#Grease Filter Replacement

[red-eagle-fire-protection]

Ensure Kitchen Safety with Expert Exhaust Hood Repair by Red Eagle - Kitchen Hood Services LA

Keeping your kitchen exhaust hood in top condition is crucial for a clean and safe cooking environment. Common issues like noisy operation, reduced airflow, and malfunctioning lights can disrupt your kitchen’s efficiency. At Red Eagle - Kitchen Hood Services LA, we specialize in diagnosing and repairing these problems. Our expert team ensures your exhaust hood is running smoothly, from tightening loose screws to replacing faulty motors and cleaning grease filters. Regular maintenance not only extends the life of your equipment but also enhances kitchen safety. Contact Red Eagle - Kitchen Hood Services LA today for reliable and professional kitchen exhaust hood repair services.

Red Eagle Fire Protection LA Los Angeles, CA (213)698-3893 https://redeaglerestfirehood.com/

[red-eagle-fire-protection-encino]

Essential Warning Signs of Exhaust Hood Failure Every Commercial Kitchen Must Watch For

In commercial kitchens, an efficiently working exhaust hood is critical for maintaining proper ventilation, controlling heat and odors, and preventing fire hazards. However, like any equipment, exhaust hoods can develop problems over time, and ignoring these warning signs can lead to costly repairs or even dangerous incidents. In this article, we’ll highlight the key warning signs of exhaust hood failure that every commercial kitchen should be aware of to keep operations safe and efficient.

Decreased Airflow and Poor Ventilation

One of the most noticeable signs of exhaust hood failure is reduced airflow. If your kitchen is filling with smoke or steam faster than usual, or if odors linger even after cooking, it may indicate that your exhaust hood is struggling to remove air properly. This issue can arise due to blocked ductwork, worn-out fans, or excessive grease buildup in the system. Reduced ventilation is not just an inconvenience; it increases the risk of grease fires and can make the kitchen environment unsafe for staff.

Addressing poor airflow early by inspecting and cleaning the system can prevent more severe problems down the line.

Unusual Noises Coming from the Hood

A healthy exhaust hood should operate with minimal noise. If you start hearing grinding, rattling, or squealing sounds coming from the system, it’s a red flag. These noises often point to mechanical issues such as loose parts, motor problems, or a damaged fan. Continuing to operate the exhaust hood under these conditions can lead to total system failure, leaving your kitchen without proper ventilation.

Calling in a professional to inspect and repair the system as soon as you hear these noises can save you from costly repairs or replacements.

Excessive Grease Buildup

While some grease accumulation is normal, seeing excessive grease buildup on or around the exhaust hood can be a major sign of trouble. If grease is dripping from the hood or visibly coating surfaces more than usual, it’s a sign that your exhaust hood isn’t effectively removing airborne grease particles. This could be due to a malfunctioning fan or clogged filters, both of which increase the risk of a grease fire—a serious safety hazard in commercial kitchens.

Regular cleaning and maintenance are essential to prevent grease buildup and keep your kitchen safe from potential fire risks.

Fluctuating or Inconsistent Airflow

An exhaust hood should provide consistent, strong airflow throughout the kitchen. If the airflow seems to weaken or fluctuate during use, this inconsistency may indicate that something is wrong with the system. Possible causes include a clogged filter, a malfunctioning fan, or issues with the ductwork. Inconsistent airflow reduces the hood’s ability to effectively expel smoke, heat, and grease, leading to poor air quality and an increased risk of fire.

Addressing fluctuating airflow promptly can help maintain safe kitchen conditions and prevent system breakdown.

Persistent Odors

One of the primary functions of an exhaust hood is to eliminate cooking odors from the kitchen. If unpleasant smells remain even when the exhaust hood is running, it could signal a malfunction. A clogged filter, faulty fan, or blockages in the ductwork might prevent the hood from removing odors properly. Persistent odors can not only create an uncomfortable environment but also indicate that grease and smoke are accumulating in the system, increasing fire risks.

Resolving this issue early can improve both air quality and kitchen safety.

Electrical Issues

If your exhaust hood experiences flickering lights, intermittent fan operation, or power failures, it’s a sign of underlying electrical problems. Faulty wiring, a failing motor, or circuit overloads can cause these issues, and continuing to operate the system without addressing them can lead to a fire or complete system failure. Electrical problems should never be ignored and require immediate professional attention to prevent safety hazards.

Conclusion

Every commercial kitchen must be aware of the warning signs of exhaust hood failure to maintain a safe and efficient operation. From reduced airflow and unusual noises to excessive grease buildup and electrical issues, recognizing these early warning signs allows for timely intervention, preventing expensive repairs or dangerous incidents. Regular maintenance and professional inspections are key to ensuring that your exhaust hood continues to operate effectively, keeping your kitchen safe and compliant with fire safety standards.

[business4u]

A Comprehensive Guide for Filter Replacement Services

Are you a homeowner or business owner in Plano, Texas, concerned about the quality of your indoor air? One of the simplest yet most effective ways to improve indoor air quality is by regularly replacing your air filters. In Plano, TX, residents and businesses can benefit from professional Filter Replacement Services in Plano TX to ensure their HVAC systems run efficiently and their indoor air remains clean and healthy.

Importance of Filter Replacement

Improved Air Quality: Air filters play a crucial role in trapping dust, pollen, pet dander, and other airborne particles, preventing them from circulating throughout your home or business. Regular filter replacement ensures that your indoor air remains clean and free of pollutants, promoting a healthier living or working environment.

Optimal HVAC Performance: Dirty or clogged air filters can restrict airflow and force your HVAC system to work harder to maintain the desired temperature. This not only increases energy consumption but also puts unnecessary strain on your system, leading to premature wear and potential breakdowns. Regular filter replacement helps your HVAC system operate more efficiently, reducing energy costs and extending its lifespan.

Allergy and Asthma Relief: Clean air filters can significantly reduce indoor allergens, such as dust mites, mold spores, and pollen, providing relief for allergy and asthma sufferers. By removing these airborne particles, filter replacement services help create a healthier indoor environment where occupants can breathe more easily and comfortably.

Preventive Maintenance: Regular filter replacement is a form of preventive maintenance that can help identify potential issues with your HVAC system before they escalate into costly repairs. By monitoring the condition of your filters during replacement services, HVAC technicians can detect any signs of wear or damage and address them promptly, ensuring the continued reliability and efficiency of your system, read more: Hinge Kit Install Service in Fort Worth TX

Benefits of Professional Filter Replacement Services in Plano, TX

Expertise and Experience: Professional filter replacement services in Plano, TX, employ trained technicians with extensive experience in HVAC systems. They understand the importance of proper filter selection and installation, ensuring that you receive the right filters for your specific system and needs.

Quality Products: Professional filter replacement services use high-quality air filters that are designed to effectively capture airborne contaminants and improve indoor air quality. They can recommend the most suitable filters for your HVAC system based on factors such as filter size, MERV rating, and filtration efficiency.

Convenient Scheduling: Filter replacement services in Plano, TX, offer convenient scheduling options to accommodate your busy lifestyle or business hours. Whether you prefer regular maintenance appointments or need an emergency filter replacement, professional technicians can work with you to find a time that suits your schedule.

Comprehensive Maintenance: In addition to filter replacement, professional HVAC technicians can perform a thorough inspection of your system during service visits. They can check for any signs of wear or damage, clean critical components, and make recommendations for additional maintenance or repairs as needed, ensuring the continued performance and efficiency of your HVAC system.

How to Get Started

Ready to breathe cleaner air and ensure the optimal performance of your HVAC system with professional filter replacement services in Plano, TX? Here's how to get started:

Research: Take the time to research reputable HVAC companies offering filter replacement services in the Plano area. Look for companies with positive reviews, certifications, and a commitment to customer satisfaction.

Schedule a Service Appointment: Contact a few HVAC companies to schedule a service appointment for filter replacement. During the appointment, discuss your filter needs, indoor air quality concerns, and any other issues you may be experiencing with your HVAC system.

Regular Maintenance Plan: Consider signing up for a regular maintenance plan with your chosen HVAC company to ensure ongoing filter replacement and system maintenance. A maintenance plan can help you stay on top of your HVAC system's needs and prevent potential problems before they arise.

Investing in professional filter replacement services is a simple yet effective way to improve indoor air quality, enhance HVAC performance, and ensure the comfort and well-being of occupants in your home or business in Plano, TX. With expert service and quality products, you can breathe easier knowing that your HVAC system is in good hands. Schedule your filter replacement service today and enjoy cleaner, healthier air year-round.

[cosmicanakin]

full of surprises ⎯⎯ V HACKER.

YAP SESH! while i was scrolling through pinterest, i fell down a rabbit hole of photos of vinnie working on cars.

⎯⎯ helping vinnie in the garage, your knowledge, and skills with cars over the years come to surface, unveiling a secret you'd kept hidden.

WARNING(S) fluff | smut | explicit language | thigh riding | fingering | F!READER | breeding kink. ୨ৎ EIGHTEEN PLUS! ADULT CONTENT | minors do NOT interact.

୨ৎ VINNIE'S LIBRARY.

the soft clanking and muttered curses drifting from the garage pull you away from your mindless scrolling on your phone. you glance at the clock, noticing it's past midnight already. vinnie told you he'd be done working on his car by now but it seems he's hit another snag in repairs.

sighing, you slide off the couch and pad down the hallway. vinnie's bent over the open hood distractedly turning a wrench, smears of grease decorating his gray tank top and forearms in a way that makes your heart flutter. you admire his toned physique for a moment, always loving when he gets hands on.

"any luck, babe?" you ask softly, not wanting to startle him. vinnie jerks up with a grimace, rubbing the back of his neck. "ah, no not yet. this damn fuel pump is being a real pain in my ass. i've replaced every other part but it just won't prime right."

he kicks the tire in frustration earning a soft chuckle from you. striding over, you stand on your tiptoes to peer into the engine compartment. years spent helping your dad under the hoods of countless vehicles have given you more than a casual understanding.

"mind if i take a look?" you inquire, already sliding some gloves from the table beside you. vinnie gapes at you in disbelief. "i had no idea you knew about cars, babe," disbelief colors his tone but you can also detect a hint of thrill at discovering another layer to you.

"my dad always said it's a good skill for any woman to have. now scoot over, let me see what's going on." vinnie readily obliges, interest overtaking his previous annoyance as you step into his place. running an analytical eye, you soon spot the issue.

"ah, there's your problem. the fuel filter is badly clogged, no wonder it can't draw fuel properly. just needs a replacement, should clear it right up." you declare confidently, removing the filter to examine. vinnie peers over your shoulder in amazement.

"damn baby, you never cease to surprise me. i'm seriously so impressed right now, you've got me feeling all kinds of things." he purrs against your ear, hands sliding around your waist from behind. a shiver runs down your spine at his breath on your skin but you maintain focus, humming thoughtfully.

"flattery will get you everywhere mister, now hand me the socket wrench so i can get this fixed," you demand gently, holding a hand back expectantly. vinnie hurriedly passes you the tool, enthralled by your take-charge demeanor. within minutes the new filter is installed and you're reassembling the compartment.

flicking your gloves away, you turn to face vinnie's adoring gaze with a smile. "alright big man, give her a start, and let's see if that did the trick." he grins, pressing a swift kiss to your lips in thanks before jumping into the driver's seat.

the cars roars to life on the first try, rumbling smoothly without any hiccups. vinnie whoops loudly, leaning out the window with glee. "fuck baby, you're amazing! that was the perfect fix. come here, i gotta give you a proper reward."

giggling, you allow vinnie to tug you into his lap as he's sat in the driver's seat. his mouth latches onto your neck desperately, hands roaming your sides. "i'm so turned on by how smart and skilled you are. drives me crazy knowing you could probably rebuild this engine from scratch if you wanted," he growls between kisses.

heat pools low in your belly at his adoring praise. you slide his hands up under your shirt, craving his touch. "mhm, maybe i will someday just to watch you swoon. but for now..." twisting, you capture vinnie's lips hungrily.

he sighs into the kiss, deepening it instantly as his tongue delves between your parted lips. you rock against his firm thigh. vinnie groans, hands gripping your hips to guide your movements.

"fuck, i need you so bad. let's take this inside, i wanna worship your perfect body properly." he breathes heavily, pupils blown wide with want. you nod eagerly, already scrambling from his lap toward the house. vinnie follows, hastily towing you the rest of the way by your wrist.

as soon as the bedroom door clicks shut he's pinning you against it feverishly. your shirt disappears followed by his as he assaults your collarbone with rough kisses and nips. a gasp escapes your throat, grabbing handfuls of his hair to encourage the delicious treatment.

vinnie hikes your legs around his waist, lifting as if you weigh nothing at all. the hard line of his erection presses relentlessly against your core through the multiple layers still separating you, seeking friction. you grind down needily, desperate for more contact.

"slow down, baby, 'm not going anywhere," he pants, carrying you to the bed and laying you out like a feast. vinnie quickly divests the rest of your clothing, gazing in awe at your naked form beneath him.

"so perfect, and all mine." his worshipping words steal your breath, stomach clenching deliciously. when his mouth latches onto a pert nipple to suckle, you cry out loudly at the exquisite sensation.

vinnie takes his time lavishing each breast and curve of your body with wet kisses and love bites, mapping every sensitive spot until you're writhing and begging for more. finally his fingers dip to your dripping core, circling your swollen clit teasingly.

"fuck vinnie!" you babble, back arching off the mattress at his feather light touches. he chuckles darkly, sinking two digits into your core. "you take my fingers so well baby. bet you'll feel even better wrapped around my cock though, what do you think?"

a choked moan is your only response, eyes rolling back as he pumps his fingers leisurely. vinnie slowly adds a third, stretching your entrance deliciously full. his thumb rolls firm circles over your clit in time, driving you to the edge at an agonizing pace.

just as your orgasm begins to crest, he removes his hand entirely leaving you keening. vinnie stands to remove the last of his clothing, hard length jutting proudly from his slender hips. the sight alone could make you cum but he hasn't given permission yet.

crawling back over you, vinnie slots his cock against your dripping entrance and leans down to claim your mouth in a filthy kiss. "gonna make you feel so good, fuck you senseless until you can't remember your name. that's what you want isn't it?"

you whimper desperately, nodding fervently against his lips. "please, i want to feel you so deep inside me. use me as rough as you like, i'm all yours baby." his restraint snaps, and with one powerful thrust, he's fully seated to the hilt within your clenching heat.

you cry out loudly at the relentless stretch, walls spasming deliciously around his girth. vinnie groans deeply, staying locked in place to adjust before beginning a punishing rhythm of hard, deep strokes. his hips snap violently, balls slapping your swollen flesh with each impact.

all you can do is hold on for dear life, nails raking down his sweat slicked back as he fucks you into oblivion. vinnie pistons his hips with animalistic drives, pounding directly into your most sensitive spots unerringly. a constant litany of filthy praises tumble from his pretty lips, only spurring you nearer the edge.

"fuck you look gorgeous taking my cock sweet girl, your pussy was made for me i swear. gonna fill you up, have your belly swollen with my babies, you want that, baby? want me to come inside you while i fuck my name out of that beautiful mouth?"

the depraved imagery plunges you over at last, walls constricting vinnie's member in a vice grip. your orgasm tears through you with ruthless intensity, eyes rolling back as you scream his name. he chases his own release, fucking you through the aftershocks until spilling deep within your quivering channel with a guttural groan.

collapsing together in a sweaty heap, you trade sloppy kisses and whispered 'i love you's' while coming down from ecstasy. vinnie curls around your sated form protectively, pressing sweet affection into any skin he can reach.

"you never cease to amaze me, sweetheart. i love how full of surprises you are, constantly keeping me on my toes. and damn do i love when you take charge like that, so fucking hot." he sighs contentedly, nuzzling your hair.

[numinousmysteries]

24 - He/she called for him/her in his/her sleep.

super quick and dirty. no edits, just need to grease the old writing gears. s8 for some reason even though i hate it.

She’s not afraid of flying. Being afraid would be irrational and she’s not an irrational person. Commercial air travel is orders of magnitude safer than driving, she knows. Especially safer than driving in the middle of the night on unlit backroads with a Mulder who hasn’t slept in 36 hours behind the wheel, which she’s done on multiple occasions. Experience does nothing to allay her fears. Even before arriving at Quantico, she’d racked up thousands of international air miles as a Navy brat. Seven years as Mulder’s partner tacked on thousands more. 

And yet. And yet, she can’t rationalize away the surge of adrenaline she feels every time the engines start to fire up for takeoff. Recalling statistics doesn’t calm the drop in her stomach whenever the wheels rise off the tarmac and she feels the ground recede beneath her feet. 

Early in their partnership, she cursed Mulder for being able to drift off to sleep in a cramped coach seat while she was left alone to white knuckle the armrest and monitor every rise and fall in altitude as if she knew enough to assign any significance to them. Of course, as the years went by, their hands would find each others and she’d be able to rest with her head on his shoulder.

Don’t fall asleep, she wills herself now. She doesn’t want to show any weakness in front of her new partner. She doesn’t trust Doggett yet. But somehow the first trimester fatigue catches up. Where is this deep exhaustion when she’s lying awake in bed in the middle of the night, her mind racing with fears for her child and guilt that she hasn’t found Mulder yet? 

She twists the air vent all the way open hoping the cold air will keep her awake. The flight attendant offers coffee but she’s already had the single cup she’s allotting herself these days at home this morning so she asks for water instead which does nothing to allay her exhaustion. 

As much as she despises turbulence she wishes this particular flight hit a few more bumps but instead it’s a smooth ride over a cloudless Midwestern sky that only makes her eyelids feel heavier and heavier.

Now she’s lying on Mulder’s couch, leaning her back against his chest. His arms wrap around her and he’s resting his hands on her belly, now heavy and round. His long fingers dance across the taut skin chasing a protruding foot or elbow. “Incredible,” Mulder says quietly, not so much to her or their baby but to himself. Slatted sunlight filters in through the window shades and she feels warm all over. Warm from the sun, Warm from her partner’s body wrapped around her own, warm from the life growing within her. She brings her palms to cover his, holding him in between herself and their baby.

Suddenly, the ground starts trembling beneath them. The window is wide open now and the soft sunlight has been replaced with an unnaturally bright glaring white glow. She feels Mulder’s body rising from behind her and watches helplessly as he drifts toward the window. She’s paralyzed on the couch, the weight of her belly pinning her down. “Mulder!” She tries to scream, but no sound escapes her throat and he keeps being pulled away from her. “Mulder!” 

“Mulder!” She calls again. This time she hears her voice as her hand involuntarily reaches out for him. 

But it isn’t Mulder next to her. His living room has dissolved into the cabin of a plane quaking with turbulence and she’s immediately mortified to find her fingers gripping John Doggett’s dry-skinned hand. She gasps and pulls her hand away but his eyes are already locked on hers. 

“I’m sorry,” she mutters under her breath. 

He gives her the grace of a silent nod and then turns back to the newspaper in his lap. 

She’s too keyed up to sleep for the rest of the flight so she just stares at the casefile she brought to read. She can’t absorb a single word, though. Her mind is running in a loop berating herself for being stupid enough to let her guard down. 

She avoids looking at Doggett the rest of the flight. When they land, he retrieves both of their bags from the overhead compartment and she whispers a quiet thank you. 

“We’ll find him,” Doggett says stoically before turning his back to her and walking up the aisle as she follows behind. 

She still doesn’t trust him, but she wants to believe him.

[the-bifrost-blogger]

Of Chaos and Quiet Moments

Title: Doctor's Orders

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Timeline: Shortly after Loki's sentencing.

Thor’s voice echoed through the house, rattling the walls as if the thunder itself had descended into Jane Foster’s modest living room. He paced back and forth, his towering frame casting long shadows against the evening light filtering in through the windows.

“Loki, enough is enough!” Thor bellowed, his deep baritone carrying both frustration and exasperation.

