#First thought was 'I need to eat food because it is brekkie time and my tummy will settle down surely'

[ryoukio]

On third thought, perhaps eating food slightly too spicy for me on an upset stomach was not the best business venture today

[sugar-petals]

hey angel (m)

♡  sub!felix + reader 

↳ The JYP Halloween party is ditched on short notice. That means: You have a down-to-celebrate boyfriend in full angel costume on your hands.

words. 5k 

tags. domestic au, finger sucking, hickeys, latex, corruption kink, fingering, vaginal sex, footjob, harnesses, cunnilingus, kitten antics, edging, aftercare 

★⎡CARO’S NOTE⎦› here goes the cutie on duty 👼

genre. domestic + smut/crack

„So sorry mate,“ Bang Chan’s voice resounds through the speaker. „I thought it could work but… We can’t celebrate tonight. Really sorry, Felix. Changbin and I already got dressed up too, but, you know things got shut down. JYP won’t let us with the Corona rules and stuff.“

„Oh no…“

„Yeah, man. Looks like we’ll have to do it next year.“

„You even prepared the food already, right?“

„We’re handing it out to staff and eat it at home. I know, it sucks. I spent half the morning in the kitchen. I can like keep the pumpkin cookies so you can eat them tomorrow after practice or so.“

„I feel so sorry Chan… and thank you.“

„I’ll be calling Hyunjin and Han now as well. Really sorry we’re cancelling short notice. I hope you’re still having a nice evening bro. Maybe we can make it happen for Christmas.“

„Okay. Cheers mate.“

„Yeah, cheers.“

Felix puts his phone down looking more than deflated in his angel costume, puffs out a big sigh. You can tell he really looked forward to this. Just an hour before, you bothered to sew the wings in place rather than rely on the wobbly back-pack like construction that came with it. 

They’re firmly attached to his white top now, and all for nothing. He glued them together by himself with a pack of synthetic feathers ordered on Etsy for a ridiculous shipping cost, along with a little halo that he clipped into his hair. Which, because maybe it really does sense his mood, dangles low and even a bit lopsided over his head.

„It’s the party of the year,“ Felix flops down on the living room couch. “I can’t believe this.“

You sit down opposite to him, starting to clean off the table where masses of cosmetic products and leftover feathers have piles up.

„Next time, Lixie. We can keep the costume. Poor Chan, he organized the living shit out of everything.“

„I’ll just go and shower, get this off, and stuff,“ he points at his face. Felix applied his own makeup with a little help from you here and there, including some golden sparkles. Just yesterday, he bleached his hair. It’s sculpted down to every strand with hair spray now. Felix unties his sneakers with the little gold stars on. Just before he starts plucking off his halo, you get an idea, pick up your phone from the table.

„Wait— Let’s at least make some pictures with your phone, you put so much effort in this. You look so cute. The fans might want to see it as well.“

„Oh! You’re right,“ Felix stops right in his tracks. „For Instagram.“

After tightening his sneakers again and you making sure the halo sights right, Felix walks around your flat in search for a nice backdrop. You follow, quickly flipping through some filters to try, and adjusting the flash on the camera.

After posing at the fridge — strange idea — and in the bathroom turns out a little awkward as well, you decide that such an elaborate costume needs a themed background, and only the bedroom offers just that. You recently changed the duvet to sky blue sheets with clouds on them. The overall interior is mostly clean white as well, with some thrifted vintage furniture. Fairy lights, heavy curtains, a wooden ceiling. Perfect.

„We’ll caption it as… post your own stay-at-home costume, something like that,“ Felix plops down on the bed, acting as if he just took a seat on the cloud in the very middle.

„Sounds pretty good,“ you press release, and the first picture pops up on your screen. „Can you turn a little towards the light? That the sparkles are showing.“

„Yay, I love the sparkles!“

„Just like this, just like this. Don’t move. The sparkles!“

A five-picture series of more snapshots ensues, with you adjusting Felix’s face a few times by hand, even, turning his chin by sheer millimeters to find the perfect angle. He’s stunning.

„I have another idea.“

„Oh?��

„I remember what I wore for Halloween three years ago. The costume must be somewhere. I think it fits together with yours.“

„What, oh wow?“

„What was it again, wait…“

You already begin to sort through your wardrobe, checking each hanger, each drawer, end up where you store your socks, and finally pull out a larger plastic zip bag from the very depths of all that chaos. There it is. Nice.

„Lix, if you’d turn around for me, please.“

He immediately does. Blushing.

„Thank you, angel.“

You pull off your sweat pants, your grey shirt, socks, your bra. Time to dress up. Only your simple black panties stay on. On goes a pair of scarlet stockings, snug and high. Then, a dark red latex skirt that goes in big circles and flounces, down to the mid-thigh. 

Added: A tight sleeveless peplum top that admittedly… and deliberately squeezes your boobs a little. Not too much. More important is that your nipples are showing right through, and the cleavage is sweeping, every demon would be salivating at your feet. If an angel does: Remains to be tested.

Around your waist and chest and over your shoulder goes a black harness, pulling everything together. Some very pointed, glossy pumps with thin heels complete the costume. They’re not crafted to be walked on in the very least, their balance is terrible. You’re planning something else with them. Cherry on top: Devil horn headband. Really curved and pointy, too. Can’t go wrong. You click your tongue and take a spin. The skirt flares out perfectly. Ready to go.

„Felix, time to turn around.“

He does. You can tell he didn’t cheat.

„You’re, you’re so hot in this,“ Felix buries his face right in the comfort of his sweater paws, hoping they would not give away his embarrassed little face. But — his voice does, effortlessly so.

„Come on, have a look at me. Real closely, angel, come. You’re allowed to.“

Felix gazes through his fingers with what sounds like a little meep! in a much more high-pitched tone than his usual speaking range. He’s cute.

„Hey pum’kin. Miss Lucifer speaking. Where’s the barbecue?“

Felix and you recently agreed that hell must be one big and extremely hot cave where everyone’s grilling and having a good time. Australia, essentially.

„Welp!“

„Damn right. Infiltrating God’s realm one cloud at a time. Any last words?“

„It’s so intimidating!“

Felix digs himself into a mountain of pillows on the bed, with only his eyes and nose peeking out. You shrug, adjust your horns.

„Hm. Time for my first satanic act I guess.“

„Oh no!“

„Wait just one minute, be a sweet and patient boy.“

You leave Yongbok confused given that you’re quick to hurry to the kitchen. However, what you return with puts a giggle on his lips right away.

„Boom. It is served.“

„Yes, yes, please!“

Poufy black cocoa cupcakes. The ones with the cute little ghost frosting on it, and the melted chocolate inside. Felix finds them irresistable since the last Halloween party, to the point where you bake them mid-July. The current set of cupcakes was meant to be a contribution to Bang Chan’s eerie and delectable buffet. As for now, they’re in deep need of someone hungry since you made a lot of them, assuming a post-workout Changbin would devour at least five or more.

„Good move,“ he admits, a little shaky, and you proceed to tray the cupcakes on the bed — stuffing Felix for a solid ten minutes until there’s chocolate all over his face. What you’ll be quick to confess is that you’ve been deliberately messy feeding him, with all the crumbs in particular.

„Spoiled honey bun,“ you plant a kiss on top of his head.

„These taste so good, I swear.“

Next up is Felix who has to carefully maneuver the sweet treats into your mouth without spoiling your outfit.

„If you get crumbs into my cleavage, I can’t put your face in there later you know.“

Fierce nodding.

„That’s the spirit.“

Under your eagle eyes, he proves to be an obedient little cherub doing his job pretty well. The cakes are delicious in how spongy they are, and the liquid chocolate warms up so well on the tongue, it melts even more. You’re more than pleased and have Felix store away the remaining four pieces only after quite a while.

„I’ll have them for Brekkie, woo!“ is what he’s fast to proclaim, and you agree he’ll need them the next morning. Once you’re done with him, that’s gonna count as a hangover even Chan’s wildest party couldn’t give him.

„We’re talking dinner first, Felix.“

At this point, all the sugar is kicking in. Or it’s the chocolate being some kind of aphrodisiac. Whatever, could be either, you’re feeling like you’re up there at the ceiling, and you’re not the only one. Felix coming back to the bedroom so bouncy and cutieful just gets you even more in the mood.

You sit at the edge of the bed, slanting backward just a little. „You look like you need some more corruption, I won’t lie,“ you pat your lap, beckoning. He can ditch wifi because this is his favorite hot spot waiting for him. Felix sits down looking tiny as ever, eyes full of anticipation and his pants full of… big fat late night erection.

„I don’t mind at all, Miss. I don’t, oh my god…“ he mumbles into his nonexistent Aussie trucker beard, and you’re clear that whatever the skirt did to him, his brain must be doing kangaroo somersaults right now. In the meantime, something very eager is poking right at your lower belly. Captain Boomerang already came fully armed tonight and the Suicide Squad isn’t even anywhere near to be seen.

„Oh hey hey, cupcake. Getting really big there,“ you wipe at the curled little corners of his mouth. Some crumbs come off. His lips already twitch the way you know they want to do naughty things on you. He doesn’t seem to notice. Autopilot Felix has already taken over.

„Don’t hurry with it,“ he stares, mouth half-open, but his little grinds prove him a dirty — in an entirely direct sense — fucking liar. Like he’s literally rubbing himself against your stomach.

„Boy oh boy. You’re not even trying.“

„I’m fucked!“ is what Felix soon realizes with the daggers you’re shooting at him through your hopefully very satanic-looking eyes right now. Alongside catching up with his darn hips doing their own thing.

„You are.“

„I’m sorry for grinding, God help me!“

„He won’t. Cuz I’m here on your cloud. Cue stage number two of my demonic plan. Safeword?“

„It’s chocolate!“

„Mh. Good pick.“

The rest as usual. Tapping the thigh, yellow for pause, towels plus water ready, and always double-checking the lube in case of Jisung putting a glass of vegemite under your bed as his latest practical joke. Yes, it happened. It’s a whole new level of demonic. On the other hand: perhaps Felix’ ass could’ve actually handled it, Made in Australia it is. 

„Let’s go honey angel,“ you curl at his hair with a little finger just to tease him a little more. The answer is a little meow, at this point Felix’ communication skills have simplified to kitten vocabulary which always happens when he is nervous and looking forward to something.

Next thing poor Felix knows, his face has entered the scorching satanic abyss that is your cleavage. Literally, you’re burning up. It’s fucking October and Felix has you breaking a sweat from all your horniness (literally, your horns are just that chic) already. Twice the reason to punish the shit out of him. If that can be considered anything near a punishment.

A shower of various „Mh— nh!“ and mewling noises comes to rain down on you while Felix face takes a trip down mammary lane, and that, too, is literal. He’s salivating. So much about rain. Actually, great lubrication. Felix always does things best by instinct.

„Yes, good boy. Great job.“

Now that his mouth is wet already, you’re unceremonious about shoving your fingers right down his throat after he resurfaces. Blushed, hard, and ready to choke himself since he’s already running short on breath. It doesn’t take long until he’s gagging himself stupid and the sparkles under his eyes start running.

„Pretty, pretty,“ you lean down a little, kissing his nose. „Give me all you got.“

„Gh—gch—“

The answer is as slobbery and unintelligible as can be. To a normal human, at least. You’re a demonic top. That automatically means having an Ivy League major in gag noise translation.

„Oh yes, I know,“ you stroke his hair, using your free hand that usually rests at the back of his neck. „Talk to me about it. Exactly what I was thinking. Do go on.“

And he does, louder than ever. If there’s one satisfying sound, it’s this, that heavenly deep voice doing all kinds of nasty acrobatics is making you go crazy. That Felix is absolutely close to cumming in his angel pants is very much clear to you given how the veins and muscles on his neck are having a chaotic Halloween party on their own.

Which includes his tongue taking turns on your two fingers as well. And a wide-eyed Felix struggling, swallowing, holding on to your shoulders with his little feet twitching in their sneakers. Like mad… and you love it. But also — hopelessly sucking and moaning and slurping and squealing until his neck has way too much saliva on it for you not to make it your next target. Felix is so good at this. Way too good.

„Looks delicious,“ you lean in, your hair tickles his ears. And now, you’re busy nibbling, biting a little… and most importantly, giving Felix a wet hickey that will send his makeup artist — my God, you really torture the unsuspecting man almost weekly — into a meltdown. Rowdy and unholy is the look you’re going for.

In the meantime, Felix is still wrapped up trying to hit your fingers at the back of his throat. If his cute bouncy run and rude boner moment didn’t turn you on already, now you would be. The way he’s just sucking in his own spit makes you realize that you won’t ever need a fire brigade for your flat.

You emerge from his neck and raise your brows. Felix is just hard-wired to impress. „Just how much saliva can you produce!“

„Ch… Mnh— Nh…“

Hitting some more complex syntax and consonants there, is he.

„Oh, I get it now. You stayed hydrated during the day. Thanks for explaining, mate. That’s the secret.“

Whether that’s perfectly scientifically correct down to the enzyme theory and shit neither of you can google right now. At least you know that you’re both drenched on either end so that’s that.

Once Felix is so horny from deepthroating your damn hand that he has pull off and yellow-word, you’re already prepared for introducing a new position which you can prepare while he’s gathering himself and wiping off his chin. You hand him a second towel for his neck, and present him a little hand mirror to see how the hickey turned out.

„It’s shaped like, hm,“ he pants, words still slurring a little. „I dunno! It’s really cute!“

„Let me see… No doubt that’s a rice cake hickey. That’s the shape.“

„You’re right!“

And off he goes snapping a selfie with it while you get comfortable on your back, cleaning your own fingers.

„Just don’t upload that one to Insta instead of the cloud shots, we’re not gonna survive another Manager call at 1:15 AM.“

„Can I use your phone for it? That’s where it’s supposed to be on, anyway.“

Felix giggles a little. That cute brat. Always knowing how it’s done.

„Sure babe!“

And voilà, Felix is already occupied setting a good view of his new rice cake-shaped friend as your phone background. Good thing, helps his erection cool down a little, he was about to blow up his poor white pants. The acceptable unfair feat being that he’s just riling you up even more like that on the other hand.

„If you come to mommy now,“ you wriggle one foot in the air, the other splayed on the duvet, knee slightly bent. „Rubbing her pussy and doing your thing, you know how it goes.“

„Angel duties calling! What am I doing!“

At the speed of sound, Felix stores your phone back on the bedside table and crawls over in an instant. He props his chin on your abdomen and blinks.

„Sorry Ma’am. At your service. Never wanna keep you waiting.“

A big smile rouses his cheeks, and you boop them from either side. His peach fuzz is so soft and his eyes are so beautifully dark. You don’t waste any time keeping your skirt down for any longer. Another blink and Felix is already pawing — well, kneading and caressing technically — between your legs. He’s visibly understanding just how wet the whole finger sucking circus has left you now.

„What if I used my heels on your cock, boo. Still no cumming. Just my heels and my lil’ prince.“

Satanic plan stage number three. Felix has gotten to savor it last Christmas and for his birthday, and some time around the holidays in summer.

„I love it yay!“ Felix claps his hands. Baby, baby.

„C’mere then. Just keep on rubbing.“

His arms are fairly long enough. While you’re dragging the slender heels of either shoe right across the outlines on his crotch, Felix, eyes loosely closed, maintains a steady rhythm on your clit with three fingers lined up on the fabric of your panties.

„Oh fucking hell, Felix, shit—“

Whenever you masturbate, that alone would never do. You’d get frustrated after a while. Need more stimulation. But when Felix is on angel duty to keep your pussy soaked, it doesn’t need much to make your clit throb, even with your underwear still on. Guess that God’s little helpers know how to work their magic to make your head spin.

He’s hitting the right spot, with the right moves, and his other hand doesn’t miss out on a single opportunity to stroke at both the in- and outside of your thighs. The touch is so subtle, you twitch. Felix strokes on, delirious himself. His eyelids flutter.

„Fuck…“

Despite the little pause from earlier taking out most of his tension, your heels leave Felix with pants that are even more bulged out. That’s making it easy to direct your feet to jerk up and down at either side. You’d never know either of you would be so into this. Foot fetish and all.

Once he’s edged you to the point of moans, last thing you properly remember is calling it quits with the panties and telling him to line himself up. The heels kicked off, the skirt still on, you decide that unpacking your Halloween treat has been long overdue. You slide his pants down, roll down a pink condom, and grab his cock at the base to glide it all over your wet lips.

„Lix, come fuck me. You got me all horny. Satan is recruiting.“

„With me it’s not sinning,“ he smiles, brighter than the sun and you do right along. It’d be hard not to. Felix truly has the innocence of a virgin, the subtle confidence of an intermediate, the caution of a pro, and the kindness of a real veteran.

„You’re right about that Felix,“ you say, prop your entrance at the very tip, let the wetness do its job. „Come kiss your honey girl.“

And he does. Entering you with care for the right angle, letting your hip do the rest. What’s been circling and sucking your fingers so deliciously is now doing a hot job teasing and pleasing your tongue all over. His lips are amazingly soft and plump, they open so gently and feel electric on yours. A gentle squeeze around your left breast sparks a moan into the kiss from you. It’s Felix massaging your breasts while deepening his penetration, and you can tell the vegemite can stay under the bed today. You can tell Felix is getting more than flustered knowing it was all him who made you this dripping wet.

Even his dick seems to blush in sync. It’s fucking pink and red. Oh wait, that’s the condom. But knowing him and from your viewpoint, it’s still more flushed than before, no kidding. Faithfully pumping in and out of you at its full length now. You wrap your legs around his waist, the thrusts become deeper, shorter, parting you open much more, and filling you out so properly.

„So good. Right there, angel. Just right there. I’m loving that.“

Felix has a great dick. Best handy size, the girth’s comfortable, all nice and bendy, virtually no curve, you can always gyrate on it in any way and even take a complete 180 if you go from cowgirl to reverse (which you’d be doing right now but he’d crush his wings if he were on his back like that so no). Cherry on top, compact but soft balls that don’t steal the show but still do the trick during doggy. They’re whipping up the best cum in the world, so.

The slow kissing goes on and on and Felix tries to walk the tightrope of neither letting your pussy lips suck the orgasm out of him, nor making you cream his cock with shaky legs from all that gorgeous sloppy friction, and the kissing, and his sweet cherry shampoo scent that has your brain in absolute limbo.

With everything hanging by a thread like that, every kiss becomes special and full of a suspense that makes your lips tremble — either set, and Felix can hardly bear it himself.

