#Fortune cookies Whoosh

[kantorberita]

Rayakan Imlek 2025, KCIC Hadirkan Dekorasi dan Hiburan Spesial di Stasiun Whoosh

Rayakan Imlek 2025, KCIC Hadirkan Dekorasi dan Hiburan Spesial di Stasiun Whoosh KANTOR-BERITA.COM, JAKARTA|| Dalam rangka menyambut Tahun Baru Imlek 2025, Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC) menghadirkan berbagai aktivitas seru dan hiburan menarik di seluruh stasiun Whoosh, Perayaan ini dirancang untuk memberikan pengalaman yang lebih menyenangkan bagi para penumpang sekaligus meningkatkan…

[readerwithsalt]

I think Hazel should’ve gone with Nico instead down to Tartarus. Without a prophecy or quest bc Nico and Hazel don’t play by the rule book.

Then we could’ve gotten an adorable underworld sibling bonding book with both of them hilariously being unaware of modern stuff. And telling each other stuff they’ve learned.

They ditch both of their boyfriends who are freaking out because they don’t know where they snuck off to. And since Nico said in HoH that when he and Hazel shared power that anything felt possible, they truly believe they can succeed.

(Also Hazel understands death and wouldn’t be complaining every five seconds like Will was. Maybe it would’ve been more original and less percabeth 2.0 (but worse)

It begins with Nico leaving Camp Jupiter, having visited Hazel (for what he believes could be the last time) and telling Will he would be back in a week or so. A lie Nico tells to keep his boyfriend from coming after him to Tartarus (way more in character of him lol) as he believes a child of Apollo would easily be snuffed out down there.

Nico realizes he’s throwing a good possible future away by sneaking out to do this, but the nightmares have become so twisted and unbearably disturbing that he fears he’s going to lose his mind either way if he doesn’t manage to find the person calling out his name every night.

He also doesn’t like when others are left behind.

Since Will has insisted Nico not use shadowtravel to get back to New York from California, Nico says he’s going to take the train instead.

But Hazel KNOWS someone is off. Knows Nico is hiding something. Something that causes her brothers eyes to tinge red when he hugs her, gives her a wobbly goodbye, and squeezes just a bit too tight. Something that causes the paper thin smile he gives her when she sees him off to board his train.

Something that inexplicably makes her sneak onto that train behind him.

Upon Nico putting his stuff away in the closet of his train compartment and finding a head of cinnamon brown curls say ‘ouch’ when he accidentally throws his suitcase on top of a stowaway sister, being mad is a bit of an understatement…

When Hazel knowingly questions why he’s so upset at her, Nico suddenly has no words.

They eat in the trains dining room, Chinese noodles with strangely large fortune cookies that they save for later.

Hazel doesn’t manage to get anything out of Nico as they sit side by side next to a window, watching the world whoosh by and making idle chatter that Nico only seems to be half heartedly replying to. Seeing her brothers zoned out gaze, thin hands shaking slightly, the ever present tinge of red and fear ringing his large dark eyes, Hazel knows this is something more than wrong.

If the bravest demigod she’s ever met looks this terrified, to her it can only mean one thing.

Her suspicion is proven correct when her and Nico crack open their fortune cookies from dinner and instead of a thin piece of white with a generic quote on the paper… two small black parchments with gold lettering come out instead.

Two warnings. From what god? They don’t know.

Hazel’s questioning dies on her tongue when she sees the thin lines of tears falling from her brothers eyes. She doesn’t ask him anything else that night, just wraps a hug around him as frail shoulders shake in her arms.

The next day Nico acts as if nothing happened and asks her if frank knows she’s okay which she sheepishly replies that he probably doesn’t even know where she is. Nico says the same about Will, and they decide to not tell their current boyfriends anything yet.

Yet…. After the incident of last night and the fortune cookie parchment mentioning a place that hazel has definitely heard of before, she knows exactly what Nico is planning.

And she’s not letting anything happen to him as long as she’s alive. Even if Nico insists on pretending Hazel doesn’t know anything.

After the long train ride and Nico questioning this one random passenger for an hour about the strange gaming device in his hands (a Nintendo lol) and the siblings chatting about mundane things happening in their camps; they finally are in Manhattan.

Hazel is now done with letting Nico pretend.

Before she can get a word out the word ‘No’ has already passed her brothers lips. They fight. Their first actual fight ever. One that ends in sobs wrecking through Nicos body and pangs of guilt, sadness, and anger piercing Hazels heart.

But one thing rises above them all:

Protectiveness.

After making up and Nico realizing Hazels not ever going to back down given the look in her eyes, he realizes he doesn’t have a say in this. She is coming with him whether he likes it or not. Fear plummets in his stomach.

After a trip to Target for food and supplies for the trip that neither of them currently want to think about because what they are planning to do is… insane. Literally insane. But as Nico remembers that feeling of the time he and Hazel shared their power that one time, a thread of hope starts to weave in his heart. Psychotic hope, but still hope nonetheless.

They shadowtravel to Central Park, Nico not feeling nearly as woozy with Hazels help. He also delightfully finds out that coffee seems to cure the fatigue from using that side of his powers lol.

They manage to open the doors of Orpheus’ by ‘borrowing’ a guys phone as they see him jog by, and play some random song called ‘into the dark’ (by death cab for cuties lol) from the guys playlist holding it up to the opening.

The song sounds like another warning. They both ignore it.

They travel down dark steps, hands clasped. They talk in the quiet empty smelling air, comfortable in the underground silence. Until faint light hits their faces. The ever constant line of fresh souls lead them to Charons boat where they are taken to the land of the dead.

They now must avoid detection from their father at all costs. Nicos not worried about Charon tattling on them to Hades since he doesn’t get paid enough anyway (lol). Nico takes Hazel to meet the trogs new home down in the underworld (one thing I liked in tsats).

Hazel adores them and their funny outfits.

The trogs tell Nico that his ‘really deep tunnel’ he requested they dig is almost done, and Hazel is hurt that Nicos been planning this so long without telling her or anybody. They make Nico and Hazel spend the night with them before they go and they play with the baby trogs and dance together, trying to forget what they’re going to do tomorrow. They fall asleep to the sound of baby trogs giggling next to them.

The next day Nico attempts to sneak away from Hazel one more time and Hazel explodes at him. Anger making her say some things she doesn’t want to and Nico apologizing profusely but saying he’s angry at himself for allowing her to come with him.

They are interrupted by the trogs leader saying the Tunnel Into the Dark is finished. They can feel the intense suction of The Pit even from several feet away. Memories of the first time Nico was sucked down threaten to spill over and embarrassingly makes him want to run and hide somewhere.

But he feels Hazels hand in his and that strange, wonderful feeling of intense power. And love. And then they are straddling a boat the trogs pull from the river of forgotten dreams (the Styx I think) and with one final push… they are falling.

On the boat it feels like they’re floating.

They fall for a very long time. But Nico notices it’s not as long as the first time. Or maybe it doesn’t feel that long bc someone is here beside him.

They use their shared geokinisis powers to make an enormous slide of bones, black dirt, and stone.

When the boat hits the ground Nico almost gets flung face first into the Phlegethon river. They drink from it and begin the search.

They devastatingly find out the voice was never Bob bc Bob was absorbed into tartarus’s breastplate (like in actual canon HoH) but that it was something else entirely.

Something that makes Nico perhaps the angriest he’s ever been.

They find Jason’s soul down there. Something that shocks both Nico and Hazel to the core. Nico thinks it’s a trick but soon can tell that the soul that is looking at him so coldly and unfamiliar is actually Jason.

A different Jason. One with hatred illuminating every thread of his form.

That’s why Nico didn’t know where Jason’s spirit had gone. It had been intercepted by something and Jason has turned into a mania like his mother. A spirit that fumes on hatred and forgotten dreams. The one thing he never wanted to be.

Nico cries over the horrid inevitable fate of Bob and promises that he will ALWAYS be remembered. He doesn’t have much time to think on this though because right now a livid son of Jupiter is rising higher and higher above Nico and Hazel, the threat is obvious.

In Jason’s manic state he blames Nico for not checking on him and seeing that he got a peaceful afterlife and greives the fact that Piper and Leo and Nico ‘never bothered’ to attend his funeral. He blames the gods, his father especially, for being unworthy of their demigod children. He blames the underworlds justice system not following up on his missing soul and dismissing his entire life as if it was nothing.

As if he was never a hero. Never anything at all.

Nicos is crushed, but realizes that Jason’s being manipulated by something. A dream demon that wanted to trap Nico the entire time in order to consume his energy/power and shadow travel out of his prison and into the mortal world bc it would’ve taken him years to get out otherwise.

The dream demon used its powers to intercept Jason’s soul thanks to Caligulas cursed blade that had killed him, and reached inside his mind to find out about Nico and figure out the best way to get Nico to come back to his worst nightmare.

And now that Hazel and Nico are both there that’s double the power to consume.

Turns out the entire thing was simply about a selfish monster playing with demigods. A tale as old as the beginning of mythology.

The demon taunts them saying he used Jason - son of the King of the Gods - as a little toy in order to easily bring his meal to him. Remarking how easy and quick it was to bait someone like Nico.

Someone who can never leave someone behind.

And Hazel, how easy it was to get her to follow her brother. Taunting that she’s just as stupid, gullible, and selfless…

The children of the underworld snap.

And all Hades breaks loose. Signaling to every monster within a 100 mile radius to know exactly where they are.

They battle together but the waves and waves of monsters is just too extreme. On the brink of inevitable death, a certain goddess appears.

The one who gave them the warnings in the form of fortune cookies. The one that sensed Nicos need for vengeance.

They escape with Nemesis help, but she wants something equally valuable in return for helping Nico and Hazel escape. Nico breaks down and agrees to relinquish all of his precious memories of Bianca and his past life in return for Hazel and a new possible future. A true balance in his heart.

Choosing Hazel over memories of Bianca makes Hazel cry and they bond stronger.

Strangely enough Nico becomes happier without the constant grief of his older sister on his shoulder.

In a way choosing to let her go the same way she did when she chose to be with the hunters.

And then once again when she chose reincarnation.

They still have to worry about Jason though who is constantly causing blood thunderstorms across Tartarus’s sky and wrecking havoc all over the place.

(Also it would be so funny to see Jason literally just… chase Nico and Hazel all over the place… flying after them screaming while they run for their lives bc they can’t see or hear due to the bloodstorm & huge booms of thunder and shit lol.)

Hazel manages to trap Jason in a kaleidoscope of his own storm and shadow with her mist magic and her and Nico manage to shadowtravel him to the ghostly boat that will lead them out. She lets him out but he’s struggling so much in his metal binds that Nico has to knock him out with a punch to the face bc he’s the only one that can touch ghosts.

They ferry up the river Acheron out of Tartarus and chat about what the fuck just happened down there.

Hades awaits them when they arrive.

He’s very angered that his two only living children disobeyed his strict order of not going down there, but relinquishes it eventually when he realizes how tired and beat up his kids look and praises them instead. Hades turns to Nico and states that his older sister would be proud of him. Which Nico replies with confusion saying he doesn’t have an older sister which saddens hades as he figures out what Nico had to give away.

He offers them both something they want.

Anything.

Hazel wishes for Jason to be cured of his mania, and Nico wishes to give Jason back a chance at life. As he still had so much work to do for the gods and goddesses that did not have shrines and action figures to respect them.

Both of these things surprise hades but he grudgingly does so (bc Jason is a son of Jupiter/zeus) saying that Nico and Hazel are indeed very special children.

Although Hades honors Nicos wish he can’t simply let a soul leave the underworld without a final test (hazel being the exception) and does something he did thousands of years ago with another hero begging for his wife’s soul back.

He tells Nico and Hazel they can lead Jason out of the underworld but only if they don’t look back at him. Across the fields of asphodel, across cerebus’ cavern, across the river styx, the journey on Charons boat, back up the many steps that lead to the mortal world…. If they look back once their friend is gone forever. Again…

They distract themselves with a deck of mythomagic cards Hazel stole from Frank (cause she wanted to know why her brother and boyfriend liked the game so much) much to Nico’s embarrassed delight. Nico’s so into explaining the game to Hazel, that the intense need to check if Jason’s still behind them dissipates a bit.

They only notice they’re outside when a wave of sunlight blinds them both and a large figure grabs them from behind.

Jason hugs the daylights out of Nico & Hazel crying like a little kid as months of memories of torment in Tartarus resurface into guilt.

Hades thinks it’s slightly amusing to see a tall muscular son of Jupiter being consoled by his two smaller children as he mentally watches the scene play out from his godly throne.

Nico says he kept the plans of the shrines Jason wanted to build and says maybe he can help with decorating (lol)

I’m gonna have to get an artist to draw a fancomic of this to heal my soul.

Also…. What the fuck did I just write?

[sithisreadingcorner]

Hi again! I hope life's treating you well. I would like to request a free August reading from you if possible. The last one really helped me a lot. My initials are A.P/Agnes 🦜 and i was born on 26.08.96. Im in a pretty tough spot in life right now. There's a lot of crappy things happening and i would like to ask for some life guidance from my spirit guides. Or just a general reading is fine too. Thank you in advance and have a beautiful day! 🍀

I'm so sorry to hear that you are going through such a rough time! I really hope this reading will give you something to work with. Let's see what your spirit guides have to say. (I'm also noticing that your birthday was just very recently, happy birthday! I will make this as detailed as I can!)

knight of swords. queen of wands (indulgent) the star (dream). three of swords

The things that have been happening to you have broken you down terribly, which I'm really sad to see but not surprised about. But other than that, they have also made you kind of... stagnant. I think you are in a position where you just kind of stand by while the things are happening to you. I'm absolutely sure none of the bad things that happened to you were your fault or did you even have a hand in them, so it wasn't like you could have done anything about those particular situations. But from the cards that I'm seeing here, your guides are trying to draw your attention from the fact that in other ways you have a TON of agency and you've become so apathetic that you are willingly giving it up. 😔

I want you to think of this differently. What has happened to you, is unfair, and it hurts. And that will maybe keep hurting, from some time coming. This is okay, and valid. But laying down and staying in that emotion, however valid it may be, is not good for you right now. There are a lot of things that you can't control in your life, but there are also some things that you CAN and the more you keep focusing on those, the easier the feeling will become.

There is something about the knight of swords that the booklet describes as the "flash of opportunity". There are tiny opportunities whooshing past you on a daily, or at the very least weekly, basis, but they are extremely small and brief and therefore hard to see their significance. So you let them pass by, because you are not looking, and this is really disheartening for your guides to see. Let me just say an example off the top of my head, just to illustrate it. You lose your job, and struggle to find another. You are interviewed for a position that you perceive as your dream job, but you don't get it. Then, it's easy to lose yourself in misery and do nothing. But what you are not seeing behind the scenes, is that there is a job ad somewhere online at this very moment that would happily hire you on the spot if you only applied. So, what you do, is wallow in your misery, A LITTLE BIT. And then go out and send another application. 💗

I also pulled a fortune cookie in the meantime and it says: "You should think of yourself every once in a while." Which reminds me of another very important point that I almost forgot to add. I think you need something new in your life that you create for yourself as a happy space. I don't know what it is, and it probably doesn't matter actually. Like starting a new sport, retrying a craft that you enjoyed in your childhood... I think this can be anything as long as it gives you a feeling of accomplishment. If you only have 10 minutes a day to spend on it, or just one hour a week, doesn't matter, but you must do it anyway. The most important thing is that this is a YOU party where no one else is invited. It doesn't need to accomplish anything special other than giving you an outlet and making you feel like you have the power to change things. You will see, that as your thinking changes, the way you view yourself and the world will change, and then your actions, and with that your situation will change as well.

Tbh this feels like a self-contained reading but I wanted to see if your guides have some kind of more concrete advice for you what to do next, but I wanted to do that from a different deck.

LXVII. THE STONE

"[...] A single stone may see thousands of generations come and go; therefore it contains an ancient and eternal presence. The stone is best to anchor our wild side, so no matter how far we roam, we can always find our way back. [...]"

LXII. THE SWORD

"To use the sword is to decide. [...] This weapon requires a clear and decisive mind and a willingness to act. [...] Decisions shape our life, and the sword is an infamous shaper of destiny."

LII. THE TEAR

"Tears are droplets of letting go. Once they begin to fall, we allow the swelling tide of emotion to run its elemental course. [...]"

You know, I think this is almost the same thing that I was saying earlier, but there is also a difference here. What is coming through, is a message of tough love. And I don't mean that your guides are mad at you or anything, rather: it's time for an era where you give that tough love to yourself. If you stop attaching yourself to your pain and tying yourself down with/to it, and instead confront it hands on, you are not making in any less valid - in fact you are honoring it. You cannot stay here forever. And if you do nothing new, nothing will change. It's time for you to really begin to heal, and start something new. 🥰

I hope this will help Agnes! And please let me know what you think of the reading! 💗 I'm recording the accuracy of my readings for a project, so for an honest review I would be super grateful 🙏

august readings (3 of 5)

tips? 💗

[sheponders]

Cancer horoscope for Thursday Oct 10 by Daily Horoscope (http://comitic.com/dh)

Cancer horoscope for Thursday Oct 10

An unexpected whoosh of good fortune is on its way to you, dear Moonchild. That is certainly something you have been hoping for, but you probably think that it's just wishful thinking given how unbalanced the last few days (or longer) have been. Yet you can expect things to improve for you, and rapidly at that once it begins. Things have not worked out all that well for you for a while now, and you may be running on empty emotionally. This burst of abundance and auspicious happenings can alter your feelings about the brightness of your future, if you let it.

--

Copyright © Daily Horoscope.

Download it now — http://comitic.com/dh

[coldflasher]

Title: don’t threaten me with a good time Chapters: 1/1 Length: 7.7k Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014) Rating: Gen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Minor/Background Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Kamilla Hwang, Barry Allen/Iris West Characters: Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Kamilla Hwang, Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost, Iris West, Leonard Snart, Original Male Characters Additional Tags: Alcohol, Drunken Shenanigans, Bisexual Barry Allen, The Flash 7x12 Good-bye Vibrations.

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this? “This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are eight stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It begins with stage one.”

