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#I’ve not been on a long flight in so long

lulublack90 · 2 days

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Prompt 18 - Paint

@jegulus-microfic May 18, Word count 588

Previous part First part

James was woken up just after dawn by Sirius and Peter coming back to the dorm after Remus had transformed again. He pulled the curtains back so he could look at them, Regulus still nestled into his side.

“How was it?” He asked Sirius in a low voice. Peter waved at him but dove into his own bed, hoping to get a few hours sleep before lessons began.

Sirius shook his head.

“He wasn’t happy. I tried everything to calm him down.” He swallowed and James saw the tears flighting to get out. “He chewed up his paws, he wouldn’t stop. He wanted to be out of the shack. When he turned back, his hands were in tatters. I couldn’t stop him, Prongs.” A tear leaked down his face and James felt so guilty. He should have been there to help Sirius, to be there for Remus. But instead, he was curled up safe and warm with his boyfriend. He opened the arm that wasn’t wrapped around Regulus towards Sirius. Sirius glanced once at his slumbering brother and bounded into James’s bed.

Sirius snuggled tight into James and James held him. He stroked his hair and muttered reassurances to him. Regulus stirred and slowly blinked and opened his eyes.

“What are you doing in here?” He grumbled at Sirius, clearly not happy with his new bedmate. James had been about to step in when something strangely wonderful happened. Regulus noticed the tears on Sirius’s face and the way he trembled slightly. He reached over James, and took his brother's hand. “Is Remus alright?” He asked gently. Sirius shook his head again and sniffled. “Well Madam Pomfrey will fix him up, won’t she?” James had never seen the two brothers getting on so well. He was afraid to breathe, in case he broke the spell.

Sirius looked over at the window and said quietly.

“You need to recite the incantation,” He rolled and grabbed Regulus’s wand off the bedside table and handed it to him.

“Thank you.” He wiggled out of James’s hold and sat on the edge of the bed. “Amato, Animo, Animato, Animagus,” He chanted while holding his wand to his heart. He handed his wand back to Sirius and laid back down. They all slept until Peters alarm clock blared, and they forced themselves to get up.

“I feel like I need to prank,” Sirius declared as they were pulling on their robes. “It’s been too long since we did anything good.”

“I’ve got a bunch of fanged frisbees in my trunk. We could use them,” James suggested as he flung the invisibility cloak over Regulus before they left the dorm.

“Nah, too boring.” Sirius dismissed.

“There is nothing boring about a fanged frisbee,” Peter piped up. “Remember the one that went off in Zonkos? It nearly scalped me.”

“Either way, Pete, it’s not what I had in mind.” His eyes flickered to the hundreds of paintings all around them.

“Did I ever tell you I used to paint?” He grinned mischievously. A bodiless groan came from beside James.

“I don’t want to be anywhere near you lot when he does that. You should have seen what he did to Phineas Nigellus. It took months for him to return to normal.” James couldn’t help it, he was intrigued.

“What you thinking, Padfoot?” Sirius gave him that look that gave him shivers of anticipation.

“I think the paintings could do with a bit of fun,” James couldn’t wait to see what Sirius's imagination would come up with.

Next part

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sportswriters · 3 days

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traveling to his hometown - j. swayman

pairing: jeremy swayman x reader | f | established relationship | wc: 943 | warnings: none

welcome post!

you came up with the idea of traveling to anchorage for a few days to take care of your well being. jeremy found it great since it’s break season so he had a free week to enjoy before going back to training. he’s always been connected to nature since he was a kid going to hike with his dad, so it was nice for him as well. jeremy picked you up in the morning to go to his parents house so you could all go to the airport together. his sister would arrive a day later with her husband and the baby.

“hello, beautiful. did you sleep well last night?” he greets you with a kiss, then helps you with the baggage.

“just a few hours. i kept thinking if i was missing to pack something,” you confess. “i probably dreamed about it, i just don’t remember. you?”

“well, me too. can’t wait to rest and enjoy the view with you.”

“i’m so glad we’re going together. so glad you came from such a beautiful place, no wonder you’re the love of my life,” you hug his waist, leaving a quick peck on the side of his neck.

“you’re lucky we can’t be late. i could totally go back up to your place so we could smooch for a few hours.”

you just laugh and let go of him, leaving the teasing for when you’re properly alone.

the trip to his parents house and then to anchorage went by pretty fast. jeremy came from a family full of good people, so it was easy to talk to them comfortably. since it was a long flight, everyone took the opportunity to get some sleep — not even the excitement could control tiredness.

there wasn’t a proper plan to follow during the trip, so you hang out inside just enjoying the coziness of the house, taking every chance to cuddle by the fire or outside on the porch. sometimes you would take a walk around the neighborhood, eating delicious food and buying souvenirs. the other day you went hiking in his favorite place, then when you reached the top, your emotions overflowed when you took in how beautiful the world around you was. jeremy stayed by your side, waiting for you to calm down. he was aware of how hard work has been to you, but the difference was that you couldn’t let out this kind of energy like he did on the ice. he was aware that for now all he could do was being there until you got back.

and you did. within the safety of his arms, you felt lighter while you waited for your breath to normalize and your eyes were still puffy.

“thank you, baby.”

“always, my love.”

you and jeremy have been a couple for almost two years, but after these days being so domestic and behaving like a true dynamic duo in every situation, it made you both realize how great of an idea it would be to finally move in together. neither of you knew you’re thinking of the same thing, so a few hours before going to the airport, jeremy took you to the porch to talk, failing to notice that you said you also wanted to show him something. he was nervous, it’s cute, you would’ve paid more attention if you weren’t as much as a nervous wreck.

it’s not like you’re anxious or anything — neither of you —, it’s the expectation. the realization of how much you love one another. loving someone to the point you wish to spend your whole life with, to wake up beside each other, to wait for them to come home.

“you know you’re my home, right?” he asks.

“i figured i might be one of them, yes” you joke, knowing how important his family is to him. jeremy stares at you for a second with a silly smile hovering his features. he pecks your lips twice.

“okay, smartass. i meant to say you’re someone i’m sure i want to build a home with.”

his straightforwardness catches you out of guard.

“jer…”

“wait, listen. i’ve considered a lot of things, but i know you must have your own conditions…”

“baby, correct me if i’m wrong.” you hold his hands over your lap. “we’re each other’s home, that’s known. now you want us to build a home together? is that right? like living together?”

“yes, if you let me.”

“remember i said i wanted to show you something?” you let go of his hands to open an app on your phone, searching for a picture. jeremy is slightly confused by the subtle change of topic, but quietly waits for you.

you smile when you find it. it’s a picture of a cheesy welcome rug with a bear couple and lots of cute hearts. jeremy smiles right when he sees it, used to the silly stuff you send him everyday, especially the ones with couples that act like you two.

“that’s adorable, for sure… wait.” he tears his eyes off the phone to find you smiling at him with your eyebrows raised. “is this what i think it means?”

“i must add that this is one picture from a quite big pinterest folder. i named it our lil ol’ home, see?” you show him the title.

jeremy looks like he could cry at any second.

