#{{she will need to go to Antarctica for a shower cold enough}}

[brooklynislandgirl]

"Beth." He's suddenly invading her space, pushing her backwards until she's trapped between the wall and his body. He doesn't want her wiggling away.. Especially not after the conversation he had had with Andy. He most certainly wouldn't approve but.. He knows what she wants, he's seen her eyes straying to his blade whenever he was handling it. He knows that lust. He knows thrill that rushes through her as he lifts the blade to trail it down the curve of her jaw. "...Big brother isn't here to save you.. How bad do you want it, Bethy?"

There is a moment. One that seems to span an eternity even if she could tally up the actual fragments of time into a web that would only loop itself between her fingers like a cats-cradle. In this perceived aeon, Beth can feel her heart leap into her throat. The friction of it acts like tinder, setting everything below on fire as she feels the warmth of him, the weight and the texture of muscle and bone from where her shoulders rest against the lower portion of his ribs. She is slight. Barely there. He meets no resistance. What is a cage to others is often a comfort to Beth. Darkened eyes from where her pupils have dilated giving away any pretence that she's untouched by any sense of desire ~the oxytocin leaking into her bloodstream from the moment he said her name in that very specific way~ and now stare up, slivers of leaf green that are normally vast virgin forest. She's never been shy about the beauty of his hands and the way they work with his knives. If anything there's maybe a slight envy. Her own fluid grace is clinical, something she can't separate so they are delicate strokes, never the power and rage like Franks, and she can only lift Andy's sword when she uses mana to enhance her strength. When he allows her near it at all. Billy, of them all, though seems to possess a balance. She sighs, winsomely, when he caresses the square jaw ~a family trait~ with cold steel. She's sure he can feel that momentary ache inside of her, too. And then... Then... Billy has to go and ruin it. Frustration clouds her gaze before she puts a hand on his chest. Gives him a faint push. One that is blatantly half-hearted. "...Bout as much as ya wan Andy t' fold ya up like a blanket an' bend ya over da foot of his bed." Her voice is soft. There's no edge. There's no fight. Simply... resignation. Her brother has hurt his feelings. So he asks the person he knows doesn't really know how to say no. Even when she feels something in her chest chip away. "Should put plastic down, first. Frank say it helps keep wood from staining."

#prettytm #Broken Wings|Billy Russo #Waiting For This Moment|Billy and Beth #Rough Roads|Punisher au #Brooklyn Stories #Lost in Translation || N S F W #knifeplay tw #{{she will need to go to Antarctica for a shower cold enough}} #Honourable Mention|Frank Castle #Honourable Mention|Andrew Riley

[possibilistfanfiction]

idk maybe this is too big, but beatrice’s reaction at receiving diego’s email in 🐸 🗺? i really really like how you write their attraction towards one another. and here’s a set of 🌮🌮

[thank u for the tacos, maybe i'll have some birria later :)]

//

it's not a good day.

it's not a bad day, either, really.

you got out of bed in the morning. you ate breakfast — congee with an egg and some peanuts. you did the physical therapy exercises you're supposed to have kept up for your shoulder, even though it's been two years; they still help, especially when it's cold and rainy, so you do them. you went to the climbing gym, earlier than lilith ever would; you make your way up some V6s and V7s, but with no enjoyment, sluggish and tired for no reason. you went back to your loft — you'd signed the lease a few months ago under mary and shannon gentle urging and lilith's not-so-gentle demand, because even if you're not here often, beatrice, you need a home. you showered in the dark, blatantly ignoring whatever scars still sting sometimes. you washed your hair with expensive shampoo and conditioner a stylist you like — who lets you sit in the chair in silence she allows to be comfortable and doesn't pester, doesn't try to get you to try anything feminine, schedules you for trims you prefer more frequently than not if you're in town — and try, very hard, to feel real. you dried off, and put on comfortable clothes, and ate lunch, some leftover jerk salmon from the night before.

time moves weirdly on the days where it's not good enough to be solid but not bad enough to cease to exist at all. your therapist says this is normal for people with ptsd, but nothing feels normal about it. it feels like you're underwater, or like that one time when you were eighteen and got completely crossfaded at a party mary and shannon had thrown: everything is hard, and slow, and before you know it, it's nearing four and the light is fading.

you have things you need to do: photographs you need to edit; contracts you need to sign; to start coordinating a tentative upcoming trip to antarctica and south georgia this summer. you make yourself tea and will yourself to at the very least check your email; shannon had said that it helps her when she's having a bad day to set up one task she can do, to ease everything just a bit. you haven't really moved in, not in the way you should: you have a big desk, multiple monitors, all the gear you could hope for; you have a big bed, too soft, sometimes, and a couch. you have a nice, large tv on the wall. you have a few dishes and pots and pans in the kitchen. you have what you need in the bathroom: a toothbrush and a razor and toilet paper and your skincare serums and two clean towels, bar soap from mary dragging you to the farmer's market. you have nice olive oil and two throw pillows. you have a custom hangboard against one wall. there's empty space everywhere, your loft far bigger than you would ever need. not a home, not yet, in any way you can really feel, at least today. especially today.

but you boot up your desktop computer, because you are steadfast and there are still things you need to do, still things you need to shoot so you can show the world what matters. what has to matter, far beyond you and your small life.

most of your emails are boring — the option to do sponsored content for a new camera; an updated contract for an upcoming documentary you're going to help photograph for; a notification that the film you had ordered had, indeed, shipped — but there's one from someone you have never heard of that catches your eye.

you read through it, twice: someone named diego, a grad student at a university in the city, had emailed on behalf of his advisor, dr. ava silva, wondering if you might want to partner on an expedition to guyana. they need a climber, and diego claims that dr. silva loves your photography. you remember, vaguely, from an article before you had — before — that dr. silva apparently has some sort of preternatural ability to find new species of frog, and so it's intriguing, the prospect. everything feels more solid, like you're coming up for air after holding your breath for too long, when you think about the rainforest, and this little project and its simple, pure, important goal. you google ava silva phd frog and there's a link to a bunch of scientific journals, a formal headshot from the university — dr. silva is, well, beautiful, and young — and then, like the world rights itself, a picture of dr. silva smiling, dirty in the way only the real wild can produce, grinning with real joy. she holds a tiny frog — bright blue — in the palm of her gloved hand. there's green behind her, all around her.

if nothing else, you think, you'd like to meet this dr. ava silva, who finds such clear joy in small creatures, in making sure they're seen, and recognized, and named.

you email diego back, offering to be connected to dr. silva, because you want to know more. you order dinner and watch something that makes you laugh and even fish out some chocolate for dessert. you wash your face and moisturize; you brush your teeth; you fold back your duvet neatly. it's a life, you think, one that you are determined, even if it's hard, even if it's impossible, to make worthwhile. maybe tomorrow you'll get to learn more about the world from someone who fills it so fully. maybe tomorrow will feel clear. maybe tomorrow will be a good day after all.

#conservationist au #frog au #listen she's just doing her best ava rly lights up her entire world!!! w her frogs! #even before they have ever met lol #wn fic #avatrice #prompts

[banannabethchase]

Adam decides to invite Jon and Eddie to play Dungeons and Dragons with the Dark Order, among other things.

~

Heads up for: having The Talk, badly described D&D campaigns, and relationship insecurity.

~

On Friday, Adam slides on the blue tint sunglasses, and it’s weird to be able to see things but see them slightly Wrong. It’s bad enough the whole world has been dark for few days, but now…The world looks orange, like the filter people use whenever they try to make a movie seem like Mexico. “Your hair looks red,” he says to Jon, tilting his head.

“It’s pink,” Jon clarifies, then turns to Adam’s mom. “Is he supposed to be going color blind?”

“It’s the tint, asshole.”

His mom pokes him in the arm. “Language! I’m so sorry, Jon, I certainly raised him better than that.”

Jon grins, and Adam finds he’d missed seeing it this clearly, like his own personal sunlight. “I’m sure you did, Mrs. Page. Adam, what a mouth on you.”

Adam has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from retorting what he’d like to do with his mouth, and Jon’s grin says he knows it.

“Anyway,” Adam says, “we’ve got to get started on homework, Mom. Talk to you later?”

“You two have fun,” she says. “But the door stays open! No more concussions from either of you.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

Homework goes by quickly, because Adam can actually see for once, and they only break to make out furiously on Adam’s bed eight times today, which is a record. Jon’s hair is messy and all over the place by the time dinner is ready.

“You look like Kirby blew up on your head,” Adam says, trying to smooth the pink mess a little frantically. “They’re gonna know.”

Jon laughs, being so obvious about the way he keeps looking down at Adam’s lips that Adam wants to kiss him about it. “What do you think they think we do in here?”

Adam pulls it back in a messy braid, throws his own into a messy bun, and they walk out to dinner. His mother raises an eyebrow, and Adam decides not to acknowledge it. eat with Adam’s parents, kicking each other gently under the table and sharing smiles.

Adam’s mom watches, knowing.

“Hope to see you soon, Jon,” she calls out the door as Adam walks him outside to his car.

Adam makes it to the seat before Jon’s grabbing his face and pulling him close, kissing him hard.

“Hello,” Adam mumbles against Jon’s lips.

“Shut up,” Jon says. “You had your hair in that stupid little bun again and it’s so annoyingly hot.”

Adam would reply, but Jon is kissing the breath out of him, and words can wait.

~

He gets home from dropping Jon off, a little ruffled but pleased, when he notices his mom is standing with a mildly amused smile on her lips.

“Everything okay?” Adam asks.

“We need to have a bit of a talk,” she says. She has her Doctor Face on. Adam hates her Doctor Face.

Adam feels his blood go cold. “Oh, god, no.”

His mother has diagrams this time. When he started dating Kenny, she didn’t whip out diagrams. Adam tries his best to stay focused, pretend he’s paying attention, but his fight or flight reflex has kicked in and he wants a one way ticket into Antarctica.

“And that’s why, even though there’s no chance of pregnancy, a condom is still necessary every time.” She flips her little booklet closed. “Alright. You okay?”

“I’m traumatized,” Adam says. “I need to go to bed.”

“Okay, well, you don’t have that look where you’re going to throw up, and your eyes aren’t crossed, so I don’t think the concussion has created any further problems.” She opens her arms. “Want a hug before bed?”

He leans in and hugs her, noticing for the first time that he’s practically towering over her.

“When’d you get so tall, Addy?” she mutters into his shoulder. “Quit growing.”

“Would if I could, Mom,” he says.

He tries to scrub the memory of The Talk from his mind in the shower, and walks back to his bedroom to find a message from Jon on his phone.

Goodnight, Cowboy. Think of me when you shower.

Adam laughs, because, for once, Jon is a step behind. Caught me after the shower. Too bad. Night.

He goes to bed smiling, and dreams of driving a Trans Am down the highway, holding Jon’s hand.

~

“Those glasses are stupid,” John Silver says as a greeting on Monday morning. He’s grinning.

“Gotta wear them since I got that concussion,” Adam explains. “And you’re stupid.”

“Yeah, I know,” John says. His smile hasn’t faded. “So, Uno and Stu were gonna have a D and D party Friday after school. You want to come?”

“Yeah!” Adam says. And then he has an idea. “Can I invite Jon Moxley? And maybe Eddie Kingston too?”

John shrugs. “Don’t see why not. They know how to play?”

“Don’t know. I can ask. They can watch, if they want, right?”

John nods. “That’s what we did for your sorry ass last year, and look at you know! A halfling bard with the voice of an angel.”

Adam brings it up to Jon when he gets to class.

“Oh, I love D and D!” he says. “Yeah, it’s like role playing, but without the sex part. Well,” he grins at Adam, a little dirty, “it could be with the sex part, if you want it.”

“Okay, cool it, we’re at school,” Adam hisses. He’s feeling warm, and not because it’s 90 degrees outside.

Jon’s grin just gets more devastating. “What, you don’t think about it?”

“I do,” Adam says, a little too fast, “I just don’t want to think about it at school.”

Jon opens his mouth to respond, but Mr. Pham comes in, and, with only one mildly weird comment about Adam’s blue light filtering glasses, begins class.

Jon’s still buzzing about it when Adam meets them at lunch.

“D and D?” Eddie asks. “Oh, god, Mox, not again.”

“It’ll be fun!” Jon says. “And it’s not with my cousins this time, so no one’s gonna ask you if you’re gonna marry me or anything.”

“It’s just the Dark Order kids,” Adam adds. “John Silver’s the DM and he does a really good job.”

Eddie sighs. “Fine. But I’m just watching. I’ll be the second for Mox.”

“How many times do I need to tell you,” Jon groans, “you don’t need a second for a board game!”

~

Adam is giddy and excited the whole week, even when he gets his first Chemistry test back that’s a lower grade than he’d wanted. He’d been looking forward to the Dark Order club meeting all week, and now that Eddie and Jon are walking to the club room in the freshman wing of the high school, he’s practically skipping.

“You’re so weird,” Eddie says. “Mox, why’s he so weird?”

“I’m not weird,” Adam argues. “I’m excited. This is fun. We’re starting a brand new campaign for the school year. John’s iced everybody out as he’s planned for this campaign.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “I always forget how,” he pauses, “enthusiastic you nerds are.”

“You like it when I’m enthusiastic,” Jon says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Okay, no fucking mid meeting. We have things to do.” Adam opens the door. “In you go.”

The campaign is…chaotic, Adam realizes, and that’s the most normal thing he can say about it. Brodie, the previous DM and club president, had a dark, serious, almost terror-based approach to the game.

John, on the other hand.

“Okay, Anna, your dragon born runs into a unicorn,” he says, bouncing, “roll to see if it accepts you as its friend or skewers you with its horn.”

Anna stares at him. “A unicorn, John?”

John nods. “Yeah. Unicorn.”

Eddie leans over to Adam. “Your friends are weird.”

Adam shrugs. “And?”

“Okay, what if I,” Jon says, leaning in and checking his character sheet, “okay, since I’m a human lady, do you think the unicorn might be more open to talking to me?”

By the end of the meeting, Anna’s dragonborn had to be saved twice by Jon’s healing character, Adam’s halfling rolled a nat 20 and a nat 2, leading him to defeat an entire town of vampires and then get near death from drinking from a river. Halfway through it Eddie, begins narrating everything with an even more extreme New York accent than he usually has. Stu and Uno don’t seem particularly cool with it, but they have a pretty good day for their characters, so neither of them really complain.

Alex, on the other hand, is miserable.

“How did I die on the first day?” he complains, packing up his stuff. “I made my half-orc so cool! He was so powerful!”

“That’s the luck of the draw, buddy,” Alan says, clapping his shoulder.

“Says the guy who was able to seduce a fairy for information and gain access to the fey world,” Alex grumbles.

“I thought it was great!” Jon says. “I feel like I really know my character, right? Like, I love that she’s a healer. I think that adds a little pizazz, gets us ready for the devastating backstory I’m gonna drop next time I swing by.”

“None of this, and I need you to hear me on this one, Mox, is cool,” Eddie says. “Drop me off at home before the two of you start making out, okay? I’m exhausted and I have a match tomorrow at, like, the ass crack of dawn.”

“Your match is at one in the afternoon,” Jon retorts.

Eddie shrugs. “Same difference.”

When they drop Eddie off, he kisses Jon so gently that Adam has to look away. It’s a softness that he’s not sure he’s earned the right to see, at least not yet, and he wants the two of them to have as much of their time as they need.

It takes longer than he expects, though. They’re muttering to each other quietly, and laughing a little, and Adam feels like he shouldn’t be here.

“Alright, Cowboy, let’s go,” Jon says, sliding back into the car. “What’s wrong? Your head hurt?”

Adam shakes his head. “I’m good.”

“You look weird,” Jon says. He stares at Adam. “You wanna talk about it?”

Adam shakes his head. “No. Not right now.”

But it builds in him as they drive to Jon’s house, only a few minutes from Eddie’s.

“Seriously, I can, like, feel the weird coming off of you,” Jon insists. “Talk to me. Come on.” He pokes Adam’s arm. “Are you having a headache? Is it driving?”

“I’m fine!” Adam snaps, and it’s too much for the moment, too mean. He immediately regrets it. He glances over at a stop sign to see Jon looking shattered. “God, Jon, I’m sorry. I – I’m fine.” He fights the frustration, the tears welling in his eyes from just how often he manages to hurt people by accident. He remembers the times he lashed out at Kenny, the way Kenny had been kind and gentle at first and slowly grew calloused and angry in response. The way Adam fears he’s going to do to Jon.

Jon reaches out and touches Adam’s hand. “Hey,” he says gently. “What’s going on? Seriously.”

Adam pulls into the Walmart parking lot, throws the car in park, and collapses against the steering wheel. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. He doesn’t know why he hurts, why something is wrong, why he snapped at Jon. He doesn’t know why all he wants to do is go home and drink as much as he can as fast as he can until it takes him out, makes it all go away.

Jon’s whispering something gentle, rubbing his back, as Adam’s sobs relax. “Adam,” Jon says, and the sounds become words, “come on, breathe for me.”

Breathing. Adam can do breathing. Four, seven, eight. Four, seven, eight.

“See? Breathing was easy. Now you gotta talk to me.”

Adam lifts his head to see Jon, small smile on his face. “I don’t want to make you hear all the shit I don’t even understand in my own head.”

“That’s not really the point, is it?” Jon asks. “Something wrong. I’m your boyfriend. Part of this whole boyfriend thing is we talk.”

Adam bites the inside of his cheek. “That’s the first time you’ve said that.”

“Said what?”

“That I’m,” Adam feels the word catch in his throat, “that you’re my boyfriend.”

Jon frowns. “It is? I coulda sworn…” He trails off. “Oh, shit, is that what it’s about?” He grabs Adam’s hand. “Man, just because I love Eddie doesn’t mean I can’t want you. I like you and I like him.” He smiles. “There aren’t, like, tiers here.”

“You said I was good for fun,” Adam says, and he didn’t realize until now, not until Jon said it, that this is what’s been aching at him. “I didn’t realize you thought about me more than just fun.”

“Fuck,” Jon says, and he yanks on the ends of his ponytail, “fuck, I did it again.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Again?”

“I did this to Eddie, too,” Jon says, gritting his teeth. “I forgot to make it – I forgot to tell him – ” He turns to Adam, takes his face in his hands. “Adam, I’m picking you. I can’t believe I never told you. But I want you and I like you and this isn’t just fun.” He exhales, looking a little worried. “I want you to be my boyfriend. Do you want me to be yours?”

