#at midnight i went out and got alcohol from a gas station

[specterllaw]

F@cking the boss - Harvey x Reader Part 2/2

Summary: after weeks of being sexual with Harvey he catches you trying to get with a guy after he flirts with thousands of females, Harvey immediately reminds y/n who she belongs to.

Warning: S M U T.

It had been three amazing weeks of being with Harvey Specter, the bizarre surprises, the midnight sex, the office sex, everything about it was amazing, but something was bothering you. Harvey never called you his girlfriend, never said it was exclusive, so you went out to the club with Lisa, someone you met on the firm, you ended up getting a little too drunk and had what you thought was an amazing idea at the time. You called Harvey's driver to bring you home, you attempted to bring a guy home with you but the driver refused, so you drunkingly apologized and flopped in the seat.

You woke up on your couch, your head was pounding, you had no idea how you got inside from the driver's car and you still felt tipsy and why was all of the lights off except for one? and why were there legs hanging off the chair in the corner? Sitting up straight you tried to blink the drowsiness and alcohol away as you stared at the person in the corner "Harvey?" You questioned as you noticed his bag and suit jacket laying on the counter. "My driver called." He huffed "How did I get inside?" You asked groaning as he flipped on the living room light "I was the one who picked you up." He stated "You were too drunk to realize and so was Lisa. I'm disappointed in you both. and you trying to take home a gas station clerk? really?" He asked, you felt like every defendant you heard him question on the stand in his trials. "I..You!..In my defense Harvey you've never stated what we were! You always flirt with girls so I thought it was a casual boss and receptionist deal" You huffed crossing your arms "Cut the bullshit Y/n" He said sharply standing up, you looked up at him raising your eyebrows "You have commitment problems, Harvey" You challenged, it was dangerous when you two argued, it either ended up in Jessica being mediator to make you two get along or it ended in rough make-up sex where Harvey refuses to say he's wrong, you both were hard headed and stubborn and both fought to get whatever you wanted.

"Stand up" He ordered, you stood your ground, not giving in "You kneel, Harvey" You ordered back, he glared, narrowing his eyes towards you, you were both glaring before finally Harvey took a large stride forward grabbing your top pulling you to your feet "You wanna be with me? Let's do it. You wanna ride my dick? Go right ahead princess. You wanna make this a real thing? let's do it" He said pulling you closer before resting his hands on your hips. You looked at him nodding before jumping up, wrapping your legs around his waist, his hands immediately coming up to rest on your ass. You leaned forward kissing his neck while he walked forward until he hit the closest wall like thing near you both, the large windows of your apartment that were only giving you privacy by the shitty curtains that didn't even reach the bottom of the curtains. As your back hit the wall you let your head fall back, you could feel his hot breath on your neck as he slowly moved one hand to your hair to tug lightly "Do you want this, Princess?" He whispered, you nodded whimpering and mentally crumbling because of the nickname. "Good. Because I've had a feeling I need to show you who's mine" He grunted as he pulled your hair more causing you to look fully up, You gasped as all of a sudden you felt him press himself against you while kissing your neck and squeezing and twisting your nipple. As fast as it started though, it was just as fast stopping, Harvey watched as you basically held onto his shoulders to keep yourself from sinking to your knees in desperation. "See? See how fast I can take this all away?" He grunted before holding your hips pulling you towards your room pushing you onto the bed, slowly pulling off your dress and coat, you smirk at him thinking he's going to continue whining and groaning as you saw him start to put on your sleep shorts and tanktop, only now do you take in his bed head, his nightpants and t-shirt that was lazily thrown on, and the time, three-twenty-six AM. Harvey woke up and came and got you? Then stayed? All when he has a deposition tomorrow morning at nine AM, Maybe he did love you.

You woke up again at Six that morning to Harvey climbing out of bed. "Harv?.." You whispered watching as he tiredly turned around to look at you, resting a hand on your cheek "hmm?" he hummed softly in curiosity "I love you" you whispered "I love you too" He whispered tiredly kissing your forehead before going to take a shower. You took the to plan.

The office was closed, everybody but a couple people left a bit ago and you took your opportunity to hide under Harvey’s desk, waiting for him. It only took a couple of minutes before you saw him take a seat and scoot forward, you slowly started undoing his belt. “Y/n. What’re you doing? You’re not suppose to be here I gave you the day off” he questioned holding a hand over one of yours, stroking his thumb over the top of your hand “came to thank you for taking care of me..for waking up and doing all of that for me..and for loving me” You whispered looking up at him as he scooted back to see you.

“Oh really?” He asked “who says I love you?” He questioned teasingly “shut up, jerk, you said so this morning” you grumbled smacking his hand playfully “I’m kidding, I love you” he smiled leaning down to peck your lips “go ahead my princess, but don’t get caught”

You smirked as he scooted his chair forward again helping you undo his slacks and belt, you smiled leaning in to give a playful bite to his thigh, he grabbed your hair tugging a bit “gentle” he demanded taking his suit jacket and vest off, leaving him in his shirt, tie, and slacks, his dick being pulled out between his boxers and slacks. You took your time, taking in the sight before licking your hand a couple of times, wrapping it around his dick and starting to motion your hand up and down. You changed your pace, from fast to slower, you were listening to Harvey’s breathing, how it’d pick up and relax. “Get to work, slut.” He grunted growing frustrated with your half-ass teasing, you smiled peeking up at him through the small crack between the desk and his torso, he had a rough glare directed towards you. He raised his eyebrows as you gave him a swift nod, allowing him to grab your hair and lower your head to where you were taking his dick in your mouth. You immediately took over swallowing around him as you moved your head up and down, he kept a hold on your hair trying to focus on keeping a straight face as the late night workers passed by.

You could feel yourself getting wet in your thong but you didn’t really care at the moment, you slowly brought your tongue up the shaft and around his tip before Harvey pushed your head down farther making you take his dick down your throat. You whimpered a bit as you swallowed around him hearing the door open and close “hey Harvey, I’ve got those Briefing done for you a day early I’ve also gotta talk to you about a case” Mike said standing in the middle of the office “thank you mike. Leave it on my desk and we can talk tomorrow” Harvey demanded dismissing him “but I really think these need to be handled tonight” he protested “Ross! Go home! Get rest!” Harvey snapped watching the kid rush out towards his office then the elevators.

Harvey tugged your hair pulling you off before scooting back pulling you up to sit on his lap, you could feel his erection between your legs, and just by the look he was giving you, you knew you were about to have to be carried home. “Take em off.” He whispered in your eye watching you push your thong off out from under your skirt, he helped you position yourself over his dick and lap before you slowly lowered yourself feeling his dick enter you and stretch you out to his size and liking. “I had to wake up at one in the fucking morning” he grunted as he thrusted up against your hips, you immediately jerked forward feeling his tip hit your cervix as you dug your nails into his back “come pick up your drunk ass. Had to run off a guy you were trying to let fuck you.” He growled thrusting his hips more often forcing you to bite his shoulder to stay quiet. “Then deal with having to see you in the hottest fucking lingerie I’ve ever seen on your amazing body, and yet the only thing I could think of- god Damnit it” he huffed before lifting you up with ease carrying you to his couch before laying you down pushing his dick back inside of your pussy. You whimpered wrapping your legs around his waist “-was you wearing it for some other guy. Whenever you belong to me. You’re my fucking slut. Only mine” he grunted starting to fuck you a lot harder, wrapping his hand around your throat squeezing lightly. You whined tightening your legs around him as he took his tie off shoving it into your mouth to keep quiet “now be quiet while daddy fucks your brains out and reminds you that you’re mine.” He whispered to you before using his other hand to start rubbing your clit, your back arched immediately as you turned your head to the side, between his finger work and fucking you it was too much. He was too much. He was too good. “Fuck princess. Good girl, you’re such a good slut for me” he huffed in your ear as he sped up his thrusts. You whimpered attempting to close your legs whenever you heard the elevator ding, meaning someone was just a couple feet from Harvey’s office, he smirked, and you could swear you saw a devious glint in his eye. He pressed his hips further into you making your back arch and you gasp. He slowed his pace making you try and push your hips back to feel him fill you up again but he stayed before grabbing your hips pulling you up making you sit on his lap to ride him. “Ride my cock, slut.” He demanded “you want me to know you’re sorry for trying to fuck someone else? Ride me until I say we’re done.” He demanded watching you bite your lip and nod “such a desperate slut” Harvey growled using his thumb to slowly go over your clit as you slowly rolled your hips making both you and Harvey moan. You immediately started to bounce your hips after that, loving the feeling of him holding your hips and directing your moves as you rode his cock. “F-fuck Harvey” you tried to groan through his tie, he ripped it out of your mouth as you pulled his torso closer, never failing the motion of your hips as he started kissing your neck and exposed cleavage. “My desperate Slut. Nobody can fuck you like this and I’m gonna make sure you know.” He grunted in your ear, you whined tightening around him making him halt his movements as he started to cum inside of you making you whine and moan moving your hips, Harvey quick to keep your hips still as he finished “Pleaaaase daddy” you whined as he slowly pulled out crawling down between your legs.

Harvey gave your Clit a solid lick making your hips jolt and your hands get entangled in his hair. You moaned and thrived around as he started to show no mercy against you or your pussy. By the fifth time you came your legs were shaking like crazy and you had tears going down your cheeks from pleasure. You watched as he slowly leaned up wiping his mouth with his thumb before popping it in his mouth sucking any flavor left off of his thumb. You whimpered watching him before he slowly pulled your thong back on your body, he fixed himself back into his slacks before lifting you up ready to help you out to the car “that’s just go one, princess..we’re going again when we get home” he whispered in your ear making you squeeze your legs together in anticipation and whine holding his hair tightly in your hands.

#harvey specter #harvey specter x reader #Harvey suits #suits #suits usa #suits netflix #mike ross #Harvey specter smut

[rose-riot-johnson]

ROSE! Can I get a drunk Shinsou x AFAB reader on New Year's they're celebrating together? Explicit or not is fine!

Kissing is good (:

Ofcourse, Aevyn😃👍I think this is the 1st fanfic I have written pertaining celebrating New Year's in general, however I'm definitely not stranger to writing drunk characters and the drunk reader, so having a drunk Shinsou fanfic would definitely sound fun😁👍 If it's fine with you I definitely will have both Shinsou and the reader drunk😃👍With the reader drinking alcohol, I will definitely write it as "alcohol beverage(s) of reader's choice", to let you know🍾🍸

🍾🍸Your Happy New Year Shinsou🍸🍾((Adult) Hitoshi Shinsou x Afab (assigned female at birth) x reader)

Genres: Drunken Fluff, New Year's Fluff, and Depending on reader's imagination type of genre (Warning +18⚠️: Alcohol Use, Both of the character and the reader getting drunk, and depending on the reader's imagination)

After an up and down year that's not really a great year, both you and Shinsou decided to spend New Year's together, inside the home both you and Shinsou share together. The both of you decided to pay for his hard alcoholic drinks and your alcoholic drinks together earlier that day, so you and Shinsou could drink some alcohol together later that night. Once you turned on the TV (wheather it's to watch the ball drop, or fireworks, or some (singers, bands, groups, etc...) that you and/or Shinsou are fans of, and/or other possible reasons to watch the New Year's special on live TV).

Before you turned on the TV, Shinsou was already drunk from most of the bottles of alcohol he has drank. You also were starting to feel tipsy from drinking plenty of (alcoholic beverage(s) of reader's choice), as you and Shinsou just found out at the gas closet to where both you and Shinsou live together in about free hot beverage of any size and will stay free until midnight, through a commercial on the TV you were watching with Shinsou. Shinsou then asked, "May we please go to the gas station for the free hot beverages that will be free until midnight?". You then told him "yes", considering you wanted to have the free hot beverage, too.

Drunken Shinsou carried you to the gas station, so the both of you can grab your free hot beverage and the largest size cups, as possible, too. Once the both of you got the free hot beverages the both of you wanted, the both of you walked home together, while drinking the hot beverages from the cups that are the largest size cups, as possible. You just weren't sure how he was able to carry you on the way down and be able to walk while drinking the hot beverage he has without struggling, especially while he's drunk.

Once the both of you got home, you and Shinsou already chugged the hot beverages the both of you were drinking to the point that both of the largest size cups became empty by the time the both of you got home. Shinsou got back on the couch and continued to drink his hard alcoholic beverages, while you tried to chug on some more bottles of (alcoholic beverage(s) of reader's choice) to try to keep up with Shinsou with getting yourself wasted on booze. After you went on the couch with Shinsou, the both of you continued to drink your own bottles of alcoholic beverages while Shinsou holds you, as the both of you continue to keep your eyes on the TV.

When the countdown started, you are already starting to feel wasted, as you and Shinsou finished the last bottles the both of you had in your hands. Once the countdown reached zero, the both of you have been kissing eachother for a few minutes straight and having tongues in eachother's mouths. At this point, all the both of you could think about was making out with eachother (and anything else up the the reader's imagination), after the both of you made it to a new year.

The both of you stopped making out before the both of you started talkin about you New Year's resolutions. "My New Year's resolution is (up to reader's imagination what the reader' New Year's resolution is). Now what's your New Year's resolution, babe?", you said to Shinsou. He was very impressed to hear what you have for your New Year's resolution, as he then replied, "Honestly, I'm not into New Year's resolutions, however if I have to choose it would be to take care of my sexy love more, than ever... Which my sexy love is you ofcourse... The reason why I say this, is because aside from keep improving myself as a pro hero, I always want to makesure our relationship between us keeps getting stronger and you're always tooken cared of and I want to spoil you more and more eachday, (Afab reader name)...". You actually found his answer for you very adorable.

Once the both of you finally snuggling together (you on top and Shinsou on the bottom), the both of you started kissing eachother the way the both of you were earlier (up to reader's imagination for whatever happens after reader and Shinsou started kissing together the way the reader and Shinsou both were). After you and Shinsou finished kissing (and anything else that happened up to reader's imagination that happened in the previous sentence), the both of you finally fell asleep into an amazing, deep slumber, with the TV is still on.

🍸🍾The End🍾🍸

I hope you enjoyed this New Year's drunken Shinsou fanfic my Tumblr Peeps😁👍As for you @hitoshisbf I hope I written this fanfic well and I figured I'd leave up to the reader's imagination with atleast a couple parts, if not a few, including 1 of the genres and part of the warning (or 1 of the warnings), since I'm trying figure out genres with this requested fanfic😃👍As for the hot beverages part, I wanted write a little extra for the New Year's fanfic, even if the getting the hot beverages part(s) was mostly short and not exactly specific😅I'm not sure if I completed this requested fanfic a little late, I still hope you enjoyed the fanfic Aevyn🍾🍸😁👍

#rose riot writings #fanfic written by rose riot johnson #rose riot johnson #request answered by rose riot johnson #rose riot answers #hitoshi shinso x reader #drunk Shinsou x Afab reader #drunken fluff #up to reader's imagination genre #new years fluff #hitoshi shinsō #shinsou x y/n #shinsou x you #shinsou x reader #new year's fluff #happy new year #hitoshi shinso imagine #shinsou hitoshi #hitoshi shinsou #shinsou #bnha shinsou #hitoshi shinso x y/n

[rosewantstowrite]

Long Forgotten memories

Chapter one: funeral run

A/n: So this story won’t be a x reader, it’s going to be a female oc x five. I haven’t written one of these stories in a long while, so please bear with me but I had an idea for this story and it was from my old rp muse from quotev so I decided to write a story about it, I don’t know how many parts there will be but I’m going to do at least three parts. If this isn’t what you like then move on please, oh and this'll have Klaus as a drug type of deal for the reader. Where the reader smoke, does weed, and drink and have sex with Klaus and goes back to that way with him after three months since that when the feelings of being shattered would return. The reader likes Klaus but they’re still in love with Five. This will take place in season one so I won’t be referring Viktor as Viktor it’ll be Vayna until furthermore I think that’s it.

Paring: Five Hargreeves x female oc

Warning: mention of sex, light sex scene (they get cockblock like all in my other books lol) , mention of drugs, some smoking of cigarettes, drinking.

On October 1st, 1989, 43 babies were born but the mothers weren’t pregnant the beginning of the day, but they give birth, and Rosaline Kwon was one of the babies, but her parents didn’t give her up when a stranger offered them money, so she was grew up as normal as she could because when her powers started to show she was punished for using them, but as she grew older she would use them, her parents moved right next door to the Academy, that’s how she met her best friend at the time Fiv, she would sneak out and go over there, and it seem like everything was fine until Reginald noticed and said if she didn’t train with his kids he would kick her off of his land, so she would go over there and train or play with the kids. She grew very close with Five and became good friends with Klaus.

Reginald would sometime help her with her powers, she learn to make shields, weapons and used her powers to turn liquid into shapes, she was about to learn how to change her body older or younger when one day Five blinked into her room, telling her about how he got into an argument with Reginald about time traveling and saying how he was ready to do it. She tried to convince him not to go, but he got angrier and blinked away and the next day when Rosaline had come to visit, Vayna said that Five didn’t return home, making Rosalina’s world turn upside down and shattered her heart. She ran home and her parents asked what happened and she told them.

She started to limit her time with the Hargreeves, but Klaus wasn’t taking it so he would sneak into her bedroom and keep her company. It started out innocent at first watching movies, cuddling, drinking hot chocolate, but one difficult night where Rosaline’s parents went to a date night which means they wouldn’t be home until midnight and it was eight pm, so there she was, sobbing over Five, unbeknownst to her, Klaus climb up to the window like normal and saw her like that he got out the window before going to the gas station down the road and when he return to her room, she was in the corner with her head in her knees, he tapped on the window considering it was locked, she open the window to let him in, the alcohol he bought was whiskey, and they drink until they were drunk. Well more like Rosaline was drunk and Klaus was buzzing, but he was high so he wasn’t in a headspace not to touch her, and she wasn’t in the mindset to stop him, next thing she knew she was naked and was being eaten out by Klaus, it was happening so quickly because next thing she knew she was underneath him with him in her, causing lewds noises to escape her throat, than she was coming undone, she had came all over his member and that’s how their little hangs out become a drinking session, smoking weed, smoking cigarettes and sex, that how their one close friendship become a ritual to make her forget about Five for periods of three months, that how it happen, how they come to an agreement to do this when she needed the numbing session, Klaus would repeat the session of numbing her.

Today was like any other day, Rosaline was sitting in her apartment rewatching Black Summer when she got a text from Klaus about Reginald’s death and that everyone would be there and it’d be nice if she was there, considering she used to be part of the family when she was always there. So deciding to go, she put on a sweetheart line black strapless shirt, with a black leather jacket, a black choker, her make up a neutral look, her hair up in a braid, her earrings has roses with crosses hanging down from the roses, black rip skinny jeans with rhinestones in between the ripped parts, and black combat boots, she grabbed her black cross body purse, Rosaline grabbed her keys and walked out of her apartment, Rosaline walked down the street and stopped at the flower shop, Rosaline gnawed on her bottom lip that held her lip ring, should she buy flowers? Deciding against it she kept walking towards the Academy, she saw the donut diner they used to hang out, so she got everyone’s favorites donuts and drinks, she paid and walked out of the diner as she carefully walked towards the Academy again as to not drop anything, once she got to the gates that was in front of the Academy, she set down the food and open it before grabbing everything before kicking the door softly, and within a minute she was greeted with Pogo the chimpanzee butler.