Inspired by the Santiago Drunkenness Scale from Brooklyn-99. Team Flash are throwing a party to celebrate Kamilla and Cisco’s departure from Central City, and Kamilla wants to make sure they go out with a bang. But with great power comes great responsibility, and sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.

Read on AO3

@dctvgen​ (i hope this is okay!! didn’t really use any prompts but i had this one saved up and seemed like a good time to post it, lmk it’s not suitable!!)

Life came at you fast. After seven years being besties with a speedster, working to save the world, Cisco knew that to be true in more ways than one. But apparently despite everything he’d seen, it still had the capacity to surprise on him.

One minute the thought of leaving Central City had been a vague, abstract thought – a ‘what-if’ or a ‘maybe’ he dwelled upon whenever yet another crisis announced itself with a shower of broken glass raining into his Vibeuccino, or when he’d compared the news in Central City, which was all doom and gloom and murderous metas, to somewhere nice and peaceful like Keystone, where the biggest news story of the day was some kid winning the national Spelling Bee Championship. Then the job offer came in, and Kamilla had tested the waters with wanting to leave – and now their stuff was all packed and in boxes, he had a start date at ARGUS, and what had been a daydream was now a very clear reality. He’d hung up the gloves, said a final goodbye to Vibe.

It was the other goodbyes that were going to be the hard part.

“It just feels weird, you know?” he said, pausing in the middle of hanging bunting from the corner of the cortex. “We’re saying goodbye to everyone we know. This has been my life for almost eight years now. Team Flash are my family. It feels weird to celebrate leaving all that behind.”

“Don’t think of it as a celebration of what we’re leaving behind,” said Kamilla, who was sat at the desk, partway through ordering pizza. “Think of it as a celebration of everything we’ve accomplished. Making friends and building inventions and saving the world! I know it’s difficult and change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve done amazing things, and I think it’s important to honour that.”

Cisco sighed as he successfully stuck the flags to the wall. He climbed down from the table he was stood on and joined her at the desk in his usual chair, pushing himself back and forth with his foot. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right. I’m not getting cold feet, I promise. I’m excited. We’re going to make this work. We’ve done amazing things, and we’re going to do even more. Together.”

Kamilla beamed. “That’s the spirit.” She held out her hand for a fist-bump.

Grinning, Cisco returned it. “You’re such a dork.”

“Which is exactly why you love me,” Kamilla countered, with a few final clicks and a flourish as she placed the pizza order. She consulted the list on her phone. “Okay, so we’ve got the cake, the decorations, the drinks, and the pizza is in transit. There’s just one more thing we need.”

She slid past him and made her way towards the small metallic fridge tucked away in the corner. Kamilla typed in the passcode 05-20-80 – the release date of The Empire Strikes Back – and the fridge unlocked with a clunk, revealing two test tube holders – one containing a single emergency vial of Velocity IX, and another that held eight tubes of liquid a few shades lighter than blood.

Cisco glanced over, bemused. “Babe, did you stash your Kraft beers in my security fridge? Because that seems a little excessive.”

Kamilla eased the second rack of tubes off the shelf like a tray of freshly baked cookies out of the oven. “No, I’m just getting a couple of vials of 500 proof for Barry. I didn’t want him to feel left out of the festivities.”

Cisco had met a lot of speedsters in his time, but in that moment he was pretty sure he moved faster than any of them as he sprinted across the room to intercept. Startled, Kamilla jerked back and the test tubes clinked together like champagne glasses mid-toast.

“Sorry, can we just back up a little bit – you’re what now?” said Cisco.

“I’m grabbing some drinks for Barry,” Kamilla repeated slowly. “This is his special speedster booze, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cisco said nervously. “It is, but…”

“But…?” Kamilla prompted.

“Listen,” he said, hands up in a pacifying gesture. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but that is a highly controlled substance and it’s really in everyone’s best interests if you put it back.”

Kamilla grew wide-eyed. “Why? Is it dangerous?”

“I mean, if any normal person drank it, it’d pretty much liquidize their insides, but that’s not the problem.”

As he spoke, Cisco headed over to the shelf on the wall, ran his fingers along the various binders tucked onto the shelf, and pulled one off. Cisco carried it over to the table, pushed aside the keyboard and laid the folder flat in front of her.

“The problem,” he said, flipping it open, “is this.”

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this?”

“This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He picked up the metal test tube rack and returned it to the fridge, his fingers flying across the buttons to input the code before he slid the vials back into place. “It’s also the reason why this stuff doesn’t leave the lab except in dire emergencies, including but not limited to break-ups, deaths and severe metahuman disasters.” Decisively, he closed the fridge and it locked again with a clunk and a beep.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you are fortunate enough to have never before encountered an inebriated Barry Allen,” said Cisco. “Let me walk you through it.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are nine stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It starts with stage one.”

 1 DRINK BARRY: A LITTLE CLINGY

One of Barry’s many wonderful qualities is his propensity for affection. Unimpeded by the bounds of modern-day toxic masculinity, 1 Drink Barry generously bestows physical affection on everyone he encounters. To put it plainly: he’s a hugger.

Standing outside Barry and Iris’ front door, Cisco checked his watch.

Usually at this time of night, he’d be hanging out in the cortex watching the red dot darting around on the monitor as Barry did a lap of the city, or in his lab tinkering with some new invention. Tonight, though, was different. They’d all agreed work was off-limits – time to take a hard-earned break. Cisco had been looking forward to it all week, but he guessed the rest of Team Flash didn’t share his enthusiasm, because they were late. That wasn’t like Caitlin at all. Shrugging, he lifted his hand to knock.

The click of heels made him turn just in time to see Caitlin bouncing up the stairs in her heels. “Hi, I’m here! Sorry I’m late; Frost and I couldn’t agree on an outfit.” She leaned in. “Did you bring the, uh…”

Cisco slid a silver flask out of his pocket slightly. “Sure did.”

“Then I guess we’re ready to go!”

“Damn right. …Ladies first?”

Caitlin knocked. They waited, listening to the rattle of six locks being unfastened one at a time, until the door opened to reveal Iris standing on the threshold wearing a tight red dress and a leather jacket.

Cisco whistled. “Damn. You look good.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” said Iris as she stepped back from the door to allow them entry. “Barry will be down in a second, he got held up at work, so he’s a little behind –”

There was a whoosh and a crackle of lightning, and Barry skidded to a stop beside her with windswept hair and a grin. “Here! Hey, guys.”

“Oh. Famous last words.” Iris reached for her purse and swung it onto her shoulder. “Well I’m also running late, so I’d better get going. You guys have fun! And try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

“I’m afraid we can’t make any promises, cos everybody knows there ain’t no party like a Team Flash party!” said Cisco. “You sure you don’t wanna come with us? It’s gonna be one hell of a night.”

“Thank you, but I’m going out with a couple of the girls from CCPN tonight, so… rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Cisco warned.

“You’d better.” She rested her hand on Barry’s arm. “I’ll see you later, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Barry, and he leaned in for a kiss.

“Boo! Get a room!” Cisco hollered.

Iris rolled her eyes fondly. “Goodbye, Cisco,” she said, and headed out.

Cisco sighed. “And then there were three.” He looked from Barry to Caitlin and back again, stretching out on the sofa. “Okay, drinks!” He headed into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.

“Uh, isn’t the drinking supposed to start after you leave the house?” asked Caitlin.

“Only if you’re an amateur! You always have a drink or two before going out on the town. It’s financially savvy.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” said Barry when Cisco offered him a glass. “No use wasting perfectly good alcohol when it doesn’t even touch the sides.”

“That,” said Cisco, “is why you’ll be drinking this.” He pulled out a silver flask from inside the breast pocket of his blazer. “I call it 500 Proof 2,” he said, and held it dramatically aloft like Frodo holding the one ring.

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “Really?” she said.

“The name’s a work in progress,” he admitted. “But the drink itself…” He kissed the flask. “She’s ready to go.”

Barry eyed the flask warily. “I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on, you’ve earned it. The city can manage without the Flash for one night. Go on, live a little.” When Barry continued to look skeptical, Cisco started to chant. “Barry, Barry, Barry–”

Grinning, Caitlin joined in. Barry endured it for all of thirty seconds before he rolled his eyes and snatched the flask. Caitlin and Cisco both cheered.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Cisco.

He splashed wine into his and Caitlin’s glasses, and passed one to her. She took it with a twinkle in her eye.

“All right, Team Flash!” Cisco whooped, and they clinked their glasses against Barry’s flask before they all drank.

Barry pulled a face. “Jesus! That’s – that’s potent.” He coughed, eyes watering.

“You’re welcome,” said Cisco. “We made a couple of tweaks to the formula. It should stay in your system longer instead of just burning off in thirty seconds flat like the first batch.”

“It tastes like rocket fuel!”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll put some hairs on your chest,” Cisco said dismissively.

“You can say that again,” muttered Barry, massaging his chest.

“Speaking of hairs on your chest,” said Caitlin, curling up comfortably in her seat. “Did they grow back yet?”

“Not entirely,” admitted Barry. “It’s sort of a peach fuzz.”

“That’ll teach you not to get so close to my experiments,” said Cisco.

“Maybe it’ll teach you to label them better,” said Caitlin.

“Really? Don’t do me like that!”

“Sorry, it’s true.”

This triggered a bout of good-natured bickering as they debated the results of some of Cisco’s more disastrous experiments. Before long they were all laughing, loosened up by the drinks. Barry, who was perched on the arm of Caitlin’s chair, leaned against her.

“I love you guys, you know that?”

“We love you too, Barr – ooof! Oh. Okay,” said Caitlin, bewildered. Barry had slid off the arm of the chair and squeezed up next to her, taking up half the chair like a Great Dane still trying to sit in its owner’s lap.

“Look at him, he’s getting tipsy already,” Cisco teased.

“Shhh.” Barry rested his head contentedly on Caitlin’s shoulder. Amused, she patted his knee.

Cisco downed the rest of his drink. “All right, let’s get this show on the road.”

He offered Caitlin his hand – only to have Barry grab it instead. Then he grabbed Caitlin’s hand too.

“Oh, we’re holding hands?” said Cisco. “Is that a thing we do now?”

“It is when we’re running,” Barry said, grinning.

Caitlin’s eyes widened. “Oh. No, no, no runni–”

The rest of her sentence was lost to the wind.

 2 DRINK BARRY: KINDA CLUMSY

When Barry became a speedster, he gained a massive boost in motor functions, including enhanced reflexes that have massively improved his coordination. Prior to this transformation, his ability to walk unhindered across a flat surface was roughly equal to that of Bella Swan from Twilight. Two-Drink Barry is harmless, but he must be kept at a safe distance from breakable objects.

 Okay, so travelling at super speed sucked – Cisco would stick to breaches from now on, than you very much – but he had to admit it had its advantages. They’d beaten the evening rush by minutes and found themselves a table, where they had been comfortably situated for the past half hour. Since then the bar had filled rapidly, and now they were surrounded by people. Glasses clinked, bodies gyrated. All around them was laughter and the throb of music; he could feel the buzz of the bass against his elbows where they rested on the table.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” asked Caitlin. “No monsters, no metahumans… just the three of us having a few quiet drinks.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Cisco said darkly. “Also, I don’t know that the ‘drinks’ part is entirely accurate. The fastest man alive is about to lose his title. Where the hell is he?” Barry had offered to get the next round, but that was ten minutes ago and they hadn’t seen him since. Frowning, Cisco and scanned the room.

Just as he had started to get concerned, the crowd parted and Barry appeared with three glasses in his hands.

“It’s about time! What took you?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Barry. “I got held up at the bar, there was a huge li–”

Whatever he’d been about to say next was cut off as he abruptly tripped over his own feet.

All three drinks spilled everywhere. Lightning flickered as he lurched forwards to try and intercept, and he managed to right the glasses, but not before the majority of their contents had ended up all over the table.

Cisco’s plastic cup floated across the tabletop in a puddle of dismally fizzing coke, which dripped steadily into his lap. Caitlin looked down at her soaked sweater, hands held up in shock. Her eyes flared white.

“This,” snarled Frost, “is a cashmere sweater.”

Barry’s eyes were wide. “Oh my God, guys, I am so sorry.”

With a jerk of her head, Caitlin regained control. “It’s fine,” she said, then winced, presumably in response to whatever Frost snarled in the back of her head. “Really. It happens to the best of us.” She pulled the sopping wet fabric away from her with a grimace. “Um… does anyone have a tissue?”

“Let me get some paper towels!” said Barry.

Cisco reached out to stop him. “Actually, Barr, maybe you should –”

But it was too late: Barry had already turned around and crashed into a guy going in the opposite direction, who slopped beer all over himself. Cisco winced sympathetically.

“I’m sorry!” Barry said, while the guy glared and shook his wet hands.

“Maybe you should take a seat,” said Cisco.

Still apologising profusely, Barry sank onto his stool and shrank in on himself, nursing what was left of his drink while Caitlin went to get something to clear up the mess.

“So I guess those adjustments we made to the 500 proof are working, huh?” Cisco said with a smirk.

“Oh, they’re working,” said Barry. “Speaking of which, can I get a top-up?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Caitlin asked, returning with a wad of paper towels. She started to mop up the table.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not even buzzed, seriously. Tipsy at best. Come on, hit me.” He waved at his drink.

Cisco and Caitlin exchanged looks. There was a slight flush to Barry’s cheeks, and his eyes were a little brighter than usual, but other than that he seemed stable.

“I have wanted to study how the speedforce interacts with alcohol,” Caitlin admitted. “Metabolic processes aside, I am interested to measure the effects.”

“What the hell,” Cisco said. He unscrewed the cap of the flask and tipped it in to Barry’s glass, pouring a generous measure. “Knock yourself out.”

Barry beamed and picked up his drink. “Cheers,” he said, and they all clinked their half empty glasses.

 Three Drink Barry: Barry Dance-Pants

This Barry is able to flawlessly replicate the choreography for every single Britney Spears music video unprompted. So far we have been unable to determine where he acquired this information.

They all agreed that it was best if Cisco got the next round. He didn’t retrieve the next lot of drinks any faster than Barry had – if anything, he was slower; people kept shoving in front of him every time he got close to the bar – but at least the glasses stayed upright this time. When he returned to the table, though, Caitlin was alone.

“Where’d Barry go?”

Caitlin frowned. “I thought he was with you.”

“Nope.” He passed her drink over to her.

Caitlin worried at her lower lip.

“Hey, don’t stress,” said Cisco. “Barry’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

“I don’t know. He’s been gone a while, and he wasn’t exactly steady on his feet. He might hurt himself.”

“Good thing we have a doctor on call,” said Cisco, sipping his drink.

“That’s not funny. Seriously, I’m worried about him. I’m not sure he should be left unsupervised.”

She had a point. Speed and immense clumsiness wasn’t a great combination – they’d learned that the hard way. Cisco downed the rest of his drink with a grimace. “All right, let’s go look for him.”

They got up and headed out onto the dancefloor. The music was so loud that the entire room vibrated, Britney Spears’ Womanizer throbbing through the room. Caitlin pulled back and made a face as she almost inhaled a mouthful of some stranger’s coarse blonde hair. She batted it away like cobwebs.

“Ugh. Remind me why we decided to come out on the busiest night of the week?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” muttered Cisco, craning his neck. “Man, I can’t see him anywhere. It’s like playing Where’s Wally? Hey – hey, excuse me! Can I just squeeze – guys?” He attempted to slide past a knot of people, only to give up with a frustrated sigh. “Jesus, it’s like talking to a brick wall. What the hell are they looking at?”

Caitlin stood on her toes. “It looks like...” She stopped. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

She grabbed his arm and steered him through the crowd, using him as a battering ram to force her way through. Eventually, breathless and sweaty, they made it to the outskirts of the dancefloor, where Cisco finally got a good look at exactly what had captivated everyone’s attention.  

Barry was in the middle of the dancefloor, tearing it up. He strutted up and down, squatted and slut-dropped before he arched his back and pumped his hips forward in several lewd thrusts. The crowd cheered.

“Oh my God,” said Caitlin.

“He is killing it!” Cisco cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Yes, Barry!”

Barry winked and blew a kiss, rolling over to air-hump the ground with an alarming level of enthusiasm.

“Should we maybe go over there?” asked Caitlin.

“In a second,” said Cisco. He held his phone up, pressed record and zoomed in on Barry’s gyrating body, careful to keep his face in shot. “I wanna get this for posterity’s sake.”

“Cisco!” Caitlin scolded, and reached out to cover the camera.

Cisco jerked the phone out of reach. “You are aware that his ringtone for you is still thirty seconds of you butchering Summer Lovin’?”

Caitlin pursed her lips. “On second thoughts,” she said. “I hope you’re getting this in HD.”

Cisco grinned and went back to recording.

*

“Okay, that’s a little embarrassing,” Kamilla conceded.

“That? That was iconic,” corrected Cisco. “The man has moves. I swear he was a professional dancer in another life. I still have that video; I’ll show you later if you ask me nicely…”

“I’ll hold you to it. But none of this explains why this stuff has to be so rigorously controlled. I mean, being clumsy, affectionate, kinda sloppy, tearing it up on the dancefloor… that sounds like pretty standard drunk behaviour.”

“The first three drinks aren’t the problem,” Cisco said darkly. “It’s what comes after that you have to worry about. See, drunk Barry is insatiable. One drink is never enough. Once he’s had a taste of that sweet, sweet 500 proof concentrated speedster juice, he won’t rest until he’s had more. And while he may be an icon, three-drink Barry soon gives way to…”

 FOUR-DRINK BARRY: LOUD BARRY.

Barry Allen is a hero in every sense of the word. Time and time again he has sacrificed everything for the noble goal of making the world a better place. Barry doesn't save lives for the glory or the recognition; he does it because it's the right thing to do. But four-drink Barry… he thinks a little recognition might be nice.

 The final chords of Womanizer faded out into a sea of applause. Beaming from ear to ear, Barry took a series of bows, flapping his hand as if to say, ‘oh, stop it!’ After a few more moments of thoroughly enjoying the spotlight, he disengaged from his loving admirers and headed back towards Cisco and Caitlin and slid breathlessly back into the booth. His sweaty hair stuck to his forehead.

