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ssa-atlas-alvez · 2 years

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it’s that one ‘anon’ with the super silly requests dropping in for the first time in a hot minute, i hope you’re doing well! currently having a great time catching up on all of the fics i missed.

as a request/suggestion may i propose to you: rossi pressuring hotch to try out online dating or some kind of online method of meeting someone to talk because he hasn’t dated anyone since haley, and he doesn’t really have friends outside of work. penelope overhears this and, being her slightly mischievous and incredibly smart self, works some of her magic to get him to match with a friend of hers who she just KNOWS would be the perfect fit for him. she’s completely right of course, but it does make for some interesting interactions when hotch finally introduces the person he’s been seeing to the team and penelope has to pretend she is 1. completely shocked that her best friend and boss are dating and 2. totally not responsible from their coincidental/miracle meeting (bonus if the reader figured out penelope had done something early on, so hotch and the reader already know and deliberately try to make her squirm) (male reader please)

Word count: 1096

Rossi had won the argument. After a week of pestering him, he had finally won and Hotch set up an online dating profile.

“Nice to meet you,” You looked at the man in front of you. He was hot.

You shook his hand with a smile, “You too,”

First dates were usually… awkward, to say the least, this one, however, went smoothly. You were in a nice Italian restaurant as you were getting to know each other. And, as it turns out, you had a lot in common: you both loved reading (particularly Stephen King), both your favourite Christmas movie was Die Hard - followed closely by The Grinch, you were both allergic to strawberries, “So, what do you do?” You asked, curiously.

“I work at the FBI,” Hotch answered, “The Behavioural Analysis Unit,”

You nodded, “Wait, do you work with a Penelope Garcia?”

“I do,” Aaron nodded and you gave a small laugh. “Do you know her?”

“She’s my best friend,” You explain, “She convinced me to start dating online,”

“My friend Dave did the same to me,”

Your eyes widened and you grinned, “Did Penelope happen to be close by at the time?”

“I’m not sure, she came in a minute later,” There was a small pause, “She set us up, didn’t she?”

“She most definitely did,” You answered. “She probably hacked the website,"

“That wouldn’t surprise me,”

“I’m so having words with her…” You laughed nervously, “I’m so sorry,”

“Why?” Aaron asked, but smiling, “I’m having fun,”

“That’s good, because so am I,” You grinned. "We can't let her know that we know,"

Aaron nodded, "Sounds like a plan."

"Are you ready to order?" A waiter asked, approaching the table. You and Aaron exchanged a look before nodding.

“What do you do job wise then?” Aaron asked, when you had both placed your order.

“I’m a grade school teacher,” You said with a nod, “Come to think of it, our jobs are quite similar,” Aaron gave a laugh, butterflies swarmed your stomach.

“I have a son, he’s in 1st grade,” Aaron said.

“Ah,” You said with a nod, before joking, “Enjoy it while it lasts,”

And that was how the night went, the pair of you talking and talking. Not noticing when people began leaving the restaurant, or when they started wiping down the tables to close. In fact, the only reason you did notice was because a waiter approached the pair of you, informing you that they were closing. You both apologised profusely as you pulled out your wallet to pay. After a heated debate on who would pay, you split the bill 50/50, each leaving a generous tip.

And so, you reluctantly had to part ways. You made sure to give him your phone number, telling him to call you, before you left.

When you got home, you text Penelope about the date, commenting on how well it went. She phoned you immediately and you explained how he was the perfect gentleman, how much you had in common, and how you were seeing each other again.

Dave grinned when he saw Aaron the next morning, a spring in his step and a smile on his face. "How was the date?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Aaron rolled his eyes briefly at the gesture, "It was good," He said, "We've got a lot in common and we're meeting up again next week,"

"Come Hell or high water I will get you to that date, Aaron," Rossi declared, Aaron laughed, cheeks feeling hot.

The pair of you continued dating and you never seemed to get over the phase. Soon enough, Aaron was asking if you wanted to meet his team. Naturally you agreed.

"So, Aaron," Aaron turned to Rossi, knowing what was coming by the teasing tone of voice. "Will we be meeting this mystery man tonight?"

The team gave an 'ooo', Aaron laughed as he nodded, "You will," He gave a groan when everyone cheered, eager to see who had made their friend so happy.

Aaron had told you to dress casual, so you did, blue jeans and a black t-shirt - both close fitting, but not as though they were going to rip if you moved. Even though Aaron had reassured you that you looked amazing, you couldn't help but clench the bottle of wine nervously as you walked up to the door.

"Oh my God! (Y/N) what are you doing here?!" You turn to the voice, pretending to be shocked.

"Penelope?!" You both quickly embrace before turning to Aaron, "You know Penelope?"

"She's on my team,"

You turn to Penelope, "You know Aaron?!"

"He's my boss,"

"He's your boss?!" You exclaim.

"I was going to introduce myself but it looks like you're in the middle of something," A blonde haired woman said.

"No, no," Penelope said, turning to you, "Pretend you don't know me and carry on,"

"Oh, er, okay," You said, turning to Aaron with a shrug.

"Everyone, this is (Y/N). (Y/N), this is everyone." He said, "This is Rossi - or Dave, Morgan, Reid, JJ, Emily, and Garcia,"

You shook each and every one of their hands with a warm smile and a 'hello', Penelope included. "It's so nice to meet you," You said go Penelope who rolled her eyes at you with a smile.

"I'm guessing you know each other?" Rossi asked sarcastically.

"Nope, never met," You said with a shrug, "Nah, she's my best friend,"

"I thought I was your best friend," Aaron joked.

Penelope hit Derek's arm, "Did you hear that? Bossman just joked. I didn't know Bossman had jokes,"

You snorted, resorting in a half-assed glare from Aaron. Penelope went silent for a moment, studying you before her eyes widened. "Oh God, you know don't you?"

"Know what?" Spencer asked.

"Yes, Penelope, we know," Aaron answered, Penelope covered her face and groaned, causing you to laugh.

"I was so subtle!"

"If you say so," You teased.

"Slow down, what do you know?"

"That Penelope hacked the dating website so we'd match," Aaron answered, JJ and Emily shook both their heads with a smile.

"You have a dating profile?" Morgan asked with a smirk.

You winked, "Not any more,"

"On a scale of one to ten how angry are you?"

"Two and a half," You answered, "I wouldn't have gone if you set me up on a blind date so I'm kind of glad you hacked it,"

Aaron grinned, snaking his arm around your waist. "Aww," Penelope looked at the sight in front of her. Her best friend and her boss. Wait. "Does this mean if you marry him you're going to be my boss-in-law?"

#criminal minds #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid #david rossi #criminal minds x male reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x male reader #male reader #x male reader #reader is penelopes best friend #penelope garcia #Emily Prentiss #jennifer jareau #asks #anon

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buriedchampagne · 12 days

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Buried Champagne, Chapter 4

A good bar in a small Southern town, in childhood memory terms, is “home base.” It’s that tree you could slap and yell, “Safe,” in a game of tag. It’s the goal line on a football field, beyond which tackling is out of bounds. It’s the “Collect $200.00 As You Pass Go” square on the Monopoly board.

The good bar does not attract the chronic barflies. For those pub patrons, there are the “Draftzillas,” the “Three Fingers McNees,” the “Lemon Squeezers,” the “Boar’s Tail,” and many places with splintery, sticky bar surfaces. A good rule of thumb for 19th hole neophytes: Duct-taped leprechaun placards blocking half the sidewalk outside to herd those seeking oblivion through the door are always a bad sign.

A good, Southern small town bar makes those in serious search of alcohol-fueled jocularity uncomfortable. There are tablecloths, often clean. The pretzels are fresh and free. Dogs are not allowed. The restrooms are clean, as is the bartender. In a small Southern town, there is always one of these good bars, and one walks in and recognizes it with five senses. One walks to the bar and neither hears nor feels spilled drink-stickiness on the floor. One hears the music, but also hears conversation and laughter. One sees athletic men and effeminate men, mechanics, teachers and hair stylists, cops and robbers, bakers, bankers, beggars and Indian chiefs all sitting on adjoining stools or at neighboring tables in peace, for their purpose here is common and agreed. They are here to unwind. In the ‘80s, a good bar ambiance was even more this way, and its patrons, who also had in common their schooldays reading material, knew it as being their “watering hole,” in the sense of the one in Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” where no creature killed another under the terms of a universally understood and obeyed “water truce.”

Under the terms of the “water truce,” a man of the minor cloth like Edward Einhardt, even one known to administer AA meetings, could not be judged in a good bar like Affecte’, as long as he didn’t come in too often. If there was mild interest in the entrance of such a man, it was politely suppressed. Ed tried to suppress a degree of interest, too, as he scanned the room for Ruthe, spotting her just where he’d imagined her on the drive over, in a relatively dark corner of the bar, where only one single, attractive flank was exposed to tentative scouts.

He crossed over quickly and waited for a large man to finish trying, without success, to exchange phone numbers with her. It was an interesting attempt. The well-dressed man, a familiar local attorney, had sent her a glass of wine, then approached her and introduced himself, the introduction accompanied by extension of his business card. Ed, quietly standing behind the lawyer and as yet unnoticed by Ruthe, heard her voice. “Attorney? I thank you for the wine, but I should tell you up front I don’t date lawyers. I was married to one, and it didn’t work out.”

The man optimistically took that business card back, returned it to his wallet, fished out another carte de visite, pushed it Ruthe’s way, and said, “Okay, how about landmen? Would you date a landman?”

“Landman” refers to a lawyer or qualified layperson who deals in oil and mineral rights in oil and mineral-rich Louisiana. The second business card was a technical point in the attorney’s favor, but technicalities don’t earn significant points in affaires d’amour, so Ed felt comfortable stepping forward and putting his hand on the back of the barstool next to Ruthe’s, where her purse indicated that the seat was taken. He asked, “Hello, Ruthe. is this stool saved?”

“Saved for the cavalry,” she said with a smile, removing her handbag.

The lawyer bowed slightly as she thanked him for the wine and went back to his snifter at the other end of the bar, turning on the way to see if any other attractive women half his age had come into Affecte’. The “water truce” did not completely cover males approaching females, because without males approaching women, there would not have been any jungle creatures to create the truce in the first place. As Kipling might have put it, “If the wolf seeks a mate at the waterhole / Both must speak before all is laid by / For if seeking a mate is forbidden / Then the water hole is as if dry.”

“Thank you for inviting me,” said Ed, noticing a stapled, folded document protruding from the handbag now looped over the back of Ruthe’s stool. “I really needed this.”

“Welcome to one-on-one client contact,” she said, before a sip of wine. “You AA guys … You don’t even have to remember their names. They put on name tags at the door, and then they say, ‘My name is Al K. Holic, and I’m an alcoholic,’ and then they say what they’ve said and heard a hundred times, and then they enjoy the attention and applause their worthless asses couldn’t get anyplace else, and then they put enough cream and sugar in the free coffee to skip dinner and spend their saved cash on a pint of Aristocrap vodka at the closest Bill N’ Swill, those 24-hour liquor stores that prosper on every corner down here as soon as the meeting is over. That’s easy. You don’t take that home. Now you’re down in the trenches.”

The wine she’d ordered for herself before the importuning lawyer’s beneficence had reached her arrived at that moment. She pushed it toward Ed and raised her own glass in toast. “Here’s to … whatever we are, and to all the other poor bastards that are the same thing.”