Loki, reclining lazily on the couch, appeared completely unfazed. His legs were crossed, one ankle resting on his knee, and a polished green apple hovered between his fingers, suspended midair by a faint flicker of golden magic. He spun it absentmindedly, his emerald gaze focused more on the fruit than on his brother’s righteous fury.

“I fail to see what the issue is,” Loki drawled, his voice dripping with mock innocence.

Jane, seated at the dining table with her laptop open but clearly forgotten, threw her hands in the air. “The issue, Loki, is that you’re impossible to work with! Do you have any idea how many people I had to call after the soup kitchen fiasco?”

Loki’s lips curved into a mischievous smirk. “I’ve told you before, mortal, it was a mere grease fire. Hardly my fault that their equipment wasn’t up to standard.”

“Grease fire?” Thor barked, stopping mid-step to glare at his brother. “You turned the entire kitchen into an inferno! They’re still cleaning soot off the ceiling!”

Jane rubbed her temples, muttering under her breath, “And replacing half their pans...”

“And then there’s the dog park,” Thor continued, his tone growing darker. “What in the Nine Realms possessed you to bring an elephant to a dog park?”

Loki’s grin widened. “Admit it, brother. It was rather amusing.”

Thor’s nostrils flared as he stepped closer, looming over Loki like an impending storm. “Amusing? Amusing? The poor beast trampled half the park benches and terrified every dog in sight!”

Loki shrugged, utterly unrepentant. “It was a lesson in adaptability for those pampered Midgardian pets. You should thank me.”

“Thank you?” Jane cut in, her voice rising in pitch as she stood up and approached the two brothers. “Loki, the city’s animal control had to tranquilize the elephant in broad daylight. Do you know how much paperwork that caused? And let’s not even talk about the chihuahua incident—”

Thor groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “And those are just the minor incidents. What about the library debacle?”

“Ah,” Loki interjected, finally looking up from his apple with a gleam of pride. “That was a masterpiece. A simple enchantment, and poof! The books sorted themselves. It’s not my fault the mortals couldn’t handle the reorganization.”

“You made the books levitate, Loki!” Jane exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “One woman fainted, and another filed a police report because she thought the library was haunted!”

Thor pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly trying to compose himself. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter but no less firm. “Loki, this is serious. Your community service is not just a punishment—it’s a chance to make amends. But every organization we’ve sent you to has refused to take you back. If you don’t fulfill these hours, Father will have no choice but to intervene.”

At the mention of Odin, Loki’s expression flickered. For the briefest moment, his smirk faltered, replaced by a shadow of something heavier. But it was gone just as quickly, and he resumed his air of indifference.

“Very well,” Loki said with a sigh, tossing the apple into the air and catching it deftly. “Where, pray tell, do you intend to send me next? A preschool? A landfill? Perhaps I should clean your mortal sewers.”

Jane exchanged a glance with Thor, then crossed her arms. “Actually, I have a friend who’s willing to give you a chance. She works at Starlight General Hospital.”

“Hospital?” Loki repeated, his voice laced with disdain. “You expect me to play nursemaid to the sick and injured?”

Jane’s lips curled into a sly smile. “Not just any patients. Children.”

Loki’s eyes widened, and for the first time in the conversation, he looked genuinely horrified.

The sleek black car pulled up to the entrance of Starlight General Hospital, its polished surface gleaming under the mid-morning sun. Thor, seated in the driver’s seat with a grin as wide as the Bifrost bridge, turned to his begrudging passenger.

“Come on, brother,” Thor said cheerfully, slapping Loki on the shoulder with a force that jolted the smaller man forward. “It’s time for you to face your destiny.”

Loki, seated in the passenger seat with his arms crossed and a scowl etched across his face, stared out at the cheerful hospital façade. A brightly colored sign over the glass doors read “Pediatric Wing: Where Healing Meets Happiness!” and was adorned with cartoon drawings of smiling animals. The sight alone made Loki recoil.

“I refuse,” he said flatly, his emerald gaze narrowing. “Surely there is a more suitable punishment. Perhaps scrubbing the streets of New York or restoring those blasted park benches you’re so fond of mentioning.”

Thor leaned back in his seat, savoring Loki’s discomfort. “You’ve run out of options, brother. Every organization has refused to take you back. This hospital is your last chance. Unless, of course, you’d like to explain your failure to Father.”

At the mention of Odin, Loki’s jaw tightened. He turned to glare at Thor, his expression dark and venomous. “You will pay for this indignity,” he growled, stepping out of the car with the grace of a man marching to his own execution.

Thor followed, his booming laughter echoing across the parking lot. “Come now, brother! This will be good for you. And besides, how much trouble could you possibly cause in a hospital?”

Loki’s lips curved into a smirk as he walked ahead, his cape billowing dramatically behind him. “You underestimate me, Thor. That’s always been your weakness.”

Inside, the hospital lobby was a flurry of activity. Nurses wheeled patients past the reception desk, doctors hurried through the halls with clipboards, and the faint beeping of monitors mingled with the chatter of visitors.

Loki wrinkled his nose, already unimpressed by the sterile environment. His sharp eyes scanned the room until they landed on a figure dressed in bright pink scrubs that offended his aesthetic sensibilities.

The woman turned, revealing a clipboard tucked under one arm and a coffee cup in the other. Her scrubs were covered in cartoon kittens, and her name tag read: Dr. (Y/N) (L/N), Head of Pediatric Surgery.

She spotted Thor and broke into a warm smile. “Thor! You made it!”

Thor stepped forward, enveloping her in a bear hug that lifted her off the ground. She laughed, playfully swatting his arm when he set her down. “Easy, Thunder God. Some of us aren’t indestructible.”

Thor chuckled. “Dr. (L/N), this is my brother, Loki.”

Loki stepped forward, his posture stiff and his expression unreadable. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he said coolly, though his tone suggested anything but.

Dr. (L/N) raised an eyebrow, giving him a once-over. “So, you’re the infamous Loki. of Asgard”

“Infamous?” Loki repeated, feigning offense. “Surely you’ve heard of my glorious exploits. They’ve been somewhat exaggerated, I assure you.”

She smiled sweetly, though there was a spark of steel in her gaze. “Well, Mr. Infamous, let’s lay down some ground rules. No mischief. No tricks. And absolutely no causing trouble for my kids.”

“Your...kids?” Loki echoed, his brows furrowing.

Dr. (L/N) gestured toward a set of double doors painted with whimsical animals. “The pediatric ward. Those kids are my world. If you disrupt their peace, you’ll have me to answer to.”

Thor let out a low whistle. “Careful, brother. You’re in the presence of a true warrior.”

Loki’s smirk returned, but there was a flicker of something else in his expression—curiosity, perhaps. “I shall endeavor to restrain myself,” he said smoothly, though the glint in his eye suggested otherwise.

Dr. (L/N) led them through the hospital, giving Loki a brisk tour of the facility. She pointed out the nurses’ station, the playroom filled with toys and games, and the cafeteria where he could find snacks if he behaved.

“And this,” she said, stopping outside a brightly decorated room, “is where you’ll start.”

Loki raised an eyebrow, peering inside. The room was filled with posters of superheroes, stacks of comic books, and a collection of plush animals. In the center of the room was a hospital bed, occupied by a boy of about eleven.

The boy looked up as they entered, his face lighting up with excitement. “Is that Thor?” he asked, his voice high-pitched with awe.

Thor chuckled, stepping forward to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Indeed, young one. And I’ve brought someone else for you to meet.”

The boy’s eyes shifted to Loki, widening. “Who’s that?”

Loki stepped closer, his gaze flicking between the boy and Dr. (L/N). “I am Loki,” he said, his voice smooth and commanding. “God of Mischief.”

The boy’s jaw dropped. “No way! Are you a superhero too?”

Loki scoffed, but Dr. (L/N) interrupted before he could reply. “Loki’s here to help you out, Dylan. He’s going to make sure you have everything you need today.”

Dylan beamed. “Really? That’s so cool!”

Loki turned to Dr. (L/N), his expression a mix of irritation and disbelief. “You expect me to play servant to a mortal child?”

She crossed her arms, meeting his gaze with unwavering determination. “That’s exactly what I expect. Consider it your first lesson in humility.”

Thor clapped Loki on the back. “Good luck, brother. Try not to disappoint the lad.”

And with that, Thor strode out, leaving Loki alone with Dylan and the formidable Dr. (L/N).

Loki stared at Dylan, his sharp features betraying no emotion, though a storm of irritation brewed beneath the surface. He could scarcely believe the indignity of being assigned to "assist" a mortal child, no less one so infuriatingly cheerful.

The boy, oblivious to Loki’s disdain, grinned ear to ear. “So, what kind of powers do you have? Can you fly? Can you shoot lasers out of your eyes?”

Loki blinked, caught off guard by the boy’s enthusiastic questions. “I am not some circus performer,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I wield magic far beyond your comprehension.”

Dr. (L/N), standing just behind him, cleared her throat loudly. “Loki,” she said, her tone sharp enough to cut through steel, “remember what we talked about—kindness and patience.”

Loki glanced over his shoulder, his lips curling into a mock smile. “Ah, yes. Patience. My favorite virtue.”

Dylan giggled, clearly amused. “Can you show me some magic? Please? I promise I won’t tell anyone!”

The boy’s excitement was so genuine, so infectious, that even Loki found himself considering the request. With a dramatic sigh, he raised one hand, allowing a shimmering green orb to form in his palm. It flickered and danced like firelight, casting soft shadows across the room.

Dylan gasped, his eyes wide with wonder. “That’s amazing! Can you do more?”

Before Loki could respond, Dr. (L/N) stepped forward, placing a firm hand on his arm. “No tricks that could scare or hurt him,” she said, her voice low but commanding. “These kids have been through enough.”

Loki tilted his head, his expression unreadable. “I am perfectly capable of entertaining a child without traumatizing him,” he said, though his tone suggested he didn’t appreciate the insinuation.

Dr. (L/N) smiled sweetly, but her eyes were sharp. “Good. Then I’ll leave you to it.”

She turned to Dylan, her demeanor softening instantly. “If Loki gives you any trouble, just press the call button, okay?”

Dylan nodded eagerly. “Got it, Dr. (L/N). Thanks!”

As she left the room, Loki couldn’t help but watch her go. There was something about her—the way she carried herself, the way she looked at him without fear or reverence—that intrigued him. He shook his head, forcing the thought aside.

“Okay, Mr. Loki,” Dylan said, breaking the silence. “What else can you do?”

Loki raised an eyebrow at the boy’s audacity. “Do you presume to give me orders?”

Dylan shrugged, unfazed. “You’re supposed to help me, right? So, help me not be bored.”

Loki sighed, muttering something in Asgardian under his breath. With a flick of his wrist, he conjured a small illusion—a flock of shimmering golden birds that flitted around the room, their wings leaving trails of light.

Dylan clapped his hands, laughing in delight. “This is so cool! Can I keep one?”

“They’re not real, you foolish child,” Loki said, though there was no real malice in his tone. “They’re illusions, meant only to entertain.”

Dylan frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Can you make them do tricks?”

Loki hesitated, glancing at the boy’s eager face. With another sigh, he wove his magic, commanding the birds to form intricate patterns in the air—circles, spirals, even the shape of a dragon.

For the next several minutes, Dylan watched in awe, his laughter filling the room. Despite himself, Loki felt a flicker of satisfaction. Perhaps this task wasn’t entirely without merit.

Just as Loki began to relax, the door swung open, and Dr. (L/N) stepped back inside. She froze, her eyes narrowing as she took in the glowing birds.

“Loki,” she said slowly, “what are you doing?”

“Entertaining the boy,” Loki replied innocently, dispelling the illusion with a casual wave of his hand. “Is that not what you assigned me to do?”

Dr. (L/N) crossed her arms, clearly unimpressed. “No magic unless it’s absolutely necessary. Hospital policy.”

Loki smirked. “Ah, but you never specified that earlier. Shall I add ‘mind-reading’ to my impressive list of abilities?”

Dylan stifled a laugh, earning a glare from Dr. (L/N). She stepped closer to Loki, her voice dropping to a whisper. “This is a hospital, not a stage. If you can’t follow the rules, you’re free to leave. I’m sure Thor would love to hear about your inability to cooperate.”

The mention of Thor made Loki bristle, but he forced a smile. “Very well, Doctor. Your rules are my command.”

Dr. (L/N) arched an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “Good. Then maybe you can help Dylan with his reading assignment instead.”

“Reading assignment?” Loki repeated, his voice dripping with disdain.

Dylan held up a thin book titled Adventures in Space. “It’s my homework. I have to read a chapter and answer questions.”

Loki stared at the book as if it were a venomous snake. “Surely you jest.”

Dr. (L/N) smirked, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “Welcome to the real world, Loki. Have fun.”

With that, she left the room, leaving Loki alone with Dylan and the dreaded reading assignment.

Loki stared at the small book in Dylan’s hands as if it were an affront to his very existence. He pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering to himself. “Of all the indignities I have suffered, this must be the gravest.”

“It’s not that bad,” Dylan said, grinning. He opened the book and flipped to the marked chapter. “I mean, it’s about space. You like space, right?”

“Space is not a subject, child—it is an infinite expanse of wonder and chaos. Hardly something to be trivialized in...” Loki snatched the book from Dylan, examining the cartoonish illustrations. “This.”

Dylan giggled, clearly amused by Loki’s dramatics. “Come on, Mr. Loki. It’s only one chapter.”

Reluctantly, Loki sat down on the chair beside Dylan’s bed. He scanned the first page, his expression growing more incredulous with every sentence.

“In the vastness of space, Captain Zoom piloted his trusty rocket ship toward the glowing nebula…” Loki read aloud, his voice dripping with disdain. He lowered the book and gave Dylan a look of sheer disbelief. “This is the drivel they force upon you?”

Dylan shrugged. “It’s for school. I think it’s kinda fun.”

Loki rolled his eyes but continued reading, his voice taking on a sarcastic flair. “‘With his loyal robot companion Beep at his side, Captain Zoom prepared to rescue the alien queen from the clutches of the evil Star Lord.’” He paused, his lips curling into a smirk. “Star Lord? Truly, your Midgardian literature knows no bounds of absurdity.”

Dylan burst out laughing, clutching his stomach. “You’re funny, Mr. Loki!”

Loki arched a brow, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I do not strive to amuse, boy. This is merely my natural state.”

Once the reading was finished, Dylan picked up a pencil and opened his workbook. “Okay, now we have to answer the questions.”

“We?” Loki repeated, his tone filled with indignation.

Dylan grinned. “You’re helping me, remember? It’s part of your volunteer job.”

Loki sighed dramatically but leaned over to glance at the workbook. The first question read: What was Captain Zoom’s mission in this chapter?

“Rescuing the alien queen,” Dylan said, scribbling down the answer. He looked up at Loki. “See? Easy!”

Loki snorted. “Your educational system sets a disturbingly low bar.”

The second question read: Why did Captain Zoom trust his robot companion Beep?

Dylan tapped the pencil against his chin. “Um… because Beep was programmed to help him?”

Loki leaned back, folding his arms. “How unimaginative. A truly great ally is forged through bonds of loyalty, not mere programming.”

Dylan frowned, erasing his answer. “What should I put, then?”

“Write this,” Loki said, his voice authoritative. “Captain Zoom trusted Beep because true loyalty is demonstrated through unwavering actions, even in the face of great peril.”

Dylan dutifully wrote down the sentence, then looked up at Loki with wide eyes. “You’re really smart, Mr. Loki.”

“Yes, I am,” Loki said, his smirk widening.

As Loki finished helping Dylan with his homework, the door opened, and Dr. (L/N) stepped in. Her eyes immediately went to the workbook.

“Homework duty done already?” she teased, walking over to inspect their progress.

“It is an utter waste of time,” Loki said, rising to his full height. “This boy should be learning something of value, not reading tales of fictitious space captains.”

Dr. (L/N) tilted her head, clearly unimpressed. “And what would you suggest, Loki? Teaching him how to conjure snakes or make people disappear?”

Loki smirked, stepping closer. “I could teach him to see through illusions, to question the falsehoods presented to him. Surely that would be a more valuable skill.”

Dr. (L/N) crossed her arms, meeting his gaze without flinching. “Or maybe we should let him enjoy being a kid while he still can. These stories might not be your idea of profound, but they give him hope and joy—something he desperately needs right now.”

Her words struck a nerve, though Loki refused to show it. He glanced back at Dylan, who was watching them with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

“I suppose,” Loki said slowly, “there is some merit in allowing the boy his distractions.”

Dr. (L/N) blinked, surprised by his concession. “Well, that’s... unexpected.”

Loki smirked. “Do not mistake my acquiescence for agreement, Doctor. I merely find arguing with you to be… tiresome.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.”

Loki found himself loitering in the hospital’s staff break room, a space he had declared “unfit for anyone with even a modicum of taste.” It was a sterile room with plain white walls, mismatched chairs, and the faint aroma of burnt coffee.

Dr. (L/N) stood by the counter, pouring herself a cup from the offending coffee pot. She turned, her eyes catching Loki’s as he leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his expression one of idle amusement.

“Lurking again, I see,” she said lightly, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Merely observing,” Loki corrected, his tone dripping with faux innocence. “You Midgardians are endlessly fascinating. Tell me, is that what you call coffee?”

She raised an eyebrow, unperturbed by his sarcasm. “It gets the job done.”

He stepped closer, his boots making an irritatingly soft sound on the linoleum floor. “Does it, though? Or do you simply endure it because you’ve convinced yourself it’s the best you can manage?”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “Do you ever stop?”

“Rarely,” he said, his voice low and smooth.

The way he looked at her then was different—less playful, more intense. Her pulse quickened as his piercing green eyes swept over her, taking in the tired lines of her face, the faint smudge of ink on her wrist where she’d made notes in haste earlier.

“And what about you, Doctor?” he asked, his voice softening, almost a purr. “Do you always settle for mediocrity?”

She didn’t step back, though he was close enough now that she could feel the faint warmth radiating from him. “I don’t settle for anything, Loki.”

“Bold claim,” he said, his smirk returning, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But I wonder—are you always so controlled? So perfectly in command of every situation?”

Her jaw tightened, but she held his gaze. “Why don’t you tell me what this is really about? Or do you just enjoy hearing yourself talk?”

Loki let out a low chuckle, stepping even closer. He was invading her space now, and they both knew it.

“Perhaps I do,” he admitted, his voice a murmur. “But perhaps I also enjoy seeing you flustered, Doctor.”

“I’m not flustered,” she said, though the slight hitch in her voice betrayed her.

“Oh, but you are,” he said, leaning just slightly into her space. “Your heart is racing, your breathing has quickened. Shall I go on?”

Her lips parted, but no retort came. For a moment, she was acutely aware of how near he was, the faint scent of his cologne mingling with the burnt coffee aroma. She hated how much she noticed, how much she cared.

But then she smiled—a small, knowing smile that made Loki pause. “You know, for someone so clever, you’re remarkably predictable.”

That threw him off balance. “Predictable?”

“Yes,” she said, stepping around him to refill her coffee. “You think you’re mysterious, but really, you’re just lonely.”

The words hit like a dagger, and for a split second, his mask slipped.

“What would you know of it?” he asked, his tone sharper now.

She turned, meeting his gaze again. “More than you think.”

There was no malice in her voice, only quiet understanding. And that, somehow, made it worse.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The air between them crackled with tension—part challenge, part something neither of them dared to name.

Finally, she broke the silence. “If you’re done trying to get under my skin, we have a patient waiting. Unless, of course, you’d rather sulk.”

He smirked, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Lead the way, Doctor. I wouldn’t dream of keeping your adoring public waiting.”

...

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[holylustration]

The edits continue, so have a snippet...

