#like turn gritty into a silhouette and put it in the woods

[dougiewonderland]

You: Sasquatch

Me, an intellectual: Gritty looking for his next victim

#hockey #philadelphia flyers #gritty #gritty is sasquatch #like turn gritty into a silhouette and put it in the woods #it's the same thing

[balmasedas]

desperado / druglord!javier peña au. 

chapter one.

summary: reader is a dea agent. violence has arisen in the streets of colombia and she's determined to bring javier peña to justice. things take an abrupt turn when, instead of her finding him, he finds her and realizes they got much more interest in each other than just drug-related topics. 

warnings: only +18. overall, this is smut so smutty. canon violence. detailed warnings in every chapter. spanish traductions are in the notes, though for the sake of non-spanish speakers, spanish dialogues will be minimal and not relevant to the plot.

word count: 2.5k.

You throw your sweater in the backseat of your car before exiting it. In the morning, you had dug through your boxed-up winter clothes after shivering in your shirt-sleeves as soon as you got out of your department. Now, the temperature has risen to the seventies and you give yourself a clap in the back for deciding to wear something decent underneath. Spring in Colombia is a nightmare.

The crime scene is packed with local police and DEA agents. There are no civilian spectators this time, they know better than sticking their noses in the Medellin's cartel businesses.

Upon your arrival, you don’t need to identify yourself to the uniformed men guarding the perimeter. They know you well by then. You are the only female in the team that has to deal with these kinds of situations —gruesome, gut-churning, dirty shit. Not a very much "lady-like" job, some would express. For that, you have earned yourself the title of a gritty woman. Maybe because you were gritty, maybe because you were a woman.

Sometimes, though, you find yourself wondering why you turned down some run-of-the-mill desk job back in Virginia. It would’ve been a dull routine, for sure — hideous, even; but gossiping about some flash romance between two co-workers is less taxing than having to witness five rotting corpses at first daylight. 

"Jesus Christ," you lift your sunglasses to your head. Your partner, esteemed, weary agent Steve Murphy, turns around at the sound of your voice. 

“You’re up early.” he asserts, with a raised eyebrow. 

You purse your lips. “Had a bad night. Ran out of whisky at one am.” 

Not even Hugo, or Hughie for his gringo friends, could help you. You forgot that his daughter would be celebrating her birthday and his all-night store would be closed until the next morning. Normally, you would own an arsenal of alcohol, but it has been an abnormal week and a hell of a night —starting with the spiral of violence that has arisen in the streets of Medellin.

"Well, look at the bright side: your stomach is empty," Murphy mumbles.

Looking at the bodies in front of you, you can’t agree more: their hands are tied-up to the oxidated wire behind them, hanging by their arms. They are barefoot and scantily clad. There is a visible gunshot wound in all of their front heads, some flies are already hovering around the open flesh. A quick death to eternal torture, you suppose.

"When did you get the call?" you inquire.

He fiddles with his wristwatch. "About two hours ago." you only hum in response, keeping your eyes in front of you and paying no mind to Steve who only grows impatient at your silence. "You think this was Peña's job?" he adds.

You nod in denial. "If it was, it doesn't make sense." Not one bit. "Peña works underground, quiet, like a sneaky rat. I'd even say they're more well-behaved than most cartels. So why do this?"

Why such a declaration of violence? Why draw even more attention from the authorities? 

"Maybe he decided to toughen his punishments?” You scoff at his remark.

“He can do that without half the city knowing it. A ditch is much more subtle than a monument to death blocks from the US embassy.” 

Murphy smirks. “Seems that you have given it a thought before, Sarchie.” you narrow your eyes. He knows you hate that nickname. Your tendencies to boss him around had brought you consequences: the unofficial title of a Sargeant. Sarchie, shortened and friendly.

“Killing someone? Yes, you. Multiple times a day.” you put your sunglasses back on and walk away. The forensic police won’t be there until the next half hour, at least, and you are too disquiet to wait around. Plus, your stomach is growling, but Steve doesn’t need to know that. “We’re gonna need their names, I’ll see what I can find. You have a little chat with the coroner and see if they can speed up the autopsy. The sooner the better, ok?” you spot the smirk on his face. You know what he’s thinking. You shut your car's door and point a finger at him through the window. A clear warning sign in your eyes. “Shut the fuck up and do it.”

(,,,)

Happy hour. You give up on the investigation and stop off at ‘Chiquita’, a popular local bar near your place. The prices are cheap, the drinks aren’t that good but they do the job. The place is crowded — hot couples with wet, glowing skin grinding against each other. Happy or horny or both. You take a mental note to have some fun later. 

As you sip at your bourbon and crack your peanuts, you let yourself dwell on what you found out about your case. You finally got the names of your five guys. For that, much research wasn’t needed: All of them had their IDs in their pockets and they were exactly who you feared they were: no ones. No ties to any big names, no official involvement in any cartel — at the most, a few minor possession charges. As for weeks, your few clues have led to nowhere and the enigma surrounding the Medellin cartel seems to worsen with every minute that passes by.

You hate mysteries. Colombia’s full of them. 

You take your second bourbon in one smooth shot and ask for another. You grab a colombian peso from your wallet and slide it across the wood. Your eyes stop at the picture of your parents that you carry around. It’s tiny and worn, just like your relationship with them. They haven’t heard from you in weeks, a fair deal, if anyone asked. They don’t have to deal with their fucked up daughter and you can focus on your work filled with dead ends and a ghost that haunts you while you’re awake: Javier Peña.

“¹Qué tomas, preciosa?” a velvety voice caresses your ears. A pleasant smile breaks quietly over your lips. Just in time.

You turn your head to the side. The stranger, with chocolate-skin and inviting eyes, is waiting for an answer. You tap your fingers against the glass.

"Bourbon," you say. "²Pero no me vendría mal un trago más." he grins and holds up two fingers to the barman. He sits at the empty seat beside you, he’s exuberating confidence. He’s offered you the bait and you'd taken it.

"³Algo más que se te ofrezca?"

You look him in the eyes. You know how the story goes from there. It isn’t any different than the one from last night, or the night before. As an apex predator, he's out for something to satisfy his hunger. He won't go home without reaching his goal and you're desperate enough to let him.

"⁴Sí. Hay algo más que puedes hacer por mi."

(,,,)

The fucking cat on the window has been staring straight into your eyes for the last fifteen minutes. Matias, the guy you've met hours before, is too focused on you to notice the awkward presence of the animal, so you don't bother shooing it away. 

He's enjoying himself, pounding into you in a symphony of lust bites and moans. But the sound of skin on skin doesn't match the intensity of your passion for this encounter.

It's not that his performance was terrible, it was just... soft. So soft, too soft. From the sweet nothings, he gasps on your ear to the gentleness of his grip on your hip. 

You aren't a sweet girl. If you were sweet, you wouldn't have traveled all the way down to Colombia to participate in the war on drugs. If you were fond of delicateness, you would've stayed inside and touched yourself to a Cristina Peri Rossi novel instead of searching for strangers at bars.

