#even if you start w 1 tomato plant.

[twinkubus]

i keep seeing this post and no offense to any of my mutuals who have reblogged this but like...what? i'm not full on anti-civ by any means but subsistence farming is one of the MORE achievable leftist commune goals...there's people all over the world who are doing it as we speak. and even if you don't go 100% self-grown you don't need a huge plot to meaningfully supplement your diet!

(the fast food part gets me too like. maybe it's bc i didn't really eat fast food until i was in my twenties? due to allergies. but i wouldn't consider it a staple.)

#sorry ive seen this post like 6 times at least #again no foul if youve RBed like obviously #farming and gardening Is work #but thru small steps its rly rly achievable to start eating a lot of stuff you have grown #i feel like the “aha foolish leftists thinking farming is easy???!!! its EVIL TOIL!!!” pendulum has swung back too far the other way #and now ppl are like ummm its really not realistic to grow your own food.... #i promise. you can. #even if you start w 1 tomato plant. #then you get the goods for pizza sauce. pasta saucem soup. salads #lll

[immajustvibehere]

Amidst a Crashing World (1/5)

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x fem!Reader

summary: You had left the gang about a year ago. There were many reasons as to why, but that you had received a rather gruff rejection from the man you loved was definitely on that list. Now, Arthur appears in front of your little cabin with an interesting demand.

tags for this series: fluff, little bit of angst, no-tb-Arthur, literally your love redemption, maybe smut (but probably not), slow burn (but I mean how slow can a story really burn in five chapters?)

Link to my Masterlist

1600 words, less than 10 minutes reading time

It had been a year since you had last seen him. He was one of the reasons why you had decided to leave the gang. Because it had become unbearable to be around the man you had feelings for. The man you had confessed those feelings to and the man who had rejected you. It had been an uncomfortable moment, to say the least. Dutch had been talking about a bigger score for a while now and the mission had only been a few days away. You had approached Arthur who had been seated near a campfire with Hosea and Reverend, deep in a seemingly serious but one-sided conversation.

"May I talk to you for a moment?", you had pleaded. Your hands had been shaking. You had been aware: every score the boys went on held the possibility of never seeing them again. And you had felt brave that day. Brave enough to finally confess that you had feelings for this man. He was kind enough and caring towards you. He never was someone to express affection too openly so you hoped...that even if he did not feel entirely the same, he might be open to get to know you better and give you a chance.

"Sure", Arthur had grunted, a little groggily and stood up. You had walked a few steps away from Reverend and Hosea, just far enough to make give them the impression that this was supposed to be a private conversation. Quickly, but precisely and not without a certain shake in your voice, you let Arthur know that you liked him. More than the normal amount at least.

You peaked through your curtains to watch this very man dismount from his horse and caringly fix its reins next to the one of your horse, which was barely acknowledging the visitor.

For a moment, Arthur had just stared. Then he had shifted awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck with a warm but stifled chuckle escaping his throat.

"Yer joking, aren't ya?", he mumbled as he nervously peeked back to Hosea and Reverend, who hadn’t exactly given you attention during this ordeal. When Arthur had caught your dead-serious face and how you swallowed after he had said those words, he knew that you, in fact, hadn’t been joking.

"I- ehr...I don't see ya like that, I'm sorry", he had stumbled over his words. His voice hadn’t been upbeat or hopeful, not even apologetic or friendly. No, the longer you had turned those words over in your mind afterwards, you heard how bitter, how disappointed, and somewhat accusatory he sounded. He had turned around and had walked back to his log, shaking his head, chuckling coldly.

Arthur's hand plunged into his jacket, and he pulled out a wrinkly, yellowy paper that he unfolded. As he held the paper in one hand, a grin flitted across his face, before he took a breath and started loudly:

"I'm looking for the fierce, the ferocious....", Arthur stopped and plucked a ripe tomato from its stem. You had been growing this beautiful tomato plant right next to the gate that separated your garden from the path that travellers commonly used. But Arthur was the first one who had the audacity to help himself. Then he went on: "The downright awful degenerate y/n. Supposedly, she robbed a stagecoach and left the driver in a condition that left much to desire...She has fled to find refuge from her abhorrent, ginormous bounty of 15 proud dollars!"

Arthur had a shit-eating big grin on his face when you finally pushed the door to your little cabin open. He popped the tomato into his mouth, savouring the taste as he watched you step into the light and lean against the door frame.  

"That you?", Arthur asked indistinctly with his mouth full, quick to catch some tomato juice with his sleeve as it escaped the corner of his mouth. He held up the bounty poster that showed the most unflattering sketch of your features that you had ever seen.

"I look myself in the mirror quite often, but I've never seen this creature staring back", you joked as you nodded at the sketch. You were still unsure what his sudden appearance at your doorstep was supposed to mean.

Arthur shrugged and sarcastically answered: "I really think they did ya justice. Have you seen the pictures going round of me?"

You had. They weren't nearly as bad as the one he held up of you. But they did paint him more cruel than he looked right now. Honestly, knowing him better, all you can see is an actually soft man which might look big and scary when he swings his gun around, but now, as he took his hat off, he looked harmless. The afternoon sun nearly blinded him as he looked at you, but he deemed the gesture necessary to be polite, apparently.

"Yer trying to take me in for a 15 dollar bounty?", you asked and crossed your arms.

"Don't want'a sound rude but that's barely worth it...", Arthur smiled, "No I ehrm...was close by. A farmer down that way told me you was living here. I helped him fix a wheel on his waggon."

"Sure...", you mumbled suspiciously. There was no way you would have naturally come up in this conversation.

"'s been a while...", Arthur commented.

"Yeah. More than a year. Took me this long to figure out how it'd bear fruit", you pointed at the tomato plant Arthur had stolen from.

Shamelessly, he plugged another one and ate it, "They're good."

"I know", you sighed. You had given up and moved aside to let the man into your cabin.

It was a humble little place. Just big enough to fit a table, three chairs, a bed, a stove and a cupboard. Arthur noticed the rifle that leaned next to the bed, the few books that were scattered on the table and finally his eyes fell on a couple of sketches you had pinned onto the wall. After leaving the gang, you had tried your luck with drawing. Yes, it was a way to remember Arthur, because though you haven't seen many of his drawings, you knew he sketched everything he laid his eyes on.

For a moment, you hoped that Arthur would comment on your sketches. There was one of a doe that you were particularly proud of, but Arthur just briefly scanned them before turning his attention back to you.

"Nice little cabin ya got here...killed the fella that lived in it before or...?", Arthur suggested, his eyes falling on a little hole in the roof that needed fixing and the bedframe which was uneven and brittle.

You almost laughed at the suggestion: "No. It belongs to an old lady who went to live with her sister in the city. She gave me the cabin to look out for, until her grandson is old enough to live in it."

"Oh", Arthur commented, fidgeting with his hat.

You had spent months trying to forget this man. You were sure you'd never see him again, not if you could have helped it. You were glad about leaving your affiliations with the van der Linde gang behind. However, this had never been the official deal. The deal had been that you could roam for a while, figure yourself out and then join back. You never did. And now you had a sour feeling as to why this man was currently scanning your backyard through the window.

"Why are you here?", you asked, your tone serious.

"It's good to see you again", Arthur light-heartedly said. It almost sounded like a joke.

"Arthur", you warned him.

"Lot has happened since you left...", Arthur said, still wandering around in this cabin as if he was scanning the small territory, "we lost some people in Blackwater...Mac and Davey...Jenny..."

You knew about Mac. It was reported in the newspaper, but when Arthur mentioned Jenny, your jaw dropped. You felt a sort of anger flare up. You had gotten along well with Jenny. She was a kind and funny girl and you had considered her a friend.

"How did- Why...How did this even happen?!", you grumbled, "Jenny wasn't someone who would be in the midst of a fight. Hell, she knew how to handle a gun, but-"

"I know", Arthur interrupted, "couple weeks ago we lost Sean, too."

"Why are you here, Arthur? And why are you telling me this?"

"Wanted to see how you've been doing...", he shrugged, but his demeanour changed when you opened a drawer. You didn't even need to pull out the gun before Arthur stopped with the sugarcoating.

"Dutch wants you back."

Hell, this didn't sound like a suggestion. It was more like a threat. Arthur was here to collect you. Not for a 15-dollar bounty, but for Dutch. Because he had lost too many people and now you needed to jump in. Also, every bit of hope you held close to your heart, that Arthur...that there was a tiny bit of him that wanted to see you. That he really wondered how you had been doing.

It died with those words. It stung.

"Get out", you demanded.

"Y/N-"

"Arthur, I'm not coming back."

"Dutch-"

"I don't care. I don't give a fuck what Dutch wants", you yelled, slowly pulling the gun out, "Honestly, you have some nerve showing up with this request."

Then, you had to laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of it and laugh because you were hurt. The laughter helped to supress the tears, for now.

"Ya ain't gonna shoot me, sweetheart", Arthur said knowingly, putting his hat back on and slowly backing out towards the door, arms still raised because he didn't want to give you the impression that he'd draw on you.

"Don't flatter yourself", you said, slowly walking towards him to make him move out of your house, "I wouldn't shoot your pretty face, but I can put holes in other parts of your body and it would hurt enough."

You felt bold, cocked the gun and aimed at his leg.

"Y/N..."

"Tell Dutch you didn't find me. Tell him I'm dead. Tell him I forced you to draw on me and you shot me...I honestly don't care. I'm not going back. I'm not...canon fodder for a cause I don't believe in anymore", you stated, your eyes fixed on Arthur. He might just notice that tears pricked your eyes, there was a hint of concern in his features.

When he opened his mouth, you were quick to interrupt him: "If you care for me just the tiniest fucking bit...yer gonna fuck off right now and not come back."

You thought about how he'd answer, 'I don't see ya like that', lasso you and drag you back into whatever hole the gang was hiding at the moment, but instead, he tipped his hat, turned around and mounted his horse.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Next chapter: here

I never have the nerve to keep a consistent taglist, but here are some tags for people who said they might be interested in that sort of story:

@pinkiemme @loveheartarthur @lonesome-ranger @twola @shiokitsune @hugthedragon @missredemption @kakashiislut @thewalkingdead1463

If you want to be tagged, please comment under this post if you want to be included to the taglist for this story OR any fic I post in future.

Special thanks to @little-honeypie 'cause we've been cooking that story up together <3

#arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan fanfiction #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #red dead redemption community #rdr2 #arthur morgan x female reader #rdr2 fanfiction #rdr #rdr fanfiction #arthur morgan x fem!reader #arthur morgan x femreader

[doublesidedgemini]

11/8 - 11/9

Oh, man. Where do I even start lol. Yesterday was great. Today? What the fuck.

Yesterday I went out to the barn and had a much better ride! Still had some issues with my horse, but way better than over the weekend, so that made me feel really happy. And I was able to fit into a pair of breeches that were always just too tight. I could still stand to lose more in them, I did still have a muffin top cos they are low rise, BUT they were not squeezing the death out of me and actually felt comfortable! Progress!

But that progress doesn’t feel fast enough. And today made me realize a lot of things. In addition to purging, I also romantically connected with this 6’5” skinny ass man and that in and of itself is a very complicated story. I need to get a real journal because there’s just too much.

Anyway, tw: cal log, wiaiad, purge, ed after the cut

11/8

Breakfast: Celsius, dragonfruit lime packet — 10 cals

Lunch: 1 cup of garbanzo beans w/ kale & tomato — 200 cals; 1/4 cup white rice — 50 cals; 1/2 small avocado — 80 cals;

Dinner: 1 can of Upton’s Naturals vegan Italian wedding soup — 200 cals

Snacks: 2 pieces of chocolate — 43 cals; 1 lightly salted rice cake — 35 cals; 1/2 small avocado — 80 cals; 1 tbsp plant based ranch — 35 cals; 1/2 a medium large cucumber — 17 cals; 1 ritz cracker — 16 cals; 2 tbsps white rice — 19 cals; 1 full size Kit Kat bar — 210 cals…. I know I know it’s not vegan!!! Don’t judge me!!! I needed the sugar before my ride :(

Exercise: Grooming + riding = -429 cals! Fall is mud season which means long grooming sessions. I have no idea if MFP’s calorie counts are accurate for these but whatever

Total: 614! Pretty good!

11/9

I was on a good track for today… Mixed half an avocado with some ranch dip and ate it with cucumber slices and grape tomatoes for breakfast, had a banana + a caramel rice cake w/ pbnj for lunch, then ruined it all my last hour of work by binging on kitkat bars I stole from the barn and takis.

Normally, if I lose control around food, I either take it in stride and adjust for the rest of the day or just give up for the day. But I had already been feeling nauseous prior to this so I just… threw it up. I’m not sure if I got it all up, and I’m not even shocked that I’m worried about that. When my “relapse” was “triggered” for the first few weeks I felt a chill of fear as the rational part of me noticed my behaviors changing and now… this. I don’t typically purge. That was never a thing for me in the past. But I just couldn’t let all that food sit in my stomach.

I wanted a beer but after throwing up no thank you. I felt so nauseous still I didn’t want anything else. I had two cups of vegetable broth and a few bites of vegan mac n cheese since then just to put something in my stomach. Life comes at ya fast. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

#gem’s personal ana diary #tw purge #tw restriction #tw calories #tw ed #tw ed diet #tw ed in the tags #med cal restriction #wiaiad #cal log #i am for real sick #this is a sickness #I’m watching it develop again before my eyes and doing nothing about it #turn this around before it’s too late and you are too old

[wealthypioneers]

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[watermelonlipstick]

Dreams, Chapter 16

If you haven’t read this series before, you might want to start on Chapter 1, or check out the Dreams Masterlist! Here’s the series description:

When Dean dies for good leaving Sam and his girlfriend (the reader) behind, they must figure out how to carry on without him. Alone, reeling, and unsure what to do next, trying to honor Dean’s memory and follow their hearts gets even more complicated when their nightmares become dreams that feel a little too real.

Title: Dreams, Chapter 16

Pairing: (past) Dean Winchester x Reader, (eventual) Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1754

Summary: Some of Sam’s efforts to ‘nest’ in their new life together reveal new possibilities.

Warnings: angst, FLUFF, swearing, s l o w  b u r n

           Water laps at the weather-beaten wood of the dock underneath you slowly and the rhythm feels like hypnosis with the sun beating down a blanket. You sense Dean at your side without opening your eyes.

           “So…was he any good?”

           You can’t help but laugh, hearing the echo go out over the small lake, and get up to your elbows. It’s bright enough that you have to squint over at Dean where he lays next to a couple fishing poles and a cooler, t shirt hitched up to show a sliver of his stomach with his arms behind his head. His smile is devilish, made even more smug with eyes closed against the sun so his lashes cast an inch-long shadow on the dusting of freckles across his cheeks. “You can’t ask that!” you giggle.

           His lips flatten into a knowing line. “So that’s a no?”

           “Jesus Christ, of course it’s not a n—you know what, I’m not talking to you about this,” you smile, laying back down.

           “Ooh, so it’s a yes,” he teases as he turns on his side to face you. “Go Sammy. That mean you two are, like, going steady now?”

           You let your head loll over to him and roll your eyes. “Are you done?”

           “Not yet. Is he going to let you wear his letterman jacket? Take you to junior prom?”

           “I’m giving you ten more seconds.”

           Dean laughs, free and easy. “Fine, okay, I’m done. Wait—did he wrap it?”

           “DEAN!” you yell, covering your face in embarrassment.

           “Okay, alright, okay.” He’s still chuckling when you open your eyes to look over at him and reaches over to slip a piece of hair behind your ear. “You, ah, you seem happy.”

           You search his eyes for any hidden anger and find only the softness of calm affection with a pinch of solemnity. Where his hand lingers in your hair you turn into it, pressing your lips to Dean’s palm. “I am.”

           Dean smiles, straight teeth a perfect row of pearls so white you think for a second they might ‘ding’ with sparkle like a cartoon, and he looks relaxed enough as he puts his hands back behind his head that it calls up images of a kitten falling asleep in a sunny spot like this even as he keeps his eyes on you. “Took you guys long enough.”

           “And you’re still okay with this?”

           “Yeah, hell yeah. That’s the best I could ever ask for, you two happy. So, what do you say? Want to see if we can catch some fish?”

           Spring was a blessing; clean greenness breaking through the grey and white purifying the air and breathing new life into you, Sam, and the community you’d come to be a part of. The cabin was that much nicer with the new hours of sunlight pouring through the windows and all the upgrades you had put into it, to the point that you began to feel truly comfortable there. You even invited the Kaisers over for dinner a few times, feeling more like equal partners in your burgeoning friendship with them.

           You started to feel stable enough to get things; picked up a bookshelf at the combination flea/farmer’s market that happened in the K-12 school’s field every Saturday morning and got higher quality spatulas to cook with, the kinds of nonessential stuff you never would’ve bought before knowing you were going to stay in one place long enough to get good use out of them. Sam, in turn, kept building: changing the locks to sturdier ones and erecting a shed big enough to hold a lawn mower.

           You’d been cooking on an early Sunday afternoon when Sam came home and crossed the cabin in a few strides, giving you a kiss on the cheek before setting a thick paper bag down on the kitchen counter. “Smells great, what’re you making?”

           “Ratatouille!” you buzzed, placing a slice of eggplant carefully into its slot. “I’ve never had it, but I’ve always thought it looks so pretty. Hopefully it’s good. Where were you?”

           “Hardware store. I thought maybe I could build a greenhouse; see if we could grow anything. Might be enough to work against the cold.”

           You raised your eyebrows in appreciative surprise. “Look at you! What’re you thinking? Poppies? Platinum OG? Purple Haze?”

           Setting a box of screws down, Sam rolled his eyes through a smile. “My plan was more along the lines of tomatoes or something, but I’ll, uh, take those suggestions under advisement.” You had a sudden urge to twist a gentle finger into the dimple that stayed on his cheek as he unloaded the rest of his supplies but didn’t want to embarrass him, instead sweeping some garlic skins into your hand to throw into the small bucket Sam kept under the sink to collect scraps for the compost pile. When the bag was empty he refolded it and took off his jacket, passing by you to put it on its hook by the door. “Want any help?” he asked, sounding about as breezy as you’d ever heard him.

           “It just has to bake for about an hour. Does a late lunch work with your construction schedule?”

           Sam leaned over to slip a hand around your waist and kissed the top of your head before grabbing an armful of stuff to take outside. “Definitely. Just yell when you’re ready for me.”

           You giggled and waggled your eyebrows suggestively. “I’m always ready for you.”

           He tried his best not to blush but bit his lip in spite of himself, looking up at you with a bashful twinkle in his eye. “I walked into that one, didn’t I?”

           In response you held up a spare slice of zucchini that Sam readily accepted, opening his mouth like an obedient puppy and chewing as he went out the back door.

           You loved watching Sam work on his greenhouse in the weeks that followed, getting so excited about the tiny shoots sprouting up from the soil that he sometimes woke up early to check on them before starting his day. After a few weeks he woke you up one morning with a cup of coffee, bare-chested under slightly sleep-tangled hair and the hems of his flannel pants sloppily half inside his boots. “I wanna show you something,” he said, throat still gravelly. You accepted the mug and got out of bed, following him drowsily and jamming your feet inside your shoes at the door, too tired to worry about the laces.

           He led you into the greenhouse with its clear plastic walls and pointed down at a petite bud on top of a green stalk. It had the telltale waviness of a basil leaf, and when you bent down to look closer at it the plant already smelled herbaceous. “It’s so cute!” you hummed. Sam practically glowed with satisfaction, an unbridled smile the perfect accessory to the broad span of his chest where it was backlit by the fuzzy light through the greenhouse walls. You straightened and rubbed his back in congratulations, staring down at the plant together with your coffees like parents on Christmas morning. Tucked in the corner of the greenhouse behind the basil, a scattering of bitty white flowers caught your eye against the burnt umber soil.

           “Wait, you already have stuff flowering in here? What’s that?” you asked, tiptoeing around the wooden stakes in the soil to get closer.

           “Oh—I, uh—” he stammered behind you.

           At arm’s length the flowers looked vaguely familiar and you stopped short. “Is that—?” You turned back to Sam, who seemed not to be able to come up with anything to say, his face the kind of blank surprise that indicated he didn’t know whether you were about to be upset. “Really? Where’d you even…how did you get some?”

           He tucked his hair behind his ears to stall for even a half second. “I—well, I found a guy who got me—got us—some.”

           “You still have an African dream root hookup?”

           Sam’s lips pressed into a well-practiced silent ‘I guess?’ and he reached back to ruffle the hair at the nape of his neck, the movement stretching his side distractingly enough that if you hadn’t been so startled by the discovery of a plot of dream root literally in your own backyard you might’ve forgotten what you were talking about altogether.

           You raised your eyebrows expectantly, waiting for him to explain.

           “I made some calls, found someone in Milwaukee who got his hands on some and he mailed it here. I didn’t want to, uh, tell you in case I couldn’t get it to grow.”

           All kinds of possibilities and frustrations raced through your head. “So you’ve had this for weeks? That’s why you built the greenhouse?” Sam didn’t answer fast enough. “Never mind, I don’t care,” you found yourself saying, and surprisingly, actually meaning. You took a deep breath to stop the words from jumbling together. “Do you think it’ll work?” you breathed, knowing he would understand the real question: would we be able to see Dean together?

           “Only one way to find out.”

           For whatever reason you’d gotten freshly showered, made up, and dressed before brewing the tea with Sam on your next day off of work. It felt like there should be some level of pomp and circumstance about it, this giant undertaking that might be able to change your whole life again, even knowing that your prep wouldn’t translate into a dream. You were giddy with anxiety and almost wished you could reasonably put it off, the idea of this new possibility being yet another dead end making you nauseous.

           “Your place or mine?” you asked, trying to put a little sheen of humor on your nerves.

           Sam chuckled but you could tell he was nervous too, rubbing his palms dry on the knees of his jeans over and over again. “You haven’t done it before, right?”

           You shook your head. “Is there a learning curve or something?”

           “Honestly it’s been long enough that I don’t really remember. Hold on—hold still.” He reached out and very gingerly swept a finger across your cheekbone, drawing back to show you an eyelash stuck to the whorl of its pad.

           You straightened where you sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s as good a sign as any. Cheers, I guess.” Sam dropped the tiny hair into his mug and touched the ceramic to yours, his eyes hopeful and reassuring as you took tandem sips.

           And then you were off.

-

Continue to Dreams, Chapter 17

Thanks again for reading! If you liked it, check out my Masterlist or send me a request!

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[myherowritings]

Call Me B-A-B-Y

— “Hi friend! Could I please request a Bakugou x reader where she always calls him nicknames like ‘cutie,baby and sugar’ and stuff like that and his reaction? Bonus points if they’re not dating yet but he gets super flustered cos he likes her :) thank you!” by anonymous

pairing: bakugou katsuki x reader word count: 1.8k warnings: swearing, so much fluff

a/n: this makes my heart go doki doki because i loved this request so much. i hope y’all enjoy flustered tsundere bakubabe (⺣◡⺣)♡*

“Hey there, cutie,” you said with a drawl, a crooked smile playing on your lips.