Predator & Prey's penultimate chapter's edits are a little unwieldy, as my mind keeps racing to add new tidbits to it. Still, I think it is coming together quite nicely.

But in the meantime, because my inbox is getting some traffic about My Knight So Daring, just know I haven't forgotten! In fact... I have a little treat as a show of good faith (especially for those of you asking about more Infernus Master :devil:)!

“Need a hand there, miss?” 

She turned, a wary gray eye half-shaded by the veil of the fascinator pinned atop golden curls spotted the figure she’d missed when she’d first entered the stables. Tall, perhaps a little taller than her husband, and just as broad, was leaning against a post. She saw flickering ember of his lho stick in the reflection of his eyes, cast in the shadow of the barn. Slowly, the figure leaned forward, and she saw the coarse pattern of stubble on his jaw and the weathered brow set with deep lines. He didn’t look like a stablehand, more like some worker pulled off the machine line, for two fingers were replaced with augments and he had splotches of grease on his loose shirt.

“I can manage on my own,” Aurelia replied. Somewhere, there had to be a ladder and a post. How else were ladies and their voluminous skirts supposed to mount their faithful steeds? “But thank you.”

“I see.” Around the lho stick, the man’s lips curved into a smile. His eyes followed suit, warm in their regard.  “Not Guisornian, then?” 

“Is my accent that obvious?”

“Maybe a little.” The hay crunched under a soiled leather workboot as he moved. The metal toe caps caught the faint reflection of the sun filtering in through one of the skyholes. “More like you haven’t already ordered me about.” 

As he spoke, Aurelia thought she heard the slightest familiarity in accent - the rhotic touch to his words, not unlike her own. A curious thing; she filed it away, not daring in that moment to give in to the sudden homesickness. “I like my independence.”

He chuckled. “I can tell.” He plucked the lho stick from his lips and gazed towards the paddock gate, where a few horses were grazing out of troughs and stretching their legs. “Just shout if you need me.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye; it traveled along her from head to toe. “Shame for that dress to get covered in hay.” 

A faint heat crept up her cheeks. He likely hadn’t meant it in that way, the way in which men and women might roll in the hay. Many were the stories of scandal of trysts with stablehands. And Aurelia was beginning to see why, if they all had strong hands, dark hair, and smile lines. She nodded. “I will.”

Aurelia listened to the retreating sound of his footsteps and the creak of the gate before turning her attention back to the task at hand: determining which of these stabled horses belonged to the de Gauvain family.

[steviewashere]

Rating: Explicit | Genres/Tropes: Drama & Romance, Angst & Hurt/Comfort, Slowburn, Future Fic, Canon Divergence | WC: 56, 917 | Chapters: 11/11 | Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings————————————————————————————————————————Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Past Steve Harrington/Original Female Character(s), Steve Harrington & Original Child Character(s) Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Wayne Munson, Steve Harrington's Mother, Robin Buckley, Original Female Character(s), Original Child Character(s) Tags: Cancer Diagnosis in a Secondary Character, Mentions of Past Spouse Death, Implied/Referenced Past Alcohol Abuse/Addiction, Implied/Referenced Past Drug Addiction, Parent Steve Harrington, mailman!Steve Harrington, retired rockstar!Eddie Munson, Second Chances, Getting Back Together, Middle Aged Steddie, Tender Sex, POV Alternating, Eventual Happy Ending

You are at Chapter Two! Chapter One

———————————————————————————————————————— Ding. Ding. Ding…Ding…ding, went the bell above his head. The diner is a ghost town, despite it being around dinner time. Though, part of Steve appreciated how slow and small everything seemed. Despite his world expanding, recoloring, lighting gently. 

Benny’s was never a particularly big place, even under the new ownership, there was no plan to expand it. All the tables were freed from the walls, chairs able to scrape against the floor. Yet, instead of the drab metallic grey the chairs were back in the ‘80s, the seating was race car red. A jukebox still sat across from the front entrance. Majorly overused fan by the door, dome trash cans, white lace curtains. Grease popped in the kitchen. Cooked potatoes filtering through the air, lightly salted, probably deliciously crispy.

Before he came in, he’d replaced the mail van with his own car. He also removed his jacket and hat, stored loose on the backseat, so it could be seen clearly if anybody walked by his windows. It’s not terribly unusual that he’s seen around town without his work uniform on, but tonight he feels especially bare. He would’ve dressed himself up a bit, though he supposes he doesn’t need the whole horse and carriage for rekindling whatever scraps of his friendship with Eddie remains. Just wished he appeared a little more presentable. Maybe a bit more colorful, if anything.

Still, the new owner, Cheryl—a first name was all he was given some years ago—greets him with surprise. She pops out from the kitchen and meets him at the counter. “Well if it isn’t our trusty mailman, Steve! And in his natural state, who’s the lucky lady?” she gently teases. He chuckles nervously, trying to not show the pulse of hurt that surges through him. And he must be too readable because she adds, not even a second later, “Oh, I’m just teasing you, kiddo. What can I do you for?”

“I’m ordering for here tonight, Cher,” he says in turn. “Got a friend that’s meeting me here.”

“Oooo, that’s exciting! Do I know this friend?”

Steve shrugs. “You might’a heard of him. Eddie Munson? Guess he used to be a nuisance to everybody back in the day,” he explains, smirking with it. She laughs brightly, bouncing. He sighs. “Anyway. I’ll just order some shakes first. Wait until he gets here for the food. Can I just do a strawberry shake with extra whip and a plain vanilla? Maybe throw an extra cherry on the vanilla one—only if you got it.” He reaches for his wallet, digging around in his back pocket, but she speaks before he can bring out the cash to pay.

“Sure thing, kiddo. I’ll put that on a tab for you, have you pay after you eat. Could even wave it off, since you do so much around here.”

“Don’t wanna put you out, Cher. The tab will be just fine.” Tucks his wallet back down in his pocket. And turns his head to the jukebox. She disappears to the blender, already working on the shakes. “Hey, Cher?” She just hums. “This old jukebox…does it still work?”

“You betcha! It’s not all that updated, though. But have at it!”

He steps away from the counter and busies himself with looking at the music selections. Sure enough, there’s nothing new past 1989. Which, even if Steve wanted to listen to something more recent, he wouldn’t know what to pick. He can only hope that whatever he picks is fine with Eddie.

Just as he shuffles through the songs for a second time, the bell above the door jingles again. Heavier footsteps behind him. As he goes to look over his shoulder, a waft of cigarette smoke and musky aftershave fills his nostrils. “Anything good in here?” Eddie asks behind him. His arm reaches over Steve’s right shoulder, index finger tapping on the glass window of the jukebox.

Steve gives a half-hearted shrug. “Nothing that you’d like, I’m sure,” he mutters. “Unless you don’t mind my go-to pick.“

“You invited me out here,” Eddie murmurs. He’s close to Steve’s ear. Pressed in against his back. “You’d know your way around here better than me, yeah? Whatever you want is fine with me.” His voice echoes inside of Steve’s head. Soft and raspy and something he’s ached for for way too long. Steve wants to melt into him, but forces himself to pick a song instead.

“The Promise” by When in Rome filters through the tinny speakers.

Maybe it’s a bit…on the nose, but the other handful of artists he does enjoy on this old thing are Taylor Dayne and Madonna. Not exactly Eddie’s forte, if Steve is remembering correctly. Though—How would I know about his music taste, he asks himself. They haven’t spoken to each other in nearly three decades. And he may have an inkling, but they’re off to a good enough start. He wouldn’t want to push his luck.

Steve forces himself away from the jukebox at the sound of glasses clinking on the diner’s counter. Grabs the nearly overflowing cups and guides Eddie wordlessly to a table in the back. Away from where prying eyes could spot them if someone were to walk through the front door. He sorts them out as they take their seats—Eddie on the far side, facing the entrance and Steve opposite—doling out napkins and straws.

When Eddie sidles into his seat, he makes a small surprised noise in the back of his throat. Right hand gripping the milkshake glass tight. Steve settles further, taking a mindless sip of his own shake. Strawberry sweetness exploding on his tongue, but he chokes as soon as Eddie asks, “How’d you remember this shit? Vanilla? Even the extra cherry on top?”

He slams a hand on his chest, wheezing around the swallow. With a strained voice, “I don’t know, man. It’s just something my brain latched onto, I guess.” His line of sight inches up to Eddie’s face, unaware he was even looking down at the plasticky tabletop. Met with copious bewilderment.

“You are something else,” Eddie mutters. He takes his own sip. Goes quiet and thoughtful. But nudges Steve’s shin with his foot, their eyes meeting once more. “Y’know, honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out that damn perfect oatmeal recipe you’ve got.”

“Perfect?” Steve scoffs. “You used to whine to me every time I gave you a bowl. All, ‘Ew, Stevie. I’m not a horse.’ Which, granted, you scarfed it down anyway. But still. You hated oatmeal, even if it was mine.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. Shrugs a little and looks down at his hands still wrapped around his glass. But he glances back up, a scorching softness behind his eyes. Every part of his face relaxed and open. Drinking Steve in as if they’re seeing each other for the first time. His left ankle hooks around Steve’s right. “It just…I don’t know. Maybe I just miss it,” he murmurs.

Steve hums. Runs his thumbs over the bottom of his own glass, over the textured edges, and sighs—trying adamantly to not think about the warmth radiating from Eddie’s leg. He sobers with a steadying breath. “Every morning I have a cup of coffee with way too much vanilla creamer,” he admits quietly, “I don’t even like it. It’s just straight up disgusting. Too much sugar in the morning, but it gets me awake enough for work. So I do it anyway. Maybe because I missed it, too, after you…You know.”

“Well, I’ll be back in town a while. Y’know, if you’d like to catch up.”

Something in Steve pulsed painfully raw at that. He knew, of course he knew, that Eddie wasn’t going to be here forever. But something in him hoped, even the slightest bit, that they’d have all the time in the world. Like their days could freeze over and they’d still be in this diner—sipping on infinite shakes and shooting the shit like they were still barely in their twenties.

But they’re well onto their fifties now.

Time doesn’t wait for them anymore.

“Sure,” he agrees, albeit a little hesitant while staring at his hands, “sure, Eds.” The nickname slides off his tongue easy enough, though. “Let’s get some food first and then…You can ask me anything? I’ve already ran my errands for the day. I have until”—he stops to check his watch again. It’s sluggish and behind by two whole minutes.—“I’ve got fifty minutes to entertain you. Jeopardy! is on right now and I have it recorded, but if I don’t get back home by eight, my mom will watch it without me.”

Eddie nods slowly, a small smile gracing his features. “I can do that, easy. Let me get the food, though? If I remember…” He stops to think. A dramatic hand gripping his chin, eyes squinting off into the distance, eyebrows furrowing deep down his face. Steve barely contains his snort. “…You get double fried french fries. And a cheeseburger with pickles on the side, extra mustard?”

“Ding-ding-ding!” Steve exclaims softly. “Looks like we remember more about each other than we thought.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve got stored in my spacious brain, Stevie,” Eddie teases. Or…it almost sounds like flirting, if Steve zeroes more closely on it. He doesn’t, but it’s the thought that counts. “I’ll be right back,” Eddie states. And slips out of his chair before Steve can tell him about his running tab.

He watches Eddie’s back move away from him, as he rounds the corner back to the register. It’s hard to rip his eyes away from where he just moved, but Steve knows that if he doesn’t look away sooner, he’ll get himself trapped worse. He has to remind himself that Eddie is not here for dating, for romance, for second chances. There’s something else drawing him back in, making him drive through backroads, making him smoke out by his car in front of Wayne’s trailer—though, Steve swears that’s something Wayne and Eddie would’ve done together. And the very little he saw of Wayne’s face earlier, there was something familiarly terrible about it.

A reminiscent ghost from his past that Steve dares not make eye contact with longer than needed. Though, something in him stirs miserably alive—nauseous and unwelcome—the more he stews.

Steve rests his palms on the sticky tabletop, lukewarm in comparison to the ice cold outside of his milkshake glass. It grounds a part of him. Makes him draw back into reality. Eddie isn’t yours, he’s not here for you, he’s here for something else, he has to repeat. The feeling of Eddie’s fingers on his face, his weight pressed on his back, the ankle under the table…it’s all hard to ignore. Reminds him, all too much and all too well, of a time where they saw each other everyday, holding each other close on the couch, breaths mingling when they’d whisper to the other late at night—promises towards a future together, a life that they both wanted; promises that were nothing. They were just nothing; though not to Steve. Never to him.

The sound of a chain jingling makes him look back up from the table.

“We, Stevie, are set for a hot dinner of the world’s best cheeseburgers,” Eddie says boisterously, sitting back down. He’s smiling wide and shiny. An arm over the back of the chair, his body leaning to the right, an elbow on the table. There’s a certain suaveness that Steve vaguely remembers; it’s weird, yet comforting, to see it back now. To have that smile on him. Those wide, gleaming, Bambi brown eyes, too.

Fire prickles underneath him. Ready to engulf him. To damn him.

In Eddie’s orbit, he’s warm for the first time in a long while. In Eddie’s orbit, he is merely a planet circling the sun.

———————————————————————————————————————— “Can’t believe you enjoy talking to people around here,” Eddie says. There’s a little spot of ketchup in the corner of his mouth, something Steve’s getting antsy over—his fingers tingle, wanting to reach out, wanting to swipe the mess away; like he would’ve years ago, in another life. It’s endearing, though. Has been endearing the entire time he’s been rambling and raving over Steve’s little life here. “I feel like I’d get all clammed up, keep my head down and just slot the mail in, y’know?”

Steve snorts. “Oh, really? Feel like that’s a wrong observation.”

Another really endearing part of Eddie’s face has always been his eyes. How they just…light up. At anything. One point, it’d been when he realized he could bother Steve and Robin at Family Video. There was when he got a rather large crowd at the bar when he still played in town. When he received the information for a recording studio, when he began making connections, when he realized he was actually getting somewhere. Now, they light up at Steve with the faintest bit of tease, with mirth that he’s missed.

That he has missed.

“I’ve found it easier to talk to my walls over the years, man. Lost all that charisma I had.”

“Don’t think I’d call it charisma, Eds. Maybe something like…luck and coincidence?”

“Hey! You liked listening to me talk.”

That raw pulse of hurt surges back through him all over again. The same kind of rawness that’s left him gaping and lost over the last several decades. Why does so much of life have to be past tense? Why do him and Eddie have to be something to never happen again?

“I like listening to you talk right now,” Steve murmurs a moment later; a moment after he’s stuffed his mouth full of fries, trying to give his tongue something to do before he lets his hurt show. And, yet, even the distractions can’t save him from Eddie’s flash of surprise. He looks away from Eddie’s too open face, down to the face of his watch; sluggish, two minutes behind as always—“Jeopardy!’s on,” he states, “might miss it.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathes. If Steve weren’t right in front of him, he’d think it was just a nothing sound. This, though, sounded like disappointment. “Well…” he hums. “We can go, if you need to. I’ll still be at the trailer, if you ever want to”—

“Tell me about Los Angeles,” Steve interrupts, slapping his right hand down on the watch’s face. “Is it as glitz and glam that the magazines make it out to be?”

Taken aback briefly, Eddie just blinks at Steve. His head jerks, neck going frozen with the movement. Fingers rubbing against each other, sprinkling crumbs and salt back onto his plate. Those eyes curious. Those eyes…those eyes. After a confused pause, Eddie answers slowly, “I mean…it’s just a city, I guess.” He shrugs, looks away towards his food, fingers picking at the stale bun of his half-eaten burger. There’s still ketchup in the corner of his mouth. “It, uh, it’s big. Orange because the sun is almost always out. There’s these big, ugly billboards on the side of every road; no matter how major of a roadway it is. I’ve never seen the same faces twice, unless they’re my friends, but…I don’t even see”—Eddie shakes his head, silencing with a shallow breath.

Tension holds tight to Eddie’s shoulders, Steve notices. The way they hike to his ears, his head hanging low. There isn’t enough hair to cover his face, though. So Steve can see him contemplate, get all…distanced and something close to mournful.

“Los Angeles isn’t for everybody, let’s just say that. And, if I’m being honest, I kinda hate it out there. It’s pretty miserable. It gets lonely, people get wild, you end up in places you never thought you would,” Eddie says; bitterly, if Steve lingers on it. “Things just got crazy out there. I…I don’t even want to go back. Just one day here has really made me miss peace and quiet.” He clears his throat, lets out a deep breath, and then glows all over again. As if his part of the conversation never happened. “So, what’s been going on with you outside of work? That apartment still treating you well?”

“Apartment?” Steve repeats, confused.

Eddie squints his eyes and cocks his head just a little to the left. “Yeah,” he says slowly, “the apartment. Few streets behind Melvald’s?”

His mouth drops open into a silent “Oh.” He gives a brief, nervous chuckle. “I—uh—I actually live in a house now. Couple streets away from the house in Loch Nora. Been there since…since, I think, ’91? Or was it early ’92?” Steve sets his chin in his right palm, elbow on the table, deep in thought. Muttering absently to himself, dates cross-wired in his head. Shrugs, lets his other hand fidget with the last remaining burnt crumbs of fries on his plate, and gives a glance back to Eddie. “Doesn’t matter,” Steve says, “I don’t live in that shithole apartment anymore. Not since the toilet rat of ’89.”

Owlishly, Eddie blinks at him. Wide eyes, pursed lips, sprung forth eyebrows. “Toilet Rat.” A snort. “Guess I didn’t…I never heard that you moved. Makes sense you never responded to”—Eddie clears his throat awkwardly, gives a half-hearted huff, and scoots his chair back—“You’re right, doesn’t matter. How about I walk you out to your car?”

Floored, Steve can only muster an, “Oh, um.”

“C’mon, Stevie. Should probably get you back home so you don’t miss your show, right?” And Eddie’s already out of his seat before Steve can even get a full breath out. He startles and stands, too.

If he had the courage to call Eddie out on it, he’d probably point out how offensive it is that he’s so eager to get rid of their night. To call it good when the good has just begun. But, Steve—always the protector, whether it be of his own heart or the nervous prospect of a revisited relationship—won’t say a damn thing.

Instead, still awkward in Eddie’s presence—unsure of what to say, what to do, where to put his hands—Steve tries, “I was actually going to see if you wanted to…to come over?” That makes Eddie freeze in his maneuver to get away. Steve nearly collides with his back. Nearly falls flat on his ass, heart regurgitated into his palms, when Eddie turns back around with that confused puppy look. “Unless you’re busy,” Steve rushes to add, “which is totally fine. Just means I’ll see you around, probably the next time I’m delivering mail. You…you probably have things you need to do. Stuff to catch up on with Wayne. This can…” he trails.

We can wait, Steve faintly thinks.

A hesitant, light hand squeezes Steve’s right bicep. He inhales sharply at it.

There was a time when something like that didn’t feel so…sudden and scorching. A time in which he could be touched, held, cared for without the possibility of it fading away from him. He’d had that with Eddie, the first few months. Had it with his late wife, before she was sick—well and truly and unmistakably sick; when it seemed like a flu, not the sediments of an ending. A brush of fingers to his fresh, aching scars or the hard, yet careful edges of fingernails to his tender scalp trying to rid of a migraine. It was heavy heads on his shoulder as movies played out, breaths growing deep, the lights dimmed low or off completely. An elbow to a rib. The hug of a lover, unexpected, yet warm. An all encompassing thing; set fire to his lungs, burnt him inside then out, made him grow big when he was fed, made him fizzle once he learned to be starved.

Starve he did.

The morning after Eddie up and left. The three years before he met his wife. The seventeen years he’s somehow survived with nobody by his side; sans his mom, his daughter, and the here-and-there visits from Robin and Dustin and Nancy. But for the most part, it was just him. Him and a gaping maw and a hole in his chest the size of his heart—still pulsing, still searching, still hungry.

