#Shave Down Clearwater

[doggroomingclearwater]

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Keeping a pet clean and healthy sometimes seems like full-time work, but it is worth every bit of the effort. No matter the breed, dogs need to be groomed to keep their skin and coats healthy and beautiful. Sometimes, owners simply do not have the time to devote to these chores. Relying on professionals for mobile pet grooming helps to ensure pets remain clean and beautiful.

[quizzyisdone]

The Colour Red (Pt. II) | Jason Hudson x Fem! Bell x Russell Adler

Chapter Title: Bad Moon Risin' Word Count: 3.7k Pairing: Jason Hudson x Fem! Bell x Russell Adler Masterlist Synopsis: Bell and Adler arrive at the safehouse in West Germany, where she meets the rest of her team, save Alex Mason and Frank Woods. The team gets down to business -- they've all gathered to take down the elusive Perseus, the infamous soviet agent whom they know next to nothing about, save for that he's planning something big. That much, Adler is sure of. To figure out their next move, Adler and Park use a memory recollection technique to help Bell recall Operation: Fracture Jaw, yet another memory Bell had lost due to her head injury two months prior. A/N: Hey! I'm back, totally not inspired by the new Black Ops VI trailer at all. Like, at all. Anyways, here is the next installment of my personal favorite series, The Colour Red. Keep in mind this is a slowburn fic, and sorry about the lack of Hudson in this chapter. I hope you enjoy! Warnings: Strong language, mentions of weapons, canon-typical violence.

**Title inspired by "Bad Moon Risin'" by Credence Clearwater Revival

[Part One] [Part Two]

You don't need to read part one to understand this chapter, btw

The car halted to a full stop as Bell fluttered open her eyes, Adler lightly shook her shoulder, stirring her even further awake. 

“Bell. Welcome to West Berlin” He gave a half-hearted smile, a cigarette between his teeth. Bell groggily roused herself from the passenger seat, watching Adler closely as he held the lighter close to his face, letting a puff of smoke blow back in the wind behind him.

The light from the flame illuminated the scarred half of his face, and she could see that where he had shaven was uneven and choppy, a stark contrast to the close shave on the “normal” side of his face. Still rather handsome, barring his scars. He had a classically attractive, well structured face, resembling that of movie stars such as Robert Redford. Blonde hair, blue eyes and very charismatic. He must have many women wrapped around his finger back in the states, Bell presumed.

Adler took one last glance at her, then began to approach a woman that was leaning against an old, worn garage door. Bell took in her features as well. 

She had an uncanny familiarity about her. She had silky, jet black hair cut and styled into a practical bob, unusually tall but athletically built, and she sported pragmatic yet stylish clothing. She had delicate, feminine features but still yet appeared to be able to keep up with the likes of a black ops legend such as Adler -- a strange dichotomy between graceful and deadly. 

Adler had told Bell that she was a legend in her own rite at MI6, that’s why he had requested her for the op. Apparently, it was true that while she was known for her lethality and pretty appearance, it was her brain, not the obvious honey trap she is, that he was interested in. Adler had joked several times that she was a walking cliche, a classic femme fatale type.  

The more Bell seemed to take in her appearance, her shattered memory would begin to piece itself together again. Her face. A red door. A jungle. Sterile white lights. Televisions. War footage. Then nothing. Whenever she was on the precipice of piecing her memory back together, it seemed it would shatter again.

Adler glanced back. “You comin’?” He said with a slight frown. Sheepishly, Bell nodded, not having realized she spent too much time what would appear to the others as staring into space for no apparent reason. 

Bell hurried to catch up with him, trailing behind Adler closely even as the oddly familiar, yet bitter scent of tobacco filled her nose. That closeness, she wondered, it may be obvious to Adler, which she could live with, but would it escape the notice of the others? She hated that, her clinginess to him, but it made some sense (at least that is how Bell would justify it) -- Adler was the only kind face she could remember after her fall. 

Although she didn’t want to admit it, she preferred to be close to him at all times. His presence was comforting, the anxiety she felt would fade away in an instant -- she could almost forget that she couldn’t remember. One might mistake the connection for romantic, as Hudson, their handler had pointed out rather astutely (and irritably) before they departed from Langley today.