Adam sighs, the tension draining out of him so fast it’s almost dizzying. “Yeah,” he says, as Jon brushes a tear from his cheek with his thumb. “Yeah, I do.”

Jon leans in and kisses Adam with such fervor that one of them hits the car horn. The two of them jump about a foot.

“Fuck!” Jon shouts, and Adam is briefly tempted to ask him if he remembers any other words after they start kissing.

“Calm down,” Adam laughs. “God, you’re as much of a wreck as me.”

“Yeah, well, you and your stupid face makes me stupid,” Jon says. “It’s your fault.”

Adam gets them both home safely, dropping Jon off with a kiss to make him remember. “I’ll see you Monday?” he asks.

Jon nods, grinning. “I got a match tomorrow, so yeah. Maybe soon you can come see me?”

Adam nods. “Yeah. Yeah, soon.”

He practically floats home, into the door, and past his parents.

“You look happy,” his mom says.

Adam shrugs. “I really like Jon. And he, uh, asked me to be his boyfriend today. Like, officially.”

“Oh, thank god,” his dad groans. “You were getting so anxious about that, I could tell.”

“You could?”

His dad nods. “Kid, you forget I’ve known you since the moment you entered the world. It’s taken everything in me not to tell you how you’re feeling every time I know you feel it.” He smiles. “You reached the age where I gotta let you figure it out.”

He watches TV with his parents for a few hours, texting Jon the whole time, and falls asleep without remembering that he’d earlier planned to drink himself into oblivion.

Mini playlist:

Love Like This - The Summer Set Never Enough - One Direction Dark Side of Your Room - All Time Low 1900something - Sub-Radio

#Wrestling High School AU #in which Sara writes #HangMox #god my hands are cold #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #wtf i like wrestling now???

[ihaveafandom-problem554]

Hiya! I was wondering if maybe you had any more headcannons for better spider mom (from the post before the og better spider bro post) / drider mom????

Heeey!! And yes I do

Reading this, I don't know if I should have them as the same person.. I loved the way you titled her "Better spider mom"

°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°

Masami = older spider brother (You know- the freaky looking one?)

Rini = The other spider sister that got killed by Rui (The one who got snitched on)

Oni = The spider sister that got killed by Shinobu (The snitch)

Taiki = The Father spider ( The one that beat the living shit out of Inosuke, and was built like a uppermoon-)

Rui = Look me in the eye and tell me you don't know who that is

°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°

°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°

She can never get the chance to sit down and enjoy peace and quiet due to the fact something has to go wrong on the family

Either Masami is bothering Oni and or Rini

Rui got mad and was having a tantrum(yall know what I mean when I say tantrum right? What Muzan does when he gets mad?)

Slayers were attacking

Rui had another tantrum

Masami was still bothering everyone

You know all that good shit

The family is just casually watching their mother lose her shit in the kindest way possible

Carries Oni over her shoulder everytime she got into a fight with Masami

Lectures Masami a lot

Reminds Rui that she loves him, all the time. Sometimes she has to hold his hand in order to prove it.

Does the same with the rest of the family but Rui's the greediest

When Rui goes out for a meeting, or was ordered to do something by Muzan, The family would take advantage

Oni and Rini would use this time to either talk with her or cuddle against her.

Mostly cuddling though, she's very comfortable to lay on

Oni would do anything to cuddle with her

Masami would just bother the living shit out of her, but it never works the way he wants it to go

He would want her to yell or threaten him. Instead, she would grab him and place him in another room. It upsets him a lot so he tries it over and over again

Never works but he doesn't get the hint

But on days when he's exhausted(which is once every 86 years) he'll just plop himself down on her and snuggle

Rini loves it when she cups her face

Like sure, the mother's hands are cold like Antarctica, but its a comforting cold to her

The second she does manage to get her alone time, she would spend the night with Taiki.

She noticed that Rui only really calls his "father" when he needs to punish someone or to reach something.

Taiki loves the fact she would want to spend time with him, not all the time kids want to, so he is really grateful!

The Mom would have a tendency to spoil every single one of the family members, even the new ones.

She'll shower the family members with love every time she sees them, cause the chances of them staying long is very unlikely

Her blood demon art (Spider demon art) would be poison manipulation? I don't know

She's able to make poisonous venom into little silk bottles and inject it into her victims

She could use her fangs but, she's a women of class. Not a vermin-

Though- the venom does come out of her mouth so she tend to spit a lot

Just so get rid of the intoxicating taste

Actually really picky with the humans she eats

They human can't be a young child

They could not have a loving family

It can't be someone who had done any forms of drugs recently (Her poison filled mouth is intoxicating enough)

And they could not be pregnant

If someone had to do the hunt for the family they have to keep this in mind

°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°♧°

Thats all I got for now! Byee!!!!

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #kny rui #rui #demon slayer headcanons #demon slayer rui #Demon slayer names #mother spider demon #spider father #sister spider demon #older spider brother #older spider sister

[five-rivers]

Secret saturdays prompt

The secret scientists and/or argost finding out Zaks s1 finale secret. The show did a 6 month time skip and never showed us /how/ they came to find out.

Zak got sick when they came back from Antarctica.  It wasn’t something particularly foreign to him.  Traveling all over the world meant that he picked up a lot of bugs.  It was an occupational hazard.  Or, well, not occupational, exactly, because Zak didn’t get paid for what he did, but...  

Yeah.

(Maybe he should get paid for this.  He did a lot of work, if he was being honest.)

Usually, though, nothing he got was this bad.  Mom theorized it was because he overused his powers.  Dad thought it was just the stress and the shock- Both things that could impact an immune system.  Doyle kept making jokes about bottled water, because, yeah, that was the problem.  

Not.  

A cold was something he could deal with, though.  A nice distraction, even, from having to figure out the implications of the Kur artifact lighting up when pointed at him.  

(Maybe, he hoped, Kur was an inherited title, and when he defeated Kur-controlled-by-Argost, it jumped to him.)

(Maybe it was just broken.  It wasn’t like Doyle was all that spiritual.)

(Maybe it lit up whenever it was near someone with Kur-like powers.)

(Maybe Kur was living in the back of Zak’s mind and any minute now-)

(Maybe...  Maybe Zak was Kur.)

Except, the universe had abruptly decided to hate Zak, because the illness was also screwing with his powers.  Every so often, they’d just turn on out of nowhere, not even doing anything, and it would hurt.  Like in the ice caves with Doyle, when he was flooded with more spiritual energy than his body could safely handle.  Like when he overused his powers in Antarctica.

It really wasn’t conducive to the whole ‘ignoring it’ thing he was going for.  

Mom opened the door to his room, and he groaned as the light hit his eyes.  “Hey,” she said, maneuvering around the door with a tray in her hands, “how are you feeling?”

“Bad,” said Zak.  

Mom put the tray on the table next to his bed and took his temperature.  “Still high,” she said.  “Do you feel up to eating?  I have soup.”

“Okay,” said Zak.  He sighed and rubbed his eyes and frowned at the gold reflecting off of them.  He squeezed his eyes shut, willing his powers off.  With another groan, he forced himself into a sitting position.  “I’ve been having weird dreams,” he said, taking the spoon.  It felt heavy.  

“Oh?  Like what?”

“Like...  There’s something moving around outside, in the woods, and I think it’s Fisk, but Fisk and Zon are with me.”  He poked the soup, breaking the thin skin that had formed on top of it.  “You’d think I’d be having dreams about that but...  I don’t know.  It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” said Mom, ruffling his hair.  “You should probably take a shower next time you get up.  You’re all sweaty.”

“Okay,” said Zak.  

.

“I’m worried,” said Drew.  “I think there’s something supernatural about this illness.”

Doc looked up from the culture they’d taken of Zak’s throat swab.  “Really?” he said.  “You don’t think it was a pathogen he encountered when he went into the Antarctica cryptid to fight Argost?”  

Both parents shuddered.  They could still hardly believe they’d let Zak do that, even if the fate of the world was in the balance. 

“He’s dreaming about the prowler,” said Drew, before reciting what Zak told her.  

“That could be a coincidence,” protested Doc.  

“You know,” said Doyle, entering the room with a bag of chips and his hair plastered to his forehead with mud, “after all this, I’m not sure I believe in coincidences anymore.”

“No food in the lab!” shouted Doc, pointing an accusing finger at Doyle.  

“Jeez, dude, lighten up.  What’s the worse that could happen?”

“You could ingest a deadly chemical,” said Drew.  

“Oh,” said Doyle.  “Yeah, I guess that would be bad.”

“Did you find the prowler?” asked Drew.  

“Nope,” said Doyle.  “Not hide nor hair, even with Jurassic overhead.  But what I did find...”  He made a face.  “You know the river?”

“Yes, Doyle,” said Doc, “we are in fact aware of the river we live next to.”

“Yeah, cool.  All the fish are dead.”

“What?” asked Drew, raising her eyebrows.  

“Dead,” said Doyle.  “Belly-up.  A lot of the plants near the water aren’t doing so great, either.  I’d stock up on bottled water if I were you guys.”  He took a sip from his own bottle of water, as if to prove a point.  “Now, what were talking about when I came in?  Do you think this prowler has something to do with the little guy being sick?”

“Yes,” said Drew.  

“Maybe,” said Doc.  

They looked at each other.  

“I think we need more help,” said Drew.  “He’s not getting better.”

“Grimes and Lawhorn?”

“They do specialize in paramedicine.  They’re even working on a cure for everything.  Unless you think this is neurological, in which case we should call Dr. Bara again.”

Doc made a face.  “Not after what happened last time.”  More than half of the house was still in ruins.  

“Hm, I don’t think Grimes and Lawhorn will be that happy to see us, either,” said Drew.  

“They weren’t hurt that badly,” protested Doc.  “Arthur just likes to exaggerate.  They aren’t even O-positive!”

“Even so,” said Drew.  “But, yes, I think we should contact them.”

.

Zak stirred as Fisk picked him up.  “What’s goin’ on?” he asked, sleepily. 

“Hrry nn thhn yueeep.”

“It’s fine.”  Zak sat up a little so he could rest his head on Fisk’s collarbone.  “Where are we going?”

Fisk answered, and Zak nodded sagely.  

“I’m really sick, huh?”  He closed his eyes and let himself go to sleep again.  

.

“Miranda, Arthur, we didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Well,” said Arthur, “after that whole think with skunk-stripe’s mirror-world double, they’re kind of on edge when it comes to tall stuff, here.”  He nodded at Fisk.  “They asked us to monitor.”

“We also wanted to discuss what happened in Antarctica,” said Miranda.  “Your report felt... incomplete.”

“Right,” said Doc.  At least they’d ironed out a cover story before coming.  “We’d like to take care of our son, first, though.”

“Of course,” said Miranda.  “We’re in no hurry.”

.

“Hey, there, buddy, how are you feeling?”

“Dr. Grimes?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

Zak blinked slowly.  “Better.”

“Good!” said Grimes.  “We weren’t sure if that would do anything, but there we have it.  Seems like you picked something up from Kur after all.”  They spun in their chair and didn’t notice how Zak cringed at the name.  “Had to give you an Ancient Sumerian protective amulet.  Not easy to get those right!”

“Oh,” said Zak, who had been wondering about the thing tied around his wrist.  “Cool.  Where are Mom and Dad?”

“Talking to Miranda and Arthur.”

“Oh,” repeated Zak.  “Why’re they here?”

“They wanted to talk about Kur,” said Grimes.  “I heard you beat it and Argost both!  That’s impressive.”

“Thanks,” said Zak, fiddling with the amulet.  A spike of pain went through his head, and with it came a sense of movement, images of a forest, the outside of Lawhorn and Grimes’s home.  

... What?

“Hey, Zak, are you okay?” asked Grimes.  They said something else, but Zak didn’t hear him.  

“Something’s coming,” said Zak.  

Grimes rolled their chair to the door and pulled it open.  “Saturdays!  You kid is being ominous!”

.

Arthur frowned as he watched Doc and Drew leave the room.  He wasn’t good at reading people, but-

“They’re hiding something,” said Miranda.  

“I think you’re right, buns,” said Arthur.  

Miranda rolled her eyes.  “I can understand you not remembering my name, Arthur,” she said.  “But if you call me that again, I’m going to hit you.  With something heavy.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your circuit boards in a twist.  What do you think they’re hiding, though?  Why hide anything?  Like, they told us the parts they screwed up on, letting Argost getting away and all.  What could possibly be worse than that?”

Miranda frowned and rubbed her lower lip.  “They aren’t the type to lie to make themselves look good, Arthur.  There’s something else.  The timing of Zak’s illness...  They would lie to protect each other, to protect their children.”

“What, do you think short stuff was poisoned by Argost or something?  Not that it’d be out of character.”  

The idea that Argost got away with Kur, or at least that he had the Saturday’s under his control...  That was scary.  But it had to be the second one.  Argost was patient, but not that patient.  There would be wide-scale destruction.  

If he was threatening the Saturdays into working for him by holding the kid hostage, that was bad enough.  Even if it probably felt like a consolation prize from Argost’s perspective.  

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Miranda.  “We’ll have to look into it and hope Lawhorn and Grimes can find a solution.”

“We can do more than that!  We can go back to their house and see what they’re giving Argost!”

“Arthur, no.  We don’t even know if that’s what’s happening.  We can’t just break into their house.”

“We can,” Arthur argued, crossing his arms.  “You just don’t want to.”

“These are our friends,” said Miranda.  “I was only giving a possibility.  They might not be hiding anything at all.  They could just be worried about Zak.  I know I am.  Besides, Drew has her mercenary little brother guarding the place.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Arthur, waving his hand, “whatever.  I don’t want the kid hurt, either.  We’ll talk to them again when he’s better, maybe they’ll change their story.”

Arthur was about to elaborate on this when a rotund, three-legged, three-armed creature with far too many eyes tore through the walls.

.

Zak gasped and reached for the Claw.  Which he didn’t have because he was still in his pajamas.  His head pounded.  The talisman wrapped around his wrist burned.  Dad and Mom stepped between him and the monster, and Fisk pulled him away, to the side of the room, out of the line of fire.  

“Who dares to take my prey from me?” growled the creature.  “Who dares to come between me and Kur?”

“Azag,” breathed Zak.  He didn’t know how he knew this cryptid’s name.  He just did.  

“The Sumerian sickness demon?” asked his mother, brandishing her sword.  

“Kur,” said Azag, all of its eyes fixed on Zak, “the flesh you wear now is weak, and I will take great pleasure in watching it fail you, in watching it trap you, oh Kur, great king of the cryptids.”

“Stay away from him,” said Mom.

“Or else,” said Dad.

The monster started laughing.  Then it was hit from behind by one of Arthur’s energy discharge weapons.  It hissed and righted itself.  

“Do you think I fear his mortal servants?  Fools!”  It lunged for Dad.  

“No!” shouted Zak.  His powers flared and the talisman burst into a hundred tiny pieces as he forced himself into Azag’s mind.  

(Too familiar- Had he done this before?)

“Can’t,” he panted, “hold for long.  Hurry!” 

Grimes snatched a bottle from a cabinet, and a syringe from a drawer.  “Just hold it a minute longer, Zak.  If this is what I think it is-”  They didn’t finish the thought as they filled the syringe with the liquid from the bottle.  

Then he plunged the needle into the creature’s stony hide.  It screamed, the sound and pain echoing through the connection Zak had made with it.  His vision went white.  He felt his eyes roll back in his head and his knees go out.  

Nothing more.  

.

“What was that?” asked Miranda, staring at the melted remains of Azag.  

“Disease demon,” said Grimes, giddily.  “Lawhorn and I always theorized- I’m so glad I was able to test it!  The panacea!  I wonder what diseases it represented and how they’ll be affected...”

“Whatever,” said Arthur.  “I’m more interested in what that was.”  He pointed at Zak, who had collapsed and was currently being fussed over by his parents.  “You two have a lot of explaining to do.  And you’re going to start with why that thing was calling him Kur.”

#secret saturdays #once again I find myself trawling sumerian myth for characters #fic #my fic #prompt #prompt fill #it's been a bit hasn't it?

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Sick Little Games: Nineteen

When you stepped out of a portal, dripping wet and looking like an irritated cat, Thor chuckled, “Overshot your portal?”

“In case you were wondering, it’s raining in Ecuador,” you say, ringing out the end of your cloak.

“How do you hit Ecuador if you’re aiming for New York?” Tony asked. 

“I was just a little distracted,” you murmur, cheeks heating. 

“By what?” Bruce asked, handing you a towel.

“Long story,” you answer, turning away to take jewelry off and towel off your hair. You didn’t know how to explain that Bucky had sent you a really long, frankly incoherent wall of text messages vacillating between being apologetic and being fucking pissed that you’d gotten an abortion and not told him. 

You had wanted to know how he found out but, you had next to no interest in talking to Bucky. Not anything outside things for work. 

“Ew,” Tony said, “Barton sent you dick pics, didn’t he.”

“No, you freak,” you sigh, throwing the soaked towel at him. “Ugh, I’m gonna go take a shower.”

You turn and start towards the elevator, slipping past Steve with a small smile of hello. Steve looks at the water pooled on the floor and at your back, confused, and Thor laughs, “Evidently, it’s raining in Ecuador,” he says. 

“Ecuador?” he calls after you, laughing a little. 

“Barton sent a dick pic, and she got distracted,” Tony shouted, smirking when you flipped him off as the doors slid shut.

________

Clint sat on the couch, fussing with the pizza and the cold six-pack the coffee table. He had his black hoodie where you could find it in the closet and your rainbow socks neatly folded and lying next to a warm, freshly fluffed towel. Everything you asked him for. And he had a few more little things. A new book and a pretty dagger you’d had your eye on for a minute. 

Still, even with all of that in place, he felt a little sick. Like he’d just breached your trust when he’d blown up at Bucky. He didn’t like it. There had been no reason for him to blow up like that. None. Except for letting Bucky push his buttons. And the worst part was, he’d known it was happening. But hearing him gloat about having sex with you. Hearing how fucking smug he’d been after seeing how fucking shattered you’d been. Knowing he was proud of himself for taking something from you that you had a good reason to be keeping for yourself. He looked down at Lucky, gazing longingly at the box and smiles a little, “Let mom get her piece first, ya cretin,” he scolds fondly. Lucky swishes his tail and barks once, easing himself onto his hind legs to beg properly, prompting Jinx to do the same thing. “Animals, both of you,” he sighs, going to find their treats. 

He was about halfway to the counter, grumbling to himself when the door to the suite opened, and their current pizza lust was temporarily forgotten to get pets. Clint leaned on the table and smiled, watching you give kisses and pats. “Why are you wet?” he asked, amused.