His little halo is dangling back and forth, and you can tell by his face that all that thrusting has him in serious trouble. And you? Are fucking leaking and groaning, and that little shallow series of first contractions before your orgasm is already preparing you.

The sugar high from the cupcakes is fading, but your adrenaline is sure to replace it. You just want Felix to fuck you more and rock against him, and hold his head, and kiss him. God, his mouth is so warm and inviting, tastes so good like cocoa.

The pace joins yours without any effort, it adapts when your rhythm changes, and it stabilizes everything when you’re currently riding the high of his cock really filling you out so you can clench your muscles around him, feel him and tell him just you wait, I’ll milk you. He’s such a good kisser. You can feel all of your wetness running down your ass like it’s Christmas.

„Felix, I’m overflowing.“

„I’m so sorry,“ he whines into the kiss. „I’ll be washing the sheets.“

„Listen, baby,“ you break the tongue-on-tongue, „you doing laundry is really sexy. But the overflow is the best part. Just look what you’re doing to my body.“

You could ravage him on the spot. He’d probably lose it and cum in two seconds. Holding yourself before the edge is so tough right now.

„Shit… yellow again. Need a moment.“

Felix has to resort to a bit of cockwarming, and you use the little break to rid yourself off the harness. It’s not perfectly comfortable when you’re lying down. You’re about to fling it off the bed that Felix asks to wear it. Oh. Very well. It actually goes as a nice contrast on his white top, and the straps make it easy to adjust to him. And he wants it to sit on him really tightly. Oh again.

You realize—

On you, it’s only a fashion piece. Something random that came with the costume.

On him: It’s kinky.

„Hey hey. You look sexy, pum’kin,“ you pat at his chest. „Look at your waist, wow.“

Your sweet boy. It’s like it’s made for him. So cinched and the exact opposite of his costume. He’s a corrupted, dirty angel now, it’s perfect. With his pink neck and all sweaty face, and his little puppy gaze that will haunt you in your sex dreams because it literally just gets into your pants so much. Oh god, you just wanna cum. You have to distract yourself with chaste images of Felix washing the dishes or writing grocery lists with little hearts and emojis on them but that just makes it five times worse.

The way he puts the harness on with his dick inside you is so mouthwatering and cumworthy, you can’t wait to resume and switch your own brains off on that angel cock. Once Felix is ready to exit phase yellow and resume the session, your hands magically gravitate towards the straps of the harness at this waist.

„Can I?“

„M—hm!“

You have the time of your life grabbing and guiding him by the harness, controlling every thrust. Felix clenches up his teeth from how lavishly his cock is squeezing into your pussy.

„Oh babe,“ you groan out. „Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Come on, angel.“

He’s not going to take it much longer. Felix is tensing all over, neck to the knees, it’s a huge shock wave in the making. That climax is going to be like a fucking punch into outer space.

„I’m really at my limit, I’m, I’m…!“

„Cum for me, angel,“ you reach to his neck to bring his lips down again. Your mouths going into shaky contact brings a big soaring moan with it.

„Ahn—!“

You lock lips, his face scrunches up, and you can tell that cum worth of three orgasms is currently pooling into the condom. You don’t belong to the mile high club, but going by how far up this feels, you might as well be. Those sweet shivers. And the little whines. It’s all too much for him, this one got him bad. Felix cumming is like the angels really are singing. With bells and harps and all that shit at once.

After pulling out, the ruined condom goes off lightning fast. Felix’ cock gets some much-needed cooling, but his face is on heavy duty. How he does it after almost getting his lights turned off, it’s a mystery, it must have been six whole loads he shot into you. You’d already be collapsing in his shoes. Felix still being able to put his mouth to work is an act of divine intervention. Honestly though, it doesn’t even take half a minute. Sloppy head from Felix is cryptonite, your stamina comes tumbling down. His tongue just knocks you out with an overwhelming rush of pleasure.

“Oh— yes...”

What is gravity? You don’t know what north and south mean anymore. He laps and sucks you through your high and your legs give up their soldier service. All you see it fluffy blonde strands of hair peeking from below your skirt, a glimpse of the harness, the rest is heavy growling and swearing from all of the contractions and Felix getting raw and dirty Down Under with no fears, literally none, to bury his face and move it around and let his tongue loose. Time and again Felix shows you he’s a swallower. Satanic agenda: success.

For tonight, your pussy will be nothing but glitter, cum, and spit. Swollen like crazy, properly fucked, and tipped to the absolute limit. Felix keeps on slicking up his face completely, and then brings you into the afterglow with his fingers. One at a time, barely adding stimulation. Just fetching you where you are and climbing down. Looks like you’ll share the cupcakes, this is a couple hangover in the making. In Felix’ case in particular. It’s like he signed up for testing a mad scientist’s latest designer drug.

„Wow wow… So you served me choco cupcakes and God’s menu,“ is the last thing he can say in his delirium before falling over. He’s so fucked out and went so wild on eating you, a part of the harness came off. Thank god his nose is so small, all that swiping could’ve broken the bridge and whatnot. And his lips, they’re twice as plump. You really have to compliment in on what his mouth has done today because that was some champ shit.

You’re both buffering on the sheets for a solid five minutes until you roll to the side. Towel… water… forehead kisses. Yes, forehead kisses most importantly. After gathering yourself a little, you pamper Felix into a heart rate around 90 rather than 120. And with the onset of exhaustion for the two of you, that’s not too hard after some minutes passing. Whispering sweet nothings and praise is all you do up until 2 AM and after. Felix is somewhere between worlds, one foot in the door of the dreamland, the other soaking up the care and the intoxicating, thick scent of the room that has a lot of cherry shampoo in it.

At some point. You loosen the harness, pull off his shirt with the wings attached. The halo you unsuccessfully try to spot in his hair. Turns out: It flew off. Felix really must’ve made Satan proud if it fell down just like that. Good job. Felix has earned a title of being a dirty angel now, and by the way he’s chugging water now, a wet one on top of that.

Five tons of spit, six, seven, who knows how many he’s afforded for today. A head pat is not enough, it has to be several, and Felix passes out onto the pillows. As good as you can, you wipe him down, bin the condom, get off his shoes and his half-pulled down trousers. After staggering to the bathroom, your skirt and peplum shirt follows, the stockings stay on, they’re cozy as hell. Last but not least, you remove your devil horns. It feels like they granted you the most unknown demonic powers.

Next time Felix is on his way to making you cum again, you’ll be wearing them, and you’ll last the way you did tonight. Meanwhile, Bang Chan is blowing up your phone because Felix pressed send by accident earlier, but you don’t notice. It just keeps on vibrating on the bedstand and Chris will have to riddle over the rice cake selfie for the rest of November.

Felix dozes with an angelic little smile on his lips and puffs his cheeks in his sleep, his makeup wiped and his hair truly messy. Instagram can wait. Maybe you’ll get to brush your teeth a little later, it usually takes some time until you wake up again and topple to the sink. You huddle together, tuck your sweet baby pum’kin into his second favorite spot at your chest. Ah, the glory of Felix little spooning.

As the last signature, you nibble at his ear, call him your cutie pie, and switch the lights off. You have to listen closely but if you do, it’s like Felix is purring in his sleep. Whatever your own dreamland is planning to launch on you tonight, you’re looking forward to it.

© 2017-2020 submissive-bangtan. all rights reserved. reposts, modifications and translations are prohibited. character depictions are fictional & for entertainment purposes only.

PS — oh, my good ole fellas, a last cursed disclaimer. i must insist on the following for obvious reasons. vegemite makes for some terrible strap lube okay 😂🇦🇺

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[poiwritesnstuff]

Raksha Bandan

[In which Satya celebrates a holiday with one of the Overwatch crew.]

Jamison sat in the workroom of the Overwatch headquarters, perfectly calm except for the restless shaking of his leg under the table. In his hands was a fizzed out bomb shell, and while he’d had an idea of what he wanted to do with it an hour ago, he couldn’t recall what that idea was anymore.

His mind was still stuck on the night before, when he’d bumped into Satya making something in the kitchen. It wasn’t a routine, but it’d happened enough that he'd come to expect a hot drink before bed if he needed it. Apparently not this time, though. Rather than sit with him for a cup of tea, as they were wont to do, she’d shooed him out with a flapping of her hands and told him to shower in the morning.

He’d protested at that, citing that he’d got up to four times a week now and he didn’t smell bad enough to put any of the smelly gunk in his pits, but she rolled her eyes and told him it was for a special occasion. He didn’t mind that so much, and, after a quick sniff in the privacy of the hallway, decided that a shower wouldn’t go amiss. Not if Satya’d had something in mind for him.

He couldn’t stop chewing on what it might be that she was planning. Did it have to do with what she was cooking last night? Was she trying to cook for him? Maybe they’d go on a picnic, find some scrap of land nearby with grass or even a tree and shoot the shit and eat, and she’d lean up real close to him to offer him the last bite of their brekkie and look up at him with those big old doe eyes of hers and tell him that she’d been waiting for a moment alone with him…

Roadie had kicked him out of his room at that point for going on so long, so he happily continued on this train of thought until he passed out in his bed and continued on into the morning. He’d showered and even put on a shirt that morning, though he’d had no idea what they were going to do that day. But it had been three hours since then, and Jamison’s stomach was rumbling since he’d foregone any real breakfast. Where the hell was she? Weren’t they going to get this show on the road?

His leg jolted up a little too high and directly into the underside of the metal table. Junkrat let out a howl and bolted out of his seat, nearly toppling over as he clutched at his knee in pain. The door to the workshop hissed open and he turned around as quick as he could, ignoring the twinge of pain in his leg as he grinned.

“Jamison?” Satya stood there in a deep red sari, holding a small plate with some unidentifiable circles on it. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy!” He glanced over her, first appreciatively and then in confusion. “Where’s the esky?”

“Esky?” Satya repeated. “I don’t know what that is. I’ve come to wish you a happy Raksha Bandan.”

“Oh? That an Indian thing?” He asked, watching as she came closer. “What’s all this?”

“First, the rakhi. Your hand, please?”

He stuck it out for her, watching her as she put the plate down and picked up a thread from it. She pulled it around his wrist, turned his hand over, and tied a tight knot in it.

“Pretty neat, darl,” he said, turning his hand over to look at what she’d tied to his wrist. The medallion was the telltale shimmering color of her hard light, with a bright yellow thread holding it to his wrist. He looked more closely at the medallion and found that his signature smiley face was etched into it. “I like it.”

Satya beamed at him. “Next is the sweet. Here, have it.” She picked up a small light brown disc from the plate and offered it to him as she explained what the holiday was. 

Instead of taking it from her, he bit into it as she held it, grinning ear to ear. Was this what she’d made yesterday, and all for little ol’ him? It was sweet and dense, and he could have sworn it was melting on his-- “What was that?”

“I said that this should be on your right hand, actually, but I did not think it would stay for very long on your prosthetic.”

“No, the, er, bit before that. Did you say brothers?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “The holiday is meant to strengthen and renew the bond between a brother and sister. It is a symbol of the sister praying for her brother’s health and happiness, and the brother promising to protect and look after her. Vishkar did not see the need for their recruits to celebrate it, so we never did, but I’ve always liked the idea of it.”

Jamison had nearly spat out the sweet in his surprise, but thought the better of wasting good food and swallowed it hurriedly. “This is, er, real sweet and all, Satya, but you realize we’re not brother ‘n sister, yeah?”

“Of course not,” she laughed. “The ceremony isn’t only done between blood siblings. To tell the truth, I decided to celebrate it this year because I felt… well, I felt that I had someone close enough to me to give a rakhi to. Vishkar took care of me, but we were never exactly a family, and I lost touch with my real family after they took me in. This group, it is different here.”

Jamison couldn’t find fault with that. “Suppose this means you’re stuck with me, since I gotta look after you and all.”

“You also owe me money.”

“What.”

Satya giggled low in her throat, something mischievous and cunning, and he was annoyed at how much he enjoyed it. “It’s another part of the holiday. I give you a rakhi and sweets and you give me money.”

“Oi! I didn’t sign up for that! Protection my arse, you’re an extortionist!”

They continued like this all the way to the briefing they had to attend for their next mission, after which Jamison was shocked and dismayed to find that Roadhog had also earned himself a thread with a cute little pig face etched into the medallion. He kept up the fuss and refused to speak to Roadhog until he forgot about it, and they continued on like this until they went to bed.

In another part of their quarters, just as Satya was getting ready for bed, she heard a knock at the door and opened it to find Jamison holding out a small blue bomb. “Evening,” he said, taking the opportunity to gaze up and down her nightgown. “Bomb shell for a bombshell?”

Satya blushed but rolled her eyes all the same and took it gingerly. “It’s not live, is it?”

“See for yourself!”

Satya gingerly turned it over in her hands and traced her thumb over the smile he placed on all of his munitions, smiling in response herself until she felt something click under her thumb. She yelped as it gave a loud pop and Jamison nearly dove for it to keep it from falling.

“Oi! Mind the goods, Sat!”

“You know I dislike loud noises!” She snapped, though she was thankfully able to calm herself with some careful deep breaths and a sheepish silence from her companion. “Please don’t tell me that’s all--”

“No,” he said, admonished but adamant as he continued to hold the small bomb out to her. Satya took it carefully and opened the sphere to find a small statue of Ganesha inside.

A statue of Ganesha made of ivory and studded with small rubies and diamonds at the base.

“Jamison--”

“Look, I know you feel ways about things ‘n all and theivin’ ain’t up high on your list of approved activities, but I’ve had that in my stash for a while ‘n the bastard I nicked it from didn’t do nothin’ with it ‘n then you pulled this whole brother day thing on me ‘n I reckon if we’re family then maybe it’s okay t’ share things ‘n besides, ‘m not gonna do nothin’ with that but maybe you will since it’s one-a your gods n’ all and it deserves to go to someone who can appreciate it s’all--”

“Thank you,” Satya said. She was not quite equal to looking him in the eye, but she held his hand in hers and kept her gaze just beyond his cheek. “It’s beautiful, and I appreciate it. You didn’t need to give me something so precious. The money is a token to show that you will take care of someone. Such a gift…”

“Well… I haven’t had one before, but feels like a family’s fair precious, too. And I reckon if you’re sure about havin’ me in yours, well. Makes… makes you p--” Jamison, who until that point had been uncharacteristically still, suddenly vibrated with mischief again. “Reckon I oughta show you just what you’re signin’ up for, Sat! Tick tock tick tock!”

He reached out and mussed up her hair before launching himself down the hallway, his cackling echoing in the hallway as he ran off.

Satya reached up, smoothing down her hair as she tried to control the frustration rising in her. He didn’t always purposefully rile her up, as he was clearly trying to do now. Sometimes it was just the chaos of his general existence that made her feel overwhelmed, all loud and bright and hot and demanding without meaning to be. But at other times, it was just enough, or he was calmer, or there was a moment where they were together and she felt like she was laying in the sun on a warm summer’s day whenever he cracked a joke or got excited over new tech.

It was what drove her to finally celebrate Raksha Bandan, after all. That warmth, the light and happy bubbles in her chest when she was with him and Roadhog, she thought it must be what family felt like. A unit of individuals that fit together, that did not see profits or obligations in helping one another any more than an arm sees an injured leg as a burden. 

And sometimes, when Jamison looked at her and flashed her that wide smile, gold glinting in the light, Satya thought he might be the beating heart at the center of the being.

[thetriggeredhappy]

Sniperscout 34 because. Well

arin im gonna make you SAPPY AGAIN NERD (warnings for mention of violence and blood)

#34: Returned from the dead kiss.

Sniper didn’t know what to expect when he opened the door to his camper, but it wasn’t Scout.

“Hey,” Scout said, looking him up and down.

Sniper’s mouth moved wordlessly for a few seconds before he found something to say. “Uh. Hey,” was all he could think of, and he winced at it.

Scout’s eyes fell off to one side of him, hands in his pockets. Sniper knew that something had happened to Scout during the months after the team disbanded, something that made him hesitant all of a sudden, fidgety, but he didn’t think he had any right to pry. “Remember when you said you’d take me on a road trip when the war was over?” he asked, tone flatter than Sniper remembered it being, but maybe that’s what he deserved, because…

“Yeah,” Sniper admitted, voice quiet. He had said that. But he’d said it because he thought he’d have time, thought he’d have a few months or years to try and get the courage to tell Scout a couple things, thought that when they went on a road trip it’d be something they’d do together not as the unlikely and close-knit friends they’d somehow stumbled into being, but as… “Yeah, I do.”

Scout looked up at him, only for a couple of seconds. There were dark circles under his eyes, a hallowness to him that felt uncomfortably like looking in a mirror. “Well, guess you have another chance,” he said, setting up like he was certain he’d be knocked right back down.

And Sniper hadn’t exactly thought of it that way. The team had banded back together again for the Grey Mann business (excluding Engie, who was apparently doing okay but simply couldn’t make it back for some reason he couldn’t say), returning to the base and everything once the Classic Team was sufficiently dead, only for Miss Pauling to suddenly break the news, that very morning, three days into their arriving there, that their final job had been completed and the money had been wired to their accounts and they were all free to go. In a way, it really was a second chance, one he didn’t think he particularly deserved.

He’d been getting a lot of those lately.

“Okay,” was all he could think to say, still too surprised to think of anything clever to say.

They left the next morning before sunrise, and if Sniper was being honest, he didn’t really have a destination in mind. He just started driving northwest, thinking about pine trees and quiet and time to think. Luckily, Scout didn’t ask for a destination. He just sat down in the passenger seat and turned on the radio.

The radio sufficed to fill in the uncomfortable silence between them for three days of driving. There was no talking, really. Even after months apart, they were capable of reading each other’s signals well enough that directions weren’t necessary. They’d wake up just before sunrise to eat a quick brekkie and start driving, they’d pull over once a day at a rest stop to top off the fuel and for Scout to go inside to get them something to eat, and they’d eat it standing up and leaning on the hood to stretch their legs, and then they’d keep driving until just before it got dark, then they’d pull over somewhere for the night to eat and go to sleep. Sniper would set up a tent for them, they’d both grab their sleeping bags, rinse and repeat.

No words needed. It hurt something in Sniper’s chest to realize that Scout still remembered what food he liked from their various 2AM weekend excursions to damn near anywhere that was still open and willing to sell food to strange half-drunk men.

