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That submerged feeling
That hazy, unfocused state
The nulling of her thoughts, which she released without resistance
The spots of light that swirled in the darkness of her mind's eye, almost hypnotizingly so
Mmnn~
Gura mumbled faintly, her thoughts feeling incomprehensibly fuzzy inside her head.
The small Gura shark instinctively nuzzled her head deeper into the soft cushion of Amelia's lap.
It was a great pillow. The kind of pillow her head sort of just sank into.
A comfort warmth that made her not want to move from that spot at all.
She was right on her favorite spot - where the comfy inside of Amelia's thighs cradled her head in just the right way.
Even simply letting her head rest in the blonde's lap was sinking her head deeper into the fog that encircled her head.
And, once again, she felt Amelia run her hand through her blue and white hair.
Her fingers combed through the strands, gentle, as only a parent or lover could, in the way her fingers slowly brushed through her messy hair.
...warm…
Amelia's hand was so comforting against her head, a familiar presence Gura would never tire of.
It was a unique pleasure, of which tingled the top of her head.
The kind that soothed her, in both the stress and anxiety of the day, and the itches that always needed scratching, whenever the thought of the activity crosses her mind.
Her eyes narrowed lazily.
F-fuzzy...
Gura barely managed the thought, her lips just shy of whispering the word.
Mmh~
Instead, a sleepy mumble of approval escaped her lips - a cute, happy sigh that came out as instinctively a cat's purr.
She found herself tucking in her legs below her, her hands up at her chest in a comfortable, curled up sort of way that felt instinctive to her animal half.
The pads of Amelia's fingers and the flat of her palm lent their warmth to the experience, while moving back and forth in a slow pattern that lightly roughed her scalp.
Both of them knew it was just enough to make her soften and melt into the touch, and Gura did just that, dazedly taking in the immense joy that raced through her chest.
Haah~
Being all curled up on her side next to Amelia on their living room couch, her head resting in the blonde's lap.
The drone of the documentary Amelia was watching pushed to the back of her thoughts as the blonde ran her comforting hand through Gura's hair and rubbed her head in all the good spots.
It was unexplainably, but undeniably, great.
It was a feeling of closeness; a mutual comfort they shared between them in that cozy silence, only broken by the faint sound of the documentary's narrator.
It was an infinitely insatiable desire to always want to feel that particularly calming pleasure - an itch that always resided inside her.
An addictive experience of which the Gura shark hadn't been able to get her full of ever since Atlantis - where the act was as common as a hug was for humans.
After she left, no one had even managed to come close to the feeling of warmth, ease and gratification that was brought out by the simple, but deeply intimate activity.
And now that she could, Gura found she just couldn't get enough of it.
The satisfaction of just...letting it happen.
Letting her body melt sleepily into Amelia's.
Letting her thoughts and worries float away as she relaxed and let the blonde do her thing; rubbing and patting and scratching so naturally that it was almost like she could read Gura's mind.
It all felt so timeless to her; her racing heart the only decent indicator to how long it had been.
Minutes? Hours?
The thought of time went far over her head.
Every moment, every prick of pleasure and tease of sensation, could have just as easily been a day, or a second, a week or a moment.
And so, lost as deep in the exhilarating comfort as she was, Gura seldom felt when Amelia's hand eventually began to slow.
Her clouded consciousness filled in the gaps that began to appear in the waves of comfort, keeping her submerged in the feeling of the hand at top her head.
It was only when Amelia's hand came to rest on the side of her face, pressing her comforting warmth into her head.
When her palm gently cupped around her ear, thumb and forefinger straying to one of her twin tails.
Only when the motions came to a complete stop, did Gura's voice quiet and her body still.
. . .
Mhh…
Gura groaned quietly, the dizzying mist around her head slow to fade.
The seemingly abrupt end of the head rub left her with a dissatisfied feeling in her chest, which she struggled to right in her dizzied state.
