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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twelve

Tommy’s kitchen isn’t large. It wasn’t a selling point when he picked this flat to move into. He’s never spent much time in it, never felt like he was missing out for not having more. There were dozens of shops within walking distance of his flat, places where he could get something to eat without having to dirty the bowls in his cabinet or the flatware in his drawer.

There’s an island in the center of it, wooden butcher block top scored with countless swipes of a knife. A big one, and a sharp one if the indentations were anything to go by. The island itself had been a gift, handed over secondhand from his employer when he remodeled his kitchen. It took up the majority of Tommy’s kitchen, and until today, Tommy had only ever rested against it to drink his coffee in the morning, or his tea at night as he read the papers. He didn’t even use the kitchen table he had, gifted along with the island from Mr. Changretta.

But today, today it’s being put to use for the first time. Old memories making hands useful again, his mother’s ghost like a whisper in his ear. You still remember, don’t you Thomas? He does remember. The right amount of water, at just the right temperature. His mother used to boil it over the fire and let it cool. They didn’t have running water where he grew up.

The trailer had been a step up from the caravans that his grandmother grew up in, easy to pack up and move. But they were still far removed from what the gorgers considered a home.

Tommy knew the truth. A home wasn’t made with running water and electricity. It wasn’t even made with a bed for yourself. A home was made with the people that were inside of it, and the love they put into everything that they did. (Like making bread.)

His flat has running water, and Tommy dashes it against the inside of his wrist the same way his mother used to dash droplets of milk from glass bottles for John when he was a babe. It’s warm enough, maybe too warm. That’s alright. A little burn never ruined anyone.

“The yeast has to bloom. And for it to bloom, we need it to feed.” Tommy isn’t alone in his kitchen. There’s a massive bear of a man standing near him, near enough that Tommy can smell his cologne, and feel a little drunk on it.

Alfie Solomons sold rum and whiskey and other spirits from a warehouse near the dock in Monte Carlo. And Tommy had heard him more than once refer to his stock as bread. ‘We bake the brown bread, we bake the white bread. We bake all kinds here’ and he’d run his fingers across the tops of dusty, aging bottles with a smile in his voice. Inviting you in on the secret.

“And yeast, it likes sweets.” Tommy holds the sugar canister open to Alfie, who’s callused fingers dip in to the glittering mound and sprinkle it across the top of the warm water like raindrops on the ocean. Tommy follows it up with the packet of yeast, and turns his full attention to Alfie.

A watched pot never boiled, and all that. But Alfie was something worth keeping his eyes on, Tommy knew that much for certain.

Alfie has eyes like a wildfire. Tommy has never wanted to be kindling before, but he can feel it now, settling in his chest. The truth was always something that took time to sink in to him. It needed to bloom, just like the yeast. Sometimes, it needed a dash of lust to feed on to finds its way to blooming.

The truth was: The sun rose in the east and set in the west. The sky was blue. The grass was green. Tommy Shelby loved Alfie Solomons.

And there was no great obstacle there. This wasn’t a movie. Station and money didn’t stand between them, though Tommy had a feeling there was a tax bracket or two between a stable keeper and a whiskey maker. The world didn’t put men in jail for loving men anymore. And while there was no legal standing for men to marry men in Monaco, they were far less likely to get killed for it here than they were in places like America. It wasn’t ideal, but then again life never was.

It was better that way. Things that were too good to be true always managed to fall apart. Tommy liked his love with a dash of misery. It made it more satisfying. More real.

Tommy steps into Alfie’s personal space, and he can feel the heat of Alfie’s skin from his rolled up sleeves, his strong forearms tanned by the sun. He’d learned early on that Alfie hunched to make himself look smaller. He’d watched him do it around the old Jewish women and the men he was doing business with.

But now, Alfie wasn’t hunching over. He was standing to his full height, towering and it feels like a secret being handed over to him in the quiet of his kitchen.

“I want you, Mr. Solomons.” And Tommy is done pretending at anything but. He traces a thumb over the button on Alfie’s shirt, and listens to the rumble of his laughter, deep in the bellows of his chest. “And if there’s one thing in this world you should know about me, it’s that I get what I want.”

He wanted this flat, deep in the middle of the foreigners and their businesses, even if he had to commute nearly an hour to get to work every day. So he got it. He wanted his job, with a rich man’s horses, giving them the proper care that they needed. So he got it. And now he’s got a bear of a man in his kitchen, and Tommy won’t be letting him leave until he’s gotten what he wants.

Alfie Solomon’s heart, wrapped up neat in butcher paper and twine and kept in a safe made of his own ribs.

Tommy might have to start with his body first, but the heart would be coming along in time.

But before that scruffy head can lean in and take what Tommy wants so fucking badly, he turns away again. The yeast was ready. “Bring me the bowl with the flour.” They’d already sifted it with the salt, and put it to the side.

Tommy arms Alfie with a wooden spoon and the bowl, and slowly starts drizzling in the frothy mixture of sugar, water and yeast. “Once you bring it all together, we’ll knead it.” Alfie clutches the big metal mixing bowl to his chest and starts his stirring with false solemnity. “Oy, Tommy. If you wanted to seduce me into your bed, you didn’t have to get baking involved in it.”

“Alfie.” Those dark eyes turn to him, hopeful. “Keep stirring.” Alfie’s laughter is the crackling of kindling on the fire, and Tommy has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling in return.

While Alfie beats dutifully away at the dough, Tommy dusts the top of his butcher block counter with flour, spreading white in snowy plumes across the scored surface. When Tommy dusts his hands together, he’s gratified with the slow fall of white onto the counter.

He takes the shaggy dough from the bowl, letting it try and cling to the sides for a beat before he cuts the strands with the side of his hand, and turns it out onto the floured surface of the counter.

“You knead by using the heel of your hand.” Tommy presses the heel of his hand into the mass of dough, pushing it outwards until the dough itself stretches. “Then you fold, and turn. Knead, fold, turn.” Each word is punctuated by the action itself, and Tommy is gratified to see Alfie’s molten gaze focused entirely on his hands. “It will take five, maybe ten minutes. You’ll know by the feel of the dough.”

He takes Alfie’s hands by the wrist, bringing them down to the table until his palms are pressed into the flour. Alfie mimics Tommy’s own gesture from moments ago, dusting his hands together. He was a quick learner, Mr. Solomons. Tommy steps aside so that Alfie can stand in front of the mound of dough. “Knead. Fold. Turn.”

Alfie echoes knead, fold, turn under his breath, and digs big hands into the dough. Not surprisingly, Alfie pushes too far with the heel of his hand and the dough tears in the middle, leaving a hole that shows the counter beneath.

“There’s a feeling to it.” And Tommy might be utilizing that feeling, and Alfie’s size to get closer to what he wants. He steps in close beside Alfie, their shoulders brushing, and puts his hands on top of Alfie’s. “Not too gentle, or the bread won’t take. Not too hard, or you’ll tear the dough.”

There’s a smile hidden in the wild snarl of Alfie’s beard, and an answering one trying to take hold of the corners of Tommy’s mouth. He won’t let it. He’s too focused on the feel of Alfie’s strong hands beneath his own.

“Knead.” He interlaces the fingers of his left hand with Alfie’s and presses it down into the dough, enough weight behind it to flatten the mound of dough into a long, rectangular disk. “Fold.” Even with their fingers laced, Tommy is able to grab hold of the edge of the dough and fold it back in on itself. “Turn.” And then a quarter turn of the dough.

It’s enough. Alfie doesn’t need telling again. But Tommy doesn’t move away. And when Alfie lifts his arm, it’s only natural that Tommy slip beneath it. With Alfie’s chest pressed to his back and the cage of his arms around him, Tommy finds it hard to remember just how patient you were supposed to be with bread.

“Thomas-” Alfie’s voice is a heated puff of air against his ear, and it makes the hairs at the base of Tommy’s skull stand up on end, just like the ones on his arms. “If you don’t stop kneading this fucking dough and fuck me, I will be forced to take drastic measures.”

Tommy only realizes that his hands are the only ones on the dough when he feels the weight of Alfie’s palms against his hips, leaving floured handprints there. An act of claiming that would remain even after Alfie pulled his hands away.

All that hot, rushing blood inside of him is making its way south at the thought. “The dough isn’t ready.” His voice is rougher than he’d like, but there’s no denying what Alfie is doing to him. And that was the real joy with Alfie. After a lifetime of playing checkers with other lovers, Alfie Solomons was the first to play chess with him.

“I don’t give a fuck about the dough.” It’s cheerful, even as low and gravelly as the words leave Alfie, the tip of his nose brushing against the soft skin behind Tommy’s ear. He’s rewarded with a shiver that Tommy can’t contain, so he continues what he can control. Kneading the dough.

“We’re making brown bread, Alfie.” As far as chastisements went, it was pale at best. But given that Tommy’s entire world has narrowed down to the body molded against his back, he’s going to consider it a victory. “And once the dough is kneaded properly, it will need to rise for an hour.” An invitation. Or was it a promise?

Alfie’s hmm? rumbles through Tommy’s bones. “An hour is it? And what could we possibly do with this uninterrupted stretch of time, I wonder?”

Tommy closes stained glass blue eyes, and finally stops fighting the smile that has been tugging on the muscles of his cheek.

“I’m going to bend you over my kitchen table, and fuck you.”

#ch: tommy #polyfacetious | alfie #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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ionlycareaboutyou · 4 years

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prompt: kind of a niche ship but could you write some richie n seth fluff pls? i love your fics!!✨

omg i love this ship. i’ve written them vaguely (richie/seth/stefon threesome fic) but never on their own? so this was a v fun challenge for me. i hope u like it, u’ve inspired me to write more for them!

cw for this being set in IT ch 2 canon, so eddie is like. dead and gone for good, unfortunately, and it is discussed. i picture this fic being set around 2017. i promise this fic isn’t just richie angst, there’s fluff! just gotta get through some sad parts first.

When he moved back to New York City, Richie felt like his 29-year-old self again. He still does sometimes. The NYC comedy scene and the LA one are distinctly different, despite all the NYC expats who move to LA to star in films or do voice acting or settle down and have a few kids. It didn’t feel right to go back, though. LA was all shine and sun, several layers of sky blue paint over decades worth of grime. At least NYC was honest in its grime for the most part. At least New Yorkers were able to joke about their greasy ass pizza and subway rats instead of all trying to be Instagram influencers.

The real truth was that Richie had friends in NYC. In LA, he had none. And what he needed was friends.

The funny thing about reconnecting with an old friend is that sometimes, even though it seems like a lot has changed, they’re still the same person, deep down.

Seth is still a workaholic--the same workaholic who Richie met back when he hosted SNL for the first time. He still stays up til 4 AM sometimes, drinking dark, bitter coffee for the caffeine rather than the taste, darting in and out of cubicles, asking if anything new has cropped up in the past few hours that’s monologue worthy. He still wears those ratty sweatshirts during the day and changes into suits for the evening. He does shave more consistently, Richie will give him that. He still laughs high pitched and loud when a joke really gets him, and he still laughs at his own jokes, even, stumbling through them sometimes with tears welling up in his eyes. He still loves to drink tequila and whiskey and anything really that brings heat to his cheeks and more of that laughter bubbling out of his chest, though he tells Richie he doesn’t drink as much as he used to--he’s far too old for it now, and the hangovers are intense.

(“I do wanna do a day drinking segment with Rihanna, though,” he confides in him once over lunch. They’re eating greasy pizza, and Richie feels like he’s in heaven, because the shit in LA doesn’t even begin to measure up.

“Rihanna? Do you have, like, connections to her or something?”

“No! I wish,” Seth frowns at his slice of pepperoni. “Do you?”

Richie hoots out a laugh. “Dude, you are severely overestimating me if you think I know Rihanna. Good luck on your quest, though.”

“Hey, maybe Rihanna’s got a thing for raunchy comedians who wear the same shirt three days in a row and own like, two pairs of sneakers and refuse to buy new ones. I don’t know her personally, either.”

Richie flicks a piece of mushroom right at Seth’s face. He laughs in that way he does, and Richie’s chest flutters.)

And maybe it’s the fact that Seth is still Seth--still blue-eyed, New Hampshire, toothy grin Seth--that makes Richie fall for him. And he’s not even surprised by it. He thinks he’s always sort of had a piece of his heart reserved for Seth, even when he moved to LA. He was the first one to send him a congratulatory text when the news broke that he got Late Night, and he was always happy to wander around his too-empty LA apartment and shoot the shit with him for hours long phone calls about everything and anything and nothing at all. Seth was the first to welcome Richie with open arms back to NYC. They were the sort of friends that never truly fell apart, even when they went a while without speaking to each other.

It all comes tumbling out eventually, why Richie is back in NYC. Seth never really poses the question, but when Richie calls him one Tuesday night at 3 AM, eyes unfocused and hot with tears and chest heaving with hyperventilating sobs, the answer becomes clear to him.

He’s still awake, of course, sitting in his office and staring at the writers’ Slack chat when the phone rings. “Are you awake, man? I’m sorry if I woke you,” Richie says into the phone, warbly.

Seth manages to talk him down from it when Richie admits he had a pretty vivid nightmare. He doesn’t judge him for a second or wonder why a 40-year-old man is so shook up by one. He simply talks slow and soft into the phone, telling him it’s okay and grounding him as best as he can. “You can tell me anything, Rich, you know that, right?” His voice is so goddamn sweet Richie wants to sob all over again.

So he tells him everything--well, rather, a condensed version of everything. He tells him he had friends as a kid back in Maine, really close friends, and they met up again after drifting apart, and he tells him that he saw his best friend in the world die right in front of his eyes. He’s careful with his words, but something tells him that even if he did explain all the clown shit, Seth would listen and comfort him all the same, even if he was confused by it. “I feel so bad for dumping this shit on you, dude,” Richie says, fighting back the tears that he’s finally managed to quell. “It’s just--”

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” Seth assures him, “I can’t fucking imagine. I’m so sorry. I know that sounds really lame, to say I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t really fix anything.”

“It’s okay. I haven’t--no one really knows. I mean, my friends know, they were there, too, but...God, it’s so fucking complicated.” He lays his head back down on his pillow and exhales a shaky sigh, feeling mostly back down to earth. “I guess I just. I picked up my phone and dialed you because I needed to know everything was...you were okay and I wasn’t still in that fucking dream.”

“I get it. You don’t have to worry about that. You know I keep crazy hours anyway.” They manage to get a chuckle out of that. “I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive, but I’m glad you were with him in his final moments, I’m sure he was very glad to have you there.”

Richie swallows the baseball-sized lump in his throat. “God, I sure fucking hope so. He was…” he stops himself. He hadn’t told the other Losers what he wanted to say about Eddie and how he felt about him, but he was certain they knew. Seth is completely detached from this whole situation, but maybe putting out what he’s been harboring in his chest for so long will take some weight off it. “He was the first person I really fell in love with.”

“Oh, Rich.” Seth’s voice is soft and sad.

“I know that’s a lot to tell you, and like, I haven’t even really told you, or anyone that I’m gay, but I guess here it is, this is so damn...ungraceful,” he rambles with a shaky little laugh, “But I guess I’m not really graceful anyway.”

“It’s okay. You know it doesn’t bother me at all, right? God, I sound like--every straight dude in the world right now. I’m totally cool with gays!”

“Well, maybe a little,” Richie says, unable to not give him a little shit, and he’s happy to hear Seth laugh on the other end. “But thanks. I’m glad you were the first person I told.”

“Well, when I tell you about the dudes I hooked up with in college, I know you’ll be chill about it, too.” Seth says, then adds, “Oh, guess I just did.”

“You what? Seth middle-name Meyers.”

“It’s Adam.”

“Not the point. You what?”

“Dude, haven’t I told you like a million times about my crush on James Spader? Do you know how many times I’ve watched Pretty in Pink? Too many times. That’s not even the best Hughes film.”

“I thought that was like--a joke! You always said you wanted to grow your hair out like that!” He’s smiling against the phone, really truly grinning at this whole mutual coming out situation, and he’s so happy to be smiling again.

“Well, yeah, I do, but also, like, he was hot, okay? Him being bald now is the greatest tragedy of my life.” Seth says, laughing even more.

“You know, I haven’t gone bald yet. I’ve got plenty of hair. It’s unwashed right now, but feel free to run your hands through it. We can roleplay. I’ll be...fuck, what was his name? The Pretty in Pink guy?” Richie hasn’t seen that movie since it came out.

Seth answers very quickly. “Steff.”

“That’s it! I’ll be Steff, and you can be...Andie! That’s her name.”

“Steff wasn’t the love interest, though, remember? He was the love interest’s asshole friend.”

Richie hums. “I’m kind of an asshole. Not as pretty of an asshole as Spader, though.”

“I think you’re perfectly pretty.”

“Thanks,” he smiles again. His stomach knots itself up, then un-knots. Seth Meyers, the man who’s all blue eyes, New Hampshire, and salt-and-pepper hair is calling him pretty. What a world.

After he hangs up and manages to catch a few hours of sleep, he’s not surprised when he gets a call from Seth a few days later asking if he wants to grab a drink, and there’s a different tone to his voice. He can’t quite place it, but it almost sounds nervous, like he doesn’t want to screw this up. He doesn’t screw anything up, though, and when they make their way back to Seth’s apartment, pleasantly buzzed, and end up on his couch, lips on lips, Richie isn’t really surprised, either. He smiles into each one.

They seem to divide their time in between either apartment, not quite ready to have the “hey, let’s move in together” conversation. It’s only been a few months, and they’re taking their time. Richie’s never let himself take his time before.

Most nights, they’re tangled up in whatever bed they’ve fallen into--tonight, it’s Seth’s, and Richie has managed to get him home at a reasonable time, around midnight, even though the show filmed several hours before. (“The news and the president don’t stop,” Seth has explained to him before, “But God, I wish they would.”) He’s running his fingers through Seth’s hair, which is surprisingly soft once all the product is washed out. Richie never gets tired of touching it. “You’re halfway to Spader, I think.”

“Yeah? I’ll see if makeup and wardrobe approve of me growing it out any longer, or if they’ll force me to cut it.” Seth sounds sleepy, but even in the dark Richie can tell he’s smiling.