You don't like to believe you are a special case. On the contrary, you assume your attitude is the rule and not the exception. Not a hell of a woman, but a woman made of hell – waking up already worried about the hours ahead of you. How could you not? Your life is as wide and empty as the sky. Unstable, unpredictable. Anything can happen. A good meaningless fuck is the only moment you allow yourself to feel something — someone. By then, the detachment that gets you through the day disappears and raw feral emotion takes its place. 

You are addicted. It's like a drug, but worse. Drugs don't have feelings, people do.

You’d grabbed Matias' hand and wrapped it around your neck a few times but your request had been ignored; you’d even pushed his ass against your body so you could get closer to a feral touch, but he had insisted on something more caring and delicate. 

And delicacy just won't do. 

So, after a few tries, you give up. You lay still, under his heating body, dead eyes directed at your window. No emotion whatsoever, no release. Like a numb, stiff sex doll, rooting for his satisfaction. Forgotten until next time.

“⁵Donde?” he blurts in your ear. You evaluate your options quickly. 

“⁶Adentro.” Any other place would demandsñ more attention. By then, he would be aware of your passivity and asking too many questions. You don't answer questions, you make them.

His body tenses and trembles. You feel heat dripping between your legs but it doesn't come from you. He leaves a few small pecks on your neck — thankfully, the last ones for the night. Matias breathes over you for a few seconds before he gets off. You stare at the roof in silence, and when he asks if you finished, you simply nod.

You can't grasp what he says under his breath after you ask him, as nice as possible, to leave. What he does or doesn't vocalize, it doesn't matter. You won't be repeating with him. You never fucked the same person twice. 

Once you hear the front door shut, still resting on your bare skin, you lit a cigarette. The room is void of artificial light, and the cat is still in the same place, with his silhouette contoured by the gleam of the moon.

"Sneaky bastard." you chuckle, then get up from the bed and slowly approach it.

You stop at the wooded frame of the window, maintaining your distance. Not too close to scare him or him to scare you. He isn't a friendly guy. He isn't even yours — just a grumpy cat that stops by your department too often demanding some food. You tried to get him to come inside before, but all you had won from your offers were a couple of scratches. Nonetheless, the cat has seen more of you than many people have. So, even though you renegade from him, you found yourself inevitably attached. He's the closest thing to a family, after Murphy, of course. But Murphy hasn't seen you on your worst, yet.

"Hope you see the same shit I see." you grimace and shake your head. "Not like that, I mean... I should choose better who to fuck with. And they should choose better too." the cat remains silent –obviously– and you keep talking. "You could make yourself useful and spook them away before I have to." he meows, you roll your eyes and decide to leave him alone. "Then again, I could do it myself if I told them I hold long conversations with the stray cat that lives in my window."

You choose to take a bath and call it a night. You glide through the living room, though before you can reach the bathroom something stops you. There's a noise outside, some glass breaking down on the streets. You can ignore it, conflict isn't a foreign subject in Colombia, especially at late hours. But then it repeats itself a second time, and the third bugs you too much for you not to grab your night robe and take a look at it from your window.

The only light pole is out of order; there's not a soul in sight; music can be heard from afar. You see nothing out of place until you do.

Your car is parked across the street. All four windows have been smashed, the tires are flat. You barely waste time cursing before you flee out of your place. You thought the night couldn’t get worse but the world has a disturbing obsession with testing your patience. 

Once you take a step outside and approach your damaged car, you’re not sure where your chills are coming from. Perhaps, because of the unfriendly weather or maybe because you’re suddenly aware of how idiotic was your decision to go outside. 

Everything inside your vehicle is left untouched. There weren't objects of value anyways. You find no logical reason for someone wanting to wreck a car just because —yours, of them all.

Big red warning signs color your mind. Your eyes scan your surroundings with speed. It's a dark, lonely dessert. You're now sure that what happened isn't some random event. The victim could've been to another person, but you weren't just another person.

"⁷Discúlpeme, señorita." a voice throws yourself far from the source. You reach for your gun just to find nothing there. Damn you. "⁸Está bien?" you look at the man. An old man that, at first glance, doesn't represent a threat. His voice is gentle, his voice is tinted with a caring voice. You lower your defenses, just a bit, not enough to stay around.

"⁹Sí." you mutter.

Slowly, you walk back to your apartment. Old man glues his eyes to your form and you don't take your own off from his'. Before reaching the sidewalk, you trip with something. Your back collides against a car and you're ready to apologize when the owner exits it there’s not a sign of rage in his face. On the contrary, his stare is blank and his mouth doesn’t even twitch.

Bad news.

You intend to run, but another guy blocks your passage and two more appear at each side of you. You turn over to ask the old man for help, but he’s gone along with your last piece of hope. Can’t blame him, you would’ve escaped too if you had the chance. However, you can’t and the smartest thing to do is acknowledge it and work from it. 

You stay still thinking it will persuade them to opt for gentle treatment. 

How naive of you. 

A set of fingers dig into your arms, another one grabs you by the neck and lowers your head as they drag you into their car. Guarded by two of them who sit at your sides, a dark cloth bag is placed over your head and your wrists are restricted with a zip tie. 

All you have left now is your hearing, you pick up a few things: the engine roaring, the tires burning on the asphalt as you speed off, some spanish words thrown in the air. Nothing substantial, nothing of use.

You sit in silence and wait for the worst.

#my work #javier peña #javier pena #narcos #pedro pascal #pedro pascal imagine #javier peña imagine #javier pena imagine #javier peña one shot #javier pena one shot #pedro pascal smut #javier peña smut #javier pena smut #pedro balmaceda pascal

[mythicalfanfics]

Hola! I saw that request are open! So how about (y/n) knits like a goofy hat or scarf for Dark but he turns them down? So they go to Wilford and gives it to him, but that makes Dark jealous cause he actually liked the attention? So he asks (y/n) to teach him how to knit so he can make them something? Thanks, that's long. Sorry.

Title: The Knitty-gritty

Pairing: Darkiplier/Reader, (very slight, very platonic) Wilford Warfstache/Reader

Summary: The reader knitted Dark a hat and scarf, who turns them down. When Wilford ends up receiving Dark’s gift, Dark becomes a little “jealous” and asks the reader to teach him how to knit, so he can make them something. 

A/N: This is a very cute prompt! I hope I did it justice… Also, I’m sorry for taking so long to write this! Thank you for being patient! ❤

Pronouns: not specified (they/them)

Warning(s): none!

Word count: 983 words

(not my gifs)

“Helloooooo!” you shouted into the empty foyer, hugging the questionable-looking cardboard box to your chest. “Anybody home?”

A low, booming groan emanated from the recesses somewhere in the house, but you knew exactly where it was from and who was so annoyed at your loud entrance. “You don’t have to be so noisy every time you come home, you know that?”

You rolled your eyes at him, though you know he couldn’t see you, and shut the door with the heel of your shoe. “Sure I do, but who would know when I came home if I was quiet, huh?”

He was silent for a moment, and you took that opportunity to make your way, as silently as you could possibly muster, to his office. There was no way He’d see you coming.

But he could hear you.

“I would,” He said, “especially, if that’s the quietest you can be.”

You balanced the box on your hip as you opened the tall, black door that stood out like a sore thumb from the rest of the short, white doors surrounding it. The door lead into a hallway that ended at a wood and glass door with its nametag, “Dark,” above it in bold Times New Roman font.