All at once, she felt her senses returning from the mist of haziness, the sensations no longer there to distract her from the messages of her senses to her head.
"There is no place on earth, quite like it. It is around both beautiful, and brutal. Where adaptation, is the key to survival."
"This, is the wild Amazon."
The first thing that invaded Gura's originally dulled senses - that low, informative voice that all documentaries just had to have.
The sound seemed to echo around the room before converging on her newly sensitive ears.
She managed to slowly squint open her eyes a second later.
The bright, sideways screen of the TV caught her eyes, presenting a wide panning shot of a lush forest that she judged to be in just about the middle of nowhere.
Leopards, ants and snakes. Frogs, and owls, and crocodiles.
She couldn't take in most of what the documentary was saying.
It was just too many words and not enough things happening for her short, and now hazy, attention span.
It also didn't happen to be about aquatic animals.
Uninterested, Gura turned away from the documentary.
Her head was still a bit dazed, her senses in an in-between where her thoughts felt sluggish, as she sleepily rolled her head to the side in Amelia's lap.
Peeking up above her, past the eyeful of a view of her chest Gura got from below, she spotted that familiarly studious look the detective had once again.
It was cute, how the detective's eyebrows would furrow just a bit, and how her mouth would tense in a line.
How she would unconsciously play with something in her hands - usually one of her small twin ponytails, which was being rolled between her thumb and forefinger now.
But other than that, Amelia had turned most of her attention towards the documentary.
She hadn't even noticed Gura turning in her lap to look up at her.
Gura gave her a half-hearted, half asleep glare, knowing full well that Amelia wouldn't notice.
Haah
Gura sighed softly to herself, a small smile coming up to her face.
Rolling halfway onto her back in Amelia's lap, she slowly brought a hand up and poked Amelia in the stomach with a finger; not unlike a child would to get the attention of an adult.
"..."
She received no response; not even a glance.
Huffing impatiently, Gura prodded her a bit harder.
" Ame ."
. . .
Amelia blinked out of her concentration, for the first time in quite a while.
Who was calling her?
"... stoopid ."
A quiet, drowsy voice came from below, though she entirely missed what was said.
"...what?"
Amelia reflexively said more than asked, after a moment.
It took her another to pull her eyes away from the screen.
She glanced down, to where her hand was running through the shark girl's hair for what must have been the thousandth time.
It was a soothing experience, to just relax and let her hand move, almost on its own.
As always, Gura's hair was lusciously soft, the bristles brushing gently against her fingers.
She felt the slight movements of her breathing, and the warmth of Gura's head under her hand.
Mh?
It took the shark just as long to respond.
" Nothing~ "
Gura giggled drowsily, though Amelia didn't know what for.
Her narrowed eyes peered up at the blonde, a light red dashing the area under her eyes, and a small smile on her lips.
"Do you wanna watch something else?" Amelia asked, confused.
But she got no response, as Gura was barely paying attention.
Instead, she was turning her head back to face the TV and closing her eyes, snuggling the side of her head back into Amelia's soft lap pillow like a cat finding it's favorite resting spot.
Heh
Amelia quietly smiled to herself, unable to pry her eyes away from the cute little shark curled up in her lap, now that her attention had been pulled away from the documentary.
Even from the back, she found Gura's disheveled hair to be cute. It sort of suited her, the mop of her shoulder length hair a mess in her lap, with strands sticking up wildly from the friction of Amelia's hand.
Her long hoodie was ruffled by her balled up position - her small legs tucked into her stomach, her perfect little hands pulled into her chest, and her shark tail curled up on the couch, fitting of her small form.
" Mhm..."
Gura mumbled breathily as Amelia pressed the pads of her fingers down into the top of her head.
And as she ran her fingers across her head more roughly, she received a blissful shiver that shook Gura's shoulders.
From the corner of her vision, Amelia caught sight of Gura's tail, the scaly-looking appendage flicking happily back and forth against the couch.