“I’d like it,” he says, and presses a kiss to the line of Seth’s jaw. “Isn’t that enough?”

“For me? More than enough.” Seth brings him in for a proper kiss, long and deep and warm, hands wandering and stroking skin, unhurried and sweet.

When they pull apart, it comes tumbling out, as things seem to do. “I love you.” It’s the first time Richie has said it. He’s known it, without a shadow of a doubt, for a while now. And he thinks Seth knew it, too, even if it went unsaid. He understood that Richie was working up to this sort of thing, to opening himself up and allowing himself to cry and feel and say things like that. Like I love you. And now it’s come out, like it was always bound to, and Richie feels Seth smile against his temple.

“I love you, too.”

“More than James Spader?”

Seth laughs. “Much more.” He pulls him in for another kiss, and they say “I love you” many more times that night, and almost every night afterward.

#my writing #thank you so much for this prompt! i went a little wild #i kind of woobified richie a bit but what i can i say i love to project #and the james spader thing is the result of seth always talking abt him in monologues and ACNs #he wants to 'grow his hair out that long'#but he needs that 'spader confidence'#lmao #Anonymous

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awsexchage · 5 years

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コンテナイメージのセキュリティチェック＆脆弱性診断を簡易的に実施する https://ift.tt/2GBpTSN

どうも、若松です。

最近、コンテナイメージをビルドしまくっており、オレオレなコンテナイメージが増殖しています。そんなおり、以下の記事が目に止まりました。

DockerHubで公開されているコンテナが安全か確かめてみた結果【人気のコンテナ上位800個】

そりゃあ脆弱性あるわなぁと思いつつ、じゃあオレのコンテナイメージは大丈夫か？と思いました。というわけで上記の記事で使用されていたdockleとTrivyを使って、オレオレコンテナイメージをチェックしていきたいと思います。

使用ツール

dockle

CISベンチマークやDockerベストプラクティスに準拠したコンテナイメージかをチェックできます。 WARNやFATALの項目には、どのように改善すればよいかのヒントが添えられていて小憎いです

それぞれの基準は以下の通り CISベンチマーク Dockerベストプラクティス

Trivy

OSやアプリケーションに潜む脆弱性をチェックできます。 CVE番号と共に脆弱性の詳細を表示してくれるので、どのように改善するかの計画が立てやすいです。

��象OSとアプリケーションは以下の通り https://github.com/knqyf263/trivy#vulnerability-detection

インストール

今回はMacのローカルにコンテナイメージがあるため、brewでインストールしました。手順はそれぞれのREADMEに記載があるため、省略します。

dockle https://github.com/goodwithtech/dockle

Trivy https://github.com/knqyf263/trivy

実行結果

前回の記事で作成したLaravelコンテナを対象にしました。 https://cloudpack.media/48301

dockle

$ dockle laravel:latest WARN - CIS-DI-0001: Create a user for the container * Last user should not be root PASS - CIS-DI-0005: Enable Content trust for Docker WARN - CIS-DI-0006: Add HEALTHCHECK instruction to the container image * not found HEALTHCHECK statement PASS - CIS-DI-0007: Do not use update instructions alone in the Dockerfile PASS - CIS-DI-0008: Remove setuid and setgid permissions in the images PASS - CIS-DI-0009: Use COPY instead of ADD in Dockerfile PASS - CIS-DI-0010: Do not store secrets in ENVIRONMENT variables PASS - CIS-DI-0010: Do not store secret files PASS - DKL-DI-0001: Avoid sudo command PASS - DKL-DI-0002: Avoid sensitive directory mounting PASS - DKL-DI-0003: Avoid apt-get/apk/dist-upgrade PASS - DKL-DI-0004: Use apk add with --no-cache PASS - DKL-DI-0005: Clear apt-get caches WARN - DKL-DI-0006: Avoid latest tag * Avoid 'latest' tag PASS - DKL-LI-0001: Avoid empty password PASS - DKL-LI-0002: Be unique UID PASS - DKL-LI-0002: Be unique GROUP

大きな問題はありませんでしたが、WARNが3件出て、改善に向けたアドバイスが表示されていることがわかります。

Trivy

$ trivy laravel:latest 2019-07-16T00:26:44.376+0900 INFO Updating vulnerability database... 2019-07-16T00:26:46.203+0900 WARN You should avoid using the :latest tag as it is cached. You need to specify '--clear-cache' option when :latest image is changed 2019-07-16T00:26:48.159+0900 INFO Detecting Alpine vulnerabilities... 2019-07-16T00:26:48.171+0900 INFO Updating composer Security DB... 2019-07-16T00:26:51.928+0900 INFO Detecting composer vulnerabilities... 2019-07-16T00:26:51.928+0900 INFO Updating composer Security DB... 2019-07-16T00:26:53.211+0900 INFO Detecting composer vulnerabilities... 2019-07-16T00:26:53.214+0900 INFO Updating composer Security DB... 2019-07-16T00:26:54.422+0900 INFO Detecting composer vulnerabilities... 2019-07-16T00:26:54.422+0900 INFO Updating composer Security DB... 2019-07-16T00:26:56.052+0900 INFO Detecting composer vulnerabilities... var/www/laravel/vendor/psy/psysh/vendor-bin/box/composer.lock ============================================================= Total: 0 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 0) var/www/laravel/vendor/hamcrest/hamcrest-php/composer.lock ========================================================== Total: 0 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 0) laravel:latest (alpine 3.10.1) ============================== Total: 0 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 0) var/www/laravel/vendor/phar-io/manifest/composer.lock ===================================================== Total: 0 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 0) var/www/laravel/composer.lock ============================= Total: 0 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 0)

脆弱性は検出されませんでしたが、AlpineLinuxに加えてComposerも対象に診断を行ってくれることがわかります。

引っかかる場合の表示

上記でチェックしたコンテナイメージは最新のベースイメージであったため、引っかかる項目が少ない結果となりました。しかしながら、これではチェックに引っかかった場合の表示がわからないため、ずいぶん前(docker imagesで見ると9ヶ月前)にpullして手元にあったhttpd:2.4-alpineをチェックしてみます。

dockle

$ dockle httpd:2.4-alpine WARN - CIS-DI-0001: Create a user for the container * Last user should not be root PASS - CIS-DI-0005: Enable Content trust for Docker WARN - CIS-DI-0006: Add HEALTHCHECK instruction to the container image * not found HEALTHCHECK statement PASS - CIS-DI-0007: Do not use update instructions alone in the Dockerfile PASS - CIS-DI-0008: Remove setuid and setgid permissions in the images PASS - CIS-DI-0009: Use COPY instead of ADD in Dockerfile PASS - CIS-DI-0010: Do not store secrets in ENVIRONMENT variables PASS - CIS-DI-0010: Do not store secret files PASS - DKL-DI-0001: Avoid sudo command PASS - DKL-DI-0002: Avoid sensitive directory mounting PASS - DKL-DI-0003: Avoid apt-get/apk/dist-upgrade FATAL - DKL-DI-0004: Use apk add with --no-cache * Use --no-cache option if use 'apk add': /bin/sh -c set -eux; runDeps=' apr-dev apr-util-dev apr-util-ldap perl '; apk add --no-cache --virtual .build-deps $runDeps ca-certificates coreutils dpkg-dev dpkg gcc gnupg libc-dev libressl libressl-dev libxml2-dev lua-dev make nghttp2-dev pcre-dev tar zlib-dev ; ddist() { local f="$1"; shift; local distFile="$1"; shift; local success=; local distUrl=; for distUrl in $APACHE_DIST_URLS; do if wget -O "$f" "$distUrl$distFile" && [ -s "$f" ]; then success=1; break; fi; done; [ -n "$success" ]; }; ddist 'httpd.tar.bz2' "httpd/httpd-$HTTPD_VERSION.tar.bz2"; echo "$HTTPD_SHA256 *httpd.tar.bz2" | sha256sum -c -; ddist 'httpd.tar.bz2.asc' "httpd/httpd-$HTTPD_VERSION.tar.bz2.asc"; export GNUPGHOME="$(mktemp -d)"; for key in A93D62ECC3C8EA12DB220EC934EA76E6791485A8 B9E8213AEFB861AF35A41F2C995E35221AD84DFF ; do gpg --keyserver ha.pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys "$key"; done; gpg --batch --verify httpd.tar.bz2.asc httpd.tar.bz2; command -v gpgconf && gpgconf --kill all || :; rm -rf "$GNUPGHOME" httpd.tar.bz2.asc; mkdir -p src; tar -xf httpd.tar.bz2 -C src --strip-components=1; rm httpd.tar.bz2; cd src; patches() { while [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; do local patchFile="$1"; shift; local patchSha256="$1"; shift; ddist "$patchFile" "httpd/patches/apply_to_$HTTPD_VERSION/$patchFile"; echo "$patchSha256 *$patchFile" | sha256sum -c -; patch -p0 < "$patchFile"; rm -f "$patchFile"; done; }; patches $HTTPD_PATCHES; gnuArch="$(dpkg-architecture --query DEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE)"; ./configure --build="$gnuArch" --prefix="$HTTPD_PREFIX" --enable-mods-shared=reallyall --enable-mpms-shared=all ; make -j "$(nproc)"; make install; cd ..; rm -r src man manual; sed -ri -e 's!^(\s*CustomLog)\s+\S+!\1 /proc/self/fd/1!g' -e 's!^(\s*ErrorLog)\s+\S+!\1 /proc/self/fd/2!g' "$HTTPD_PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf"; runDeps="$runDeps $( scanelf --needed --nobanner --format '%n#p' --recursive /usr/local | tr ',' '\n' | sort -u | awk 'system("[ -e /usr/local/lib/" $1 " ]") == 0 { next } { print "so:" $1 }' )"; apk add --virtual .httpd-rundeps $runDeps; apk del .build-deps PASS - DKL-DI-0005: Clear apt-get caches PASS - DKL-DI-0006: Avoid latest tag FATAL - DKL-LI-0001: Avoid empty password * No password user found! username : root PASS - DKL-LI-0002: Be unique UID PASS - DKL-LI-0002: Be unique GROUP

FATALが出ているのが確認できます。最新のAlpineLinuxでは出ないものなので、定期的にチェックは必要だなと思います。

Trivy

$ trivy httpd:2.4-alpine 2019-07-16T00:48:09.514+0900 INFO Updating vulnerability database... 2019-07-16T00:48:13.096+0900 INFO Detecting Alpine vulnerabilities... httpd:2.4-alpine (alpine 3.7.1) =============================== Total: 13 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 2, MEDIUM: 5, HIGH: 5, CRITICAL: 1) +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | LIBRARY | VULNERABILITY ID | SEVERITY | INSTALLED VERSION | FIXED VERSION | TITLE | +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | bzip2 | CVE-2019-12900 | HIGH | 1.0.6-r6 | 1.0.6-r7 | bzip2: out-of-bounds write in | | | | | | | function BZ2_decompress | +------------+------------------+ +-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | expat | CVE-2018-20843 | | 2.2.5-r0 | 2.2.7-r0 | expat: large number of colons | | | | | | | in input makes parser consume | | | | | | | high amount... | +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | libxml2 | CVE-2018-14404 | MEDIUM | 2.9.7-r0 | 2.9.8-r1 | libxml2: NULL pointer | | | | | | | dereference in | | | | | | | xpath.c:xmlXPathCompOpEval() | | | | | | | can allow attackers to cause | | | | | | | a... | + +------------------+ + + +--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2018-14567 | | | | libxml2: Infinite loop when | | | | | | | --with-lzma is used allows for | | | | | | | denial of service... | + +------------------+----------+ + +--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2018-9251 | LOW | | | libxml2: infinite loop in | | | | | | | xz_decomp function in xzlib.c | +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | perl | CVE-2018-18311 | HIGH | 5.26.2-r1 | 5.26.3-r0 | perl: Integer overflow | | | | | | | leading to buffer overflow in | | | | | | | Perl_my_setenv() | + +------------------+ + + +--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2018-18314 | | | | perl: Heap-based buffer | | | | | | | overflow in S_regatom() | + +------------------+ + + +--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2018-18312 | | | | perl: Heap-based | | | | | | | buffer overflow in | | | | | | | S_handle_regex_sets() | + +------------------+----------+ + +--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2018-18313 | MEDIUM | | | perl: Heap-based buffer read | | | | | | | overflow in S_grok_bslash_N() | +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | postgresql | CVE-2019-10164 | CRITICAL | 10.5-r0 | 10.9-r0 | PostgreSQL: stack-based | | | | | | | buffer overflow via setting a | | | | | | | password | + +------------------+----------+ +---------------+--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2019-10129 | MEDIUM | | 10.8-r0 | postgresql: Memory disclosure | | | | | | | in partition routing | + +------------------+----------+ + +--------------------------------+ | | CVE-2019-10130 | LOW | | | postgresql: Selectivity | | | | | | | estimators bypass row security | | | | | | | policies | +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+ | sqlite | CVE-2018-20346 | MEDIUM | 3.21.0-r1 | 3.25.3-r0 | CVE-2018-20505 CVE-2018-20506 | | | | | | | sqlite: Multiple flaws in | | | | | | | sqlite which can be triggered | | | | | | | via... | +------------+------------------+----------+-------------------+---------------+--------------------------------+

ライブラリ毎に表示されるので見やすいですね。 CRITICALが出ているので、ここは最低でも塞いで起きたいところです。

まとめ

簡単にイメージスキャンができることがわかっていただけたと思います。今回は素のままのコマンド実行でしたが、表示形式の変更やファイルへの出力などのオプションもあるので、うまく使って様々な箇所に応用していきましょう。

元記事はこちら

「コンテナイメージのセキュリティチェック＆脆弱性診断を簡易的に実施する」

July 30, 2019 at 12:00PM

#AWS #Official #Blog

0 notes

bettydgunter90 · 4 years

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7 Reasons to Diversify Your Portfolio in Panama

While many investors focus on accumulating positive cashflow through rental properties and/or investing in stocks, sustainable agriculture is a great way to diversify your portfolio in 2020 as part of a “Plan B.” Based on teaching international real estate investing for decades and being a “Rich Dad Poor Dad” Elite Trainer in Costa Rica, I have found investing in organic farming in Panama to be a sound investment strategy.

After leaving Costa Rica in 2014, I was grateful to discover hard-to-find investment opportunities in Panama in real estate and sustainable agriculture. Now, I travel between Atlanta, Georgia, and Veracruz, Panama, hosting VIP Tours for a maximum of 14 people at a time to educate global investors, retirees, and people who want to become expats on “All Things Panama.”

And during this global pandemic, there has never been a greater awareness of our basic needs for food, water, and shelter. Eating is never going out of style, and especially organic fruit and vegetables that are grown in Panama on USDA certified land.

So why invest in organic farming in Panama, and why now?

Global population growth ensures high demand for organic food – Based on the United Nation’s global population growth estimates of 8.5 billion by 2030 and 9.8 billion by 2050, demand for USDA certified organic farming will continue to skyrocket, especially for smart greenhouses and long-term investments in trees that are now available in Panama.

The growing Panama economy is called the “next Singapore” – Over the last 10 years, Panama’s GDP (before COVID-19), has been between 5.6 percent and 11.3 percent. As a business-friendly democracy using the U.S. Dollar and many tax breaks, this growing economy has been referred to as the “Next Singapore.” Panama City has seen many multinational companies (John Deere, Nike, Under Armor, Exxon, etc.) set up offices, along with a Panama Canal Expansion, metro, international airport, and a new Johns Hopkins–affiliated hospital. And their Cobre Copper Mine is predicted to generate more income than the Panama Canal.

Significant local demand and virgin land – 85 percent of the food is imported into Panama, so there is a very high demand for local fruits and vegetables. And because there was a lot of virgin land throughout the interior of the country that had never been used for planting, the dirt was immediately granted as USDA certified organic.

Onsite farming experts with global distribution channels – While you may be thinking, why not invest in agriculture in the United States, we have not been able to find deals like these. And you do not need to be there or be a farmer. Investors lease the greenhouse and/or land back to a farm management company.

Low risk/high returns with smart greenhouse and rotational crops (melons, cucumbers, berries) – You can either invest in a smart greenhouse and/or purchase land for rotational crops. The smart greenhouses protect the crops from insects and weather elements (mostly torrential rains because Panama does not have your typical natural disasters). And with farm experts managing the greenhouses, you can more easily switch short-term rotational crops to what is the highest–paying fruit or vegetable. And while nothing is guaranteed, investors have started seeing returns with an average IRR (Internal Rate of Return) of 10-17 percent.

Long-term investments in permanent crops with trees (limes, avocadoes, and mangoes) – You can also invest long-term in trees that will grow 50-80 years as a legacy investment that you can leave to your heirs. For this investment, you wait four years before seeing a return, but if you are looking for long-term investments with 40 years or more of income, these trees can be a great option. It just depends on the individual and their investment goals.

Continual stream of income with no renters – By investing in these organic farms in Panama, you have cashflow from your agriculture business. And one of the best parts is that you don’t have to wonder, “Am I going to be able to get renters?”

Along with considering sustainable agriculture in Panama, there are global real estate deals that do not require you to be there to manage the property. Panama’s prices are typically 25-50 percent less for the same quality of most major U.S. cities with a more affordable standard of living. We also have access to pre-construction loans where you put down a very small deposit of 10–30 percent, depending on the construction phase, and then you hold until it’s finished.

In the long-run, there will always be a demand for food, so think seriously about adding these income-producing assets to your portfolio.

We are also focused on contributing to the number of trees being planted globally and are grateful to the United Nations’ One Trillion Tree Initiative for all their work.

Evie Brooks (Atlanta, GA and Veracruz, Panama) is an elite Real Estate Investment Educator, Keynote Speaker, Investor, Coach, Mentor, Entrepreneur and former Advanced Trainer for “Rich Dad Poor Dad” who now specializes in Panama real estate and organic agriculture investments. As a disclaimer, Brooks and her employees and affiliates are not investment or tax advisors, and do not offer investment advice. To learn more, visit https://eviebrookspanama.com/

The post 7 Reasons to Diversify Your Portfolio in Panama appeared first on Think Realty | A Real Estate of Mind.

from Real Estate Tips https://thinkrealty.com/7-reasons-to-diversify-your-portfolio-in-panama/

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adambstingus · 6 years

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Bangkok: Insider Travel Guide

(CNN)So, you’re in Thailand on a mission to cram the best of Bangkok into a weekend? It’s a big task — there’s no city in the world like this one — but it can be done.

