it is. He’s waiting for you to bend to Aemond’s will as your station requires you to, as moons are bound to their planets.

“I think it’s wrong,” you murmur; and Aemond is thunderstruck by your treason.

Without another word, you walk into the bathroom, turn on the sink, and gaze down at Aegon’s blood on your palm. For some reason, it’s very difficult to bring yourself to wash it away.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s mid-August now, the world painted in goldenrod yellow and sky blue. The Democratic National Convention is in two weeks. You and Aemond are posing on the beach at Asteria, surrounded by an adoring gaggle of journalists who are snapping photographs and jotting down quotes on their notepads. You’re sitting demurely on a sand dune, you’re building sandcastles with the children you borrowed from Aegon and Helaena, you’re flying kites, you’re gazing confidently into the sunlit horizon where a glorious new age is surely dawning.

“Mr. Targaryen, what is it that makes your partnership so successful?” a journalist asks as flashbulbs pulse like lightning. “What do you think is the most crucial characteristic to have in a wife?”

Aemond doesn’t need to consider this before he answers. He always has his compliment picked out. “Loyalty,” your husband says. “Not just to me or to the Targaryen family, but to our shared cause. This year has been indescribably difficult for me and my wife. I announced my candidacy, we embarked on a strenuous national campaign that we’re currently only halfway through, I barely survived a brutal assassination attempt in May, in July we lost our first child to hyaline membrane disease after he was born six weeks prematurely, and at the beginning of this month we learned that my youngest brother Daeron was taken by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war. To find the strength not just to get out of bed in the morning, not just to be there for me and this family in our personal lives, but to tirelessly traverse the country with me inspiring Americans to believe in a better future…it’s absolutely remarkable. I’m in awe of her. And when she is the first lady of the United States, she will continue to amaze us all with her unwavering faith and dedication.”

There are whistles and cheers and strobing flashbulbs. You smile—elegant, soft, practiced—as Aemond rests a hand firmly on your waist. You lean into him, feeling out-of-place, bewildered that you’ve ever slept with him, full of dull panic that soon you’ll have to again.

“How about you, Mrs. Targaryen?” another reporter asks. “Same question, essentially. What is the trait that you most admire in your husband?”

And in the cascading clicks of photographs being captured, your mind goes entirely blank. You can think of so many other people—Aegon, Ari, Alicent, Daeron, Fosco, Cosmo—but not Aemond. It’s like you’ve blocked him out somehow, like he’s a sketch you erased. But you can’t hesitate. You can’t let the uncertainty read on your face. You begin speaking without knowing where you’re going, something that is rare for you. “Aemond is the most tenacious person I’ve ever met. When he has a goal in mind, nothing can stop him.” You pause, and there are a few awkward chuckles from the journalists. You swiftly recover. “He never stops learning. He always knows the right thing to do or say. And what he wants more than anything is to serve the American people. Aemond won’t disappoint you. He’s not capable of it. He will do whatever it takes to make this country more prosperous, more peaceful, and more free.”

There are applause and gracious thank yous, but Aemond gives you a look—just for a second, just long enough that you can catch it—that warns you to get it together. Fifteen minutes later, he and the flock of reporters are headed to one of the guest houses to conduct a long-form interview. This will be the bulk of the article; you will appear in one or two photos, you will supply a few quotes. The rest of the story is Aemond. You are an accessory, like a belt or a bracelet. He’s the person who picks you out of a drawer each morning and wears you until you go out of fashion.

Released from your obligations, you return to the main house and disappear into your upstairs bathroom. You are there for fifteen minutes and emerge rattled, routed. You pace aimlessly around your bedroom for a while, then try again; still no luck. You go back outside and stare blankly at the ocean, wondering what you’re going to do. Down on the beach, Fosco is teaching the kids how to yo-yo. Ludwika is sunbathing in a bikini.

“What’s wrong with you?”

You whirl to see Aegon, popping a Valium into his mouth and washing it down with a splash of straight rum from a coffee mug. “Huh? Nothing. I’m great.”

“No, something’s wrong. You look lost. You look like me.”

You gaze out over the ocean again, chewing your lower lip.

Aegon snickers, fascinated, sensing a scandal. “What did you do?”

Your eyes drift to him. “You can’t make fun of me.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

There is a long, heavy lull before you answer. When you speak, it’s all in a rush, like you can’t unburden yourself of the words fast enough. “I put a tampon in and I can’t get it out.”

Aegon immediately breaks his promise and cackles. “You did what?!” Then he tries to be serious. “Wait. Sorry. Uh, really?”

You’re on the verge of tears. “I’ve been bleeding since I had the baby, and I hate using tampons, I almost never do, but Aemond wanted me to wear this dress for the photoshoot and it’s super gauzy and from certain angles I felt like I could see the pad bulge when I checked in the mirror, so I put a tampon in for the first time in probably a year. I’m not even supposed to be using them for another few weeks because my uterus isn’t healed all the way or whatever. And now I can’t get it out and it’s been in there for like six hours and I’m scared I’m going to get an infection and die in the most pointless, humiliating way imaginable.”

“Okay, calm down, calm down,” Aegon says. “There’s no string?”

“No, I’ve checked multiple times. It must be a defective one and they forgot to put a string in it at the factory and I didn’t notice, or the string somehow got tucked under it, I don’t know, but I can’t get it out, it’s like…the angle isn’t right. I can just barely feel it with my fingertips, but I can’t grab it. I’m going to have to go to the hospital to get it taken out, but I’m scared word will spread and journalists will show up to get photos when I leave and then everyone will be asking me why I was at the emergency room to begin with and I’m going to have to make up something and…and…” You can’t talk anymore. There are other reasons why you don’t want to go to the hospital. You haven’t stepped foot in one since Ari died; the thought makes you feel like you are looking down to see blood on your thighs all over again, like you’ll never have enough air in your lungs.

“Did you bleed through it? Because that should help it slide out easier.”

“I don’t know,” you moan miserably. “I mean, I guess I did, because there was blood when I checked a few minutes ago. I had to stuff my underwear with toilet paper.”

“Why didn’t you just tell Aemond you couldn’t wear this dress?”

You give him an impatient glance. “I’m tired of having the same conversation.” When do you think you’ll be done bleeding? When do you think it’ll be time to start trying again?

Aegon sighs. “Do you want me to get it out for you?”

“Please stop. I’m really panicking here.”

“I’m not joking.”

You stare at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“I have fished many objects out of many orifices, you cannot shock me. I am unshockable.”

“I’d rather walk down to the sand right now and strangle myself with Fosco’s yo-yo.”

“Okay. So who are you gonna ask to drive you to the hospital?”

You hesitate.

“I’d offer to do it,” Aegon says, grinning, holding up his mug. “But I’m in no condition to drive.”

“But you are in the proper condition to extract a rogue tampon, huh?”

“Two minutes tops. That’s a guarantee. My personal best is fifteen seconds. And that was for a lost condom, much trickier to locate than a tampon.”

Perhaps paradoxically, the more you consider his offer, the more tempting it seems. No complicated trip and cover story? Over in just a few minutes? “If you ever tell anyone about this, I will never forgive you. I will hate you forever.”

Aegon taunts: “I thought you already hated me.”

You aren’t sure what you feel for him, but it’s certainly not hate. Not anymore. “Where would we do it?”

“In my office. And by that I mean my basement.”

“Your filthy, disease-ridden basement? On your shag carpet full of crabs?”

“You’re in luck,” he jokes. “My crab exterminator service just came by yesterday.”

You exhale in a low, despairing groan.

“Hey, would you rather do it on the dining room table? I’m game. Your choice.”

You watch the seagulls swooping in the afternoon air, the banners of sailboats on the glittering water. “Okay. The basement.”

You walk with Aegon to the house and—after ensuring that no one is around to notice—sneak with him down the creaking basement steps, the door locked behind you. Aegon is darting around; he sets a small trashcan by the carpet and tosses you two towels, then goes to wash his hands in his tiny bathroom, not nearly enough room for someone to stretch out across the linoleum floor.

You’re surveying the scene nervously. “I don’t want to get blood all over your stuff.”

“You’re the cleanest thing that’s ever been on that carpet. Lie down.”

You place one towel on the green shag carpet, then whisk off your panties, discard the bloody knot of toilet paper in the trashcan, and pull the skirt of your dress up around your waist so it’s out of the way. Then you sit down and drape the second towel over your thighs so you’re hidden from him, like you’re about to be examined by a doctor. Your heart is thumping, but you don’t exactly feel like you want to stop. It’s more exhilarating than fear, you think; it is forbidden, it is shameful, it is a microscopic betrayal of Aemond that he’ll never know about.

Aegon moseys out of the bathroom, flicking drops of water from his hands. He wears one of his usual counterculture uniforms: a frayed green army jacket with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, khaki shorts, tan moccasins. He kicks them off before he kneels on the shag carpet. He checks the clock on the wall. “2:07. I promised two minutes max. Let’s see how I do. Ready?”

You rest the back of your head on your linked hands, raise your knees, take a deep and unsteady breath. “Ready.”

But he can see that you’re shaking. “Hey,” Aegon says kindly, pressing his hand down on the towel so you’re covered. “Do you want me to go to the hospital with you? I’ll try to distract people. I’ll pretend I’m having a seizure or something.”

“No, I’m okay,” you insist. “I just want it out. I want this over with.”

“Got it.” And then he begins. He stares at the wall to his left, not looking at you, navigating by feel. You feel the pressure of two fingers, a stretching that is not entirely unpleasant. He’s warm and careful, strangely unobtrusive. Still, you suck in a breath and shift on the carpet. “Shh, shh, shh,” Aegon whispers, skimming his other hand up and down the inside of your thigh, and shiver like you’ve never felt before rolls backwards up the length of your spine. “Relax. You alright?”

“Fine. Totally fine.”

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely in there,” Aegon says. His brow is creased with comprehension. “No string…you’re right, it must either be tangled up somehow or it never had one to begin with. Maybe you accidentally inserted it upside down.”

“Now you insult my intelligence. As if I’m not embarrassed enough.”

“I should have put on a record to set the mood. What gets you going, Marvin Gaye? Elvis?”

“The seductive voice of Richard Milhous Nixon. Maybe you can get him on the phone.”

Aegon laughs hysterically. His fingertips push the tampon against your cervix and you yelp. “Sorry, sorry, my mistake,” Aegon says. There are beads of sweat on his forehead, on his temples; now his eyes are squeezed shut. “I’m gonna try to wiggle it out…”

As he works, there are sensations you can’t quite explain: a very slow-building indistinct desire, a loosening, a readying, a drop in your belly when you think about the fact that he’s the one touching you. Then he happens to press in just the right spot and there is a sudden pang of real pleasure—craving, aching, a deep red flare of previously unfathomable temptation—and you instinctively reach for him. You hand meets his forearm, and for the first time since he started Aegon looks at your face, alarmed, afraid that he’s hurt you again. But once your eyes meet you’re both trapped there, and you can’t pretend you’re not, his fingers still inside you, his pulse racing, a rivulet of sweat snaking down the side of his face, his eyes an opaque murky blue like water you’re desperate to claw your way into. You know what you want to tell him, but the words are impossible. Don’t stop. Come closer.

Aegon clears his throat, forces himself to look away, and at last dislodges the tampon. It appears dark and bloody in his grasp. “No string,” he confirms, holding it up and turning it so you can see. “Factory reject.”

“Just like you.”

He glances at the clock. “2:09. I delivered precisely what was promised.” He chucks the tampon into the trashcan and then grins as he helps pull you upright with his clean hand. “So do you like to cuddle afterwards, or…?”

You’re giggling, covering your flushed face. “Shut up.”

“Personally, I enjoy being ridden into the ground and then called a good boy.”

“Go away.” You nod to where he disposed of the tampon and say before stopping to think: “You’re not going to keep that under your ashtray too?”

Aegon freezes and blinks at you. He smiles slowly, cautiously. “No, I think that would be a little unorthodox, even for me.” He pitches you a clean washcloth from the bathroom closet. “That should get you upstairs.”

“Thanks.” You shove it between your legs and rise to your feet, smoothing the skirt of your dress. “I owe you something. I’m not sure what, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Hey,” Aegon says, and waits for you to turn to him. “Maybe I’m not that bad.”

“Maybe,” you agree thoughtfully.

Just before you hurry upstairs, you steal a glimpse of Aegon in the bathroom, the door kicked only half-closed. He has turned on the water, but he’s not using it yet. Aegon is staring down at the blood on his hand, half-dried scarlet impermanent ink.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, it’s me again. I’m in solitary confinement. There’s a guy in the cell next to mine; we talk to each other with a modified version of Morse code. Tap tap tap on the wall, he taps back, etcetera etcetera, you get the idea. You’re not going to believe this, but he says his name is John McCain. Well, actually, he told me his name is Jobm McCbin, but I think that’s because I translated the taps wrong. I might be in the Hanoi Hilton, but at least they have me in the VIP section! Hahaha.

Every few hours the guards show up to do a very impressive magic trick: they wave their batons like wands, I turn black and blue. Sometimes one of my teeth even disappears. Isn’t that something? Houdini would love it. There’s a rat that I’m making friends with. I give her nibbles of my stale bread, she gives me someone to talk to. She’s good company. I’ve named her Tessarion.

Allow me to make something absolutely fucking clear.

I would very much like to be rescued.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon x y/n #aegon x you #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon targaryen x you

[16woodsequ]

Sunday Steve - Day Ten

Things that would be new or unfamiliar to Steve in the 21st century, either due to the time period he grew up in, or his social-economic status and other such factors.

Day Ten: Laundry — Washer and Dryers

Washing Machine

1920s ad for a Thor brand washing machine. One of the first electric washing machines. Note the exposed motor underneath that could shock users when wet. (Imagine Steve associating Thor with washing machines 😆).

Laundry machines have a long history. The first washing machines were invented in the late 1800s. There were mechanical, hand powered machines, consisting of drums full of water and handles to agitate the laundry and turn the rollers to squeeze water from washed clothes.

However, these devices were most common in middle class families. Poor families who could not afford the machines and rich families who did not have to worry about the labour of laundry likely did not have these machines.

Laundry was a laborious task and families who could afford it had hired help to do their laundry or they sent out their laundry to be cleaned and returned.

Here is an account of laundry days in the 1920s for a family who had a scullery. They used a 'washing copper' tub that was built into the floor and had a space for a fire underneath. It is interesting how it describes typical washing without a washing machine, but Steve and Sarah likely lived in a tenement apartment building and did not have these facilities available to them.