Amelia couldn't help but giggle softly to herself.
Gura was so cute .
She was like a cat or a dog in the blonde's arms, not dissimilar to Bubba in just how snuggly and relaxed her little apex predator could become.
And yet, she was entirely her own creature, in the way she shifted ever so slightly in her lap, reacting to her touches with little tenses and squirms.
Movements of her tail, head, and back all together, mixed in with her quiet sounds and voicings.
Smiling to herself, Amelia pressed into the shark more firmly.
She brought her nails to Gura's head, making sure to be gentle as she ran her fingers in the circular pattern once again.
And with it, came the sound that became the background to their activity, that mix between crunching and brushing.
It was a soothing sound, like soft ASMR.
It sounded loud in her ears - and probably louder in Gura's - as Amelia combed through her hair, lightly scratching all those slightly itchy spots atop her head.
Her nails made that quiet 'scritch' sound as she tucked her fingers behind Gura's ear, dragging the top of her nail between her bangs.
That earned her an arch of Gura's back, making her tense to stay still, but writhe and squirm every part of her body into the blonde's lap all the same.
It was like the shark girl was melting, her straining softening as she drowsily wriggled and snuggled herself deeper into Amelia's lap.
Each exhale, sigh and mumble, seemed to deflate her further into Amelia's lap.
Each scratch drove Gura deeper into the warm embrace of the cushion, her head instinctively squirming back and forth to the motions of the hand as she did.
And when she moved her fingers onwards and eased off the pressure, she felt Gura tilting her head to press the blonde's hand more firmly into her.
Mmmh...
Gura groaned softly in complaint.
She arched her neck, trying to get Amelia's hand back to the same spot, with the same roughness that was now receding.
It was more instinctive than anything, a squirm and stretch of her body rather than a reach of an arm or the protest of a voice.
Curious, Amelia lifted her hand just a bit.
She kept her fingers moving, nails roughing her head, but high enough that it was little more than a tickle.
And despite her expecting it, a wide smile slid into her face as Gura tilted and leaned her head up into her hand.
Again Amelia raised her hand and pulled it back just a bit, and again Gura followed her, perhaps only faintly aware of what she was even doing.
Her shoulder drove her lap, her hands steadying her on Amelia's leg as she stretched higher.
The shark girl twisted her head to the ceiling as she reached, needing the touch behind her ear.
And though she continued, pulling Gura along with her teasing, Amelia paused when she twisted enough for the blonde to see her face.
Her brows were furled around closed eyes, a slight frown to her face that matched her sounds of complaint.
It didn't even seem like Gura was aware she was making such a face, which only warmed her chest even more at the sight.
Giggling, Amelia relented and finally brought her hand down to Gura's beggingly raised head.
Her fingers came to the spot behind her ear, her nails moving in a frenzy that let the shark girl sink back down into her lap.
The accompanying breath that erupted from her throat, an instinctual combination of a sigh and a purr, made Amelia's heart skip a beat.
For a time, she watched Gura squirm in her lap like before.
It was as if each of her clawing fingers tugged a string that pulled at Gura in turn, as she gently but blindly grasped at Amelia's lap, as her legs shifted back and forth, up and down against the soft cushions.
All the while her tail danced, from writhing against the couch like the hypnotic movement of a snake, to coming up to curl against her back and Amelia's thigh.
It was so peaceful, with just the two of them.
They scarcely acknowledged the documentary now, as of it were the background talking that someone home alone would put on.
They simply had no ears for it; only for one another.
It was almost as though a bubble were up around them, and Amelia was unable to pry her attention from the only other inside that bubble with her.
. . .
Eventually, Amelia's hand slowed to a stop - consciously, this time.
She rested her hand on the top of Gura's head, watching intently as she slowly unfurled herself from her ball, her legs stretching out on the couch.
Then, glancing up, she rolled onto her back in the blonde's lap.