“Where did that come from?” Cisco asked, impressed.

Barry shrugged. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Clearly. I think you just earned yourself another drink!”

Cisco handed him the flask, and Barry clinked it cheerfully against Cisco’s beer bottle before he tipped it back and swallowed with a grimace. His eyes watered.

“Damn. That never goes down any easier.”

“Well it is just concentrated alcohol,” Caitlin reminded him. “Speaking of which…” She pulled her testing kit out of her purse. “Four drinks should be more than enough to start showing some side-effects. Let me take a quick blood sample.” Before Barry could object, she stabbed a lancet into his finger.

“Ow!” Barry put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it.

“Everything okay there?”

They all turned. A blond man in a grey t-shirt stood a short distance away, looking at them in concern.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m good. Just hurt my finger.” He held it up ruefully.

Blondie moved closer. “Well it’s your lucky night: I’m a nurse. Why don’t you let me take a look?”

Cisco plastered on a smile. “That’s real nice of you, but our friend here is actually a doctor, so –”

Barry held out his hand, overriding Cisco’s objections. Blondie took it and examined it, tracing his palm with the tip of his finger. Cisco rolled his eyes hard and took another swallow of his drink.

“I was just watching you out on the dancefloor,” Blondie said. “Those were some impressive moves.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Barry said modestly.

“No, it was definitely something. If I busted out a routine like that I’d be laid up for a week. What’s your secret?”

“Funny you should say that, cos…” Barry leaned in and said impishly, “I’m actually the Flash.”

Cisco choked on his drink. It went straight up his nose; his sinuses were on fire. He coughed hard, eyes watering.

“Are you okay, man?” the stranger asked concernedly.

“Great,” Cisco managed.

Satisfied, Blondie’s attention returned to Barry. “Well, I think your finger’s okay.” His thumb pressed against the inside of Barry’s wrist and his forehead creased slightly. “Your pulse is pretty fast, though.”

“Is it?” Barry said, resting his chin on his hand. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes.

Blondie released him, but he showed no signs of leaving. He looked Barry appraisingly up and down. “So you’re the Flash, huh?”

“Yep,” Barry said. His eyes twinkled. “Fastest man alive.”

“Mm. Maybe we’ll have to test that.”

At this point, Cisco decided, enough was enough. He slapped Barry on the back hard enough to make him stagger and complain, “Ow!”

“Ha!” he said. “This guy. He’s a kidder, right? A real riot. Hey, uh, Barry, can I talk to you for a second?”

Before Barry could object, Cisco had grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him out of the main bar area into the corridor, where there was a line of people waiting for the bathroom. Out here it was cooler and while he could still feel the throb of the music through the sticky soles of his sneakers, at least he could hear himself think.

“Dude,” he said. “Seriously? What the hell?”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a little harmless flirting. Iris and I, we have an agreement–”

“I’m not talking about the flirting! You can’t just –” Cisco stopped and made himself take a very deep breath before he lowered his voice. “You can’t just tell people you’re the freaking Flash!”

Barry gave a slow, confused blink. “But I am the Flash.”

He didn’t say it quietly. Several heads turned their way.

Cisco gave an uncomfortable laugh and rolled his eyes, before darting them at Barry like, ‘this guy, am I right?’ After a moment, the bystanders lost interest and went back to their conversation, and Cisco lowered his voice. “I know that, Barry, but it’s a secret, remember?”

“A secret?” Barry’s eyes widened and he clapped his hands over his mouth. “Oh! Right, I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“You know what? It’s all good. Just a little misunderstanding. But uh, let’s keep that one under wraps from now on, okay? Lips…” He mimed zipping up his mouth.

Barry nodded dutifully. “Got it.”

“Okay.” Cisco exhaled heavily. Jesus. Babysitting a drunken speedster was hard work.

Barry patted him on the shoulder. “M’gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in…” He held up two fingers. “Two seconds.”

“You’d better be. And remember –” He made the zipping motion again.

Barry imitated it, pretending to lock his mouth up and tossed away the imaginary key. Then he went to join the queue.

Feeling like he’d just aged a decade, Cisco made his way back to their booth. Mercifully, Blondie had gone to chat up some twink at the bar. Cisco sank back onto his stool and buried his head in his hands.

Caitlin, who was squeezing a few droplets of Barry’s blood onto a testing strip, made a sympathetic sound. “Not having a good time, huh?”

“I’d be having a great time if Black Canary over there could quit singing about his secret identity for five freaking minutes.” Cisco snatched the silver flask off the table and screwed the cap back on with a sharp twist. “We’re cutting him off right now, before we get into any more trouble.”

“Oh, come on, cut him a little slack. He doesn’t exactly get to let loose very often.”

“There’s letting loose and then there’s whatever the hell this is.” Cisco shook his head. “It’s like –”

A high-pitched shriek cut him off, and Cisco grimaced as it rang throughout the room. Everyone turned to the source of the commotion – and Cisco’s heart sank. Barry stood on the stage, fumbling with the microphone stand.

“Is this thing on?”

“Oh God,” said Caitlin.

Cisco launched himself at the stage, fighting through the crowd. As he did, Barry continued to ramble into the mic.

“Hi. My name’s Barry, Barry Allen, and I just wanted to say something real quick. Because I love this city. It’s like… my favourite city. And I love all of you. Especially you.” He pointed unsteadily at someone in the crowd and gave a clumsy wink. “Anyway, I’m gonna tell you a secret while I’m here. You guys can keep a secret, right? Shhh!” He put his fingers on his lips. “See, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but…” He leaned in so close that his lips brushed against the mic. “I’m the Fla –”

Just in time, Cisco jerked the mic away from him. “Flaaa–ha! Okay, that’s quite enough of that. I think my buddy here needs some air.  Come on, Barry, let’s go.”

Luckily, Barry didn’t resist. He whooshed cheerfully as Cisco shunted him back to their booth and into his seat, then lolled sideways against Caitlin, who – with reflexes well-honed from constantly grabbing flying paperwork – managed to save her testing kit from being swept off the table.

Barry giggled. “I’m fast,” he said.

“Okay,” Cisco said resignedly. He turned to Caitlin. “Got any better ideas?”

She shrugged. “Pray that six-drink Barry is a little more tight-lipped?”

It sounded like a terrible idea. But when had that ever stopped them? With a shake of his head, Cisco withdrew the flask from his pocket.

“Hold on.” Caitlin’s voice had dropped an octave, and silver began to creep down from the roots of her hair. “I wanna see this,” said Frost. “It’s gonna be a total shitshow.”

Unfortunately, Cisco suspected she was right. He splashed more alcohol into Barry’s glass. “Here you go, big guy. Drink up.”

Barry looked down at his drink and frowned. “Can I get ice in this?”

Frost passed her hand over the glass and a chunk of ice dropped to the bottom with a clink.

“Awesome,” Barry said, and downed it.

“Oh God,” said Cisco. “We are so gonna regret this.”

 *

“Okay,” said Kamilla, looking up from the binder. “I think I’m kinda starting to see the problem. But we won’t have that issue tonight. Everyone at this party knows Barry’s the Flash.”

“Listen,” said Cisco. “Four-drink Flash is a cake-walk. The worst is yet to come.” He flipped the page. “Let me introduce you to five-drink Flash.”

*

 5 DRINK BARRY: THERAPIST BARRY

Five-drink Barry got a little too invested in Iris’ Intro to Psychology textbook in college. He’s all heart, zero clinical training.

Leonard Snart lay back on his bunk in Iron Heights, one leg resting lazily over the other, flipping through a nudie magazine. At least, that was how it appeared from outside the cell. Tucked between the pages was a blueprint of the prison, which his sister had smuggled in during her last visit. The bed creaked as he shifted his weight.

One of the guards struck the bars with his baton. Len glanced up.

“Snart. Get your ass out here. We’ve got a phone call for you.”

“Who from?” Lisa didn’t usually call so soon after a visit, and Mick never called at all; the signal on the Waverider was terrible.

“What do you think I am, your PA? Just get your ass out here.”

Interest well and truly piqued, Len tossed his magazine aside, careful to make sure the blueprint stayed safely tucked between his pages as he crossed the cell and waited for the door to be unlocked. Given his status as a high security prisoner, the guard cuffed him before leading him to the payphone booth in the reception area, the walls marked with grease stains and graffiti. With some difficulty, Len picked up the phone.

“Hello, this is Leonard Snart speaking. How may I be of service?”

The quality of the call wasn’t great. He could hear the throb of music, people talking and shrieking and laughing in the background.

Then a familiar voice said, “Snart? Is that you?”

Len’s forehead creased. “Barry?”

“Shmart. Snart.” Barry cleared his throat. “Hi. Are you okay?”

“…Peachy.” Len flicked a glance over his shoulder. The two prison guards stood watching him with folded arms and distinctly unimpressed expressions. “Can I ask if this is a business or a personal call? Because this isn’t exactly a secure line.”

“I just –” A loud, deep burp echoed down the line. “Wanted to check in n’ make sure you’re doin’ okay.”

“What?”

“Because I wanted you to know,” Barry said, his voice thick and indistinct, “that it’s okay not to be okay, you know? You shouldn’t bottle up your emotions. You gotta let ‘em out, you know? After everything you’ve been through with Lewis, I just wanted you to know that if you ever needed to talk…” He choked up, before recovering. “I’ll be here.”

“Barry, are you drunk?” Len said incredulously.

“See, there you go again, changing the subject. Have you ever noticed that you often use de… def… deflection as a way to avoid talking about difficult subjects?”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Len.

“No, no, no, no, wait! Wait!” Barry said urgently. “You need to talk about what bothers you. Don’t just bottle it up. Your emotions are a beautiful thing. Emotions are what make us–”

“Barry?” came another muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Who are you talking to?”

“No one,” Barry said immediately.

“Barry, give me the phone.”

“No.”

“Just give me the god damn –”

The sound of static and scuffles crackled down the line, and Len grimaced, lifting his head as far away from the speaker as he could to keep from being deafened. Over the commotion and the continued music blasting in the background, he could hear Barry shouting.

“You can be anything you want to be! Your past does not define you!”

“Okay,” said Len, and went to put the phone down.

“Wait!” said Barry. “Before you go, do you have a number for King Shark? Because I wanted to check in and make sure he’s doing okay. I know he looks scary, but underneath that slimy exterior he has the heart of a –”

Len rolled his eyes and hung up.

*

Sober Barry was a seasoned fighter, with speed, agility and hard-won experience on his side. Fortunately for Cisco, however, Drunk Barry’s combat skills comprised of slapping and some half-hearted attempts to bite, which meant that he was able to wrestle the phone away from him fairly easily. As he hung up, he glanced at the caller ID and blanched.

“Seriously? You’re making phone calls to Iron Heights? Are you gonna tell all the bad guys your secret identity too?” He held Barry’s phone up. “You know what? I’m keeping this; you clearly can’t be trusted.”

“My phone!” Barry said, and made a pathetic grab for it.

“Nope. Not happening, pal.” Cisco tucked it into his back pocket.

Barry pouted.

“Hey, don’t give me that look. I’m going to give it back later, I promise. I just need you to sober up first.”

“Okay,” Barry said sorrowfully. His bottom lip started to tremble.

“Oh, no,” Cisco said. “Not the lip – oh God, Barr, you’re breaking my heart here.”

“What’s happening?” asked Frost, returning to the table with two more beers, frost creeping down the side of the bottles. She gave a disinterested look at Barry, who was staring at the table with tears brimming in his eyes. He sniffed hard.

“Uh-oh,” said Cisco. “Six-drink Barry must be…”

 SIX-DRINK BARRY: SAD BARRY

Shortly after his fifth drink, Barry loses his well-honed ability to repress and crumbles under the weight of well over a decade of trauma. In times of crisis, he can be medicated with chicken wings or, in a pinch, large servings of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

 Cisco turned to Frost for help, but she inched away, rapidly shaking her head. Great, thought Cisco. Super helpful. He rubbed Barry’s back tentatively.

“Hey, Barry. You doing okay there, bud?”

Barry looked up. “I just got off the phone with Snart. He’s having a really hard time, you know? I mean, some people just can’t catch a break. He had a crappy abusive drunk for a father; he practically raised his sister. In and out of juvie, never graduated high school – and in spite of all of that, he comes up with these brilliant heists – like seriously impressive – and then the Flash comes in and totally ruins every single one of them. I mean, come on. The guy’s gotta make a living somehow, am I right?”

“Uh,” said Cisco.

“I always said to him, you can do better.” He poked Cisco clumsily in the chest to emphasize each word. “You have what it takes to be a hero. So the guy joins the Legends, becomes a hero, and then he freaking dies in an explosion. Kaboom! And then he comes back, returns to Central City to start over, robs one lousy bank and gets thrown straight back in prison. How is that fair?”

“Jail time seems like a fairly reasonable consequence for grand larceny,” said Frost.

“It’s just a bad habit,” Barry said forlornly. “He deserves help and compassion, not a prison cell. Do you know what it’s like in Iron Heights? The food is terrible. My Dad spend a decade in there and he always said…”

He trailed off. For a moment Cisco thought he’d gone into a trance, as he stared down at the table, forehead slightly creased. Then he saw the haunted look in Barry’s eyes. The face of a man who had seen terrible things.

They needed a distraction. Luckily, Cisco had just the thing. “You know what?” he said. “Maybe the food in prison isn’t great, but you know what’s awesome? The food you can get delivered right here. Nice, starchy, alcohol-absorbing food. Let’s look at a take-out menu and see what we’ve got.” He pulled up JustEat on his phone. “We could get you a pizza… maybe some fries… a couple of burgers; that sounds–”

“Chicken wings,” Barry said distantly.

They both turned to look at him.

“Chicken wings?” said Frost sceptically.

“Chicken wings,” Barry insisted.

“Okay!” said Cisco. “We’ll get chicken wings.” He added one portion to the basket. Then took another look at Barry’s face and hit the plus button several times. “Lots… and lots… of chicken wings.” He locked the phone. “Okay, food should be with us in a couple of minutes. So what now?”

“More drinks!” Barry said.

“No! No more –”

It was too late; there was a crackle of lightning and then the flask slammed back down onto the tabletop.

Cisco closed his eyes in defeat.

 8 Drink Barry is a Michelin-star chef

Sober Barry’s cooking is average at best, but 8 drink Barry reveals a deep inner passion for the culinary arts.

It was a little past two am when a breach opened at the top of the stairwell, pulsing and flickering with pale blue light. Frost and Cisco staggered out of it, each holding one of Barry’s arms to keep him from escaping.

“Okay, almost there,” said Cisco. “You’re doing a great job. Can you let us in?”

Barry patted himself clumsily down until he found his keys and tried to open the first lock. He kept missing the keyhole. After his third attempt, Barry sighed and collapsed forwards, head resting against the wood panelling. Then he started vibrating.

Cisco suddenly realised what he was trying to do. “No, no wait, don’t–”

There was a buzzing sensation, a sickening lurch, and then all three of them fell straight through the front door.

Frost gave a full-body shudder and released her hold on Barry’s shirt to rub her arms.

“Never do that again! It makes my skin crawl.”

“I feel like we should have a rule about phasing under the influence,” Cisco muttered.

Together, they managed to get Barry onto the couch, where he lay blinking up at them, floppy as a rag doll, barbecue sauce smeared down his chin. More of the wings had ended up on his face than in his mouth, but Cisco hoped the restorative properties would kick in soon.

“Hey, Sad Flash. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m hungry,” Barry said. He clawed his way to a standing position. “Gonna make food.” Yellow light blazed as he sprinted into the kitchen.

Frost turned to Cisco. “He’s still hungry? He had like, eight servings of chicken wings!”

“Just go with it,” Cisco muttered, and then the alarming sounds of crashes and bangs came from the kitchen. “Barry? Do you need some help in there?”

Lightning crackled erratically as Barry sped around the room. Within seconds, every available surface was strewn with culinary equipment: a chopping board; a stained knife; various ingredients. A knife flashed as he rapidly diced an onion and swept it into the pan too fast for the eye to follow, and then the burner came on with a click and a whoosh. Oil sizzled as Barry dropped a steak into the pan. He grabbed a wine bottle off the side, yanked the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room; it missed Frost by inches, and she recoiled in disgust. Barry sniffed the wine, and after a moment of consideration, he sloshed a generous amount into the pan. Flames leapt skyward, and Barry expertly tamped them down.

“Uh… what are you doing?” said Cisco.

Barry flipped the steak with a flick of his wrist. “Cooking.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but I thought you were going to make pasta, or fries, you know – normal drunk people food, not –” Cisco inhaled. “What even is that?”

“Braised steak in a red wine sauce, with asparagus on the side,” Barry said.

“…Right,” said Cisco. “Sorry I asked.”

*

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Kamilla.

“It isn’t,” said Cisco. “It’s goddamn awesome. The problem with 8-Drink Barry is that hot on his heels is –”

*

9 DRINK BARRY – SLEEPY BARRY.

On the night the particle accelerator exploded, Barry went into a coma and remained unconscious for nine months. During that time, his score on the Glasgow Coma Scale was a 5. Rumour has it that nine-drink Barry scored even lower than that.

 “This is the worst night out I’ve ever been on in my life, and I share a body with Caitlin. Her idea of fun is wearing hideous pyjamas and watching documentaries on Hulu,” Frost hissed.

They stood on the doorstep laden with plastic bags while Cisco searched through the assortment of keys Barry had given him, trying to find the one for the first lock. “Look,” he said, inserting one into the lock with a crunch, “I know it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, but hopefully he’ll have got the rest of it out of his system while we were out breaching to every grocery store in the city.”

“Right, because Gordon Ramsay in there had to have…” Frost slid the bottle of wine out of the grocery bag. “Whatever the hell this is. Chateau Belair Mona–whatever. As if a hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle is going to taste any different than the fifteen-dollar fifty bottle from the liquor store.” She rolled her eyes. “What the hell is he even going to do with it?”

“To be honest, as long as he doesn’t drink it I could care less what he does with it. Just keep him distracted for long enough to get some more food inside of him and make sure any breakable objects are out of reach before he gets down to the two-drink level.” He shook the keys in frustration. “Jesus, how many keys do they have?”