“It’s raining in Ecuador,” you sigh.

“Overshot it, huh?” he teased.

“Yeah... but At least I didn’t end up in Antarctica again... I’m still pissed Steve wouldn’t let me keep the penguin.”

Clint chuckled and kissed you softly when you stood on your toes to lean over the counter, “Where would we have put it?”

“We have another bathtub!” you pout.

“Speaking of bathtubs,” he says, kissing your nose, “Why don’t you go get warmed up and then I’ll feed you and give you a beer.”

“But what about a shower beer?”

“You’re such a brat,” he groans, “I guess. If It’ll get you in the shower before the pizza gets cold.”

You smile and kiss his jaw, padding towards the bathroom, going to strip out of your wet clothes and find something warm and snuggly to put on. Clint waits until he hears the shower turn on and then brings you the requested beer before padding out to the living room to sulk until you came back. He knew he needed to tell you. He knew he needed to talk to you about it. But he just. He wanted a date night, He wanted to love his girl and forget that this day had happened. He felt like a dick. 

Worse than a dick.

He felt like a dildo. He wasn’t real enough to be a dick. Flirting with you and not just telling you the truth. 

Still, When you come back warm and soft. Wearing his black hoodie and your rainbow knee socks, snatching a fresh beer before wrapping yourself around him. He still can’t bring himself to talk about the day. “Hungry?” he asks, popping you on the bottom as you wrap your legs around his waist. 

“But cuddle,” you murmur, hiding your face in his neck.

“Baby-” he protests lightly, but he stops when you tighten your grip. These aren’t just needy cuddles. These are “Clint is angry” cuddles. And you might not know why but you’ve managed to twist it around in your head to be all your fault. And you’re trying to fix it without knowing what you did. “Okay,” he soothes, “Shh, okay.” He rubs your back and kisses the side of his head.

“Are you mad at me?” He feels the question instead of hears it. Your lips against his neck and the tremble in a deep breath you took before asking. It’s such a soft whisper he can’t actually hear you. But he knows that question well. 

“No,” he murmurs, “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me.”

“What happened?” you ask, fingers toying with the close-cropped hair at the nape of his neck, rubbing gently. 

“I- I fucked up today, babe. I fucked up really bad.”

“What, you murmur, “Get caught reading fanfic about yourself getting railed by Hulk?”

Clint snorted, “Worse- I think,” he tilts your chin up tenderly to look you in the face and sighed, “I- I blew up at Bucky today.”

Several emotions flit across your face. Confusion, understanding, hurt, and then... oddly amusement.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” your forehead thuds gently against his collarbone, and you sigh, “Clint, you dummy. That explains so fucking much.”

“Oh no,” Clint said, “What-”

“Bucky sent me this massive fucking text wall and yelled about the baby and kind of apologized but... didn’t then yelled at me some more and I spent like, all fucking day trying to figure out where he heard it from.”

“That’s gross,” Clint said, crinkling his nose, the knot in his stomach loosening a little when you weren’t angry. 

“Right?” you yelp, “Who the fuck yells at someone about that via text... fucking boomers.”

“Technically, he’s too old to be a boomer,” Clint says, brushing the hair out of your eyes. 

“Well, he acts like one... seriously. He used Emojis. Too many. Like Ew.”

Clint snorted, “And you’re okay?”

“I mean... yeah. Fuck him”

Clint grinned and smacked the swell of your ass again lovingly, “Yeah... But don’t fuck him. Fuck me a few times, and let me feed you pizza.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you liked me or something,” you tell him, stealing another kiss.

“Baby,” he hums, shifting you over gently and popping open the pizza box, “I don’t just like you. I love you.”

He hands you a plate and lets you tuck yourself against his side, “I love you too,” you tell him, beaming. “Can we watch Manos: Hands of Fate?”

“Anything you want, baby girl,” he chuckles. And as you settle in with your pizza and beer, Clint wonders just who exactly he had to blow in a past life to be this fucking happy.

Tags:

@lancsnerd, @thorfanficwriter @blameitonthecauseway @etherealwaifgoddess, @stevieang, @beautybyfire, @sunmoonandbucky @mrsfox79, @bbmommy0902, @mendes-fan, @iheartsebastianstan, @wtfcas @pinknerdpanda, @process-pending, @ladifreakingda, @leasly, @coldbookworm, @hv-chw3, @past-perfect-future-tense, @starkrobb @beardburnsupersoldiers, @petlaufeyson, @queenoftheunderdark, @potatoheadthewise, @thehyperactiveteen, @thefridgeismybestie, @boyett514, @an-awkward-human-1, @sunshine-and-riverwater

#clint barton #Clint Barton x reader #Bucky Barnes #Bucky barnes x reader #fluff #date night #angst #thor #bruce banner #tony stark #Steve Rogers #banter

[iwhumpyou]

Venom (Part 4)

Masterlist.  Janiya.

Part 3.

~#~#~#~#~#~

She woke, and the voices were clearer this time.  Rita was behind her, one arm high across her stomach, the other – the other bracing a book on Ivy’s back.  Janiya squinted at the words and muddled through about five lines before she pegged it as a romance novel. 

She could feel Rita’s heartbeat on her back, could hear Ivy murmuring as low, tinny music came out of her phone.  There was a fire crackling somewhere, and voices in the kitchen bouncing off ideas for dinner.  She could hear footsteps in the hall, and feel dry sandpaper when she swallowed.

The pillow under her head was soft.  The floor underneath her was decidedly not, what little of it she could feel because she was half-lying on top of Rita, a thick blanket curling around them.

Rita was a furnace and Janiya was sweaty and sticky and tired – why was she so tired if she spent all her time sleeping, it made no goddamn sense.

She made a low, displeased sound and the book shifted.  “Janiya?” Rita asked into her ear, “Are you awake?”

“Hot,” Janiya said, aware that her voice sounded close to a whine but too annoyed to care, “Too hot.”

“I know,” Rita chuckled, “But doctor’s orders.”

Janiya made an impatient huffing noise.

“Yeah, turns out that giant scorpion venom screws up thermoregulation,” Rita said quietly. There was the faintest trace of horror in her tone, but Janiya didn’t have the energy to chase it down.  “So, I’m sorry, but it needs to be hot.  If it gets too cold then your temperature sinks like a stone.”

“Too hot,” Janiya muttered petulantly.

“Rita?” Gavin called from the kitchen.  They had decided on pizza for dinner.  The thought of food made Janiya’s stomach stir unpleasantly.  “Is Janiya awake?” 

“Yes,” Rita hummed, and Janiya heard Gavin’s footsteps come towards them.  Rita put the book away, tucking it half between them, and tugged Janiya’s shoulders up slightly. 

Janiya narrowed her eyes as Gavin crouched next to the pillow, offering a glass of water.  He fit one warm hand to the side of her face, holding it up as she sipped at the water – which was, again, lukewarm and dissatisfying.

The water was over quickly and Janiya sighed, feeling her eyes begin to slide shut.  Everything felt so…heavy.  Like she was muddling through six feet of water, slow and imprecise.

Gavin supported her head as Rita gently eased her back down – because she couldn’t even lift her own head – and slid his hand out once she was on the pillow.  Rita removed the book that was jabbing into her spine and resumed her earlier position.

Janiya closed her eyes to the whisper of pages turning and the sound of music too low to understand.

~#~

“When can I get out of here?” Janiya asked after she counted the rafters two hundred and thirty-three times.

Ash, on her left, shifted slightly, rearranging his limbs until he was looming on top of her, looking down.  “Are we keeping you from something?”

Janiya gave him a flat stare, ignoring how Ivy’s soft, whistling breaths tickled the edge of her right ear.  “Moving to Antarctica,” she said.

Ash grinned – she had seen him smile before, quicksilver and flashing, amusement dancing in dark eyes, but she had never seen it directed at her – and gave a low chuckle.  “Darin,” he called out, and Janiya felt the creaking footsteps vibrate underneath her. “Janiya wants to know how long the cuddling will last.”

Janiya scowled at him, but Ivy had an arm curled across her stomach, she wasn’t sure whose legs were tangled up in hers, and Ash was half on top of her.  She was beset by werewolf leeches.

Darin’s face appeared in her view, upside-down.  “What are your feelings on food?” he asked. 

Janiya made a face, “Not hungry.”

“Going to have to stay there a while longer,” he hummed, “Probably not till the solid food stage, but definitely till you can get a smoothie down without throwing up.” Janiya made another face. Warm smoothies were a cruel and unusual punishment.  “Do you want another glass of water?”

Janiya wanted to drown herself in ice, and they absolutely refused to give her a glass of cold water. “No,” she muttered.

“Chin up,” Darin said, and he wasn’t smiling because Darin never smiled, but his voice was warm.  “I understand the urge to smother Ash with a pillow, but his shift ends in twenty minutes.”

Ash gave an indignant shout and Janiya snorted.  Ivy’s arms tightened and then loosened as she woke up all the way, and Janiya spent the next twenty minutes listening to Ash’s extremely one-sided argument about his many great qualities as Darin wandered away and Ivy inserted cutting comments whenever Ash paused for breath.

It was still too hot, but it was…bearable.

Janiya stared at the rafters and listening to Ash’s outraged muttering and Ivy’s muffled giggles, a slow smile curving across her face.

~#~

The warm smoothie was awful. On the way down, and on the way back up, because this was her fourth attempt at keeping down food.

She was getting sick of the taste of Gatorade, and they’d cycled through all the flavors ten times. She wasn’t sure how long it had been, but given the frequency of various pack members she woke up next to, it had to have been at least a week.  She was tired, and bored, and the heat had downgraded from burning to sweltering so she wasn’t writhing in agony but she had a constant low-grade headache and itching irritation.

Every trip to the bathroom had been an exercise in embarrassment and frustration because someone had to carry her there and Janiya tried to dawdle as long as she could, away from werewolf body heat even if the bathroom was always clouded with steam, but it never worked.  And there had been no attempts at a bath or shower because Janiya flat out refused to allow anyone to help her and apparently no one trusted her to take a bath by herself without switching the water all the way cold.

(Which was fair because that was exactly what Janiya would do, but it still rankled.)

At least she’d gotten off the floor.  Sitting up was a new initiative they’d tried when she managed to keep the Gatorade down, dragging the couch close to the fireplace and burying her under five different blankets, two werewolf space heaters on either side.

She was still perpetually exhausted.  The couch was soft enough to sink into, and the heat cocooned her, but whenever she drifted off she found herself curled back up on the floor.  Trying to stay awake didn’t work – she didn’t have the energy to keep up a long conversation and her eyes began to blur if she tried to focus on a movie or a book for more than five minutes.

It was tiring and frustrating and Janiya just wanted her own bed and cool sheets and a cold shower – but this was the first time she’d ever been treated like pack and it was just – it was –

It was nice.  She felt safe, tucked in between two werewolves – safe and secure, despite her inability to lift her hands without trembling.  She felt like – she felt like pack.

It burned inside of her. In a good way, because she wasn’t strong enough to stifle the hope.  And in a bad way, because she remembered Gavin’s tired face and his weary words.  She was a liability.  The past week had only enforced that.

She felt like pack for the very first time and she was achingly aware that it would soon end. The moment she got better, she was done.

She shifted, leaning her head on Darin’s shoulder and closing her eyes.  She would enjoy it while it lasted.

~#~

Part 5.

#whumpfic #janiya #arc: venom #overheating #burning #exhaustion #fever #cuddling #this entire story was an excuse for cuddling

[pcttrailsidereader]

Four Months Alone of the PCT

I posted this on this website about six years ago and just recently re-read this interview from a blog called ‘The Hairpin’.  The interview, with Myla Fay, a 25-year old thru hiker, is a good read and I thought worth re-posting.  My favorite story was her account of the hiker who found chapstick on the ground and used it to counter crotch chafing. A few minutes later a woman walked by and asked if anyone had seen her pina colada chapstick. From that point forward his trail name was “Penis Colada.”

Myla attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota as did my daughter … which came to light when I forwarded this interview to my daughter as part of my desire to have her hike a section of the PCT several summers ago (which she did join me for a lengthy stretch).

By Jia Tolentino

How did you get into long-distance hiking? I grew up in Maine and spent a lot of time outside, and when I was a kid, we went up to Blue Hill every summer to hike and swim, camping in Baxter State Park and backpacking in the White Mountains. And in high school I did some incredible trips with the Chewonki Foundation: one was a 400-mile white-water canoe trip that ended in the tiny Inuit village of Kangiqsualujjuaq in northern Quebec. I always liked the outdoors, and backpacking felt like a good fit. I was also always interested in long-distance hiking as a more structured way of traveling. I spent a summer alone in India once and felt overwhelmed by all the decisions and planning involved in traveling. With hiking, your trip is organized around managing food and water and covering distance, and there’s less of an expectation for fun and relaxation. I like the part of backpacking that’s monotonous and challenging. How long had you been thinking about hiking the PCT before doing it? I heard about the PCT my senior year in college, but during and after college I was focusing on school and work: I worked as a designer in Minneapolis and New York, which I liked. Then I wanted to work on my own projects, so I moved back to Maine and set up a printmaking studio in the basement of a rural Zen Center. But it’s difficult to make any money from printmaking and it’s also difficult to live and work in isolation. I felt unsure about what I wanted to do, so I made a list of things I never regret doing. I realized that I never regret spending time outside, traveling, and challenging myself, so I decided to hike. I don’t think any 90-year-old would look back on life and regret hiking the PCT. Did you know you wanted to go alone? I might have considered it if I had known someone willing to drop everything and go hiking for four months. But I liked the idea of hiking alone anyway. Being alone is wonderful because you never have to compromise. If I felt like swimming all day, that’s what I did.

How long did it take to get ready? I only had about three months to prepare. Most people spend around six to 12 months getting in shape, dehydrating food, and planning. For me, I bought gear and read “Yogi’s Guide,“ which has advice for thru hiking—tips for hitchhiking, choosing campsites, resupplying, etc. It also outlines motel and grocery options for each town. I bought my food in towns and mailed food ahead when the next town was too small to resupply.

Do you have to be in good shape before you start a hike like this? Or could you just tough it out and get better as you go? You don’t have to be in good shape to start a hike, but it helps. It also helps to be young. No matter what shape you are in, hiking 10 to 12 hours a day is going to be hard. I thought that after hiking for a week or two I would just be “in shape,” but I was surprised that my fitness continued to improve.

I also never stopped having some degree of pain.

What was the gear you started with and the gear you ended with? Anything you packed that you realized was useless? I started hiking in desert heat and ended my trip snowshoeing through six feet of snow, but surprisingly I used most of my gear in all situations. After a month I bought a solar charger on trail to charge my iPhone, which was a real luxury. I also bought a dress from Goodwill along the way. It was comfortable to wear hiking and convenient for peeing outside modestly. I added various warm layers as I went north—a rain skirt (which is lighter, more breathable, and easier to put on than rain pants), an emergency blanket, snowshoes, long underwear, and bread bags to wear on my feet for warmth. I eventually ditched my mace, bug spray, and a mouse-proof food bag because I felt they were unnecessary, but not everyone would agree. Now that I have a better idea of what I need, I revamped my gear for my upcoming trip on the CDT. I have a post on my blog about the new gear, and also have my gear list on my website, if anyone wants to read.

What about trail food? How’d you deal with it? Did you filter your water the whole time? What are the worst and best things you’ve tried on the trail? Food was hard to plan for because my preferences and hunger changed constantly. Sometimes I had five extra pounds of food when I arrived in town and other times I ran out. One of the benefits of buying food as you go (rather than mailing it) is that you can easily make adjustments. I hiked with a girl who mailed all her food and by the end, she literally gagged every time she ate a Clif bar or oatmeal. I think having a variety of food on trail is important. I cooked ramen with PBR once when I arrived at a road crossing where someone had left a few beers for hikers. I was out of water, so I used the beer, and it was surprisingly delicious. At the end of trail, I ate snickers dipped in cream cheese and I thought it tasted like chocolate cheesecake! One of the worst things I tried was cold instant coffee mixed with oats. I was trying to pack up quickly in the morning and didn’t want to heat water. Needless to say, it was disgusting. I also once ate a spoonful of dry protein powder at night because I was starving and low on food. It felt similar to the cinnamon challenge. How much more do you end up eating than normal? What are the cravings you develop after long hikes? I ate a TON of food. Granola bars, mini pies, peanut butter, Nutella, tortillas, ramen, Cheezits, candy, muffins (squished), pop tarts, nuts, and anything else that caught my eye in the grocery store. All hikers fantasize about food, mostly about fresh fruits, vegetables, pizza, and ice cream. I daydreamed about Slurpees a lot. There is no food guilt on trail. All notions of what, when, and how much is appropriate to eat disappear. Instead of cutting calories and dieting, hikers worry about not eating enough. I ate 3,000 to 6,000 calories a day, and it was incredibly refreshing. The downside of eating so much was the stomach aches. Sometimes I would eat a whole sleeve of Oreos, which tasted delicious, then I would feel awful for a while. It’s a lot to ask of your body, to process all that food.

Did you see a lot of other solo hikers? Did traveling alone made you more open to meeting random people? Travelling alone does make it easy to meet people. Most hikers start alone, and many hike in groups for various lengths of time. When I started, I wanted to hike alone to challenge myself and rely on my own decisions. I became more open to meeting people over time, and by the end of trail I found a balance between independence and community. Who were the coolest people you met along the way? Everyone I met had an interesting back story—one couple worked in Antarctica, one girl sold her house to live out of a backpack, there were Marines who hiked to deal with PTSD, and people who left their high-paying jobs because they didn’t want to devote their lives to work. One of my favorite characters on trail was a retired guy from New Jersey. He lived years without health insurance or hot water, and took ice-cold hose showers every day at home, even in the winter. He told only one person he was hiking the PCT and always camped alone far off trail. He didn’t own a phone, but carried a small radio to listen to baseball games. Every time he went into town to buy food, he bought a glass, because he only drank beer out of a glass. He was also a scavenger. Once in town I gave him part of a cookie and he just packed it away for later. Another time he told me that he carried a cube of bouillon for an emergency meal. I told him it didn’t have any calories, and he said, “But it sure does fill you up!” I should mention that there are more men than women on trail, and most people I met were white and middle class, so unfortunately trail culture is not too diverse. How many times were you ever truly scared, and why? Most of the time trail felt very safe, but I had a couple moments of being spooked. I almost stepped on a rattlesnake. I once got lost looking for a spring at night without my pack. I got dangerously cold during a snowstorm. These situations were all preventable had I been paying better attention. Some hikers do end up in truly scary situations. One girl had a mountain lion stalk her at night, and another guy ended up lost on a snowy cliff where he couldn’t go forward or backward. Oh my god. A lot of people on trail carry a SPOT device with an emergency button that activates a search and rescue response team. They are expensive and I personally felt safe without one, but a few people did use them on trail.