But you’re in luck. This quick guide ensures you can at least hit the highlights on your quest for the best of Bangkok.

It’s worth keeping in mind that hotel prices vary dramatically depending on the time of year. High season runs from October to April, so the best bargains can be had May to September.

Hotels

Luxury

The Siam

This stunning, antique-laced property on the Chao Praya River recalls the time of King Rama V (1853-1910), a period when Bangkok was a tranquil, smog-free riverside idyll.

Since opening in 2012 the accolades have been rolling in from travel rags around the world.

With great restaurants, a poolside bar, muay Thai gym and spa, this 39-room resort set on three acres is almost a vacation unto itself.

Though a bit of a hike from the city center, there’s a regular hotel-operated ferry that shuttles guests to the Taksin pier, where they can jump on the BTS Skytrain.

Mandarin Oriental Bangkok

This Bangkok institution is a step back to a time when luggage was carried in trunks, dinner dress was de rigueur (tropics or not) and tea on the veranda was served with a stiff G&T to ward off mosquitoes.

More than 100 years old, the Oriental’s Author’s Wing retains its magical aura with its picturesque parlors, each named for a scribe they once hosted, including the likes of Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway.

The Garden Wing offers similar heights of nostalgic luxury, while the modern River Wing and Tower have a more contemporary design.

And if it weren’t patently obvious from the never-ending stream of awards rained upon this five-star, best of Bangkok landmark, high tea in the Mandarin Oriental’s library is simply too civilized for the mere words of us regrettably non-famous authors.

St. Regis Bangkok

Nearly a quarter of the 227 guest rooms at this elegant property are suites — this should give an idea of the level of comfort to which the St. Regis aspires and generally attains.

A specialty is off-site activities geared toward “the artistic visionary, the epicurean voyager, the passionate connoisseur.”

Care for a deep-sea fishing trip with one of the hotel’s celebrated chefs?

A private Fendi shopping trip?

The hotel will arrange it.

W Hotel Bangkok

The stylish W concept remains intact at this 407-room hotel (“chili-hot nightlife” is advertised) located on Bangkok’s Embassy Row near a vibrant commercial district.

Rooms are basic but fully wired and come with good robes and a Munchie Box.

Bathrooms come with rainforest showers.

City-view room views are nice.

Mid-range

Mode Sathorn

With the opening of Mode Sathorn, Siam@Siam gets the second design hotel in its Bangkok portfolio, which the brand is somewhat predictably characterizing as “fashionable lifestyle.”

The property has 201 rooms and suites in five categories, each featuring a different design concept, plus a presidential suite on the 36th floor.

F&B offerings come in the form of three restaurants and three bars.

Theatre Bar is the standout thanks to a circular TV screen and three areas segregated by your poison of choice, be it wine, beer or cocktails.

As with its sister hotel, Mode Sathorn features a rooftop bar.

If live DJs in al fresco vogue settings aren’t your thing, Secret M has a private indoor dining cove one floor below.

Galleria 10 Hotel Bangkok

Formerly the Ramada Encore, the Galleria 10 is a 188-room, chrome-and-glass hotel with modern furnishings.

It’s geared toward “always-on-the-go” business travelers, with high-speed Internet access included in the room rate, 40-inch LCD TV with satellite channels, good-sized working areas, direct dial telephones and HDMI easy plug-in.

There are some nice outdoor spaces for drinks around the pool.

Bangkok Treehouse

Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” the 12-suite Bangkok Treehouse allows guests to get back to nature in Bang Krajao, the “green lungs of Bangkok.”

Guests arrive via a dedicated shuttle boat across the Chao Phraya, disembarking onto a floating pontoon overlooked by the hotel’s gourmet organic restaurant.

Each standard suite is divided into three levels (living room, bedroom and roof deck), offering views of the surrounding river, mangroves and coconut plantations.

Inside, the rooms are comfortable and cozy, with all the expected features (TV, DVD, Wi-Fi) and optional air-conditioning.

Loy La Long

Quirky and comfy, the seven color-coded rooms at this two-story wood property on the edge of Chinatown range from a four-bedroom family dorm (guests pay per bed) to the river-view suite that allows you to wake up to the sight of barges floating past — along with the occasional roaring longtail engine.

There’s a fantastic “living room,” where guests can park on a floor cushion and watch the life on the river pass by.

Near Tha Tien Pier, Loy La Long is hidden behind a temple complex right on the edge of Chinatown.

Not easy to find, but the payoff is worth it.

Budget

Lub D

Lub D proves that being on a budget doesn’t have to mean losing out on style or location.

There are two Lub D “hostels” in Bangkok, both rocking an industrial chic design.

The original is on Decho Road, off Silom.

The newer Siam location is opposite National Stadium, close to the BTS SkyTrain and a short walk to Siam Square and the malls of Rajaprasong.

It has four-bed dorms, economy twin rooms, doubles and, our favorite, a queen-bed suite with a private bathroom and LCD TV.

The Wi-Fi is free and the beer cheap.

You won’t find those attributes in too many five-star establishments.

Dining

Nahm

Offering Thai fine dining with exquisite attention to detail, the best ingredients and authenticity, Nahm provides the best of Bangkok culinary experiences.

Head Chef David Thompson, who received a Michelin star for his London-based Thai restaurant of the same name, opened this branch in the Metropolitan Hotel in 2010.

If that doesn’t sell you, perhaps the fact it’s the only Thai restaurant to crack the top 10 of the world’s 50 best restaurants list will.

Through recipes based on archaic Siamese cookbooks and other dishes passed down in “funeral books,” you’ll receive both perfect renditions of Thai classics such as tom yum goong, as well as fresh surprises difficult to find outside the Thai home.

Issaya Siamese Club

Issaya Siamese Club is internationally acclaimed Thai chef Ian Kittichai’s first flagship Bangkok restaurant.

The menu in this beautifully restored colonial house features traditional Thai cuisine combined with modern cooking methods.

There a few misses but for the most part everything on the menu is unique, delicious and oh-so-pretty.

We recommend the banana blossom Thai salad, chili-glazed baby back ribs and massaman lamb.

Bo.Lan

Bo.Lan has been making waves in Bangkok’s culinary scene since it opened in 2009.

Serving hard-to-find Thai dishes in an upscale, hip atmosphere, the restaurant is true to Thai cuisine’s roots, yet still manages to add a special twist.

Located on Sukhumvit Soi 24, Bo.Lan stars include the smoked Chiang Mai river trout salad, green curry stuffed egg yolks and stir-fried beef with dried shrimp paste.

This place is good for a romantic dinner or a work meeting with colleagues who appreciate fine food.

For the especially ravenous, there’s a large set menu

Gaggan

Earning first place on the latest “Asia’s 50 best restaurants” list, progressive Indian restaurant Gaggan is one of the most exciting venues to arrive in Bangkok in recent years.

But don’t go into this place thinking you’re going to be enjoying the usual Indian dishes like butter chicken or mutton biryani.

El-Bulli-trained chef Gaggan Anand uses molecular technology to put a funky twist on classic dishes from his native India, rendering many of them unrecognizable while giving you that “a-ha!” moment as the connection hits your taste buds.

The best table in this two-story colonial Thai home offers a window right into the kitchen, where you can see Gaggan and his staff in action.

Culinary theater at its best.

Supanniga Eating Room

If you want more from Thai cuisine than green curry, pad Thai and papaya salad Supanniga Eating Room is a great new Bangkok option.

It’s located in a narrow, three-story Thonglor shophouse, decked out with raw cement walls, yellow booths and outdoor sofas on the top floor.

Inspired by Trat province on Thailand’s southeastern coast and the northeast Isaan region, the menu has rewards for the uninitiated.

Highlights include yam pla salid thod krob (sweet and sour salad with crispy fish) and sweet and herbal moo chor muang (fatty chunks of pork in an earthy curry of sour leaves).

Almost every dish here is colorful — yes, you’ll be taking pictures of it before you eat — and the mood is casual.

Somtum Der

At this little eatery you get personal service and authentic Isaan-style street food without the street.

The restaurant is air-conditioned, which is a good thing since dishes have plenty of spice.

Chicken, pork and seafood are grilled nicely and come with sticky rice. Veggies are fresh and crisp.

A great quick, flip-flop-friendly pit stop.

Soul Food Mahanakorn

An expat favorite, low-key lighting and wood finishing define the cozy interior of this three-floor shop house.

Soul Food Mahanakorn’s kitchen revolves around what’s fresh in the markets — seafood from Sam Yan one day or meat from Or Tor Kor another.

Healthy organic foods, such as rice, meats and some vegetables, are sourced from organic farmers in the northeast.

Recommended dishes: everything. It’s all good here.

The cocktails are fantastic, too, especially the “Bangkok Bastard,” a mojito-like drink with a Thai-style twist.

Shop houses and street food

Bangkok is famous for its street food and shop-house restaurants, which makes picking just one vendor difficult.

To experience the best of Bangkok street food, we advise hitting some of the more famous eating neighborhoods and start sampling.

Most shop houses or street vendors specialize in one dish, whether it’s duck noodles, pad Thai or red pork on rice.

Some of the best Bangkok street food zones to hit include Bang Rak (between Taksin BTS station and the junction of Charoen Krung and Silom Road), Victory Monument (BTS: Victory Monument), Soi Ari (BTS: Ari), Chinatown, Wongwian Yai and Ratchawat.

Nightlife

The Speakeasy

An upmarket bar with great views, The Speakeasy at Hotel Muse is set in a beautiful space on the 24th and 25th floors.

Designed to bring back some Prohibition Era nostalgia, it consists of two bars, a cigar lounge, private salas and a boardroo.

Sukhumvit Soi 11

In recent years, this busy Bangkok street in the city’s Nana area has been pumped full of hotels, tourist-friendly pubs, nightclubs and restaurants.

Soi 11 newcomers worth checking out include Apoteka — great live music, stiff drinks and craft beer — and Levels, an enormous, high-ceilinged room whose centerpiece is a circular, glowing bar with a jazzy LED chandelier overhead.

The latter has house-heavy DJs every night, with the occasional visiting big deal international act.

RCA

Another great place for bar hopping — if you don’t mind hanging with the under-25 set — the numerous clubs and pubs that line Royal City Avenue (taxi drivers all know it as RCA) provide a congregation point for youngsters looking to chill out.

Named for the historic American highway, Route 66 is the mother of all clubs here, where the ghetto riche and urban fab descend in throngs to dance to a variety of music.

For live music, there’s Cosmic Caf.

WTF

Curious name aside, WTF on Sukhumvit Soi 51 lives up to its multi-faceted concept of food-drink-art-friendship, attracting the city’s intellectual and creative class.

WTF is comfortably tiny, with a few tables scattered around on the first floor near a well-stocked bar, while the second floor serves as a gallery space.

Maggie Choo’s

It may be located in the basement of a hotel (accessed via a separate, dark entrance), but this speakeasy-like bar with a Shanghai opium den vibe comes with the solid pedigree of nightlife mogul Ashley Sutton.

Sutton is behind several of the city’s time warping establishments, such as Iron Fairies and Fat Gutz.

At Maggie Choo’s, you get live jazz, leather armchairs, bank vaults and Queen Victoria busts juxtaposed with cocktails, tile work, lattice and heavy wooden doors.

Beautiful women clad in cheongsams hang from swings and drape themselves across the bar.

Bangkok bars can please the eyes; here are 9 of the most stunning

Shopping

Thai fashion designers

Beyond the city’s many Louis Vuitton, Herms and other big-brand boutiques at high-end malls are some talented local designers earning global praise as well.

So where to find Thailand’s hottest young designers?

Gaysorn Plaza has popular brands like Sretsis and Issue, while celeb favorite Kloset has shops at Siam Center, Siam Paragon and CentralWorld.

To check out the designs of up-and-comer k and i, head to Zen at CentralWorld.

Jatujak Weekend Market

Bangkok’s Jatujak (or Chatuchak) Weekend Market — JJ for short — is one of the biggest in Asia. Covering 35 acres, it has thousands of vendors and attracts as many as 200,000 shoppers on weekends,

It’s the place to go for Thai handicrafts, artwork, clothing, household goods and even pets.

The downside? It’s hot. It’s crowded. And it’s easy to get lost amid the labyrinthine network of stalls.

Yet that’s why some people love it.

The rest of us avoid the madness by going early in the morning, before 9 a.m., or later in the day, at about 4 p.m.

Jatujak Weekend Market, BTS, Mo Chit station; MRT: Chatuchak Park Station

Asiatique The Riverfront

Asiatique The Riverfront is a huge shopping and entertainment complex beside Bangkok’s Chao Phraya river.

Inspired by the city’s days as a riverside trading post in the early 1900s, it resembles a traditional pier with rows of warehouses.

The restaurants and bars include a mixture of upscale bistro-style restaurants serving Thai, Japanese, French and Italian, as well as an Irish pub and a wine bar.

There’s also an outdoor, covered food court.

The best way to get there is to hop on the free shuttle boat that runs regularly from the BTS Thaksin pier.

Attractions

Ancient City

This is the only way to tour Thailand’s most significant historical sites in a day.

About a 45-minute drive from the city, this Samut Prakan attraction features replicas of dozens of major Thai landmarks, from the Grand Palace in Bangkok to the contested Preah Vihear temple on the border with Cambodia.

Given Ancient City’s size, walking isn’t recommended.

Better to rent a golf cart or a bike to cruise around the park.

Siam Niramit

A well-designed stage production featuring more than 100 performers, Siam Niramit crams seven centuries of Thai culture into a fantastic 80-minute show that’s heavy on special effects.

Shows start daily at 8 p.m. and there’s an onsite restaurant offering a fairly standard Thai buffet dinner from 5:30 p.m.

After the show, families can check out onsite attractions like elephant rides, a recreation of a traditional Thai village and other cultural displays.

Jim Thompson House

The legend of Jim Thompson is outlined in every Thailand guidebook, while the iconic brand’s products are in 13 shops around Bangkok and two factory outlets.

For the true experience, head for the historic Jim Thompson House and learn about the brand’s mysterious namesake, an American who gained worldwide recognition for rebuilding the Thai silk industry before disappearing in the Malaysian jungle in 1967.

The traditional Thai-style teak house, surrounded by plants and trees, is filled with Southeast Asian antiques that he acquired through his travels.

But don’t let us convince you of its quality.

Somerset Maugham, who dined with Thompson at this house in 1959, summed it up best: “You have not only beautiful things, but what is rare, you have arranged them with faultless taste.”

Museum of Contemporary Art

For a look at Thailand’s modern art scene, you’ll need to head out of the downtown core to Bangkok’s new Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

A five-story space owned by a Thai telecommunications magnate who wanted to share his huge Thai modern art collection with the masses, MOCA offers a great introduction to those who want a primer on Thailand’s art scene.

Most of the country’s leading artists of the last 50 years are represented, as well as some lesser-known greats.

Museum of Floral Culture

This is one of Bangkok’s gorgeous surprises.

The creation of Thai floral artist Sakul Intakul, the museum is for flower and nature lovers and those with an interest in Thai flower culture.

It features exhibits of important floral cultures from civilizations across Asia such as India, China, Japan, Laos and Bali/Indonesia.

It’s housed in a beautifully preserved, 100-year-old teak mansion with colonial architecture.

Lush grounds have been transformed into an impeccably landscaped Thai-meets-Zen-style garden.

Temples

As Thailand is 95 percent Buddhist, there are of course hundreds of Bangkok temples — known in Thai as “wats.”

For a look at how locals worship, head to any one of the glittering neighborhood wats, often located far down tiny sois and well out of the way of tourist traffic.

Some are actually in massive complexes filled with halls, schools and revered statues.

The three big ones on the tourist trail — the Grand Palace, Wat Po and Wat Arun — should be a best of Bangkok stop on any first-timer’s itinerary, as they are genuinely impressive and loaded with historical significance.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/bangkok-insider-travel-guide/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/178867443262

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allofbeercom · 6 years

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Bangkok: Insider Travel Guide

(CNN)So, you’re in Thailand on a mission to cram the best of Bangkok into a weekend? It’s a big task — there’s no city in the world like this one — but it can be done.

But you’re in luck. This quick guide ensures you can at least hit the highlights on your quest for the best of Bangkok.

It’s worth keeping in mind that hotel prices vary dramatically depending on the time of year. High season runs from October to April, so the best bargains can be had May to September.

Hotels

Luxury

The Siam

This stunning, antique-laced property on the Chao Praya River recalls the time of King Rama V (1853-1910), a period when Bangkok was a tranquil, smog-free riverside idyll.

Since opening in 2012 the accolades have been rolling in from travel rags around the world.

With great restaurants, a poolside bar, muay Thai gym and spa, this 39-room resort set on three acres is almost a vacation unto itself.

Though a bit of a hike from the city center, there’s a regular hotel-operated ferry that shuttles guests to the Taksin pier, where they can jump on the BTS Skytrain.

Mandarin Oriental Bangkok

The Garden Wing offers similar heights of nostalgic luxury, while the modern River Wing and Tower have a more contemporary design.

St. Regis Bangkok

Nearly a quarter of the 227 guest rooms at this elegant property are suites — this should give an idea of the level of comfort to which the St. Regis aspires and generally attains.

A specialty is off-site activities geared toward “the artistic visionary, the epicurean voyager, the passionate connoisseur.”

Care for a deep-sea fishing trip with one of the hotel’s celebrated chefs?

A private Fendi shopping trip?

The hotel will arrange it.

W Hotel Bangkok

The stylish W concept remains intact at this 407-room hotel (“chili-hot nightlife” is advertised) located on Bangkok’s Embassy Row near a vibrant commercial district.

Rooms are basic but fully wired and come with good robes and a Munchie Box.

Bathrooms come with rainforest showers.

City-view room views are nice.

Mid-range

Mode Sathorn

With the opening of Mode Sathorn, Siam@Siam gets the second design hotel in its Bangkok portfolio, which the brand is somewhat predictably characterizing as “fashionable lifestyle.”