Ed’s lips curled upward just a little as his glass, her glass, clinked against her glass, the lawyer’s glass, and he replied, “We say here, ‘Pop, pop, I hope the bad man dies.’”

Ruthe coughed a little. “What the hell is a ‘pop, pop, I hope the bad man dies?! I missed that one in the Louisiana tourism guide.”

“It’s something we say during a toast. Really, it’s for a first champagne toast, but I think it’s right for any special occasion. ‘The bad man’ is the Devil, and we give Him his due as the father of wine, but tell him we don’t want him to be a part of this particular imbibing. I’ve been saying it all my life. I don’t know where it came from.”

“Well, then,” Ruthe said, “an extra pop for you, AA man, and let’s hope the Devil leaves your clients and mine alone so we can all have some peace.”

They talked. They got to know each other as “Ruthe” and “Ed.” After nearly an hour and two glasses of wine, Ed learned that the “e” in “Ruthe,” which he knew from a Parish government phone directory, was silent. It became late, and then later. Their forearms were touching on the bar, damp from glass condensation, which the bartender would have wiped up, had said forearms separated. A bridal party left, noisily, calling everyone to look at the time. This was not a late night bar. Ruthe cleared her throat and said, “Ed, thank you for hanging out with me here tonight. I’ve had a good time and stayed much later than I usually do. I’m not one of your clients.”

“What,” he responded, coming out of the small world they’d been creating to check his watch. “I can say the same. Yes, I should leave, too. I brought work home for the weekend. Let me, please, get your tab and walk you to your car.”

While the bartender was ringing their tab behind the counter, Ruthe extracted the stapled document from her purse and extended it to Ed. “I like you. You and I deal with people who are wounded like the ones in this libretto, and you’re from here, so it’s your rhythm. I want you to see what goes through my mind, filtered through this place. It’s a play. It’s my play. I wasn’t sure I wanted you to read it before, but now I’d really like to know what you think of it. You did say you liked the blues.”

“Of course I do,” Ed said. “The blues came from New Orleans, and …”

Her finger across his lips shushed him, preventing academic natter. “Just read it. Call me and let me know, please, what you think. My home number is on the back. Thank you again. I’ll be fine getting home.”

She left Affecte’ and walked half a block to her downtown pied-a-terre. andEd put her libretto in his jacket pocket, settled with the bartender and carefully drove home. He prepared coffee there in a small French press, made a mental note to shop for Assam tea in the morning, sat down at his kitchenette table, and began to read –

"Bluesical" was written many years ago as a libretto, the idea being that I would give it to theater companies in towns across the nation with resident Blues Societies at no charge, so that the blues musicians and theater companies could work together on something. In return, I wanted the rights to sell tapes of my own recording of the soundtrack in theater lobbies during each performance.

This is the story, from start to finish, of a romantic involvement. Your last involvement, my last involvement, any relationship which creates a key to that section of the heart in which dreams are made and dashed, is the material of the blues, in that "blues" refers not only to the decline of a relationship, but to its growth and peak as well.

SET AND PROPERTIES -- Set should be based on six flats; two sets of three each, which are to be hinged together as triangular boxes with casters at the bottom corners. With one panel on each box devoted to each of three scene, this arrangement will provide serviceable backdrops which can be changed simply by rotating the two boxes 120 degrees right or left. If one panel join is secured by latches rather than hinges, then the boxes can be folded for easy transport and quick set-up. Flats should be set up STAGE RIGHT and STAGE LEFT, leaving STAGE CENTER free for the band.

Properties should be limited, both for continuity with the minimalist backdrop arrangement and for mobility. Whenever possible, properties should be multi-purpose.

1 ironing board (also serves as bar surface) / 1 woodgrain panel, ironing board height (serves as bar front in nightclub scene / and kitchen\living room divider in apartment set) / 3 bar stools / 1 beer stein / 1 wine glass / 1 bandstand riser(optional) / 1 iron / 1 dress in addition to costumes / 2 telephones / 2 small telephone tables / 2 directors' chairs / 1 park bench / 1 quilted cover (with which park bench doubles as couch in apartment set) / 1 suitcase / Miscellaneous small personal effects / 2 ashtrays

ACT ONE

(STAGE LEFT pin spot comes up on a man pacing in front of the restroom doors in a bar, contemplating the "Men's" and "Women's" signs as if they sum up all of the world's problems. At the same time, STAGE RIGHT pin spot comes up on a woman sitting at a bar drinking a glass of wine, looking at the man as if she'd find an unobstructed view of the restrooms more appealing and drums her fingers against the bar impatiently as he begins to speak)

MAN: I want to preach to you a little bit about this rumor that Eve was created from Adam's rib. Now a rib is a mighty small start in life.

BAND: Amen, brother!

MAN: A woman, if she's made from just that one rib, must be a lot more imaginative than a man. She's got to be, to have built up from just that rib into the complicated creature, just one big surprise package joke gift box full of curves and nerves that she is. You would never find a man letting something like that be done to him.

BAND: Praise the Lord!

MAN: Uh-uh. Ain't gonna happen. If the Lord had made Eve first and tried to take one of her ribs to make it into Adam, man, that rib would have hemmed and hawed and argued and cussed and complained until there was not one bone left in the poor woman's body. That's the way men are. They've got their self respect in mind all the time. Adam would not have been able to sleep at night, worrying that Eve might get upset with him and holler, "Hush your mouth, you damn rib!"

BAND: You got a witness! You got a witness!

MAN: A man wouldn't stand for it, but a woman will. A woman can stand for anything as long as she gets the best of a man at the end of it, which she's going to do. Eve didn't give a rat's fig leaf about being Adam's rib, whereas Adam would have kicked and screamed all over the garden about it. Eve knew perfectly well that as soon as she got down to business with those curves and nerves, Adam would forget all about the rib part of it and start to slide over a little closer, because that is the way God made Adam.

Well, the next thing you know, there was Eve, forcing that apple on Adam, saying, "You never like anything I pick," and making him feel guilty. She knew she was going to win the whole time, whether she was a rib, a spine, a spleen, a leg bone, a hipbone, or a finger bone made for that big pretty diamond ring she was going to talk Adam into buying her next payday. Adam never a chance, and he might as well just shrug and make the best of it. And I want to say (imploring skyward) --Adam, come and get your rib!

WOMAN: And I want to preach to you a little bit about Adam's attitude, which was the real original sin. You see, if God made Adam first, then God himself had to be male, because that's just the sort of thing a man would do. Ain't no astonishment in a deity, however perfect He's supposed to be, ending up with a less than perfect creation if it's made in His image!

BAND: I feel the Spirit, sister!

WOMAN: They say 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away.' So what's so different about that one apple on that one day in the Garden of Eden? The way I read it, the problem was Adam making the damn dinner menu into a big issue, into an argument that ended the days of paradise. Eve had probably put up with Adam's idea of dinner too many times. (With excessive sweetness) Oh, what a beautiful bunch of dirty roots and green berries, Adam. You're such a good provider ... (Pointing at MAN) Just like I did for too many years over those soggy pizzas you made so quickly by doubling the amount of water in the crust. Sure, I rebelled about the hundredth time you did it and threw your damn dinner out the window, but I'd been polite and patient and bitten my tongue, not to mention your Italian Water Torture cuisine, ninety-nine times first.

And then things got worse, and we went out for dinner for a while to avoid the memories, and then we bickered over salad bars and tips, and eventually, somehow, we ended up in different restaurants with different partners ... Somehow.

MAN: Somehow ... You know, we'd both seen other people go down this road, but I didn't think we would. How did we get here from where we started? I had plans, and you were going to make them work.

(Lights come up slowly on bandstand as band begins to play. WOMAN sips wine as MAN steps to front of bandstand and sings)

Hope I get old before I die * Get a chance to do something right * Hope I get paid at the end of the day * Spend my money on my baby tonight

Hope I can go and see the world * And I hope the world is still there to see * Hope I can find somebody to love * And I hope somebody will love me

I want to climb a mountain some day * Want to dive to the bottom of the sea * Want to hear the elephant and see the owl * And I want some company

Let me see a sunrise on the beach * Let me see a sunset, too * Let me find somebody to hold my hand * Through all the things I want to do *

Hope I get old before I die *Get a chance to do something right * Hope I get paid at the end of the day * Spend my money on my baby tonight

(MAN goes to bar, sits on stool near WOMAN, eyeing her over beer stein. Band goes into soft, instrumental ballad)

WOMAN: The band sounds good. I don't know much about blues, but I like it when I hear it.

MAN: This is a blues bar. The owners think that blues will draw a slightly older crowd, more civilized than rock fans. You know, the settled, slightly older folks with a little money.

WOMAN: I'm not sure that's me. I just moved to town a couple of months ago, and the job I moved here for isn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. Does anybody make a decent living in this town?

MAN: I keep looking, and if I find anyone getting rich, believe me, I'll be trailing them day and night and taking notes. Whatever the secret is, nobody's let me in on it.

WOMAN: Sounds like neither of us are what these people had in mind for their blues bar. (Finishes her wine)

MAN: Sounds like we've both got the blues. May I buy you a glass of wine?

(MAN gestures to bartender as he moves to the stool next to WOMAN. Band volume comes up as they chat and WOMAN is served by stage hand behind bar. MAN goes back to front of bandstand and sings)

Sitting here watchin' the weather, the sunset is red * This summer with you has gone straight to my head * I'm tryin' to go easy, I'm tryin' to go slow *But I'm here to tell you one thing that I know *

When the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, I believe we'll be fallin' in love *

Last springtime, you had another man on your mind * Lord knows, I've got memories that treat me unkind * But while the flowers grow up and while the sun burns down * Those memories are fadin' and we're turnin' around

And when the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, I believe we'll be fallin' in love *

While the birds fly south, I feel it deep in my bones * We're gonna want each other fulltime, instead of on loan * It's a matter of time, and the time's gettin' close * And I think we're gonna face it 'fore the pond gets froze *

And when the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, I believe we'll be fallin' in love *

When the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, when the leaves fall, * I believe we'll be fallin' in love

(During this song, stage lighting dims everywhere except bandstand. In dimmed area, stage hands turn flats to apartment scene. MAN joins band as WOMAN finishes ironing a dress, steps out from behind ironing board in kitchen and looks out window)

WOMAN: I can't wait to hear from him again and make plans to be together. It's better every time I see him. That moon (gesturing out window) has waxed and waned three times since we met last June. We haven't. It just keeps getting better. (Band is illuminated, as if by moonlight, as WOMAN goes to bandstand front and sings)

It's a shirtsleeve night, last one of the year * Frogs in the river soundin' sad, they know autumn is near * The moon is hung up in the fork of a tree * Now who's this sweet man gettin' closer to me *

I want to fling out my arms and pull it all in tight * I want to put it all together, 'cause it's that kind of night * I want to wrap it around us so it won't go away * It's time to get closer, can't you hear what I say *

Tomorrow, this rooster might not crow for day * But every breath I take tonight is like a champagne spray * The leaves are turnin', rustlin' like a new pair of sheets * Before this weather turns, let's go and turn on some heat *

It's a shirtsleeve night, last one of the year * Frogs in the river soundin' sad, they know autumn is near * The moon is hung up in the fork of a tree * Now who's this sweet man gettin' closer to me

(Phone rings; WOMAN crosses STAGE LEFT and answers. MAN picks up another phone on the bandstand as the band comes up. MAN begins to sing into phone. WOMAN indicates that she is glad to get the message)

Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * And won't you steep my teabag * 'Til the sky turns light

Put my tea bag in your tea cup * watch my eyes light up * You get enough lovin' for a big tea cup * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * And won't you steep my teabag * 'Til the sky turns light

We'll keep the tea cups on the dresser and the saucers, too * You can pour for me and I will pour for you * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * And won't you steep my teabag * 'Til the sky turns light

Add hot water from the kettle * maybe little spice * I know you got some honey for me, ain't that nice * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * And won't you steep my teabag * 'Til the sky turns light

Add a little cream * Stir it nice and slow * Stir a little faster 'til the cream begins to flow * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * And won't you steep my teabag * 'Til the sky turns light

Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * Invite me over for a cup of tea tonight * And won't you steep my teabag * 'Til the sky turns light

(As band finishes song with one instrumental chorus, MAN leaves bandstand and disappears behind flat STAGE LEFT. WOMAN hangs up phone and straightens apartment until the band finishes, at which point the doorbell rings. She crosses STAGE LEFT to answer. MAN enters from behind flat. MAN and WOMAN cross living room together and sit)

MAN: Sorry I'm late. One of the women I work with was beaten up by her husband last night, and some of us went to her place after work to help her move out. I'd planned to call you from her place after getting some idea of how long I was going to be delayed, but the bastard had yanked the phone out of the wall and generally trashed the place after he got tired of whaling on her.

