#oh well
I just realized that the last time Faith interacted with Buffy was in Sanctuary, when Buffy told her she would beat her to death if she tried to apologize.
Cut to almost three years later and as soon as Willow says that Buffy needs her help, Faith goes back to Sunnydale without hesitation.
“Satya, please, lemme—”
“Shh,” she says, the black grip of her prosthetic finger against his lip. “You must be conscious of volume.”
“I—I know, I just—c’mon, please, I’m—”
“Close?”
He nods, his hips stuttering upward in a desperate attempt.
“What will you do for me?”
“I’ll—” Jamison swallows and scrunches his eyes shut. Sweat sticks to his temples. “I’ll repay the favor. I will. Double.” Biting at the smile by the corner of his mouth, he gives his middle and index fingers an indicative pump. “Promise.”
“How very generous.” Her hand slicks up the length of his cock, thumb trailing just up the underside to swirl soft circles where he’s most sensitive. “And if I refuse?”
Neurons snap at the very thought. “I could—hah, I could—dunno, maybe—”
But Satya kisses him, softly, fully, drinking his disjointed words with a gentle kind of hunger. She smells like jasmine and tastes like the chocolate biscuits he’d left her and he absolutely cannot stand the slow attention she’s lavishing him with, one casual stroke at a time. If he could find the courage to curl an arm around her, perhaps he could pull her into his lap so he might tease her in return, but he remains as still as he can, prosthetic hand coiled into leather upholstery—the conference room is the last place he’d expected a wristie.
“I won’t refuse. I wanted to see your reaction.”
Jamison struggles for composure. “Why?”
“I like the way your mind works,” she says, and treats him to a tightening upstroke. “I wanted to see if you would come up with an alternative.”
“Oh.” His thoughts scatter, bewildered. She likes his mind? Is that a compliment? “Didn’t really—hah—didn’t give me a proper chance, you know. S’not fair.”
“I’m well aware.” The sharp gold-hazel of her eyes captures his attention. “There will be plenty of time for alternatives later. That is, unless you would rather adhere to your first suggestion?”
With a pleading moan locked behind his teeth, Jamison thrusts up into her hand again. She feels so fucking good; she drives him up a wall with varying speeds and how she likes to squeeze him just at where he’s thickest before teasing the wet bead of white down his tip, sending his sparking nerves aflame. His fingers itch to steal her like she’s some cherished painting worth millions but he sucks in a ragged breath and opens his eyes and looks at her because he must commit this to memory, he must: she sits across from him, one leg crooked behind his, an amused smile cresting her countenance, the crisp angles of her uniform a stark contrast to the patches on his unbuckled trousers.
“You name it,” he says, far huskier than he’d intended, “I’ll adhere to it.”
“Very well. I look forward to it, then.” It’s hot, breathless, spoken by his ear. The sheer promise in each syllable makes him want to shout.
Satya sharpens her speed and increases her grip, and then before he can manage a gasp, she leans forward and down and slicks the head of his cock between her lips and oh fuck, she feels fantastic—her tongue draws a thick line and she begins to suck and her hand pumps him with haste, a constant, tightening throb that arcs through him in laving fire—god, he can’t take it any longer, he can’t, please, please—
He shudders as a bolt of pleasure lances through him, sweet and aching and entirely perfect, and he tries to ride it out with desperate little rolls of his hips. She works him through each trembling shock and pulse; her hand mimics his thrusts and the welcoming heat of her mouth swallows every drop.
Utterly unwound, Jamison lets his left hand splay across her shoulder. The pristine fabric of her uniform dimples beneath his palm as he watches her draw away, her tongue tending to one corner of her mouth. He knows he ought to say something, but his mind is pleasantly blank.
“Acceptable?”
He nods, dazed.
“Good.” She sidles closer, prosthetic fingers combing back a stray jet lock from her bun. “The others will be here soon. I will leave repayment to your discretion. You did say double, correct?”
“Double,” he says, testing the word. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Double.”
A moment ticks by where she seems to study him. “Will this be a continuously transactional arrangement?”
Jamison frowns. “Meaning?”
“A favor for a favor for a favor, ad infinitum.”
“Ad infinit—” He feels somehow tongue-tied, like he’s a little too drunk. “Uh, maybe? If that’s what you want. You won’t hear no complaints from me. Honestly, I’m just—”
She kisses him once more, damp fingers lined along his jaw; it drops the words right back down his throat. He finds himself leaning in, eager, ecstatic, his heartbeat a harrowing thunder ensconced beside his lungs. He slides his palm around her waist and to the small of her back, and then she’s situated between his thighs, her breath a soft flutter against his lips.
“Double it is, then,” she says.
“Double,” he agrees. “Ad infinitum?”
Satya’s aplomb fractures with a snicker. “If that is what you want. Ad infinitum.”
Jamison has never been all that good with emotions, anyway.
Even if all she grants him is brief trips to her room in the middle of the night when the lights are dim and the waves of Gibraltar crash upon silent shores, even if ephemeral touches and frantic kisses and the far too fleeting feel of her dragging her fingers down his back are all he could ever hope to glean from this, even if she refuses to address the peculiar thing that’s somehow wrest itself from inside the husk of his heart and the equally dilapidated curls of affection she leaves in her wake, even if he could somehow find the appropriate scraps of words and assemble something out of their debris like he manages with every other aspect of his life, he knows none of it would do him any good because—
Because it isn’t what he wants.
He has always been resourceful. That’s what got him this far. Missing a limb or two, sure, but still mostly intact. He’s always made the best out of a bad situation because there’s not much more you can do than grin and bear it and light a fuse in hopes that it’ll make all the unsavory things disappear in a single, heartstopping blast.