Sniper hadn’t thought about their lack of words at first. Not until the moment when they’d briefly gone through somewhere with particularly bad radio reception and Scout couldn’t find a station for something like twenty minutes. That was the time when he most felt their silence, the empty space between them. From then on, once he noticed it, he didn’t have the courage to break the spell, the task seeming more and more daunting with each passing day of quiet, more and more like it’d need to be something truly important to not seem hollow, fake.

It was Scout who finally broke the silence.

“Aren’t you tired?” Scout asked, voice so quiet that Sniper was almost positive that he imagined it. But he looked over at Scout out of the corner of his eye, and Scout was looking at him instead of staring out the window. He swallowed hard, and realized all at once that he hadn’t actually spoken in a couple days.

“What do you mean?” he asked, voice a little sandy.

Scout kept looking at him, and Sniper had to break eye contact to look back at the road again. “It’s just… getting pretty late. We should stop for the night,” Scout said.

Sniper realized he was right. It had gotten dark at some point. They usually stopped sometime around sunset so Sniper would have plenty of light to set up the tent, but he’d lost track of time. Zoned out. Suddenly he became aware of how bone-deep tired he was. “Just a little further,” he mumbled, voice still rough, and Scout didn’t respond to that, just looking back out the window.

When they finally pulled over, it was into a proper campground, with fire pits and grills and picnic tables and everything. He set up a little fire before anything else, happy with the fact that it wasn’t exactly prime camping season and there were places for them to go be by themselves. The tent was up next, put up as quickly as he could without risking mistakes, partially because he was sure Scout was tired.

But Scout sat and waited by the fire instead of turning in the moment he could, just watching the flames idly. His face looked even more sunken in the flickering light, and it unnerved Sniper a little to see the way that life had faded out of his eyes just over the course of the little time they’d spent apart.

For a while, quiet. Sniper decided he might as well cook what meat he had left in his camper before it went bad, now that he had the chance, and he did so, bland as it was with so minimal a kitchen available to them. Scout ate without complaint, without even really looking at Sniper.

It occurred to him, trying not to be obvious about the way he was watching Scout, that the reason he unnerved Sniper so much was because he looked half-dead in a lot of ways.

The illusion was only furthered when Scout tossed his paper plate and napkins into the fire and moved to grab his bag.

Every morning and every night, Sniper now knew that Scout had a brief routine. Usually he’d do it while Sniper was setting up or taking down the tent. He had to change his gauze daily, the wound still lingering in some ways from where he’d gotten slashed open. He was no longer on the verge of death, but a few days of on-and-off medical fluid whenever Medic managed to dig up another batch didn’t do much for him, it seemed. Even after years of hunting and killing, Sniper couldn’t force himself to look directly at the wound marring the entirety of Scout’s side, instead watching the detached set of Scout’s expression as he rewrapped it.

But Scout caught him looking, apparently, because he spoke again. “Doc says I‘ll probably never climb again,” he murmured.

It felt very much like he was shot through the chest again. “Yeah?” he asked, voice soft.

“Yeah. And I just…” He paused as he finished up with re-wrapping the wound, pulling his shirt back down into place. “I just didn’t wanna go home until it healed.”

Sniper kept his expression controlled. That could take weeks, months even. And the scarring would probably never properly go away.

“And I know you probably won’t wanna deal with me that whole time,” Scout said next, giving him a tight almost-smile, immediately averting his eyes again. “But… I dunno. However long you’ll let me stick around.”

Sniper didn’t know how long he planned to “stick around”. There was the house, he supposed, probably still falling into ruin, but not much else to go back to.

“I heard about your parents,” Scout finally said, as if he read his mind. “I’m sorry.”

Sniper still didn’t know how to reply to that when people said it to him. He went with a simple “It’s okay.”

“Nah,” Scout replied easily, back to staring into the fire. “But… I dunno. Would you mind giving me a warning in advance for when you want me to leave you alone? I just wanna call my Ma to tell her when I’m going back.”

“Alright,” Sniper said hesitantly.

They started speaking again, mostly in little ways. A day’s rest at the campground before they hit the road again did wonders for morale, and communications being opened between them made things feel… easier, in little ways. In Sniper mentioning “Give me five minutes” when they went to a rest stop before he walked away to use the bathroom or something, in Scout going “hey, turn it back” when Sniper changed the radio station. For some reason, it made Sniper choke up a bit when one day, Scout so quietly murmured a “good night” out into the darkness of the tent.

They reached the upper parts of Washington, and hooked a right. They made it through Montana and into North Dakota before Scout asked the all-important question.

“Where are we going?”

It was asked over another campfire, at yet another campground, half-abandoned. Sniper stoked the flames for a few seconds before he decided on his answer.

“Anywhere you’d like,” he finally murmured.

Quiet. “I’ll get back to you on that,” he seemed to decide. They kept driving.

By the Great Lakes, they still didn’t have a destination, so Sniper broke out a map for the first time and figured out how to try to get them to Florida, for no reason other than the fact that it was far away, and bought him time, something he’d already run out of twice before—once when the team disbanded, and once when he died.

But they were talking more. They found themselves trying to catch up with each other without quite saying that they were catching up. They were back to discussing things, news mostly, although apparently Scout had gotten the time to do some reading during the months before the team got back together.

It was one night when Sniper was changing for bed and Scout ducked in to ask him a question that a topic was finally broached, a landline finally stepped on.

“What the hell is that?” Scout asked, sounding startled, and when Sniper looked up, Scout was staring at his chest. At his stitches.

He pulled on a shirt before anything else, suddenly self-conscious about the way the very tail-end of the stitching peeked out of the short sleeves under his arms. “It’s from when I got shot, and I…”

Died. The word hung in the air between them, paralyzing, horrifying. All at once, real.

“Did I tell you they tried to hang me?” Scout suddenly said.

Sniper blinked. “What?”

“After the trial. We lost the trial. They tried to hang me.”

“I thought Pauling saved you,” Sniper said hesitantly.

“Yeah.” Scout’s jaw was tight. “After they already pulled the lever. When you hang people usually it’s supposed to snap your neck. It didn’t. She got me down about a minute after they pulled the lever. Then I almost died on the way to get Heavy because I got clawed by a bear. Then Saxton Hale and his buff girlfriend almost killed me. Then I got stabbed fighting the Classics.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Sniper asked, voice tight.

“Because I need you to know that I get it.”

Sniper didn’t have words, all of a sudden, and Scout hesitated for a second longer before finally just ducking back out of the tent, looking a little disappointed. “No, wait,” he said, following Scout out quickly, into the light of the campfire, where he looked far too much like a corpse, far too much like delirium in a hallway, almost dying alone. “Wait.”

Scout just stared, waiting. Waiting for Sniper to be the one to speak first for once.

“When I got shot,” Sniper said, and his voice was already choked, damn him. “Even before that, I just, alone in that house, I…” He swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in his throat. “I thought about it a lot. Regretted it a lot. How I never got to say goodbye.”

Scout’s expression softened a touch, and he looked a little closer to the way he’d been before, a little more life back behind his eyes, and it gave Sniper the courage to keep talking.

“I wish I did,” he managed. “You deserved a real goodbye. You deserved something, anything. I should’ve said something.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t want to say goodbye to you. And I knew if I ended up on a road trip with you, I’d… I’d never want to let go of you.” He wished desperately that he had his glasses on to hide his eyes, to hide how damp they were starting to get. “You were the first good thing to ever happen to me and I was scared you’d be the last and I just… I didn’t know what to do. But you deserved better. You always deserved better.”

There was suspicion in Scout’s expression now—not like finding out bad news, like realizing someone was trying to surprise you with something, like good news, like hope. Scout swallowed hard, looking down at the fire for a second, thinking over his words. “I know where I wanna go,” he said.

“Where?” Sniper asked, weak, damn everything he was weak.

“Take me home to Australia with you.”

Hope like nothing else he’d ever had before. He wanted to ask, “Forever?”, but all he managed was “Really?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed again, not meeting Sniper’s eyes. “We died and came back to life, man. I think that means we get to do whatever we want now.”

“Whatever we want?” Sniper repeated.

When Scout looked back up at him, he seemed more curious than anything else. He looked down between them, took a half-step closer, close enough that the toes of their shoes were lined up and touching each other. Then his gaze rose again. “Whatever we want,” he confirmed.

Out of all the things that came to mind when Scout said that, there was only one thing that he really cared about doing in any meaningful way, and he was lucky, so much luckier than he ever thought he’d be, because he didn’t even really need to move to do it. He leaned down to kiss Scout, and Scout met him halfway.

[shytiff]

Jan 2021 Wins

ive “journaled” for 6 months now. it started as small ___ wins because when you feel rly empty, even doing the bare minimum feels like a win. written down some of the wins. i think until now i’d like to keep the “win” part. a win against my shadow sometimes. a win in life. some things to be grateful for. a win for remembering it later in the future. i know some days im just basically doing nothing.  there are a lot of wars not won by me. but im still tryna ✨manifest✨

1 - woke up. watched bts’ 2021 seasons greetings. read trap city. afternoon nap. pupuy’s mbah passed away. i got DOMS in my body even though i did the barest of exercise yesterday (frail, i know). shower, matcha latte.

2 - the x banner atikah and i sent for racil post thesis defense has arrived lmaoo. mom made delicious (and sweet) fried banana. did some studying (more than usual, bcs the bar is on the floor)

3 - ate muesli, 3 risols. Kopsus coklat at flavola. Stayed there from 12-ish to 17:30 lmaooo. weekly bahas soal w/ fi. Rapat nemo

4 - first day of collab module. Barely cicil ukmppd. My mood is normal-ish but i hardly have the will to study. Dinner is fried fish with mentai sauce, potato wedges, and saladdd by mom

5 - collab module, qa presentation for rsui reps. finished reviewing tryout 2 solid. did padi pretest (got 66,5). ate chicken porridge, a bit of muesli and vsoy, tan ek tjoan bread, matcha latte, fish and chicken and potato wedges and salad, fried banana. i ate well today lol.

6 - slept during collab webinar, went to clara’s place to study osce and attended padi together. i ate well at clara’s placeee lol. ate nastar, kusuka, white kwetiaw with soup (?), and lele goreng. went back home @ 9 pm. i feel refreshed. even though we’ve half studied half mukbang all day. human interaction rly does heal me. i need human interaction more than i think. at night i dreamed about going to bali, to waterparks, seeing sea creatures, watching a movie displayed on a concert-like stage and screen at the front row. 

7 - woke up at 07:55, finished my part for collab group work. felt a bit tired today. the rest of fam went to DM, and when they were on the way back i HURRIED my way out, not even taking a shower lmaoo. got pistachio matcha latte at starbucks dm. now im more skilled in searching the best spot in a cafe to distance myself from people lmao. the matcha latte is served with some sort of pistachio cream and sprinkled with nuts on top. its like when sbux had taro matcha latte and it had purple cream on top. the pistachio taste is quite strong. reviewed TO 1 padi, sent proposals for nemo sponsorship.

8 - did syndrome try out and padi 2 web try out. studied for osce and padi @ clara’s place. wanted to order pizza since clara bought me food before, but she insisted in ordering lmaoo. so dinner is pizza hut

9 - woke up at 11.00 lmao. havent had breakfast. lunch is muesli with the brand new delishhh chocolate granola and cimory banana milk. did one shot try out, got 71. had a google meet with Prof Agus (that ethics book ghostwriting job from a year ago is not finished until now huaaa) that went from 20.00ish and finished at 22.30,,,,, reviewed syndrome try out along the way. havent made my collab self reflection hhhh. i also need to study for osce. also havent edited article for bukang solid. and there goes my saturday nooo

10 - i swear i keep waking up late lmao. Flavola w atikah, racheel later came with wawa. Kopsus coklat and ukmppd class w dr yudo. After class i just talked at flavola (and ended not studying osce at all for sunday). Went to racheel's to pray and talk some more. Hurriedly went back for booty call with fi, watched konser dies natalis first. Tryout and sum study with fi and clar that went from 20:30 to 00:10. Powered by left over kopsus and 2 snackit pia. Rip my sleeping schedule

11 - woke up at 10:30 ish, the lack of meal and horrible sleep pattern (for my standard) produced stuffy nose during the day and a bit of headache that went away for a bit after i ate. Late bfast is muesli, drank protein, ate tan ek tjoan, plus 2 brownies in the evening. Tht coaching w dr niken. Did self reflection for collab. Had dinner without rice, as usual. Ukmppd class w dr ayu. Finished reflection at 21:30 lmao (deadline is 23:55). Tryna sleep and my nose is still itchy and i sneeze a more often. i hope it goes away 2mrw

12 - DV coaching, scele tryout, took a nap before padi cause my head kind of hurts. Les padi while drinking matcha with vsoy less sugar and no added sugar. I can withstand the horrible sugarless cy matcha taste bcs theres a taste of soy. Didnt do anything else. Havent studied osce on my own until now. Astagfirullah

13 - my head still kind of aches. Its goes away when im eating. im eating so well during the weekdays that i gained 2kgs lmao. lazed around the first half of the day. padi. finally tried saint matcha and damnn its an amazing upgrade from Cy matcha. the green color is super different yall. Cy’s green looks sick and tired compared to saint matcha. the taste? immaculate (although coco deli is more fragrant). caffeine? hits. awake and feel normal? yes. messaged an ao3 author and got replied and turns out she’s making a sequel for my fav fic of hers. yay

14 - osce practice w ara ren ness. bedah and anak osce coaching. had 3 of mom’s cinnamon rolls and matcha latte for the afternoon. cicil osce DV. edited some pld articles. did nothing else basically

15 - wasted my day, didnt have the courage to study osce (i feel like i procrastinate on it bcs it feels overwhelming to me), TO FKUI 2, hurriedly reviewed to 1 before, les padi. i feel like this is the least focused im being in a les. maybe its the too few matcha powder.

16 - woke up at 9 am. breakfast is muesli. reviewed to 2 fkui w apa salahku (finished at 12 pm, there goes half of my saturday). tried fried chicken master. its good and tender but i still prefer moon chicken. 

17 - breakfast is muesli, banana and 2 martabak tahu. snack is keripik pisang aduuu wenak (and picking bits of meat cooked by mom). went to devi’s place w/ racheel silvi. brought RJ to be wrapped. we watched okay madam and its super fun, hilarious and full of twists anddd a bit of cutesy romance. just the right balance to enjoy and let the stress out. late lunch is moon chicken yay!! went home after maghrib, did to padi 6 w/ fi and matcha latte. talked about a senior’s wedding and eating healthier til 22:30

18 - To fkui 3, wasted my afternoon playing my phone, finally mustered some will to study after ashar. My progress is rly slow today. Watched hilarious jessi interview with eric, heechul. Im telling u, i thought tiktok is the funniest internet content but i was wronggg. Seeing heechul flustered is hilarious. Tried to study again at night but only learned 1 disease hiks

19 - had no idea what i did before dzuhur lmao. went to racheel’s to surprise atikah. actually napped at her place lmaoo why do i feel so sleepy. gifted rj to atikah. we ate fried chicken master and pempek on a small green table and talked. its like korean movie lmao. we talked while im simultaneously listening to padi lol.

20 - woke up at 8, chicken porridge + muesli and low sugar vsoy for breakfast. arrived at clara’s @10am. to fkui 4. reviewed it. reviewed general physical exam. finished up to padi 7. tried bombo donut. studied osce. i felt sooo dumb in osce (and clara is already super smart). superrr motivated to learn after going back home (arrived at 7) but i ended up opening youtube and drinking protein lmaooo and its suddenly 9 pm

21 - matcha latte at starbucks dm. Studied osce. Obgyn coaching w the super kind dr ilham. Les padi. Read angel buddy and played with my phone til 12 pm

22 - to fkui. padi as usual. had low motivation, so i did the tryout that day close to the actual course.

23 - left home at 06:30 to study together in capitol. had breakfast in mcd first. thank god i ate rice + chicken and breakfast wrap cuzzzz. studied osce together w ara, ical, kelvyn, dio and kak ilonka til about 2 pm. WALKED to bk bcs my parents are there. apparently simply driving to capitol is too much for them. immediately ate muesli at 4 pm cause i didnt eat anything in capitol. did nothing else after that. did not pray maghrib together lmao somehow mom had mercy on me and let me sleep som more. mom bought sate padang but i didnt eat it. i cried in bed because as yoongi said, “this is the real you and this is the real me”. did not shower/wash my face at night bcs i felt like shit lmao rip my face (its a week before bukang photoshoot)

24 - i feel tired, lazy, and just wanted some sleep. like all that’s in me is drained. ate muesli with strawberry milk. tried fitmee beef. its better than i thought. because the noodle is chewy you spend more time to chew. also ate fried chicken and daun singkong. usually i cant wait to go to flavola but even at 12 pm i just feel like laying down. finally mustered the will to shower and go out. its raining a bit on the way. colddd. 

25 - to fkui 6, osce briefing, covid lecture (that was actually for ppds), padi

26 - spaghetti for brekkie, coaching neuro and ophthalmology, cicil osce

27 - cicil osce, the second to the last padi omg. the fastest padi ever

28 - obgyn osce practice at kak ilonka’s place (that nice kosan at forkabi) with ara, ren ness, kelvyn, dio with mannequins from og dept, tried meokja salemba that serves bulgogi rice. quite good. after arriving at home, studied neuro together with menno til about 20:45 an and i just dont have the energy lmaooo so i gave up and slept

29 - today is bukang photoshoot at bintaro. put base make up on the way. even put glue on my eyebrow. got eyebrow, eyeshadow and blush done by renata. took lots of photos. nebeng om coro afterwards to bxc to meet mom. we ate at genki sushi (renata ara kris mendel oca regan geordie eka). i missss road trips hua. did tryout fkui on the way back home. after shower and prayer proceeded to review TO with apa salahku. Last padi (havent done the questions beforehand so i sprinted it out while on the actual course). Muhasabah osce with kak widia afterwards lmao. Studied osce with clara

30 - studied osce with ara ren ness @ merra. I ate eatlah, moms muffin, kemplang, tango. I ate so welll. Its a productive sesh, neuro and infectious disease. At home i studied osce w clara til abt 22:15 ish. I feel like i miss my me time lmao its been 3 days. I can still go on w clara but i dont wanna get myself sick

31 - simul osce in the morning. Osce study with clara almira. Cicil osce alone. Played my phone at 10 pm even though i still have mental clarity post matcha latte -___-

[theartofmusicology]

Not gonna lie, waking up at 6 am everyday is hard. Especially in quarantine, on holidays and especially for the first week its very hard. The first day was okay because we had made the promise to ourselves that we were going to get up. It felt very spontaneous as we hadn't done any planning at all so we did spend some time sitting around saying "what are we going to do next?" but what we did do was really good. Due to it being our first day, we did a lot of admin; I set up a money tracking page for both of us, made a shopping list, created a weekly planner spread sheet and wrote out a big huge to do list of things I had to do and learn in this strange quarantine holiday break period thing.