I could have gone to a phone booth, but after looking over what he'd left worth moving, I figured it would be just as fast to fill the one station wagon and then head on over here. One lousy station wagon.

WOMAN: Hell of a world, isn't it? Well, you did the right thing. I've seen friends go through the same thing, and it's best to get away as soon as possible. If they have time to think about it, women will start blaming themselves, and then they'll stay with the men who are beating them, and then those same men will beat them again.

MAN: As you said, hell of a world. Look, I came straight here from work and moving. Could I shower?

WOMAN: Sure, baby. Whatever makes you comfortable. You know where the towels are.

(MAN exits onto bandstand. WOMAN goes back to window and gazes out reflectively)

WOMAN: I have friends who've been through the same thing, all right, if I can think of myself as a friend after putting up with it for so long. When I moved here, things just felt different. I'd almost completely put it out of my mind, especially since meeting him.

(Band begins to play, volume slowly increasing)

WOMAN: Funny, I guess he's the key to the way I feel now ... as if I'm in a world where women just don't get beaten. A world where everything's fine; where I can get what I want and do what I want, and nobody's going to stop me.

(WOMAN steps to STAGE CENTER and begins to sing)

They're tryin' to make me change my ways * Everybody but you * Sleepless nights and tired days * Everybody but you * Kill my seed before it grow * Everybody but you * Now I believe it's time to go away from * Everybody but you

You ... are the exception to this Hell on Earth * You ... are my protection, first I've had since birth *

Waste my money, waste my time * Everybody but you * This ol' world ain't worth a dime * Everybody but you * All a blurred, malignant mass * Everybody but you * Will not yield and cannot pass * Everybody but you *

You ... are the exception to this Hell on Earth * You ... are my protection, first I've had since birth *

Wish I was deaf, dumb and blind * With everybody but you * Seems like I'm another kind * From everybody but you *

You ... are the exception to this Hell on Earth * You ... are my protection, first I've had since birth * Everybody but you * Everybody but you * Everybody but you *

WOMAN: It's my turn now. This is the one that's going to work.

(MAN steps from bandstand to stand next to WOMAN. They join hands as stage goes black)

ACT TWO

(Mid-afternoon outdoor light illuminates the third set panel set, a park-like view, seen from the roadside. MAN and WOMAN are seated on a park bench, STAGE LEFT)

MAN: Thanks for humoring me with this walk. The house is fine. You're fine. We're fine. It's just that when I leave our space and go out to deal with the world, to go to work, or get the car fixed, or whatever, it feels like I've just left the preacher who's promising me a good time in Heaven and am being led toward the electric chair for a crime I don't remember committing. This (sweeping arm around whole park) is about being in a world with you, instead of being either with you or in the world.

WOMAN: It's worse when you have both, isn't it? The good when we're together makes the other time, the time we had before we had each other and that we have to go through to eat and pay rent, seem much worse. Just having what we make together to compare the rest of it to ...

(Band members begin to talk among themselves, audible to audience, about bad economic and social conditions ... "There are no jobs out there; the ones that exist pay dirt, I'm still paying alimony and she's got four men paying for her meals, etc." They are obviously overheard, as passersby in the park, by MAN and WOMAN, intruding on their paradise with ugly reality)

MAN: (Sarcastically) Now that's just what I need to hear. Why can't those damn fools keep their problems to themselves, instead of ruining this day for us?

WOMAN: (disturbed by MAN's tone) Well, we don't own the park. When you go out in the world, you can't expect to have everything your way.

MAN: (bitterly) I can't even listen to that right now. You've got to be the exception; the thing that keeps me sane.

WOMAN: (wounded) I am who I am. Even though I expect the same protection from you, I can't be a "thing," like a wall or a bolted door between you and the world.

MAN: (Angry at the world which has successfully invaded their paradise) Please, don't say "can't" or tell me about anything I want being impossible. I'm not in the mood for it.

WOMAN: I don't think you're in the mood to be here with me right now, either. I know what you're going through. It's the same thing I'm going through, and the same thing everyone else goes through. It's just the way life is, and you're making it worse right now.

MAN: (putting his hands over his ears, losing his temper) SHUT UP, goddamn it! I can't stand it! You're supposed to be the one who makes putting up with the rest of it worthwhile, and now you're just part of the problem, reminding me of ...

(They look at each other, dismayed, realizing that they've spoken in anger for the first time, and that the memory will remain. They back away from each other a few steps as the band comes up, and MAN begins to sing)

There it is again between us * Like it was between you and him * There it is again between us, like it * Was between me and her back then * « Are we both supposed to be lonely * Does it follow us from love to love * Has the pain of loving left us hopeless * Do love and pain have to go hand in glove

'Til yesterday a world of sharing * Freedom and a life besides * When the world conspired to oppress us * We used to drown it in a warm, warm, warm tide

There it is * Gloom on the horizon * There it is * Misty with our tears * There it is * Rising up when I thought I'd won * Confirmation of all my greatest fears *

(MAN stops singing as WOMAN shares her acknowledgment of the situation by singing)

There it is again between us * Like it was between you and her * There it is again between us * Just when the old bad times had become a blur * There it is * Gloom on the horizon * There it is * Misty with our tears * There it is * Rising up when I thought I'd won * Confirmation of all my greatest fears *

(Together, they sing)

There it is * Gloom on the horizon * There it is * Misty with our tears * There it is * Rising up when I thought I'd won * Confirmation of all my greatest fears

WOMAN: (shivering slightly) It's getting chilly. Let's go home.

(They exit STAGE LEFT. Stage goes black and apartment scene is set back up. As lights come back up, MAN is filling his beer stein and bringing it back to the living room, where WOMAN is reading. WOMAN looks up, annoyed)

WOMAN: Thanks for asking whether or not I wanted anything.

MAN: (Putting beer stein down on telephone table, resigned, weary and expecting conflict) I didn't think about it. Do you want anything? I'll be glad to go back and get it.

WOMAN: It's just as easy for me to get it now. It's a separate trip. Since you were going to the kitchen anyway, though, it would have been easier for you then.

MAN: (shoulders drooping, recognizing the direction of the conversation) Do you want anything?

WOMAN: (Also obviously recognizing the pattern, but determined to make her point) I want to see some sign from you that you know I'm here. I want to be thought of.

MAN: I do think of you. I think of you all the time, but as you are, not as some goddamn houseplant that I have to remember "while I'm on my feet."

WOMAN: Well, you don't think of me the way you used to, and it's a problem that has to be solved.

MAN: It's a tiny household chore. It's less effort than we've spent discussing it.

WOMAN: It's a pattern, and it's a problem, and YOU need to deal with it! You've got to treat me better. (She begins to sing)

Now you better listen to what I've got to say * About how you need to treat me every day * I'm tellin' you now and I'm making it clear * Here's all you have to know to keep me hanging around, dear

I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * Now if you see me packing, you've only have yourself to blame

There are no excuses, I'm makin' it plain * I'm drawing you a picture of the rules of the game * I'm answering all the questions that you need to ask * Here's what it looks like, no disguise and no mask

I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * Now if you see me packing, you've only have yourself to blame

Now if you come home too late, that might get you a sneeze * And if you come home drunk, that's one of my allergies * And if you chase other women, it's hard to forgive * But you can make it with the woman if you know when to give

I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * Now if you see me packing, you've only have yourself to blame

You know you'll never keep a woman if you don't treat her right * Here's how to do it easy, put it straight in the light * I'm tellin' you now and I'm making it clear * Here's all you have to know to stay with yo' near and dear

I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * I'm not allergic to chocolates, flowers, diamonds or champagne * Now if you see me packing, you've only have yourself to blame

(Stage goes to black as song ends. Set is shifted to bar scene. MAN is seated at bar with beer stein, facing audience and scouting the joint. He is obviously upset with his circumstances, but determined to continue what he's doing, convinced that he has done nothing wrong. Band is milling around, making sounds like other bar patrons. A band member leaves the bandstand and walks by MAN on the way out of the bar STAGE RIGHT. As MAN is passed, band member speaks)

BAND MEMBER: Hey man, how're you doing. (Band member continues walk, exits bar, and discreetly goes back to bandstand from behind set panel)

MAN: How am I doing? Well, life's either getting better or worse. I'm not sure which it is yet. The home life's going to hell, the outside life has been hell, and when she gets here (MAN looks at watch) I don't know what I'll do, but it's got to be better than being at home with the wife.

(MAN steps away from bar and paces in front of bar as band begins to play. MAN begins to sing)

I've got a woman at home, she does it all for me * But there is just one woman who shakes my tree * Another woman * Another woman * Another Woman *She's really something *

You know that woman at home ain't doing nothing wrong * She just ain't doing nothing right enough to make me write a song * And there's another woman * Another woman * Another woman * She's really something *

Yes, and the woman at home, I got to tell you fair * She's got pearly white teeth and curly brown hair * But there's another woman * Another woman * Another woman * She's really something *

The woman at home, she brings me breakfast in bed * Wish I was bringing home the bacon to someone else instead * Another woman * Another woman * Another woman * She's really something

It ain't too often that we fuss and fight* But what makes me toss and turn all through the night* Is another woman * Another woman * Another woman * She's really something *

I've got a woman at home who does it all for me * But there is just one woman who shakes my tree * Another woman * Another woman * Another woman * She's really something *

(Stage goes to black as scene is shifted back to apartment. Woman is in kitchen, drying a glass. MAN enters living room STAGE LEFT, showing the effects of drinking and looking guilty)

WOMAN: I don't even want to know where you've been. You can stay gone all night, every night, for all I care, but I do deserve the courtesy of being told when to expect you so that I can plan my own life.

MAN: I told you I was joining out after work with some friends for a couple of beers. I've been at the bar. You could have called there if you'd needed anything or given a damn.

WOMAN: Why should I have to chase you down? "A couple of beers" don't last six hours, especially the way you've been drinking lately. If you had any respect for either of us ...

MAN: (Lying with the ease of habit) I'm sorry. We started blowing off steam about work and I lost track of the time. You know how I am once I get started on that topic.