 Bell couldn't help but notice the parallels either, he very much played the part of her knight in shining armor, saving her from sure death, never having left her side while she healed, gently guiding her as she navigated regaining her lost memory. Although she must admit she has lingered on such an idea, Bell recognized Adler very likely felt no such way towards her.

She knew his feelings towards her. They had been through hell and back together, saved each other's ass, and understood each other like no one else. Bell knew where she stood, something more than a friend but less than a lover. It was a strange, blurry purgatory between platonic affection and passionate love.  

He had helped her remember the basics. With his guidance, she now knew that her name was Anabelle Meyers, hence the name “Bell”. She was a cryptographer and a linguist working for MI6, she had spent the better part of a year in Vietnam with Adler when she began working a joint operation with MACV-SOG and MI6 and they’ve been friends for 13 years. Two months ago, on a solo operation, she had taken a long, hard fall, hitting her head. Bell would've died if Adler hadn't been there by random chance. Bell could recall that in perfect detail now, although it was fuzzy just a week ago. 

“Park.” He acknowledged and nodded towards her. He glanced back, noticing how Bell followed so closely behind him and smiled to himself. It gave him some kind of pride that she leaned on him as a protector of sorts. 

“She looks familiar.” Bell whispered as soon as they were out of earshot of Park. 

Adler stopped in his tracks for naught but a second, “Maybe you saw her at the Century House in London back in the day.” She knew that it wasn’t likely they had never been acquainted, nor ever having even met each other, but Bell let the conversation go -- chalking it up as some kind of weird deja vu nonsense. 

When the door opened it revealed a large warehouse-like room with a table set in the middle, a bulletin board with the face of man that was supposedly Perseus and a giant red circle around it (Bell quickly noticed how the picture gave her an uneasy pit in her stomach and her head would begin to hurt), an array of weapons upon a wall guarded by chain link fence with a lock, and all the other stereotypical features befitting a CIA safehouse. 

“We’ll talk later, okay?” Adler whispered to Bell as he approached the gathering of folks around the table set in the middle. “Bell, this is Helen Park, Lawrence Sims who you’ve already met, and Eleazar Azoulay. We just call him Lazar, though.” He introduced her to them.

Lazar gave her a friendly but quiet hello, Park nodded, and Sims simply stared daggers at her before turning his gaze back to Adler. “Mason and Woods are finishing some business in Kiev, but you’ll meet them later.”

“Do I know them?” Bell asked meekly and Park cocked an eyebrow, smirking to herself as she glanced at Adler, silently beckoning him to answer the question. 

“Ah,” Adler chuckled lightly. “No, you know them by reputation, but not, ah, personally.” Bell nodded in response before letting him continue. He turned back to the rest of the group, while Bell stood snug behind Adler. “There’s been a surge in Russian chatter for the past 48 hours. The CIA and DoD are tapping their inside sources for anything substantial, but no leads of Perseus so far.”

“MI6 has come up empty handed as well.” Park added.

“We’ll have to start somewhere, so we’re going back to 1968, Vietnam.” He strode towards to the bulletin board, pointing at a polaroid picture of Sims and Adler sitting side by side, labeled Operation Fracture Jaw. “One our closest encounters with Perseus. Bell, you don’t remember this, of course, but you were there.”

“Fracture Jaw, what a steaming pile of shit that one was.” Sims grumbled.

“Also the first time where Perseus pinged our radar. While you were on the ground, you dug up some intel on him.” Adler continued, he held a folder with a dried, bloody handprint and Cyrillic printed on the front. “We’re gonna help jog your memory so you can crack this. At the time, the CIA’s best analysts couldn’t decode that thing, but we’re gonna have you take a shot.” Adler placed his hand on Bell’s shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. 

“Yeah.” Sims scoffed. “If even Weaver couldn’t crack it, what makes you think she can?” He had said it with such venom, such doubt that it made Bell wonder what had happened between them. She made a mental note to ask Adler about it later, but for the moment, she hardened her gaze, attempting to make herself seem less vulnerable than she truly felt.