What about weather conditions? You had to hike at night sometimes because of the heat, right? The PCT covers a diverse range of terrains and temperatures. In the desert, it reaches 110 degrees, and water sources are sometimes 30 miles apart. I carried 1.5 gallons of water at a time. Hiking at night is much cooler and requires less water, so many people hike early and late (resting midday). Night hiking is beautiful but spooky. Some huge bugs and rodents that come out at night. And then there was the extreme cold: I’m reading a blog post where you did sit-ups in the middle of the night to stay warm. What’s your least favorite and most favorite weather to hike in? I still prefer hiking in desert heat over the cold Northwestern weather. In Oregon and Washington, I dealt with rain, hail and snow, which is dangerous without adequate food and gear. Most people carry down jackets and sleeping bags, but down is useless when wet. When it is cold, taking breaks is not an option. I knew one couple who hiked over 24 hours without stopping because all their gear was wet and it was snowing. They would have become hypothermic if they stopped. Can you tell me some hiker code? What’s the jargon like? There are lots of phrases specific to thru hiking. Some are practical (“slackpacking” is hiking a section without a full pack, “hiker hunger” describes the extreme hunger after hiking, “vortex” is when you spend longer than expected in town). A lot of them are meant to be funny (“Vitamin I” for ibuprofen). “Cowboy camping,” sleeping under the stars, is one of my favorite terms. It’s basically a fancy way of saying “I am too lazy to pitch my tent and I doubt it is going to rain tonight.” My friend “Scrub” has a more extensive list of hiking terms on his blog.

That’s his trail name: does everyone have one? Everyone gets a trail name, usually given by another hiker. Part of the idea is that you can leave your other life behind and be someone new on trail. And there’s other stuff like this: trail angels, trail magic, what does that mean? A “trail angel” is anyone who helps you by offering “trail magic.” It could be a day hiker who gives you an apple or someone who drives you to town. There are established trail angels who help hikers each year by leaving food or sodas on trail or even opening their homes to hikers. There are also some trail magic events, where angels make burgers or pancakes on trail for a day or two. It is hard to overstate how incredible it is to come upon fresh hot food or cold sodas after being out in the woods for a few days. The terms seem right. How was your emotional state going into the hike, and during it? What was the default state of each day? I was much happier on trail than I was prior to trail. Some of that may have had to do with the endorphins released from exercise. I also gained a lot of confidence in my body and my ability to troubleshoot difficult situations. By the end of the trail, I felt I could do anything. I certainly had moments of frustration, crankiness, and misery, but I always preferred trail to home.

Wow. What did you do to pass the time? It wasn’t too different from regular life. Sometimes I listened to music or books, sometimes I worried about logistics, sometimes I wondered what to do with my life. I thought about family and friends and remembered things I had forgotten. Sometimes I played games with other hikers, sometimes I counted my steps, sometimes I brushed my teeth for an hour. What are some good stories you heard on the trail from other people? There was a huge snowstorm in Washington that coincided with the government shutdown, and some hikers decided to road walk the last 60 miles to Canada to avoid deep snow. Rangers stopped them because it was illegal to be in the park during the shutdown. So after hiking 2600 miles, they quit because of a triviality. I also heard a story about a girl who saw a mountain lion sitting next to the trail. She roared at it, like you are supposed to (you never want to let a mountain lion know you are scared), then kept walking past it only to realize that there was a switchback in the trail and she had to pass it again. And then, there was a funny story about a hiker I never met who found chapstick on the ground and used it for crotch chafing. A few minutes later a woman walked by and asked if anyone had seen her pina colada chapstick. From that point forward his trail name was “Penis Colada.” That is a great story. What was your favorite part of the trail?

The last four days on trail were my favorite. I snowshoed on fresh snow through the most spectacular scenery on trail with a boy who I like very much. It was new and exciting and beautiful and romantic. What about the least? Southern Oregon was my least favorite part. Everyone talks about how Oregon is flat and easy, but my feet were hurting so it didn’t feel easy. In my opinion, it was also the least spectacular part of trail, just woods and ponds.

What was your favorite pit stop? One of my favorite stops was Buck’s Lake, a small town in northern California. I got off trail to apply for a job. I didn’t end up getting the job, but I stayed with the most incredible trail angels. They were welcoming and made burgers with heirloom tomatoes and peach cobbler and fruit salad. They also took me out on their pontoon for sunset to drink white wine and listen to the Beach Boys.

What did you miss most while you were hiking? Fresh fruits and vegetables, and my friends and family. How did this hike physically affect your body? I lost about 5 to 10 pounds by the end, despite gaining muscle. My breasts mostly disappeared and my feet grew a full size. Women usually lose less weight than men, which is an advantage on trail. What about your hair? My hair was crazy on trail. I was trying to grow it out, but it was a bad length for hiking: long enough to tangle and too short to pull back. I had dyed it before trail and wanted to let the dyed part grow out. I also decided to stop using shampoo, in part thanks to articles like this. Needless to say, my hair was a bleachy, greasy, tangled mess. I cut it off when returned home. Before or after, did you have a lot of people telling you that they wanted to hike the PCT too? Or were people more like, "You’re nuts!” A lot of people say something along the lines of, “Wow, that’s amazing! I could never do that!” But hiking is kind of like drawing. People say they can’t draw, as if it’s a mysterious talent, but both drawing and hiking are just a set of skills anyone could learn. If you are interested in hiking the PCT or another trail, I would encourage you to go ahead and do it. I think it is almost always a positive experience, although returning to regular life is difficult. People sometimes romanticize long-distance hiking, but I was just walking. Some people work 8 or 10 hours a day on spreadsheets or washing floors and few people say that is amazing. What’s your favorite picture from your PCT hike?

This is a campsite on an exposed ridge in northern California. The sky was smoky from a nearby fire, but I could see well enough to watch a meteor shower. It’s hard to choose one photo, but that was a good night.

[fnafimagines]

𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 (𝐅𝐍𝐀𝐅 𝐗 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑)

C H A P T E R  O N E

What is this fanfic about?

(Your Name) (Last Name) is a prodigy detective in a small town in Maine. She is assigned to a cold case that is more than 20 years old.  The details of the case are minuscule. Residents pass superstitions around like wildfire.

She assigned to the night watch at the pizzeria. What will she find? But more importantly, what is the truth?

Want to read more?

Wattpad or Quotev

The intern rapped his hands against the firmly-polished mahogany door. His hands combed through his swooped blonde hair as he heard a soft voice say, “Come in.”

He opened the door, wincing at the slight squeak the hinges gave. His stance relaxed as he saw the woman give him a kind smile. “What can I help you with, Phillip?”

“Well, Ms. (Last Name), we have another case we need you to work on,” He stated firmly.

“Okay, show me what’ cha got,” She chided. Her bright (e/c) eyes dimed as a thin case file was slammed on the desk. She lifted one of the folds only to find a maximum of three pages hidden underneath. She sat straight up as she looked at the intern.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Phillip.” The blonde man straightened his stature as he looked at the woman. Her demeanor had turned cold, her expression turned sour. He was completely knowledgeable of her slight no-shit attitude.

She just sighed as Phillip stayed there, more frozen than Antarctica in winter. She was completely done with being undermined in this department. She had skills, but they had always set her up to fail. 'I am a prodigy, damn it!'

She looked up at the boy and groaned. “What’s the mission?”

He straightened. “You’ll be a night watchman at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. You need to find out why all these nightguards are disappearing.” His voice became strained as he looked at her. Her face was pale and her body stiffened. Everyone had heard about the rumors around that place. It was enough to make the prodigy detective shrink in her seat.

“You. Want me. To go there. With no backup?” At this point, she had gotten out of her chair and had backed him into the wall. He shakily nodded his head.

“U-Unless you don’t want to.” He stuttered. She just sighed and shook her head.

“Don't’ worry about it. I’ll handle this.” She walked over to the coat-rack next to the door. She grabbed her coat and hat and put her hand on the doorknob. Pausing, she turned back to look at the intern, one hand on the knob, the other gripping tightly to the file.

“Make sure they know I’m doing this. Alone.” The intern winced as the door slammed shut.

You shivered as you walked back to your apartment, your coat tightly wrapped around you. Your mood turned even more sour than before, as you had forgotten your knitted hat at home. The hat you were wearing was only for fashion-sake.

You looked in a frozen puddle on the ground.

“I even look like a detective! Why can’t they see that?” You stomped, making the puddle shatter into a mixture of beautiful shards. You could see multiple of you as your face burned in anger. You started to speedwalk home. You looked down at the case file. 'I wonder what’s in this thing?'

You walked into the lobby, being looked at by strangers and neighbors as you walked into the elevator. You didn’t blame them, though. You looked like a wet cat. You pressed the button for your floor, but then noticed a tall, older man standing next to you.

He had scruffy brown hair and some stubble growing on his face. He stood a little too close for comfort to you, despite there being ample room in the elevator.

“What floor are you going to?” You asked politely.

“Number 23,” He responded. You pressed the corresponding button and then moved slightly away from him. He chuckled, seemingly noticing your discomfort but doing nothing to erase the tension. Instead, he decided to engage in a bit of small talk.

“My name is David Miller. How about you ma'am?” He asked politely. You smiled uncomfortably.

“My name is (Your Name) (Last Name). Are you new here? I’ve never seen you around.” You asked.

“I am indeed new here, ma'am. Just moved here from the next town over.” He adjusted his sleeve cuffs absentmindedly.

“Oh! What do you do?” You said, your smile becoming a bit more genuine.

“I’m a technician at a pizzeria. You might have heard of it. It’s Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.” You froze. ‘I could be talking to a suspect!’ You instantly went into detective mode.

“Really? That place is pretty creepy. Don't you think?” He just chuckles.

“It is, but you get used to it. Now, what do you do?” You adjusted your coat as you cleared your throat.

“Well, I got fired from my last job and am looking for another one.” You lied. He just looked at you and gave a slightly creepy smile.

“Well, we do have an open position at the restaurant.” You made a fake excited grin.

“Really! What is it?” You chuckled. “I’m kind of desperate for a job if you didn’t notice.”

“It’s the nightshift. Kind of perfect if you ask me. You get to watch over the robots for a few hours at night and then have the whole rest of the day to yourself. It must be magnificent.”

“Whoa, that sounds perfect. I usually want to spend the day with my friends anyways. That’s actually where I’m going! I’m visiting a friend of mine, Alex. He lives here.” You lied.

Alex was your neighbor and a good friend of yours. He was intelligent but could be slightly wimpy. You slyly smirked to yourself. You honestly didn’t want Dave to know that you lived here.

“Ooo! A boyfriend, perhaps?” Your face turned scarlet as the man chuckled.

“No way! I mean, he’s cute and all, but not my type.” Dave chuckled.

You both were interrupted by a chime, signalizing that it had hit your floor. You turned to Dave and gave him a polite smile.

“Here’s my stop! I’ll see you around!” You stepped out and gave a friendly wave.

“Of course, ma’am.” You turned around and the elevator closed. When he knew you weren’t looking Dave gave a horrific grin.

“Foolish girl.”

You couldn’t believe you might have gotten a lead suspect already. Dave was creepy and not good at hiding his serial-killer esque personality. You had a feeling he might be behind this whole 'nightguard going missing' situation but weren’t one-hundred percent sure.

But you knew you could get the job easier. Maybe the man could even assist you. You took out your keys, finally recognizing the headache you had from the cold weather. You’d have to take some medicine for that later.

You opened the door and hung up your hat and coat, only to find a furry friend nuzzle your feet. You looked down and smiled.

“Hello, Milo.” You smiled down at your tabby cat. He nuzzled into your leg as you grabbed him and brought him up to your face and smiled.

“Did you miss me?” He meowed in response, jumping from your hands to the top of your head, where he curled up into a ball. You chuckled and walked into the kitchen to get yourself some water. You struggled to reach the glass cups in the cupboard and decided to just go for one of the plastic ones in the drawer. ‘Why do the cupboards have to be made for tall people!’

You walked over to your cabinet to look around for the ibuprofen, sighing and just closing the cabinet, only to find the ibuprofen on the counter. ‘Okay, first the cupboards. And now my damn medicine is bouncing around like the Annabelle doll!’

You popped the child-safety cap off of the container and poured some tablets into your hand, accidentally getting too many. You put all but two back and then swallowed them, instantly washing the dryness down with a cold cup of water.

You walked through the hallway to get to your dainty little bedroom, ignoring the creaks in the floorboards as you observed some of the pictures on the wall that your parents had sent you one lonely weekend. You remember that you still had most of the older photos in the closet, basically just dumping them there until you got the time to sort through them all.

‘I’ll go through them after this whole Fazbear business is done,’ you decided to yourself. You walked into your room, covering your ears as your door slammed against the wall. You groaned. You jumped onto your bed, cozying up into the comforter. ‘Yeah, I should probably take a shower.’

Your eyes squinted as you opened the call app on your cell phone. Your phone shined as you went to turn down the brightness.

You looked at the number you had to enter. ‘1-888-FAZ-FAZBEAR.’ You slightly hesitated before you finally pressed the call button. Your heart pounded faster as the phone rang out in your silent, empty apartment. Milo nuzzled into your leg as you sat crisscrossed on the couch. You rubbed your temples as you put a pair of reading glasses on. The frames were black, a staple fashion piece if you had to say so yourself. They gave you an intelligent and cunning look.

You were interrupted from your thoughts by another voice coming out from the other line.

“This is Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. How may I help you?” a sweet older woman asked.

You got out your notepad and pen and started jotting down about this woman. ‘Maybe another suspect.’

“Hi! My name is (Your Name) (Last Name). I’m was looking at the open position that you guys have online. The night shift, I think it was?” You said kindly.

The woman seemed to pause as her voice turned to a whisper. “Are you sure you want to do that, sweet pea? The night shift doesn't seem like a job for such a sweet-sounding young lady.” You internally scoffed at the seemingly sexist remark, but you knew she was just being polite, so you put on your sweetest voice.

“Don’t worry, ma’am. I can handle it!” You heard her sigh.

“Okay, I’ll get you an appointment with my husband.”

‘Oh shit!’ You weren’t just talking to anyone. This was Dorothy Emily, the owner’s wife.

Your voice practically grew three times sweeter. “That would be amazing, ma’am! Thank you so much. “ You could practically picture her frown.

“No problem, dear... How’s tomorrow at 10?” Your grin grew wide.

“Perfect! Thank you again.” You were about to cheer.

“Goodbye… dear.” The line hung up as you dialed down your cheer, your face contorting from happiness and excitement into a look of terror. ‘Why did that sound so… ominous?'

You brushed it off as you looked down at the kitten sleeping in your lap. You kindly smiled and pet his fur, hearing an almost silent purr come from the content kitten. You then looked up at the tons of papers and notes you had compiled about the case. One, in particular, sparked your interest. It was a fairly old newspaper, but its words spoke volumes about what you could be going up against.

“Kids vanish at local pizzeria – bodies not found. Two local children were reportedly lured into a back room during the late hours of operation at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza on the night of June 26th. While video surveillance identified the man responsibly and led to his capture the following morning, the children themselves were never found and are presumed dead. “

“Police think that the suspect dressed as a company mascot to earn the children’s trust.”

“Five children now reported missing. Suspect convicted. Five children are now linked to the incident at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, where a man dressed as a cartoon mascot lured then into a back room. While the suspect has been charged, the bodies themselves were never found. Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza has been fighting an uphill battle ever since to convince families to return to the pizzeria. ‘It’s a tragedy.’”

“Local pizzeria threatened with shutdown over sanitation. Local pizzeria, Freddy-Fazbear’s Pizza has been threatened again with shutdown by the health department over reports of a foul odor coming from the much-loved animal mascots.

Police were contacted when parents reportedly noticed what appeared to be blood and mucus around the eyes and mouths of the mascots. One parent likened them to ‘reanimated carcasses’.”

“Local pizzeria said to close by years end. After a long struggle to stay in business after the tragedy that took place there many years ago, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza has announced that it will close by year’s end. Despite a year-long search for a buyer, companies seem unwilling to be associated with the company. ‘These characters will live on. In the hearts of kids - these characters will live on.’ -CEO”

Either the pizzeria never closed, or it had a reopening. But this was suspicious for several reasons. First of all, you had looked through there code and saw that they would clean up to the premise of a crime scene before police got there. That was probably why they put you on the case. ‘They probably put me on the case because of my prodigy skills.’

Okay, okay now. Stop being cocky. You would have to see what all of this was about at your shift. You looked down at the sleeping cat. ‘Tomorrow.’

You grabbed a soft knitted blue blanket and finally, after a long day of paperwork fell asleep.

#fnaf fic #fnaf x reader #freddy fazbear pizzeria #five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf 1 #fnaf 2 #fnaf 3 #fnaf 4 #fnaf 5 #restless #📖.writing #muse's old posts #🐦.stories

[abitscripturient]

Part of Chp 8: The Loft

I watch as the man fixes his pants; no doubt as hard as a teenage boy right now before I turn the corner and walk right into Honorée. I hold her arms to steady her on her heels; the shoes making her nearly as tall as me. Honor sighs and I don’t miss her annoyed stance. “Excuse me.” She says as she tries to escape me but I don’t make a move.

“Please let me through, Cowen. You’ve already had a lap dance.”

“But what if I have more money? What if I want another one?”

Honor faced off with me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  My eyebrows raise.

“Is this how you are going to be for now on, darlin’? Salty one minute and sweet the next? Acting like you don’t know who I am and then rubbing that sizzling body against me out of nowhere?”

I put a hand under Honor’s chin and she moves her head back as if to keep distance between us. A pang of annoyance now goes through me and I cross my arms. “What’s your problem, Honorée? Why are you being like this?”

“I’m working, Cowen!” Honor hisses out through her teeth. “I need you to get that.”

Getting enough of her unwanted ire, I finally let go of her completely, already feeling drained from this conversation. “I get you clear as glass, darlin’. I can go home right now.”

Honor’s eyes widen a bit and she looks away, biting her lip. “It’s not that I don’t want you here.” She quietly started.

Could have fooled me.

Honor motioned toward the main area, frowning while explaining, “I have a reputation here and I have to keep it, even if it means I have to be a whole other person, Cowen. That’s the part I need you to understand. I’m not doing this because I don’t want to be beside you. But I need to if I want to make a decent amount of money here.