Overall, the first day left us feeling really motivated to continue. We struggled to get to bed at 9 like we said we were going to because we got so stuck into the work that we were doing. We had decided to treat ourselves to Mexican food for dinner and Uber eats messed it up so that took a while to sort out and then we sat down with a friend to watch Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary performance because it is a favourite in our house. We ended up going to bed late but sometimes thats the reality of life.

Tuesday was a tough day to get out of bed. Apparently you can turn off your alarm and fall asleep again without remembering. I know because I did it and then I only actually woke up when Sophie texted me. After that, it was a really productive day and I got everything on my to do list done (including over an hour of singing practice which was really good to get done). Tuesday we managed to get to bed fairly on time as well. Its amazing how just shifting your life hours forwards can make you so productive and fulfilled. Not going to lie we were also exhausted at the same time.

Wednesday, I found, was really easy to get out of bed. Our walk was really lovely and we managed to catch the sunrise which I think gave us a little bit more motivation to keep going. There's nothing quite like the sunrises and sunsets here in Perth. I got almost everything that I wanted to done. I also managed to film my duet which meant I could concentrate on other things. Wednesday taught us that we can't schedule everything. As we were leaving uni we ran into our friends and had a really good chat (1.5m away of course). It absolutely wasn't planned and yes, it cut into our time doing other things and yes, we ate dinner later than planned but in a time like this, its so important to keep in contact with your loved ones and people who bring so much joy into your life.

Thursday was the same as every other day. We went for our walk, came home, ate brekky and we were productive. I was able to go and do some dance as well which was really fun and therapeutic. I found I was working harder and I had more energy then I did while we were sort of just doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, not stetting alarms and things like that.

Friday was a tough day to say the least. Getting out of bed was fine and we got our coffee on our morning walk but as the day went on it got harder. I got some work done in the morning and a close friend dropped some (very yummy) bagels off on their morning bike ride, which was very thoughtful of them to check in on us in such a time. I had a very hard singing lesson in which I felt kind of useless because I had no idea what was going on the entire time because I am a music theatre student and we have been working through the Vaccai vocalises and the recitative vocalise at the end of the book is very challenging, even for the classical students. So that kind of put a stump on my day. While I spent a few hours kind of moping around, I also got some things done. I tried to do some school work but my brain wasn't in the right mode to do any academia so I decided to do some more domestic tasks instead. I did things that I'd normally do on a Friday such as my washing and cleaning, I also made a little collage of 'rainy day reminders' on our fridge because I don't want anyone else in my house feeling like they aren't good enough or they don't know whats going on. It was a kind of therapy for me to write out little positive things for others because it also was a sort of self reminder that positivity is a choice and its what you make of the 'bad' things that matters.

Saturday was an unplanned day. What we had planned, only sort of got done and then a whole lot of other things happened during the day. We started off with a stretch to try out my fitness assignment program. We then made some brekky and started work on our blog. I was falling asleep working on some posts so I got up and went into my room. While I was in there, I found some things that I needed that I was wanting to get our of my suitcases and I put some washing away. After this, I was more awake and able to concentrate on the work that I was doing. I smashed out a couple of blog posts before we went to get ingredients to make scones and do our meal planning. After we made our scones, a friend came upstairs to us and watched a movie and then a few more people came up for drinks. We went to bed really late, like 1am late. It was a real challenge to stay up until 1 but it was a good night with our friends. I think this just goes to show how much our social lives impact our sleeping patterns. It reminds us that things come up and sometimes you do just stay up and have a bottle of wine until 1 and talk about life and that's okay!

Sunday was a late start. We woke up at 7am and stayed in bed for another 20ish minutes. I got up first and started cleaning up and making our pre-planned pancakes. After a wholesome brekky, we went shopping and did our groceries for the week. When we got home, we emptied out our cupboards and rearranged them so now they are all completely organised. We had some lunch and then I went to uni where I was at uni for about 4 hours and then came home and ate dinner and did some weekly admin. I crashed really easily because I was SO tired from staying up late the night before but as long as you catch up on the sleep, its fine. Sunday was a fairly slow day but I love that we were able to be so domestic.

Overall, this week has taught me a lot about who I am as a person and who I have the potential to be. Getting up at 6am has been a good way to kickstart my productivity. I used to think that I would never become a morning person and don't get me wrong, getting out of my cozy bed to go for a walk when its freezing cold is really hard - but the fact that i have someone to do it with is really motivating and makes it so much more enjoyable. Obviously I know that when uni goes back I will have to adjust this routine because of my schedule but I don't mind so much because I will still be established in this routine. I have loved being able to learn new skills (Sophie is teaching me how to cook because I never learned) and having more time during my day to get stuff done. Ultimately, I think its changed my life for the better and I can be more productive now, which is something that year 12 really took out of me.

~ Carolyn xo

[getfitshan]

LETS GO!

So today (whilst I was on the treadmill a.k.a treaders for the first time) I decided I wanted to document my fitness/hopefully weightloss journey......so here I am😊

So today was day 2 of me going to the gym. Just so you're up to date, this is the second time I've tried to join the gym this year. I tried around June time, went 3 times and never went again. Wasted £52!

But I had a really shitty week last week and decided I needed to plough my energy into something good, rather than hit self destruct and fall off the rails. So I decided to join the gym....again!

Right, you're nearly up to date. You'll notice I like to talk A LOT.

So day 1 was Tuesday morning (22.10.19). I signed up to my membership (again) then I hit the swimming pool. Now I only managed 10 lengths in the space of 30 mins; but 10 more than I did the day before, so I was happy! The reason for me doing so little lengths is: 1-I haven't exercised in a very long time, so I litch had a break after every length. 2-I'm self taught so have a really shitty technique (but I'm gonna go to the swim doctor, see if they can help a sistah out). 3-I kept getting distracted by people who could actually swim! But all in all I was a happy Shan.....but wait, it didn't stop there.....I then went back to the gym to do a frikkin zumba class! I was a bit nervous walking in, so I went straight to the back of the class waiting for it to eagerly start. Gosh I've never wanted to laugh to much in my life. It was mad, like peeps were taking it dead serious and getting mad sweaty and I'm like WTF is going on. Luckily my dancing background meant I picked up the repetitive moves up pretty quickly....I can't say the same for the poor soul next to me! But overall I did enjoy myself and it defs got my endorphins going. Will be going again fo' sho'. But again my friends, the fitness did not stop there....I then had group stunt (cheerleading (yes I'm a cheerleader and I will talk about it a lot)) Had a boss sesh, learnt some new skills and felt ALIVE afterwards! I then got a salad (from mcdonalds🤢) to celebrate. The salad was shite, but I felt good for staying healthy.

So yeah, that was day 1 of my fitness. Day 2 was pretty boring I only did cheer, but again had a boss sesh and hit new skills💪🏽 But I did load my fridge with healthy food and tings, because it's not all about the gym. Gotta eat healthy(ish) as well Shan!

So today is day 3, woken up with the sniffles, but do you think that stopped me from going to the gym?.....old Shan defs would've caved and just watched tv all day feeling sorry for herself. But new motivated Shan was like come on gurl, get yo ass down to the gym. So off I went. My plan for today was to start small. So I did 15 mins on the treadmill, it may not seem a lot for most peeps, but for somebody who doesn't even run for a bus this was major! Now the plan was to run for the whole 15 mins....but then I realized I DON'T RUN! So once I found my rhythm I ran for 2 mins and brisk walked for 1. Now this seemed to work, so I'm gonna do the same tomorrow. You don't reach the top of the mountain by pure magic, you start at the bottom and work your arse off to make it to the top, and that's exactly what I'ma do! I just made that analogy up myself btw. So after my 15 mins won't lie, I thought I was gonna pass out. When I was walking back to the changing room I though ya know what Shan you did good getting on that treaders, dw about swimming.....but then I was like nooooo come on gurl you can do this, it's only 15 mins. You'll never guess what? I only ruddy did 12 lengths in 15 mins! Not really sure how, but I think because I only had a limited time I wanted to at least do 10 lengths...and then I did an extra 2!

So right now I'm so happy writing this. I've had a healthy brekkie and lunch and will be making a healthy tea. I found this thing on insta where half the plate is veg, a quarter protein and a quarter carbs. So hopefully I can stick to that and lose some weight! I'm gonna do some yoga later then hit cheer again. Looking forward to all that😊 I am pretty tired now, I tried to have a nap, but my endorphins said otherwise. I'm just gonna chill for the rest of the afternoon now.

So yeah, sorry for the long post (I write this with zero followers😂) But hey ho some rando may come across this. Anyhoo it's more for me to keep a record of my journey. But I'm more than happy for peeps to follow my journey. Until next time✌🏽

[sunshineeashton]

Papa’s Finally Home - C.H.

Words - 3,035

Warnings - None? Fluff! Like sickening fluff! Theres a few suggestive sentences. This might be awful?

———————————————————————���——

“Papa! Papa! Papa!” Two small children with relatively dark curly hair squeal, running up to the tall, dark, handsome man.

“Ros! Fletch! Hey bubbas! Missed you so much! Missed you both so so much”. Reaching down to bring his two children into his arms, he pulls them close to his chest breathing in their achingly familiar scent that he’s missed for months now. Blinking quickly to rid the unshed tears that spring to his eyes. Unable to find a big enough gap in the touring schedule, meant he had been unable to spend more than a few hours with his favourite humans, having to wait it out until the end of tour to finally come home. He knows its early when he finally lets himself into their home and that his two kiddos are going to be more than a little stroppy later in the day, but at this moment he could care less.

Finally tearing himself away from Roseline and Fletcher, who instantly latches onto his hand, he stands back up to full height reaching for his wife, Matilda Hood. Tilly leans into him automatically and presses a long awaited kiss to his plush lips. He ducks his head down, applying more pressure into the kiss and releasing his hold on Fletchers hand to wrap his arm around his gorgeous wife. He feels his boy wrap himself around his leg, refusing to let go of his daddy now that he’s finally home. Laughing breathlessly against each others mouths, Tilly pulls away to grin happily up at him. Falling back down on the heels of her feet, she grasps her hands together.

“Righto kiddos! Brekkie and then Papa is whisking you off for the day!”, rushing towards the kitchen, Ros nearly trips over poor Duke, before he goes skidding over to Fletcher who’s still a bit unsteady on his feet. He’d started walking a few weeks before the end of tour and Tilly had made sure to catch every step he took on film to send to Calum. But seeing his mini me in the flesh take shaky steps is a whole other story. His heart fills with pride and admiration for the little boy who pushes himself back off the floor when he tumbles over.

Bending back down he scoops up his other child, nuzzling his face in his fur while Tilly chases after the kids to start on breakfast.

“Hi boy! Missed you too gramps!” Putting Baby Grandpa back on solid ground, he picks up his abandoned bags carrying them up the stairs to the safety of his and Tilly’s bedroom. Dumping them near the wardrobe, he sees a few of his shirts and jumpers lying around. Smiling knowingly to himself, he quickly changes out of his airplane clothes, throwing on a soft t-shirt and some jeans. Tushing back downstairs to his family, he leans lazily against the doorframe to the kitchen, grinning at the sight before him. Little Fletch sitting happily in his highchair, munching on his bowl of fruit, while Roseline and Tilly are stood together by the stove making what smells like pancakes. Spotting her husband, Tilly turns towards him, “Come on C! Stop lurking in the doorway. Kids wanted your favourite this morning!”.

“Yeah Papa! Pancakes and chocolate!”, Ros says, waving the kid sized spatula atound in the air.

“Mmmm, i hope its your Mama’s recipe Ros. That one is the best!”, he mumbles this as he sways towards his girls, grin ever so present on his face.

“Of course it is. Vegan pancakes are my speciality and you should know that Hood!”.

All 4 of them are laughing, giggling breathlessly and Calum feels this contentment lay in his chest at the sounds. He’s finally back on solid ground, home. Cal scoops Roseline up onto his hip, even though she is getting far too big to do so without a small groan. He tugs Tilly into his other side, mindful of the whisk in her hand. Pressing a long kiss to her temple, he breaths her in. Takes a moment to relish in the fact that he’s home with his favourite people - his family and he’s here to stay for a while. He’s broken out of his train of thought by a gasp.

“Fletcher Fox! Baby boy, no no”, Tilly looses her grip on his t-shirt, arm around outstretch towards Fletcher before Calum is stepping around her, “Hey bud! You know your not supposed to feed Gramps any food baby boy!”.

Cal had already popped Roseline back on her feet, by the time he had made his way over to Fletcher and Duke, who was happily munching on a piece of strawberry. Reluctant to take the fruit off Duke and risk getting nibbled, he opted for picking his mini me out of his highchair instead, settling him on his hip before picking up the nearly empty bowl, “You finished bud?”.

Fletcher nods extravagantly - “Papa no more”.

“Okay okay. That’s fine buddy, but don’t go feeding Duke any more, alright?”.

“Kay”, Fletch tucked his face into his Papa’s neck, grasping his t-shirt in his tiny fists. After that, they all sat down to eat breakfast together, Ros sitting as close to her father as she could, while Fletch refused to be put back down, clinging on to Calum every time he tried. So, he sat on Cals lap, stealing a piece of pancake here and there and dipping his chubby fingers in the melted chocolate. The clock read 8:30am by the time they had all stuffed theirselves full and he knew Tilly needed to head out soon. So with a quick few kisses at the door (more like 10 minutes of snogging away from the kids) he ushered her out of the house for her girls day, promising that he’d got everything under control. After finally getting Fletcher cleaned up and helping both of his kids into clean clothes for the day (after a argument with Ros about her being a big girl and could dress herself) he buckles them into their car seats; sitting himself in the drivers seat he turns towards them, “Right kiddos! You know how me and your Mama have been together for a long time?”.

Ros stretches her arms out wide to either side of her body, “Yeah Papa, so so so long”.

“Well it’s our special day tomorrow and Mummy thinks that i’ve got nothing special planned cause i’ve been away on tour. But i need yours and Fletch’s help to pick some things out for her. You wanna help Papa?”, he reaches out his hands towards his children, both of them clutching a few fingers.

“Flowers?”, grinning at his boy, he nods his head vigorously which causes both of his kids to yelp happily.

“Mama want sunflowers?”, she’s squirming excitedly in her seat, clearly happily about the new development.

“Yeah, sunflowers Ros. I’ve had a bunch already put together for us, so all we’ve got to do is go and collect them in a little while princess. But first, how does the park sound?”.

Screams of joy are heard from the back seat of the car, so with one final check to make sure his babies are secure in their car seats, he settles himself into the drivers seat, turns the ignition on and away they go to their favourite park. Carefully placing Fletcher on his hip, he grabs Roseline’s hand and skilfully locks the car on the first try. Grinning excitedly down at Ros, she squeals with excitement when she registers what her daddy is saying to her, “Come on Princess, race you to the swings”.

And just because he’s the best Papa ever and has little Fletch on his hip, he lags just slightly behind, letting Roseline jump around excitedly when she reaches the swings first.

A few hours later, when both children are absolutely worn out from the excitement of the park and spending time with Daddy, the family of three step into a beautifully decorated shop, breathing in the smell of nature. Smiling at the woman behind the desk, Cal mutters his name, smiling even wider when the woman brings out a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers, with a few others of Tilly’s favourites hidden within. Shifting Fletcher onto his other hip, he grips both his son and daughter with one hand, while the other reaches for the flowers. Handing them over, she reaches towards a free loose flowers, giving one to each of the sleepy children, who smile softly at the woman, both of them muttering a quiet thank you when prompted. Shifting Fletch slightly, he grins at the lady, “Thank you so much, these are beautiful. Say thank you bubbas and goodbye. Lets head home yeah”.

Pulling up outside of your shared home, he scoops up a sleeping Fletch and tugs a sleepy Ros up the drive, all while holding the flowers. Too busy getting his sleepy children in the house, he misses your car already parked in the driveway. Hearing the door open and Cal trudge down the hallway and up the stairs, Tilly stretches up off the sofa and makes her way towards the noise. Seeing the back of Calum disappear into the kids shared bedroom, she notices the bouquet of sunflowers sitting on the table top. Humming her appreciation of the yellow flowers, she picks the bouquet up brining it closer to her face to get a whiff of the stunning flowers. Turning towards the creek in the stairs, she grins up at her husband who furrows his eyebrows at the sight of the flowers in her hands - “You weren’t supposed to see those yet”.

She giggles lightly at him, tripping over her own feet to meet him at the foot of the stairs, “C, you’re ruining your reputation buying me pretty flowers you know”.

He grins right back at her, “I ruined my reputation the first time i laid my eyes on you and then ruined it a second time when we got married and then I definitely ruined it when we create those beautiful children upstairs”.

By the end of his declaration, he had wrapped his hands around his wife, pulling her flush to his chest. Similarly, she had wrapped her arms around his neck, still clutching at the pretty flowers.

“Missed you bubba. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to touch you at all. Love you so much”, she mumbles quietly under her breath.

“I Love you too Dove. Love you ridiculous amounts Mrs Hood. 7 years together tomorrow and I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together”, he’s grinning bashfully at her, brushing his nose gently against hers. She presses up onto her toes, while pressing down on the back of his head gently to press their mouths together. Moulding their lips with one another’s, they kiss for a while. He runs his tongue against her bottom lip, slipping his tongue into her mouth when she gives him permission. Their tongues battle it out for dominance, Calum easily overpowering her while tugging her impossibly closer to his body. Unwillingly pulling away from her beautifully red and swollen lips, he smiles lazily at Tilly, “Come on, let’s go cook some ridiculous fancy dinner and drink a bottle of that ridiculous expensive wine that you seem to like so much and then I’m taking you to bed to get properly reacquainted my love”.

Giggling excitedly at her husband, she tugs him down for another kiss before sauntering away from him towards the kitchen; still hiding her smile in her flowers. Setting the flowers to the side, she grabs another one of their vases out and reaches up towards the cupboard that holds the proper flower food. Before she can grab hold of it, Calum presses flush against her back reaching up himself to grab hold of the item. Pressing a small kiss to the back of her neck, once, twice and a third time before pulling away. While Tilly busies herself sorting and arranging her flowers, Cal opens up the fridge to see what he can sort out for dinner. Turning around to face her, he catches himself grinning at her; so in love with everything she does. “Dove? Pizza good for dinner? I know it’s not the most healthiest but its quick and easy and the kids will love it”.