“It can’t hurt, Sims. She’s always been one of the best, you know that.” Adler said pointedly. “Anyways, we’re gonna use a hypnosis technique. While our little Bell will be in a hypnotic state, I will be reading the operation report, retelling every detail of what happened when she and you were boots on ground. Theoretically, she should remember it all and be able to decode it.”

Sims shrugged, Park and Lazar nodded in affirmation. The group disbanded wordlessly, Park headed over to the computer by the gun rack with Lazar trailing behind and Sims went over the gate that locked the chain link fence. That had left her and Adler, as he lit another cigarette (his fourth in the last couple of hours, Bell noted) and sat at a chair in front of the evidence board. 

He stared quietly at it, his mouth was set in a frown but his sunglasses had made it impossible to even begin to guess what the man was thinking. 

“Adler,” Bell spoke quietly, tapping his shoulder. Adler smiled ever so slightly, the small gesture was a welcome change from Sims’ behavior just a moment ago. “Can I ask you something?” 

“Anything, kid.” He said coolly, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“That memory exercise we’re doing, we can use it to recover some of my memories?” A glint of hope appeared in her chestnut eyes.

He chuckled, low and husky. “Ain’t that exactly what we’re doing, Bell?” She rolled her eyes but gave a small laugh in return.

“You know what I mean. Like, the memories that aren’t from war or anything like that. Something a bit happier.”

Adler grimaced then sighed, ashing his cigarette and sitting up straighter, and the small smile that appeared on Bell’s face vanished, like she knew he was about to tell her some unfortunate news. The pair sat in an awkward silence as Adler thought about how to break it to her.

“We can’t really.” He reached for her hand, giving it a light squeeze before pulling away. “The memory exercise only works when you have either one or two things; a written documentation of a memory that we can actually get our hands on or someone who was also there that can recall the memory and tell it to ya.”

“Oh.”

“When we found you, you didn’t have a journal or anything on you. Not even dog tags. No one would have been able to identify you if I wasn’t there.” He pursed his lips, offering a small apologetic smile. “Sorry, Bell.”

“Well I mean, we’ve been friends for a while. What do you know about me? Anything about my family?” The hopefulness had returned to Bell’s eyes, and Adler could feel a lump forming in his throat as he thought deeply. 

“Uh, well,” He cleared his throat. “You never spoke anything of them really, it seemed a sore spot for ya so none of us ever really pried.” She glanced down, looking utterly defeated as she sniffled. Adler tried to lighten the conversation at least a little. This wasn’t the place nor the time. “I know that you used to have a nicotine addiction worse than me.”

Bell chuckled. “I still crave them all the time.”

Adler chuckled, clapping her shoulder. “Tell you what,” He said, reaching into his pocket to grab his cigarettes. He handed one to her and she placed it between her teeth, giggling a little as he lit it for her. “I think you deserve at least one. Old habits die hard.” She took a drag, blowing a playful ‘O’ into his face. “Atta girl. I’ll get you a pack tomorrow.”

“I knew I liked you for some reason.” She smiled, the first genuine smile Adler had ever seen out of the woman.

“I’ve always been an enabler of your bad habits.” 

__

January 26th, 1968

Camp Haskins, South Vietnam

0700

“Bell, time to wake up” A raspy voice had startled her awake, the boot of the offender shaking the fold up chair she had practically passed out in. She groggily opened her eyes to find her new teammate with a shit-eating grin on his face. “It’s crank time.” 

“I’m up” She grumbled, rubbing her eyes. He swiped the chair back to the ground where Bell had been leaning, causing the legs to harshly meet the floor and she nearly fell forward. The man chuckled lightly.

“C’mon sleeping beauty, you knew we were doing this.”

“Yeah, I know.” The exhaustion was still evident in her voice as she rose from the chair, grabbing the M16 she had left leaning against the wall. She followed behind him, taking in the scene around her as she left the tent, the morning sun already beating against her skin.