“Oh, miss Rosaline, we weren’t expecting you, but it’s good to see you again, come on in, everyone's in the living room.” He said and Rosaline walked into the mansion, she saw that’s nothing had change, she looked around until she heard yelling from the living room, she walked in to see Luther and Diego screaming, she arched a brow, clearing her throat but seeing that it’s doesn’t mattered, she look at Klaus that he had cup of drink, she made the water float before smacking Luther in the face before doing the same thing to Diego. When they looked around to see what happened, seeing it as a bourbon, but Klaus was away from them made them turn towards the entrance of the living room. “Rosa!” Klaus got up and ran to her picking her up and twirling around her. She groaned as she was still off of the floor, she heard his laughter before she managed to get freed from him and looked at everyone who gave her a smile beside those two guys who had been hit by alcohol. She took a seat by Allison and Vayna. She listened to everything before rolling her eyes and crossed her arms. “Luther, you’re being more ridiculous than normal. No one here would kill Reginald, you’re out of your mind.” Rosaline said but Luther shook his head. “But someone took the eye piece that he always wears.” He said and Diego snorted. “It’s worthless.” He said, causing Luther to go on about exactly that someone had to kill him.

“I’m leaving to find something in Five’s room to steal.” Rosaline said and left as everyone started to leave to go wherever they wanted to go in the house, truthfully Rosaline had only gone to Five’s room to climb her way up to the roof, but stopped at his closet and grabbed one of his blazers, normally she avoid anything of his, but it was cold out and the feeling of missing him hit her hard, she climbed up and put the blazer on and let his minty scent take over her senses, she started to fall back into the depression so she called Klaus which he instantly picked up.

“Hey hun? Why are you crying—? Shit! Hey hey, I’m coming to you, where are you?” His voice went from loud to soft and worried. She felt the tears threatening to come falling down. She blew out the air in her lungs. “I’m on the roof, hurry, I don’t think I can survive any longer. I’m stupid, but I grabbed his blazer, it smells like him, I didn’t think it’d brought back these feelings.” She cried out quietly and she heard shuffling on his end, she started to silently sob but he knew her too well. “Hey, don’t cry, you said the roof right? Did you go through his window?” Her drug asked and she sob out a ”yes,” and within ten minutes there was the drug addict wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in. Before releasing her and removing Five’s blazer before pulling her into his lap and pulling her close to his body to let his body heat warm her up. She looked up at him and her eyes were shining with brokenness. She chewed on her bottom lip but Klaus pulled her lips from her mouth with his thumb and leaned in only meters away asking to help her forget. She leaned in and they both connected their lips together, she tangled her hands in his hair and pressed her body against him. He picked her up and moved away from the ledge and laid them down on the ground that was away from the ledge, he sat up making her sit up in his lap, he shrugged off his coat and Rosaline did the same. Klaus looked at her shirt with a smirk and traced the top of her breasts. “It’s like you did this all for me, knowing you’d need me to forget.” He teased as he pulled her shirt off, he undo her bra and made a neat clothes pile, she shivered at the coldness. She took his shirt off and began to kiss the nape of his neck as she began to grind against him, her juices beginning to spread between her legs. She stopped before taking her jeans down and underwear off, she undo his belt and put her hand in his pants to reveal his member as she was about to lower herself down there was a loud boom and a sudden blue flash.

Klaus quickly helped her get dressed and got himself dressed, they raced down to the courtyard where everyone else was. She glare at the portal, she was suspicious of who this was, there was only one person who could do it, and she was just wearing his blazer before she was about to get her drug, Klaus come running out with a fire extinguisher and tried to spray the portal but it didn’t do anything so he threw it. But then there was an old male trying to push himself out but it started to change into the boy she hated but secretly still loves. Everyone gathered around and then the person fell and landed on the ground. Everyone stared at the person and she felt all those emotions on the door. Hatred, betrayed, depression, anger, loneliness. She chewed on her lip ring and watched as he stood up and her suspicion was correct. It’s Five Hargreeves that created that. “Is it just me or do I see little five?” Klaus broke her train of thought and gripped Klaus’s hand as he squeezed it comfortingly. She stared at him as he looked down, all he said was; “Shit.” She knew this is going to be a long day.

#elliot page #emmy raver lampman #robert sheehan #tom hopper #aidan gallagher #david castenada #justin h min #allison hargreeves #ben hargreeves #diego hargreeves #five hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luther hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #five hargreaves x reader #aidan gallagher x reader

[desicroft02]

Depressed (TW)- JJ Maybank x Fem Reader

Before I write this, it is going to be very detailed about things that are going on in my life right now, and I'm going to be relating Covid with the show, because that's where a lot of my current issues come from.. It will start off by me ranting about things happening using "I" and my name, and then it will transition into an actual imagine and JJ being there for me (but it'll be Y/N) now if that makes sense. This was really just a way for me to get things off my chest, but writing these has helped me escape reality that's why I am doing this. This is going to be upsetting to read, so please if you can't handle it don't read it. The whole thing is literally a giant trigger warning. The TW for this are anxiety, depression, self harm, alcoholism, and miscarriage

Fourteen deaths. Fourteen deaths I've had between family and friends this year. Fucking COVID-19 ruined everything. Aunts, uncles, cousins, a second father figure, and my brother in law. On top of it, my dad was thrown into jail days before my Thanksgiving. My dad who I was finally connecting with, finally spending time with. He was caught one too many times with unregistered vehicles, DUIs, carrying weed, and not having a license. About 2 1/2 months ago on his birthday, he went to the bar and got drunk and crashed into a gas station sign and ripped it out of the concrete.

He had a court date, but one night past midnight a police officer knocked on the door asking where he was, and my mom said he wasn't home. They had come with a warrant for his arrest regarding the court dates he had missed. He was going to turn himself in the day after we had our early Thanksgiving (we always do it before so family can go to other families houses). He was moving his car around to the back of the house that Sunday, so family could park in the front. The cops just happened to be driving down the road. He was also drinking that morning, a beer in his cup holder. My mom and aunt screamed at them to wait and that we were having our whole family over today. (Mind you I was at work for 5:30AM) and I didn't find this out until I had gotten home around 12.

I was torn apart. I had gotten home and my mom said "Desiree. We need to tell you something, put  your things down. The cops came by today and took your father." Tears rolled down my cheeks and I looked over at the coffee I made him with Dad❤️ drawn on it. I started hyperventilating, struggling to breathe. I then went on with my day pushing myself away from the family at the party. Fast forward to not even 3 weeks later. My older sisters fiancée died from Covid at 32 years old. The worst part? They are expecting a child in April. I wanted to be there for her but she's already terrified of Covid, and now even more. Out of all my siblings she was going to be the first to have a child.

My first time being an aunt and having a nephew. And I can't even be there for her. 2 ish weeks later is the funeral, which I go to. I walked in and there was pictures and collages of him and everyone he knew. The second picture shown when you walked in is a huge picture of him and my sister. I couldn't breathe and I started sobbing hysterically, feeling the room cave in as I tried walking outside. Once I calmed down I went and talked to my sister who was broken down and barely talking. I went to hug her but due to Covid she said "please just stay away." After awhile of talking, I walked over to his urn. I told him thank you for being such a good man to her, and that he would've been a great father. "I'll be there for them as much as I can." I had said. What a great Christmas present, a funeral a week before. My dads not here for her, and he won't be here for anyone at Christmas. I can't even visit him because of Covid, and his court date isn't until the second week of January, so I don't even know how long he will be there. I'm falling apart faster and faster and there's nothing I can do about it. The depression and anxiety medicine I was taking made me nauseous so I had to stop. I've turned to smoking and drinking as a way to cope.

———Now to JJ being there for Y/N———

You haven't been hanging out with the rest of the Pogues for the past month or so due to the fucking pandemic, and because you've been in a really bad depressive episode. You barely even saw your boyfriend JJ. You love talk talking to him about things, but you feel bad talking to him about your father because his is a piece of shit. Same with Sarah, and John B- well his dad is dead. That left Pope and Kiara to talk to about your father, but even then you just felt like a burden, so you kept your mouth shut. When it all first happened, you called JJ having a panic attack and he left work to calm you down. You told the rest of the Pogues but acted like it didn't bother you. The most you said was "It's better for him to be there than to hurt others or himself while driving intoxicated."

Whenever they asked, you just said you were doing better because he was in a safe place, being able to detox and sober up. Then, you just stopped hanging around about a week after because the new variant was spiking from the holidays, and quite honestly, you prefer being alone. Less things for your friends to add onto their already long to do list. They didn't need to help you and waste their time. They always asked "Hey Y/N, how are you today?" or "Did you want to hangout?" And then once your brother in law died, you ghosted. You told them over the groupchat, and muted everything. JJ repeatedly called you, but you didn't answer. How could this all be happening? So many deaths, and the urge to be a sort of father figure for your nephew that was yet to be born. You and JJ were so excited for him to be born. Even though you weren't married, JJ was still seeing himself as an uncle.

You felt as if there was going to be karma with having children for the rest of you and your siblings. I mean, the first one going to be born and the father dies? Not to mention the fact your sister might get so stressed she could have a miscarriage. You snapped out of your thoughts and looked at your phone. 15 Missed calls and 4 texts from JJ. You haven't seen him since the funeral 5 days ago. You told him you needed space, and you figured the rest of the gang convinced him to stay away.

Baby 9:48AM - Good morning cupcake, I love you

Baby 10:12AM- Can I come over today? Christmas Eve is tomorrow and I want to stay a few days

Baby 11:46AM- I miss you babygirl

Baby 12:13PM- Wake up love, I'm coming over. I'm so worried about you

You 1:08PM- Hi J. I love you too. And I miss you. Can you bring me a hot tea please?

Baby 1:08PM- Hi Y/N. Of course. I will be there in 20 minutes. Be prepared for cuddles, I love you.

You groaned and rolled out of bed looking at yourself in the mirror. You haven't showered since the funeral, your hair is starting to get matted, and your clothes are stained. You've been in the same sweatpants, sweatshirt, socks, and underwear. You've done absolutely nothing the past 5 days besides sleep. "Maybe I should pick up this mess before he comes over." There are piles of dirty and clean clothes everywhere, including your funeral clothes. You looked over to see the letter and drawing from your dad that arrived yesterday. He's been drawing in his cell, and he wants to buy colored pencils from commissary so he can send more. Shit, you were supposed to send him a Christmas card. You rummaged through your desk looking for some card stock, and you drew on the back of it, writing him a paragraph on the front. Your mom can send it later for you.

You looked at the time, and it was almost 1:30. JJ would be here soon, and you still haven't cleaned yourself up, never mind your room. You quickly went to your drawers, trying to find clothes to wear, and ran to your bathroom. You took your shirt off to reveal the fresh cuts from last night. You took off your pants only to reveal more. "Makeup, makeup." you mumbled looking through the bathroom drawer. "Fuck." is all you said before throwing clothes back on and going back to your room looking for some. You ran into your room almost tripping over your feet only to see a teared up JJ on your bed holding something small. "B- baby, how long have you been doing this?" he asked, holding up your razor. How could you forget it was on the other pillow on your bed.

"I. Well um." you tried saying, but instead choked up. You dropped to your hands and knees on the floor struggling to breathe. You were getting dizzy and it's probably because you haven't been eating either. JJ jumped off the bed crawling on the floor down to you, holding you. "Babygirl, it's okay, I'm here now. What have you been doing these past 5 days?" You couldn't talk, so he started rubbing your back and playing with your hair. "Y/N, lets go on your bed, come on." He helped you lift yourself up and sat you down on the bed. You looked down at the ground and he stuck his finger under your chin lifting your head up. "Y/N, I need to know what's been happening and what's going through your head. We can do it slowly, but I need to know, okay?" a few tears rolled down his cheeks and you nodded.

"Ever since the funeral, after I told you to give me space, I've been in these clothes, laying in bed." "Okay, have you eaten anything?" you shook your head no. "Does your mom know what's going on?" "No, I pretend I'm okay when she comes up." he rubbed your hands. "And how long have you been hurting yourself for?" you trembled, crying some more. "Ever since Saturday night. I started thinking of everything going wrong and how dads not here, and how my sister won't have the father of her child, and how that was the 14th death this year and how the holidays are here and everything is just fucked up." you choked out. He pulled you into his chest now, caressing your cheek with one of his hands, kissing your forehead. "I'm going to help you clean up okay? You nodded but replied "Can we do my room first? Please J?" he shook his head "No honey, you need to eat, drink water, brush your hair and teeth, and shower. I don't know how long your room will take but it is very important you eat babygirl." you huffed but agreed.

"Do you want one of my t shirts to change into after? I brought my pj pants so we can match Y/N. Remember? Our Christmas ones?" A small smile went to your face and you went over to your drawer picking them out, along with a pair of clean underwear and socks. "Lets go put them in the bathroom, and find something to eat." You went and put your things in the bathroom and walked to the kitchen. Thankfully your mom was at work. JJ was grabbing a small soup pan, and another pan to make grilled cheese. "I'm making you chicken soup and grilled cheese love. For now, you're going to try to eat half the sandwich and half a bowl of soup." He knew that was your comfort food. Back about 6 years ago, you were in your first depressive episodes, going through self harm, thoughts of suicide, and not eating. JJ was only your bestfriend then, but he was always there to make sure you were okay.

He heated up the soup, and made the grilled cheese, kissing your face all over in between, while hugging you. "Here baby, I'll eat with you." He took half the sandwich for him, and the other half for you. Soon after, pouring the soup into 2 bowls. You felt nauseous just looking at it. You took two bites of the sandwich and he smiled at you while taking spoonful's of soup. You blew on it first, tasting a few spoonful's. You sat for a few minutes letting it digest while taking three more bites of the sandwich. Only a few more bites left. You started eating more soup, but your stomach was hurting too much. "J, I'm done for now. After some tums and a shower I'll eat some okay?" you gave him a weak smile. You went into the bathroom, and saw your hair in the mirror. "We have to brush it first, and then I can shower. From the bottom up." you showed him how to brush your hair, and you did one side while he did the other.

You flinched a little every time, because it hurt, so you took breaks between sides instead of brushing at the same time. About 45 minutes later, you were finished. JJ smiled down at you kissing your forehead "I love you, I'm proud of you. You ate, and brushed your hair. Does your stomach feel better love? Do you want to finish eating" "Yes, but can I shower first? I stink." you laughed. "Do you want to do it yourself or do you want help?" You got on your tiptoes and kissed him. "Can you help J?" "Yes my love." he smiled and kissed your lips slowly and softly. You turned the water on, grabbing a washcloth and taking your clothes off. JJ got in first, helping you in. He let you get under the water, but you immediately winced from the water touching your cuts. "Baby what's wrong?" he asked. "The water, it. It hurts my cuts." you mumbled looking at the ground. He cupped your face in his hands and made you look into his beautiful blue eyes. "We need to clean them, but we can do your arms first, and then your legs. All separately, and not at once so it doesn't hurt you at the same time okay?"

You lifted your arm and he gently rubbed the dried blood off with the cloth, quickly going to the other. He kissed your forehead and held your hands. "That wasn't so bad was it Y/N?" you had some tears rolling down your cheeks, but you shook your head no. He got on his knees and started rinsing off your legs. They didn't hurt as bad a your wrists did. He came back up between kisses said "You're so beautiful." You smiled into the kiss, wrapping your hands around his neck. "You need to clean up too JJ. But, can I wash your hair?" you loved playing with his hair, and he loved it too. He washed himself up, and stuck you under the water to warm up. He scrubbed the coconut smelling shampoo into your scalp, making you lean you head back from the feeling. You rinsed it out, and he continued to stroke conditioner through your hair. Once he was done, you made him go under the water.

"J you need to lean down so I can reach your head." you giggled. He leaned forward a little and you curled his hair between your fingers before rubbing the shampoo onto his scalp. He rinsed it out and you finished off with rubbing conditioner through his blonde locks. He rinsed his hair off and pulled you under the running water with him, hugging you. "I love you so much Y/N. Are you all done or did you want to shave? I'm going to help if you do though." You looked down at your legs. You were planning on wearing a skirt tomorrow, and with clean sheets and your soft pjs, freshly shaven legs would feel amazing. "I can shave." He watched you closely as you started shaving your legs, to make sure you didn't do anything bad with the razor. Once you got up to the cuts on your thighs you looked up at him "Can you do it please? Gently. And hold my hand?" He grabbed your hands, kissing them before taking the razor and holding only one hand now. He went over the cuts and you winced. "Okay, okay. Can we just not shave over them? I want to get out." You tried rushing out, but he pulled you into a hug, rubbing your back. "Shh it's okay baby. Breathe. It'll be alright. Lets dry off."

You both got out of the shower, and dried off. He looked at the cuts on your wrists and kissed them, putting one of his shirts on you, and putting gauze over the cuts. He went down to the ones on your thighs, kissing them and covering them with gauze as well, and let you put your pj pants on after. "You're amazing Y/N. I want you to stop hurting yourself like this. Please. It's not going to help anything that's going on. I'm here for you through everything, always. So are the rest of the Pogues. It will get better." He kissed your forehead and you started crying into his bare chest. "But it's not J. It's just getting worse." "I know it is, but please believe me when I say it will get better. We're spending Christmas together, that's good right?" he wiped your tears and you smiled at him and nodded your head yes. "Can we go clean my room now?"

You walked into your room not sure what to do first. "How about we put all your clothes in basket and change your sheets?" You nodded, beginning to pick the piles of clothes up. You didn't realize how dirty your floors were. "Maybe after this we should vacuum and maybe mop. I would say dust too, but this might be enough for me today." "Whatever you want, I'll do Y/N." You guys picked up the clothes together, moving onto the sheets on your bed. "Can you get the red plaid ones out of the closet? Those are my favorite." JJ went and grabbed the sheet set and changed the sheets, putting the pillowcases on as well. "I need a small break, and then we can finish." "Okay baby. What else needs to be done?." "Um, the trash needs to be picked up, and the room needs to be vacuumed and mopped." He kissed your forehead and went on to do chores. You were getting tired and felt yourself falling asleep.

You woke up two hours later, to see JJ dusting and disinfecting everything. Your room was spotless, and your little Christmas tree was out and plugged in. "J you found my tree? And, and. It's so clean in here. It smells so nice." He walked over to you and sat on the bed. "I know how much you like a deep cleaned room, and I brought you up a water bottle, and plugged your phone in for you, it was almost dead. Your mom came home about an hour ago and she showed me where the tree was. What candle do you want lit? I'm almost done." "Well, it was supposed to be a present, but. Go look in that small box on my desk." He opened it and smiled. It was candles with the letters of your first names on them. "Light those ones." you smiled.

