Now That My Brain Is Here…

Now that my brain is here…

Dom/sub verse where you get a designation six months to a year after you get your essences. Due to personality and whatnot, most adventurers are Doms.

Jason is a sub.

The presentation is slow. He starts getting fidgety when left to his own devices, unable to sit still. Worse than he was before being torn from his old world. Then he begins to get irritable. He prides himself on a laidback attitude. The bloke next door who will lend you a cup or sugar or tell you the secret ingredient he added to elevate his newest pasta dish. He’s affable, well liked, the baker down the street knows his sister’s name at this point.

Which makes Jason yelling at him all the more startling.

He apologizes and the baker accepts it, but the interaction sticks with him.

Then he’s out on a contract with Clive when it hits. His emotions have been a wreck, more than normal, but the fever comes in a wave. Dizziness, nausea. He can barely stand, Clive having to stop the skimmer and sit him down.

He checks the health status, the little person lit up in red. In big, bold capital letters it says “SUBDROP.”

Jason whispers it, scanning the word but not understanding. Luckily, Clive does.

Jason gets his first command that day.

“Jason, eyes on me.”

Clive walks him through a long routine. Simple requests. Giving Clive his hand, stretching, reading passages from one of Clive’s books. Jason runs through the motions until the fever and headache fade away, replaced by a blissful emptiness. A fuzziness.

When Jason comes to, Clive had parked the skimmer in the shade of a tree, a cooling ritual set up while he held Jason propped up against his chest. One hand stroking through his hair, the other holding up a book on magical theory.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Clive says when Jason moves. His body is heavy and awkward, like he’d been asleep for hours.

Clive walks him through what happened. Jason had gotten a “talk” from Rufus, but it was more equivalent to a first time mother telling their child about the birds and the bees. Oddly rehearsed and tense. Clive is more clinical. And apologetic when he tells Jason that he won’t be able to go more than a few weeks without a “command” before he starts to drop again.

And when he starts to drop, he becomes more susceptible to unwanted commands.

After that, Clive will give him small commands here and there. To pass him a napkin while they’re out to eat, read him a passage from an astral magic theory book, hand him a tool while he’s buried deep in his research. They stave him off until he needs another session a few weeks later.

Clive is respectful, never pushing the boundaries. He doesn’t even order Jason to share his interface powers while he’s in subspace. It’s comfortable, and Jason learns to love the crisp pronunciation of each syllable when he gives a command, the softer intonation of his voice when they wind down from a session, the feel of Clive’s hand as it scratches at Jason’s head and combs through his hair.

Sessions become more frequent, even when they aren’t necessary, and they become comfortable.

Jason notices the way other subs, usually crafts people, are treated around town. Subservient to their Dom, trailing a foot behind, quiet, secondary. A shiver runs down Jason’s spine even though Clive never once expects the same- and in fact encourages the opposite- from him.

Then they form the team.

Humphrey is a Dom, but he never pushes, never gives commands. He’d been oblivious to Jason’s designation for most of the time Jason had known he was a sub.

Neil joins, and it’s different. As a healer, he picks up on Jason in their first true interaction. An intake.

Humphrey is with Jason when Neil frowns, a blue flow from Neil’s diagnostic power blanketing Jason. There’s a sterile coldness about it and Jason shivers.

“You’re a sub,” Neil says, looking at Jason strangely.

“So I’ve been told.”

Neil turns to Humphrey.

“How’s he been managing with commands? Are you his Dom?”

“No. I don’t-“ Jason starts, but Neil keeps talking.

“What are the symptoms of his subdrop? So I can keep track.”

“You know,” Jason says loudly, gaining Neil’s attention. “I know I’m gorgeous and we’ll be a fantastic team of four, but I didn’t think I would be the Invisible Woman.”

“What?” Neil asks.

“I’m right here,” Jason says. “And I’ve got all the answers you could need.”

Neil looks hesitantly between Jason and Humphrey.

“But he’s a-“

“Neil,” Humphrey cuts him off. “This team does not do things that way. Jason does not have a Dom. We will all be treated the same. If you cannot accept this, then you can find another team.”

And therein starts Neil’s fascination, soon to turn into admiration (and no small amount of jealousy), of Clive and Jason’s relationship.