She places the vase with the pretty sunflowers in on top of the kitchen table before making her way over to Cal, muttering quietly, “Yeah that’s fine bubs”.

“Everything alright?”, as he tugs her back into the safety of his arms.

“Missed you. So much. Just exhausted, can’t wait to get into bed with you later”.

Placing his hand on the side of her neck, he uses his thumb to push gently at the jaw causing her to raise her head to look up at him, seeing a small grin taking over his features, “Love you Dove. Oh! How was your day sweetheart?”.

“It was good, really enjoyed it but couldn’t wait to get home to my husband and kids. Can’t believe you kicked me out the first day your home!”, she’s grinning so he knows she’s only teasing him but he plays along with her, “Only wanted to see the children, didn’t even really miss you”. They fall into a heavy laughter knowing full well that Cal is lying, having told her everyday he’d been away how much he wished he was back with her, at home with their children. His other hand, the one not holding her jaw had fallen to the curve of her back, slowly descending as he presses his lips to hers. Letting him love on her for a few minutes, Tilly reluctantly moves back and away from him, “Go and wake the kids you pest and i’ll get the pizza’s in the oven”. With one last kiss for the time being, he pats her bum twice before making his way upstairs to Roseline Joy and Fletcher Fox. The two out of three things that had completely changed his life for the better. His family. When they had found out just a few weeks after they had gotten married that they were pregnant with Ros, Tilly had been the one that was excited. Excited at the prospect of starting a family with the love of her life. But Calum, Cal had been more nervous and unsure on his feelings. Falling in love wasn’t something he even thought would happen again to him, let alone be married and now apparently be expecting a baby. He had been irrational at the time, ran off to Ashton to express his feelings before coming back home a few hours later with a strikingly familiar bouquet of sunflowers and too many apologies falling from his lips. His eyes were clearly red rimmed. She understood. Tilly always understood and waited while he muttered how scared he was to bring a new life into this world. His world. But they got through those 9 months. Together. There was a few bumps in the road but they always listened to one another and now looking at his biggest baby curled up next to her brother, he felt his heart soar with love and affection for them.

“Mummy”, “Mama”, came the shouts from the kids once they were awake enough to venture downstairs to the kitchen. Excited squeals were heard when Cal had whisper how there was pizza cooking before two sets of footsteps could be heard tumbling through the house. Home. He couldn’t be proud of himself, and Tilly. They had created a life that they had both always desired and found each other along the way. Soulmates.

Once the pizza’s were through cooked, Tilly had made an exception for the night and allowed the family of four to trudge through into the living room, to curl up on the sofa’s with each other and enjoy their food. Cal and Fletch sat on one end of the sofa, curled tightly towards one another as Calum switched between taking bites from his own pizza and feeding Fletcher his. While Ros and Tilly sat on the other end, giggling at the TV show on the telly while munching happily. This was his life now Cal thought as he watching his family. He could go off on tour happily if he could come back to this every single time. It made it easier. Knowing he had a purpose and a drive to go out there and perform and sing his heart out for his family who were waiting back at home for him. It was obviously a struggle. Going weeks, months without seeing his family was hard. But the few times they did fly out to visit him and stay for a few weeks made up for that. He could show them around the cities they were playing in and get to see his two children messing around with his brothers, while his wife gossiped with their girls. This was his family. And he wouldn’t change it for the world. They’d fallen asleep that night, right there on the sofa. Tilly and Cal lying curled into one another, their hands grasped tightly together. While Fletcher Fox had crawled his way to stuff his face into Calum’s neck, all of them giggling quietly when small quiet snores could be heard from the little monster, Calum’s huge hand sprawled safely across his back. And Roseline, Ros had tried to stay awake longer, longing to catch up with her father and hear every fascinating story he had to share, but she had nodded off next to her mother while Cal was in the middle of story about how Uncle Lu and Uncle Mike pranked Uncle Ash so many times. He’d stopped talking once he’d notice the silence in the house, Ros no longer giggling quietly at his story. Looking up towards Tilly, who was someplace between sleep and awake, he stretched over to press a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth before tucking his own face into her neck and drifting off to sleep himself. No longer need to dream as his life was exactly what he wanted it to be

[lindoig8]

Thursday to Sunday, 26-29 August

Thursday

We had a leisurely start with a cooked brekky, but then packed up and were soon on the road again heading west and south towards the Bungle Bungles. It was an uneventful drive down and we were all set up on our site by about 3pm. Despite the drive being uneventful, it was still quite interesting. The scenery was great and varied and some of the nearby hills were quite spectacular. We drove through open grassland, scattered trees, wooded areas, and an interesting variety of rocky hills and grassy ranges, often quite close to the road. The variety of landscape, particularly the hills and rocks is quite wonderful, but it is one of those things that can’t really be described. You need to experience it. It is more than just the visual scene, the massive size and shape of the hills. It is also about the wonderment of how they came into being, thinking about their origins as liquid rock, hundreds or even thousands of metres underground, possibly a very long way from where they are now, with huge variations in the strata, the orientation, the permutations that have occurred over the thousands of millennia – it is all quite mind-boggling. I have very few landscape photos because I can’t take pics when I am driving – and I can’t keep stopping every kilometre or two to snap yet another gobsmacking hill, valley, tree, bird, or whatever. Heather takes lots of impromptu pics through the windscreen or from her side window and some of them end up on her blog or FB page. On the other hand, I see all the wonders she photographs, but I don’t get to record many of them – and sadly, even the best photos don’t even start to do justice to the scene. I am increasingly finding that looking at the beauty, or starkness, or whatever, evokes emotions of awe or wonder, amazement or pleasure: so many primeval feelings that somehow lock me into the history or origins of what I am looking at – and photos can never convey that.

It was hot – it has been in the high 30s for all of the past week or more – so it is much more comfortable in the car with the air conditioner on (or in the van if we have AC power) but I still went birding around the caravan park in the late afternoon. I didn’t see a lot, but just exploring and hoping to see something unusual is a lot of fun for me.

Friday

We visited the Bungle Bungles today. Four years ago, we flew around them, but today (and tomorrow), it is a ground level experience. The Visitors’ Centre is 52 kilometres from the caravan park over an atrocious track. The first 12-15 kilometres is not too bad, but from then on it is relentless corrugations, areas of horrific stony track that threaten to rip your tyres to pieces, six water crossings (longest probably only 50-60 metres and 450 centimetres deep so all very easy for our beast), but some stretches are all sharp bends, surprise dips, and steep blind crests, often very narrow and the driver needs 100% concentration all the time. We paid our fees and made a few purchases at the Visitors’ Centre and then headed north. There are basically two accessible areas to visit – one 19 kilometres north of the Visitors' Centre and the other 27 kilometres south – and we went north today and south tomorrow.

The roads inside the National Park are not much better than the track in, but we arrived at the Echidna Carpark within about two and a half hours of leaving the caravan. There are several walks at both the north and south areas, but given the heat, we limited ourselves to the less-challenging ones – after all, driving and even bouncing around in the passenger’s seat was challenging enough already.

We had been told that the best time to be in the Echidna Chasm was around 11.30 when the sun is directly overhead and lights up the chasm. We hurried in (a bit over a kilometre walk over very rough stones) and were rewarded with awe-inspiring colours and dramatic walls of rock. I will post some photos, but it is simply impossible to describe. I have no idea where the chasm ends, but we walked about a kilometre deep into the riven rock, sometimes less than a metre wide. At one point, Heather decided that the going was too hard, but I went a further few hundred metres with many more intrepid people still forging ahead of me before I turned back – for all I know, I might just have failed to reach the end by 50 metres or 50 kilometres!

We were probably in the Chasm for at least an hour and it was certainly cooler in there than out in the direct sun, but lunch and cold drinks beckoned so we headed back towards the carpark. There was a branch pathway to the Osmand Lookout not far from the carpark so we detoured there for more photos. (The range we photographed was the Osmand Range, hence the lookout's name.) We could have walked a few kilometres further to other lookouts and wonders beyond description, but we needed water and sustenance (and we are neither mad dogs nor Englishmen) so went back to the carpark and ate our lunch at one of the tables set up under a few big sails.

After lunch, we made our way back towards the Visitors’ Centre, stopping several times at lookouts and places of interest. At one place, we walked up to one lookout for photos and Heather decided to return to the car while I walked up to a second lookout in the opposite direction. Near the top of the hill, I became aware of at least 15 Spinifex Pigeons all around me. They rarely seem to fly, but just walk busily around, just out of arms’ reach, hiding in the spinifex – they are quite lovely. To me, the ones here appear quite a lot smaller and noticeably darker with less-vivid colouring that those we have seen before. Consulting my Australian Bird Guide, I noted that they are a different subspecies here, albeit not quite with the variations I have noted.

We stopped in another area where there is a walk with quite a bit of signage detailing the species of vegetation and describing how the aborigines used the plants for food, medicine, weapons and utensils. All very interesting and I was (as always) on the search for birds. I heard plenty in that area but saw almost none – sneaky little buggers, always hiding.

Then it was just a couple of hours hard driving back to the caravan park – and a wonderful cool shower.

Saturday

A partial repeat of yesterday – close to 2 hours to drive the 52 kilometres to the Visitors’ Centre, purchase our entrance fee and a couple more small souvenirs, and 27 kilometres hard driving south to the Piccaninny Carpark. We visited a couple of lookouts on the way and stopped for photos several times. At one place, our map and brochure blew out of the car, but we never realised it until several kilometres further on – so we back-tracked looking for it, without success. It wasn’t critical to have it, although it had lots of information that we may have wanted so it was a pity to lose it – but after giving up looking for it and heading back towards our destination, we actually found it on the side of the road. We had already driven past it without seeing it, but there it was.

There were two walks that we had decided to tackle – the Cathedral Gorge and the Domes – both very hot and exhausting. The track in to the Gorge was interesting, but was very hard going with a mix of thick heavy sand and rocky paths that scorched and bruised our feet. It was almost 2 kilometres in but well worth it. It was approached through another narrow gorge, a bit like a broader version of yesterday’s trek, but terminated in a mammoth cavern. As usual, there were several other groups there (it would have been magic to be there on our own, but obviously not practical) and the colours and structure of the place was quite overwhelming – almost impossible to take in. We were very hot by the time we got to the Cathedral so sat and cooled off for a while before trekking back out.

Closer to the carpark, there was a branch track to the Domes where one can walk through the archetypical beehive domes for which the area is so famous. Several hundred metres in, there were two confusing signs directing us in opposing directions, but a few walkers were coming out of the right-hand track and they explained that their track was a dead-end leading to another mini-cathedral. We decided to check it out and off we set, sweat pouring off us by this time. It was at least half a kilometre in but worth the walk, surrounded by rocky beehives and with some respite from the sun. Then it was the same walk back, hopping from one small shady spot to the next, and eventually taking the left-hand track that eventually threaded its way through several more beehives back to the carpark. It is hard to describe the splendour of this area (not the carpark, although even that is set among amazing colourful structures). It is unique, thought-provoking, beautiful, puzzling, awesome, inspiring, rugged – it goes on, but words are a poor way of hinting at the wonder of the place – and photos are not much better. It makes you think about the millions of years that went into creating the place. I was looking at one dome near the carpark while we were eating lunch. It had a mini-cave toward the top that looked as if a large boulder had rolled out of it and it started me wondering how many generations of aborigines looked at the same few square metres and wondered (as I did) what caused the formation to be exactly as it now is. Maybe that mini-cave was created last week – or maybe it was created millions of years before the first animal ever migrated to (or evolved) on the continent. We certainly live in an ancient, if not timeless, land. Totally wondrous.

Then it was back to the caravan park, completing 297 kilometres of really rough road in two days, but richer for having seen this unique part of the world. It is no wonder that it is a World Heritage Site – one of a kind and an experience never to be forgotten.

Sunday

We packed up slowly and set off on the journey south to Halls Creek – 106 kilometres and all on excellent bitumen and we were set up in the caravan park before lunch. There is very little shade in the park and in trying to take advantage of one small patch of occasional shade, I had to manoeuvre the van past another van that had a fold-up drying-line on the edge of the road – but no clothes on it. There was a big pile of sand on the other side of the roadway so the turn was tight and the back corner of the van grazed one arm of the drying line and tipped it over. Before I could even drive the 20 metres to where we were going to park, a ferocious-looking bikie-type guy rushed out and screamed abuse at me for wrecking their line and tearing down a tree in the process (we never actually touched the tree at all). Then, when I was squatting down disconnecting the van, he was back for another go, standing over me and threatening, still waving his clothes-line – all very unpleasant. He insists that the line was nowhere near the road but a closer inspection proved that it could not actually fit between his van and the road without at least half of it being on the road (as was his ladder, also at the back of his van). Sure, I shouldn’t have knocked the line over, but accidents happen and it was clearly not possible to get the van through with his line and the pile of sand on either side of the roadway. I just thought he over-reacted somewhat to a very minor infringement.

We spent most of the afternoon in the van, under the air conditioner, writing and sorting photos. We did a load of washing in between times and everything was dry within about an hour – it is very hot and dry here at present.

[em114706]

WHOLE30 Day 21

Single digits left y’all. So, seasoning. If there is anybody in the world who salts and sugars as much as I did, I’d be surprised. I’m a picky eater, though not in a way where I understood that. As a child I used to drive my mom nuts, I’d pick out the noddles from her supposedly yummy chili (in Cleveland, chili has noodles) and leave everything else in the bowl. I’d eat around a burger and when I got to the pink part of it I’d stop eating. Basically if I didn’t like it I didn’t touch it. Come high school, I was living with my dad, and I’d eat cream cheese with a side of bagel and white cheez-its with skim milk. I remember losing weight for prom so I could fit into my size 4 dress and all I did was replace the cream cheese with peanut butter. That’s it. Here is a prom photo:

Now that I’m grown up and doing the whole adulting thing, I couldn’t eat just cheez-its and bagels. 1. I’d gain weight, and 2. most restaurants don’t serve that. So I learned to take meat out, since I don't like it, and that forced me to eat more fish and vegetables, and ‘lo my pallet expanded. My appetite grew, as well as much stomach, and my menu of approval thickened. My secret, I figured out I’m allowed to salt stuff, not pepper (sorry Laura ), but salt helped me down things I’d usually pick around.

Coffee. Never drank it until the film industry. People live off this stuff. As an assistant I’m constantly around it. Yes, I do get coffee for people. You’d be impressed how many orders I have memorized for a show. So one day I tried it too (I’m usually a tea drinker) and I was like ew gross. But I realized it made my hunger disappear and kept me full even if I didn’t eat brekkie. I figured out filling half my cup with almond milk and like 4 packets of stevia I could chug it down.

Now, even though stevia is whole30 approved dietary wise, it’s not allowed because it leads to the sugar cravings most people need to let go of. I thought I was above that because I don’t have sugar cravings, I’m more of a salt person, and I started with putting stevia in my coffee. I felt guilty after the first week and decided to take it out. I also stopped salting things and adding cheese and other flavors. I swear to you, fruit is so sugary I can’t eat a lot in one sitting. Avocado is so flavorful and smoked salmon is the salties thing in the world. I made sliced avocado with hb egg and topped with smoked salmon. I sprinkled a little salt and drizzled a dab of lemon and was just blown away by the flavor overload, had to wipe some of it off. Me? Wipe salt off? Yeah, I did. And my coffee? Guess what, I enjoy it diluted with almond milk. It tastes fine. What? Coffee tastes...did I say...fine? Yeah.

Whole30 has taught me to appreciate the flavor of food. Probably something my parents wished I’d discovered at a younger age, might have been easier to cook for. Not saying I’m no longer a picky eater, trust me I am still very much so. But it’s nice to taste the flavor in things. It’s a new experience for me.

Reflections:

What went well today: nice array of snacks/food options What could have gone better: time to change up the gym What I’ll do tomorrow: push myself harder at gym and incorporate different foods

Energy: 8 Sleep Quality: 8 Cravings: 8

NSV #1: I can taste food’s natural flavor better NSV #2: treadmill 30 min was really easy NSV #3: motivation to keep up on mundane daily tasks that I usually let pile up

Meal #1: hb egg, cucumber, avocado, pineapple Meal #2: arugula and romain salad with mushrooms, squash, avocado, cucumber, jicama, egg, walnuts, almonds, side of pineapple Meal #3: salad leftovers (it was huge) Snacks: fruit leather, salmon jerky, pickle

Workout: 30 min treadmill (2.3 miles)

[fanfiction-for-me]

James’ Girlfriend

The motherfucking paparazzi left after five days. Five days. Five days without being able to see James or talk to him because I couldn't speak or sing for the next two weeks. Do you know how boring it is to be sitting on your supermansion without being able to chat or see your potential boyfriend? Well, maybe I'm exaggerating, our humble house did had some things that kept us pretty entertained, but still- I'm in love and I can only think about James! We texted, but it wasn't the same; I needed to listen to his voice (and hearing his albums only made me more nostalgic).

That Friday was a really peaceful day though. Lila went with Davie to get his stitches off and Sass and I stayed home video chatting with My Chemical Romance and 30 Seconds to Mars, but of course, Sass was doing all the speaking.

"Hello?" Sass tried when the MCR guys appeared on the screen.

"Hey, what's up Sass? Hi there Michelle" they greeted, and I saluted them weakly.

"What is wrong with your friend?" Frank asked Sass.

"She rasped one of her vocal strings screaming"

"Ooh, that hurts. Happened to me once. Drink some hot lavender tea; it will help you heal faster. It hurts like a bitch at the beginning but after a few mugs you will feel better, I promise" Gerard advised me. I gave him the thumbs up and immediately went down to the kitchen to make some tea. Sass stayed in her room talking with the guys.

I took my phone out of my pocket only to see I had a new message. It was James.

"Hey love, how r u feelin? I rly dont want to do this, but I have bad news for u :/."

I sighed and typed. What could it be? "Feelin the same :S what is it?"

My phone buzzed. "Production just told us we'll be shootin the first half of season 3 this week. That means I will probably wont see u until the next week "

"Damn, that's a lot of work :S I'll be fine Jamesy; just bored, but we will see each other someday, right?"