He lit them with his lighter and threw the rest of the dirty dusting wipes out, laying down on the bed with you. "I love these pajamas they're so comfy and I get to match with my princess." he said before pulling you into a kiss. You climbed onto him, deepening the kiss slightly. "I missed you so much JJ. I'm sorry I pushed you away. I'm so happy you're here now." You pulled away giving him a kiss on the nose, proceeding to lay your head on his chest. "I missed your touch, and the the way you smell. It calms me down. Can we lay like this for the rest of the night?" you asked. "It's okay Y/N I understand. But no more pushing me away, I need to make sure you're okay. I love you so much, and I missed you more than anything. We can cuddle, but you need to finish eating dinner. I can bring it up if you want, unless you want to go talk to mom." "No, I want to stay up here please. She doesn't know about- you know. Unless I steal your sweatshirt..." "You can have my sweatshirt love, but she needs to find out eventually okay?" you huffed, but agreed to take his sweatshirt.

He went over to his bag and grabbed it and you snatched it out of his hands, taking in the scent. You put it on and motioned for him to come cuddle again. "You need to eat more, and then we can cuddle Y/N." He pulled you out of bed and you went downstairs. He heated up the rest of your soup, and made you another sandwich, giving you half again. You actually ate all the soup and most of the sandwich this time. "Do you want to bring snacks upstairs for later?" he asked. You pointed to the bag of chips on the counter. Your mom walked in and said "Hi Y/N, did you like your surprise?" You hugged her "Yes, I love my tree. I just wish I would've taken it out earlier." "I know, but it's okay that you didn't, we're having a rough year." You talked with your mom and JJ for a bit, and went upstairs. "Do you want to brush your teeth or wait until after if you decide to eat snacks?" he asked.

"After. I want my cuddles now." you pouted. He laughed and pulled you onto the bed with him, tickling you. "J, st- stop." you laughed. He stopped and set you down facing him. "I love you so much Y/N. I'm always here for you my love." He said while tucking your hair behind your ear. "I love you too JJ. Thank you for helping me. I'm sorry again for pushing you away. I promise I'll open up to you from now on." You kissed him again and tucked yourself between his arms, entangling your legs with his. He kissed your forehead and the last thing you heard before falling asleep was "I'm so happy you're mine Y/N, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're everything to me, I love you so much."

Hi so. Yeah. I wrote this acting as if he was here for me, and as stupid as it might sound it did help. I'm sorry if some of the things I wrote were intense, but these are real problems in my life and I need a way to vent them out. If you read this far, thank you for reading, and if anyone ever needs someone to talk to my DMs are always open :)

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank fluff #obx imagine #obx fanfiction #jj maybank obx

[rextasywrites]

Fuck Canon 5 (a short Fix It Fic for the ending of Resident Evil Village)

i read someone's HC on here that Leon would be like an uncle to Rose too and couldn't resist....

Warnings: mentions of alcoholism, Leon being an idiot

Part 1  Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Kept under the ‘read more’ to avoid spoilers!! 

Over time, Rose got to know a bit of Uncle Chris and his family. There was his sister, Claire, and her husband Leon. They both met at Raccoon City during the outbreak, and from what Rose had heard about it...oh boy!

While Chris gave Rose a lot of training when it came to strength, Leon took over the guns and knives. She can remember her first time at his lesson:

Rose had entered the room Leon was waiting in for her. He took a sip from his flask, closed it and threw it into his bag. From his bag, filled with guns and knives and first aid kits,, he pulled out two pocket knives and threw one of them to Rose. “First rule in close combat. You don’t stab, you slash. It’s ways harder to fight when your guts are spilling out.”

Rose instantly liked Leon.

Despite his sometimes concerning alcohol consumption, Leon and Rose bounded very fast. For Leon, Rose felt like a little sister and he had to be the cool big brother who teaches her all the cool stuff. He taught her how to drive both cars and motorcycles, and on her 18th birthday, Claire and Leon gifted her a motorcycle. Mia was not happy about this, but thinking of all the stupid shit she did as a teenager…

A few weeks after, Leon invited Rose on a motorcycle tour through a part of the state. He needed to clear his head and Rose was a welcome addition to a fun ride. The days consisted of driving around, eating junk food at midnight at random gas stations. It was all fun and games until four days in when a terrible storm caught up with them and forced them to stay in their motel room.

“Leon?”, Rose asked into the dark room, the man dozing off on the other side of the bed they shared. Upon hearing her asking for him, Leon opened his eyes and rolled over, his gaze focused on her.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?”, he returned the question, not knowing what she wanted from him.

“Did you know my father?”

Leon shrugged at her question, “A little bit. We met twice before the events of the village and it was a shame I didn’t get to meet him more often. He was an alright guy with his heart in the right spot.”, and he thought back on those two times nearly 20 years ago. 

Chris had introduced them to one another and Leon instantly tried to flirt with Mia, earning a smack on the back of his head from Chris. But Ehan? Ethan just laughed. “I know my wife is a babe so I don’t mind, Chris. Shows that I married quite a catch!”, while Mia was blushing like a virgin.

“Can I trust you with something, Leon?”, Rose continued after Leon told her this very story, laughing as he rubbed the back of his head. He could feel the smack from Chris there!

“Sure.”, Leon said and sat up, making sure that Rose felt that Leon was giving her the attention she wanted and needed.

“You know, I am technically a bioweapon too. Chris trains me for the best, but I am still...moldy, I dare to say.”, Rose started and sat up too. “I have some powers. I could summon mold if I wanted to, just like this Eveline chick mom and Chris sometimes talk about. But there is one thing I can also do, and that’s communicate with dad.”

Leon’s eyes went wide at Rose’s confession, placing a hand on her shoulder. Of course, Rose could be a weapon of mass destruction if she wanted to be, but Rose was part of the good ones. “How? What do you mean with this?”.

“Do you remember the one time we rode in the city and I made us stop?”, Rose asked Leon.

Leon did remember. The two were riding through the city, the first ride Rose ever did on her own bike. It was a few days after her 18th birthday and it was a beautiful day. Several bikers were cursing through the streets, and with them some careless car drivers too.

At an intersection, Rose felt a hand on her shoulder while they had to wait at a red light. It was Ethan, sitting on the back of her motorcycle. “Don’t go that way.”, he said and pointed towards the street Leon and her had planned to drive through. “Pull into the McDonalds parking lot, say you gotta pee or so.”, and with that, he vanished again.

Rose pointed over to Leon to catch his attention, then she pointed to the McDonalds on the right side of the road. Leon shrugged and drove there with her once the lights turned green. They got off the motorcycles and Rose explained to him, “Sorry, I really ne-”.

Her voice was cut off by the sound of cars crashing into one another. Or better said, a truck crashing into a car. The truck that had driven behind them - its brakes had given up and drove right into another car. Normally, Leon and Rose would have been between them.

Leon’s jaw dropped at this story. Of course, he doubted her story for a little bit, but with all the weird stuff he had seen in his life...his doubt went away very fast.

“Rose.”, he started, placing his other hand on her shoulder too, then pulled her into a big bear hug. “You are such a special kiddo. I am amazed!”

Rose laughed, both out of happiness and relief - Leon didn’t think she was crazy, so that was a good thing! But she knew she’d have to tell Uncle Chris someday soon...but not today.

Today she’d spent in the motel room with Leon, eating junk food and watching horrible sitcoms while roasting the main characters. And that was okay. It was normal, and Rose loved everything normal.

#rosemary winters #ethan winters #leon kennedy #chris redfield #resident evil #resident evil village #resident evil 8

[undeadsnorlax]

Alone at Midnight, Inside My Mind

@badthingshappenbingo

Ao3 Link

Bingo Card

using the prompt in a metaphorical sense, as opposed to the medical aid sense

Prompt: Crutches

Fandom: Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku

Warnings: a lot of alcohol related issues, including addiction and withdrawal, some suicidal thoughts and body image issues, hurt/no comfort. set pre-Yakuza 2.

Wordcount: 5511

2pm. He could tell it was because his downstairs neighbour was home, attending to the array of plant pots she kept littered outside her door, and playing music on the radio that bled through the crack of the open window.

Daigo squinted in the afternoon light that managed to make its way through the blinds, groaning loudly.

“Fucking hell…”

Suppose now was as good a time as any to start the day. Especially when he felt his stomach rumble.

It took some effort to get to his feet, but soon he was dragging himself into the kitchen, yawning loudly. He needed something quick and tasty, now.

The fridge had nothing but convenience store sushi and days old leftover curry. The cupboards were also pretty bare, half a bag of rice and a ramen cup.

Daigo sighed heavily, setting his kettle to boil before grabbing the sushi. He stuffed a piece into his mouth, wrinkling his nose at the taste of stale rice but ate another without any complaint.

Head to the store. Get some more food, he thought, holding the ramen cup in place as he lifted up the kettle.

The water splashed on the counter a little, narrowly missing burning his fingers, making him forcefully slam the kettle back down once the cup was filled.

Daigo gripped the sides of the counter, closing his eyes as he felt a pulse of nausea rush through his body. If he forced the tension against the surface hard enough, he could stop his hands shaking for just a moment.

Eat noodles. Have a shower. Go to the store.

Opening his eyes again, he ate another piece of sushi, absolutely no taste on his tongue as he chewed it into mush, before taking his ramen into the living room.

He slumped down on the couch, turning the TV on and forced the food down him. He still felt nauseous, but he knew he wouldn’t actually vomit. He already had last night. Doubled over in a bush outside the train station and puked his guts out, despite not having much solids in him. Even now his throat felt sore from it. Classy.

He wasn’t even hungry, really. He was eating out of obligation, feeling his stomach gurgle happily at finally being filled with some kind of food.

As he ate, he noticed his cell phone on the table in front of him, discarded amongst the empty bottles and candy wrappers. It was flashing.

Daigo frowned, reaching over and flipping it open.

Three new answer machine messages.

Who the hell had tried calling him?

Message one - 9:25am

“Daigo, it’s your mother. Pick up.”

Message two - 9:43am

“Me again. Please answer your phone.”

Message three - 10:08am

“Daigo...it’s Mom-“

Daigo groaned, snapping his phone shut to end the messages. Nope! He was not dealing with this today.

He discarded the empty ramen cup and chopsticks with the rest of the trash on the table, storming towards the bathroom.

Shower on, clothes off. He used the toilet as the water heated up, catching the reflection of his upper half in the mirror as he finished.

“Hrmph.”

He ran a hand down his front, resting it on the middle of his stomach and huffed again.

His weight had been up and down the last ten years, though it had obviously settled during his stint in prison, with its shit food and no alcohol. Now that he was out, with all the freedom to indulge in every last inch of hedonism he could find though, he had developed a bit of a gut. Just a bump, but it was…noticeable, it was there. It stuck out.

No surprise really. How much did he drink last night again?

Enough I puked in a bush.

Daigo shifted on his feet, standing up a bit straighter and sucking his stomach in. It didn’t make much difference. He suddenly wondered how visible it was under his t-shirt, glad he usually wore a thick coat to hide himself in.

“Great,” he growled, stepping into the shower. Another thing to feel insecure about.

He stood there, forehead pressed against the wall as he let the water run down the Fudo Myoo on his back.

His hand started shaking again.

“Give me a break,” he said, clasping it to his chest, “A few hours, a day.”

He dried himself off, going back to his bedroom for a clean shirt and pair of jeans – both black, of course.

He also grabbed a heavy hoodie to wear to the store, a way to feel a little more comfortable in himself in a public place.

Wallet, keys, phone. Go to store. Buy supplies.

Daigo pulled his hood up as he jogged down the stairs, immediately blocked from leaving by the downstairs neighbour still gardening.

“Lovely afternoon, isn’t it Dojima-san?” Ito cried, beaming at him. She was older, always so chipper. How did she manage?

As much as he wanted to ignore her, Daigo had been raised with far too proper manners. He still remained casual, grunting a little and rubbing the back of his head.

“Yeah, suppose.”

“You came back late again last night,” she added, hands lifting a plant to move to another pot, “Ouma-san went off about it before going to work this morning.”

“Oh, did he now?”

Ouma was the guy around his age in the apartment next door. Always miserable, always bringing a new girl home every weekend that Daigo had to endure hearing fake horribly through his thin bedroom walls.

“I’ll try to be a bit quieter next time, Ito-san,” he mumbled. For her sake, not for that asshole Ouma.

“Or maybe you should stay in once in a while, hm?”

Daigo scowled, jerking his head and storming off toward the store. With any luck the old bag would have gone inside by the time he was back.

As he made his way down the street, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He went to answer but paused, clenching his fingers tight into his palm. Nope. He knew who it was, and what she wanted, and he didn’t care.

His supply run was basic. More noodles, packs of chips and cookies, some onigiri and bentos that could last a few days.

Whilst picking up a few bottles of Staminan and Tauriner, he stared blankly at the alcohol.

His hands still shook. There was such a quick fix to settle that.

He grabbed a six pack of beer and a bottle of scotch and vodka, unable to help a crooked little grin.

The cashier looked at him a little oddly as he set his basket down on the counter. And yeah, he’d admit he looked strange. Sweating and shaky from withdrawal, under his eyes dark and his brow pulled into a near permanent scowl, face otherwise obscured by the shadow of the hood.

“Get me some cigarettes too, huh?” he mumbled, taking out his wallet and avoiding eye contact.

He was a mess.

He stared at the glass case of baked goods, unable to resist the pull from his sweet tooth, and asked for two donuts as well.

He arrived back home rather pleased with his haul. He had enough in him to pack away most of it, before he stared down the booze he bought.

He could...not do this, actually. He could not drink. It was easy, in theory.

He wiped his damp brow, licked his dry lips. His head hurt, despite the slight gloom of the kitchen.

They could sit there as an ultimate temptation. He could ignore them. He could do all manner of things.

But he wanted to drink, that was the issue. That was the whole point. Drinking was the only thing he had that stayed consistent.

He grabbed the scotch and slugged back a long mouthful, feeling everything just melt away. He let out a relieved gasp, the taste strong on his tongue and warming his throat. Felt like a part of him was back. His mind became a little clearer, his mood a little more elevated. He took a shorter swig for luck, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Much better…”

He spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on the sofa, playing video games. There wasn’t much else for him to do during the day.

Evening was his time.

When seven rolled around, Daigo got ready. His jeans and t-shirt were fine already, so all he had to do was put on his usual cross necklace to complete the outfit. He spent a while staring down himself in the mirror as he applied a shaky dash of eyeliner around his lid.

Once upon a time he shied away from doing this publicly, but since leaving jail he stopped caring. Wore eyeliner and straightened his hair. Painted his nails black and picked at the polish when he was anxious. Who gave a shit? Anyone dumb enough to say anything soon regretted it.

Keys, wallet, phone. Same routine. He chose his white puffer jacket to wear instead of his hoodie, enjoying the barrier it gave him from the rest of the world.

One quick metro ride later, he was in Kamurocho, just as the town was coming alive in a burst of neon. Daigo lost himself in the crowds, thinking of which bar to hit up first.

He paused for a moment down Tenkaichi Street, staring at the sign for Serena. Place was closed, and had been for a little under a year now.

He knew what happened last year, of course. Heard about Rina through another barkeep. Not that he’d known her well, or spent much time at Serena, but something in his chest ached hearing she was gone in such circumstances.

He soon forgot about it with another glass.

With a weary huff, he decided the Champion District on the other side of town was the best place to start. The bar he chose was quiet, no other customers, and a barman who knew when to keep his mouth shut.

Perfect.

Instead of conversation, Daigo focused on the soft jazz music playing as he nursed his whiskey. He was into heavier tunes, but he needed a bit more of a buzz before going to his favourite rock bar.

He tapped his nails against the glass, tilting his head. Good idea, actually. They did cheap shots and a big array of imports.

He slammed some cash down on the counter before stumbling into the street, glad to feel the slight evening chill on his cheeks.

Down to Pink Street, and into the rock bar he enjoyed. Already feeling at home with the heavy guitar music blasting over the speakers, most of the other patrons dressed in a similar style to him. He’d missed out on a lot of stuff whilst locked away, the slight sways in fashion that happened in such a short amount of time, but he liked knowing he was still on trend within his scene, mostly.

He sat at the counter, giving a half-grin to the girl working there, and ordered himself five shots of vodka.

His earlier drinks had been a warmup, these were the first leg of the race. The second came in the form of a large scotch, some new brand they’d started selling.

Honestly, the start to a perfect night for him, until he heard a small gasp from behind him.

“Hey! Aniki!”

Daigo’s heart sank at the voice, glancing over his shoulder. Five of the guys he usually hung around with were there – or more accurately, they hung around him.

He rolled his eyes and groaned, turning in his seat and glaring them down. He should never had shown them this place.

“What do you want?” he muttered, already knowing the answer.

“We didn’t know you were out today!” Arita cried, leaning up next to him, with that sycophantic look he always had in his eyes. As if Daigo wasn’t out every night.

“Why don’t you join us aniki?” Kubo asked, which actually translated to wanna pay for all our drinks because we’re cheap scrounging bastards?

Daigo groaned again, knocking back his glass and waving the bartender over again.

“If you quit calling me aniki.”

They didn’t, of course. They gleefully accepted the drinks he bought them with more coos of thank you Dojima-aniki. Daigo rubbed the bridge of his nose and ordered himself two double scotches, slugging them back like they were water.

“I was thinkin’ we could go to Dazzle after this,” Arita said, having not left Daigo’s side. He always babbled and talked too much, like he felt he had to fill every silence with his own voice save people be left alone with their own thoughts.

“Why there?” Daigo asked, thinking of all the things he’d rather do more than go to a hostess club, including and not limited to slamming his face into a lit stovetop and drowning in a hot tub.

“I just think the girls there are really underrated, y’know? I like that they have some slightly older gals, I love a mature lady. How about you?”

Daigo shoved a shard of ice from his glass into his mouth and let it melt on his tongue. “Come on then.”

He was paying for two hours and that was that. At least he could get a bottle for himself and work through that, sitting at the edge whilst the others enjoyed the girls’ company.

Dazzle might have specialised in more mature women, but the decor was a nightmare like every other hostess club. Why’d they always insist on so many sparkles, it gave him a headache.

“Um...are you enjoying yourself?”

Daigo lowered his gaze to look at the girl. ‘Mature’ really meant ‘late twenties’, and she was running on the younger side of that.

“What do you think?” he said coldly, swirling his drink in its glass.

She seemed a little dazed at this, glancing back at her fellow hostesses, but kept going.

“M-my name is Nashi. Yours?”

“Daigo Dojima.”

He clicked his tongue, emptied his glass and went to refill it, his shoulders slouching slightly. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so short, you’re only doing your job.”

“Oh, it’s fine, I’ve had far worse responses.”

Daigo just gritted his teeth. Another reason he hated hostess clubs was he knew how other men treated these girls, saw it himself the times his father brought him along as a teen.

The least he could do was give this lady a nice conversation.

“Well, I’ll try to be a bit better than them,” he said, gesturing with his head towards the others, so loud and obnoxious.

Nashi smiled a little. “They’re not so bad. Your friends are just a bit...out there.”

He scoffed. “They’re not my friends. I don’t really...do friendship anymore.”

“Oh? How come?”

Shit. Of course, when you say something like that, people have questions. Daigo licked his lips in thought, considering how he should phrase this.

“You...don’t recognise my name, do you?”

Nashi blushed a little, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Um, well, you do have a bit of notoriety around town, Dojima-san. I know girls in other clubs, and they always talk about you.”

Daigo did a slight double take at this. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah. You’re a rather…” She gestured at his coat and skinny jeans. “A striking figure, you know. A lot of girls like the edgy emo bad boy look. It’s popular right now.”