WOMAN: No, I don't know how you are. I know how you used to be, back when this was a fortress we'd made together against everything awful in the outside world ... Back when you'd come here instead of going to a bar or (archly) somewhere else to get away from the pressures. I know how it used to work, and that it used to work for both of us.

MAN: Well, it isn't working now ...

WOMAN: Right! It isn't working now for either of us, and if you had the common decency to tell me how long you're going to be trying to get away from it, however it is that you're trying to get away from it these days, I could be spending my time trying to do the same thing somehow.

MAN: (Jealously) And how would that be?

WOMAN: I don't know. I haven't had much chance to find out because I've been here. After my workday and time out there is done, I'm still coming back to this place, where the man I fell in love with used to be.

MAN: I'm still trying to be here, baby, but coming home to this kind of conversation sure as hell doesn't help! You should hear yourself and try to put yourself in my shoes. You wouldn't be in a hurry to get home either.

WOMAN: Believe me, I'm in less of a hurry to get here every day. One of these days, I may be in so little hurry that I'll just stop and head in the other direction!

(Band comes up, WOMAN begins to sing)

One of these mornings, when you open up your eyes * And look for me, you might just get a big surprise * 'Cause I'm a highroller, baby * Ain't no telling what I'll do * I'm a highroller * And I'll roll much higher than you*

One of these days when you're scheming on how to spend my dough * You might just find out you can't spend it any more * 'Cause I'm a highroller, baby * Ain't no telling what I'll do * I'm a highroller * And I'll roll much higher than you*

One of these evenings when you're dogging some woman around * You'll look up and see me, but I won't be looking down * 'Cause I'm a highroller * Ain't no telling what I'll do * I'm a highroller * And I'll roll much higher than you*

One of these midnights * When you're feeling all alone * Your hand is itching * But don't call me on the phone * 'Cause I'm a highroller * Ain't no telling what I'll do * I'm a highroller * And I'll roll much higher than you

(WOMAN exits STAGE RIGHT, out of kitchen and into bedroom area of the apartment. A door slams and locks. MAN goes to closet between STAGE LEFT set panel and bandstand, pulls suitcase out, puts it down near apartment door STAGE LEFT, and turns STAGE RIGHT to get in his final word)

MAN: We'll see who's rolling around here! I'm packing up and rolling right now. (MAN begins to gather small effects from apartment and put them in the suitcase) If I can't get any relief here, I might as well be out there looking for it someplace else. This place is history, and so are we. We've turned this into a bad dream, and I'm ready to wake up and hope for a sunny day! (MAN continues to pack. In the process, he changes apartment set into park scene, park bench STAGE CENTER. Finally, he sits on the park bench, head down, suitcase by his side, as the band begins to play. MAN begins to sing)

I'm on a one-way street * And it must be going my way * I'm on a one-way street * And it must be going my way * 'Cause they call me 'Mr. Heartbreak' * And I'm on Heartbreak Road today *

My baby put me out this morning * And there was no reason why * My baby put me out this morning * And there was no reason why * Now I'm moving down Heartbreak Road * So heartbroken I could die *

Ain't no stop signs on this highway * And there ain't no crossroads, too * Ain't no stop signs on this highway * And there ain't no crossroads, too * Once you start moving out on Heartbreak Road * There ain't nothing else you can do *

Oh, here comes a pretty limo * Driver, please give me a ride * Here comes a real pretty limo * Driver, please give me a ride * It's too lonesome to move down Heartbreak Road * Without someone by your side *

Yeah, they call me 'Mr. Heartbreak' * And I know that this driver will put me out, too * They call me 'Mr. Heartbreak' * And I know that this driver will put me out, too * But Heartbreak Road is a one-way street * And going that way is all Mr. Heartbreak can do *

(CURTAIN)

… So that was Ruthe …

#prose #southern fiction #louisiana #original writing

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ailtrahq · 9 months

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antminer45 · 2 years

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Can You Mine Bitcoins on Your Smartphone?

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lunding24baldwin · 2 years

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nativecoinbuy · 3 years

Text

Can You Mine Bitcoins ON Your Smartphone?

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You can mine Bitcoins using your smartphone on a smaller scale or join a mobile mining farm. You will get a small portion of the rewards from the network miners based on your computing power.

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Android is a mobile-friendly OS that allows you to mine Bitcoins from your smartphone. The market is creating more Android apps that allow you to mine bitcoin directly from your smartphone, as the BTC rates in India fluctuate. These apps are not available on Google Play Store.

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destiel-love-forever · 5 years

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Thank you! #24 is : “Don’t come back until you’re fucking sober.”

This is an AU with no spoilers. Any character deaths/relationships/etc. don’t reflect anything that’s happened in the actual show. Established Destiel - Castiel’s a high school teacher, they’ve been dating since college, Dean’s been sober three years, they live together in an apartment/house. Mary Winchester just died before fic begins.

Read on my Ao3 or below!

Jack & Coke, and One Red Rose

Dean

When Castiel falls asleep beside me, I carefully extract myself from our bed and tip toe out of the room. The dark, quiet house is a relief. Peaceful. No Castiel asking me every few minutes if I need anything or if I’m okay. No Sam falling apart for me to hold and comfort. No old friends from school I could care less about offering me empty apologies. No extended family making passive aggressive comments about my life style or my drinking problem.

No dead mom.

What’s even more peaceful is when I show up to the bar. It’s like a breath of fresh air. Everything from the shitty jukebox crackling in the corner to the sticky, stained bar top are a comfort. I wave down the bartender, giving him a charming smile. “Double Jack and Coke, please.”

He nods and begins to pour. This stranger wearing a blue cotton shirt with a stain on the hem, quick hands mixing drinks, has no idea I’m three years sober. He has no idea that the last time I drank, I ended up in the hospital. Someone had found me in a puddle of my own vomit my final year of college and called an ambulance. Castiel and I had been dating for two months at that point - I had been doing a pretty good job at keeping my problem from him. When I woke up in the hospital, he had been holding my hand, tears drying on his face. He made me promise that I’d go to rehab and get help. That I’d never drink again. I said yes.

I exchange a five-dollar bill with the bartender in return for my drink. The smell alone makes me dizzy. Leaning against the bar, I rotate my wrist so I can watch the ice swirl. It’s mesmerizing. It’s exactly what I need. Just one drink, and it won’t be so hard to stay alive. Just one drink, and I won’t see my mom lying in that grave every time I close my eyes.

Just one drink.

Just one.

-----

When the bartender does last call, his eyes are glued to me specifically. He stopped serving me an hour ago but his hopes for me to sober up did absolutely nothing. I’m in that mental state when you know you’re shit faced, and you want to stop giggling and talking and doing stupid shit, but you just can’t.

“Buddy, you ain’t driving home tonight. Want me to call a cab? Or help you call a friend? Family?”

“Buried my ma today.” I look up at him and giggle again, even though it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says quietly, in a way that I actually believe. “Do you have any family in town for the funeral? A girlfriend? Boyfriend? Anyone? Maybe it’s best if you call one of them instead of a cab. Might be good if you’re not alone tonight.”

“Home,” I mumble.

“Do you have someone at home?”

“Cas.” I lay my head on the bartop. It may be sticky and smells of tomato juice and vodka, but it’s cool against my overheated skin and that feels amazing. “Gonna be mad.”

Someone comes up beside me and hands the bartender the money for their bill. The place is incredibly quiet. When I lift my head to glance around, I see that I’m alone. Just me and the poor bartender.

The guy motions for me to lift my head so he can wipe down the bartop beneath my face. I immediately press my cheek against it again when he’s done. It’s much more pleasing now that it smells like lemony soap.

“Give me your phone, buddy.”

I slap around my pockets a few times before finding my phone and waving it in the air for him. “Don’ call Cas. Be mad ‘t me.”

Castiel

My phone ringing wakes me from the restless state of sleep I’d been struggling through. I roll over to look at Dean, hoping it doesn’t wake him when I know he was having a hard time falling asleep, but his side of the bed is empty. With one hand, I answer my phone. With the other, I reach out and feel that his spot is cold.

“H - hello?”

“Hi. This is - well, okay. This is going to sound weird but I have a really drunk guy here mumbling about a Cas and you’re Cas in his phone.” I stare at the place where my boyfriend of three years should be lying. “He said his mom’s funeral was today? Ring any bells?”

I close my eyes and tell myself not to cry. “Yup. He’s mine.”

“Awesome. Would you be able to come get him? I didn’t want to send him off in a cab. He’s kind of - well, he’s a fucking mess, to be honest.”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course.” I shove the blankets back, trying to keep calm because this poor bartender doesn’t need to deal with my emotions. As I scavenge on the floor for some decent clothes to throw on, I ask, “What bar?”

“Rookies. Do you know where we’re at? Downtown?”

I slap a hand at my cheek, stopping the one tear that slipped from my control. “Of course. Yes. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Can you please wait with him?”

“Of course. We’ll be here.”

Once I’m dressed and in the car, it truly sinks in that he relapsed. I should have known better. I should have fucking known. How could I be so stupid? I should have stayed awake until I knew he was asleep. I should have stayed awake all night if it was what he needed.

No. You know what? He fucking should have woken me up when he was struggling. He knows better than to drink. He’s a big fucking boy. All he had to do was wake me up.

By the time I’m at the bar, I’m pissed. Furious, actually.

By the time I see Dean, I’m heart broken.

He’s sitting on the edge of the sidewalk with his elbows resting on his knees, head hanging between his legs as he heaves up all the alcohol he drank. A gruff man standing behind him gives me a kind smile. “Cas?”

“Yeah. Thank you so much for this. Uh, what’s his tab?”

“Fifty-two.”

I close my eyes until I’m confident that I won’t cry. Then I grab my wallet and hand him eighty bucks. “Keep the change.”

“Oh, wow. Thanks.”

“No problem. I know how he gets when he’s drinking.” I get down on a knee, a few feet away from Dean so I’m not kneeling in his vomit. “Dean?”

Impossibly green eyes surrounded by red veins lift to look at me. “Told him not to call you.”

“Where did you plan on going, then?”

“Dunno.”

“Mmm.” I try to help him stand up but he starts to cry. Big, wet sobs. His entire body shakes and heaves. The bartender helps me get him fully to his feet and takes one of his arms as we guide a stumbling, crying Dean to my car.

Just before closing the door to the backseat where we dumped him, Dean blinks up at me and whispers, “Sorry broke the promise.”

“It’s fine, Dean.”

“Go to a meetin’ tomorrow. Promise.”

“Sure. Let’s just get you home.”

He parts his lips to speak again but I slam the door and press my hands against it, hanging my head. I forgot the bartender was even still standing there until he says in a thick voice, “I am so sorry. I didn’t know he was an alcoholic.”

I give him a broken smile, not even caring anymore that my eyes are watering. “He’s charming. You’d never know unless he told you. Don’t worry about it.”

With a polite nod, the man backs away and heads inside the bar. I crouch down and bury my face in my hands, giving myself a minute to fall apart before I have to be the strong one for Dean. When the minute is done, I can’t stop sobbing. So, I give myself one more.

Dean

I try. I really fucking try. Sam picks me up in the morning and brings me, and my pounding, aching head, to an AA meeting. We sip cheap, shitty coffee. I walk up to the podium and admit I relapsed. Everyone looks at me with a mixture of pity and fear, because they’ve all either been there or are terrified they’ll be there soon.

We grab a bite to eat after and Sam delicately lectures me about staying sober. About calling him if I need him. About honesty and humility and all the other shit him and Castiel have been spouting for years.