We will get into what Sarah probably did when Steve was growing up. But one last laundry innovation to talk about in the 20s was the electric washer. The first electrical washer appeared in the US before the first World War thanks to the invention of the small electric motor (Link).

This blog page gives a good overview of how a domestic electric washing machine worked in 1927. The metal drum was manually filled with water (if you didn't have a hose, lifting and pouring water into the drum was your fate). Pre-prepared soap was added then pre-soaked clothes could be washed. The machines could handle about ten pounds, so clothes had to be regularly transferred in and out. After the wash, clothes were wrung out and put in scalding rinse water to remove soap. Clothes were then wrung out again (maybe rinsed a few more times), starched, and hung to dry. Some families had heated dryer cupboards to hang their clothes.

Domestic washing machines inside the home were not common before the 50s. They were growing in popularity in the 30s, but I doubt Steve every used any type of washing machine in his own home. Depending on how well off you feel the Barneses were they may have had one, but I still feel this wasn't very likely.

In 1920 only 8% of US families owned a washing machine. And by 1941 "only 52% of U.S. families owned or had interior access to an electric washing machine—almost half of families were still hand rubbing or hand cranking laundry or using commercial services" (Link).

Tenement Laundry Days

Reproduction of 1928-1935 tenement house.

Reproduction of 1890s era tenement apartment.

Wash days were usually on Monday. Sarah probably did these steps: Soaking the laundry, scrubbing, boiling, wringing, rinsing, wringing agin, and finally, hanging to dry. (Link)

In the second picture above a scrub board can be seen in the deep sink. The sink was likely used for soaking, scrubbing and rinsing. Scrub boards were used well into the 20th century.

While indoor plumping for tenements was becoming common in the 20s (especially for toilets), if they didn't have running water Sarah would have to trek up and down flights of stairs to fill her tub from the tap in the yard. (Link) This would most likely only be the case if Steve and Sarah lived in a pre-1905 tenement building as laws about tenements changed around that time. However, many tenements were cold water flats, so water would be boiled on the stove.

In the picture above you can see a large oblong metal tub on the stove. This is likely what was used for boiling.

After soaking (usually started Sunday night) clothes that were still soiled would be scrubbed, then the laundry was boiled. Clothes were boiled in water for an hour and stirred with a rod or wooden stick. They would then be removed with a fork or a rod, wrung out, rinsed (to remove soap) and wrung out again.

If Sarah (or Winifred) was able to afford it she may have a mangle to squeeze the water from washed clothes ($5.95-8.00 for a basic one in 1920). These two wooden rollers were dangerous because women could get their fingers or hair caught in them. They also sometimes damaged or broke off buttons. If she didn't have one, she'd wring them out by hand.

The spin cycle was developed to wring out clothes, and some electric washers had this feature going into the 30s. (Link)

Once wrung out, the clothes were hung to dry. In the winter clothes could be hung in front of the fireplace or stove (on a clothes horse for those who had one) if there was space, but they could also be hung outside to freeze and brought in before nightfall.

Tenement buildings commonly had clotheslines strung between buildings. "The advantage of living on a low floor (with fewer flights of stairs to climb) became a disadvantage on wash day, because when hanging your laundry out to dry, ‘someone else might put out a red wash or a blue wash over it, and it drips down and makes you do your wash all over again." (Link)

Berenice Abbott (1898-1991). Court of the First Model Tenements in New York City. March 16, 1936. Museum of the City of New York. (Link, many other examples of tenement clotheslines here. I think this is multiple days of laundry lines in one picture).

Abbott documented this space as a communal laundry line: ropes with pulleys led from apartments to five-story poles imbedded in concrete. Abbott made two exposures, with the laundry and poles forming different abstract configurations. She later recalled that winter day the laundry frozen stiff and the children huddled together, too cold to move.

If you didn't have a clothesline near your window you could dry your clothes on the roof. This required climbing more stairs and keeping an eye out for thieves. (Link)

Tuesdays were ironing days. There were electric irons in the 20s but people also still used multiple irons that had to be heated on the stove. Clothes needed to be damp and sprinkled with water while ironing. That is until steam irons were introduced in the 30s. (Link)

However:

What did Steve do after Sarah died? The same thing the Rogers would have done if Sarah had no time to do laundry, which is likely because she worked full time and laundry was an long chore. If Sarah did do her own laundry as well as worked, she would have worked very long hours trying to stay on top of everything.

For those who couldn't do laundry they would send out their laundry. The peak of the commercial laundry industry was in the 1920s. Many laundries were owned by Chinese immigrants and these laundries catered to single men. (Link) These laundries were cheaper than white-owned steam laundries, which generally catered to large institutions like hotels and hospitals, although they advertised to women as well. Here is a picture of a large commercial laundry.

Sending out laundry may have been a necessary expense on Sarah and Steve's part that they had to budget for. This recounting of a Chinese laundry has the clothes dried and ironed by the workers.

Women, especially black women, took laundry into their home. It is possible Sarah and Steve sent out their laundry to washerwomen, perhaps even one who lived in their own tenement. (Link)

If Sarah did not have the time, nor could afford to send out laundry (especially in the 30s), Steve may have had to deal with the shame of going to school in dirty clothes. Cleanliness was a point of pride and I'm certain Sarah would have made every effort to keep him clean but it may not have always been possible.

Laundry soap

Here is what was most typically used as laundry soap. It was also common, especially for rural families, to make their own soap out of lye and grate or cut up that as laundry soap. (Link)

(Link) Laundry soap options in 1927. They included purchasing flakes, chips, or powder; liquifying your soap ahead of time (right); and (left) grating your own laundry soap from a bar. Fels Naptha soap, which came in a big bar, was rubbed on difficult stains and rings around the collar.

Laundromats

The first laundromat or 'washateria' was opened in Texas in 1934. (Link) Laundromats grew in popularity and spread across the country. These early laundromats had rentable electric washing machines like the ones already mentioned in this post. Clothes were taken home damp to be ironed.

In the 40s the name laundromat became common to describe self-serve laundry. This name actually comes from a brand of automatic washing machine. (Link) Laundromats helps familiarize consumers with washing machines and grow their trust in them, thus ushering in the domestic washing machine age in the 50s and 60s and the decline of commercial laundry services.

Steve may have used a washateria or laundromat in the late 30s or early 40s but the machines would be different. They may have looked something like this:

Toploading washing machine bought in 1939 (Link) It has a motorized mangle.

This blog also has many 1940s ads to show other styles of washing machines. I think our modern washings machines would be somewhat recognizable if Steve saw these ads, but in general washing machines now look very different from the ones he probably saw.

Dryers

If one didn't hang their clothes to dry they were probably wealthy enough to have air dryers which became available in the early 1920s. These were rooms or cupboards. "These dryers could be powered by electricity, gas, or kerosene. In a good dryer, heated air circulated around the clothing so that the clothes did not bake and yellow. The hot air was pulled out of the cabinet and up a chimney" (Link).

Richer folks could also have their clothes dry in sunlit or steam-heated rooms at the top of their mansion or townhouse. (Link).

A sailor getting a uniform out of a clothes dryer in 1943 (link)

The first electric dryer was manufactured in 1938. (Link) Here's a picture of a 1940s dryer, it looks a bit like an oven.

Automatic dryers were slower to arrive. Launderettes had dryers after the war and this helped facilitate the arrival of dryers in the home.

Before dryers became common in laundromats clothes were taken back damp and ironed. This was more or less ideal anyways since clothes needed to be damp to be ironed if you didn't have a steam iron (which was still a luxury).

Dryers would be very new or completely foreign for Steve. I doubt he used one.

Army Laundry Days

This post is already long (I know), so quick coverage of what I found here.

Army training camps had laundries. The army developed laundry trucks (Quarter Master Laundry Units) to service medical units and troops in the field.

When the trucks couldn't keep up with the front (although they did their best) soldiers made arrangements with local laundries or cleaned their clothes themselves.

Clothing exchange was sometime done instead of cleaning and returning the same clothes to speed up the process. This was done most often with front line troops, often in conjunction with showers.

Steve specialised uniform (really, all of the commandos' uniforms) would probably complicate this process which is really interesting to think about. This wash trucks wouldn't be able to just bring standard uniforms to switch out since they were all wearing different uniforms from different armies. If it could be arranged beforehand they might be able to bring a new uniform for Steve, but I wonder if he wore regular fatigues most of the time and only switched into his Captain America suit during active missions to make things easier.

The mobile laundries also organized clothing repair.

This post got really long! I didn't get into the detailed steps of laundry before modern technologies really took off. But needless to say there's still a lot that could be said.

I have a housekeeping book from 1952 that goes into detail how to wash clothes. If anyone is interested in a post about that, you can let me know. I also have a catalogue reproduction showing laundry machines and prices from the early 20th century if anyone is interested,

Sunday Steve Masterpost

#sunday steve #steve rogers #laundry #washing machines #dryers #early 20th century #american history #history #Sarah rogers #washing clothes #laundromat #steve rogers meta #meta

[dearestaeneas]

Freezer Burn

[word count: 2214]

The snow has not stopped for six whole days. It falls in fat flakes, melting at the slightest touch of human skin, with its warmth and salt. But still, despite (or perhaps, in spite of) its fragility, it falls. It falls in fat flakes and it collects. And collects and collects and collects. The earth here is hard, and cold. There is no blood pumping beneath the surface, no hot red liquid working tirelessly in veins and arteries to warm from within. The machine here is still. And so, the snow collects. And collects and collects and collects.

Sylvan Dorsey is no stranger to the cold. He is no stranger to the snow or the ice or the wind. Neither is his wife, Elizabeth Dorsey (formerly Clarence). Sylvan and Elizabeth Dorsey know all the tricks of the trade: how to check for breaks between door and window frames, how to keep the water from freezing in the pipes. Their supplies included flashlights and long underwear and blankets and gloves and hats and scarves and jugs of bottled water, should the power go out and the well become useless. The Dorseys would not have considered themselves a “board game couple” prior to their initial move, but in the years since the winters had taught them chess and rummy and Scrabble.

They consolidated most supplies to the living room in the winter months. There were obvious disadvantages to the decision, as it was the largest room with the biggest windows. However, any argument to the contrary was quickly extinguished in the face of the fireplace. It was a huge stone number, built by the original owners of the house and fortified by the Dorseys themselves. It was beautiful and huge and warm.

Truly, the Dorseys did not mind the cold and its challenges. It had been Sylvan’s idea to move up north, and Elizabeth had enthusiastically consented. Her singular complaint grew upon learning that municipal water, a luxury she had never realized she’d had prior, did not rely on electricity. A power outage in a city did not mean the toilets became functionally useless.

The cold had rolled in early this year. The Dorseys were a few weeks behind on their preparation schedule, having expected snow by the beginning of the next month. The fascinating thing about winter- the beautiful and terrible thing about the snow and the ice and the cold- was that it did not care about progress. It did not care about electric stoves or cars or telephone wires. It was as harsh and unforgiving in this decade as it had been a hundred years ago. The cold was like that. Even as the planet heats from the jets of careless billionaires and the drills of indifferent oil companies- the cold stays.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding the world has about the cold, and it is this: The cold is, above all else, patient. The warm cannot stay, the fire cannot burn forever. The heat will fizzle. All around everything that is and everything that will be, the cold waits. It does not push in on the planets, because it does not need to. Men cannot resist the cold- they come to it, with their rocket ships and their satellites and their little dogs who deserve far more than just a kiss on the nose. The cold was here before the universe, and it will be here after.

The Dorseys believed they understood this truth. To their credit, they may have been closer to understanding it than most. But no one truly understands what it means to be cold.

“We’re out of firewood.”

Elizabeth Dorsey entered the living room. Her arms were full of garbage bags as she dragged the Shop-Vac behind her. Her husband stood before the fireplace, hugging his arms to himself. Despite wanting this life, the anxiety he felt whenever the temperature started to drop was palpable. Elizabeth had suggested moving back to the city, or at least to a more populated town. They were alone here. But no, Sylvan would not have it. He loved their home, loved the trees and the stream half a mile out.

“Have you cut some outside?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. “I thought we had more time. I thought we had enough for this month.”

Elizabeth nodded. The anger she felt in the back of her throat did not tumble out. “Will the door open?”

The snow had pounded against it for six whole days. Thankfully, the power had not been lost, and Elizabeth had intended on cleaning out the fireplace before it had a chance to go out. “We’ll go together.”

“No!” Sylvan responded quickly. “I’ll go. I’ll stay close by.”

Her protestations were dismissed, even as the door was forced open, having frozen quickly. The snow against it tumbled inside, having been just above waist-high. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay close by.”

When the door was once again forcefully shut against the cold, the silence that ensued in the house was near deafening. The roar of wind outside was cut cleanly off, and the scrape of Elizabeth’s boots on the floor was grating as she forced the snow that had found its way inside as close to the door as she could manage. Her steps toward the fireplace, the roll of the plastic wheels on the vacuum- it was ear-shattering.

Elizabeth liked the way the snow muffled sounds. She loved the way it crunched underfoot, and when she was in town, she loved how the trucks sounded so far away, even when she was standing across the street from them.

Elizabeth did not love these new sounds. Her skin crawled. She sang, softly, acclimating her ears to the house itself. Outside, faintly, she could hear Sylvan chopping wood. She inhaled, and exhaled. Cleaning the fireplace was an art form to her by this point. What had originally taken her 20 minutes could now be done in 5. She listened to the sound of the ax hitting the stump, the sounds of log after log landing with a fwump! into snow, and then the gentle clunk! of a new log hitting the previous one. These sounds were briefly suffocated by the sound of the vacuum.

Elizabeth emptied the ash and debris of the vacuum into one of the garbage bags, all the while hearing the sounds of wood hitting wood in the snow. Fireplace ready, she pulled her boots back on and heard Sylvan’s scream as her hand made contact with the door.

“STAY INSIDE.”

Elizabeth froze, despite herself. The command had frightened her, causing her to physically recoil away from the door, as if burned. The sounds of wood being chopped had not stopped at any point.

“Sylvan?” she called out hesitantly after several agonizing minutes. “Can I come help you? You’re scaring me.”

As if on cue, the chopping stopped. It was replaced by the soft crunching of footsteps. Elizabeth stepped back from the door, unable to understand why she dreaded the idea of that door opening. Instead, the steps appeared to be leading away from the door. Upon realizing this, Elizabeth pressed her back against the wall. Her breath caught in her chest and held itself.