“Hm, figures.” A lot of men are also fans…

Daigo sat up a little straighter, gazing Nashi down. “Do you?”

“H-huh?”

“Find me attractive?”

It was a joke, said with a dry smirk, but she flustered, clearly uneasy. Daigo grimaced, sliding up a little closer and putting a hand to her knee.

“Hey, hey. I’m kidding.” He made his smirk a soft smile, broke down the facade for just a moment to put her at ease. “Don’t worry about it.”

Nashi’s eyes went wide, but nodded, brushing down the edges of her dress.

“A-anyway, I...I’ve heard you...were involved with the Tojo Clan. Is that why you don’t ‘do’ friends?”

“Mm. Essentially.”

Daigo gave up on the glass, swigging back from the bottle which got him a funny look from one of the other patrons across the way.

“My only friend murdered my father,” he said, so matter of fact. He hesitated a moment, letting out a short huff. “Well. He went to jail for the crime, at least. He was actually covering for someone else. Either way, I was left without his guidance for ten years, thinking he had betrayed me like that.”

He paused a second, swilling whiskey around his mouth, before continuing.

“I came back to town a few months ago and...he hasn’t bothered trying to find me. Which shows how little he cares.”

“Oh. That sounds...awful, Dojima-san.”

“It sure does, doesn’t it?”

Daigo shrugged, tilting the empty bottle back so he could savour just a few more drops as best he could. “That’s just how my life is now.”

He grumbled a little as he set the bottle down, belching into his cupped hand before draping himself back against the seat.

“Sometimes you gotta deal with the hand you're given,” he added, scratching lazily at his middle, “And unfortunately, I’ve had a poor deck from the start.”

He shut his eyes before letting out a laugh, forced and hollow. “Sorry. I’m not the best at keeping things light.”

How many hostesses had he paid to listen to him whine? Then he thought how they were probably all used to it, which made it even worse.

“Well, given your circumstances…”

Nashi glanced back at her co-workers, the barely hidden looks of disdain towards the rest of the crew and their boorish behaviour.

“I’d much rather talk to you though,” she said, reaching over to grab another one of the bottles along the table, gesturing toward his glass, “You’re nice.”

Daigo swallowed, nodding in approval as she filled it to the brim. His head pounded, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the music or the cravings.

“If you say so.”

The glass was empty in a flash, and filled just as quick.

“You’re good at this,” he purred.

The bottle was empty by the time the waiter came by. Daigo had just enough mental capacity to dig through his pockets and pay, giving Nashi a shaky smile and a pat on the knee.

“Thank you for tonight. You’re great.”

His friends, on the other hand, all started to whine as the waiter began to urge them into finishing their drinks.

“Aw, c’mon aniki, let’s hang around a bit longer!”

“If you want that, pay yourself, ya cheap fucks.”

Daigo stood up, a bit too quickly as he felt the room spin. He stumbled to the side slightly, wincing as he contained a belch that very much tasted of vomit. Nope! No puking tonight. Keep it all inside.

“I’m outta here,” he mumbled, resting a hand on any available solid surface to keep himself steady as he left.

He blanked out the cries of the others as he did. He’d wasted enough time with them tonight, and he was craving something else.

“Burger,” he mumbled, squinting as he glanced up and down the street, “Pffft...that way.”

This was always the worst part of the night. Trying to sober up enough so he could keep going, or at the very least get home in one piece. Stumbling through the streets and trying not to crack his skull open.

It wasn’t just food he craved though. He felt...itchy. That was the only way to really explain it. The desire to go wild, start a scuffle. Really earn that reputation he supposedly had.

To hell with staying in one piece.

But first, Smile Burger.

The fact that the poor worker even understood what he said through his slurred words was impressive and soon he was curled up against the window, feet pulled up on the chair beside him as he made his way through a burger that tasted like the finest wagyu steak right now.

All the while, he kept his eye out.

Yeah, it felt shitty to target people for a fight like this, but he made sure it was a fair fight. Usually a few guys, who looked like they could take a hit as well as throw one, maybe even have a chance if they weren’t facing someone running on adrenaline and too much booze.

He cocked his head as he focused on a table nearby. Four men, mid-twenties, definitely young yakuza from some family. He couldn’t see any lapel pin from where he was sat, but they were perfect.

Childishly, he picked up one of his fries and threw it in their direction. It hit the back of one guy’s head, and he looked around puzzled. Daigo just threw another, chuckling as it hit him again. A bit too obvious, as he was spotted this time.

“What the hell’s wrong with you dude?” one of the four cried.

“I dunno,” Daigo said, stuffing a bunch of fries in his mouth before flinging another their way, “Target practise.”

This one hit a guy in a striking red sports jacket right between the eyes, and Daigo could barely contain the full-on cackle he let out at the expression he pulled. It was almost too easy.

He grinned when one came over and jabbed him in the chest.

“Outside. Now.”

“My pleasure.”

He followed them into a nearby side street, hands in his pockets and head held high. He liked an audience sometimes, but a private fight was fine enough.

The biggest one of them threw the first punch. He was expecting it, crossing his arms over in front of his face to block it, before kicking out at the guy’s ankles.

The whole fight was messy. The little gang clearly had never been in a proper fight, had no form. They kept punching poorly, wincing with any that managed to hit as they stung their knuckles.

Not that Daigo was any better. He was still far too drunk, but that was half the fun. Stumbling about and getting in a rough hit that frightened these kids who’d never experienced this before. He just wanted the thrill, the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Anything to feel something.

Daigo landed a punch on that guy in the sports jacket, right in the middle of his face. It sent him flat on his ass, skidding down the street slightly.

“Come on!” he groaned, “Grab him, idiots! We outnumber him!”

A moment of pause. Daigo tried to catch his breath, but ol’ sports jacket was right. He was outnumbered.

Two of them grabbed his coat and pushed him back against the wall, holding him there. The third punched at his gut, over and over. Daigo gritted his teeth, tensed his stomach for every punch.

He knew he could get out of this, easily. The guys holding him were hardly doing much, weren’t even gripping his actual arms, just the sleeves of his jacket. It wouldn’t take much to duck and slip down, then send them crying home to their mommies.

“Come on!” he hissed, baring his teeth.

But he wanted them to hit him.

“That all you got?”

He wanted them to hurt him.

Sports jacket guy had gotten back on his feet now, face already starting to bruise. His fist met the middle of Daigo’s face hard, harder than they’d been hitting before. It stung, a lot, which is exactly what he wanted.

Not that it solved anything.

It never did.

“Oi!” They all froze, turning toward the entrance of the street. Daigo, semi-dazed, managed to look too, and felt his stomach drop.

Kashiwagi's expression, initially a scowl, changed the moment he saw him, shaking his head and blinking a little. “Daigo?”

He sighed heavily, storming over and waving his hand at the little gang. “Shoo. Don’t let me catch you boys doing shit like this again, you hear?” “Y-yes Patriarch Kashiwagi.”

They scurried off further down the street, leaving Daigo to stand up straighter, rubbing his nose. He groaned a little as he saw the streaks of rusty red on the back of his hand, sniffling heavily. “Great.”

“Daigo…”

Kashiwagi sighed again, rubbing at his temple. “What are you doing?” “I’m just...I’m just out.” Daigo sniffed again, scrunching his nose. “Just finished dinner.”

“You know what I mean…”

Kashiwagi looked around, then grabbed Daigo by the shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s talk in the office.”

Daigo went to argue, but it only took one stern glare, the kind the older man had given him his whole life, for him to clench his jaw and follow.

Kashiwagi led the way toward the Millennium Tower, hand on Daigo’s shoulder the whole way. It felt so patronising, like that time he accidentally broke a window at the Dojima Family offices when he was ten, and Kashiwagi had done the exact same gesture, marching him to his mother.

“Nice upgrade,” he still said, gazing out the wide window of Kashiwagi’s office once they arrived, “From that little place on Tenkaichi.”

“Well, we make do. I’m second in command now.” Kashiwagi set down the plastic convenience store bag he’d been carrying on his desk, letting out a small, bemused exhale of air. “It’s not all bad. Now come on. Why were you fighting?”

Daigo clicked his tongue and shrugged, staring at the blinking lights below them.

“Daigo…” “I just was, okay?”

He gave a dismissive shrug, walking across the floor toward a cabinet, throwing the doors open. Kashiwagi watched him with tired eyes, slumping down in his chair. “I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight.”

“How did you know that’s what I was looking for?”

“Your breath reeks of it, kid. Your whole body does.” He took out a bento and can of coffee from the plastic bag, raising a brow. “And I know what you’re like, especially lately. How’s being a free man by the way? Haven’t seen you since you were released.”

“It sucks ass.”

Daigo slammed the cabinet door shut, opening another and grinning as he saw half a bottle of whiskey there, as well as some crystal glasses. He heard Kashiwagi tut loudly as he slammed both down on top of the cabinet.

“What did you expect?” he scoffed, pouring a very large measure, “Mom told me the news the moment I got out. What Nishikiyama did. That it wasn’t Kiryu. He hasn’t even come to see me, to apologise for it.”

He knocked the glass back, the sensation warm and familiar down his throat. “Hardly feel free. Just not in jail anymore.”

“What happened to the boy I knew?” Kashiwagi asked, walking over and placing a hand on Daigo’s shoulder once more. This time it was gentle, kind, attempting to be comforting. Not Kashiwagi-san, one of his father’s men, but Uncle Osamu, his mother’s best friend.

Daigo scrunched his nose up, taking another slug of whiskey. “You say that like I’ve ever been cheery.”

“Well, okay, you’ve always been a serious young man, but…”

He just shook his head, moving his hand away. He grabbed the whiskey bottle in the process, making Daigo let out a pathetic little whine.

“I’m not going to enable you any more than I have,” he said firmly, before adding, “I mean it though. You don’t need to throw your life away like this.”

Daigo didn’t reply, because he didn’t like the real answer. There wasn’t much of a life to throw away. He was doing everyone a favour with this.

“You bring me up here just to lecture me old man?” he growled, narrowing his eyes.

Still looking for someone to fight. Kashiwagi would wipe the floor with him, he knew that, but he didn’t care. He also knew he wouldn’t get that kind of satisfaction.

Didn’t mean Kashiwagi wasn’t frustrated with his attitude. He closed his eyes, clenching his fists and let out a deep exhale from his nose. “I saw your mother today. She’s been trying to call you all morning.”

“I know.” The empty glass was set down heavily, with a grunt. Daigo dug around for his phone, holding it out so Kashiwagi could see the countless missed calls and texts from her on the home screen. “I know what today is.”

“...and is that why you’re-”

“You know I’m like this anyway.” He stared at the texts, all similar in tone - Daigo, please call me. Daigo, it’s important. Are you okay? He got them most days from his mother. She was trying so hard. He didn’t want her to. He would rather she forget about him. She deserved that much.

Kashiwagi wasn’t looking at him, staring up at the ceiling as he thought of what to say next.

“I understand that...none of us could have predicted the extent of what your father was like.”

Daigo did a double take, noticing Kashiwagi immediately cringe. At least he knew what he said was stupid.

“Sorry, that was-”

“Yeah. It was.” Daigo looked up, head cocked to his shoulder. “Anyone could have guessed, really. We just pretended otherwise, because somehow he seemed to be the only thing keeping the Tojo Clan from completely falling apart.”

He was up in Kashiwagi’s face now, feeling his chest clench tight. He was working himself up over nothing, over that bastard. He hated it, but thinking of what his father did to get himself killed, the kind of man he was, it made his skin crawl.

“He deserves to spend every birthday after what he did having the most miserable time in hell,” he said with a hiss, noticing his voice wobbling, “I know it. You know it. But Mom refuses to let go-”

The slap felt cathartic, for both of them. Daigo shut his eyes and nodded as his cheek stung. He deserved that. He was trying to provoke that kind of reaction and got exactly that.

“I take back what I said. That boy you were is still there. An insolent brat,” Kashiwagi said, walking back to his desk, “Daigo, one day, you’re going to have to grow up. You can’t keep doing this until you die.”

He threw a semi-sympathetic look over his shoulder, but Daigo mostly felt it was piteous. That’s what he was. A pitiful, useless mess.

“Go home, Daigo. Call your mother. And for everyone’s sake, don’t have anything else to drink tonight.”

Daigo sucked in through his teeth and nodded again as he walked toward the door.

“...good night, Kashiwagi-san.”

No response. Yup. I deserve this.

He made his way home in a daze, everything working in automatic. Kashiwagi’s words kept echoing in his head, over and over.

You can’t keep doing this until you die.

Because that’s what he was trying to do, wasn’t it? Die. Suicide by hedonism. He was born already holding the worst hand life could deal, and he was never going to get anything better. After his father was killed, the one tiny scrap of potential good he could have in his life was gone, even if that prospect was a life of crime.

So why not? Why should he grow up when there was nothing to grow up for?

The moment he was inside his apartment, he slid down the door, staring blankly ahead. He’d needed that talking to, he needed a few really, from people who were currently pretending like he didn’t exist. That’s what he really needed. For Kiryu to talk to him, apologise for ruining his life, try and talk some sense into him. He always knew what to do.

But it was like he didn’t exist. Kiryu didn’t care. Kashiwagi tried to care, but knew he was a lost cause. Who did care?

Daigo opened up his phone again, staring at the missed calls and sighed. That’s who cared. Mom.

He should talk to her. He knew he should. He was an awful son who loved his mother very much, which is why he knew she deserved better. She was trying despite knowing she’d made mistakes, but he just couldn’t let that go.

He hovered on her number, ready to press the button to call...but instead he tossed his phone to land on the couch, walked to the kitchen and wrapped his fingers around the neck of the vodka bottle still on the counter.

He licked his lips, swallowed heavily...but let go, pushing it away.

“You win this time old man,” he grumbled, picking up an energy drink and the donuts he’d bought earlier in the day instead. Kashiwagi could never be allowed to know that though.

He knew this self-control wouldn’t last long. Come morning, he’d be shaking again, a hangover banging in his skull, and he’d be dragging himself towards that bottle like it was the source of life.

The same thing every day.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

He couldn’t have it any other way.

#dojima daigo #ryu ga gotoku #trope: crutches #badthingshappenbingo #undeadbthb #highly recommend reading the end notes on ao3 for the buckwild place the inspiration for this came from

[utterlyinevitable]

hc about what happened in the time jump for the bryce and raf routes to fix this mess? Make the lack of progression make sense! please and thank you

Sorry it’s taken a while to get these two done, i’ve been too busy living in my carefully curated Ethan timeline 😅 You can find Ethan x MC During the Time Jump here. (raf will be another post) 

Bryce x MC During the Time Jump

After the gala, things weren’t that much different between them. 

The most notable difference was the intimacy. It seemed stronger, deeper. Effortless. 

They weren’t casual anymore that much was certain. They weren’t just fucking for fun. They were making love to last a life time. Their bodies knew one another in a tale as old as time.

But they’re both too timid to admit it. They won’t say the weighted phrase until they’re certain life and residency won’t tear them apart.

MC spent any free time she could having dinners with Keiki and Bryce. MC did most of the cooking but Bryce was the best sous chef learning how to adventure past pasta. The two doctor’s helping the teen out with her homework however they could. As smart as they are, they don’t understand Common Core...

But then Ethan turning the hospital into a greater version of the clinic meant MC was constantly busy. She barely even had 30 minutes to grab lunch. And sometimes she was even much too tired for drinks at Donahue’s.

Bryce had to lean on his surgical acquaintances a lot more now that his internal medicine buddies weren’t around. The clinic hadn’t trickled down to the surgical department; mostly because there were only so many ORs and you couldn’t rush procedures.

The week before Thanksgiving Bryce and Keiki were invited to MC’s apartment to celebrate with her roommates on their only day off together in weeks. 

Despite the exhaustion everyone felt, they were up early and super cheery. 

Sienna did most of the cooking with MC and Aurora lending a hand. Bryce and Jackie were on drinks duty and Elijah was in charge of entertainment. 

They all crowded around the dining table on the matching chairs and ones from their bedroom desks in order to accommodate. It was a mismatch but it was perfect. 

Conversation flowed freely and everyone said what they’re thankful for and what they think the upcoming year will hold.  

Then out of seemingly nowhere Keiki brought up boarding school.

Bryce looked at her with utter shock. The other’s asked questions about it. 

Keiki shrugged saying, “it’s just an idea. I can’t live with Bryce forever”. 

It was true, but doesn’t mean Bryce felt a little sad at his sister leaving all too soon.  

Christmas came sooner than anyone realized. 

MC saw her family the weekend before the holiday as became her tradition since med school. 

Since Bryce’s call to his mother about the funds to send Keiki to boarding school, she was sending him more messages and asking Keiki to come home for the holiday. She offered to pay for first class flights for her two darling children to come home. 

Both Lahela’s were against it.

Bryce took off as much time as he could to spend with the kid before she goes to school. But there’s only a handful of days he could take off at the busiest time of the year.

He managed to get Christmas and the day after off, and a half day on Christmas Eve.

Eve evening, Bryce came home to half priced decorations unceremoniously scattered about his living room, and Keiki and Mc standing on the couch trying to hang a daisy chain banner that looked like kindergarteners made it.

He couldn’t help but smile and pull MC into the biggest hug. She made everything 1000x better. 

The small family spent the evening eating and laughing and decorating the table top tree MC and Keiki picked up at the Walgreens down the street.

Cuddled up on the sofa in each other’s arms and Keiki on the makeshift bed she’d been sleeping on since her arrival, they watched classic Christmas movies and ate chocolate. It was perfect. 

Except MC had to work the next evening.

The amount of patients coming through Edenbrook’s doors tripled in the upcoming days and kept everyone busy.

Luckily the group of friends were able to spend New Years together. 

There wasn’t a single question as to if they were kissing at midnight. 

Bryce started kissing MC during the countdown; from her neck, up her jaw to her ear, cheeks, to the tip of her nose and then her lips at midnight. 

Shortly after the brief celebrations with the others, the two retired to her bedroom and kept ringing in the new year the right way.  

Keiki leaves for boarding school a few days after New Years. It was a very emotional journey down to Connecticut. 

Bryce was endlessly thankful MC accompanied him. Without her he’s pretty sure if would have cried a lot more on the drive home. And he probably would have stopped off at some sketchy gas station for a pick-me-up snack. Thankfully, MC suggested they hit Buffalo Wild Wings before entering the city instead. 

The couple thought Keiki being gone would give them more time together.

They were so wrong.

Mc got busier and busier and her time off didn’t coincide with his schedule, and everything got so damn complicated.

They hadn’t seen one another properly outside the hospital that wasn’t in passing in weeks.

So Bryce carved out some time around Valentine’s Day. 

MC was too busy to even realize the significance of the day. Every single day melded together to the point she didn’t know what was up or down, the month and barely clocked the time. 

She was leaning against the nurse’s station rapidly filling out charts when Bryce made a move. 

He slid up next to her, rubbed her shoulders and told her to take break with him. 

“Bryce I can’t I have patients. You see that line don’t you?”

“You haven’t taken lunch yet,” he said simply. He dropped his hands and turned around and called, “Hey Inès, MC is going on lunch!”

“Enjoy!” the senior resident called back. 

