asymmetryestablished:

papanorth:

When Wash is feeling anxious/paranoid (which happens often and for various reasons), and they’re not actually in any danger yet, Tucker kinda casually holds the back of his neck, conveniently right over the mess of the implant site, just keeps his hand there. It sorta helps Wash feel a little safer.

okay but this is a Super Important Art to me because like

I don’t know anyone else’s view on this but personally I could count on my fingers the number of people who’d be allowed to do this to me and I’ve never had any sort of trauma in my life let alone related to that place on my body, if any random person tried to pull this stunt my instinct would be to punch their lights out

because it’s a possessive as hell gesture, it’s super controlling, you’re touching someone over their brainstem, I’m no expert but isn’t that what literally all of their nerve impulses pass through??? so symbolically exerting control over that area is a really possessive gesture, it implies complete control over a person’s actions (you can probably control a whole range of movement from here if you get your fingers positioned right, jaw and everything)

but it’s also such a protective gesture, it’s how mama lions and wolves and all sorts of mammals pick up their children to carry them to safety

and Wash has a fucking hole there??? like that would feel constantly exposed and yeah okay maybe he’d get used to it but just because you get accustomed to being naked literally all the time doesn’t mean you don’t get cold or uncomfortable

and so the fact that he trusts Tucker enough that Tucker can just reach over unprompted to cover up the hole in the back of his fucking head (and it’s the back of his neck, too, it’s what you bare when you’re being executed, it’s one of the most vulnerable places on your body, one wrong move with a sharp object there and you’re permanently paralyzed and you can’t even see to defend it), and the fact that Tucker would realize that there’s a hole in his head that bothers him and that having that mama lion comfort instinct soothed might help him in a time of stress,,,

aGH this is such an emotionally powerful idea all right