“Why are you coming to see me exactly?”

His silhouette could be seen through the foggy glass on his door. He was sitting at his desk, like always, doing… something. You never knew exactly what he was doing, and he would never tell you. So, you just imagined that he watched conspiracy videos on YouTube or something. That seemed like it would be embarrassing enough of a fact that he would want to keep under wraps.

“It’s a surprise.” You touched the doorknob on his office door.

“You do remember how much I hate surprises, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Darkipoo.” Trying to suppress a giggle, you swung open the door to his office. “Doesn’t mean I care though.”

He sighed, hunched over his desk and rubbing his temples. You walked up from behind him and plopped the box down on his desk. He stared at it for a moment, a look of scrutiny in his gaze, especially at the word, “surprise!” scribbled on poorly with Sharpie.

You were in a rush, okay?

He picked at the flaps of the box. “Is this it?” There was slight amusement in his voice.

“You haven’t even opened it!”

He smirked. “I bet I could guess, though.”

Opening the box, he pulled out a colorful knitted hat and scarf that contrasted considerably from the black-and-white monochrome office. A frown formed on his lips. “Just like I thought.” Stuffing the knitted creations back into the box, he shoved it back into your possession and leaned back into his leather swivel chair. “I don’t want it.”

“Oh.” You looked down at the sagging box, a little taken aback. “Are—are you sure?”

“I’m always ‘sure.’ Why wouldn’t I be?”

You sighed. “Well, if you don’t want it, maybe—”

“You called?” Wilford placed a hand on your shoulder, grinning like a lunatic. Before you could say another word, he plucked the box out of your arms. “What’s this?” He opened it, pulling out the hat. “For me?”

His smile was contagious; you couldn’t stop the smile from forming on your lips. “I guess it is now.” Dark raised an eyebrow up at this. You looked back at Wil; he was already wrapped up in the scarf and had the hat precariously placed on his head, spinning in circles like a puppy chasing his tail. “At least someone likes what I make.”

“Wait.” Wilford stopped mid-spin. “You made this?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t—”

He almost knocked you over as he enveloped you into a tight, almost back-breaking, hug. Dark sat there and watched, his eyebrows furrowing and a deep frown creasing on his lips. Wilford shook you. “This is so well-made! Thank you, thank you, my friend, for this unexpected gift.” With that, he disappeared, leaving only the box behind and your head spinning.

“That was…” Dark bit his tongue. “…annoying.”

“Press rewind on that.” You were still coming back to your senses. “What did you say?”

“I said that that was annoying.” He crossed his legs. “Plain and simple.”

“Why?” You frowned in confusion mixed with curiosity. “I’ve never heard you call Wilford annoying.”

“Well, he doesn’t usually burst into my office out of nowhere and steal my stuff, does he? No.” He sighed. “That’s what I found annoying, capiche?”

You shrugged. “Capiche.” It wasn’t exactly a satisfying answer, to say the least. You headed toward the cracked open office door.

“How did you make those, anyway?”

“Why?” You stopped and stared at him for a moment. “Do you want me to teach you or something?”

“Maybe.”

——

Dark plopped down a cardboard box in front of you, ratting the table and your bowl of cereal. He didn’t say anything as you looked it up and down with mild caution. You didn’t exactly know what to expect when you got gifts from Him. They ranged from cute teddy bears to actual grizzly bears, so you couldn’t be too careful when examining unknown boxes.

Except this box was unknown.

You turned it around to find the same “surprise!” scrawled onto it in black Sharpie. You looked up at Dark, confusion written on your face.

“Just open it.”

Pulling open the flaps, you pulled out a seemingly never-ending gray and white scarf from the box, but you did get the end of it eventually. Beneath it was a black and gray beanie, which you immediately put on.

You smiled at him. “Thank you, Dark.”

He forced back a smile and closed His eyes. “Don’t… don’t mention it.”

You stood up to hug Him, catching Him slightly off guard.  “Um, you’re welcome?” He was tense for a moment before melting into your hug.

#isabel #request #darkiplier x reader #darkiplier #darkiplier imagine #ego imagine #wilford warfstache #x reader #fanfic #imagine #fluff #knitting

[m-oana-archive]

A Love Too Heavy (For Just One to Hold) pt. 2

catch up on pt. 1

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader x Remus Lupin

Words: 2,595

Summary: After pining after Y/N for years, Sirius finally gets the girl: the happy ending the story is supposed to end with.  The only problem is the fact Sirius’ feelings for Remus still haven’t seemed to go away.  But he isn’t the only one starting to question their ability to love two people at the same time.

requester: @shinysilverunicorn-blog  | read on AO3 | Masterlist

Remus’ POV 

Y/N was looking effortlessly sunkissed when she entered the library.  Remus, ever the early bird, was already at their usual table waiting.  Books were out, parchment unrolled.  But he didn’t actually begin working, just had the illusion of doing such, so that he could seem as though he was caught off guard by looking up and seeing Y/N, instead of her knowing the truth of his patient waiting for her.  About halfway across the library to their table, they caught eyes.  Y/N smiled at him, and he tapped his inked quill so quickly against the parchment he felt some blue splatter onto the back of his hand.

“Sorry I’m late,” she apologized, even though it was Remus that was early, and both of them knew it.

Remus smirked.  “What’s the expression?  A queen is never late?”

“Ha ha,” she mocked, sliding into her chair to unpack her things.  “Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not looking to run a country, just pass my N.E.W.T.’s.  Not all Slytherins are that ambitious.”  

“I could see you as royalty,” Remus said, sinking back into his chair, dramatizing the act of envisioning, enjoying that it made Y/N blush and giggle slightly.  

“Well, Sirius is already basically royalty, so that helps.”

Remus scoffed, annoyance masking other emotions.  “If that’s not true I’m not sure what is.”  

While Remus found his comment funny, something dark fell across Y/N’s face, causing her to teeter in her chair and purse her lips.  Remus’ mind scanned the exchange for anything he could have done wrong, but couldn’t find anything.  So, he went to ask what was wrong.  Before he could, she answered.

“Speaking of, you’re not mad at Sirius or anything, right?”

Every bone in Remus turned into brick.  Was it fair to say to Sirius’ girlfriend, the obvious messenger of this information, that he didn’t know?  Was it fair to say to Sirius’ girlfriend, the cause of this frustration, that he wasn’t sure where the anger was pointed at?  Was it fair to his best friend to say everything he wanted to, after hiding for so long, just to end up at more questions, ones he didn’t know the answers to?  

No.  So Remus settled with a rather choked up, “Why would I be mad?”

“He said you two were arguing.  Something small that turned into a bigger deal than it needed to be.”

Oh.  So that’s what he thinks of me saying I want him.

Remus cleared his throat, though he knew it wouldn’t help and it didn’t.  “Oh, yeah.  Um, I’m over it on a logical level.  I’m just waiting for my emotions to catch up.”

“Cool,” she smiled brightly.  “Sirius said almost the same.”