Bryce folded up the charts, handed them to Sarah behind the desk and dragged MC by both the wrists down the hall to the elevator. 

“Where are we going?” MC asked. 

Bryce may have set up a little rendezvous spot in a shut down inpatient wing. He had some take out he picked up from the café around the corner set up by the window and two clinical chairs. On the still-made bed was a stuffed bear holding a “Be Mine” heart and chocolate that he certainly did not steal from the gift shop. 

“The last time we were in one of these something really magical happened,” he said as he closed the door behind them. 

“The only thing magic was your hands.” MC wrapped her arms around his neck and pecked his lips. 

The evening of the group’s night on the town started off rough and stressful.

Bryce admitted he applied for a transfer to MK. He needs to be in Boston or really any hospital within driving distance of his sister’s school. She didn’t fly all the way out here just to be abandoned by him again.

MC understood - of course she understood his reason for staying here. She just didn’t know what to do for herself. They hadn’t talked about the long term, if they were going to try and be close. They hadn’t talked about their future at all, actually. The only times they did Keiki was the main subject. 

And she guessed she just had to apply to places and hope for the best. She knew where he’d be and now she needs to figure out if she fits into that.  

When applications got sad and boring the group got all dolled up and went out for a drink. Or six. Enough alcohol to forget the awkwardness that was earlier in their apartment. To forget the looming uncertainty of their unofficial relationship. 

Bryce was committed. MC was committed. They just weren’t vocal about their devout commitment. 

They got so drunk and ended up at the helipad on top of Edenbrook.

Cracking beers in hand, dancing and singing and enjoying the evening to it’s fullest. Bryce held her close and they lamented on the view as they sat against the wall, anticipating the sunrise over the horizon. 

The nightly breeze picked up. He rubbed patterns up and down her arms and she drew circles at his inner thigh. 

MC looked at him, their eyes locking.

Bryce’s lips turned upwards in a weighted smile. MC leaned her forehead against his and let out the sigh she didn’t know she was holding in. 

He kissed the corner of her mouth. Then her cheek. Then her nose. Then her neck. Her hands gripping to the lapels of his sports coat. 

They went back to his place and they didn’t talk about the future at all. Both of them clinging to the here and now. 

That evening they didn’t have sex. They held one other the entire night. They fell asleep to the sound of the other’s heartbeat.  

Small pleasantries were exchanged in the morning along with light kisses. 

For another time that year, they both felt the change. 

Edenbrook’s last day came and they were both in their feelings. Bryce was set to start at MK in a few weeks time and MC still didn’t know where she was going. Not a single application response on the east coast had come back yet. 

Bryce was standing outside with his best friends when the lights of Edenbrook finally went off that fateful day. 

Minutes later MC walked out. He noticed how her features, mood and hopes simultaneously fell lower than he’d seen in a while.

Her eyes found him right away, his arms waiting for her. She melted into his hug. Deep in his embrace with all her friends chattering around them, a part of her hoped they could compromise. There was so much more to explore between them. This couldn’t be the end. 

The entire Boston Bucket List event was bittersweet. As much as they enjoyed the escapades and these memories with their friends Bryce and MC just wanted some time alone. They needed time together to combat the unknown. 

By the time it was MC’s turn she chose a total cop-out. A kiss with Bryce. 

A kiss she hoped encompassed every feeling she was too scared to say. A kiss that told him just how much the uncertainty of their future was eating her up inside. A kiss he desperately needed as well. 

________________________________________

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[kvetchlandia]

Dave Heath     New York City     c.1957

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between, Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox, who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge, a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon, yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement, who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall, suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,   who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts, who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night, who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,   who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels, who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain, who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa, who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago, who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets, who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed, who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons, who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts, who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love, who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword, who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom, who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake, who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too, who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices, who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium, who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion, who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery, who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music, who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts, who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology, who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish, who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom, who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg, who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade, who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried, who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality, who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer, who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles, who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation, who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity, who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes, who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second, who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz, who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave, who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury, who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia, who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia, returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East, Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon, with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination— ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time— and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane, who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head, the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death, and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

--Allen Ginsberg, “Howl, part 1″  1956

[newloverofbeauty]

Richard Avedon:  Peter Orlovsky & AllenGinsberg  (1963)

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

 dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

 angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, 

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural 

darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, 

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, 

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, 

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, 

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, 

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, 

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night 

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, 

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, 

illuminating all the motionless world of Time between, 

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over 

the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun 

and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings 

and kind king light of mind, 

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx 

on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-

wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo, 

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale 

beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox, 

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon, 

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and 

eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes,

 meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement, 

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall, 

suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,

 who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts, 

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night, 

who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas, 

 who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels, 

who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, 

who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain, 

who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and 

followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa, 

who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and 

the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago, 

who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big 

pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,

 who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, 

who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing 

while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed 

down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed, 

who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons, 

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime 

but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, 

who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts, 

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, 

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love, 

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, 

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath 

when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword, 

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate 

the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb

 and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom, 

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of 

cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall 

and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, 

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed 

in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake, 

who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, 

cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable 

lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops 

in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & 

especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too, 

who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden

 Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay 

and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,

 who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a 

door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium, 

who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the 

wartime blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion, 

who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery, 

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music, 

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts, 

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology, 

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish, 

who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom, 

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg, 

who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade, 

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to 

open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried, 

who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine 

shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality, 

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown 

and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer, 

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the 

filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses 

barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz 

finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles, 

who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation, 

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision 

or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity, 

who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, 

who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out 

the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes, 

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second, 

who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads 

and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz, 

who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers 

to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave, 

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury, 

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented 

themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy, and 

who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia, 

who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia, 

returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the 

visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East, 

Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes 

of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,

 with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M.

 and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, 

a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination— 

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time— 

and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the 

alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane, 

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and 

trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs 

and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater 

Omnipotens Aeterna Deus 

to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you 

speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,

 the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death, 

and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and 

blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma 

sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio 

with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat 

a thousand years. 

 –Allen Ginsberg, “Howl, part 1″ 1956

[purplesurveys]

1129

[created by: youvebeensurved - LiveJournal]

How often do you get fountain drinks from a gas station? I’ve actually never tried getting a drink from one of those fountains. I find them nasty, and the fact that gas stations aren’t the most hygienic of places certainly doesn’t help their case.

If you get online and look at graphics, what website(s) do you go to? I never find myself looking for graphics. The closest thing I search are vector icons, and for those I have an extension on Chrome that lets me look for icons to place on slides and such.

Who would you say your favorite celebrity is? At the moment it would be Rosamund Pike, but my all-time favorite would be Beyoncé.

Have you ever slept in your car? If so, explain. Sure, mostly when I took naps in between classes. There were also a few times I had late nights out and didn’t have a place to crash at, so I’d sleep in the car for the night before heading home in the morning.

If you were forced to murder one of your parents, which one would it be? This is a horrible question.

What song are you currently obsessed with? Find Me Here - Hayley Williams.

Explain your last run in with the police: Never happened.

Who was the last friend you hung out with, and what did you guys do? In terms of a physical get-together, I was with Angela, Hans, Pia, Kyelle, Al, Gab, and Sam and we had dinner and drinks at this gastropub that announced its impending permanent closure by the end of February. Virtually, I hung out with Andi, Peter, Carmel, Rita, Robin, Mik, and Elis to have a Jeopardy game night over Zoom.

What time do you usually go to bed and wake up? On weekdays I try to turn in anywhere between 9–11 PM and wake up by 6:30. On weekends, I try to stay up until midnight at the earliest, but I’m trying to make it a habit to stay up until like 2–3 AM just so I can catch up on my hobbies and shows. I wake up anywhere between 5–7 AM.

If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? What's stopping you? Lawyer, which is a route I seriously considered for a few years. I get extremely tense in arguments though so I doubt I’d be the best fit for that kind of career.

Do you have a friend that's in a horrible situation right now? Explain. Yeah, my college batchmate (who’s now also my co-worker) Aimee tested positive for COVID this week after being in and out of a fever over the last two weeks.

What was the last store you were in, and what did you buy? I suddenly needed plastic bags while I was packing groceries at the office the other week, so I went to the nearby convenience store to check if they had any. They didn’t, so I left without buying anything.

Who was the last person you texted, and what did this text say? I was texting some media friends to tell them some shoes we had ordered for them to try out are going to be delivered to their address within the day.

What is the reason for the last time you cried? A show I had been watching had an emotional scene.

Who is your favorite character in your favorite movie? Joanna, of course, mainly because that’s the character Audrey Hepburn plays.

What color did you last paint your nails? I can’t remember the color I chose the last time I had my nails painted 79472394348 years ago.

It's 112 degrees out today, describe your attire: A very thin tank top with airy shorts.

Do you have any friends that are currently in jail? Explain their situation. Not friends but I can think of a couple of relatives who’ve gotten ‘in conflict’ with the law. I won’t get into their cases but for both of them, it was because they got tricked by their respective abusive bosses, hence the quote marks.

Do you tend to take long or short surveys? I like taking those whose lengths are right in the middle - anywhere between 35-80 questions. Shorter ones look boring and I find the longer ones too time-consuming.

What do you currently desire? I changed my mind about La Creperie and will be going to Ramen Nagi instead since I just remembered they currently have a truffle ramen thing that’s only going to be around for a limited time, and I want to get my hands on it before they take it off the menu.

How often do you honk your horn? Depends on how stupid the people I’m driving with are on a given day.

For what reason were you last at a park? We don’t have too many parks here so there’s little opportunity to stay at one. I remember seeing one with Gab when we were at BGC a little over a year ago, but we only walked through it since it was part of the route we were taking to get to our actual destination.

What junk food can you never pass up? Salted egg chips and pizza.

If you're a girl, what is your favorite brand of feminine hygiene products? If you're a boy, what is your favorite brand of condoms? I don’t have a favorite.

Where was the last place you went on a walk to? Just around the neighborhood. I also wanted to make this morning’s route with Cooper a little longer so he could walk more, so we went to parts of the village we don’t normally reach.

How are you feeling today? I’m content :) It’s the weekend so I’m not too tense like I normally would be on weekdays. I also have plans to go out later today so I’m looking forward to that.

Do you ever make your own surveys? Never tried because I know I wouldn’t be able to come up with new and interesting questions.

How flexible are you? Not very. I can’t even reach my toes when I do stretches.

What is your favorite class? Any history elective. I also like biology, anthropology, and some aspects of political science.

What is your boyfriend's name? I don’t have one.

What is your favorite drink? Non-alcoholic, cold water. Alcoholic, Long Island Iced Tea for mixed drinks, and tequila.

Who is your best friend? Angela.

What time is it? 11:20 AM.

What is your middle name? My second name is Isabelle, but I’m not sharing my legal middle name.

What 3 websites do you visit daily? YouTube, Google Suite, and Twitter.

Where do you work? At home, haha. But under normal circumstances I’d be working in an office somewhere in Metro Manila.

What is your favorite band? Paramore.

How do you feel about abortion? Personally not a fan of the procedure for myself, but I am as pro-choice as it gets.

Do you want any kids? Very much so.

Have you ever microwaved soap? Nah, but I know what happens to it from watching YouTube videos hahaha. It’s so fun to see it gradually expand and become a pretty lil cloud.

Are there any new movies that you want to see? I Care A Lot, but I feel sooooooooo lazy about watching new movies. Idk if I’ll ever get around to it.

How many places have you lived? I’d say around five in total, including the house I currently reside in. I’ve lived in my parents’ apartment in Manila, then we briefly moved in with my dad’s parents, and then I spent most of my childhood in a duplex living with my mom’s side (and got to live in both houses), until we finally settled here when I was 10.

Do you have any health issues? Yeah, the main one I have to live with is scoliosis.

Are you texting anyone? Nope. And I don’t really text anymore, either. Most of my conversations take place on Messenger or Viber.

What do you drive? A Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? Sure, both male and female ones.

Are you drinking or eating anything? Nope but I am starting to feel a bit hungry.

What color is your shirt? Yellow with some grey text.

Do you drink? Like...alcohol? Sure. I have the occasional soju night.

What year do/did you graduate? I graduated high school in 2016, and college in 2020.

Do you play any sports? Table tennis, though it’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to play. I got to take it as a PE elective on my last sem, but my time with it got cut off because of COVID :(

Do you pop your fingers? Yeah, I just cracked my knuckles a few minutes ago.

What is your shoe size? I can wear a size 6 or 7.

Have you ever had a UTI? Apparently I’ve had one, but all I got from it was a persisting high fever. I didn’t actually have any difficulties or felt pain in my urinary tract, though of course I felt scared to pee during that time because I thought it would hurt lol.

What was the last thing you baked? Cookies. A lifetime ago, since I don’t normally bake.

When was the last time you showered? Yesterday afternoon when I was finally able to clock out of work.

Would you rather go to the dentist or the doctor? Dentist. I actually find the procedures soothing. There’s a whole lot of issues that can be unpacked when you visit doctors, so I’m kinda scared of that.

Have you ever been in love? Yes. I miss the feeling and being able to act on it, but I’m liking being with myself too.

How do you feel about public speaking? I’m ok with it for the most part. I know I can speak well and generally have a good hold of my thoughts, so I don’t mind if I have to do it unless I have to talk about something I’m greatly unfamiliar with, like insurance or economics lmao. The latter situation is the only time I’d feel unprepared or scared of public speaking.

Do you see anything green? Yeah, since we have artificial plant accents on the coffee table.

What shoes do you usually wear? Sneakers or running shoes.

Do you take any birth control? Nope.

Who is the last person you talked to? My sister; I just asked her to turn the volume down on the TV.

Are there any fast food restaurants that you refuse to eat at? Just Tokyo Tokyo. I can take or leave Burger King but for the most part I find their burgers too plain.

Do you recycle? Whenever I can, yeah.

Do you know what you want to major in in college? I wanted to take up journalism. I suppose I don’t regret it, since I ended up wanting to be in a field that’s close enough to it anyway and I don’t feel like the skills I learned went to waste.

Have you ever snuck anyone in your room? Nah, I always let my mom know if I’m letting someone over since she doesn’t knock and would find out anyway.

Who was the last person in your bed besides you? Gabie.

Have you ever been in the hospital? Other than when I was born, yeah, at least once.

What's the last movie you watched? I watched Midsommar with Nina and some cousins last Christmas lol. We unknowingly downloaded the Director’s Cut, which we found out wasn’t as good as the main version since they added cheesy scenes to it, which ruined the suspenseful mood of the movie.

What's your favorite fruit? Avocado.

What do your bathroom walls look like? The bottom half has coral-ish tiles, while the top half is just a plain white wall. In the downstairs bathroom the setup is the same, but instead of coral tiles we have light blue wall tiles instead on the bottom half.

What do you spend most of your money on? At the moment, most of the money that I do take out of my account is the money I give to my parents every couple of weeks to help out with the bills. The next main thing I spend on is food, because I always have cravings I need satisfied haha.

Do you have any weird obsessions? Reading about serial killers and unsolved crimes isn’t really considered ‘weird’ anymore since a lot of other people have taken up the interest. But that’s probably the most out-there ~obsession that I have.

Do you bite your nails? I do but not obsessively.

What's the last color you dyed your hair? I’ve never tried dyeing my hair yet.

How do you feel about mustaches? Not my personal preference, but you do you.

Is there anyone that you really want to see in concert? Beyonceeeeeeeeeeeeee.

#survey #surveys

[amelianotthepilot]

[Travel Itinerary] BTS Bon Voyage in New Zealand

BTS recently traveled around New Zealand in their recent season of Bon Voyage.  The following Itinerary is what I could guess from watching the episodes/behind cams.

OVERALL

Christchurch

Castle Hill

Tekapo

Kinloch

Queenstown

ITINERARY

D1 (Christchurch > Castle Hill)

Fly (Seoul > Singapore > Christchurch)

Jin flys separately (Seoul > Auckland > Christchurch)

Rent camper @ Britz

Lunch @ Speight's Ale House

Address: 2 Troup Drive, Riccarton, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand

Shopping Hiking store @ Kathamandu

Address: Tower Junction Mega Centre Blenheim Road, Foster Street, Riccarton, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand

Korean store @ Kosco

Address: 227 Blenheim Road, Riccarton, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand

?also maybe went to the alcohol store in this shopping mall?

Drive

Cafe stop with sheep @ Highway Cafe

Address: 5695 West Coast Road, Springfield 7681, New Zealand

Drive

Stop @ Lake Lyndon

Address: Castle Hill 7580, New Zealand

Sleep @ Porters Lodge

Address: Porters Ski Area Access Road State Highway 73, Castle Hill 7580, New Zealand

about $57 a night per person

D2 (Castle Hill  > Geraldine > Fairlie > Tekapo )

JK hikes to get snow

Jimin small hike

Group hike up the trail

Breakfast @ Porter's Lodge

Address: Porters Ski Area Access Road State Highway 73, Castle Hill 7580, New Zealand

Drive

Gas Station @ Z Petrol (Jhope left behind)

Address: Cnr Waihi Terrace &, Pine Street, Geraldine 7930, New Zealand

Gift Shop  @ Kiwi Country (Jhope left behind)

Address: 38 Waihi Terrace, Geraldine 8751, New Zealand

Drive

Lunch @ Farm Barn Cafe

Address: 4 Mount Michael Road, R D 17, Fairlie 7987, New Zealand

Drive

Grocery shopping @ Foursquare

Address: State Highway 8 22 Rapuwai Lane Tekapo-Twizel Road, Lake Tekapo 7999, New Zealand

Playground @ Foursquare

Address: 5 Lakeside Drive, Lake Tekapo 7999, New Zealand

Drive

Lake Tepako lookout

Address: 2F67+JJ Lake Tekapo, Canterbury, New Zealand

Lake Tepako Astro Cafe

Address: Godley Peaks Road, Lake Tekapo 7945, New Zealand

(they were hanging out here before they did the Observatory)

Look at stars @ Mt John Observatory

Address: 2F77+VM Lake Tekapo, Canterbury, New Zealand

Drive

Campground cabin on the lake 

Address: 2 Lakeside Drive, Lake Tekapo 7999, New Zealand

about $70 a night

Dinner @ Cabin

Look at moon

D3 (Tekapo > Ben Ohau > Mt Cook > ??? )

Leave by 8:00am

Food shopping @ Four Square Lake Tekapo

      -Address: State Highway 8 22 Rapuwai Lane Tekapo-Twizel Road, Lake Tekapo 7999, New Zealand

Playground @ Foursquare

Address: 5 Lakeside Drive, Lake Tekapo 7999, New Zealand

Drive

Address: 5098 Tekapo-Twizel Road, Ben Ohau 7999, New Zealand

Drive

Hike Mt Cook @ Hooker Valley Track

Address: Hooker Valley Track, Mt Cook National Park 7999, New Zealand

3 Hour hike with 3 bridges and lake

Camping @ special site

Address: ???

Set up tent @ campsite

Address: ???

Dinner @ campsite

Address: ???