“I still don’t see why we had to–” Frost paused and narrowed her eyes. She sniffed sharply. “Is something burning?”

They looked down. Thick grey smoke billowed out from underneath the kitchen door.

Seconds later, the door burst off its hinges in a cloud of icy fog.

Inside the loft was total chaos. Barry slumped at the kitchen table, dead to the world, his hand still loosely clasped around the flask of speedster booze. A small puddle of drool on the table shone in the firelight. Behind him, his frying pan lay abandoned on the range, smoking violently while flames leapt towards the ceiling.

The piercing shriek of the smoke alarm tore through the room. Frost blasted the frying pan with a thick stream of ice and cold energy crackled from her palms, barely making a difference in the temperature of the room. Cisco grabbed a damp tea towel off the side and beat at the flames, trying frantically to extinguish the blaze. Behind them, Barry didn’t so much as twitch, his snores drowned out by the alarm.

*

“Okay, I think I get the gist,” said Kamilla, looking up from the folder. “No-booze Barry is the way to go.” She hesitated. “But just out of morbid curiosity, what about nine-drink Barry?”

“Unchartered territory,” Cisco said darkly. “We figured eight drinks was enough.”  He closed the folder conclusively. “So yeah, it sucks that Barry can’t drink with us, but with great power comes great responsibility. And sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t accidentally break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.”

Cisco went to slide the folder back onto the shelf. As he did so, his gaze caught a framed photo on the countertop. He paused and picked it up, smiling sadly. It was a picture of himself, Caitlin, Barry and Thawne – or Wells, as they’d believed back then – from the early days. They all looked so young, grinning at the camera, hair tousled where Barry had sped out from behind the phone before the shutter clicked. His chest ached.

Kamilla put a hand on his arm. “You’re going to miss them, aren’t you?”

“Always.” He put the photo down. “But we gotta keep moving forward. Speaking of which, it is beyond uncool to be late to your own party, so we’d better get shaking.” He held out his arm. “Ready?”

“You go,” said Kamilla. “I just have a few last-minute things to take care of. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay.” Cisco kissed her on the cheek and slipped out of the room.

Kamilla glanced over her shoulder, bit her lower lip. Then her gaze slid over to the fridge.

Tiptoeing across the room, she approached the container and input the code again. Her hair tossed as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one was watching. Then she slid out a single blood red vial and tucked it into her purse.

Just in case.

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Arc IV: Megamart of Darkness (5)

Chapter 5: He is the One Called Sailor Silverstein

           It was definitely ol’ Shelly Boy, though he’d changed a bit since I saw him last. Specifically, he now more a miniskirt with long red boots and carried a staff that reeked of cheap Chinese plastic.

One second slowed to five as my mind tried to put together what, exactly, the hell I was looking at.

Shel posed dramatically. “Watterson Tostig! You have escaped the Underworld without a permit. In the name off the powers vested in me by the Archangels of Thune, I will punish you. B!tch!”

Well, I went and did what any wayward soul with even the slightest lick of common sense would do: I started climbing like the dickens. Just when I thought I had a chance of getting away, lightning shot out of Ben Franklin’s eyes, exploding the ledge above me into a million pieces.

Shel laughed maniacally. “Just as my Tako Shak fortune cookie foretold! Do you see this, Tostig?! This is your DESTINY!”

For a moment, I considered jumping back down (keep in mind, this is back before I knew gravitational velocity was a thing.) But even if I could jump a hundred feet down without shattering my ankles, Shel already had that base covered. The courtyard opened up, revealing a fiery inferno right out of, well, the Underworld.

“For your sins, Watterson Tostig, it is no longer sufficient to send you to the Underworld! Now, you must blacken in the darkest pits of Ultra Hell!” Lightning flashed dramatically from Franklin’s eyes, just barely missing me.

“Really?” I said “Ultra Hell? What kind of name is that?”

Shel’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato “The afterlife has a crappy R&D department, okay?! For your sass I will now take the pleasure of mutilating your pathetic frail body, starting with your- HEY!”

           Let me tell you about these self-important pricks: once you catch them in a ramble, they tend to have a real hard time getting out. Heck, you could replace your body with a- I dunno- Native American statue, and they still wouldn’t notice! And during this rant you could, say, hypothetically, climb to the top of a city hall in a very important city capital (if you’re fast enough) and pickpocket the greatest Quaker who ever quaked.

           Fun fact about Penn: his coat has a lot of pockets. Not so fun fact: I searched nearly every single one of them finding the gold dust. The whole time, that turd Silverstein kept trying to zap me with Franklin’s eyes, which didn’t exactly calm my nerves. Only at the last possible second, right before Silverstein would have roasted my soul for good, did I realize where Penn, like all esteemed English gentlemen, kept his yellow dust: right in the ear! The problem, of course, was getting there. Even with my experience on the school’s monkey bars, it would take one heck of a jump to get from Penn’s coat to his head! And I probably wouldn’t have made it either, if I didn’t remember a little trick I’d learned from Super Mario Bros.: letting go of Penn’s coat, I lunged feet first at the floating Ben Franklin head, startling Shel just long enough to ricochet right off the forehead right onto Penn’s shoulder. Sure enough, the moment I reached into Penn’s ear, I found a small satchel of fine yellow powder.

           Just in time for a bolt of lightning to strike inches from my face. The satchel flew open, a wave of powder fluttered in the air, and then. A bit of the legendary powder whooshed into the air, and then…

William Penn started to move.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing with my gold dust!? Don’t you know I got that from the Indians?!”

I jumped, only for grinning-like-a-lunatic Silverstein to grab my falling body by the wrist, snatching the satchel right out of my hand!

“Fear not, Governor! I shall deal with this ruffian!” he boasted, dangling me over the Hell Pit.

A moment later, I was freefalling to a fate marginally better than a Hannah Montana concert.

Or was I? Because some of that gold dust had stuck fast to my fingers, right as I passed the statue of a none other than a bald eagle.

So what do you think I did? Go on, guess.

                                                             .   .   .

           Riding an eagle is a bit like riding a roller coaster, except there’s no seatbelt and you could fall into a mass of traffic at any given moment. Using the power of the dinosaur tongue, I guided it over to the Franklin Institute (harder than it sounds: We passed the Academy of Natural Sciences and I was really tempted to see the dinosaurs.). But the second we flew over the steps, the eagle suddenly went stiff, the gold dust wearing off, sending me flying through the glass doors and right into the feet of America’s greatest founding father. I put my hands in front of me, hoping to soften the blow of crashing into Ben Franklin’s marble feet. Worked about as well as you’d expect, leaving me sprawled on the marble floor in pain. 

Penn and Silverstein crashed in just moments later, the former wearing a pair of taxis like roller skates. Silverstein descended from his bronze mount, grinning triumphantly as thunder boomed in the distance (or maybe it was just the ‘Wonders of Electricity’ exhibit).

“You thought you could just outrun fate like that, Tostig?!” He boasted, smug grin plastered across his bearded face. “Now, you shall be banished to the darkest recesses of the afterlife, where you shall spend the next hundred years watching reruns of BARNEY THE DINOSAUR!!!”

I screamed for help, but it was late at night and the museum was closed. Also, I was a soul, so it wasn’t as if folks were gonna see me. 

“Now do you see what happens when you cross Shel mother*king… mother*king…”

Something rose, casting a shadow over both Penn and Silverstein, making them gaze up in awe. All slow like, I turned my head around. Big Ben Franklin had gotten out of his chair, shaking gold dust off the tips of his shoes.

[brajeshupadhyay]

Thousands of us have picked up a surprise savings habit in lockdown, a Money Mail survey reveals today. The coronavirus crisis has inflicted job losses and pay cuts – and still threatens to kill off many struggling businesses. But despite the doom and gloom, many Mail readers have found they are saving hundreds of pounds thanks to lockdown, and becoming more financially secure as a result. Spending cuts: Despite the doom and gloom, many readers have found themselves saving hundreds of pounds thanks to lockdown and becoming more financially secure as a result  Large expenses such as holidays, commuting costs and entertainment have vanished following unprecedented social-distancing restrictions – giving households the chance to set aside money during an economically uncertain time. Exclusive research for Money Mail by Consumer Intelligence today suggests 16 per cent of people now feel financially better off. Almost half are spending less since social-distancing restrictions were introduced, with 38 per cent saving more. Nearly four in five families say they have more money to spend since lockdown, with a quarter having between £200 and £500 more in disposable income each month. The findings come as figures from the Bank of England yesterday showed the nation saved £16.2 billion in April. In the six months to February households saved an average of £5 billion every month. What is more, households cleared an astonishing £5 billion of credit-card debt, which was more than double the previous record of £2.4 billion paid off in March. In a standard month the nation would usually clear £300 million of credit-card debt. Becky O’Connor, personal finance specialist at insurer Royal London, says: ‘A financial divide has opened up during lockdown. ‘While some are really struggling on reduced incomes, there’s another group whose experience has been almost the exact opposite. ‘If you are in a position to do so, there might never be a better time to ‘build back better’ and save.’ Here, Money Mail meets some of the nation’s new ‘accidental savers’. At last, I’ve managed to build a little nest egg  By HENRY DEEDES  All my life I’ve been a spender rather than a saver. Whatever I’ve earned during my career, my bank account has always puffed and wheezed its way through to pay day. I’ve tried to be sensible. I’ve opened saving accounts, dabbled in Isas. I even bought Premium Bonds once. Much good it’s done me. You see, any disposable cash I’ve ever had has this annoying habit of winking at me through the computer glass, urging me to go out and enjoy it. Terrible, I know, but there’s something innately therapeutic about rewarding yourself after a busy week with a little something.  A case of wine, something new to hang in the flat. Perhaps another ill-advised addition to the summer wardrobe from a tempting online emporium. Invariably, no sooner have I clicked the purchase button and the boiler will suddenly crank to halt and there’ll be nothing in the cookie jar to pay for a repair. I never learn. Lockdown has changed all that. Like a lot of people, I imagine, being trapped inside an apartment for the best part of three months has brought about a vast reduction in expenses. No need now for expensive Travelcards, pricey gym memberships or all those overpriced cups of coffee every day. And that’s before you’ve taken into account what I used to spend going out to see friends.  Remember socialising? Drinks rounds, restaurant bills. I dread to think how much I used to splurge on late-night Uber journeys during normal times. But it was a lot. And so with all these weighty charges lifted from my balance sheet, I’ve started to experience a novelty. When I check my balance at the end of the month, there’s now actually something left in the kitty. In the past I’d have been tempted to do something extravagant. ‘Why not?’ would have been my attitude. But in these times of enforced isolation, that thinking has been replaced with what’s the point? Instead, I’ve been putting it in an online investment Isa with savings app Moneybox. I pay a set amount in each month, as well as any additional funds I might have left over.  It also has a nifty feature which rounds up all my debit card transactions to the nearest pound and automatically squirrels away the extra cash. H ow satisfying it has been, how oddly empowering. Each time I check to see how my savings are accruing I now get that same whoosh of excitement I used to get when an Amazon parcel would plonk through my letterbox. It would be nice to think that when this is all over, when the High Street tills begin to ring again and when the beer pumps start flowing, I will be able to maintain this spirit of restraint.  If nothing else, this pandemic has taught us how quickly life can go south. In bleak times it pays to be prudent. Doubtless this is the last thing Chancellor Rishi Sunak wants to hear. As we re-emerge from lockdown, he needs as many idiots like me as possible flashing their plastic around with reckless abandon to get our ravaged economy moving. But if this crisis does make some a little more financially responsible, surely that’s no bad thing in the long term.   I have cleared my credit card    Olivia McCulla, who works in PR, has saved by moving back in with her parents By moving back in with her parents, Olivia McCulla, who works in PR, has saved enough to pay off her £1,000 credit card debt. She still pays £775 a month in rent for her flat in North-West London but gets £100 back that would usually go on bills because she isn’t there. Her £120-a-month travel costs and £150-a-week work lunch habit have also disappeared while she works from her parents’ home near Leeds. She has also saved thousands after the two hen-dos and four weddings she was supposed to attend this summer were postponed. However, she now has eight weddings in the diary next year to budget for. Olivia, 29, who wants to buy a property in the next few years, has opened a new savings account. She says: ‘It feels more important than ever to have a rainy-day fund with things being so uncertain. ‘In London I was paying £9.50 for a gin and tonic and through the nose for a very small flat I dread going back to. ‘Lockdown has made me question if I even want to buy in London.’ Before the coronavirus crisis, Olivia was saving about £100 a month. Her father Bernard, 65, and his wife Susan, 66, have seen their household costs rise slightly since their daughter moved home but are also saving money each month.  They previously spent £100 eating out each week, so their bank balance is boosted by £400 a month. And instead of paying a tradesman £2,000 to replace his patio with a flower garden, Bernard did it himself and slashed the cost in half. Before social-distancing regulations were relaxed, Bernard was also saving £180 a month on his golf and walking-football memberships. He says: ‘We are very fortunate. Lockdown has made me think we should live more for today and enjoy our pensions more.’ I feel guilty I’m better off  Quids in: Ashleigh Meale is saving between £500 and £700 a month Ashleigh Meale says her ‘stripped-back life’ means she is now saving between £500 and £700 a month. This is despite her grocery bill doubling to £400 a month and signing up to a TV and film- streaming service costing £60 a year. Before lockdown, the 27-year-old recruitment consultant, who is currently working from home, was putting away between £250 and £500 but would spend hundreds of pounds a month socialising with friends at expensive bars and restaurants.  Now, she and her boyfriend Rob, 38, cook their meals from scratch at home. Ashleigh, who lives in Sheffield, is also saving £70 a month by working from home and not having to pay to commute by bus. She has also been unable to spend money on holidays since the Government warned against non-essential travel. Ashleigh admits that, while she is not a natural saver, she has now realised how much she spends unnecessarily and hopes to remain mindful about what expenses she reintroduces when restrictions are finally lifted. She says: ‘Feeling better off financially during this time is a strange position to be in and it does make me feel guilty when so many people are struggling. But it has given me time to re-evaluate things, and I have no intention of blowing what I’ve saved. ‘I don’t need to be out all the time spending money on eating out and drinks when I could be just as happy with a barbecue in someone’s garden. What I have missed the most is my friends — not the expensive socialising.’ Pay cut but £400-a-month saving  Sally Walsh is saving an extra £400 a month on top of £200 she was already setting aside in a help-to-buy Isa Sally Walsh was worried when she was told she would have to take a 10 per cent pay cut in March. But despite the shock announcement, the 24-year-old engineer has found her finances have improved during lockdown. She is now saving an extra £400 a month on top of £200 she was already setting aside in a help-to-buy Isa. Since working from home, Sally has saved around £200 a month by not having to commute to central London, and a further £200 by not eating or drinking out after work. The only bill to go up is her food cost now she cooks almost every meal at home. Sally, who has lived with her parents in Bromley, South-East London since graduating, is determined to continue saving even after lockdown lifts. She says: ‘My goal is to move out as soon as possible. I feel like I am closer to it now. ‘I don’t have to spend so much on going out. I hope I will soon be able to have people over and cook for them.’ Childcare cut by thousands  Claire Jarrett and her partner Jon Howell are saving £50 a day in train fares alone Claire Jarrett and her partner Jon Howell have saved enough since lockdown to pay for renovations on their home. The couple need to fix the roof on their house in West Malling, Kent, and want to make the garden more child-friendly for their one-year-old daughter, Eleanor, to play. Claire, 31, had only been back at work for two days after returning from maternity leave before staff were told they had to work from home. With Jon, also 31, working from home too, they are saving £50 a day in train fares alone by not having to commute to the insurance firm where they both work in Bromley, South-East London. They are also saving around £5 a day on lunches at work, £80 a month on petrol and £200 a month by not eating out. But their biggest saving has been on childcare. It usually costs £800 a month to send Eleanor to nursery — but the couple have not had to pay since March. It has helped the couple to replenish their savings after Claire’s maternity leave and move their renovation plans a bit further forward. However Claire says their financial gain is likely to be short-lived. She says: ‘Lockdown has made us realise we do not need to go out as much but lots of the costs will be re-introduced when life goes back to normal, unfortunately.’ Not relying on investments  Retired Gerry Short is making savings by not playing golf, employing a cleaner or taking weekend theatre trips Retired Gerry Short has seen such a drop in his spending that he has decided to stop withdrawing income from his investments for the next couple of years. Gerry, 61, a former college principal, has two pensions that pay £20,000 a year. He gets a further £16,000 a year from investments.  After the pandemic hit the stock market, his investments plummeted. While they have recovered slightly, he wants to give them time to recover. His reduced outgoings mean he can do this as he is making savings on weekend theatre trips which can cost up to £100 a time.  He was refunded £60 of his golf-club membership. He also stopped spending £20 on drinks three or four times a week after games.  The father-of-one, who lives in Leicestershire, also no longer employs a cleaner, which cost £100 a month. He says: ‘I was aware I was spending a lot as a distraction after my wife died and knew it couldn’t continue. Lockdown has given me time to plan further in the future.’ Windfall from lost holiday  Dannielle Phillips has had to put expensive holiday plans on halt Dannielle Phillips, 32, spends most of her spare cash on trips away. But since lockdown kicked in, expensive holiday plans have ground to a halt. She has already got an £870 refund for a trip to Mexico that was supposed to take place in April. And she has received a £500 voucher she can use to re-book her holiday to Portugal in June for next year. Dannielle, a senior marketing consultant, had always put £250 a month into Premium Bonds, but has since increased this to £750 a month. Since lockdown began, she has saved around £2,500 in total, which she says would have been impossible for her before. She has always checked her banking apps frequently, but is definitely more aware of incoming and outgoing transactions now. Dannielle, who lives in Croydon, South London, says she also feels very lucky it worked out like this because she had originally handed in her notice in February and was planning to leave after finishing a project six weeks later. But the new job she had been offered fell through so her company agreed to rehire her. Dannielle says: ‘I am looking forward to lockdown ending but also dreading it because I will need to rebalance old habits. ‘I’m going to try to budget more at the weekends because I want to keep saving to buy a house. ‘Building up my savings has become more important to me because the future feels so uncertain.’ a.murray@dailymail.co.uk Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence. The post UK’s accidental savers: Poll shows many are better off in lockdown  appeared first on Sansaar Times.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/06/uks-accidental-savers-poll-shows-many.html