It hadn’t been her first choice, being assigned as an agent working boots on ground with MACV-SOG, and it certainly wasn’t her first choice to be placed in the middle of buttfuck nowhere Vietnam. Her work was typically confined to that of a desk in an office, in the comfort of air conditioning and without the threat of an enemy attack at a moment’s notice. However, given her limited but notable military work, her handler thought she would be wasted back home in the comfort of an office in London. 

Her handler was of course right, but she wished he wasn’t as the stench of gunsmoke, gasoline, and body odor filled her nose. She watched about a dozen shirtless, grimy men going about their business. Most had simply ignored her, but a few had leered at her as she passed by, perhaps bedazzled by the first clean and somewhat attractive thing they had probably seen with their own eyes in months, Bell cockily mused to herself. 

“Camp Haskins, what a sausage fest.” Bell said quietly, chuckling.

“I heard that.” Adler yelled back good naturedly, and Bell half walked, half jogged to catch up with him. “You should be thankful, this place is a fuckin’ oasis compared to the shitstorm out there. Those boys keep it that way.”

“Yeah, yeah ‘God bless our troops’ and all that shit they keep telling us.” She jabbed Adler’s arm and he laughed softly. 

“I know it’s not what you’re used to, but your handler could’ve done worse for you.” They approached the landing zone, her other new teammate, and Adler’s best friend, she had determined based on their interactions, sat on the ledge of a helicopter ready and waiting for them. 

“Finally found Bell?” He hollered out over the sound of the whirling blades of the craft, without looking up from the magazine he was reading. Lawrence Sims was his name, he had dark skin with large, almost doe-like black eyes to match. He wasn’t a looker, but he had a friendly, jovial feel about him. Adler approached him, snatched the magazine from his hand to take a lingering glance at the lewd picture within. 

“That shit’s gonna make you go blind, Sims.”  He threw the magazine back at Sims as Bell loaded herself in. 

“That’s why I want it all right up here.” He replied jokingly, pointing his finger to his temple and shooting a playful, friendly wink at Bell.

“You’re not helping Bell’s accusation that this place is a sausage fest.”

“I’d say she’s made an astute observation, then.” Sims clapped his hand on her shoulder. She returned their grin. However, as the pilots began to load in, the mood shifted dramatically with it, like someone had sucked all the humor out of the situation and brought them back to the real world. Adler took this as his cue. 

“We got a new assignment. FOB 4 Ripcord is holding a vital asset that Charlie wants real bad.” He shouted over the deafening sound. 

“What kinda asset we talking about?” Sims asked. 

“The kind you don't ask about. Ripcord has been taking a hell of a beating, so it's our job to secure the asset and get the fuck out.” Bell began to stiffen and her palms began to sweat inexplicably, which Adler seemed to take notice of. “Relax. We got fast fliers providing combat air support for this mission. It'll be a walk in the park.”

“I’m holding you to that.” She said, putting on her headset as Adler took his leave. He climbed in the helicopter just opposite of them, and with that, about half the armada began to lift off. The chatter rang loud through the headset.

“Badger-niner-one good to go.”

“Badger-niner-two clear to go.”

“Badger-niner-three rotors up.”

Sims shuffled a bit, pulling a cassette tape from his pocket. “You like music?” He asked. Bell nodded, a lump beginning to form in her throat. “Good because I was gonna play it anyways.” He inserted the tape into the helicopter’s radio. He bobbed his head to the beat, singing to himself. His voice sounded muffled, the chatter over the radio began to sound more distant and then eventually, nonexistent. The only sound she could truly make out was the lyrics to the song Sims had played.

I see the bad moon a-risin' I see trouble on the way I see earthquakes and lightnin' I see bad times today

She felt sick, nauseous, the sound of the music only worsening the deep pit that began to build in her stomach, she began to sweat, hyperventilate, her vision became blurry, all the colors merging with the blinding light of the rising sun until-

__

Present Day

“Shit.” An indiscernible voice cursed, and with that, she felt a sharp jab on some unidentifiable place on her body and all faded into darkness again.

__

January 12th, 1968

“You all sitting comfortably?” Adler’s voice quirked up over the radio.

“Why do I feel like you’re about to tell us some bad news?” Bell quipped, noting how her palms were no longer sweaty the way they were just a second ago, calm had overcome her senses once more as she glanced around her. No one seemed to notice her little episode. Good.

