Sleep, That's Where I'm A Viking!
Hospitals and airports have the same sterile feel to them, even though their contexts are different. Everything is big and confusing, making you walk in five different directions to get to one place, the walls are either white or gray or some sort of watery pastel and it makes you depressed and beige just to see it, and there are always, always people wandering about having random conversations and making you feel surrounded, no matter what time of day it is. I hate both places equally, so I really hope I don't have to do this again.
So after meeting my sleep technician and getting dressed in my pajamas, she started measuring my head and drawing little red crosses on my scalp while quizzing me on my fatigue and sleeping habits. The markings were to tell her where to put the wires, I know, but people drawing on your head has to be one of the weirder experiences of my life. Anyway, then she stuck about twenty wires on me, on my head, my chest, and my legs, with some sort of spirit gum that was clearly made out of despair and ectoplasm. Then she wrapped measuring bands around my chest and waist, stuck tubes up my nose to measure the temperature of my breath, and finally allowed me to totter toward my bed.
Despite having enough equipment on me to add ten pounds, I did not fall, but it was a pain to get into bed because I had to angle myself so as not to tangle the wires. Then she showed me where the intercom was, hooked a pulse monitor onto my finger, and, after checking that everything was working fine, left me alone to sleep.
Since no one knows this about me, let me just say: even in my own house, it takes me a while to fall asleep; when I am not at home, it takes me even longer to sleep. The only exception to this rule is Dean's house where apparently, I fall asleep in seconds, but that's another story. Being in a hospital in a tiny room and a bed that wasn't my own, it took me forever to fall asleep, which isn't good because they have a limited amount of time to take down information about your sleep patterns, and you usually have to be sleeping for that to happen. I eventually did fall into a deep sleep, despite my many fits and starts of consciousness, but I kept waking up during the night and by three a.m., woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.
So right now, I feel exhausted and shitty. Uggggh. And by the way, putting on the wires don't suck as much as taking them off. I didn't lose my hair, thank goodness, but that paste they use to keep the wires in your hair just feels awful after the wires are out and you have to take a shower in self-defense.
Anyway, I'll get my results of the sleep test soon enough. My technician said she noticed a mild sleep apnea in between bouts of restless sleep. She thinks I may need a CPAP mask, but it's too early to tell right now. I'll know more once they analyze the data and do a few more tests with the mask.
Like I said, I've been reading a lot of amazing stories over the last few weeks, but right now, I'm too exhausted to post about all of them. So I'll post a few now and save the rest for another post.
Captain America
I love misspamela, you guys, because she e-mails me with things like, "Steve is a virgin! I am apparently writing porn about it. FML." Not a direct quote, but that's the basic gist of it. And then she wrote an untitled Tony/Steve ficlet that is everything I ever wanted and more.
Tony stared at him, seemingly frozen for a moment. Then he exploded into movement, grabbing for the bottle of vodka at his elbow. "Listen," Tony said, angrier than Steve thought he'd be, because didn't people ask him for sex all the time? "I'm not going to be your gentle introduction into the world of man-love, okay? I’m not a nice guy. You should have a nice guy. Or a girl. Go breed some super-babies with a nice girl with nice parents and nice perky tits.”
“I didn’t ask for gentle,” Steve said. “Or nice. You guys think I’m some kind of rube, don’t you?”
“Yes, because you use the word ‘rube,’” Tony said, rolling his eyes.
“You all think,” Steve said, gearing up because Fury had left him home this morning, saying he was “obvious,” which was pretty rich coming from a guy in an eyepatch who dressed like that, “that I’m some kind of innocent hick.”
It is funny and hot and there's a moment in there where Tony broke my heart and seriously, you need to read it and tell her how fucking fantastic she is.
dorcas_gustine wrote Welcome to the World of Tomorrow, a story in which Captain America is disappointed in Tony's recklessness and there is a lot of rough, kinky sex.
Tony tried pushing off the wall, but Steve’s grip on his upper arms was like steel. He relaxed and leaned back with a sigh. If Captain America could handle a naked, wet Tony Stark just out of the shower, so could he. “It was nothing much,” he said, “I handled it fine by myself.”
“Being knocked into a building isn’t 'handling it fine',” Steve retorted.
“You saw that?” Tony grimaced.
“It was all over the news,” Steve replied. “That’s why I came straight here.”
And the house had let him in. Tony needed to have a long chat with JARVIS. "Was it NBC or FOX? Because FOX never gets my good side," he said. Steve's hand tightened his grip. “Look, I’m naked and dripping all over your nice clothes,” he sighed, “why don’t you let me get dressed and we can continue the manhandling when I’m not freezing my ass against the wall?”