I make promises, but even as they fall from my lips, I know they’re lies. Then he drops me off at home and I find out that Castiel stayed home from work to babysit me. He’s much more upset than Sam. No lectures. No coddling. Just a cold shoulder and a clearly broken heart. When I wake up from a nap on the couch, he looks at me with a sad smile and tells me he loves me. It sounds a lot like the promises I made to Sam. Empty. Unrealistic.

How could he love me? Especially now?

The second he falls asleep, I’m out the door. Fuck being sober. Where did that ever get me? A dead mom. A job I hate. A long-term boyfriend who deserves so much more.

I slide onto the bar stool and smile when I see the same bartender from the night before. He frowns when he sees me, then glances around like he’s expecting something or someone. Waving a five dollar bill in the air, I tell him, “Double Jack and Coke, please.”

“Dean, I think you should go home.”

“Um, no.” I slap the bill on the bartop. “What I will do is take a Double Jack and Coke.”

“Does Cas know you’re here?”

Narrowing my eyes, I tell him through gritted teeth, “Don’t say his name.”

“If you can’t even hear his name as you’re about to drink, maybe you shouldn’t be drinking.”

“Fuck you, asshole.” I push away from the bar and start to leave. The bar is in the busy downtown area. My options are not at all limited.

The bartender wraps a hand around my bicep and tugs me toward the bar stool I was just sitting on. “Alright. You gonna get shit faced, might as well do it here so you don’t get your stupid ass killed or something.”

When he hands me the drink after a minute, I make eye contact and hold him there. “At the end of the night, call a cab. Not Cas.”

Something flashes in his eyes but then he gives me a curt nod. “Whatever you say, man. It’s your life you’re fuckin’ up.”

“Yeah,” I tell him, slamming the drink in one go and pushing it toward him for a refill. “It is.”

Castiel

For the eighth night in a row, he stumbles into the house. Tonight, he trips over my leather messenger bag stuffed full of shitty high school student essays. Ones I haven’t even graded yet, because all I do every night is sit up watching reruns on Netflix and crying. Except for tonight. Tonight, I watched reruns on Netflix and just stared in a stunned emptiness.

He falls to his hands and knees, immediately chuckling. When he squints in the living room light and spots me, he laughs harder. “Cas! Missed you!”

“Are you sure?” I stand up, shoving my hands in my sweatpants pockets. Actually, his sweatpants. I like his better because they’re nice and baggy. I’ll have to buy some in his size when he moves out. Lord knows I can’t keep a pair here. The smell of him alone will break me and I’ll go running back to him. That’s what I do best. Running back to Dean Winchester. “Doesn’t feel like you missed me.”

“‘Course silly! Missed you lots.”

“Then stop leaving me.”

His green eyes narrow as he stares up at me from where he’s still on the floor. If it was a few days ago, I would offer to help him stand. Not anymore. I’m so unbelievably done. “I’d never leave you, Cas.”

“You leave me every night, Dean.”

“Well, yeaaaaaaah!” he giggles, slowly pushing to his feet. “But ‘ways come back home to ya.”

I stand and watch him as he wavers on his feet. With just a slight wind, he’d be on his ass again. “I can’t keep doing this, Dean.”

“Doin’ what?”

“This.” I gesture between us. “I need you to stay at Sam’s from now on.”

“S- Sam’s?” He shakes his head like he can make the words disappear. “What? No. We’re - we - this ‘s m’ home.”

Ignoring the tears slipping down my cheeks, I swallow around the giant lump in my throat and inform him, “No. This is not your home anymore, Dean.”

He starts to cry. Then I start to cry. On shaking legs, he hurries over to me, backing me into the wall. His lips are on mine and he tastes like whiskey and regret, but I can’t get myself to pull away. When his hands grab the backs of my thighs, I let him lift me up, wrapping my legs around his waist. We get each other’s shirts off by some miracle, our mouths barely separating. I think he makes sure it’s that way so I can’t tell him to leave again. It’s not like I’m exactly committed to it. Apparently, Dean Winchester still has all the power. Not sure why that surprises me. It wasn’t a problem before his relapse, because he didn’t abuse the power. He took care of me. He was kind. Funny. Loving. Caring. Gentle. Sure, a pain in the ass sometimes, but not like this. Not a fucking mess. On night four, he told me to fuck off. On night six, he came home so angry he started throwing things. I don’t like drunk Dean. Drunk Dean isn’t my Dean.

Things turn angry fast. I start to yank at his hair and claw at the bare skin of his back. He finally pulls his lips from my mouth only to clamp down on the side of my neck, biting and sucking all the way down to my shoulder before moving to the other side and doing it all over again.

“Dean,” I whisper, reminding myself that this was supposed to be a break-up. Or, at the very least, an I-need-space-up.

“Shh,” he whispers against my abused skin. “Just, shhhh.”

I rest my head against the wall and squeeze my eyes shut. He stops and I’m not sure I want him to stop anymore because I’m too afraid to lose him now. The words are stuck in my throat and I can’t get them out, even though nothing sexual is happening between us anymore. Even wasted, Dean picked up on my mood. He knows I’m not okay.

“Come on. Let’s go sleep,” he whispers.

“No. Stay.” I cling to him, shaking now. “Stay. Here. Fuck me.”

“Cas-”

“Dean, fuck me or leave.”

He looks away, shame clear across his face. “I don’t wanna leave, Cas. Don’t make me leave you.”

“Then fuck me.”

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, then gives me a tight smile. “Can we at least go to the bedroom?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I give him the same tight smile back. “Because you’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight, babe.”

“Oh.” He clears his throat and nods. “Yeah. That’s - yeah. That’s fair.”

Before either of us can think of anything else to say, he’s pressing a searing kiss to my lips. I shiver and melt against him. When he presses me harder into the wall, I help him undo our pants, shoving them awkwardly the best we can. He rips my underwear in the back instead of trying to maneuver around them but I don't care. I just want him to fuck me. To remind me of the love we share, because I can't seem to find it anymore.

After a sloppy and quick prep with his fingers and spit, he’s pushing inside me. He groans and buries his face in my neck. “God, baby. ‘S been s’ long.”

Maybe if you weren’t getting wasted every fucking night, we could be having sex more often. Instead of saying that, I just grab a fistful of his hair and bring his mouth back to mine, pressing our lips together again. I have no idea if this break-up sex or make-up sex or what, but I know one thing. It might be our last time. So, I free myself from all the anger and sadness and loneliness, and give myself one more night with the love of my life.

Dean

The bartender at Rookies, who I now know is named Benny, is just a year older than me, and is really invested in my life for some reason, hands me my final glass of whiskey for the night. At some point I stopped even asking for the soda along with it. What’s the point, right?

I stare down into the glass and think about what I’ve been thinking about all night long. Castiel. I know he was trying to break-up with me last night. I know it was wrong that I used sex against him. I know I’m being a piece of shit lately. Drinking. Smoking. Getting into fights. Yelling at Castiel. Being crabby and hungover all day just to sneak away and get wasted at night.

Not even sneak away anymore. I left while he was still awake tonight. He was sitting on the couch grading papers and drinking coffee, like he was planning on staying awake for a while, so I decided to just leave instead of trying to wait him out. What if he didn’t fall asleep fast enough and I missed bar close? Then what would I drink? So, I left. Walked right out. Avoided eye contact.

Except the guilt is haunting me. It’s the first time since I relapsed that I haven’t been able to enjoy myself at the bar. No loud karaoke. No meaningless flirting. No nachos. No playing card games with some of the regulars. Just me and my glass of whiskey, freaking the fuck out.

He wanted me to leave. He was trying to break-up. He’s done with me. Fuck. What will I go home to tonight? Will he still be there? Will he demand I leave? How do I fix this?

Two assholes are laughing at the end of the bar. I keep looking at them, hoping that they’ll get the picture that they’re annoying the fuck out of me, but they just get louder. More obnoxious. When one of them spews something about “fags” I launch to my feet.

“Woah, buddy,” Benny immediately says, putting a hand out to stop me. “Not worth it.”

“Nothin’s worth it ‘n more.”

“Dean!”

I hurry to the guy that’s closest to me and slam my fist against his face, smiling as the blood sprays from his nose. He stumbles back but before I can pursue him, his friend is jumping on me. We fall to the floor but I quickly gain the upper hand, rolling us so I’m on top. I land a few good punches before the first guy is pulling me off and slamming me into the bartop. As he hits me, I start to laugh like a fucking maniac.

Castiel

The knock on the door wakes me from where I’m sleeping on the couch. I rub my eyes and look at the time. It’s still an hour to bar close so I’m not sure why Dean’s already home. Or why he can’t use his goddamn key.

Even more annoyed than usual, I storm over to the door and unlock it, then yank it open. I gasp when I see that Dean’s not alone. Benny, the nice bartender that’s been trying to keep him as safe as possible during his recent bender, is holding him up. Dean’s bleeding and one eye is swelling shut. When he sees me, though, he starts to laugh and walk toward me. I back away and he stumbles, but with a hand on the wall he stabilizes himself and stands up straight. His grin is bloody and terrifying.

“Hey you,” he slurs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and smiling again, this time a softer, loving smile. It makes me nauseous.

I look at Benny and give him a tight, thankful smile. “Sorry about this.”

“I’m sorry. The fight happened too fast. It didn’t last long, I got his ass out of there the second I could.”

“Thank you, Benny.”

“Are you,” he pauses, looking at Dean before looking at me again. “Are you okay here, Cas? Do you want a ride somewhere? Or I can take him somewhere else? He’s bad tonight.”

“‘Ay, fuck off, asshole! He’s mine,” Dean shouts, stabbing a finger in the air toward Benny. “Leave!”

Knowing that I’m now crying, I pretend like I’m not and wave Benny off. “It’s fine. I promise. Thank you, again.”

He looks nervous leaving me but after a few seconds he nods and closes the door behind himself. I stare at Dean, trying to recognize him. Trying to understand how, in nine short days, we got here.

“I can’t do this anymore, Dean.”

“‘Ll get better. ‘Swear.”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s getting better.”

“Jus’ fuckin’ buried my ma, Cas! Wha’ ya wan’ from me?”

Unable to look him in the eye, I stare at the ground and whisper, “I want you to leave.”

“Fuck you.” As he walks by, he shoulder checks me. It’s the most violent he’s ever been with me - which is saying a lot, because people constantly shoulder check people - but it still sets me off.

Whipping around, I put my hands on his back and shove him. He goes stumbling across the floor before turning to stare at me with wide eyes. “Jesus christ, you’re fuckin’ crazy!”

“I want you out of this house!”

“No. ‘s our house.”

“Actually, it’s not. It’s mine. You just have a key.” I swallow down the pain I’m feeling and force myself to look straight at him, lifting my chin to look more confident than I actually feel. “I will pack your things and bring them to Sam’s tomorrow.”

“No.” He shakes his head, laughing. “You don’ get to break up with me. That - ‘s not how it works.”

I go to the door and yank it open, pointing out toward the sidewalk. “Leave. Now.”

The nearest thing to him is an end table with a lamp and a picture frame on it. He growls and turns to it, lashing out and dragging his hands across the surface. He sends the lamp crashing to the ground and the picture flying. It lands a few feet from me, picture facing up, the broken glass spidering across my smiling face. Dean’s face is left untouched.

Staring down at our broken image, I tell him, “Leave on your own right now, or I’ll call Sam. Who doesn’t even know you’re still drinking, by the way. So I suggest you don’t make me do that.”