[youngbloodseavey]

25 Days of Why Don’t We: A Christmas Special

IN HONOR OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING HOLIDAY OF CHRISTMAS (or whatever holiday you celebrate) AND THE CHRISTMAS EP COMING OUT, i have decided to do a lil special thing!

so i will be posting a little imagine every single day leading up to christmas! so every day from december 1st to the 25th, there will be a short imagine posted .

all of these imagines/preferences will be holiday themed and i’m really excited for this!

i hope y’all are hyped for this, bc i really am! so here is the lineup for this holiday season:

(all the stories are linked)

day one: but the cookies! // corbyn besson - you and corbyn make christmas cookies

day two: dinner party // zach herron -  zach’s family hosts a christmas dinner party and he can’t help but show you off

day three: marshmallow // jack avery - you and jack make hot cocoa and roast some marshmallows on a cold december night

day four: sawyer // jonah marais - you and jonah go on a hunt to find sawyer the perfect gift

day five: angel // daniel seavey - you and daniel decide to go play in the snow

day six: home alone // corbyn besson - you and corbyn decide to have a night in and watch christmas movies together

day seven: river of lights // zach herron - there’s a display of christmas lights in town, and you and zach decide to check it out

day eight: candy cane // jack avery - a holiday tradition for the averys is hiding candy canes around the house, and you, jack, and isla team up to find the candy canes before ava and sydnie

day nine: frosty // jonah marais - you and jonah make a snowman together

day ten: bow on top // daniel seavey - you and daniel wrap presents together, but it turns into a ‘friendly’ competition to see who can wrap presents the best

day eleven: whoosh // corbyn besson - you and corbyn decide to go sledding in the snow

day twelve: on the ice // zach herron - you and zach decide to go on a cute lil ice skating date

day thirteen: snowflake // jack avery - you and jack attempt to make paper snowflakes together

day fourteen: shining like a star // jonah marais - jonah and his sisters put the star on top of the tree while you watch them be adorable

day fifteen: gingerbread // daniel seavey - you and daniel battle it out over decorating some gingerbread houses

day sixteen: all i want for christmas is you // corbyn besson - you and corbyn are decorating the tree when mariah carey comes on and it becomes a dance party

day seventeen: positive // zach herron - your present for zach is one he will remember for the rest of his life

day eighteen: mistletoe // jack avery - jack decides to be a cheeky lil shit and hangs mistletoe all around the house, but he has something special in store

day nineteen: cocoa on a christmas morning // jonah marais - you’re really excited for christmas but jonah just wants to cuddle in bed

day twenty: steal you a star // daniel seavey - daniel’s final christmas present for you is written in the sky

day twenty-one: o christmas tree // why don’t we - you and the boys go on the hunt for the perfect christmas tree to put in the why don’t we house

day twenty-two: naughty or nice // why don’t we - you and the boys write letters to santa

day twenty-three: snowball // why don’t we - you and the boys battle in an intense snowball fight

day twenty-four: giving back // why don’t we - it’s christmas eve, and you and the boys decide to spread the holiday cheer and give to the less fortunate

day twenty-five: santa // why don’t we - it’s christmas morning, and it’s finally time for you and the boys to exchange presents

tell me which ones you’re most excited for! i hope you guys enjoy, and happy holidays loves!

[verdigrisprowl]

Jan 12 random movie night - Star Trek Discovery Ep 2 & 3

Tarantulas didn’t like it until they finally got to the science in episode 3.

More importantly: Prowl asked Soundwave if he happens to know what a “covenant” possessing historical and scientific data might be, Smokescreen mentioned he has one.

Soundwave.

Is.

Livid.

Naturally, they’re already plotting a way to get it from Smokescreen.

Yesterday ItsyBitsySpyers 9:46 pm *Soundwave's got it all set up again, this time with two cubes of random energon, metal, and crystal slivers at his side. Tarantulas already knows he has a mouth. It won't harm anything to lift his mask up juuuust enough to slip them under it.* Tarantulas 9:52 pm *tarantulas is gonna eye that array of snacks as he gets settled again* *he didn't bring anything, never remembers, never thinks to* ItsyBitsySpyers 9:54 pm *Soundwave points to the bar. Tarantulas is welcome to take some, if he wants.* Tarantulas 9:57 pm *is stuff just sitting out? otherwise he's actually got the politesse not to take* ItsyBitsySpyers 9:58 pm *There are things visible behind the bar itself, and Ravage is there. Besides, he pointed. It's fine.* [[Shall we?]] Tarantulas 9:59 pm *nnnnnnnah tarantulas hasn't ever talked with ravage so he's gonna pass on that* ...Is Prowl not coming? ItsyBitsySpyers 10:00 pm [[He started work today. Might be late. It is the nature of government jobs.]] Tarantulas 10:01 pm Today was his first day? *genuinely didn't know* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:01 pm [[...It should be. He was certain he saw paperwork to that effect...]] Tarantulas 10:02 pm Ah, well - I suppose that makes sense, then. *plans to comm him in like, ten minutes if he's not here* Might as well begin then, since he's seen it already, correct? ItsyBitsySpyers 10:03 pm [[He has. Very well; let us continue.]] Tarantulas 10:04 pm *gently floofs his fur and settles in* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:05 pm *Pats leg. Would Tarantulas care to be a spider or is he fine being himself?* Tarantulas 10:08 pm *brief snicker* Either way. Do /you/ have a preference? ItsyBitsySpyers 10:09 pm [[It /would/ be warmer for both of us. And,]] tiny bobble, [[he suspects he will lose the opportunity to Prowl should Prowl show up.]] ItsyBitsySpyers 10:12 pm [[The one who resists is a fool. They are fearsome individually. They would be more so together.]] Tarantulas 10:13 pm What opportunity? And *huff* I suppose so. The posturing and politics of all this is... not my favorite part. ItsyBitsySpyers 10:14 pm [[The stage must be set for the long drama to come. There will be science when it is finished.]] Tarantulas 10:16 pm Very well, very well. But they /could/ just give us a summary. ItsyBitsySpyers 10:17 pm [[He supposes so.]] [[He /was/ closer to these decisions for the duration of the war. That may be why it fascinates him more.]] FakeProwl 10:18 pm *appears* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:18 pm [[Ah. There, you see?]] Tarantulas 10:18 pm *jumps, floof* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:18 pm *Is accustomed to that by now. Mostly.* FakeProwl 10:19 pm Sorry I'm late. Work. *oh, that feels so good to say. "Sorry I'm late. Work."* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:19 pm [[It is good to have you. Do join us.]] FakeProwl 10:20 pm *is there room to sit between them?* Tarantulas 10:20 pm *not quite enough, he'll have to nudge them* FakeProwl 10:21 pm *he's not going to be rude and butt in. he'll stare at the not-quite-big-enough space to see if they decide to make it bigger for him. if not, he'll sit on the outside.* Tarantulas 10:22 pm *it's alright, as soon as tarantulas unfluffs he's jumping up to hug prowl anyhow, purring his name* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:22 pm *Soundwave will scoot to make the room* *...Providing Tarantulas doesn't bind him in a little cocoon and hug it all night.* FakeProwl 10:22 pm *oh! okay. hugs back.* *... hugs back very tightly.* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:25 pm ((god i love that shot)) Tarantulas 10:25 pm *oh! okay. hugs back tightly also, picks him up a bit* How was work, hmm? *is stepping back and sitting him and prowl down* (( also WAT FakeProwl 10:26 pm *oh! okay. is carried. lifts his knees up to either side of Tarantulas's thighs to make himself easier to carry.* FakeProwl 10:29 pm ((why does klingon always sound like they've got something in their mouths)) Tarantulas 10:29 pm (( marshmallows. too many marshmallows FakeProwl 10:29 pm ((Yes)) ItsyBitsySpyers 10:31 pm [[Is it classified...?]] *To Prowl.* *Obviously it isn't to him, he's still head of things, but Tarantulas is here, and all.* FakeProwl 10:31 pm Oh—no. Sorry, I was distracted. *he was surrounded by fluff and picked up.* FakeProwl 10:32 pm Just first-day orientation. Touring the headquarters, meeting all the teams. *ugh, second time prowl's seen this scene, and he still hates it.* Tarantulas 10:33 pm (( (whooshing) ItsyBitsySpyers 10:33 pm [[No unpleasant incidents?]] FakeProwl 10:35 pm None of any importance. It's obvious a great many of them don't trust or respect me, but for now they're willing to listen to me. Almost all of them were soldiers, they known how to follow the chain of command and I haven't given them a reason to mutiny. ItsyBitsySpyers 10:36 pm [[Good. He trusts you will inform him if that changes.]] Tarantulas 10:36 pm It won't. *happy churr* Prowl's already doing splendidly, I'm sure. FakeProwl 10:37 pm One mech in burglary called me "terrorist." I called him "bloodsucker" and that was the end of that. ItsyBitsySpyers 10:37 pm *Visible shaking. Oh, that is good to hear.* Tarantulas 10:37 pm Bloodsucker...? FakeProwl 10:38 pm He worked at a pink alchemy facility. ItsyBitsySpyers 10:38 pm [[Ah. The... meat energon.]] FakeProwl 10:38 pm Yes. Tarantulas 10:39 pm *snort* I see. FakeProwl 10:41 pm ... Upon watching it a second time, I am still convinced that her mutinous actions had absolutely no bearing on the beginning of the war. ItsyBitsySpyers 10:42 pm [[As is he. But scapegoats are handy.]] FakeProwl 10:42 pm Yes. Unfortunately. Tarantulas 10:43 pm *is patiently waiting for when things will actually get interesting for him* FakeProwl 10:44 pm *... wriggles around so he can sit sideways on Tarantulas's lap* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:44 pm [[Note to self. Avoid that species.]] FakeProwl 10:45 pm *okay. good.* Tarantulas 10:45 pm *snuggles in with arms around prowl - however his darling wants, of course* FakeProwl 10:46 pm *puts his feet in soundwave's lap* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:51 pm *Oh? He can do with this. The sensors in these probably map well enough to Prowl's physical legs and feet; he'll work on kneading and flexing what he can reach on the outside and rubbing what cables he can get to with his skinny fingers. Hopefully, a soothing reward for a fine first day.* FakeProwl 10:53 pm *Ooh. He'll take it.* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:54 pm *See, Tarantulas. You should have taken his lap offer earlier. Now you'll have to wait until tomorrow at least.* ItsyBitsySpyers 10:57 pm [[Suspicious Activities, clearly. Capitalized.]] Tarantulas 10:57 pm *is perked up now, ooh* FakeProwl 10:57 pm *long narrow fingers in his legs and fuzz all around his torso. he's going to melt.* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:00 pm *If he melts, can he at least notify Soundwave first so he can fetch a bucket? Melted metal's no easy thing to clean up once it dries.* Tarantulas 11:01 pm *silly soundwave, hard light can't melt* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:01 pm *True, true.* FakeProwl 11:02 pm *then prowl will boldly go where no holomatter has gone before* Tarantulas 11:03 pm *squint squint* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:07 pm *As his hands are busy, extrudes his feelers so he can clasp them. He wants to watch the next part a little closer than before.* Tarantulas 11:09 pm (( I LIKE THIS ItsyBitsySpyers 11:09 pm ((thought you might)) FakeProwl 11:09 pm ... He's too obnoxious for his intelligence to be enjoyable. He's arrogant, condescending, and impatient. Tarantulas 11:10 pm Pfft, most scientists are. FakeProwl 11:10 pm Most scientists are tolerably obnoxious. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:10 pm [[He is also angry. Some of it is forgivable.]] FakeProwl 11:10 pm I'll forgive him when and if he stops being intolerably obnoxious. Tarantulas 11:11 pm I must admit I find it strangely charming, hyeh. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:11 pm *Plucks some of the slivers out and slides them beneath the mask. Munch munch.* *And back to clasp.* FakeProwl 11:12 pm *... sssideglance* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:12 pm *Nothing much to see, sorry. There's just a tiny gap at the bottom.* FakeProwl 11:12 pm *hot.* Tarantulas 11:13 pm *mandibles fluttering excitedly* FakeProwl 11:14 pm *... also hot.* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:14 pm *Amuses himself while the beast runs by sticking a sliver up near the mandibles to see if they catch it on accident* Tarantulas 11:15 pm *u better believe his chelicerae reach out and snatch it* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:16 pm [[...He should show more of the Alien movies.]] *The scene reminds him of it.*

*Oooh. Fascinating. He'll have to do that again some time.* Tarantulas 11:16 pm *giggling* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:17 pm [[And the Alice human in her Wonderland.]] [[It is fantastically nonsensical.]] FakeProwl 11:17 pm How nonsensical? Tarantulas 11:17 pm It's a lovely and masterful piece of work, that's what. FakeProwl 11:18 pm ... I hope they can reconcile. Tarantulas 11:19 pm I rather like the tension their interactions bring. FakeProwl 11:20 pm *then Tarantulas has never experienced that kind of tension.* Tarantulas 11:20 pm *nnnnnope* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:21 pm [[Quite nonsensical. But intriguing. He suspects he would understand it better if he were more versed in human history.]]

[[...As for the tension, it is good to see it be on someone else's plate.]] ItsyBitsySpyers 11:22 pm *Watches Tarantulas' reaction to this.* Tarantulas 11:23 pm *the mandibles are still now* Tarantulas 11:25 pm Oh /please/, not the damn fortune cookies. Please tell me that won't become a theme. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:25 pm [[It isn't.]] FakeProwl 11:25 pm That's a cookie? Tarantulas 11:25 pm Good. Because they have /much/ better content to focus on now. FakeProwl 11:26 pm I thought it was a nut. Tarantulas 11:26 pm And yes, it's a fairly simple confectionery. (( i've made fortune cookies before heee FakeProwl 11:27 pm ... You can't learn that the "real world" doesn't adhere to logic from a fictional book. Books are not the "real world." And the real world ALWAYS adheres to logic. Tarantulas 11:28 pm *taps claws together* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:29 pm [[We have one more before we are caught up to Bevel's schedule, but we will have to fit it in tomorrow.]]

[[Books can /reflect/ the world.]] ((cause i could squeeze it in and only run 15 over but puff was talking sleep deprivation earlier so i don't wanna do that)) FakeProwl 11:30 pm If a book teaches a lesson of which one cannot find evidence in the real world, then that lesson is highly suspect. Tarantulas 11:30 pm I'm so /pleased/ they kept the specimen. The tissue distortion, it must be - *excited rambling to no one in particular* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:30 pm *Casually recording the rambling* FakeProwl 11:30 pm *same* Tarantulas 11:31 pm *he's off in his own world now, eventually pauses to think of something and just ends up silent, with a clawtip to his mandibles* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:32 pm *Looks to Prowl and bobs his helm, looks at Tarantulas, and back to Prowl. That is oddly precious, no?* FakeProwl 11:32 pm *EXTREMELY.* *do you see. do you see why he's so irresistible.* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:34 pm *He has been starting to pick up bits and pieces of it. Certain habits are more irritating than the others, but things like the scientific rambling and the lost silence are attractive enough.* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:35 pm *Lets go of the leg with one hand to hold one finger up - not high, just above Prowl's leg - and tap the air twice. Perhaps Prowl should conduct an experiment of his own and see what happens if he touches them right now?* FakeProwl 11:36 pm *... what, touch tarantulas's legs? he's already sitting on tarantulas's legs. or is prowl supposed to move his legs?* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:36 pm *Touch his /mandibles/.* *Points carefully in their direction without moving his hand overmuch.* FakeProwl 11:37 pm *yknow what, prowl's been fighting the urge for the past hour. why not?* *caaarefully reaches up. delicately taps.* Tarantulas 11:38 pm *yanno those cartoons where the characters startle and ripple up vertically in waves. that's tarantulas's mandibles and fur right now* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:38 pm *Huffing.* Tarantulas 11:39 pm *grasps at prowl's hand* W-what? Were you saying something? FakeProwl 11:39 pm *his face may be poker but his shoulders are trembling.* Ah—no. Sorry. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:40 pm *Pings Prowl gratitude and amusement.* FakeProwl 11:40 pm ... Although, on the subject of interesting specimens—I'm so sorry to hear you never got that snipe you requested. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:40 pm *Puts his hand back on the leg all innocent-like while listening. He never encouraged a thing, no sir.* FakeProwl 11:41 pm *... laces fingers through paw fuzz. ahh. good.* Tarantulas 11:41 pm *a split second, then a sudden snort-laugh* How did you even hear about that? ItsyBitsySpyers 11:41 pm [[...What do you want with a sharpshooter?]] Tarantulas 11:41 pm Maybe we ought to have Soundwave retrieve one, since Smokescreen couldn't. FakeProwl 11:42 pm Hff. No, no. He apparently saved your name on my comm frequency. I let him ramble. Tarantulas 11:42 pm *raised visor. wwwwhat else might he have heard* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:42 pm *Retrieve a sniper? Not his usual fare, but he supposes he could dig through his files. He knows a Bluestreak that's... well, they're touchy about his past, but they do owe him from several past favors...* FakeProwl 11:44 pm On a related note—do get that tranquilizer from him. We need the formula and the specifications for the injector. Kindly don't let him know I'm interested, he might just refuse out of spite. Or, worse—call me. Tarantulas 11:45 pm I wouldn't, of course not. Pft. Though I doubt he's about to find the tranquilizer anytime soon based on the state of his quarters. ...I might could... FakeProwl 11:45 pm Oh, he said he's getting Bumblebee to help clean it. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:46 pm [[Tranquilizer? One moment. He thought you were done planning to do things like sedation assassinations.]] FakeProwl 11:46 pm I am. It's formulated to take out Phase Sixers. It's a defense measure, that's all. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:47 pm [[Then the sniper is only on standby?]] Tarantulas 11:47 pm Oh no, a /snipe/. It's for an experiment. FakeProwl 11:47 pm ... The wh... Tarantulas, no! Tarantulas 11:47 pm *copious snickering* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:47 pm *Looking between them, more than a little confused.* FakeProwl 11:48 pm Snipe hunt. Sending someone on a "snipe hunt" means sending them on a fruitless search for something that isn't real. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:48 pm *Helm tilt. Proceeds to display at least a dozen varieties of the Earth bird called a snipe.* FakeProwl 11:48 pm Tarantulas asked Smokescreen to retrieve a creature that doesn't... Huh. Maybe it DOES exist. That's not what the phrase means, though. Tarantulas 11:49 pm That's the irony of it, hyeh. But I wouldn't say snipe hunts are fruitless. They certainly produce hilarity, that counts for something. FakeProwl 11:49 pm Really? Snipes are real? Tarantulas 11:50 pm Would you actually believe me if I said yes? *visor quirk* ItsyBitsySpyers 11:50 pm [[Smokescreen produces hilarity every time he attempts to process so much as a single thought.]] *Fuzzy-thought muttering.* FakeProwl 11:51 pm ... I honestly don't know. Well. One mech's hilarity is another mech's unceasing frustration. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:52 pm [[Oh, it's both.]] FakeProwl 11:52 pm ... Mm. *focuses on Soundwave* He mentioned something else of interest. I didn't recognize it, maybe you will. ItsyBitsySpyers 11:53 pm [[Unrelated to snipes and tranquilizers, he takes it? The latter being something he would like to hear more about soon.]] *Glance at Tarantulas. What are you planning to do with it in the defense preparation sense?* *Your wiggly-legged spidery mind is still somewhat of a mystery at times.* Tarantulas 11:54 pm *good, just as intended* FakeProwl 11:55 pm He's made reference a couple of times now—once to a Constructicon, once to me while he thought he was talking to Tarantulas—to possessing some sort of covenant? ItsyBitsySpyers 11:55 pm *SNAPS BACK TO PROWL*

