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Fic: Winchester Synchronicity (NC17, Chapter 17 of ?)
This chapter kicked my ass. No, seriously, it may be short, but it totally kicked my ass (too many important bits for my twisty brain to rein in).
Sorry for the incredible delay. I kinda feel like I've got a handle on things again, but I'm not gonna make any promises. Hitting "post" now, before I chicken out.
Title: Winchester Synchronicity, Chapter 17 of ? (WIP)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rivestra
Rating: NC-17 series wide
Warnings: violence, non-con, wincest
Disclaimer: Written purely for fun; no profit or harm intended. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Previous Chapter (16) | Story Index | Back to the Beginning
He wakes with a gasp, like he's risen from the bottom of a deep lake instead of just another in his endless stream of nightmares.
He makes his body go still and silently tries to shake off the crawl of fire raging across his skin, incinerating his bones from within. He's blind from the flash and can barely breathe around the memory of ozone and sulfur choking his lungs.
He can still feel the groaning rumble-creak of the dying Earth all around him.
He suppresses self-mocking laughter. I guess that's not the way to do it, then. Willing his heart rate to slow, he focuses on breathing, in and out, deep and even. Soon, he can smell the rancid remains of their chow mein dinner. A moment more, and he can hear traffic on the busy street outside, and, much to his relief, drunken snoring from the other bed. Thank God. He's running out of excuses, and it's taking longer and longer to shake these damn dreams off.
As soon as he can see more than afterimage, he turns toward the other bed and watches the steady rise and fall of his brother's chest. It draws him in, trance-like, more real than anything else, more solid than the ground beneath him. Constant.
It has to be constant. He won't allow it to be anything else.
He lets his determination settle into him and shifts into his pillow, pulling his eyes away reluctantly. He feels moisture on his cheek and wonders how long he's been crying. Turning to face the water-stained ceiling, he wipes his eyes clean and screws them shut. His hand clutches the pendant around his neck and sucks in a steadying breath before reaching out toward sleep again, mind racing for something different to try this time.
Maybe if they head South? He drifts off…
…and descends, once again, into fire.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The crackles and pops of the fire sent long shadows across the dirt. The flames danced; deep blues and bright yellows, vibrant oranges and a thousand different reds all licked at the wood, crawling quickly along the coals. The flickering mesmerized Dean; he couldn't feel it along his skin or in his lungs. That felt wrong somehow, but he couldn't figure out why. His mind drifted, aimless. After a while, he noticed a dark shape moving on the far side of the flames, almost lost in the shadows. He watched it for a while without really wondering what it was. The heat bathed him gently and replaced what was fast seeping out of him into the cold ground below. He floated along in it.
It felt... good. Really good. There really was nothing but warmth and light coming from this fire.
He was awake.
Dean scrambled upright, taking in the immediate area even as his head began to pound and his muscles screamed in protest. Sam's bag sat next to the fire, listing sideways on the packed gravel. There was a large mass at his back, and Dean spun around the instant he realized that it was warm and roughly Sam-shaped. He cursed under his breath at the pain the motion brought, then louder and with more venom when the long, jagged gashes down Sammy's side and across his chest swam into focus. They were deep and still bleeding thickly in the worst spots, their edges raw and swollen.
Claw marks, made by something with claws thicker than Dean's thumb, paws that must've been as large as his head. Dean scrambled at Sam's clothes, looking for more injuries, desperately hoping not to find more than bruises.
"He wasn't bitten."
The words came from behind him and froze him in place. Fuck! Belatedly, Dean remembered that something had been moving on the other side of the fire. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Dean knew he didn't know what the fuck he was doing, but he'd still been hoping to avoid getting them killed through sheer incompetence.
Deliberately projecting confidence he wasn't feeling, Dean tossed, "I don't suppose you've got a first aid kit," out into the dim air behind him. He pressed his hand against the worst of the bleeding and didn't turn around.
Gravel crunched nearby, and Dean tracked whatever had spoken moving around the fire by the sound. It crouched down next to him and said, "Nope," in a voice thick with amusement. Dean still didn't look up. He didn't have to. It wasn't like he was ever going to forget that fucking voice again.
"We need to talk, Dean."