“How dare you?” he chokes out. “My ma died.”

“That excuse stopped working a few days ago, Dean. You need help.”

“I need you.”

“I’m not available right now.”

He makes a weird sound that draws my attention. When I look up at him, he’s staring at me like he doesn’t recognize me. His face is covered in tears. “Don’ do this, Cas. ‘can fix this.”

“No you can’t.”

The sadness morphs to anger, like it always does with Dean Winchester. He starts throwing everything in sight. None in my direction, like I said, he’d never hurt me. But it still makes me start to shake. I openly sob but it doesn’t matter to him. He’s too busy screaming about how selfish and judgemental I am. How he deserves better than me. How I’m an asshole. How I’m heartless. How I’m the worst person he’s ever met.

At some point, I got myself to dial Sam’s number. I couldn’t speak through the sobs but he could clearly hear Dean screaming at me. He lives three streets away from us. By the time I hear him enter the house, Dean hasn’t even run out of steam yet. He punches the wall right before Sam hugs him from behind, pulling him away from the new hole in the drywall, grabbing his bleeding hand to keep it from getting injured further.

I lift my chin to look at Dean as Sam drags him toward the door. Sam is in responsible big brother mode, shifting between apologizing to me and asking if I’m okay, to hushing and whispering to Dean that everything will be fine. When they get directly in front of me, Dean’s eyes meet mine. They’re full of so much hate and pain and love that I have to take a step back.

“Don’ do this, Cas,” he whispers a final time, voice raw from his screaming. “Don’ make me leave.”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” I whisper in a voice just as broken, even though I’ve barely raised my voice since he got home. “I can't be with you like this.”

“You're heartless. You never loved me, did you?”

“How can you even say that? Of course I did. I still do! But I can't anymore. You have to stop this.”

“Fuck you! I need you ‘n you're fuckin’ abandonin’ me!”

Sam tries pulling him away but Dean pulls his arm back, his elbow hitting Sam in the nose. He takes advantage of his freedom by coming for me. I back away out the door so he will follow me outside, then turn so I'm closest to the door.

“Don't speak to me like that, Dean.”

“Fuck. You.” He spits at me. “I'll be back. You'll be beggin’ me to.”

“No, Dean.” Wiping at my face, I tell him in the strongest, most confident tone I can muster, “I swear to god. Don’t come back until you’re fucking sober.”

His lips part but I turn my back to him and run inside, slamming the door and locking it. Then I slump down on the ground and curl in on myself, not sure if I just made the best decision of my life, or the worst mistake.

Dean

17 hours sober.

Well, since my last drink. I doubt I'm even sober yet, considering the amount of alcohol in my system. Still, 17 hours is impressive for me, so I'm counting it.

I rest my cheek against the cool toilet seat, vomit dripping from the corner of my mouth. Sam enters the bathroom, placing a glass of water on the counter before wringing out a cold cloth over my head, sending refreshingly cold water down my body. He runs it under cold water again before resting it on the back of my neck.

“Thanks, Sammy,” I whisper through chattering teeth. I wish my fucking body would stop shaking so hard. It's starting to hurt. Every muscle is aching. With each heave as I vomit, my body protests. It feels like I'm being ripped into ten different directions.

------

37 hours sober.

I sit at the back of my second meeting of the day, bouncing my knees to the rhythm of my pounding heart. The man speaking to the group is talking about being sober for ten years. There's a wedding ring on his finger. I stare at it as he talks with his hands. It was just last month I was at the jewelry store with my mom, browsing rings for when I proposed to Castiel. We said we would go back and make a final decision but we never did.

Now she's dead.

Now, Castiel would probably throw the ring at my face.

Don't come back until you're fucking sober.

I want to go home right now. Technically, I've sobered up. I purged all the alcohol out of my system through vomit, sweat, and time. Now I'm left with a shaky, empty shell of myself. Not the man Castiel is hoping will return, I'm sure.

------

42 hours sober.

I want a drink so fucking bad. My hands are trembling so hard and I know what they're begging me for. I know they want the comfort of wrapping around a glass of whiskey. My whole body wants something to do with the liquid gold. My tongue longs for the taste. My throat for the burn. My stomach for the heat that spreads through it. My veins want to be pumping alcohol. My mind wants help shutting off.

I scrub a rough hand over my face, my knees bouncing double time. I should go to another meeting. I'm sure there's one right now, even though it's late. If I was more determined, I'd find one. I'm not though. I'm worried if I get off the couch and allow my feet to move, they will bring me to the nearest bar. So, I sit on Sam's couch with the TV on mute so I don't wake his family up. I sit until I don't need a drink.

I end up falling asleep first.

------

56 hours sober.

God, I miss him. I miss him so fucking much. I need him. Almost as much as I need a drink. Since I know that's wrong, since I know he deserves someone who needs him more than anything, especially more than whiskey, I still don't go back.

------

6 days sober.

The cravings still thrum beneath the surface of my skin. The piercing headache I’ve had for three days straight now still won’t go away. But, when I sweat, it doesn’t smell like booze anymore. I can now eat three meals a day without throwing them up. The trembling has mostly stopped. It only returns when I’m anxious or unable to sleep. That’s probably my biggest problem now, besides the Castiel issue. I can’t sleep well.

It’s mostly that I can’t even fall asleep. Too restless. Too many thoughts. Too upset. When I do manage to fall asleep, I’m battling nightmares. Nightmares about the horrors of my past. Nightmares about dying alone. Nightmares of Castiel dead like my mom, lying stiff in a coffin. Nightmares of Castiel finding someone else. Nightmares of me trying to go back, proud of being sober, only to be told he can no longer love me.

------

12 days sober.

I dial his number after work, drumming the fingers of my free hand nervously against my thigh. I've sent him two texts since he kicked me out. One when I first detoxed, apologizing and promising I would get better. The second a few days ago, just saying I miss and love him, and want him to take all the time he needs. He didn't answer either.

He doesn't answer the phone call either. It takes a lot for me to not throw my phone at the wall. It takes even more for me not to drink. I go for a run instead. 8 miles. Sam would be so proud.

------

30 days sober.

I get my bronze chip at my daily meeting. Everyone claps for me. I even smile.

I visit my mom's grave, apologizing for being gone so long. She listens to me talk and cry. She sits with me in silence.

I ask Sam if Castiel is okay. Sam promises he is. I can't decide if I'm relieved or hurt by that. All I know is I fucking need him, and it's killing me that he doesn't need me too.

Castiel

34 days alone.

The first apology arrives during the school day in the middle of my lesson on Ernest Hemingway. 37 pink roses and one red rose. They come with a note written in Dean’s beautifully messy handwriting: 37 pink roses for every month we’ve been together, and one red for this past month that we’ve had to spend apart. I’m so sorry I made it so we needed a red rose… I promise to try and make sure we never have another one again. I miss you. I love you. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. - Dean

Telling my students to read the short story I just introduced, I hurry off to the staff bathroom and lock myself in. With the note crumpled in my hand, I let myself cry. I cry for every pink rose. I cry even harder for the red one.

------

37 days alone.

The second apology is in my mailbox the next morning. An envelope with just my name on it, in that same handwriting as the note with the roses. I bring it inside and open it as I eat my breakfast. It’s a gift certificate for a full day at the spa in town. With it is a note that reads: You talk all the time about how stressed you are. With work. Your kids. Coworkers. Family. Even with me. I never tell you enough how much I appreciate you. How I appreciate that even if you get home after dark, you still make us dinner. How I appreciate that even when you’re exhausted, you still wake up with me when I have my nightmares. How I appreciate your never ending patience and understanding. How I appreciate that you planned my mom’s funeral since Sam and I were too upset. I promise to appreciate you more. I promise to tell you more. I’m nowhere near the man you deserve.. But I’m going to try my hardest to become him for you. I miss you. I love you. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. - Dean

------

40 days alone.

The third apology is a pink gift bag on my front porch when I come home at the end of the day. I bring it inside and place it on the breakfast bar. After I’ve changed into more comfortable clothes and poured myself a glass of wine, I open it. A note is tied with a ribbon off one of the handles. I open it and read: I miss you. I love you. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. - Dean

When I look inside, I see that the bag is actually packed full of notes. Little folded up slips of paper. With shaking hands, I open the first and read: You don’t know this, but the first time we met wasn’t actually the first time I’d seen you. I saw you a week before that, when walking across campus to the dorms. It was a cool, windy, fall day. You were in this chunky, burgundy sweater. A plaid flannel blanket was wrapped around you, falling off one shoulder. You were sitting on the ground with your back against a tree. Reading. Always reading. My cute little nerd. The wind kept blowing your crazy curls around and I just stood there in awe. You were so beautiful. I remember when I saw you at that party the week after, I just knew. I knew you were the one. It was fate.

Clamping down on my bottom lip to keep from crying, I grab a new one and read: I know you hate my homemade lasagna, babe. But thanks for always pretending anyway.

I laugh softly, the smile feeling foreign on my face. I can’t remember the last time I genuinely smiled, instead of the forced ones I give in public to keep up appearances. It’s not really a surprise that Dean Winchester is the one to get me to smile again. He was always quite good at that.

I read another one: I’m sorry for that terrible fucking haircut I gave you last year… that was… oh boy.. That was terrible babe. I wasn’t lying though. You still looked gorgeous.

This makes me laugh until I’m breathless. I remember that day. I had a meeting the next morning and it had completely slipped my mind to go to the salon. All I needed was a trim so my curls weren’t falling in my eyes. He butchered it so bad I wore a weird fedora like hat to the meeting, which my coworkers to this day still tease me about. The laughter is relieving. Almost all of the pressure that’s been building on my chest the last 40 days lifts. I can almost breathe again.

I read another: When I make love to you, your sexy legs wrapped around my waist and your arms around my back, holding me close so we can kiss, you make the most beautiful noises. I get lost in your eyes sometimes and forget to even move my hips. You’ve never pointed it out. Sometimes I wonder if you get lost in me too. If you don’t even notice.

My heart flutters.

I read another: When we were both still in the dorms on campus, you accused me of stealing one of your favorite sweaters. It was blue, almost identical to your eyes, and so fucking soft. My favorite part though was that it smelled like you. So… yeah… I totally lied. I stole that. I’m really sorry. It just made me feel safe and it helped with my nightmares. I slept with it every night, even long after it stopped smelling like you. When we moved in together, I was afraid to tell you… so I hid it. It’s in our bedroom closet right now if you want it back. In a box labeled ‘Dean’s College Shit’. Maybe it smells like me… maybe it can help you sleep now.

“I fucking knew he stole that,” I grumble, unable to stop myself from smiling. I go to the closet and find the sweater, exactly where he said it’d be. It’s slightly dusty but it does still smell like him. Actually, it smells like us. A smell the rest of this house is starting to lose. I pull the sweater on over my shirt and sink into it.

Going back to the kitchen, now wrapped in my own Dean security blanket, I read another: I love you so much, Cas. You make my entire world spin. It feels like everything is standing still lately… you know how much I hate being still.

And another: I miss you.

And another: Sam’s dog is under the impression we are now best friends, and he sleeps on the couch with me every night. He’s lucky he’s cute because this couch is fucking small.

Another: I love when you read to me at night while I fall asleep, even when it’s your students’ terrible essays that I know drive you nuts. God.. I miss your voice, babe.

Another: When we kissed for the first time, you tasted like skittles. I never asked if you had been eating them, or maybe drinking something earlier. I wonder what it was.