"Yeah, I'll make it up to you ;)"

That sounds interesting. "Make it up to me? How? ;)"

"I can't tell you now because I still don't know, but you'll see ;) g2g now, love you Chelley"

"Bye, luv u too "

I sighed heavily. One more week? God, give me strength. At least James was going to probably take me on my first date with him after it is over.

I heard Sass calling me from upstairs then. "Chellita! 30 Seconds to Mars want to speak with you!"

I ran up the stair as fast as I could run with a cup of hot tea on my hand. Sure, I wasn't going to be able to talk, but I could at least see them. I got to Sass' room and Jared, Shannon and Tomo were already on the camera. I smiled at them and waved hi. Seeing them always cheers me up.

"I heard the baby screwed her throat" Jared started.

"Yeah, and in a very stupid way -.-" I typed on the type box. "Gerard prescribed me some tea."

"That works" Jared agreed.

"So, how are you guys?"

"We're perfectly fine, thank you. About to start touring the UK in a week" Tomo said.

"How about you?" Shannon interrupted, "How's your boyfriend?" he questioned. Of course he had to ask.

I rolled my eyes. "He is not my boyfriend :P"

"Oh really, because we saw you dance with him that night and it was a pretty good show you put on" Shannon smirked.

"You saw? :$"

"Yeah, and no friends do that!" Tomo cackled.

":$ :$ :$ :$ :$"

Jared looked at me apologetically. "Guys... Let's not bother her because then she won't want to tell us how pretty boy asked her out" and he winked.

I smiled at him for that. Afterwards they finally let go the topic of James and we conversed about other things until Lila and Davie came back from the hospital a couple of hours after.

That weekend went kind of slow. We had nothing to do and we were still stuck in our house even if the paparazzi had already left. Everyone on the house was doing their thing. We sometimes talked with Davie's cousin Natalie, but I still think she is weird. Lila has told me she definitely doesn't like her that much; she thinks that Natalie wants to steal Kendall from her or something like that, I don't know. All I know is I can't wait to hear how James is going to make it up to me.

Next week started with another boring Monday. I got ahead on some new sketches for my stage outfits and went to bed super early. Tuesday was okay, Davie and I baked an apple cheesecake from scratch and it turned out pretty good, we even made up a song as we cooked. I didn't sleep that night because I had already slept a lot the night before, so I never really woke up Wednesday, which was the laziest day of my life probably. I spent the whole day in my pajamas, eating cheesecake and drinking tea on the bed while watching the whole two seasons of Big Time Rush, plus Big Time Movie. I think I fell asleep around 6 am, only to be awakened by a text at 7 pm (and yes, I did overslept).

It was James. He had been too busy the past five days, so much that one day he didn't text me at all. I never texted him first that week (even though I was dying to do so), only because I didn't knew if I would be disturbing his work, and I really didn't wanted to seem like the needy type before we even dated.

I tiredly opened my phone and read. "How's it going Chelley? IMU loads! But guess what? I'm taking u out tomorrow to make up for torturing u haha... It's a very special date though; I'll give you a clue: I'll be wearing a tux. I trust u know what to do ;) Xoxo, JM"

Oh my heavens! James is going to take me on a fancy dinner with him tomorrow and I am so fucked because I slept way too much! I'll probably won't sleep today either and look horrible tomorrow! But wait, he invited me to a fancy dinner... That is so romantic! Oh no, I'm not good with romantic. I don't know what to do; I'm excited and terrified at the same time! This is my first formal date ever and I really love this guy with all of my heart, so I don't want to screw it up being sleepy or not romantic enough. I definitely need some help, or advice.

Just as I was sitting with my legs crossed on the middle of my bed, thoughts lost in panic, the door of my room opened.

"Knock knock Sleeping Beauty... You up?"

"Mhm... Davie? Come here please" I tried to speak up, but I barely whispered loudly. The sudden nerves plus the grogginess were affecting my voice, which was recovering thanks to the  tea that Gerard advised me to drink. I could talk already, but I wasn't that improved to sing like I normally do when I'm healthy.

"I know it's like, nighttime, but...! I brought you some brekkie!" Davie sing-songed as he moved near the bed "... Are you okay?" he asked quietly as he placed the tray on my lap, probably because he saw my worried face.

I nodded. "Tell me that you love me, please"

"What? What is wrong with you? Are you catching some fever or something?"

I slapped Davie's inspecting hands off my face; I wasn't sick, just pissed at myself that I'm frozen nervous about a date with James. I've known him for almost seven months now; I shouldn't be reacting like this! "Just tell me!" I insisted, my voice breaking.

"Okay, but don't hurt yourself, God... and you probably already know this, but: I love you. There" Davie spoke dryly.

"Davie... Say it like you mean it"

His eyes were questioning, but he looked at me with a serious expression and murmured sweetly "I love you".

I blinked for two seconds and then I looked into his eyes "I love you too". After that I put my tray aside and cuddled on Davie.

"Oookaaay... That was weird-" I shushed him. Davie just patted my hair and wrapped his long arms around me.

I was trying to see how I would react just in case James told me that sort of thing tomorrow. Sure, Davie was a friend and I have no romantic feelings towards him, but I tried to visualize James. For some reason, being able to answer Davie made me calm, even though I knew it wasn't going to be the same if James did it.

I pushed Davie aside to eat my food- I was starving. He left with the plates after I finished my meal and thankfully he didn't question the reason why I had asked him to do that. He must've thought I was still half asleep or something. With that, I went back to bed because, surprisingly, I felt drained (of sleeping too much?) and in two hours or so, I fell asleep again.

My cell phone buzzed and lit up my dark room. I picked it up to see what time was it and almost gasped out loud. 1:00 pm? How come I'm sleeping so much? Am I turning into a bat? Well, I have no time to deal with that right now; I had to get ready for my date with James, which was in four hours or so.

I saw none of my bandmates on my way out of the house, so I guess they had all left with Sass to get her cast off. I grabbed my car keys and drove to the beauty salon. I got my legs waxed; my hair washed and blow dried, my face exfoliated, plus a manicure and a pedicure. After the salon I took off to my favorite dress boutique to find a perfect outfit for my date. An hour and a half of trying on over twenty dresses later, I found the perfect one. It was a sexy red with black lace, fitted on the top and loose from my hips down. The best part was I already had matching shoes home. Now I just had to get there because I had only less than an hour left to get ready. Note to self: get several assistants ASAP.

When I got home, I assumed the guys had arrived because Davie's car was parked on the garage, but I didn't saw them on the way up to my room; I don't care really, I am in a rush to get ready.

Thirty minutes later, I was ready just in time. I stared at myself on my huge closet mirror. I looked totally gorgeous! I really hope James likes it and doesn't think I exaggerated because I was feeling like I overdid myself a little. It was worth it though, because I sure looked striking.

A minute later, the doorbell rang and Lila screamed up to me (she must've opened). My stomach filled up with butterflies and I took a deep breath to calm myself up; with that, I went down the royal staircase only to see James standing there. He was wearing a tux just as he said he would, looking dashing and sexy with it, and was carrying a small bouquet of bright red roses on his hands.

James took a long breath as he assessed me with sparkling eyes "You are so- wow- stunning..."

"You too Jamesy" I smiled shyly at him and went over to hug him. He then kissed my cheek and gave me the bouquet, smiling brightly. God... He was too perfect, ugh!

My moment got interrupted by a slight cough. "Long time no see" Lila said, looking a little taken aback at James and I. I had forgotten I hadn't told anyone, and I didn't notice Lila standing there the whole time.

"Oh, yeah, hi... Sup?"

"What's up with me? What's up with you! You know what? Explain later because if Davie sees you guys likes this he'll probably freak out and we don't want anyone throwing punches again, right?" Lila chuckled as she looked at James. He put his hands up defensively.

"Okay, okay, bye Delilah" said James, and then he offered me his arm "Shall we go, my dear?"

"Of course" I answered as I put my arm over his. We walked to his car and James started the engine. He had been driving for five minutes when I started to really grasp what was happening "So..." I started "where are you taking me?"

"It's a secret, because I'm kidnapping you. No one will ever see you again... only me" James threatened with a playful naughty smile.

"That doesn't sound that bad actually; but seriously, where are we going?" I was curious. We were driving to the direction of the beach, and with the shoes I was wearing I don't think I'd be able to walk over sand.

"You'll see. Just relax... and listen to Big Time Rush" he turned on his car stereo and Boyfriend started playing. How convenient. "Common, join me" James said.

"I can't, as much as I want to, my throat is fucked, remember?" what a bummer.

"Damn, you're right. Guess I'll have to serenade you then" James started singing, his loud smooth voice filling the small space of the car. I was getting pretty comfortable, lulling myself with the sound of James' voice (was I seriously getting sleepy again?), when I heard the engine cut off. We had arrived to wherever James was going to keep me hostage.

I got out of the car and when I saw what was in front of me my mouth almost fell slack. Day had suddenly turned into afternoon, and in front of me I had a flaming pink and orange sunset, with tints of purple and deep blue higher up in the sky. James -still silent- took my hand and led me into a pier-looking structure, built probably a few meters into the sea. It was decorated with lots of white candles on the floor, and right at the center there was a table for two.

I sat down on the very fancy chair, facing James, but I could only see the beauty of the scene around us. "Whoa" I finally gasped.

"I know right? It's pretty breathtaking. But I'd rather look at you". I turned my head to look at James, snapping back into reality.

"Oh really? Why?" like I didn't knew...

"You know why; you look amazing"

"Thanks, you look really good as well" I smiled and sipped a little out of the wine that was served. How did James set this all up? I bet the other guys helped him or something because it looked a detailed, especially the candles; there were probably more than 200 candles.

"Lila looked surprised to see me when she opened the door" James spoke up.

"Oh, that. I kind of hadn't seen her or the rest of the guys in two days"

James' eyes widened a little "What? That's what happens when your house is that big!" he laughed.

"Other than the fact that I stayed in my room those two days" I explained.

"Why?"

"I don't know; Wednesday I watched BTR all day long, fell asleep and then woke up at seven PM next day!"

James snickered "Were you trying to be Sleeping Beauty?" I shrugged. "What about the food though? Did you just stay there in a hibernation state?"

"No, I had some tea and cheesecake the day before, and then the next day Davie cooked me some breakfast" I made air quotes around the last word and sipped from my cup again. I'm no wine drinker, but this one was pretty good.

James looked at me pensively "Davie cooks?"

"Really good" It was true. I don't know how but that boy was better than us three girls combined in the kitchen!

"Interesting" James responded, and drank half of his wine in two chugs. A random guy appeared out of nowhere then, with two trays of food. That's when I realized I was hungry; I hadn't eaten something since Davie came in my room yesterday night.

"Fancy much?" I asked James with a smirk. He smirked back.

"I told you it was going to be formal"

I ate a mouthful of the Alfredo sauced fettuccines before speaking again "James, do you dislike Davie?"

He stared at me through narrowed eyes, and for a moment I regretted bringing up the topic; I don't know why did I even asked him that. After a long pause he answered "Of course not Chelle; why would you ask that?"

"Because you kind of punched him."

"Well, he messed with my hair; you know that my hair is a sensitive spot for me!" I rolled my eyes and laughed. It was ridiculous because hair doesn't even have nervous terminations... "Also, I think I'm jealous of him"

Okay, what? "Jealous? How come? You do know he is the one that's jealous."

"Yeah, but if you think about it well, he spends most of his time with you. And the other girls, of course."

"You're right... But we will work it out somehow."

"We will" James brought his cup up and clanked it with mine. We ate and chat between bites, letting off the awkward topics such as Davie forgotten, cherishing the beautiful moment we had for us both alone, at the beach, having a great meal under the night sky.

James and I went to stand by the corner of the small pier after we finished eating, his head over my shoulder and arms around my waist. He quietly hummed Boyfriend, rocking softly as he shifted to the rhythm of his hums.

"We might as well dance" I suggested with a light smile, still looking at the numerous bright stars.

"You wouldn't think I forgot the music..." James moved over to another corner and held up a CD case. "Exclusive BTR acoustic performances" he winked. "And the first one" James closed the lid of the small stereo with a click, "is our song".

Boyfriend started playing for the second time that evening, only this time, it was acoustic.

"That's a really good version of that-"

"Shhh.." James pressed his finger softly against my lips. "Come here"

He pulled my arm and held me close to him. His hands were cold and I could practically feel his heartbeat. Must be nervous; the poor thing, but that made me feel better in some way; knowing that I wasn't the only one.

This time we danced without speaking a word (or kissing). James and I looked at each other boldly, saying more words with our eyes than we could say with our voices. I love him, I realized. Love him a lot. There was another part that was going so this is what it feels like..., but most of my brain and body was just overwhelmed with happiness, because even though he hadn't said anything, I knew he loved me too; it was written all over his eyes.

We were so caught up in our "dancing", that we didn't realize the CD had started repeating, and it had reached the third song.

I think we noticed at the same time.

"Are you gonna-" "Just let me go and-" we stared at each other and laughed as we tried to talk at the same time. "I'll go get that"

James took his hands off my hips and moved towards the direction of the CD player, only that he was still standing in front of me. "What's wrong?" I asked him.

He looked up at me with an anxious expression "I think I'm stuck".

I looked down and saw the front of his pants was stuck in the lace of my dress, in a pretty awkward way, if I'm allowed to say so. "Okay James, don't move, I'll get us untangled". I started to fumble with my dress and his jammed zipper, but it wouldn't give in, in fact, I was just making James more uncomfortable. He was starting to squirm and that made it even more difficult and even worse when his phone buzzed once. He tried to move to get to it, but lost his balance by pulling me in a little too rough.

"Shit!" James cussed as he hit the ground with the back of his head, me falling on top of him instantly, cus we were still glued together.

"Oh lord, are you okay? That sounded like it hurt!"

"Don't worry I'm... fine" He looked up at me, just inches away from his face. There was no space between us, my own chest rose and lowered to the rhythm of his breaths.

"... James-" I was at a loss for words. He was so gorgeous on the candle light; on any light.

James kept staring at me mesmerized, his facial features gentle and passionate; with just a whisper, he melted my heart. "Be my girlfriend Michelle... Please."

Sweet baby Jesus, is this happening? Oh god, where's my voice so I can tell him yes? Heck, I wasn't going to be able to speak, so I might as well demonstrate him that I want to be his girl. I grabbed James by the sides of his face and kissed him hard. Yes, yes, yes, yes, of course I'll be your girlfriend!

When I pulled off to see his reaction, James lay with his hair blown back from his face, expression shocked with his mouth hanging open in awe, looking like he was about to drool. I giggled at his face; his cheeks were even redder than before, he looked so adorable.

"Is that a yes?" James muttered, just an inch from my mouth. I nodded enthusiastically; he grinned brightly and without any warning, crashed my lips against his again.

So, there I was: lying on top of James on the floor making out with him. Wearing a new dress, which was stuck on his pant's zipper, and probably ruined? Yeah, I pretty much didn't care. Breathing was getting harder by the second too, but I wanted to kiss him forever. He held me tight, brushing my back with his hands now and so, and I knotted my fingers gently round his soft hair. It was heaven. I was making out romantically with the sweetest most handsome man ever, and he was mine.

I don't know how much time did we lay there, just kissing, but the sound of footsteps made us stop. I looked up to see it was the waiter that has brought us the food, removing the empty plates and wine cups. "I-I-I'm sorry; I'm just cleaning up" the guy muttered nervously, as James and I both stared from the floor. "Excuse me, Mr. Maslow" he uttered quietly and started to go.

"No, wait! Would you mind helping us? My zipper is stuck in her dress and we can't move apart without ruining it"

"S-sure sir" the guy moved quickly but awkwardly between us. Poor him. Poor James and I. It was embarrassing not knowing how to explain to ourselves how the hell did his zipper got stuck in my dress, but in a way, I thank that zipper.

At the end of the night, we saved my dress and James' zipper, and soon it was time to get home. I had been too stuck in spending a nice time with my new boyfriend, that I couldn't believe it when James' clock read midnight.

"Jamie, take me home please?"

"Aw, don't tell me you've still got curfews... another drink?" James offered, already pouring more champagne into my glass.

"No, thanks, I think I've had enough of those tonight. If I didn't know better I'd think you want to get me drunk" I laughed. "Just take me home, please, before Davie acknowledges my un-presence. The girls can't keep him distracted that long"

I could tell that bothered him "Fine... Whatever you want, love" James said gallantly. I loved it when he called me sweet things.

The ride home was short because there was no traffic, so we got home in no time. I opened the door and the lights were on, but there was no one in sight.

"Want to come in for a while?" I asked James with a smirk. He just looked at me with pursed lips and in a rush he picked me up and carried me. I giggled in surprise, but then panicked when he started to run up the stairs.

"James! Stop! We're gonna fall again!" I warned between laughs. He soon stopped and landed me carefully on my heels, taking my hands on his and kissing me again, only this time we weren't thrown on the floor, but standing at the top of the royal staircase. I was pressed tight against him, wrapping my arms around his neck. For some reason, I knew kissing James would be a problem, because once we started, it was hard to stop; it just got better by the minute.

"Stop!"

Ah, Davie! We stopped but James still had his arm wrapped around my shoulder. Lila and Sass were standing behind Davie, who was practically blowing sparks from his hair. Damn.

"Davie... chill and-"

"Yeah, I'm her boyfriend now!" James said cockily.

"James!" Lila, Sass and I yelled at him in dread.

Almost simultaneously, Davie did a double take. "What?"

I stared at James with crossed arms. He shrugged and offered a lame "oops?"

"Run." I told him, Davie was already going up the stairs two at a time and I didn't want a beaten-up boyfriend. Sass and Lila ran behind him, probably to stop him; he tends to exaggerate a lot.

James and I got to the second floor; we were running across the hall, searching for a place to hide. I looked ahead and found it: my room. I was the only one that had the access to that place.

"Here!" I pulled James inside and locked the door. Phew, finally safe.

"Damn, he sure looked pissed" James breathed. We were standing against the door, as if we could hold it up in case Davie tried to break through it.

"Yeah... You shouldn't have said you are my boyfriend."

"Then when were you planning on telling him?"

"I don't know; when it got more obvious?" I shrugged

James rolled his eyes. "It couldn't have been more obvious, don't you think?"

I pursed my lips. "You're right. We screwed it." James laughed softly, moving to face me. He placed both his hands against the door, keeping me trapped between his arms.