“my love…”

you stand from your seat to sit on his lap, hugging him with your whole body.

“we’re in this together. i love you so much, jer.”

“i love you, y/n. can’t wait to start buying couple’s stuff with you as soon as we arrive home.”

#jeremy swayman #jeremy swayman imagines #jeremy swayman scenarios #nhl imagines #nhl scenarios #nhl drabbles #nhl blurbs #boston bruins imagines #jeremy swayman fluff #sportswriters ❤

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tunastime · 2 days

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Love in the Time of Calculation

as promised: the first chapter of the ranchers SEN fic! this fic takes place inside the au I created for Stretching Endless Night. I'm hoping posting this first chapter will actually get me to. write the rest of it. since I've got so much of it written. jazz hands!! enjoy!

In order to continue supplying food for a growing station, Commander Tango Tek, second to the head of engineering on the space station Prometheus, takes a six month study with the Empire-2 station at the behest of his admiral. There, he meets their botanist and horticulturist, Jimmy, a man he's only communicated with in communiques, voice memos, and documents. When they meet for the first time face-to-face, Tango realizes they both have something very interesting in common. In the face of all odds, two androids fall deeply, horribly in love. (6711 words)

Tango flips a switch on his navigation panel.

“It would be funny,” he says, slowly, enunciating as the recorder picks him up. “If I were to start these with some outlandish startdate. I would find it hilarious, I think, but I don’t know how many other people would. So…

Stardate 2105.47: I’ve just made brief contact with the Ring-style Space Station known as the Empire-dash-2. After discussion of docking procedure, I was forwarded the…passkey for the docking sequence and I should be arriving within two hours of my current time. That time is…in hour format…8:07pm. Lookin’ forward to meeting them, as much as they’re probably lookin’ forward to meeting me. I’ve never spoken to them in person—it’s all been electronic. So…it’ll be interesting, to say the least!” He nods, feeling some inclination to sigh—despite there being no way to. Motions he’d learned and copied from his peers.

“Thus begins my month-long stay with E-dash-2. I can only hope some work with hydroponics actually gets me somewhere. They tell me the guy’s a genius, so I’m inclined to believe them.”

Tango jabs his finger against the stop recording button. After a beat, the small, LCD screen flashes SENT in dark, bold letters. Leaning back in his chair, Tango folds his arms over his chest, and sets his boots on his console. The ship around him hums faintly, enough to be heard if he pays attention to it. As he leans back, he surveys the inside of his ship, the LTS-111, the small craft that he called home. In comparison to other ships on the Prometheus, it’s smaller, built for short term travel between locations, a cool, dark grey inside. There’s two swivel chairs at the helm, a large front, port window, overlain with his control panel, above and below his chair. Behind him, a door opens to a short hallway—mess hall and his room, just a plain, grey-white with one bunk. There’s a crate with his belongings, of which there are few, a plant on the windowsill to keep him sane. The mess is devoid of food and drink. It’s a luxury he doesn’t need. It’s nice when he can, but it’s nothing but an experience for him. Nothing to be gained from poorly made HASA meals full of crude protein. The edge of his boot catches the lip of the console, pulling at the rubber. He’s tucked his flight suit into his boots. His eyes follow the bright red and gold stripe down the side—division colors. Commander, engineering and technology. On his sleeve there would be the same designation, as was on all of his uniforms. Even the plain black, well fit shirt underneath, even his boots. HASA; Commander. Luckily his boots didn’t have a commander or engineering tag. If he felt so inclined to sand off the small rubber HASA branding he could.

His eyes follow a line across the ceiling, to the small strip of light that brightens the room. He runs his fingers over the seam in his sleeve—habit, again, but he’s not sure from whom.

The hour passes slowly. Tango spins simulations in his mind, projects from the ship's computer the schematics of E-2. He can see the docking station there on the map and traces out the line from there to the botanical garden. He spends time memorizing that path, and out to other locations, and rolling the names of his new compatriots around in his language acquisition program. None of these things are foreign to him—he’s built for new experiences, new learning opportunities. He can feel where known things end and new begins, and craves to fill the space, often and continuously. When that hour ends, there’s a tinny beep from his communications panel. He looks over the message displayed.

LTS-111 prepare docking sequence.

Tango dials the coordinates into his navigation system, overriding the current charting program to pilot into the docking bay. As he does, a crackling voice jumps to life.

“LTS-111, this is Fwhip, Commander of E-2. Do you copy?”

“E-2, this is Commander Tek of Prometheus. I copy. The Rift is ready for docking procedure.”

“Commander!” The voice—Fwhip—laughs. “It’s good to have you. Glad to hear you made it safely.”

Tango nods to himself.

“Myself as well. Looking forward to meeting you all.”

The line clicks out. Tango resettles in his chair, sitting up straight, taking in the sound of Fwhip’s voice, the designation, the information. He files that away.

The curve of E-2 comes into view, stark white and grey, glittering gold where the paneling reflects light. He watches as the shining craft sits suspended amidst stars, its own field of gravity and oxygen and life shining a faint blue in the light of the nearby sun. He feels that warmth through the front viewscreen, despite the gold foil and shade to block it. It’s nice. In the closest approximation to nice he could get. He pulls the seat’s harness over his chest, snaps it in place as he begins standard docking procedure—slowing to a noticeable crawl, flipping on his communications panels, and switching to reserve thrusters. The Rift was made with older tech, anything he could salvage and amass from ships being decommissioned. It functioned—better than the standard HASA ships and was fully compliant—well beyond what he’d ever expected. Though he wasn’t quite human enough to have real expectations.

The ship settles into a launch port on the far side of E-2. Tango takes his time collecting his belongings. He wanders into his room as the ship powers down, settling into a dull hum. He repacks his bag, giving a quick once-over of the bunk before he lifts the trunk into his arms, the weight negligible. He settles the plant in the corner of his bag, making sure it’s settled before he slings the bag over one shoulder and sets the crate on one hip. His startup keycard sits in his front shirt pocket, and his credentials badge in his back pocket.

The first thing he notices as he enters the launchpad for E-2 is how clean and bright it is. The launchpad is devoid of anyone working, and there are certainly no other docking ships. The two other ships Tango can see are relatively new and clean, parked closely together. He glances around the space, looking for any sign of movement. His footsteps echo quietly around the empty chamber. To his right, beyond a stabilizing membrane is the winking stars of space. There’s a planet in the far distance, but it’s much too far to see anything notable.

The bay door to his ship closes as he steps toward the winding steps up to the lofted second floor. He starts up the steps, lifting the crate into his arms.

“Commander Tek!”

Tango startles. Looking up to the second floor, he sees someone lean over the railing, waving enthusiastically. Tango squints at him, surrounded by the white facade of the walls around him.

“Commander Fwhip?” Tango says, cocking his head to the side. He sees Fwhip nod again.

Tango smiles a little, eyebrows furrowing despite it. Fwhip. The intonation matches what he heard crackling over the communicator of his ship, though, of course, without the static. He’s wearing stark black, with a large diagonal line cut in red across his chest, up to his collar, and over his shoulders. Tango realizes for a moment that his jumpsuit may not have been the prime choice for meeting a commanding officer—no matter the rank or office. Especially considering that he was supposed to be both a liaison and a researcher.