I don’t understand why her reputation means so much here, but what I do understand is the need to keep a job to maintain life. I back up with a deep defeated sigh. There is nothing more I can do with her here tonight and we both know it. “ I get it and I’ll back up off of you, sweetheart but I’m not going home. I’m sure there is a drink or two left in me to have. Have a good night.”

As I turn and manage to take the agonizing steps away from this beautiful woman, I can hear her saying, “I’m sorry, Cowen.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry too, babe.” I say with my back to her.

After a long insufferable hour and two drinks later, I was informed as well as many others that it was time for Luxurious Nights to close. I pay my tab and start to make my way out of the club. “Good night, Aurora.” I say, smirking as I see the girl’s cheeks redden. With my hair down over my shoulders, I probably reminded her of some kind of Fabio look-alike or something.

The night is still quite alive on the strip as I stroll to my truck. Damn, this was a disappointing night though. I wanted to at least kiss her lips again and being rejected wasn’t on my list of stuff to do today. No, I what I truly want to do is slip off that dress Honor wore, suck on those tits, eat her pussy and fuck her to high heaven.

Knowing that isn’t to be, I hope that my shower has a setting as cold as Antarctica. As I’m opening the driver's side door, I hear. “Cowen. Wait.” I look around the door in time to see Honorée walking directly to me in the tightest olive green tank dress I’ve ever seen and knee-high brown leather boots. Hot damn…

Making sure to keep my hardened cock hidden behind the door, I give a soft smile and ask, “Heading home, darlin’?” Honor just stares at me, deep into my eyes. I stare back, wondering what was going on in that pretty head.

“Yes, and you’re coming with me.”

Did I hear that right?

“Beg pardon?” I say, cocking my head to hear it again.

“Follow my car. Unless you want to be nursing that hard on all night long.”

I shake my head as all thought nearly combusted. “No, ma’am. I don’t. Does that mean that you’ll be nursing it for me instead?”

“Follow me home and you’ll find out.” Honor replies, so sinfully sexy. She turned and strutted that voluptuous ass to her car.

I don’t think I have ever started my vehicle so quickly in my life.

Ignition Tag List: @catharticallysarcastic​ @kainablue​ @ladywithalamp​ @rhine-cane​  (please let me know if you want to be added or removed)

#writing #am writing #writeblr #writeblr community #series: ignition #ignition: aflame #otp 2 #I need to start focusing on this story more

[sidhewrites]

April Showers, Part Two

Part one.

Before them, all of Fellering spilled down the mountainside like a waterfall of life. Power lines swooped over the terraces. The road swerved slowly down the mountain, curving back on itself over and over again until it reached the foothills, then heading straight through the forest and far off into the distant port city. Every rooftop was topped with brightly-colored shingles, every garden teeming with life. Puddles collected on the sidewalks, and raindrops peppered the trees. There were stairs and ramps everywhere, even ladders going from one step-like level to the next.

Cass walked slowly, avoiding any puddles on slopes or particularly muddy areas, with Mops always at his side, loyally resisting the urge to sniff at flowers growing between the cracks in the pavement. 

Lise rested her chin on his shoulder, once again bemoaning the fact that she’d stowed her radio in the backpack instead of a pocket. “I’m going to break that habit sooner or later. I will.” 

“No, you won’t.”

“I will.”

“When?” His grin was audible.

Lise paused, frowning, and buried her face in his shoulder. “Eventually.”

Cass laughed, and they continued on down the mountain road for a few minutes in silence. Eventually, Lise spoke up again, asking about Cass’s dream. Cass would answer, then talk about the letter he got from his father, who’d docked most recently off the coast of Spain.  

“Oh, that sounds amazing. Did he send any pictures?”

“None that he took. But I have a few postcards. I’ll show you at lunch.”

Lise nodded, and grinned, imagining the amazing life Cass’s father must live. He was a nature photographer, going around the world in his boat and waiting for just the right moment to capture birds or fish or whales or goodness knows what else. Neither of them had any real eye for photography, and Lise wouldn’t last a minute on a boat, but it was a romantic life to imagine for themselves nonetheless. They spent the rest of the walk discussing the boats they’d have, what they’d photograph, and where they’d go.

“Antarctica,” Lise said, thinking about penguins and not how the cold weather made it nearly impossible for her to walk.

“New York City,” Cass said, thinking about the massive architecture, and not how crowded, loud places overloaded his senses.

Townsfolk waved hello as they passed, asking how they were doing, and about Great-Aunt Marya’s health. They all knew each other by name, as much a family as they were neighbors. Halfway down the road, Jerzy stopped them from his vegetable garden, waving the pair over with a trowel in one hand and a watering can in the other. His sunhat had flowers stuck in between the woven straw, as bright as the rest of him. 

“Take a look at this,” he said, gesturing behind him. Blue flowers sprouted all along the trellis leaning against his brightly painted house, almost glowing in the soft sunlight. “Biggest blooms I’ve had in years. I bet I’ll win something big this year.”

Cass shifted his weight, allowing Lise to step down and lean on Jerzy’s fence. She ooh’ed appreciatively. “Those are your petunias, right?”

“Morning glories, but close enough. The petunias are over there.” He gestured to a leafy bush sprouting purple blooms instead. “Here.” He stepped away to pull a few of the petunias and held them out over the fence. “For good luck today.”

Lise took them and handed two to Cass before fixing the last flower behind her ear. “What will we need luck for?”

Jerzy shrugged. “You can never have too much good luck, right?”

“Thank you, Jerzy,” Cass said, sticking the flower in his own hat, and one in Mops’ fur. “They’re beautiful.”

Jerzy thanked him right back, and waved them off as Cass lifted Lise back onto his back. They continued on down the road once more, this time talking about their gardens and what they’re planting for the summer, as if they hadn’t helped each other sow the seeds already.

“Squash,” Cass said without hesitating. “I want big squash to make into pies and things in autumn.”

“An apple tree. Just one. We cleared out the space just outside the front gate and planted the seed not too long ago.”

The further down they went, the more shops popped up. A book store, a bakery, and a general mechanic’s. The school sat beyond, at the very bottom of the hill with a wide field. A few children played outside already under their teacher’s supervision, though they wouldn’t be called in for a little while yet.

The road leveled out about two thirds of the way down the mountain, easy to traverse despite the puddles still sitting here and there. Cass let Lise down off his back, and they walked side-by-side, arms linked as they chatted. Lise occasionally stopped to tap her cane into puddles, sending up small splashes of water and scattering droplets as they went.

Finally, they reached the general store, already open, the striped awnings unfurled and soft music drifting out through the open door and mingling with the planters.

Hattie knelt before a chalkboard sign outside advertising the current deal -- lightbulbs, two for one -- and drawing little designs around the lettering. They looked just like Cass, broad-shouldered with freckles and bright red hair pulled back and out of the way, though they were a few years older and wore colorful makeup, the likes of which he would never touch. Their glasses hung on a beaded chain around their neck, reflecting the light beautifully onto their freckled face.

Cass leaned over their shoulder and asked loudly, “Hey, can I buy a car here?”

Hattie jumped. The chalk went flying, and they flinched back with a yelp, nearly headbutting Cass by accident. He recoiled, more out of fear than anything, while Hattie put a hand over their chest to steady their breathing. “Don’t do that!”

Cass nodded, mumbling an apology and burying one of his hands in Mops’ fur. “We just came to see you, is all.”

“Oh, well.” They blew a raspberry, and smiled. “That’s okay then, I guess. I like the flowers.”

“Thanks. How are you doing?” Lise asked. “How are the kittens?”

Their smile grew into a lovesick grin. “One of them tried to climb onto the bookshelf last night. They’re so adventurous, I could cry.”

“Oh, speaking of that…” Lise pulled the shirt from her backpack and handed it over. “Great Aunt Marya says to stop letting them climb on you.”

Hattie pulled a pout. “But…”

“I’m just passing along the message.”

“And we need blueberries,” Cass said. “Any chance you have some here?”

Hatte hummed, looking back to the shop as they thought. “Aren’t there a few bushes down by the creek?”

“No, that’s blackberries. They’re not in season for another few months.”

“Oh, huh.” Hattie frowned. “Let me check what we have. I think Ursula was going to bring some by this week.”

Lise and Cass followed them in, waiting by the door as they put on their glasses and went through the inventory list. Ultimately, Hattie shook their head. “Sorry, none yet. Ursula’s stopping by the group today, right? You should ask her then.”

Cass leaned over the counter to grin. “Is that all we should ask her about?”

Hattie met his gaze for a minute, not understanding until he winked. They flushed a bright red and turned away to hide their face. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“I will until you ask her on a date.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not? You like her. I think she likes you. Just write her a letter if you’re too shy to talk to her. Put a flower in it, and everything.”

Hattie shook their head. 

Lise wrapped her arm around Cass’s again, this time a silent sign to stop pushing the subject. 

He nodded in understanding, and held a hand. “Sorry. I just don’t know why it’s taking so long for you to ask her.”

Hattie shook their head again, and turned back around to squeeze Cass’s hand. “It’s hard to risk being told no from someone you like.”

“You must hate me then. I tell you no all the time, and you seem just fine.”

“You’re my brother. I’m legally obligated to hate you.” Hattie’s grin matched Cass’s perfectly, before they relaxed and put the inventory charts away. “Oh -- but if she does have blueberries, can you bring some home tonight? I want some, too.”

“Definitely. I’ll see you tonight?”

“You all ways see me at night.” They waved as the pair left, Mops trodding behind them. Hattie groaned, only then realizing that the dog was tracking mud, and that they’d have to clean the floors all over again.

#writeblr #writing #original fiction #lgbtq fiction #mystuff #untitled ghibli project #untitled ghibli project: misc #april showers for now rip... #april showers #april showers chapter

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Beneath an Aurora Sky

Summary: The South Pole Station is equipped for research and Edge has always made sure things run smoothly for the inhabitants. His charges are meant to follow his rules and regulations, and in turn, he makes sure they survive in the arctic temperatures. It takes plenty of hard work and determination and Edge, along with his crew, can handle both.

He wasn't counting on one of the newest researchers. He wasn't expecting Rus.

Tags: Spicyhoney, First Time, Arctic AU, Hurt/Comfort

Notes: So, @cheapbourbon came up with an amazing AU and did some lovely art for it: please look at it and love it.

To quote straight from the source because I love this:

•Expedition leader/ survivalist guide Edge •Theoretical astronomer Rus •Location: Scott South Pole Station/South Pole Telescope •Guest stars: snow, cold, stars, & budding affections

I couldn't resist, so here we are.

Warning: I am not a scientist, sadly, and while I did some research on the South Pole Station and Antarctica in general, I can only assume I've made mistakes here. I also took a lot of liberties and I know it. This is all in fun, so, forgive me for my errors and since this is already an AU, let's pretend that it's an Alternate Earth where these things are correct and I didn't screw anything up.Here we go...

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Undyne slowed the sno-cat to a grinding halt, the treads sluicing a shower of snow. She leaned on the steering wheel and looked out the front window, taking in the sight of the port. The ship was already docked, one of the gangplanks lowered, and there were a few crewmen on the ground, stacking boxes of supplies. “There it is, a fresh group of eggheads and princesses.”

Edge, sitting next to her, only grunted as he flipped through the manifests, “Don’t call them that where they can hear you.”

“Never would, Boss.” She hooked a scarred thumb towards the ship. “Gonna check them out?”

“Yes, if you’ll look in on the supplies.” Edge folded the manifests and handed them over to her. “Count the bottles, if you will? Last time every other crate was shorted by one.”

“You got it.” She snapped her teeth in irritation. “Fucking thieves; anyone stealing booze deserves a punch in the face.”

Edge only lowered his goggles and braced himself for the upcoming rush of cold. “Keep your punches to yourself and report any shortages. Red?”

“yeah, yeah, i’m awake,” came grumbling from the backseat. “i’ll keep the car running, ‘dyne. have fun, you two.”

The wind was middling that day and it was a short trek down the dock, passing through the workers who either ignored him or offered a curt nod of greeting. Undyne could handle the supplies; his cargo was still inside.

The hinges screeched as he shoved open the door for the main hold and got his first look at the new selection of researchers for this rotation. The glaring overhead lights hid little and Edge pushed back his hood to get a better view, ignoring the few double-takes he got for it.

Anyone on the roster would have received an information packet and should know that a Monster was the expedition leader. If they didn’t, well, then they’d already proved themselves poor at research and the only thing they’d accomplish at the station was wasting their grant money.

This group looked the same as always. Ordinary Humans, most of them male, but it seemed a female or two had come along on this round. Difficult to say with all the layered clothing. They were milling around, waiting, and there was a low burble of chatter. Each of them had a few cases with them for their clothing and personal supplies, as well as any equipment they would need for their research outside of what the station provided. Most of them picked sleek, modern gear. A polar expedition was not a vacation and what was in sight was well within guidelines.

Except one. One pile of gear was far in excess of the allotment, a random mishmash of cases and luggage that wouldn’t have been out of place on a cruise ship, which included an oversized tube-like black plastic case with a long strap.

Edge sighed inwardly. There was always one. Every rotation they were told to only bring what they could carry and every rotation, he ended up with at least one fool who was convinced that they were the exception and surely their belongings were far more important than anyone else, and oh, won’t you just help me carry a bag or three? No? Then what am I paying you for?

“Whose gear is this?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the murmur of conversation. Whoever it was, they could either leave their hairdryer behind or find a way to drag it behind them.

Silence descended, a dozen or so Human gazes falling on him but none of them volunteered.

“mine!” One figure cut from the outside of the crowd, almost stumbling forward. He was tall, taller than Edge, that was unusual in and of itself, but as he walked closer, Edge found himself staring in surprise.

To begin with, he was younger than Edge expected, closer to his own age. Most of the researchers who came to the South Pole Station were older with plenty of degrees under their belts, alongside their collection of grants and funding as it was not a cheap endeavor. Either his PhD was a recent acquirement, or he was a former child prodigy.

Unlike the others who were kitted in expensive cold weather gear, he was bundled into what looked like several layers of thermal shirts and hoodies, and who knew what lay beneath those sweatpants. Hardly the image of a well-funded researcher out to prove a theory.

But the main source of his surprise was less who and more what. It had been some time since he’d seen another skeleton Monster other than his brother. Most of him was buried in those layers but there was no mistaking his skull and thin, bony hands. Unless there was something very unusual beneath his mismatched clothes, he was looking at the first one of his own kind that he’d seen in years.

The symbol on his patched jacket put him in the science division for the Monster Embassy, and there lay another layer of mystery.

Despite his colorful array of clothing, any exposed bone was glossy pale and smooth, not so much as a crack or scar visible past the normal coronal sutures. Evidence of a soft life even before they’d come to the surface.

At least Edge had been wrong about the hair dryer.

“heya! well, it is certainly nice to meet you.” That blatantly visible once-over was worse than an actual Check and Edge bristled immediately. He ignored the hand the other held out in greeting long enough for his smile to falter and after a moment, he dropped it.

“Doctor—?” Edge let the word dangle, raising a brow bone.

“oh,” the smile returned. “nah, everyone calls me rus, except my bro but frankly, i don’t mind losing that nickname, i—“

“Everyone calls me Boss and that is what you will call me,” Edge interrupted, coolly. The other skeleton blinked, shuffling his booted feet uncomfortably. In direct contrast to the rest of his clothes, those looked to be top of the line, even if the laces were a knotted mess.

“um. okay. sure, i can go with that.”

“I wasn’t asking.” He caught the strap of one of the cases, dragging it over and holding it up. The outside fabric was of bright orange tropical flowers. “This is your equipment?”

“yeah, it’s got my name on it and everything, just like my underwear.” He winced as Edge dangled the case from two fingers, reaching for it hastily, “maybe be careful with it, some of it's delicate and—“

Edge handed him the case with exaggerated care. “That won’t be a problem since I’m not a porter and I won’t be carrying any of it. Anything that you want at the station, you get to carry, so good luck with that.”

The other skeleton was gaping by now, mouth open, before shutting it with a sharp click of teeth. “okay, now wait a minute—!”

They had something of an audience at this point, the other researchers watching with a certain morbid curiosity. No better time for introductions, he supposed.

Edge stepped back and called over the crowd. “All right, everyone, listen up! I’m in charge of the South Pole station and I’m here to get you to it. You can call me Boss.”

A faint titter went through the group. It faded as Edge looked at them stonily. “All of you signed an agreement when you chose to come conduct research at the station. That agreement says that you will obey the rules and regulations put forth. As I said, I am in charge of the station and I’m the one who makes the regulations.” The group clustered in closer, even though Edge’s voice carried easily. “If there are issues, I will handle them. The agreement I signed states that so long as you follow the rules, I will keep you safe.”

All of them seemed to be hanging on his every word, except the other Monster, who was glaring at him sourly, his pale eye lights narrowed to pin pricks.

“I expect my direction to be followed,” Edge went on, “for your safety and the safety of others and my word in any matter is final!” The word echoed around the hushed quiet of the hold. “If any of you has a problem with that, then I’d recommend staying on the boat.”

There was nothing but silence. His favorite kind of reply.

"Good.” He held up a gloved finger. “There is one vehicle here and it is for the supplies. We can't subject it to the wear and tear it would take to cart all of you to the station. You were instructed to bring only what you can carry.”

He glanced at the other skeleton and saw his chin go up at that, his sockets narrowing.

At the back of the hold, Undyne was standing just inside the door, slouching against a wall and smirking at him. She shifted to stand up straight, mimicked a polite clap. Edge resisted the urge to roll his eye lights and continued.

“If you’d like to turn around, you’ll see Undyne at the back. She is second in command and the only word higher than hers is mine.”

“Heya, boys.” She gave them a deliberate salute with her left hand, letting them get a good view of how many fingers she didn’t have. Not that she’d lost them here, but none of them needed to know that.

"All right,” Edge said, pulling their attention back to him. “You have all been provided with the necessary gear to walk from here to the station as well as keeping you alive for the duration of your stay. It is one mile to the station and you're all about to get a taste of what it will be like while you're staying here. So, get suited up and let’s get going!"

With that, he turned to walk over to Undyne, ignoring any whispers or possible grumbling behind him.

Catching Undyne by arm, he drew her aside, asking low, “How were the supplies?”

“All good, boss. Plenty enough for two months and the booze cartons are all full this time.” Her grin was sharp enough that Edge thought it better not to ask. She lowered her voice, nodding in the direction of the group. "Looks like you pissed off the fashion victim over there."