Bakugou grunted, ignoring the tinge of heat he felt on his ears. He was used to this by now--or at least he should have been--but that didn’t stop him from growing tomato red whenever he heard those dumb names come out of your mouth.

What did you take him for? A fucking puppy?

“What do you want?” he grumbled, leaning back against his seat with his arms folded.

Laughing at his grumpy tone, you took your seat in the desk a few rows behind him as Bakugou followed you with his gaze, turning around in his chair.

“Me? I just wanted to say hi before class started,” you said with an innocent blink.

“Well, do you have to say it like that, baka?”

“Well,” you mocked, a glint in your eyes, “since you decided to adopt that oh-so sweet nickname for me, it was only natural to repay the favor.”

Katsuki snorted. Baka. That was most certainly not his stupid pet name for you. And there was no way in hell he would ever give you one.

It didn’t matter that he thought you were smart and attractive, or that you were witty and tactful on and off the field-- No. That didn’t matter to him at all. You were infuriating and annoying with the bright smile and ringing laughter of yours. And he absolutely hated the way your whole face lit up and your eyes sparkled when you grew excited.

Hated it.

And now, when you were staring at him curiously, head tilted slightly to the side and teeth grazing your lower lip in a way that suddenly made it hard for him to swallow… Katsuki hated that even more.

Damn you. You were so fucking infuriating--

“Bakugou!”

At the sudden sound of Aizawa’s voice directed towards him, Katsuki whipped around in his desk to face the front of the classroom. There were a few giggles from the other students and Bakugou was tempted to ask their sorry asses if they knew who the fuck they were laughing at.

But before he could do any of that, Aizawa continued.

“Glad to finally have your attention,” he droned, a hint of amusement on his stoic face. “Now, can I finally begin class or shall we wait a few more minutes for you to finish staring at Y/L/N?”

Bakugou’s face heated up and he wiped his sweaty palms against his pant legs, both wanting to shrink in his seat and pummel all his friends at the suggestive noises and teasing looks they sent him.

“You can continue, Aizawa-sensei,” Ashido piped up, a mischievous smile on her face. “Bakugou can always ogle at Y/L/N after class or during lunch like he usually does.”

“WHAT THE FUCK? YOU LITTLE--!”

“Language, Bakugou,” Aizawa said in a warning tone he knew meant business.

He cut himself off with a strangled sighed, jaw clenched so tight it almost hurt.

They were dumbasses. Every last one of them.

But he’d be damned if he didn’t admit hearing your small, embarrassed laughter was worth all of that-- No matter just how humiliating it was.

And it was definitely worth the comment you made to him at the end of class, a shy smile on your face as you whispered, “You’re even cuter when you’re flustered…cutie.”

Katsuki scoffed.

Yeah… Worth it.

- - - - -

“Good morning, love,” you greeted, planting a chaste kiss on his cheek as you walked over to his seat in class.

Your classmates who were here early (well, earlier than Aizawa, at least) watched the two of you with careful eyes.

“Did Y/L/N just kiss Bakugou?” Sero whispered in shock as he and Ashido stared at the scene.

Mina nodded slowly, as if she didn’t believe her own two eyes. “And does Bakugou look like he…liked it?”

Katsuki smirked in amusement at the surprise evident on Class 1-A’s faces. He hadn’t seen them this wide-eyed except for when they stared in awe at his power. But he ignored them all, instead quirking a brow at you.

“Tch. Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean you can call me pet names now.”

“Oh, please, love,” you sighed and his face heat up when you squished his cheek. “I’ve called you pet names before we started dating-- What makes you think I’d stop now?”

He snorted. “Wishful thinking on my part.”

You nudged him with your elbow, sticking your tongue out with a pouty expression. “You might as well get used to it since you’re stuck with me now, love.”

“Fine, but you don’t have to say it after every fucking sentence--”

The two of you bickered back and forth, the smiles on your faces and glimmers in your eyes showing that neither of you were actually mad. In fact, you were the only one Bakugou would banter like this with in the first place.

And he actually quite enjoyed it.

“So they are dating?!” exclaimed Sero in a hushed voice, gaze going back and forth between you and Bakugou. “When did this happen?”

“Maybe that one weekend when no one knew where either of them were,” suggested Yaoyorozu.

“Or maybe when they both just happened to watch the same movie at the same time in the same place that one day,” piped in Mina with a knowing grin.

“Or, do you think it was during lunch when he--”

“I think it’s no one’s damn business!” growled Bakugou, his head starting to hurt from all their chatter.

It wasn’t like he would ever tell those extras, anyways. They deserve to know and he’d rather be damned than admit how--

“It was what Ashido-kun suggested,” you replied, ignoring your boyfriend’s appalled glare at your sudden admittance. “I’m impressed. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”

Mina cheered proudly. “Well, I did!” She held her hand out triumphantly to friends beside her. “And I was right. So pay up.”

There was a loud groan followed by a defeated sigh.

“Fine. A bet is a bet,” Kaminari grumbled as he and Sero handed Ashido and Kirishima some cash.

“Hell yeah!” Eijirou exclaimed, high-fiving his partner in crime.

“Remember, I get a quarter of the money, right?” you hissed from the corner of your mouth.

Kirishima gave you a nod, sliding a few yen in your direction and Mina gave you a thumbs up.

Katsuki gaped open-mouthed at the scene in front of him, watching as you slowly pocketed the cash. Noticing his expression, you stifled a laugh, pressing a kiss against his jawline.

He stood there in shock. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Nothing, love,” you assured.

Bakugou’s right eye twitched and his cheeks reddened in a mixture of embarrassment and frustration. And to think he ever believed dating you would be easy…

“Oh, stop looking so angry, love,” you said cheekily. He really needed to assure you pet names weren’t meant to be said after every fucking sentence. “We can sneak out and grab dinner at your favorite tonight restaurant.” You patted the top of your pocket. “My treat.”

He snorted, a smile playing on his face.

Dating you wasn’t easy. But it sure as hell was worth it.

- - - - -

“Hey, baby.”

Bakugou froze in his spot. “W-What did you just call me?”

Even before the two of you got together, you referred to him as cutie, sugar, honey, sweetie pie-- All the pet names he could possibly think of (each more ridiculously affectionate and annoyingly endearing than the next) but he never heard you call him that word.

“Baby?” you said curiously.

He stiffened. There was something about that pet name that seemed different than the rest… Intimate and sensual, yet infuriatingly innocent.

“What did you say?” he repeated slowly, voice much lower than usual.

You cocked your head to the side, tapping your index finger to your chin in thought. “Baby?” Bakugou frowned and you continued on. “Baby. Baby. B-A-B-Y, baby.”

With each passing second, his face grew redder and redder, the color almost spreading to his hairline.

You stopped yourself abruptly, slight concern clouding your amused expression. “Do… Do you not like it?”

“No! That’s not it!” he assured, embarrassed by his sudden outburst and your look of mild shock. “What are you staring at, baka? I only meant I don’t mind you calling me that word.”

“What word?” you asked with an innocently smile, toying with him.

“You know what I’m talking about!”

“No, I don’t think I do…”

“Damn you--” Katsuki managed to choke out, refusing to meet your gaze. “The B-A-B-Y word!”

Your small smile slowly grew into a wide, toothy grin, and if he didn’t love how it looked on your face so much, he would’ve done anything to wipe it off.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he mumbled, feeling his temperature rising for the millionth time this single conversation. Stupid pet names.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I’ll call you that anytime you want me to…baby.”

He groaned at your teasing but couldn’t ignore the warm feeling in his stomach as you gave him a hug. Sure, you were in class, but school hadn’t started yet, and Bakugou didn’t give a single fuck if all his classmates knew you were his. At least they would know not to try anything.

But as he stood by your side, your head resting on his shoulder, his rare feelings of peacefulness were shattered when he heard his big-mouthed friends chatting in a little circle.

“And here we thought Bakugou liked being called daddy,” Kaminari said to Kirishima and Ashido in an obnoxiously loud whisper. “Guess we were wrong.”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

They almost jumped out of their seats, staring wide-eyed at Katsuki who was glaring down at them angrily with you by his side, a sheepish look on your face as you shrugged at them.

“We said nothing!” the three said in unison.

He huffed, the tips of his ears still tinged a bright pink. “That’s what I thought.”

And though his eyes were narrowed and lips curled into a scowl, Bakugou couldn’t help the feeling of euphoria that came from his friends annoying yet well-meaning antics and the subtle kiss you gave his cheek with a giggle, murmuring the ridiculous pet name.

“Don’t be mad at them, baby,” you soothed, an amused smile on your face.

Katsuki sighed, giving in as he ruffled the top of your head. He realized he couldn’t really be angry. As long as you kept calling him B-A-B-Y.

Baby.

a/n: i hope you’re smiling because i sure as heck am ^o^ this is my first fic in a while that i didn’t absolutely hate, so i hope y’all enjoyed it! sorry if my fics have been crap lately :( xx sofia

#bakugou katsuki #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha x reader #bakugou x reader #bnha fanfiction #bnha #mha #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo x reader #mha x reader #bnha imagines #mha imagines #bnha scenarios #bakugou imagine #reader insert #x reader #call me b-a-b-y

[imfemalewarrior]

hi mx. femalewarrior! im a moderately overweight afab person (this isnt abt my struggling w femininity and identifying only somewhat and not fully--anyway) and i did exercise today! i biked a while to the store... a store in which i bought a few sweets as a prize for doing the exercise thing. i get that my depressed brain craves the glucose bc it slightly makes up for the lack of dopamine, and i do feel :) when i get a nice pastry, but i still feel bad morally! (1/2)

ik i HAVE to bribe myself to work, but it still feels yicky, y'know? like, why do the work in working some stuff off just to put it right back? it especially doesnt help that since im poor i can't do the whole fresh veggies and meats and w/e thing. its cans and what you can get from a dollar tree for me. do you have any exercises that don't feel like exercises so i don't feel as if i did a lot n "deserve" that sugary thing? i wanna lose some weight but it seems so daunting! [2/2]

(my answer) 

So, instead of having a weight goal, why not make other more sustainable goals regarding exercise? More and more research is coming out that it is habit and lifestyle/genetics that affect your health much more than weight (look at women olympic weightlifters, world’s strongest men, and open water swimmers like Lynne Cox as examples). Some example goals are: exercising a certain number of times per week, so maybe start with a goal to exercise 1 or 2 days every week, and then increasing the number based on what time you can set aside to do this. Or a goal could be “find an exercise I enjoy” and then find different exercises each week to try out to figure out what you enjoy doing (dance classes, yoga, aerobics, swimming, martial arts, jogging, walking, weightlifting, historical martial arts from various regions of the world, dagorhir/LARP/SCA, to name a few possibilities). Maybe once you find one you enjoy it will help you with getting that dopamine (I feel, I also have depression). And after you find one you enjoy you can then work on setting up exercising a few times a week. 

So basically, eating is not going to “undo” what you just did, it can help support you in doing more of it. If bike riding is what you enjoy doing, but you need more reason than only bike riding for now (like going to the store and getting something to celebrate the bike ride), then that’s ok, especially if it becomes a regular activity for you and you replenish your body with protein, vitamins and minerals from protein/plant sources (even canned/frozen! they still have things your body needs, it’s not fresh or nothing!), and drinking water. Right now it’s more important to focus on recovering your mental health and setting some sustainable goals.

Doing this is going to put demands on your body that will cause it to change in response. Many of them will demand your body develop more muscle, which weighs more (example: when I exercise regularly I gain about 20-30 pounds of muscle easily, I know this from being weighed at the doctor’s office during times when I was not physically active and times when I was physically active, other than that I don’t weight myself, I don’t own a scale, instead I just make sure I get enough nutrition and energy from my food and usually practice my dance and martial arts a few times a week). So, in other words, you’ll get hungrier, and you deserve food for that. Perhaps plan a nutritionally balanced meal to give your body the nutrition it needs to repair and recover from an exercise session in addition to the sweets you crave? 

Canned food is not necessarily evil/bad, I eat canned beans and tomatoes and frozen veggies. What COULD be bad depending on how your body processes certain vitamins/minerals is the salt/sugar content of some canned food (some sugar is not bad especially if it’s supposed to be there like in fruit and pastry, but sugar is unnecessarily added to a lot of things you wouldn’t expect, especially low/nonfat food like milk, yoghurt, etc). So when I go and I buy canned tomatoes (as an example) I check the salt content and try to get one with low or no salt (especially since I’m going to season it a whole bunch and add salt on top of whatever the manufacturer added). (Note: some people can’t process salt very well, so they need to eat more salt in order to get enough of it processed in their body, so for them a high salt diet is what’s healthy, but this is not true for everyone). Beans and legumes are also sources of protein (what your body will need to repair and build muscle for an active lifestyle) along with eggs, and eggs can be pretty cheap (I have seen them at walmart for like a dollar). 

Another option is to shop at international food stores (I do this to get a lot of rice and flour and spices for much more reasonable prices than most chain stores charge). 

I talk more about different factors in this video (it is slightly off base from your question but that’s because it’s the only video I have up right now I’m planning on more in the future). 

-FemaleWarrior 

#weight discussion #goals #exercise goals #depression #food discussion #food #starlit-sapphic

[carnegiemuseumnaturalhistory]

The 12,000-Year Journey Of The Cheeseburger

In one large bite, a bun, ground beef patty, cheese, lettuce, and tomato could finally fulfill its purpose: to be my lunch. Many people have seen ads for, or even eaten a cheeseburger before. But where do all the ingredients come from? The tasty combination of meat, vegetables, grain, and milk product has 12,000-year-old roots in a faraway land across the sea. From there, over thousands of years and thousands of miles, it made a journey to its ultimate destination … my stomach. As delicious as it is, every good ending has a story.

The Bun

For a proper burger, you need the bun to sandwich all its deliciousness. The main ingredient for the bun is flour, which comes from wheat. Today, there are 25,000 distinct forms of wheat, all descended from a plant called emmer, which first originated in the Fertile Crescent within the Middle East. The earliest evidence for emmer being deliberately grown by humans for food (domestication) was from at least 12,000 years ago.

Ancient humans, just like us today, enjoyed eating wheat products (I love my pizza!). Where it grows abundantly, wheat is easily harvested and can be stored for extended periods of time, making it a stable source of vegetable protein. Thus, some of the first civilizations, like the Babylonians and Assyrians, sprung up in the Fertile Crescent. Emmer wheat spread to Greece, Cyprus, and India by 6500 BCE, and to Egypt shortly after. In fact, the Egyptians are the first people known to make bread.

The Patty

Now let’s get to the deliciousness housed between the buns: the patty. Traditional cheeseburgers are made from beef, which comes from cattle. Unlike emmer wheat, cattle, which descended from wild oxen called aurochs, were domesticated separately in two (possibly three) different places: the Fertile Crescent, the Indus Valley (modern-day Pakistan), and possibly northeast Africa 10,000-8000 years ago. From there, domesticated cattle spread across the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Cattle were one of the first mammals to be domesticated. They provide many useful products used for consumption (meat, milk, fat) and tool making (horns, hooves, hides). Additionally, their large size allowed them to pull heavy objects like plows for farming. Because of their importance, many religions and cultures considered cattle to be sacred. In Ancient Egypt, many of their gods had cattle forms, including Hathor, Ptah, Menthu, and Atum-Ra, Ancient Greeks often used cattle as sacrifices to the gods. Even today, Hindus do not eat cattle meat.

The Cheese

Finally, a cheeseburger would hardly be a cheeseburger without the cheese (which is made from milk). Although cow milk is the most popular source material today, cheese was originally made from goat or sheep milk. Cheesemaking began over 4,000 years ago, but how it started is unclear. Legend has it that it was an Arabian merchant who accidentally created the first cheese. He put his milk in a pouch made from a sheep’s stomach as he traversed across the desert. Sheep stomachs contain an enzyme called rennet, and when the milk chemically reacted to the enzyme and heat from the sun, it separated into curd and whey. The curd is what we commonly refer to as the cheese.

Although cheesemaking’s origins remain ambiguous, the Romans were the first to make cheesemaking a widespread industry. Aging and smoking cheese extends the product’s shelf-life, enabling Roman soldiers to carry this excellent source of protein with them. As they conquered the European continent, they spread their cheesemaking. At the height of the Roman empire, they were making and trading hundreds of different kinds of cheese. Only later during European colonization was cheese spread to the Americas and Asia.

The Cheeseburger

So what genius put it all together? None other than a 16-year-old named Lionel Sternberger. His father owned a sandwich shop, and one day in 1924, Lionel put a slice of American cheese on one of his father’s hamburgers. He called it a “cheese hamburger.” One decade later, a Kaelin’s restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky gave the sandwich the name “cheeseburger,” which was trademarked in 1935 by Louis Ballast of Humpty Dumpty Drive-In.

The End (of This Story of Deliciousness)

Who knew that there was so much behind a basic cheeseburger? From sheep stomach pouches to Babylonians, each played a role in creating the cheeseburger in your hands. Even Pittsburgh has some cheeseburger fame! Did you know that Jim Delligatti, who owned a restaurant in Uniontown PA, part of the Greater Pittsburgh Region, created the McDonald’s Big Mac in 1967?

Angela Wu is a Teen Volunteer in the Education Department. Museum employees, volunteers, and interns are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Sources:

The Big Mac turns 40, gets a museum. (2007, August 26). ABC News. Retrieved August 9, 2020, from https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3524528&page=1#:~:text=The%20Big%20Mac%20was%20first,staple%20of%20McDonald's%20menus%20nationwide.

Cooper, R. (2015, July). Re-discovering ancient wheat varieties as functional foods. ScienceDirect. Retrieved August 5, 2020, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2225411015000401

Cownie, E. (2018, August 27). Why cattle mattered in the Ancient World. Medium. Retrieved August 8, 2020, from https://medium.com/@emmafcownie/why-cattle-mattered-in-the-ancient-world-4e27b1c37e58

Hirst, K. (2019, July 9). Wheat Domestication. ThoughtCo. Retrieved August 6, 2020, from https://www.thoughtco.com/wheat-domestication-the-history-170669

History of Cheese. (2020, January 25). International Dairy Foods Association. Retrieved August 6, 2020, from https://www.idfa.org/history-of-cheese

Mitzewich, J. (2020, May 15). Who Invented the All-American Cheeseburger? The Spruce Eats. Retrieved August 7, 2020, from https://www.thespruceeats.com/birth-of-the-cheeseburger-101426

Pitt, D., Sevane, N., Nicolazzi, E. L., MacHugh, D. E., Park, S., Colli, L., Martinez, R., Bruford, M. W., & Orozco-terWengel, P. (2018). Domestication of cattle: Two or three events?. Evolutionary applications, 12(1), 123–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.12674

Roberts, B. (2018, March 5). The Fascinating 7,500 Year History of Cheese. Forbes. Retrieved August 5, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianroberts/2018/03/05/the-history-of-cheese/#4807da304ca1

#Carnegie Museum of Natural History #Cheeseburger #Natural History #Food Stories

[fanfiction-abyss]

TBHK SONGFIC

This is my gift for my fellow ___ for a discord gift event! Hope you enjoy it!!

Akane Aoi x Hikari Minamoto:

STUPID CUPID

For all his life, Akane Aoi found himself struggling. He struggled to gain the love of his childhood bestfriend, struggled in his balancing order between his life and responsibilities as vice-president of the student council and keeping his duties as School Mystery No. 1. As his first year of high school started, he thought that he had it all in check, until he met her. Hikari Minamoto. Their meeting was by chance, he bumped into her while she was walking out of the student council room. She quickly bowed, spewed out an apology and ran off before he could blink. At first he thought she was a brave fan of Teru's who came to bother him, but the thought was quickly crossed off his mind as Teru explained who the girl was.

"That was my little sister. She was just dropping me off my lunch that I forgot. Usually it's Kou, but he's busy with his own mission." Akane nodded, busying himself by filing some papers, sweating under Teru's intensive stare. After finishing his filing, Akane nodded at Teru before heading to the door.

"Aoi." His sharp voice made Akane stop.

"Please be good to my siblings, if you ever see them around."

"I will, President Minamoto." The redhead silently cursed the president in his mind.

It wasn't until a week later that Hikari and Akane made contact once again.

"Ao-chan! I'd like you to meet someone! She's interested in joining the Gardening club!" Nene pulled a familiar blonde in front of Aio's desk, one thing Akane noticed was that she was wearing a middle school uniform.

"P-pleased to meet your acquaintance! I'm Hikari M-Minamoto, a third year in t-the middle school division and I'd like to join the club, as Senpai just explained!" Her voiced was rather meek and she had a rather heavy blush on her cheeks. Aoi, who Akane was standing next to, clasped her hands excitedly, sparkles bloomed as she cutely titled her head and smiled.

"That's great to hear, Minamoto-san! I'm Aoi Akane, thank you for showing interest in the club! We really need new members!" Hikari rubbed her arm and gazed at the ground.

"Y-You can call me by my first name... I don't mind. It's just... it's just that I don't want any unwanted confusion or attention, so..." She trailed off, her eyes swirling with embarrassment.

"I see, then you can call me Ao-chan, Hikari-chan!" Akane tensed, pushing up his glasses.

"... to think she's already in nickname basis with Ao-chan..." His mutterings grabbed the girl's attention.

"Is something wrong, Akane-kun?" Aoi asked sweetly, to which Akane shook his head.

I must stay poised and collected in front of President Minamoto's siblings or I won't hear the end of it from him...

Akane respectfully bowed towards Hikari.

"Pleasure to meet you, Minamoto-kohai. I'm Akane Aoi, if you don't know, I work with President Minamoto. " Hikari immediately bowed in respect, hitting her forehead on the top of the desk.

"I'm incredibly sorry for bumping into you last week, Aoi-Senpai, I didn't even formally apologize! I'm so, so sorry! Please let me make it up to you in some way or another!" The first years jumped, not expecting the sudden outbursts.

"Minamoto-kohai! It's quite alright-"

"Uwah! Hikari-chan are you alright?!" Nene had her hand up to her mouth in horror. The young girl, straightened up, showing a rather painful bruise of her forehead. Tears were welling up in the corner of her eyes.

"I-I'm fine, Senpai!"

"But-but you're crying!" Hikari covered her face and turned away.

"It's just that... I'm so embarrassed! I made a fool of myself in front of the upperclassmen!" Aoi patted the younger girls sibling in the back rather comforting.

"It's okay, Hikari-chan! You were just nervous, but for now, let's take you to the nurses office and check the bruise out."

"A-Ah! It's fine, Ao-Senpai! I'm, I'm used to worse, so this is nothing!" Aoi's and Nene's face visibly darkened with worry.

"W-worse?"

"A-Anyways, umm... about the club..." Face brightening, Aoi picked up her bag.