But as Fwhip meets Tango on the landing, he shakes his hand firmly. There’s a spark, somewhere, in his eye, his heart rate elevated as Tango greets him. He’s winded, too, like he ran all the way here. Tango feels a piece of information in his mind click unexpectedly into place.

“Commander Fwhip,” he says, copying the smile Fwhip is giving him more fully. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Oh, please,” Fwhip laughs. “Commander, the pleasure is ours. Congratulations on your most recent publication.”

Tango nods. Somewhere, something kicks in his chest, just the faintest flicker of painful phantom sensation. It took him two years to publish that paper—and it was a damn shame he had to die to get it published in full, despite Doc and Etho’s help.

Fwhip’s hand is warm in his, enough to notice the change in sensation between them. He can feel Fwhip’s heartbeat in his palm and the way his breathing stutters for a second when Tango and him shake hands. Fwhip looks down at his hand. Tango lets go first, the noticeable white lines on his skin pulsating in and out. His hand feels stiff as he stretches it, feeling metal extend and retract.

“You’re…” Fwhip starts. Tango sees him frown, just the smallest change between his eyebrows.

“An android?” Tango finishes. He watches color rise to Fwhip’s face as Tango tilts his head, expression neutral, amused, even. Fwhip laughs, even if it’s born from a touch of embarrassment. Tango hums something low, a version of a laugh he can manage to sound normal.

“It’s not strange, if that’s what you think I think,” Fwhip says, leading Tango toward the stairs. “Unexpected maybe, but—to be fair, they didn’t tell you anything about me, either.”

“That is very true,” Tango says. He feels that itch, then, that want to know, to delve deeper. He shifts the box in his arms as they round the stairs, reaching the upper platform. “I think most people are surprised to find that I’m an android.”

“That’s a shame—you’re brilliant for more reasons than just being an android,” Fwhip says, and the click comes back again, like he’s cracking a combination lock one number at a time.

“I appreciate that,” Tango says, inclining his head. If there were anything in his face to indicate blush, he would be bright red. He hums instead, tilting his head back and forth in a dismissive sort of shake. Fwhip backsteps to walk by his side, raising his eyebrows over his glasses.

“So,” he starts, motioning to the door. “Did you have any questions about the ship as you settle in?”

Tango looks down at his shoes for a second, letting the thought spin in his head. He nods, just once.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d love to hear more about the botany division—I got a real short mission briefing with Admiral Xisuma before I left. I know we were in a hurry to find the sweet spot of travel.”

“Of course,” Fwhip says. “Lining up that parallel can be real difficult if you don’t time it right.”

“The Admiral’s got an eye for interesting navigation patterns.”

Fwhip laughs, nodding his head.

“Glad to hear you’re in good hands,” he says, opening the door for them. Tango follows him into a brightly lit hallway, lined in white and cream and bright floor lights. Along the edges are colored lines, intersecting and dividing—red, blue, green—to locations Tango can’t see. He follows Fwhip down a corridor, further from the launch platform. Tango knows this layout—further down the hall is a passenger elevator meant for the science team. They’ll take it down four flights to the belly of the ship, where many of the labs rest, tucked away. The ship's rings orbit each other, so he’ll be in this ring for as long as he’s doing research. They’re relatively straight forward, broken into divided sections inside. He traces the pattern out in his mind as Fwhip begins to speak.

“Well, to give you a station briefing, our main team fluctuates, but I’d say we have about 15 to 20 of us at any given time on command, and then a hundred of personnel and staff besides ourselves. I work closely with Lieutenants Scott and Pix, and both of them know our botanist pretty well,” he turns to Tango as he calls for the elevator, pressing his keycard to the small panel next to it. The numbers above the sliding doors illuminate in orange, bright and blocky. Tango raises his eyebrows.

“His name is Jimmy,” Fwhip continues. “He’s a Lieutenant Junior Grade, but he’s incredibly good at what he does. I’ll let you two get acquainted when we get down there.” The elevator doors slide open. Fwhip gestures Tango inside before he himself steps in, pressing the button for their floor. Tango sets his trunk at his feet, toeing it off to the side and out of the way. “He spends most of his time down there, so you may not see him much at all besides when you’re working.”

Tango hums. He screws up his face into an approximation of thinking, running the words over in his head. A junior lieutenant. A higher officer, for certain, but for him to be teaching Tango—there feels like there should be a catch. Tango pulls at the seams of the phrasing, the intonation. His eyebrows furrow.

Fwhip answers his question before it leaves his mouth.

“He basically revitalized the hydroponics system overnight—nothing’s changed in the watering or feeding system, but the plants grow like crazy now,” Fwhip folds his arms, glancing over at Tango as Tango folds his hands behind his back. “I think it was his specification for a while, so as soon as he got here, he requested the transfer, and his work brought him up the grade.”

“That’s impressive,” Tango says, a touch quiet. The only other person he knew who’d ever done something like that had been Mumbo, and most of his ideas were feats of engineering so large they required a three-room modified lab space and a blast chamber. Meridian supplied that—though Prometheus—himself included—was sad to lose him to their sister station, especially after how long he worked with Tango.

“He’s written a paper on it—it’s in the works of being reviewed now,” Fwhip says. “I don’t know how likely it is to go through, though.”

Tango hums again.

“Why’s that?”

Fwhip shrugs. “He’s just not a nice guy to work with,” he says. “And I don’t mean that to be rude, either.”

The elevator doors open. They spill out into a lackluster hallway, still the same bleach white as the floors above. Taking a sharp right, they follow the curved edge of the ship down the green line, toward a series of crew cabins. Fwhip gestures toward a room closer to the middle of their row. As they stand there for a moment, he offers Tango a keycard.

“We got you a room—well before we knew that you…probably wouldn’t need the bedspace,” he says, shaking his head apologetically. Tango waves his hand. “You’re welcome to it, though.”

“Oh, I’ll absolutely take it,” Tango says, trying that smile again. Fwhip smiles back this time, one that touches his eyes, and makes Tango smile harder.”I like having my own space. Normally I have an office, so this’ll do just fine, I think.”

He presses the keycard to the door as Fwhip lifts his crate into his arms, struggling under the weight for a moment. The door slides open. Inside, as the soft yellow lights raise to bright, is a sparsely furnished room. Fwhip carries his crate into the room, setting it at the foot of the double bed. The room is small, clean, tidy. He turns in a small circle as Fwhip sets the crate down, nodding his head.

“This is great,” Tango says, dipping his head. “Thank you.”

Fwhip nods, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Absolutely,” he says. Moving past him, he gestures back to the hallway. “I’ll be forwarding you the ship changelog, so you know who’s on shift at a given time, and when meals are, if you have any interest.”