Another: It’s raining tonight. Thunderstorming. I know how much you love them. I hope you’re sitting in the window seat with a book and a mug of tea, enjoying it. You deserve peaceful moments like that.

It hasn’t thunderstormed in two weeks. He's been writing these over the time we’ve been apart, instead of all at once for this apology gift like I thought.

My resolve crumbles.

I read another: I love you.

I read every single one. Most of them more than once. By the time the sun is setting, the wine bottle is empty and I’m dialing Dean’s number.

He answers before the phone can ring a second time. “Cas?” he asks breathlessly. The desperation and hope in his voice breaks my heart.

With a smile, I say what I’ve wanted to for 40 days now. “Dean. Come home.”

#destiel #supernatural #prompts #love #angst #writing #feels #savingpeoplewritingprompts #au #dean #castiel #domestic au #alcohol #relapse

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diamondmine2020 · 8 months

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SECRET REVEALED ON AAS TOKEN

HI FELLOW SPARTANS, I LOOKED THROUGH THE TOKENOMICS OF THE AAS TOKEN FROM THE WHITEPAPER, AND WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT SOME KEY POINTS:1. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF TOKENS WILL BE 10,000,000,000 (10BIL). THE IS THE TOTAL AMOUNT THAT WILL BE “PRINTED”/”MINTED” SO TO SAY.2. OF THE 10 BILLION TOKENS, ONLY 5 BILLION OR 50% WILL BE IN SUPPLY.3. OF THE 50% IN SUPPLY, ONLY 25% (2.5 BILLION) WILL BE PART OF THE…

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ikablock · 2 years

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CYBAVO announces partnership with IKA BLOCK to expand footprint in APAC

CYBAVO, a leading provider of blockchain security solutions, and IKA BLOCK have announced that they have signed a partnership agreement. As part of the agreement, IKA BLOCK, a Hong Kong-based company that helps businesses innovate with blockchain technology, will expand its offerings to include CYBAVO’s digital asset operations management solutions, bringing CYBAVO’s trusted products closer to organizations in Hong Kong looking to expand into the blockchain industry.

About IKA Block

Established in 2017, blockchain development company IKA BLOCK was co-founded by a team of experienced software engineers. It is the first blockchain technology company in Hong Kong focused on blockchain technology research, project development, wallet security, and the promotion of various blockchain projects.

Director of Blockchain Technology Harry Chan Kai Fung says, “the cryptocurrency market has developed rapidly over the past few years, and the foundation of it relies on the secure protection of these digital assets. We see a lack of secure institutional end-to-end solutions, and with the increased reports of crypto hacks, many traditional companies are hesitant to jump into the blockchain market. Therefore, ensuring the security of digital assets is of critical importance. With this partnership with CYBAVO, we are confident that we’ll be able to help more organizations protect their assets, and together welcome a new era of transformation from physical assets to digital assets.”

About CYBAVO

CYBAVO is a leading platform for secure digital asset management operations. Established in 2018 by a team of cybersecurity veterans, it provides the most advanced digital asset custody technology, integrating MPC technology, a custom security-hardened operating system, patented encryption technology, and a highly secure sandboxed environment to deliver its suite of solutions, including its flagship product, CYBAVO VAULT.

Its extensive list of enterprise customers include cryptocurrency exchanges, NFT marketplaces, cryptocurrency wallet providers, and fintech service providers. The company is insured by a S&P AA-rated global reinsurance company, and holds certifications for ISO 27001, SOC 2, and NIST’s Cryptographic Module Validation Program.

CYBAVO official website：https://cybavo.com IKA BLOCK official website： https://ikablock.com/

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moonarchmining · 2 years

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Can You Mine Bitcoins on Your Smartphone?

Let us have a look at the Bitcoin price index from July 2012 to September 2020 for better understanding of this digital currency -

Is it possible to mine Bitcoins using Mobile?

How can you Mine using Smartphones?

Apps that can be used for mining Bitcoins through a smartphone

MinerGate

This app supports several cryptocurrencies mining which include Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, DigitalNote, and many more. This app is mainly used for mining cryptocurrencies for Android. Final Thoughts

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mauricesam · 2 years

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The best time to “play to earn” crypto games has come

Since the birth of the game industry, it has been developing rapidly, and the impact of the epidemic has promoted the development of home offices, online businesses, online education, game entertainment, and other industries. The Internet has become an indispensable part of people’s communication, office, entertainment, and more time and energy have been invested in the virtual world. The “play to earn” crypto game developed vigorously.

According to Newzoo, the total number of global gamers will exceed the 3 billion mark in 2021; the number has increased 5.3% compared with 2020; global game total revenue in 2021 is $175.8 billion. With a market size of US$88.2 billion, the Asia-Pacific has become the region with the highest proportion of global game revenue. Newzoo believes that by 2024, game players will reach 3.32 billion, and global game revenue will reach 200 billion US dollars. (source from Newzoo)

With the advent of SHIB, AXS, SAND, CHR, MANA, and other upsurges, the “play to earn” crypto game has become a hot topic in the currency circle. The core principle of GameFi is play-to-earn, and every game is working hard to combine earn with play. After four years, the SGEM team has built SGEM into a game that combines game entertainment and the DeFi economy.

What is SGEM?

SGEM is a virtual entertainment space running on Ethereum, and its community is built based on easy-to-use, light-strategy, fun, and non-tiring competitive adversarial games. Every game connected to the SGEM game space is based on meeting the gameplay needs of mainstream players. The gameplay features are distinctive and attractive, and they are independent and interdependent at the same time. In SGEM, all games share a set of account systems, and the token (ORE) is used as the final transaction settlement currency to enable barrier-free interoperability between games. Game assets use “props on the chain + digital wallet” to realize point-to-point transactions of game props anytime, anywhere, without any intermediate platform links.

How to Play-to-Earn?

As a phenomenal product in the blockchain game industry, Axie Infinity has created a new model of Play to Earn, injecting new vitality into the entire industry. Based on Axie Infinity’s gameplay, SGEM brings Play to Earn into the 2.0 era.

In SGEM, players should buy 3 Babo first. Match different cards with Babo to form a teamand destroy the opponent’s base.

The babos, materials, and other game items obtained by players are all NFT assets, which can be traded on the Uniswap exchange.

Players can get rich AA token rewards through PVE single-mode, raid mode, daily tasks, and other gameplay. AA tokens can be sold in the secondary market.

A variety of events are set up in the game, such as non-discriminatory competitions, limited competitions, ladder competitions, promotion competitions, etc., which provide players with rich rewards, including a large number of ORE tokens, AA tokens, and game resources.

Metaverse is in the limelight, and “play to earn” crypto games emerge. SGEM breaks the singleness of previous chain games, adheres to the original intention of game design, adopts traditional game presentation technology, and combines the sustainable ecology of DeFi economy. It shows what the chain game should look like, and more gameplay mechanisms are waiting for players to explore.

#Playtoearn blockchaingames NFT Gamefi dapp ethereum web3 web30 #The best time to “play to earn” crypto games has come

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kkkkiper · 2 years

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The best time to "play to earn" crypto games has come

Since the birth of the game industry, it has been developing rapidly, and the impact of the epidemic has promoted the development of home offices, online businesses, online education, game entertainment, and other industries. The Internet has become an indispensable part of people's communication, office, entertainment, and more time and energy have been invested in the virtual world. The "play to earn" crypto game developed vigorously.

With the advent of SHIB, AXS, SAND, CHR, MANA, and other upsurges, the "play to earn" crypto game has become a hot topic in the currency circle. The core principle of GameFi is play-to-earn, and every game is working hard to combine earn with play. After four years, the SGEM team has built SGEM into a game that combines game entertainment and the DeFi economy.

What is SGEM?

SGEM is a virtual entertainment space running on Ethereum, and its community is built based on easy-to-use, light-strategy, fun, and non-tiring competitive adversarial games. Every game connected to the SGEM game space is based on meeting the gameplay needs of mainstream players. The gameplay features are distinctive and attractive, and they are independent and interdependent at the same time. In SGEM, all games share a set of account systems, and the token (ORE) is used as the final transaction settlement currency to enable barrier-free interoperability between games. Game assets use "props on the chain + digital wallet" to realize point-to-point transactions of game props anytime, anywhere, without any intermediate platform links.

How to Play-to-Earn?

As a phenomenal product in the blockchain game industry, Axie Infinity has created a new model of Play to Earn, injecting new vitality into the entire industry. Based on Axie Infinity's gameplay, SGEM brings Play to Earn into the 2.0 era.

In SGEM, players should buy 3 Babo first. Match different cards with Babo to form a teamand destroy the opponent's base.

The babos, materials, and other game items obtained by players are all NFT assets, which can be traded on the Uniswap exchange.

Players can get rich AA token rewards through PVE single-mode, raid mode, daily tasks, and other gameplay. AA tokens can be sold in the secondary market.

Metaverse is in the limelight, and "play to earn" crypto games emerge. SGEM breaks the singleness of previous chain games, adheres to the original intention of game design, adopts traditional game presentation technology, and combines the sustainable ecology of DeFi economy. It shows what the chain game should look like, and more gameplay mechanisms are waiting for players to explore.

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hmollik · 3 years

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Goldzilla Game: Play to Earn Game revolution

Play to Earn Game revolution

Goldzilla is a one-stop shop for anything related to GameFi. The platform includes a Community and Aggregator for blockchain players, investors, and traders, as well as a launchpad dedicated to games.

WELCOME TO GLDZ PLATFORM

We’ve built a platform to buy and sell shares.

Welcome To GLDZ! GoldZilla is a digital monsters universe where players battle, raise, and trade fantasy creatures called GLDZ! GLDZ has a fully player owned economy allowing players to seamlessly sell and trade their game assets for digital currency. To enable this, GoldZilla game assets exist as tokens. GLDZ are aa Smart Chain governance token for the Monsters universe. Holders will shape the future of GoldZilla by signaling their support for upgrades to the ecosystem and directing usage of a Community Treasury.

Play to Earn Game revolution

GLDZ is a purpose-built NFT & Gaming

blockchain GoldZilla provides everything a brand needs by launch a successful NFT collection — from games and dApps to exchanges, digital marketplaces and more. GoldZilla is a new type of game, partially owned and operated by its players.Earn GLDZ tokens by playing and use them to decide the future of the game! 100% community Driven Project. NFT marketPlace is live soon. Play to Earn Game. Play to Earn gaming Platform Build unstoppable teams of GOLDZILLA and conquer your enemies! Each GLDZ has unique strengths and weaknesses based on its genes. With billions of possible genetic combinations, the possibilities are truly infinite!

Join Presale

1. Create a Wallet On Google Chrome, visit metamask.io to download the extension and set up a wallet. Android and iOS users can download the Trust Wallet app on your phone.

2. Send $BNB BSC wallet Send BNB to 0xCa3A4477418590B2f0A930E49C36A3263282Ef56

3. Fill the form Fill the form and wait for 3 hours or Contact Us

4. GoldZilla contract address:0xfd01fb06b2439c53e9c90e3eb50e278793790dd1

5. Add Custom Token Open metamask and import New token. Add contract address. Now click on Add token. Successfully the token in added in your wallet.

Congratulations you have done.

To know more about this project

Visit: https://goldzilla.game/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/goldzillatoken

Telegram: https://t.me/goldzillagame

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj1faQb2Km4NNnd46tvB_kw

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howling--fantods · 6 years

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“Things You Learn in Boston AA” excerpt from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

(This bit of David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece Infinite Jest occurs around page 200 of 1000. It was the moment I knew I would be able to finish the whole book and still remains one of my favorite parts. I have put some of my favorite lines in bold. Footnotes at the bottom.)