?
The shark girl's wide, blue eyes seemed to ask, as she cocked her head.
Why stop?
Amelia giggled to herself.
Gura could go for hours. It would never end if Amelia gave in to her innocent eyes.
Instead, the detective patted the top of Gura's head.
She knew Gura hated that, and couldn't resist the smirk that undoubtedly crept into her face when the shark narrowed her eyes accusingly, though Amelia could detect a bit of humor in the look.
Then, she batted away Amelia's hand and pushed herself up into a sit with a breath.
Her small, lithe form was oddly cat-like as she pulled her seat into a 'W', stretched her thin arms into the air, and arched her slim back.
Yaaawn~
Amelia watched her tail stretch from behind, the blue appendage curving out and back to strain itself.
Gura smacked her lips cutely as she unbent and relaxed in her seat, accompanied by a blissful sigh that broke through her lips.
She peeked at Amelia over her shoulder, her eyes bright.
"Thanks~"
Gura beamed her heartwarming smile, and Amelia couldn't help but smile back, to it's infectiously cute nature.
"No problem."
They locked gazes for a moment, holding each other's smiles.
Gosh, she was cute.
Reaching forward, Amelia took the end of her tail into her palm and the fins between her thumb and forefinger.
It had a rough, almost leathery feel to it. A texture that was just satisfying to touch.
Fascinating, as always.
She'd need to investigate it more closely - later, of course.
For now, she urged Gura towards her with a gentle tug.
The message was not lost on her.
It only took a moment for the small shark girl to scramble to her knees, and over to Amelia's lap.
She came up to her side, readily accepting the blonde's spread arms.
In an instant, Amelia had her arms wrapped around the curve of Gura's waist, and eagerly pulled her in to sit on her lap.
And though her eyes were locked with Gura's, she felt those slim, smooth arms doing just the same around the sides of her neck, her small hands linking behind the base of her neck and pulling them even closer.
Face to face, bodies against bodies.
The press of their soft skin, as well as all the warmth that came with it, was blocked only by their clothes (though that could easily be remedied)
Just being so close made her heart jump every time, and this one was no exception.
She even felt the shark's equally excited pulse against her chest.
Both of their heartbeats matched their increasingly heavier breaths.
Gura smiled at her.
Amelia smiled back.
And, as if they passed a silent message between them with just that look, Gura started to lean inwards.
Heh
With Gura sitting in her lap, their heights almost matched, letting Amelia tilt her head up at her approach.
Her big, bright, ocean blue eyes took center stage as their faces neared.
Her tender lips, pursing ever so slightly as she angled her head.
She drew Amelia in like a magnet and she too, found herself leaning inwards.
The blonde drew her arms up Gura's back, feeling up the slim curve underneath her baggy sweater as her hands traveled up to where she felt the line of her bra beneath the fabric.
Closer, and closer.
The touch only inches away.
Their noses brushed, a jolt of sensitive skin. Then they passed.
They could feel their lips nearing, an itch of the mouth to make contact with its matching pair.
And as their eyes aligned and filled the others' vision, Amelia closed her eyes.
She sensed Gura doing the same.
Blank, black.
Dark, though she could still feel Gura through her skin and clothes.
Could still sensed Gura nearing, an instinct somewhere between smell and touch and hearing.
Somewhere in that darkness, she waited for the familiar touch of Gura's lips on hers.
"I love you"
. . .
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
. . .
Gasp
Amelia shot up in her seat, gasping for air.
Her arms out in front of her, grasping to hold something that wasn't there.
Only the sound of her heavy breaths could be heard as she blinked, then blinked again, ridding of the spots that danced in her vision.
“...”
A dark room.
A blank TV.
Alone.
It took her another moment to come to the conclusion she was so desperately avoiding.
Another one
Amelia let her arms drop beside her, let her head rest back on the couch,
The darkness of the ceiling made it dance in her mind's eye.