“That sounds great,” Tango says, moving with him to the hall. He follows Fwhip back down the hall, back towards the elevator. They diverge at a second hallway and down a third, following the winding corridor through the ship’s interiors. The walls shift from opaque to translucent as they follow the path down, with more and more people shuffling about. Fwhip moves through the hall easily—Tango navigates with a bit more difficulty, skirting past doors sliding open and bright lights and the new rush of people. As they weave through, Fwhip says:

“Figured I’d show you down to the lab,” he checks his wrist, a brief flash of numbers and notifications that Tango doesn’t quite catch fully. “I’ve got a bit before I have to be back at the bridge.”

Tango hums.

“Great—I’ll…hopefully be able to find, uh, Jimmy?”

Fwhip nods.

“Mhm—” he says. They pause at a lab closer to the end of the corridor. Through the high ceiling and tinted glass, Tango can see the warm yellow and purple light that floods the space. The lab stretches further down the hallway and out of sight. Fwhip tilts his head toward the lab.

“This is it?” Tango asks.

“This is the one,” Fwhip says. He steps back from the door, letting Tango tap his card, the door sliding open for him. It stays open for a moment as Tango steps in. Fwhip checks his wrist again.

“I’ll let you find him,” he says. “Hopefully you’ll get a briefing before you leave to unpack.”

Tango nods, smiling again. The warmth of the room starts to roll over him as he stands still—cooling kicks on to adjust, like a sigh out of his chest.

“Thank you, Commander,” he says. Fwhip nods, dismissing him, before the door shuts between them, and Tango stands, alone, in a room full of plants.

He picks his way around the lab for a long while. The quiet is nice, the sound of air circulating and the soft hum of lights and electronics. He hadn’t run this particular section over in his schematics—something about it almost felt invasive. He wanted to learn it for himself, standing in the center of the room, hands braced on the work table. The equipment portion of the lab is its own self-contained room at the front of the lab—big enough for a table, several workstations, shelves of equipment. He rounds the table as he spots a secondary sliding door, obscured by the semi-translucent, white glass.

Tango presses his loaned keycard to the scanner, watching the door slide open. Stepping inside, he stands amongst a huge lab filled with rows of vegetables, aquatic plants, and small trees. He can see potatoes, carrots, beets, neat and lined in suspended troughs of water and sitting in cups on the floor. Along the walls are digging and planting tools organized haphazardly, strewn about in small piles. The air is warm and humid as he walks his way around a series of rows—it almost feels like its own planet, like the atmosphere alone were thick enough to taste.

Tango walks along a row, watching the plants with a careful consideration, as if they would move, or reach out to him, or something. But they’re just plants—unmoving beside the slight wave in the airflow. He reaches out after a moment, brushing one of the leaves, feeling it between his fingers. It’s rhubarb. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen rhubarb before. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen this many plants before.

Moving around the hydroponics, Tango wanders around the other side of the lab, watching as it stretches out and further back, rows of plants in tight lines, purple lighting and tubes for irrigation running across the ceiling. He turns into a slow circle, moving back through the rows as he does. The rows loop around back to the supply stations, where Tango walks backward, trying to see the end of the lab, where else it could lead, where else he could explore.

His foot catches under him, sliding out as his knees buckle and he lurches sideways.

He yelps loudly, flailing as he falls, losing his balance and smacking into the shelf behind him. A handful of ceramic plants pots and glass beakers fall with him, smashing to the ground as the shelf comes loose. Tango scrambles up, slipping again as he lands on his hands and knees, fumbling as he tries to scoop the glass into a reasonable, unnoticeable pile, to fix the shovels that must’ve fallen with him, the stacks of gardening gloves under his right boot. He mutters to himself as he does, babbling as his mind whirs with simulations. They were always there—right? That’s fine! He tries to stack a pair of gloves back on the shelf, watching them slide directly off.

Shoot. Shoot! Damn it!

“Shit—” he mumbles.

“Hello?”

A voice calls out from the other side of the room. Tango hears a door shut. He pushes the broken shards of a pot near his knee together, like he could even try and fix the shattered pot. He searches wildly for the voice as he does.

“Hi—” he manages, voice warbling unexpectedly. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to.”

“What?” the voice comes again. “Who…”

Tango follows a shape through the row of plants as a man in grey steps around toward him. He blinks, owlish and confused, as he stares at Tango. Tango can see the name stitched into his quarter-zip.

Jimmy.

“I’m so sorry—” Tango starts again, but the man—Jimmy—is already halfway to kneeling in front of him, taking the broken pot from him, scooping the rest of the shards into his hands. Tango realizes, all at once, that he’s still sitting on the ground, surrounded by the carnage of him falling unceremoniously over into the stand. He starts gathering the tools around him into his arms.

“It’s…it’s alright—” he sighs, a trickle of confusion, of agitation, leaking into his voice. “Walk me through it, what happened?”

“I walked into it—” Tango says, feeling foolish all of a sudden. It’s not a tangible feeling. He just knows something is churning and curling in him and he can’t place what. “One minute I was turnin’ around lookin’ at this place and the next—wack.”

Jimmy hums under his breath, something amused. Tango blinks at him as he rights the shelf and replace the items from the floor.

“Wack?” he says, starting to laugh. “I…yeah. Sorry, I don’t organize things very well, it seems like.”

“I don’t either, I’ll be honest…” Tango says, shaking his head. “You’re Jimmy, then?”

Tango scrambles up with glass still in his hands and Jimmy turns back to him as he looks around for somewhere to put it. Jimmy nods his head over to a waste bin, dropping the shards of clay pot into it.

“Mm,” Jimmy nods. “You’re…?”

Tango makes a half-sound as he turns back to him, waving his hands.

“Commander Tek,” he says, sticking out his hand, smiling a bit lopsided. It feels lopsided at least. He’s trying to copy what he knows, and he thinks he’s failing. “Er, Tango. You don’t have to call me Commander.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows.

“Ah—Fwhip told me you were coming,” he says, tilting his head a little, something like a smile coming to his face. “You’re sure just Tango?”

Tango nods.

“Too fancy with the whole thing. I prefer just Tango, anyway.”

Jimmy smiles in full. The action alone splits his face in half, stretching up to his eyes. Tango copies him, after a beat, something that falters just a little bit as he does.

Jimmy takes Tango’s hand. As he does, a buzz of electricity spikes up Tango’s arm and to his elbow, pooling there, zinging cool and bright. Tango startles, jolting back, making a small, sharp sound that gets lost as Jimmy audibly yelps. It didn’t hurt, but it felt new. Tango likes new.

He feels something wash over him, even as he jolts—memory, knowledge, understanding, like an imprint of knowing the man before him before he even did. Jimmy blinks, a furrow coming between his eyebrows. Tango, for a split second, wonders if the feeling is mutual.

“Sorry,” he blurts. The static shock dissipates as he shakes out his hand. “Sorry, I might still have glass….”

Tango looks over his hands, prodding at the silicon for any shards left there. There aren’t any, though—he even brushes them together, trying to feel for anything. Tango glances back at Jimmy. He’s looking him over, that curious, owlish expression on his face again. His mouth quirks up a little, the sides of his mouth lifting.

“You’re an android,” he says.

Tango’s eyes flick over his face for a moment. It’s completely symmetrical, brown eyes clear and bright, hair neatly parted. His movements are smooth as he steps back and adjusts his sleeves and reaches to gently brush something from Tango’s jumpsuit.