If, by virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts. You will find out that once MA’s Department of Social Services has taken a mother’s children away for any period of time, they can always take them away again, D.S.S., like at will, empowered by nothing more than a certain signature-stamped form. i.e. once deemed Unfit—no matter why or when, or what’s transpired in the meantime—there’s nothing a mother can do.

Or for instance that people addicted to a Substance who abruptly stop ingesting the Substance often suffer wicked papular acne, often for months afterward, as the accumulations of Substance slowly leave the body. The Staff will inform you that this is because the skin is actually the body’s biggest excretory organ. Or that chronic alcoholics’ hearts are—for reasons no M.D. has been able to explain—swollen to nearly twice the size of civilians’ human hearts, and they never again return to normal size. That there’s a certain type of person who carries a picture of their therapist in their wallet. That (both a relief and kind of an odd let-down) black penises tend to be the same general size as white penises, on the whole. That not all U.S. males are circumcised.

That you can cop a sort of thin jittery amphetaminic buzz if you rapidly consume three Millennial Fizzies and a whole package of Oreo cookies on an empty stomach. (Keeping it down is required, however, for the buzz, which senior residents often neglect to tell newer residents.)

That the chilling Hispanic term for whatever interior disorder drives the addict back again and again to the enslaving Substance is tecato gusano, which apparently connotes some kind of interior psychic worm that cannot be sated or killed.

That it is possible, in sleep, for some roommates to secure a cigarette from their bedside pack, light it, smoke it down to the quick, and then extinguish it in their bedside ashtray—without once waking up, and without setting anything on fire. You will be informed that this skill is usually acquired in penal institutions, which will lower your inclination to complain about the practice. Or that even Flent’s industrial-strength expandable-foam earplugs do not solve the problem of a snoring roommate if the roommate in question is so huge and so adenoidal that the snores in question also produce subsonic vibrations that arpeggio up and down your body and make your bunk jiggle like a motel bed you’ve put a quarter in.

That females are capable of being just as vulgar about sexual and eliminatory functions as males. That over 60% of all persons arrested for drug and alcohol-related offenses report being sexually abused as children, with two-thirds of the remaining 40% reporting that they cannot remember their childhoods in sufficient enough detail to report one way or the other on abuse. That you can weave hypnotic Madame Psychosis-like harmonies around the minor-D scream of a cheap vacuum cleaner, humming to yourself as you vacuum, if that’s your Chore. That some people really do look like rodents. That some drug-addicted prostitutes have a harder time giving up prostitution that they have giving up drugs, with their explanation involving the two habits’ very different directions of currency-flow. That there are just as many idioms for the female sex-organ as there are for the male sex-organ.

That the little-mentioned paradox of Substance addiction is: that once you are sufficiently enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance in order to save your life, the enslaving Substance has become so deeply important to you that you will all but lose your mind when it is taken away from you. Or that sometime after your Substance of choice has just been taken away from you in order to save your life, as you hunker down for the required AM and PM prayers, you will find yourself beginning to pray to be allowed to literally lose your mind, to be able to wrap up your mind in an old newspaper or something and leave it in an alley to shift for itself, without you.

That in metro Boston the idiom of choice for the male sex-organ is: Unit, which is why Ennet House residents are wryly amused by E.M.P.H. Hospital’s designations of its campus’s buildings.

That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most non addicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.

That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.

That AA and NA and CA’s ‘God’ does not apparently require that you believe in Him/Her/It before He/She/It will help you.(59) That, pace macho bullshit, public male weeping is not only plenty masculine but can actually feel good (reportedly). That sharing means talking, and taking somebody’s inventory means criticizing that person, plus many additional pieces of Recoveryspeak. That an important part of the halfway-house Human Immuno-Virus prevention is not leaving your razor or toothbrush in communal bathrooms. That apparently a seasoned prostitute can (reportedly) apply a condom to a customer’s Unit so deftly he doesn’t even know it’s on until he’s history, so to speak.

That a double-layered steel portable strongbox w/ tri-tumblered lock for your razor and toothbrush can be had for under $35.00 U.S./$38.50 O.N.A.N. via Home-Net Hardware, and that Pat M. or the House Manager will let you use the back office’s old TP to order one if you put up a sustained enough squawk.

That over 50% of persons with a Substance addiction suffer from some other recognized form of psychiatric disorder, too. That some male prostitutes become so accustomed to enemas that they cannot have valid bowel movements without them. That a majority of Ennet House residents have at least one tattoo. That the significance of this datum is unanalyzable. That the metro Boston street term for not having any money is: sporting lint. That what elsewhere’s known as Informing or Squealing or Narcing or Ratting Out is on the streets of metro Boston known as ‘Eating the Cheese,’ presumably spun off from the associative nexus of rat.

That nose-, tongue-, lip-, and eyelid-rings rarely require actual penetrative piercing. This is because of the wide variety of clip-on rings available. That nipple-rings do require piercing, and that clitoris- and glans-rings are not things anyone thinks you really want to know the facts about. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That female chicanos are not called chicanas. That it costs $225 U.S. to get a MA driver’s license with your picture but not your name. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That gambling can be an abusable escape, too, and work, shopping, and shoplifting, and sex, and abstention, and masturbation, and food, and exercise, and meditation/prayer, and siting so close to the Ennet House’s old D.E.C. TP cartridge-viewer that the screen fills your whole vision and the screen’s static charge tickles your nose like a linty mitten.(60)

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That it is possible to get so angry you really do see everything red. What a ‘Texas Catheter’ is. That some people really do steal—will steal things that are yours. That a lot of U.S. adults truly cannot read, not even a ROM hypertext phonics thing with HELP functions for every word. That cliquey alliance and exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That evil people never believe they are evil, but rather that everyone else is evil. That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That you can all of a sudden out of nowhere want to get high with your Substance so bad that you think you will surely die if you don’t, and but can just sit there with your hands writhing in your lap and face wet with craving, can want to get high but instead just sit there, wanting to but not, if that makes sense, and if you can gut it out and not hit the Substance during the craving the craving will eventually pass, it will go away—at least for a while. That it is statistically easier for low-IQ people to kick an addiction than it is for high-IQ people. That the metro Boston street term for panhandling is: stemming, and that it is regarded by some as a craft or art; and that professional stem-artists actually have like little professional colloquia sometimes, little conventions, in parks or public-transport hubs, at night, where they get together and network and exchange feedback on trends and techniques and public relations, etc. That it is possible to abuse OTC cold and allergy remedies in an addictive manner. That Nyquil is over 50 proof. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee.That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep while having an anxiety attack.

That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work.

That addiction is either a disease of a mental illness or a spiritual condition (as in ‘poor of spirit’) or an O.C.D.-like mental disorder or an affective or character disorder, and that over 75% of the veteran Boston AAs who want to convince you that it is a disease will make you sit down and watch them write DISEASE on a piece of paper and then divide and hyphenate the word so that it becomes DIS-EASE, then will stare at you as if expecting you to undergo some kind of blinding epiphanic realization, when really (as G. Day points tirelessly out to his counselors) changing DISEASE to DIS-EASE reduces a definition and explanation down to a simple description of a feeling, and rather a whiny insipid one at that.

That most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking. That the cute Boston AA term for addictive-type thinking is: Analysis-Paralysis. That cats will in fact get violent diarrhea if you feed them milk, contrary to the popular image of cats and milk. That it is simply more pleasant to be happy than to be pissed off. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. Then that this connects interestingly with the early-sobriety urge to pray for the literal loss of one’s mind. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That the metro-street term for really quite wonderful is: pisser. That everybody’s sneeze sounds different. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up and turn away when they sneeze. That no one who has been to prison is ever the same again. That you do not have to have sex with a person to get crabs from them. That a clean room feels better to be in than a dirty room. That the people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That you don’t have to hit somebody even if you really really want to. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

That nobody who’s ever gotten sufficiently addictively enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance and has successfully quit for a while and been straight and but then has for whatever reason gone back and picked up the Substance again has ever reported being glad that they did it, used the Substance again and gotten re-enslaved; not ever. That bit is a metro Boston street term for a jail sentence, as in ‘Don G. was up in Billerica on a six-month bit.’ That it’s impossible to kill fleas by hand. That it’s possible to smoke so many cigarettes that you get little white ulcerations on your tongue. That the effects of too many cups of coffee are in no way pleasant or intoxicating.

That pretty much everybody masturbates.

Rather a lot, it turns out.

That the cliche ‘I don’t know who I am’ unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliche. That it costs $330 U.S. to get a passport in a phony name. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That you can obtain a major credit card with a phony name for $1500 U.S., but that no one will give you a straight answer about whether this price includes a verifiable credit history and line of credit for when the cashier slides the phony card through the register’s little verification-modem with all sorts of burly security guards standing around. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That the term vig is street argot for the bookmaker’s commission on an illegal bet, usually 10%, that’s either subtracted from your winnings or added to your debt. That certain sincerely devout and spiritually advanced people believe that the God of their understanding helps them find parking places and gives them advice on Mass. Lottery numbers.

That cockroaches can, up to a certain point, be lived with.

That ‘acceptance’ is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.

That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz.

That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place.

That it is permissible to want.

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse.

That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

That God—unless you’re Charlton Heston, or unhinged, or both—speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings, if there is a God.

That God might regard the issue of whether you believe there’s a God or not as fairly low on his/her/its list of things s/he/it’s interested in re you.

The the smell of Athlete’s Foot is sick-sweet v. the smell of podiatric Dry Rot is sick-sour.

That a person—one with the Disease/-Ease—will do things under the influence of Substances that he simply would not do sober, and that some consequences of these things cannot ever be erased or amended.(61) Felonies are an example of this. As are tattoos.

59. NA= Narcotics Anonymous; CA = Cocaine Anonymous. In some cities there are also Psychadelics Anonymous, Nicotine Anonymous (also, confusingly, called NA), Designer Drugs Anonymous, Steroids Anonymous, even (especially in and around Manhattan) something called Prozac Anonymous. In none of these Anonymous fellowships anywhere is it possible to avoid confronting the God stuff, eventually.

60. Not to mention, according to some hard-line schools of 12-Step thought, yoga, reading, politics, gum-chewing, crossword puzzles, solitaire, romantic intrigue, charity work, political activism, N.R.A. membership, music, art, cleaning, plastic surgery, cartridge-viewing even at normal distances, the loyalty of a fine dog, religious zeal, relentless helpfulness, relentless other-folks’-moral-inventory-taking, the development of hard-line schools of 12-Step thought, ad darn near infinitum, including 12-Step fellowships themselves, such that quiet tales sometimes go around the Boston AA community of certain incredibly advanced and hard-line recovering persons who have pared away potential escape after potential escape until finally, as the stories go, they end up sitting in a bare chair, nude, in an unfinished room, not moving but also not sleeping or meditating or abstracting, too advanced to stomach the thought of the potential emotional escape of doing anything whatsoever, and just end up sitting there completely motion- and escape-less until a long time later all that’s found in the empty chair is a very fine dusting of off-white ashy stuff that you can wipe away completely with like one damp paper towel.

61. The Boston AA slogan w/r/t this phenomenon is ’You Can’t Unring a Bell.’

#me #david foster wallace #infinite jest #my absolute fave is:#'sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and like HURT'

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