“Open the door.”

Elizabeth did not move. She did not breathe.

“Open the door.”

Why had he walked away from it?

“Open the door.”

More footsteps.

“Open the door.”

Elizabeth did not move when she saw the blue finger creep from the corner of the window frame and begin scratching on the glass. The nails were sharp, like ice. The glass squealed.

Vomit threatened to release itself from her throat, but Elizabeth swallowed, hard. Tears sprang to her eyes, and every muscle in her body began shaking. The finger disappeared, and it was several seconds before the top of Sylvan’s head came into view from the bottom of the window frame. It was playful, the way he’d peek up and pop back down again. His already gray hair was white with snow, and his skin was blue. A quiet, muffled laughter accompanied the show.

Elizabeth sobbed, tears hot against her cheeks. She wanted to throw up, wanted to scream and hit and bite and claw. She must have begun to make noises, because Sylvan stopped and straightened. The lines on his face were deep, and his movements were stiff and slow. He stared into the house, blue and white. His expression was blank. Behind him, the snow collected.

“What are you crying for?” The wind whipped the words from his mouth.

Elizabeth’s sobs turned to screams, her entire face wet and red. Sylvan held up a finger. The motion was so fluid it caught her off guard, and Elizabeth gave him her focus. She watched as he placed a finger on either side of his mouth and pulled the corners up. He pulled up and up and up, his face becoming frozen in a terrible grin. Elizabeth could hear his skin cracking like ice as he pulled. She vomited until her bones hurt.

“I left the wood at the door for you.”

His voice was strained, coming out of a mouth bent the wrong way.

“What happened?” Elizabeth heard herself ask. Her voice shook.

Sylvan did not answer. “You’ll be needing it soon. It’s cold out.”

“Please don’t do this.”

“Open the door.”

Elizabeth moved before she understood what she was doing. She flung the drapes shut, blocking Sylvan out. The other window was already covered. The room was cast in warm light from the lamps, but Elizabeth knew she wouldn’t make it long without the fire. The house’s elderly heater chugged along faithfully, but needed the supplemental heat of the fireplace to make a real difference.

“Elizabeth,” Sylvan sang. “Elizabeth.”

She wouldn’t sleep. She would stay awake. She would stay awake all winter if she had to. She would not open the door. Her head pounded, her eyes ached.

The house was small enough that remaining in the living room would pose no problem to her safety. She’d burn the dining room chairs and table. She’d burn the wooden desk chairs and the desks themselves. Elizabeth busied herself collecting the soon-to-be tinder, and kept it by the door. Then, she sat. She sat across from the fireplace and stared into it, its dark mouth expectant. She screwed her eyes shut against the sound of Sylvan’s voice outside.

Several hours later, she burned the first chair. She would ration the furniture, keeping warm in other ways. The fire was for nighttime. Elizabeth soon found this conviction to be difficult to stick to, realizing that when the fire burned, Sylvan did not sing. When the flames died, he would start again.

Elizabeth lost track of how many days passed. The rare moments she did sleep, the sight of Sylvan’s distorted mouth was plastered on the inside of her eyes, and the sound of his skin crackling rang in her ears.

His singing and his footsteps circled the house. Every few hours she would try the telephone again. Although the house had not lost power, the phone only responded to Elizabeth with a dead tone.

No one would come. No one would stop by to see how the Dorseys were faring, no one would even notice that they were unreachable by phone. No one would notice that the Dorseys’ old truck never rattled down to the store. All of these would, historically, spark great concern among the Dorseys’ many friends in the area. No family members would wonder why they hadn’t heard from either of them recently. The coming silence would be uncharacteristic. And yet, Elizabeth knew.

Elizabeth knew that she was alone. That no one was coming. That she would have to come to them. She went upstairs. When she looked out the window, there he was. Looking up at her.

By the time Elizabeth decided to burn the house down, she hadn’t eaten in four days. She had run out of furniture to burn a week ago. Sylvan sang incessantly. She did not care about making it to town anymore.

“You could make a break for the truck,” Sylvan suggested, his skin pink and his hair gray. “I can’t outrun you, even if we’re both in the snow.”

He was right, of course. Elizabeth did not care. “You’ll be waiting right outside the door.”

Sylvan nodded. Elizabeth sat on the floor, staring into the empty fireplace. Sylvan sat in front of her. Outside the house, he sang.

“I want quiet.”

Sylvan did not respond. He watched as Elizabeth stood and smiled at him. A real, genuine smile. Her eyes were bloodshot.

Elizabeth lit the match and dropped it on the floor. She lit a second match and dropped it on one of the remaining piles of blankets. A third fell to the final hat and scarf. She tossed the gloves on it. Small fires grew, and fed. When the flames ate the drapes, Sylvan stood outside the window, face frozen in its grotesque smile. His eyes were wide with terror. Flames took bites out of the house, licking the walls. Not even the natural muffle of winter could drown out the crackle.

The Dorseys looked at one another.

Elizabeth stood on the other side of the window and laughed and laughed and laughed.

#on my main i made a post about how my only complaint about the magnus archives is that there is never a statement about the cold. take this #haven't posted a story in a while! happy new year! #horror #horror fiction #fiction #winter #cold #scary #unsettling #body horror #writers #original story #original writing #short story #writing #original characters #original fiction #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writing community #writer #short fiction #horror writing #fiction writing

[brostateexam]

I would like to brag about how Texas Tough I was when it came to enduring the long South Texas summer of my childhood, but the truth is that it was winter that I dreaded most. Our house was heated by a wood-burning stove in the kitchen. Overnight, the fire would die down, and by morning the house had leaked all its warmth. As a kid, my morning routine was a shiver fest: I would cast off my electric blanket, make my way to the back porch to gather firewood, sort the kindling and the tinder, and then light a fire in the stove. While I waited, I would lay my clothes on the cast iron until they were hot to the touch—sliding into them was like putting on a comforting skin. To this day, I abhor being cold. (Maybe Switzerland isn’t for me after all.)

Despite growing up in rural South Texas without air-conditioning, I don’t remember being uncomfortable in the summers, at least not in the house. The old thing was uninsulated and drafty, inviting in the sea breezes that bring thunderstorms from the Gulf to the coastal plains. After school and in the summer, I spent hours at the town library, devouring books in the delicious AC. Plus, summers just weren’t as hot in the eighties and early nineties—I know; I looked up the data. The seven hottest summers on record for DeWitt County, where I grew up, have all occurred since 1998. 

It was working outdoors that made me appreciate what it means to eat by the sweat of your brow. My chores were many: ditchdigging, brush clearing, trash burning. Near the Gulf, one moves about in the soupy air like a bird drying its wings or an aging cowboy—arms apart from the body to let the pits breathe and to keep the sweat at bay. My parents were potters back then; they quite literally made a living from heat. Their studio on our little ranch had five or so electric kilns in a metal pole barn. Temperatures inside were diabolical. We burned our household trash in a fifty-gallon drum, and the rest went into a ravine, a makeshift dump where garbage was burned. We had cattle and horses and a big garden that needed tending to. Sweat was money.

When I was fourteen we moved to the Hill Country town of Wimberley. Spring-fed Blue Hole, an idyllic swimming hole on Cypress Creek, was within walking distance of our home; so was the cool Blanco River. Our tiny single-wide mobile home was cramped, but it had air-conditioning. Just like that, we had stepped into the modern era. It wasn’t the six-shooter that tamed the West; it was AC. 

Recent years, though, have tested me. I had hoped—against available evidence—that the scorcher of 2011 was a black swan, a once-in-a-lifetime heat wave, but now it seems like almost every summer finds new ways to challenge my resilience and upend my expectations of the future. Like a lot of folks, I underestimated the urgency of climate change. In Elmer Kelton’s classic novel on the 1950s Texas drought, The Time It Never Rained, the main character—a stubborn rancher who has sworn he will outlast hard times—tells his son that they just need to wait long enough to see rain again. “It always did rain here, eventually. A country don’t change climate permanently, not all of a sudden.” Little did Charlie Flagg know.

#long reads #*climate change

[dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night]

Eden VAU part two

Masterlist linked in my pinned.

TW: breifly referenced eating disorder, captivity, referenced racism, referenced Islamaphobia, nonsexual nudity, referenced nuclear weapons, referenced war, pet whumpee, creepy/intimate whumper, human whumpee, vampire whumper

"You may bathe, if you wish," Christopher offered. "And I have made you food."

Ezra stood and stretched. His back cracked loudly, releasing a great deal of pent up pressure.

"Yes sir," he said with a yawn. "Can I turn on a light?"

"I do not have electric lights," Christopher said apologetically. "Instead, I will start a fire for you. However, I have running water, for convenience. A quite spectacular invention."

"Thank you sir. Where's your bathroom?"

"Follow me." Christopher strolled down the darkened hall, with Ezra just on his heels.

He opened a door, and gestured for Ezra to walk inside, before lighting a candle on the counter.

An antique porcelain bathtub stood in the center of the rather large room. Ezra had never bathed in a tub deep enough to fit an entire adult body, and the idea appealed greatly.

"There are clothings in the cabinet," Christopher said. "Along with towels. I found shampoo and conditioning to work with your lovely curls. I hope everything is to your liking."

"I'm sure it is," Ezra said. "Thank you sir."

Christopher swept from the room, closing the pale wooden door behind him.Ezra stripped, thankful for the plentiful darkness shrouding his dreaded female body from his own view.

He turned the ornate brass tap, bringing the water to a warm temperature. He sat down in the tub, as it filled quickly, soon submerging him to his neck.

Leaning his head back, he relished the splendidness of the simple act. He slathered shampoo in his hair, then scrubbed his body clean with a sponge covered in lavender soap.

The longing to bathe for hours overcame Ezra, but the water soon grew chill, and he was forced to drain it. He considered filling the tub once again, but remembered that Christopher was waiting for him, along with his offer of food.

Ezra found a towel in a drawer of the standing cabinet. Getting his thick curly hair to stop dripping took quite some time, but he managed.

In the drawer below the towels, he found clothes. The textures were all lovely and soft, exactly to his preference.

His new binder, one of many, fit him much more comfortably than his old tattered one, bought secondhand like most of his clothes. The fuzzy cotton sweatpants and long sleeved shirt kept him quite warm against the chill air of Christopher's home.

Finally, Ezra noticed the lack of mirrors in the bathroom. It made perfect sense, of course. Especially if Christopher's home wasn't frequented by humans.

Brushing his hair was a bit tricky without a reflection to aid him, but on the other hand, he didn't have to look at his feminine face, far too thin from years of starving himself.

Perhaps the absence of his reflection was for the best.

Ezra carried the candle on its tray down the hall, feeling like a character from a period film, and found Christopher in his kitchen.

He was stirring a large pot of stew over a wood burning stove. Rough wood crates full of potatoes, onions, dried meats, and other food stuffs lined the walls.

"Dear Ezra," Christopher said with a large smile. "How are you feelings?"

"Better sir." Ezra sighed. "So, what's going to happen now?"

Christopher took up a ladle and filled a pastel painted, wood bowl with stew. He handed it to Ezra along with a brass spoon.

"You are to eat," he said. "Please, sit down."

Ezra sat up to a small round table and, Christopher sat across from him.

"How does it taste?" he asked. "And please be honest in full. It is for you, and I cannot taste it."

Ezra scooped up a piece of beef, a bit of onion and shredded cabbage, then took a bite. It tasted salty, yet not unpleasantly so. There was something oddly nostalgic about a home cooked meal, even though his family had never made borscht specifically.

"This is amazing," he said, as soon as he had swallowed. "I don't know how to cook, so I don't get to eat anything like this very often. Thank you sir."

"I will teach you," Christopher offered. "It is important to have such skills."

Ezra scarfed down the warm beef stew, hardly taking the time to breathe.

"Slow down," Christopher said. "You will choke yourself."

Ezra forced himself to eat at a reasonable pace. He noticed that his eyes were now adjusted to the darkness, aided by the fire, allowing him to see muted colors.

"I am glad you like it," Christopher said. "I will make you dessert later, yes?"

"Yes sir, thank you."

The fire began to die down, dimming the room. Christopher walked across the kitchen, kneeling down in front of the stove. He piled a few more logs, not needing to bother with carefulness handling blazing wood.

Ezra wanted nothing more than to fish for information. But where to start? Vampires lived for so much longer than humans, Christopher could have so much more to tell.

Ezra supposed, as Christopher sat down, that would make a perfectly fine starting point.

"If you don't mind my asking sir, how old are you?"

Christopher smiled at Ezra. "Three hundred and fifty six. I was born in the year of our Lord sixteen sixty seven. And you are twenty three, born in the year of our Lord two thousand. Which seems to me very strange."

"I guess so. I mean, a I watch a lot of sixties TV. Nineteen sixties, I mean."

"Television did not exist until the twentieth century. I understand when you are referring."

"Oh yeah. Well, anyway, tons of science fiction started with 'in the distant future of two thousand five' or something like that. Which seems bizzare now, comparing their version of the future with how things really turned out. I imagine it's even stranger, having grown up in the sixteen hundreds."

"How correct you are. So many things of your time delight me. Medicine able to cure the worst of pestilence, or prevent it entirely. Plague and smallpox eradicated. Electric lights and automobiles in place of fire and horses. Moving pictures showing people even after they have moved on with their lives, or even passed away. Devices capable of producing sounds from nothing, though such sounds were produced at one point for later listeners."

Christopher strolled across the room and gestured to his record player, which still played faint soothing music.

"I could go on for hours. It is so spectacular. I remember when man sent a dog into space, then themselves. I also remember when the cosmos were considered untouchable, a place of gods and angels. Humans have grown no more intelligent, by any means, but have now the capabilities to perform miracles, leaving no room for their gods."

"Yeah," Ezra said quietly. "I can't imagine."

He had a hard time understanding when his grandparents complained of new fangled technology and explained how they grew up without as much as a land line phone or television. Now he was speaking with a man who remembered the invention of electricity and vaccines.

"So." Ezra cleared his throat. "Are you from Russia sir?"

"She is my motherland, yes. In great misfortune I had to flee. I lived in a time of Tzars, not self appointed tyrants slaughtering millions. I came to the United States of the Americas, where I was just as unwelcome. I listened on radios as men built nuclear weapons and threatened mass destruction. Such a terrible thing. I appreciate proper combat. Men on foot and horse, weilding bows and swords. Not business men in offices pushing buttons and issuing orders which dishonorably steal millions of lives."