"If you don't mind, we can introduce you to the gardens! You can see what type of plants you want to take care of and you can meet the others as well, but first we have to change out of uniforms so they don't get dirty! Did you have an extra set of clothes?" Hikari lifted her bag and nodded, gaining approval from Aoi.

"Then, let's get moving! See ya, Akane-kun!" Akane watched the girls leave before making his way down the garden, hiding in his usual spot where he was able to watch what was going on. It took a few minutes before the girls came outside. Aoi was wearing her cute white sunhat, a pink tshirt and discolored shorts. Akane watched the new member with eyes of a hawk. She was wearing a white long sleeved shirt, black track pants, and her hair was pulled into a ponytail, allowing a purple good-luck amulet piercing in her left ear. It looked rather delinquent-like on her, which as far as Akane could tell, was not much her style. Aoi left and Nene walked with Hikari, touring her around, and stopping in front of Akane.

"And this is the decorative plants we take care of..." Nene trailed of, seeing the horrified expression of her junior, looking at the bush and letting out a terrified yelp.

"A-Akane-kun?! What are you doing?!" Akane's face was popping out of the plant, his glasses hid his eyes, but he was smiling.

"Oh, Nene-san, I'm just watching over Ao-chan, that's all!" Nene nodded, pulling Hikari close.

"Forgive him, Hikari-chan! He has a condition!" Before an answer escaped her mouth, Hikari tensed and turned, feeling dread.

This feeling... is it an apparition? Not to mention, didn't Ao-senpai head over there!?

"Eh, Hikari-chan, everything alright?" Nene's question was answered with a familiar shriek, causing the trios eyes to widen.

"Ao-chan/Ao-senpai!"

Hikari was the one who ran first, the other following close behind. They reached the toolshed and Hikari held her hand, stopping the others.

If it's an apparition, my upperclassmen will be in danger!

"I-I will go in there, you guys stay here! I'll go check and see!" Nene and Akane couldn't stop her as she dashed inside the tool shed. Stepping inside, Hikari felt the presence of a spirit, but she spotted Aoi first and kneeled next to her. It seemed that she was just passed out, the shards of a broken pot, probably dropped in surprise, thankfully didn't reach the older girl. Hikari focused her attention on the corner across from her, where the dark aura came from. A shivering child was huddled in the corner, its arms around its legs and head buried between its knees.

"I don't know what past you've lived, but that gives you no right to harm a human, so... I must exorcise you." A child's voice spoke out.

"Mother and I... used to play in the gardens all the time... are you my mommy?" With furrowed brows, Hikari clenched her hand, a spear made of lighting molded within. She took aim and threw the spear towards the corner, a gentle light and clean breeze fell upon the toolshed.

May you find peace in the afterlife...

"Senpais! Akane-senpai has fainted!" Akane and Nene immediately rushed in, both looking disheveled.

"We should take Ao-chan to the nurses, Akane-kun!" Akane nodded with Nene and picked Aoi up.

"Sorry to cut the tour short, but..."

"D-don't worry, senpai!" Nene smiled brightly at the young exorcist.

"Thank you for helping, Hikari-chan!" Blushing, Hikari waved goodbye to her seniors before making her way home.

Stupid Cupid you're a real mean guy

I'd like to clip your wings so you can't fly

I'm in love and it's a crying shame

And I know that you're the one to blame

Hey hey, set me free

Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

Ever since that day, Hikari began getting Akane's attention no matter where he went. It was only natural, after all, she saved his beloved Aoi. He would catch glimpses of her as he would walk the halls, or greet her whenever they made eye contact. He noticed details about her. Her eyes were always gentle no matter what, though she rarely talked, she had an energy that attracted people to her. And, another thing he noticed was that she would never judge others no matter what.

"Oh, hi, Aoi-senpai!" His hiding spot had been compromised once again. Akane sighed and crawled out the plant.

"How do you do, Minamoto-kohai?"

"I'm d-doing well... how... how about you?"

"I'm doing perfectly fine, Ao-chan is as bright as the sun, so everything is fine!" The girl giggled at his response, but quickly covered her mouth.

"Sorry... I wasn't laughing at you, I-I just think your affection for Ao-senpai is quite cute..." Akane shook his head, squatting next to her, watching as she dug up wholes in the soil to plant beans.

"It's alright." They stayed in silence, before Akane spoke out.

"What made you interested in the Gardening Club?"

"U-umm, I joined because... I just wanted to make my brothers jobs easier." Akane said nothing and stared at the girl, encouraging her to continue.

"W-Well, Teru-nii is always busy with student council work and keeping peace in the school. Kou takes care of the housework himself and won't let me help, so... I was thinking if I could at least plant veggies and fruits, I could make their life easier... plus just in case Tiara's interested in gardening, I could teach her..." Hikari's fond expression quickly turned into one of embarrassment.

"But now that I say it out loud it doesn't make any sense!" Akane huffed, fiddling with the red student council band on his arm.

"No, I think it's nice that you think about your siblings and the fact that you try to take care of them, it's admirable." Akane didn't know what went through his mind as the words spewed out of his mouth. Hikari stopped patting the dirt, her face turning redder than the tomatoes on a nearby vine, her eye were wide, but they didn't convey any negative emotion.

"I-I see, thank you... for thinking that..."

"Oh and Minamoto-kohai, you could call me by my first name, so that's in not confusing."

"Then you can call me by my f-first name too..."

"Alright, Hikari-san."

I can't do my homework and I can't think straight

I meet her every morning 'bout half past eight

I'm acting like a lovesick fool

You've even got me carrying your books to school

Hey hey, set me free

Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

After their conversation in the garden, their usual greeting turned into full blown conversations with each other. It wasn't noticable, but they began getting closer. Hikari thought about her new friend most of the time, even though it distracted her from studying. Akane who used to hate having to collect files and papers from teachers of the middle school division, began enjoying his walks, seeing that as soon as Akane and Hikari made eye contact, Hikari would join him and help him on his quest (or so she liked to call it). It wasn't noticable to anyone, until Akane stopped confessing to Aoi everytime he saw her. He would still watch her with loving eyes, but Aoi noticed something was different with Akane. It was one morning, where Aoi's suspicions were confirmed. It was early in the morning, when Aoi stepped into the sunlit classroom, Akane was already there, ruffling through a pile of papers.

"Goodmorning, Akane-kun!" Aoi smiled at her childhood friend, who looked up with a bright smile.

"Ah! Goodmorning Ao-chan! You look as beautiful as always!" He then turned his attention to the papers in front of him. He didn't even notice her scrutinizing gaze, until she was literally in his face. He leaned away in slight shock.

"Something wrong, Ao-chan?" The indigo haired girl put a finger on her chin and hummed.

"I don't know how to put it, but Akane-kun, are you over me?" Akane tensed and blushed.

"O-Of course no-" The image of a smiling Hikari flashed in his head, causing him to stop mid sentence. The vivid image caused him to relive the memory. It was when the beans she planted finally sprouted out of the ground. She quickly called him over and showed him the accomplishment with proud smile, her usually gentle voice was filled with excitement.

"Look, Akane-senpai!"

"Akane-kun?" Akane snapped out of his trance, gazing at Aoi.

"Ao-chan, I still love you, but it's not the same love as before!" Aoi giggle, putting her hands behind her.

"Thought so! So do you like Hikari-chan?"

"Huh?! Ao-chan how did-"

"It was quite obvious Akane-kun! You're never to good at hiding your feelings if you like someone! Plus, I wouldn't be called your childhood friend if I didn't notice!" Akane sighed and rested his forehead on his arms.

"I see..."

Thank god President Minamoto hasn't noticed my change of behavior, yet... I can only imagine what he'll do to me!

Akane revisited memories of being tied up like an animal and shivered.

"Then, Akane-kun, what do you plan to do...?" Aoi's unanswered question stuck with him throughout the day. What was he going to do? It felt weird thinking of Hikari all the time instead of Aoi. His affections now differed, he wanted to stay the same with Aoi, but with Hikari it was different. It felt as if he'd been struck by a cupid's arrow, which made a warm feeling resonate within his chest. It wasn't until he stood in front of Hikari's classroom door afterschool, that he had the answer.

I want to ask her out!

The classroom door opened and out came a blonde boy, the thing the caught Akane's attention was the red traffic-safety amulet on the boys right ear.

"See ya, sis!" He ran off the opposite hallway from Akane and Hikari ran out of the classroom looking the way Kou ran off.

"W-wait Kou!" Kou was long gone by now, making her slump her shoulders in defeat.

"He forgot his spirit staff... and here he was boasting about taking down the school mysteries..."

"Hikari-san?" Surprised, the girl yelped before covering her mouth.

"Akane-senpai?!"

"U-um... about what you were talking about..." She tensed, before clenching her fists.

"C-can we go somewhere p-p-private..."

"Sure..." Akane followed Hikari up the roof and gulped as she stood in front of him with a bowed head.

"A-A-Actually... I've been putting off this confession for a long time... but can you promise me that no matter what... you won't look at me differently..." Akane stood paralyzed, with a heavy blush and without waiting for an answer, she took a deep breath.

C-Confession...?

"I-I'm actually an exorcist! I come from a lineage of exorcists, so I'm not the only one! My older brothers are also exorcists, t-that's why you heard me talk about supernaturals and all that gibberish..." A cold wind blew past Akane as comical tears ran down his cheeks.

A-Ah, that type of confession..

Quickly composing himself, Akane put his hands on her shoulder and looked into her eyes, which were full of uncertainty.

"Don't worry, Hikari-san, if anything, it makes my view of you grow positively!" He gave her a sweet smile, that made her feet go jelly.

"C-can I h-hug you..?" Akane didn't hesitate to give approval and he felt warm arms wrap themselves around his chest, her head was rested near his heart, which now, the redhead realized, was pounding rapidly.

"T-thank you, senpai!" Akane slowly wrapped his hands around her frame, pulling her closer, if that was possible.

I'm content with this...

You mixed me up for good right from the very start

Hey now, go play Robin Hood with somebody else's heart

About a few weeks later, Akane realized that he was not content with how the relationship was progressing. He managed to get a grip on himself and managed to not gush about the girl that kept his mind busy, seeing as he was scared that he would scare Hikari off. He tried to be sensitive, but like someone flipped a switch, he couldn't contain himself. He was tired of hiding his affections from the girl that deserved it the most. Making up his mind, he decided to confess to her, and told Aoi, who cheered him up. As he walked through the halls, ignoring the gossiping whispers of another supernatural at school, he planned on confessing the next time he sees her.

You got me jumping like a crazy clown

And I don't feature what you're putting down

It was lunch, when he saw her, but not in the exact situation he preferred. In fact it was the opposite of an ideal situation. He was walking, passing by an abandoned music classroom, when he heard a low piano note resonate, the sound of the door slamming open and someone being thrown against the wall followed the sound. Akane turned, horror on his face when he saw Hikari crumpled on the ground, cuts and bruises on her skin. She shakily picked her head up, reddish eyes clashing with blue eyes.

"A-Akane-senpai, get out of here! It's supernatural!" A black, gooey hand held the doorframe, and a shadow loomed over the girl, causing her to scramble back on her feet. A goey hand was raised, ready to strike, but gloved hand kept it in place.

"A-Akane-senpai...?" Hikari took in his appearance, his outfit had changed black and white suit, a pocket watch pinned on his chest. His hair had slighty gotten longer and a low ponytail swayed behind him. With a growl, Akane clenched his hand, breaking off the supernatural's hand off, getting the black substance on his face.

"You filth! Don't ever touch Hikari-chan with your dirty hands, ever again!" With his other hand, Akane stabbed through the supernatural's main body, making it go limp before dissolving into this air.

"Akane-senpai... you're a school mystery?" Akane turned his attention to the girl and gave her a closed eye smile.

"Yeah, sorry for keeping it a secret from you... but more importantly, are you okay?" He took her face into his hands, rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks in a gentle and loving manner. His red eyes gleamed with adoration.

"We need to take you to the nurse's, don't bother resisting, it's best if your brothers find out." He took her wrist and began pulling her along, stopping when he felt her other hand tugging on his white vest.

"Thank you for saving me Akane-senpai..." Blue eyes were filled with warmth and the genuine smile dancing on her lips made Akane snap.

Well since I kissed her loving lips of wine

The thing that bothers me is that I like it fine

Hey hey, set me free

Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

With a hand under her chin, he gently pulled her chin up, closing his eyes, he leaned in and pressed his lips onto hers. Hikari tensed into the sweet kiss, before relaxing and softly pressing her lips back. A small smile sneaked its way on Akane's face through the kiss, before the two pulled away and looked at each other's eyes.

"If it's you, I wouldn't mind have to save you no matter how many times it is... "A moment of silence was shared between the two, as Hikari slid her hand into his and he wasted no time to gently grip it into a secure hold. Akane stroked her cheek once more, and pressed his forehead upon hers. He realized that for once, he felt at peace. Hikari squeezed his hand.

"After all, I love you more than anything else in this world..."

You got me jumping like a crazy clown

And I don't feature what you're putting down

Well since I kissed his loving lips of wine

The thing that bothers me is that I like it fine

Hey hey, set me free

Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

Hikari remembered when she realized she was in love with Akane. It had been a few weeks ago, she had complained about not having enough fertilizer for the soil, and the very next day, Akane showed up to the Gardening Club with a wheelbarrow full of it. It was a grand and sweet gesture, and just the memory of it let a few giggles escape from her mouth.

"Akane-kun, I love you too."

Hey hey, set me free

Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

I hope you like it and I'm sorry if any characters seem OOC! Also apologies for any editing mistakes!

[throat69934eeap]

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[shes-soparticular]

What Happens in Bali...

There are certain announcements you just shouldn’t make on April Fools day.

A/N: Fluff. Very light mention of smutty happenings.

Words: 4033

              It was only half past three in the afternoon and Alex had already had one hell of a day.

For starters, she’d woken up late only to trip over Shawn’s guitar case on her way out of the bedroom. A stubbed toe wasn’t enough to ruin her day but instead it was her husband she cursed under her breath as she grasped the handle of the guitar case. How many times had she begged him to stop dropping his shit in the most inconvenient places? There was an entire room in their home devoted to his guitars so why in the world did he insist on leaving it outside of the bedroom door where she was bound to stumble over it? Frustrated, she’d picked up the case to move it to its rightful place just for the lid to fall open and Shawn’s favorite guitar to spill to the ground. It smacked the ground with a loud thud, the neck broken off at a right angle, narrowly holding on by the strings. “No no no no…” She whimpered to herself, kneeling down to scoop up the broken instrument. As she immediately pictured herself packing a bag and driving off into the sunset to avoid admitting she busted his most prized possession, Shawn rounded the corner.

“Honey, where’s the-” He stopped dead in his tracks the second his eyes fell on the guitar, his jaw going slack. “Oh god, what did you do?”

Her panicked eyes met his as she scrambled to her feet. “I’m sorry, it was an accident! You left it right in the doorway, I tried to move it and I don’t think you even latched the case shut…” Alex chewed on her lip, carefully picking up the neck of the guitar with shaky hands. “Maybe we can put it back together?”

Rubbing his jaw with his face turned towards the ceiling, he stood in silence, seemingly trying to filter whatever it was he wanted to say. After a long pause, a deep and frustrated sigh escaped him. “It’s one of a kind, custom made. The one Mayer gave me. It can’t be fixed or replaced.” The disappointment in his voice ate away at her, as much as she wanted to remind him it really wasn’t her fault to begin with. No matter who was to blame, something incredibly meaningful to him was irreparably damaged and her heart broke for him.

Letting the pieces drop gently back to the ground, Alex rose to her feet and pulled Shawn’s hands into hers. A more sincere apology was working its way to her lips when she felt a small hand on her calf. Glancing down, her gaze was met by little brown curls and doe eyes that matched her own. “Good morning, Matty.” Reaching down to pick up their two-year-old son before he could touch any jagged pieces of splintered wood, she notices his eyes focused on Shawn. Almost looking for…reassurance? Shawn mouthed something back to the toddler, although Alex couldn’t quite make it out.

“Apwil Foos, Mama.” Matty’s sleepy voice finally announced, his head still on a swivel between Alex and Shawn. For a minute, she was totally lost trying to interpret toddlerese. That is until the deep frown on Shawn’s face stretched into a devious grin, his fist reaching out to Matty for one of their father/son fist bumps. It’s then that it dawned on her…it’s April 1st. How in the world did she not see straight through this ruse? She was literally on her way to the kitchen to cover cherry tomatoes in chocolate as her own April Fool’s joke. She should have immediately guessed that this whole broken guitar act was her husband’s way of beating her to the punch. Putting her palm on one of Matty’s ears and leaning his head into her shoulder to cover the other one, she narrowed her eyes at Shawn. “You asshole,” She hissed, quiet but sharp. “That was so mean! I was freaking out!” Seeing the all too pleased look on his face didn’t help matters and it took all of her energy not to give him a swift kick in the shin. Looking back down at the pieces again, it now occurred to her how cheap and flimsy the wood looked and how light it had been in her hands. That little shit had a cheap replica made just to send her on a guilt spiral.

“The look on your face? Priceless.” Shawn didn’t even try to hold back his laughter, which only got his little shadow started too. Matty always wanted to be in on every joke, even though he rarely understood what was happening. It was next to impossible for Alex to stay angry while surrounded by the laughter of her boys, but she wasn’t going to let Shawn get away with it so easily.

“Laugh it up,” She raised her eyebrows and shot him a frosty grin, pushing Matty into his arms. “I’ll get my revenge. Just wait.” Their prank wars had only escalated over the years and April Fool’s Day was the ultimate challenge considering they were usually each on high alert. Last year, she’d convinced him that he’d leaked naked photos of her which culminated in him trying to schedule an emergency conference call with his entire team at five in the morning. Two years ago, he’d fooled her with what turned out to be a fake (and incredibly unflattering) tattoo of her face on his back. Point being, she would never have had her guard down had it not been first thing in the morning before she’d fully cleared the sleep from her eyes.

“Oh, you mean those tomatoes you hid in the back of the fridge?” The look on Shawn’s face couldn’t have been more smug. “You’re going to have to try harder than that. I don’t think you’re going to get me this year.” Hoisting Matty to sit on one of his shoulders, he glanced up at his giggling son. “You’ve made your Mom lose her edge, buddy. She used to be so good at pranks, now your Dad is the master. If you’re lucky, I’ll teach you the art of deception.”

“You absolutely will not teach our child how to deceive us.” Alex rolled her eyes, hard, watching nervously as Matty leaned a little too far backwards on Shawn’s shoulder. Thankfully, Shawn had this eerie sixth Dad sense where he always managed to catch Matty by the shirt or an ankle before he totally wiped out. This time it was an ankle, Matty laughing his head off as he hung backwards over Shawn’s shoulder. It took a minute or two for Alex’s heart to start beating again (did a toddler really need to be 6+ feet off the ground??) and she reached out to peel her son off of his father and bring him back into the safety of her arms.  “Consider that, Shawn. He’ll be sixteen and joyriding in your car before you know it and it’s not going to be my fault.”

Shawn contemplated this, knowing his wife had a really, really good point. Matty had an endless supply of energy and it probably wasn’t the best idea to teach him how to use it to mess with them. He’d likely do enough of that on his own. “Fair enough. Sorry, bud.” Engulfing his little family in his arms, he planted a kiss on each forehead. “Happy April Fool’s Day, good luck getting me back.”

This earned yet another eyeroll from Alex, but her head was already swimming with ideas for vengeance. Could she have his car towed while he was at the studio that afternoon? No, too obvious. Convince him her parents were fighting and her Mom was coming to stay with them indefinitely? No, too frightening. Was he right about her losing her edge? Had she lost her special touch at taunting and tormenting her husband? No way, she’d come up with something. She had to. “Just give me a real kiss and clean up this dumb guitar before I send the real one off the balcony.”

His eyebrows shot up at her threat, but they both knew it was completely empty.  “You would never.” Leaning in, he brushed his lips against hers teasingly, still withholding the kiss she’d demanded. “You love me too much.” This was true, he had her there.

“Maybe so, but all is fair in love, war, and April Fools.” She grumbled back, using her free hand to wrap in the hair at the back of his head, pulling him all the way in for her morning kiss.

Alex had spent the better part of the morning running errands, hoping for divine inspiration to strike her when she least expected it. So far? No luck. Taking Matty into the grocery store probably wasn’t the best idea, considering it took every ounce of her mental strength. Making it through the supermarket with Matty was as close as she would ever get to playing an extreme sport. Whether it was scooping him up seconds before he’d pulled out the bottom box of a display of goldfish crackers or wrangling him off of the top shelf he’d managed to climb up in the cereal aisle, she was pretty sure she could cancel her gym membership and create her own CrossFit style fitness program based entirely on chasing toddlers around public places. A woman with two small children passed by her, one crying about the flavor of jam they’d picked and the other swiping an entire shelf of toothpaste into the cart as she shared a knowing look with the frazzled mother. The tight but soft smile they shared was the equivalent of throwing a Mom gang sign to show their support for one another. As they passed out of view, Alex stared down at Matty. “I think you’re going to be an only child, sir.” She wasn’t sure if it was the smug look that he shot her (and god damn, why did he have to look just like his Dad?) or the fact that she was passing a wall of pregnancy tests, but the thought hit her like a ton of bricks. Bali. Fucking Bali.

    When she insisted over and over that she didn’t want anything for her birthday other than to go out for brunch and whatever trinket Matty could make her out of dried macaroni, that hadn’t satisfied Shawn. But Alex just wasn’t the materialistic type, not to toot her own horn or anything. She’d just never been a big fan of jewelry, she was the queen of thrifting and had a penchant for vintage clothing versus whatever Hermès or Saint Laurent was peddling, and other than her phone, what electronics did she really need? Travel, though, that was her Achilles heel. She could never say no to a trip, would bend over backwards if it meant making an adventure happen. Of course, Shawn was well aware of this weakness. Thus, what she thought was a ride to her birthday brunch was really a ride to drop Matty off with Shawn’s parents before catching a flight. To Bali. The number one destination on her bucket list.

Being that it was a last minute, spur of the moment trip, she hadn’t put a lot of thought into packing her bag. In fact, Shawn’s exact words had been, “Yyou have thirty minutes to pack before we leave for the airport, sorry.” Thus, there were several things she’d forgotten. One, her cell phone charger. No big deal, she’d use Shawn’s. Two, sneakers suitable for hiking. Not a problem, she could pick up a pair when they got to Ubud. Three, her birth control. Yeah, that one was an issue. It wasn’t like this was just a trip to LA where she could pop into any CVS pharmacy and grab an emergency supply of her super specific birth control prescription. It was a ten-day trip. To Indonesia. And it wasn’t like she was going to just…not have birthday sex with her husband in one of the most beautiful villas she’d ever seen in the most breathtaking place she’d ever been.