Flat and even, Dean spat out, "Heal Sam, then we can talk all you want," instead of kicking the fucking trickster in the head. It felt like quite an accomplishment.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could just make out Ketill's head shaking. "Not the way it works, kiddo. First, we talk, then I'll think about..."
Dean's patience ran out abruptly and he launched himself at Ketill. Of course, this was a huge fucking mistake, and all Dean got out of it was a face full of gravel and a ten-fold spike in his headache. When he finally managed to pull himself around onto his ass, he could barely see Ketill laughing at him through the stabbing pain. At least he was still conscious; he tried to keep in mind that, right now, he really needed to count that as a victory.
Ketill loomed over Dean and shook his head disapprovingly. "Dean, you've really got to stop this."
Dean squinted and glared. Ketill stuck a hand out, and Dean let the fucker haul him to his feet, even though that felt like a bad idea on too many levels to count.
Dean stumbled the few steps necessary to get back to Sam and plopped down gracelessly beside his brother. The arrogant bastard crouched on the other side of Sam, watching Dean. Dean kept his eyes on Sam and refused to look at him. A long moment later, Dean asked, "I take it werewolves survived?"
"Stuck in wolf form and slowly starving to death." Dean shot him a curious look, and Ketill grimaced. "Their meat needs to be alive when they start to feed." Dean wasn't sure if Ketill distaste was for the wolves or for the dead-alive state of most of their potential prey – either way it made Dean shiver a bit. "They attacked a few hours after your little performance at the gas station. He fought off six before he got you strapped to his bike and ran." Ketill stared down at Sam with a smile full of proprietary pride, and Dean didn't manage to keep the growl that rose in his throat sub-vocal. "The rest of the pack's been chasing you."
Fuck. "How many?"
"Eighteen." The bastard's eyes came back up to Dean's face finally and quickly took in the epic fight-flight battle being waged there. "They won't be any more trouble." Ketill's expression was matter of fact, like taking out eighteen werewolves was just a minor inconvenience for him. Dean glowered at him in disbelief, and the fucker's face hardened. He pinned Dean with a disapproving glare of his own. "You need to worry about you. If I hadn't been able to get here, your stubbornness would have killed you this time."
Immediately defensive, Dean growled, "I was recovering on my own. A few more hours..."
"It's been days, Dean. And you would have been dead in another one. You've barely been hanging on," Ketill looked down at Sam, and Dean really didn't like his speculative expression. "Really, I'm surprised you made it this long. Sam must have grown stronger than I thought, to have sustained you as long as he did." There was definitely an acquisitive kind of sheen in the fucker's eyes.
"Hey!" Dean said loudly. "Eyes up here mister." He waited until Ketill looked up before continuing, "Why don't you break this fucking spell if it's so dangerous?"
Ketill laughed. "That's Sammy's job, Dean, not mine." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping dramatically low, "Yours is not to let either of you die, understand?" Dean glared at him sullenly. "I need you to say it, Dean. I need you to tell me you understand. I can work with anything else, but you've got to stay alive."
Dean stayed silent for several minutes, evaluating the earnest expression on the trickster's face. It was freaky, but he kind of believed it really mattered to the fucker. Almost. Knowing he must be going soft in the head, Dean finally said, "I understand," in a voice more solemn than he intended.
Brushing the dust off his hands, Ketill said, "Okay then," and reached for Sam. Dean stopped him cold, grabbing his hands before they'd moved more than a few inches. Ketill cocked his head, for all the world like a hopeful stray, and asked reasonably, "I thought you wanted me to heal your brother?"
Energy sparked and crackled between them, and instinct made Dean push the bastard's hands away. His breathing was ragged and he couldn't check his openmouthed stare, but Dean still gestured toward his brother's broken body, knowing himself five kinds of crazy for wanting those fucking hands anywhere near Sam.
Under Dean's watchful eyes, Ketill placed his hands on Sam's chest, pushing open the tattered shirt and spreading his fingers over the worst of the gashes. Slowly, he settled in, pressing down deliberately and closing his eyes. Light pulsed through Ketill and out, flaring the whole campsite white. Utterly transfixed, Dean watched as Ketill lifted his hands and Sam rose with them, drawn upward like steel to magnetized iron, until Sammy was fucking floating, more than a foot off the ground.