Eddie’s thumb tickles over the stitch at Steve’s shoulder. Just a little brush, absentminded and going just to do something. A fidget, that’s all it is. “If you want me there,” Eddie says low—hot and orange and autumnal like the embers catching inside Steve—“I can be there. Told Wayne I’d be out for a little while anyway. It’ll be good to be with you for a while.”

Steve sniffs and gives one, sure nod. “Cool,” he mutters, “let me—uh—I gotta pay the tab and then you can follow”—

“Already covered,” Eddie interjects. And his hand pats once over Steve’s bicep, falling away as fast as it landed. “Just lead the way, big boy.”

The nickname stirs those embers, even as there was still ketchup in the corner of Eddie’s mouth. Sticky, red, staining. A part of him wonders if that’s the condiment at all. Or maybe he let Eddie get away with a piece of his heart, chewy and beating, and he’s just now seeing what happened to it—maybe Eddie’s just as hungry as he is.

“My car’s the Subaru Outback in the lot. I drive a little under the speed limit, I’m hard to miss.”

“Y’always were.”

Maybe Eddie’s just as hungry.

———————————————————————————————————————— Eddie didn’t really know what to expect when it came to letting Steve back into his life.

Honestly, if he really thought about it, he figured it’d be that quick conversation in front of Wayne’s and then maybe a breath of eagerness to get to know one another, an eagerness that washes away—a saving face kind of thing. He never would have thought it to be remembrance, like the trees know to undress as soon as the autumn solstice hits. Just as he knows to order a cheeseburger meal for Steve, or how to clean his glasses (counterclockwise circles with the hem of a worn cotton t-shirt, left lens first then the right), or to keep his distance behind Steve’s car because he kept slow when not in danger. This morning, when he was driving into Hawkins, Eddie didn’t think he could rekindle a flame just by talking to it. Didn’t think he’d be excited, of all things, to learn about another person. Or—to learn about another person all over again.

Steve’s gone grey and worn. He’s soft the way the sun is right before it gives way to dark expanding night, decorated by little stars soft as the sun, soft as the morning. And he’s thoughtful. Like he takes his time to figure things out now, no longer head first and ready to strike.

Because they’ve matured. Whether by chance or by need, Eddie’s uncertain in Steve’s case. Though, driving behind this green Subaru Outback with a whip-wild streak of hope in his chest, Eddie’s certain that in the case of himself, he’s never matured. Maybe not as much as the rest of the world. Maybe not as much as others would’ve liked for him to.

He turns down a side road, Steve near tight to the right curb, high hedges coloring by in splashes of crisp yellows and muted greens. There are potholes and small cracks in the road. Family cars parked in driveways, in front of houses that are much, much smaller than his current…mausoleum of a house. He wonders, currently dwarfed by the sheer homeliness of the neighborhood, if Steve ever felt this way in Loch Nora. Resigned and shallow, yet heavy and infinite with a want he could not fulfill—for a home; a place to be safe; to remain.

The home they park in front of is one story, not terribly wide, brown and a little drab. There’s a few spots of moss growing on the gutters, a patch of replaced roofing that’s black in comparison to the reddish-brown tiling, an overgrown rose bush flush to the street-facing wall, and a crooked three next to the front door. 3019. He kills the ignition, keys sharp in hand, and hefts himself from the driver’s side. Steve does the same, lifting himself out with a gruff grunt. There’s a massive blue coat slung over his left arm, a hat scrunched tight in that same side’s fist, and a velvety navy messenger bag across his torso. He walks up the driveway to the front door, sure of himself and familiar, leaving Eddie to straggle after him.

When the door juts open, awkward under its heavy weight, Steve tells him, “Shoes off at the door, but make yourself at home. Feel free to…look around, I guess. ‘M gonna check-in with my mom, make sure she’s ready for bed.”

Eddie just nods and steps inside behind Steve. He follows instructions, toeing out of his Reeboks—carefully, though, he doesn’t want to crease them. And then he stands in the center of a warm, dimly lit, yet unfamiliar living room. It connects to another room, carpet meshing terribly with the cheap looking cream tiles of, what Eddie assumes, is a kitchen. There’s a dining table on the far right, or Eddie’s right, wall. Only two chairs, a third one just off to the side, unused.

He steps a little more into the actual living space as Steve comes from the hallway to Eddie’s left, just off of the living room. And he disappears into the kitchen wordlessly, scouring around a full sink, it sounds like. At the tap turning on, Eddie focuses elsewhere.

Finally, he took the chance to absorb Steve’s little living room. There was the sofa, dusty pink and well-loved—a middle cushion that’s long since dilapidated and still had the imprint of a well-held body. And the tabletop flat screen, sitting atop a low entertainment center made of black wood, pressed near flush with the wall, cords around it that were knotted and ill organized, a DVD player that’s dinged up and has faded buttons from oiled fingertips. There’s a framed puzzle of a sunset just above the television. A coffee table that’s just slightly lower than the entertainment center (definitely shorter than the couch), cluttered with magazines and the most recent copy of the newspaper. Bookshelf next to the TV that’s brimming to the edges; some titles he recognizes: The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit, The Scarlet Letter, A Separate Peace, The Outsiders; and some he doesn’t: Speak, White Noise, Warrior Cats, The Fault in Our Stars. There’s a few textbooks scattered among the other books; anatomy, algebra, and medicine.

Something important, that he notices, is a shelf dedicated to a jewelry box and a framed photograph. The picture intrigues him, so he grabs for it.

It’s three people: Steve, a little girl, and a woman. The background is plain grey, saturated and marbled with faint glints of white. Almost like a school picture. Steve is standing in the background; most likely in his twenties, though gently graced with the beginnings of aging, his smile is wide yet soft, crinkled hazel eyes, hair shaved down yet spiky like a kiwi, a polo with thick horizontal pink and white stripes, and what looks like the edge of a pair of khaki chinos. The woman is sitting in the foreground, Steve’s hands on her shoulders; she’s gaunt and pale, hair cut close to her scalp (too close to garner a good color), large and wide brown eyes that are fitted with faint black eyeliner and brown mascara, heart shaped face, nose similar in shape to Steve’s though narrower, sparse eyebrows, long sleeve white blouse with a heart neckline, plenty freckles on her chest and face, and pink lips stretching over yet another beautiful smile. This little girl is probably three years old, thick curly dirty blonde hair that falls to just under her little ears, pale pink overalls over a white t-shirt, fingers in her mouth, round hazel eyes, flushed cheeks, yet her skin is just as pale white as the woman’s. She’s a splitting image of Steve and the woman.

He’s a dad, Eddie realizes, and this must be his wife. And he cradles the photo more carefully in his hands. They make a good family. A very, very beautiful family. He can’t help but wonder about Steve…about his wife, too.

As if sensing he’s being thought about, Steve comes wandering back out from his kitchen, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder. “Hey, do you want some tea or should I—What do you have there?” He’s standing between entryways, to the living room, to the kitchen. Like an apparition, glowing from behind, soft though hard to miss. And his eyes go from tired to curious to…sadly thoughtful behind those shiny glasses of his. He spotted the photo almost immediately, of course he did. “Mmm,” he lowly hums. “It’s a cute picture, isn’t it? One of a few that I can display that has all of us.”

“It really is,” Eddie can easily agree. “Your wife, she must be really proud of you.”

“I hope she is,” Steve murmurs, “wherever she may be.” His tone is too somber for Eddie’s liking.

So, Eddie looks back at the photograph. Something like an 8x6. Sharp cheekbones, shaved hair, a slight dullness to her eyes. It’s what he sees in Wayne now. His stomach hurts. He looks back to Steve, words lost.

“I can tell you a bit about them,” Steve offers softly, “make you some tea, too. You still like English breakfast?”

He nods wordlessly. Of course. Of-fucking-course he still remembers after all this time.

When the tea is up and piping hot, Steve leads them towards the sofa. He places the mugs—pottery things, light brown with blue on the rim—on the coffee table, coasters underneath each one. The photo is still in Eddie’s hands, which he relinquishes when Steve holds his hands out for it. And just as he’s getting ready to take his seat on the middle cushion, Steve tells him firmly, “Don’t sit there.”

Another silent nod, sitting slow onto the far right cushion, space between them. And then the photograph is held up.

“Which one do you want to know about first?” Steve asks. “I know you’re curious.”

Eddie cranes his head just enough to see the edges of softly smiling faces. Arm thrown onto the back of the sofa, fingers tracing lumpy divots. “The little girl? Is she yours?”

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, “her name’s Joanna. Sometimes, to annoy her, I’ll call her Josie. Drives her up a damn wall.” He chuckles under his breath. “She’s bright. Funny. Very charismatic, but don’t tell her that I said that. She’ll use it as an upper hand in every argument we get into from here on out. Stubborn, I guess I should add.”

“Sounds like you, Stevie.”

Steve barks out a single “Hah!” He gives a side glance to Eddie, something he wouldn’t pick up usually, but he’s right here, looking on at Steve’s gentle pride. The glow that parents seem to get when talking about their kids, he’s seen the same damn thing on Wayne’s face at conferences in the past and when he came home today. “That’s what Cathy always said,” Steve says, “never believed her. Josie always seemed right, guess we know why. But…she’s also my complete opposite. She’s in school, y’know, twenty-one and off in Boston. She’ll call me every once in a while, talkin’ damn near a mile a minute, rambling about some lecture a professor gave.

“Half the words she uses I barely have the time to remember, let alone ask what the hell they mean. Her friends are sweet, sarcastic, nice. So different from my childhood friends, it’s hard to believe her judgment came from my tree. I swear, Eds, if Nancy didn’t slap me in the face and knock my brain loose, I’d see a donkey’s behind and equate it to God or something.” Steve reverently swipes his thumbs on either side of the frame. Sniffles, a light thing barely here. He looks up to Eddie with half-lidded, wet eyes. A smile, shiny and wide. The tip of his nose is crinkled. He looks so…elated. “Josie…she’s more than anything I could’ve ever imagined. A freaking miracle child or something. I don’t know how I ended up with a kiddo like her; she’s where my luck begins and ends, swear on it.”

There’s a tear hanging for dear life in the corner of Steve’s right eye, one that Eddie wants so badly to reach out and swipe away. But he restrains. It’s hard, but he does it.

“And…and the woman?” Eddie asks gently.

Steve takes a snotty, deep breath, and swallows hard. “Catherine, she was my wife. I called her Cathy,” he whispers. The words barely make it out of his mouth, more letters than coherent sounds. His hands shake lightly, thumbs still reverent on the sides of the frame. “We met in 1989. I was on-duty, delivering mail. One of my first drives, I think. She was new in town, in this shabby apartment. It’s honestly not all that romantic. There was this package she needed hefted inside, so I did it. Sweated my ass off, she offered me a glass of lemonade”—

“Classic move,” Eddie murmurs.

Playfully, Steve swats his chest and scoffs. “I declined it,” he says, “gave a goodbye, went on the rest of my delivery route, and went back to my shitty apartment. Bumped into her a few days later at Benny’s. So, we sat and ate together. She asked me all kinds of questions about Hawkins; What happened here? Shit that I can’t describe, is what I told her. Do you think it’s safe to be here now, did I make a mistake? I just gave her a shrug and said, I don’t think you did. Do you maybe want to get drinks some time? I couldn’t believe my damn ears, she was so fucking forward. It’s just who she was, honestly.

“She was…god, she was beautiful, Eds. So fucking intelligent—like, she was studying to be a psychologist at the time, she was that smart. And she was funny, indescribably so. Just one look from her sometimes melted me into a puddle of giggles, could never reign myself back in. She and I shared an interest with cooking, always was pushing food at one another; Oh, try this soup I made, try this pie and tell me what you think, try the fish. It’s good, right? That’s what she always asked afterwards. And…I gotta be honest, she could’a charred all my damn food and I’d think God was feeding me straight from his palms.”

“Oh…oh, she had you tied around her finger, Stevie.”

“Yeah,” Steve breathily chuckles, “yeah, guess she did.” He lets out a quiet, sad sigh. “I fell for her hard and fast, as I always do. But she was…she was different. Something about her, I can’t really tell you what, felt like a forever kind of thing. Or…or maybe something like a while. And so, I took initiative on my gut this time; like…whatever that thing is you do in Dungeons & Dragons—the roll for initiative thing. I took my chances, is what I’m saying. Proposed to her by dressing up our apartment—at this time it was January, 1991 and I had been living with her for a little over a year, after that dreaded toilet rat thing; a story for a different time—but I put bouquets of bluebells everywhere that I could, granted they were out of season, but I put ‘em in vases and by her pillow and even in a few pairs of her shoes. I had made the lights dim and all amber. Put a record on, she was big into Jim Croce, so I kept nailing the needle to play out ‘Time in a Bottle’ and got on one knee in the small walkable space of our living room—it was heavily cluttered with furniture and knick knacks, surprised we even could walk around that place—and just waited.

“I almost threw up from nerves. But she…she came around the corner, her hair was wild and up. Just a big, bee’s nest of curls sitting lumpy at the back of her head. There was a slight sheen of sweat all over her face, grocery bags with thinning straps gripped tight in her fists, some sort of ink splotched all over this beige, cashmere sweater I bought her for Christmas. And I broke into tears, couldn’t believe my eyes that she—despite having what seemed like a rough go around with her day—she was this supermodel in our home. For the first time in my life, I was certain that I was doing something right.

“And of course she said yes. We worked day-in, day-out over our wedding plans. Just tirelessly. We wanted to get married as soon as possible, so it was set for mid-March. It was a small thing, here in town. I had actually…I asked her if it was okay to send you an invite—she already knew all about you and”—

Eddie stops Steve with a gentle hand on his bicep. It takes a sluggish moment, but soon Steve’s looking at him; wide eyes and perplexed eyebrows. Disbelieving and incredulous, Eddie flounders, “Hold on. She knew about me?”

A little shrug. “Yeah…yeah, of course she did. She probably would’ve found out about you at some point, I’m sure. Not sure how exactly, but she’s smart, she would’ve. And, y’know, it’s hard to keep something like how I’m bisexual away from somebody I love. She just took it in stride. She wasn’t like upset or anything.

“In fact, she encouraged me to invite you after some time. Thought that it’d be nice to meet you, for the two of us to reconnect. But I…” Steve blinks down at the hand still on his arm. A moment passes in stilted silence, contemplative and charged. He pats the back of Eddie’s hand. “…I wasn’t sure if you’d want to be there. And I also wasn’t sure if you had the same address. And I didn’t want to make Robin play middle-man, so I just…I guess I made the decision.” Eddie’s met with Steve eyes again, something deeply regretful and sorrowful in them. “Sorry,” Steve then whispers.

“It’s alright, Stevie,” Eddie assures, “really, it is. I probably would’ve let you down anyway. Wasn’t even at home, wouldn’t be even when the invitation arrived. Y’know, concerts and shit.”

“Oh, I forgot to ask you about all that. How’s music working out”—

“We can get to that a different time,” he gently interjects, “I want to hear more about Cathy.” Another emotion washes over Steve’s face. A bit of shock, a lot of disbelief. Eddie rubs his palm down Steve’s bicep, soothing him away from that surprise. “Keep going,” he murmurs, “I’m listening.”

“Oh—Okay,” Steve chokes out. His head whips back down to the picture, gripped tight now in his hands. Puzzled, he asks, “What more do I say?” Another silent pause. Then, “I didn’t have long with her,” he settles on, “we moved in here and took our time really getting accustomed to living with one another, but this time on a much, much bigger scale. She gave birth to Josie in August, 1995; Cathy and I were freshly twenty-eight. Then, Josie turned two and the months kinda tumbled after that.

“We were alright for a while. The house was warm and full and spilling with laughter. Our food was hot and fresh and delicious. Cathy would do her puzzles, like the one above the TV. Josie would toddle around and try and put anything and everything in her mouth. I went on with delivering mail. It was the same kind of routine. But then…then, Cathy got sick—sicker than I think I’d ever seen her, and that’s saying something because in the bit of time I really got to know her, she had food poisoning at least three separate times.

“This was…none of it was normal. I urged her to go to a doctor. And by the time she did, it was already too late.”

Eddie, absentmindedly, rubs his palm down Steve’s arm again. Sensing more than really seeing the seizing trembles of Steve’s whole body. He squeezes gently at the soft bicep under his hand. This is how he used to talk about his mom for a long time. All this gushing, red love; tainted so slowly, so obscenely, so invasively by illness; by death. And, sure, he saw this pale gauntness in Wayne this morning, but that doesn’t mean knowing the hurt and hearing the hurt makes any of this easier.

“You don’t have to continue if you aren’t ready, Steve,” Eddie says, trying to give him that out. The thing he never received as a kid. But, Steve’s hand is wrapping on the back of Eddie’s, heavy and warm and shaking. It just holds on. Bracing.

He steadies himself with a breath and keeps on, “The tumors were widespread in her lungs. On their way to her brain. She was on chemotherapy for a while. Then radiation when the chemo couldn’t work the way it did. And then it was…we were doing it just to grasp straws, trying to collect our bearings; she needed all the time in the world at the end, just to say goodbye of all things.” Another hard swallow. One that regurgitates with his spit, with tears ready to fall fast. Steve keeps going (never one to quit), voice low and trapped, “I knew that the cancer was invasive. We were at a loss cause. But…but you would not believe how many people were in the know. So many fucking strangers. Lawyers and—and funeral directors and doctors and hospice nurses. God, there were so many people in this house near the end, I’ve almost fallen in love with the quiet loneliness after her.

“And that’s terrible to admit, I know it is. But it’s true. When it came to her final day, it was just her and I. Josie had been picked up by Robin a couple days prior, taken out of town under the guise of a fun roadtrip with her aunty—but I just didn’t want her last memory of her mom to be a…a dark bedroom with a couple candles and a bunch of beeping that was just slowing and not to mention the…the discomfort. Cathy wanted to be completely in the moment. She wanted to be able to hold a conversation with me without having to slip away because of her morphine drip.

“So, at the end, it was me holding her hand, hiding winces behind the other palm. It was singing to her. It was sitting as close as I possibly could, telling her anything she wanted to know. Told her about how much fun Josie was having with Robs, about the flowers for the funeral because I didn’t know what she wanted—bluebells, she told me; it was always bluebells—and I told her that I loved her. Because, at the end of it all, that’s all a person really wants, isn’t it? To be cherished? To be loved?”

Steve sets the photograph down in his lap with barely a sound, leans forward for his mug—dislodging Eddie’s hand completely—and takes a slow, barely savoring sip of his tea. It’s probably cold, if Eddie had to guess, but if it was, Steve didn’t show it. He just resettled in his cushion, photograph left alone, and wiped the tip of his nose on the back of his left hand. Where, if Eddie had been looking hard enough to begin with, a gold band sits unpolished on his ring finger.

“Anyway,” Steve sighs. “This is one of a few photos I have with the girls. I keep it up on that shelf, just so I have…god, this is going to sound so depressing…just so I have something to say goodnight to before I try and sleep. Don’t know if you could tell, Eds, but I live a pretty boring, unfruitful, lonely life now.” A here-and-gone half-laugh, almost humorless, but the sound is too full to be hollow. “It’s why I wanted to know about Los Angeles. Maybe I’m missing something by staying here. But…but if somebody as wild as you isn’t enjoying it, maybe being a flour sack on my couch isn’t too bad.”

Eddie doesn’t want to leave this loose-ended and sprawling, but his comforting hasn’t always been that—comforting. “It’s a really nice picture, Steve,” is all he can muster. If he were better at organizing the feelings and words in his head, he’s sure he could say something at least a little nicer. Maybe make some connection to his mom, but even that feels just a little too…sour for all the love that Steve poured out. He pats at Steve’s arm again and reaches for his own tea; sure enough, the drink has gone cold over the course of their conversation. They’ll have to reheat them, if Steve still wants him here.