    They had mutually agreed to wait another couple of years before giving Matty a sibling. Shawn had an impending tour starting later that year and neither of them could imagine trying to manage two little ones on the road. Ever since Matty was born, they’d decided that he and Alex would travel along with Shawn whenever possible. It wasn’t always realistic and it was rarely easy, but it kept them together and that was all that mattered. Before they’d even decided to try for Matty, they’d swore to one another they’d give him as fulfilling of a childhood as they could. To them, fulfilling meant creating memories for Matty he could look back on fondly later, shared with both of his parents and surrounded by love. So no, it wouldn’t be a normal childhood by any definition. Matty’s first steps had been on a moving tour bus. His first word had been in Spanish while they were at a café in Buenos Aires. He’d already seen more of the world in his short two years than most people saw in a lifetime. But Alex wouldn’t have it any other way. Yes, it was difficult to calm a teething baby in a different hotel room every night or to find something akin to Cheerios in a foreign country when that’s the only thing Matty would eat. Yes, there were nights that she wanted nothing more than to tuck Matty into his own bed rather than a green room pack and play. However, those things paled in comparison to her son getting to see his Dad every day. To be there to catch him after those first steps. To spin him around in celebration after that first word. To make him laugh, to wipe his tears, to just simply be there. All of that being said, it wasn’t impossible to do with one child. But adding another to that mix? It just wasn’t something Alex was ready to do.

Yet that didn’t stop her from letting Shawn push her up against the shower wall in Bali, thrusting into her as the warm water cascaded over their joined bodies. She’d mentioned to him after unpacking that she’d forgotten to pack the pill and maybe they should pick up some condoms. It was one of those suggestions they both nodded over with no intention of actually accomplishing. And within twenty minutes, there they were having risky shower sex with reckless abandon. After that, their shared mindset was that the damage was done and they might as well enjoy their trip unencumbered. It wasn’t like Matty happened the FIRST time they had completely unprotected sex, so the chances that a ten-day vacation would totally derail their two-year plan didn’t seem likely.

But now, as she sits on the edge of the tub waiting for not one, not two, but three pregnancy tests to reveal their results, Alex can’t help but feel incredibly foolish over their tropical fueled heedlessness. Deep in her thoughts as Matty sits on the floor in front of her, ramming a toy firetruck into her ankles and driving it up and down her calves, she lets out a long sigh. Bali Alex™ really hadn’t had future Alex in mind when she insisted on having sex on every surface of that villa, sans goalie. The simultaneous sounds of the front door creaking open, Matty’s feet scurrying out of the bathroom, and her cell phone alarm blaring to announce the moment of truth yank her out of her thoughts and bring her back to reality. A reality where there were a total of six pink lines in front of her. Well…she does love adventure, doesn’t she?

     There’s no sense in making a big production out of it, so she simply marches out into the kitchen with all three positive tests clenched in her hand. Matty is already there, perched on the kitchen counter eating what appears to be rocky road ice cream. She grimaces at the sight, knowing the sugar rush to come considering she’d already caved and given him gummy worms at the supermarket. “I come bearing ice cream for Matty and wine for Mommy, since I’ve been feeling incredibly guilty all day.” Shawn holds up her favorite bottle of red, two glasses already waiting on the counter.

     “Hold that thought, oh, maybe for the next eight months.” Alex sidles up to the counter, grabbing one of Shawn’s hands so that should could place all three tests into his palm. “Three of a kind, Mendes.” The look on his face as he stares down into his palm quickly changes from confusion to shock and then…amusement? He hands the tests right back to her, shaking his head in the process.

    “Whoa, you’re pulling out the big guns, eh?” Now the look of confusion transfers to her face. “Not gonna work, Alex.” What? It’s not like she expects him to pick her up and spin her around or anything (okay, maybe she does), but this really isn’t the reaction she’d expected. What the hell was he even talking about? And then, for the second time that day, it hits her. April Fools Day.

    “Wait…you think this is an April Fools joke?” Her eyes nearly double in size, an incredulous laugh leaving her chest. “This is the absolute worst thing you can joke about on April Fools, I would never.” She truly wouldn’t. There were certain topics that were just off limits when it came to pranks and this was possibly the biggest one. Yes, she could be ruthless when she wanted to be, but she’d never cross this line.

    “That’s what you want me to think.” Shaw’s guard is still up, eyes raking over her to pick up any sign that points to her lying. He knows her tells. The way she always looks up through her eyelashes. The way she always drops one hip, trying to look calm and collected. He can read her like a book. But right now…she must be putting on the performance of a lifetime. Because the tone of her voice sounds a little too earnest, the look in her eyes a little too disconcerted. He’s ready to cave, about to pull her into his arms, until the memory of the prior April 1st fills his head. The one where her voice had been quaking and her skin burning red as she showed him risqué photos of her he had supposedly leaked. He remembers how quickly that quake turned into a belly laugh and how she’d done a victory lap around their bedroom declaring herself winner of April Fools. Nope. She must be desperate to one up his prank and she was just going to the greatest length she could. “You waited for it to become socially unacceptable and THEN you strike. Classic Alex, you almost got me.”

    “Okay, so how did I fake these positive pregnancy tests then? You think I’m out running around stealing pee from pregnant ladies?” She’d folded her arms against her chest, eyebrows raised to challenge him.

   “I don’t know, you can probably buy fake ones on the internet or something.” He finds this completely plausible, shoulders shrugging as he steals a bite of ice cream from Matty’s dish. If he could get a cheap replica guitar made with ease, why couldn’t she figure out how to fake a pregnancy test? “Wait, does this go all the way back to Bali? Were you already setting me up then?” The scoff this earns from her feels like it further proves his suspicion. To him, it seems as though she’s laying it on too thick.

    “You are going to feel so stupid when this kid shoots out,” Alex laughs softly to herself, reaching up to brush non-existent salt off of his shoulder. “And I’m never going to let you forget it.”

It’s still dark when she wakes to his fingers running softly down the skin of her back. As her eyes slowly flutter open, she sees the red numbers on the alarm clock reading 12:01am. She knows exactly why he’s still up and why he’s tugging her from sleep. “Mmm, you just been laying awake waiting for the clock to strike midnight?” At the sound of her voice, his hand snakes around her waist to pull her backwards against him, her bare skin pressing against his.

“Yes.” He momentarily buries his face in her hair, taking in her scent, waiting with bated breath to hear what she’s ultimately going to say. To see which direction their lives are about to go. “This isn’t a prank, is it?” His fingers ghost across her flat stomach, tracing circles and shapes that give her goosebumps.

“What are you hoping to hear?” She shifts on to her back so that they can lock eyes, the mixture of fear and excitement reflecting between them. But the fact that the excitement outweighs the fear calms the endless train of thoughts surging through her head.

“I’m hoping I was wrong.” His hand stills, as he takes in every detail he can. The freckle under her right eye, the curve of her hip, the way her chest rose and fell with every breath. She places a hand on top of his, threading their fingers together.

“As always, I’m happy to tell you that you were wrong.” A soft giggle floats from her but it’s quickly captured by his lips. Despite the fact that they’re wholly unprepared, despite the fact that this derails their plans, this kiss is filled with relief. Relief that they have one another to navigate life with, come what may.

When the need for air finally becomes too much, their lips part, foreheads resting against each other in quiet satisfaction. He brushes his thumb across her stomach once more, a smile spreading across his face. “Our Bali baby.”

“We can’t call her that, we’d have to start calling Matty our “backseat of the Jeep baby” and I think he might resent that.” Yes, she’s boldly calling this baby her. She can’t say why, but she has a pretty good feeling about it.

“Backseat of the Jeep? No way, that’s not where Matty was made.” He rolls on to his back, pulling her half way on top of him. He knows it has to be too early and maybe it’s just the moonlight streaming through the window, but he swears she’s already glowing.  “Bathroom of the AMA’s.”

“Oh, okay sure, that’s MUCH more poetic.” She swears her eyes are going to hurt from rolling so often in a twenty-four hour period. “We get one trip to ourselves and what do your dumbasses do? Make another baby.” She hides her face in his chest, but he can still feel that grin of hers.

“Happy Birthday?” It comes out as a chuckle as he reaches to pull her body up further so that her face hangs over his. “I mean, are we really that shocked? We knew this could happen, we did literally nothing to prevent it. I don’t want to speak for you, but I think we wanted to let this happen?” They weren’t the type of couple that sat down and made long lists weighing the pros and cons of every decision. They were more of an “I jump, you jump” couple that just took life as it came and went for the ride. So it wasn’t unnatural that this is how they’d end up adding to their family – by exploiting a mistake like forgotten birth control and silently letting fate take it’s course. Or maybe that was just an incredibly refined way of making an excuse for the fact that they were stubborn about wanting raw sex on vacation, no matter the consequence.  Either way, everything would work out. They both knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

“I think maybe we did.” Alex admits, bumping her nose against his before stealing another kiss. Her teeth close teasingly against his bottom lip, pulling it lightly. “But really I just wanted to get rawed on vacation, let’s be honest.”

Tagging @fourtristattoos for Dad!Shawn week 🥰

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes imagine #smfsource #fourtristattoosspring

[nomorelonelydays]

kick your pretty feet up on my dash

Part 1 | Part 2

 -

Two days after the Instagram account opens, Sidney unofficially gets put on naming duty.

 The strawberry shortcake biscuit is named The Taylor.

 The cream cheese-stuffed banana muffins, crusted with dark chocolate ganache, is The Fleury.

 The slice of warm spiced peach cobbler (available for just two weeks), topped with a generous portion of thick, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream, is The Deidre.

 He shares the account password with her, but she seems more interested in digging up her mom’s old recipes from an ancient box filled with yellowed index cards than photographing.

 “I’ll leave that up to you,” she says, then passes him a card titled, ‘Cherry Layer Chocolate Cake.’ “I think I’ll make this for the holidays. What do you think?”

 Deidre makes just one and a half cakes for a trial run (the other half, which had come out lopsided, is sitting in the back of Sidney’s fridge). It’s another instant hit.

 Sidney watches a couple, two teenagers who are making it pretty painfully obvious that they’re on their first date, split a slice in a corner seat. She’s chasing the cherry around the plate with her fork, and he watching her like she hung the literal moon. He laughs a little too hard at her jokes, his eyes crinkling like Geno’s when he’s chirping Sidney. But with the way she’s beaming, it’s clear that she doesn’t mind at all.

 He’s not jealous—or, at least, he doesn’t think he’s jealous. Having hockey and having a boyfriend have always been mutually exclusive. But now, with no obligations to the NHL, he’s supposedly free to do everything that he’s wanted to. He doesn’t dwell too long on it though, because the last thing he needs is to have an existential spiral in Deidre’s store over whether or not he’s missed his his golden hour to be happy the exact minute the Penguins drafted him all those years ago.

 He finishes lettering the card for the cherry chocolate cake and slides ‘The Jack’ neatly into its proper holder.

-

Geno calls him on Thursday nights now, like clockwork. He’s grateful for the routineness of it, especially when he knows how much Geno lives on spontaneity. It’s always the same—updates on how the team is doing (good, the weather over in Pittsburgh (not so good), another dumb prank the rookies are trying to pull (hilarious, but slightly unoriginal with the shaving cream), even though it’ll never be as good as the ones Flower used to plan.

 “How are you?” Geno asks one night, while Sidney is puttering around the kitchen to figure out what he wants to make for dinner. “Your tomatoes grow?”

 “I think those are a goner,” Sidney grimaces. The entire plant had shriveled up weeks ago, despite Sidney faithfully watering them. “Guess I’ll just have to stick with the storebought ones.”

 Geno is silent for a bit. Then, “Is quiet in locker room without you.”

 Sidney pauses. “I doubt that’s true.” There’s plenty of rookies every year, eager to prove themselves on the ice and to establish themselves as a personality on the team. Besides, Sidney has never been the life of the party—that’s always been Geno himself.

 “No, is quieter.” Geno sounds like he’s swallowing a yawn. “Different without you.”

 Sidney’s heart flounders, and he has to blink a couple of times before his throat unclogs. “Maybe you should get to sleep. It’s pretty late over there.”

 “No, I’m not tired,” Geno mumbles, sounding very drowsy. Sidney can almost picture Geno, hair-mussed and sleepy eyes about to close as he curls up on his mattress. “Want to keep talking.”

 “I know you have practice tomorrow, G,” Sidney says. “You have the C now, you can’t get there two hours late anymore.”

 “I’m never late,” Geno huffs. “You too early.”

 “Get some rest,” Sidney says gently. “I’ll still be here next week, same as usual.”

 “Maybe I call tomorrow.’

 “I won’t go anywhere.”

 “Wish you still here, Sid,” he murmurs. “Miss you so bad, some days.”

 Sidney doesn’t miss a beat. “I miss you, too,” he whispers, because any louder and he knows his voice will crack. “I’ll be here tomorrow. And the day after, if you still want to call.”

 “Okay,” Geno says. “Okay.”

 -

 Sidney’s restocking the brioche rolls when Deidre’s voice casually pipes up from the coffee machine, “You have a secret admirer, you know.”

 “I know. It’s Samantha. PTA President,” Sidney says, trying to not sound exasperated. He only knows her name and title because she must’ve giggled it at him as a greeting every single time she’s marched in. “She asked me what the main ingredient was in the banana muffins and I told her banana like, three times.”

 “She just likes to hear you say banana. And no, it’s not Sam.” Deidre makes a come hither motion with her hands and slides a napkin towards Sidney. “Yesterday afternoon, there was a young man, maybe around his 30s, who stopped by for a latte and he asked where you were.”

 “Oh.” There’s something he can’t name fluttering in his stomach. The words on the napkin scrawled out, Jeremy, and a string of numbers. “What did you say?”

 “I told him, ‘He’s a cute one, isn’t he? He’s the store eye candy, bringing in all the sales.’”

 “Dee, you didn’t.”

 “I did, and he went full red. It was adorable. And I told him that you pop in in the mornings and in the afternoon to help with opening and closing.” She leans forward, grinning. “I’m just saying, think about it.”

 He thinks about it.

 At night, he tells Geno, “I think I have a secret admirer. Or a stalker.”

 Geno’s voice suddenly becomes infinitely more awake. “Have what? Someone stand outside your house? I read about this before, you need call police.”

 “No, it was at the bakery. I got his number on a napkin. Well, the owner gave me his name on a napkin, so I don’t really know what he looks like. He could be 100. People in this town are usually…around that age range.”

 Geno still sounds perplexed. “So say no.”

 “What?”

 “Say sorry, only go on dates with girls. But thank you.”

 Sidney’s brain feels like it’s stuttering to a pause. “Geno, what the fuck?”

 “What?”

 “I don’t ‘only go on dates with girls.’ I—” Well, to be quite fair, he hasn’t gone on any dates at all. “You know this.”

 It takes a full ten seconds for Geno to crackled back to life on the line again. His voice is hesitant. “You only bring girls to events. Like Halloween, or—”

 “They’re my friends, I’ve told you. I’m not going to bring a guy in front of you guys,” he exclaims, then reigns in his voice. His heart is beating like a jackhammer boring straight through. “Hey, listen, I have a pretty early day tomorrow, I’ll talk to you next week, okay?”

 “Sid, wait—”

 He hangs up and puts his phone face down on the nightstand. It’s not his proudest moment.

 -

 I’m sorry(((, the text reads. The timestamp indicates that the message had been sent at 2 AM. You should go on a date with secret guy. Maybe he’s secret Ryan Reynolds.

 Geno’s texts are never longer than five words, usually cryptic versions of a yes or no, accompanied by eyeless smilies. Sidney wonders if he’d been painstakingly worrying over each word since Sidney hastily ended the conversation.

 I don’t think he’s Ryan Reynolds, Sidney sends back. Besides, no one in this town knows hockey. That’s gonna be a problem.

 Geno’s reply is instantaneous, as if he’d been waiting.

 Picky)))))

More messages follow in quick succession, before Sidney can even start typing. 

But always best for u. Deserve the best only.

 He laces up his shoes and heads to Dee’s.

 -

 It snows a little mid-December.

 He helps Deidre with the decorations, hanging up tinsel and little snowflake cutouts on the window. She has a box of Christmas lights stored away in a dusty box from the attic, which definitely looks like they haven’t been disturbed since the 80s, but the one of the bulbs dies with a sad fizz the moment Sidney plugs it in. So they have to make do with the other nonflammable options.

 The store looks nice. ‘Well-loved’ is a better word for it, with its mismatched decorations and ancient garlands. He snaps a photo of the mini tree on the counter for Instagram before he goes to help Deidre frost the rest of the ornament-shaped sugar cookies.

 There’s commotion on the streets from all the tourists and families coming back for the holidays. He thinks about flying to Nova Scotia for the holidays, but then he realizes that none of Deidre’s children will be coming to Cardwell Point.

 “They’re busy,” she shrugs indifferently, but she turns her back to Sidney as she busies herself with rearranging the shelfs. “It’s alright. That’s what Skype is for, right? Besides, I have to watch the store.”

 He thinks about Geno, who’s probably headed to Florida soon to escape the onslaught of winter chill that he absolutely abhors, no matter how much he loves the city. He could Skype Geno, or Facetime him. Except Geno would always have the angle wrong, and Sidney’s sure he’d just get an on-brand mugshot of Geno’s nostril from the bottom up for the whole conversation. 

He did ask Sidney if he wanted to go to Florida, except the way he had asked had felt like a given tagged with a question mark at the end (Florida w me this year?). Nonetheless, Sidney had been tempted.

 But he also wonders if he’d feel even more homesick when Geno is physically standing in front of him again, all tall and loud and too big, too much, too many years of his unrequited love staring at him and making Sidney think that he has a chance. He doesn’t want to go to Florida to watch Geno pick up strangers at a club.

 “I’m not going anywhere, either,” he tells her.

 She looks over, finally, pursing her lips like she’s trying to hold back her smile.

 @DeesBakeryandCafe

Season’s greetings and a happy New Year to our wonderful customers and families here in Cardwell Point. Hope everyone is spending time with their loved ones this holiday season.

-

 Winter refuses to go. The clouds hang over the streets stubbornly, and each days trudges on like it’s dragging its feet.

 He misses skating.

 He misses Geno. Especially as it gets closer to February and teenagers and adults alike start coming to the shop in twos, their gloved hands clasped together as they squeeze through Dee’s tiny corridor when it’s really much easier to be in a single-file line.

 He’s not jealous. He is not.

 But he is lonely. And really fucking cold.

 He serves up at least thirty slices of The Jack, which is apparently the most popular item these days thanks to Instagram. Deidre switches up the decoration, so the cherry-glazed design in the middle forms a big, gaudy heart. The Internet completely eats up. Sidney doesn’t understand it.

 “It’s like a Titanic reference, right?” a customer asks, as he picks up the cake for his wife. “Like, an ‘I’ll never let you go,’ kind of thing. Jack and Rose?”

 “Sure,” Sidney says. It’s really for his first childhood crush, but he can work with the Titanic.

 The moment Deidre fills her last custom order of The Jack (and there had been plenty of those, for anniversaries to birthdays to just becauses), she tells Sidney that she’s figured out how to make her mother’s cheesecake.

 “Finally worked out how to stop the goddamn filling from clotting,” she says, cutting him a slice. The cake has a brownie bottom, and the inside is perfectly creamy and smooth and dotted with dark chocolate chips. “What do you think?”

 “I’m biased,” Sidney says, trying to not scarf down the whole thing like an animal. “I love cheesecakes. This one is my favorite so far.”

 “Good,” she tells him. “You can name this one, then.”

 His fork stops mid-air. “Weren’t you going to call it ‘The Lily’?”

 She pats his arm affectionately, not unlike the day she did when Sidney told her why he ended up at Cardwell Point. “I figured she wouldn’t mind. This can be our second February special. God, I’m sick of The Jack.”

 The next week, Sidney carefully slides The Geno in its display cabinet.

 (Deidre doesn’t ask about the peculiar name. She never does, and Sidney is grateful.)

 After over a decade in the NHL, he’s well aware of what he can and can’t have. But lately he’s been feeling selfish. He snaps a photo of the cheesecake and sends it to Deidre.

It’s a good photo.

-

 “I got invited to a neighborhood potluck yesterday,” Sidney mumbles into the receiver, when Flower asks him how retirement is treating him. “I don’t know what to bring. Maybe I’ll bring something from the bakery.”

 “Do you officially work at the bakery or are you just there because the owner is blackmailing you? Does she know who you are?”

 “I just help out when I can. And no, I told you, it’s not a hockey town. They do have competitive knitting here. It’s a thing.” Sidney doesn’t have much to do these days, aside from working out and catching up on reading, which means that he does end up doing most of the latter in the café. Maybe he should take up competitive knitting. “I started an Instagram for her shop. We just hit 200 followers.”

 “You know how to do that?” Flower asks, because he’s a little shit. “I’m kidding, I know you’re not actually a senior citizen.”

 Sidney rolls his eyes. “I haven’t checked it in a while though. I let Deidre handle the posting now. It’s her shop, anyways.”

 “What’s the handle?”

 He tells him. Flower is quiet for a bit as he searches through the page. “Pretty cool, eh?”

 “Yeah,” Flower says, his voice slightly off. “Yeah, it’s—it’s good. Looks like the real deal.”

 “What’s that supposed to mean? Of course it’s the real deal.”

 Flower makes a noncommittal noise. “Nothing. Cheesecake looks good. Does Geno know?”

 “No,” Sidney says. “I mentioned the bakery once or twice. He didn’t ask. Not, uh—not after I told him about Jeremy.”

 “Secret napkin man?” Flower remembers. “You didn’t go on that date?”

 “No, I didn’t go on a date with ‘secret napkin man,’” he mimics. “I don’t think he’d care.”

 “I think he’d care.” Flower always sounds so sure when he wants to be serious, and it’s one of the things Sidney missed most when he left for Vegas—there’d been a metaphorical hollow within the team for a good few months following his departure, and that void never quite got replaced no matter what.  

 “Maybe.”

 Sidney can only hope. But he’s a little too old for hoping these days.

 -

 Foot traffic is slower when they hit March, but Deidre promises that it’ll pick up when Cardwell Point’s 11th Annual Theater Festival starts in the middle of the month, because that’s apparently the other big thing aside from the 4th of July Carnival Bash. Sidney has just packed up another dozen of red velvet cupcakes for Samantha the PTA Queen when the front bell jingles.

 “Hello? I’m look for—”

 Sidney heart leaps to his throat.

 “Sid,” Geno says softly. He looks like the wind knocked him in (it probably had), mismatched Frakenshirts and all. “Hi, Sid.”

 Samantha may as well not have even walked into the store at all.

 “How are—“ He must be imagining things. But Geno takes another step, until he’s right in front of the counter and Sidney can reach out and touch just how real he is. He hasn’t changed much--still the same eyes, the same nose and lips, and maybe his hair is a bit thinner but he still makes Sidney’s chest feel too small and too big all at once. “Where did you—how are you here?”

 “Fly,” Geno says sheepishly. “Wanted to see you.”

 “What about—”

 “No games until Friday.” He’s staring at Sidney like he’s looking his fill and he can’t get enough. “I—I see your post, and I just—buy ticket.”