“So are you,” Tango finally says, mouth quirking up. His mouth tastes like static electricity.

“Huh,” Jimmy says, soft, thoughtful. The edges of his mouth fully curl up in a way so human and so foreign. Tango catalogs it immediately. “That’s so interesting.”

Tango huffs out an approximation of a laugh—which causes Jimmy to laugh in earnest. The tension dissolves as he laughs, and Tango feels his shoulders drop. That tingling feeling still hasn’t left Tango’s hand. He wonders for a moment if it ever will, or if every time they brush together it’ll light up like static, or if maybe they just happened to be carrying just enough electrical discharge to shock each other. Tango hopes it doesn’t happen again. He’d like to be friendly without risking a shock.

“So,” Tango starts as they stand together in the hydroponic farm. “Is there a reason ESA lets you use terracotta and glass in space?”

Jimmy shrugs.

“They want it to feel more like Earth,” he hums, amused, turning away from Tango. He wanders a bit before Tango startles to catch up, following him through to the lab room. Jimmy pushes up the sleeves of his ESA sweatshirt. “Not that I would know what that feels like…though I do like it.”

They step through to the lab with the door hissing shut behind them. The humidity and heat follow them in, clinging to Tango’s jumpsuit. He can hear Jimmy mumbling to himself under his breath as he circles the large lab table in search of something. Tango tracks him with his eyes, pausing in the space where Jimmy once was, folding his arms. Jimmy fumbles around for a moment, digging through his cabinets, with Tango watching over his shoulder.

“That’s nice,” Tango says, eyes following him. Jimmy hums, nodding in response. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen Earth myself, either.”

“Oh yeah?” Jimmy says. When he turns back, he’s holding a data pad, a thumb drive and a blank badge. He lines them all up on the table, sitting next to each other. “Have you ever been planetside?”

Tango nods.

“A few times with my old crew,” he starts, waving his hands back and forth. “Some dry and dusty ones for sure. Not too exciting.”

Jimmy tilts his head a bit. He’s still smiling, and Tango, for a moment, can’t take his eyes off it. He isn’t sure anyone’s ever smiled at him for that long, or maybe he’s misreading it—emotions were a fickle, strange thing. Maybe Jimmy was simply happy.

Tango leans against the table, back pressing to the side of it, glancing down at the data pad and keycard for a moment. Jimmy looks away as Tango catches his eye. Tango thinks he sees him flush as he turns back around to the computer.

“They haven’t really briefed me on why you’re here,” Jimmy says. “Why’d they send you?”

“To E-1? We’re uh…our science director was looking for a secondary project to help bolster our food supplies—stretch it out a little longer?” He folds his arms over his chest. “Our admiral’s been in contact with Fwhip a few times conversationally, but we normally reach out to the Meridian, a station in our system, for help, but they weren’t having any hydroponics success. So…here I am.”

Jimmy nods absently as he continues typing.

“Hopefully I can give you something useful to take back,” he says, glancing up to Tango. Tango nods, raising his eyebrows.

“I mean, they say you’re the best,” he offers. It’s true—everything Pearl had told him seemed to point directly to whoever was running the botanical experimentation lab on E-2. And here he was, an android, standing in front of Tango.

“Do they?” Jimmy asks.

“Mhm!”

“That’s very nice of them…I uh, I’ve got a badge for you,” Jimmy says, sliding the piece of plastic toward him. Tango picks it up, turning it in his fingers as he listens. It has a small symbol on it, like an overlapping square and a green stripe all the way around it. When he looks back to Jimmy’s face for a moment, he notices that same green stripe around his upper arm. Green. Science. It was fitting. He fits that bit of information right next to what he knows Prometheus’ color to be: nearly the same shade.

“It’ll get you into this lab and ones like it, um, all the way down this hall,” Jimmy unlocks the data pad, pushing it toward him. “And you can record anything you’d like on this pad.”

“Oh, thank you, that’s great, actually” Tango says. He tucks the card into his pocket, where it rests against his chest. The data pad is blank, no notes, no sketches, and no documents. Just the time and date. From what he can recognize, he’s been aboard for about two hours. “Is, uh, is there somewhere we can share notes, or should I be handing this off to you periodically?”

“Whatever you write there will also be stored on the lab computer,” Jimmy says, gesturing back to the screens behind him. “Either of us can access it at any time. It should recognize you as having access to the console, so there shouldn’t be too many problems with that.”

Jimmy studies him for a brief moment before he picks up the thumb drive, twisting it in his fingers. Tango watches the movement, eyes flicking between it, and the pad, and the screen.

“So,” Jimmy starts again. “I can’t say I was expecting an android, but that does make this whole process a lot easier.”

He holds out the thumb drive—Tango holds out his hand. The small bit of plastic that falls into Tango’s palm is lightweight and bright white. He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, frowning just a little.

“What’s this for?” he asks, setting the data pad on the table again. His hands feel an itch to turn the drive around in them, nervous ticks surfacing as he receives data and writes to disk. The humidity, Jimmy’s expression, the curious glint in his eye, the buzz of excitement he can nearly feel in the air. For an android, Jimmy was certainly animated, certainly running high on emotion. Tango could reach out and grab it, if he knew he would catch something.

Jimmy nods a few times, leaning on the table in front of him.

“That right there,” he says, pointing at the drive. “Is all of my research. That way you can just—” he mimes a plugging motion, patting the back of his neck. If Tango’s chest could cave, it would have, as he feels some gear shudder and start again. “Get it all.”

Tango blinks. His vision stutters for a moment, fading out on the edge as he tries to process Jimmy’s comment, his voice. He feels that tug at his eyebrows as they furrow, a copy of a motion he’d seen so many times on so many faces. Jimmy’s research rests in the palm of his hand, still cold, despite the heat leaching from Tango’s synthetic skin.

“I think—” Tango says. What a stupid turn of phrase. He knows—he’s not thinking this time. He knows. “I can’t do that.”

Jimmy hums, face morphing into concern for a moment. Tango sees how his posture stiffens, almost a gut reaction to the change in Tango’s voice. Write to disk. Catalog. He softens his stance as Jimmy pipes up.

“What d’y’mean?”

“I think I’d rather just learn it from you,” Tango says, closing his fist around the thumb drive. “I’ll keep this, but I would like to learn from you, if that’s alright.”

Jimmy raises his eyebrows high on his forehead, nodding a few times. His dark eyes go wide, too. They flick across Tango’s face, looking for something, before they land on the table in front of him as Jimmy raps his fingers against the plastic top. Tango tucks the data drive into his pocket, where it rests with the keycard, sticking his hands in his pockets to give them something to do.

“Oh—I mean—I, sure. Sure, we can do that,” Jimmy stutters, shaking his head. “Yeah, that should be fine, you should be able to learn that way.”

“I hope so,” Tango says, nodding. Jimmy nods with him, that color briefly back in his cheeks. “I’d at least like to try. It’s what I’m known for, honestly.”

“Mm,” Jimmy says, face settling on that half-pleased, half-curious look. “Sure. That would be nice, I think. I don’t know how much I have to teach, but I can try.”