For a long moment, Sam seemed to glow there from within, hovering a foot in the air, his skeleton visible like in an old Daffy Duck cartoon. The sun tattoo on Sam's chest cut a dark shadow through the glow, and the ugly red scars crisscrossed fire across its surface, shimmering and writhing like they were alive. The scars chased across Sam's skin, faster and faster, flaring brighter and brighter until Dean couldn't see them anymore against the glow of his brother.
In the next moment, everything was afterimage and Dean smelled the sea. He heard a massive rustling like feathers and felt ozone pulsing through the air. Suddenly, all the noise and light faded, disappearing like it had never been. Sammy sank gently back to the ground.
When Ketill lifted his hands, Sam's chest was unmarked except for the perfect outline of that not-quite-familiar tattoo.
Dean stared, afraid to blink to clear the afterimage, his brain clicking almost audibly. He knew that the damn trickster was powerful, but this... what he'd just seen went far beyond what he'd thought possible.
Ketill stared at him with what Dean could only interpret as a ruefully fond expression and that? That was the creepiest thing Dean had seen since he'd watched all those little kids in their pretty sunflower costumes fall still in the street and just stop.
Humor laced the bastard's voice, "Forget about your name, Dean. Sam's going to figure it out soon enough. Midwinter's closing in." Dean glared at him, and he chuckled gently. "I think it's best if you go to sleep now, Dean." Ketill smiled and raised his hand, "Take this cryptic dream," his fingers brushed across Dean's forehead before Dean thought to duck, " go to sleep," the bastard brought his hand forward again, "and forget I was ever here."
The moment Ketill's two fingers connected again with Dean's temple, he was out like a light.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The plain rushes by under her, its sickly, lifeless green a featureless blur that conceals the scrabbles for life below. Icy fingers of wind creep through her pin feathers to chill the skin beneath. Her wings are heavy, each beat full of effort and the thudding pulse of her heart is louder than the wind. Her keen eyes sting, straining downward, eager to find the line. Eager to be home again.
She pushes on; the great mountains grow closer.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her turns vibrant, near-dead one inch, lush and alive the next. A joyful thermal rushes to greet her, stealing her breath with its enveloping warmth. She spirals higher with it, sucking in the richness it brings up from below and dancing with the warm wind.
Eventually – long after she's dizzy with the reunion – she banks westward and out of the warmth. Cool, high mountain air surrounds her, refreshes and welcomes her, and she swoops and soars down toward the valley that spreads out like a hand before her. Geometric plots of bright and dark green cover the valley floor in its palm, and the river, placid with summer, winds though them along the lifeline. The water glints invitingly, but she turns away from that too and soars instead toward the stone structure clinging to the ridgeline, halfway up the littlest finger. She dips low, scaring a brace of rabbits into a frantic rush as she rockets by, then accelerates into the curve of the land and follows the ridge up-up-up, back toward the sky.
She's going too fast to track the ground, but subtle changes in the air tell her when it's time, and she tucks in close, caroming around the bulge of the lowest tower before veering up and out onto the wide, central courtyard. Startled children squeal and scatter then reform in her wake with wails of peels laughter.
They follow as she darts into the great hall, chattering their excitement at her arrival. With graceful precision, she drops onto her perch, grateful to rest at long last. A fire roars warm in the great stone arch, replacing the heat she's rapidly losing. The youthful voices grow raucous, a cacophony of shouted, "Dad!" and "She's back!" echoing out as they sprint off down the main hall, all full of purpose and energy.
Quietly, she settles her feathers to wait, content to be home at last.
Chapter Eighteen
~ Fic Index ~
Sorry for the incredible delay. I kinda feel like I've got a handle on things again, but I'm not gonna make any promises. Hitting "post" now, before I chicken out.
Title: Winchester Synchronicity, Chapter 17 of ? (WIP)
Author:
rivestra Rating: NC-17 series wide
Warnings: violence, non-con, wincest
Disclaimer: Written purely for fun; no profit or harm intended. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Previous Chapter (16) | Story Index | Back to the Beginning
He wakes with a gasp, like he's risen from the bottom of a deep lake instead of just another in his endless stream of nightmares.