(Supposed to stargaze but fell asleep )

D4 (??? > Omarama > Gibbston > Queenstown > Kinloch)

Wake up by 7:00am

Pack up

Drive

Go to spa @ Hot Tubs Omarama

Address: 29 Omarama Ave, Main Omarama Twizel Highway, Omarama 9448, New Zealand

Lunch @ Hot Tubs Omarama

(it sounds like they did the hot tub and also did the sauna/spa part after and it wasn't shown)

Drive

Bungee jumping @ Nevis Swing

Address: 3170950, Gibbston 9371, New Zealand

Drive

Food Shopping @ Countdown Queenstown

Address: 30 Grant Road, Frankton, Queenstown 9371, New Zealand

Korean store and clothes store

Address:

Drive

Camping @ Kinloch Camping Site

Address: 876 Kinloch Road, Kinloch 9372, New Zealand

Dinner and Mulled Wine @ Kinloch Camping Site

Clean up at midnight and sleep

D5 (Kinloch > Glenorchy > Queenstown area > Queenstown)

Clean up

Address: 876 Kinloch Road, Kinloch 9372, New Zealand

Drive

Helicopter @ Glacier Southern Lakes Helicopters

Address: 35 Lucas Place, Frankton, Queenstown 9348, New Zealand

(BTS met the helicopter on a field but the company usually has you meet at their Queenstown location and then they bus you to the helicopter and back)

Flight 107: Land at lake and land at snow

Picnic Lunch @ Glenorchy Wharf

Address: 4 Islay Street, Glenorchy 9372, New Zealand

Split up for activities

(V/Jimin)Horseback riding @ Dart Stables

Address: 59X9+W7 Glenorchy, Otago, New Zealand

(Jin/JK/Suga/ JHope) Fishing @ Lake Wakatipu

Address: Queenstown Fishing, Sugar Lane, Frankton, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(RM) Working @ Kinloch Camping Site

Address: 876 Kinloch Road, Kinloch 9372, New Zealand

Drive

Settle into Queenstown House @ The Views by Touch of Spice

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

$1200 a night

Dinner @ The Views by Touch of Spice

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

Play Uno @ The Views by Touch of Spice

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

D6 (Queenstown)

(V) Wake up punishment @ The Views by Touch of Spice

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

Get ready and Clean up @ The Views by Touch of Spice

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

Drive

Skyline Gondola

Address: 53 Brecon Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(they showed them getting on this but not the ride)

Ski lift to luge

Address: XJFW+MX Queenstown, Otago, New Zealand

Luge

Address: XJFW+MX Queenstown, Otago, New Zealand

they did the Scenic and Advanced tracks

Drive

Lunch @ The Views by Touch of Spice

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

Split up for activities

(V) Art Gallery @ Ivan Clarke Gallery

Address: 39 Camp Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(V) relax under tree @ Park next to KFC

Address: 27 Camp Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(Jimin/JHope/RM) Biking to Cafe @ The Boatshed

Address: 9300/847 Frankton Road, Frankton, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

40min bike ride to The Boatshed from their house

(Jin/Suga/JK) Fishing  @

Address:  ??

(Jin/Suga/JK) Fishing Take 2 @

Address:  ??

(Jimin/JHope/RM) facetime @ park

Address: Lake Wakatipu Ride, Frankton, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(exact address is 45°01'13.6"S 168°43'43.5"E )

about a 1-hour ride from their house

(V) walks around Queenstown

(V) eats a burger  @ McDonald's

Address: O'Connells Shopping Centre, 23 Camp Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(V) goes to store with fur bed @ Remarkable Gifts

Address: Shop 4/13 Camp Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(V) goes home and learns UNO

Address: 3 Whitbourn Place, Fernhill, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(Jimin/JHope/RM) food shopping @ FreshChoice Queenstown

Address: 64 Gorge Road, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand

(sidenote I’m still confused how they got all the groceries back cause they biked. I'm guessing the cars picked them up from their bike ride.)

Everyone meets at home and cooks and has dinner and drinks

Play BTS UNO

outro interviews

Last Update: 7 Jan 2020

to be continued (ill finish updating it tomorrow sorry)

(the ones with ??? im working on pls be patient/if you know where it is DM me)

coming soon: Check out my BTS New Zealand Photo Spots post to find out where you can take the photos BTS did!

#bts #bv4 #bon voyage #bts bon voyage #new zealand #nz #bts new zealand #bts itinerary #bts spots #amelianotthepilot #bangtan #bts travel #queenstown #bv #bon voyage s4 #bon voyage season 4 #bv s4 e8 #bon voyage season 4 episode 8

[sticks-and-stone]

Potts Preserve

September 21, 2019 - September 22, 2019

This was my first time camping since February when I went with my roommate and the dog we had at the time. Before that it was just camping with my father as a kid or drunk with my friends in high school (trips I almost don’t remember at all). So this trip was a pretty big deal with very few expectations or preparedness. I wanted to find a hobby that would not cost much, but would require significant planning and time out of my life before, during, and after. So camping seemed like a good fit. I decided to start planning monthly trips. So this was the first one!

When I first decided to go on this trip, I had next to no supplies. I wanted to go with whatever I had or could improvise as a way to get started on a list of things I wanted to add to my kit. What better way to figure out what I needed than to realize it in the moment! 

This trip was only going to be a quick overnight so that in the event that we realized we had too little, we wouldn’t be stuck out there for days. I found a site that was owned by the Southwest Florida Water Management District and was free to use with a reservation. So I booked the site and called up an old friend, Jenna. Jenna and I did a lot of drunk camping together in high school and she had a foundation of camping with her own father as a child, so I knew she would be right for the job. She and I had also gone a long period of time without hanging out, so it was a good opportunity for us to catch up! 

When we began planning this trip, I had a tent, and some other small stuff, but not a whole lot of anything else. We borrowed a cooler from my roommate, a chair from my parents, and just bought beer on our way out to the campsite.

I wanted to get a good night’s sleep before getting up midmorning on Saturday to meet Jenna and go, but I ended up staying up late. Like a child before her first trip to Disney World, I was restless, excited, and hyperactive. When I woke up (too early) the next day, all that excitement was squashed when I realized I had started my period. I was worried this would happen, but I was hoping my Day One would be on Sunday, but alas, I was going to have to go camping on my period. And not just any camping trip, a camping trip that I wasn’t totally sure I was prepared for. As it turned out, the portable toilets were close and clean enough for me. YAY!

Jenna showed up exactly on time - I really have to give her props for that. She helped me load up the car and then we took off! We stopped at my parents' house (they were out of town) for a little firewood and one of their camping chairs (Jenna did not have one) and also at a gas station for beer and snacks. Then we were on the road for real; it was about midday.

The drive down was quicker and easier than we expected. After not seeing each other  for a few years, we had PLENTY to talk about and catch up on. She told me about all of her drama, I told her about all of mine. It was lovely. We arrived at the campground without getting lost or even a little turned around at all. There were about 4 other groups there already set up and as it was late afternoon on a Saturday, everyone seemed to be pretty settled in. 

We found our spot. Unlike the other spots that people had set up around us, we did not have a fire pit, a picnic table, or a grill. Everyone else seemed to have all three. We didn’t mind and we found a nice flat place to lay our tent out. We found out later that what we chose was not a spot at all and that we were not even supposed to be back there. 

We got the tent set up and I began to work on the air pump that I had borrowed from my roommate. I needed to strip the wire so that I could split it and plug it into the car battery that dad gave me to run the fan. We had no other form of electricity and no other way to pump the air mattresses up. I broke it. I ended up strippping the wires too much and the whole contraption became non-functional. We were only there for one night, though, and what’s sleeping on the ground other than the authenticity of a camping trip? 

From the time of arrival until just before dusk (about 3 hours) we thought it would be nice to open up the tent to allow the breeze and light to enter it. Well, neither did and what did enter our tent was about 10,000 love bugs. So I went in there with our one bottle of bug spray and closed myself in. I held my breath and sprayed the shit out of the aerosol canister until I was sure everyone was dead and I could not hold my breath any longer. 

To give the homemade bug bomb a chance to work, we decided to explore the area and go on a hike. We made it about a mile away from camp and it started raining. The trail seemed to come to a dead end so we just turned around and went back. I have a terrible sense of direction and would have honestly gotten completely lost if it hadn’t been for Jenna to guide us. 

We got back to camp after our hike and I checked on our tent - no more living love bugs, but piles of dead ones on the ground. It was gross. I got Jenna and the broom and we got rid of as many of the dead bodies as we could. We would shake the rest out the next day when we packed up to leave. 

We sat around the fire and played the guitar for a bit when suddenly I realized that we were going to get bored. We had been drinking beer since we arrived and we'd been going through it pretty fast. I never really thought about how to pass the time.  

I went walking around looking for firewood. I had nothing to chop it with or nothing to cut the large limbs, but I could use leverage and my body weight for most of the work I needed to do. 

The entire time we were there, I made sure to keep a list of all the things I thought about having that we didn’t have. The first being string, the next, an air pump that plugged into the car. Then a sponge. I started to realize that we had enough to survive in the woods, but we did not have enough to THRIVE. This trip was rough supplies-wise, but we made do. Thankfully we brought enough beer to ward off TOO much boredom.

As the sun went down and the alcohol made its way further into our bloodstreams, we decided we were hungry and wanted to eat the food I had brought for us. What I had brought was really simple. It was two pre-made PB&J sandwiches, pre-made mac and cheese, and PB&J crackers. 

Dinner was a disaster. The sandwiches I made got soggy from the ice melting and the container failing to do its job in the cooler. The mac and cheese was attempted cold, but then it was decided that we would put it in the pot in the fire and see if we could heat it up. That actually worked out pretty well - but was all we had. Luckily, Jenna came armed with hummus and crackers and had bought some beef jerky at the gas station. 

We went to sleep soon after dinner and made sure we got nice and drunk first because we had forgotten that we were sleeping on the ground that night. After all the alcohol, I was ready to crash. My body temp was high though so I put on the fan and slept on top of my blankets. 

About halfway through the night I was woken up by the feeling of my bones turning to ice and cracking. I was violently shivering in my bed and wasn’t sure my toes were still attached to my body. I had to pee too. So I stood up clumsily in our little tent and put on my shoes. I looked over and Jenna was fast asleep but now wearing more clothes than she went to bed in - I guess she woke up the same way I did.  

I walked to the bathroom and peed. I took comfort in the smelly plastic bin as it seemed to have held on to the day’s heat and trapped it inside. I was suddenly disgusted with myself for enjoying a port a potty, so I walked back to the tent. 

When I got inside I turned off the fan. I looked through my suitcase - nothing but more short sleeved shirts and shorts. I took my shoes off but left my socks on and covered them with a second pair. I took the folded king-sized sheet off of my deflated twin size mattress and used that as extra cover in addition to the small throw blanket I had.  I was able to make it a few more hours like that until the urge to pee woke me up again. 

This time, it seemed warmer outside the tent so I took my double pair of socks off and slipped on flip flops. Jenna was still asleep so I stumbled out of the tent toward the bathroom. I handled my business and came back to the tent - this time, no lingering in the port-a-potty for warmth. 

As I approached the site, I saw Jenna moving around outside the tent with her flashlight. I assumed she was doing the same thing I was - taking a midnight pee - but as I got closer I could see that she was in fact setting up the fire. As I got close enough I asked if she was trying to warm up so she could sleep, and she looked at me confused and said “No, this is today’s fire, it’s 6:30”. I was shocked and confused, but proud that we had made it to morning.

We had no breakfast. So we drank more beer. We were out of water, so I decided it was time to leave. We packed up quickly and cleaned the tent and tarps and then we were on our way out. 

As we tried to exit the gate, our code wouldn’t work and we had to wait for a forest cop to show up and let us out. We probably waited an hour or so, but when he finally did arrive, he was super nice and as it turns out, from Jacksonville! We chatted with him for a while until a car pulled up behind us. We were finally on our way home! 

The ride home was a bit different than the ride there. We double and triple checked my list and talked about all of the things we HAD to get for next time, which things I already had at home, and which things needed to be purchased. Overall the trip was fine, we decided, but we could do WAY better. 

Observations: 

SO MANY LOVE BUGS - they literally covered everything 

We needed to pack the car more strategically - we had to pull everything out to get to the tent and table that we needed to set up first 

We needed rope/string

More stakes for the tarp and the tent would not be a bad idea 

A table or some platform to unpack on would be handy 

Our air pump broke - we needed one that plugged into the car. 

It's super important to keep the tent closed completely. 

We needed a shovel to dig out the fire pit 

We needed more lights around the site - the fire was not enough 

Citronella candles would not be a bad idea either 

Should have brought extra bug spray

We didn’t have much to do beyond sitting and drinking beer. We vowed to bring at least some books and crafts for next time. I want to learn to whittle. 

I needed to stay more organized with the supplies as we unpacked. Things got messy.

Get Outside, 

Stone.

#camping #outdoors #tent camping #tent #adventure #Potts Preserve #SWFWMD #Florida

[lostborderline]

11/11/20

Didn’t make a post yesterday because I had my day off and I spent it at my boyfriend’s house and I didn’t bring my MacBook. I prefer to write these journals on my MacBook anyway. Yesterday was pretty great. It was hard to remember all the details because I was consistently drinking throughout the day. Tuesday morning at midnight I drove up to my boyfriend’s house, he lives 30 minutes away so it’s kind of a trip (for me, anyway). He gets out of work at midnight so I had to wait. We stayed up until about 4 am, during this time we drove a few towns over to get McDonald’s because I was starving. We ended up getting extra free food because the car ahead of us only had card that they weren’t accepting. When we got back we played some music and then went to sleep until around 10 am. When we woke up it took me a little while to get ready. Mostly because I was being cuddly and I also got dressed and did some makeup. We decided to go out for lunch at Ruby Tuesday. I had a margarita, obviously. We got so full that it hurt and we could barely walk. We decided to go to this place after to go hiking. Hiking at this place is a real mission and it’s so hard. it’s so steep uphill that we got tired at the beginning. It’s definitely worth the climbing because the view at the top is so beautiful and you can see the casino from there. We had a lot of fun together and I’m glad we had that kind of intimacy. He took some pictures of me and the nature around us. After that, we went to this tiny farm stand and bought some sodas, a honey stick, and a peanut butter chocolate pie. We then went back to his house so he could pick up his badge because he works at the casino. We went to the casino after and looked around the outlets. He bought me this cute skirt I liked and then we went to Hard Rock Cafe and I had another margarita (lol) and we just straight up had a good time. We stopped at a bar in the casino on the way and I had a beer. (Angry Orchard to be specific, I like cider beer). He had whiskey and he made me try it. It was gross. When we got back we were so tired but we stayed up for a little while and cuddled and shit. We went to sleep around 10 pm, and I woke up around 4 am cause I had to leave for work unfortunately. 

Anyway this week has really been up and down. I’ve been incredibly social because a lot of people have been wanting to hang out with me so I’ve been divvying up my time between them. Depression has also hit a few times this week along with stress from my ex (roommate). Finances are stressful obviously, and not going to lie suicide has been on my mind a lot. I’ve been drinking a lot lately. I think about alcohol a lot. But I just got done cleaning part of my house earlier, my kitchen. I was dreading doing it cause starting is always the hardest part. Once you get up and do it you don’t stop so I am trying to just get up and do it, not think about it. It put me in mania which is not a bad place to be. I think it’s wearing off though because I’m starting to get pretty tired. I may go to the gas station to get a soda because I’m craving it. When I get back I’ll most likely take a shower and relax. Tomorrow I’m trying to make a point to clean some more in a different area and do some schoolwork because I have NOT been feeling school lately. The want to drop out is so real right now. 

#bpd #borderline #borderline personality disorder #mental illness #mental health #depression #anxiety #journal #entry #actually bpd

[penny4yourthot]

Bad Things

Summary: (inspired by the song by MGK +Camilla Cobello) Happy X reader. The reader is an innocent girl who hooks up with Happy knowing she probably shouldn’t. Basically a bunch of smut. This went a completely different route then I was originally planning. thanks to @ithoughtofthisusername for editing.

Warnings: SMUT

You had been working the night shift at the gas station in Charming for about a year. Since the town was so small, and this was the only gas station around, you got to know almost everyone who resided here.

It was almost midnight. You were silently counting down the minutes until you get to close up the shop for the night, and you hoped nobody would walk through those doors. When you heard the all too familiar ding from the bell on the door signaling someone was coming in, you sighed, a little louder then you meant to.

“Damn didn’t know I bothered you that much,” you heard a low gravelly voice walk up to the counter. You turned around to see your favorite member of SAMCRO walk in.

“Hey Happy, need cigarettes?” you asked him with a small smile. You had a huge crush on this man and you have for more than 6 months. You were too shy to say anything about it to him.

“Nah, actually came in to see you,” he started, staring at your eyes intently, noting the deep blush that ran up your cheeks. “Know you close up soon, was going to see if you wanted  to come to the party at the clubhouse.”

“Ohh, I would love too, but as you probably know, my car is over at the shop. Had to get a ride here from my dad tonight,” you laughed nervously, “he is going to pick me up in a few,” you added.

“Call him and tell him nevermind, I'll give you that ride,” he said, a small chuckle came out his throat as he saw the shock in your face. He loved how innocent you were. Almost looking like a deer in headlights when he offered you a ride.

“Um, okay” you replied, nervously grabbing your phone out of your back pocket dialing your dad's number. You explained to your dad over the phone that your best friend was coming to pick you up so you didn't need a ride anymore. He was more than happy and pretty much fell asleep while still talking on the phone with you. You hung up after quickly saying goodnight.

You looked at your phone and it said 12:01. The smile on your face quickly grew, you started turning off all the lights and Happy held the door open for you.

“Thanks,” you nervously murmured as you walked out of the shop, making sure to lock the doors. You followed Happy to his bike, he handed you his helmet and you put it on. Then climbed on the back of his bike.

Happy loved the way you looked sitting on the back of his bike with his helmet on. Thinking it was cute that you looked so nervous.

“You ever ride before?” he asked as he climbed on the bike to sit in front of you.

“No,” you said instantly, unsure of where to hold onto. He reached behind himself and grabbed your arms wrapping them tightly around his waist. You took in a deep shaky breath as he turned the bike on. He started to pull away and you leaned forward looking over his shoulder.

“You want to go home or come to the party?” he asked, turning his head to the side so you could hear what he was saying. You were feeling a little more outgoing than usual tonight so you told him to take you to the party. Living in such a small town had its benefits; like the fact that it only took three minutes to get to the clubhouse.

He pulled up to his regular parking spot and backed in, allowing you to get off first. He then kicked out the kickstand and got off the bike. He unsnapped the helmet from your head causing you to blush again. Hanging the helmet on the handlebar of the bike and grabbing your hand leading you to the clubhouse.

The music was so loud and you felt instantly out of place as you looked around seeing most of the women there in skimpy clothes. You looked down at yourself still wearing what you wore to work, a plain black t-shirt with a jacket and a pair of tight jeans with your usual converse.

Happy led you over to the bar and pulled out a stool for you to sit on. He then sat next to you.

“What can I get you?” a woman behind the bar wearing a cutoff top and short shorts asked.

“Just a beer please, any kind is fine,” you said. She nodded and grabbed two beers popping the tops off and handing them to you and Happy.