All of the furniture in the library seemed to topple over for a second.  Maybe it was the fact that Remus squinted when he thought, and everything was following the motion of the spiral of his eyelids.  Or, maybe, it was the fact that Y/N has just said Sirius wasn’t over their possibility of kissing either.  How close they had been; if Remus just leaned in slightly, it would have been breath on breath, lips on lips, with the same softness but necessity of the moonlight echoing itself onto the lake.  Was Sirius covering up the same truth Remus had been aching with for the last year?  Ever since that stupid game of spin the bottle, when Remus realized it wasn’t cockiness that made him wish the bottle would have pointed to his body on Sirius’ turn, but desire.  The hope that if Sirius would have been forced to kiss him, maybe, after doing so, it would turn into something he missed, something he longed for, something he wanted to repeat.

That was what happened to Remus, after all.

It was a tall order, though, asking Sirius to switch adorations overnight.  Sirius had yearned over Y/N so deeply and thoroughly—Remus once found a scrap of a love poem while cleaning, which caused him pain both from its cheesiness and from a jealousy he had yet to name—it was hard to imagine him loving someone else.  Especially someone as ugly and flawed in comparison to her.

Sitting with her here, now, and every time before this, Remus couldn’t blame Sirius for wanting to be with her.  She seemed to have the best parts of all of them: Sirius’ mindless beauty, James’ massive heart, Peter’s agreeability, and Remus’ quickness.  And then, of course, all of the wonderful qualities that were definitively hers.  There were fleeting times in their shared sanctuary of the library that Remus forgot Sirius and his feelings for him.  Where, in the privacy of their similarities, Remus forgot he could be happy with anyone except Y/N.  

To restrain complications, he labeled those moments as I’m that happy because I’m forgetting about Sirius, or My feelings for Sirius are valid because of how happy she is with him.  There was a third option, of course, but that thought was a rainstorm he didn’t want to walk into.  

“Cool,” he agreed.  He smiled back at Y/N, genuinely because he was happy to be with her, but also with a certain grittiness, because he was too conflicted to be happy in general.  The hidden indifference of it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the meeting, which was far more focused and serious than ones they had had more recently.  So focused, in fact, neither noticed the sunset streaking the sky, followed by black falling around outside.

The next interruption was hours later, by Ms. Greenpaw, the librarian about to retire.  Remus adored her instantly; she wore thick, circular coral glasses and called everyone “honey,” even when upset.  He wasn’t sure if it was the hours they spent in the library, Ms. Greenpaw’s looming retirement, or both, but Remus and Y/N were granted an extra set of magical keys to close the library up if she left before they did.

“Hi, you two,” she said, pulling Remus’ head out of his book.  “Well, I’m headed out for the night.  I spelled off most of the candles in here, but I can put more on if you need more.”

Remus looked up; Ms. Greenpaw wasn’t kidding: every chandelier and sconce was dark except the one over their heads and one near the grand doors.  Something inside of him said this was romantic, making him ready to deny, until—

“I’m perfectly fine,” Y/N responded.  “Remus?”

He blanked for a moment.  “Yeah, uh… my eyes are already so tired, the softer light is actually pretty nice.”

“Wonderful!  Well, I’ll leave you both to it, then.”

Y/N called out a note of thanks to Ms. Greenpaw as she walked off—something Remus was still too startled to do.  As soon as the doors closed, promising their security, Y/N sofly said Remus’ name.  He looked up to her, eyes still slightly narrowed from reading his book.  

“You’ve been so quiet,” she said.  She wouldn’t meet his eyes fully, her focus refusing to settle.  “I know you don’t usually have issues with Sirius, and you’d think that I’m probably the last person who’d want to hear them fully, since we’re dating.  But I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep secrets from me.  You’re still my best friend.”

She shifted in her seat before continuing: “I know something’s changed since I started dating Sirius.  You’ve been more closed off.  I don’t want to pretend I know why.  So if you want to talk about it, I’m still here for you.”

A new guilt rose inside of Remus; he had experienced regret from having feelings for Sirius, for those feelings not disappearing the moment Sirius and Y/N got together, and for not knowing the difference between jealousy and desire.  But, he had never fathomed that the closed-off-ness he developed while trying to suppress his dangerous emotions would make Y/N believe he no longer trusted her.

The thought was so overwhelming he immediately said, “You’re one of the most important people in the world to me.  And I…” He tilted his head down, unable to bear even her dim silhouette.  “I didn’t mean to hide.  But it’s better that way.  Trust me.”

“Remus, nothing can be bad enough I don’t care to know.”

Remus considered the gravity of her statement for a second.  Obviously, she couldn’t blame him for loving Sirius.  But what would she think of him not knowing how he felt about her?  Not understanding how those could exist at the same time?  It seemed impossible.  

“No,” Remus decided at once.  He got up the next instant, sloppily swiping his belongings into his bookbag.  “No.  It is bad enough.”

He heard his name being called from across the table, but was off, walking so quickly to the door he was almost running.  He heard books sliding across wood, a chair scraping against the floor, a sound that must have been Y/N’s shoes hitting the tile behind him in quick succession, suggesting she was sprinting to catch up to him.  But his focus on the door was relentless.  Then, there was a tug on his arm that couldn’t be ignored.  Out of the surprise of it, his body spiraled around itself: an effect Y/N must not have had anticipated, as she continued moving forwards, resulting in her running into Remus head-on.

“Y/N,” he gasped.  He tried to steady her, but she did so first by clutching onto the shirt fabric around Remus’ chest.  Out of some instinct that could not be named, Remus felt his hand moving, fingers gripping around her wrist.

After a few moments of catching her breath, Y/N looked up at Remus.  It was only at that moment that Remus recognized how close they were to one another.  She already had her hands on him, softening them as she became more stable, and he became dizzier.  Especially with the single light behind her, distant now, which made what could happen next seem like a secret capable of keeping, a risk worth taking, a mistake worth making.  The world was the way the candlelight shone upon her face, making Remus’ hand twitch with the desire to trace those shadows.

“Y/N,” he said.  But it was different this time.  

She looked up at him.  At his eyes.  At his lips.  Remus was going to die right there, in the middle of the library, a corpse good for nothing except loving people he could not bear the affections of.  But then, her gaze dropped to the floor.  Her voice wavered.  “Remus, I just…”

“I know,” he sighed, nodding in defeat.  There were things Remus knew he excelled at—school, not getting in trouble for pranks, hiding the fact he is a werewolf—but in some aspects of life, he had to accept he would always be second to Sirius Black.  This was one of them.  His corpse was back to being good for nothing except loving people he could not have.  

“But you really don’t.  It’s not… this has nothing to do with you.  Alright?  I just need you to know that much.”

“Thanks for the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech,” Remus scowled.  “How comforting.  I’m touched.”  He wanted to put his hand to his heart for dramatic effect, but Y/N’s hands were still on his chest.  Regardless of how he knew the length of time they stayed there would make their release all the more painful, Remus wanted them to stay, the pathetic idiot he was.  

“It’s not like that,” Y/N said.  “I just can’t do that to Sirius.  To be honest, I think I’m in love with him.  And I think he might feel the same.”

Remus scoffed: Y/N saying Sirius might love her was the understatement of the century.  But he didn’t focus on that.  He couldn’t.  Instead, what intrigued him was this thought: “So, in the condition, you weren’t with Sirius, you’d kiss me.  Is that what you’re saying?”