 “What post?”

 Geno pulls out his phone and flips through it until he lands at a familiar Instagram account. He passes it over to Sidney, his hands warm as it brushes against Sidney’s fingers.

 @DeesBakeryCafe

‘I love you’ tastes a lot like our chocolate chip cheesecake, The Geno.

 “Oh,” Sidney breathes. “Oh.”

#retirement fic #sidgeno #okay!!! getting closer to the final part #probably wont be any posting during the weekday because need to do Real Job things #but hope you guys enjoy #wish i knew graphic so i can like...make a graphic header

[weirdlizard26]

For the ask meme? All of them.

jay,,,

give me a sec to edit this post ok

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

wine glasses are like reading glasses except you wear them while drinking wine

i’d say water bottles but only the ones that can handle heat and stuff and not poison your drink with plastic or whatever

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

i havent had a lollipop in a good while so thats my choice

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

havent tried either but boy i’d love to try just a little bit of cotton candy at leastonce

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

bro,,,,,, that was like 10 years ago, how am i supposed to remember that,,,,,,,

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

i usually drink soda from plastic cups but honestly? nothing beats the experience of sipping that sweet sweet ambrosia from the bottle,,, but also i’d love to try soda in a can some day!

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

idk what half of these would look like but sportswear always wins in my book

7. earbuds or headphones?

ok i actually googled whats the difference and im more of an earbuds person! theyrejust safer i think and it makes me kinda anxious when im home listening tomusic and cant hear anything going on around me

8. movies or tv shows?

tv shows! well, unless the episodes are like 40 minutes or a full hour because its hard to focus for that long kfjsndkfs

9. favorite smell in the summer?

pavement after rain and also. grass.

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

haha thats a funny joke you made there *starts crying*

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

just a couple of meat+cheese+mayo sandwiches! if its summer mom cuts tomatoes or cucumbers for us and as they start getting more and more expensive we replace them with pickles!

12. name of your favorite playlist?

sorry i couldnt choose!

13. lanyard or key ring?

key ring!

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

aaaa i love fruit flavored ones!

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

aaaaaaaa i dont remember if it was elementary or middle school but we were assigned this really cool ukrainian book that ive actually read before they assigned it. well, nobody here will recognize it but it was Тореадори з Васюківки by Всеволод Нестайко and it was about 2 boys who were best friends growing up in the countryside and they went on adventures and had fun and their friendship made me so happy,,, i guess i was all for cool friendship portrayal even back then! it was mostly laughs and jokes but some moments were actually serious and hit me really hard and i remember them to this day actually

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

its a myth, sitting was created as a personal attack on me

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

my trusty old sneakers!! theyre all black and the sole is very soft and nice

18. ideal weather?

when the sun is out and its just warm enough to show off your new graphic tee and also very soft and nice

19. sleeping position?

i just lie on my left side like a fool

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

notebook!

21. obsession from childhood?

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!!! AND DANNY PHANTOM!!!! i even made a ghost fighting costume once,,,, tho it wasnt much of a costume, it was just fingerless gloves i cut out of paper. they were extremely uncomfortable. but very effective in fighting ghosts!

22. role model?

kfjsdnfk i have a bunch! might sound weird but one of them is bdg i think??? and the other 2 are some online acquaintances whom im too afraid to interact with more often than i do

23. strange habits?

repeating silly lines i hear on tv / in anime/cartoons? and also i never touch food with my right hand unless its plums?? and there are more but. you know. bad memory.

24. favorite crystal?

all of them!!!!!

25. first song you remember hearing?

my grandma used to sing this to me over the phone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPnqqPXQsw

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

go for a walk!

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

slep

28. five songs to describe you?

we are the people by empire of the sun

home by cavetown

strawberry blonde by mitski

smile like you mean it by the killers

afterlife by arcade fire

29. best way to bond with you?

wash your hands very thoroughly and make jokes

30. places that you find sacred?

i see nature i go crazy from how much respect i have for it

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass andtake names?

*wearing hinata cosplay* im here to play volleyball and kick your ass and as you can see ive already played today’s match

32. top five favorite vines?

road work ahead

a avocado!! thanks!!!!!

REBECCA THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK

i fell can you help me :(

that vine where ukulele sounds like human voices and people sounds like ukuleles

33. most used phrase in your phone?

idk how to check that??? sowwy

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

the stomach meds ad they keep showing on tv

35. average time you fall asleep?

3am? 4am? idk for sure

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

t-trollface…

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

havent used either (cause ive never traveled anywhere too far away) but the latter looks pretty and i feel like it would fit more stuff

38. lemonade or tea?

depends on my mood!

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

dont kick me but im not sure if ive ever tried either ;w;

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

the school’s cat who hates most people actually kinda warmed up to me even tho im terrible with animals

41. last person you texted?

jay uwu

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

afabs cant have both huh

but i want both. please give me both.

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

all of these sound nice but my lazy ass will always go for hoodies

44. favorite scent for soap?

aaaaaaaa im allergic to a lot of soaps but i like flower scented ones

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

i love all of them dearly but lately ive been more into superheroes i think. im not sure really sure what exactly i feel

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

something really really long

47. favorite type of cheese?

there are different types????

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

i hope im a pear

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

become a good person. thats all.

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

i dont remember what it was but i remember i was with my friends and we couldnt stop laughing for several minutes and ive never felt happier

51. current stresses?

UNIVERSITY FUCK OFF!!!

52. favorite font?

i like comic sans

53. what is the current state of your hands?

they arent doing so hot tbh, my dermatitis is back again

54. what did you learn from your first job?

i dont have one!

55. favorite fairy tale?

gonna be honest chief, i dont remember too many of them ;w;

56. favorite tradition?

on new year’s we turn the lights off, light up a candle in the kitchen, laugh at president’s speech and only then starts eating

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

getting over a lost friendship, passing high school finals and uni entrance exams and coming out to my best friend

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

singing!! being able to learn how to do most things pretty quickly!!! and i cant think of anything else but honestly these two are quite enough for me

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

uh oh! guess what! i dont have a catchphrase and im very self-conscious about it!

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

im torn between sports anime and slice of life

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

because humans dont have wings we look for other ways to fly

from haikyuu

obviously

62. seven characters you relate to?

tsukishima kei from haikyuu

mae borowski from nitw

apollo justice from ace attorney

flame princess from adventure time

donatello from tmnt

sokka from atla

kageyama shigeo from mob psycho 100

63. five songs that would play in your club?

mr brightside, bohemian rhapsody, smile like you mean it by the killers and allof haikyuu ops and eds

64. favorite website from your childhood?

if social media counts, vkontakte i guess?? i didnt really go anywhere else and it still exists and i thriving so im not sure if it should count fkjsndkjf

65. any permanent scars?

yeah, the one from my very first vaccination from when i was a few months old i think and also some traces of when i had chickenpox

66. favorite flower(s)?

idk a lot of flower names but i really like tulips

67. good luck charms?

dont have any at the moment but i’d love to get one!

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

whatever fish mom used to buy when we were kids >:(

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

bro my memory isnt good enough to remember those,,

70. left or right handed?

im a righty but i had to become a lefty for like a month when i broke my pinkie

71. least favorite pattern?

i like traditional ukrainian ornaments

72. worst subject?

history :P

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

ice cream + fries

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

idk how pain levels work but i try not to take meds unless the pain is interfering with studying

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

idk but i had a box full of my teeth for so long they turned to dust and i had to throw it away

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

RHNGRHGNRHGRNH EVERYTHING except for freshly made mashed potatoes

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

if its green it can stay

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

have never had either of those and i hope i never will cause they sound gross!

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

i dont have a license, so.

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

kfjsndfks depends on the mood tbh!

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

fireflies!

82. pc or console?

i WISH i had a console but this is too broke for that,, i played a couple of times tho and it feels more fun than pc!

83. writing or drawing?

please dont make me choose, ive abandoned both and its making me feel bad

84. podcasts or talk radio?

podcasts :O

84. barbie or polly pocket?

idk what polly pocket is but barbie rules!!!

85. fairy tales or mythology?

i feel like sometimes fairy tales are kinda like watered down myths so i have a right to say i like both

86. cookies or cupcakes?

my heart goes to cookies

87. your greatest fear?

finding out im faking any part of my identity

88. your greatest wish?

get through whatever’s going on right now

89. who would you put before everyone else?

mom

90. luckiest mistake?

when i recorded an undertale medley and got a few notes wrong but it actually ended up sounding better than originally

91. boxes or bags?

boxes!

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

fairy lights……

93. nicknames?

never really had many? my bff calls me mr smith sometimes but thats all i can think of fkjsdnfs but also! steve used to be my nickname before i decided my life my own and i get to choose my name

94. favorite season?

spring ;w;

95. favorite app on your phone?

sudoku

 96. desktop background?

 97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

my own and my mom’s

 98. favorite historical era?

eh im not very fond of the past because not every time period had soap

#wl26 #wl26 answers #flamingerrs #jay just so you know i love you a whole lot #i really did that huh #long post

[shootwinterfest]

Happy Hunting

Shoot Secret Santa Gift by @lizburnz!

The navigation system chimes, “You have reached your destination,” and Shaw mashes on the brakes, simultaneously as she cuts the wheel.

The car screeches to a halt, slanted in a parallel spot, ridden halfway up the curb in front of some apartment buildings and a few startled pedestrians. She slams the gear into park and bolts before the tire smoke even has a chance to settle. Anything else vehicular related is irrelevant now, as she leaves the door hanging wide open and the engine still running. 

Root needs her- needs her help. With what? Specifically, Shaw doesn't know, but the short text with more exclamation points than words seemed pretty damn urgent. And since Root's phone has been going straight to voice mail ever since, she believes the threat to be serious, something that requires a second gun and Shaw's most preferred method of intervention. Shooting. 

But the neighborhood is quiet. Well, not that it shouldn't be, this early on a Saturday morning, but when Root's involved in anything there's usually some degree of chaos. Oddly, nothing seems to be out of place. No smoke means no fire, no screaming means no gunshots have recently gone off. The only person running like their life depended on it, is Shaw, who's starting to wonder if she's even at the right place. 

But it is the right place. 314 Avenue C. And Shaw knows this because it says so. Right there on the door. Behind Root. 

The woman who cried wolf lounges casually at the foot of the stoop, without a scratch on her head or a single care in the world. And though Shaw is somewhat relieved by the sight of neither dead nor dying Root, it doesn't make her any less perturbed, being pulled out of bed at the brink of dawn because someone can't quite grasp what constitutes an emergency. 

Shaw drags her feet the rest of the way, shoving her hands deep into her coat pockets so Root can't see how tightly they're balled into fists. She doesn't want to do anything she might regret, like punch a certain grin off a certain someone's face. Not until she has a valid reason at least. 

“Good morning,” Root sing songs in her usual pleasant way. 

“What is it this time?” Shaw asks, bypassing formalities completely. The faster she gets to the point, the faster she can turn down whatever it is and go home. 

“Let's see...” Root glances to the imaginary watch on her wrist. “Fifty-eight city blocks in less than twelve minutes. Wow, Shaw! I think you broke your old record.”

Shaw's eyes flutter into the back of her head. “Why am I here, Root?”

“Isn't that the age old question?” Root ambles to her feet with a large cup of coffee in hand. “Whole milk. No sugar. Just the way you like it,” she says, extending it towards a wary Shaw. 

Whether it's a hot cup-o-bribery or a peace offering, Shaw isn't sure, but she takes it anyway. “You know, this doesn't even begin to make up for-”

“Do you like hunting?” Root asks peculiarly and out of nowhere. 

Shaw just blinks. There isn't enough caffeine in this coffee, or in the entire city of New York, to help prepare her for the roller coaster that is Root's cryptics. 

The first thing that comes to mind is fugitive tracking of course, a literal man hunt. Now that, Shaw could get on on board with. But knowing Root, it's probably nothing so obvious and easy. It's two very different things, what Shaw thinks and what Root actually means. 

“It depends,” Shaw says, reluctant to commit without details first. She's learned the hard way too many times before. “What the target is... if I can shoot them... but mostly, my mood.”

“And...” Root leans in on the tips of her toes, “What kind of mood do you currently find yourself in this lovely day?”

“The pistol whipping kind of mood if you don't cut the crap and tell me what you want.”

Root pouts half-heartedly, slipping a piece of paper from her coat pocket, to which Shaw snatches and unfolds. Written on it, in barely legible hacker scrawl, is a list of addresses that still do everything but answer Shaw's question. 

“They're apartments,” Root clarifies. “I need your help finding one.”

A map could do a better job. Hell, Root's practically got a GPS system and then some squawking in her ear. But maybe it's more than that, Shaw thinks. Maybe there's a bomb planted in one, or a missing person tied to a radiator. Looking closer at the list, she finds a four digit number beside each address. Next to that, some kind of code... 2/1 1700SF W/D... 

But it isn't until Shaw reads the part about “no pets” that she shoves the paper back at Root. 

“This is why you 911'd me? To help you house hunt!” Shaw says, gaping in amazement. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

Root throws her an obvious look. 

“I thought you were...” Hurt. Dying. Both. The potential of either could light a fire of apocalyptic proportions under Shaw's ass, and Root seems to relish the fact. “Do you know how many traffic laws I just broke?”

Root shrugs. “All of them, I imagine.”

Shaw deadpans her for a moment, mystified as she internally debates whether or not she should spoil her knuckles today with an all you can beat buffet of Root's face. Shaw nearly mowed down a group of tourists crossing the street, sideswiped about a dozen parked cars, ran every single red light while doing quadruple the speed limit. For christsake, she car jacked someone at gunpoint. And for what? For the exciting, once in a lifetime mission of finding analogue-interfull-of-shit a place to live?

“Happy hunting,” Shaw eventually says and turns heel in the opposite direction. And of course it isn't the last word. Root follows on her heals and whines in her wake, with things like please and wait and a few pet names she isn't allowed to call Shaw in public. 

“You're bored, I get it,” Shaw tells her in stride. “The Machine gave you the day off, so instead of annoying relevant numbers, you've decided to annoy me instead. I get it.”

“No, that isn't-” Root groans in frustration. “Will you please just hear me out?” and she hooks an arm around Shaw's to stop her. “I called you because, one, I value your opinion. And two, I thought you'd like to be a part of a mutually beneficial decision.”

“How in the world does this benefit me?”

“Think of it like this. The sooner I get a key to my own place, the sooner you can have yours back,” Root says and places an encouraging hand on Shaw's shoulder, which is batted off not a second later when the information is really processed.

“You have a key to my apartment?”

“I made copies.”

“Wait. Copies, plural?” As in more than one? “Seriously, Root. What the fuck.”

“Look, we can stand here, arguing semantics for the next 45 seconds until your stolen vehicle is swarmed by cops, plural, or...” Root jingles a set of car keys like a carrot on a stick. “I'll even let you drive,” she adds, and Shaw doesn't have much time to mull it over, not with all the sirens wailing in the distance. 

“Fine,” Shaw finally agrees, though it was a tough decision to make. The back seat of a squad car or Root's- where is her car? 

She presses the clicker and follows the faint little beep across the street, to where the vintage muscle car sits. Not just any muscle car though, a cherry red, 1967 Mustang twin turbo V8 in pristine condition. And Shaw knows this, because it looks just like the car Harold has, locked in his garage. The one he brags about all the time, having spent years restoring it to near mint. The one he never drives or lets anyone else drive, for the matter. 

“How'd you get Finch to lend you his car?” Shaw asks, quickly realizing how dumb her question sounds aloud. Especially to Root, who just throws her head back and laughs. 

…

The first stop of the list is on the upper east side, to a twenty something story apartment building fitted with a starch press suited doorman and a security guard station, which Shaw deems is more for appearances sake. Armed with walkies, flashlights, and pens for the sign in sheet, they let Root and Shaw breeze right by with their fake ID's and concealed weapons.

It's no surprise when Root hits the “P” for penthouse button in the elevator. She's not exactly the humble type, or one to underplay any sort of small endeavor.

A well dressed blonde woman greets them right off the elevator, shining a permanent smile of all veneer that never lets up even while she speaks. Root gingerly accepts the pamphlet offered, glossing over it as she absently wanders about the main living area, which is two times bigger than Shaw's entire apartment. And white. All white. The carpets, the walls, even the staging furniture. Lord forbid anyone so much as whisper the words red wine or tomato sauce, or in Root's predictable case, blood. 

“Seems nice,” Root says while Shaw shuffles alongside like a bored child. 

“Then buy it.” The sooner Root signs the deal, the sooner she can get back to her regularly scheduled program of having absolutely nothing to do on her day off. 

“The master bath apparently has a built in sauna...” Root gives her a little nudge, “Guess how many settings the smart shower has?”

“Enough to replace me.”

“Not likely,” but then Root lowers the pamphlet in introspect. “Unless I could program it to be mean to me...”

“Ha. Ha.”

“I'm gonna have a look around.”

“And I...” Shaw scans the room, searching for the oasis in this desert of white hell, “...will see you later,” and she branches off towards the refreshment table.

It's probably the best thing about an open house. Well, if you're Shaw and you have no intent on buying anything. The free food. And not just tired old finger sandwiches either. The last time Shaw's seen a spread like this, she was undercover at a political fundraiser for what's his name running for office of who cares. 

Shaw sips a bellini from a flute as she grazes the table, helping herself to a little of this and that. At some point she does make threatening eye contact with the foolish person who tried reaching for the last salmon wrap, but all is pleasant and well for the most part. She get's to explore her pallet, Root gets to explore the apartment. A win-win so far in her book. 

“God! You wont believe the offer that tacky-khaki couple just proposed.”

Inconspicuously, Shaw glances a little ways to her right. The fake toothed woman who greeted them earlier stands with another, conversing in whispers and hushed voices. Well they'd like to believe no one else can hear them.

“An open house... what was Harriet thinking? Letting anyone waltz in off the street?”

“We'll have to fumigate when this is over.”

“Would you look at all the riff-raff?”

Shaw follows the acrylic red finger nail as it not so discretely flicks across the room. Of all the people scattered about the living area, she decides to pick out Root. 

“What do you think her net worth is?”

“If that ugly leather jacket's anything to go by. I saw holes in it.”

“And the hair...

“I like her boots though...”

“So did I- five seasons ago!”

Their annoying laughter eventually fades into the violin music, but Shaw's temper continues on it's high note. In her head, she's already plotted half the steps towards their accidental deaths, because no one – no one – is allowed to talk crap about Root. Except for Shaw, that is. 

And under any other circumstance, she'd just go over there and confront the two women with a lesson in manners. Incidentally, fists are a great learning tool for most people. 

Oh, but where would that get her? Wanted by the police, probably, if that little car jacking stunt didn't already land a warrant for her arrest. But it would be fun, well fun for Shaw, to give those rent-a-cops downstairs a run for their money. 

No, she eventually decides. There are more subtle ways to exact revenge. 

She sidles over to the group of young hipsters first, who have gathered by the fire place pretending to admire the brickwork. 

“Did one heck of a clean up on this place, huh?” she says, cutting into their conversation at just the right moment. 

They turn to her with mixed expressions. “What do you mean?” one of them asks. 

Shaw leans in. “Oh, you don't know?” she says in a hushed voice, so secretive and curious, it demands the group's undivided attention. All but one.

The guy with thick rimmed glasses just scoffs at her. “What? Did some dude die here or something?”

“More like dudes. Plural,” Shaw replies and glasses guy stops laughing. “A few months back, this tech company was having their big launch party here. Well, during the party, one of the partners totally loses it and I mean loses it. I heard, it was because the other partners were trying to cut him out... guess he thought he'd beat them to it.” and she unfolds the rest of the scene, in graphic detail with complementary stabbing gestures. To the point, a few of them turn a sickly shade of pale. 

But glasses guy, the apparent leader of the pack, needs more convincing. 

“Come on! How do you not remember this?” Shaw says, and name drops a famous New York magazine that all the people like them claim to read but never do. 

And suddenly, him and the rest of the group are singing a different tune, nodding their heads and collectively muttering things like: Oh yes, I remember that article and Such a tragedy and It's too bad, I heard they were really up and coming... 

“Yeah.” Shaw gazes solemnly at the fireplace. “That's where they found the head... threw it like it was a bowling ball.”

Like before, they stare at the fireplace. Albeit, in utter silence and for new and morbid reasons now, but Shaw takes it as her cue to move on. 

And move on she does, to the pleasant older couple standing by themselves in the kitchen, which is also bigger than Shaw's apartment as well. They look a bit out of place. Suburban, perhaps midwestern. Shaw isn't sure just yet, but they definitely aren't like the rest of the people who live here. 

“Excuse me,” Shaw says, all smile and cheer. “I couldn't help but notice, you two aren't from around here, are you?”

“Oh, heavens no!” The woman replies. Her accent is unmistakably southern and thick as molasses. “We're visiting our daughter. She just graduated from NYU!”

“Edna, you don't gotta tell everyone we meet,” the husband grumbles. “Hell, half of New York City knows by now.”

“No, it's fine,” Shaw politely reassures them. “You two must be very proud. Are you looking to move here as well, or?”

The woman side eyes the man. “Well, I would like to... It'd be nice to live closer to our little girl. Not  to mention the broadway... But Richard here's an old stick in the mud.” she leans in to whisper only to Shaw, “He doesn't take to change very well.” The man grumbles again. 

“I totally understand. When I first moved here, it took me a while to get acclimated. I mean, the first time I was mugged-”

“You were mugged?” The woman clasps her chest. “Oh, you poor thing!”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugs, “You get used to it. After a dozen times or so it's just like muscle memory. Wallet, phone, jewelry, please don't kill me.” Shaw acts it out like a routine. The grand finale, pulling the bottom of her shirt. “I was stabbed a block away from here, wanna see the scar?”

Their southern manners come to a full stop and they leave without so much as a goodbye or a bless your heart. Filled with a sense of crudely gained accomplishment, Shaw blows the smoke from the imaginary barrel of her imaginary gun and sets her sights on other targets. 

One by one, they're taken out. She tells the uptight newly weds the apartment had been used as a movie set for prestigious films such as Gang-Bangs of New York, and One Fuck Over the Cuckhold's Nest, and Forrest Hump. 

The leader of the co-op board has a portrait of Hitler hanging in his foyer. The neighbor downstairs is prone to clanging pots and pans at odd hours of the night because the voices tell her to. The walls are coated with so much lead paint, the apartment could double as a fallout shelter from radiation. And the whole building is haunted by failed venture capitalists, Shaw said to another person, and when his back was turned, she flickered the light switches. 

And alright, that last one was mediocre at best, she admits. But in her defense, the one too many bellinis were starting to kick in a that point and she was running out of material. Thankfully, Root had come full circle by then, finished with her browsing. 

“What do you think?”

“I heard the foundation's crumbling-” Shaw covers her mouth, pushing back the bubbly. “Whole place is gonna level in like a year.”