Just as he sets his cup back down, he spots Steve wipe his face with both of his hands, glasses knocked to the top of his head, coming back down awkwardly onto his nose. He readjusts them and groans. “Sorry,” he sighs. “Christ, I didn’t think I’d still be such a mess after all this time. Didn’t think I could still be all…mopey after it all. But it’s just”—he shrugs—“nobody’s asked about her in a long time. And you were interested and I just…guess I couldn’t help myself.”

“We all want to be remembered, Steve. I’m not going to wave you off as you do that. It was nice to hear about her, though. I’m glad you had somebody so…so lovely to share a portion of your life with, even if it wasn’t as long as you would’ve wanted. It always sucks when that happens,” he tries to amend. Eddie spots a breath in the conversation, where it lulls, where they’re beginning to really wrap up their evening. So, he takes a courageous breath and confesses, “I’m back in Hawkins because of Wayne.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve questions, nasally and wheezy.

“Yeah,” Eddie answers, a nod and a sigh tied in one. “Yeah…he—uh—he’s got lung cancer. Just a single tumor, so it was caught early, but I mean…fuck, y’know? It’s hard to get news like that over the phone. Couldn’t just leave him by himself. Had to come home.”

A sniffle as Steve clears up his nostrils. And a breathed, “Eddie…”

“Nah, no, don’t—I don’t want you to feel bad. Please, please don’t feel bad. Shit, I just”—helplessly, probably the same way Steve’s been feeling the last few minutes, he gives a half-hearted shrug of his own—“I just needed to be here. In case, I suppose. But it’s nice—it’s really nice—to have a familiar face around. Not that I’m—I’m not asking you to be my emotional support rock, but I”—

“I’ll be here, Eds. I will even if you don’t always need me,” Steve rushes in, headfirst, chest strong. “I know what it was like to go through a lot of this alone. And…in my case, not saying it’ll be yours, being alone in it all is the worst. Sure, I had Robin on the phone and all, but my support system was small. God, it was so small. If I can do anything, you let me know. I make a good soup, I—I might have a few orthopedic pillows from Cathy, hell, I’ll come over with a beer if you need it.”

Eddie chuckles. “Don’t drink anymore, Stevie. A story for a different time, right? Toilet Rat, me not drinking—they’re one in the same. But I’ll accept a crisp Coke if you ever want to hang out.”

Steve responds with his own snort. “Toilet rat,” he echoes. “Yeah, okay. Another time, that’s okay.” He gestures off-handedly to their mugs on the table. “Want me to reheat your tea? I could get you a slice of toast to go with it or something?”

“No, that’s okay,” Eddie whispers, being careful to not break this peace they’ve now shared, “I should actually head back now. Make sure Wayne’s doing alright. He starts chemotherapy in the morning and I need to be ready for it.”

“Right,” Steve murmurs, “right, yeah, of course. Let me lead you to the door.”

The photo is set carefully on the bookshelf as they make their way back to the front door. Eddie clumsily worms his feet back into his laced sneakers, hand braced on the wall, the other tight on Steve’s shoulder. And then Steve opens the door, Eddie on the porch, staring at one another.

“It was nice catching up with you, Steve. I’m…I’m glad that you found something you like to do. That you still look good after all these years.”

“Oh, please,” Steve scoffs. “My whole head is basically silver. Stress will do that to a guy, y’know. I’d hardly say that it looks good.”

“You kidding, man? Makes you look like a…a silver fox or something. Trust me, you look good.” Eddie rocks back on his heels, face warm with the admittance. He’d been thinking it, didn’t know he’d actually follow through with saying it out loud. “Well, thank you for a nice evening, it really means a lot in the chaos that is my life right now. I’ll see you around?”

Steve nods softly. “Of course, Eds. Anytime, I mean it. Come hell or high water, I’ll be there if you need the support.”

This would be the part where they’d hug or something, Eddie figures. But for now, he gives an awkward wave of his fingers, a nod in return. And a final, “Good night, Steve. Sleep well.”

“You, too,” is whispered at his back.

And he can’t place it, why after so much softness, so much love, so much warmth, his chest goes tight with those words.

———————————————————————————————————————— End of Chapter Two! Read the Next Chapter Here —>

[bitebitesnap]

What Are You

Does anyone remember that time I said I had an AU for Guilty Gear? Yeah I don't really have much of an explanation for this beyond it was a test of that AU that I wanted to write that;s evolved into...this.

So yeah um, this has been sitting in my drafts for -checks notes- at least a few months??? I really wanted to get it out much earlier than now but tbh I'm just glad it's finally done so have this nearly 3000 word thing before I overthink it.

Heat burned in his eyes and throughout his chest. Smoky embers rolled through his throat, coating his tongue in ash and soot. Strain filtered through his forearms, resting hot on the shoulder. He shoved harder, grip tight around the wrench.

Absolutely nothing. The bolt remained as steadfast as any rusty piece of crap would be from lack of care.

His brow pinched tight. A deep frustrated breath heaved in his chest as a trickle of sweat rolled down his temple, "Hng...dammit.." He tugs the wrench free, staring at the thing with a harsh scowl.

"Still struggling down there, hothead?"

He rolled his eyes almost good naturedly-not that you could see, "Shut up. I'm making progress, quite making fun of me." He brushed the back of his hand against his cheek, smearing something viscous but he ignored it. The headband had been an oversight, as he meant to take it off before getting under his little project, but at least the leather kept the sweat out of his eyes

You still laughed at him while kicking your feet, "Maybe I will when you're not getting covered in grease and let us both get something to eat for once!"

He huffed, "It's not that simple. Can;t just force the damn thing, it takes a careful touch. One wrong move and," Metal pings sharply right into his ear, but it proves his point as the exhaust rocks softly against his flick, "This thing goes right into my face."

He hears your hair rustle as you push it behind your ear nonchalantly, "And? You've been punched real hard by a car once."

"Got hit by a car."

"Semantics aren't important." Your shadow on the wall waves off his scoff, "You'll be fine."

"I will. This won't." He picks up the end of the topic of discussion to hold it out from underneath the motorcycle, "This thing was half a month's payment to get and I don't feel like remaking it. And the manufacturer is out of business for the rest of the year, so there's no replacement either." The recently polished pipe squeaks as he props it back onto his shoulder, hanging precariously just over his face.

The singular reason why it couldn't just be pushed out of his way was staring him in the face with all it's rusted stubbornness-a joint from the old exhaust kit still set in place. He'd left it when first starting since it wasn't too important yet, but now he kind of wished he did. The rust had soldered the bolt into the frame and he couldn't replace that without completely fucking up the whole shape of the bike. If the section he was on wasn't a support brace he wouldn't have been worried about it, but there it was right in his face like a fist to the nose and here he was trying to fix it.

To add insult to injury it was quarter past noon, right in the heat of the day. The sunlight from the garage's ratty window was like a branding pole right across his chest, not held back in the slightest by the missing slats in the already broken blinds. He'd already sweat through his one good shirt-thankful for the one time he thought ahead and took off his vest for 'safety reasons' that only meant for the jacket to sustain the least amount of damage possible.

"Yeah fair enough on that end I guess." Your small sigh stills his hand before he can pick up the wrench again, "The Dragoons have been getting worse." And he almost rolled his eyes, huffing under his breath.

Dragoons. Half human, half dragon. Monsters in the form of men that only knew destruction. The reason for the current lockdown that pushed him off the King's work list for a while. For his own sake, he said.

Bullshit.

His grip on the wrench tightened, "Yeah. Like always." The frame creaked a bit as he pushed himself into place, the old wheels on the cart he laid on rattling under his back, "Bastards love to make things worse whenever they crawl out of their holes." Like keep him from getting an actual set of jacks for the bike over his head and leaving him to resort to ram-shackling the thing on top of scrap and a pile of real thick phone books.

You only hummed. The tips of your steel toed boots flicked in and out from behind the front wheel. You;d sat yourself on one of the many old crates he had yet to haul out of this old garage, leaning back and kicking up your heels like you owned the place. He didn;t doubt you came without your phone, which he did hear you tap away on again once you stopped answering. So he turned back to the subject in his hands-a stubborn bolt that refused to move.

It was after a few minutes of him quietly struggling to himself that you spoke up, clearly bored with whatever you had been entertaining yourself with before, "Though it's kind of confusing to me." He lets out a tight hum for you continue, "How are you different?"

He grunts through his teeth-damn this thing refused to move, "Different? The Hell are you on about?"

"I mean." You hesitate, huffing as you gather your bearings, "Why aren't you?" Your heels tap against the crate as you swing them.

"Why aren't I what? Just say it." He let too much aggression slip as he tried again to make the bolt just fucking move. Fucking Hell, he was moments away from just wrenching the whole lot off and calling it a day. Support frame be damned he wasn't dealing with this for much longer.

"Dangerous. Like the other Dragoons."

Immediately tension locks his hands into place, wrench handle digging into his palm. Ice pours into his veins as if the sun decided it wasn't summer anymore and slipped right into winter. Wide eyes glance towards where you sat, frantic, "What."

If his bark affected you there was no way he could tell from where he sat. Your boots shuffled against the crate, steel lined heels clacking together, “You have the Dragon Install, which is a Dragoon ability. The marks on your neck are a dead give away, too. You're also stubborn, short tempered, and itching for a fight at a moments notice. Just like one of them.” Each finger he heard you flick out made his shoulders flinch almost imperceptibly to you, but for him he felt each one like a tick of a clock.

A self conscious hand left the wrench to brush along the stripes decorating the sides of his neck and throat, normally covered by the jacket's collar. The jacket he had stupidly tossed aside so he could drag himself underneath his project without worry. Right.

Fuck him.

He forced his hand back onto the wrench. Change topic, change topic, ”Dragoons are assholes that can't keep their heads on long enough to hold a conversation. Mostly they're known for their rampant destruction of a lot of big cities.“ Frantic he scanned around for something, anything to busy his other hand with so you wouldn't notice his pause-or at least hopefully, you'd brush it off and move on like he did, ”You did go to school at one point right.“ The question wasn't as smooth as he wanted it to be but it would have to do as he rummaged in the junk next to him.

You picked up the topic change. He knew you did. The sudden lurch forwards was perfectly aligned with the indignant scowl you always gave him when he prodded at your intelligence ”Hey I was homeschooled, asshole. I know enough.“

A little huff pulled the corner of his mouth, "Ya sure about that? I remember having to tell you about the older generations of that tech menace you call a phone." Pliers found his hand and lifted out of the mess on the floor. Without thinking too much on it he clasped the teeth around the wrench's handle.

"And? I didn;t take tech classes in college, along with half the population in the city." Your shadow waves away the comment and sweeps towards the door well out of his line of sight.

He leers at your image, grip tightening as he pushed, "You. College. Really."

"Yes really, jackass. I did manage to get in like every other half-baked professional we work with."

”Not to get anything better than a-“ Metal snapped much too loudly and right into his face, ”FUCK-! Shit….dammit.“ The bitter taste of now twisted steel bit at his tongue as the flecks scattered onto the garage floor beneath him. Even the wrench flung itself away as if to escape blame while it clattered along the floor.

”You good down there?“

”Yeah..Just fucked it up.“ He brushed the metal off his face as best he could, though a faint sting laced his eyes, ”Nothing new down here. Old piece of shit still has it out for me.“ With a scowl towards the skeletal frame braced above him he assessed the damage.

While the frame had been scraped bad, nothing was too out of order. The bolt's remains fell out of the socket with a tug from the pliers still in his hand, a mangled mess of threaded steel reduced to just a nub. He didn't really care where the rest of it went-with his luck it exploded from the force he exherted, which was fantastic. With the exhaust pipe in the other hand he shoved it up further under the chasis until it braced onto the floor over his head-not an ideal place for it, granted, as it could twist up the metal in some way, but it was better than on him or lost in the mess that was this garage's floor.

But it was your snickering that made him shove against his bike's suspended frame, the cart’s wheels rattling beneath him as he looked at you with a deep frown, ”Shut the Hell up, asshole.“ Slowly sitting up he scrubbed his very likely grease covered fingers over his eyes, probably smearing black over his face in the process, ”You don't even care that I got metal in my eyes, do you?”

You just grinned at him, leather jacket squeaking as you shrugged, “Nah, I know you're fine. Not like I haven't seen you deal with worse.” Your gaze stays on him even though he gives you a glare, narrowing onto that smug little tilt of your lips for a bit too long while you go back to picking at the peeling patch on your arm.

He grunts, getting up from the cart, “Ya sure about that, runt? Could have got a real big shard in my eye and you would be laughing about it. Real mature of you to make fun of me while I could be bleeding on the floor.” Damn, his neck ached. Granted he was laying down for longer than normal, but it rarely got this bad. It pulled on his shoulders while he rested a hand over the knot at the base of his neck and tugged hard-the nice pop rolling through his spine deeply satisfying.

“But you wouldn't because Dragoons don't get hurt that easily.”

He huffed, long and loud. Again with that. “I told you, I;m not a Dragoon.” Dropping the bolt into the scrap pile he starts digging into the drawers of a donated file cabinet that was being filled with anything but, “I'm not a mindless freak like they are.”

Perhaps you felt merciful today because once his sharp retort left him you fell silent. A small victory. Unfortunately the natural desire to ignore the current problem now left him painfully aware of just how bad he’d let this borrowed garage get. The file cabinet was the oldest piece he had-a surprising feat, as the building was at least a few decades- filled with more rust than whatever he had that had spent too much time lying around on the floor and needed a place to be stuffed into. And it's convenience was also the problem-there was more than just spare bolts in this thing. It was practically bursting with random crap he didn’t need when he had it but didn’t want to deal with. It was less an organization method and more a way to ignore the mess.

And clearly, an excuse not to continue the topic.

He'd never admit to the unease roiling in his gut. Waiting was not his thing-neither was digging through old crap in the waning hope you'd drop the idea niggling in your head for something he wanted to be bothered by.

”So.“

But you were, in fact, the most stubborn human being he's ever met.

He sighed, rolling his head back behind his shoulders, “What now.” He grumbled, hand still halfway into a new drawer.

“I'm getting to it, jerk, give me a second” Again he snorted as you huffed. But when you weren't immediately going down another one of your common rantings about the king you both worked under-which would be a blessing in this case, he'd take anything else right now-he grew wary.

Yet you continued.

”I know of the dragons. Big ugly things that come from the rifts to the Otherside, some unknown dimension parallel to our own where it's similar but wrong in a way.” Your boots tamp onto the concrete as you hop off the crate, ”People think that humans were there once from relics, but it;s possible the dragons either ate them all or did something to get rid of them.“ Steps clunk across the garage floor as you approached slowly, almost cautiously, “I know you're not a dragon. That much is obvious." He rolled his eyes, "You've also stated that you're not a Dragoon, but you have a lot of similar abilities that Dragoons have-short temper, brash personality, preference towards destruction and the like.” His ears twitch at each finger you flick out, repeating the count you’d made before, “Yet at the same time you have control over your rage. Instead of reaping havoc, you direct it, almost like a gun, towards whoever you're fighting. In fact I don't think I've ever seen you get super angry at anything that isn’t that hunk of junk you call a project over there.” Air swishes, like you'd tossed a thumb over your shoulder.

He’s frozen in place, staring blankly at the cabinet. It’s all too much. How had he not noticed how closely you were paying attention. How well you’d been watching his every move-sure, he couldn’t exactly call you a slacker, but you’d rarely made it feel like you were a threat.

And yet he should have. It was written in your title, your name.

Hunter. Dragon Killer.

Harmless wasn’t in the job description.

But…could he really call you dangerous? Yes, you’d read out his failed cover up like a book on a shelf, but it wasn’t with malice or even disappointment. Though you sounded a bit exasperated, it wasn’t what stood out-just a backdrop to something softer, lighter despite the weight of them. Something almost like…

Curiosity.

“So my question is, if you're not a dragon, or even a Dragoon, then…” A subtle shift of your hair as if  you’d tilted your head makes his breath catch in his chest, ”..What are you?“

The words are there. They stick in his throat like honey-sweet, sickly so, a coat of lies he could use to cover the whole truth and hide it away before it's ever known. He could speak them now, cover his back and run away again.

But he can't. He's already gone too far. Said too much, let you in too soon. If he backed out now, it would only make it worse for the both of you. In his eyes, there’s two ways this can go. Either you get it from him, or you take the unbelievably stupid risk of finding someone else to answer-neither of which are on his good list of ideas.

Well, at least one was a definite no-go. The other not so much, but he couldn't guarantee how flaky he could get.

Instead he sighs. Air hotter than the setting sun boils against his lips, what little condensation a desert could procure steaming away before his face in a puff. With a collecting breath he turns, face carefully neutral. The aged black shirt stretches to accommodate the tight cords of muscle as he crosses his arms, workbench creaking as he leans back against it.

Looking you in the eye he forces the words to leave his lips, ”A Drago.“

He sees the gears in your head working. Little flicks of confusion as you glance about, unsure whether to maintain his intense stare or gather information yourself by whatever he'd hung up on the walls. But the garage's scattered remnants of memorabilia wouldn't elaborate on his words, thus forcing you to turn back to him. And with a soft swallow, you ask the words he didn't want to answer yet knew he had to, ”…What's a Drago.“

And here it would fall apart.

”A dragon turned human.“

[bcdrawsandwrites]

[ID: The first image Psychonauts fanfic banner on a black-to-gray gradient background. On the left in white text it says “Prompt #6: Organ Theft” On the right is a bright green animated figment of a brain in a glass case. The top of the glass case is labeled "PREZ" and the base is labeled "NO TOUCH." The figment is based on one of the images from the Milla's Adventures! memory vault.

The second image is a Bad Things Happen Bingo card. Various prompts are marked with a half-brain (prompt requested but not filled) or full-brain (prompt requested and finished) symbol, while the “Organ Theft” prompt specifically is marked with a full brain symbol. /end ID]

FINALLY WE'RE BACK!! This one took me WAY too long, but here's the next fic in my @badthingshappenbingo challenge!

I am currently NO LONGER OPEN FOR REQUESTS. I have enough to work on to get a bingo! I MAY decide to reopen prompts later if I want to keep going after finishing these fics, but for now, requests are closed!

This request is for @of-science-and-stars! Sorry this took so long, and hope you enjoy! Thanks to @jaywings and @pinkygrocket for beta-reading!

Prompt: Organ Theft Characters: Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello, Ford Cruller Warnings: None

---~~~---

The doors leading into Sasha's lab slid open, and he trudged through them, making his way to his office, then all but collapsed down onto his couch. Automatically, he TK'd a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with pyrokinesis, and he tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. He took a slow drag, sighing through his nose and watching the smoke spiral toward the ceiling.

He truly enjoyed his work. But there were some days that made him wish he had a different job—one that didn’t leave mental and emotional burdens weighing heavily on his shoulders.

Soon the first cigarette was smoked down to the filter. Into the ashtray it went, and it was swiftly replaced with another.

It was days like this that made him wish that he had never taken Ford up on his offer to join the Psychonauts when he had run into him so long ago. Of course, deep down he knew it was the best decision he'd ever made, and that mental exhaustion was causing his emotions to behave irrationally, but right now, that knowledge did nothing to change how he felt. As the events of the past several hours played out again in his mind, he sank lower into his couch. Truly this was one of the worst days of his career.

It could not possibly get worse.

If Hollis would no longer allow him to wear what he chose, then—

Shoehorn, Dustpan, this is Grease Jar.

Sasha jolted upright, scrambling to TK-grab his dropped cigarette before it burned the couch.

Got an important mission that's slipped through the cracks. U.S. government's deemed it too unimportant, but the entirety of Country's future is on the line if we don't do something.

Rubbing his forehead, Sasha wondered if Ford had misspoke. Before he could comment, Milla chimed in:

Of course, Grease Jar. Shoehorn and I would be happy to help. What's the trouble?

President's been captured.

What? That had to be wrong—how could that have slipped through the cracks? Are you sure?

Do I ever contact you when I'm not? You gonna help or what?