[[What.]] Tarantulas 11:55 pm Oh, *hff* That. FakeProwl 11:56 pm He thinks it's important enough that it was worth mentioning while trying to convince Scavenger of how absolutely important he was, which is reason enough to think he might have been lying—but he also mentioned it to Tarantulas. Whatever it is, it apparently possesses historical data and something of scientific complexity? Admittedly, scientific complexity beyond Smokescreen's understanding, which likely isn't very complicated at all. He's from a universe like yours, have you heard of it? ItsyBitsySpyers 11:57 pm [[/Has he heard of--!?/]] ItsyBitsySpyers 11:58 pm *No. No. Calm the thoughts. Nice and still. Icy cold. Peace and tranquility.*

*Long, long vent. The kind you perform when you are attempting to hold on to your composure under very trying circumstances.* Tarantulas 11:58 pm *tarantulas is highly amused by this for whatever reason* FakeProwl 11:58 pm ... I take it you have. Today ItsyBitsySpyers 12:00 am *Gonna just. Clip his mask down.*

*This thought is slow and as crystal clear as someone else translating them can get.*

[[Do you mean to tell him that /boundlessly idiotic/ mech claims to have gotten his citrus-infested hands on the Covenant of Primus?]] Tarantulas 12:02 am Oh, no, it's not a claim. FakeProwl 12:02 am I take it it /is/ important. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:02 am *Holds a finger up. Hold on, Prowl.*

[[What do you mean, it's not a claim? How do you know?]] Tarantulas 12:03 am You tell me more about it and I'll tell you what I know. *visor smileeee* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:03 am [[Tell him what you know first and he will tell you twice what you would get the other way.]] Tarantulas 12:05 am *snickering* Very well. He's shown it to me and read from it for me upon request, a very small and selective excerpt though. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:06 am *Soundwave carefully extricates his hands from Prowl's legs and settles them on his own knee guards.* Tarantulas 12:06 am I have a raincheck on asking him more about whatever I like at any time, of course. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:06 am *This is good, because they squeak softly in protest seconds later.* FakeProwl 12:06 am *he thinks he should withdraw his legs. soundwave's having a moment.* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:06 am [[Please wait. He has recent footage to double-check.]] FakeProwl 12:07 am ... If you need knees to crush that can't actually be injured, mine are available. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:11 am *Places them back on Prowl's legs. He is not /crushing/ the avatar's knees - that would be unnecessarily cruel, what with the sense transfers and all - but they are definitely being held in a high tension grip.*

*Aaaaand now his armor is flared out just a tad.*

[[Smokescreen. Has. A Primal relic. /Smokescreen./]] *Little bit more.* [[The mech who thinks everyone is his friend, defines the word gullible with his presence, and has absolutely /no sense of discretion./]] FakeProwl 12:12 am What's the significance of this relic, exactly? ItsyBitsySpyers 12:12 am *Some days, he finds his oath sorely tested. This is one of the worst.* FakeProwl 12:13 am ... If you need, I can turn off my tactile receptors. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:13 am [[It belonged to Alpha Trion. Here, before his death, and before Shockwave lost it. He does not know the status of theirs. It is--]] *Pause.* [[Yes, please.]] FakeProwl 12:13 am *and off.* Go on. *to both the explaining and the squeezing.* Tarantulas 12:16 am *listening intently and with barely-constrained amusement* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:17 am *CRUNCH.*

[[It /was/ Alpha Trion's duty to act as an--]] *Glance to Tarantulas. Apparently Smokescreen was stupid enough to read to him from it and promise more. Might as well now.* [[As an unparalleled chronicler. Before he became invested in meddling with Orion Pax. The Covenant and Quill were his tools.]] ItsyBitsySpyers 12:19 am [[No ordinary mech may use the Quill and the Covenant is difficult for any mech to read. Shockwave gave him fragments of languages he has never even heard of before, taken from the earliest pages.]] FakeProwl 12:19 am *winces. he's going to just, not look at his legs, at all. he doesn't want to know.* So, it's what—the best history textbook on Cybertron? ItsyBitsySpyers 12:20 am [[You could say that.]]

@Prowl: [[And the best deposit of knowledge of the future.]] FakeProwl 12:21 am @Soundwave «Come again.» ItsyBitsySpyers 12:22 am @Prowl: [[It is a relic of the Primes. It contains information on what has not yet happened. The few segments that could be understood have all since passed.]] FakeProwl 12:22 am *... prowl wants to interface with it.* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:22 am *WHAT DO YOU THINK /HE/ WANTS TO DO* *...Among other things.* FakeProwl 12:23 am ... Hmm. An extremely valuable repository of knowledge, then. FakeProwl 12:24 am And a /moron's/ got it. Does he have a legal right to it? I'd think that, with something like that, there might be laws in place that declare it property of the public. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:25 am [[He has sought rumors of it and the Quill's locations since its loss.]] *And ached to be responsible for it should it be rediscovered.* [[That /that/ mech should be allowed to--]]

*He's having a realization.*

[[He's had it for weeks. The argument on the datanet--]] Tarantulas 12:25 am *tarantulas is sneaking a peek at prowl's knees, the crushing was distracting for some reason* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:26 am *Those holoknees are Gone, Tarantulas. Strength 8 and small points of pressure because thin fingers.* FakeProwl 12:26 am Argument? *he's kind of. got his head tipped up. so he can't see.* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:30 am [[Smokescreen taunted him with claims that he was unworthy of finding or maintaining the Covenant himself and said that he had secret knowledge of the rules surrounding its existence. He thought it was Smokescreen talking out of his aft with the usual immaturity...]] FakeProwl 12:31 am *sneers* It probably still IS talking out of his aft with immaturity. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:31 am [[Smokescreen has been /bringing it to movie nights,/ in fact. Knowing that it would slip under his radar because he didn't believe it possible. More taunting.]]

*More denting.* FakeProwl 12:32 am He worked for Alpha Trion. It was probably phased into one of his doors millions of years ago and he just now figured out how to get it out, and he thinks that this makes him "worthy" of it and privy to deep secrets about its nature. Tarantulas 12:32 am *staring at prowl's legs, but hums* I could steal it, you know. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:32 am *SNAP* *Your turn to be stared at, spide.* FakeProwl 12:33 am ... No. Hold on. Who has a right to it? What laws pertain to its ownership? Tarantulas 12:34 am Primus, I could probably ask him if I could borrow it and he'd lend it to me, laws aside. FakeProwl 12:35 am If he does, then that's fine. That's perfectly legal. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:35 am [[There are none - at least, not here. It was only a rumor until Shockwave acted on his theories, stormed the Hall, and took Alpha Trion prisoner. He only had it a short while, and...]] *Shakes his helm.* [[Nobody else has owned it. What laws could there be?]]

[[It shouldn't have to be borrowed. It shouldn't be given back to that rustbug at all.]] FakeProwl 12:36 am If there are no laws about it—then, as Alpha Trion's last student, he DOES have the strongest legal claim to it. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:37 am *UGH.* FakeProwl 12:37 am He doesn't deserve it, but he's got the right to it. Tarantulas 12:37 am Borrowed and conveniently lost, maybe? That's breaking no rules. FakeProwl 12:37 am That's stealing, Tarantulas. So buy it from him. Trick him into a disadvantageous trade. Whatever. But do it legally. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:38 am [[...The Quill. Does he have the Quill? Has he mentioned it to either of you?]] FakeProwl 12:38 am A moronic legal trade is still a legal trade. He hasn't mentioned a quill. Tarantulas 12:38 am *a shake of his helm* Unfortunately not, hyeh. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:39 am [[That is a small comfort.]]

*But only a small one. Who knows what he's reading to everyone?* FakeProwl 12:40 am *mutters* It's phased up his aft, maybe. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:41 am [[He wouldn't wish the company of Smokescreen's brain module on anyone.]] ItsyBitsySpyers 12:42 am *Vents, harsher this time.*

[[His helm aches.]] *Putting it mildly. He's about to have some kind of aneurysm or something. He knows it. Twenty-five million years of bullshit and this is finally the ruby on the slag cake.* [[He should - recharge.]] FakeProwl 12:43 am ... Do you want company? Tarantulas 12:43 am *if sw's actually gonna recharge tara will eat his... something* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:43 am [[Yes. Yes, he does.]]

*Tara can take the unfinished cube, if he wants it. Soundwave didn't get around to it. Too busy being entertained by Tarantulas' reaction to the Science.* FakeProwl 12:44 am *right. he'd probably better reset his legs, then.* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:44 am *Everything else here is off-limits for eating. Ask Bob the Insecticon. And that one Predacon. Chairs are forbidden snacks.* Tarantulas 12:45 am *oh booo. tarantulas was hoping he could snatch prowl up after this* *he'll take that cube, thanks* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:46 am *Moves to pull his hands free of the knees.*

*Does not move far.*

*Looks down.* [[...Hmm.]] FakeProwl 12:46 am *what's soundwave looking at? prowl already fixed his...* Oh! Sorry! *switches to normal hologram. poof, he's a ghost.* Tarantulas 12:47 am *shuddering with hushed snickers* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:47 am [[Thank you. That was... an unpleasant sight.]] *Also shuddering a little.* FakeProwl 12:48 am Sorry. *... now he's incorporeally on tarantulas's lap. he's going to catch some fur in his thighs if he goes back to solid* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:48 am [[He prefers to leave phase shifter messes to mechs who /don't deserve vital relics/.]] *Which is not to say he does, because he's often convinced he doesn't at all. But he damn sure believes Smokescreen doesn't.* FakeProwl 12:49 am *he's going to... just, flicker off and back on standing in front of the couch* Tarantulas 12:49 am You know, I could probably borrow that, too. The phase shifter, I mean. I don't know why I /haven't/ yet, actually. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:50 am *Anyway. He stands and nods to them both.*

[[He will be upstairs. Tarantulas, there is one more tomorrow. And no need to borrow it. Smokescreen owes him a use.]] Tarantulas 12:50 am *stretches out when prowl flickers off* FakeProwl 12:50 am Don't push your luck. By the sound of it, the covenant's more important. And don't borrow the covenant, either, until we come up with a proper plan to ensure he won't have a right to ask for it back. Tarantulas 12:51 am Of course not, I'm not that foolish. ItsyBitsySpyers 12:51 am *Fuzzy thought muttering again.* [[We could go to the Core and question Primus' life choices.]] Tarantulas 12:52 am *gets up and starts to waltz off with the cube* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:52 am *He knows better than that, though. Another nod to each, and a small bow for both for putting up with him - a thank-you ping for Tarantulas' confirmation as well - and he's trudging upstairs.* FakeProwl 12:53 am We have no evidence Primus had anything to do with it. It's more likely terrible luck. *follows after Soundwave* ItsyBitsySpyers 12:53 am *Terrible, horrible, awful, rotten luck of the most forsaken variety.* Tarantulas 12:54 am *bids them goodnight and is out - he'll try to comm prowl later, most likely*

[imagining-supernatural]

As It Seem: Chapter 13

Table of Contents

Según Parece: Lista De Contenidos

Summary: The reader reacts to Dean's bombshell from the end of last chapter

Word Count: 3103

Warnings: Depression, slight suicidal thoughts

Beta’d by: @kclaire1 te quiero!!

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

~Reader’s POV~

I was going to ask you to marry me.

I don’t know if Dean could see the way his words completely knocked the air out of me, but he kept nervously talking and my brain was scrambling to keep up with his words while it processed that confession.

Marriage?

“I know, it’s crazy. Especially over there. I mean, we’re both technically legally dead. We’re both hunters. It’s not like we would be married long before one of us died, probably. Stupid idea. But I just… every time I saw you, I knew that I wanted something more. I just—”

He cut himself off and took a deep breath which gave me a second to prepare myself, but I had no idea how to prepare myself at all. He had completely thrown me off balance with his declaration. And when his eyes opened again and bore into my very soul, I saw a conviction there that scared me.

“Y/N, I want to marry you.” The change from past tense to present tense wasn’t lost on me. “I get that things are different now. And I’m not saying that I want to run out and elope right this second. We’ve got a shit storm of stuff to work through, and I’m okay with that. We can work through it. But please don’t keep pushing me away. It’s not going to work. I love you too much to let you go.”

I love you. Those three words were the ones that completely demolished the defenses I’d so carefully built up. I knew how Dean felt about me in the other timeline. It was evident in every single thing he did for me. But he’d never said the words aloud.

If he had, I probably would have run like a spooked deer.

“Dean, you shouldn’t,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t love me. I just—fuck.”

This was so hard. There was a reason there was the saying about celebrating with other people and suffering alone. Letting someone in to see the mess of your soul was bone-crunchingly terrifying. Ruining the image they had of you in their head was the absolute worst. But Sam wasn’t letting us out until we told the truth, and I found that I didn’t have the strength to run away anymore.

“Talk to me, baby.”

Oh, God, when he called me baby it just melted me. Dean Winchester calling you sweetheart was one thing, but he reserved baby for the things he loved the most. It was an exclusive club of two.

His precious car.

And me.

“I just can’t—I don’t think that—You can’t…” Now it was my turn to take a deep breath and figure out how the hell to put into words that deep, dark emotion that was rooted to every blood vessel and nerve ending in my body. “I don’t think there’s ever been a point in my life that I’ve been deserving of your love.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Sam cut him off. “Dean, let her get it out.”

I kept going as if that never happened, but I was grateful to Sam. This was hard enough without interruptions. “Dean, I’m not the person you thought I was over there. I told you that after I killed Addy, I cleaned up and got better. That was a lie. I did clean up. But I didn’t get better. I started hunting because I wanted to die. I wanted to get in so far over my head that there was no escape and I thought I could just hunt until something killed me.

“Then I met you and, God, you were so infuriating. You were such an asshole. But that was the first time I felt anything since she died. You hated me, and it made me feel a little better. I deserved your hate. Then we started to tolerate each other and you guys invited me to come along on hunts with you and I—I don’t know. I didn’t want to seem damaged. I wanted to feel normal again. I wanted you to think that I was this badass woman. So I pretended to be her. And I got so good at pretending that somewhere along the line, I started to believe it too. But the truth is that I’m still the person who got so high and killed my own daughter.”

I stared down at my hands in my lap and prepared the half-truth I was about to say. “I was just putting on an act the entire time I was with you guys. I wasn’t real with you.”

The only sound in the room was the soft whooshing of the giant fan overhead. Finally, someone broke the silence, but it wasn’t the brother I was expecting to talk.

“I’m calling bullshit,” Sam said.

Dean and I both threw him startled looks, and he sat down on the ground in front of us so we were level.

“Y/N, you might have felt like you were acting, but you weren’t. I know that you were my friend. There is not a doubt in my mind that you liked me, and that we had fun pranking Dean, and you and I bonded over trying to get Dean to eat healthier, and that you didn’t actually help me with research, but you still stayed out and pretended so that I wouldn’t be alone. That’s all stuff that friends do for their friends.”

“Sam, I—”

But he bulldozed right over me. He was in a bossy mood today which bugged me, but something in the corner of my mind whispered that maybe we needed him to take charge and get us to face our shit.

“You can think of it as acting all you want, but there comes point when you stop acting because that is who you are now. Isn’t that how we get past things? We act like we’re okay and eventually we are?” Sam reached over and took my hand. I was too overwhelmed with everything to protest. “Look, Y/N. I loved you over there—as a friend, Dean, don’t hit me—and I know that you did too. I’ve only known you a few days here, but even when you were yelling at me about Dean bleeding out on your couch, I knew that we had potential. I’m a good judge of character.”

“We act like we’re okay and eventually we are,” I repeated in a mumble. “That belongs in a fortune cookie somewhere.”

Did that happen? I tried so hard to be normal for the Winchesters that eventually I not only started believing it, but I actually became normal? Whole?

I lifted my distressed eyes to Sam’s, and the small, supportive smile he replied with broke down those last few bricks in my walls. I slid my hand out of his, only to close the distance between us and wrap my arms around his shoulders. His strong arms came around my back, and he hugged me tightly to his body. My face was buried in his neck, and I could feel him and Dean doing that silent Winchester communication over my shoulder, but I didn’t mind it like I had last night with Crowley.

“You know,” Sam whispered in my ear, “If I’m so certain that you’re a good person and we’re only friends, think about how sure Dean is.”

Extracting my face from his neck, I kissed Sam on the cheek and pressed my forehead to his. “Thank you, Sam.”

I didn’t believe him. Not all the way, at least. But I felt like maybe I’d just taken the first step towards reconciling how I viewed myself to the person I’d actually become between the two timelines. Sam had handed me the tools I needed.