Remus was surprised at how calm his voice came out; he was even more surprised, however, by how panicked Y/N’s was.  “Listen… it’s just that I may have had a massive thing for you when we first met, and for a bit afterward.”  Remus was sad and elated all at once; to know he could be loved was revolutionary, but realizing he had missed his chance with the girl he now was mad for was an emptiness that was beginning to slowly eat him from the inside out.

He covered all of the sinews of his emotions with anger: “So what you’re saying is that you only chose Sirius because I wasn’t available?”

“No,” Y/N demanded.  She yanked her hands back to her own body: a testament to her level of frustration.  “I didn’t go to him because I was sad and lonely and heartbroken and wanted to use him.  I liked him at the same time as you.  I just couldn’t figure out who I liked more.  You took yourself out of the running, so I accepted his invitation to Hogsmeade.  And I’m happy I did.”

Remus blinked, dazed.  “Can you say that again?”

“Why?  You heard me.”

“No, just the part—”

“The part where I refuted your claim that I only wanted to date Sirius because I couldn’t date you, which, if I would have done, would make me a rude, selfish, manipulative person?”

“I didn’t…” Remus struggled, biting the bottom of his lip in agony, wishing he could bring her closer so she could see the blood that was sure to come up, how much he hated himself for having said that.  “I didn’t mean that.  Okay?  I’ve been such a git today.  I’ve been completely awful to you.  I’m sorry for saying that, and for making you think I didn’t trust you.  I’m just… I’m really confused about some things right now.  And I’m taking it out on you.  I’m sorry.”  

Suddenly, all of the anger, the screaming, the vehemence disappeared, leaving nothing but a quietness strong enough to drive any man crazy.  Remus stood as Y/N considered him, her thoughts impossible to know.  She kept looking and thinking.  Remus was just standing.  It felt like forever.

She finally spoke.  “I don’t want to force anything out of you,” she said, words were spoken with meticulous care that echoed what they meant.  “I just think that maybe you’re exploding because you’re bottling things up, and nothing can be figured out if it’s never put out into the world to be understood.”

Remus wanted to protest, but every part of his body that wasn’t his mouth knew that Y/N was right, so he couldn’t.  Instead, he shook his head.  “I don’t think you’re going to like what you are going to hear.”

“We’ve already fought,” Y/N shrugged.  “If it’s bad enough it’s doing that, I think we’ve got to just rip the bandaid off.”

Remus breathed in deeply, closing his eyes.  There were so many confusing truths inside of his body; if someone were to put his tears in a Pensieve, all that would be floating around were thoughts of Y/N and Sirius, together, apart, in love, in love with him.  He saw them all right now in the black of his eyelids.  But how many to say now?  Which to choose first?

Some part of Remus that wasn’t his mind answered for him.

“Y/N, I have feelings for Sirius.”

⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥

PART THREE IS AVAILABLE NOW!!! Read here. 

⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥  ⬥

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added): @astertist @beskarjedi @bluemadcnna @boring-viola @carolinesbookworld @finnofamerica @fortisfiliae @gabriel-r3ap3r-reyes @gryffndor @jamcspotters @just-some-nerd @lonelyheart-jadedsoul @neewtmas @portkeys-and-prose @siriusement @siriuslyimmoony @sly-vixen-up2nogood @swellwriting @the-apple-princess @theboywhocriedlupin @who-cares-unknown @woakiees @wzardings @samcycle @luckygirl144

#mine #writing #moonlit members #carlysfamily #sirius x reader #remus x reader #sirius black x reader #remus lupin x reader #sirius black x remus lupin #remus lupin x sirius black #sirius x remus #remus x sirius #remus x sirius x reader #sirius x remus x reader #reader x remus x sirius #reader x sirius x remus #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction

[pokeshippingflashfic]

"What? you know you love me"

He says it a lot, like he’s trying to trap her.

Ever since Ash and Misty started dating, it’s been one of his go-to lines. Maybe because he thinks it’ll make her go softer on him after he does something stupid and reckless and she blows her top over it. Maybe because it’s just in his nature to flirt that way, since the relationship is still a bit new and he’s not articulate or mature enough to apologize and say the “L” word in a serious tone of voice. Or maybe it’s because he knows she truly does but, for whatever reason, Misty has refused to say so herself.

She knows he’s trying to trap her so she remains constantly vigilant to his dopey grin turning up one corner of his mouth and that coy wink he throws her way just before she takes the opportunity to blush and avert her gaze.

“In your dreams, Mr. Pokemon Master,” she scoffs with a roll of the eyes, sometimes going so far as to turn her nose up at him, hoping he’ll second guess that confidence.

“Not enough to let you get away with that!” she may screech, alluding to whatever previous stupid stunt he’s just finished pulling.

“Dunno what makes you think…” she starts excusing herself on dozens of occasions when the other criteria doesn’t fit.

Times when he hasn’t just put his life on the line because why waste time thinking a plan through, or times when they haven’t just belted out nostalgic insults - scrawny, childish, whiny, loud mouth, stubborn, dense, brat, bike wrecker! - and finished with breath expelling shortly from their lungs and fulfilled grins twisting at their puckered lips and flushed faces.

Times when they’re just sitting at the PokeCenter waiting for their Pokemon to be checked out and returned to them and he happens to lean against her shoulder and ease his eyes closed, snorting lightly as if he could actually fall asleep so fast and she grimaces, nudging him off of her once or twice, but usually giving up after that and letting him stay put.

“What? You know you love me, Mist.”

Times when they’re out on the road and she witnesses a creepy crawly scurrying out of the corner of her eye and automatically latches onto him, linking her hand with his and yanking to get him to stay close. He calls her a fraidy-Meowth but doesn’t withdraw from her touch or intimacy.

“See? I told you that you love me.”

She wonders where he gets his confidence. Sure, they’re dating, they’re together, it’s been such a long time coming… but that doesn’t mean there’s love. People date all the time due to liking someone, or being curious, or some other natural transition.

She wonders where this boy young man has come from, what happened to the stunted and immature kid who thought nothing was more important than Pokemon and romantic relationships were entirely unnecessary?

She wonders why she can’t grow up some too, grow out of this stubborn, scared age where she likes him, definitely, loves him, probably, but can’t find that confidence he boasts so clearly within herself to confess such a thing aloud.

She fears he’s trying to trap her, take her secrets and make them his. 

As if he doesn’t own enough of her spirit already.

As if she’d let him take such utter possession of her heart when he kept her waiting so many years before coming around on his own.

She fears he knows her too well after all this time, that she doesn’t have to even say it for him to already be so sure of how she feels about him.

She fears she has no reason to be concerned (which concerns her all the more) if he already knows her so frankly inside and out.

She fears he may grow tired if she keeps him waiting because Ash Ketchum has always been rather impatient about all things… but perhaps it’s insensitive of her to think so little of him.

The last thing she should do is underestimate him, she knows after so many years.

And still, a small voice begins to echo in the back of her mind that he probably wouldn’t coax her into admitting she loves him on so many occasions if he didn’t reciprocate that feeling.

A familiar burgeoning begins to quake from within her as the thought crosses her.