"Woah..." Ezra contemplated this as he finished off his stew, wishing he hadn't cut history classes so often. "I can't even remember nine-eleven."

"A misfortune, as you surely remember the cruelty shown to your people for it."

"Well, I don't know about my people. My grandparent's people maybe. I was raised Christian, not Muslim. Oh, but the kids at school were just horrible."

Ezra sighed. God, how he liked to ignore the existence oh his childhood.

"Yes," Christopher said, a hint of sadness creeping into his voice. "I want to safe keep you from those sort of undeserved troubles. You are such a precious thing."

Despite himself, Ezra liked the compliment. He loved being reminded that he didn't deserve everything he had went through. And he especially loved being treated like he was special and better than those who had hurt him.

It seemed a misfortune that the only person who saw how "precious" Ezra was happened to be a vampire who had kidnapped him. But at the moment that aspect was secondary to how wonderful he felt.

"Your smile is simply brilliant," Christopher complimented. "Thank you for allowing me to enjoy it."

"Thank you sir. If you don't mind my asking, what time is it?"

"Five AM. Nearing sunrise. I will soon have need of rest."

"I'm pretty much nocturnal anyway sir."

"I know, and am glad. Now, do you require anything more to eat?"

"No sir. Thank you though."

"I shall show you to your room then."

Christopher stood, and offered Ezra his hand. After a tense moment of hesitation, Ezra accepted it, and they walked down the hall.

Beautiful art pieces lines the walls, ocean storms capsizing sailing ships, and peaceful bays full of swimmers. The subjects were in conflict, but complimented each other in design, color, and placement.

Christopher opened a door, and entered the room after Ezra, who took waited for his eyes to adjust before taking in his surroundings.

Warm looking fur blankets covered a large bed. The wardrobe was painted maroon with light purple highlights, Ezra's first and second favorite colors respectively. The soft woven rug felt wondrously soft under Ezra's bare feet.

"You may rest in here," Christopher said. "There are clothings for you in the wardrobe."

"Thank you sir." Ezra sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand over the fur, smoothing down the appealing texture.

"Every dawn I am compelled to return to my burial place and sleep until dusk," Christopher explained. "For convenience, I moved a great deal of grave soil home, along with my casket. However, it would take intense physical injury to wake me, something you are quite incapable of. If you require my attention, it must wait until after nightfall."

"Yes sir."

Ezra's mind buzzed with questions about vampires. They were a subject he always wished was handled more thoroughly in school.

The folklore, books, and movies were all so contradictory, being all created by human hand alone.

Ezra's knowledge of vampires came largely from Bram Stoker's Dracula and its many subsequent adaptations. Though he knew they must have gone awry on some points.

After briefly wondering what Christopher would think of the Count, Ezra decided to make even more of an effort to project onto Jonathan Harker.

"Good morning," Christopher said. "I will speak to you in the evening when we both awake."

Christopher swept from the room, and Ezra heard the old brass lock click. He buried himself in the fur blankets, delighting in their comfort.

Sleep took him quickly, interrupting his regret of never having learned shorthand.

Taglist: @devourerofcheesecake @elim-flower @thedarkmongoose @whumpsday @whump-by-robin @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @annablogsposts @whumpshaped @seetheothersideofparadise @knittedeyebrowsandcardigans @whatwasmyprevioususername @boonasaurusrex @suspicious-whumping-egg @heavenly-whumper @melancholy-in-the-morning @suck-my-clit-loser @anomalys-taxonomy

#Whump #Whump writing #Eden #Eden vau #Pet whumpee #Pet whump #Creepy/intimate whumper #Vampire whumper #Human whumpee #Dracula references #Ezra is a Jonathan Harker stan okay?? #Captivity whump #Vampire au #Vampire au whump

[indeedcaptain]

Spirktober 2023, day 7: Air

The air prompt truly has very little to do with the plot but there are no rules. I love accidental bonding and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do

Also posted on AO3 here!

☆☆☆

The sadistic little countdown clock that their captors had hung on the wall was taunting Jim. Yes, five hours was plenty of time for the rest of the away team to come and find him and Spock, and he didn’t think that the Arduans --- slimy, long-tentacled creatures, with no identifiable defensive skills and a tendency towards monologuing --- were much of a match for La’an’s away team. But it didn’t help that he didn’t know what the countdown meant.

Jim and Spock sat side-by-side, backs against the white plastic walls of their cell. Spock sat cross-legged, hands resting on his knees; Jim had his legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. It was just an eight-by-eight cube; there were no visible seams or vents, and no other distinguishing characteristics besides the countdown clock, which had ticked steadily down for the past hour. There was no sign of La’an, and the frown on Spock’s face as he stared at his tricorder screen grew deeper and deeper.

“Hey,” he said eventually. Spock shook his head. 

“What?” 

Spock lifted his hand and held it over the side of Jim’s face. There was a question in his eyes, but Jim didn’t know what it was. 

“What?” he asked again. He could tell that Spock --- whose expression had remained utterly unbothered through their whole mission until recently, even when they had beamed onto the ‘abandoned’ ship straight into the middle of a trap --- was preventing himself from rolling his eyes at Jim. Jim thought that was a little unfair. They had made an excellent team, up until they’d been surrounded by Arduans who had been displeased to find them instead of Captain Pike.

“We will run out of air in four hours. Speaking aloud will use the air we do have more quickly. Therefore, I propose we strategize via meld.” He made an elegant little movement with his hand in the space next to Jim’s face.

Ah. So that’s what the countdown was for. Jim considered what he knew about mind melds: aside from what the Vulcan High Council had provided to Starfleet when Spock joined, it was very little. He had to admit to himself, though, that he was curious about them. The Vulcans were so secretive, and he wasn’t immune to the rumors that had floated through the Academy: the concept of touch telepathy had been romanticized, sexualized, demonized, and every other -ized that he could think of. 

He nodded. What felt like static electricity sparked between Spock’s fingers and Jim’s face even before Spock settled his fingers along his psi-points. Spock whispered, “My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts.”

It felt like being struck by lightning. The room around them vanished as Jim’s mind spiraled inward, or upward. He felt Spock around him, felt surrounded by the same easy comfort he had recognized since the first time they met. His whole self was on fire, but he didn’t burn: he felt warm, genuinely warm and safe for the first time since… well, since Tarsus. 

I did not know you were on Tarsus, Spock said, and though Jim heard Spock’s usual flat tone in his head he also felt something beneath the words -- rage, grief, and an unexpected urge to protect that flared and was stifled immediately.   

Yeah, well, it’s not exactly a fun story to tell at parties. At parties, the blurry darkness around them settled, and the feeling of spiraling melted away. They stood in Captain Pike’s quarters. A pot of tomato sauce bubbled on the stove, and something aromatic was roasting in the oven. Glasses of wine and cocktails were scattered across counters and on Pike’s coffee table, but he and Spock were the only people in the room. 

Fascinating, Spock said, and none of the possessive protectiveness that had underpinned his mental-voice remained. Jim wondered if he had imagined it, in this strange in-between place. Our meldspace has taken the form of the dinner party we attended three weeks ago. 

It had been a nice party. Jim had been shadowing Una again, and when Pike heard that he would be staying for a few extra days he had put together what he called ‘nothing special’ but had become one of Jim’s favorite memories. 

Jim loved serving on the Farragut, he did, but there was something in the air on the Enterprise that filled his heart in a way that was missing on his current ship. He had friends, and respected his captain, but he had laughed more with Pike’s bridge crew the night of the party than he had in the entire previous month on his own ship. He had told and been told dirty jokes while sitting between Ortegas and Chapel, had toasted to becoming a first officer with Una, and had dried dishes for Pike while the older man told stories of their recent travels. But what he remembered most was sitting on Pike’s couch for hours next to Spock, just talking. When Chris had eventually kicked them out, they had ended up in the observatory for ‘just one more drink,’ and Jim had nursed the same subpar replicated glass of wine for an inappropriate length of time, just so the night wouldn’t end. But the night had ended, and upon his return to the Farragut he had blocked Spock’s face in the starlight from his head until he had almost convinced himself that the attraction he had felt wasn’t real. 

He shook his head, trying to clear it. When Spock looked sidelong at him, there was a subtle hint of amusement in his eyes. I enjoyed that evening as well.

Jim’s stomach dropped. How much of his emotions was Spock getting? Spock said, the amusement even more evident in his voice, There is no hiding in the meld. 

Moving on. Why fascinating? Jim said, pulling his thoughts from how much he enjoyed Spock’s company and back to Spock’s original comment. Though it may be a futile effort, he would try to keep any secret feelings secret as long as he could. 

I have melded with humans before, Spock said, looking around Pike’s room. Psi-null individuals do not have the mental fortitude necessary to shape the meldspace. I had intended to create a neutral location to prevent any unintentional harm from psychic energy. But I was not responsible for this.

Maybe we’re just on the same page. 

Perhaps, Spock mused. But regardless -

Bigger fish to fry, Jim said.

Not the phrase I would use, but accurate. 

Where is La’an? The away team?

I do not know. I had estimated the probability of them finding us before the time was up to be near 75%. But we have 3.75 hours of breathable air remaining, and I believe the most logical course of action would be a proactive one. 

Agreed. Any thoughts on how we might make our escape?

Jim received a flash of an idea - his prone body with eyes closed, Spock screaming at the walls, the Arduans entering to see what the problem was, and then a spectacular display of violence from them both - and immediately started nodding. 

I believe we are more valuable to them alive than dead. Forcing them to re-enter the room before we run out of air may be the best way to get out. We can then rendezvous with Lieutenant Noonien-Singh. 

I like it. Ready? 

Ready. Jim felt Spock break the connection, felt Spock’s hand fall away from his face, but there was still a warm little wiggle in the back of his mind that reminded him that he wasn’t alone. When his eyes had readjusted to the ugly fluorescents of the cell and his brain was firmly back in his own body, he tipped himself over and started to twitch. Spock’s amusement was tangible, but none was apparent in his voice when he roared for the Arduans to help him. The invisible door slid open and he and Spock surged through it, and Jim found himself in awe at how attuned they were even as they fought the Arduans and took off down the hall. ‘On the same page’ might have been an understatement. 

They found La’an and the away team within thirty minutes, and stole a shuttle and escaped from the Arduans’ compound within the hour. All in all, Jim thought it was neither the most exciting nor the most dangerous mission he had participated in with Pike’s crew, but he couldn’t keep himself from thinking that having the opportunity to meld with Spock had made the excursion worth it. Even after Spock had broken their connection, he felt a warmth in the back of his mind, a feeling of bone-deep satisfaction, like he had just put the last piece of a puzzle into place. 

On the shuttle, he took a seat near the back while Ortegas and La’an took them skyward. After checking in with Pike, Spock took the seat next to Jim. Jim couldn’t help but notice that Spock looked more tense now, as they soared towards the Enterprise in orbit, than he had been in their plastic, airtight cell. 

He leaned over, bumping his shoulder against Spock’s. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Spock said, but he frowned. “Are you experiencing any mental distress from our meld?

“Not at all,” Jim said immediately. “I feel great, actually. Is melding always like that?”

“It is not,” Spock said. “I am gratified that you are not experiencing negative effects, but I must request that you visit Dr. M’Benga after we return to the ship to be sure.” 

“Are you experiencing any… effects? You seem tense.” Jim didn’t know how he’d ever thought the Vulcan was unreadable. Even as Spock gazed neutrally at the wall opposite them, Jim could read the emotions under the surface like words in a book. He felt responsible for Jim’s well-being, and was concerned that the meld hadn’t gone as he expected. Jim could tell he felt protective of Jim, and he tried not to let that knowledge fuel the crush he’d been nursing since the day they’d met. 

“I am experiencing… residual emotion. From our meld.” 

“Is that unusual?”

“Highly.” Spock was uncomfortable, so he let it drop. Jim just hoped that his less than professional feelings in the meld weren’t the cause of his discomfort. 

☆☆☆

Christine waved a tricorder around Jim’s head, but he wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying. Spock had vanished into Dr. M’Benga’s office with him, and Jim found that he did not like that he couldn’t see where Spock was. Was something wrong? What if melding with Jim had caused damage to Spock’s brain? 

“Kirk.” Christine’s voice was impatient. Jim realized that she had said his name multiple times. 

“Sorry, Christine,” he said, smiling apologetically. “I’m a little distracted.” 

“What’s on your mind?” 

He opened his mouth to respond honestly, remembered the proclivity the Enterprise crew had for gossiping, and shut it again. But Christine looked over her shoulder at M’Benga’s closed door. “Hmm,” she said, noncommittally. “I get it.” 

“Get what?” 

She grinned at him and said, “There’s something about him, isn’t there?”

Jim dropped his face into his hand. “Please don’t say anything.” 

“Your secret is safe with me,” she said, winking. “I think everyone on this ship has been in that position at one time or another, myself included. What happened?”

“We melded,” Jim admitted. “To communicate silently. And it was… it was really nice.” 

“Ooh,” she teased. “That’s big. He doesn’t meld with just anyone, you know.” He put his other hand up to his face, hiding the smile that threatened to overtake him. 

His stomach dropped with disbelief, and shock, and worry. He gasped. 

“Jim?” Christine lifted the tricorder again, reading the results above the biobed. “Hey, bud, take a few breaths with me. Everything is okay. You’re safe. What are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and put his head between his knees. “What’s happening? I felt fine, and now…” 

“Do you have a history of panic attacks?” Christine scanned through his medical file. “Wait…”

“Not since I was a kid, and they never felt like this.” He scrubbed at his arms. He felt like his skin was burning. “Something is wrong. Somewhere. Can you go get Spock?”

Christine paused. “What did you say?” 

“Can you please go get Spock? Something is wrong. This doesn’t feel right.” 

“You melded with him,” she said slowly. She looked up at the scan results and then back to his file, eyes narrowed. “Your chart says you’re supposed to be psi-null.”

“Yes, I did, and yes, I am, and he asked if something was wrong afterwards! I think something is wrong!” Jim’s skin hurt. He was overwhelmed by guilt, and remorse, and, oddly, a sense of excitement that caused more guilt. Christine turned abruptly over her shoulder, and yelled, “Joseph!” 

But when M’Benga’s office door slammed open, it wasn’t the good doctor standing in the doorway. It was Spock. There was a green flush on his cheeks and his pupils were blown huge, almost entirely obscuring the brown of his irises. M’Benga followed him out immediately, and Chapel said, “Kirk’s showing psychonexaline ---”

“I know,” M’Benga said. “Spock is---” 

Spock’s eyes met his and in a flash of lightning the Medbay was gone. 