Root flashes her a look of disbelief, “That's absurd,” and returns to the brochure in hand. “I think it's pretty nice,” she says, and goes on and on about all the nice features and the nice amenities and the nice view.

“You!” 

They look up and see the teethy realtor clomping her heels in their direction. “Aw, shit,” Shaw whispers when the woman turns her pointed red nail to her this time.

“Just where the hell do you get off! I lost potential buyers because of you!”

Shaw blinks, unfazed by this woman practically yelling in her face. However, Root's rather confused, bordering the edge of worried. 

“What is she talking about?” Root asks, one of her hands sliding to the taser tucked in the back of her pants. Hovering, like she's unsure whether or not it's going to be necessary in the next ten seconds.  

“I don't know,” Shaw replies with an innocent shrug at first, until she completely abandons the concept of an inside voice. “Must be all the asbestos in the air!” she shouts and the rest of the room, the few people she hadn't managed to scare off, they all clam up and turn bug eyed in their direction. 

For a moment, the realtor panics and her fake smile returns to settle the crowd. “You need to leave!” she says through gritted teeth. “Both of you need to leave, immediately!”

“Way ahead of ya, sister.” Shaw says and calls out over her shoulder, “Wouldn't want to get a stupid thing like lung cancer or anything!” At this point, Root looks like she's going to taser Shaw instead. 

“Let's go, Sameen,” she says, perturbed and not in a mild way, judging from grip she has on Shaw's elbow. 

And still... “Really, you think they'd shell out a few extra bucks to remove hazardous materials from the walls!” Shaw manages one last time before she's shoved into the elevator.

Root jabs the lobby button and the doors close. She turns to Shaw with a myriad of emotions, some embarrassment, a little confusion, but mostly anger in her eyes. Shaw can feel them boring into the side of her face.

“What?” Shaw eventually shrugs. “Something you wanna say, Root?”

Root crosses her arms, tightly over her chest. “Something you wanna say, Shaw?”

Shaw rolls her eyes to the top of the door, watching the floor numbers fall on the screen for moment before clearing her throat. “Your hair looks nice today.”

…

Miles later in Midtown...

Together, they loiter the sidewalk in front of the next apartment Root might potentially rent, if the realtor ever decides to make an appearance. They've been waiting over a half an hour now. 

“What's taking so long?” Shaw asks, again. 

“Traffic, probably.” Root shrugs. She doesn't seem to mind the waiting as much as Shaw does. Then again, she doesn't have anywhere else to be. And neither does Shaw, but that's besides the point. Tardiness is just unprofessional. 

“Call them.”

“I've already called five times,” Root tells her. “No one's picking up.”

“When?” Shaw asks. She hadn't seen Root touch her phone at all. 

Root just taps the shell of the cochlear implant hiding beneath her hair. Oh yes, how could have Shaw forgotten, the ethereal blue tooth connection to robot overlord. 

“I still don't understand why the Machine couldn't help you with this,” Shaw says to her. “Seems it'd be a heck of a lot easier. Beep boop beep... an apartment appears.”

Root smirks at her sideways, “You know that's not how it works.” 

“Why not? I mean, she can make up elaborate identities for you, reposition satellites in orbit for you-”

“She can also tell me how many times you've watched Eat, Pray, Love... this month.”

Shaw glares to the side of Root's face trying, and failing to keep the amusement all to herself. But she's distracted for a moment, there's a passerby who's taking too long to pass by Harold's car. “Keep moving! So her abilities fall just short of finding her favorite asset a place to live?”

“She wants me to be more...” Root chews the inside of her cheek, “Independent, was the word she used.”

For once, Shaw's in agreement with Root's girlfriend. 

“I'm pretty sure this is the exact opposite of what she meant,” Shaw teases. That is unless, the definition of independence changed over night and no one bothered to say anything. 

“She also thinks we don't spend enough quality time together,” Root quickly adds, casually with a flip of her hair. 

“Yeah, right,” Shaw scoffs at that. She'd like to know what the Machine would have to say about being  slandered and used as a pawn for Root's own projections. “We spend lots of time together. Too much if you ask me.”

“Numbers don't count.”

“You come over all the time,” Shaw argues. Root just lets herself right in, with all those keys she's made.

“Sex doesn't count either.”

“Then what- Hey buddy! You wanna lose that hand!” Shaw shouts at a particularly touchy admirer of Harold's car. “What does count?” she finally asks. Really, she wants to know, how she can possibly spread her time thinner than it already is. “Does this count?”

Root thinks about it for a moment. “I'm not sure yet. But I'll let you know.”

“Right.” Shaw shakes her head; Root can be impossible at times. The 'issue' can go on the back burner for now, Shaw decides. They've got to move forward with the day, which is no longer dependent on the no-show realtor. 

The front door of the building is locked, go figure, but that doesn't repel Shaw. There's an intercom system right beside it with dozens of names, each having their own call button. Shaw mashes all of them and waits. 

In no time does the speaker crackle with static and slews of voices, speaking all at once in a melody of Hello? Who is it? and What the fuck do you want?

“Time Warner Cable,” Shaw says into the box and almost immediately, a buzzer goes off and unlocks the door. Shaw opens it and turns to Root still waiting on the sidewalk. “You coming or what?”

Root leads her upstairs and down the short hallway. “This is the one,” she says, pointing to the lock for Shaw to pick, which she does so effortlessly.

The inside is just as bland as the outside. The walls are coated in a neutral beige color that matches the carpet in all the rooms. A single bedroom, an eat in kitchen, a reasonably sized living area with a few windows and an okay view of the coffee shop all these midtowners mill about. And that's pretty much it. Though, Shaw thinks that was Martha Stewart crossing the intersection. 

“I don't hate it,” Root sums up, having toured the entire place in less than a minute. 

“But you don't like it either.”

“Eh.” Root shrugs. “It's just hard to picture myself living here, without my things.”

An idea pops into Shaw's head. “Okay, how about...” she thinks aloud and surveys the area. “Your desk can be here, in the living room, since you don't watch TV anyways...” She moves to the kitchen next. “You can put a little cafe table here... coffee pot here... and hey look, extra cabinet space for things that aren't cooking related.”

“I know how to cook, Shaw.”

“Name one time you cooked anything,” Shaw asks, but immediately stops Root the second her mouth opens. “Let me rephrase. Cooked anything that wasn't eventually used as tear gas.”

“Okay, you've got me there,” Root concedes. “Please continue.”

Shaw leads her to the bedroom. “The bed can go here. Nightstand with the lava lamp right next to it. Dresser here. Bean bag- if you still want it, there. The closet's kinda small... you'll have to get rid of a few jackets, but-”

“Wait,” Root interrupts. “Go back to the part about the bed.”

Shaw back tracks a few steps. “The bed goes here and-”

“Right here?” Root asks, edging closer and closer. 

And Shaw's so distracted with her fake floor plan, she thinks nothing of it. She doesn't realize Root's been methodically backing her into the wall until her back actually hits the wall. 

“And, what do you imagine we'd be doing on this bed, Sameen?” Her voice drops an octave in Shaw's ear, tingling like those fingertips skirting the inside hem of her jeans. 

“I can think of a few things...” Shaw whispers, tracing the heat radiating from Root's lips inches away from her own. “On this bed, and then, that bureau over there.”

Root flashes a grin and presses it to Shaw's, briefly though. The kiss was only a ruse to take Shaw's lip between her teeth and tease some more before letting go. “I want you to know...” Root sighs as her hands circle around Shaw's wrists, “I'm really sorry about this.”

What that means? Shaw doesn't know. She barely had time to process anything Root said, because as soon as Root said it, she was spun around and pinned to wall with her arms locked behind her back. 

“Whatthafuck!”

“Just go with it sweetie,” Root tells her, and not a second later do they hear footsteps coming down the hall and a man's voice calling out shakily. “Hello? Is someone there?”

He double takes when he sees them, his face conveying a look of surprise and slight fear for his life. “What's going on here? Who are you?”

“Special Agent Augusta King,” Root announces. As swiftly as she got the jump on Shaw, her free hands whips out a black leather bound badge that says FBI. “We received an anonymous tip about a wanted criminal hiding out in the building.”

“Here? In this building?” the man stutters in shock.

“Are you the tipper, sir?” Root asks, meanwhile, zip tying Shaw's wrists together for the bonus effect. So tight, Shaw thinks she's actually in trouble with the federal government. 

“No, I live next door, I was just going-”

“So you heard suspicious activity from the vacant apartment right next to you and didn't think to report it?” Root says, catching him off guard. “Sir, are you aware that harboring a fugitive of the law is a felony offense?”

Shaw grumbles, “Like impersonating a-” 

Root silences her with a good shove.

“Woah, wait a minute,” the man backs away, hands up in defense. “I had no idea she was- I wouldn't harbor anything!”

“You'll be hearing from my offices.” Root begins escorting Shaw out into the hallway, pausing to glare at the man as she passes. “Don't leave town.”

By the time they exit the front door, Shaw is more than done with the whole charade. Immediately, she shirks out of Roots grip, fuming slightly as she strains for the folding knife in her back pocket. “I can't believe you- no wait, I can!” The zip tie snaps free after a bit of sawing.

“I'm not the one who left the door wide open.”

The few choice words bubbling in the back of Shaw's throat, simmer down. Root's right. She did leave the door open. Like some kind of fucking amateur. She rubs her sore wrists, bitter. “What are you still doing with that thing anyway?”

“I don't know.” Root jogs the badge in her hands. “It does come in handy though.”

Shaw shakes her head. From the corner of her eyes, she notices a suspicious group of hoodlums beginning to circle Harold's car like vultures on a carcass. 

“Gimme that!” Shaw snatches the goddamn badge out of Root's hands and flips it out with an, “FBI! Freeze!” The little bastards bolt in all directions, and Shaw hums to herself. “How come I never got one of these?” 

…

Later and lower on the east side...

Jerri, a fast talking woman from Queens who looks like Fusco's sister, hustles them up the stairs of a run down walk up. The bellinis Shaw guzzled earlier threaten to make a second appearance as they round the landing of floor number six. More so when she sidesteps a ragged baby doll lying in a questionable pool of something awful slicked on the floor. 

“Not much further,” the woman tells them. “Just a few more floors!”

“She said that- three floors ago!” Shaw huffs in tow.

“Try to keep up, Shaw,” Root says, jogging the steps with ease, at a steady rhythm that's utterly baffling. Considering Shaw's never seen her so physically active at something that didn't involve

“Coming...” Shaw grumbles and picks up the pace. She reaches the top floor well behind them, out of breath. “I gotta start working out again.”

Jerri pulls out a ring of keys bigger than a steering wheel and starts sifting through them. “It's gotta be one of these,” she says and tries a few but to no avail. “Doh!” she smacks her forehead. “Silly me, we went too high! It's two floors down!”

Shaw deadpans. “Are you fu-” Root jabs her with an elbow, “Funny! Aren't you just funny!” 

“Down we go!” Jerri cheers, waving at them to follow her once again. Shaw wouldn't follow this woman if she were the most relevant number of her career. But Root insists, so she has no choice but trudge back down the stairs. 

The door, the right one this time, it looks like it was breached with a battering ram and glued back together. It sticks as Jerri tries to push it open. Shaw wishes she hadn't been able to unjar it from the frame, when they finally step foot inside.

Cramped is an understatement. Claustrophobia is an increasing possibility for Shaw as they stand shoulder to shoulder in what the realtor calls a studio apartment. More like a closet. 

“Why don't I give you the grand tour!” Jerri says. 

Shaw turns her head left, then right, then back again. “I think I've just had it.”

“Oh, she's hysterical! Does she do stand up?”

“Only when she can't sit down.” Shaw wriggles free of the pair for more space, but doesn't get much. The square footage of this place barely pushes the three digit realm. 

The detail Jerri goes into as she tries to upsell this apartment gives Shaw the idea, she's either the most optimistic woman in the world or the biggest hustler in New York real estate. And if it's the latter, Root's the most patient mark, letting this con artist finish her entire spiel of blatant lies. 

“Look Root, I'm in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. At the same time.”

“I think what my friend is trying to say-”

“Her friend...” Shaw interrupts, until she realizes that Root didn't actually put the word girl in front of friend first. For once. “Never mind, carry on.”

“There just isn't a lot of space,” Root puts delicately. 

“Space? There's plenty of space!” Jerri fires back, jazzed and sorts. “What this place lacks in size, it makes for in compartmentalization!” and she goes on to show them, the hidden cabinets in the in the walls, the drawers underneath the diagonal slant in the staircase frame. “And!” she claps her hands together before grabbing the the lonely painting from the wide wall. Underneath is a latch like rope, which she pulls. “Tada!”

A bed flops out of the wall and Shaw stares at it, unblinkingly. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“May we have a moment please?” Root says, and Jerri the realtor goes into the kitchen, two feet away. 

Shaw whispers to Root. “This whole thing is one bad pullout joke. You can't actually be serious.”

“So what?” Root replies. “It's not like I'll be around to mind it so much.”

“Well, I mind it!” 

Root smiles as she bats her lashes. “Planning sleepovers already?”

“Not if I have to unhinge the bed every time I wanna-”

“Want to what, exactly?” Root teases, for a moment, until Shaw's dead serious face hits home. “Okay, okay.” She clears her throat for Jerri to end her fake phone call. “Do you have anything else available?”

“Preferably not coffin-sized,” Shaw adds. 

It's like a light bulb flickers over Jerri's head. She frantically searches through the mess of sordid papers in her haphazardly thrown together briefcase until she finds the one. The holy grail of documents, she holds it up. “Yes!” she exclaims at first, then presses it to her chest, distraught. “No, I don't! Technically, the application's still pending and I can't show you.”

“Come on, Jerri,” Root says, putting on half her charm. “We just wanna look. Where's the harm in that?”

She gives it some thought. Not much. “Oh, what the heck? You've convinced me. It's only three floors down, come on, I'll show you.”

“Let's hope she's got the right building at least,” Shaw says and Jerri bursts in laughter. 

“Honey, if your job doesn't involve a stage and microphone, you gotta change careers because you are-”

“Hysterical?” 

…

The other apartment is nothing like the previous. It's as if they've slipped into an alternate universe on the stairwell, because there's no possible way this is the same building. Root's in awe the moment she walks in, her eyes lighting up in a way Shaw's never seen before, well, when it comes to this sort of thing. 

Crown molding lines the walls, coated in a scheme of rich blues soft whites. The long paneled windows that stretch from the living room all the way to the kitchen fill the spacious interior with honest light. And the view, Shaw's never considered Midtown to be a scenic place. Then again, she wasn't looking through this window. 

“You've been holding out on us, Jerri,” Shaw tells her. For the first time today, she approves.  

“About that other application,” Root says, “What if you accidentally misplaced it?”

“Say no more, sweetheart.” Jerri bats a hand. “My family's from Sicily. I know all about that sort of thing. We'll go to my office, lose some paperwork, sign some paperwork, have ya in here in no time,” she says, and starts ushering them towards the door. Quickly, adamantly. Suspiciously. 

“Wait,” Shaw says. There's something missing, something she's not telling them. “What's the catch?”

“Catch? What catch? You two look like a nice couple, I wanna cut you a break, that's the catch.”

“We're not-” Shaw rubs the bridge of her nose. “Look, no offense, but this is all too good to be true.” There's got to be something wrong with it, Shaw can feel it in her bones. Shit plumbing, rats in the walls, a weird smell that only comes around during certain times of the day. Something. 

“Listen, I got pristine records going back thirty years on this place. You can take a look for yourselves, but we gotta go down to my office fir-”

“Shh!” Shaw holds a finger up, silencing the room. “Did you hear that?” Her ears keen to the faint, muffled noises. “It's coming from the living room.”

“Yeah, you know what,” Jerri hastily explains in Shaw's wake. “I know what that is. The neighbors are redoing their kitchen. On a Saturday, can you believe it?”

Shaw ignores her and presses her ear to the wall, listening for the noise that seems to have gone away now.

“See? What'd I tell ya? Now if you don't mind, I-”

There's a loud crash suddenly. Something had smacked against the other side of the wall with such force, it rattled the hanging lights and shook the floor. 

Shaw slowly backs away as more, lesser thumps follow. Steadily, like a beat from a drum. And not seconds later, the moaning starts. Unmistakably from a man and oddly, a very strict sounding woman who seems rather disappointed in him.

“And...” Shaw turns to Root with her I told you so face. “there's the catch.”

“Rent controlled nymphos...” Jerri hisses and then smacks the wall, “Hey! Some of us are trying to work over here! Not that you care! Can't go one minute without screwing each other's brains out! Literally!”

“Are they?” Curiosity in her eyes, Root steps closer to have a listen for herself, and it's completely unnecessary. With walls so thin and neighbors so loud, she could stand in any room and still hear all the graphic details of their sexcapades. So it's really a bit extra of Root to flatten the whole side of her face against the wall like that. “Oh, Jerri, you have been holding out on us.”

Shaw rolls her eyes, “Come on, we're leaving,” and takes Root by the arm.

“No, Shaw wait! It's getting better!” Root protests as she's literally dragged to the door. “Shaw, I heard a paddle!”

….

The end in East Village.

“I don't think I've ever heard the word charming used to describe so many not charming things in my life,” Shaw says. She fiddles with the butter knife at the table while she waits for her order. They decided- well, Shaw insisted they stop for a late lunch, and the Russian owned deli on 7th was the closest eatery that wasn't a letter grade away from being quarantined. “How is a giant water stain on the ceiling charming?”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Root replies, her head in the piece of paper lain on the table top. She's been scribbling on it since they sat down. The list from earlier today looks nothing like it did, crumpled up, torn at the edges and for some reason, wet. Nearly all of the address had been crossed out, angrily by the look of it. 

Shaw twirls the utensil in her fingers. “I thought it looked like Margaret Thatcher.”

“I'm not getting sucked into this argument again.” Root draws another x over something and brings the pen to her lips, chewing at the end. “It was Barbara Bush anyway...”

Shaw snatches the paper from Root's unsuspecting hands. 

“Hey I need that,” Root says. Her attempts of retrieving it are all in vain. “Shaw, I still haven't decided which one I- where did you get those glasses?”

“Glove box,” Shaw replies, lifting the shades from her eyes to squint at the paper. “Didn't think I could get a hangover before I fell asleep.”

“Can I have it back, please? It's important.”

Shaw throws the glasses aside. “Root, these are all crap. You know this.”

“But I need to pick one.”

“Seriously, have you never gone apartment shopping before?” Shaw asks. Judging from the look on Root's face, she hasn't. “Root. Just make a new list.”

She sinks into the booth, whining pitifully. “But I hate this so much, Shaw. Can't I just live with you? Please?” 

Root smiles, full charm this time. And Shaw jumps when she feels something crawling up the length of her thigh. Luckily the waiter comes with the food, so Shaw has a valid excuse for evicting Root's foot from her crotch. 

“Independence.” Shaw reminds her before grabbing the sandwich off of the plate. She's about to take a bite, but pauses midway. An odd feeling had struck her, a feeling like she's being watched and not by a secret system.

Leaned against the wall, slumped in her seat, is Root, staring at Shaw's sandwich with a weird lust in her eyes. If she was hungry, then she should have ordered something. So tough, Shaw thinks, bringing the sandwich to mouth again and goddamnit!

Shaw cuts the fucking thing in half and slides the plate across the table. Root smiles to herself and takes a nibble and then just- chomps down. Shaw can't believe what shes seeing right now.

“This is the best sandwich I've ever had,” Root says, at least that's what Shaw thinks she says. Root's mouth is so full, and yet, she keeps trying to fill it. 

“As a person who's had a lot of sandwiches, I-”

“Shut up and eat it, Shaw!”

Without further protest, Shaw takes a bite. Her eyes roll into the back of her head. “Oh my fucking god.” It is the best sandwich she's ever had. Why is Root right all the time?

“So, tomorrow...” Root manages to swallow the rest without choking. “New day, new list, perhaps a new car even? I heard Harry's got a viper tucked away in cold storage.”

Shaw chews on it. As fun as it was gallivanting around this charming city with Root... she'll have to pass. “Sorry, you're on your own for round two. I'm busy.”

“I checked. You're not.”

What is this? Slow season for criminal activity? “I'm taking a personal day.”

“Fine,” Root says, dabbing with the napkin before it's surly tossed aside. “I'll be wandering Hell's Kitchen tomorrow if you change your mind.”

“Okay, Root.” Shaw snorts, almost choking on her food. “Give your taser a good charge before you do.” She'll definitely need it for that side of town- if she were actually going. 

Shaw's not stupid, she recognized the pattern as soon as she saw the list. All the stops they've made so far today were along the 4 train, which lets off near Subway HQ and coincidentally, right by Shaw's apartment.

They step outside the deli and Shaw gives the place a nod as she slips the glasses back on. The sign is in Russian, and unfortunately, none of it involves the ten words she knows. “Goodbye restaurant I don't know the name of.”

“Actually,” Root says, glancing up at the sign. “It think it says sandwich, well, bread meat bread, but you get the picture.” 

“Hmm.” Shaw shrugs. She's halfway to the car, that better not be stolen, when she notices Root isn't behind her. Doubling back, Shaw finds her standing at the deli's window, staring at a sign that says For Rent – Inquire Within. 

…

They inquire within. 

The owner of the deli; a burly, grey bearded and rather abrasive gentleman named Vlad, throws his dirty apron over his shoulder and yells something wild in Russian to the cooks behind the counter. 

“Come! We go!” he then yells to Root and Shaw, and leads them out and around the building, through several locked doors and up a rickety old freight elevator, all while cursing in his native tongue. And Shaw's sure of this because most of those words he's using, are the same ones she's used to start bar fights overseas. 

“You go, I wait,” Vlad says, and shoos them off the elevator. 

It's was an industrious space converted to a loft by the previous owners. The concrete floors were replaced with dark hard wood for a more domestic feel, but the steel pillars remained. Carved out to one side, the obvious kitchen accustomed with marble counter tops, a range, and a classic style refrigerator. And in the far corner, the porcelain bathroom with the large clawfoot tub, partitioned by a wall of glass blocks. 

Root turns circles, marveling the expanse of open floor plan. “I have no words, Shaw.” 

“I'm shocked,” Shaw replies, but it has nothing to do with this rare real estate gem they've stumbled upon by sheer luck. Root's non-stop motormouth has suddenly run out of fuel and hell has actually frozen over. 

But in the weird trend of today's events, Shaw checks and double checks everything. That the light switches turn on and the water runs from the faucets. She test the sturdiness of the steel beams and the thickness of the walls. She stomps around in her steel toed boots for weak spots in the floor. In the end, everything seems to be in working order. The radiator is blasting heat, the toilet is flushing, and yes, the refrigerator is also running. 

The second Shaw mentions roof access, Root's falling over to make a deal. 

Vlad may be limited in English, but he understands the universal language of money and the giant wad of cash Root suddenly pulls out of her pocket. He shoves a set of keys in her hand and goes off on Russian tangent as he counts the money.