Edge didn’t bother to follow her pointed gaze. "Better that he gets used that it now. If he can’t, better to find out before the boat leaves.”

She snorted loudly and crudely enough for a few of the scientists to give them an aghast look. “That one? I know that type, Boss, you couldn’t chase that one away.”

“I doubt that.”

“Yeah? I’ve got 10g on it.” She spat and landed the wad neatly in a bucket by the wall.

Edge didn’t make bets, that was his brother’s game. He dared a glance at the so-called fashion victim, who was currently struggling into his gear. One of his boots caught on the dangling sleeve of his jacket and he tripped, almost toppling into another researcher. “You’re on.”

Her grin widened. “You should be hoping I lose, he’s kinda a cute one," she teased. She picked at her teeth with a sharp claw and inspected the findings. "Better than the usual. Not many pretty things like that make it out here."

"You're here." Edge smirked.

She rolled her eye vigorously. "Yeah, like I said. Maybe you should be nicer to him."

"I fear to ask why."

"Hey, you might not care about the science, but I bet he's useful for other stuff." With their backs to the others, no one could see her poke her index finger into the loose fist of her other hand, thrusting vigorously.

“Undyne!” Edge hissed. “That's enough.”

She shrugged. “I’m just saying. Those are some long legs and it gets cold at night. Nothing wrong with a bed warmer and he’ll be out of your hair in a couple months.” She reached out to rap her knuckles on his skull. “So to speak.”

Edge slapped her hand away. “He’s not going to make it to the station, much less last the two months.”

“We’ll see.”

~~*~~

At the halfway mark to the station, Edge began to think he might well be out 10g and couldn’t even be upset about it.

Despite his dour prediction, their fashion victim was keeping up and Edge was reluctantly impressed.

Edge always stated the distance from the boat launch to the station, just to see their expressions of disdain. It always showed on their faces. A mile? A mile was nothing. Many of them started a training regimen in the weeks before coming and a mile was an easy goal, or so they thought.

He would bet none of them had hiked a mile in subzero temperatures. The first shock of it when you stepped outside was like a blow, breathing felt like being stabbed with an icicle, even for someone without lungs. After a moment to adjust, standing there, you thought it wasn’t that bad. Then you started out into it and learned the true meanings of a word like 'arctic', in a way that wouldn't be soon forgotten.

Their goggles would protect them from the glare of the snow at least, not that there was much to see. In front of them was hard beaten snow and ice, unless they wandered off the path marked by a series whip-thin flag poles that led to the station. If so, they would end up hip deep in snow with a great struggle ahead of them to dig themselves out.

Walking through the snow in full gear carrying their gear was nothing like jogging down the block, checking their Fitbit along the way. A few of them would have been savvy enough to try hiking, perhaps carrying along a full kit. That would be closer but most of them would be lying in their beds tonight, aching from strain and cold, and wondering what they’d gotten themselves into.

Tomorrow, some of them would be angry to learn there were vehicles that could have carried them. Of course there were, it was ridiculous to think otherwise. They’d be using them daily as they did their research, going out to checkpoints and the different areas that surrounded them.

Edge was the one who’d come up with this small test. He wanted them to get a measure of what they’d be dealing with while he was close enough to help them and before the boat left.

At the back of the line, their fashion victim was starting to lag, not badly, but enough that Edge kept an eye on him. For all of Edge’s disbelief, the other skeleton had proven him wrong and every piece of his gear was carefully position, the weight evenly distributed in a way that spoke of careful planning. His first impression of a naïve, spoiled researcher who’d never taken his nose from a book was jarred loose by such preparation. Credit where credit was due, the other skeleton was carrying his own load and he was keeping up.

Or he had been, at the beginning.

Every few minutes Edge would glance back and get a quick headcount. All the others would be too focused on their own survival to notice if one of their teammates was lagging behind but that was all right. That was why Edge was here.

On one such check, Edge looked back in time to see the scientist trip and fall, his carefully balanced gear scattering, skidding across the hardpacked snow.

He was taking too long getting back up.

“‘Dyne?” Edge murmured into his sleeve, waiting to see her glance his way. “Keep them going.”

In his own earpiece he heard, “You got it, Boss.”

He couldn’t see her grin, but he could hear it easily enough. There was no point in smacking her when all the layers would soften any blow.

The others paused when they saw him start back, faltering unsteadily in their growing exhaustion. He waved them impatiently along, trudging back to where the skeleton was still on his knees, fumbling at his equipment.

“Come on, you need to get up.” He had to raise his voice to travel through the layers of clothing and the wind. Even on a milder day like today, it was critical to keep moving.

“i am!” He snapped it out with more fire than Edge would have thought he had left. “i am coming right now, i only tripped.”

“All right, then do it.”

Edge stood back and watched impassively as the scientist struggled to his knees and then to his feet. Gathering his gear was an arduous task but he never hesitated, hooking straps over his arms and head, and getting them back into that precarious balance.

The last case was eluding him, straining to get the strap over his head and Edge gave in, reaching for it.

“Give me that,” Edge said impatiently.

He was startled when the scientist twisted away, almost falling again and only barely managing to keep to his feet.

“i don’t need your help!” he snarled. His voice was hoarse; the cold was starting to get to him. “i can do this.”

“Can you?”

“yes!” he shouted, words cutting through the tearing wind. “i told off my advisor, my dean and my brother! i came up with the money on my own! you are not an obstacle, not even close!”

He glared fiercely, visible even through his goggles. Even through them, there was a faint glow of frustrated tears that didn’t fall, although whether that was determination or the cold, Edge couldn’t say. Even magic froze in these temperatures, goggles or not.

“you know, i wasn’t expecting you to carry anything,” he went on, raggedly. He took a step in the direction of the others, another, keeping his gear carefully balanced. “you’re the one who came over and started prodding at my equipment. i was afraid you were going to break something that i can’t replace, that’s the only reason i said anything.”

Edge let him rant; it kept him moving. Until he stopped again, uncertainly. The others were out of sight.

Abruptly, Edge strode forward and said, “Come on.”

“i am!”

“You are,” Edge agreed. “You’re doing very well. It’s not much further, Rus.”

The scientist blinked but Edge was already turning away, following the line of flags leading them to the station. It was in sight when Rus staggered and started to fall again, and this time Edge caught him by the elbow, holding him up until he caught his balance again.

The others hadn’t gotten too far ahead; they were still in the outer vestibule warming up and the group shuddered collectively as Rus and Edge came in through the outer door, letting in a rush of arctic air.

Close to the door, Undyne was already stripped down and she hollered to them, “All right, everyone has already been assigned a room. I’m betting all of you can read, so get the lead out and find the one with your name!”

Edge pulled off his heavy coat and raised his own voice to add, “Find your room, stow your gear, and get warmed up. Dinner is at 1800.”

The others shuffled wearily to the door, carrying their baggage and leaving the outer gear hanging from a variety of hooks. Edge hung his own on an empty hook, ignoring the triumphant look that Undyne sent his way before following the others.

Rus sank down on a bench that was against one of the walls, his cases littered around him. “thank you,” he said. For all that his voice was exhausted and hoarse, the gratitude was genuine. “for getting us here. me. for getting me here.”

“That’s my job,” Edge walked over to him and knelt down, working at the tangled knot of his boot laces. “And I’m sorry.”

He blinked once, twice, staring down at Edge. “you’re sorry?”

“For judging you before I even met you. I can admit when I’m wrong.”

“oh. well, it’s all right. i'm sure it's a rare enough occasion to mark on the calendar.” Rus’s smile hinted at something sly and he let Edge pull his boots off before he stood, stripping off the rest of his outer paraphernalia

Edge set his boots over next to his own. “Be sure to make a note.” He looked back at the soft groan behind him, seeing Rus leaning over to catch up a strap on one of his bags. “Let me help you.”

“I can do it,” Rus protested, though it sounded halfhearted at best.

“I know. Let me help, anyway.”

There was a moment of hesitation and Edge thought he’d refuse again. It was something of a surprise when he finally said, “all right.”

Edge gathered up a couple of his packs, waiting long enough for Rus to get the rest, and then jerked his head for Rus to follow him. The walk to the living quarters was a short one and Rus’s room was the second from the last. By now Rus was stumbling with weariness and Edge opened the door, gently guiding him inside. He set the bags down by the wall as Rus sank down onto the small bed.

“You’ve got some time before dinner,” Edge said softly. “Take a nap and get warmed up.”

“sounds good,” Rus blinked with glassy exhaustion and Edge resisted the urge to push him down to the mattress before he fell on his own.

Instead, he went to the door, hesitating with his hand on the knob. “See you at dinner, Rus.”

“sure, boss,” Rus mumbled, and as predicted, he sank down to the mattress without even pulling back the covers. Edge started to open the door, paused, and hung his head with a sigh before he turned back.

Carefully, he gathered up the blanket at the foot of the bed, spreading it over Rus. He made a faint sound, barely stirring, and snuggled into it.

Edge watched for the briefest of moments, then he turned away and out the door. And stopped.

Undyne was at the end of the hallway, leaning against one of the doors. She made a kissy face at him, and he scowled at her.

But he flipped her a 10g coin.

She snatched it out of the air, sticking it into one of her numerous pockets. “Thanks, boss. Wanna sweeten the pot? I bet another ten you’ll have him on his back in a week.”

Edge shook his head. “No bet.”

"Yeah?” Undyne licked her teeth, her grin widening. “Don’t like to part with your money that easily, boss?”

“I won’t bet on something like that,” Edge said shortly, “even if it were a possibility, which it is not.”

Undyne pushed off the door with a snort and poked a finger roughly against his sternum. “Oh, come off it, I saw how he was looking at you. You wouldn't even need to turn on the charm, which is good because you don't have any."

"He's here for two months and then he’s back on the boat,” Edge told her, letting his irritation creep into his voice, “off to publish his papers or continue his research, whatever they do when they leave.”

Undyne predictably ignored his annoyance. "That gives you a time limit, even better. You don’t have to beat around the bush, depending on what equipment he has downstairs."

"Undyne!" he hissed. Her grin was unrepentant.

“Speaking of which, my honey should be back from checking the monitors. See you at dinnertime, Boss.”

“If I allow you to eat,” he grumbled. She only laughed and tromped off in the direction of the crew quarters.

He did not glance back at that closed door where Rus was sleeping, curled into his blanket. In all honesty, he should have changed out of his clothes first; despite the cold a long walk outside often left one sweaty and shower tokens were a much sought-after privilege.

There was still time before dinner to get a few things finished. He needed to go over their newly acquired supplies with his brother, one of the solar panels was acting up and needed looked at. Always something to do to ensure not only their safety but as much comfort as possible. Edge shook the thought of Rus curled up on his bed away and went to his own quarters.

He had an allotment for a shower and despite what Undyne might think, it needn’t be a cold one.

~~*~~

Read Chapter Two

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #arctic AU

[funkymeihem-fiction]

Metal Flowers (A Meihem Fanfic Drabble)

(The other version of Glow in the Dark)

The attack had blindsided their defense from the left, where Mei and Junkrat had been positioned. One moment everything had been normal, and then the next, everything had turned to fire and pain and hot metal. Junkrat had gone down first, and Mei had thrown up one of her walls to protect them. But not even her ice could stand the barrage, and the last thing she could remember was her screaming for him to hang on, just hang on. She was going to get them through this. Covering her body with his, she felt something collide hard with the side of her head, and after that she couldn’t remember anything at all.

She awoke over a week later in the intensive care unit. She’d had more than her fair share of unpleasant awakenings, but this one had to rank up there. Everything hurt, but she had lived, so her protective ice must have done its job yet again. She would just have to rest and be stuck in the clinic again. She reached for the little buzzer near the bed, summoning Angela to her side. Dr. Ziegler seemed relieved that she was awake and well, taking her hand and squeezing it before puttering about with the IV drips and various devices stacked around her hospital bed. But the doctor was oddly silent, and Mei figured she was likely busy with other patients.

Other patients like Jamison. Where was Jamison? The bed next to hers was empty, and Mei sighed softly and asked where he was and when he would be coming to visit. Likely he’d caused enough trouble that they’d quarantined him to his own personal med ward again. But now that she was awake, she hoped he had fared a little better than her, and wanted to see him.

But Angela said that Jamison wasn’t going to be coming, and paused for a very long time as if searching for other words to say. Mei did not like that at all. So instead she asked, maybe when she was stronger in a day or two, she could go see him instead? No. Angela denied her yet again, and instead placed a gentle hand over hers. Why was she doing that? Why was her expression like that? Shouldn’t she be happy that they were doing better? Why couldn’t she go see him? Mei heard her own tones go from asking, to pleading, to utter desperation. She had to see him. She had to see him, please. Let her go see him. But some part of her already knew that it wouldn’t do any good. No amount of begging would let her see him. And she knew why, even though she wished she didn’t.

Angela stopped her when she started trying to climb out of bed, and in her sad and gentle way, confirmed what she already knew. Jamison was gone. His wounds had been too great, and while she had been sleeping, he had slipped away. While she was sleeping, death had passed her over and taken someone she had loved instead. While she was sleeping, he had not been able to escape the curse that followed her. Everyone she loved died, and every time she woke up, it got worse and worse.

When she slept, bad things happened.

***

Mei’s silence was far more devastating than any amount of crying. She’d always been easy to laugh and easy to cry, and to Jamison’s delight, had always been easy to anger and easy to fluster as well. Even she would admit that she cried a little more often than she would have liked. When anything remotely sad or heart-wrenching happened, she cried. When animals or kids got into dangerous situations in movies, she cried. When lovers were torn apart by drama in her favorite books, she cried. And there was one video that Jamison had always tormented her with, which was just a bunch of baby goats in sweaters romping over a farm field, which always made her burst into tears because ‘they were so happy’. Seeing Mei’s face as red as a tomato and covered in tears was hardly an unusual thing for everyone on base.

It was far more unnerving to see her so small and pale and blank-faced, sitting in her wheelchair and staring out a window, reduced to depressive catatonia. She was still quite lucid, and answered questions as softly and politely as usual. She let herself be wheeled about while her leg and the rest of her healed, and never forgot to say please or thank you. But though she tried to smile at all the attempts to cheer her up, it never reached anything beyond a half-hearted and distracted twist of her lips. Her gaze remained downcast and far away, barely visible over the shadows under her eyes that were getting darker by the day.

She hadn’t been sleeping well. If she slept, someone else might die.

Her friends, both old and new, showered her with gifts and cheer. Zarya had taken her wheelchair out for a stroll around the grounds for some fresh air, boisterously telling her stories and strange jokes that honestly didn’t translate very well from Russian, but Mei didn’t really hear them. Angela made an attempt to put together a menu of her favorite things and tried to get her to eat, but even vitamin-fortified dumplings and nutrient-enriched soups did little to stir an anemic appetite, and she barely picked at them. Winston spent hours at her bedside, coaxing her with cards or word games or her favorite shows, even though he would eventually fall into much-needed sleep almost every time. Lucio’s personalized mix of healing music sat on her tablet, the files unopened. Not even the one entitled ‘J-Man’ that he had put together in honor of the late Jamison Fawkes. The only gift she had made much use of was the knitted blanket that Ana had made for her, after she had told her she was feeling cold.

She had come out of Antarctica and the cold had lingered inside her, sometimes taking her out of her body and her mind, until she would freeze. Sometimes literally. And there she’d remain, trapped by ice and dark thoughts. And the only thing that could truly break through that ice…was fire. Though her introductions to the junker had been contentious at best, he’d battered down every wall she threw up, melted her cold defenses, and exploded into her life despite all her best efforts. Eventually (VERY eventually) she had finally come to embrace his fiery and madcap nature, and had fallen for him as well.

They had melded together surprisingly flawlessly after that. She cooled him down when he got too hot, and he kept her warm and protected from the cold…which was a foolish notion, in the end.

She never should have relied on a flame to keep her warm. Eventually, they always burned out.

***

The junker had never been good about keeping his personnel files in order, and apparently had not filled out anything for his last wishes or any form of will, and ‘returning’ him to the hostile government of Junkertown had been vetoed right out. So they had gone forward with a traditional funeral for lack of any better ideas. They had flowers and ribbons, though none of that seemed in keeping with his character, so D.Va and Lucio had decorated the bouquets with the shells of his smiley-face bombs, which made it a little better. Mei didn’t notice any of it. Dressed in mourning white, her bad leg still confining her to her wheelchair, she sat and she stared at the open part of the casket. The ruffled cloth around him was ridiculous, and if he had been awake, he would have definitely made fun of it. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to wake up. Instead he just lay there, his usually warm skin a ghastly pallor of gray blue that no amount of funerary make-up could disguise. His eyes were closed and he was wearing a shirt and tie and they had tried to style his hair and he wasn’t smiling.

It was barely Junkrat at all, just a cold shell long since abandoned. Like her friends and companions had been, too. All of them, cold and empty and locked in boxes or tubes, to be left behind and forgotten.

They lowered him into the hole they’d made at the military graveyard nearby. The clean white headstone read ‘Jamison Fawkes’ and ‘??? - 2084’ since nobody, including Junkrat himself, was precisely sure when he had been born. It was an unusually warm day, fitting for a man who had loved the heat, but Mei sat under her blanket and still felt cold. The funerary chaplain read something suitably non-denominational, but she didn’t pay attention. And while she was distantly aware that some of his closer friends were crying around her, she still had no tears to shed. She sat there, staring at the hole in the ground where he was being ‘laid to rest’, and briefly pondered joining him in it.

She kept reverting to that icy tomb in her mind, more and more. Jamison was no longer there to wrap his arms around her and tease her or distract her or make her laugh. The warmth that radiated off his body would never be pressed against her again. And his little habits of biting on her neck or her ears to ‘bring her back’ were gone with him. She missed it. She missed him. Even all the annoying things she’s scold him for, she missed those so much. His forgetfulness and unpredictability and tendency to smear soot everywhere…What would she give for just one more moment with him, standing on her tip toes and wrapping her arms around his chest because he was too tall, and telling him he was stinky, and arguing with him over something stupid yet again…She missed arguing with him. She missed everything about him. She missed him so badly that it hurt to think of him. So instead, she would just sit there numbly, and stare at nothing, and think of nothing too.

And mostly, she let it happen. Because too often, her thoughts would inevitably wander back to her wishing that she had died with him. And those were bad thoughts to have, weren’t they? Here everyone was, full of light and happiness and trying their best to bring her back to her old self. Her friends still loved her and wanted her to live. But their light and their love was nothing compared to his fire, and no matter how they tried, she still just felt cold.