Steve’s frown didn’t disappear, though, and if his hands gripped his arms a little tighter Tony was going to have blood flow troubles.
“Let me go,” Tony said in a low voice. “I need my hands. For science.”
Hilarious and hot and a pitch-perfect Tony. The one-liners in this story are priceless.
Teen Wolf
If you haven't checked out swing_set13's recs posts for various fandoms, you really should. She's way more organized and thorough than I am, and she has awesome titles and graphics/gifs for her recs. If you're looking for good Derek/Stiles fic, she has a good recs post here and she's adding to it all the time.
Since she's got Derek/Stiles covered, I'm going to rec a Derek/Jackson story that pretty much just melted my brain. Thrum by Starbeast, an AU where Jackson didn't piece anything together and Derek claims him for himself.
It reeked off Jackson, this prey stench of vulnerability that, after all this time keeping himself controlled, Derek couldn't help wanting to sink his teeth into. It tasted ripe and thick in the air. Jackson was like an injured animal, dug out at the heart, and just dragging in circles, daring Derek not to get him. With the alpha sniffing around Scott, it’d be stupid not to stake a real claim on Jackson before it was too late, or else he might end up dead-- worse than dead, even. Derek didn't want to have a pack to worry about again, but it was better than having to worry about another mutt in with the alpha.
Jackson was so worked up on the field, slamming the ball into the net and shouldering off bitter tears, that he didn't notice Derek leaning on the bleachers, tracking him back and forth. Derek could just picture the kind of rage he'd reach, if he had a wolf to unleash. Why the alpha got Scott, of all people, still made no sense. To start over a new pack, Derek would've chosen someone like Jackson. He had chosen Jackson, and that mark smelled sharper and sharper every time he got close enough to him.
It smelled like his territory.
The writing in this is so amazing and powerful, and she ratchets up the tension between Jackson and Derek until your nerves almost snap from it. I love how three-dimensional they are here, how cunning and thoughtful Derek is, even when he's being pushed past his limits, how conflicted and furious Jackson is in reaction to Derek's amusement and taunting, and Jackson gives it up so beautifully to Derek that it's pornographic before they even get to the sex.
Read it and beg her to write more. This is the only Derek/Jackson I've found and it's ruined me for any other story out there about these two. Sigh.
So hey, you guys, what's up?
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment anywhere you feel has the best icons to use to dazzle me. I'm really easy.
So after meeting my sleep technician and getting dressed in my pajamas, she started measuring my head and drawing little red crosses on my scalp while quizzing me on my fatigue and sleeping habits. The markings were to tell her where to put the wires, I know, but people drawing on your head has to be one of the weirder experiences of my life. Anyway, then she stuck about twenty wires on me, on my head, my chest, and my legs, with some sort of spirit gum that was clearly made out of despair and ectoplasm. Then she wrapped measuring bands around my chest and waist, stuck tubes up my nose to measure the temperature of my breath, and finally allowed me to totter toward my bed.
Despite having enough equipment on me to add ten pounds, I did not fall, but it was a pain to get into bed because I had to angle myself so as not to tangle the wires. Then she showed me where the intercom was, hooked a pulse monitor onto my finger, and, after checking that everything was working fine, left me alone to sleep.
Since no one knows this about me, let me just say: even in my own house, it takes me a while to fall asleep; when I am not at home, it takes me even longer to sleep. The only exception to this rule is Dean's house where apparently, I fall asleep in seconds, but that's another story. Being in a hospital in a tiny room and a bed that wasn't my own, it took me forever to fall asleep, which isn't good because they have a limited amount of time to take down information about your sleep patterns, and you usually have to be sleeping for that to happen. I eventually did fall into a deep sleep, despite my many fits and starts of consciousness, but I kept waking up during the night and by three a.m., woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.
So right now, I feel exhausted and shitty. Uggggh. And by the way, putting on the wires don't suck as much as taking them off. I didn't lose my hair, thank goodness, but that paste they use to keep the wires in your hair just feels awful after the wires are out and you have to take a shower in self-defense.
Anyway, I'll get my results of the sleep test soon enough. My technician said she noticed a mild sleep apnea in between bouts of restless sleep. She thinks I may need a CPAP mask, but it's too early to tell right now. I'll know more once they analyze the data and do a few more tests with the mask.
Like I said, I've been reading a lot of amazing stories over the last few weeks, but right now, I'm too exhausted to post about all of them. So I'll post a few now and save the rest for another post.