Until finally, a time comes when the two of them are sitting on the outskirts of the woods by a lake after stopping for a break during their travels. He scarfs down a couple of sandwiches, some side salad, half a gallon of iced tea in such a short span of time that she almost loses her appetite, and then he strips down to his swim trunks and runs to hop in the water.

She yells after him like she always does that he should wait it out a bit, let the food digest, but of course he ignores her. He usually does when he chalks up her concern to pointless nagging.

Only this time someone out there has decided that Ash Ketchum is going to learn his lesson.

Pikachu is hopping in after him, mouse-paddling in his trainer’s direction as Ash hollers and dives away. Waves and ripples, minutes and fading sunlight, all pass them by in fractions.

Misty is just bored enough to think she’ll finally join her friends in the water, rolls to her feet and pulls her tank top up over her head, her shorts falling down to her ankles, swimsuit revealed underneath when there’s a yelp from a couple hundred feet before her.

The light dancing off the surface of the water is displaced by the silhouette of her boyfriend vanishing all in one moment from her view.

“Pikachu, Pikapi!” the electric mouse Pokemon squeaks from afar before he goes too.

“Ash…?” she whispers, pausing for a moment, cautiously taking a step forward, then another, until her toes make contact with the somewhat brisk and temperate sea foam.

He doesn’t reappear but Pikachu does, tail up in the air like a beacon before he flips upright and starts squealing as loud as he can for her attention.

“Pi… kachupi! Pikachupi, Pikapi kachu pika!”

This isn’t the first time the sea has come for Ash Ketchum, though thankfully she’s always been around to prevent a grizzly fate.

Braving the temperature shift, she leaps forward, steep strides carrying her up to mid-torso before she takes a deep breath and dives under an incoming wave, wiry limbs and professional training and many years of experience carrying her in the direction of where Ash had most recently been.

The water is gritty, murky, burns her eyes before she thinks better of it and closes them, blindly traversing as straight as possible until having to come up for air, glancing around to see how far she’s traveled from land and retreating once more underneath the green-gray sea.

Pikachu is doing his best to pull a clearly struggling Ash back up but the teenage boy is balled up and appears in pain, is unable to straighten and push himself back up towards the surface. He’s hacking out spare oxygen, breathing in salt water, choking to death on her element when she finally loops arms with him and pulls him up.

Her heart is hammering away for the following ten minutes. He’s still conscious and gasps immediately for fresh air when he meets it, coughing and spewing up a storm as she assists him to shore, situating behind him and tugging him more completely back onto land, where he immediately curls back into a ball amid continuous wheezing, Pikachu at his side.

She’s furious at his latest reckless action, fire and ice combating for control of her nerves. She knows it’s not the time to berate him, she still wants answers, maybe he’s finally learned something (though probably not). All of these thoughts swirl around her head enough to make her dizzy yet she still rests beside him until his breathing regulates.

“What happened?”

“There was… a deep trench. I slipped forward on it and cramped a muscle. I couldn’t catch myself fast enough.” A brief pause before he finishes, “Sorry, Mist.” Then he goes back to hissing, hands massaging his right calf.

How dense he is, she thinks. How stupidly reckless. He should know better. How many times must she tell him?

Her rage is evident on her face when he chances a glance in her direction a minute later, surprised she hasn’t started reprimanding him.

“Awe, c’mon, Mist,” he coaxes with a wince (which she takes a sadistic solace in), “you know you love me.”

And no matter how she thinks she shouldn’t, she knows he’s right. So she bites her tongue (and the knee-jerk reaction to tell him off) and gives in.

“Yeah, I guess I do, you dummy,” before she presses a light kiss to his sopping forehead, pleased with the fact that his cheeks are as bright as the distant sunset when she pulls just far enough away to see them, his mouth slightly agape.

Her trap is laid bare and he’s been ensnared by her confession… to which Misty can only think that it’s been a long time coming.

#pokeshipping #flash fic #fanfiction #ash ketchum x misty waterflower #aaml #ash x misty #requests #inuyashaeienni #word count: 1455

[yeskraim]

Beach widows: War, death and the battles of those left behind

I remember when the headstone finally arrived. I could see it from the street as I pulled into the cemetery, a grey rectangle above a patch of red clay.

My chest tightened as I walked up to his grave, the tiny American flags I had placed around it months before waving in the wind.

I sat next to the grave and watched ants march into a hole I imagined led straight to my husband. It made me think of disappearing, of his lifeless body, of the time that had passed since I buried him, and of the effect time has on bodies. I winced.

I began reading the words etched in granite, the same ones I struggled to write on the headstone paperwork months before. His first name, his middle name, his last, a sigh of relief. And then, my relief turned to disappointment. “Persian Gulf”, it read instead of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. His Purple Heart had not been mentioned, either. I was devastated.

Neglect, I believe, is what killed my husband, and he was continuing to be neglected even after his death.

The bomb and the pain meds

My husband was born to a hardworking family, a pull your bootstraps up family, a God-fearing family.

His mama worked at Dollar General for as long as he could remember and loved him, her firstborn, more than anything in the world. His daddy was a truck driver and gone a lot to make ends meet. A quiet and kind man, he liked to remind us all how proud he was of his oldest son.

It is true that my husband, one of four children, was proud to join the Marine Corps after high school. It gave him purpose – great pride, even – to serve his country. But it is also true that, born poor, he was not given many options in life. The military had insurance, scholarships, decent pay, a steady home – things he was not used to having. The Marine Corps made sense for him.

Three years before he would sign his life away, the United States went to war with Afghanistan. And a year after that, he would go to war in Iraq. A bomb took his leg on his second deployment. The pain meds took his life. He was 25 years old when his body was found.

The headstone

I am unsure why I ever felt attached to that headstone. I remember the nerve it took to fill out the proper paperwork to get the headstone in the first place. I was 24, and the first question on the form read: “NAME OF DECEASED TO BE INSCRIBED ON HEADSTONE OR MARKER.”

I imagined my husband’s name, 22 symbols that formed three words meant to represent him. I imagined his face when I first met him, a 13-year-old boy born and raised in the same small town his daddy was, a gap-toothed smile, a Southpark t-shirt with one of the cartoon’s main characters, Cartman, on the front and the words “I’m Not Fat, I’m Big Boned!”

I wrote his name on the line, and it was official. He was dead. I was a widow.

Maybe I had been attached to the headstone before it even arrived. It took months if I remember correctly, and it felt like torture.

Day after day I visited only to find a blank grave. It looked so unloved. I hated myself for not filling out the paperwork sooner.

He had been buried for months before I had gathered enough nerve to even print it out. Then I had to read the questions. Then answer them. Then find a fax machine. Fax it. I could hardly feed myself after planning his funeral and burying him. It was all too much.

So when the paperwork was finally sent, it felt like a major accomplishment, something I could be proud of. I returned home, drew a bath, cried in it until the water went cold.

Maybe it is that his name was so permanently scrawled into stone, and that means something somehow. Doesn’t it? His name, a cluster of words that hardly exist in the world any more, exist so permanently on this otherwise meaningless artefact and somehow, somehow, somehow it brings him into existence again, too. Maybe? I know its weight like I know his hands on my cheeks before he would kiss me. I know the coolness of its stone-like I knew the warmth of his skin. The bright grey, the hard edges, his prominent nose, his deep, brown eyes. They are connected somehow.