Angela had tried everything, but Mei’s progress was agonizingly slow. Her wounds had mostly healed but she remained frail. She’d seen it happen too many times. Grieving was one thing, and could cause sickness to linger. Mei’s grieving and guilt had been intense when she had returned from Antarctica, but she had gotten through it. But this was no longer just grief. There were times when a patient simply gave up, and no amount of medical knowledge would help, when living or dying no longer mattered to them. She barely slept or ate or bathed, and merely existed in her little corner, silent under her blankets and alone with nothing but distant echoes of sorrow, and every day she slipped further away into the numbness that had become her world. Even her number of visitors slowly lessened, as life went on and nothing seemed to affect her. Even her best friends no longer thought they could help her.

…Until there was one particular person who arrived, who had not visited her before.

***

Roadhog had barely seemed to react to his younger partner’s death. The pig-masked man had always been a hard read, but he showed no signs of grief or sadness. He had been in the waiting area when Junkrat had first slipped away, and was the first to receive the news. He had nodded once, bowed his head to Angela in farewell, gotten up, and left. And when someone was finally sent to find him again, he was gone. They had eventually tracked his progress to him simply walking off the base, into the city, and catching a civilian flight back to Australia. After his arrival into his homeland, he had utterly vanished. He had missed the viewing, and the funeral, and everything else. Without his younger charge keeping him here, some wondered if he was going to come back at all.

That had been weeks ago. Just as abruptly as he had left, Roadhog had returned. Ignoring Winston’s and 76’s attempts to berate him, he lumbered back into the base with no fanfare, slinging the heavy pack off his back and physically throwing the cleaning bot out of what had been his and Junkrat’s rooms. No bots, he had said, and shut the door behind him. A few hours later, cutting off the requests for meetings and explanations, he left the dorm and headed for the south bay viewing window where Mei usually lingered for most of the day. Just as expected, she was there, sitting in her chair and staring out at the ocean, pretending that was what she was watching.

He greeted her with a grunt, and for the first time that day she actually noticed anything enough to respond. The old junker had expected a little anger and likely well-earned resentment for his absence, but received nothing but a mildly surprised ‘welcome back,’ before she turned away. Even behind the glass of his mask’s lenses, he saw the look in her eye…or rather, that there was no look in her eye. The spark there had all but faded was was left blank and dull. He knew that look well. He’d seen it in others. And in the mirror.

He might have told her that he knew what she was feeling. He could have told her everything. Including the parts about his wife, and his daughter, and his family, and how he had killed them and everybody else. He could have told her about the days when he was Mako instead of Roadhog. And how losing everything made you lose yourself too. But what good would that have done for either of them? He was a private man, and nearly everyone on the base had some sort of tragic incidents in their past. Just knowing of his own torment would have done nothing to lessen her own. Maybe he would save that for another time, if ever.

Instead he told her that he had something for her, took her chair and began to wheel her off. For the first time in a while, she stirred a bit, and asked him where he had been. He had gone back to Australia, to take care of some things and find something that Junkrat had told him to find. He had found it, and told her as much. From then on, there was a small list of things to wrap up and petty vengeance to finish, and then he had come back. To finish the last thing Junkrat had wanted.

He took her down into the laboratory sector of the base, down to the very, very bottom where Junkrat’s former workshop had been cordoned off. Still filled with live explosives, Overwatch hadn’t quite gotten around to cleaning it out yet. Few were allowed in here, but Roadhog and Mei had never been turned away. Even after he was gone, it was the same, and the locked doors opened to their keycards. Hog held up a finger for her to wait, then stepped inside. Mei watched dully, though one brow slowly lifted as she watched him swiftly dismantle two traps, a noise alarm, and a hidden concussive blast panel hidden under a rug, before he finally took her inside.

The old junker searched amongst the absolute melee of trash and chaos that his former partner preferred, and finally came up with a simple cardboard box with the words SECRET: FUCK OFF sharpie’d on the side. Opening it up to check inside, he nodded and then held it out to Mei, telling her that Jamison had meant it for her. She gently denied this. Junkrat had never finished his will, and hadn’t left her anything. Roadhog snorted, rolled his eyes at that particular thought, and just held out the box. Curiosity stirring from somewhere out of her numb state, she took it, and looked inside.

Inside was a tattered piece of curtain cloth, hiding a tangle of metal that had been welded together in the shape of a flower. Several of them, actually, laid out on top of each other, and two of them were unfinished. Very slowly, uncertainty evident, she went to lift one of them out and inspect it. She recognized it as once. It was a painstakingly made scrapmetal peony, her favorite flower. The numerous petals must have taken hours to sculpt on each one, and he had made several of them.

Roadhog said that Rat had made her a bouquet of metal roses once, on one of his many bids to impress her. But once he’d sniffed out that her favorite blooms were not roses, but peonies, he had binned the whole lot of them and started all over again. Working by pictures on the internet, or occasionally pinching a real bloom from a florist shop where he could, he had been working on this new project for months…when he could remember to. He’d told Hog to remind him whenever he could. It was supposed to be done in time for her birthday, after all.

Mei quietly lifted each of the metal peonies, delicately inspecting them. He hadn’t been able to finish all of them, and one of them was…downright bizarre? The stem was hollow, and there was a strange gap behind the face of the petals. Glancing down into the box, Hog sighed. He hadn’t been able to talk Rat out of that idea, and that particular flower was supposed to explode on a timer device once the box was opened. At least he’d been able to convince Rat to use glitter instead of gunpowder. Mei turned the boobytrap peony around and around in her fingers, and uttered a noise that was almost a laugh. Only someone like Junkrat would ruin his own beautiful handmade birthday gift by turning it into a bomb. Only him. She laughed, and it turned into a choked little sob that she cut off quickly. She didn’t know why, but her fingers started tightening around the metal flower, her hands beginning to tremble. The petals squeaked and bowed as her grip tightened, until the metal could no longer yield and one of her fingers slid the wrong way and sliced open along a sharp edge.

She hissed aloud, and Hog almost went to reach for her. But she only loosened her grip and watched as several droplets of bright, bright red blood oozed down her finger and onto the metal peonies below.

It felt…warm.

Her dull expression warped and shifted, into something stricken. Hugging the box to her chest, she bent double until she was curled over it, and her shoulders began shaking. Tears started to patter on top of the drips of red, and she uttered several scraping, gasping whimpers. And suddenly she was just crying, her chest heaving in convulsing dry sobs that tore themselves out of her again and again. Hog stood towering over her in awkward silence, eventually reaching out with one gigantic hand to place it on her back, patting her gently.

She looked up at him, her glasses askew and smeared with water, streaming from red-rimmed eyes. She could barely even manage to choke out her words.

“I miss him. I miss him…”

He nodded and waited for the flood to subside. Scrubbing at her face, she sniffled aloud, hiccuping and then apologizing for hiccuping. Hog visibly relaxed. That was more along the lines of what he was used to from Mei. She gingerly picked up one her metal peonies, its form blurred through her streaky glasses. She’d buy something to put them in, and then put them on her dresser. Maybe she could frame some of their photos from their time together and put them next to it. Next to the pictures of her team from her Antarctica expedition, and the pictures of her mother, and her father…and everyone else she had lost along the way. Put them all together, clustered around the bouquet of metal flowers he had made for her.

She started to try and rise, wincing as her leg sent a lance of pain as a reminder of its state. She still had healing to do. Easing back into her wheelchair, she asked if Roadhog was going to be busy. Probably later, he would be, after the higher-ups had finally cornered him. But not yet. It was a long way to wheel herself to the cemetery, and she asked if he would not mind going with her. Maybe…they could talk, on the way over? Even though it might hurt her throat, to suddenly be talking again. But he said he would, and grasped the handles of her chair to start guiding her out of the lab. Maybe on the way over, they could stop and get some flowers so that she could put them on his grave. She was keeping her metal bouquet…but maybe they could buy him some peonies?

The old junker grunted and nodded, and pushed open the door to the outside with his elbow, pulling her chair after him. Wheeling her across the base’s yard and towards the gates, Hog headed for the graveyard. He didn’t know where the exact spot was, but they could find it. They’d always been good at finding him. Mei clung tightly to the box in her lap, looking down at the way the metal glinted and caught the light. It was a very bright day, after all…and maybe she was a little overdressed for this place.

Maybe she even felt a little warm.

She pushed her blanket to the side and faced the sunlight.

#meihem #meirat #junkmei #mei #mei-ling zhou #junkrat #jamison fawkes #roadhog #mako rutledge #death #character death #mourning #fanfiction #overwatch #writing

[thefanficnewbie]

The Unexpected Punk on a Snowy Night - Part Two | Chloe Price x reader

Read pt 1 here 

Summary: Now that you have a guest at home, Christmas surely won’t go as predicted, and that’s a fact. Still, watching a movie with some popcorn should be easy and entertaining enough, right? Right?

Warnings: none - apart from Chloe’s usual cursing

Author’s note: This story is set before the events in BtS.

“Chloe, c’mon! It’s almost ready!” You yelled as you poured soda into two glasses. The ‘pops’ coming from the microwave increased by the second, the familiar smell of salt and butter floating in the kitchen as your stomach roared in expectation.

“Coming!” Chloe’s voice rang a few seconds later, the third time she’d answered the exact thing since the moment she’d gotten under your shower. Not that it bothered you. The teenager had arrived with a shirt damped of beer and a persistent odor of cigarettes, besides being dangerously cold after spending so much time outside without proper clothing. She deserved a good bath.

Only now the popcorn was ready, and you had to wait for her to choose a damned movie on TV. After letting the bowl and cups on the living room side table and adding a few more cushions to the sofa for comfort, you finally let your impatience loose and headed to your suite. You didn’t worry about knocking, intending to go straight towards the bathroom door to hurry up your guest.

“Oh, shit.” You widened your eyes as you stepped into the bedroom, already regretting the decision. A dark flush spread on your cheeks, a wave of nervousness flowed through your body and you forced yourself to look away, teeth biting your lower lip.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

In front of you, stood Chloe Price, frozen by your sudden entrance, halfway through putting on one of your PJ pants, only a black top bra on her upper body. Her surprised face mirrored yours, and the following moments were filled with such an awkward silence that you started to question every choice you’ve ever made in your life.

Chloe was the first to break it. The punk hesitantly cleared her throat and reached out for the t-shirt on the bed, sliding it over her body. At that, you slowly rose your eyes to meet hers, too embarrassed to even think of an acceptable apology.

“I, uh- I forgot to take the clothes to the bathroom with me. Sorry…” She scratched the back of her neck. If it weren’t for your own self-consciousness, you might have noticed the clear blush on her face.

“No, I-” You resisted the urge to turn around and run away to Antarctica “I should’ve knocked, it’s my bad.”

“It’s fine.” Chloe said dismissively “But, um, you said the popcorn was ready?”

“Yes!” You gladly walked out of the room, still recovering from such an awkward situation. The girl followed your lead as you took the bowl and cups and climbed onto the sofa. 

“Geez, I’m starving.” Chloe dove her hand into the popcorn and brought out a fistful to her mouth. You smiled at that, continuing to browse the movies of the cable TV.

“Hm, this needs more salt.” She said in-between chews. “And no way in hell we’re watching Home Alone!” She added as the title popped on the screen. You chuckled and handed her the remote, starting to stand up.

“Wait, what are you doing?” She turned to you with furrowed eyebrows, though using the opportunity to switch channels.

“Uh, getting some more salt?”

“What? No, lemme do it.” The teen grabbed your wrist and pulled you back down.

“It’s ok, really, I-” But she was already up and heading to the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, promise I won’t break anything!” Chloe said with a smirk. You opened your mouth to protest, but decided against it with a resigned sigh, sinking back onto the sofa. The peacefulness lasted a good three seconds before realization hit you.

“Wait, Chloe!” You jumped to your feet, running after her “Careful with the-”

“Fuck!”

Your face fell as you stepped into the kitchen and spotted the punk leaning slightly over the bowl, a panicked expression her face, the shaker still on her hand, and, as you feared, a pile of salt over the popcorn. Just like a small, snowy mountain from Alaska.

Too late.

“Shit, I’m sorry, (Y/N).” She started to apologize, but you shook your head dismissively, surprisingly amused at the situation. The same thing had happened to you a week ago, only with scrambled eggs, instead of popcorn.

“Geez, it’s my bad, I should’ve warned you…” You chuckled, getting closer to have a better look at the accident. “It’s the shaker, guess it isn’t closing tight enough.”

“I noticed.” Her lips curved upward “Man, I totally ruined this.” She hesitantly tried one popcorn out of the edges of the bowl, grimacing. “Unless we want to get a bad case of hypertension.”

You rolled your eyes at her, slightly tilting your head, a smile gracing your features.

“I guess I can fix us something else… Any suggestions?” You raised an eyebrow, also trying to come up with ideas. That was the last popcorn portion you had.

“That depends… What’s on the menu?” Chloe looked at you playfully.

“Well…” You turned around and started to examine the cabinets, listing whatever you found - which honestly wasn’t much, you hadn’t gone to the grocery store in a couple weeks. “Oh, wait, I’ve got some chocolate here.” You stretched your arm to reach the bars, putting them on the table with a satisfied smile. 

“Good, ‘cause all I could find is fruit.” The teen had started to explore your refrigerator, and now placed several packages of strawberries, grapes, and cherries next to the chocolate, along with two pears and bananas.  “This is way too healthy for me, are you a bird or something?” 

“I was supposed to take those to my parent’s house.” You laughed, also slightly disturbed by the amount of fitness food in your kitchen. But Chloe wasn’t paying attention to you anymore, now staring at everything you two had assembled on the table, a hopeful smile on her face.

“Hey… Is there any chance you know how to make fondue?”

“Too much milk.”

“No, it’s not! It’s still dense.” You kept on stirring the mixture and pouring the milk in.

“It’s sauce, it’s supposed to be dense!” Chloe exclaimed exasperated, leaning on the wall beside the stove.

“Not this dense, the recipe said to put in half of the chocolate’s volume in milk.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but you passed the half mark ten minutes ago.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“I told you s-”

“Don’t you dare!” You raised your hands in defeat, stepping back as a very smug Chloe Price took your place in front of the pan, now filled with a sauce as thin as juice.

“Next time, leave it to the pro here, will you?” She teased, earning a frustrated huff from you as you started to wash and cut the pears.

“Shut up.”

“I can’t believe we’re done!” You gleefully walked into the living room, carrying a big place full of neatly arranged fruit slices.

“Not thanks to you.” Chloe joked, following you with a bowl of delicious dark chocolate sauce.

Suddenly, a deep, unmistakable sound rang in the silent room. You instantly looked at your belly, feeling your stomach complain at the emptiness inside of it. Your cheeks warmed up, your eyes closed tight. One more cringy moment added to your vast, vast collection.

One second of awkwardness passed.

“I’ll double that.” The punk suddenly burst out laughing, almost letting the bowl fall to the ground. Seeing that, you quickly put the plate on the couch and rushed towards the girl, placing your hands over hers to try and balance the precious chocolate. The moment you touched, a wave of non-existent electricity ran through your fingers, and you could swear you heard your heart beat ten times faster.

“Close one!” She breathed out, and a smile crept onto your face as you looked from the bowl to her.

“Yeah,” Her eyes were beautiful, and you didn’t know how people managed to not stare at them for hours on end. The still rational side of your mind was kind enough to remind, though, that the eye contact was starting to become creepy and weird.

“So, um, I don’t really feel like movies right now…?” You hesitated, slowly taking your hands off hers. What if she wanted to watch something? Especially after all the work put into that fondue-

“Oh, thank God, me either.” Chloe said, visibly relieved, and another giggle left your lips. “If I had to sit through one more dumb Christmas spirit mumbo jumbo…”

“I feel ya,” You turned around, eyes scanning the room in search of something else to do. “C’mere” You smirk, making your way to the well-closed glass doors of the balcony. The snow still fell over the town, glistening as it covered each and every house, a world of whiteness that seemed to envelop your apartment and bring you to a world of your own. One you deeply wanted to share with Chloe.

The punk raised a confused eyebrow as you motioned for her to sit on the carpet, but complied nonetheless as you went to your bedroom to grab a warm, comfy blanket. Back in the living room, you handed it to her and proceeded to put both the bowl and plate on the floor in front of her. 

Finally, you turned off the lamps - leaving only the colorful Christmas lights to dimly illuminate the darkness -, pressed play on your radio so that it played a CD of soft, instrumental tunes, and happily sat down next to the girl. 

“This is hippie…” The teen commented, smirking, as she helped you wrap the blanket around the two of you. “But I like it.” And you would’ve answered, but at that moment your arms, sides, and legs touched hers. Your muscles tensed up, waves of adrenaline burned through your veins and a dozen butterflies sprouted in your stomach. Your eyes doubled size, and it took you a few moments to regain your normal breathing.

“Well, uh, are we going to eat or what?” You managed to ask, glancing at the red strawberries just waiting to be tasted.

“I thought you’d never ask!” Chloe leaned forward, ignoring the toothpicks and dipping a cherry into the sauce with her fingers, before throwing it into her mouth with a satisfied smile… That slowly turned into a grimace.

“Hothothothothot-” She mumbled with her mouth half open, desperately flapping her hands in the air. Honestly, you didn’t know whether to laugh or help. So you did both.

A minute later, and you two tried to breathe in between the laughter. Chloe with a glass of cold soda in her hand, still taking sips and grumbling about her slightly burnt tongue. You replaying the scene over and over in your head, starting to giggle again every time you thought you’d calmed down.

“Ok, I’m gonna try it now.” You announced as your chuckles died down. You chose a specially beautiful strawberry, letting only the tip of it into the chocolate. You then brought it closer to you with your other hand beneath it, to avoid drips on the floor, blew on it and finally took a careful bit.

“Did you really need to do all that?” Chloe asked, clearly unimpressed at your extra measures.

“Unlike yours, my mouth isn’t on fire now, see?” You gave her a cocky smile. “And this is delicious.” You enjoyed the lasting flavor of chocolate in your thoat.

She rolled her eyes and took in air to shoot back a sassy response, but at that second an unexpected punk rock song started playing, and Chloe frowned as she took out her cellphone.

She pressed the hang up button as soon as she glanced at the screen, but you were able to read the contact’s name, “Mom”, and the picture of the Two Whales Diner waitress, Joyce Price.

The girl grunted, shoving the device back into the pocket of the PJs. You waited for her to say something, but wasn’t exactly surprised when that didn’t happen. Dipping a piece of pear into the chocolate, you asked:

“So, what was that all about?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” She said curtly, picking a grape. 