And that’s what this is, really. Making the best out of a bad situation. Albeit without that particular blast.
It might not be what he wants, but what he wants is pointless—because even if all the stars aligned and the eclipse cast the earth in shadow, even if he’d somehow hailed from someplace proper like Sydney and all its glittering buildings instead of cutthroat Junkertown in the back of beyond, even if she’d never been scoped out by that dodgy corporation and all of its vicious bureaucratic ladders and policies, even if they’d somehow still met despite the sheer random chance the rebirth of Overwatch has given them both—it would never happen.
Perhaps it’s unfortunate. It hurts sometimes, like the rest of the old scars that mar his thigh, his forearm; like the tiny nicks and whitened lightning lines that touch choice places upon his back, his chest, his leg; but it isn’t something he can’t handle. Pain is something familiar, and regardless of the form it takes, it comes to him as a strangely helpful focus, something he can channel into his craft, his work; something he can use as a weapon.
He just—he wishes she wouldn’t talk to him like he’s something worth saving. It isn’t fair, not only because he doesn’t need to be saved, but because if he cared to save anyone at all out of the goodness of his heart (and there is some left; she made sure to dig and dig and dig until it bled out of him in all its excruciating glory), it would be her, and it would be from the jaws of those corporate bloodhounds and their entourage of greedy bigwigs because someone like her just does not belong with their unique brand of savagery.
And it is savagery. He knows bloodlust when he sees it. He knows what it tastes like and he knows what it’s capable of. It’s that rivulet of power dripping at the back of his mouth, the knowledge that everything lies in the balance of a red switch.
He could tell her she doesn’t belong with them because he knows firsthand how they grab, how they take, how they ravage, how they rob, but that wouldn’t dissuade her. She is headstrong, determined, and sees things in her own way. The way she murmurs soft things to him in their aftermath gives him small strands of stupid things like hope and longing, but for her to forsake them all would mean something drastic, something dire, something she might not be ready to relinquish.
And she isn’t ready. He knows that. He does. And still, he comes back every other night, hanging around her doorway with his mouth in a grin and his heart in his throat, pistons pounding in his chest and sweat on his brow because he isn’t ready to relinquish this just yet.
He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready.
He doesn’t know if he can bear the thought.
If he could go back to normal after this, whatever normal is—that strange in between of floating around, wandering from place to place, wreaking havoc on whatever he touches without something to keep him anchored, present, still—he doesn’t know how long it would last. There are only so many rhythms that can keep him on track, and one of them is here at his side, the warmh of her face buried against his chest.
Even if he could keep her like this, even if he could wake up tomorrow morning with the memories of Junkertown a blurred and pleasant nothing, even if the threat of the second Omnic Crisis were neutralized and world peace were somehow achieved, none of it would do him any good—because it isn’t what he wants.
But what he wants doesn’t really matter, now, does it?
Jamison has never been all that good with emotions, anyway.
Writing over the socioeconomic changes from women’s roles in WWII. Hope my professor isnt bored to tears with this typical subject.
the anxiety of having a job interview tomorrow that i’ve dreamt about for over 1 ½ years
Update: I think it went well!! Definitely some things I could have done better/explained better but I think overall I left a good impression
not me making a hogwarts au in 2021…that’s cringe bro
(they r all gay and trans)
idk man
Fall schedule looking rough. My preliminary idea is to take 3 classes, which would make my week look like this:
Monday: work until 11, gen chem on the other campus 30 minutes away 2-4
Tuesday: microbio at the close campus from 8:30-9:30, followed by lab from 10-1, then physiology from 2-4 and lab from 4-7.
Wednesday: work until 11, chem on the far campus from 2-4 followed by lab until 7
Thursday: microbio and lab from 8:30-1, physiology from 2-4
Friday: work
Saturday: off/study/sleep
Sunday: work
I’ve got to get another semester of gen bio (that will be easy) a year of chem, a year of physics (technically I have credit for this and chem but I sucked at it so I should probably take it again), biochem and a year of o chem (have to take chem first). All with labs. And studying for the MCAT. And getting experience/science electives where I can. I want to take phlebotomy but it requires an externship and I have to find out what that entails time-wise because it’s not REQUIRED but it would be super useful and was suggested by current med students to take premed if possible. I ALREADY HAVE A BACHELOR’S DEGREE. I’m gonna be in college for literally 15 years. I graduated in 2010. Fml.
I can’t not work because even as it is I’m not making enough to save anything. I don’t know what I’m gonna do about that. I’m gonna try to get a job over the summer and save everything from it. My car gets better gas mileage now so that’s an extra 100 a month but commuting to the far campus will eat that up.
I hope I won’t have to go back to PT cuz I won’t have any time to go! Therapy’s gonna have to wait but I won’t have time to be crazy anyway. I’ll have to cut down on meetings too but I also won’t have any money to buy booze.
Okay wtf… that was the entire expansion? That story was roughly as long as Echoes of Oblivion and not nearly as interesting… only interesting part was the setting-up of potential future storylines regarding how this whole conflict might play out in the grand scheme of the overarching timeline.
And on a more technical note, wtf happened to my quickbars? They’re all messed up… and they don’t save when you switch bewteen your primary and secondary class?! Why on earth am I going to bother switching classes or disciplines if I need to recustomize my quickbars and key bindings every single time?
This update is a mess and we waited an extra two months for it :/
Buuuuuuut at least I got this screenshot of my girl Bri using her powers <3