☆☆☆

They were in Pike’s quarters, sitting on his couch again. What’s happening? Jim asked, and Spock’s eyes were full of regret. 

The probability of this occurrence was so low that I did not consider it necessary to warn you, Spock said, and his mental-voice was ragged. 

The probability of what? What’s wrong? How did we get back here? 

This place exists for us now, Spock said. 

That’s not so bad. Why do you feel like you’ve ruined everything?

You feel my emotions?

Jim thought about it, and he realized that the emotions clouding his brain didn’t feel like his. They were tinged with different colors, a stoicism and repression that he had never experienced. I think I’ve been feeling you since the meld. Did M’Benga say something to you that made you worry? I felt it. Christine thought I was having a panic attack.

Spock closed his eyes. Lieutenant --- James --- I am so sorry. 

Spock, tell me what’s happened. 

Spock took a deep breath. Sometimes… when two minds are particularly attuned, when mental compatibility is immediate and certain… a bond forms spontaneously during the first meld. 

A bond? What type of bond? 

I did not know this would happen. I am so sorry. I will ask Captain Pike to allow us to depart immediately. I believe there are Vulcan healers stationed on Starbase 14; the VSA has an experiment running in a nearby nebula; you will never have to think of this again---

Spock, wait. Why do we need a healer?

A healer is necessary to break it. When Spock said the word ‘break,’ Jim felt his despair, felt the shame at the emotion and the effort to hide it.  

Stop! Stop. Back up. Explain the bond first. Jim felt his face flushing. He wasn’t able to reconcile the rightness of being in the meld and Spock’s panic. He was four steps behind in this conversation, and Spock’s fear and grief were leaching the color out of their meldspace. 

It is… it is more than an engagement and less than a marriage. It is similar to what existed between myself and T’Pring before we ended our betrothal. 

Oh. He and Spock were compatible enough to spontaneously get psychically engaged and Spock didn’t want it. His crush flowered and wilted simultaneously. I see. And you don’t want to be engaged to me. 

It is not a matter of want, James. I will not subject you to a permanent relationship which you neither consented to nor desired. You are human. Vulcans do not court each other in the way that humans do. 

What the hell do you mean, it’s not a matter of want? Of course it is! 

James, please. A spontaneous bond, especially with a psi-null individual is so rare as to be nearly unheard of. You do not understand what this would mean for you. 

So help me understand. 

Spock hesitated. He stood, paced in front of the coffee table. Jim spread his arms along the back of the couch and said, Bring it on. 

If we do not break the bond soon, you will be bonded to me forever. You will be mine, as I will be yours. We would have to serve together, fight and live and die together. You would… Spock’s embarrassment colored his face green, and Jim felt it turn his own stomach. You would have to assist me through a biological period of necessity in the future, one which Vulcans never speak of to outworlders. I may hurt you without meaning to. To change your mind after consummation would mean undergoing the most extreme type of mental trauma known to Vulcans. We may both die of it. I offer that we break the bond so you are free to choose a partner of your own volition, rather than be forced into partnership with me simply because we are compatible. Spock stood in front of Jim, clasped his hands behind his back, and waited for his response. His face was impassive. 

Why are you so sure that I don’t want this? Jim closed his eyes and felt for the warm space in the back of his mind. He concentrated hard and probed into it, like pressing on a bruise. Beneath the cool surface of control that Spock presented to the world, a hurricane raged. Jim was swept away in the intensity of what Spock felt: his fear for Jim’s safety and wellbeing, his desire to protect Jim from all danger, and (Jim was gratified to learn) the physical and mental attraction he felt. He felt the awe Spock felt at discovering the depth of their compatibility, the rarity of their bond even on Vulcan. 

Deeper than that, he felt Spock’s fears: that Jim would say no and he would be alone, that Jim would say yes and change his mind later, and that he would never be good enough as either a Vulcan or a human to deserve a partnership like the one he had accidentally found. 

When Jim opened his eyes again, he found Spock watching him. Did you find what you were looking for? Spock asked. 

Yes, said Jim. He looked at Spock and pushed his emotions at him, everything he had been feeling for the past year: his immediate attraction to Spock, his admiration for his mind and abilities, the crush he’d been nurturing since the day Uhura introduced them, and the feeling he’d had as they had stayed up late talking in the observatory after the dinner party. He pushed that memory at Spock: Spock in the starlight, and the little voice in his brain that whispered, “I want to do this forever.” 

You would never be able to leave me, Spock said softly. 

You would be trapped with my illogical brain forever, Jim countered. 

You would never be able to lie to me.

You’ll have to deal with my Tarsus baggage.

Spock paused, weighing his response. Jim’s heart already hurt. If Spock didn’t want the bond, didn’t want to be linked to a human with trauma forever, then he would just have to be okay with it. He would make himself be okay with it.

It would be my honor, Spock said. That was it. Jim launched himself off the couch at Spock and kissed him. It felt like he was being held, and submerged in a bathtub, and burned alive in the most pleasant way possible. But it didn’t feel like a kiss.

We are still in the meld, Spock said, in response to Jim’s confusion. Physical sensation is not the same. 

Right. Can we leave? I’d like to do that in the flesh. 

James. Are you sure you want the bond? I am not convinced you understand the depth of the partnership that you are so cavalierly accepting. Vulcans are possessive and protective when it comes to their bondmates. It is not a human relationship.

Spock. I’ve wanted you since the moment I met you. You’re saying that our minds are so compatible that we accidentally got engaged on the first date, and I didn’t even have to go through the bullshit of human courtship rituals to find out? Count me in. 

When he opened his eyes, he was flat on his back on the biobed and Christine was waving a tricorder over his head. She and M’Benga were reading his scans with an intense and (in his humble opinion) slightly inappropriate level of medical curiosity. 

“Welcome back,” M’Benga said. 

“Where’s Spock?” Jim sat up. Christine smirked. As Jim sat up, Spock’s eyes flashed open and he crossed the bay in three enormous steps. Without a word to his crewmates he lifted Jim off the biobed and started carrying him to the exit. Jim wriggled. “Hey! Excuse me!”

Spock slung him over his shoulder instead --- that seemed slightly more dignified than being bridal-carried --- and did not break stride. Jim waved goodbye to Christine and M’Benga from upside down. 

“You good, Jimbo?” Christine called as the turbodoor slid open. 

“I think I might have signed up for this, actually,” he called back, and he could hear her laughter as the door slid shut behind them.

#for someone who reads the nastiest smut i can find my own fic has turned out to be surprisingly prudish????? #spirktober 2023 #spirktober2023 #spirktober #k/s fan fic #kirk/spock fan fic #k/s #spirk #my writing #kirk/spock #accidental bonding #yes yes i know it is no longer the 7th but i was busy yesterday

[feverinfeveroutfic]

hanukkah bingo 2023

Fic or Art/Graphic Title: alone in the dark, chapter one: “Lost Keys” Author/Artist Name: josiebelladonna Fandom: Testament (Band) Jewish or Jew-Ish Character(s): Alex Skolnick (and how) Bingo Squares Being Filled: k5 (light in the dark), a2 (menorah), u1 (latkes), u2 (sufganiyot), h3 (gelt) Rating: Mature Warning(s): Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings Link to Work: x @aimmyarrowshigh

The orange light from the clouds overhead guided our way as we inched along the streets, which grew whiter and whiter with each and every passing minute; I had hunkered down in the front seat next to Wendy while Christine lingered in the back. As long as we were warm and headed back for warmth, I was okay with it all. And I was okay knowing that I could rest my wallet as well. A few times, I took out my hands and cupped them over my mouth and blew into them, but then again, I wasn't the one driving.

I still argued with myself that I should not be there with them, that I did not want to impose, but I had no other choice, however. 

Once the streets collected together into a tightly woven neighborhood, I finally tucked my hands into my pockets and gazed out the window as well as the windshield. Even though the power was out across town, the clouds still loomed low with that ghoulish orange glow right over the city like the threat of having your throat slit. Every so often, a glimmer of light poked through the increasing snow, the windshield wipers which moved at a furious pace to keep up with the snow, and the trees along the sides of the streets, but the darkness itself worried me in a way. Reno had gone all dark for the most part in the wake of an incoming blizzard.

“I hope they're home,” Wendy said aloud as we slowly turned a corner: the street was lined with a lot of trees so the snow slowed up the tiniest bit. Flakes still fluttered down before us to the point it nearly blocked out the view of the headlights; it was a miracle we could even see the outlines of the trees and the houses around us. “I called my mom before we got on the plane and she said they were down in Carson City all afternoon, and they were going to try and get home before the snow came in. It's only about a forty minute drive from here but with all of this snow, I think it's going to be a lot longer. If they aren't home, let's at the very least try and get in so the three of us can all be under a roof. We can't really cook anything, either, because their stove is electric.”

“So, we'll go out to eat?” I asked her.

“If something is open, yeah,” she replied. “If not, we'll try and think of something.”

“Remember the time we drove back up here from Carson and it snowed, and it took us like an hour to get across Washoe Valley?” Christine recalled.

“How could I forget!” Wendy declared. “It was just last winter, too. They said it was one of the worst winters on record, too.”

“How bad was it?” I asked her.

“It was a lot like this—” She gestured out the windshield. “—except replace the neighborhoods with a long flat stretch of road before you, and the wind's howling like a son of a bitch. And all you can see is falling snow and the break lights in front of you, like you're taking a road to icy hell.”

“Highway to hell,” I cracked.

“Highway to hell, exactly!” She laughed at that, albeit nervous laughter. We reached a stop sign, already hidden under a fine layer of snow and ice as well as a darkened street lamp, and we proceeded ahead another block before we turned right around another corner.

“Here we are,” she proclaimed, and we parked up at the curb and the frozen storm drain; I gazed out the window to the little house tucked back behind a series of cottonwood trees. The pitch black windows gazed back at us like the eyes of a skull, and a thin layer of snow had already buried the porch.

“It doesn't look like they're home,” I confessed to her.

“Let's go check, anyways,” she said.

“Do you have a key?” I asked her.

“I don't, no,” she admitted with a shake of her head. “And my mom didn't know if she left the door unlocked for us, either.”

A pit emerged in my stomach at the sound of that, but then again, I was also hungry: I hadn't eaten anything since earlier that day, a few hours before I had left for the airport; it had been at least over five hours since I had last eaten anything. With my hands still tucked into my pockets, I rested them right on my stomach. It was a shame, too, because I looked forward to having some late night New York cheesecake and a cup of coffee with my mom once she picked me up.

Wendy switched off the engine but kept the headlights on so we could see what we were doing. She tugged the hood of her coat over her head; I was going to look like Johnny Winter once all of this was said and done.

I climbed out first and the snow stuck to the crown of my head, at least part of the way. Careful not to set foot in the storm drain, I stuck my legs out to the sidewalk, and I steadied myself on the side of the car. My shirt lifted up so the snow landed on my bare skin; much to my surprise, the snow was dry as a bone, like fluffy white flour that fell from the sky. I lifted myself into an upright position and straightened out my spine all the while.

“Like a big worm,” Christine cracked as she climbed out of the opposite side of the car. I fixed the lapels of my coat as the two women followed suit behind me, both of them careful not to slip on the sidewalk or step in the drain.

The three of us then made our way to the front step; in the dim light, I spotted a small pile of snow collecting on top of the porch light right over us. I was going to have to tell my parents about all of the snow out in Reno once I managed to come home!

Wendy knocked on the door panel first, and we awaited there, huddled together like a small group of emperor penguins. My coat was warm, but the snow kept landing atop my head and it sent a chill down my spine. Christine nestled close to me, such that the crown of her fiery red hair was right underneath my nose.

Silence awaited on the other side of the door. Wendy knocked again, and once again, we were met with more silence.

“I don't think they're home, Mom,” Christine proclaimed, and she reached forward for the doorknob. Locked.

“Oh, Jesus—I don't have a key, either,” Wendy bemoaned.

“Do you know when they're getting home?” I asked her.

“I don't, no.”

“What do you think we should do?” Christine joined in. Wendy turned her head towards the side of the house and sighed.

“This is going to get us in a heap of trouble down in the line but—go around back and see if the back door is open.”

“Here, I'll come with you,” I offered her.

“If you kids can get in the house, I'll go wait in the car,” Wendy told us.

Our feet crunched along the snow and the dormant grass underneath, and I knew it was a bad idea to wear sneakers instead of my boots. I used the light in the sky as well as the light from the car on Christine's red hair as my guide around the side of the house. It was like following a little red ghost through the darkness and the snow.

At one point, she turned back for a glance at me.

“Are you with me?”

“Of course,” I promised her, and then she giggled. “What?”

“You should see your hair,” she said. “It's like pure white.”

“I'm like Johnny Winter,” I joked, and she giggled some more.

We reached the back of the house and the protected back porch; I stood under the awning and shook my head about to rid of the snow. Even though it was so dry, it still sent a chill down my spine and left the sides of my face and neck damp.

“Never knew snow could get so dry and powdery,” I admitted to her as I fixed the lapels of my coat once again. “It's like bread flour or matzo meal falling from the sky.”

“Me neither! It always surprises me how dry it is here, too. I remember the first time we came out here to visit my grandparents, it was so dry your hair would stand up no matter what you were doing.”

“That is as they say, dry as a bone,” I remarked.

Though it was dark, I could see the back door and the windows on either side of it. Christine jiggled the doorknob and sighed.

“It's been quite some time since I last did this,” she told me, and she stepped for the window on the right.

“Can you see?” I asked her.

“Somewhat. It's more about feeling the frame—I'm gonna need help getting this thing off, though.”

I joined her in prying off the protective screen from the window, and all the while, we were careful not to bend the actual metal framing itself. I set the screen down on the concrete below the window sill, and she tugged on the inside edge of the window.

“Can you get it?” I asked her, and the window ground open. It was going to be difficult with the blinds in particular, but she didn't seem to mind. She pulled on the drawstring, and we were met with the back of the house. Careful not to slip, she set one foot on the sill and hoisted herself up off the ground.

“Can you make it?” I asked her.

“I think I can,” she grunted out as she set her other foot up on the sill. “Not the first time I've had to climb in through the window.”

“That makes two of us,” I assured her as she sat down on the sill with her feet dangled down towards the floor. Gingerly, she stepped on something and hopped down from there to the dry carpet.

“Be careful, there's a footstool down here and it's a little old and rickety,” she advised me.