She took a deep breath, refusing to let her eyes close.
Exhaustion tugged at the edges of her mind, her body begging her for rest.
Urging her eyes shut, urging her mind to wander meaninglessly as she slept.
But she couldn't.
For if she dared, they would come back.
Those nightmarish memories that she wanted so, so badly, to rid of.
And at the same time, she wasn't sure if she truly wanted them gone.
If she could bear forgetting them.
And as they sat where they did, endlessly pestering her at the forefront of her thoughts, she wasn't sure she could bear either.
For they were suddenly loud in her head.
So terribly loud.
They begged at her mind's door, not like an enraged crowd, but a cat, begging for entry with a scratch and a clawing.
Memories that she didn't want, but couldn't find it in herself to turn away.
And whether she broke or caved, or simply couldn't hold them back, it mattered not.
For they were already through.
Gura, silhouetted by the sunset past the water.
Her smile as she turned towards Amelia, the small action that made her heart stop every time.
stop
The call, on that oh so fateful day, that ended with her phone on the floor.
It was one she remembered even without any sound to fill that void of silence.
s-stop
Standing against the wall, outside the hospital room.
Stop!
The look Callie gave her, that all of them gave her; that said there was nothing they could do about it.
About her.
That was where it all began, wasn't it?
" FUCK! "
In an instant, she was up, her cup in hand, and her hand in motion.
Crack
It shattered, falling to the floor.
Amelia stood there, her breaths heavy as she stared.
Stared at the dent stained with a colorlessness that ran down the wall.
Stared at the bleak, empty space.
Daring something, anything, to challenge her rage.
But for all her anger, nothing did challenge her.
And in that silent, empty room, she just couldn't stop her breath from catching in her throat.
Couldn't stop the emotions she had so desperately tried to push down from welling powerfully in her chest.
A flood that she didn't have the strength to stop.
Her hands shook as she clenched them into fists, trying to plug the feelings that overtook her.
Salty tears built in her eyes, making her vision blur.
And when they broke free from the banks of her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, she let herself fall back into the couch.
She didn't even try to stop them.
Her watery eyes came to rest on the pocket watch, sitting on the table.
The one thing she couldn't bear to throw.
To break.
To lose.
Only a simple thing, to end it all.
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
In the silence of her erratic breathing and wet sniffing, it all but mocked her with the sound of its arms ticking, one bit at a time.
The movement of time, that she assumed would never affect her and her near immortal friends.
What a fucking joke.
Amelia reached forward, taking the familiar, circular shape into her hand.
It fit perfectly into her palm, as if it was made for her.
For all of this.
And for this very moment.
She held it up, her thumb poised.
Why would she always fix it, when it broke?
Why would she always go back, when nothing could be fixed?
When it always happened, whether she interviewed or not.
Was it her , who didn't belong?
Who had no power, who could only watch?
A curse.
That's what this time traveling was.
Amelia took in a shaky breath, her hand trembling in its grip.
Regardless of all she thought, it didn't stop her thumb from reaching up to the button.
It didn't stop the hope that lingered at the back of her mind.
The hope that someday, she'd matter.
That she'd be able to make a change.
That she'd be able to stop all of this.
She lingered on the button, the familiar curve of its circular top resting on the pad of her thumb.
stop
A small voice said, from somewhere deep inside her.
A voice she had suppressed, hidden inside of her so deeply, for fear it spoke a truth she could never accept.
Amelia ignored it.
She squeezed her eyes shut, tightened her grip on the watch that had been passed down in her family for generations.
It suddenly felt so cold in her hand.
The flawless golden yellow frame that her hand encircled.
The intricate looking chain that hung against her wrist.
And the button at the top.
A simple thing, which would have merely flipped open the watch.
Had none of this ever happened.
Just
.
.
One
.
.
.
More
.
.
.
.
Try
.
.
.
.
.
don't-
Click