He makes his body go still and silently tries to shake off the crawl of fire raging across his skin, incinerating his bones from within. He's blind from the flash and can barely breathe around the memory of ozone and sulfur choking his lungs.
He can still feel the groaning rumble-creak of the dying Earth all around him.
He suppresses self-mocking laughter. I guess that's not the way to do it, then. Willing his heart rate to slow, he focuses on breathing, in and out, deep and even. Soon, he can smell the rancid remains of their chow mein dinner. A moment more, and he can hear traffic on the busy street outside, and, much to his relief, drunken snoring from the other bed. Thank God. He's running out of excuses, and it's taking longer and longer to shake these damn dreams off.
As soon as he can see more than afterimage, he turns toward the other bed and watches the steady rise and fall of his brother's chest. It draws him in, trance-like, more real than anything else, more solid than the ground beneath him. Constant.
It has to be constant. He won't allow it to be anything else.
He lets his determination settle into him and shifts into his pillow, pulling his eyes away reluctantly. He feels moisture on his cheek and wonders how long he's been crying. Turning to face the water-stained ceiling, he wipes his eyes clean and screws them shut. His hand clutches the pendant around his neck and sucks in a steadying breath before reaching out toward sleep again, mind racing for something different to try this time.
Maybe if they head South? He drifts off…
…and descends, once again, into fire.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The crackles and pops of the fire sent long shadows across the dirt. The flames danced; deep blues and bright yellows, vibrant oranges and a thousand different reds all licked at the wood, crawling quickly along the coals. The flickering mesmerized Dean; he couldn't feel it along his skin or in his lungs. That felt wrong somehow, but he couldn't figure out why. His mind drifted, aimless. After a while, he noticed a dark shape moving on the far side of the flames, almost lost in the shadows. He watched it for a while without really wondering what it was. The heat bathed him gently and replaced what was fast seeping out of him into the cold ground below. He floated along in it.
It felt... good. Really good. There really was nothing but warmth and light coming from this fire.
He was awake.
Dean scrambled upright, taking in the immediate area even as his head began to pound and his muscles screamed in protest. Sam's bag sat next to the fire, listing sideways on the packed gravel. There was a large mass at his back, and Dean spun around the instant he realized that it was warm and roughly Sam-shaped. He cursed under his breath at the pain the motion brought, then louder and with more venom when the long, jagged gashes down Sammy's side and across his chest swam into focus. They were deep and still bleeding thickly in the worst spots, their edges raw and swollen.
Claw marks, made by something with claws thicker than Dean's thumb, paws that must've been as large as his head. Dean scrambled at Sam's clothes, looking for more injuries, desperately hoping not to find more than bruises.
"He wasn't bitten."
The words came from behind him and froze him in place. Fuck! Belatedly, Dean remembered that something had been moving on the other side of the fire. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Dean knew he didn't know what the fuck he was doing, but he'd still been hoping to avoid getting them killed through sheer incompetence.
Deliberately projecting confidence he wasn't feeling, Dean tossed, "I don't suppose you've got a first aid kit," out into the dim air behind him. He pressed his hand against the worst of the bleeding and didn't turn around.
Gravel crunched nearby, and Dean tracked whatever had spoken moving around the fire by the sound. It crouched down next to him and said, "Nope," in a voice thick with amusement. Dean still didn't look up. He didn't have to. It wasn't like he was ever going to forget that fucking voice again.
"We need to talk, Dean."
Flat and even, Dean spat out, "Heal Sam, then we can talk all you want," instead of kicking the fucking trickster in the head. It felt like quite an accomplishment.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could just make out Ketill's head shaking. "Not the way it works, kiddo. First, we talk, then I'll think about..."
Dean's patience ran out abruptly and he launched himself at Ketill. Of course, this was a huge fucking mistake, and all Dean got out of it was a face full of gravel and a ten-fold spike in his headache. When he finally managed to pull himself around onto his ass, he could barely see Ketill laughing at him through the stabbing pain. At least he was still conscious; he tried to keep in mind that, right now, he really needed to count that as a victory.
Ketill loomed over Dean and shook his head disapprovingly. "Dean, you've really got to stop this."