Captain America
I love misspamela, you guys, because she e-mails me with things like, "Steve is a virgin! I am apparently writing porn about it. FML." Not a direct quote, but that's the basic gist of it. And then she wrote an untitled Tony/Steve ficlet that is everything I ever wanted and more.
Tony stared at him, seemingly frozen for a moment. Then he exploded into movement, grabbing for the bottle of vodka at his elbow. "Listen," Tony said, angrier than Steve thought he'd be, because didn't people ask him for sex all the time? "I'm not going to be your gentle introduction into the world of man-love, okay? I’m not a nice guy. You should have a nice guy. Or a girl. Go breed some super-babies with a nice girl with nice parents and nice perky tits.”
“I didn’t ask for gentle,” Steve said. “Or nice. You guys think I’m some kind of rube, don’t you?”
“Yes, because you use the word ‘rube,’” Tony said, rolling his eyes.
“You all think,” Steve said, gearing up because Fury had left him home this morning, saying he was “obvious,” which was pretty rich coming from a guy in an eyepatch who dressed like that, “that I’m some kind of innocent hick.”
It is funny and hot and there's a moment in there where Tony broke my heart and seriously, you need to read it and tell her how fucking fantastic she is.
dorcas_gustine wrote Welcome to the World of Tomorrow, a story in which Captain America is disappointed in Tony's recklessness and there is a lot of rough, kinky sex.
Tony tried pushing off the wall, but Steve’s grip on his upper arms was like steel. He relaxed and leaned back with a sigh. If Captain America could handle a naked, wet Tony Stark just out of the shower, so could he. “It was nothing much,” he said, “I handled it fine by myself.”
“Being knocked into a building isn’t 'handling it fine',” Steve retorted.
“You saw that?” Tony grimaced.
“It was all over the news,” Steve replied. “That’s why I came straight here.”
And the house had let him in. Tony needed to have a long chat with JARVIS. "Was it NBC or FOX? Because FOX never gets my good side," he said. Steve's hand tightened his grip. “Look, I’m naked and dripping all over your nice clothes,” he sighed, “why don’t you let me get dressed and we can continue the manhandling when I’m not freezing my ass against the wall?”
Steve’s frown didn’t disappear, though, and if his hands gripped his arms a little tighter Tony was going to have blood flow troubles.
“Let me go,” Tony said in a low voice. “I need my hands. For science.”
Hilarious and hot and a pitch-perfect Tony. The one-liners in this story are priceless.
Teen Wolf
If you haven't checked out swing_set13's recs posts for various fandoms, you really should. She's way more organized and thorough than I am, and she has awesome titles and graphics/gifs for her recs. If you're looking for good Derek/Stiles fic, she has a good recs post here and she's adding to it all the time.
Since she's got Derek/Stiles covered, I'm going to rec a Derek/Jackson story that pretty much just melted my brain. Thrum by Starbeast, an AU where Jackson didn't piece anything together and Derek claims him for himself.
It reeked off Jackson, this prey stench of vulnerability that, after all this time keeping himself controlled, Derek couldn't help wanting to sink his teeth into. It tasted ripe and thick in the air. Jackson was like an injured animal, dug out at the heart, and just dragging in circles, daring Derek not to get him. With the alpha sniffing around Scott, it’d be stupid not to stake a real claim on Jackson before it was too late, or else he might end up dead-- worse than dead, even. Derek didn't want to have a pack to worry about again, but it was better than having to worry about another mutt in with the alpha.
Jackson was so worked up on the field, slamming the ball into the net and shouldering off bitter tears, that he didn't notice Derek leaning on the bleachers, tracking him back and forth. Derek could just picture the kind of rage he'd reach, if he had a wolf to unleash. Why the alpha got Scott, of all people, still made no sense. To start over a new pack, Derek would've chosen someone like Jackson. He had chosen Jackson, and that mark smelled sharper and sharper every time he got close enough to him.
It smelled like his territory.
The writing in this is so amazing and powerful, and she ratchets up the tension between Jackson and Derek until your nerves almost snap from it. I love how three-dimensional they are here, how cunning and thoughtful Derek is, even when he's being pushed past his limits, how conflicted and furious Jackson is in reaction to Derek's amusement and taunting, and Jackson gives it up so beautifully to Derek that it's pornographic before they even get to the sex.
Read it and beg her to write more. This is the only Derek/Jackson I've found and it's ruined me for any other story out there about these two. Sigh.
So hey, you guys, what's up?
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment anywhere you feel has the best icons to use to dazzle me. I'm really easy.