Nevertheless, I stripped off my coat and handed it to her, and I followed suit. But before I did, I stopped.

“Does the door here lock by key, too?” I asked her.

“You bet your booty it does,” she told me. “The front door has a dead bolt, though.” I shivered as I climbed up onto the sill next. Because I was taller, I nearly hit my head on the side of the window as I brought my right foot in, followed by my left. Indeed, the soles of my shoes rested on a footstool, and I knew it wasn't going to support my weight, either. I slid forward so my feet were past the top of the stool and I nearly hit my head on the wall in the process.

“Ow!”

“You okay?” she asked me, concerned.

“Yeah. I may be a skimpy little Jew boy but I'm tough, though. We're a tough, tenacious people.”

I stood up, albeit with a bit of difficulty as the cold and skipping over things made my knees quiver. I still shivered from the cold, and I turned around and slid the window shut: I hoped the loud click! was loud enough for Wendy to hear on the other side of the house. I then returned my attention to her and the doorway before us: nothing but darkness in front of us. She handed me my coat back and I was eager to put it back on to keep me warm.

“Can you see?” I asked her as I fixed the lapels of my coat.

“Sort of,” she replied; through the dim light, I saw her move ahead to the mouth of the hallway. Near total blackness as we crept past what I though was the bathroom, followed by her grandparents' bedroom. She then stuck out her hand to the wall on the right, and she slipped into the next room ahead, what I believed was the guest bedroom.

I followed suit right behind her, just as she crawled down onto her hands and knees in front of the bed in there. There was just enough light for me to see what she was doing. I had nothing more than my hand on the wall to steady myself and my other hand hanging out in the air. She rummaged about under the bed for a moment, before I heard something metallic clinking and clanking on the mattress frame.

“What did you find?” I asked her again. A bright white halogen light flashed right into my face.

“Ah!” I covered my eyes with one hand.

“Sorry.” She laughed at that, and she moved the head of the flashlight up towards the ceiling. “I couldn't help that.” I squinted my eyes at her, and she snickered at me some more. Seventeen or not, I knew what she was getting at there. The back glow of the light shone down onto her red hair and slender face; it looked as though her skin was made of moonstone; I noticed she had found two halogen flashlights, one for herself and one for me.

“I've been meaning to ask you this, but how old are you?” she began again.

“Older than you,” I teased her, and she snickered some more. “I turned twenty six back in September.”

“Twenty six, ya old boy,” she retorted to me, to which I rolled my eyes at that.

“It's not that old,” I scoffed back. “Thirty's old.”

“It's hard to imagine yourself at thirty,” she confessed.

“I definitely think so,” I said with a nod.

“My ex's birthday was in September,” she added, and she ran her fingers through her red hair. “I still think about him sometimes.” I raised my eyebrows at that.

“May I ask why he's your ex if you still think about him?”

“You don't wanna know,” she confessed with a shake of her head.

“Sure I do.”

“You don't. Trust me, you—you don't.”

I squinted my eyes at that. Through the bright light of the halogen flashlight, I could see it in her eyes. Something tormented this girl.

“How 'bout you?” she asked me, and she showed me the tip of her tongue. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Had,” I corrected her. “She and I broke up a few months back. It's...” I shook my head. “It's a long story.”

“If it's a long story, why won't you tell me?”

“Because your break up story is apparently a long one and you won't tell me,” I quipped back to her, and I couldn't help but laugh.

“There's... not much to say with me and him, though,” she assured me, and her voice softened to a near whisper. “He, too, was a Jewish boy. I mean, one of my last good memories of him took place on the last night of Hanukkah, where I thought for sure he was going to kiss me once his parents lit up the menorah.”

“Oh, so sort of like the New Year's kiss but not entirely,” I followed along. Christine lowered her eyelids at me, and through the ambient light from the flashlight, I noticed her looking at the crotch of my pants. It was only but a quick glimpse, but I caught her in the act anyway. I remembered when I was seventeen and I thought about kissing more girls as well as having a little fun with one: getting close to adulthood and having all these feelings kicked up a few years prior. Maybe it was just my own mind standing in the way but I had no courage to talk to one until rather recently.

“Did she ever touch your lips?” she asked me, and she inched closer to me as if to bring her chest to my own.

“With what?” I retorted back, and I wondered what she was getting at here.

“You tell me,” she said.

“You know, I think your mom's waiting for us in the car,” I pointed out.

“We're not going out there until you tell me,” she quipped with a wink and a little gyration to her. Seventeen and she was already two steps ahead of me.

“She did kiss me good night about twice,” I confessed.

“Twice? Just twice?”

“Yes. Just twice. She never really kissed me much when I think about it.”

“If I was your girlfriend, I would want to kiss you all the time,” she confessed. “I would want to touch those cherry lips all the time, just to taste and feel them, and I know for a fact that we both would love it.”

“I'm sure you would love it,” I teased her.

“What're you saying? That you wouldn't love it? A sensual guy like yourself?”

“Not necessarily,” I pointed out. “I have to feel you against me to know if I would love it.”

She gaped at me, and she swatted at me.

“Bad boy, flirting with a teenage girl,” she teased me.

“Hey, you started it,” I quipped. “I'm just rollin' with the punches.”

She showed me her tongue, and I stepped out of the way for her with my back pressed to the door frame. It was there I spotted the old silvery camera on the dresser right in front of me.

“Wow, it's been a while since I saw a camera like that,” I told her, and she shone the flashlight onto the top of the dresser. The silvery rim shimmered as if it was brand new, but the lens had obviously faded into a deep maroon color.

“You know, I've thought about taking up photography at some point,” I said to her.

“What kind of photography? Sexy photography?”

“Pfff, you wish,” I teased her. “I think more about like... travel photography. Life in other places, especially since I make a living going places and fucking around on my guitar. It doesn't pay much, but it's enough for me to keep my head above water, though.”

“So, sexy photography,” she followed along as she moved in closer to me.

“And again, you wish,” I teased her again.

“By the way, that's my grandpa's camera, so be careful with it,” she advised me.

“What, did you think I'm gonna use someone else's camera for a good time?” I joked, and she giggled at that like a little schoolgirl.

“Unless you want to play around with that,” she quipped.

“Maybe when it's lighter, I'll consider it,” I assured her, and I hoped she saw me wink at her. Christine handed me the second flashlight, and I clicked it on so we both could see where we were going in that hallway.

We passed another bedroom before we reached what looked to be the dining room, followed by an office and then finally the living room and the kitchen. We ducked into the latter for a search of anything to eat.

“Your mom said this stove is electric, too,” I said. “Meaning, nothing to eat and there's probably no shower, either.”

“The shower's actually run on propane, but yeah—nothing to eat. Go out to eat instead, and then come back here and try and entertain ourselves.”

I opened the fridge, and I shone the flashlight into there: there wasn't much in there anyway, other than a carton of milk, a carton of eggs, two sticks of butter, a bottle of beer, and a bowl of grapes in the crisper drawer.

“To say we need groceries in this house is an understatement,” Christine declared.

“Yeah, you do.” I looked on at the empty crisper drawers, which had nothing more than paper towels at the bottoms as well as that bowl of grapes. I closed the door and turned my attention to her. “Now, understand this is just the hungry boy on the first night of Hanukkah in me talking, but what on Earth do your grandparents even eat?”

“I don't really know, to be honest,” she confessed to me. “My grandpa's the one who always likes to have cookies and sweet treats and things where my grandma's a little more conservative about it. Question, what exactly do you eat at Hanukkah, anyway?”

“Oh, we have latkes, we have Hanukkah gelt—chocolate coins—we have donut holes and lots of warm and humble food. It's not much but it's what we've got, though. When I was a kid growing up in the Bay Area, I always looked forward to having gelt and apple pie in particular.”

“Oh, wow. You have donut holes, really?” Her face lit up at that.

“Sufganiyot,” I clarified. “And they are pretty much like donut holes—they're filled jelly, and they're just—” I brought my free hand to my chest. “—so heavenly and light especially once they come out of the fryer. The cool thing about Hanukkah is even though it's associated with us, it's actually not fully tied into the Jewish culture. It's about a miracle that happened. It's the same reason why I love Halloween so much, too: it's not completely tied down to a faith.”

“That's really interesting, actually,” she confessed. “And it sounds fun, too. I mean, what gets better than eating a bunch of warm food on a cold day after all?”

“I can't think of much, to be honest,” I said. “Anyways, let's go to your mom. She's probably freezing out there...”

I held the flashlight up to the side of my head and the two of us walked on out of the kitchen to the front door. Indeed, the dead bolt had been pulled closed, and I worried about not having a key to lock it once we were out of there. But then another thought crossed my mind right then.

“You think I'm sensual, really?” I asked her in a low voice.

“Those eyebrows, those lips, and that long hair... yeah.” Through the halogen light reflected back from the door, I saw her eyes locked onto my face as well as my upper body. Even in the dark, she checked me out. “You're—dare I say, sexy. Sexy and very handsome, too.”

“You think I'm handsome, too?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Quite.” She nibbled her bottom lip and opened the door for us. Indeed, Wendy had gone off to the car to stay warm, and she awaited us; Christine closed the door behind her without locking it.

“Are you sure we can get away with that here?” I asked her. “My parents live in the outskirts of New York City, and even they lock their doors at night, especially when the power's out.”

“Oh, yeah, I promise we're not gonna go very far,” she vowed. “A snowstorm like this brings most things to a standstill, too.”

We crunched along the lawn back to the car, whereby I called out “shotgun!” first, much to her chagrin. But once again, I had to stretch my body just to get back into the front seat, and that time, I had to be careful not to sink my ass into the seat lest it put pressure on things. Christine climbed in on the other side, and we both kicked off the extraneous snow from our feet before we settled in all the way. I ran a hand over the top of my head, and I once again had a fair dusting all on the top layer of my hair.

Wendy rubbed her hands together and fired up the car: we were greeted with a hefty blast of tepid air, which only made me shiver even more.

“Let's get some heat in here,” she suggested and, carefully, we rolled ahead along the street. I had no idea where we were going, but then again, all I really cared about was to be warm before we ate anything. I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets, and my hands on my stomach just to feel my own warmth.

We kept on going straight for what felt like an eternity, and more so the case with that fine powdery snow falling all around us to create those drifts that looked as though they were on the inside of the flour box at my grandma's house.

A break in the snow allowed us to see ahead to the red neon light in a window on the side of the road. A warmly lit oasis in a pure white desert.

“Here we are!” Wendy declared.

“Good to see their lights are on,” I said as we bounded into the driveway. The back end of the car shook out a bit, but she caught it before we could veer sideways. We took the spot furthest away from the front door in the shadows, but at least we had a spot.

Wendy and I climbed out first, and Christine followed suit. I shivered even more as the air coming out of the vents did nothing to help. I was cold and hungry and without my parents, but at least I had a place to go. I held the door for the two of them and we made our way into the warm, dry restaurant: only a few of the ceiling lights over our heads were lit up, but it was enough for things to keep on rolling in there, and the warmth of wooden walls brought me at ease.

“Good to know there's a few people in here, though,” Wendy said to us.

“And it smells good,” Christine added.

“And it smells good, yeah!” I said with a chuckle.

The waitress in a long sleeved shirt and a black apron strode on up to us.

“Are you guys coming in from the Bay Area, too?” she asked us.

“As a matter of fact, we did,” Wendy informed her.

“We've come here because it's warm and it smells like French fries,” Christine said without skipping a beat.

“It's always a good reason!” the waitress chuckled at that. “We're running on a generator so we're able to make food and what have you. Because there's only a few people in here, you three can sit wherever you'd like.”

“Excellent!” Wendy said, and I spotted the payphones on the far wall of the room.

“I have to call my mother,” I told them. “It's almost eleven o'clock at night over there in New York, but I don't care—I need to call my mom. I'll be right back...”

While the two of them made their way over to the table in the middle of the room, away from the windows, I sauntered over to the other side of the room, right near the bathrooms, which I was going to have to visit as well.

I took out the two quarters I had in my wallet and stuck it into the slot, and I dialed the number.

It rang once, twice—

“Hello?” It was so comforting to hear my mom's voice again.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Oh, hi, Alex, honey! I was just thinking about going over to the airport to come and pick you up. What's going on?”

“The flight was cancelled, there's a blizzard over the Rockies and another one over the Northwest. The airport's closed, too, so I'm stuck in Reno right now.”

“Oh, no! Oh, bubbeleh, I'm so sorry. Do you know when it's all going to pick up again?”

“I don't, no...” I peered out the window before me to see the fine flakes of snow collecting and creating bigger flakes the size of quarters out there. “The snow's coming down pretty hard, too. Two of the passengers offered to take me home for the time being, so we're get something to eat and then go and get warm, too.”

“Oh, good! Well—we'll keep an ear out for the phone again, and I'll tell your father what's going on. It's the weirdest thing, your brother called about an hour ago and he said he's probably going to be late because of weather, too.”

“Really?” I asked, and I couldn't resist showing a grin at that. “The snow's funny here, too, it's all dusty and powdery. But I wish I was over there, though.”

“I wish you were, too. I guess I'll go to bed early tonight. You stay safe and warm for me, baby, okay?”

“Of course! Good night, Mom—love you.”

“I love you, too, bubbeleh,” she said back, and we hung up at the same time. I closed my eyes and let out a low whistle. At least now my mom knew what was going on. I turned my attention back to the restaurant behind me; another year where I didn't get my throat slit or my brains shot out of my head, so I may as well eat up. I doubled back around the corner, and I passed the bar before the kitchen, and I recognized that tweed suit looking back at me with a younger woman next to him.

“Hey, Frank!” I said in passing.

“Hello, son!” he greeted me, and the woman flashed a glimpse at me as I walked on by, back to our table in the middle of the room. Wendy quizzically looked on at me.

“The old man from the plane,” I explained. “He was sitting right next to me and we were joking about how we'd be the last people we saw if we crashed.”

Wendy chuckled at that, but I was being completely serious. I peeled off my coat and draped it over the back of the chair.

“And now I have to see a man about a horse,” I told them.

“We'll be waiting for you,” Christine said to me, and I swore that she winked at me.

On one hand, it was too much. A teenage girl who may or may not have just gotten out of a relationship herself was flirting with me, and I had no idea as to how to deal with it, and more so when I stood before the wall in the men's room with my pants pulled down a bit. In fact, I didn't even want to think about it, especially when I still had the pain in my own heart to deal with even two months after the fact as well.