The property has 201 rooms and suites in five categories, each featuring a different design concept, plus a presidential suite on the 36th floor.

F&B offerings come in the form of three restaurants and three bars.

Theatre Bar is the standout thanks to a circular TV screen and three areas segregated by your poison of choice, be it wine, beer or cocktails.

As with its sister hotel, Mode Sathorn features a rooftop bar.

If live DJs in al fresco vogue settings aren’t your thing, Secret M has a private indoor dining cove one floor below.

Galleria 10 Hotel Bangkok

Formerly the Ramada Encore, the Galleria 10 is a 188-room, chrome-and-glass hotel with modern furnishings.

There are some nice outdoor spaces for drinks around the pool.

Bangkok Treehouse

Inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” the 12-suite Bangkok Treehouse allows guests to get back to nature in Bang Krajao, the “green lungs of Bangkok.”

Guests arrive via a dedicated shuttle boat across the Chao Phraya, disembarking onto a floating pontoon overlooked by the hotel’s gourmet organic restaurant.

Each standard suite is divided into three levels (living room, bedroom and roof deck), offering views of the surrounding river, mangroves and coconut plantations.

Inside, the rooms are comfortable and cozy, with all the expected features (TV, DVD, Wi-Fi) and optional air-conditioning.

Loy La Long

There’s a fantastic “living room,” where guests can park on a floor cushion and watch the life on the river pass by.

Near Tha Tien Pier, Loy La Long is hidden behind a temple complex right on the edge of Chinatown.

Not easy to find, but the payoff is worth it.

Budget

Lub D

Lub D proves that being on a budget doesn’t have to mean losing out on style or location.

There are two Lub D “hostels” in Bangkok, both rocking an industrial chic design.

The original is on Decho Road, off Silom.

The newer Siam location is opposite National Stadium, close to the BTS SkyTrain and a short walk to Siam Square and the malls of Rajaprasong.

It has four-bed dorms, economy twin rooms, doubles and, our favorite, a queen-bed suite with a private bathroom and LCD TV.

The Wi-Fi is free and the beer cheap.

You won’t find those attributes in too many five-star establishments.

Dining

Nahm

Offering Thai fine dining with exquisite attention to detail, the best ingredients and authenticity, Nahm provides the best of Bangkok culinary experiences.

Head Chef David Thompson, who received a Michelin star for his London-based Thai restaurant of the same name, opened this branch in the Metropolitan Hotel in 2010.

If that doesn’t sell you, perhaps the fact it’s the only Thai restaurant to crack the top 10 of the world’s 50 best restaurants list will.

Issaya Siamese Club

Issaya Siamese Club is internationally acclaimed Thai chef Ian Kittichai’s first flagship Bangkok restaurant.

The menu in this beautifully restored colonial house features traditional Thai cuisine combined with modern cooking methods.

There a few misses but for the most part everything on the menu is unique, delicious and oh-so-pretty.

We recommend the banana blossom Thai salad, chili-glazed baby back ribs and massaman lamb.

Bo.Lan

Bo.Lan has been making waves in Bangkok’s culinary scene since it opened in 2009.

Serving hard-to-find Thai dishes in an upscale, hip atmosphere, the restaurant is true to Thai cuisine’s roots, yet still manages to add a special twist.

Located on Sukhumvit Soi 24, Bo.Lan stars include the smoked Chiang Mai river trout salad, green curry stuffed egg yolks and stir-fried beef with dried shrimp paste.

This place is good for a romantic dinner or a work meeting with colleagues who appreciate fine food.

For the especially ravenous, there’s a large set menu

Gaggan

Earning first place on the latest “Asia’s 50 best restaurants” list, progressive Indian restaurant Gaggan is one of the most exciting venues to arrive in Bangkok in recent years.

But don’t go into this place thinking you’re going to be enjoying the usual Indian dishes like butter chicken or mutton biryani.

The best table in this two-story colonial Thai home offers a window right into the kitchen, where you can see Gaggan and his staff in action.

Culinary theater at its best.

Supanniga Eating Room

If you want more from Thai cuisine than green curry, pad Thai and papaya salad Supanniga Eating Room is a great new Bangkok option.

It’s located in a narrow, three-story Thonglor shophouse, decked out with raw cement walls, yellow booths and outdoor sofas on the top floor.

Inspired by Trat province on Thailand’s southeastern coast and the northeast Isaan region, the menu has rewards for the uninitiated.

Highlights include yam pla salid thod krob (sweet and sour salad with crispy fish) and sweet and herbal moo chor muang (fatty chunks of pork in an earthy curry of sour leaves).

Almost every dish here is colorful — yes, you’ll be taking pictures of it before you eat — and the mood is casual.

Somtum Der

At this little eatery you get personal service and authentic Isaan-style street food without the street.

The restaurant is air-conditioned, which is a good thing since dishes have plenty of spice.

Chicken, pork and seafood are grilled nicely and come with sticky rice. Veggies are fresh and crisp.

A great quick, flip-flop-friendly pit stop.

Soul Food Mahanakorn

An expat favorite, low-key lighting and wood finishing define the cozy interior of this three-floor shop house.

Soul Food Mahanakorn’s kitchen revolves around what’s fresh in the markets — seafood from Sam Yan one day or meat from Or Tor Kor another.

Healthy organic foods, such as rice, meats and some vegetables, are sourced from organic farmers in the northeast.

Recommended dishes: everything. It’s all good here.

The cocktails are fantastic, too, especially the “Bangkok Bastard,” a mojito-like drink with a Thai-style twist.

Shop houses and street food

Bangkok is famous for its street food and shop-house restaurants, which makes picking just one vendor difficult.

To experience the best of Bangkok street food, we advise hitting some of the more famous eating neighborhoods and start sampling.

Most shop houses or street vendors specialize in one dish, whether it’s duck noodles, pad Thai or red pork on rice.

Nightlife

The Speakeasy

An upmarket bar with great views, The Speakeasy at Hotel Muse is set in a beautiful space on the 24th and 25th floors.

Designed to bring back some Prohibition Era nostalgia, it consists of two bars, a cigar lounge, private salas and a boardroo.

Sukhumvit Soi 11

In recent years, this busy Bangkok street in the city’s Nana area has been pumped full of hotels, tourist-friendly pubs, nightclubs and restaurants.

The latter has house-heavy DJs every night, with the occasional visiting big deal international act.

RCA

Named for the historic American highway, Route 66 is the mother of all clubs here, where the ghetto riche and urban fab descend in throngs to dance to a variety of music.

For live music, there’s Cosmic Caf.

WTF

Curious name aside, WTF on Sukhumvit Soi 51 lives up to its multi-faceted concept of food-drink-art-friendship, attracting the city’s intellectual and creative class.

WTF is comfortably tiny, with a few tables scattered around on the first floor near a well-stocked bar, while the second floor serves as a gallery space.

Maggie Choo’s

Sutton is behind several of the city’s time warping establishments, such as Iron Fairies and Fat Gutz.

At Maggie Choo’s, you get live jazz, leather armchairs, bank vaults and Queen Victoria busts juxtaposed with cocktails, tile work, lattice and heavy wooden doors.

Beautiful women clad in cheongsams hang from swings and drape themselves across the bar.

Bangkok bars can please the eyes; here are 9 of the most stunning

Shopping

Thai fashion designers

Beyond the city’s many Louis Vuitton, Herms and other big-brand boutiques at high-end malls are some talented local designers earning global praise as well.

So where to find Thailand’s hottest young designers?

Gaysorn Plaza has popular brands like Sretsis and Issue, while celeb favorite Kloset has shops at Siam Center, Siam Paragon and CentralWorld.

To check out the designs of up-and-comer k and i, head to Zen at CentralWorld.

Jatujak Weekend Market

It’s the place to go for Thai handicrafts, artwork, clothing, household goods and even pets.

The downside? It’s hot. It’s crowded. And it’s easy to get lost amid the labyrinthine network of stalls.

Yet that’s why some people love it.

The rest of us avoid the madness by going early in the morning, before 9 a.m., or later in the day, at about 4 p.m.

Jatujak Weekend Market, BTS, Mo Chit station; MRT: Chatuchak Park Station

Asiatique The Riverfront

Asiatique The Riverfront is a huge shopping and entertainment complex beside Bangkok’s Chao Phraya river.

Inspired by the city’s days as a riverside trading post in the early 1900s, it resembles a traditional pier with rows of warehouses.

The restaurants and bars include a mixture of upscale bistro-style restaurants serving Thai, Japanese, French and Italian, as well as an Irish pub and a wine bar.

There’s also an outdoor, covered food court.

The best way to get there is to hop on the free shuttle boat that runs regularly from the BTS Thaksin pier.

Attractions

Ancient City

This is the only way to tour Thailand’s most significant historical sites in a day.

Given Ancient City’s size, walking isn’t recommended.

Better to rent a golf cart or a bike to cruise around the park.

Siam Niramit

A well-designed stage production featuring more than 100 performers, Siam Niramit crams seven centuries of Thai culture into a fantastic 80-minute show that’s heavy on special effects.

Shows start daily at 8 p.m. and there’s an onsite restaurant offering a fairly standard Thai buffet dinner from 5:30 p.m.

After the show, families can check out onsite attractions like elephant rides, a recreation of a traditional Thai village and other cultural displays.

Jim Thompson House

The legend of Jim Thompson is outlined in every Thailand guidebook, while the iconic brand’s products are in 13 shops around Bangkok and two factory outlets.

The traditional Thai-style teak house, surrounded by plants and trees, is filled with Southeast Asian antiques that he acquired through his travels.

But don’t let us convince you of its quality.

Somerset Maugham, who dined with Thompson at this house in 1959, summed it up best: “You have not only beautiful things, but what is rare, you have arranged them with faultless taste.”

Museum of Contemporary Art

For a look at Thailand’s modern art scene, you’ll need to head out of the downtown core to Bangkok’s new Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

Most of the country’s leading artists of the last 50 years are represented, as well as some lesser-known greats.

Museum of Floral Culture

This is one of Bangkok’s gorgeous surprises.

The creation of Thai floral artist Sakul Intakul, the museum is for flower and nature lovers and those with an interest in Thai flower culture.

It features exhibits of important floral cultures from civilizations across Asia such as India, China, Japan, Laos and Bali/Indonesia.

It’s housed in a beautifully preserved, 100-year-old teak mansion with colonial architecture.

Lush grounds have been transformed into an impeccably landscaped Thai-meets-Zen-style garden.

Temples

As Thailand is 95 percent Buddhist, there are of course hundreds of Bangkok temples — known in Thai as “wats.”

For a look at how locals worship, head to any one of the glittering neighborhood wats, often located far down tiny sois and well out of the way of tourist traffic.

Some are actually in massive complexes filled with halls, schools and revered statues.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/bangkok-insider-travel-guide/

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twenty Five

“Archaeology is the search for...fact.” The sound of the chalk hitting against the chalkboard is loud in the quiet of the room, a percussive sound followed by the squeak of the letters being drawn out in big, capitalized block letters. The underline beneath it serves as emphasis before he turns back to face the class. “Not truth.”

In the back of the room, a young man sits with a New York Giants hat pulled low over his eyes. The voice coming from the front of the room is the same one that he remembers, though the scruffy undergrad that Wan Li knew all those years ago has aged like a fine wine into the talented orator in front of him.

A suit and a bow tie is not something Wan would have ever been able to picture Indy in. The short shorn hair was another surprise. It made him look older. More professional. (The glasses, Wan remembers. Nights around the fire in India had given him a few glimpses of the man doubled over with glasses low on his nose, scribbling notes about the day’s finds.

“If it’s truth you’re interested in, Dr. Tyree’s philosophy class is right down the hall.” There a low hum of laughter from the classroom at that, soft enough that it was obvious the sound was either polite or from people who didn’t want to detract from Dr. Jones’ words. “So forget any ideas you have about lost cities, exotic travel and digging up the world.”

Wan is the one who snorts at that, quiet enough in the back row of the auditorium that there was no way he was at risk of being heard. Leave it to Indy (Dr. Jones, that would take some getting used to) to stand in front of a class and tell them that their job wasn’t going to be adventure or truth seeking, when Wan had spent part of his early life doing just that with Indy.

“We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and ‘X’ never, ever marks the spot.” It was true. The map only led them to the general direction, and there was no ‘X’ when they found the stones in the abandoned halls of Pankot Palace. Just dust and time and careful consideration from the man at the front of the classroom.

“Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library.” Another truth, though this one didn’t have as many facets as the rest of the spiel. When he was twelve year old out on an adventure, Wan had thought that Indy was infallible, that he knew everything. But in his time in America and beyond, Wan had learned the truth. Indiana Jones was neither infallible nor all knowing. He was just a diligent, well read men.

That didn’t do anything to get rid of the boyhood crush Wan had been carrying around since then, and seeing Indy here with elbow patches on his jacket and his bow tie wasn’t doing much to help either.

“Research. Reading. We cannot afford to take mythology at face value.”

And that’s what Wan was doing here, wasn’t it? Refusing to take the myth of Indiana Jones at face value. He wasn’t a kid anymore. There was no way the man could be as sauve and infuriatingly charming as Wan remembered. He needed to look at the facts compared to his memory and find the truth there.

Dr. Jones looks at the clock on the wall, and the class begins to shuffle, a susurrus of sound as laptops are closed and bags are lifted for things to be put away. He was a man of routine here, that much was obvious.

“Next week: Egyptology. Starting with the excavation of Naukratis by Blinders Petrie in 1885. I’ll be in my office if anybody’s got any problems for the next hour and a half.” One of the girls from the front row slides a piece of paper across the desk towards Dr. Jones, and Wan doesn’t have to be able to see her face to know she’s giving him the bedroom eyes.

At least it wasn’t just him.

Indy doesn’t look up at the highest seats in the auditorium as he grabs his books and makes his way towards his office. Wan already knows what he’ll find there. A mob of students, wanting everything from genuine help with their assignments, to an easy fix for their problems. And a few like the brunette from the front of the class who wanted a little one on one attention.

And when Dr. Jones slips out of the window to his office as an escape route into the garden outside, Wan is there waiting, hands in his pockets.

“They don’t pay your poor assistant enough.”

Dr. Jones is dusting off the knees of his slacks when he speaks, without looking up. “They don’t pay her at all.” He stands upright, and that smug look finally falls away. It’s been twelve long years since the last time they were in the same place, but Indy’s look says it all. “Shorty?”

Wan remembers staring up at the big brownstone and the older couple waiting on the steps, their fingers clasped together. The woman was on the verge of tears before Wan was ever introduced to her, and as soon as she knew his name, she took him into her arms and whispered ‘welcome to the family’ in Chinese.

The Kings were never the ones to make Wan feel out of place. The other kids at his boarding school took care of that. Which meant Wan spent most of his middle school and high school years taking diction classes online and after hours until his accent was wiped away. He would never sound like he was from New York, but at least he would sound like he was American when someone spoke to him.

“Long time no see, Dr. Jones.” Of course, Indy wasn’t Dr. Jones the last time that Wan saw him. He was still an undergrad student with a dream, working on writing the thesis that would help him get his doctorate.

“Look at you, kid!” Indy’s laughter is warm, and so is his touch as he bustles up and pulls Wan into a hug, smacking his back affectionately as he squeezed him. It was the same kind of hugs that Wan remembered from being a kid, the kind that the sweet and gentle Kings never could manage to replicate. “What brings you all the way out to Monaco?”

The facts are that Wan is here for one reason, and one reason only. To see Indiana Jones with his own two eyes to try and finally put his boyhood crush to bed so that he could move on with his life. But the truth could be less than that and a little to the left, and still be true. “I decided to take a semester abroad.”

“Yeah? What are you studying?” Indy steps back, hands still on Wan’s shoulders as they talk. It’s still weird, being so close to him in height. He was used to Indy being monolithic, and larger than life. Now he was just a guy.

A gorgeous, charming guy who held a whole class in the palm of his hand just a few minutes ago with an ease that should be criminal.

“What do you think?” But it’s easy to fall back into this rhythm, to be the smart alec that Indy liked so much that he couldn’t leave him on the streets of Shanghai when it was time to move on. “Do I look like I’m here to be an accountant?”

Indy laughs, warm and low and pleased and Wan feels that same burst of childish pride that he did at twelve years old. He’s twenty four now, it shouldn’t still make him feel like he’s accomplished something to make the guy laugh. “Guess not.”

Wan glances over Indy’s shoulder and sees the door to his office start to open. He grabs the man by his sport coat sleeve and starts tugging him further into the garden and away from the office building. “Hurry, Dr. Jones. Before they find you and you actually have to help your students with their assignments.”

Indy mutters ‘har har’ but he lets himself be tugged along, out of the back end of the garden and into the parking lot of the adjoining building. There wouldn’t be any of Dr. Jones’ students here, this was the arts building. It was as close to a clean getaway as they were going to get.

But Wan doesn’t stop walking when they get to the parking lot. He keeps striding towards the far end of the parking lot, and the quaint street on the other side of it. “Come on. You’re going to buy me lunch.” Wan isn’t asking. This was just an easy way to buy more time to get to know the man behind the myth.

This was research. It didn’t always take place inside of a library.

“Oh I am? And why’s that? How come you’re not buying me lunch, junior?” Indy strides to keep up, his face screwed up into faux indifference. “I’m the one who took you all around the world. The least you can do is repay the favor with a patty melt.”

Wan rolls his eyes. He knows he’s being wound up, but he’s never been able to stop himself from falling right into the argument. “You make it sound like it was a vacation! It wasn’t a vacation! We got shot at in Macau!”

“Oh, that was one time!” Indy is walking right up beside him now, shrugging out of his suit jacket to throw it over his shoulder before he starts in on his bow tie. “You always bring up Macau. What about the car you stole in Shanghai, huh? Prepubescent grand theft auto is no big deal, but one little scuffle over grave robbing and you clutch your pearls!”

The conversation devolves into a petty argument, and by the time they’re stepping into the diner down the street from the campus, it’s entirely in Chinese. The bewildered waitress looks between the two of them before she clears her throat, and it’s like watching a curtain lifted over Indy. (Or dropped. Wan isn’t sure what is an act and what isn’t.)