“Thanks,” you mumbled as you took a sip of the cold beer. Happy studied your face as you looked around taking in the sight of all the people. He let out a low laugh as you tensed up and almost jumped out of your seat when he put his hand on your thigh.

“Didn't mean to scare ya, little girl,” He said with an amused grin as he downed some of his beer.

“S’ok,” you said as you took another sip of your beer. The bartender came over to you guys and asked if you needed anything, explaining she would be going out for a cigarette in a minute.

“Can I get a shot of Rum?” you politely asked. Needing something to help calm your nerves.

“Make that two. In fact just leave the bottle here,” Happy rasped out in a low voice with a laugh.

You watched as the bartender grabbed the bottle of Captain Morgan's spiced rum, and two glasses, setting them in front of the two of you. Happy quickly opened the bottle and poured you both a shot. He handed one of the glasses to you and you clinked the glasses before downing the shot. The burning sensation of the alcohol making its way down your throat sent a shiver through your spine.

Happy quietly chuckled as he saw you grab for your beer to take a quick swig of it to chase the shot. You two sat there in comfortable silence for a moment before Happy poured another shot for both of you.

“Thanks,” You murmured as you gladly downed the next shot. You needed the liquid courage, you were so anxious to be sitting next to the man who you have had a crush on for so long.

“So how’s work?” you asked him not knowing what else to talk about.

“Been busy,” he said taking a sip of his beer, “how about you?” he asked, his hand still on your thigh close to your knee. He began to gently run his hand up your thigh. He looked you in the eyes and a grin spread across his face as he saw you blush.

“Umm, work’s is fine, I guess,” you said almost too fast for him to understand. You had a tendency to talk really fast when you were nervous. This time it was you who grabbed the bottle of rum and poured you both another shot. You drank the shot like it was water. You felt the familiar warmth run through your body, signaling the alcohol was going to be taking effect soon.

You sat there staring at his hand as he rubbed up and down your thigh. You were still a nervous wreck but the alcohol was quickly making your anxiety fade away. You frowned when Happy's hand left your thigh but quickly smiled as he put his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to him. He started to kiss your neck which sent a nervous shiver through your body. You grabbed the bottle of rum, pouring one more shot and downing it while Happy continued to kiss your neck.

He slowly made his way up to your mouth. You kissed him softly, you could hear a low moan escape his throat. Happy wasn't used to a girl being so gentle, he was used to those Crow eaters practically throwing themselves at him. This was a nice change of pace for him. He ran his tongue across your bottom lip asking for access to your mouth. You were eager to oblige and he ran his tongue in your mouth. He tasted like a perfect mix of rum and beer.

It took you a second to realize what was going on. You slowly pulled away looking around to see if anyone was watching you. You have never done anything like this in public. Happy gently put his hand on your cheek and turned your head to face him.

“Wanna go somewhere more private?” he asked with that signature gravelly voice that you couldn't resist.

“Sure,” you say as you hopped off your bar stool. He grabbed the glasses and the rum and you grabbed both of your beers and followed him to the back hallway to the dorms.  He opened the door to his room and you followed him in. He closed the door behind you.

You stood in the middle of the room, taking in the sight of all the Harley posters that littered the walls. Happy placed the glasses and rum on the nightstand next to the bed then walked over to you. He took his beer from you when you handed it to him and drank the rest of the beer quickly, throwing the bottle in the trash. He walked back up to you and stood behind you wrapping his strong arms around your waist pulling you back towards him. He started placing feather light kisses on your neck.

You took the last swig of your beer and he grabbed the bottle throwing it over into the trash can. He unwrapped his other arm around your waist and grabbed your hand pulling you over to the bed, you willingly followed him. You sat on the bed and he took a seat next to you. He grabbed your neck gently and pulled you to him to resume the kiss from earlier. He grasped the sleeves of the jacket you were wearing and made quick work of getting it off of you and he tossed it on the end of the bed.

You quickly broke the kiss to kick your shoes off, he did the same. He lifted you up and put you down in the middle of the bed. He climbed over you and started kissing you again, reaching for the hem of your t-shirt to pull it over your head. He pulled back from the kiss as your shirt came off and looked down at you with a burning desire in his eyes. The dark blue bra with black lace trim looked amazing on you. You pulled his shirt off and threw it on the floor. He leaned back down and kissed your neck again, gently nipping the skin at the nape of your neck. He reached his arms around your back and unclasped your bra, quickly throwing it behind him.

“You are beautiful little girl,” he rasped out and gently took one of your nipples in his mouth while his hand was caressing the other one. You let out a small moan, which drove Happy crazy. He wanted to hear you moan out his name, and he was damn sure going to make that happen.

He started to trail kisses down your stomach dipping his tongue in your belly button which caused you to squirm. He let out a low laugh and continued to kiss down your stomach till he reached the top of your jeans. He started to undo the button on your pants but your hand instinctively covered his to stop him. He looked up at you to see a look of fear in your eyes.

“S-sorry, I’ve never…,” you started, too embarrassed to even finish the sentence. You sat up and poured yourself another shot downing it quickly.

“You've never done this?” Happy asked.

“No. Now you probably think I'm a freak. Who’s still a virgin at 25?” you said avoiding eye contact with him. He gently cupped his hands around your face and turned your head to look at him.

“I don't think you're a freak, You just haven't found the right person,” he said slowly running his thumbs over your cheeks.

“We don't have to do this, I don't want you to be uncomfortable,” he quietly said an understanding tone in his voice.

“No I want to, like really bad,” you started, “I'm just kind of scared.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked one more time. He didn't want you to feel pressured.  You nodded yes.

“Okay, then we will take it slow. If you are uncomfortable tell me and we will stop,” he said as he grabbed the bottle of rum and took a swig from it.  You laid back down and Happy leaned back over you gently kissing your lips. His calloused hands ran across your breasts, the contrast between his rough skin and your smooth skin sent shivers down your spine.

He pulled away from the kiss and started kissing down your stomach again until he got back to the waistband of your jeans. He looked up at you and you nodded at him, signaling for him to continue. He unbuttoned your jeans and slowly undid the zipper. You lifted your hips so he was able to pull them down your legs.

He groaned when he saw you were wearing panties that matched your bra, dark blue with black lace trim.

He got your jeans off and threw them behind him, you could hear the soft thud of them hitting the floor. Happy put his hand over your panties and started to gently rub you through the thin material. You lifted your hips so he could get the panties off of your body.

He got off the bed and stood down at the end kneeling on the floor. He grabbed your ankles and gently pulled you down the bed so your legs were on his shoulders. His mouth only inches from where you needed it most.

He gently slid one finger into you, a low moan escaping his lips once he felt how tight and wet you were. He slowly slid his finger in and out of you, wrapping his lips around your clit and began swiping his tongue over the sensitive bud. Your hips involuntary bucked at the sensation, sending Happy’s finger deeper inside you. An involuntary groan slipped from your slightly parted lips as you felt him add a second finger into you, his fingers pumping faster than before while still licking and sucking on your clit. You felt a feeling you have never felt before, a tightness wound up deep in your stomach and your toes curling slightly with the sensation slowing building up inside of you. “Let go, little girl, cum for me,” he muttered between licks, your legs starting to tremble at the feeling. You had no idea what was going on with your body, but all you knew is that you were instantly becoming addicted to the overwhelming pleasure washing over you. A smile spread across Happy's face as he heard you moan out his name.

You lay sprawled out on your back, completely and utterly shocked at the events that had just unfolded. You felt him move your legs off his shoulder, the bed shift slightly as he crawled up next to you. Wrapping his arms around your body and moving you back to the middle of the bed, he leaned down and captured your lips in a heated kiss that was much rougher than before. He pulled back and got off the bed, making quick work of undoing the button on his jeans before slowly pulled them down his legs, leaving him in just his boxers. He gave you a questioning look, wanting to make sure this was still what you wanted. You nodded yes eagerly and he discarded his boxers by kicking them to the floor. He crawled back onto the bed and hovered over you. The feel of his hard member pressing against your thigh made you gasp slightly. You couldn't believe how big he was.

He lined himself up with you and gently pushed the tip of his cock slowly inside of you. He was trying to read your face for any signs of pain. When he didn't see any, he pushed his length into you a little more. He stilled his hips as you shut your eyes tightly, giving you a moment to adjust to the size of him. You opened your eyes and smiled at him signaling to him that you were ready. He slowly pulled out a little and pushed back in further than before filling you up completely.

“Damn little girl, you are so tight,” he breathed out as he held himself there for a second before repeating his previous actions, setting a slow but steady pace.

You moaned loudly as you felt his hand travel down to your clit, his expert hands rubbing it with the perfect amount of pressure and speed. Happy leaned down and pressed a wet kiss to your lips before kissing down your neck. His mouth quickly made its way down to your left nipple, taking it in his mouth and gently biting it and flicking his tongue around it. The pain that you felt earlier quickly fading as you felt that deep wind in your stomach again. Happy could tell you were close by the way your walls started to clench around his cock.

“Are you going to come for me again little girl?” Happy growled out as he continued thrusting into you picking up the pace. You couldn't answer his question as you were overcome by waves of pleasure coursing through your body.

“Oh fuccckkk, Happy, God yes,” you purred as the feeling of euphoria took over your being.

“That's my good little girl, cumming on my cock,” he grunted as he continued to pound into you. His hands moved to your hips holding them down tightly. He felt your hips buck against his trying to match his pace.

“God, that feels so good,” you moaned. That’s all he needed to hear to send him over the edge.

He quickly pulled out and spilled his seed onto your stomach, the warm liquid slowly dripping down towards your wetness below.

He grabbed some tissue off the nightstand and gently wiped his cum off of your stomach. He threw the tissues away and laid next to you. He put his arm out and you scooted up so your head was on his chest.

“That was fucking amazing,” you said looking up at him.

“You don't have any idea the bad things I wanna do to you,” He said his dark eyes consumed with passion as he looked down at you.

“I’d sure like to find out,” you giggled as he placed a kiss on your forehead.

#happy lowman #Sons of anarchy #soa #smut #happy lowman x reader

[symflash]

Ultimate Spider-Man Symflash headcanons

Because I can’t write, I can’t draw, and I can’t pay other people to do it for me.

* The symbiote that's with Flash is a fragment of the larger chunk of symbiote that went down with the Helicarrier in season 1, episode 26, and not the brand new symbiote created in season 3, episode 2. Consequently, they remember Harry, but not the time the Goblin injected Peter with Venom (different fragment).

* Also, in this continuity, "Venom" is actually the name the symbiote picked for themself.

* Venom was a blank slate at their birth, like an infant, with zero concept of morals or social mores. They might've been able to suss it out by osmosis from their hosts' brains, if their most long-term host hadn't been Harry "I hate my dad and I wish he was dead" Osborn.

* Flash's and Venom's first dance as Agent Venom went something like this: Venom: “Okay, I think I've cracked the code. Every time I assert my personhood separate from my host, I get electrocuted to smithereens. So maybe if I... pretend to be an inanimate object, act super low-key, this new host won't notice, and I can delay my next near-death experience.” Flash: "This is awesome! You're awesome! What's your name? I'm Flash! Do you wanna be friends? Do you like football? Do you know what football is?" Venom: *tears streaming down their metaphorical face* "wHAt tHe fUcK Is goINg oN"

* That was not the moment Venom decided to bind themselves permanently to Flash, though. That happened after Beetle tried to hit them with a sonic blast. Venom was in pain, and Flash was telling them not to be scared, because Spider-Man would help them, they could trust Spidey. That was Venom's first exposure to the concept of trust. And after they saw that trust paid off, they decided to trust Flash. And their trust paid off. Flash: "Did you hear that, buddy? You won't have to leave after all! Isn't this great?" Venom:

* Flash's training period at SHIELD was mostly dedicated to teaching human morality to Venom and training himself to not refer to himself as "we" (it gives the people with the sonic guns twitchy trigger fingers).

* Sure, I could NOT shoehorn in Flash's comic book backstory. But I'm a slut for cheap angst, so I'm gonna. ** Flash didn't so much live at the gas station as he squatted there after running away from home. ** The smell of alcohol is a trigger for him. He drops off the radar on his 21st birthday because he's terrified his friends will try to take him to a bar.

* Flash and Venom converse telepathically more often than they let on. They like to do Mystery Science Theatre 3000 running commentaries during boring meetings. They also do a psychic duet of Bohemian Rhapsody whenever a known mind reader walks into the room. Just in case.

* Venom thinks the fact that Flash was The Very First Host They Ever Took is the most romantic thing ever. ("It was destiny!") Flash is just embarrassed that their first meeting was so inauspicious. ("You came out of a toilet and I tried to feed Pete to you.")

* Venom can do a bang-up impersonation of Harry, and you can bet they use it to make fun of him at any opportunity. ** "Hurr burr, I have a limousine, a penthouse home and billions of dollars, and when my favorite Spider-Person doesn't reciprocate my gay crush *choking up* I don't cry about it."

* There was a brief period after "Anti-Venom" where Venom was too weak to speak to Flash, and Flash wasn't sure if they were dead or alive. ** Of course he cried; slut for cheap angst, remember?

* Flash has undiagnosed dyslexia. He didn't figure it out until Venom asked him why letters wiggle for him but not for Harry.

* Venom likes dandelions, especially ones growing out of cracks in the sidewalk. ** "They're considered weeds and eradicated on sight, and yet they're strong enough to break through rock, and hardy enough to survive in environments that would be inhospitable to all other plants. It's just... poeticcinema.jpg." *** "Buddy, you can beam a crisp and clear mental impression of any picture directly into my brain. There's literally no reason for you to say 'dot jay peg' out loud, ever."

* Peter & Co. keep making references to stuff Venom did that Venom has no memory of (because there's an entire branch of symbiotes that diverged from them, so they literally weren't around for those events). Flash decides to investigate and pulls up all SHIELD case reports about Venom. That's the first time he finds out how many symbiotes SHIELD has killed or attempted to kill. Venom can only shrug their metaphorical shoulders. People have been trying to murder them nearly from the moment of their birth. They didn't have a point of reference, so they'd just sort of assumed it was a normal part of life. They don't really understand why Flash is crying. And that makes Flash cry harder. ** And that's the story of how Flash got over his crush on Peter. *** Venom doesn't see much point in holding grudges. After all, if they ever express anger or try to retaliate over their treatment, they'll be stuffed in a jar at best and incinerated alive at worst. Luckily, Flash is a finely-tuned rage producing machine; he can be angry on both of their behalf.

* Flash encourages Venom to have their own hobbies separate from him. To facilitate this, Venom has permission to drive around Flash's body while he sleeps, provided they don't stray away from SHIELD headquarters and wake Flash up if there's an emergency. ** Venom likes looking up video tutorials for random things. And because they share a brain with Flash, he ends up learning things by proxy. (The morning he woke up fluent in American Sign Language was a trippy one). *** They're also into videogame speedruns, of all things.

* Scarlet Spider would very much like to forget the time he got up for a midnight snack and found Flash, with solid black eyes, hunching on top of a vending machine like a goblin, attempting to insert three chocolate bars into his mouth at once.

* Venom is the only one allowed to call Flash "Eugene". They're very territorial of their monopoly.

* Venom has a dim, dim view of father figures. Their genetic progenitor tried to murder them multiple times, and their only second-hand experiences of fathers are, well, Norman Osborn and Harrison Thompson.

* What's the point of having a foot long tongue if you don't use it to lick the bottom of your ice cream carton?

* Venom and Flash have such divergent music tastes, they need to have two separate playlists. (Flash likes punk rock and hair metal, Venom's into eurodance and chiptunes.)

* Incomplete list of animals Flash unironically thinks are cute: tarantulas ("Fuzzy!"), snakes ("Their tongues go blelele!"), amblypygids ("They cuddle their babies!"), velvet worms ("Their feet are so stubby!")

* Flash is actually pretty insecure about being Venom's host. He feels the only reason they stick with him is because he was the first person to be nice to them, and they could do better. ** Flash: "I mean, you give me superpowers, the means to get away from my old life, the opportunity to be somebody... but what do I give you in return? Maybe Doc Ock was right... maybe I AM a parasite." Venom:

* Actually, Flash is insecure about a lot of things. He's afraid Peter secretly resents him for the years of bullying, he fears that he's just fooled everyone into thinking that he's a good person and really he's just as much of a monster as his father, he's scared he's too stupid to make anything of himself and he'll become a deadbeat... it's a bunch of separate but interlocking self-esteem issues. ** Venom helps, though. It's useful to have an outside perspective to your own brain.

* Flash initially calls Venom an "it", because they're genderless and he doesn't have a lot of insight into gender politics and pronouns. He later learns about they/them pronouns, and asks if he can use it for Venom. Venom, who's used to being called "it" and knows even less about personal pronouns, is confused. They have a long discussion about dehumanizing language that ends with Venom shrugging their metaphorical shoulders and going "Sure, if it makes you feel better".

* Being a couple kind of sneaks up on them. In their defense, both of them have little to no experience in giving or receiving affection; they have trouble distinguishing different kinds of love (hence why Flash thought his giant gay crush on Peter was just wanting to be his best buddy).

* Cons of wearing actual clothes instead of a shapeshifted symbiote: Doing laundry. Pros of wearing actual clothes: Nobody can tell you're giving your boyfriend a fullbody cuddle under his shirt in public.

* They're both super affectionate and flirty. They both get super flustered and embarrassed when receiving affection and being flirted at. Together, they are a disaster.

#symflash #flash thompson #venom symbiote #agent venom #ultimate spiderman #man of action studios: *give flash a shallow two-dimensional characterization and the symbiote zero characterization* #me: my city now

[gisapot]

In defense of Dionysus (written 12-03-2017, posted 12-03-2019.)

It is officially the anniversary of the last creative nonfiction piece I wrote. 

I did not realize it has been two years since I wrote this piece, the piece that I consider my magnum opus; two years since my grandfather had passed.

Posting this today of all days was not intentional. I did not intend to post this here because I had bigger plans for this piece; a greater exposure than this tiny blog only my friends and students know and avidly read (not that I am ungrateful for your support). I wanted to see this in print.

I wanted to submit this to Katitikan for its ‘places and spaces’ issue, but to submit this means to remove a thousand words from this five-thousand-word monster, and removing a thousand words is an insult to the integrity of the story I want to tell. To remove a thousand words is to break the legacy of my grandfather.

Another reason why I wanted to post this is to address a comment my mother had received on a photo she posted on her Facebook of her and my grandfather. I do not know if that was their last photo together. She shared the post to share to her world that it is the second anniversary of her father’s death, and someone said, “maayo gyod an badlungon kay ma mis gyod sa tanan!” 

Instead of posting a position paper in defense of my grandfather and his merits, looking only one-sided and biased towards the man who raised me, I want to show you this piece, in its entirety, in my grandfather’s entirety. 

Who really was Antonio Gulane? 

Dear Grandpa: A Story of The Kulafu Warrior.

Dear Grandpa, today is the third of December, twenty-seventeen. I am in the new house, the one you begged my mother to buy for you before you passed: the one-story house made of cement and stone. It has barely been a month since we got the house when you decided to christen it with your quiet passing, bringing in faces old that I’ve never seen in years, and new ones my mother insists I’ve met longer than my brain can recall.