But then again, I was in her position once. In fact, when I was seventeen, I would have loved for girls to at the very least look at me and come up to me, especially with my hair as long as it was and especially when I was up on stage performing.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it was really only natural. The two of us having come out of a relationship that changed us and we somehow found each other by mere chance in spite of our age difference. There was something oddly beautiful about it.

I gave myself a shake and zipped up, and then I washed my hands. Once all the soap was out of my palm, I cupped my hand and ran a handful of warm water over the crown of my head. I had wet hair, but the warm water felt good on my scalp; plus, I was a dirty boy, I needed to rinse myself before I went back out there. I switched off the water and shook my hair about again before I dried off my hands and bowed out of there.

I was once again met with Christine, but that time with a big white china bowl in her hands as well as a metal spoon.

“What's this?” I asked her.

“Applesauce,” she said. “The waitress told me there was a lot leftover in the kitchen from when they made spice cake earlier today and she gave me some on the house.” She dipped the head of the spoon into the sauce and showed it to me.

“Love me some applesauce,” I told her, and I took the spoon for myself. We locked eyes as I stuck it into my mouth, and then I closed my eyes to feel the tiny bit of spice on my tongue. The tiniest bit of spice on the pad of my tongue, much like how Christine herself was the tiniest bit of spice in an otherwise cold environment.

“Hits the spot,” I said once I swallowed it down. I adjusted the bottom hem of my shirt, to which she dropped her gaze to my waist once again, and she really did look at my waist that time. She didn't look at my crotch; she looked at my stomach.

She showed me a playful little smirk before she turned the other way and walked back to our table. But then she stopped just prior to the kitchen door, and she turned around for a look at me.

“Are you coming?”

“Of course!” I declared, and I ambled up behind her. Once I stood next to her, she gestured for me to come in closer to her face as if she was going to tell me a secret.

“You actually remind me so much of him,” she confessed to me in a low voice. “The only difference is your eyes. And your hair, too: he didn't go gray so early.”

“Really?”

And she nodded her head, and she stepped away from there and back to our table. I followed close behind her, and I started to wonder what exactly happened to her and her ex before we crossed paths.

#hanukkahbingo #hanukkah 2023 #hanukkah #alone in the dark #alex skolnick #as the seasons grey #as the seasons grey fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #testament fanfic #testament #testament band #also on ao3 #writing #text

[prismatic-bell]

Nina's "Thank You, Diamond" Barbecue Sauce

So a couple of weeks ago, I made a post about how, after searching a ton of mommy blogs for a decent barbecue sauce recipe, I turned in desperation to Tumblr and said "I need a Black person to teach me how to make barbecue sauce." A Black woman named Diamond answered this call, and taught me some tricks of the trade and base ingredients. Then she told me to go forth and experiment, because to actually teach me how to make her barbecue sauce she'd need me in her kitchen. And a few weeks ago, at long last, I'd finally put together something I liked.

Several people asked for the recipe, which put me in a fix because I, like Diamond, grew up knowing of measuring cups as things you either used for baking or took as suggestions. But I'm making barbecue chicken tacos for work today, so I pulled out my measuring cups and got to work translating my "yeah, that looks about right"s into actual measurements for y'all. The amounts listed here will provide enough sauce for two chicken breasts, in a consistency thick enough to baste on if you're grilling. (If, like me, you're slow-cooking, just add a little water to thin it.) THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND: --all measurements are approximate; I dolloped "the right amount" into measuring devices, rather than actually measuring. Don't assume any measurements are exact.

--adjust to your taste as needed. --I have a gas stove and cooked this on low. You may need to adjust for electric ranges. --if you're the kind of person who eats habanero salsa, you won't find this spicy. If you're the kind of person who uses mild sauce at Taco Bell, you will. Adjust as needed. Be aware that nothing in this recipe adds spice for spiciness' sake, and the flavor profile will be altered if you remove all of the spicy ingredients. --taste frequently. You want to build a knowledge of what it tastes like at each step so you can check on it, plus this will help you adjust to your personal tastes. --yes, if you don't live in the Southwest you'll either have to find an international grocery or order chiles de arbol online. Don't whine, as the TikTokker who does the Glam Kitchen says, "put in the effort, Kyle!" ON TO THE RECIPE! 4-6 cloves of garlic, pressed or chopped 1/2 sweet onion, diced 1 tsp fresh grated ginger Bloom your garlic in some olive oil in a two or three-quart saucepan. You want just enough oil to lightly coat your garlic. Once you start to smell the garlic, add the onion, and some additional olive oil--again, just enough to coat the onion. Cook until onion is soft. KEEP STIRRING. Onions are like boiling milk, if you look away and blink they burn (yes, even on low heat). Add your ginger. Stir until you've got a decent mix of everything. Next, add: 1 cup ketchup 1/2 cup brown sugar, not packed Stir this well. Your ketchup will start to turn ever so slightly brown. Not by much yet, but you should see a difference from plain ketchup. (When I measured the sugar, I did it by tablespoons. DuckDuckGo tells me I actually used about 3/5ths of a cup, but find a measuring cup that does that.) Continue by adding: 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp red wine vinegar 2 tsp balsamic vinegar 2 tbsp honey Stir well. If you taste at this step to learn the flavor profile, don't try to adjust anything, because all you're going to taste is acid. It's okay--it'll balance and mellow as you continue. Continue by adding the following, stirring in each ingredient as you go and tasting frequently: 1 tbsp yellow mustard (the kind you put on hotdogs) 2 tsp cocoa powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp ground cloves (go easy on these, add more if needed) 1 bay leaf 1 tsp chili powder 1/2 tsp smoked paprika 1 chili de arbol; remove seeds first Adjust as needed. (I added roughly 1/4 tsp mustard and another half a chili de arbol.) If you want a tangy sauce with more sweetness, add more honey; if you want just plain more sweetness, add more brown sugar. If you feel it's not smoky enough, add more of any of the following: mustard, cocoa powder, cumin, paprika. If you feel you need more tanginess, add a bit more of one of the vinegars. If it's not spicy enough, add more chili powder or chili de arbol. If you're the kind of person who likes your barbecue sauce spicy and you don't want to alter the flavor profile, add some of the chili de arbol seeds. Be aware that these may cause "spicy pockets" in the sauce and you're going to want to stir the absolute motherlove out of it to distribute them evenly. Also be aware, if you decided to taste the chili de arbol first, that the heat of the pepper itself is nothing compared to the seeds. The pepper is tasty, but the seeds make me unable to feel my lips. Simmer as long as you like on low to let the flavors meld, but be sure to add a bit of water if you do (you'll be amazed how thick this is). Say a quiet thank you to Diamond, the Black lady who went "sure, I'll take this in good faith and teach this random white person to make barbecue sauce." Baste or marinate your meat, or add meat and slow-cook. Serve with a vegetable of your choice and some good homemade fries. Enjoy. Life is good.

#recipes #cooking #barbeque #barbecue

[huguswerescared]

Ages and Lil' facts about this blog's Au and it's characters.

Puppets:

Yellow

He's somewhere between 14 to 16 in this au (I know some people dislike having him be a child or in this case a teen but there's a reason for this.)

He may or may not have mild autism (?)

His eyes are a dark green but turn to a neon lime-ish color when his batteries are changed.

He can't exactly remember his death, all he remembers are smells, brief moments and someone yelling for him to get out of the way.

He likes drawing and sometimes paints with Paige (Sketchbook) although he avoids the color green.

He's not allowed to use the stove after he and Paige nearly set the kitchen on fire.

He's allowed to help out though.

He sees Red as a father figure while he sees Duck as more of a uncle, dad and grandpa mashup abomination.

He's well-liked by most of the teachers.

His room is painted dark green and he has those glow in the dark stars glued to his ceiling.

Red

Somewhere between 25-27 in this au.

He cut his hair once and it grew back within 24 hours.

Yellow gifted him a apron that says 'Don't make me poison you' in cursive letters, he was mildly concerned about it but he wears it every time he cooks.

The main dad of the group

Red likes puzzles.

Since I'm pretty sure he's naked all the time in Canon, in this au he wears red hoodies and sweatpants if he isn't in denim or something else.

See's Yellow as a son and a little brother combo and sees Duck as a housemate (but later on as his best friend)

All he remembers about his death is that he drowned and that he was on a family trip.

His room is painted a grayish blue.

Duck

27 - 31 in the au.

He used to be a Staff Sergeant in the air force before his death.

He collects magnets.

He prefers not to cook and leaves that up to Red and the teachers.

Sees Red as his best friend and his opinion on Yellow changes.

He unironically has some cannibalistic tendencies.

He has little to no memory of his death.

His room is forest green and he has a bunch of military themed things in his room.

Simon (Written and created by @neemsstuff aka my beloved best friend!)

Dude died via cult sacrifice (Not the love cult)

He's like a cat, he gives the people he likes dead stuff.

His favorite color is purple.

He’s sensitive to people bringing up his disabilities, often becoming irritated or just dismissive.

He is territorial towards his close friends and “family”, not allowing strangers to even come near them.

He is autistic and has a lot of cat related vocal stims, especially purring and meowing at people :3

He is the only puppet to know his name.

Teachers:

He also has a problem with trying to eat everything and some of the teachers.

He met Lesley once while he was going to make coffee and she was stealing coffee in the middle of the night, he's terrified of her.

Sketchbook/Notebook (Paige)

Her bedroom is splattered in different paint colors she regularly draws on her walls.

She has a humanoid form and a puppet form, why you ask? Because I can draw it.

She doesn't have much control over what she does in her song other then the lyrics and being creative.

Her favorite one of the trio is yellow she thinks he has artistic talent.

Gets along well with almost all of her fellow teachers.

Unlike most of the others her death was a slow and mostly painless death by carbon monoxide poisoning in her home along with her S/o.

She remembers bits and pieces of her death and life, the teachers remember a bit more then the puppets.

Tony the talking Clock

His room is filled with clocks and other steampunk themed things.

Like Paige he too has a human and a puppet form, he hates both of them.

He had more control in his song minus the whole rotting the trio thing.

He has a questionable amount of bowties.

He gets along with most of the other teachers.

He remembers the day of his death in full detail.

He died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his home with his S/O (not so subtlety hinting).

Colin the computer

He hates freelancers.

He enjoys helping in the kitchen.

He will murder you if you like NFTS.

He died via electrical shock.

He has zero memory of dying.

He has a humanoid form, he looks like a nerd.

He just chills out on the desk and his room is in his digital world, it's very glitchy.

Him and Electracy are have sibling vibes.

He likes to pull pranks on literally everyone no one is spared, he is scared of Tony though and Duck, Duck bites.

Electracy

She sleeps in the electoral box.

She died by getting electrocuted while on the job.

She also has zero memory of dying.

Her and Colin died on the same day in different places.

She likes playing Pokemon.

She likes roller skating.

She like the others have a humanoid form less nerdy then Colin.

She does NOT LIKE COOKINg.

Ti (My oc!)

Her full name is Ativan but she prefers being called Ti.

If you refuse to sleep she will go feral and hold a pillow over your face until you pass out.

Her hat is basically her hair, she can cut it and it grows.

She vaguely remembers her death.

She doesn't really understand that she's dead, she just remembers being taller.

She has a whole cabinet of whatever dead stuff Simon gives her, it smells terrible.

She used to be a sleep therapist before she died.

She died from exhaustion, like she dropped dead.

She uses Simon as transportation.

SHE HATES SHRIGNOLD.

She rarely sleeps so she makes sure her 'friends' get the sleep she can't.

Shrignold

He and his cult live right behind the house.

He tries to set everyone up in a romantic setting.

Is he dead? Did he die, is his cult dead? Mass cult suicide?

He avoids Simon like the plague after he nearly bit off his wing.

He still tries to get yellow to join his cult, Red smacks him with a broom every time he comes near him while duck starts yelling about disrespect and Simon just tries to CHOMP down on his wings.

He stole a key so now he can enter the house whenever he can.

He's homophobic but everyone likes him better then Warren.

He recruited Warren into his cult.

Everyone tolerates him and prefers the homophobic cult leader to Warren.

Unemployed Brendon

He published a novel.

He writes murder mystery, mystery, thriller and romance novels!

He died young.

He accidentally overdosed.

He's the older one!

He likes to draw with Yellow.

He has a bear shaped kids plate.

Briefcase

He's the unemployed one but he doesn't know that.

He died on his first day to work.

Also died tragically young but not as young as his brother.

Him and his brother know their dead but don't mention it.

I project my siblings issues into them

Him and his brother have sibling bonding days where they watch movies.

Roy and Lesley

They're married.

Sometimes happily sometimes not.

Roy does drugs like a lot of them.

The drugs don't work neither does the alcohol.

Are they both dead (?)

Sometimes they're affectionate to Yellow.

And the rest of the time they're not.

Lesley is more affectionate then Roy.

Roy knows that's not fully his son.

his son is dead

Lesley worked on children cartoons while Roy was a free lancer.

Red and Duck DO NOT LIKE ROY they don't know about Lesley.

Roy does not like Simon, Simon likes him though.

He has kicked Simon, Lesley thinks their 'friendship' is hilarious.

Lesley makes stuffed toys in her spare time.

Roy burned down the old house not because of the dead bird or yellow it was to get them into THAT house.

Lesley and Roy live in the upper rooms, they have a kitchen, bathroom and the like.

Roy likes roast beef.

Bonus facts:

Lesley likes tea and coffee.

Lesley likes to steal coffee at midnight when the teachers and puppets are asleep.

They all live in the same house.

Are they in purgatory?

Please send asks this blog thrives on em'

Mostly everyone is platonic, there are a few romantic pairings.

Found family.

Yellow's name is David I don't care if that's not technically confirmed it's his name here.

The group from the jobs episode is also dead, I wonder if they'll appear here?

Warren slander if on the rare occasion someone asks for him, he will be bullied by me making the other characters bully him, I do not like him.

Alrighty thank you for reading!