Dean squinted and glared. Ketill stuck a hand out, and Dean let the fucker haul him to his feet, even though that felt like a bad idea on too many levels to count.
Dean stumbled the few steps necessary to get back to Sam and plopped down gracelessly beside his brother. The arrogant bastard crouched on the other side of Sam, watching Dean. Dean kept his eyes on Sam and refused to look at him. A long moment later, Dean asked, "I take it werewolves survived?"
"Stuck in wolf form and slowly starving to death." Dean shot him a curious look, and Ketill grimaced. "Their meat needs to be alive when they start to feed." Dean wasn't sure if Ketill distaste was for the wolves or for the dead-alive state of most of their potential prey – either way it made Dean shiver a bit. "They attacked a few hours after your little performance at the gas station. He fought off six before he got you strapped to his bike and ran." Ketill stared down at Sam with a smile full of proprietary pride, and Dean didn't manage to keep the growl that rose in his throat sub-vocal. "The rest of the pack's been chasing you."
Fuck. "How many?"
"Eighteen." The bastard's eyes came back up to Dean's face finally and quickly took in the epic fight-flight battle being waged there. "They won't be any more trouble." Ketill's expression was matter of fact, like taking out eighteen werewolves was just a minor inconvenience for him. Dean glowered at him in disbelief, and the fucker's face hardened. He pinned Dean with a disapproving glare of his own. "You need to worry about you. If I hadn't been able to get here, your stubbornness would have killed you this time."
Immediately defensive, Dean growled, "I was recovering on my own. A few more hours..."
"It's been days, Dean. And you would have been dead in another one. You've barely been hanging on," Ketill looked down at Sam, and Dean really didn't like his speculative expression. "Really, I'm surprised you made it this long. Sam must have grown stronger than I thought, to have sustained you as long as he did." There was definitely an acquisitive kind of sheen in the fucker's eyes.
"Hey!" Dean said loudly. "Eyes up here mister." He waited until Ketill looked up before continuing, "Why don't you break this fucking spell if it's so dangerous?"
Ketill laughed. "That's Sammy's job, Dean, not mine." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping dramatically low, "Yours is not to let either of you die, understand?" Dean glared at him sullenly. "I need you to say it, Dean. I need you to tell me you understand. I can work with anything else, but you've got to stay alive."
Dean stayed silent for several minutes, evaluating the earnest expression on the trickster's face. It was freaky, but he kind of believed it really mattered to the fucker. Almost. Knowing he must be going soft in the head, Dean finally said, "I understand," in a voice more solemn than he intended.
Brushing the dust off his hands, Ketill said, "Okay then," and reached for Sam. Dean stopped him cold, grabbing his hands before they'd moved more than a few inches. Ketill cocked his head, for all the world like a hopeful stray, and asked reasonably, "I thought you wanted me to heal your brother?"
Energy sparked and crackled between them, and instinct made Dean push the bastard's hands away. His breathing was ragged and he couldn't check his openmouthed stare, but Dean still gestured toward his brother's broken body, knowing himself five kinds of crazy for wanting those fucking hands anywhere near Sam.
Under Dean's watchful eyes, Ketill placed his hands on Sam's chest, pushing open the tattered shirt and spreading his fingers over the worst of the gashes. Slowly, he settled in, pressing down deliberately and closing his eyes. Light pulsed through Ketill and out, flaring the whole campsite white. Utterly transfixed, Dean watched as Ketill lifted his hands and Sam rose with them, drawn upward like steel to magnetized iron, until Sammy was fucking floating, more than a foot off the ground.
For a long moment, Sam seemed to glow there from within, hovering a foot in the air, his skeleton visible like in an old Daffy Duck cartoon. The sun tattoo on Sam's chest cut a dark shadow through the glow, and the ugly red scars crisscrossed fire across its surface, shimmering and writhing like they were alive. The scars chased across Sam's skin, faster and faster, flaring brighter and brighter until Dean couldn't see them anymore against the glow of his brother.
In the next moment, everything was afterimage and Dean smelled the sea. He heard a massive rustling like feathers and felt ozone pulsing through the air. Suddenly, all the noise and light faded, disappearing like it had never been. Sammy sank gently back to the ground.