But facing Dean right now seemed like climbing Mount Everest. I’d been a bitch to him today. We both said hurtful things.

But he still wants to marry you, a timid voice whispered in my head. And that was enough for me to climb off of Sam’s lap and sit back against the wall by Dean.

“Hey, Y/N?” Dean said softly, getting me to twist my head around to him. He offered a half smile. “We’ve both got a lot of shit to work through. But I still love you too.”

There it was again. I Love You.

I scooted over until I was right next to him and my arms were wrapped around his waist. That didn’t seem to be enough for him because next thing I knew, his hands were gripping my hips and he’d lifted me onto his lap so we were chest to chest. The thin ice we’d been skating on all day suddenly felt stronger underfoot when he wrapped his arms around me and held me so close that I could feel his heartbeats.

Behind me, I heard Sam let out a deep breath that matched the way all of my tension seemed to seep out of every cell in my body. It had been exhausting to put up my guard for so long. To push Dean away when all I wanted was to pull him closer, just like this. But I had been wrong, and admitting that let my lungs stop constricting so much.

Admitting how I felt about Dean was different than accepting it. Just like knowing about the other timeline was different than experiencing it. I wasn’t completely convinced that I was wrong to try and stop Sam and Dean from taking the drug. But I couldn’t keep pretending that I had the high ground. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t. But now that they knew, I had to admit that it wasn’t all bad. Having these shared memories that didn’t belong in this timeline wasn’t all bad.

So maybe admitting my feelings for Dean wouldn’t be all bad either.

“I love you too, Dean,” I mumbled into his shoulder, finally saying the words that I’d kept in for so long. He tightened his hold on me for a moment before easing his face out of my neck and curling his fingers into the hair at the base of my neck, holding me in place so I couldn’t escape his eyes.

Not that I wanted to.

“We’re good, right? No more pushing me away?”

As scary as it was, I shook my head. “Only when it’s too hot in the summer and the AC is broken.”

He cracked a smile at the memory of the time he and I went on a hunt without Sam. We’d been excited to have a few days where we didn’t have to sneak around. Of course that would be the one hotel room that didn’t have AC. I’d ended up pushing Dean off the bed in the middle of the night because he couldn’t stay on his side and it was way too hot to share body heat.

“Deal,” he said, sealing the deal with that cliché kiss.

It took Sam a few times clearing his throat to get us to break the kiss. “We’ve still got some other things to talk about.”

Right.

Crowley.

Timelines.

I slid off of Dean’s lap, but he kept me firmly anchored to his side with an arm around my shoulder. He sure was taking this not letting me go thing seriously.

“What’s there to talk about? We’re staying here. End of discussion.”

“I think we need to look a little deeper,” Sam said carefully, knowing that Dean and I would not like that. “Not necessarily to change your minds, but so that we have better arguments when Crowley calls than end of discussion.”

It made sense, but I couldn’t let the way he said ‘change your minds’ go.

“Sam… Don’t you think we should stay here?”

He pursed his lips and clasped his hands in front of him. “I want to say yes. Staying here would be easier. But the easiest way isn’t always the best way.”

“Sam.” Dean’s tone told me that he thought Sam was out of his mind. “Mom and dad are alive over here. What more is there to think about?”

“How about the Titans, for one?”

And that’s what I was scared of. That the Winchesters would remember what we were fighting in the other timeline and want to go back and save the day.

It turns out that the Titans from Greek mythology decided that now was a good time to come out of hiding and battle each other for, how did they put it? Something about gaining control of the heavens over the Earth, the air in the sea breeze, and the currents moving the ocean water.

Whatever. Family drama. Let them sort it out.

“It’s not actually the Titans,” I tried to argue, but I knew that Sam wouldn’t hear of it.

“It’s their kids. Practically the same thing. Look, apparently you told Dean that you can’t pick and choose what you consider when making decisions, right? Well, you can’t forget this.”

“I’m not for—” Dammit. That was exactly what I was doing. “Sam, what can we possibly do over there? It’s the goddamn Titans. You handled Lucifer. You handled the Darkness. Yeah. But that was only one deity at a time, really. And for Amara, you needed Chuck’s help. These… these kids of the Titans… There’re over a dozen and they’re all fighting each other for the world in that timeline. It’s like their parents died and left them a will, but all of them want everything. It’s just family drama.”

Sam sat forward with his elbows on his thighs and eyes directed at me. “So you want to just give up?”

“I want to be happy! Don’t we deserve that? After all we’ve been through? After all you’ve been through, don’t you deserve family dinners with your whole family? Don’t you like seeing Dean so relaxed and carefree? So successful? And you get to stay in one place. You have a house, right? You’re a professor. You’re shaping the minds of young adults who are just so excited to change the world.”

“We can change the world over there, too,” he pointed out.

This time Dean piped up. “Mom and dad are alive here. They can help us. We have Bobby and Ash and Charlie and Kevin—”

“And they can handle this timeline,” Sam cut him off. “Guys, this timeline has people who can save the world. And they’re all upstairs. But the other timeline? It’s just Jody, Donna, and Cas waiting for us.”

“This is why I didn’t want you to take the drug,” I said in a flat voice.

“Because you wanted to make the decision for all three of us?” Dean asked quietly. “You didn’t want us to have any say in our lives?”

I know I just promised not to push him away, but the anger and annoyance I’d been feeling towards him for so long came right back with his words. He said that he wanted to stay here too. What was the big deal?

“Because… Because I wanted to be the one to protect you two for a change. You’ve always looked after me, even when I was a bitch to you. But you guys are so skilled at everything that you don’t need me to look after you. I wanted to be the hero for once.”

I refused to look at either of them. Admitting weakness was horrible, but people’s reactions? Even worse. I just kept my eyes on my knees and figured that it was a good sign that Dean hadn’t hugged me closer in sympathy or pushed me away in disgust at my admission.

“Y/N, you have to know that we aren’t heroes—“

“Now it’s my turn to call bullshit, Sam. You two are heroes. You’re the best damn heroes that any timeline could ever ask for. Wanna know why? Because you’re the freaking Winchesters. You can kill anything. You got God and his sister to talk things out. You’ve saved so many people and you’re sacrificed yourselves so many times. And I know that if you went back to the other timeline, you would find some way to kick those Titan’s asses. So yeah, you guys are heroes whether you feel like it or not. And that’s what I didn’t want.”

“You… didn’t want us to feel like heroes?” Sam asked slowly.

Yeah, yeah. I didn’t want them to feel powerful and confident and that probably made me a horrible friend. But I. Just. Couldn’t. Take. It.

“I don’t want you guys to go all hero and jump right into that other timeline.”

“Because you won’t come with us,” Dean finished my thought, obviously remembering my argument from… yesterday? Was it really less than twenty-four hours that I’d had that discussion with them, begging to not take the drug?

“Yeah,” I mumbled, realizing that I had been wrong. This wasn’t me being a hero. This wasn’t me shielding them from these memories like a good friend. This was me being selfish.

I wanted Addy and the Winchesters. I wanted it all.

Didn’t I deserve that?

“Well, I don’t know if we’ll have a choice,” Dean said. Sam and I both turned to look at him. “After I woke up, Crowley said something about how there’s something special about you. He’d met with me dozens of times and never got his memory back. But when he met you in the office, it was like you opened the floodgates.”

“So maybe Y/N is the only way back?” Sam thought out loud, not seeming to like the way the words fit on his tongue any more than I did.

Were they saying that I held their futures in my hand? I had the power to veto their decisions? If they made the final decision to go back, did that mean that I could force them to stay here with me?

But what kind of person would that make me?

“It’s just a thought. Maybe Crowley knows more,” Dean rushed to say as if he sensed where my thoughts went.

“Then I guess we talk to Crowley,” I forced out around the cobwebs in my throat.

“I hate that,” Dean growled, but Sam just nodded. A few minutes later, Sam agreed that we were all good and he called Bobby to get us out of the panic room. I walked upstairs in a daze, wondering if they were right.

Was I special? Could I control if they stayed or went back to the other timeline?

And if I could, would I?

NEXT CHAPTER 

Add Yourself To My Taglist Here!

Mobile Masterlist

[whipplefilter]

Stormy Boy goes to Radiator Springs for an event, a la` Rally Race, and just before the event he's down there at the Butte, scoffing it, and McQueen- who sees the whole thing -drives up behind him and rips past him. Storm, unfazed, tears after him with ease, thinking, "Oh boy, beating Champ on his hometrack- Love it-"- only to spin out and land in the cactus and Lightning LAUGHS (but later- much later -they end up healing their differences over the same track :3)

My first time trying out Storm’s POV! Oh my god, why is he amazing. What a baby. XD

McQueen is surprised to see him there, to say the least. Storm’s pretty sure he hears “–not your game, Storm” as McQueen blows past, and that much is true. Dirt is child’s play. Forgiving in ways that asphalt will never be, snatching speed like it’s trying to keep you back. He remembers his mother back home, spraying down the street in summer, to keep the dust down. No, not his mother. A maid.

Dirt is something you graduate from. Or if you’re lucky, you never have to endure it at all. It’s hell beneath him, distractingly. bumpy. Storm picks up the pace.

He must be going faster than he feels, because even on dirt he catches up to McQueen in no time, is posed to pass him around the corner–hairpin, hold the curve–the look on McQueen’s face is indescribable.

That, Storm’s not used to. As far as he’s concerned, McQueen has approximately four emotions and no control over any of them. But this is–

Storm feels his back end swing out, tires losing their grip on the road, and he’s sailing, sailing–

When he hits the cacti at the bottom of the canyon, he knows what he saw. Devilish mirth. Turns out McQueen’s just as much of an asshole as the rest of them.

That’s comforting.

–

He doesn’t let the tow truck touch him. Gale will discover him missing soon enough, he figures. She’ll call someone else.

The sun begins to set.

Then it’s dark at the bottom of the canyon.

He’s not helpless. He does try. But he has no purchase, is too front-heavy. Doesn’t have the height to be particularly acrobatic, unlike that ridiculous French car he’d passed on the way into town. That car had been doing backflips off a wooden ramp, landing flat on his roof each time–bless his roll cage, Storm harrumphs–but never stopping.

Headlights. Finally! Gale must have noticed.

“Are you… really?” says a voice, not Gale. McQueen again. And if that’s pity he hears–also not one of McQueen’s officially sanctioned emotions, according to Storm–Storm’s gonna put him into the next wall he can find.

“It’s been hours,” says McQueen.

Storm’s not in the habit of responding to obvious statements of fact, and he’s not about to start now.

“Where’s Gale?” Storm asks. He keeps his voice matte, toneless, which is a feat when you’re speaking around a cactus.

McQueen shouldn’t answer, should withhold the information and make a snide game of it, but he misses his opportunity and answers straight, inasmuch as he can. “I dunno, I think she went off with Mack somewhere.”

McQueen pauses, then utters a vaguely bemused huh! as something dawns on him.

Storm’s not sure why he’s the only one who seems to find it annoying that there’s always something dawning on the guy.

“Mater can help, you know,” McQueen offers, from the top of the cliff. “Though I think his standard rate for out-of-towners is $32,000.”

Storms also not in the habit of responding to jokes that aren’t funny, and so stays silent. For a bit. When the glint of white headlight against the dirt before him fades and McQueen says nothing more, Storm knows he’s alone again. But he shouts, “Take your corn pone humor elsewhere!”

Just in case.

An avalanche of sand and flinty shale peppers him in response. Then he hears gravel clattering through rotors and a great whoosh as two tons of metal hits the bottom of the canyon, splitting a nearby cacti open on impact. Its juice hits Storm’s side, sticky and cold.

“You’re not the only one who’s sat down here all night, you know,” says McQueen, beside him now.

Storm feels pressure at his back, then a sharp rap as McQueen shoves him forward, up and over his downed cactus until he’s got four wheels back on the ground, sitting level at the bottom of the ravine. No way back up, though.

“So how’re you gonna get back up? Or are you just used to the bottom these days,” says Storm. He’s not asking McQueen for advice; he’s just asking McQueen to prove himself. The distinction is important.

“I’ve only ever found one way back up, Storm,” says McQueen. “You gotta ask for help.”

Storm rolls his eyes. He’s spent far too long at the bottom of this ravine to be getting fortune cookie advice from Lightning McQueen. “So what, I say please and thank you and your tow truck friend hauls us back up? You got him lurking in the shadows up there just so you can teach me a life lesson?”

“No,” McQueen snaps, defensive. Still not used to the old man mentor role, obviously.

Then McQueen says, “Wait.”

Then he says, “Oh no.”

Then he swears.

“You didn’t think this through, did you,” says Storm. “Pre-race party’s probably kicking up about now. Loud music, generally raucous… jubilation.” The last word sticks in his mouth, the way things do when you name something at the same time as you’re judging it.

No one’s gonna hear them. No one’s gonna think to look. They’re gonna be stuck down here ‘til morning.

“Well, they’ll notice I’m gone,” McQueen assures himself.

“Sure, champ,” Storm sneers, back in his element. “I mean, we always do.”

“I should have left you down here,” McQueen mutters. “I could have left you down here!”

And now, this is something Ray quotes at him all the time, but it’s not until just now, when Storm sees it on someone else–someone not him–that he begins to understand what it’s even supposed to mean. At least, he’s pretty sure.

So he quotes it, too. “Pride goeth, McQueen.”

After the glare he receives in return, he knows he’s got it right.

[samanthasroberts]

Here’s Each Myers-Briggs Type’s Recipe For A Perfect New Year’s Eve

@melaniekim

INTJ

The sharp crack of the first firework. The flicker of a tea candle on a white tablecloth. A crisp bill left of the smooth marble of an upscale bar. The iced condensation of a cold martini glass.

ESFP

A burst of multicolored confetti. The sound of laughter pouring out of a pub. Splitting fries with your friends while sitting on a curb, watching live music play across the street. An amazing Snapchat story.

INTP

The first tick of the New Year on a wristwatch. The buzzing neon glow of a 24 hour sign in the window of a takeout restaurant. The foam of a dark Guinness beer spilling over onto the bar mat. Miscounting the seconds to midnight, laughing and starting over too late.

ENTJ

A sparkling crystal glass of champagne. The graceful, arching curve of cigarette smoke curling into the night sky. An Instagram caption worded and reworded carefully, still not perfect. The innate promise of bedlam, of a chaotic spark ready to burn the new year into something exhilarating.

INFJ

Watching a city celebrate from the roof of a skyscraper. The sound of footsteps echoing off a silent street. The heft of the thick dark glass of a fancy bottle of champagne. The silver of the stars breaking through after being obscured by the dark smoke of fireworks.

ENFP

The sparkle of a sequined dress. The slip of an empty shot glass out of your fingers. The heat of a stranger’s mouth on yours. The blinding flash of a spotlight.

ISTJ

The heat of your breath clouding the crystal-clear night. A freshly completed phone note, full of New Year’s resolutions. The blush of being caught talking to an attractive stranger when the countdown begins. A custom Instagram filter.

ISTP

The muffled sound of a baseline emanating from a club. The burn of strong perfumed alcohol. A successful dare, barely spoken, but honored. The edges of the sky fiery with the first taste of morning.

ESTJ:

Straight whisky, served without ice but with a garnish. The sense of finality of those last few hours of the year, sometimes encouraging acts of wild abandon. The glow of a taxi cab meter, more familiar than the streets. Making the DJ play a song a second time, but this time, not the remix.

INFP

A fortune cookie fortune tucked into a jacket pocket. The feeling beyond weariness, where the edges of reality seem just around the corner. Singing Auld Lang Syne as the clock strikes midnight. A kiss, cementing the unspoken admission of feelings.

ENTP

A crumpled map for the underground. Wandering a convenience store with friends at 2AM, laughing and joking as you shop for midnight snacks. The hypnotizing flash of police lights bouncing off nearby buildings as the cops direct traffic away from downtown revelry. Feeling young and unstoppable even as you celebrate the literal passage of time.

ENFJ

The refined clink of champagne glasses at midnight. A swipe of red lipstick, soon smudged. Watching fireworks explode from a balcony overlooking the city. The smoothly graceful whoosh of elevator doors closing, leaving the flatteringly clever shadows of the darkness behind.

ISFP

The uneven sound of EDM. Converse worn with a dressy outfit. An extraneous smudge of eyeliner, perfectly forgotten. Darkened apartment buildings, interrupted only by the light from one window.

ESFJ

Walking towards a forgotten destination with friends, ending up shouting and laughing at a playground in the dark. The weight of someone laying their head on your shoulder. Strobe lights, turned psychedelic when they hit colorfully dyed hair. A fashionable cocktail with an extra straw.

ESTP

The sound of a bottle shattering against cobblestones. A phone buzzing endlessly with notifications, the real-world expression of virality. The kind of fireworks show so gaudy you begin to get dazed, lost in the expression of so much power. Lipstick left on the rim of a highball glass, forgotten in the frozen moment.

ISFJ

The quiet that settles over a city in the wee hours of the new year as the revelers finally sleep. The feeling of hope for a new kind of change. The glasses that fit the year into the frames. An innocent kiss at midnight that promises something more.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/heres-each-myers-briggs-types-recipe-for-a-perfect-new-years-eve/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/heres-each-myers-briggs-types-recipe-for-a-perfect-new-years-eve/

[foursprout-blog]

Here’s Each Myers-Briggs Type’s Recipe For A Perfect New Year’s Eve

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/heres-each-myers-briggs-types-recipe-for-a-perfect-new-years-eve/

Here’s Each Myers-Briggs Type’s Recipe For A Perfect New Year’s Eve

@melaniekim

INTJ

The sharp crack of the first firework. The flicker of a tea candle on a white tablecloth. A crisp bill left of the smooth marble of an upscale bar. The iced condensation of a cold martini glass.

ESFP

A burst of multicolored confetti. The sound of laughter pouring out of a pub. Splitting fries with your friends while sitting on a curb, watching live music play across the street. An amazing Snapchat story.

INTP

The first tick of the New Year on a wristwatch. The buzzing neon glow of a 24 hour sign in the window of a takeout restaurant. The foam of a dark Guinness beer spilling over onto the bar mat. Miscounting the seconds to midnight, laughing and starting over too late.