"I believe we were not done yet..." James whispered in my ear. He started pecking my jaw lightly, traveling to my cheeks and finally to my lips. I stood paralyzed, surprised at how different this kiss was from the others. It was deeper; I could taste the champagne we had drank on his mouth. I leaned back on the door, and James moved closer to me, his hands still trapping me. They were so amazing, his lips. I know nothing about kisses because James is the only guy I've ever kissed (believe it or not), but he sure was really good at it, it made you want to keep going forever, and believe me, I would've stayed there if the door hadn't opened.

"Ouch!" Together, we fell to the floor again, only this time James fell on top of me, and damn, he is pretty heavy! Also, I think I was bleeding.

I have no idea how the door opened, but there was a furious Davie and a very amused Lila staring down at us. "Get. Off. Her. NOW." Davie growled.

James carefully lifted himself, taking me up with him. He turned to apologize but gasped when he saw my face. "Oh my goodness, I'm so, so sorry! I didn't mean to!"

"Huh...?" I had no idea. The kiss left me a little dumb.

"Mate" Lila snickered, "your lip is bleeding!".

"BLEEDING?" God, I hate blood!

James looked at me with concerned eyes, regret all over his face. "I'm so sorry baby, I shouldn't have-"

"I know! I know James! Don't worry, I think I'll be fine" I tried to calm him down by acting relaxed, but truth is I feared I might puke anytime soon.

"You!" Davie pointed at me. I rolled my eyes. "Come with me if you don't want me to kill your boyfriend" he sneered. I sighed and moved over to Davie, but to my surprise, the lace of my dress was ripped off because part of it was stuck on James' zipper. Again.

Lila started laughing like crazy when she saw that and Davie's face grew redder. James was blushing just like me, trying to un-stuck the dress. Thankfully, it was easier to unlatch this time. I hurried and grabbed Davie from his shirt so that he couldn't kill James.

"Guess I have to go now" James spoke.

"Yes!" Davie yelled, but we ignored that.

"Tonight was amazing. See you some other time?" I tried to smile without getting blood in mouth.

James took my hand and kissed it "Yes. Goodbye love". He said goodbye to Lila and Davie (tried to, at least) and then left, still looking guilty for my split lip.

After I cleaned up my wound, I couldn't really care less about it, or even about my ripped up dress. James was my boyfriend. Mine! Just in my wild fangirl dreams I dreamt about it and now it was my reality. I must be the luckiest girl on the planet, I thought. I was member of the rock band of the moment, doing what I love to do the most which is singing, with Davie, Sass and Lila, whom I love. I met my idols and my celebrity crush, who turned out to have a crush on me too, and now he is my precious boyfriend.

I spent over one hour talking with Sass and Lila that night, telling them how imperfectly romantic James had asked me out. Finally I slumped over my bed and prepared myself to sleep, when my phone buzzed.

"I forgot to tell you something: I love you. I'm so glad you're my girlfriend, beautiful; JM"

I smiled to myself and texted him back. "I'm really glad too. I love you, my boyfriend; Chelle"

[missmaclay]

I could make this post about my entire 1,5 week trip through the UK, but I’m sure y’all only want to hear about the last day in Liverpool ;).

Quick recap of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen though; Telford (met Jeremy Jordan, David Harewood, Brit Morgan, Rahul Kohli and more), London (met Mehcad Brooks, Stephen Amell and much more), went to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Ripley’s, Wembley, Bath, Stonehenge, Windsor castle, Big Ben, Leicester square, Piccadilly and spend a lot of time in the Underground. Also saw the new Alien film AND Beauty and the Beast.

Anyway, that’s not what y’all wanna hear. Here’s my recap of May 29th;

I woke up in London after 2 days of HVFF. Went downstairs for my lovely UK brekkie (HASH BROWNS!) and then jumped in the shower and off I went. To Euston station to catch a train to Liverpool. Apparently, it was the first train to go straight to Liverpool from London that day, earlier ones were cancelled. Thank God I’d splurged on a first class ticket. I heard people had been standing the entire trip (2 hours!). Anyway, the train ride is beautiful. Would have been better if it hadn’t been raining, lol. 

Got to Liverpool a bit delayed due to a signal failure (uh-huh..) and the taxi stand at Liverpool Lime Street is insane. So many folks needed one. BUT I got to my hotel for around 4, thankfully. Since I was around the corner from the venue, I saw the Cavern already when the taxi dropped me off. Queue the nerves. The hotel was beautiful too. Beatles song playing as you walked in, lol. 

I hadn’t eaten since 9 am that morning so I Googled mapped the area and saw that there was a Gregg’s nearby. Perfect, sausage roll it is. I was there half an hour before closing time, but apparently they don’t care in Liverpool, because the door was locked. Oh well, a bag of crisps and an apple it is. Met up with @amyroot near the venue and we walked around a bit, the area is pretty cool!

Anyway we waited outside like we thought we had to when we were informed that the line had already started inside. We rushed downstairs and joined the queue. This was at 6pmish. 

The earlier concert started at 4pm and our gig was supposed to start at 8pm, but they were still doing M&Gs so everything ran a little late. No problem, everyone should get to do their M&G but my damn legs were killing me, lol. 

Pleasantly surprised there was some seating in the venue when we finally got in. Not near the front, but it’s OK, we could sit. I’ll upload some actual videos from the concert so I won’t talk about that, but them singing “Imagine” and then bringing Anni on stage were awesome.

Before the M&Gs started, they had an auction for St. Vincent’s school, all DC stuff. I have to admit that the two guys doing the auction were hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. They auctioned some stuff in the venue and said the rest would go online (haven’t seen it yet anywhere?)

Onto our M&Gs. I have no idea how many people were there but it seemed like a never ending line, lol. I think they started around 10/11ishpm with the first people. I think they first said you would get a photo, 1 minute to talk and 2 things to sign, but of course all of that went out the window pretty soon. They managed to have a pretty good system. First person you saw was Nathan (who gives amazing hugs), Gemma or Angelo would take your photo with Nathan, then when the person in front of you had finished talking with Chyler, you’d move onto her and get hugs, photos and autographs, etc. Pretty good system.

Nathan ended up walking/running around the hall and thanking people in line for their patience as it was taking soooo long. Folks who had to catch a bus/train/whatever were pushed to the front, that was a good idea. 

I was eating tic tacs by that time (it was nearing 1am and we were still in line) because I hadn’t had dinner, but they hadn’t either. Nathan was having a discussion with someone in line, leaning over the barrier when Chyler tried to get his attention for something. He was too focused on whoever he was talking to though, so he didn’t hear Chyler calling for him. Her calls for “babe. love. honey. love of my life.” were completely ignored until the guy (Neil?) from the Canvern lovingly shouted “Nathan darling!” very loudly, lol. THAT’s when he turned around. 

Around 2am we were finally at the front of the line. The security who ticked your name off of the VIP list was hilarious, too. All the staff were. Pronouncing my name for him the way it’s supposed to be didn’t help the poor guy. To be fair, I couldn’t understand him either. Damn accent, lol. 

Aaaaanyway, it was finally our turn and Nathan straight off the bat asked about my necklace and we proceeded to geek out for several minutes over PS4 games. We apparently took so long I looked passed him to see Chyler on her own, the person in front of me already left. Oops. I hugged Nathan (and in my haste forgot to take a photo with him) and rushed over to Chyler. Now. As I’m sure you can imagine, I cannot explain or descibe how that was. To see Chyler up close, giving her a hug, talking to her. No words. She asked what I was talking to Nathan about as we both looked so passionate about the subject, lol. She’s absolutely amazing. Gave her a massive bag of gummi bears and she loved it, lol. I printed off a photo from the I love you scene which she signed with “I <3 you” which... asdfghjkl. We chatted for a bit (fun fact; the dibs gun is NOT the gun her son drew, which she talked about at SDCC I think?) and I thanked her for coming over and doing these things, and she thanked ME for coming over. Can you believe that? Like, duh. Nathan was off to bathroom at that point so I moved to the side to give Amy some time with Chyler while I waited to Nathan to come back to get a double photo (him and Chyler) which we then did in turns. It was great.

We walked off to the side to collect everything and put photos etc. away when I realised I hadn’t had my photo with Nathan. I didn’t want to interrupt their whole thing they had going so we waiting until the very last person had gone (4 am people!) for us to go back and get the last photos. Nathan was very happy to oblige and we even snagged another one with Chyler as the lighting was pretty awful where we first were. I had to pull poor Chyler away from her McNuggets, that was probably the first food she’d seen since 3pm, lol. 

Managed to actually say what I wanted to say to Chyler at that time (I was so nervous before) and thanked her for everything she’s doing for us as a community and even though we have Twitter it’s impossible for her to see every reaction so I wanted to personally say we all appreciate how she fights for us. 

We got caught talking a bit to the people from Charity Pulse and St. Vincent’s too, lovely people. Ended up nearly cleaning out the venue as we were the last people there (those big boxes aren’t even that heavy). Nathan AGAIN thanked us for coming said we were ‘amazing’ and then we finally walked out of there.

It was 5am when I finally calmed down enough to goto sleep and I looked out my window and it was daylight already. 

When I woke up, everything hurt from so little sleep, of course. Went downstairs for my last day of UK brekkie (HASH BROWNS!). I walked over to the corner of the room as I didn’t want to take up a 4 person table by myself but I was shoo’d away to another side of the room as they’d already made up these tables for lunch. Well, okay, whatever. I plopped down at a 4 person table and as I look up I see Nathan and their 3 kids also enjoying a UK brekkie, they were staying at the same hotel as me, lol. 

As they left he recognized me and said hi and we wished eachother a good day and that was that. Spent some time shopping and then went to the airport (The driver was an Everton supporter, which isn’t good for me as a Liverpool supporter) and went home.

I’m a little flu-y now but I’m enjoying going through the videos and photos. It was an amazing day and they were very positive about doing a gig in Amsterdam so I hope to see them again very soon.

[ash-travels-peru]

Day 6: Organic Food Markets and Barranco

I woke up at 5:30am this morning. UGH!! I ended up using this early morning to catch up on my blog (well up to day 3 at the time hahaha!)

Bella and I surfaced out of bed at about 9am. Lima is a bit like Dubai, you can do it in a few days and admittedly, we were starting to run out of things to do (hence no rush in the mornings!). We had another awesome brekky, but all we had planned for the day was the 4pm walking tour. I ended up checking out some travel blogs about Lima that I had found whilst in Sydney, and discovered that there was an organic food market in Miraflores, only a 15min walk from our accommodation! The markets were open Monday - Saturday from 8:30am - 2:30pm. Our actual words were “Why the hell not?!”

We left our accommodation about 1:10pm. We packed our luggage before we headed out because our taxi was booked to take us to the airport the next morning at 3:30am. The markets were a long line of stalls along the footpath opposite a church. There was fresh produce, organic honey, different quinoa, black corn that looked like it had been dipped in ink, stubby carrots (that certainly wouldn’t pass the beautiful veg requirement at Sydney supermarkets) and plenty of places that sold food ready to eat! We walked up and down the line of stalls and I was graciously welcomed to photograph their produce. The tables were overflowing with such bright colours; there were huge pumpkins, mushroom stalks that looked like broccoli and cherry tomatoes that looked like the range of autumn colours. If I ever come back to Lima, I will ensure that I have access to a kitchen and I will be sure to buy some fresh fruit and veg from these markets! 

We were beginning to feel a little peckish and there was a stall that sold what looked like a range of sweet and savoury breads and empanadas. We figured out after the fact that it was actually a vegan vendor. There was a significant language barrier, so there was lots of hand gestures, smiling, laughing, confused looks and pointing! After at least 5mins, we ended up with exactly what we both wanted! Once we had obtained our goods, we walked into the park behind to have our picnic feast (minus a blanket). The park was teeming with young, local families. There was even a 6th birthday party! We were the only caucasians in the park and I certainly felt like I was off the tourist path and enjoying Lima like a local.  We shared an empanadas and we ordered the one that had carrot, caramelised onion and grapes inside. It melted in my mouth!! We ordered a slice of bread that looked sweet and turned out to be a really heavy panatone. Although it was pretty tasty, it certainly didn’t compare to the panatone Auntie Chiara has!! For desert, we each ordered what looked like a strawberry and (what we thought was) cacoa tart. The strawberries were so fresh, juicy and sweet, but it certainly wasn’t cocoa on the tart. It tasted more like a tahini with a bit of sesame seed oil. The pastry was lovely, but I ended up scraping most of the tahini stuff off. We ate our feast and lolled in the afternoon. The cloud cover prevented seeing the sun.

It was nearing 2:40pm and we decided to begin to head off for the 4pm tour to Barranco. We initially thought of walking, but according to google maps it was a 1hr 30min walk. There was an option to meet at Kennedy Park in MIraflores (a 20min walk) at 3:20pm and catch the bus with a guide to the meeting spot in Barranco. We opted for the latter option. We made our way through Lima to Kennedy Park. There, we met up with Rosie and Jo and met some Americans, a Brit who had been travelling for 4months and once again, I was certainly surrounded by the backpacker crowd! I only lacked a leather thong necklace with some charm on it, a few tattoos and a bandanna and I’m sure I would have been synonymous with the crowd!

The local bus ride was 1 soles. The local bus was of the general class of vehicle I described in one of my first posts in Peru...it looked like it should have been retired a solid 15 years ago. I was sitting above the wheel and it was quite the bumby ride...as in I think there was no suspension left in the vehicle whatsoever. We went over a bump and my bum left the seat, it was like a roller coaster but on four wheels and with less safety regulations. This American student started talking to us. He was a med student and working in one of the hospitals, but for this post I’ll refer to him as med student Mike. I was able to convince Mike that Bella’s boyfriend’s name was Edward and he sparkled in the sun during summer (due to sweat). So gullible! I was rather proud of my low key Twilight reference. 

We made it to Barranco and it is so beautiful!!! Street art is encouraged, I walked past countless buskers playing lutes, to guitars and drums and at the end of the walking tour there was a solid busking brass ensemble (with an honorary sax player). The Barranco walking tour wasn’t as information dense as the tour of Lima City Downtown. I’m not sure if that was because I was always lagging behind the group taking photos, because we had a different guide or if this tour served as having a free navigator to get you around the suburb without the need for Google maps. Most likely, it was a combination of the three. 

Barranco is bright and vibrant and sort of like the Peruvian equivalent to Newtown, but with views of the Pacific. According to the architecture and houses we walked past, Barranco was also one of, if not the most affluent suburb of Lima City. We even visited a house built by the same artist who made the sculpture of the passionate couple in the Parque del Amor. We crossed a bridge where, legend goes, that if you make it across holding your breath and thinking of a wish that it will come true. I won’t disclose what I wished for because then my near fainting spell would go to waste! As I was crossing, a group of tourists stopped dead in front of me. I did a rather un-elegant bolt to make it the final stretch across the bridge though! 

We wound through the streets and there was many beautiful doors that I was able to take photos of (I’ve started an instragram for all the photos of doors I’ve taken on my travels). We visited a beautiful church that has survived most of the natural disasters in Lima without too much damage and there was a wedding on! We watched the bride enter the church. I felt sorry for her, being gawked at by tourists. 

The tour finished at around 6:30pm, and super starving we went in search of food. Med student Mike and another American lady joined us for dinner, which brought some interesting discussions to our dinner conversation. Due to dietary requirements, we found both a vegetarian and vegan restaurant. We were there for a few hours, the food was good but honestly not as filling and as satisfying as I would have liked. At about 8:30pm, the six of us caught the local bus back to Kennedy Park. Under the direction of Rosie. we went to this (apparently) famous churros place called Manolo. I paid 15 soles for 6 churros sticks and a cup of molten chocolate, which was more like a custard consistency. I gave the chocolate to Bella pretty quickly (I think I’m a chocolate snob haha). We all then walked back to Kennedy Park and sat in a small and circular amphitheater that went down into the group. Med student Mike thought he was awesome and a camera buff and wanted to use my camera. He started changing all the settings and nearly broke it because he didn’t understand that you were meant to press the button in the middle of the settings wheel. He didn’t even have it in his hands for 30secs. 

Bella and I ended up leaving the park at about 10pm because we were conscious that our taxi was arriving in 5.5hrs! We walked the 10mins or so back to our hotel and finished packing. Suddenly it was past 12am!!! We jumped into bed quickly and dozed off fast...ready to be awake in less than 3hrs!