“I’m sure you’ve got plenty, Mr. Plant Guy,” Tango quips, patting him on the shoulder as he rounds around him. Jimmy laughs. The tingling sensation of touch before has gone now, and the new touch offers nothing but the sensation of soft sweater fabric, of coolness from Jimmy, and a brief flicker of information that he doesn’t quite catch. It feels like energy he can’t process. A line of code that doesn’t slot itself into place. He gives his shoulder a quick squeeze before he pulls away, gesturing to the door.

“Do you think you might be able to walk me back to my cabin?” his shoulders shrink a fraction. He tries to quickly run the simulation in his mind, etching out the turns of the hallways in the belly of the science department. All he can remember are faces, half-recognizable from research and names partially unobscured by association. “I lost track of how many turns Commander Fwhip made.”

Jimmy shrugs, nods, patting the table as he pulls away.

“Sure,” he says, fishing his keycard from around his neck. “My cabin is close to that area, so I know the way back pretty well—-”

“You have a room?”

The door slides open in front of Tango, the cool air of the hallway flooding into the room. He steps through, into the empty, well lit space, with its green stripe and green carpeting. The white-yellow lighting smooths out the edges of the walls around them, dotted with windows of the station’s central core as they slowly rotated around it. Jimmy pauses for a moment to watch as Tango does, before he nudges him with his elbow. Tango turns to follow.

“I like the bed,” Jimmy says, making a pleasant, almost chirping sound. “And the sleep cycle. And a space for my things that isn’t the lab.”

Tango nods.

“Our secondary engineering lead gets onto me when I don’t rest, but I prefer to not have to,” he says, shrugging his shoulders, waving one hand about. That gesture was from Doc, who loved to make things more nonchalant than they had to be, gesturing with his part-plastic, part-metal arm. “It wastes time.”

“You’re a busy man, Tango,” Jimmy says. He pauses just as he’s about to say Tango, like he had meant to say Commander, but had skipped the instinct. It stutters as he speaks. Tango feels a little bit of a twist, somewhere in the gears of his chest. Maybe everyone should just call him Tango. It felt a lot better, somehow. It felt earned.

“I try to be,” Tango says, waving his hand again. “I’m built for continuous learning—neuroplasticity. It’s what I’m meant to do…kind of.”

“Interesting…” Jimmy hooks a right at a fork. Tango notes it. “I don’t think I’ve met an android without a base program. And it was HASA who decided that?”

Tango nods.

“That was the plan, anyway. So far, it’s worked out alright. I have no issues, our technicians make sure I’m running smoothly, I can run my own diagnostics as far as I’m aware. And…I get to take back knowledge to our ship,” he sticks his free hand back in his pocket. They take a left, following the curving wall. “That’s a win to me.”

“That does sound nice,” Jimmy says, frowning a little, mostly in his voice than on his face. As the wall evens out, Jimmy slows to a stop. Before them, on the leftmost side, are a row of doors, which Tango recognizes. He marks down their exact location, how the wall hugs the left, looping back around on the far side. Jimmy splays his arm out, gesturing to the doors. Tango manages a smile.

“Thank you,” Tango says, nodding. Jimmy hums.

“Of course, glad I could help,” he says. He looks pleased, now, none of the nervous flit that he had when they’d first met. Tango, too. He feels settled, somehow, like he was already beginning to understand the space around him, already acclimated to new gravity and new routine. Jimmy’s easy smile and tone of voice made that all the easier to do.

As Tango steps away, toward his door, he turns back to Jimmy, who’s folded his arms over his chest. Something’s there, in Tango’s chest, maybe just a trick of mechanics, something he can’t really place. It smooths out any bumps in logic programming. It makes things even, whatever the thing in his chest is. Jimmy makes a noise, and Tango’s eyes flick up to his face.

“Y’know—not to jump ahead or anything, since I know we’ve just met. But if you wanted to, my cabin is a bit closer to the lab. If you ever feel like you want a roommate, you’re more than welcome to stay there,” Jimmy starts, clasping his hands together. The small smile on his face hasn’t really faded, and his voice is even with curiosity. “There’s—there’s only one bed, but you said you don’t sleep. So it should be fine.”

Jimmy continues to babble, now, eyes flicking down to the patches at Tango’s knees.

“I can always request you to the room next to it—I think that one’s unoccupied, too. If you ever want to sleep, that is. But you can let me know. Figured it might be nice to have a roommate so you’re not lonely,” he finishes, shrugging a little. Then he startles, blinks, and waves his hands. “Unless you like being alone.”

Tango tries to make a sound to dissuade him from that idea, but it gets caught in his programming and his vocal filter and it kind of sounds like a wheeze, or maybe a laugh, but he shakes his head several times, copying Jimmy’s easy smile from before.

“No, no…” he assures. “That sounds really nice, actually. I’ll…I’ll let Fwhip know that I’d like to do that.”

Jimmy visibly relaxes, and the smile comes back to his face, and he laughs a little, an actual, natural laugh.

“Sure thing…” Jimmy scrunches his nose. “Roomie.”

Tango feels something flip-flop over as he jumps, shaking his head again.

“Don’t call me that—” he manages, before Jimmy waves his hands again and says:

“I’m just joking, Tango!” and reaches out to clasp his shoulder. That rush of static only prickles for a moment, leaving a warm sensation in its wake. Tango feels it trickle down his elbow and to his wrist as Jimmy steps away from him. “Have a good night, alright? I’ll see you at 0700.”

Tango nods, realizing he’s still smiling just a bit, even as he steps into his room and the door slides shut behind him. He stands at the threshold, with his back to the wall, for a long moment, letting the memories play in his head as he does. The quiet hum of his room and the orange-yellow lighting soothes his otherwise spinning mind to a controlled simulation. Even still, Tango’s hand and arm prickle faintly with sensation he can’t place, and a warmth in his chest he’s not sure he fully understands.

Pulling away from the door and into his room, Tango furrows his eyebrows and starts an internal diagnostic.

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tgmsunmontue · 2 days

Text

Online & Anonymous 6/16

Hangster. Explicit. Years before they meet in person Bradley and Jake strike up a friends-with-benefits relationship online. And then something more like an actual relationship.

Odd year = Bradely's POV and Even year = Jake's POV

>>Bradley chatting (bold and italics)

>>Jake chatting (italics)

2005/2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

2011 – Bradley

What he hadn’t anticipated, from taking Natasha through what he’d like her to do if anything ever happens to him, that she suddenly thinks he has something serious going on with Jas. He supposes telling her she needs to let someone know if something ever happens to him does make it sound serious, even if they’re… not? It’s definitely a line that they’ve crossed though, which seems weird, considering he doesn’t know what Jas looks like or what his name is, but it doesn’t make what he feels about him any less.

The idea of not being able to talk to him, of not hearing from him ever again, causes a clench in his gut and he knows he’s got emotions all tangled up in it and that when he realizes he loves him. Five years of talking with him online, having cybersex regularly, and it’s legitimately the longest sexual relationship he’s ever had. It’s the only relationship he’s ever had, weird as it might be and he suddenly wants to talk to him about it. Desperately.