Well, he couldn't argue with that. ...Yes, he replied. We're ready.

Great. I'm getting things set up on my end. Paperwork will be handled as usual. Gimme a minute and I'll get you ready for transport.

Very well. Just... warn us this time, please. You recall how last time went.

You were fine, son. I know how to use the heimlich, and I can do it again if I need to.

He could feel Milla's gentle laugh, and he couldn't be too upset.

For a few moments he sat in his office, putting out his cigarette and straightening his jacket. Ford didn't like to waste time, so he'd likely be here any minute. Sighing, he stood up to stretch—

—and just as he realized one critical error he'd made, someone abruptly appeared next to him, grabbed his shoulder, and with a yank, he was out of his office.

—-

Sasha stumbled in the sudden dim light. The beeps and chirps from the nearby consoles weren't unfamiliar to him, but the use of teleportation was always jarring.

With a rush of green psychic energy, Ford and Milla appeared next to him. Nodding in satisfaction, Ford clapped both of them on the back. "Good to see you two out here to visit an old coot again."

"You know you're much more than that to us, Agent Cruller," Milla said with a smile.

"Pshaw." Ford waved a hand. "I didn't bring you here to get all sappy on me, anyway." He glanced over at Sasha, then blinked, one of his bushy brows raising. "Didn't take you out here for a vacation, either."

Milla followed his gaze, then covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. Meanwhile, Sasha looked away, shuffling his feet in his very comfortable pair of socks and sandals.

Shaking his head, Ford strode over to a console and tapped in a few keys, bringing up holographic images around the platform they stood upon. The first depicted a map of the globe, which zoomed in on a teeny tiny island. "So this here is Country."

"Which country?" Sasha asked, frowning at the image.

"It's not a country, it's a territory," Ford snapped, eyeing Sasha over his shoulder.

Milla exchanged a glance with Sasha before raising a finger. "You did just say it was a country—"

"No, I said it was Country. Keep up!" Frowning, Ford brought up a second map, which was zoomed a bit further out. "Country is a small island territory off the coast of Nation."

Sasha could feel regret creeping up his spine the second he opened his mouth. "Which nation—"

"The nation of—” He broke off into a sputter. “It's not a nation, it's a republic! Didn't you young'ns ever go to school?!"

Clasping her hands, Milla nodded. "Of course, Agent Cruller. What's going on there?"

Ford relaxed a little before bringing up another image—this one appearing to be a short, squat man with mint-green skin. "President's been found in danger."

"...The President?" Sasha asked, wilting.

"Yea—I mean, no!" Ford snapped, his body trembling in agitation. "His name's President—goes by Prez—and he's the Prime Minister of Country. He's been captured by terrorists and is being held captive in the Company Building."

Once again Sasha nearly opened his mouth, but Milla shook her head, and he held himself back. "So we'll head to this office building and—"

"It's not an office—it's a—a—" Ford broke off into sputtering once again, but this time shot a glare at the holograms around him. "Who names these things?!"

Milla laughed, and Ford rolled his eyes. "Laugh all you want, but I'd like to see you keep this stuff straight!"

Sighing, he brought up the layout of the fortress on the holograms. "Prez is being held somewhere in these walls. Now you'd think it'd be at the top of this tower here—" he pointed at a tower on the leftmost side of the building "—like some princess in a fairy tale, but the intelligence I've gathered shows he's most likely located somewhere around here." He indicated a number of smaller rooms in the middle of the building, then paused, indicating the tower again. "Or, if we're unlucky, he might be held there, where they apparently keep the gators."

The ridge of one of Sasha's lenses raised as he exchanged a glance with Milla. "Alligators?"

Ford scratched the back of his scalp as he glanced off to the side. "Or maybe it was crocodiles? Same difference. Anyway." Shaking his head, he pulled up another image that showed an aerial view of the building and its surrounding grounds. "Now, the authorities are camped out outside, and they’ve been notified that you’re coming. Hostage situations are delicate and all that, but if you can get Prez outside, they can take it from there."

"I assume these terrorists have a psychic on their side?" Sasha asked, examining the map. "Otherwise we would not have been called upon."

"Now that we're not sure," Ford admitted. "But one thing we do know is that they may have access to sneezing powder, which is going to complicate things. They may have some brains switched up."

"Ach, of course."

"We can handle it, Agent Cruller," Milla said, giving Sasha a nod.

"Good," Ford replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple photos as well as printed sheets of paper, which he handed to Sasha and Milla.

"Here's some pictures of our target, and some questions you'll need to ask him to verify his identity, in case they tried a switcheroo. Study 'em and burn 'em. I got the coordinates logged in the Pelican, as well as your disguises for the mission. I'll stay down here for now so you can reach me, and I'll give you more mission details along the way. Now git!"

With that, he waved his hands toward them in a shoo-ing motion.

"Tchau!" Milla said with a short wave.

"We'll be in contact," Sasha added, and the two of them headed for the tree stump exit. From there, the transport system brought them to the hangar. To his dismay, he found a bird's nest had been built atop one of the wings of the Pelican. "Ach... How do they keep getting in here?"

While Milla gently TK'd the nest off to the side, Sasha glanced around. While well-disguised on the outside, the hangar was above-ground, which led to... problems like this. At least the bears and cougars couldn't get in.

Milla gave him a playful psi-poke, and he shook his head. Right, they had bigger things to worry about right now. Arguably.

Once they had both levitated into the Pelican, a psychic message from Ford reached them: Once you're onboard, you should find your outfits on the front seats.

Nodding to each other, they approached their respective seats to find Milla's had one of her custom Psychonauts outfits folded neatly there, complete with the rarely-used hood. It also had a set of large, circular earrings on top, each of them transparent while giving off opalescent reflections. Sasha, meanwhile, found a fancy blue suit with a pin on the breast reading "Logan Smith - AquaSpark Amusement Parks.” Accompanying the outfit was a small briefcase with the fake company’s logo: a blue lightning bolt with a splash of water directly beneath it.

There were, however, no matching shoes for the outfit.

Sasha curled up inside himself.

So, Dustpan, you'll be handling the sneaky stuff. Those earrings there are one of Egg Carton's inventions—supposed to give you more invisibility time.

Milla smiled, turning over the earrings in her hand. Oh, that's wonderful! So stylish, too.

Yeah, yeah, he's all about style. Now, Shoehorn, you'll be the distraction. You'll be Logan Smith, CEO of AquaSpark Water Parks. For some reason these terrorists are just nuts about water parks, so they'll be happy to see you there.

Wonderful, Sasha thought, looking over the outfit. They sound reasonable.

"I'm sure you'll do great, darling!" Milla said with a smile.

Sasha almost raised a hand to protest, only to stop himself, and placed a hand on his temple to speak to Ford. Ford, there seems to be something missing from my outfit.

Eh?

The shoes.

Didn't give Milla shoes either. Figured you'd both come dressed for work.

He almost argued that he was dressed for work, but bit back the comment; a man's life was in danger, and there was no time to worry about shoes. Tapping the button to open the hangar door and flipping a number of switches, he sent a message to both Milla and Ford. Very well. Starting up the jet.

Good, Ford replied. Course is already set, so you should be there in about two hours.

We will notify you upon arrival.

As the jet took off, they braced themselves, and waited until the plane leveled before relaxing. Sasha turned to Milla. "We may as well familiarize ourselves with our target while we wait."

“Good idea!” Milla replied, TKing out the papers Ford had given her.

Sasha, meanwhile, TK'd out the photo he was given of Prez. Looking it over, he found himself staring into the face of a man who looked well-meaning, if somewhat baffled. Recalling the glimpse he'd gotten of the picture Ford had shown earlier, he wondered if that was the man's perpetual expression. Or perhaps he was just not photogenic.

After studying it for a while, he switched to the document. Said document detailed basic facts about the man—his birth date, his partner's name, the date of their anniversary, the names of all seven of his Samoyeds, and various other factoids that could be useful to know, ranging from basic to obscure. Fortunately, Sasha was used to memorizing this sort of thing—it was standard procedure for when a brain swap was suspected.

After he studied the notes for some time, another copy of the document entered his vision, and he didn't have to look to know that Milla was TKing it to him. Without a word he TK'd it off to his other side, gave her a moment to look away, and lit it on fire with pyrokinesis, doing the same with his own paper shortly afterward. "Aside from the odd names, this should be a fairly standard mission."

Milla nodded. "It will be over soon enough, and then we can throw a party!" She gave him a grin. "Perhaps that would cheer you up?"

Sasha stiffened. "Ah... I had hoped that wasn't obvious."

"It's all right, darling." She reached over to pat him on the shoulder gently. "Now let's get ready. It looks like we'll be arriving soon!"

Milla retreated into the bathroom, and stepped out in her Psychonaut outfit, without the hood—understandable, as it would not be comfortable to wear for an extended period. As his partner settled herself in her seat again, Sasha took a moment to step back to change into his own outfit. The suit tugged at his shoulders, but otherwise he found himself able to move around in it well enough. He kept his Psychonauts badge, however, slipping it into his pocket in case he needed to identify himself. But as he stepped back out, he frowned down at his feet.

"Oh, are you worried about your footwear?" Milla asked. He gave a start to find her looking back at him with an amused smile. "I'm sure you'll find a way to roll with it, darling."

"Hopefully," Sasha remarked, taking a moment to straighten his tie.

By this point, the jet was slowing down as it approached the Island of Country. Milla carefully tied her hair back into a bun and pulled her hood over her head. Her earrings poked out from the hood, looking obvious against the dark outfit, but half a second later she turned herself invisible.

"So far, so good," Sasha remarked, nodding approvingly in the direction where Milla had been standing. However, he felt her presence just behind him, and turned to see her smiling at him beneath her hood.

"I'm glad you think so," she said, a teasing glint in her eyes.

He gave a huff of amusement. "Even if Otto's new accessories don't work as advertised—which I'm sure they will—your stealth is unmatched."

"Naturally." Milla gave a soft laugh.

Looking down at the briefcase he’d been given, Sasha picked it up with his hand, and frowned. Well, this wouldn’t be enjoyable.

When the jet landed, the two drew their attention to a holographic screen near the cockpit. It displayed a map of the island, indicating where the jet had landed and where their target was.

"All right, listen up, cuz this recording's about to delete itself once it's done," Ford's voice crackled out of the speaker. "You've landed here, west of the target." The blip on the map indicating the jet flashed. "The authorities are gathered outside the building, and they've been made aware of your arrival. Dustpan, you're gonna sneak in through the side entrance here." The map zoomed in on the building, highlighting something on the western side. "The code to enter is 5002. Meanwhile, Shoehorn, you're gonna enter through the front, and make a show of pushing yourself through the cops. That'll get these guys' attention, and I'll leave you to figure out where to take it from there."

Sasha nodded grimly. Playing things by ear was not his favorite way to do things, but he could handle it when he had to.

"Remember, the fate of Country is on your shoulders, so don't screw this up. Grease Jar, out!" The screen switched off, and a dull bleep indicated that the message had been deleted.

Exchanging glances, Sasha and Milla gave each other a nod before exiting the Pelican, levitating onto the ground outside. With a wave of his hand, Sasha activated the jet's cloaking mechanism to hide it from view, and took note of his surroundings to remember where it was. They'd landed in a clearing in the middle of a forest, where enormous trees surrounded them. The air was thick and humid and alive with the buzzing of mosquitoes, and the sky was overcast. There was nothing really noteworthy here, but luckily, the building was a straight shot east of where they'd landed.

Also a straight shot east was a puddle of muck that Sasha had just stepped into.

His skin began to crawl, and he was certain about half a dozen regrets had spawned in his mental world.

"Watch your step, darling," Milla said, hovering gracefully over the ground.

Grimacing, Sasha levitated a few inches upward, telekinetically keeping hold of his sandal so it didn't slip off his foot and get devoured by the mud. He joined Milla in floating over the ground, but rather than the natural-looking hover Milla performed, he moved parallel to the ground as though standing upon an invisible moving walkway. As they traversed over the mud, he realized that this was more than just a patch of soggy ground—this was an outright swamp. He wished Ford had mentioned this.

Granted, it wasn't relevant to the mission, but it was relevant to his outfit.

Fortunately it wasn't long before they caught sight of a massive structure just beyond the swamp. It was a centuries-old fortress featuring a number of towers, giving the brief illusion that they had somehow stepped back in time. The illusion was shattered by the sight of modern police cars sitting outside, with various officers milling about idly.

Turning to Milla, Sasha gave a nod, and she faded from sight.

Let me know what's happening once you're inside, Milla said. I'll start scouting.

I'll try to draw their attention, Sasha replied, though he couldn't help but wish their roles were reversed.

Approaching the police, he TK'd his Psychonaut badge out of his pocket and flashed it at the police chief. It took a moment for the man to notice, but when he did, he did a double-take. "Hey, you're not supposed to be here," he spoke in a deliberate, dull tone.

As Sasha TK'd the badge away, the other cops looked at the chief, then at Sasha, before continuing the charade with little to no conviction. "Hey, get out of here. This is a police investigation!"

Sasha winced, but made his way toward the fortress nonetheless. "No," he said, also with volume, but hopefully more convincing than the police. "Let me through! I must speak with the men here!"

"Stay back. We have weapons." Several of the officers lifted batons (with a couple more enthusiastically raising guns).

Mentally Sasha prepared a psi-shield should the officers decide to attempt to be too convincing of the act they were putting on of keeping him out. "No!" he cried, raising his voice more with a rapid glance at the entrance to the fortress. "It is of dire importance that I speak to these people!"

To his relief, their plan seemed to be working—a few men wearing ski-masks were now staring at them from the other side of the iron gate that blocked the entrance. They looked at each other, then at him, and seemed to take notice of the logo on his briefcase. They gave a jump and their movements seemed to be growing more excited.

Unbelievable, Sasha thought. Shaking his head, he realized the officers were starting to close in on him (but not too much of course), and he redoubled his efforts to reach the fortress. "Let me through!"

There was a rusty screeching noise as the iron gate that blocked the entrance was raised. While a few officers turned to look at the gate, they looked away again, remembering the plan. With the police pretending to be preoccupied with Sasha, they “failed” to notice one of the men sneaking in their direction. Sasha continued to push his way toward the gate when the man suddenly rushed forward, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the fortress. The officers gave a half-hearted shout, a few of them pursuing before stopping at the closing gate.

"Bout time one of you guys heard about us!" the masked man said as he hauled Sasha through the courtyard. "Now we can finally be makin' some progress here!"

"I-indeed," Sasha stammered, wishing that this man would let go. His sandals were slapping noisily against the stone path and mud was flaking off of his pant leg. He noticed that the courtyard was filled with, of all things, inflatable water slides (many of which were deflated), but before he could comment on these, the man led him into the main building.

More people, these ones not wearing masks, hurried up to them, their brows furrowed in consternation. "Who's this bozo?" one woman demanded.

The man at Sasha's side yanked off his mask, and his expression was that of a child right before a birthday party. "He's with a water park!" he exclaimed, gesturing dramatically at Sasha.

Straightening his back and rolling his shoulder, Sasha nodded. "That's right. Logan Smith, Aqua Spark Amusement Parks."

The others' faces lit up. "Finally!" the woman cried.

"May I speak to...?" Sasha balked, realizing he'd never been given the name of their leader.

"Oh, yeah! Sure! Georg is this way." With a bounce to their steps, the people led Sasha further down the hall. Said hall seemed to be littered with trash, but on closer inspection, the mess consisted of small pool toys.

Something struck him, and he sent a telepathic message to Milla. I've entered the fortress. It was strangely easy.

To his shock, Milla's mental voice was slightly heightened in distress. That's great, darling, but I'm busy at the moment!

Sasha's heart jumped. Are you all right?

I can handle this. Try to find President!

Understood. Sasha frowned—in spite of Milla's insistence, he couldn't help but worry that they'd fallen for a trap. This group couldn't be that simple, could they?

As though reading his mind—can they? Sasha wondered in alarm—one of the men turned to Sasha with a raised eyebrow. "I've never heard of Aqua Spark."

Thinking quickly, Sasha replied, "We're a startup company looking for a place to build our first park. We believe that Country here is an untapped market."

To his relief, the man looked at his fellows with a wide grin. "That's what I've been saying!"

They continued to lead him further down the hall until they reached a doorway guarded by two women. They seemed cautious at first, but Sasha's companions hurried up to them to explain the situation, and they eagerly stepped away, ushering them into the room.

Stepping inside, Sasha found himself in a wide room that was probably once used for war meetings, which now had a banged-up desk shoved in one corner, misaligned with the wall, and a large aquarium in another corner, bearing a few cracks that were patched with duct tape. Said aquarium was devoid of fish, but a woman in a dark suit was bent over it, tossing in diving sticks with mild interest. One sank to the floor of the tank with a shower of bubbles and turned on its side, and the woman gave a cry of disgust, yanking it out of the tank and turning it over until she spotted a number of punctures in it. Hissing a curse, she turned to hurl the stick across the room, and Sasha had to stop himself from reflexively grabbing it with TK to avoid being hit.

Spotting Sasha, the woman paused. "Who are you?"

The first man who'd spoken to Sasha stepped forward. "This man is Logan Smith! He's with a water park!"

Rather than being ecstatic like her henchman, however, the woman frowned, looking Sasha up and down, studying him. Her gaze stopped at his feet, and Sasha stiffened, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. This was bad, this was going to end very badly, he should have told Ford to give him a moment to change his shoes before—

"Well, Mr. Smith..." she began, looking up into his glasses, as he gazed frantically around the windowless room for some sort of escape route. "It seems you share our enthusiasm for water parks! You've even brought your flip-flops!"

The tension in his shoulders eased slightly. "I—yes, of course." He gave a tight nod. "Hearing of your enthusiasm, we knew this would be the perfect place to launch our first theme park."

"That's great news!" the woman cried, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "We were hoping someone like you might show up!"

Please do not.

Realizing her forwardness, she backed off. "But where are my manners—my name is Georgette, but everyone here just calls me Georg." She held out her hand, and Sasha shook it uneasily. "It's great to have you here, Mr. Smith. Have a seat."

Before he could ask where she expected him to sit, one of the henchmen used a pump to inflate a chair, which was then propped up in front of the table. He stared at the chair for a long moment, almost debating remaining standing, before remembering he had a disguise to maintain. He lowered himself into the seat, which squeaked noisily against him. Likewise, Georg took a seat on the other side of the table, sitting on an equally squeaky inflatable chair.

"So!" she began, leaning forward. "Let's hear about your company. I'm all ears."

It took half a moment for Sasha to spin a quick story. "Right. Aqua Spark is a startup water park company in America. We're employing people who have experience building for other parks—Eight Flags, Oak Fair, Queen's Island..."

Georg nodded, her eyes and grin growing wide.

"Of course, there's a great deal of parks there, so we wanted to... make a splash—" Sasha repressed a shudder "—by building our first park here." He jabbed his finger just over the desk for emphasis. "We believe Country is an untapped market, and the perfect spot for a water park."

"Excellent!" Georg cried, clapping her hands together. "We've thought the same thing and have been campaigning for this for years now, but the government won't budge! But with our bargaining chip and with the backing of an amusement park company, there's no way they can turn us down again!"

One of the phrases made Sasha's ears perk. "Bargaining chip?"

"Oh yes, of course." She leaned forward, tilting her head. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, I assume."

"I believe so." Sasha mulled this over in his mind. "Though, I will say, it would look poorly on the company if we worked with you, and it turned out he were harmed."

"Oh! Goodness, no, we wouldn't do that!" Her smile went a bit too wide, her teeth biting down on her lower lip. "He's perfectly safe!" As she spoke, she gave a pointed glance at one of her lackeys, who hurried out the door. She rose to her feet. "But we'll get to that later! First, I wanted to show you some of our own ideas for the park we wanted—"

"Ah, yes," Sasha said, standing and taking a quick glance at the door. "First I'd like to make a quick trip to the restroom."