[Illustration by Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]

The widows

I had to fill out the same damned paperwork I dreaded doing the first time. Print. Read. Answer. Fax. Wait. It was even more excruciating the second time, my sadness and dread now met with rage. Again, it took months for the new headstone to arrive.

I visited him as often as I could, each time hoping to find a new stone with the correct war on it. But then, when it finally arrived, there was no moment of relief, because the new error was immediately obvious: It had been placed at the foot of his grave, the original one still at the head. Now, he looked unloved, I thought.

I thought about the senseless war that led us here, about every doctor that ignored me when I said I thought he might be addicted to the pain medications they had prescribed him, about finally being told about his death almost 24 hours after they found his body.

Distressed or enraged or somewhere in between, I called the only two people I was certain would get it, Tara and Kristin, whose names I have changed for privacy.

I had met them on a retreat for military widows only months after my husband died. I had just turned 25, and they were both years younger.

We all went to New Orleans with a nonprofit called The American Widow Project. It was a “give back retreat” where we helped rebuild a house that had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. We put up drywall, we painted, we sanded and scraped, whatever we could with the limited carpentry knowledge we had.

We were very young women who had experienced great loss in a city that had experienced so much more of it. In New Orleans, I learned that helping others and finding a community are powerful when navigating immense sadness. We were there to rebuild a home for a stranger but, in the process, we also built bonds that would help us survive our own grief.

Though the widows in the group were from all over the country, Tara, Kristin, and I lived within an hour of each other so we not only stayed in contact but became very close. We gave ourselves a name – the beach widows – for our proximity to the Gulf Coast.

My husband’s honour

I felt nobody understood me like they did and nobody ever would. We shared something sacred: An understanding of the world that most would not learn until they were aged or, at least, until their brains were fully developed. We had buried our beloveds. We had had to say final goodbyes to our most important people then learn to navigate the majority of our lives without them.

“I need your help,” I told the beach widows. When I explained the problem with the dual headstones, they met my sadness and rage with their own and I suddenly felt powerful.

We would be like Valkyrie in the night sent by Odin to protect warriors and guide the worthy slain to Valhalla. If nobody else would protect my husband’s honour, if nobody else would fight for his peaceful rest, we would. “When are we gonna do this?” they said.

I arrived at the cemetery early. I wanted to spend some time alone with my husband. We took shots: One for me, then one poured over his grave.

An older woman walked by and nodded with a stiff smile. I watched her and wondered if she was there to see her husband, too, but instead of stopping at a grave, she just walked slowly along each row of them, reading about the people buried there. By the time the beach widows arrived, the woman was gone. Tara swung open her car door. “I have wine,” she said and I popped open my boot.

Trust and control

We sat around his grave, sipping Cabernet from red Solo cups, waiting for night to fall. We watched the sun set behind the pines, watched the pines transform from their familiar three-dimensional forms into smooth, black silhouettes, into ghosts. When only a glow was left on the horizon and we were certain it was dark enough that people driving by could not see us from the road, we got on all fours and felt around the gritty dirt for the bottom edges of the headstone. It was deeper than it looked and the dry clay proved difficult to penetrate with bare fingers.

“I should’ve brought a shovel,” I said, certain we had been defeated.

Tara, without flinching, pulled a wine bottle opener out of her back pocket as if she had done this before, as if this was exactly why she had brought it.

“Screw this,” she said, plunging the metal into the clay, removing one tiny shovel-full at a time – pieces of chestnut hair sticking to the sweat of her forehead – until we were able to fit our fingers underneath.

“On three,” I said. The widows nodded, then: “One, two, lift!”

It took all three of us to carry the headstone to my car. As usual, it was a mess, especially my boot, so I had had to push aside shoes and bills and purses and beach gear to make room. We stared at the headstone, our hands on our hips, Kid Cudi’s Day ‘N Nite playing so loud my car vibrated to the beat.

Seeing the block of stone with my husband’s name on it inside the boot of my car surrounded by so many of my ridiculous things felt wrong as if we had thrown his body back there. But it also felt powerful. For the first time after my husband’s death, I felt like I had gained some control over my grief.

Not only that, but I had trusted these women and they did not disappoint. I had been let down so many times that I was not sure I could trust anyone. I had felt alone for so long. I realised that night that I had just needed to find the right people. With the beach widows, I was not alone.

Widow humour

I carried the headstone with me for six years. I could not imagine it alone in a rubbish bin, alone in the woods, alone as I imagined him in that hole in the ground.

Instead, it stayed in my home, usually on the back porch next to a couple of plastic chairs the last owner of the place had left behind.

I made sure to keep it somewhere visible. I liked the weirdness of it. It made me feel safe, like admitting a flaw before someone calls you out on it.

When the beach widows came over, we would take turns making jokes about what I could do with it.

“I think it would make a great coffee table,” Kristin offered once. “I mean, what a conversation starter.”

“I say put it at your front door. F**k welcome mats. It’ll scare away the people you don’t like anyway,” Tara said. “It’s perfect.”

We all laughed. We called this “widow humour” and we mostly kept it to ourselves, only using it on others when we wanted them to feel uncomfortable or leave us alone.

It is true, too, that the headstone made me feel more normal. For so long, grief ran my life. I could hardly drive without having to pull over so the tears could dry up.

Everything reminded me of my husband, and sometimes the sadness was so vast I felt lost in it, like floating in infinite space, flailing for something solid to hold onto only there was nothing.

Everyone continued living their lives after his death, the Earth continued to orbit the sun, and I was stuck in a world of suffering and sadness.

Seeing that headstone weighted to the ground like an anchor, reminded me that my suffering was real. My husband did die. I did have a reason to be sad. It made me feel grounded, so I held onto it.

[Illustration by Jawahir Al-Naimi/Al Jazeera]

A bond of terrible circumstance

And then, six years after my husband’s death, I lost it when I moved across the country. At first, I did not notice. For years, I somehow forgot I ever had the thing. When I finally did remember it, I was devastated but not because it was gone. I was ashamed that I had become so detached from it that I had lost it.

What I realised was, in some ways, the headstone was entangled with my grief. As my grief disappeared so, too, did the headstone. I was shocked that I had hardly noticed that either had left.

I wondered if I was a bad widow to be happy, to be free of the weight I had been carrying for so long.

Everyone talks about how to deal with grief, but nobody talks about how to feel once it is gone.

My friendship with the beach widows faded, too. The life we shared together as young widows splintered into three new ones, all heading in different directions as relationships often do at that age. In that way, I suppose, we were very normal.

Tara found love again, had two beautiful children, and moved across the country to a large piece of land in the middle of the mountains far from where we first met. Kristin graduated with a biology degree but not before meeting her future husband in the university library. She stayed close to the beach we named ourselves after and gave birth to a chubby-cheeked daughter. I moved to my dream state of Oregon with a man I love dearly. I got my MFA in non-fiction and am pursuing my dream of being a writer and farmer. We are all thriving on our own.

Maybe we will find each other again in our new lives. Or, maybe we found each other exactly when we were supposed to and those few years together are all we will ever have.

Though it makes me sad to admit we are not as connected as we once were, I am also thankful. What this means is we made it. We survived the grief that bonded us, and we no longer carry the kind of weight it takes three people to hold. The hard truth is, we do not need each other any more.