“He says...” Root pauses to listen. “No checks, no cards, rent is cash only...”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“I did some work for the Russian mob- long story,” Root tells her before she's back to translating. “I'm supposed to put the money in an envelope and slip under his door... on the first of the month, not the second, or... well that doesn't sound very pleasant.”

Shaw's eyes widen some. She tries to ask what the she means by that, but Root shushes her with a raised finger.

“There is one rule... don't bother me. If you do not bother me, I will not bother you and everything will be... cookies and cream?”

“What does that mean?”

“Sorry, I'm a bit rusty.” Root tunes back in, nodding profusely at the last part before he shakes her hand and leaves. 

“What did he just say to you?”

Root turns to her. “He said, My name is Vladimir Baronov Petrovich, and I fix nothing.”

…

A week later... 

Shaw picks up a bottle of wine on the way to Root's. A house warming gift of sorts, or a present depending on how you look at it, though Shaw prefers it as a celebration of mission completion and good things yet to come. 

The days of Root living out of satchels and crashing on couches are finally over, and for some reason, Shaw takes comfort in that. It means things are changing, for the better, she believes. Having a safe, permanent place to lay your head, it means something.

Shaw can hear the faint music playing as she lifts the elevator gate. She expects Root sprung for a decent sound system, something to listen to while she cranes her neck over a computer for hours on end. And maybe she found a nice desk and a comfortable chair like Harold's to sit in while she does, Shaw wonders, as she rounds the corner, quietly. 

Sneaking up on Root is a hit or miss, depending on the Machine's mood. But Shaw hopes she gets to catch Root doing something weird for once, even though she has no idea what that might entail. 

Root's barefoot, sitting cross legged on the floor with a soldering iron, humming to herself. And Shaw thinks it's actually kind of cute- maybe, at least until she finds a better word for it. Which is never. The feeling becomes short lived, the nameless word is moot when she realizes why Root's sitting on the floor. 

She has no goddamn furniture. 

“Love what you haven't done with the place,” Shaw calls out, announcing her presence to Root, who flinches and then smiles bashfully to the wires in her lap. As it turns out, the Machine was in Shaw's favor this evening. It's a rare occurrence to find Root so off guard, with her hair pulled into a loose bun, with little smudges of soot on her shirt and holes in her blue jeans. 

Her walk is still the same, smug saunter as it always is though. Root lets her hair down as she approaches, on purpose Shaw thinks. 

“Welcome. May I take your coat?” Root offers, and Shaw does a bit of casing as she slips her arms free of the sleeves.

It was inaccurate to say Root didn't have any furniture; there's a mattress lying in the middle of the floor beside a steel column. Root had thrown some sheets and pillows on top and called it a bed. Next to that, her other Root things. A laptop, a bag, a few articles of clothing and a cell phone playing the music Shaw had heard earlier. 

“Is that for me?” Root asks, nodding to the bottle of wine in Shaw's hand. 

“Yeah, but uh,” Shaw rubs the back of her neck, glancing again at the great empty space. “I feel like I should have brought a plant or something, or a chair.”

“Busy week,” she says, internally debating where to hang Shaw's jacket, for a moment, until deciding to just throw it on the floor. “Haven't been home much lately-” and then Root laughs, lightly to herself. “It's strange isn't it?” 

“What is?” Shaw asks, halfway to the kitchen for a pair of drinking glasses before she realizes, Root probably doesn't have any of those either. 

“This place, my place... It is supposed to feel this weird?”

“Don't worry, the charm wears off pretty quick. Eventually, it'll be just another Tuesday night where you store all your things.” Shaw flops down on the edge of the mattress. “Correction, thing.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you.” Root teases. 

“Awfully rude of you, not owning a couch.” There are worse problems than not having a proper place to sit. “I'd guess you don't have cork screw either, or is that me being presumptuous again?”

Grinning, Root ambles to the spot next to Shaw on the mattress. “You'll have to use your imagination, sorry. I didn't think you'd bring anything fancy.”

The label is the only fancy thing about this wine, an Italian sounding word, Shaw thinks it means something like hat. The price tag said twelve, but she got it for six. 

Shaw flicks open her pocket knife and stabs it into the cork with a twisting motion. 

Root leans back and lounges on her elbows. “I did buy something yesterday, now that I think about it.”

“What?” Shaw asks, straining with the knife and the cork that wont budge.

Root nods. “That.” and Shaw looks in the direction. Hanging on the opposite pillar is a crudely sketched portrait. Of Shaw.

“Um, where did you get that?”

“From the man in the park,” Root replies, like it's supposed to mean something to Shaw. “Fun fact, he used to be police sketch artist until he injured his hand in a tragic trout-fisting accident. Anyways, if you pay him twenty dollars, he'll draw anyone you describe.”

Thankfully, Shaw gets the bottle open by then. The horrible taste of it helps her forget she ever heard the words trout-fisting back to back. “Hope you like cork in your fancy wine,” Shaw says and passes it on. “My eyebrows are off, by the way.”

“Hmm...” Root cocks her head the side, “I still like it.” She takes a swig from the bottle and grimaces almost instantly. 

“You know, you don't have to drink it,” Shaw says, laughing at the sour look on Root's face from the cheap wine. She has to run to the kitchen sink to wash her mouth out, it's so bad.

“Wanna see something cool?” Root asks when she returns and Shaw throws her a wary look. The last time Root tried to show her something cool, she ended up with stitches. 

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

“No?”

“Then no.”

“Just close your eyes,” Root insists. “Please..”

“Fine.” and Shaw covers her eyes, however, she checks for any sharp objects in Root's hands and in the immediate vicinity first. Patiently, she waits on the bed, listening to Root as she scampers around in her bare feet, for a moment until there's a loud click and the main lights go off.

Shaw opens her eyes... winding up the steel columns and along the rafters high above the bed, Root's hung strings of lights. Of all shapes, sizes and colors, they're arranged in way that makes Shaw feel like she's sitting inside a Christmas tree. 

“So this is what you've been doing?” Shaw smirks to herself. The order of Root's priorities are a mystery to her.

“Livens the place up,” Root says, looking up with a kind of awe in her eyes, or maybe it's the light glowing from the red bulbs. 

Root joins her on the bed again. Their legs hang off the edge, their feet occasionally running into each other.  

Shaw takes another swig of the wine, biting at the taste. “So um, does this count?” she asks, and when Root turns to her mixed, she has to awkwardly clarify. “Is this part of that quality the Machine says we don't have enough of?”

Root says nothing, she just grins.

“Why not?” Shaw goes on the defense. She showed up, she brought the wine, she looked at the pretty lights and they're talking. If that isn't quality time, then what is? “I really think you should reevaluate-” and suddenly, Shaw is rendered speechless by Root, who grabs her face and kisses her. 

“That's why,” Root says, giving Shaw a quick peck on the lips before pushing her down on the bed and climbing on top. 

And Shaw doesn't protest either, when Root starts unbuckling her belt, she's beginning to think this may fall under another made up category in Root's head. Something along the lines of fun time. 

“But if your so worried about it, Sameen,” she says, leaning in as she pins Shaw's wrists above her head, “You can come by tomorrow. I'm going to Ikea.”

#shootsecretsanta2018 #shootsecretsanta #shoot #person of interest #lizburns

[capriswritingnartshenanigans]

A World of Beasts and Forbidden Wants

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Complication

Human/Lycanthrope. SFW. 2185 words. Catch it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575611/chapters/44033869

Maran has enough issues trying to help their small town survive in a world where humans are on the bottom, and werewolves and lycanthropes are on top, as well as getting people to understand their wishes. It's hard enough as one of the minority of humans who didn't turn to worshiping or being used by the Beasts, but Maran is also magickally gifted far more than they should be.

In a world of violence outside of their native walls, and now with more complications with their decision to save a Lycan rather than kill him for the crimes he has undoubtedly committed, how are they expected to escape possible enslavement... or worse?

    I sigh softly as rain continues to pour down outside, turning the normally soft dirt into pits of red clay mud. It almost looks like the gardens of plants are bathed in blood; mother nature can be rather morbid, even in dirt coloration.

“Maran? Maran! Are you okay?” Someone calling my name pulls me from my thoughts. I turn away from the window, squinting slightly as my eyes re-adjust to the brightly lit living room.

    “Yeah, Ma, I’m fine. I was just thinkin’.” Ma chuckles softly, shaking her head with a slight smile on her lips.

    “I figured, but had to be sure. You have a habit of doin’ that when the sky starts to pour.” She wipes her messed hands on her floral-printed apron, smearing off-white batter on a large part of it. “Dinner’s about ready; the batter was tryin’ to fight with me on getting into the pan, but I managed.” She turns back to the kitchen’s connecting door to the living room, and I know she’s wanting me to follow her, so I do. “Would you mind helpin’ me with supper? I know you want to break in your home, but…” She stops at the kitchen island, still spattered with flour, batter, and multiple discarded bits of vegetables and meat fat.

    “But you don’t want another leaving the nest so soon. I know.” I grab the tin for compost dumping and start raking the leftovers from her prep into it. “I’ll help, don’t worry. Is pa and Eri coming home for it, too?” She nods enthusiastically.

    “Yes! The miners finally hit a big pocket of coal, accordin’ to your da. He said he and Eri will be gettin’ tons more time off because we won’t have to fight so hard to get energy without… Them noticing.” She shivers, murmurs a prayer to the Gods under her voice while doing a holy star across herself, and turns to check on the shepard’s pie in the oven. Them. The Beasts, as many humans like us call them. In this part of Icarurim, lycanthropes and werewolves are the cock of the walk. Humans either worship their every step and breath, or they’re like us, living in hiding, protected by thousands of layers of magick meant to keep Beast-bloodeds out. An icy chill runs down my spine, causing my entire body to shudder.

    “Well… that’s good. They’ve been working the miners so hard, from the moment the light touches the sky till well into the night. They deserve a big break, and some awarding for their work.” Instead of getting comfortable in my new home, I’d been spending the last two months spending most of the daylight time with Ma, knowing she was dealing with da’s missing presence badly. After thirty-two years together, I would say it’s hard to deal with.

I wash my hands after the counter is visibly clean, then wet a rag and apply some cleaning fluid before going back to it. Ma continues to chatter about a few more successes in the community, like the solar panels finally being complete, just need more time to properly wire everything; the gardens are responding well to the compost this year, so there’s hope for a lot more food this year, especially in winter; and there’s hope that the town will be able to expand closer to the river, which will help up our water supply. I nod along, mentally taking notes as she speaks. More than likely, when the expansions start, I’ll be called in to help move the protective spells and runes that keep the town safe. One of the “perks” of being a strong magician, I guess.

    When I finish fully wiping down the kitchen island and some counters, the shepard’s pie is ready. My stomach had started to growl half an hour ago, and at this point I’m nearly ravenous at the smell. When Ma takes it out of the oven, I feel my mouth water at the full force of the smell of the vegetables, beef, and gravy cooked to perfection. The mashed potato-parsnip mix on top is golden brown, and the filling inside looks somewhat like beef stew, but with less gravy. We both quiet once she divies us out a portion of it, and we keep that quiet as we eat.

~

Around an hour later...

    The rain finally lightened up sometime after Ma and I ate dinner, enough so that I can finally go into the main area of town and onward to getting what I need for home. Flour, eggs, a good helping of vegetables, red-spotted toadstools, gold wire… I check all of what’s left, mainly just coffee beans and more paper. I make my way through the mud, rather slowly, towards Ervini’s, a shop centered around getting more non-local items from other small human settlements around the country. The outside part of the store is painted a dark green, with large, hand-painted white letters depicting the shop’s name written above the door. It’s bigger inside than out, as per usual with shops and homes. The work of magick.

    “Hey, Maran!” I hear someone say as I step in from the rain, scrubbing the mud from my boots on the welcome mat as I lower my hood. I look over to the rickety, oak wood counter as I round the large display of papers to my left. I grin when I spy Annori, dressed in a lovely knee-length spring green dress with her long, dirty-blonde hair plaited into a french braid thrown over her shoulder. The closer I come to the counter, the more her cheeks flush, and the more excited she acts. I have to swallow down a laugh as she dips down behind the counter to grab something, then pops back up with a bounce. “Your things finally came in! Erv told me to make sure I kept them on hand in case you could stop by.”

    “Oh, good! Yeah, the rain finally let up enough to come into town from Ma and Da’s.” I reach out to grab the box of coffee beans and paper, letting my fingers brush hers as I do so. I sneakily watch her bite her lip as she nervously laughs and hands off the box entirely to me. I’m well aware of her… interest in me, and it makes teasing her so much more fun. “How long is Erv keeping you here?”

    “Um, just until 3 or so. He doesn’t expect much in the way of customers today, and the elders are sure the rain is going to become a bad storm towards evening.”

    “So he doesn’t want you to get caught in the storm.” Rather nice of him, but I don’t say that bit out loud. Erv could be a real hardass sometimes; it’s why I’m no longer working the counter in here.

    “Pretty much! Especially with where I live… outer rim and all.”

    “Yeah.” I look outside, and groan when I see the rain picking back up. Damn it. “Look, Ani, I need to get back to Ma’s. She’ll tear off my hide if her cornmeal gets ruint. I’ll see you soon!” I head back to the door as she calls goodbye, shifting everything around in my pack to fit in the new box. As I’m about to head out the door, I feel a hand gently wrap around my upper arm. I turn, a brow raised, and look down at Ani. Her face has, somehow, managed to turn from a dark pink to tomato red in the span of time it took me to finish moving around my pack’s items.

    “I-I was wondering about something…” She looks down at our feet, and I can hear her mutter to herself.

    “And that is…?” I bite my lower lip to keep the smirk from fully forming on my lips. She’s so adorable when she’s nervous.

“I was w-wondering if you’d… um… liketocom’ov’rforsuppahsometime.” The last half of her sentence comes out in such a quick succession I can’t quite tell what she said.

    “If I’d like to what?”

    “T-To come over. For supper. Some time.” She lets out a nervous laugh whilst her hand not on my arm twists itself into her dress. This time, I can’t keep the grin off of my face as I pull my lower lip in between my teeth for a few moments, before letting my lips pull into such a big grin my cheeks hurt.

    “Absolutely. When would you like me to come over?”

~

After dark has fallen…

    I laugh as I make my way through the thick clay mud via a small orb of light, my thoughts drifting to my day. Quite a turn of events, if I say so myself. Da and Eri are home after being only able to return home for a short time every Friday and Saturday, and… Ani finally got the guts to ask me on what I’m thinking is a date. I laugh again, the heat of my breath swirling through the fog that’s settled in after the rain. A thick fog that would normally make moonless nights unable to be traveled, but I’m good at creating light. I feel my face contort as my boots let out more squelching noises, now becoming more constant the closer I get to my home.

    My home. It’s odd to consider the small cottage as my “home”, but it really is. While I have to live closer to the outer rim than Ma and Da were comfortable with, I rather enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by trees. There’s also a good amount of cleared land as per usual for homes, so soon enough I can even begin my own small garden and maybe some other self-sufficient means of living. And… maybe some chickens or pigeons for healthy meat when the river isn’t producing fish.

    Just as I’m reaching the clearing to my home, I hear a low, animalistic groan. I stop dead in my tracks, my heart beginning to race as my eyes struggle to make anything out in the dark fog. I try to calm my breathing; if it’s an animal, I need to be calm. Pressing my lips together and steeling myself, I move forward slowly, willing my orb to go in front of me. It bobs as we travel, and even as we go ten or so steps onto my land, I still see nothing.

    One step.

    Two step.

    Another groan cuts the air, somewhere in front of me, to the left. It’s closer now.

    One step.

    Two step.

    I  can’t suppress my gasp when I finally see what’s made that noise. My orb’s light casts an eerie look on the monstrosity in front of me. It lies in a collapsed heap, fur matted with mud and something of a darker red. A darker red that’s puddling around it, staining what it touches. Blood pours from the huge gouges carved into its back and sides, as well as holes ripped into its torso and limbs. How it managed to still be alive is unfathomable. I move closer to see it better, and realization dawns on me when I see its wolfish head, and the twisted look of paws and hands meshed unnaturally.

    Lycan. The word whispers through my brain, sending an icy panic trickling through my chest and stomach. Its eyes are closed, but its mouth is slightly open, allowing blood and breath to escape. Slowly, slowly, my hand inches towards the shortsword hidden at my side. I’ve never killed before, but… I can’t let this thing go. Not when I know exactly what it’ll do if it survives. Unspeakable horrors. Horrors I can prevent.

    Just as I manage to quietly bring my blade from its sheath, a quiet voice whispers through my head. Don’t. I pause, but don’t take my eyes off of the beast’s hulking body. Who are you? I ask.

    Don’t kill him. You’ll regret it, comes the reply.

    What do you mean??? Who are you?!

    I am a god, a god of old who has seen what will come if you kill him. So don’t. Bring him into your home, care for him, and tell none of his presence. To kill him would end the future of your people, and to abandon him will bring to end your future. So care, and not kill, human, if you truly care for either. Great. A riddle. It’s not unusual for the gods to present themselves mentally when someone is at a turning point that could have major impact on the world. Doesn’t mean I have to like what it says, though.

    Why should I spare him? He is a monster, who has likely murdered innocent humans aplenty in his numerous days! Why should he be allowed to live and not be punished?!

    Heed my words, human. You’ll understand soon enough. Care, not kill. It whispers this last part over and over as its voice recedes from my mind. A final warning. Care for a beast that will likely kill me the moment he wakes. The gods have a great sense of humor sometimes.

Thank you so much for reading!!!

#werewolf #lycan #werewolf/human #lycanthrope #original fiction #original work #genderqueer main character #blood and injury #medieval meets modern world #werewolves and lycanthropes rule the world #magick #supernatural

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Slot Aereo

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Growing tomatoes in your aerogarden. Can it be done? How long will it take? What should you worry about? When do you cut and/or harvest them?

Well, guys like many times before I have done a ton of research, and tried many techniques to come up with the best results for you that I will present in this article.

Growing tomatoes all year long is now a possible mission. With your aerogarden you can have fresh tomatoes even in the winter. The tomato care should be really simple and should not require much maintenance. There are several tomato plants that you can grow, but if you have a small space, then I would recommend that you try cherry tomatoes.

If you want you can go check the latest price of the Red Heirloom cherry tomato seed pod kit on Amazon. Those are smaller tomatoes that will be better for your aerogarden in my opinion. The classical bigger tomatoes are sometimes too heavy and will require support. You can easily stick a wooden stick into the soil next to your plant if you are growing them outside, but with the use of an aerogarden your space is limited.

If you want, you can check my absolute favorite tomato seed pods HERE.

So how do you do it? It’s simple. Here is the whole 9 step process.

Well yes, you can, but if you do that you will have to be careful about spacing. If you have 4 slots in a row, then you would plant tomatoes on the far left slot and the pepper plant on the far right slot or the other way around. If you want you can plant some herbs in the to slots in between. AeroGarden tomatoes growth timeline. Aero Slots is a 5-reel, 5-payline game that takes its inspiration from one of mankind’s greatest achievements – flight.

This step does not include much effort. Just like before planting any other seed, you should clean and sanitize your aerogarden in advance. The only exception would be if you are using a brand new AeroGarden that has never been used before. You can find the whole process of cleaning and sterilizing your aerogarden here. After your system is totally clean, proceed to add water.

Make sure to set the light as close as you can to your system-to the lowest possible. Tomatoes do not need bright light, but they do need at least 16 hours of light per day. So set your timer that the lights will be turned off for 8 hours each day. Remember to move your light hood with the growth of the plant. There should be only about 1 to 2 inches of space between your light and your first tomato leaf.

Tomatoes require a lot of space, so if you are planting them, make sure to leave some space between them. Either don’t use the seed pod slots in between or plant something that requires as little space as possible, like basil. In outdoor gardening, tomatoes grow best in greenhouses, so make sure to put the domes on.

The amount of nutrients needed will vary, based on how many tomato plants you are going to be growing. Read the instructions on the package and follow them. If you have decided to go with nutrient tablets instead of liquid, you should use one tablet for three tomato plants. Both liquid and tablets should last for about two weeks, except if the nutrient reminder is on. Press the reset button every time you add nutrients so that the system will know it is recharged.

When your tomatoes start growing, make sure to remove the domes. When they reach about two inches tall, you should trim off all the weak sprouts from the plant. Be careful not to damage it and if you do it correctly, you should be left with one strong plant.

When your plant gets flowers, then it is time for it to get pollinated. Because your aerogarden is indoors, there probably won’t be any bees to do it for you. There is a way for you to do it on your own. You just shake the plant lightly and also you can blow on it really gently. Remember it does not take a lot to start this.

The right time for pruning would be about four weeks after planting them in your system. Pruning is performed in two steps. The first step requires cutting off the stem a little bit above the first five branches in the bottom. You can do this with regular scissors, just make sure that they are clean beforehand. You can skip this if your tomato already has flowers-blossoms.

All of the branches that are growing outside the light reach must be clipped off. If your light hood is on the highest setting, you have to also clip off the branches that are growing into the lights, so that there is at least a couple of inches of space in between the top branch and the light. The branches and stems that are growing outside the light reach, or are blocking the light will harm your plant. The ones that are outside the light will just be eating the energy without producing any tomatoes. The branches that are growing into the light will block the light itself and prevent the other branches from getting any energy from the light.

Tomatoes are heavy, sometimes too heavy for its branches. This is why you want to a piece of string (the best would be to take a string made of natural materials) and tie the overloaded branch to something. It can either be the lamp arm, or something that you have closest to it. If your branches break while the tomatoes are still green, they will never get red and ripe.

If you want to transplant your tomato plant outside there are a few things you should do first.

Trim your plant as much as you can. In the end, right before transplanting you should only be left with the strongest stem. It should not have any more than 5 small branches growing out of it.

Cut the roots just like you trimmed the upper side of the plant. Make sure you only leave the strongest roots. To get the tomato out of your seed pod you can also use gardening shears. Add water when you are finished with transplanting.

The tomato plant is going to grow the best at a temperature of about 75 degrees Fahrenheit or 24 degrees Celsius.

First of all, you are going to need a large pot. You will have to fill it up with soil and make a hole in the middle for your plant to go inside. When you are filling your pot with soil, fill just ¾ of it. It would best to use pre fertilized soil.

Second, you take out your plants. If you can, try to just pull them out of your grow baskets. This way you will be able to reuse them later. Wiggle them around for a bit and pull them off. If you have to trim the roots a bit, that is fine. Just make sure to also cut some branches if you have cut roots beforehand. This way the roots are still going to provide enough food for the whole plant.

If you did not succeed at preserving the grow basket, feel free to cut it. You can use ordinary scissors or gardening shears, but please be very careful. Plastic can be tricky to cut. You can compost any roots that you have cut off.

Plant your seedling in your soil-filled pot. It is always better to plant it deeper. After that fill the remaining space of the pot with soil. When your pot is full, at least one inch of the stem should be in the soil.