“Yeah? Well, maybe that’s exactly what you need..” You turned to her, serious for once. A couple seconds passed and Chloe sighed, slowly leaning back until she lied completely on the floor, hands under her head to support it.

“I get it if you really don’t want to, though.” You hesitated.

“No, it’s ok, I- It’s just bullshit, you know?” She said, letting out her irritation.

‘Good’ You thought, ‘she needs to vent.’ You lied on the floor too, turning your head to her side, hands resting on your belly.

“Fucking step-douche and his stupid-ass mustache decided to steal my mom and my Christmas.” You didn’t know much about her personal life, but from the little she had told you previously, that seemed to be her mother’s boyfriend, whom she’d mentioned one or two times, each time with her voice dripping with anger - just like now. 

“That son of a bitch showed up with a turkey and God knows what, saying he’d spend the holidays with us like normal families do. Who the fuck does he think he is? We are not a fucking family! He could go and die frozen on the snow, for all I care! Hell, I myself would ask Jack Frost to fasten the work!”

You simply listened, your lips closed in a thin line and your eyebrows furrowed. You didn’t know if her anger was contagious, but you already resented the man.

“And you know what’s worse?” She kept going “My mom didn’t say a thing! She just let it happen, she was happy with it! She prepared the food like nothing was wrong, like we were all enjoying some quality time and what’s left of her husband wasn’t rotting under the fucking ground.” Her voice cracked.

“I tried to keep my cool, I fucking tried, but then that asshole started to lecture me on the values of family and Christmas, and I couldn’t deal with that bullshit anymore. So I left. I took two beers from the refrigerator, my emergency stash and walked on the street for hours. Until it started snowing, and then I winded up here.” 

Truth to be told, you had no idea how to respond to that. Silence enveloped the both of you for half a minute after she finished talking until you gathered enough words.

“Well, that really sucks.” Chloe turned to you, and you inwardly winced as her eyes begged for some comfort and reassurance. “I hope step-douche eats too much of his goddamn turkey and gets sick. And I hope you have the honor to kick his ass out of your house.”

A ghost of a smile played on her lips.

“I won’t say I understand what’s happening to you because I don’t. But I can imagine, and I can empathize, and I can listen to you the whole night long. I may not be able to offer good advice nor solve all the problems you’ve got, but you’re welcome in my apartment whenever and I’ll be happy to curse that son of a bitch with you.” You smiled, praying those simple words would reach her heart and give her some help, even if just a little bit.

“And, as awful as this Christmas may have started for you, I’m glad it brought you here.” You sat up, but still had your eyes locked on hers “‘Cause I can’t imagine a better way to spend mine.”

“That’s so cheesy.”

“I know. But it’s true, and it helped, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She tried to hid a smile from you but failed.

“Now, because you were so kind to share this with me…” You picked a gorgeous strawberry and dipped it entirely into the sauce. “Have a reward! C’mon, sit up!” 

Chloe complied with an amused smile, not truly seeing what you were doing and looking at you in surprise as you pushed the fruit into her mouth.Then, she actually tasted it and her face brightened.

“Holy shit, this is amazing.”

“I know, right? All thanks to you.” You smirked.

“Damn right it is!”

And the conversation flowed from there. Whatever awkwardness, reluctance or nervousness vanished, and you two spent hours, even after the fruit and chocolate were gone, talking about the randomest of things. School, hobbies, dreams, childhood, movies, music and even anime. 

Laughter echoed in the apartment every five minutes, getting louder and louder until you had to giggle into cushions to avoid disturbing the neighbors. It became a competition of funny stories, each one making your belly muscles hurt from the effort and your eyes squint as tears streamed down your face.

And sooner than you expected, the first ray of sunlight graced the sky, which got gradually lighter as the night kissed you two goodbye, welcoming a chilly and pleasant Christmas morning. 

“Sleepy yet?” Chloe teased, seeing you rub your eyes.

“Aren’t you?”

“Nah, I could stay awake for hours still-” Her speech was betrayed by a sudden yawn, that she awkwardly tried to avoid, earning chuckles from you. “But yeah, sleep doesn’t sound bad, either.” She smiled sheepishly.

So you led her to your bedroom, gave her a brand new toothbrush and closed all the windows and curtains, trying to create a fake “nightly atmosphere”. Against her weak protests, you insisted that she should sleep in your bed with you - it was double, after all. As if you’d let her sleep on the couch.

And now, after such a long night, both of you warm and cozy under a couple blankets, listening to the early birds chirping outside, you couldn’t picture a better moment than that. Minutes passed, the best parts of the past night still playing before your eyes. 

Chloe and you were turned each to a side, back to back, but as sleepiness started to get the best of you, you slowly turned to her side, whispering:

“Chloe? You awake?” 

A few seconds passed without a response, and you concluded she was asleep. With that knowledge, you gathered enough courage to say what had been floating in your head for hours.

“I really like you.” 

Happy for finally saying it out loud, even though knowing she wouldn’t hear you, you closed your eyes and let the tiredness take over you. Just as you were about to drift into sleep though, you felt the bedsheets moving, and then heard Chloe’s drowsy, but amused voice:

“I really like you, too.”

So, this is the end of this two-shot! Hope y’all liked it!

Once again, I’d really appreciate any feedback and/or reblogs! 

Friendly reminder that requests are opened for both male and female characters (romatnic or platonic).

Merry Christmas! :D

#chloe price x reader #chloe price imagines #before the storm #life is strange imagines #fem!reader #lesbian!reader #bisexual!reader #chloe price #life is strange

[toughgirlchallenges]

Cath Pendleton - First Person to swim one mile inside the Antarctic Polar Circle!

On 22nd February 2020, Welsh ice swimmer Cath Pendleton made history by becoming the first person to ever swim an Ice Mile inside the polar Antarctic circle. She swam in Hanusse Bay in latitude of 66:56 South.

  Cath is a single mum to two gorgeous girls and doing exercise has always helped her to manage her mental health. Cath discovered her passion for winter/ice swimming in September 2015, since then Cath has tried to go swimming everyday and she refers to it as her "Reset Button”.

  Cath’s dream is to complete the IISA Ice Sevens Challenge next year and is looking to get back into long distance swimming as-well. 

  Cath is always up for an adventure and enjoys inspiring others to give new things a try. 

  After listening to Cath, she will inspire you to give open water swimming a go!!

  You can listen to Cath on the Tough Girl Podcast. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday at 7am UK time - Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss out. 

  The Tough Girl Podcast is sponsorship and ad free thanks to the monthly financial support of patrons. To find out more about supporting your favourite podcast and becoming a patron please check out www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast. 

  Show notes

Her passion for ice swimming

Growing up as a water baby

Being a natural in the water

Joining the Royal Air Force 

Starting triathlon in her 30s

Having her time to swim

Falling in love with open water swimming

Loving the freedom of swimming and being in the water

A winter swimming gala…

Having a bad back 

Deciding to ditch the wetsuit

Getting addicted to the buzz from open water swimming

How does ice swimming work…

Start in the spring and keep going

How long to stay in the water?

1 minute per degree of water temperature - but it does depend on the person

Never swim alone and make sure you have a good warm up routine for afterwards

Becoming the first welsh woman to swim an ice mile

Struggling to find enough cold places to train in

Needing to have a good team around you

Not being able to have cold showers

Why ice swimming will be with her for life

Swimming in Antarctica 

Ice Sevens Challenge 

Doing a zero ice mile

Deciding to swim the English Channel

Having 18 months to train for the English Channel swim

Paying for the swimming challenges

Being followed by BBC Sports Wales

The challenges of swimming the English Channel

“Thank you, I’m having a nice day” 

Keep your head down and keep swimming

Positive self talk…

Always needing the next goal

Heading off to Antarctica for the big swimming challenge! 

Dealing with the pressure of the swim

Being the first swimmer 

Getting into the water

Dealing with cold water shock

Why the recovery is really hard on the body 

Dealing with the After Drop

Making sure you warm back up properly

Confidence and self belief

Getting to represent Team GB in Ice Swimming

Why you have to train

Follow along with Cath on Social Media

4 more big swims to go!

Feeling frustrated about not being able to plan future challenges because of Covid

Building the swimming pool in the garden

Top tips for getting in the water

  Social Media

  Facebook:  @CathPendleton 

  Instagram:  @swimcathswim 

  Twitter: @swimcathswim

    Check out this episode!

#podcast #women #sports #health #motivation #challenges #change #adventure #active #wellness #explore #grow #support #encourage #running #swimming #triathlon #exercise #weights

[tessavirtueandmoir]

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?

Daniel aka one of the Finnish guys cause I didn’t want to get lost in the club (I also hate club so it was like a double whammy)

2. Are you outgoing or shy?

Is outgoingly shy a thing? I used to be super shy and still am around guys, but im definitely more outgoing in everyday life than I used to be

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?

MY BESTFRIEND WHO FREAKING FLEW TO ENGLAND THE DAY I CAME HOME AND I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO SEE HER YET.

4. Are you easy to get along with?

Depends on who you ask, I guess.

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

More likely than not.

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

Blond hair, blue eyes… the eye colour doesnt really matter tbh but that seems to be the trend. Not douchey.

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?

Uhh.. that’s wishful thinking.

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

Those dang Finnish boys #lifecrisis

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?

Yes.

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

Probs one of those Finnish boys

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?

I sent an article to my mom about how Canada was gonna be colder than Antarctica and mars. lmao I love this freaking country.

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

Freedom 90 - Pitch Perfect Cast

Saturday Night - Whigfield

New Year’s Day - TSwift

New Rules - Dua Lipa

Hopeless Romantic - Scott Middough

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

Yeah dude point me to a girl who doesn’t

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

Lmao no not really

15. What good thing happened this summer?

I turned 20 and apparently had a life resolution. Ditch those crappy people y’all, they aint worth your time

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

Debatable…

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

Don’t even remember who my first crush was so that’s probably a no.

19. Do you like bubble baths?

Yo. My kryptonite. My res only had showers for the 4 months I was there and I legit cried when I say my bathtub so.

20. Do you like your neighbors?

As long as I can’t hear them, I don’t really care

21. What are you bad habits?

Getting super snippy when I’m hungry. Um… constantly being on my phone? Idk what else. Being blunt?

22. Where would you like to travel?

I just want to go back to England at this point

23. Do you have trust issues?

hahahah AHAHAHAHAHHA bye

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

the fact I didnt wake up until like mid afternoon in the uk… now literally nothing

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

My stomach? Or maybe my arms

26. What do you do when you wake up?

Check my phone notifs

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?

Maybe a tad darker because im literally pale af but otherwise no

28. Who are you most comfortable around?

my best friends aka girls

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?

No? One of my ex’s once told one of my friends to check on me though cause he was worried.. it was strange.

30. Do you ever want to get married?

Also, debatable. I’m loving my alone life right now.

31. Is your hair long enough for a pony tail?

If it wasn’t I would literally cry so. Every time I get it cut we make sure it goes into a pony because of dance and stuff.

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

Anna Kendrick and is Tessa Virtue a celebrity? I think she is. Wow… that is quite the threesome honestly. Gotta have different life experiences I suppose.

33. Spell your name with your chin.

grasysdoihj

34. Do you play sports? What sports?

Dance and soccer. dance is a sport dont argue with me

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

TV I guess. But either option would be pretty lame.

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

In my 20 years, yeah probably

37. What do you say during awkward silences?

Nothing, I usually check my phone or something

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

Not an inconsiderate douchebag. And someone that lives in the same country as me.

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?

NEWLOOK, River Island, ASOS, RW and Co, Dynamite (sometimes the Bay)

40. What do you want to do after high school?

Be a lawyer.

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

Nah man.

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?

I’m fucking mad and u best walk away before I slit you in half. Or I’m tired. Or im not comfortable with the situation

43. Do you smile at strangers?

I barely even look up so no

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

Bottom of the ocean

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

That maybe it’ll be cold enough for me to take a bath at some point… I have a lame Canadian life. And I also don’t wanna be a university drop out so there’s also that.

46. What are you paranoid about?

People following me… like not on social media. Just like in general

47. Have you ever been high?

Nope

48. Have you ever been drunk?

Potentially? Idk man, probably not

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?

Oh yeah. But I told my friends about it so does that really count?

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

Navy

51. Ever wished you were someone else?

Everyone wishes they were T Virtue so.

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

I wish I could make myself want to go to the gym an exercise. But yet, here I am

53. Favourite makeup brand?

Anastasia Beverley Hills/Tarte/Fenty Beauty

54. Favourite store?

Did I not already answer this?

55. Favourite blog?

Mine. Shameless self promo

https://graysonwadsworth2.wixsite.com/hayitsgray

56. Favourite colour?

Grey/Teal/Burgundy

57. Favourite food?

G A R L I C B R E A D

58. Last thing you ate?

I’m about to eat a huge ass bowl of oatmeal

59. First thing you ate this morning?

This huge ass bowl of oatmeal. It’s 9:25 PM in case y’all were wondering.

60. Ever won a competition? For what?

Many. For dance.

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?

No, I’m an angel. Just kidding.

62. Been arrested? For what?

Nope.

63. Ever been in love?

Yep.

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

Happened on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and I stupidly decided to play a game where we were trying to get our faces as close as possible without kissing… I was dumb okay lmao.

65. Are you hungry right now?

Mildly.

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

I talk to my Tumblr friends more than my real friends

67. Facebook or Twitter?

Twitter

68. Twitter or Tumblr?

Why is instagram not a choice. Tumblr I guess.

69. Are you watching tv right now?

I’m watching the movie what not to expect when you’re expecting

70. Names of your bestfriends?

Harneet, Keira, Emmy, Katerina, Andy, Meghan x 2, Madi, Sydney, Emily, Lauren, Cassidy… wow… that’s so many

71. Craving something? What?

Not to be sick.

72. What colour are your towels?

My personal towels are teal. But we have brown, black. and grey ones in the bathroom too.

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

there’s 6 on my bed right now

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?

does one laying at the foot of the bed count cause otherwise no

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

I legitimately cleaned out my entire closet this week and found my ENTIRE collection of webkinz so if we’re gonna count those probs like 300 lmao

75. Favourite animal?

Elephant

76. What colour is your underwear?

Pink

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?

Vanilla

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

Cookie Dough OR French crisp from Laura Secord

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?

Grey

80. What colour pants?

Grey, white and pink

81. Favourite tv show?

GREYS ANATOMY

82. Favourite movie?

Moulin Rouge or Angels and Demons

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

Mean girls who are you

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

Jump Street

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

Janice

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

Dory or Crush

87. First person you talked to today?

I honestly have no idea, probably meg though… or I definitely snapchatted people

88. Last person you talked to today?

Meg

89. Name a person you hate?

Well, that would be mean.

90. Name a person you love?

My British bestie, honestly, I don’t know why I love her so much. It’s strange. My cat is the next backup.

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?

No? Violence is never the answer. Passive aggressiveness is

92. In a fight with someone?

Not that I know of

93. How many sweatpants do you have?

All of my sweats are basically roots, and I honestly have too many

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

TOO MANY

95. Last movie you watched?

Pitch Perfect 2

96. Favourite actress?

Anna Kendrick OR Reese Witherspoon

97. Favourite actor?

I am currently blanking on male actors at the moment. Let’s just go with Ryan Reynolds cause he’s funny af and married to Blake so

98. Do you tan a lot?

I burn a lot.

99. Have any pets?

A really bitchy cat

100. How are you feeling?

Sick #iloveairplanes

101. Do you type fast?

Yes, unnaturally fast. I can also type without looking at the keys which weirds a lot of people out.

102. Do you regret anything from your past?

Doesn’t everyone? It wasn’t stuff that I did myself though

103. Can you spell well?

Usually yes, lately no. I need to go back to school obviously

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

My grandma

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

Yep

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

Accidentally on purpose yes

107. Have you ever been on a horse?

Yes, and I got bucked off and now refuse to ride another horse

108. What should you be doing?

Writing an essay that’s due on Friday

109. Is something irritating you right now?

The fact that I can’t fall asleep, but that’s the norm so

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?

Only when they broke my heartttttt

111. Do you have trust issues?

I swear to god I’ve already answered this one

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

My best british friend. She legit left me crying in the middle of the club

113. What was your childhood nickname?

Gray gray. Or Gray goose.

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

Yes

115. Do you play the Wii?

I used to. My console is in my closet now though

116. Are you listening to music right now?

Yes, always.

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

MA FAVE. It’s the only soup I eat.

118. Do you like Chinese food?

YES. MY OTHER FAVE.

119. Favourite book?

13 Reasons Why, or Atonement. Soon to be: Scrappy Little Nobody

120. Are you afraid of the dark?

No.

121. Are you mean?

I am blunt. Sometimes those two can get confused

122. Is cheating ever okay?

No, y’all are scum bye

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?

Uh… if my white shoes get dirty I clean them so they’re white again

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

No, but I believe in crushes at first sight #themodel

125. Do you believe in true love?

I mean.. maybe.

126. Are you currently bored?

Yes, hence why I’m answering all these questions

127. What makes you happy?

My friends

128. Would you change your name?

I currently am, but not my first name.

129. What your zodiac sign?

Cancer the crabbbbbb

130. Do you like subway?

Uh…. sometimes. But it’s not my go to

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

Yikes, this has legit happened to me and I had to dip so fast im not even lying

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

Definitely one of those Finnish boys

133. Favourite lyrics right now?

Take back your picture in a frame

OR

sometimes the clothes do not make the man

134. Can you count to one million?

Who would ever try that? It would take forever.

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

When I told all my profs I couldn’t write my midterm cause I had a concussion and I went to the Dominican instead #rebel

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

Closed

137. How tall are you?

5′ 3″

138. Curly or Straight hair?

Straight hair that is curled

139. Brunette or Blonde?

Blonde

140. Summer or Winter?

Neither, I hate both. But if I had to choose, summer

141. Night or Day?

Night

142. Favourite month?

May

143. Are you a vegetarian?

No, I’d literally die because I hate vegetables

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

milk

145. Tea or Coffee?

T E A

146. Was today a good day?

Tbh I laid in bed all day so that’s pretty ideal

147. Mars or Snickers?

Mars

148. What’s your favourite quote?

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind - Dr. Suess (how philosophical wow)

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

Nope

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

The young team were still getting most of their ice time in Ilderton and were preparing for the Western Ontario sectionals in the juvenile category, but in late autumn of 1998, just a week before sectionals, Scott broke his right arm playing flag football. That is the longest sentence ever wow.

#personal #I cant believe I was so bored I answered 150 questions about myself #Jesus murphy