Indy turns a charming smile on the woman, clearing his throat. “Sorry about that honey, you know how kids can be.” Wan makes a face behind Indy’s shoulder, and he knows that the man can feel it. Kids. It’s not like he was twelve years old anymore. “Table for two, please. Actually, can you make that a booth? Thanks, sweetheart.” Indy wouldn’t be able to get away with talking to women like that if he wasn’t so damn handsome.

The woman blinks at him, trying to decide if she was charmed or offended before she shakes her head, leading them over to a booth in the corner. Indy sits in the far side of the booth, so that he can watch the room at large. Still careful, even if he wanted to pretend he wasn’t.

“So.” The sentence stops long enough for the waitress to bring them both cups of coffee, and take their order. As promised, Indy orders a patty melt and fries. Wan orders a BLT. It makes him miss the food they used to eat when it was just the two of them. Whatever the locals were having, bright and fresh flavors in everything they had. “What made you decide to come here for your semester abroad?”

Wan doesn’t have a good answer for that. At least not one that doesn’t include pointing out to Indy that he’s here for him, and him alone. “Why not? Mom and Dad were paying and the Archaeology program had an open slot here.” One that Wan has been applying to every three months for the last two years.

Indy’s expression softens at ‘mom and dad’. Wan knows how worried he was when he left him in New York with the King family. But Dr. Jones was a good judge of character and the Kings were a kind, loving couple who couldn’t have kids of their own. They folded Wan into their life without a moment’s hesitation.

“And then I saw your name on the website. I thought I might sit in on your class. Maybe I could get a good nap in.”

Indy rolls his eyes, and parrots Wan’s favorite old phrase back at him. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

#ch: shorty #polyfacetious | indy #polyfacetious #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles #final count is 50268 #no one ever let me agree to do this again my brain is mush #I also made 240 cookies this week #I am bad about this

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twenty Four

The water is beautiful, pristine and blue, with frothy white peaks from the waves as they crest and fall over each other. It was somehow even bluer than the sky, that was wide open and only dotted with fat white clouds, the sun beating down on their shoulders with the full brunt of summer.

Ben was going to be lobster red by the time they were done today. Poe could already see the pink starting to spread across the bridge of his nose and the broad set of his freckled shoulders. No matter how many times he re-applied his sunscreen, Ben managed to burn.

And he was going to burn to a crisp if Poe couldn’t get him off of this cliff and down into the water below.

“Come on.” Poe was trying for seductive, cool. He was pretty sure it was coming out wheedling, given the look that Ben was shooting him right about now. “It’s not even that high.” That was a bunch of bullshit, it was at least twenty feet between the edge of the cliff and the water. But that wasn’t how you sold yourself to people. You had to look on the bright side.

Ben’s eyebrow flicks upwards in answer, sarcastic and silent all at once. Poe wonders, distantly, if anyone else has to have conversations with their boyfriend’s eyebrows, or if he was just lucky. ‘Lucky’. Heavy on the sarcasm there.

“It’s one jump. I won’t make you do it again.” Poe was true to his word about that. With every hike and every cliff dive, and every octopus tentacle on a plate or slimy oyster in a shell, Poe’s request had only ever been: once. Try it once.

It was the same way his mom used to do to him when he was a kid. ‘You try this once, and if you don’t like it, that’s just fine. But you have to try new things out in the world, mijo.’ When he was really little, Poe knows he gave his mom hell about it. Little kids are made for comfort and routine. They wanted things to be the same all the time. But his mom, she was a stubborn woman. A smart one too. Because over time, Poe came around to almost all of it. It made him adventurous, once he was old enough to get brave all on his own.

And Ben needed that too. He needed time to get brave all on his own. Because as much as Ben wanted to pretend like he was buttoned up and calm, there was an adrenaline junkie hiding beneath the skin. Poe had found him by accident, a few too many drunken kisses behind Peter and Eddie’s bar turning into hands inside of pants in a back alley while pedestrians walked down the street a few feet away.

Now he wanted to nourish that adrenaline junkie, to show Ben all the fun you could have if you just swallowed down your fear and kept moving forward. And hell, the fear could be part of the fun if you looked at things the right way.

Because it was never about not being afraid. Everyone was scared sometimes, and Poe would like to punch the guy in the mouth who taught Ben Solo that men weren’t supposed to be afraid. That they weren’t supposed to cry. That he had to be stoic and quiet at all times.

There was way too much inside of Ben to settle for being stoic. He deserved better than that, and Poe was going to be the one who gave the world to him on a damn silver platter. He just had to get him off of the ledge first. Baby steps.

“Listen, I’m nervous too. It’s a long way down. My heart is going a mile a minute. Feel it.” Poe reaches out, taking one of Ben’s big hands and bringing it to his chest so that his boyfriend could feel the rapid fire beating of his heart beneath the cage of muscle and bone. Up close like this, Poe could count each and every one of Ben’s eyelashes. If he wasn’t in a hurry to get down in the water, he would stay here as long as it took to do so.

“But that’s okay. It’s okay to be nervous. It’s okay to be scared.” Ben still manages to look a little bit surprised every time that Poe says that. But he was going to beat it into that pretty head of his until it became the norm. There was nothing wrong with being afraid. “That’s your body going ‘hey pal, this seems kinda shady. Are we sure we want to do this?” Ben huffs a laugh under his breath, and makes no effort to pull away.

“The thing is, the body doesn’t know what our head knows, now does it?” Poe inclines his head towards the water. “This is a safe spot. This is an allowed diving spot. There’s signs up by the legs and everything. Which means people have come through here and looked for sharp rocks and made sure that we weren’t going to hit anything on the way down. So in times like these, we respect our bodies for looking out for us, but we also respectfully disagree.”

Ben is watching him like there isn’t anything else in the world that matters, and Poe wants it to stay like that forever. It’s why he talks so damn much. Poe Dameron has always been a talker, he’s gotten himself out of more than a few tough scrapes with just his words, but when it gets him Ben’s undivided attention, he starts tacking on extra thoughts and extra words to fill in the blank and keep those pretty eyes on him.

“We can jump together. We’ll hold hands and everything.” Ben scoffs, but instinctively his eyes trip down to the hand still splayed against the tan skin of Poe’s chest. He wants to, he’s just fighting against some old thought or hang up that was keeping his feet on the ground.

Fuck toxic masculinity.

“I’m serious. I want to jump holding your hand. And it doesn’t make me less of a man for wanting to do it.” Poe’s chin juts out, defiance written across every line of his face. He doesn’t even know if this is what the hold up is in Ben’s head, but he’s already on the wind up, so the words were coming out. Sorry Ben.

“If anything, it makes me more of a man. Because I’m man enough to say when I need something and right now, I need my boyfriend to hold my hand and jump off a cliff with me.” And as his little spiel winds down, Poe’s disdain and his anger shift like the breeze changing direction and he grins. “We’re not going to Thelma and Louise it, Ben. We’re just jumping into the ocean so we can swim.”

And just to round out all his options, Poe steps in close against the hand on his chest until Ben’s arm bends at the elbow and he’s able to step in closer, to put them practically chest to chest. (Even Poe has to admit they haven’t been eye to eye or nose to nose since tenth grade. Stupid Solo growth spurt.)

“Just think of how much fun we can have in that water, babe. You and me and nobody else close enough to see what my hands are doing under the water.”

Would Poe actually try getting Ben off underneath the waves in the ocean? Absolutely, if Ben showed even the slightest inclination that he wanted it. And given the way Ben’s tongue had just darted out to wet his bottom lip, Poe was pretty sure that he had him on the hook.

Now just to get him over the ledge.

There’s a dark glint in Ben’s eyes that Poe is crazy freaking in love with. His boy had a dark side, Poe just had to get it to come to the surface sometimes. “So? What do you say? It’s an adventure. All you have to do is take that leap.”

Ben shakes his head, a strand of dark hair spilling across his forehead. “Everything is an adventure to you.” See, Poe knows how to read Ben. And his mouth might be saying ‘Poe, you’re a dumbass’ but his eyes were saying ‘I want to do this too’.

“So!” Poe finally steps back away from Ben, and with a half glance behind him, perilously close to the edge. He throws his arms out wide, and hears the sound of a pebble skitter off of the side of the cliff. Poe knows he really can’t hear it hit the water, but his brain decides he can hear the weighty thump of it hitting the waves.. “What good is living life if you don’t have any adventures. What are we going to tell our grandkids about, Ben?”

Yeah, so he’s pushing it there. Maybe one day Ben would decide he wanted to settle down, to really settle down and do the whole boring office job and a wife with two point five kids and a dog. But Poe is banking (hoping) that it isn’t the case, and that he’ll have Ben with him until they’re old and grey.

Who said you couldn’t have adventures with kids? His mom and dad used to take him hiking and swimming and kayaking all the time when he was a kid, and Poe loved every damn second of it. He loved waking up in a tent to the smell of coffee over the fire and the soft sound of his parents talking quietly.

He wanted to give kids of his own that same kind of life, one of these days. A life where they knew they were loved, and that they were safe even when the world wasn’t always safe. That they could be brave and reach out and try things and still know that at the end of the day, their family had their back.

Not any time soon, but one of these days.

“Poe…” There’s a warning in Ben’s voice, and he’s got a hand outstretched, like he could tug on some invisible cord and get Poe away from the ledge. Tough luck, pal. You were going to have to come and get him.

“What? You too scared to come and get me?” Listen, Poe lives a spaghetti at the wall kind of life. And he was just going to keep throwing things at Ben until something stuck and they were in that crystal clear water beneath them. Seriously, the rocks were starting to burn the bottom of Poe’s feet. It was hot out here.

“Are you…” He sees the second Ben catches on to what he’s about to do, and Poe even hears the mumbled ‘don’t you dare’ before he starts clucking like a chicken. And Poe goes all in on it too, tucking his hands up against his armpits and flapping his “wings”. “Bock bock!”

Who knew that in a stream of care, and constructive criticism and even a commentary on the state of masculinity in the world, that it would be good old fashioned childish insults that got Ben to move.

Poe has just enough time to think ‘victory!’ before that big, broad shouldered body connects with him and they go hurtling off of the edge of the cliff, Poe whooping the entire way down. The water feels solid for a moment before they break through and cold rushes around him, bright and bracing.

He finds his bearings, kicking his feet to make his way back to the surface, shaking the hair out of his eyes like a dog. Ben isn’t far behind, sputtering and laughing all at the same time. Ben’s smile had the same effect on Poe’s stomach as jumping off of a cliff.

A real nice swooping.

“See?” He’s going to be smug now, Ben. No two ways about it. “I told you it would be fun.”

#ch: poe #polyfacetious | ben #polyfacetious #queued #v: expats row #carlota's christmas drabbles

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twenty Three

“You know, I didn’t expect retirement to be this good.” Jack can feel the sway of the dock beneath him, the slow and steady slosh of the waves where it hits the wood. The sun is just starting to peak over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of blushing pink and soft yellows. It’s paradise, plain and simple.

Even the breeze was gentle, soft and sweet and scented with the salt of the ocean without that heavy fish smell that came with being too close to the dock.

And the only reason he’s here is sitting beside him in a matching folding chair, a little streak of aluminum white sunscreen still visible on his nose, just below where his glasses have slid. Jack doesn’t make any effort to look down at the book in Daniel’s lap, he knows he wouldn’t get it, even on the off chance it was written in English.

Knowing Danny, it was probably in Aramaic or something.

For all the overflowing bookshelves in their little condo, if Jack had to guess how many of them were in English, he’d guess twenty five percent or less. There were German fairy tales and Polish fantasy novels, and even some Russian crime novels shoved on the far end of the shelf. Jack picked them up when he saw something interesting in the book store. It was a game, trying to see if there was something Danny couldn’t read.

And on those few times he found something Daniel wasn’t fluent in, the stubborn bastard would sit there with a dual language dictionary and a notebook and puzzle his way through the whole thing. Then he’d flop down on Jack in bed and give him a smug review of whatever it was.

Jack just hoped Daniel never cottoned on to the fact that Jack liked those smug book reviews more than any he’d ever read in the paper. All that skin against his skin while he was listening to Daniel talk didn’t hurt either.

“I thought...frozen dinners and too many days in a row in front of the TV watching the game.” Any game. Hell, Jack had stooped so low a time or two that he sat there and watched things like shuffleboard and darts. Because that’s what his retirement had been the first time around, after Charlie died. The silence of an empty house, his marriage bed cold and his son’s old bedroom a mausoleum. The only sound that ever broke the silence was the sound of the tv. Jack hadn’t turned it off for two years.

He’d gone through the motions while the divorce finalized, and even got in touch with a lawyer. Jack had a decent pension from his time in the service, and a nice sized life insurance policy. He’d just been waiting to make sure that putting a gun in his mouth wasn’t going to take all those things from Sarah.

After what he took from her, the least he could do was make sure she was taken care of financially when he was gone.

More than a few nights had been spent with the same sidearm that took his kid from him sitting on the arm of his recliner. Just in case he was ready.

Jack never could work up the nerve to be ready.

It’s not a story he’s ever going to tell Daniel. Some things were just meant to be kept to yourself. But he thinks about it now, about how much he would have missed out on if he let his grief pull him over the edge and into the darkness.

Sarah had told him once, long after the divorce and with tears in her eyes, that Charlie wouldn’t have wanted this for him. That he wouldn’t have wanted his dad to be miserable for the rest of his life. That he could grieve their boy but at some point, he would have to move on with his life. (Sarah was a saint of a woman. She never blamed him for something that was his fault. That was alright, Jack would blame himself enough for the both of them, for the rest of his life.)

It was her words in his head that made him even pick up the phone when Hammond called. Jack had ignored a whole lot of calls from a whole lot of people before then. He and Hammond had been in the Air Force together, and even worked a couple of missions on the back end when Hammond was riding the pine pony and before Jack’s forced retirement took him out of the service altogether.

It was Hammond who said he had a security company that he was starting up, and that he could use a fresh pair of eyes to make sure he was covering all his bases. Jack didn’t manage to have that conversation without asking Hammond if Sarah called him. He was too raw, too pissed off at the idea of being forgiven to leave it alone.

Hammond, God bless him and rest his soul, had deadpanned all the way through the phone wire. ‘Son, whether she did or not doesn’t change the fact that I’m asking you to do me a favor here.’

So Jack let words like favor and friendship coax him back out of his deathly silent house in Colorado and halfway across the world. Rich folks always needed someone to look after them, regardless of if they actually needed someone watching their backs at night. It was easy pay, most of the time.

And then Jack got saddled with a sarcastic archaeologist who got a bodyguard courtesy of the university, after one of his failed students tried to put a hit out on him on the internet. (Jack always wondered how you even started looking for someone to kill another person. Did you type ‘hitman for hire’ in a search engine or something?)

The rest was long, complicated history. A whole lot of time and miles and sitting in on lectures until Jack stopped zoning out and started listening. Dr. Daniel Jackson was smart, that was never up for debate. Jack knew that the second he laid eyes on him. But listening to him talk, Jack started to realize how much more than just an egghead that Daniel was.

He was clever, and he was funny. God, Daniel has a whip smart sense of humor and Jack enjoys it just as much now as he did when he first started seeing it unleashed on poor and unsuspecting entitled assholes at colleges where Daniel was going to speak. Dr. Jackson took no shit, but he did it with a smile on his face and left a lot of confused people in his wake.

And how was a guy like Jack supposed to turn a blind eye to that? He’d settled down with Sarah, sure, and he loved the hell out of her. (He loved her so much that he was pretty sure he’d never be able to fall in love with a woman again.) But he’d had more than his fair share of foxhole fornication with the boys before he and Sarah got married.

So spending his days shadowing a smart mouthed professor started being an exercise in repression. Because above all else, Jack was a professional. He wasn’t going to let his slow slide from respect to fondness to Feeling get in the way of doing his job. Hammond deserved better than that.

Daniel did too.

“You don’t have the best long view on the world, Jack. You’ve been known to be a little short sighted.” It’s sharp, and a little wry, and Jack loves the way that Daniel puts his index finger right on the line that he was reading so that he won’t lose his spot while he shoots a playful, loving look at Jack.

“Yeah yeah, rub it in why don’t you.” Jack gestures around him, encompassing the blue skies and the white sand beaches and the handsome fella sitting next to him all with a wave of the hand that would do Vanna White proud. “This is all here because of you.”

Because Jack might have had decades worth of practice when it came to repressing the things in life he couldn’t deal with at the time, Daniel Jackson had never met a puzzle that he couldn’t solve. And Daniel had looked at Jack and seen a Gordian knot that he was itching to get his fingers on, convinced that if he could find the right string and tug, that he could unravel him.

Smug bastard was right, too. Jack came apart like a house of cards in a hurricane the first time that Daniel cornered him in an elevator, a hand pressed flat against his chest and the smell of his cologne in Jack’s nose. ‘I want you.’ Daniel said, in that same knowing way he talked about the pyramids and the ancient Egyptians. ‘And I know you want me too. So why don’t we stop circling each other like some kind of alpha predator and actually do something about it?’

That had been peak Daniel. An argument rushed out on excitable words that Jack couldn’t think of a good excuse to argue back with. It didn’t hurt that they were coming to the end of Daniel’s contract, and his shit for brains ex-student hadn’t so much as sent a threatening email since the cops got involved.

And in true Daniel fashion, he dug and he dug and he dusted off all the broken vase pieces of Jack’s heart and he treasured them just as they were. No need to be glued back together, or polished. Daniel loved him as much academically as he did emotionally, and Jack loves the son of a bitch so much for it that it keeps him up at night sometimes.

Literally.

Just the other night, Jack had lain there, tipped over onto his side because Daniel slept like the damn dead, and watched the way the filtered light from the street outside played against Daniel’s cheekbone, and felt that knot in his chest go taut. Daniel was the reason Jack got out of bed every day.

(And in the morning, while Daniel was shoveling oatmeal into his mouth without looking away from the translation in front of him, Jack had let slip ‘Charlie would have liked you’. And he meant it, too. Charlie had been whip smart, too. He would have loved Daniel.)