Georg sighed. "All right. Geoff, please show him the way, and then we can get right back to it."

"Sure thing! This way." The lackey, Geoff, waved him over to the door and began to lead him down the hall. As they walked, Geoff started to ramble. "So what kind of stuff are you planning?"

Sasha was only partially paying attention, scanning to look for the lackey who had left earlier. "We have a number of attraction concepts we're considering," he mumbled. He could definitely hear footsteps up ahead, and he hoped it was the woman who had been sent out. She must have gone to check on President.

"Like what? Oh, I really hope there's gonna be water slides—"

"Yes, of course. We’re planning a... ah... looping slide."

Geoff whirled on him. Sasha froze up, nearly expecting the man to attack, but instead he bore a huge grin.

"Like the one in Adventure Park?!"

Sasha relaxed. "Yes, but, uh... improved."

"Ooooooh man!" The lackey turned around again, continuing to lead him down the hall before stopping at one of the doors. "Here you are, Mr. Smith!"

"Thank you." Hastily, Sasha stepped inside, balking when he realized that the bathroom consisted only of a few reeking outhouses that had been dragged into the room. Steeling himself, he stepped into one, holding his breath, but did not quite close the door. Instead, he put a hand to his temple. Dustpan, this is Shoehorn. I have a lead on where President is.

Milla's mental voice sounded exhausted. That's great, darling.

Are you all right?

For now. Let me know when you find him, and I'll meet with you.

Understood.

Nodding, Sasha activated his invisibility and exited the outhouse, quietly shutting the door behind him. Relieved to be out of that germ-infested place, he crept out of the room, but froze when he realized his sandals were slapping against the stone floor. He was almost certain he had been caught, but he glanced at Geoff, who leaned against the wall. "Oh man..." the lackey was still muttering as Sasha shook his head.

He hated what he was about to do, but he could not levitate while invisible, nor could he risk compromising the mission any further. Reaching down, he slipped his sandals off his feet and held them in his free hand so his socks were now touching the ground, and continued creeping down the hall.

Sure enough, he spotted the woman who had been sent out of the room earlier. She was looking into each room frantically, as though she wasn't sure which room the captive would be in, which struck Sasha as odd. Frowning, he kept a short distance behind her, and at one point she opened one door only to close it with a yelp and lock it, hurrying ahead even more urgently. Sasha made a mental note to check that out later, if he had time—they would notice his absence eventually.

Finally, she turned a corner before reaching the last room in the hall. She opened the door with a key, and looked relieved. Sasha hurried behind her to find a man matching President's description blindfolded, gagged, and bound to a chair in a very, very cluttered room, full of old pool toys and several unlabeled tubs.

Noticing that the woman was about to shut the door, Sasha quickly CV'd into the man, only to bounce back immediately. His face went pale.

Dustpan, he said, exhaustion dragging at his mind, we've got an egg missing from the carton.

Oh dear.

That was putting it mildly. Still, Sasha steeled himself and made a mental map of where he was, projecting it to Milla. Dealing with a debrained target would be difficult, and he'd need all the help he could get.

For a moment he considered following the lackey who had locked the door so he could grab her keys, but his invisibility was already starting to wear off. Instead, he waited for her to turn the corner and psi-blasted the lock, catching it with TK before it could hit the floor. Now that he didn't have to hide it, he transferred his suitcase and sandals to TK as well.

Carefully opening the door, Sasha poked his head in. "President?" he whispered.

"TV...?" came the dreaded, muffled reply.

Sighing, Sasha squeezed into the cramped room and shut the door behind him. Though he knew he wouldn't be understood, he went on, "My name is Sasha Nein. I'm here to help you." With a few quick tugs of telekinesis, he undid the ropes that bound the man to the chair. Another few tugs and the blindfold and gag fell to the floor.

President stared at him seriously. "Puppy."

"Yes, we'll return you to your spouse and dogs as soon as we've found your brain." Sasha regarded the man for a moment—he was somehow more serious-looking than when he had a brain. Otto would have had a field day. "But where to find your brain?"

President continued to stare at him, then pointed a finger in his face. "Prime Minister."

"No, that's you," Sasha said, TKing the man's hand away. "Now, where—"

The doorknob rattled.

Sasha went invisible, ducking behind President's chair. If they'd been caught, then hopefully whoever opened the door to find this scene would assume that the ropes had fallen off of President on their own. Regardless, Sasha prepared for things to go south, placing a hand to his temple.

The door opened slowly, and Sasha tensed.

And then it shut, and before Sasha could wonder what happened, Milla came into view.

"Thank goodness," he breathed, ridding himself of his invisibility again. "It's good to see you again." But when he studied her closer, he frowned; Milla's outfit was roughed up, a few tears visible on the legs. It was rare to see her in such a state. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine, darling," Milla said, pulling down her hood partway. "I finally managed to get past those terrible alligators."

"Alligators?" he asked, eyebrows raised, then he shuddered when he remembered what Ford had said earlier. "It seems that bit of intelligence was accurate."

"Yes, they're everywhere." Milla moved some strands of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ears. "But that's not important right now. Poor President!"

President looked her in the eye. "Dog treats."

"Yes, and we have little time to waste. They'll discover my absence soon."

"But how are we to find his brain? Where could they have put it?" Milla looking out over the mess of tubs of toys. "They don't seem very organized, and they let those awful alligators chew on everything!"

A thought struck Sasha as he recalled the information Ford had given them. "...The tower."

Milla nodded grimly. "Where they keep the alligators... Though it seems now they let those brutes roam everywhere."

Something’s not quite adding up… Sasha shook his head. "Regardless, we've no time to waste. Let's take him with us and get to the tower as soon as possible." He looked down at President and helped him up from the chair. "Time to leave, sir."

"TV. Puppies. Kibble!" the man said with increasing enthusiasm. "Dog treats!" And with no further warning he grabbed one of Sasha's sandals, which he had still been TKing off to the side, and began chewing on it.

Sasha winced back. "Aaaaach...!"

Milla placed a hand on his shoulder. "It will keep him quiet. Now let's go!" Putting up her hood again, she turned to open the door. "Hopefully we haven't been caught y—"

And the hiss of an alligator greeted them, the reptile opening its jaws wide as it sat in front of the door.

"Too late," Sasha grunted. He placed a hand to his temple and fired a psi-blast at the monster, knocking it back into the wall. "Come on!"

"Puppy!" President mumbled around the sandal in his mouth, reaching out toward the incapacitated alligator as Sasha plucked him up with TK.

Milla activated her invisibility, and Sasha led her down the hall, mentally mapping out the place. The tower they were headed for was on the western side of the building opposite of where they were, so they would have to be fast. Since their cover had already been blown, Sasha went into full-blown levitation, blasting down the hall.

As they passed one door—the door the lackey had checked and locked earlier—it began to rattle before bursting open off its hinges, and several more alligators scrambled out after them. "Doggies!" President mumbled in delight, while Sasha moved even faster.

Turning a corner, he spotted Geoff, still standing outside the bathroom. The lackey looked up at him in surprise. "Woah! Mr. Smith? What's going on? Isn't that Prez?"

Is he not aware? Regardless, Sasha did not answer, blasting past him. Before Geoff had time to question him again, the alligators turned the corner, and he let out a scream, bolting away.

They're afraid of their own guard dogs? Milla asked.

It seems so, but now's not the time to question it.

They continued through the building, any lackeys they discovered fleeing the second they saw the alligators giving chase, with some of the gators even pursuing them. Sasha was nearly relieved until another alligator burst out of a door ahead of him, its snout bearing a scorch mark, much like the one he'd psi-blasted earlier.

"What—how?!" Sasha cried.

As if on cue, several more gators suddenly appeared just ahead—literally, spawning out of mid-air.

That was it—they were teleporting. Perhaps that was why the people here didn't seem to be in control of them—the gators were as much of a problem to the criminals as they were to them.

Looking over the swarm of hissing alligators, Sasha frowned. We cannot teleport, but we can levitate! Get ready.

Ready when you are, darling!

The alligators continued to hiss before one of them charged, the others following suit.

NOW!

Sasha and the still-invisible Milla leaped into the air, levitating over the alligators. A few raised their heads and snapped at them, but they managed to clear the swarm, landing on the other side and resuming their charge through the fortress. Several of the gators hissed, giving chase, but a few more were distracted by the lackeys that stepped out of their rooms to panic.

Finally, Sasha came upon what he was looking for—a stairwell. With a motion to Milla, he hovered into it, ascending the narrow, spiraling stairs while the gators scrambled up after them. Milla and Sasha had the advantage here, and managed to reach the top before the gators could.

The room shouldn't be far from here, Sasha said, glancing to his side. He was somewhat surprised to find Milla visible again, but even with the equipment she had, it wasn't easy to stay invisible for an extended period, especially not when using other powers. Meanwhile, the alligators were nearing the top of the stairs, the one at the lead opening its mouth wide. With a well-aimed psi-blast, it was sent tumbling backward, knocking into the other reptiles and sending them all crashing down the spiral stairs.

That may or may not buy us some time, depending on if they decide to teleport again. Now to find...

This way! Milla cried, charging forward with a burst of levitation. Sasha followed, and they soon found themselves approaching another door, this one sealed with a giant padlock. One psi-blast later, the lock was smoldering on the ground, and they opened the door.

They found themselves in a circular room with a large circular grate raised up in the center. Sasha and Milla exchanged glances before grabbing it with telekinesis and heaving it up and off to the side.

As Sasha finally set President down, he leaned over the hole and opened his mouth. "Teeeveeeee!" he called, his voice echoing as the sandal he'd been holding in his mouth dropped down, down, down.

"No—!" Sasha cried, but before he could react, there was a splash, followed by the snapping of alligator jaws. He heaved a long, deep sigh, looking down. "More alligators."

There were two alligators swimming in the water far below, and in the midst of them was a small pedestal, upon which sat a glass covering. The pedestal had a large "NO TOUCH" sign attached, while the covering was labeled "PREZ."

And sitting within the glass was a human brain.

"There it is," Sasha and Milla found themselves saying together, and Sasha looked up. "I'll get it."

"No, you watch President," Milla said with a wink. "Leave this to the levitation expert."

"Fair enough."

With that, Milla raised herself up off the floor and down into the shaft, nearly upside-down as she reached out toward the glass jar. The alligators hissed up at her, swimming in circles beneath her like aquatic vultures, but she paid them no mind.

"Squeaky toy," President said, frowning down at his own brain as Milla TK'd the glass away.

"Stay put..." Sasha said, holding a hand in front of President as he watched Milla. She was raising the brain upward, drawing it closer to her hands.

At once there was a flash of psychic energy, and one of the alligators from below was up in the air in the middle of the shaft, snapping at Milla as it fell down toward her. She let out a startled cry, backing up against the wall of the shaft as the alligator teleported again, this time falling closer.

"Milla!" Sasha cried. His fear and fury took the form of raw psychic energy, blasting forward into the alligator. It slammed against the wall, skidding back down into the water. Before either of them had time to celebrate, the second alligator teleported higher up in the shaft, jaws focused on President's brain.

In a sudden stab of frustration, Sasha took his remaining sandal that he'd been TKing off to his side, and chucked it into the alligator's mouth. The reptile's jaws snapped shut, and it began to wheeze and choke as it plummeted back down into the water. Eventually, it spat up the mangled sandal and swam down into the water with an indignant flip of its tail, its slightly-scorched companion following suit.

With a sigh of relief, Milla levitated the rest of the way up the shaft, landing next to Sasha. "Thank you, darling."

"Thank me later," Sasha said, already opening up his briefcase and pulling out a funnel. He turned to face President. "Stay still, sir."

President was still frowning at his own brain. "Chew toy," he said with a look of disgust.

Sighing, Sasha took the brain from Milla and TK'd the funnel over to President's ear. "Hold him still, please."

Milla held the President with TK as Sasha forced the brain into the wider end of the funnel, shoving it inward until it slipped into the Prime Minister's empty head.

President staggered back as Sasha removed the funnel, the man's eyes rolling and blinking several times before coming into focus. "Wh... where am I?" he stammered, looking at Sasha and Milla in bewilderment. "Where are my dogs?!" He looked all around the room, his movements becoming more and more frantic. "Spot? Daisy? LEONARD?!"

Sasha grit his teeth, looking out the door to make sure they weren't going to get jumped on, while Milla bent down, shushing the man. "It's all right, Prime Minister President. You've been kidnapped and debrained, and we've just recovered your brain."

"Is... is that true?" Prez asked, rubbing his head. "That would explain my headache... Also, just Prez is fine."

"There's no time for questions. We're bound to be discovered at any moment, and we need to get out of here." Looking up and down the hallway, Sasha noted that any windows he could see were barred. "Milla, where was the entrance you came in from?"

"Not that way," she said. "It was crawling with alligators!"

Prez chuckled, and Sasha frowned. "Noted. We'll have to go back through the main entrance. Hurry!"

With that, the three charged back toward the stairs they'd ascended. The stairwell was empty, but to save time, Sasha grabbed Prez with TK once again as he and Milla levitated down the stairs.

"Woah!" Prez cried, eyes wide. "You're some a' them psychics!"

"Indeed, and it seems the alligators here are, too," Sasha replied, and Prez's brows knit in confusion. Once Sasha touched down on the floor, he took off in a burst of levitation down the hall, which was deserted. "We're nearly there. We just need to make it outside!"

The courtyard was in sight. Sasha and Milla both put on a burst of speed, feeling a great relief that their mission was nearing its end.

And with several puffs of green psychic energy, a dozen hissing alligators filled the courtyard, surrounding them.

"Not this again!" the three of them said simultaneously, and Sasha and Milla briefly gave Prez a look of confusion.

"I'll need all concentration on my psychic powers," Sasha said, dropping in his levitation to the ground in a psychic attack pose and setting Prez down. "Stay between me and Milla!"

As the alligators pressed in closer, Sasha and Milla both fired blue and pink psi-blasts respectively at the reptiles. While he could hear one be struck by Milla's attack, the one he'd fired at disappeared again. Whipping his head around, he searched for the missing gator, only to realize a shadow was falling over him. With a cry, he staggered out of the way, only for his feet to slip against the slick grass and send him crashing down on his back. The alligator landed in front of him, hissing, and more were closing in behind him and to the sides.

Before he could do anything else, however, there was a deafening chorus of barking from somewhere behind him. All the alligators looked up, and began to scramble away as a pack of enormous white dogs came charging into the courtyard. They howled and snarled as they chased the reptiles away from Sasha and the others, until the gators gave up, disappearing as quickly as they'd appeared.

"Daisy!" Prez cried, holding out his arms. "Spot! Leonard! Barkley!"

Any other names he called were drowned out by the sound of elated barking and whining as he was surrounded by the pack of dogs, who all jumped over each other at the chance to lick his face.

Milla pulled her hood back, wiping at her brow. "That was a close one..." With an invisible psychic hand, she helped Sasha to his feet. He dusted himself off, for all the good it would do.

"Indeed," he said, looking back toward the entrance. "I presume these aren't K-9 units..."

"Nah, those are probably on gator duty," Prez said, squeezing his way out from the swarm of samoyeds. "C'mon, let's get out of here!"

With that, the group stepped out of the fortress, the dogs cheerfully surrounding them. Milla couldn't resist the urge to pet one of them, and it leaned into her touch, tongue lolling.

Outside, the police seemed preoccupied with handcuffing a number of criminals, including Georg and Geoff. The former looked furious, while Geoff looked out toward Sasha with his lower lip wobbling. "N... no looping water slide?" he whimpered, eyes shining with tears.

"I'm afraid not," Sasha said, replacing his name tag with his Psychonaut badge. "This place seems ill-suited for water parks regardless."

"How did you capture them all?" Milla asked, looking toward the chief officer. "How could you have known we'd already rescued the Prime Minister and his brain?"

"We didn't," the officer said with a shrug. "These guys came runnin' out 'cause of the gators."

Prez let out a hearty laugh. "That's a real shocker!"

"Prez!" Another person came bolting through the crowd—someone Sasha identified as the man's spouse. They threw their arms around him in a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're all right! We were so worried about you, and I couldn't leave the dogs..."

"I'm fine! Thanks to the dogs, actually. And these guys too, of course." He waved a hand at Sasha and Milla.

Something had been nagging at the back of Sasha's head, and he hovered over to Prez, frowning. "Please excuse me for interrupting this moment, but I must ask." He waited for Prez to step away from his spouse and face him before continuing: "You seem to have a very serious problem with psychic alligators here. Why have you not called upon the Psychonauts for help with this?"

Prez, his spouse, and several of the police officers turned to give him bewildered looks. "Yeaaah, you mentioned that before," the Prime Minister said, crossing his arms. "How do you know they're psychic, though?"

Sasha balked. Had Prez been blind to what had just happened moments ago? "They can teleport, sir."

The man's face broke into a smile. "Yeah, and fish can swim! What's your point?"

Sasha glanced back at Milla, who was laughing. "Alligators don't normally have that ability."

Prez began laughing again, but stopped when Sasha did not join in. "Wait, you're serious?"

"Indeed," Sasha replied, suddenly feeling even more tired than he had before. "We can arrange to send a zoolepathy expert here to begin work on this issue, if you like."

"Uh. Yeah!" Prez blinked. "Yeah, that'd be great! Honestly, they're sorta the reason we couldn't build a water park here in the first place."

"WHAT?!" Georg cried some distance away, as a police carted her off with the rest of her lackeys.

Meanwhile, the police chief nodded. "If that's true, we'll send for one of you again."

As Sasha rubbed his temples, Milla stepped forward. "As for us, it looks like our work here is done."

"Right!" Prez rushed up to Milla and shook her hand before repeating the gesture with Sasha. "Thanks for your help!"

"And with that, we must be on our way." Finally, Sasha began hovering away from the crowd, back toward where they'd parked and cloaked the jet. Milla followed suit, waving to Prez and the others as they went their separate ways.

Once out of view of the crowd, they both dipped slightly in their respective hovers. Milla gave Sasha a tired smile, and he returned it.

"This has been quite the day," he admitted.

"Yes, but at least it's over now, darling."

Soon they were back onboard the Pelican and en-route back to Whispering Rock. While Milla stepped back toward the restroom, Sasha tapped a few buttons on the console and leaned back in his chair.

"This is Grease Jar," Ford's voice crackled over the radio. "What's the word?"

"The criminal group has been apprehended and Prez's brain and body rescued."

"Excellent work!"

"That said, it seems the Psychonauts are not yet done aiding Country. They seem to have an infestation of psychic—"

"ALLIGATOR!" Milla cried from the back.

"Pretty sure there's supposed to be an 's' at the end for the plural..." Ford grumbled, but Sasha was barely listening, rushing to the back to find Milla backing away from the bathroom in horror.

An enormous alligator stood over the toilet, where a large clutch of rubbery eggs sat within.

It was going to be a very, very long flight.

[andmaybegayer]

Michael scope

Zeiss Jena Laboval ?3? I think, documentation for the Laboval series online starts and ends with the Laboval 4. By all accounts this is their upper mid range lab scope, with Amplival being the top of the line before you get to big scopes that have to be installed by a technician.

There's a large variety of Zeiss scopes that were manufacturered on this side of the iron curtain, as you can see this is an East German piece. Pretty good condition, scratchy condenser optics but the objectives and eyepiece seem to be in great nick, from a quick inspection, and that's what matters. Eyepieces are 10×'s, Objectives are a 3.2 semiplanar, a 10, a 40 planar (which I think will get a lot of use), and a 100 oil immersion. Pretty normal setup.

I don't have slides and slips yet so I can't do a proper mount, but this is pretty promising for just sliding a sheet of paper into the slide holder. Proper mounting will improve the focus plane immensely. 32× and 100× so far.