Still, when I go back to visit my husband’s grave, I am grateful for the beach widows and our bond of terrible circumstance, those years of clinging to each other for hope, that night at the cemetery when we drank wine from red solo cups then dug up a headstone and carried it to the boot of my car.

Read More

The post Beach widows: War, death and the battles of those left behind appeared first on Gadgets To Make Life Easier.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2TdM5Z0 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

[sustainhealthmagazine]

Are these the best gyms around the world for design buffs in 2018

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

By Wallpaper

Ever wondered where the design-minded go to relax, work-out and punch things? It turns out they’ve got quite the option list – stylish concept gyms are getting pulses racing everywhere.

But which are truly inspirational? London to Los Angeles, here’s all you need to know about the world’s best gyms, from shadowboxing in New York City, to stretching out in Singapore...

Equinox Fitness has been around since the early Nineties, but the performative health culture of social media has certainly given the luxury company (which also owns Soul Cycle and Pure Yoga) a boost. Equinox Kensington is the first branch of the gym to open outside of the United States, and – as in other cities – it occupies prime real estate. It’s organised around the art deco dome of the historic Derry & Toms building, a seven-storey department store fixture of 1930s Kensington. The building gained even more notoriety in the Seventies when it was taken over by Biba, which drove many of the decade’s most beloved fashion palettes and silhouettes. Today, wrought-iron deco windows illuminate yoga studios and all the best of the space has been preserved. 5th floor, The Roof Gardens, Kensington High Street, London W8 5SA

Launched as a sister club to luxury British fitness brand Third Space, Another_Space is a stylish, light-filled work-out zone in the heart of Covent Garden. London-based Goldstein Ween Architects were enlisted to create the breezy, loft-like interiors, conjuring a pared-back palette of warm wood flooring, sweeping skylights, marble basins and plenty of soothing greenery. Helmed by Colin Waggett, founder of Psycle and CEO of Third Space, Another_Space brings together the golden trinity of fitness in the form of yoga, cycle and boxing-based HIIT studios, sure to attract the most serious of gym-goers looking to work on cardio, flexibility, strength and conditioning training. 4-10 Tower St, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9NP

1Rebel’s first boutique gym at London’s St Mary’s Axe was designed by Studio C102 to woo fitness lovers frustrated with the current gym model. Pay as you go? Check. Music you actually want to workout to? Check. And did we mention the chilled towels? Industrial architecture at every turn exudes the philosophy that it’s about pushing limits, not looking pretty. Copper piping snakes up the changing room walls and the gym’s personalised playlists pump throughout. 63 St Mary Axe, London EC3A 8LE

One Hot Yoga in Melbourne is the creation of husband-and-wife team, architect Robert Mills and yogi Lucinda Mills. It’s no wonder the space is extremely design-driven in addition to emphasising environmental wellness. The studio is especially proud of the architectural features that lower its carbon footprint. A custom water-heating system uses ‘one third of the energy [compared to] commonly-used electric heat systems and is one third as costly to run.’ Shower and cleaning products at the studio are all organic. 36 River Street, South Yarra VIC 3141, Australia

Former fashion stylist Karen Lord has created an eponymous pilates studio in NYC’s Tribeca. The space reflects the serenity that seduced Lord out of her previous hectic lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, the minimally branded program has drawn loyal fans from among the fashion set. The studio store stocks wellness goodies, like BKR water bottles and Sandoval aromatherapy spray. 137 Duane St, New York, NY 10013, USA

While living in a penthouse may be just an aspiration, working out in a penthouse doesn’t have to be at Pure Yoga Shanghai, which is set atop the IAPM mall. After enjoying city views, yogis can breeze through the likes of Miu Miu and Muji on their way out. Pure Yoga began in Hong Kong and has since spread across Asia and been exported as far as New York. Its Shanghai outpost uses clean lines and soft lighting to create a calming space that echoes the brand’s commitment to body and mind. 999 Huaihai Middle Rd, Xuhui Qu, Shanghai Shi, China

BLOK Shoreditch is designed by Daytrip Studio (Iwan Halstead and Emily Potter) and lighting design studio There’s Light. The latter have made the whole space feel like one, long corridor animated by light, colour and reflections, which mingle with the smell of coffee and Malin & Goetz bespoke products, alongside photography by Oppenheim and installations by Ben Cullen Williams. The designers have used a combination of materials (concrete, glass, steel, wood and fabric) to create contrasts between hard and soft surfaces, light and shadow; illustrating the divide between the hectic London urban environment and the relaxing energy of the practice rooms. The Tram Depot 38-40 Upper Clapton Rd, London E5 8BQ

Virgin Active gyms cite being a ‘force for good’ as one of their main principles. Despite the luxury quality of their offerings, they also began the affordable Virgin Active RED gym model in South Africa, where they hope to attract and benefit the growing middle class. At Virgin Active’s Singapore location, the Relax & Recovery Zone is a huge draw. Despite the delights of foot soaking and steam, the real highlight might be the glowing, pink wonder of the Himalayan Salt Inhalation room. Raffles Place, #06-61, Tower 2, 1 Raffles Place, Singapore 048616

Soho House Chicago is housed in a historic early 20th-century belting factory, and its 17,000 sq ft gym is no exception to the club’s preserved industrial loft aesthetic. Appropriately, the last tannery in the city designed the leather boxing equipment. When the season’s right, don’t forget to check out the beloved hotel rooftop and bar and treat yourself to a post-cardio cocktail. 113 N Green St, Chicago, IL 60607, USA

Local firm Lab100 are behind Kuwait’s most stylish boxing gym. The Burrow puts their boxing ring theatrically at the centre of the action. Skylights ensure that the space becomes even more dramatic at night. It was the first studio of its kind in the region. Photography: Nelson Garrido. Jaber Al Malik Al Sabah St, Kuwait

Boutique boxing gym Shadowbox is a sleek alternative to the gritty stereotype of the sport. The luxury facility, started in NYC’s Flatiron, has been so popular it’s opening a Brooklyn branch next. ‘We found that clients will form lines out the door if you distil the very best of boxing into a 45-minute workout incorporating rounds of heavy bag work, thumping curated music and a welcoming ambience,’ says founder Daniel Glazer, who trained with professional fighters. In addition to the club-like grid of boxing bags is a vintage-style boxing ring in rope, wood and canvas. All of which were designed in-house. 28 W 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA

Designed by Rabih Geha Architects, U Energy gym in Lebanon encourages connection and interaction – the 1200 sq m space is completely open, divided only by structural concrete pillars. Underground, atmospheric, high energy; the gym features skylights to allow beams of light from above, while neon lighting taps into the ‘gym-cum-club’ trend gripping fitness fanatics everywhere. The lighting does more than make the space look ‘trendy’, however. The architects argue that ‘light travels through neurological pathways and affects the pineal gland in the brain’. Green has a healing effect and boosts satisfaction, which (apparently) can make your workouts more enjoyable. Red can invigorate you, adding zest to keep-fit sessions. While the colour blue can actually increase productivity; research shows weightlifters can lift more in blue rooms. Hazmieh, Lebanon

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

#fitness #gym #workout #david lloyd