When Ketill lifted his hands, Sam's chest was unmarked except for the perfect outline of that not-quite-familiar tattoo.
Dean stared, afraid to blink to clear the afterimage, his brain clicking almost audibly. He knew that the damn trickster was powerful, but this... what he'd just seen went far beyond what he'd thought possible.
Ketill stared at him with what Dean could only interpret as a ruefully fond expression and that? That was the creepiest thing Dean had seen since he'd watched all those little kids in their pretty sunflower costumes fall still in the street and just stop.
Humor laced the bastard's voice, "Forget about your name, Dean. Sam's going to figure it out soon enough. Midwinter's closing in." Dean glared at him, and he chuckled gently. "I think it's best if you go to sleep now, Dean." Ketill smiled and raised his hand, "Take this cryptic dream," his fingers brushed across Dean's forehead before Dean thought to duck, " go to sleep," the bastard brought his hand forward again, "and forget I was ever here."
The moment Ketill's two fingers connected again with Dean's temple, he was out like a light.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The plain rushes by under her, its sickly, lifeless green a featureless blur that conceals the scrabbles for life below. Icy fingers of wind creep through her pin feathers to chill the skin beneath. Her wings are heavy, each beat full of effort and the thudding pulse of her heart is louder than the wind. Her keen eyes sting, straining downward, eager to find the line. Eager to be home again.
She pushes on; the great mountains grow closer.
Suddenly, the ground beneath her turns vibrant, near-dead one inch, lush and alive the next. A joyful thermal rushes to greet her, stealing her breath with its enveloping warmth. She spirals higher with it, sucking in the richness it brings up from below and dancing with the warm wind.
Eventually – long after she's dizzy with the reunion – she banks westward and out of the warmth. Cool, high mountain air surrounds her, refreshes and welcomes her, and she swoops and soars down toward the valley that spreads out like a hand before her. Geometric plots of bright and dark green cover the valley floor in its palm, and the river, placid with summer, winds though them along the lifeline. The water glints invitingly, but she turns away from that too and soars instead toward the stone structure clinging to the ridgeline, halfway up the littlest finger. She dips low, scaring a brace of rabbits into a frantic rush as she rockets by, then accelerates into the curve of the land and follows the ridge up-up-up, back toward the sky.
She's going too fast to track the ground, but subtle changes in the air tell her when it's time, and she tucks in close, caroming around the bulge of the lowest tower before veering up and out onto the wide, central courtyard. Startled children squeal and scatter then reform in her wake with wails of peels laughter.
They follow as she darts into the great hall, chattering their excitement at her arrival. With graceful precision, she drops onto her perch, grateful to rest at long last. A fire roars warm in the great stone arch, replacing the heat she's rapidly losing. The youthful voices grow raucous, a cacophony of shouted, "Dad!" and "She's back!" echoing out as they sprint off down the main hall, all full of purpose and energy.
Quietly, she settles her feathers to wait, content to be home at last.
Chapter Eighteen
~ Fic Index ~
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I guess I'm a masochist 'cause I love your torture of your readership...
Thank you for continuing this story!! I can't wait to see where the next chapter takes us...
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Thank you. Pacing is something I worry about a lot because I'm writing so slowly (snails with typewriters are faster, I hear) that it's very hard to monitor for myself.
I'm working on chapter 18, I swear. It'll go up next month, snail gods (and work obligations) willing.
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::glances about furtively:: 's possible that part differs from what you read in your beta. Dean is... yeah.
Ketill is likable, but he's also one scary ass mother f*cker. Try living with him in your head.
it's like riding an ocean wave - it totally flows... ::blushes:: I'm so glad it's working for you. In many ways, imagery like that is my favorite thing to write... when I don't just want to shred it all and light it on fire.
I wish I had half your talent. Oh you do, baby! You have so much more than half. We have different styles, so it's hardly an apple to apple comparison - and that's good, especially seeing as yours is better suited to what you love to read.
Next month, maybe, for the next part? Assuming work gets better once I can stop going in...
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Thanks for reading/commenting. Your sad puppy-dog eyes are at least partially to blame for my sudden productivity, so thanks for that too!