Dear Grandpa, this asphalt house is the first permanent one we have had in a long time. How many houses have we lived in? I don’t know the number, but I know each and every one of them, complete with tiny slivers of memories that are distinctly of you, Grandma, your white chino shirts with her tie dye skirts and half-slips. I remember your loud insistent shouts and your ribs protruding through your thin brown skin as you sit at midnight half-naked, inhaling the smell of Mighty Red, Marlboro, or some lumboy leaves you roll on your own. The smell of it mixed with Kulafu has permeated every household we occupy, radiating out of your rotting yellow teeth as soon as the clock strikes one in the afternoon. Textbooks always told me these were signs of a broken home life, a dysfunctional family. To me, it became a sign that told me that I was home, no matter where I was.

I.                   Basement

I remember very little about the basement, but I do have pictures of it developed like pictures used to in those times Kodak and Konika were the epitome of photography technology, Richard Gomez’ face on the packs of the finished images. There were blue green walls, and it was constantly dark down there because there no natural light came in. The wooden jalousies were sealed shut and dusty, not really helping our cause. Our TV was a small black box always tuned in to ABS-CBN, and one picture showed it frozen on an old Colgate commercial along with my memory of my first Christmas. You were there with Grandma, candid shots of you making me laugh so that I would smile for the camera. I was a chubby child with skin as pink as the girls endorsing Pond’s for a healthy pink glow, a vast contrast to your dark lumad skin, even more elaborated by the harsh automatic flash of the film camera. Grandma always shied away from the light of it with a bashful grin that took on not only her face but in the lift of her shoulders, carrying me up to cover her face. You, however, were not afraid to show your grimace to a device that immortalized your state: displeased that your photo was taken, but not mad enough to be violent.

           I am thankful these photos exist to give me a sight of my childhood that I remembered better through scents. I remember nothing, no experiences and no objects, but I do remember the smell of a very big pink bottle of Johnson’s baby powder, your alcohol, Tatay’s aircon-scented laundry, pungent socks, and your cigarettes.

II.                Village

There is always this notion that when the word ‘village’ is present in the address you write on forms, you were someone with money and stability enough to live in a place that had security guards stationed at every entrance. We were renting this house, and I do not remember what it looks like nor do I have the pictures to actually believe that we lived here. There must be a gap in my memory, but I forgave myself long ago for not remembering anything. But I do hear stories from you and Grandma about my childhood: I liked Uncle Dennis’ Lucky Me mami noodles – the one in the blue packet (is it still in production anymore?) – because it smelled like gas. I didn’t eat it, I just smelled the smoke coming out of it. Every afternoon at five, Uncle Dennis and Grandma would take me for a walk to ‘get some Fita’, which was a codeword for fetching Nanay from the corner. You recalled that I never went with them if there was no Fita involved, so my mother resolved to buy Fita before she got to the corner leading to our house so I would greet her by sunset.

It was a quaint village but we had to move away for reasons I still cannot understand to this day, but know well enough that what happened made my mother lose the face to show to her in-laws. Just because she was a tiger does not mean she held the power; her in-laws were kings of the jungle. Grandma maintains we were nothing at the time. We had no one to our defence. We were ants next to them in the grand scheme of things, we could not talk back when the perpetrators had money and we did not, ruling the gated compound as they did. I never believed you to be one to run away from a fight. It did not seem like you or Nanay to be quiet or behaved when mouths start running the way they did towards us, but you just let it happen like it did. We moved houses before I could remember anything constructive of it, or take any pictures to remember it by.

III.             Pardo

There is something in Pardo that always drew me in. It seemed like a place that was alive, crowds of people coming in with the setting and rising of the sun every day, judging by the plethora of jeepneys that headed that way. I know that because of my constant commute to school, a small Montessori school, girls in bright red uniforms and at least one boy per batch in grey t-shirts. Other than that, I remember nothing that had to do with what was outside the house except the potted plants lined up by the patio that you sat next to, where you were supposed to be smoking your afternoon away. But you were not there, not at the house, not in any of the pictures. I never saw you in that year. I think you hated the place, or the stampede that came with it, or something else. All I know is that you were never there. Your sister stayed with us instead, a skinny woman with short hair who took orders for empanada from Nanay’s friends. I don’t remember you, but that does not mean I have no recollection of whether or not you were there. It means that I know for sure that you were not there, so I had nothing substantial to remember you of, unless it was Christmas.

I remember you distinctly during our only Christmas in that house, hiding in the darkness of the alley behind the back door where a big blue tank stood. You crouched there, smoking while Nanay and Tatay took pictures of me posing in front of the Noche Buena. I have a picture of that moment, smiling cutely while Grandma stood with her back turned away from the camera facing the door that led to the blackness. I remember she was scolding you in harsh whispers to turn the flame of your cigarette off and come inside to join the festivities, to not be a Grinch on Christmas. Once the photo was taken I got down from the chair I used as a stool, towering adults walking past me – both uncles, Nanay’s younger brothers – who tried talking you out of sitting outside. If you did not feel like socializing, there was always a TV. Your indifference towards Christmas was evident.

           The concept of time is longer the younger you are. I look up at the clock as they plead you to come inside and eat some bread or ham, or an apple, whatever; it was eleven in the evening. You finally got up at three minutes later, but it felt like three hours. I wonder how that is so. When you walked past me, I wanted to ask – something, nothing, I don’t remember what I wanted to ask from you. But you just moved me aside and did not give me attention, and you sat on the sofa and I just stared, and I brushed it off. You were offered alcohol, and you asked for a bottle of Kulafu. I did not move. The moment I write this is when I remember that was the first out of two times where you did not make time for me. You always did.

 IV.             Sugar Apple

Since I was a child I always amused myself with the thought that Tisa backwards was ‘atis’. Of course, now that I am older I have come to realize that this is not true. But it also entertained me that this presupposition of mine was proved true with the sugar apples growing by the barbed wire fence right outside our house that closed the compound in. We were renting a bigger house this time, in a compound of three houses owned by a nice drummer amputee named Tony. I remember the whole town calling him Tony Kimpay like it was his full name. The house had light blue walls and a smooth ground floor that required a whole box and three-quarters of red Starwax and two coconut husks to shine. There was a second floor (a second floor! Only rich people had second floors, thought three-year-old me) where the floors were made of wood, and it was in this house where I learned that you never slept at night.

You sat outside from ten at night until six in the morning with a box of cigarettes, a mug of Nescafe coffee and three bottles of Kulafu, guarding the house in lieu of a dog or a security guard. You would entertain yourself with the ducks Tony owned, chasing them away once they started quacking at four in the morning along with the crowing of the chickens. It was from you where I learned to not fear ducks. And when Nanay’s cousin Dinah came to live with us while she went to college and told me to stay away from ducks because they bite, I did not believe her. They always run away from me because you taught me that I was bigger and more terrifying than any bird.

Sometimes you plucked the sugar apples and cut them in half to share with the family, but I never ate them. Instead, I was interested in the eba that grew next to it, eating it raw and with no salt to neutralize the taste. I loved how sour it was. I have pictures of me giving eba to my cousins who visited the house. Behind the camera, you turn your nose up away from the eba, because you did not like that I like them and preferred that I ate sugar apples instead because at least that is a fruit that made sense.

My first brother was born by then, and I did not remember an instance where you touched him. By then, people from the neighbourhood or Nanay’s friends from work came by to visit and coo at him. I would get jealous and insecure, because there is a baby stealing my mother’s attention, like all three-year-olds would feel when they have a new sibling. Because of the afternoon crowd on the second floor of the house, you woke up from your afternoon nap and went outside for a smoke to calm down to avoid snapping at someone. I followed you outside because I hated how Nanay did not give me any attention, all given to that stupid baby. An adult grabbed me, I don’t remember who it was but I know I insisted on going with you. You took a seat on a plastic stool Grandma uses for the laundry, and told me to go back inside once you lit the cigarette stick. I obey. I walked towards the door when I accidentally kick over last night’s Kulafu bottles. I turned around to pick them up, but you told me to leave it and go inside in that annoyed tone you spoke in when everything is not in order. Despite that, you crouched down and picked the bottles up without further complaint. Irritation was a trademark on you, a trademark I have come to not just learn, but to inherit.

 V.                Parrots

From the house with the ducks and the star apples and eba, we moved to a white house with a gate. It was not that far from the previous house, it was on a hill right behind it. The house was white, the inside also white except for the master bedroom which was decorated with faded yellow wallpaper. A few months after we moved there, Tatay bought me a pair of birds – a boy and a girl – for no reason at all. He just thought it would be nice to have a pet. They were yellow-green birds and I thought they were parrots and insisted that they speak after me. Under the cage of the birds was a wooden stand for your own rooster. It was then I learned that you liked cock fights, you bet on it and joined it even with the constant reports on the radio that these betting games were illegal because it went against animal rights or some random reason I thought of as a child that would rationalize the world.

I still do not know if the birds Tatay got me were parrots or not, but it is an appropriate analogy for you and K: at the age of three with a head as big as a basketball, he admired you for everything you did to the point that he copied your every move, especially your skill in many types of martial arts. Now as I am older and I look back, I think of the credibility of your claim, if you were really an expert as you said you were. But at the impressionable ages of seven and three, we believed you to be the Filipino Bruce Lee as you introduced yourself to be. You taught K how to use nunchucks and a bit of arnis with a stick you conjured out of nowhere, and I wish I had pictures to prove that you really did teach him and he learned well from  you, but all I have are pictures of K alone carrying his nunchucks obsessively everywhere he went. He threw a fit every time he was told that he could not bring them to social events or inside malls because it was ‘unfair’ and he really wanted to show off what he knew.

He was so much like you. He copied almost everything you were. You two were so alike in the shortness of fuse and how you both wanted everything to go your way or you would have to resort to violence. K would wrestle anyone who said no.

Despite the contrast – K a pale milky white while you were a reddish brown like Kulafu – you taught him to be like you and he had grown so attached to his childhood hero that it no longer looked adorable to me as the older sister, but scary. This turned terrified the moment you took an afternoon nap and started kicking in the air like you were fighting someone, asking if your enemy in your dream was going to fight back. K thought you were so cool.

Nanay always tells me that she understands because she is always at work that K was imprinted by you and grandma instead of her and Tatay as the actual parents, but I could not understand what she meant. It just did not reflect the families on textbooks, where the children were close to their parents and their grandparents lived in a separate house. How close he became with you and Grandma was beyond me. He insisted to sleep on your bed, eat out of Grandma’s hands, and sang the lyrics you whispered in his ear before he ever learned how to read. There was no doubt in his mind that you were invincible, and you were the best example.

 VI.             Dog

We lived a year in that white house. Half of that year I dazedly spent in hospitals because of a severe case of dengue. That year was a bad year for us, it was some sort of bad omen. Nanay decided to move us to Mandaue, a whole city over, because it was safer there from mosquitoes and it was closer to her workplace. Other than that, Tatay was an architect for a new private elementary school that was just erected there, and he decided to send Yelcin and I there. It was in a big compound owned by a chubby old man with droopy skin that made him look like a wrinkly dog. He looked even worse with his constant frown. You did not like him. You liked his sons instead because they drank with you Kulafu with you at two in the afternoon to stay awake instead of being so uppity like their father.

We got a dog too, a female golden retriever we aptly named Goldie. You did not like her at first because she was a non-human creature that came into the house and chased after me because she liked me. You got very angry with her because she wormed her way to the bedroom I shared with Nanay and Tatay, but then insisted she sleep at the foot of my bed to watch over me, and suddenly I see you sneak out chicken leftovers from my breakfast to her dog bowl in the morning. That is when I knew you started to like her.

You sat outside with her in the afternoons. With that you brought some noise, you talked to her and told her to behave and you would give her a dog biscuit shaped like a bone whenever you got bored. You were not quiet anymore. You would bathe her religiously on Saturday mornings before I woke up, and fed her strange things for her meals like fish and some malunggay leaves. She ate them gratefully, like it was not dangerous for her poor dog stomach to eat such things.

You did everything for Goldie. You treated her like your own child, spoiled her with all the dog treats in the world and reprimanded my mother if she did not bring home any more treats for the dog when you ran out. You built her a cage made of metal grills and spare raw coco lumber that you demanded  Tatay to bring from his site visits in Catmon, the plastic flooring for the only thing authentically pet-shop about that cage. You made Dennis buy some metal roofing  from the construction supply shop around right outside the corner of the street, and you built her a home with your bare hands. When it was done, you put Goldie inside, locked it, and hid in your bedroom with Grandma without a word and took a happy nap.

 VII.          Protection

We had a house. It was in Opon, it was bound to PAG-IBIG housing loans, but we had a house. It was in a middle-class subdivision whose houses all looked the same, so our minimalist white and brown and green house with a terrace and an outdoor garden with Bermuda grass stood out. We had our own rooms, mine was pink and V’s was blue with a bunk bed since Nanay was pregnant with her third child and we were preparing for him. Nanay and Tatay’s room was a bright yellow with brown furniture. And yet you refused to see us sleep in our own rooms, us kids having to sleep in our parents’ room, on the floor with some mattresses, so that we do not get too hot in our own rooms. It was apparently better in the air-conditioned room, and it was so you could keep an eye on us all together.

We had a car too. It was a secondhand blue Nissan Terrano with a spare wheel on the back that we bought from your cousin who married into a rich family. We did not use the car much, but you took it out for spins around the subdivision so that it would not ‘gather dust’. I still do not know if that really is a valid concern for cars.

Your habits did not change: you still sat outside the house at midnight with your coffee and Kulafu and cigarettes, except now people stop in front of the house to take pictures, and you ‘shoo’ them away to keep them from plagiarizing my father’s work. (I will find in later years that they still succeeded in copying my father, what with subdivisions being erected that now use the same color scheme and the same layout and plan. It irritates the both of us. Whatever happened to intellectual property rights?)

           You hated the location, however. You hated that it was an entire city away from where we went to school and we did not get enough sleep. We passed out in the car the moment we get inside, to catch up on some sleep, wake up dazed and lost in school, then come home tired and lethargic to do any of our homework anymore because of how tired we were. We were practically in hell.

           Location was always the problem, wasn’t it? We just moved to the new home that was finally ours when it struck: Nanay was laid off of her job and had nowhere to go. With piling debts and deteriorating health and a baby who had more needs than her grown children, Nanay decided to work overseas.

           You were so violently against it. You were so mad. You did not want the family to be separated. Everyone should stay in one home, together, no matter the circumstance. It was all or nothing for you. But Nanay had already made up her mind, bought a ticket out, found a job that was waiting for her, all that was left was to leave for it. You did not look her in the eye that day she left, staying outside right in front of the car, like you were a boulder that could stop it from moving.

VIII.        Following

I remember very distinctly the moment K cried at the airport as we left Singapore after our first Christmas there. He was crying terribly hard, hating the fact that the family he grew up in, his own universe of discourse, was pulled apart into two different fabrics of time and space. It was difficult to be together now. He rolled on the floor of the then-existing budget terminal of Changi Airport, causing a scene, asking why we could not stay with her and be a happy family like those families in textbooks. He wanted to be with Nanay, with Tatay, but also with you and with Grandma and Uncle Dennis and Uncle Julius and their wives Elsa and Janice respectively, both parents and parental figures. K used to be the type that got so attached.  I cannot say the same for now, however.

When Nanay said she was working on our immigration to follow her to Singapore, K was excited. You, however, did not say anything. I think you have learned from when Nanay left the country, but you made us promise to call you by Skype every day while we waited to start schooling there. You could not bear to part from us, you and Grandma, but when was the best time to leave the nest, to be honest? And we belonged with our actual parents.

And every day like clockwork since we left, we called you through video call, your brown skin a bright white like the shirts on Tide commercials, asking how we are and what we are doing, same as yesterday. The call sits for two hours as we watch you nap on the wooden floor of the rest house, and when the computer overheats, you tell Dennis to shut it off and you slither away on the floor to your room, not showing that you are crying because of how you miss us. But it is okay, I know you console yourself, because Janice is pregnant, and you are sure this kid is not a kid you will let go.

When we left the country, you had no reason to stay in Cebu anymore, so you loudly declared to the entire family that you were all going back to Medellin where they grew up and where you raised them. There was a rest house there that Tatay constructed for us; somewhere we can sleep in whenever we visited Medellin for the weekend. It was a hut, brown with nipa leaves weaved together for the roof. Everything was made of wood except for the foundations and the bathroom, the cement wall painted green on the outside. Inside was tiled and decorated with seashells Tatay paid your nephew to collect from the beach behind the house. You spent your days there lying on the ground like a dog, never breaking your afternoon-nap-and-Kulafu-at-Midnight ritual like always. Sometimes you got bored and killed flies, made your own barbecue, and even built an extended hut for Grandma that you used as a convenience store. You would participate in secret games of masiao that another one of your nephews is a runner for, you and Grandma arguing about the how she calculated her own numbers and why yours is different, until the tumor in your stomach you kept joking about started hurting too much for you to laugh about it anymore.

 Dear Grandpa, throughout these homes we have come into, you repeatedly made me promise throughout my childhood to build you a concrete house that you can call your own. You called our constant moving a hassle and the hut that my father made for you not sturdy to withstand storms. You told me you were tired of the city, and asked me to build you a house in your hometown of Medellin, as big as I want, as long as it was strong and brave and could shelter you from the heavy storms.

Dear Grandpa, we have a home now. It is a bright yellow house in a subdivision a little ways away from the park that displayed an old train from Central that used to carry the sugar cane. The time is one-forty in the afternoon; I am sitting in front of your white coffin with a towel in my hair, and if I move to tilt my head rightwards I can see the bottle of Kulafu I bought for you as an offering. I am alone, save for the people passing by to get food, more ice cream, beer, or arguing about the wi-fi connection. Your Photoshopped portrait sits on top of your viewing glass, staring at the flurry of movement with your intense judging glare and thick eyebrows. You look angry in the photo, but Uncle Dennis says you were about to laugh as the photo was taken, and if I stared hard enough, I can almost see the moment that you do.

Dear Grandpa, you were powerful and strong-willed and loud for all the right reasons. You were never weak, and you never allowed people to spread nonsense about our family. I pretend not to know that the reason for your loss is not deterioration, but a dangerous formation. I pretend not to know that your every day habits are the cause of your passing. I pretend that you’ve never participated in vices in your life; it is in the Filipino culture, Nanay says, that once someone passes, he is an angel.

Dear Grandpa, I miss you very dearly. As I write this I keep erasing words and adding some more, getting distracted by the noise from the children and doors opening and San Miguel bottles tinkling against each other. This is the sound of our family, even as the shape of our living arrangement changes like the sky when it nears a storm. Dear Grandpa, in the years I have grown under your care we did not have a house whose deed was truly ours, but you have shown me the meaning of home and helped me remember it as my own now, as part of who we are: we are fighters, the heat of your Kulafu blood flowing through our veins – we are warriors.

Dear Grandpa, we might be so far away from each other, even further now that you have passed, but as I grow older and help Nanay and Tatay finish this house in your name, I will remember the way we have come, and how much further I have to go. In front of your coffin, I bow my head to mourn, but my blood boils hot under my skin – I will stand like you on this ground and do what I can, defending your name.

And if I can help it, Dear Grandpa, we will not move again any time soon.

#cnf