Once your tomato plant is in a pot you can now move it around. On the first day of transplanting you should put the tomato plant outside on sunlight for about 3 hours, the next day 5, and the next 7.. and so on until you have your plant outside 24 hours a day. This is when your plant is ready to be transplanted again, but this time it is going to be in your garden. If you want you can also leave your plant in the pot.

Tomato plant requires a lot of water so check on it daily to see if you have to add any. Also, keep in mind that tomatoes that will grow on it will get kind of heavy so support the branches. You can do this by sticking a wooden stick next to the plant and tie the branch that needs support to it.

It has been stated by the producer, that tomatoes, like other veggies, will last up to 6 months, which means that you will be able to harvest them for about 4 months. I, on the other hand, had some better results. My tomato plant has lived for 371 days. Yes, I have had a tomato plant in my kitchen for more than a year. I had to wait 2 months for the first harvest, but still, that left me with 10 months of harvesting small cherry tomatoes.

How to pick AeroGarden tomatoes?

You can pick them by holding them with 2 fingers and gently pulling them or twisting them. If you apply too much force you might end up breaking a whole branch off and with that, you destroy all the remaining tomatoes on it that are still green.

I would recommend that you get a bigger model if you are going to plant this seed. Keep in mind that they require a lot of space. You always have to leave at least one slot free between the larger plants. So my choice would be the farm model because of its huge capacity. The middle size models should be just as fine, but you won’t be able to grow as many at one time. If you own the Herbie model, then I would recommend planting something else like herbs.

Yes. You can mix them with some other pods but not all of them. The plants that would go best with tomatoes are definitely herbs. It is a great combination. Can you imagine eating pasta with homegrown tomatoes and basil? Or maybe some dill or parsley. Since you have to leave at least one slot free between the plants it would be smart to fill them up with something else that does not require a lot of space.

Well yes, you can, but if you do that you will have to be careful about spacing. If you have 4 slots in a row, then you would plant tomatoes on the far left slot and the pepper plant on the far right slot or the other way around. If you want you can plant some herbs in the to slots in between.

Week 1: The phase of Germination

This week is going to be a little bit tricky when you are planting tomato pods. You are going to have to make sure that the temperature is the best for the seed itself. Whenever you are adding water to your AeroGarden, please make sure that it is at room temperature-about 75 degrees Fahrenheit and add the recommended amount of plant food (nutrients) to get the most tomato-friendly growth environment. If you do not provide all of the above, you will probably have little to no success with your grow project.

Week 2: The phase of germination goes on

You are going to have to clip off the smallest of your sprouts. This is for ensuring your plant to make the most yields possible. I highly recommend that you prune your plant early so that your tomato can get the most energy possible. After that, you should see some sprouting happening. When it does, at about one inch, you should check every seed pod that you have. If the seed pod contains more than one tomato plant, you should clip the rest of them off using scissors. Always leave only the biggest plant and also make sure that it looks healthy. If not, you should cut it and leave the biggest healthy-looking one. You should give your plant about 3 weeks to sprout. If it does not, then your seed pod might be faulty.

Week 3&4: The last week of germination

This week you can just sit back and enjoy. Only make sure to add room temperature water and nutrients as needed. By now your plants are still too young to be pruned. You can take some photos of your seed pods every week, to see what the progress is and how well you are doing compared to other tomatoes that you can find online.

Week 5: Mid-Growth phase

Now is finally the time to clip the main stem. You should do this just above the sixth branch, that way you will strengthen the main stem, which is the most important for the plant itself. Keep in mind to support it if needed. This process will also make your plant produce the most blooms possible. If your plant has more blooms, it will pollinate much easier than with a lesser amount. If your main stem is strong enough, it might not need any support at all, but make sure to check on it frequently as your tomatoes start growing.

Week 6: The mid growth phase continues

This week, you will probably have to prune some of your branches. Prune the ones that are growing outside your light reach, because they will not produce any fruit and will only eat the food and take energy from the plant itself. Cut the branches where they meet other branches. This will probably take you about 10 minutes in total. And by now you should already wonder how tasty your tomatoes will be, right?

Week 7: Here they come!

By now (and also a bit earlier) there should be small yellow flowers on your plant. If they were pollinated, they will develop into small tomatoes. If not they will fall off and produce nothing. The tomato plant is one of the most strict plants when it comes to pollination. If the flowers missed it, they will be useless. If you are growing tomatoes outside you do not have to worry, because the pollination will be done by mainly wind or bees and on some occasions some other insects. We recommend that you try to pollinate your plant on a daily basis, but make sure to always have the AeroGarden lights on when you are doing it.

Week 8: The finish line

On week 8 your flowers should slowly start transforming into fruits. If they failed to do so, make sure to give them just a couple more days. But if your plant did not get any flowers by now, maybe it would be the right time to request a refund on them. Oh, and I almost forgot-keep pollinating them!

Week 9: Taste test-Hooray!

If you have followed all of the steps correctly, then you should by now be eating your fresh tomatoes. Do not use much force when you are harvesting your plant. Keep in mind that tomatoes are very sensitive to touch. Once I used too much force and broke one branch, that had about 5 tomatoes on it that will never ripen. Bon appetite!

Because tomatoes are one of the longest-lasting plants, your water might get really dirty. I personally would recommend that you change out the water in your system at least every 6 months. The ideal number is about 4 and a half months. When you are letting the water out you can also use that opportunity to clean your system a bit. Yo do not have to sanitize it, just make sure to clean it a little bit with a paper towel. If you lifted your lid, now would also be the perfect time to clip off some of the dead roots but only if there are any. If all of your roots look healthy, do not remove any of them. Clipping off the extra roots will take place when (and only if) you will decide to transplant your tomato seed pod outside.

Tomatoes can be grown in an aerogarden, but if you have a smaller model then I would recommend going with the smaller cherry tomato seed pod kit. The best one that I have tried is without a doubt Red Heirloom. You really want to take care of your plant and prune it for the best possible results. If you do, you can make your seed pods last even more than six months! There have been reports on amazon reviews saying that some tomatoes have lasted more than 210 days (7 months) and by the time this review was written the plant itself was still alive and kicking with more than 50 cherry tomatoes on it. Personally, the best I have achieved is exactly 371 days (12 months) but then I have decided to switch and try something new. And the taste? Those had to be one of the most delicious tomatoes I have ever tasted in my life. The best plants to go on your platform next to tomatoes are definitely herbs. You can try other plants too, but since this plant takes up so much space that you have to leave some slots free it would be smart to fill them up with something that will be able to grow in such a small space. Transplanting the plant will take you some time but will be worth it. The space in your system is limited but in your garden, there will be much more space for growth hence more fruit for your meals.

If you try this out please let me know how it worked out and what did they taste like in the comments!

Slots aéreos. Un desafío para las líneas aéreas

Dra. Mirtha Cantiano

Los slots aéreos son un verdadero problema para las líneas aéreas, ya que todas desean las mejores franjas horarias y sobre todo la titularidad de un derecho para ellas imprescindible, pero el cual no es a perpetuidad; es por ello que las reglamentaciones existentes han tratado de poner orden en este tema, aunque solamente la jurisprudencia tendrá la última palabra.

Aeropuertos coordinados y la titularidad de los derechos: en los aeropuertos puede ocurrir que existan problemas de capacidad para algún período de programación y esto obliga al Estado, en virtud de la normativa existente en Europa, a designar al aeropuerto como coordinado. Esto último implica que los slots sólo serán asignados por el coordinador del aeropuerto.

I. Definición(arriba)

SLOTS es un concepto que significa intervalo de tiempo, por lo general limitado, dentro del cual un avión tiene la obligación de transitar sobre un determinado punto(1).

Pero como dice FRANCO STACCIOLI, el slot aeroportuale representa la ventana de tiempo que un determinado vuelo tiene a su disposición en un aeropuerto para satisfacer sus exigencias comerciales (embarco y desembarco de pasajeros y equipaje, carga de combustible, catering, etc. ).

II. Los Slots y la Comunidad Europea(arriba)

Podemos decir que para que los aviones de las distintas empresas aéreas puedan aterrizar o despegar de los aeropuertos en una franja determinada de tiempo, necesitan un permiso que se denomina slot o franja horaria aeroportuaria(2).

Existe un sistema de estandarización mundial en cuanto a la forma en que dichos derechos son reconocidos por la normativa nacional y europea; se siguen los criterios de la IATA (Internacional Air Transport Association). En la Comunidad Europea podemos encontrar la regulación de las franjas horarias en el Reglamento 95/93 del Consejo, del 18 de enero de 1993, el cual ha sufrido varias modificaciones, la más importante a través del Reglamento (CEE) 793/2004(3).

Cuando no existen inconvenientes para acceder a dichos derechos y las empresas aéreas pueden obtenerlos en virtud de sus preferencias, el sistema se caracteriza por la voluntariedad o autorregulación. En el caso de existir dificultades la normativa comunitaria sigue las directrices de la IATA, teniendo en cuenta la facilitación de horarios y la coordinación(4). Esto nos lleva al concepto de aeropuerto coordinado y no coordinado. El aeropuerto coordinado es: “…un aeropuerto en el cual para aterrizar y o decolar es necesario la existencia de un vettore aéreo u otro operador de aeronaves que haya obtenido la asignación de una banda horaria de parte de un coordinador”(5).

El principio de uso o pérdida de este derecho significa que una empresa aérea puede conservar sus franjas horarias de una temporada a otra, a condición de que haya hecho uso de al menos el 80% de las franjas asignadas en la temporada anterior. Aunque existen excepciones como lo ocurrido en los años 2001-2002, 2003(6) en dichos períodos se permitió a las líneas aéreas reducir su actividad sin perder sus franjas horarias(7).

Un aeropuerto con horarios facilitados son aquellos aeropuertos en los cuales existe un riesgo de congestión en algunos períodos del día, de la semana o del año, lo cual puede resolverse eventualmente gracias a la cooperación voluntaria de vectores aéreos y en los cuales se ha designado un facilitador de los horarios, cuyo deber es facilitar la actividad de los vectores aéreos que operan o intentan operar en tales aeropuertos(8).

Cuando nos referimos a aeropuertos con horarios facilitados debemos tener en cuenta las dificultades que provoca la congestión aeroportuaria en ciertas horas del día, de la semana o del año. Los mismos pueden reducirse en virtud de acuerdos voluntarios entre las empresas bajo la supervisión del facilitador.

En Italia se fundó en el año 1997, la Associazione Assoclearance, que es la encargada de coordinar la asignación de las bandas horarias en los aeropuertos italianos coordinados. La asignación permite al vector utilizar la infraestructura a fin de aterrizar o decolar por un período por el cual se lo ha solicitado.

El Ministerio de Infraestructura y del Transporte ha clasificado como aeropuertos coordinados las escalas de: Bergamo, Cagliari, Catania, Firenze, Milano-Malpensa, Milano-Linate, Napoli, Palermo, Roma Ciampino, Roma Fiumicino, Torino, Venecia, Lampeduza y Pantelleria solamente en período estival. Como aeropuertos de horarios facilitados, las escalas de Bolonia, Pisa y Verona.

III. Aeropuertos coordinados y la titularidad de los derechos(arriba)

En los aeropuertos puede ocurrir que existan problemas de capacidad para algún período de programación; esto obliga al Estado Miembro en virtud de la normativa existente a designar al aeropuerto como coordinado. Esto último implica que los slots sólo serán asignados por el coordinador del aeropuerto(9). Pero es cada Estado Miembro quien establecerá la asignación de los parámetros de coordinación. Para ello el art. 6 del Reglamento mencionado es muy claro al referirse a dichos parámetros como: “la expresión en términos operativos de toda la capacidad disponible en un aeropuerto para asignarla en franjas durante cada período de coordinación, que reflejará todos los factores técnicos y operativos y medioambientales que influyen en el funcionamiento de la infraestructura aeroportuaria y de sus subsistemas”(10).

En este punto es necesario introducir otro concepto que es el de las franjas horarias; estas son un mínimo de cinco franjas solicitadas para un período de programación a la misma hora, por lo general el mismo día de la semana y asignada de esa manera si esto no es posible, lo más cercano a la misma hora(11). Es decir, la capacidad de un aeropuerto se asigna en franjas horarias.

El problema se plantea cuando las empresas aéreas consideran que esto no es un derecho sino una propiedad, es así como muchas de ellas incluyen los slots dentro de su balance comercial como verdaderos activos. Es verdad que las empresas pueden intercambiarse estos derechos pero no son derechos de propiedad, así lo ha establecido el Reglamento (CE) 793/2004; son derechos otorgados por el poder público. El presente Reglamento así lo establece: “…permiso dado por un coordinador de conformidad con el presente Reglamento para utilizar toda la infraestructura aeroportuaria necesarias con fines de aterrizaje y despegue en una fecha y hora determinada asignadas por un coordinador de conformidad con el presente Reglamento para la prestación de un servicio aéreo en un aeropuerto coordinado”(12).

El problema subsiste y subsistirá en la medida en que los slots sean considerados por la empresas aéreas como una manifestación del derecho de acceso a una instalación como es el aeropuerto. VILLAR ROJAS es muy didáctico al decir que: “…una instalación o una infraestructura sin la cual las empresas de la competencia no podrían ejercer sus servicios al público”(13) generando una situación de dependencia económica que puede oponerse a todo tipo de competencia efectiva(14).

Es necesario resaltar que sin slots no hay mercado aéreo, ya que su existencia es imposible de imaginar. Las empresas aéreas precisan de estos derechos de aterrizaje y despegue para suministrar sus servicios.

El artículo 10 del Reglamento (CE) 95/93 regula el fondo de reserva de franjas horarias; el mismo fue reformado en el año 2009 con la finalidad de que las empresas aéreas pudieran reducir su capacidad y mantener sus derechos de despegue y aterrizaje. Esta medida fue aprobada por vía de urgencia ya que la idea era disminuir los efectos de la crisis económica sobre el transporte aéreo.

En España, el régimen sancionador era regulado por el Real Decreto-ley 15/2001, de 2 de noviembre, que concretamente regulaba el régimen sancionador en materia de slots, pero esta normativa fue derogada y sustituida por la efectuada mediante la Ley 21/2003 del 8 de julio de Seguridad Aérea. El artículo 49 de dicha Ley tipifica las infracciones en relación con la coordinación de los aeropuertos y el uso de las franjas horarias.

Otro elemento a tener en cuenta es que en la Unión Europea las regulaciones sobre los slots facilitan a los estados miembros la posibilidad de reservar estos derechos beneficiando algunas empresas aéreas en el caso de existir rutas sometidas a obligaciones de servicio público. El artículo 9 del Reglamento 95/93 prevé la posibilidad de reservar slots para esas rutas. Es por ello que “…Con arreglo al artículo 9 del Reglamento (CE) 95/93 del Consejo, de 18 de enero de 1993 relativo a las normas comunes para la asignación de franjas horarias aeroportuarias en los aeropuertos comunitarios, modificado por el Reglamento (CE) 793/2004 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, los organismos competentes podrán reservar franjas horarias para la prestación de los servicios conforme a las modalidades previstas en el presente documento”(15).

En otros casos se solicita los derechos del coordinador y se establece que el cumplimiento de los horarios será bajo la condición de que pueda disponerse de las franjas horarias correspondientes(16). Recordemos que el Reglamento (CEE) 2408/92 fue derogado y sustituido por el Reglamento (CE) 1008/2008. Por consiguiente es necesario concluir que el sistema de imposición del servicio público en una ruta aérea está sujeto a un elemento operativo relacionado con el funcionamiento del aeropuerto y a un elemento técnico que sin lugar a dudas puede llegar a destruir la valoración de necesidad que debe realizarse.

IV. La lucha por la obtención de los slots aéreos(arriba)

Conforme a lo precedentemente expresado en párrafos anteriores, arribamos al problema que se suscita si dos o más empresas aéreas desean prestar servicios en una determinada ruta sometida a obligaciones de servicio público, pero no existen slots suficientes. En este caso el artículo 9.2 del Reglamento (CE) 95/93, resuelve este conflicto de la siguiente manera:

“…En caso de que más de una compañía aérea comunitaria esté interesada en prestar servicios en dicha ruta aérea (sometida a obligaciones de servicio público) y no haya podido obtener franjas horarias situadas dentro de un margen de una hora antes o después de los horarios solicitados al coordinador, se recurrirá a los procedimientos de licitación establecidos en las letras d) a g) y en la letra i) del apartado 1 del artículo 4 del Reglamento (CEE), n· 2408/92 para la utilización de las franjas horarias mencionadas en el apartado 1”.

Pero las obligaciones del servicio público también afectan al funcionamiento del fondo de reserva, como ya hemos dicho en párrafos anteriores; el transportista aéreo debe utilizar esos derechos de slots en su totalidad o por lo menos en un 80% para que se le puedan asignar en la temporada siguiente. De lo contrario, perderá las franjas horarias para la siguiente temporada, éstas ingresarán en un fondo de reserva, y serán asignadas a los operadores que la soliciten.

Pero el Reglamento(17) establece ciertas causas que pueden ser interpuestas a fin de que este hecho no ocurra y el transportista pueda conservar las franjas horarias. Estas causas son denominadas circunstancias imprevisibles e inevitables, que impiden efectuar sus operaciones. Las mismas pueden ser: mal funcionamiento del aeropuerto, cierre del espacio aéreo, alteraciones graves que inciden de un aeropuerto a otro, situaciones de paralización de las operaciones producidas por una huelga, etc.

La Reforma del Reglamento (CE) 95/93, llevada a cabo a través del Reglamento (CE) 793/2004 introdujo una nueva causa relacionada con las obligaciones de servicio público, afectando a la existencia de acciones judiciales. Esta causa implica la aplicación del artículo 9, el cual prevé la reserva de franjas horarias en aeropuertos coordinados para rutas de servicio público que impliquen una suspensión temporal de las operaciones en esta ruta. Es la postura expresada a través de la Posición Común n· 22/2004, de 19 de febrero de 2004, y en cuanto a los elementos necesarios para su aplicación encontramos: la existencia de un proceso judicial; el objeto de dicho proceso debe versar sobre el artículo 9 del Reglamento (CE) 95/93, es decir la asignación indebida de dichos derechos por parte del coordinador a favor de alguna compañía aérea en contra de los intereses de otra; la falta de uso es la que debe haber dado lugar al proceso.

En conclusión, como podemos observar el problema de los slots aéreos es de suma importancia para las líneas aéreas, elemento esencial para su desarrollo comercial. En cuanto a la lucha por estos derechos podemos decir que esta es una cuestión que sólo la jurisprudencia podrá dilucidar, pero no obstante el Reglamento permite al operador aéreo defenderse basándose en causas de justificación que el mismo Reglamento establece y conservar así el derecho a las franjas horarias asignadas con anterioridad.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

- AMEDEO ODONI, et.al. The global airline industry, Oxford, Wiley, 2009.

- Circular ENAC EAL 18, del 24 de agosto de 2009, sobre la Asignación de bandas horarias en los aeropuertos nacionales coordinados.

- CZERNY I. Airport slots, London, Scholars Press, 2008.

- CODICE DELLA NAVEGAZIONE ITALIANO, RD. 30 de marzo 1942, n. 327, aggiornato alla legge 26 febbraio 2010, n. 25.

- GONZALEZ SANFIEL A., Las obligaciones del servicio público en el transporte aéreo, Madrid, Lustel, 2010.

Slot Aroma

- MARTÍN D. et.al., Orientación al mercado en los sistemas de gestión de las empresas de transporte aéreo, Madrid, Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces, 2005.

- OFICINA DE PUBLICACIONES DE LAS COMUNIDADES EUROPEAS, Acuerdos aéreos internacionales, Luxemburgo, 2004.

- REGLAMENTO (CE) n. 545/2009, del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo del 18 de junio de 2009, el cual modifica el Reglamento (CEE) n. 95/93 referente a las normas comunes para la asignación de bandas horarias en los aeropuertos de la Comunidad Europea.

- REGLAMENTO (CE), n.793/2004, del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo del 21 de abril de 2004 que modifica el Reglamento (CEE) n. 95/93 del Consejo del 18 de enero de 1993, relativas a normas comunes para la asignación de bandas horarias en los aeropuertos de la Comunidad Europea.

- REGLAMENTO (CE) n. 95/93, del Consejo de 18 de enero de 1993 referente a las normas comunes para la asignación de bandas horarias en los aeropuertos de la Comunidad Europea.

- SILINGARDI, GABRIELE, Gli slots, il caso Italia fra esperienza statiunitense e comunitaria, Milano, Cedam, 1997.

- TRUYOL MATEU S., Transporte aéreo e ingeniería aeroportuaria, Madrid , Delta, 2006.

- VILLAR ROJAS F., Las instalaciones esenciales para la competencia, Granada, Editorial Comares, 2004.

Slot Airplanes

------------------------------------------------------- (1) RIZZARDO TREBBI, DIZIONARIO AERONAUTICO, Torino, Ceedam, 1994, p. 23. (2) M. GOMEZ PUENTE, La coordinación aeroportuaria: naturaleza y régimen jurídico de las franjas horarias (slots), en Régimen Jurídico del transporte aéreo, Dialnet, 2005, p.443. (3) DOUE, 30 de abril de 2004. (4) REGLAMENTO (CE), 95/93. (5) ENAC, ENTE NAZIONALES PER DELL’AVIAZIONE CIVILE. (6) La Comisión Europea, ha propuesto una congelación temporal de esta regla durante la temporada de verano 2009, de abril a octubre. Bruselas ha decidido en virtud de la crisis prorrogarla durante la campaña de invierno 2009-2010, pudiendo decidir una eventual prórroga. (7) Asesoría de compañías españolas de transporte aéreo, Al Vuelo (Boletín Interno), Asesoría de Comunicación n. 51 abril 2009. (8) ENAC, cit. (9) Artículo 3.3. y 4.5 del Reglamento (CE) 95/93. (10) Artículo 2, letra K) del Reglamento (CE) 95/96. (11) Artículo 8 del Reglamento (CE) 95/96. (12) Artículo 2, letra a) del Reglamento (CE) 95/93, modificado por el Reglamento (CE) 793/2004. (13) F. VILLAR ROJAS, Las instalaciones esenciales para la competencia, Granada, 2004. (14) Sentencia del Tribunal de Justicia de 6 de abril de 1995 (Caso Magill) apartado 24. (15) Comunicación de la Comisión sobre imposición por Italia de obligaciones de servicio público a los servicios aéreos regulares interiores (2007/C 228/04) en la ruta aérea Cuneo Levaldigi-Roma Fumicino y viceversa, DOUE de 28 de septiembre de 2007. (16) Comunicación de la Comisión, relativa a la imposición de obligaciones de servicio público con arreglo al Reglamento (CEE) 2408/92 del Consejos en relación a servicios aéreos regulares dentro de Alemania (2007/C 149/07), ruta aérea Erfurt – Munich, DOUE de 3 de julio de 2007. (17) Artículo 10.4 del Reglamento (CE) 95/93.

Slot Acronym

Slot Air Diffuser

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