“No short jokes from you, junior.” It’s a lazy back and forth, and Jack digs at his own thoughts for a second until he can find the words that Daniel had used for it in one of his lectures last week. Call and response.

Jack wasn’t getting paid to sit in on the lectures now. But he still liked to take up a spot in the back row and do the crossword with the ebb and flow of Daniel’s voice washing over him, the same way the sound of the sea was washing over him now.

“I would never.” But Daniel’s voice trails off, the same way that his attention is fading, already shifting back to the book in his hand. If Jack was a betting man, he’d bet that tonight would be one of those nights that he’d have to roll out of bed with creaking knees and crackling ankles at two in the morning and usher Daniel into bed. He was close to a breakthrough, and Jack knew that getting much else out of him today when his brain was in Translation Mode wasn’t going to happen.

“Yeah yeah.” Jack repeats, his own kind of absent as he reaches over to squeeze Daniel’s knee, careful not to bump the book where it sits in his lap. He turns his own attention back to the rod and reel he’s been ignoring through this stroll down memory lane, giving it a little tug on the line.

Nothing was biting at the moment, but that was alright. Jack had nothing else to do, and there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be.

#ch: jack #polyfacetious | daniel #polyfacetious #queued #v: expats row #carlota's christmas drabbles

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Nine

Frank spent a good five minutes down the decoration aisle, the last time that he was at the store. Most of the time, it was easy. He got whatever kind of sprinkles went with the season. Or he’d get something that was color coded to match the season. Reds and greens for the winter time, pine trees and snowflakes. Pastels for the spring, easter eggs and flowers. Browns and yellows for the fall, pumpkins and leaves.

It was the summer now. He didn’t need anything holiday specific. Bright, primary colors were what he focused on. They didn’t do the Fourth of July out here, it wasn’t like he needed red, white and blue.

But that didn’t stop him from spending minutes of his life standing in front of canisters of sprinkles, trying to find the one he wanted to use for Matt’s donut. Because it’s become a Thing, now. A way for him to say something he was too chickenshit to say out loud. And it’s not like Matt was looking at the sprinkles.

It was the easiest way to air his feelings out, the way the therapist said he was supposed to, without having to actually do anything about it. Frank got lucky when he fell ass over teakettle for a blind guy, though he was smart enough not to say any of that shit out loud.

In the end, Frank comes back with four containers of sprinkles, and a half assed idea about what to try next. There were mermaid sprinkles, all done up in shades of pink, purple and seafoam green. Those would sell well, especially this close to the ocean. Tourists like shit like that, and Frank had a feeling Aerith would get a kick out of it too.

Two others were basic summer colors, one in bright reds and yellows and blues that looked like shattered sea glass, and the other an old school mix that reminded Frank briefly of the way his ma used to decorate cakes back in the seventies, a wild mix of jimmies, nonpareils, and quins in about every color under the sun.

The last bottle, the one Frank was currently holding in his hand, was the one he bought for Matt, and Matt alone. “You’re a damn idiot.” It’s a murmur to himself, but it doesn’t stop Frank from putting the bottle down so that he can start working on the small batch of donuts that have been on his mind all day.

The cabinet out front was ready to go, bright lights and variety. There was usually something new in there every few weeks, but Frank knew what sold. Blueberry cake donuts for the boys in the bookshop, old school chocolate glazed for Peter and Eddie down at the bar. The kids at the florist shop were always down to try anything he made, the more wild the better. (He’d candied tulip petals once and put them on iced yeast donuts, and the two of them bought a dozen just for themselves.)

A little bit of each of those things meant he rarely had stuff go to waste. And when he did have a little bit of leftover, he could usually get Stark to buy them, because he liked to throw bread pudding on the menu at his place now and then.

The shop wouldn’t open for another few hours. It was still dark outside. That would hopefully give Frank enough time to get this damn thing figured out and fully frosted, so that by the time that Matt came in, Foggy under his feet and morning coffee from Magnus’ place in tow, he could actually like the damn things were out on display for everyone, and not just a sad sack’s attempt to put a little love in his baking.

Frank wasn’t stupid. Yeah, Matt was a looker, and yeah Frank had spent more than a few showers thinking about him. But it wasn’t that pretty mouth or those long fingered hands or the column of his throat that kept Frank up at night. It was the smokey glass sound of his laughter, and how quick he always was with a comeback. It was the way he said Frank’s name like he knew a secret.

This wasn’t lust that was making him dumb enough to buy special sprinkles just for a six pack batch of donuts. It was longing. And guys like Frank, they didn’t get happy endings. Not after what he did overseas. (Funny how he still thinks of it as ‘overseas’, like he was sitting back home in the city and not on a pretty little street corner near a beach somewhere in paradise.)

But damned if Matt didn’t make him think about it. What it’d be like to wake up in bed next to somebody that you cared about. And who didn’t fuck your next door neighbor when you were doing a tour of duty in the desert.

Sharing dinner with somebody. Sharing your silence with somebody.

The metal mixing bowl comes down from it’s spot on the shelf, and Frank starts with the dry ingredients. He sifts the flower, watching it float down into the bowl like a hard winter’s snow, coating the reflective surface inside. Next comes the baking powder and the salt, through the same sifter.

Then comes the eggs. The milk. The butter. The dough comes together easy, even with the flat whisk in hand instead of using the stand mixer. Frank wanted these to come out perfect, and he wasn’t fucking that up with a machine. Last is the bloomed yeast in warm water.

He turns the dough out to rise, and looks down at Misty, where she’s curled up on her bed by the back door. “You ready to go out?” Her ears shoot up, and by the time Frank has the leash in his hand, Misty is dancing from foot to foot. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

They take their walk nice and slow. The streets are quiet, in that time between when the bars close down and the breakfast places open up. The streetlights are globes of gold between pockets of darkness, and the only sound is Misty’s nails on the cobblestones.

Once Misty is back snuggled up in her bed, Frank turns his attention back to the dough. He rolls it out, getting his biscuit cutter out to get them to the right size, and leaves them to rise again while he works on the fillings.

See, this is where he got hung up. Frank wanted to do something special for Matt, without it being obvious he was doing something special. And Matt, God bless him, didn’t have the most refined palette. He’d eat Boston cream donuts every day if Frank let him.

So Berliners it was. Six fried yeast donuts, with six different fillings, because Frank was a glutton for punishment. Two sweet cream, because that was what Matt liked best. Two lemon cream, because the lemons were fresh and in season and you couldn’t throw a stone without somebody trying to sell them to you on a street corner and two with a dark chocolate ganache.

It was too damn rich, and real Berliners called for a jam filling, but this was Frank’s dumbass idea and he was going to do it his way.

Three bowls of filling lined up on the counter, with taste tests from him and Misty, and Frank gets his donuts in the oil. He’d do the rest of this morning’s batch once these were done. He wanted these done in fresh oil.

It gives the Berliners time to cool while he gets the rest of the morning’s display set up, and then Frank takes the six smaller donuts and cuts into them with a paring knife, filling them each to the brim with their filling. When they’re done, he dusts them with powdered sugar and moves them into a cardboard pastry box.

It’s only then that he stops, looks to the shelf, looks to the box, and then looks to Misty, who’s watching him with one eye open. “Misty.” Her tail thuds against the wall in a slow rhythm. “Why the hell did you let me buy sprinkles for a goddamn donut that isn’t iced, and you don’t put sprinkles on?”

The dog doesn’t lift her head. Frank is pretty sure she’s calling him a dumbass in her head, but she’s too polite to make it obvious.

Well there it was, the definition of how damn stupid he was for Matt Murdock. Stupid enough to spend ten dollars on sprinkles in pinks and yellows and blues, that he wasn’t even going to use on these donuts.

The bell over the door tinkles, and Frank looks up to see Matt, backlit by the soft pinks, yellows and blues of the rising sun that looked an awful damn lot like the sprinkles sitting useless in Frank’s kitchen right now.

“Black coffee. Two sugars.” Matt shifts the cardboard container holding both of their drinks to his other hand so that he can feel out the counter before he runs his fingers along the sleeve on the cups. Magnus must have done something to tell them apart, because Matt feels something and offers the cup over to Frank, smiling.

“Thanks, Red. Have a seat, I’ll get you something out.” He hears a wry ‘sir, yes sir’ behind him, though how the hell he hears it over the beating of his heart is beyond him. Just like he knows that the pain in his ass is flipping a sarcastic little salute behind his back. A bad one, too. He’s shown the son of a bitch how to do it right before, now Matt was just doing it to get on his nerves. “I saw that!” He calls behind him, not bothering to fight his smile. Frank flips his judgemental dog the bird where she lays, watching him and grabs the small pastry box. Now or never. And he put hours into these damn things. It was now.

“I’m trying something new.” The swinging door to the kitchen catches him on the ass on the way out. Frank puts the pastry box down on the table he’s come to think of as Matt’s, and drops to a crouch so that he can offer a leftover piece of fried dough to Foggy. Even working dogs needed breakfast.

“Berliners. They’re real popular in…” Berlin, you damn fool. The name got the point across pretty clearly. “Chile.” They were, actually. But it’s pretty fucking obvious by the quirk of Matt’s mouth that he knows that Frank wasn’t thinking about Chile when he started talking. “Thought you might give them a try and see if they’re worth putting on the menu.”

They’re not actually that much work, compared to the hours he already puts in during the early morning. But it’s not about that. It’s about getting some kind of reaction out of Matt, and Frank is man enough to admit it.

“The two on the right are sweet cream filled. Two in the middle are lemon cream. The two on the right are a dark chocolate ganache.” Frank has to resist the itch in his legs to squirm, or move foot to foot. Matt makes a pleased sound low in his throat just at the mention of what was in the donuts and Frank feels it all the way down into his marrow. And other places a man didn’t talk about in polite company.

“And I want your honest damn opinion, Red. Not what you’d say to a friend who you’re trying to salvage their feelings. I want the review you’d give to somebody else if you never had to face me again. I wanna know if the filling is too sweet, or not sweet enough. If I cooked the damn things too long. I want ‘em to be perfect.”

I want them to be perfect for you, Matty. That’s the words he doesn’t say.

I want them to be perfect for you.

#ch: frank #polyfacetious | matt #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Six

Alexander was the best kind of regular. He was the curious kind. He would come to the shop, squint up at the chalkboard with those lovely blue eyes, and then finally choose the next thing on the list. If he was trying to be subtle about slowly working his way down the menu, then he needed some work. It was sweet, it was just not subtle.

But today, he’d come in and sat himself up at one of the tables near the window, an impressive scowl painted across that pretty face. (Alexander had some remarkably expressive eyebrows. You could read his mood with them alone.)

Which meant Magnus was spending his morning rush worrying about what exactly had set his favorite customer on such a sour path this morning. He spares a glance over while he steams milk for a matcha latte, and finds Alec staring daggers out of the shop’s front window. But there was no one out there. And Magnus was reasonably certain that Alexander wasn’t angry with Diego’s taco stand.

What could make such a sweet natured man so sour? It wasn’t girlfriend trouble, Magnus knew that much, thanks to one memorable morning where a young lady gave Alexander her number and when she walked away, he looked at it like she’d handed him a raw mackerel. Boyfriend troubles, maybe?

Magnus hoped not, for his own selfish reasons. He could practically feel Bilbo’s eyes on him from across the shop. Yes yes, he knew he had to get on his side of the promise. No, he wasn’t going to do it right now, in broad daylight in an open tea shop, Bilbo Baggins. Stop judging.

With the last customer of this burst gone away with their tea and their scones and their lovely pastries, Magnus slips out from behind the counter before his good sense could get the better of him. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” That felt like a good enough segue into conversation, given the fact that Alexander was currently glaring at a cloud.

But much like the clouds would break this afternoon and the sun would shine through, that sour expression on Alexander’s face breaks apart and reveals the sunshine of his lovely smile beneath. A sheepish, nervous smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Uh..yeah. It is.”

That’s all the opening that Magnus needed. He slips into the seat across from Alec at the small bistro table, hands clasped in front of him. His nails were a gorgeous sea green, in keeping with the summer season. There was even a sheen of glitter built into the polish itself. Magnus was positively in love with the color. “How have you been?” Magnus has to resist the urge to jump straight to ‘what’s wrong?’ People didn’t like being called out like that.

“Oh, good. I’m good.” Alexander was a squirmer, when he was nervous. Magnus knew because he never saw Alec move around in his seat like a worm on a hook until Magnus was sitting across from him. It was flatteringly adorable. “You?”

“I’m wonderful, thank you.” And if he didn’t get them out of this cesspool of polite conversation, they might never get to the meat of the problem. Magnus only had so long until his next batch of regulars came in. A quick glance at the clocked showed him it was a little before 8:30. He had about twenty minutes for this conversation, tops.

What a world to live in, when reckless and carefree Magnus Bane cared enough about a man’s opinion to schedule in time to talk him through his feelings between customers. Bilbo was probably cackling into his dough right as they spoke. The bastard.

“So why don’t you tell me why you’ve been sitting here, looking like the most handsome thundercloud I’ve ever laid eyes on?” So maybe that was laying it on a bit thick. But Alexander was a sight for sore eyes on any day, effortlessly gorgeous. It was enough to take someone like Magnus, who spent half an hour in front of the mirror every morning, feel jealous.

Then again, getting to lay eyes on that effortlessly handsome face every day was enough to push the jealousy back and replace it with a four letter word.

Lust. The word was lust. Not the other “L” word, which Magnus was going to avoid the damned plague.

Alexander stutters for a moment, blue eyes huge and wide before he gives up, laughing at himself as he turns his eyes back to the window. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m not trying to bring the mood down or anything.” Alec’s accent was all New York, and before him, Magnus would have never thought that was something he would find attractive.

An English accent was lovely. An Irish accent was enough to make a man weak in the knees. Magnus himself had a personal weakness when it came to French accents. But in the grand scheme of American accents, New York wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of the list. Or at least, it wouldn’t have been before Alexander.

There was something about the way he spoke, the same kind of effortless charm that went with his finger combed hair and his (truly hideous, it was a marvel) worn out sweaters. Magnus has always loved a sharp dressed man. But there was something so incredibly genuine about Alec Lightwood that it had made its way under his skin, and he couldn’t get free.

“You don’t bring the mood down.” Far from it. Seeing Alexander was often the highlight of Magnus’ day. “So go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind.” Magnus cups his chin in his palm, watching Alec through the fan of his lashes. He was never going to tire of the way Alec’s eyes darted down to his lips when Magnus spoke. It was the kind of thing that could make a man’s ego get too big.

Not Magnus, of course. He was the very picture of...there was no reason to even finish that ridiculous sentence. Magnus was fantastic, and he quite appreciated it when other people thought he was fantastic as well.

“It’s just that my sister is getting married.” There was that scowl again, dipping across dark brows before it disappears. “And I’m happy for her, really. But she’s having this whole big party about it, and there’s dancing.” Alexander says dancing the way someone else might say bamboo spikes under fingernails. Like it was torture.

“And you have to dance?” Alexander nods, like a man on his way to the gallows. “So what’s the issue here? Do you not have someone you want to dance with?” Is it cruel to hope that Alec doesn’t have a date he wants to dance with? “Or is it that you don’t know how to dance?”

Alec’s little smile tugs up further on one side of his mouth than the other. Gods, he was a sight. “Both, honestly.”

Both. Which means that Magnus had not one, but two chances to whirl his way into Alexander’s life outside of this little table and the shop around it. This was a chance to see Alexander out in the world, to be a part of his life and not just set dressing.

“I could teach you.” That absolutely came out too quickly. But this was a blue moon of an opportunity. It would only come around once. So Magnus had to take advantage while he still could. “I used to teach dance. I lived in Spain for a year or two.” Magnus had lived all over in his time. It would honestly be faster just to tell him the places that he hadn’t lived, rather than go through his spiel of all the places he’s called home over the years.

“Salsa. Flamenco. Even a little ballroom dancing and waltz, which I’d imagine is what your sister is going to want for her party.”

Alec was watching him with wonder on his pretty face. Magnus has to resist the urge to preen. That wouldn’t go well with the whole humble teacher act he was going for here. “How much do you charge by the hour?”

Now that would be a lovely innuendo and segue if this was Magnus looking to climb Alexander like the lovely willow tree he was. But Magnus had to admit to himself, and only to himself, that his feelings were involved in this mess. He didn’t (just) want to give Alec the night of his life. He wanted to stick around for breakfast in the morning too.

“No charge.” Magnus waves away the protest he can see building on Alec’s lips. He wasn’t the type of man who enjoyed handouts. There was a pride to him, beneath all that rakish charm. “I haven’t taught in ages. I wouldn’t be up to par for being paid anyway. But I can dust the rust off and you can learn enough to cut a rug and make yourself the envy of your sister’s wedding.”

Alec makes a sour face, and Magnus can’t help but laugh. “Fine. I can dust the rust off and you can be a perfectly passable dancer and not draw any undue attention to yourself at your sister’s wedding. How’s that sound?”

Alexander’s shoulders soften and droop down, and the smile he gives Magnus is equal parts relief and something more playful. If Magnus wasn’t already aware how much trouble he was in, then he would have figured it out right at this instant. Because he was in Trouble with a Capital T. “That sounds great, Magnus. Thanks.”

There were people milling outside of the door that the tea shop shared with Bag End Bakery. Two women with big cat’s eyes sunglasses were checking their phones, and their watches, respectively. They were waiting for someone. Which meant in the next few minutes, they’d be coming inside to order, and it would be back to work.

Magnus looks back over at the clock. 8:50. How did time manage to fly by so fast when he was talking to Alec? It was like magic.

But all good things must come to an end. “How about you can come by here after close. We can move the tables out of the way, and we have a nice wood floor to practice on.” Magnus plucks the napkin out from under Alec’s cup, pulling the pen from behind his ear so he could start to scribble down his phone number.

“For now, wear something comfortable tonight. Something you can move in. Basketball shorts and a t-shirt or a tanktop are what I usually practice in. And wear the most comfortable pair of tennis shoes that you have. We’ll lay the ground work before we get you practicing in the shoes you’ll be wearing at the wedding.”