>>I just realized that I love you.

>>Is that weird?

He doesn’t get a response for a few days and he tries not to overthink it. He knows Jas isn’t on leave, they’ve gone this long without chatting before, it doesn’t mean anything bad, he’s just deployed somewhere and he isn’t just ignoring him. He can tell the messages haven’t even been seen, but it doesn’t stop him sending a follow up message.

>>Sorry if I’ve made it weird.

He has to keep repeating it to himself, Jas is just busy. A reply finally comes nine days later, not the longest that’s gone between them by far, but it’s definitely up there in the last couple of years since they switched to using phones.

>>Dude. What part of me telling you before about the idea of you dying freaks me out.

>>I love you too.

>>But yeah, it is weird.

>>I don’t care if you don’t though.

>>I don’t care. At all.

>>Just sort of realized that even with all the hooking up, you’re the guy I keep coming back to.

>>Yeah?

>>Should I feel honored?

>>Maybe? Just don’t have any other relationships.

>>Not sure if you’d want to call what we do a relationship.

>>Not like it’s exclusive or anything.

>>So what? We’re young and we aren’t physically together. I don’t care.

>>I’ll call it a relationship if I want to.

>>The way you talk about being with other guys turns me on.

>>Same.

>>So are we going to share a photo of our face now or something?

>>We’re both still under DADT.

>>Yeah. Sucks.

>>But to be honest I kind of like the mystery.

>>Still? It’s been five years.

>> The novelty hasn’t worn off?

>>I don’t think anything about you could wear off.

>>Sweet talker.

>>When I want to be.

Bradley grins, because the playful back and forth is something he enjoys with Jas. He really does want to put a face to the name, to the body he’s come to appreciate so much, even if it’s only through the tiny screen of his phone.

>>One thing though. You find a guy you think you might want to give it a real shot with don’t let what we have hold you back.

>>I’d rather give us a shot first, before some random guy that just happens along.

>>I thought we were going to meet up soon?

>>Yeah, I guess we better start trying to figure that out huh?

>>I guess we better.

They work through their schedules, periods of deployment and there is only an eleven day period in November when they’re both on leave, and they currently don’t have plans for that leave to be in the same place, but it’s far enough away that Bradley’s already considering flights.

>>I’ll come to you. I’ll be the guy in uniform at the bar.

>>Along with everyone else if we pick a military bar. Which we won’t be doing.

>>How about we pick somewhere half-way? It’s not like we have family to visit.

>>Yeah, okay. So just throwing a dart at the map or what?

>>How about we consider just one of us travelling, keep the costs down?

>>You just said about meeting half way!

>>I’m just throwing ideas out at this stage.

>>I’m okay with either by the way.

>>November is only eight months away.

>>Holy shit.

>>God I’m excited to meet you.

>>Yeah, me too.

… … …

Of course, now that they’ve picked a date time seems to slow down to a snail’s pace. He and Natasha are lucky enough to currently be stationed in a squadron together, along with a handful of others he knows well enough to share a drink and a game of cards with. Working with them is easy. Easiest of the lot is Bambi, one of the other few female aviators who he and Natasha met in flight school. Like everyone she’d assumed he and Natasha were a couple; although she knows better now. She was one of the first of them to get her call sign, night landings not agreeing with her and her rough landing making a loud enough bang to rattle the jaws of the crew on deck. Bambam was already taken, so of course he’d suggested Bambi. He likes to think she’s forgiven him.

A short period of shore leave finds them sitting in a little restaurant, hours ticking down until they’ll have to back on the carrier and he just sits back and enjoys his coffee. Then the waiter comes over to see if there is anything else they might need and the look he gives Bradley is quite blatant in that he’d be interested and he can’t help but be flattered, the guy is very good looking.

“Jesus, do you flirt with every guy who looks at you sideways?” Bambi asks, her eyes following the waiter.

“Only the ones not in uniform,” Bradley murmurs quietly, eyes narrowing to remind her to keep it quiet; because he can’t be too careful, can’t assume there aren’t eyes and ears willing to report him. Bambi rolls her eyes and he hates that she doesn’t take it seriously.

“Really? For some reason I doubt that, you’re kind of… promiscuous.”

Bradley shrugs, because he doesn’t think he is, not compared to some of the guys. When he’s deployed he doesn’t usually fuck around, far too paranoid about being caught. His career is more important to him then getting laid. Even when he has taken the occasional risk it’s only been because the risk was very very low, given all the signs telling him the other person was risking just as much, if not more.

“I like sex. And it’s not like I can settle down with anyone. Can you imagine? DADT and me trying to bring my boyfriend into base housing? I’d be out on my ass before you could blink. Ink wouldn’t even have time to dry on my dishonorable discharge papers.”

“Wait, you have a boyfriend? Since when?”

He freezes, running his mind back over the words he just said.

“I, uh, I guess? I have someone.”

“He’s totally your boyfriend. You two talk almost every day,” Natasha says, and her voice is barely above a whisper, but she also looks bored with the whole conversation.

“Yeah, we do.”

“And they’re okay with you, just, sleeping with other people?”

“I… yeah. I mean. I haven’t since we talked about it. But, yeah. I tell them all about it. Plus we haven’t actually met yet.”

“Oh my god, you have an online boyfriend? How do you know he’s not an eighty-year-old man. Or a woman?”

“Because he sends me pictures pretty regularly. And he has a gorgeous body that doesn’t resemble that of an eighty-year-old man, or a woman.”

Both Natasha and Bambi suddenly seem interested and Bradley rolls his eyes.

“You’re both perverts.”

“You’re the one receiving them.”

Bradley guesses they have a point there, but also finds he really doesn’t care.

… … …

Of course there are rumors that he’s sleeping with both Natasha and Bambi, which they both think is hilarious, although he wishes they could maybe be less amused. They do both imply that they have slept with him, but are now nothing more than friends, which helps calm his uneasiness, until he hears one of the guys in the locker room make a comment about them using Bradley as their cover for their own relationship. He’s going to say something –

“You’re just jealous they don’t invite you to join them!” Machado calls out and Bradley’s head shoots around. He’s not had much to do Machado, he’s one of the younger guys. but he’s smiling that calm unbothered smile and he nods at Bradley and he nods back, wonders what the hell he thinks he’s actually doing with Natasha and Bambi. He gets his answer soon enough, Machado sidling up to him later that day in the mess hall.

“So, you say you’re only friends. They say the same. But if I ask her out would it be… a problem?”

“She really is just a friend. My best friend though. Which is maybe worse than being an ex of mine, because I love her like a sister and she’s pretty much the only family I have so… tread lightly but good luck. You’ll probably need it.”

“Okay. Thanks. I think.”

Bradley gives him a wink and slap on the arm, wonders if he should immediately go and find Bambi and Natasha to be able to gossip about someone else’s love life than his for once.

… … …

The envelope is waiting for him when he hits land, and he groans. He received enough of these now to know they’re new orders. He’s meant to have three weeks of leave right now, before his next deployment, but this could change things. He runs a finger under the flap, cursing under his breath when he gets a paper cut and he sucks on his finger as he reads it through, stomach sinking as he reads.