#dhmis askblog #dhmis au #dhmis #dhmis red guy #dhmis yellow guy #dhmis duck #dhmis red #dhmis sketchbook #dhmis electracey #dhmis notebook #dhmis oc #don't hug me i'm scared #dhmis warren #dhmis lesley #dhmis roy #dhmis colin the computer #dhmis shrignold #dhmis tony the clock #dhmis padlock #dhmis notepad #dhmis tony #ask blog #au #askblog #wow that's a lot of tags

[bonnieprincegnarly]

I had back up when I used to watch this house pre-pandie. I would wake at 5 or 6 to take the dog outside and feed him. While I was doing that Brandi would be inside making breakfast. The concept of an electric stove top blew both of our minds then, you can tell we grew up poor. Brandi and I would make quick trips to the store or to run errands. But mostly we'd lounge and snack and watch things we didn't have the chance to see at home. We'd study very hard the first day so we didn't have to do anything the rest of our time here. We'd go to the pool. Brandi loved the water. She'd soak and float like a child. I never saw her really properly swim much. I remember how much she loved the water at the pool in this subdivision. We'd pack a little bag full of sodas and water and things for her to read. Then we'd walk back to the house and cook dinner, usually spaghetti. And in the night time we'd crash. We'd be so tired from keeping house and tending to pets that we'd be out in under an hour.

We weren't even living together anymore the last time we watched over this house. I told the homeowner that we weren't cohabitating anymore and they were fine with it. They said that they still always saw Brandi and I driving everywhere and hanging out all the time. That was true.

I wish I still had some of those pictures, they were lost on an old phone.

Something tells me that her last couple years were cozy for her in the same domestic way that we shared under this roof. If I know her, she would have found animals to care for and a friend to share things with.

Her birthday is coming up soon. She would have been 35.

#personal #brandi #rant

[noraviolence]

i grew up with a gas stove and now have electric so i know how superior they are but not long after my stepdad moved in with us in like early high school he left the stove on while i was out with my friends one night (and i remember almost sleeping over at my friend's place but deciding not to) and i came home to a house filled with gas and him and my mom asleep in their room and like literally if i hadn't come home that night they'd probably be dead SO i don't mind too much not having one

#we had to leave the windows open for like 2 days to air the place out #and then my room got infested with stink bugs because of that

[daystar-daydreamer]

The First Night in Central

Read on Ao3

“Why didn’t you call for me, Brother?” Alphonse asked.

Edward’s words caught in his throat. Because you’re too good for me. Because everything is my fault and the least I deserve is a little pain. Because I lost nothing compared to you. Because I’m your big brother; I should be the caretaker.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he finally blurted out.

Edward crammed the last of the little clothing he had packed and looked at the old clock hanging on the wall. It was twelve in the morning. Granny would’ve been screaming at him to go to sleep over an hour ago.

His heart clenched. It was strange, how he could miss something he’d once found so annoying.

As he padded out of the tiny bedroom to the even tinier bathroom, he peeked into the only slightly larger sitting room. Alphonse was still sitting in a corner that had been sunny hours ago, a book open and looking like a toy in his huge hands.

Something inside him twisted. He would’ve given anything to switch places with poor Alphonse. He’d lost everything, but all the blame lay on Edward.

As Edward brushed his teeth, rain started to drum on the roof. He sighed. He used to like rain, but now, the change in pressure made his ports hurt.

But what could he do but go to bed? He had to get up early to go into the office the next day. He went to give Alphonse a pat and a kiss on his helmet. “I love you, Al,” he murmured.

“I love you too, Brother,” Alphonse said.

–

It was still dark when Edward woke up. His stumps ached horrifically, and every tiny movement sent wave after wave of searing pain crashing through his body.

He curled into a ball and tears pricked his eyes. He bit down as hard as he could to keep himself from crying out.

Al had it worse, he couldn’t feel anything at all. The least Edward could do was not bother him with his own pain.

With every stab of agony, it grew harder to keep quiet. Tears burned Edward’s eyes, and he tried to choke them back. He didn’t deserve to cry when it was all his fault that Alphonse couldn’t…

–

What felt like hours later, the door creaked open. Edward tried to pull the blanket over his face, and a jolt of pain rippled through his body like electricity. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out.

“Brother?” There came the clanking of Alphonse approaching, then he lifted the covers. Edward shuddered against another flash of pain. “Brother!” Alphonse gasped.

He wrapped Edward in the blanket and scooped him up. He rushed out to the kitchenette, where he lit the stove and held his hands over the fire for a few moments.

Alphonse peeled the blanket from Edward’s ports and placed a hand over each one. The leather of his gauntlets was almost hot, and the pain slowly subsided under his touch. “Better?”

Edward nodded.

“Why didn’t you call for me?”

Edward’s words caught in his throat. Because you’re too good for me. Because everything is my fault and the least I deserve is a little pain. Because I lost nothing compared to you. Because I’m your big brother; I should be the caretaker.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he finally blurted out.

“It’s not a bother to help you, Brother.” Alphonse tucked the blanket over Edward’s ports and held his hands over the stove again.

When he had warmed Edward’s ports, he got up, put Edward onto the chair, and went into the main room. Alphonse returned a moment later with one of the cushions that made up the back of the sofa. He set it in his lap and put Edward on it.

“Is this more comfortable?”

Edward nodded.

Alphonse held his hands over the stove again. “If your ports hurt again, I’ll be right here to warm them up.”

A smile twitched at Edward’s lips. He wriggled his flesh arm out of his cocoon and reached up to pat Alphonse’s face. “Oh, Al… What did I ever do to deserve you?”

#edward elric #Alphonse Elric #fanfiction #fma fanficion #Fullmetal Alchemist #elric bros #My writing #writing

[yardsards]

living in my own apartment has really showed me the full extent of how Fucked Up my living situation was. i'm not even talking about the abusive parent thing here. i mean just the physical environment. we grew up in a shitty dilapidated old farmhouse.

it always smelled just a little bit like piss. whether it was human or animal piss varied from time to time. human piss got less frequent as my dad stopped getting blackout drunk so often. animal piss got more frequent when my parents got a little dog that they didn't bother to train; i started wearing shoes indoors all the time

there was a terrible mouse problem. they weren't as bad upstairs but you could still hear em skittering through the walls at night. they were worst in the kitchen. certain cupboards had it worse than others, so we tried to store things based on that. you had to store the pantry staples in thicker containers: ideally metal or glass- if you used tupperware you'd have to replace it every couple months cuz the mice would start to chew through it. the everyday dishes and cutlery were kept in one of the areas where mice didn't bother to go, but stuff like mixing bowls and pots and pans had to be scrubbed out before you used them, just to be safe.

and then there were the bugs. having at least obe bug in the room with you was the rule, not the exception. especially in summertime. especially during the night. i'd have to go to bed with about a dozen bugs in my room (not even counting the gnats, of which there were several dozen) every night in the summer, because trying to get rid of them was a waste of effort. there were spiders with bodies the size of my big toe and legs the length of my fingers. spiders were mostly consider good, though, because one spider would eat multiple other bugs. but i got used to the bugs, for the most part. left over from that is the fact that i now have to consciously remind myself to put bugs outside when i see one in my apartment, instead of just leaving them there.

winter was worse than the summer, though. for most of my childhood we relied primarily on a wood stove (using logs my dad would cut throughout the year) in the living room because heating the house with electricity was too expensive. the air was dry and smelled a bit like soot.

we'd sometimes supplement that with electric wall heaters or space heaters if it got too cold for the stove to keep up with, and my dad would fuss over the cost the whole time. but the heaters were pretty weak and couldn't keep the house warm if the fire wasn't running. the fire needed constant tending, and if me and my sister were home alone (we weren't allowed to manage the fire as children) it would get cold very fast. we wore our winter coats indoors after we got home from school, before our mother came home from work and lit the fire (which had to be snuffed out in the morning when my dad left for work, so as not to risk another house fire. (which happened once but everyone was home and we could call the fire department so it only burned the roof by the time they got there)). it'd get extra cold at night, both because the outdoors cold colder after dark and because no one would be awake and actively adding fuel to the fire.

but even with the fire and the heaters, it was almost always a little bit chilly. you generally had to wear a jacket or robe over your pajamas at all times, and keep a blanket wrapped around yourself as you went about your day. i'd spend most of my time either curled up in bed or gravitating to whatever heat source i could find. i'd sit up so close to the wood stove that my skin would get red hot but i'd stay there til the cold that'd dug its way into my bones cooled off. or me and my sister would get into fights over who got to sit in the warm spot in front of the good electric heater.

i went to sleep at night, curled up in a tight little ball, half a dozen blankets on me, covering up even my face, arranged so there was just a small hole near my nose to breathe through. in the mornings, i'd pick out the day's outfit and then lie down on top of it for a few minutes so i wouldn't have to put cold fabric directly onto my body (cold denim is The Worst). i became a master of getting dressed under the still-warm blankets in my bed.

as we got older and my dad got too old to keep chopping firewood and we got Slightly Less Poor we got more electric heaters and stopped using the wood stove. and some of the problems caused by having to rely on fire went away, but it was still often very cold inside

i. think i might've been legit traumatized by those winters.

it sounds almost silly to call feeling cold traumatic. it was so minor compared to most of the traumatizing shit that happened to me as a kid. and it wasn't like, ever deadly cold. we were never at risk of homelessness. it probably never even dropped below 55F; it wasn't like my cousins who spent a couple years having to wear winter coats indoors all winter. but. i think it was still trauma, in a way.

but like. every year during autumn, i feel this sinking sense of dread as i realize it's getting colder.

a little of that is just cuz i hate winter for normal reasons. i have no cold tolerance. i'm scrawny and mildly anemic. my brain interprets cold sometimes as a sharp burning pain. even when i'm fully bundled up (and i mean REALLY bundled up, not just throwing on a winter coat and a hat, i'm talking 3 layers of clothing under the coat type of shit) the cold creeps in. having to walk to and from places often ends up feeling painful from the cold. and i love being outdoors and being trapped inside drives me bonkers

but i think a lot of that dread is legit a trauma response.

or even when i'm chilly for just a bit too long, i sometimes even end up crying. not because the cold air makes my eyes water, not from the physical pain of the cold, but because i get a feeling of helplessness that i couldn't figure out the source of til just now.

#eliot posts #abuse mention #trauma mention #unsanitary cw #bugs cw #mice cw #poverty cw #long post

[nifedick]

I put the pan on the burner wet which you can do if you have a gas stove like I grew up with and you can sort of do if you have an electric stove like I did for six or so years but not at ALL if you have a fucking god awful induction cooktop now it’s spitting and hissing at me like I’m making latkes and it’s JUST water

[whiskeyworen]

“Is that... Is that a microwave?” Cyrus couldn’t believe his eyes. Ever since the day he’d been ‘moved’ from his world to this one, he’d longed for the comforts of modern technology. He never found it in Kryta or Ascalon; the Charr loved their coal, oil, and steam tech, so they’d made some interesting forays into ICE technology... The Sylvari just grew everything, and the average norn was content to live in a patchwork yurt made of tanned skins. The asura had technology...after a fashion. Most of it was circuit-laden stone and wood, with metal embellishments. It still functioned like technology but.... it didn’t feel the same. Even hybridized Pact tech didn’t feel the same. But here in Cantha... In Cantha, all the trappings of home had reappeared before his tired eyes. While the others had been awestruck by things they’d viewed as impossibilities, he’d been looking for the little stuff. In place of television, they had holographic projectors, in all sizes. He’d stifled a laugh when he’d passed a kid on the street who’d had a pocket-sized projector and was watching some show. It had been some cartoon-y thing, and some part of him had perked up at the idea that maybe Cantha had a parallel version of the anime he’d loved to watch back home. He’d seen someone make a personal call to another using a similar device. Earpiece communicators were almost standard in New Kaineng, and when they weren’t, there were Jade Bots, and personal comm projectors. The moment he saw the prosethetics, the jade-powered artificial limbs some people had, he thought of all those back in Kryta who had peglegs, and of a Charr he’d met once who had a partially mechanized brace encasing his arm and hand. Of how things could now be different for them. And then he’d wandered past someone’s kitchen booth, in Bori Ward, and had seen them use two things he’d never seen -- in Tyria -- before. The cook had taken something out of a refrigerator -- for there was no mistaking that coffin-like, upright box... at least for Cyrus -- and popped it into the microwave sitting on the counter. “What’s a microwave?” Tenna asked, before spying the device. “Oh wow... what IS that?” She squinted, trying to see past the mesh on the glass of the door. “Is it doing something to the food?” Cyrus nodded. “Yeah. If it works how I think it does, it generates microwaves from an emitter inside, and when the microwaves hit the food, they warm it up by agitating the molecules. The mesh on the glass keeps the microwaves from escaping and doing the same to anyone in their path, while the inner shell of it keeps the waves bouncing until they hit the food. I don’t think it’s magic-based, except the fact they’re powering it with this Jade power but...” “That’s a neat device, but we have things like that back on the ship, don’t we?” “Yeah...we got food reheaters and things that function the same but look entirely different. Ours use modified fire-magic projectors and hard light heaters and things...” He waved a hand at the two devices, and then at the electric stove beside them. “These... I can’t explain it without sounding insane. These are so normal, it’s jarring.” Tenna looked at him oddly. They’d had plenty of conversations, most of which had sounded nuts to her, but always had that undefinable and unsettling element of truth to them. This was the first time she’d seen this particular look on his face. “What do you mean ‘normal’? This is freak Jadetech stuff.” Cyrus shook his head, and sighed. “No, I mean specifically from my perspective. You have to understand. Back in the world I was from?” He pointed at the microwave, and then the fridge. “I had both of these in my home. These look almost identical to the design, shape and size of those.” “It’s so damned strange. This is world of magic, monsters, liches, dragons, Elder dragons, Gods, ancient ruins and all kinds of weirdness. To you, it’s all normal because it’s the world you grew up in.” He waved hand again. “Those? That’s MY world there. A world I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years. And seeing it, here, now... knowing that Cantha is so advanced that it’s bordering on what my world was like technologically when I left...” He just kinda trailed off, lost in thoughts and memories. Eventually he roused himself and walked away from the booth, rubbing the back of his neck. “...They’re so close too. The dials... I guess you could still get some with dials, but I thought those went away in the 80s... I wonder if they’ve ever thought about satellites?...” Tenna just stared after him, fully confused. She looked at the amazing Jadetech devices again, trying to see them through his eyes. She wondered how she would respond if, thrown into another world with entirely new rules and technological philosophies, if she’d suddenly stumbled upon someone using something that looked distinctly Asura. How much it would stand out to her, and yeah, how jarring it would be. “....I wonder how much these things cost?...” She asked herself as she ran to catch up to Cyrus. It’d be interesting to ask him what other things were ‘familiar’ to him.

#gw2 screenshot #gw2 fanfiction #My characters #Cyrus Sigismund #Tenna Danae #got isekai-d #New Kaineng City #Bori Ward #Screenshot vaguely related #feels surreal #microwave oven