Magnus writes his name beneath the number with a flourish, and in a moment of pique, he draws a heart on a balloon string next to his name. He even draws the little square in the corner of the heart balloon, like it’s catching the glint of the summer sun on it’s plastic surface. If his intentions weren’t clear before, this would make them neon bright. Hopefully.

“Here.” He slides the paper napkin back over to Alec, looking over his shoulder as the women spill into the shop, chattering among themselves like a gaggle of sparrows sitting on a wire. They would be ordering from Bilbo and then they would make their way over to his side of the shop. Time was up.

“Tonight. 8pm. I’ll be here.”

Feeling especially bold, Magnus reaches over once he stands and pats Alec’s hand. His skin was warm, and soft. Lovely. Every bit of that man was lovely, and Magnus was in so very deep over his head.

“You be here too.” That’s a playful little waggle of his finger in front of Alec’s nose before Magnus darts back behind the counter, calling out to the women that had broken away from their group at the pastry case to head his way.

#ch: magnus #polyfacetious | alec #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Two

With the odd little redhead sorted, James sends him off to get them coffee and pastries. It’s a ploy, and a blatant one at that. But M’Baku has never been one to turn down the opportunity to go to Bag End Bakery.

The place was a wonderland of sights and smells, the big glass case in the center of the room dominating the space and drawing the eye. Inside, there were gold cut outs laid in neat rows, doilies on top of them to display whatever delicacies that Bilbo has come up with.

And the smell. God, don’t get him started about the smell of the place. It was like walking past the gates of Heaven itself and taking a whiff. Sugar and cinnamon hung lightly in the air and still found the way to tickle your nose and stick to your tongue. The smell of freshly roasted coffee was a strong noted counterpart. It made you want to sit down and stay awhile.

Then again, the place could have legos all over the floor and the most uncomfortable, flimsy metal chairs and M’Baku would still want to stay.

Love made fools of us all.

He steps inside, ducking a little so he doesn’t knock his forehead against the bell hanging there, and breathes in deep. Yes, this was as close to Heaven as he was going to get. As evidenced by the angel behind the show case who was smiling at him as he wiped the flour from his hands and onto his apron.

“Hello.” Bilbo has a lovely, smooth voice. Like heavy cream. He steps up to the counter, and M’Baku can see the way he’s fighting the smile at his lips. Fools of us all, indeed. “What can I get for you today?”

M’Baku didn’t have a regular order. There were too many delicious looking delicacies in that case to settle for any one of them, no matter how delicious they were. Now his coffee? That was the same every single time. An easy order, too. A medium roast, with cream and two sugars. Though sometimes the holidays got the best of him and he’d order something with pumpkin or peppermint.

But at the moment, M’Baku wasn’t thinking about his coffee order (or James’. Sorry, brother.) or even the wide array of sweets laid out under bright lights that were calling to his grumbling stomach. No, M’Baku was thinking about a book he’d picked up in the store last night when they were cleaning up.

It had been left out on the edge of the shelf, one of the pages inside dog eared. The dust jacket had been lost since before they had ownership of it, as evidenced by the price sticker right against the cover of the book. 3.99. Not exactly a best seller.

They got a few loiterers, but neither M’Baku nor James had ever gotten the urge to run anyone off. Hell, they had two overstuffed leather chairs that were kept in front of the big frosted glass front window of the shop. The lighting was fantastic there. So long as people left their coffees from Bilbo’s on the table or the windowsill, they could sit and read for as long as they wanted.

But this book had caught M’Baku’s eye. Because the person reading it hadn’t made themselves comfortable in a chair in the sunshine. They’d stayed behind a book shelf to read. Clandestine. What sort of fantastic smut had they found in a bargain bin book on a back shelf?

So he did exactly what his mystery reader did. M’Baku stood right there in the aisle and went to the dog eared page to see what all the fuss was about. But what he found wasn’t old white woman smut, or even the strange kind of bondage that seemed to be all the literary rage these days.

No, M’Baku found a story in the throes of love and passion, a woman drawing her husband’s bored eyes to her again by bringing him into the kitchen. With an array of fresh fruit and melted chocolate.

He must have read the line about the woman watching her husband bite into a luscious, white chocolate covered strawberry a dozen times. And then he slipped a fiver into the cash register and put the book into his bag to take home.

What can I get for you today? M’Baku blinks back to the present and away from the thought of sweet fruit juce spilling on a willing tongue. “Well.” His laughter is a quiet thing, and a sheepish thing. James would be doubled over with laughter if he knew what M’Baku was about to do. Like the kind of laughter that would make your stomach muscles hurt for a few hours afterwards.

James could laugh all he wanted. M’Baku was a man on a mission.

The little redhead was what switched this thought from fantasy to reality. If she could walk into their shop, see a picture of John Luther on the wall and decide she wanted him enough to make a deal, then M’Baku could take a walk down their little cobble stone street to his friend’s bakery and make a play for what he wanted.

“Do you work with chocolate much?” That’s probably a stupid question. And the confused smile Bilbo gives him just confirms it. There are drizzles of chocolate across a few of the pastries in the case, right at M’Baku’s eye level. This was off to a great start.

“When I have the time.” It takes M’Baku a second to realize that Bilbo isn’t laughing at him. He’s laughing at himself. (It helped, knowing he wasn’t the only nervous one here.) “I’m no chocolatier by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like to try new things.”

Well. A man couldn’t get a better opening than that, now could he? “Could you show me how to dip fruit in chocolate?” He’s very particular about how he asks. Because M’Baku doesn’t just want to buy chocolate dipped fruit from Bilbo. He wants to be a part of the process.

Bilbo looks at him for a long moment, thinking it over. M’Baku watches in pleased surprise as he puts the ‘back in an hour’ sign on top of the glass case and gestures him behind the counter with a crooked finger. “We can put a little something together. It won’t be especially, fancy but you’ll get the gist of it.”

“That’s all I need.” M’Baku steps behind the counter, and follows Bilbo over to the sink, standing shoulder to...top of the head next to Bilbo as they wash their hands beneath the warm torrent of water, bubbles swirling around the basin of the sink before they slip down into the drain. He forgets sometimes, how small Bilbo actually is. There was something about being on the other side of the counter that made him seem larger. Like his authority was some kind of a step stool.

“Right.” Bilbo claps his hands together with a quick burst of sound, looking down at the ingredients laid out on the counter top between them. There were two metal bowls, a pot, a cutting board with chocolate and a massive knife sitting on top of it, and then a green plastic basket of strawberries. “The first thing we need to do is to chop the chocolate. It doesn’t need to be nice or neat, but we want the pieces relatively the same size. If some are bigger than the others, they’ll take longer to melt and we can risk scalding the chocolate on the bottom.”

M’Baku looks from Bilbo, to the massive knife and back again. “And you want me to do that?” That huff of breath that might just be a laugh feels like a victory. Bilbo nudges him out of the way with an elbow against the ribs and starts chopping the chocolate with his knife, as easy as breathing.

There was a grace to the way that he moved, like it was ingrained in him. Bilbo rocks the knife against the well worn and scoured cutting board, the chocolate coming apart in crisp snaps beneath the motion. And in what feels like a matter of seconds, there’s a neat mountain of chocolate debris. Bilbo gathers it up onto the flat side of his knife, letting it rain down into the first metal bowl. “Now.” For a man who didn’t want to be in charge of anyone, Bilbo was very good at it. “Have you ever heard of using a double boiler?”

M’Baku hums. “Bowl over boiling water?” He holds his hands, one stacked on top of the other. He’s watched a Youtube cooking show or two in his time. Even if he’s never put any of it to practice. They were soothing to watch when you wanted to sleep. Especially the Japanese ones with their subtitles and their tiny cakes that always looked like something other than cake.

Bilbo’s smile is quick, and bright. “Right. It helps us control the temperature so we melt our chocolate evenly.” The pot is filled with water from the sink and put onto the big range above the row of ovens. Bilbo waits, checking his watch before he looks to water for the roiling bubbles of a boil. “Alright, bring the chocolate.”

M’Baku puts the bowl on top of the pot of boiling water, and takes the whisk that is handed to him. “You want to wisk gently, but constantly.” Pale fingers curl over M’Baku’s hold on the whisk, and his heart leaps right up into his throat. When Bilbo pulls away, M’Baku is careful to keep the same slow, easy strokes in a circle around the bowl.

And though it gives him something to do with his hands, it does little to stop the running commentary of his thoughts, like a hamster in a wheel. Bilbo’s hands were softer than expected. M’Baku had assumed they would be callused and dry, after all the hard work he put in every day, and dealing with things fresh out of the oven. But his hands were soft. It made the touch between them, no matter how short, feel that much more intimate.

“Coconut oil. The not so secret ingredient.” Bilbo’s voice is playfully low as he spoons a big blob of white into the mixture, the darkness of the chocolate becoming a richer, warmer color as they coalesce together into something whole. “It helps the chocolate set against the fruit. And it gives it a nice shine.”

M’Baku raises the whisk from the mixture, watching the chocolate fall in silken ribbons back into the bowl. It was almost hypnotic to watch, slithering back down to become one with the rest of the chocolate still in the bowl.

“Now. We’re not on an especially quick time frame with the chocolate, but we do need to move before it begins to set. Though if it gets too hard, we can warm it again on the double boiler. That’s why we keep it simmering while we work.” Bilbo lifts the first strawberry, holding the green strem between his thumb and forefinger. Gracefully, he dips it into the chocolate and gives it two swift turns, cutting off the tail of chocolate that dribbles from the tip.

The strawberry is placed on the piece of parchment that Bilbo laid out on a cooking sheet. “You make that look easy.” And sure enough, when M’Baku lifts his strawberry from the gooey bowl, two twists leaves him with nothing but a lumpy, lopsided strawberry. When he lays it beside Bilbo’s, all M’Baku can do is laugh. “Definitely harder than it looks.”

“That’s alright. You just need a little more practice, that’s all.” Bilbo’s smile is warm, and private. It feels like something that belongs to M’Baku and M’Baku alone. And if their fingers touch when Bilbo hands him the next strawberry, well...who’s to say?

M’Baku dips the next strawberry into the chocolate.

“I could get used to this.”

#ch: mbaku #polyfacetious | bilbo #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Nineteen

George has a damned fine voice. And it’s a good thing that he does, because the man talks about boring shit more than anybody that Atticus has ever known.

Like now. He’s been droning on about chemical reactions for god knows how long. If they weren’t naked in bed, Atticus would get up and walk off. Go make a cup of tea or something. It wouldn’t deter George at all. He’d just keep on talking.

Because it wasn’t really about having a captive audience. George just did his best work thinking out loud. God only knew how much chatter that little assistant of his heard. Hours upon hours would be Atticus’ guest.

But you didn’t get to be one of the best chemists in the world by being white bread and butter normal, now did you?

Atticus waits for a lull in the onslaught of words, giving it a full three seconds before he speaks, just to be certain George had wrapped up his thought. (He’ll never admit to thoughtfulness out loud. That would ruin his reputation.)

“I’m getting leave again at Christmas.” George shifts onto his side, head resting on the upturned palm of his hand. He’s not what anyone would call beautiful, but there’s something about him that makes Atticus’ blood run hot. (He’s not a looker himself. Atticus figured that out young. He also learned that personality could get you the same bits with just a little more work.)

There’s a moment where George’s eyes are far away. Atticus waits, as patient as he ever is. You had to give the man time to come back to himself from wherever those rambling thoughts were. But there’s a blink and those clever eyes zero in on him, because George is clever, and he sees what’s being offered.

A holiday. Together.

Neither one of them had any family to speak of. Atticus had the crew, and George had his work socials and his bored rich housewives, but beyond that, there wasn’t really much to do on a holiday.

Unless one of those bored rich housewives could sneak away from her family on Christmas day. Which if a woman could handle that, Atticus would concede his spot in the bed, because that’s some fucking logistics and deep lies to accomplish.

“I could swing ‘round this way.” An offer. Because they’ve been doing this on and off for years, but it’s never been Official. It’s never been just the two of them and no one else. Atticus don’t mind it that way. He’s not jealous of saggy breasts or diamond earrings. A man had his urges.

But there was something about asking to spend a holiday together that felt intimate in a way they tended to skate away from. Atticus was head over heels, there was no denying that truth. He’d been in love with George for a long time now, and he’s confident enough to say it’s mutual. But mutually in love and mum about it was a hair different than mutually in love and spending Christmas together like a pair of old queens.

He brushes his fingers along the corded muscle at the back of a strong neck, his breath a sharp exhale when George clambers on top of him. “You aren’t exactly light as a feather here, Georgie.”

And that gets him an elbow right to the ribs for his trouble. “I’m perfectly shaped for all my activities, I’ll have you know.” George had a voice that made your toes tingle. It’s what drew Atticus in, back when they first met. Sitting a few blokes apart at the bar, nursing drinks in the quiet of an early morning.

All the partiers were gone, the lightweights sleeping it off against the bar top. All that was left were the lonely men and the alcoholics. And when Atticus heard that raspy, dry paper grumble of ‘another, damn it’, his dick was already on board and half hard.

There wasn’t much courting, then. But neither one of them were the type for romance. (A lie Atticus perpetrated because if George saw his notebook full of poetry, he’d never let him live it down.) Atticus had simply moved three stools down, knocked back the rest of his pint, looked over at George and said ‘I’ll jerk you off in the bathroom if you’ll do the same for me.’

And they’d been meeting ever since. A slow and steady escalation, because despite the drugs and the booze, George was as steady in spirit as he was in hand. Hand jobs in the bar bathroom became back alley blow jobs. Back alley blow jobs became backseat fucking in George’s car. Fucking in George’s car became a short drive to whatever hotel that Atticus was scrimping out to get him through leave.

All to get them here. Legs tangled like mad drunk grasshoppers, fingers tracing muscle and ink. (George had a fondness for tracing the lines of the compass tattooed on the top of Atticus’ head. He said it helped him think.) Talking about spending the holiday together in a hotel room just like this.

“Well.” The word is snapped off at the end, though the rasp of it is teasing. “If you’re going to be staying more than a day or two, it stands to reason that you should sleep at my place. That way, you can spend your money on getting me a proper gift.”

Another escalation. Atticus knows where George lives. He’d gotten the address back when they were still fucking in the back of the car, fogging up the windows like teenagers. He’d used it only to send the bastard postcards, though. Atticus liked to fill them out with useless facts about things he saw when they were out and about. The biggest thing he saw in a place, and the smallest. What the oddest local cuisine was. Atticus liked his little facts.

And he liked an excuse to keep himself in George’s thoughts, since the slimy git had a habit of taking up space in Atticus’ thoughts, whether he wanted to or not.

But being offered to stay at George’s place? That was a big deal. Because it made this holiday bit even more serious. It wasn’t two men sharing take away on a shitty motel bed with A Miracle on 34th Street playing quiet in the background on an out of date TV.

This was a proper Christmas. At home. In George’s home. For at least three or four days.

“You’d do that?” It’s a stupid response, and Atticus sees just how stupid it is by the way that George is looking at him.

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to.” And he had a point there. It was like moving mountains to get George to do things he was indifferent about. Atticus couldn’t imagine what it would take to make the bastard do something that he really didn’t want to do.

“Right.” Atticus murmurs, tracing the crow’s feet wrinkles where they crease the skin at the corner of George’s eyes. Some people said you could read those lines, the same way you read the lines on someone’s palm. But Atticus can’t be sure if those were lines of laughter, or lines of squinting behind goggles in a lab.

He hopes it’s more laughter than anything.

Atticus saw a fortune teller once, a little old woman set up on a blanket at the fringes of a bazaar in India. She had taken his hand and pointed out the lines to him in broken English. His life line was long, a few close calls written into the cracks in the line along his hand. His fortune line was more like Morse code, and Atticus felt like that was pretty true to life.

But most of all, she earned those rupees when she pointed out his heart line. ‘Late’, she said with an all knowing nod. ‘Strong.’

It’d be years more before he met George. The old bag had been more right than Atticus could have guessed. Late meant he was in his forties before George Cholmondeley. (And another year plus before he could spell the bastard’s last name.)

Strong wasn’t the half of it.

Nothing was ever going to keep Atticus from being out at sea. But George was enough to lure him back to land more than he ever did before. This was the first year that Atticus was actually going to use up all of his leave, instead of having it converted and put onto his pay.

“Right.” George agrees, and that’s the end of that. There’s a light in those clever eyes that says ‘argue with me and lose hours of your life and still do what I say’ and Atticus can’t argue with those facts.

Arguing with George was like trying to shove a camel through the eye of a needle. You’d work up a sweat, you’d get pissed off and tired, but you’d be no closer to your goal hours later.

No, it was settled.

“And what does a man such as yourself want for a Christmas gift, hm?” Because Atticus has no earthly idea what to get him. He knew all the stupid tidbits, things that George liked to eat, the things that he loathed. What movie he’d roll over to watch, if it was on the television when they were done fucking.

But none of those things equalled out to Christmas gifts. It’s not like Atticus could buy him a tie or a nice pen and call it a day.

“You to figure it out.” And Atticus should have seen that coming. George was contrary, often just for the fun of it. And even more often, just for the amusement of watching Atticus get pissed off trying to figure it out.

“Bastard.” He drops his head back against the overly starched hotel pillowcase and sighs, eyes on the ceiling. There were no stains up there, which was an improvement from the last time that they met up to spend the night together. But it was that popcorn style that reminded Atticus of being a little boy, spending his nights staring up at the ceiling in the boy’s home. Right out of the 1970s, it was.

“You like it.” And again, Georgie isn’t wrong. Atticus loves the holy hell out of the bastard, not that he’s going to say that out loud any time soon. His silence is rewarded with George easing down into the crook of his left arm, cheek pillowed against Atticus’ chest.

He wasn’t exactly a chiseled Greek god, but it was easy to not feel insecure about the softness of his belly when George was running his fingers through the soft, downy hair there.

“A notebook is cheating.” Because he knows that George is going to buy him a gift too. There’s a huff of offense that blows warm air against his chest, and Atticus grins. “If I don’t get the easy out, then you don’t either.”

His notebook did need replacing, though. It was a battered old spiral bound number. In a few more weeks, it’d go in the bottom of his trunk with the other full ones. But he wasn’t going to carry around some expensive leather wrapped thing. Hell, just last week he dropped his notebook in the toilet.