“Fuck. FUCK!”

“What’s wrong? They’re just new orders right?”

“I was going to meet Jas in November. And now I’m going to be in fucking Afghanistan,” Bradley swears, papers crumpling in his hand, scrubbing at his face with his other hand.

“Oh. Shit. Of course. I’m sorry…”

For the first time he wishes he could just call him and talk to him, tell him how sorry he is. One thing he is glad for, is that Jas will at least understand what it is to get new orders, will be used to the whims of the fucking military to just move people to wherever they’re needed. Plans for something in six months’ time are of course ones that would usually be easily rearranged, except when someone else’s plans also need to be taken into account.

>>I just got new orders.

>>I leave for a seven-month deployment next month.

>>June through January.

>>I am…

>>I’m so sorry.

>>Fuck.

>>AFG.

It’s a flurry of short messages, he’s not able to construct something longer, more coherent and heartfelt. It’s also the closest he’s come to telling Jas exactly where he will be, but unless he is deployed to the same area

>>Well shit.

>>That sucks.

>>Be safe.

>>Always.

#online and anonymous #Hangster #Sereshaw #hangman x rooster #Top Gun Maverick fanfic

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kickthecan-revolution · 1 day

Text

My friend from Seattle Mike and I have this kind of spooky relationship where he reaches out with something for me after his prayer times. He’s a deeply spiritual person who helps vulnerable, marginalized people be well in their body, mind and spirit. He’s such a good guy. We aren’t close friends but it’s been happening for years, when I need to hear from Gcd the most, Mike shows up in my Facebook messenger. He even wrote about it in his book. It doesn’t happen with any of his other acquaintances. It even happened the night of my first mammogram and when I found out the tumor was bigger.

So when he let me know he was in town to give a talk to a group of people from a church, I decided to go. I haven’t been around Christians in years, pretty charismatic ones, I have a rocky relationship with that group and they always make me feel a little uncomfortable I’m not really a Christia, I don’t think I ever really was but there is some thing that deeply resonates about the Holy Spirit for me and always has since I was little. I just don’t understand all of the other stuff around it, so I stopped going to church because I just felt like I was using it and using all the people who build such a lifestyle and have such a commitment to it. I felt disingenuous and I’ve always felt super uncomfortable and organized religion as a result.

I was in Seattle Thur-Fri and decided to triple check the time of the gathering and realized it was Saturday morning, not evening – so I was able to change my flight to take a 6 AM flight home to make sure I could drive the hour for the 10am start. I got up at 3:45 AM to make sure I got to the airport so already a long day before I even got there.

I walk in and it’s this guy’s apartment and there’s maybe 15 or 20 people there. I don’t know anyone, they are mostly Chinese or Korean – obviously part of the very specific community, very Christian. I felt uncomfortable, but it was so great to see Mike, and people were generally nice. Some people had actually flown in from other places to hear Mike and I teased him for being kind of a big deal.

The pastor of the church was there and Mike ended up giving kind of a talk back-and-forth. I was immediately annoyed that the pastor talked so much and didn’t give Mike a chance to speak. It was an interesting topic - identity - and the question and answer time I talked a little bit about how I found it very easy to hide from myself in church culture – that I actually didn’t deal with my pain, it probably didn’t have anything to do with the people around me, but more about me wanting to hide and not having a commitment to change and to do that. Ultimately, I found Church mostly very lonely and i’d experience the most personal growth through my friends who were atheist. I was careful not to blame them, because I don’t think it’s their fault – it just wasn’t my place, it wasn’t my way.

The discussion then moved to a concept called soul ties – the person that you feel a connection to that is keeping you stuck in growth, the conversation that you constantly have in your head and always talk about. The groove you can’t get out of in your mind. So we broke up into small groups and talked about our soul ties and prayed for each other – I was a little uncomfortable, but was with the sweetest young man and an older woman who again, wouldn’t stop talking. She wasn’t vulnerable at all, she was exactly the type of person who did a lot of scolding about Harry Potter and witchcraft and blah blah blah. I was totally annoyed. When it was my turn, I talked about my soul tie I wanted freedom from and they prayed for me – and in the quiet the young man Leo said “Diane, I think God wants you to know that he trusts you.” I have no idea why, but that hit my heart so loudly and I burst into tears. I’m still processing why.

After lunch, there was a time for prayer. I dug in stubbornly and told myself that I’m not going to ask for prayer, that if I was meant for it, somehow it would come up in the room with all of these strangers. I had this picture of the paralyzed man from the Bible being dropped down by his friends, and even though those weren’t my friends, that was the only way I was going to be prayed for. There’s something about having cancer that you want to tell everybody and you don’t want to tell anybody all at the same but when you say it – it’s a real party stopper. It almost feels kind of manipulative to talk about it.

So the pastor asked, “who would like prayer?” and immediately this random guy said I just feel like we need to pray for Diane”. Remember, I don’t know any of these people they were total strangers – I looked at Mike and asked if he had said anything and he looked bewildered and said no. I absolutely burst into tears in the whole room to me and I told them what was going on – they gathered around me and prayed, and one of them said Diana’s like the paralyzed man that was lowered down to be prayed for- that actually happened.

I said all of it out loud how I feel like I’ve done this to myself, and I’ve hurt my friends and my family and a process. All that guilt and shame just poured out and the fear of being mostly alone during the treatments. I told them I was not going to ask for prayer but that I had the picture of being dropped down on the mat in that room. I think they were all freaked out as I was

Afterwards, I met two women from my area who could go to a local church. I grab their numbers. I’m still pretty suspect of Christians and their role in this world but I think two things can be true at the same time. Regardless, it was a remarkable experience, and between that and the peace of being in Seattle I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

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siminiecricketart · 3 months

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Ha ha I cannot believe in four hours I will be on a plane to go to America for the first time in my life. I am shitting it personally

#I’ve not been on a long flight in so long #I’m also super excited but also so nervous for some reason ;-;#it’s gonna be a lot of fun #idk why I’m such a wreck #I’ve thrown up three times in the last twenty four hours about it ????

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ourbastardofsorrows · 1 year

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dear diary,

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

#tia text #caps warning #just. endless anxiety #i’ve been in flight mode for so long i’ve racked up enough airline miles to fly across the globe

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solacessbc · 1 year

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You ever sit in an airport waiting for your flight, which just got delayed for the however many-enth time, sitting near two very cool looking people so you try to act cool too to try to get them to think “wow that guys pretty cool.” Like you think about them. Then you overhear your on the same flight as them and really really hope you’re all near each other on the plane so you have an excuse to work up the courage to talk to them and become friends?

Just me? Ok, just me..

#my flight got delayed #i’m so tired #I’ve been sitting in this airport for way to long #happy new years?#also one of them looks vaguely similar to one of my mutuals on tiktok #I just want to make cool friends😩🫶#someone help #SHIT THEY WALKED AWAY I DONT THINK THEIR ON MY FLIGHT I WANNA CRY #they weren’t on my flight #yes I am sad about it

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