[patronsaintofprincesses]

Hey cutie, if you're up to the challenge, all 100 from the list with the 〜(￣▽￣〜) :)

First of all @unluckymess is the most amazing person in all of Texas I love you ilysm. Ahem 1. What are five things you want to do before the year ends? Well first I'd like to develop some structure maybe a morning routine nothing too fancy. Second, I need to buy a bike the bus is getting too expensive :0 Third, I would like to make an A in a class instead of B's and C's what is going on lol. Fourth, I would like to decorate my apartment and always have food in the fridge for friends that drop by. Finally, I'd like to settle this mess with my health insurance and be an adult. @_@ 2. What color are your pants? I'm currently wearing TMNT pajama pants so, green. 3.Favorite motivational quote? The one about John Lennon and his teacher. "I want to be happy." "You don't understand the question" "No, you don't understand life." 4.When was the last time you drank coffee? I had an Almond Joy cappuccino a couple of months ago. 5. What was the last thing you ate? An avocado and swiss cheese sandwich. 6. Favorite animal? Ooh probably an axolotl. Or snakes. 7. Favorite song? Of all time? One Step Closer by Linkin Park. But lately I've been listening to Let Her Go by Passenger. 8. Last movie you watched? While You Were Sleeping. Two Weeks Notice. Both very good Sandra Bullock rom coms. 9. Any turn ons? I've pretty much accepted that I have a thing for D/s (sir/ darling girl)and biting. Also being prettified and dirty talk. Dirty dirty. 10. Any turn offs? Physical S&M. Infantilism. Men who like being called Daddy.11. List 4 big words off of the top of your head. Antidisestablishmentarianism. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Hippopotomonstrosisquipedaliophobia. Deoxyribonucleic acid. 12. What are some meaningful movies? Robin Williams did a lot of those um I love Where The Heart Is. Movies based on books usually have some sort of nuanced meaning :p 13. Who are the 2 most important people in your life right now? Always my mum/brother and my best friend Mikachuu. 14. What are 3 things you want to do before the month ends? First, get a job. Second, take my dog to the vet. Third, learn some self-care darn it. Lol 15. When was the last time you read a good book? This morning! I am so hooked on Agatha Christie it is not even funny. 16. How long do you study for usually, if you study? Usually about three hours. Then I read my time away lol. 17. Do you have any nicknames? I am called San. 18. Favorite kind of perfume? (fruity, alluring, etc.) Happy by Clinique. It's a citrus/floral scent and Man by Pitbull. It's a woodsy?/musky cologne. 19. Do you have any international friends / friends who live out of state? Yes! Far off exotic places like Michigan, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, California. Whee. 20. What is something unique that you do every single day? Hm live vicariously through fictional characters21. If there was a movie based on your life, what would it be called? Can't Hardly Even 22. When was the last time you bought a gift for someone? Mikachu's birthday 23. Are you a shopaholic? Nopers. I am poor and a minimalist 24. What are some songs that always make you feel better? Linkin Park. Panic! at the Disco. George Strait. The Hoosiers. Alllll of their songs. 25. List 3 activities that you can only enjoy by yourself. Reading, eating ice cream by the pint, and tightlacing. 26. If you could live in any biome (and survive) which biome would you live in? DRAGONLAND. 27. How do you like being roused in the morning? With poetry and flowers. Also brekkie. Maybe a pun or two lol. 28. How was your day? What did you do? It was swell, I read and ate cookies and doughnuts and an avocado sandwich. Thanks how was yours? :P29. What did your last text message say? Okay good let me know how you're doing. 30. Do you respond to texts quickly? Nooooooo31. Who was the last person you called? My mother, the saint @silver9mm 😇83. Do you miss anyone right now? My brother :)84. Who do you love? Why? All of y'all. Because I want to 85. Do you like sharing? Yes of course 86. What was the last picture you took with your phone? A selfie on SC 87. Is there a reason behind everything that happens? Yeah, the universe is fucking absurd 88. Favorite genre of music? Alternative. Followed by pop, country, and rock. 89. If you had one word to describe yourself, what would it be? San90. Describe your life in 5 words. Out. For. A. Walk. ...Bitch.91. Describe the world in 4 words. TOO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE 92. Craziest thing you've ever done? Survived 93. First three songs in your favorite playlist? These Tables Are Numbered For A Good Reason, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet by Panic! at the Disco. The Little Things Give You Away by Linkin Park. I'm Not Okay (I Promise) by My Chemical Romance 94. Are you more creative or logical? I think I'm boring beyond imagination 😇95. Would you rather lie or hurt someone with the truth? Truth. But I want to be lied to. 96. What are you most proud of? Being District Spelling Champion in 2013 97. What personality trait do you admire in other people? Charisma 98. When you imagine yourself as really, really relaxed and happy, what are you doing? Taking a hot bath in the dark listening to music reflecting on a book I just finished reading. 99. How do you usually start a conversation? Hi my name is San Juanita, I go by San. What is your name?100. What is the best news you could hear right now? My mother won the lottery !!! That was wild. I LOVED answering all of these thank you so much!!!

[thesmallcast]

Balinese

It has been a few exhausting past months, though I feel I had a manageable solution for each area in my life that was causing me distress (admittedly a bit after the fact). There was a build up of different things going on especially after things ending with PBJ. I knew that I had a holiday coming up which helped knowing there was a clock on it. I was having my best mates in town and  Bali for a week - what more could a girl ask for.  I had a flare up just before I went away- so I knew that I was overdoing it. I love how it's a gentle little reminder to pull it back.

Work has been a handful however I feel I finally have the confidence back after all the stress, and change that happened last year at work. I really went down a rabbit hole which I have never had in my career to the point that I took personal leave. I never have really updated my blog on that. Surprisingly, a lot of it was to do with my new manager, who has been at work for two months now after finding out she has Stage 3 cancer. She will be fighting it off with chemo for the remainder of the year. She has a husband and two teenage daughters. It's so devastating. I have never seen anyone so brave though in the midst of it or at least being courageous in the public eye. Work is so busy though,  with my manager being away it just leaves me holding the fort. Its been a balancing act of juggling all the components, taking on new workload and trying to navigate my way through. I have always been in pretty busy roles, but I've always known my way and what to do and led my way. The difference in my new role is that I don’t know everything at the back of my hand, I’m still learning. Also, I am dependent on other functions as well which is a different way of managing time. Before I went away for leave, my work bought me flowers just to say thanks and say they appreciate all the work I have been doing. It was a nice gesture as well as a friendly reminder to myself to not be so hard on myself and focus on all the good and my strengths. With the sheer amount of workload, I have put in some tactics, to write a to-do list, get out of work in time ( sounds like the opposite of getting work done, but I need to get out on time to enjoy ‘Sam’ time as well), spending once a week filing emails and reprioritising tasks. Its been working though I'm only keeping things afloat, I haven’t had the time to drill into the big projects.

On top of work, my exercise and gym routine has been out the window. I’ve had a slump in motivation, I have been out of the gym since February and being restricted by an injury which I left to get worse didn’t help. As I've been limited to what I could do. I tried running only to get tendonitis. I started going to the physio, which was the best thing I could have done and I wish I went sooner.  I addressed my tendonitis and started working on my hip mobility and my back pain I had been experiencing. One day I was at work and my right leg just started tingling, my foot was numb and I was so scared it would stay like that. My back has been in continuous pain off and on which is worrying me about how my training will progress. I haven’t been able to do weight lifting ( I had stopped as well cause I knew I didn’t have the strength and had wanted to work on saving at the time for my Europe plan). I have now signed up for a personal trainer at the gym for 1 on 1 session. It was my first week back and it was great! It's a bit expensive, but I see it as an investment. ( Since I'm catching up on this blog post a bit late I can say I have already noticed a major difference in my mobility and reduced pain. I can’t wait to get stronger and be stronger).

Most importantly making constructive ‘Sam’ time. I have been trying to find a balance of social life and "Sam" time. I’ve recently had numerous friends go through horrific breakups and I’ve been giving so much energy I was feeling low and drained. I didn’t realise how much your surroundings could affect you. I love supporting my friends and definitely backing them, as I would want my friends to do the same. I just wasn’t in tune with how I was feeling and probably needed to wind in the reel a bit. My mindset over this time made me realise that I was showing up but not being emotionally present, I had taken things super personal and been a bit sensitive which wasn’t being fair to those around me. Ready for the getaway.

Just before I headed out to Bali, my best mates were here for the weekend and save to say it was an epic weekend. Full of adventures and sightseeing in Sydney and we saw it all. I actually couldn’t believe how much we did - they saw all of Sydney ( Dammit). It was so nice having them here that it was hard to say goodbye ( I actually had a tear over it). Highlights: The Bondi to Coogee walk on day 1 having mad catch ups and yarns, the chef deluxe menu cooked by DK’s sister and husband, the blue mountains getaway and rewarding scones after, halloumi burgers in Marrickville ( even though cheese gives me the bloats and the poos), KB taking over my tinder chats, the ferry to manly, eating the worlds hottest corn chip ( the experience wasn’t pleasant but hilarious after)… I realised I just listed out the whole trip!

There was a small low light for me which was having an icicles moment. When we were in the Blue mountains I was giving guidance on the path to walk and no one was listening to me. The feeling of being unheard, I have done the walk but no one was listening so I walked to the loo. When I came back, Dk and his sis had picked the path we needed to take and I lost it because I had said it like 5 times. I knew this. I threw a childish little tantrum about it and went all quiet and stubborn. I didn’t know how to break free from it. There was a small crossroad at the opening of the path, I got asked which way to go, I just went all silent. They went down the stairs to one of the big views. I snapped out of it pretty quick. Usually, I sink lower into the funk because I’m embarrassed by how I’m acting and don’t know how to act normally its a weird feeling. I have in the past had funks and have had to sleep it off. I also haven’t had a funk like that in a long time but it went as quick as it came. It definitely didn’t ruin the weekend and no one else had even thought about it again but obviously, it played in mind.

I headed straight off to Bali. Bali was the perfect break, I flew over by myself to meet my close friend from back home, NB and her boyfriend (CB). NB had actually convinced me to buy the flights. It was a week of massages, food, relaxing, chilling in my bikini. We had a few day trips, one when we went to Ubud. We did the giant swings, walked through the rice paddies, checked out the monkey sanctuary, drunk coffee which had been pooped out by a Kopi Luwak (a type of cat). Please look it up, its a thing, I wasn’t just drinking cat poo. We spent a day at Finns Beach club, that was heaven we just had food and drink on tap all day long. NB and I swam in the ocean it was bliss. For most of the trip we stayed in the area, we had a villa in Canngu. The area was super laid back and safe. There was a lot of cross fit gyms, massage parlours and whole food eateries. We had dry heat the whole time. Canggu was a nice part of Bali as opposed to Seminyak where there were so many people, and so many Balinese drivers saying “Taxi?”. It did my head in but we spent one night in Seminyak eating and then going for a dance which ended up being just NB and I. It was magical like old times. Bali was a cheap trip and super relaxing. Most mornings, I would go for a walk an explore, grab some brekkie and get a massage then meet up with my NB and CB at the Villa. We had hired two scooters for the duration of the trip but I was not ballsy enough so we did rides. CB would take one of us and then come back for the other, we had a system. I could not drive a scooter and NB attempted only to drive into the wall during her introduction lesson. Its a NO from me. NB and I have been friends for over a decade now, the most beautiful thing about our friendship is it doesn’t change. We can go weeks, sometimes months without talking but for everything to be perfect and just the way it was. She’s always been so accepting and supportive of me and ensures I stand up for what I value and believe in. She also is so raw and honest! Bloody love her, I'm truly blessed with a tribe of amazing girls back home. KB, DK and I talk practically every day and I feel the exact same. I am so lucky, blessed and grateful for the amazing souls back home and a few near and dear here in Sydney.  

Now I have come back from Bali, with my energy revitalised and my soul feels lighter. I think I needed a break and it's so important to take them regularly. I go home often but it never feels like a break as I always cram and overdo it but I'm getting better. Back to the grind.

[asp1990]

DAY 7-10: Saturday 29th December 2018 – Tuesday 1st January 2019

A combo entry! 

SATUDAY: We left for Slovakia at 9am on Saturday morning and picked Miki’s friend Marta up from the train station in the Warsaw city centre. It was a bit stressful finding our way on to the right highway, which resulted in Miki and Lachlan having an argument, so a lot of the trip was spent with Lockie sulking, me staring out the window and Miki & Marta talking in Polish in the back seat. 

We stopped at a supermarket to stock up on food and drinks for the weekend and I paid 370 złote ($140) all up. Back in the car, we let Lockie sulk while we made small talk. We stopped at various petrol stations to get snacks and fill up the car and Lockie needed rest stops. He felt unwell, but Miki made him eat and it helped. 

The drive took about 9 hours. The roads were tricky and the drivers were even worse. Lockie was an absolute star to drive the whole time and not lose his temper. We arrived at about 7pm, and everyone else was already settled in. There were 12 of us in total. Lockie and I were a bit overwhelmed when we first arrived and sorting out rooms was a bit tricky - luckily we sorted it out so that Lockie and Miki had their own room and I was in the loft with Marta. I was not keen on sleeping in a room with people that I didn’t know. We started drinking and settled in and it was so lovely that everyone in the house made the effort to speak in Polish so that Lockie and I could understand. I am always so jealous of people that can speak multiple languages fluently. 

The house was just beautiful – I would never buy it, but it had SO much character! It was 2 stories high, with a 3rd level made up of 2 rooms in the attic, 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, an upstairs lounge and a kitchen/dining area downstairs – where we spent most of our time. There were mugs hanging on the ceiling, plates and axes mounted on the wall and a massive fireplace in the corner, which Lockie made his job to tend to all weekend.

I went to bed at about 1am and slept well. It got so hot though! Lachlan had lit the fire downstairs, and being in the roof, the heat rose right up. I hadn’t packed any dresses or shorts because everyone kept telling me it would be freezing haha

SUNDAY: I woke up at 8am to the sound of people talking downstairs in the kitchen. I went down to see that a veritable feast was being prepared. Agata had brought so many homemade pastes, spices and herbs from home and liked to prepare everything from scratch (I was blown away because usually UberEATS is the deal in a hung-over Australian house haha – this was not an option in Slovakia). They made a cold cut platter of meat, cheese, cucumber, tomato and bread and Lockie made pancakes with chocolate sauce or maple syrup. The girls also made a pot of lemon and ginger tea after everyone had finished eating – how lovely. Everything tasted amazing and the clean up afterwards was a real chore. 

The Polish crew all got ready to visit an abandoned castle in town, but the three of us wanted to do our own thing. I had a shower in the downstairs bathroom and it was just a bath a loose showerhead in it. Luckily, I wasn’t washing my hair, so I just awkwardly hosed myself down and jumped out. I thought the boys were going to take the 3 dogs for a walk on their own, but just as I was about to sit down and read my book, Lockie called out and asked if I was coming. So I went! We dressed warm and went for a stroll through the town before heading off the road in to a field, so that the dogs had room to run. The walk up the hill was a bit tricky, but it was worth the beautiful views once we got there. The dogs were going nuts and it started to snow! Photo opp time! We got some gorgeous shots, then started to head back down after Miki got a call from Marta saying that they were all going to the pub for dinner. We dropped the dogs back home then walked down as a big group.

The pub looked like an old log cabin and had these awesome, medieval, wooden menus. Luckily, the last 3 pages were all in English, so Lockie and I could choose something to eat. I chose baked Camembert with cranberry sauce and potatoes – it was so delicious! Lockie had some soup, fish and chips and the others all had gnocchi and Pierogi. We had beer and mulled wine and it was delightful ☺

Back at the house, the Polish crew asked me to teach them some “Australian Drinking Games”, so I taught them King’s Cup and Spoons. They loved both. We also played the mime version of Heads Up (an app like Charades) which was hilarious. Again, their English was so much better than I thought it would be, and they were able to guess most words. I tried to also teach them Flip Cup, but it was hard to explain and I soon gave up. After playing 3 consecutive drinking games, I started to feel a bit unwell, so excused myself to bed at about 2am.

MONDAY - NYE: After sleeping on L&M’s couch for a week and feeling the need to get up when they did, I reveled in sleeping in the roof with my own space. I decided to sleep in until 10.30am then watched an episode of Friends on my iPad, before making my way downstairs. Everyone was operating a bit slower than usual after a big night, and they told me that the boys had not gone to bed until 7am. A huge pot of scrambled eggs with onion and tomato had been prepared, again by Agata, and it was a delicious way to start the day with some coffee and orange juice.

I spent 25 minutes cleaning up the mess from brekky (as I had not had the chance to contribute to cooking/cleaning yet) and as soon as I was done, the girls started making more snacks (read: mess). Sigh. I went upstairs to watch the latest episode of RuPaul’s All Stars with Miki and Lockie. Lockie had to keep going downstairs to check on the freshly made cinnamon scrolls that he was making for everyone, but we got through the whole episode in the end.

We had the cinnamon scrolls for afternoon tea, which literally blew the minds of the Polish crew. Everyone was silent while eating them and then showered Lockie in compliments afterwards. One girl, who we’d hardly seen the whole trip, gave him a hug to say thank you for making something so delicious. Adorable. 

Miki and I set about making some dinner with the leftover food that we had – he let me dice the pumpkin, then he did everything else. He never lets me help haha. The dinner took about 2 hours to make (they roasted the vegies in the fire and made the pasta sauce from scratch – this again, blew my mind haha) and we ate at around 7pm. Everyone was still feeling a bit dusty from the night before, so the drinking was a bit less tonight and we settled for playing card games over a bottle of wine. 

Lockie and I went upstairs, in to the attic, to play Rummiking and listen to musicals. We had a HUGE catch up about work and life and only came down when we needed water haha. Miki visited us with drinks and some delicious corn fritters that he had made (so much homemade cooking – I’m not used to it!). We played a game of Taboo with the Polish Crew as they wanted to play/practice in English and I loved seeing them proud of how well they were able to explain words to me haha.

At 11:55pm, we all headed outside with bottles of champagne and sparklers. We counted down and then a world of fireworks happened around us! It appeared that everyone in the town had bought fireworks, except us, so we were able to just stand and enjoy as the houses around us competed for who had the biggest/loudest firecrackers. The dogs were a bit upset by all the noise, but overall it was a fantastic way to bring in the New Year!

We came back inside and kept playing Taboo for another hour before I headed to bed. The words were starting to get a bit repetitive and the more the Polish crew drank, the harder it became for me to guess or explain the words.

A very laid-back NYE – not what I’m used to haha, but lovely nonetheless.

TUESDAY – NYD: We all slept in this morning. Marta and I woke up at about 10.30am and immediately started packing up our belongings – we had a long drive home ahead of us. Miki made Lockie and I some coffee and a leftover cinnamon scroll (bless him), and I then went downstairs to help pack up the kitchen. I wasn’t sure who had brought what with them, so I just stuck to washing all the dishes and putting them away. Marta, Lockie, Miki and I were all ready to go at 12pm, so we said goodbye to everyone else (who were still in the early stages of packing – I think they were planning on spending most of the day there) and jumped in the car. A lot of snow had fallen overnight, so it was a gorgeous drive down the mountain, through villages and forests covered in white. Yay snow! I made Lockie pull over so that I could take a photo haha.

We were aiming to get Marta back to Warsaw train station for a 7.25pm train, so didn’t make many long stops. Our longest was probably at the highway McDonalds for lunch, because it was so packed. We just got take away and then jumped back on the road. We listened to an episode of RuPaul’s podcast, with Kristin Chenoweth, then I put on a 90’s playlist to keep everyone pumped. 

The time was cutting thin for Marta to make her train, so she started looking in to a ride-share option with some Ukrainian guy. It is not something that I would ever consider, but she said that she had used the service before and had also hitchhiked a lot around Europe. We got to the station at 7.26pm. Dammit! We said goodbye to Marta and wished her luck on her weird adventure home. 

By the time we got home, Marta had messaged Miki and said that the train had been delayed, so she had, in fact, gotten a train. Phew - a much safer option than a random ride! The 3 of us, back at the apartment, ordered pizza and watched the Netflix new-release Bird Box. It was really good!- definitely worth a watch. Miki then went to bed, while Lockie and I watched some weird show about the absence of sex and physical contact in Japan. I was hesitant to watch it, but it was actually very interesting. 

It is good to be back in Warsaw, with only 3 people in the house instead of 12, but I had such a wonderful time! The Polish crew was so lovely and accommodating and I will forever be thankful that they let me crash their NYE plans. What a bunch of legends ☺