Not going to risk doing that with something that cost more than a pound or two.

“Now you’re the one who’s being a bastard.” George’s irritation always has such a lovely bite to it. Atticus likes getting him riled up, though he doesn’t try too often. It wasn’t easy. But it was always worth his hard work, as evidenced by the blunt nails dragging deliciously down his belly.

It’d be awhile yet before he was able to go again, seeing as they’d just finished fucking about ten minutes ago, but the spirit was really fucking willing right about now, regardless of what bullshit the flesh was on about.

“Yeah. But you love me.”

And yeah, it was very much mutual.

#ch: atticus #polyfacetious | chol #polyfacetious #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

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@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Eighteen

This isn’t the first time Clark has been interviewed about the farm. He remembers being about twelve years old, sitting on the front of the tractor while his dad talked about immigrating, and starting fresh on an entirely different continent.

The reporter at the time was a beautiful woman, with dark hair and bright blue eyes. She had smiled and took notes, and even asked questions that went beyond the breadth of the “fluff piece” this was supposed to be.

Clark always had a soft spot for reporters after that. They were people searching for the truth. That truth had to be harsh sometimes. They had to work hard and chase leads and bring light to unsavory things.

But sometimes, a good story was just talking about life, and making other people feel good. It was a balance that Clark could respect. Because he knew as much as anyone how difficult it was to find balance in your work.

Because Clark loved what he did. He loved the farm, he loved continuing on his parent’s legacy. But there were days that he wondered what it would be like to chase stories, to go on adventures, to peel back the layers of the world and find what was waiting beneath.

Those were the days he took a little longer out on the tractor. Clark was a known daydreamer. His mom always liked to tell people that he had that faraway look in his eye the day that they met, even though he was three months old.

(That’s another story he finds himself daydreaming about chasing. Finding out who his biological parents were. Why they didn’t want him.)

But those were thoughts for another time. Because there was a reporter back on the Kent farm again, and Clark needed to focus on that. This wasn’t the classy woman with her wedge shoes and her big pearl earrings from his childhood. This was a young man, dark headed and dark eyed, wearing a flannel shirt and work boots. (He’d have an easier time getting around the farm than Ms. Lane did.)

The one thing they did have in common was the bright light of curiosity in their eyes.

“Farm fresh is one of those things you see written all over packages in the grocery store, right? They say that it’s farm fresh butter, or farm fresh cheese, and that’s almost never the case.” Clark has been practicing his little speech since he first got the email from Mr. Stilinski about wanting to come to the farm and interview him.

It’s going pretty good, if Clark can say so himself.

“But farm to table? That’s exactly what the name implies. We work with local businesses to get them fresh produce, fresh dairy, and even fresh meat at certain times of the year.” Clark had thought about going into the logistics of meat production in a small scale business, but that kind of stuff probably wasn’t palatable. No one really wanted to know where their beef, chicken or duck was coming from.

So he would keep to the easier things. Harvesting vegetables and fruit, and milking the cows. Everyone always got a kick out of milking the cows.

“And I think that’s something to take pride in. Not that there’s anything wrong with mass produced food, everyone needs to eat.” There was a lot wrong with mass produced food, especially meat. Carbon emissions were a problem, as well as the discarding of less than attractive looking fruit and vegetables. But this wasn’t Clark’s pulpit. This was about the farm.

“I like being able to walk down the street and know that what we’re doing here at the farm is nourishing people. And that it’s making them happy, too.” Clark looks over at Mr. Stilinski, who’s told him twice now to call him Stiles, but he can’t stop him from thinking about him as Mr. Stilinski, and grins.

“We’ve come a long way from parents just slopping veggies out of a can and onto a plate.” Not that his mom ever did that. Martha Kent wasn’t a fancy cook, but she was a good one. She knew how to make the most out of what they pulled out of the ground at the farm. A little homemade butter and some herbs went a long way when it came to green beans.

Stiles is taking notes on his phone, Clark can see his thumbs flying. That itching urge to check the screen over the top of his shoulder is there, but Clark squashes it down. It wouldn’t be polite.

It also wouldn’t be polite to let Stiles walk into that cow patty that was right in front of him. They were crossing the pasture because it was the fastest way to get from the barn out to the fields. But it was a mine field out here, and Mr. Stilinski was about to step into one stinky mine.

“Watch out.” But Stiles was still lifting a foot. Clark reaches out to grab slim shoulders in his hand, turning Stiles just about fifteen degrees to the left so that he bypasses the cow patty and can walk on. “Sorry. Didn’t want you to get your shoes dirty.”

Clark waits, a beat of silence as those big dark eyes zero in on him. “Dirtier. Because you’re in the dirt already. And that’s dirty. So…” Great. He sounded like an idiot. But Clark couldn’t help it. Those were the prettiest brown eyes he’d ever seen.

Not that he was going to say or do anything about it. Clark spent enough time as a kid watching men hit on his mother when she was just trying to get her work done. That wasn’t how you showed interest in somebody. Clark was just going to let the man do his job and keep that appreciation to himself.

But Stiles just grins right back at him, and Clark breathes out a sigh of relief. “We could go into the paddock, if you wanted to see them up close and personal.” Not an improvement, Kent. “The cows. Not the cow patties. You don��t want to see them close up.”

Before he can say anything else dumb, Clark shifts away from the path towards the fields. They could go look at rows of carrots and potatoes after this. The cows were more fun, and they always appreciated the company.

(There was more than one reason they only slaughtered once a year. Clark had a bad habit of getting attached to the cows and the pigs and ducks and chickens.)

The cows are already milling near the front of the paddock. They’re not used to being penned up during the day, so they’re curious about the change. “Alright guys, make a little room, make a little room.” Clark’s voice is soft with amusement as he nudges his way into the paddock, shoulder brushing against Stiles as he reaches behind him to shut the paddock gate behind them both.

If they got loose now, there would be no rounding them up before nightfall. And that meant he’d put a heck of a kink in this whole interview plan.

“I don’t know how much you’ve been around cows…” Clark tries not to assume things about people. Of course, the first time he laid eyes on Stiles, his thoughts wouldn’t have gone to reporter. So he’s not going to make any assumptions here. “But they’re pretty much like big, laid back labradors.”

Case in point, Krypto, a big old white lab who hadn’t made his way off of the porch at all when Stiles showed up. Clark had mumbled ‘some guard dog you are’ and gotten a wag of the tail for his trouble.

“They’re curious. They’ll want to smell you.” Clark laughs as he’s jostled to the side and has to shift his stance a little wider to make room for him to stand without getting knocked over. “And they don’t realize how much they weigh. So they’ll bump into you, thinking you’re just another cow and you’ll brush it off.”

Clark reaches out, scratching behind a big ear. “This is Bessie.” He sees the look from Stiles, and laughs. “Yeah, I know. I’m not the most creative guy these days. I used that all up on Krypto.” He gestures back towards the big farm house, and the wrap around porch where his white lab was currently sunning himself, belly turned up towards the streaming sunlight.

“Bessie is one of our dairy cows. She makes the milk, which helps us make the butter and cheese.” There’s a big nose pushing into his stomach, and Clark reaches out absently to keep one of the other cows from knocking Stiles over, a big palm against his back.

“Sorry. They mean well. They’re just…” Clark laughs. “Fat isn’t the nicest word I can think of, but it’s the only one coming to mind right about now.”

Clark chews on his lip for a minute, and tries to remember where he’s at in his bullet points for this interview. It’s long gone, because he didn’t even plan to bring Stiles over here with the cows to begin with.

But it’s feeling nice and worth it because Stiles is smiling down at the two cows who have bunched up in front of him. Clark watches as the reporter scratches behind ears and under chins, cooing sweet nonsense to the cows that were eating up the attention.

“We do a lot less meat sales these days.” Clark admits sheepishly. “I don’t have the heart for it. I was lucky when I was a kid that my dad never made me help when it came time for culling the herd. I got to stay inside. So now that he’s retired, I only really sell meat in special circumstances.”

Even the chickens and the ducks were too sweet for Clark to butcher them. It just wasn’t in his nature. His dad liked to call him a soft touch. Clark is pretty sure that’s just the polite word for ‘pansy’ that his dad chose.

“We also have a small amount of rescue animals.” Clark cranes his neck, looking around at the milling cows to try and find who he was looking for. There’s a soft ‘aha’ and Clark points to the back. “That’s Petunia. She was abandoned when another farmer closed up shop. When we found her, she was all skin and bones.”

And Clark had spent more than a few nights in the barn with her, trying to get her to eat and feel better. Thankfully, the winters didn’t get too cold here, but there was at least one night that Clark slept under a blanket in the pen with her, until she was well enough to join the herd.

“We’ve got a duck named Popcorn who my mom found in a parking lot.” He shakes his head, warm and fond. “Little guy flew right into her open truck window and sat down. He was ready to go. So Mom said it was meant to be.”

Stiles is watching him again, though his fingers are still scratching absently at whichever cow was near enough to be under his fingers. “So you’re not the only one around here who’s adopted.”

It’s not a question, and Clark is caught off guard by the words. Stiles must have read the other article on the farm, even though it was probably printed before he was born. That was the only way Clark can think of that he would know that Clark was adopted.

“Yeah.” Clark agrees softly after a moment of thought. He nods, and feels the words really settle into him. “Yeah, we’re big on adoption around here.” For a moment, Stiles looks like he’s thinking about apologizing. But he smiles when Clark smiles.

“And since you’re here, why don’t you go ahead and help me get everyone fed? That way you get a feel for what a day in the life on the Kent farm is really like.”

#ch: clark #polyfacetious | stiles #polyfacetious #v: expats row #carlota's christmas drabbles #queued #this one is Not Great #but gotta get back on the horse somehow

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kingofdirtandnothing · 3 years

Text

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Sixteen

Jacob is lounging on the back patio, bare feet over the edge of a generic plastic lawn chair. His jogging pants sit low on his hips, just a hint of stomach visible where his sun faded t-shirt has ridden up, a football team’s logo long lost to the hands of time and the washing machine. The breeze moves softly through his grey hair, and the skin around his closed eyes is well worn with laugh lines.

He’s so beautiful that Din doesn’t know what to do with himself, most of the time.

It seems like a lifetime ago that they were working the same case for different organizations. (Din never liked working with the local cops. They didn’t like having the feds around.) Hard to believe it was only two years ago.

And half a world away. Monte Carlo was a far cry from those long flights from North Carolina to Arizona, just to spend a little time with a man who stole his heart in one fell swoop. Gone were the badges and the long travel times and the sick, twisted men who used to put away.

Now life was a small house with a tiny backyard, a retired husband and a kid that was just learning to walk. And if the kid had his way, Din would be just as grey haired as Jacob by the time the baby gates came down.

Because the kid was utterly, and completely single minded when it came to food. If Din had known what the switch from formula and bottles to baby food would entail, maybe he would have waited a little longer. Because now he had a kid who had gotten his head stuck in the slats of the baby gate twice now, tried to climb it at least once (that he saw) and who would shove any unsupervised food into his mouth the second a head would turn away from him.

No one ever told Din that parenting meant baby oil-ing up a little fat head while it wailed to get it unstuck from between two wooden poles in a baby gate. But then again, no one told him that he would hold a baby in his arms and love it so much that his lifelong ambitions would fall to the wayside to keep him safe.

Or that he’d meet a drawling, playful marshal in the middle of the desert in Arizona and feel his heart come to life, like the Grinch’s. Jacob Vanth made his heart grow three sizes that day, and Din wasn’t afraid to admit it. (Mostly because it would make Jacob laugh if he did. He had a great laugh.)

But life had a funny way of changing when you least expected it, and there’s nothing in the world that would make Din give up this life he had for himself now.

“You’re home early.” Jacob doesn’t open his eyes as he speaks, fingers brushing in idle sweeps against the metal bar at the top of the lounge chair. It’s distracting enough that Din doesn’t think to answer for another few seconds.

“Work was easy today.” Part of giving up the life they left behind was giving up the job. Din couldn’t exactly be a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States if he was living overseas. So his clearance was signed away, his severance pitched into the same account as Jacob’s retirement to buy the house here, and then he started looking for work.

Private security consulting was laughably easy. Din didn’t even have to deal with the customers beyond the initial consultation. He was the guy went in, who scoped out the house and the routine and suggested to the company how best to keep the client safe.

It was for the best that way, because Din had no patience for rich men with bloated egos who thought they were above the law because they had money. Hell, he had spent the majority of his career working to put those very men away. If this job meant working under the thumb of an elitist asshole, then Din would have found another job.

But his boss was a good man, a no nonsense kind of man who saw that Din’s use was best in offering information for each of their new jobs. He would lay the groundwork, and then whoever took over to keep the client safe could tailor those recommendations to best serve the client, and the business.

“Let me guess…” Jacob cracks an eye open finally, a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Din wanted to kiss it. “You went to some feller’s house, you told him that he had too many windows and not enough cameras, and then he paid your boss an obscene amount for someone to stand around and make him feel safe.”

That was eerily close to the truth, actually. But as Din was learning, if you’d met one 1%-er, you’d met them all. He takes a step out onto the patio, toeing off his freshly shined loafers. Din leans a shoulder against the open sliding door, leg crossed at the knee so that he could pull off his socks, one by one.

The suit he was wearing was tailored, the most obscenely expensive thing that Din owned. He’d learned early in his career that sometimes, the suit was the only armor that a man had when he was out in the field. You had to be able to cut an intimidating figure to those you were questioning, while still radiating comfort and safety to those you were promising to protect, or to avenge their family members.

Next comes his suit coat. Din folds it neatly across the back of the lounge chair opposite Jacob’s. Cuffs are undone, and folded up and over his elbows, one crisp turn at a time. Only then does Din perch himself on the place that Jacob made for him on the side of his lounge chair.

Din was still learning this part. Leaving the job at the door. Before Jacob and the kid, he’d never had any sort of life. He had always marched on with blinders on, no thought in his head but the path to the job. Even in college, he’d abstained from the parties and the drinking and the casual sex. All that mattered was the job.

Now, the job was what mattered least. Now, the job was a means to an end. A way to add to the coffers and help keep their kid in pull ups. And to keep Jacob Vanth in all the threadbare t-shirts his heart desired. (How someone could make something so sloppy look so good was beyond Din. But Jacob did it, and did it well.)

The job was no longer the first thing he thought of in the morning, or the last thing he thought of before bed. Now those thoughts were reserved for what he was going to make their bottomless pit of a kid for breakfast, before work. And the night time thoughts, well...those weren’t the kinds of things a man brought up in polite conversation.

“Something like that.” Din was grateful for the fact that Jacob never seemed to run out of words. Din had never been the most talkative person. His colleagues used to tell him that it was like working with a robot. And then they’d laugh when he took it personal. Robots were creepy and weird. Din was just quiet. There was a big difference there. He felt, and he felt a lot.

Like right now? There was so much love in his chest that Din felt fit to bursting, like an overfull water balloon, aching at the seams with just how much love was inside of him. Din reaches between them, fingers walking along the strips of soft plastic that made up the majority of the lounge chair, until he could brush his pinkie against Jacob’s.

The touch is gentle, skin rasping against sun warmed skin. Jacob had calluses in all the right places, and Din greatly appreciated them when the lights were off and the door was closed. (He was working up to lights on, but it was a long way from Jehovah’s Witness to openly gay man in Monte Carlo. Some steps took longer than others.)

But more than that, the touch is still as electric as that first stolen touch was. Standing next to an old vending machine outside of a squat motel in the Sonaron desert, the case a long forgotten dream in the back of his head. Jacob Vanth had seen through him with extreme prejudice and peeled away the layers with just his eyes.

Din was lost the second Marshal Vanth smiled at him, and there was no turning back.

“How’s the kid?” It was surprisingly quiet in his walk through the house to get to the back porch. There were a pile of plastic frog toys spilling out of a bin in the living room, but the rest of the place was clean. Even the kid’s high chair, which looked like a disaster zone, most hours out of the day.

“Sleepin’. He fought that nap today, boy.” Jacob lets out a low whistle, shaking his head solemnly. His wrist brushes against Din’s knee as he reaches down beside the lounge chair to grab the baby monitor there. A blinking green light on the front guaranteed that it was on. And if Din stayed still enough, he could hear the soft, snuffling breaths on the other end of the line.

“He’s stubborn.” Din agrees quietly. The kid was a survivor, all the way from birth. (Sometimes, Din still had nightmares about finding him in that dumpster, out in the heat. What if he hadn’t stopped to take a breath. What if he hadn’t listened and heard that soft, mewling cry?)

But you’d never know he was a preemie now by looking at him. The kid was walking now, a great trundling waddle, arms always outstretched. And when he caught sight of Din or Cobb after a break of not seeing them, he’d take off as fast as his little fat (Michelin man, that’s what Jacob called them) legs would carry him. It was enough to make Din feel like he was the most important person in the world.

“Like his daddy.” Jacob agrees, using the hook on the back of the baby monitor to hang it off of the edge of the lounge chair again. “But he just went down, maybe ten minutes ago.” Jacob spares only a second to look at his watch before he’s turning those bedroom eyes on Din. He was in trouble. “Which means we got a little time to ourselves.”

As always, fear comes first. A lifetime of being told he was wrong, that he was abhorrent, Din still fears even the gentlest of touches in “public”. Even if public was in the sunshine in their own back yard. But fast on its heels was determination. He wasn’t going to be defined by an outdated rhetoric. Not anymore. Not when his life was so good.

So Din makes a conscious effort to reach between them, to grab Jacob’s callused hand and laces their fingers together in some kind of internal defiance. (He couldn’t truly believe that this was wrong. How could something so pure be wrong? There had to be a mistake in how it was written down. That’s what Din had to keep telling himself. It was some kind of cosmic typo. God couldn’t really hate love like this.)

It earns him a slow as honey smile from Jacob, and that’s worth any amount of fear.

“It looks like we do.” And Din knows exactly what he wants to do with that time. But there was nothing wrong with playing a little hard to get, especially if it got Jacob levering himself up into a sitting positon, and right into Din’s personal space.

“We should spend it wisely.”

#ch: din #polyfacetious | cobb #v: expats row #queued #carlota's christmas drabbles

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