ENTJ

A sparkling crystal glass of champagne. The graceful, arching curve of cigarette smoke curling into the night sky. An Instagram caption worded and reworded carefully, still not perfect. The innate promise of bedlam, of a chaotic spark ready to burn the new year into something exhilarating.

INFJ

Watching a city celebrate from the roof of a skyscraper. The sound of footsteps echoing off a silent street. The heft of the thick dark glass of a fancy bottle of champagne. The silver of the stars breaking through after being obscured by the dark smoke of fireworks.

ENFP

The sparkle of a sequined dress. The slip of an empty shot glass out of your fingers. The heat of a stranger’s mouth on yours. The blinding flash of a spotlight.

ISTJ

The heat of your breath clouding the crystal-clear night. A freshly completed phone note, full of New Year’s resolutions. The blush of being caught talking to an attractive stranger when the countdown begins. A custom Instagram filter.

ISTP

The muffled sound of a baseline emanating from a club. The burn of strong perfumed alcohol. A successful dare, barely spoken, but honored. The edges of the sky fiery with the first taste of morning.

ESTJ:

Straight whisky, served without ice but with a garnish. The sense of finality of those last few hours of the year, sometimes encouraging acts of wild abandon. The glow of a taxi cab meter, more familiar than the streets. Making the DJ play a song a second time, but this time, not the remix.

INFP

A fortune cookie fortune tucked into a jacket pocket. The feeling beyond weariness, where the edges of reality seem just around the corner. Singing Auld Lang Syne as the clock strikes midnight. A kiss, cementing the unspoken admission of feelings.

ENTP

A crumpled map for the underground. Wandering a convenience store with friends at 2AM, laughing and joking as you shop for midnight snacks. The hypnotizing flash of police lights bouncing off nearby buildings as the cops direct traffic away from downtown revelry. Feeling young and unstoppable even as you celebrate the literal passage of time.

ENFJ

The refined clink of champagne glasses at midnight. A swipe of red lipstick, soon smudged. Watching fireworks explode from a balcony overlooking the city. The smoothly graceful whoosh of elevator doors closing, leaving the flatteringly clever shadows of the darkness behind.

ISFP

The uneven sound of EDM. Converse worn with a dressy outfit. An extraneous smudge of eyeliner, perfectly forgotten. Darkened apartment buildings, interrupted only by the light from one window.

ESFJ

Walking towards a forgotten destination with friends, ending up shouting and laughing at a playground in the dark. The weight of someone laying their head on your shoulder. Strobe lights, turned psychedelic when they hit colorfully dyed hair. A fashionable cocktail with an extra straw.

ESTP

The sound of a bottle shattering against cobblestones. A phone buzzing endlessly with notifications, the real-world expression of virality. The kind of fireworks show so gaudy you begin to get dazed, lost in the expression of so much power. Lipstick left on the rim of a highball glass, forgotten in the frozen moment.

ISFJ

The quiet that settles over a city in the wee hours of the new year as the revelers finally sleep. The feeling of hope for a new kind of change. The glasses that fit the year into the frames. An innocent kiss at midnight that promises something more.

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

Here’s Each Myers-Briggs Type’s Recipe For A Perfect New Year’s Eve

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/heres-each-myers-briggs-types-recipe-for-a-perfect-new-years-eve/

Here’s Each Myers-Briggs Type’s Recipe For A Perfect New Year’s Eve

@melaniekim

INTJ

The sharp crack of the first firework. The flicker of a tea candle on a white tablecloth. A crisp bill left of the smooth marble of an upscale bar. The iced condensation of a cold martini glass.

ESFP

A burst of multicolored confetti. The sound of laughter pouring out of a pub. Splitting fries with your friends while sitting on a curb, watching live music play across the street. An amazing Snapchat story.

INTP

The first tick of the New Year on a wristwatch. The buzzing neon glow of a 24 hour sign in the window of a takeout restaurant. The foam of a dark Guinness beer spilling over onto the bar mat. Miscounting the seconds to midnight, laughing and starting over too late.

ENTJ

A sparkling crystal glass of champagne. The graceful, arching curve of cigarette smoke curling into the night sky. An Instagram caption worded and reworded carefully, still not perfect. The innate promise of bedlam, of a chaotic spark ready to burn the new year into something exhilarating.

INFJ

Watching a city celebrate from the roof of a skyscraper. The sound of footsteps echoing off a silent street. The heft of the thick dark glass of a fancy bottle of champagne. The silver of the stars breaking through after being obscured by the dark smoke of fireworks.

ENFP

The sparkle of a sequined dress. The slip of an empty shot glass out of your fingers. The heat of a stranger’s mouth on yours. The blinding flash of a spotlight.

ISTJ

The heat of your breath clouding the crystal-clear night. A freshly completed phone note, full of New Year’s resolutions. The blush of being caught talking to an attractive stranger when the countdown begins. A custom Instagram filter.

ISTP

The muffled sound of a baseline emanating from a club. The burn of strong perfumed alcohol. A successful dare, barely spoken, but honored. The edges of the sky fiery with the first taste of morning.

ESTJ:

Straight whisky, served without ice but with a garnish. The sense of finality of those last few hours of the year, sometimes encouraging acts of wild abandon. The glow of a taxi cab meter, more familiar than the streets. Making the DJ play a song a second time, but this time, not the remix.

INFP

A fortune cookie fortune tucked into a jacket pocket. The feeling beyond weariness, where the edges of reality seem just around the corner. Singing Auld Lang Syne as the clock strikes midnight. A kiss, cementing the unspoken admission of feelings.

ENTP

A crumpled map for the underground. Wandering a convenience store with friends at 2AM, laughing and joking as you shop for midnight snacks. The hypnotizing flash of police lights bouncing off nearby buildings as the cops direct traffic away from downtown revelry. Feeling young and unstoppable even as you celebrate the literal passage of time.

ENFJ

The refined clink of champagne glasses at midnight. A swipe of red lipstick, soon smudged. Watching fireworks explode from a balcony overlooking the city. The smoothly graceful whoosh of elevator doors closing, leaving the flatteringly clever shadows of the darkness behind.

ISFP

The uneven sound of EDM. Converse worn with a dressy outfit. An extraneous smudge of eyeliner, perfectly forgotten. Darkened apartment buildings, interrupted only by the light from one window.

ESFJ

Walking towards a forgotten destination with friends, ending up shouting and laughing at a playground in the dark. The weight of someone laying their head on your shoulder. Strobe lights, turned psychedelic when they hit colorfully dyed hair. A fashionable cocktail with an extra straw.

ESTP

The sound of a bottle shattering against cobblestones. A phone buzzing endlessly with notifications, the real-world expression of virality. The kind of fireworks show so gaudy you begin to get dazed, lost in the expression of so much power. Lipstick left on the rim of a highball glass, forgotten in the frozen moment.

ISFJ

The quiet that settles over a city in the wee hours of the new year as the revelers finally sleep. The feeling of hope for a new kind of change. The glasses that fit the year into the frames. An innocent kiss at midnight that promises something more.

[brajeshupadhyay]

UK’s accidental savers: Poll shows many are better off in lockdown 

Thousands of us have picked up a surprise savings habit in lockdown, a Money Mail survey reveals today.

The coronavirus crisis has inflicted job losses and pay cuts – and still threatens to kill off many struggling businesses.

But despite the doom and gloom, many Mail readers have found they are saving hundreds of pounds thanks to lockdown, and becoming more financially secure as a result.

Spending cuts: Despite the doom and gloom, many readers have found themselves saving hundreds of pounds thanks to lockdown and becoming more financially secure as a result 

Large expenses such as holidays, commuting costs and entertainment have vanished following unprecedented social-distancing restrictions – giving households the chance to set aside money during an economically uncertain time.

Exclusive research for Money Mail by Consumer Intelligence today suggests 16 per cent of people now feel financially better off. Almost half are spending less since social-distancing restrictions were introduced, with 38 per cent saving more.

Nearly four in five families say they have more money to spend since lockdown, with a quarter having between £200 and £500 more in disposable income each month.

The findings come as figures from the Bank of England yesterday showed the nation saved £16.2 billion in April. In the six months to February households saved an average of £5 billion every month.

What is more, households cleared an astonishing £5 billion of credit-card debt, which was more than double the previous record of £2.4 billion paid off in March. In a standard month the nation would usually clear £300 million of credit-card debt.

Becky O’Connor, personal finance specialist at insurer Royal London, says: ‘A financial divide has opened up during lockdown.

‘While some are really struggling on reduced incomes, there’s another group whose experience has been almost the exact opposite.

‘If you are in a position to do so, there might never be a better time to ‘build back better’ and save.’

Here, Money Mail meets some of the nation’s new ‘accidental savers’.

At last, I’ve managed to build a little nest egg 

By HENRY DEEDES 

All my life I’ve been a spender rather than a saver. Whatever I’ve earned during my career, my bank account has always puffed and wheezed its way through to pay day.

I’ve tried to be sensible. I’ve opened saving accounts, dabbled in Isas. I even bought Premium Bonds once. Much good it’s done me.

You see, any disposable cash I’ve ever had has this annoying habit of winking at me through the computer glass, urging me to go out and enjoy it.

Terrible, I know, but there’s something innately therapeutic about rewarding yourself after a busy week with a little something. 

A case of wine, something new to hang in the flat. Perhaps another ill-advised addition to the summer wardrobe from a tempting online emporium.

Invariably, no sooner have I clicked the purchase button and the boiler will suddenly crank to halt and there’ll be nothing in the cookie jar to pay for a repair. I never learn.

Lockdown has changed all that. Like a lot of people, I imagine, being trapped inside an apartment for the best part of three months has brought about a vast reduction in expenses.

No need now for expensive Travelcards, pricey gym memberships or all those overpriced cups of coffee every day.

And that’s before you’ve taken into account what I used to spend going out to see friends. 

Remember socialising? Drinks rounds, restaurant bills. I dread to think how much I used to splurge on late-night Uber journeys during normal times. But it was a lot.

And so with all these weighty charges lifted from my balance sheet, I’ve started to experience a novelty.

When I check my balance at the end of the month, there’s now actually something left in the kitty. In the past I’d have been tempted to do something extravagant. ‘Why not?’ would have been my attitude.

But in these times of enforced isolation, that thinking has been replaced with what’s the point?

Instead, I’ve been putting it in an online investment Isa with savings app Moneybox. I pay a set amount in each month, as well as any additional funds I might have left over. 

It also has a nifty feature which rounds up all my debit card transactions to the nearest pound and automatically squirrels away the extra cash.

H ow satisfying it has been, how oddly empowering. Each time I check to see how my savings are accruing I now get that same whoosh of excitement I used to get when an Amazon parcel would plonk through my letterbox.

It would be nice to think that when this is all over, when the High Street tills begin to ring again and when the beer pumps start flowing, I will be able to maintain this spirit of restraint. 

If nothing else, this pandemic has taught us how quickly life can go south. In bleak times it pays to be prudent.

Doubtless this is the last thing Chancellor Rishi Sunak wants to hear. As we re-emerge from lockdown, he needs as many idiots like me as possible flashing their plastic around with reckless abandon to get our ravaged economy moving.

But if this crisis does make some a little more financially responsible, surely that’s no bad thing in the long term.  

I have cleared my credit card 

  Olivia McCulla, who works in PR, has saved by moving back in with her parents

By moving back in with her parents, Olivia McCulla, who works in PR, has saved enough to pay off her £1,000 credit card debt.

She still pays £775 a month in rent for her flat in North-West London but gets £100 back that would usually go on bills because she isn’t there.

Her £120-a-month travel costs and £150-a-week work lunch habit have also disappeared while she works from her parents’ home near Leeds.

She has also saved thousands after the two hen-dos and four weddings she was supposed to attend this summer were postponed.

However, she now has eight weddings in the diary next year to budget for.

Olivia, 29, who wants to buy a property in the next few years, has opened a new savings account.

She says: ‘It feels more important than ever to have a rainy-day fund with things being so uncertain.

‘In London I was paying £9.50 for a gin and tonic and through the nose for a very small flat I dread going back to.

‘Lockdown has made me question if I even want to buy in London.’

Before the coronavirus crisis, Olivia was saving about £100 a month.

Her father Bernard, 65, and his wife Susan, 66, have seen their household costs rise slightly since their daughter moved home but are also saving money each month. 

They previously spent £100 eating out each week, so their bank balance is boosted by £400 a month. And instead of paying a tradesman £2,000 to replace his patio with a flower garden, Bernard did it himself and slashed the cost in half.

Before social-distancing regulations were relaxed, Bernard was also saving £180 a month on his golf and walking-football memberships.

He says: ‘We are very fortunate. Lockdown has made me think we should live more for today and enjoy our pensions more.’

I feel guilty I’m better off 

Quids in: Ashleigh Meale is saving between £500 and £700 a month

Ashleigh Meale says her ‘stripped-back life’ means she is now saving between £500 and £700 a month.

This is despite her grocery bill doubling to £400 a month and signing up to a TV and film- streaming service costing £60 a year.

Before lockdown, the 27-year-old recruitment consultant, who is currently working from home, was putting away between £250 and £500 but would spend hundreds of pounds a month socialising with friends at expensive bars and restaurants. 

Now, she and her boyfriend Rob, 38, cook their meals from scratch at home.

Ashleigh, who lives in Sheffield, is also saving £70 a month by working from home and not having to pay to commute by bus.

She has also been unable to spend money on holidays since the Government warned against non-essential travel.

Ashleigh admits that, while she is not a natural saver, she has now realised how much she spends unnecessarily and hopes to remain mindful about what expenses she reintroduces when restrictions are finally lifted.

She says: ‘Feeling better off financially during this time is a strange position to be in and it does make me feel guilty when so many people are struggling. But it has given me time to re-evaluate things, and I have no intention of blowing what I’ve saved.

‘I don’t need to be out all the time spending money on eating out and drinks when I could be just as happy with a barbecue in someone’s garden. What I have missed the most is my friends — not the expensive socialising.’

Pay cut but £400-a-month saving 

Sally Walsh is saving an extra £400 a month on top of £200 she was already setting aside in a help-to-buy Isa

Sally Walsh was worried when she was told she would have to take a 10 per cent pay cut in March.

But despite the shock announcement, the 24-year-old engineer has found her finances have improved during lockdown.

She is now saving an extra £400 a month on top of £200 she was already setting aside in a help-to-buy Isa.

Since working from home, Sally has saved around £200 a month by not having to commute to central London, and a further £200 by not eating or drinking out after work.

The only bill to go up is her food cost now she cooks almost every meal at home.

Sally, who has lived with her parents in Bromley, South-East London since graduating, is determined to continue saving even after lockdown lifts.

She says: ‘My goal is to move out as soon as possible. I feel like I am closer to it now.

‘I don’t have to spend so much on going out. I hope I will soon be able to have people over and cook for them.’

Childcare cut by thousands 

Claire Jarrett and her partner Jon Howell are saving £50 a day in train fares alone

Claire Jarrett and her partner Jon Howell have saved enough since lockdown to pay for renovations on their home.

The couple need to fix the roof on their house in West Malling, Kent, and want to make the garden more child-friendly for their one-year-old daughter, Eleanor, to play.

Claire, 31, had only been back at work for two days after returning from maternity leave before staff were told they had to work from home.

With Jon, also 31, working from home too, they are saving £50 a day in train fares alone by not having to commute to the insurance firm where they both work in Bromley, South-East London.

They are also saving around £5 a day on lunches at work, £80 a month on petrol and £200 a month by not eating out.

But their biggest saving has been on childcare.

It usually costs £800 a month to send Eleanor to nursery — but the couple have not had to pay since March.

It has helped the couple to replenish their savings after Claire’s maternity leave and move their renovation plans a bit further forward.

However Claire says their financial gain is likely to be short-lived.

She says: ‘Lockdown has made us realise we do not need to go out as much but lots of the costs will be re-introduced when life goes back to normal, unfortunately.’

Not relying on investments 

Retired Gerry Short is making savings by not playing golf, employing a cleaner or taking weekend theatre trips

Retired Gerry Short has seen such a drop in his spending that he has decided to stop withdrawing income from his investments for the next couple of years.

Gerry, 61, a former college principal, has two pensions that pay £20,000 a year. He gets a further £16,000 a year from investments. 

After the pandemic hit the stock market, his investments plummeted. While they have recovered slightly, he wants to give them time to recover.

His reduced outgoings mean he can do this as he is making savings on weekend theatre trips which can cost up to £100 a time. 

He was refunded £60 of his golf-club membership. He also stopped spending £20 on drinks three or four times a week after games. 

The father-of-one, who lives in Leicestershire, also no longer employs a cleaner, which cost £100 a month.

He says: ‘I was aware I was spending a lot as a distraction after my wife died and knew it couldn’t continue. Lockdown has given me time to plan further in the future.’

Windfall from lost holiday 

Dannielle Phillips has had to put expensive holiday plans on halt

Dannielle Phillips, 32, spends most of her spare cash on trips away.

But since lockdown kicked in, expensive holiday plans have ground to a halt. She has already got an £870 refund for a trip to Mexico that was supposed to take place in April.

And she has received a £500 voucher she can use to re-book her holiday to Portugal in June for next year.

Dannielle, a senior marketing consultant, had always put £250 a month into Premium Bonds, but has since increased this to £750 a month.

Since lockdown began, she has saved around £2,500 in total, which she says would have been impossible for her before.

She has always checked her banking apps frequently, but is definitely more aware of incoming and outgoing transactions now.

Dannielle, who lives in Croydon, South London, says she also feels very lucky it worked out like this because she had originally handed in her notice in February and was planning to leave after finishing a project six weeks later.

But the new job she had been offered fell through so her company agreed to rehire her.

Dannielle says: ‘I am looking forward to lockdown ending but also dreading it because I will need to rebalance old habits.

‘I’m going to try to budget more at the weekends because I want to keep saving to buy a house.

‘Building up my savings has become more important to me because the future feels so uncertain.’

a.murray@dailymail.co.uk

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

The post UK’s accidental savers: Poll shows many are better off in lockdown  appeared first on Sansaar Times.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2U736VI