The illumination is off-centre and uneven but that's resolvable and anyway it might be fun to move to LED. I also want to build some top illumination brackets for opaque subjects.

I had like. A kiddies toy microscope growing up and I got as far as trying to make it do darkfield with pieces of cardboard, but never something this professional, binocular optics is such a big step up on its own.

The only real issue I've seen so far is that the stage Z axis is very sloppy, huge backlash. Everything has been stuffed with new grease recently so at least it moves smoothly, old scopes and old typewriters both have a tendency to seize if they're forgotten for more than a few months at a time.

I'll swing by the lake and pick up some algae and protist samples later, and I need to order slides and slips. Also I can print some darkfield and oblique illumination filters.

Probably not going to fuck too much with oil immersion, but who knows, also I'll keep an eye out for water immersion objectives.

I think that with an appropriate head replacement and some filter hacking I could get phase contrast microscopy up and running, probably scavenging some Amplival parts. I'd need to see. I can definitely get fluorescence microscopy working with an illumination upgrade. It would also be nice to gut the electronics and put in a simple battery powered illumination system I can charge over USB so I don't have to rely on wall power. Even the stock tungsten lighting is only 5W at 6V so that's easy to swing.

Objectives are DIN 45mm I think, and it sounds like many Eastern Bloc microscopes use standardized head mounts. I'll also be able to print a lot of parts for this, but I'll probably want to get some black filament for optical reasons.

First I want to do some protist sketches, I picked up a protists book at a used bookstore a while ago and it got me really hyped to do protist watching. This is definitely at some level me trying to replace macroscopic wildlife spotting in my life.

[red-eagle-fire-protection]

Comprehensive Guide to Diagnosing Kitchen Exhaust Hood Repair Issues

Maintaining your kitchen exhaust hood is crucial for a clean and safe cooking environment. This guide will help you diagnose common repair issues and provide tips to ensure your ventilation system operates efficiently.

Common Symptoms of Kitchen Exhaust Hood Problems

Recognizing potential problems early can save you time and money on repairs. Common symptoms include:

Reduced airflow or suction power

Unusual noises such as buzzing, rattling, or grinding

Persistent odors or smoke in the kitchen

Non-functional or flickering lights

Diagnosing Electrical Issues

Electrical problems are often at the root of many kitchen exhaust hood issues. Here’s how to diagnose them:

Check the Power Supply: Ensure the hood is properly plugged in and the outlet is working.

Inspect the Circuit Breaker: Look for any tripped breakers and reset them if necessary.

Examine the Wiring: Check for loose, damaged, or frayed wires that could be causing issues.

Addressing Ventilation Blockages

Blockages in the ventilation system can significantly impact your hood’s performance. Here’s how to detect and clear them:

Clean the Filters: Remove and clean the grease filters regularly to prevent buildup.

Check the Ducts: Inspect the ductwork for any obstructions or debris.

Ensure the Vent Cap is Clear: Make sure the exterior vent cap is free from blockages like leaves or nests.

Seeking Professional Kitchen Hood Repair

For complex issues or when in doubt, seeking professional help is advisable. Finding a reliable kitchen hood repair service can ensure your exhaust hood is properly diagnosed and fixed:

Professional Diagnostics: Experts can accurately identify and address issues.

Comprehensive Repairs: Professionals have the tools and experience to fix a wide range of problems.

Regular Maintenance: Scheduling periodic maintenance with professionals can prevent future issues.

Preventative Maintenance Tips

Preventative maintenance can extend the life of your kitchen exhaust hood and prevent costly repairs:

Regular Cleaning: Clean the filters and ducts to prevent grease and debris buildup.

Inspect Components: Regularly check the motor, fan, and wiring for signs of wear and tear.

Schedule Professional Check-Ups: Periodic inspections by professionals can catch issues early.

By following these guidelines, you can ensure your kitchen exhaust hood remains in good working order, providing a safe and efficient cooking environment.

[red-eagle-fire-protection-encino]

Ensure Kitchen Efficiency with Expert Exhaust Hood Repair by Red Eagle Protection Encino

Maintaining your kitchen exhaust hood is essential for a clean and safe cooking environment. Common issues like noisy operation, reduced airflow, and malfunctioning lights can disrupt your kitchen’s efficiency. At Red Eagle Protection Encino, we specialize in diagnosing and repairing these problems. Our expert team ensures your exhaust hood runs smoothly, from tightening loose screws to replacing faulty motors and cleaning grease filters. Regular maintenance not only extends the life of your equipment but also enhances kitchen safety. Contact Red Eagle Protection Encino today for reliable and professional kitchen hood repair services.

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[emilou-keen-gear]

            One beak yawned and then a second followed. It was past the witching hour when even things that went bump in the night were starting to nod off. The night was waning toward the early hours of the morning but still hours away until the sun would come out. Most of the citizens of Duckburg were nestled snug in their beds, and only those who worked the night shift were up and about. Oh, and two dedicated scientists who had been working on their newest pet project for their employee, Scrooge McDuck. Time wasn’t of the essence, but they had hit their stride around one AM and they weren’t back down until one of them collapsed.

            But their determination still wasn’t beyond the temptation of the body.

            “Intern, I’m going out for an espresso,” Gyro called, his face the usual grumpy-slash-sardonic expression.

            Fenton rubbed his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want me to get it for you?” Fenton asked. He was used to being Gyro’s errand-boy, so he was curious as to why his boss and advisor decided to fore-go his exclusive uses of a none-paid intern. Plus, sometimes Gyro bought Fenton coffee as well.

            “No. My doctor says that I need ‘fresh air’ and ‘exercise’,” Gyro said with a laborious eye-roll. “Apparently walking to and from my car doesn’t constitute this.”

            “Okay. Could you get me one, too?” Fenton asked. The coffee maker that Mr. McDuck kept in the employee’s lounge a few floors up always had the consistency of mud and tasted very similar no matter how often the filter was cleaned or how expensive of beans were used. And it would be a miracle if Mr. McDuck ever deigned to replace it.

            “What do I look like? A money tree?” Gyro asked, stepping onto the elevator. “Lil Bulb is in charge.” The elevator doors closed on him with a cheerful ding.

            Fenton sighed. It had been a nice try. It would have been nice to have a good cup of coffee once in a while, but until his internship was over, he was making squat. He relied on his mother for room, board and all the necessities, so he never asked for spending cash. And on top of that, his student loans were looming over his head. Luckily the bank was willing to hold off on any payments since employment with McDuck Industries would be an exceptional place to live.

            Lil Bulb clambered onto Fenton’s desk, flashing red while his filament bent down in an angry look. The device pointed its little “hand” at its “face” then at Fenton, then back at itself. A clear indication of I’m watching you.

            Fenton ignored the little invention. He had better things to do other than be bossed around by an artificial intelligent. For now, he was trying to figure out why oil kept leaking from the engine that he was working on. The engine was to be used on a new type of submarine that Scrooge McDuck wanted, but there still were a few problems that needed to be fixed.

            Just as Fenton decided the whole engine needed to be taken apart—again—and he began removing a nut, the wrench in his hands slipped and he fell on top of the engine.

            “Ah, nuts,” he grumbled as he felt the slick, wetness spread on his shirt.

            When he pushed himself off the machine, he saw the large blot across his shirt, soaking into his feathers. He knew that working in a lab could be dirty business, and normally he would wear a lab coat, but he had forgotten to put one on in his haste when he clocked in. And this wasn’t the first time. This was his fourth work shirt to get oil on it this week, and he was running out. Not to mention, oil was really hard to get out—as his mother kept telling him—so he might have to buy some more soon.

            Sitting down next to the engine, Fenton tilted his head back and rested his eyes a little, trying to ignore the grease that was in his feathers, between his fingers and who knows where else on his body. He remembered he had rubbed his eyes earlier when he was beginning to feel tired. Did he have two black marks around his eyes?

            Perhaps it was time for him to quit for the day—er—night. At least it was Friday, which meant he could sleep all day tomorrow. Well, not all day. He would have to help Mama around the house, but between Saturday and Sunday, he could catch up on his rest and on the household chores.

            Getting up, Fenton went to the sink that was located on the far side of the large, clear windows that looked out into the ocean. The very basement of the McDuck Lighthouse had been repurposed into a lab several years ago—as Fenton was told—and before that it had been a type of aquatic life observatory for one of Scrooge McDuck’s nephews. It had been one of Duckburg’s major tourist attractions where people could pay to tromp up hundreds of steps to go to the very top of the lighthouse and even hear the foghorn blow.

            Then they would go all the way down into the basement where they could see the ocean, a coral bed and dozens of fish. Fethery—Mr. McDuck’s nephew—had taken great care of the coral reef that grew around the light house and kept track of dozens of animals. There were even aquatic tubes that were built into the lighthouse basement that led to holding tanks somewhere else in the lab.          Someone could even put on diving equipment and go through the tubes right into the ocean. Fethery used these tubes to bring in sick or injured animals into the aquatic observatory where he could treat them before releasing them again.

            Fenton remembered coming to the lighthouse for a school trip once, remembered the excitement in Fethery’s voice and how he spoke to the children about taking care of the oceans, conservation and eliminating pollution. It had been very fascinating.

            But Fenton always wondered what had happened to Fethery. A few years ago, the aquatic observation had been closed down without any explanation, and it was only when Fenton was hired as an intern to work with Gyro that he found out that the space was now utilized as a lab.

            As Fenton cleaned his hands—and his face, because he really did have greasy circles around his eyes—he thought about Fethery, the lab, and what had happened a few years ago. He had never dared as Mr. McDuck—he barely said more than a few words with the elderly duck in his time as intern—and Gyro never said anything if Fenton broached the subject. His best theory was that Mr. McDuck had a falling out with his nephew and that was the end of it.

            His eyes wandered out to the ocean, although only the lights in the lab penetrated the darkness. He wondered if there was more to the story. He remembered reading an article in a newspaper about this very thing, that Scrooge McDuck’s nephew, Fethery Duck, had gone missing yet nobody reported anything about it to the police. The reporter claimed that nobody had seen Fethery since the closing of the lighthouse, and there were no records of him leaving Duckburg or any other activity of where Fethery Duck could be. Later, the newspaper printed a retraction and as far as Fenton could see, the reporter who wrote the article never worked for the paper again.

            As much as Fenton’s imagination could come up with a dozen different scenarios as to what happened to Fethery Duck, he couldn’t believe any of them. Mr. McDuck might be unapproachable and stand-offish, but Fenton couldn’t believe that he would harm an innocent person, let alone his family.

            With his thoughts floating through the subject of Fethery, he hadn’t realized how long he had been standing at the sink with his eyes looking through the window unfocused. It wasn’t until the hot water turned extremely hot that he was brought back to reality.

            And he came face to face with a beautiful woman.

            He was caught unguarded, blinking a few times as she stared back at him, her mouth open a little. Then a few bubbles poured out of her beak, racing through the water.

            Water?! She was in the ocean.

            Fenton stumbled back, his mind coming to the conclusion that there was a person drowning just outside the lighthouse. The lab wasn’t the only underwater level in the building, and they were over thirty feet below sea level. If she had sunk this far, could he get to her in time before she drowned.

            Just as he was startled by her appearance, her face jumped in surprise as well. Her body twisted and pointed downward, her motion followed by a long, scaly tail that whipped out a few times, then she was gone.

            Fenton fell flat on his butt, just as stunned as if he had been kicked by a horse in the stomach. What did he just see? Did he just see a creature that was half-woman, half-fish? A mermaid?

Want to read more? Keep track of my daily progress on AO3.

[universalinfo]

DIY Car Maintenance - 10 Easy Tasks for Auto Enthusiasts

Ah, the joy of owning a car. It's like having your very own trusty steed, ready to take you on countless adventures across town. But just like any loyal companion, your car also needs a little TLC to keep it running smoothly. For car maintenance tips and services, visit us on: "TM Chiptuning".

Fear not. In this blog post, we'll explore ten simple car maintenance tasks that you can do yourself to keep your four-wheeled buddy in tip-top shape. No need for a magic wand; just a few tools, some elbow grease, and a playful spirit. Let’s begin, shall we?

1. Changing the Oil: Keep Your Engine Purring

Car maintenance task number one: changing the oil. Your car's engine is like a heart, and oil is its lifeblood. Regularly changing the oil is essential to keep your engine purring like a contented kitten. All you need is the right grade of oil, an oil filter, a drain pan, and voilà. You're all set to perform this easy-peasy maintenance task.

2. Spark Plug Replacement: Ignite the Fun

Spark plugs play a crucial role in your car's ignition system, igniting the air-fuel mixture and powering your joyrides. Over time, they can get worn out and affect your car's performance.

But fear not. Replacing spark plugs is a breeze: just make sure to use the correct spark plugs for your car model. And remember, sparks will fly but in a good way.

3. Tire Rotation: Dance Your Way to Balanced Treads

Ever noticed uneven wear on your car's tires? It's time to choreograph a tire rotation dance. Give your tires a twirl and swap their positions to ensure even tread wear. This simple car maintenance routine will not only extend the life of your tires but also keep your car's handling smooth and steady.

4. Air Filter Replacement: Let Your Engine Breathe Freely

Imagine your car's engine taking a deep breath of fresh air. Well, that's what happens when you replace the air filter regularly. A clogged air filter can hinder airflow, affecting performance and fuel efficiency. So, set your engine free and replace that filter. It's like yoga for your car.

5. Battery Check: Keep the Energy Flowing

No, we're not talking about a science experiment; this is a simple car maintenance task. Your car's battery is like its life support system, providing the energy needed to power all the cool gadgets and start the engine.

Check the battery terminals for corrosion and ensure they're snugly connected. You'll keep the energy flowing and prevent any unwelcome surprises on the road.

6. Brake Pad Replacement: Halt in Style

Are you ready to put the brakes on this car maintenance adventure? Your brakes are your car's best friend when it comes to safety, so make sure they're up to the task. If you hear squealing or notice reduced braking performance, it's time to replace those brake pads. Halt in style and keep your car stopping on a dime!

7. Headlight and Taillight Bulb Replacement: Light Up the Night

Car maintenance under the stars: how romantic. But this time, we're not stargazing; we're talking about your car's lights. Dim or burnt-out headlights and taillights can put a damper on your nighttime travels. Luckily, replacing these bulbs is a bright idea and a quick fix. By doing it, you’ll keep your car shining like a beacon in the night.

8. Coolant Check: Stay Cool, Calm, and Collected

Car maintenance tip number eight is all about staying chill. Your car's engine needs coolant to keep it from overheating, especially during those sizzling summer drives. Check your coolant level regularly and top it up if needed. A cool engine is a happy engine. You might like to read this: "Engine Repair Shops - Guide To Make The Right Choice & Option".

9. Windshield Wiper Replacement: Clear Your View

Rain or shine, your car's windshield wipers are your trusty companions on the road. Over time, wiper blades can wear out, leaving streaks and reducing visibility. Swap them out for fresh ones, and you'll have a crystal-clear view of the road ahead.

10. Cabin Air Filter Replacement: Breathe Easily

Last but not least, it's time to freshen up the air in your car's cabin. The cabin air filter keeps dust and pollutants at bay, ensuring you breathe easily during your drives. Like changing the air filter for the engine, this task is a breeze. Your passengers will thank you for the fresh air during your road trips.

Conclusion

Congratulations, car enthusiasts: you've made it through our playful guide to 10 simple car maintenance tasks you can do yourself. Remember, car maintenance can be a fun and rewarding experience, leaving you with a reliable road companion for years to come. Contact us for more details and help.

[primeappliance]

VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 Genuine

The VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 Genuine is a high-quality, essential accessory designed to enhance the performance of your Viali rangehood. For those who enjoy cooking regularly, the ability to keep the kitchen air fresh and free from unwanted odors and grease is crucial. The CF110 carbon filter is specifically engineered to trap grease, smoke, and cooking odors, ensuring your kitchen remains clean, healthy, and comfortable. As a genuine part, this carbon filter guarantees optimal performance and a perfect fit for your Viali rangehood, making it a smart choice for maintaining your kitchen’s air quality.

Superior Odor Elimination

Cooking can produce a variety of strong smells, from the scent of fried foods to the smokiness of grilling. These odors can linger long after the cooking is finished, making the kitchen unpleasant and impacting the rest of your home. The VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 Genuine excels in removing cooking odors. Its advanced activated carbon technology absorbs and neutralizes these persistent smells, ensuring that your kitchen stays fresh and free from unpleasant aromas. Whether you're preparing a quick weeknight dinner or hosting a dinner party, this carbon filter helps maintain a pleasant environment for everyone.

Grease and Smoke Filtration

In addition to neutralizing odors, the CF110 carbon filter plays a critical role in filtering out smoke and grease particles. Cooking at high heat can produce smoke and grease, which may not only affect the air quality but also cause greasy deposits on your kitchen surfaces, appliances, and rangehood itself. Over time, this buildup can diminish the performance of your rangehood and lead to longer cleaning times.

The VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 captures and traps these particles, preventing them from circulating through the kitchen. This not only keeps the air clean but also helps maintain the efficiency of your rangehood, ensuring that it performs optimally for years.

Genuine Replacement for Viali Rangehoods

When it comes to kitchen appliances, using genuine replacement parts is essential to ensuring your rangehood performs at its best. The VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 is designed specifically for Viali rangehood models, making it the perfect choice for replacement. Choosing a genuine carbon filter over generic options guarantees that the filter will fit perfectly, function properly, and maintain the longevity of your rangehood.

Non-genuine filters can compromise the performance of your rangehood, leading to less effective filtration, poor airflow, and possibly even damage to your appliance. By opting for the CF110, you ensure that your rangehood operates as designed, providing high-quality air filtration and enhancing the kitchen environment.

Easy Installation and Maintenance

One of the key advantages of the VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 is its easy installation process. Most homeowners can replace the filter themselves, saving time and money on professional services. Simply remove the old filter, slide in the new one, and your rangehood is ready to go. This hassle-free installation means that you can restore your kitchen’s air quality in no time.

Maintaining the CF110 carbon filter is also simple. Over time, the activated carbon becomes saturated with grease and odors, reducing its effectiveness. To ensure continuous high performance, it’s recommended to replace the carbon filter every 3 to 6 months, depending on how frequently you cook. Regular replacement will keep your rangehood working at its best and your kitchen air fresh.

Healthier Kitchen Environment

Maintaining clean air in the kitchen is important for the health of everyone in the home. Cooking produces smoke and airborne particles, some of which can be harmful if inhaled over time. The CF110 carbon filter helps eliminate these particles, ensuring that your kitchen remains a safe and comfortable space. By reducing the concentration of smoke and grease, the CF110 contributes to a healthier environment and supports better respiratory health, particularly for those with allergies or asthma.

In addition, removing cooking odors prevents them from settling on fabrics, countertops, and furniture, which could otherwise lead to the accumulation of unpleasant smells in your home.

Cost-Effective and Long-Lasting

The VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 Genuine is a cost-effective solution for maintaining your rangehood’s performance and keeping your kitchen air clean. Rather than replacing the entire rangehood or dealing with poor air filtration, simply replacing the carbon filter restores the functionality of your rangehood and ensures it continues to operate efficiently.

Furthermore, the CF110 is built to last for several months with proper maintenance. The long-lasting nature of the carbon filter makes it a worthwhile investment for homeowners who want to extend the life of their Viali rangehood and maintain a clean and odor-free kitchen.

Conclusion

The VCCG90SS Viali Rangehood Carbon Filter CF110 Genuine is an indispensable component for anyone looking to improve the air quality in their kitchen. Offering effective odor, grease, and smoke filtration, this genuine carbon filter ensures that your Viali rangehood continues to perform at its best. Its ease of installation, minimal maintenance requirements, and long-lasting results make it an excellent choice for maintaining a fresh, clean kitchen. By investing in the CF110, you ensure that your cooking environment remains comfortable, safe, and pleasant for everyone in your home.