“Because you’re a smart girl, Bell. But the news isn't bad. In fact it could be very, very good. The asset at Ripcord is gonna have to wait a little while. We're breaking off from the armada. Taking a detour.” 

Sims raised his eyebrows at this new development. “And... that's good because?”

“A source tipped us off that there may be a heavy hitter from town, a Soviet operative known as Perseus.” 

Bell’s head began to hurt again, the pain teetering on intolerable but she attempted to ignore it for the moment. However, the pain seemed to get worse and worse the more she tried not to think about it, and once again, her vision became blurry and all colors became one again.

“First time Perseus pinged our radar…”

__

Present Day

Bell found herself back in bed, the overhead light shining directly into her eyes again with a pounding headache to boot. She tentatively lifted her head and rolled onto her side, confused as to how she even ended up here. One moment, she was smoking with Adler and the next she was here. 

“Oh God…” She groaned painfully, grabbing the water bottle that had been left on the table adjacent to her bed, gulping down nearly half the bottle in one go. 

After she had come to, she began to hear the muffled voices from outside the door, although most of what they were saying was unintelligible, she managed to make out some words and phrases.

“...too much…”

“...resistance…try again soon” 

“...need something to…won’t be happy…” 

Bell couldn’t make out anymore, and the pounding in her skull overpowered her curiosity and she laid back down. She closed her eyes, yearning to let sleep take over her body once more when the door opened, Park and Adler walked in, both staring at her.

Adler’s eyes were of course, unreadable through his signature sunglasses but his expression was set into that of frustration, while Park’s seemed more confused than anything, her brow furrowed as if she was working out some complicated problem in her head.

“How are you feeling, Bell?” Park asked clinically. 

“Like I got hit by a bus.” She whined, Park nodded in assent as she scribbled something in a notebook.

“That’s to be expected.” Park replied, not looking up from what she was writing. Adler cleared his throat as he sat at the foot of the bed, beckoning Park to put the pen down. “Forgive me, I’ve just been documenting the recovery of your memories.” She smiled. “I have a vested interest in your case, seeing as the methods we are using to help you remember are relatively new and-”

“Cut to the chase, Park.” Adler interrupted, and Park sighed in frustration at his impatience. 

“The exercise we attempted tonight wasn’t as successful as we had hoped.” Park explained, reaching into her pocket to hand Bell two blue-colored pills. “For your head, love. You had some kind of reaction at the mention of Perseus during recollection that disrupted the hypnotic state. Pitiful thing, really. Your subconscious must have fairly negative feelings regarding your time spent with Adler in Vietnam.”

“That makes two of us, Bell.” Adler commented, the distaste evident in his tone as he stared off. “Not my favorite time to remember either.”

“Well, I do believe recollection can still be therapeutic for Bell and is essential to the task at hand. Get some sleep Bell, we’ll pick up where we left off in the morning,”  Park gave a courteous smile and left the small, sorry excuse for a room, closing the door behind her. Silence hung in the air for a moment as Bell and Adler were left alone.

“I’m counting on you, Bell. Get some good sleep, need ya sharp for this.” Adler broke the silence, standing from where he sat and heading for the door as well. As he turned the handle, he looked back towards Bell. “Remember, we’ve got a job to do.”

As she fell back asleep, the lyrics for the rest of that song tauntingly played again and again in her head. 

Hope you got your things together Hope you are quite prepared to die Looks like we're in for nasty weather One eye is taken for an eye

Tags: @mayasnowforest @kult6 -- I know you guys asked to be tagged like two years ago, but here y'all are <3

[theprismyyy]

Yellowjackets + Twilight

Resume: I don't know...I like Twilight and I like Yellowjackets....do I need to explain anything else???

Tw: Brief descriptions of violence (nothing too deep), hybrids, mentions of bullying and not belonging or fitting into a social group; I think that's all, It hasn't been reviewed either and probably won't be, I'm too lazy

(English is not my first language)

Shuana Shipman---- Ok, let's start with our dear Shauna, I think it's public knowledge that this girl would DEFINITELY be a wolf, like... are there any doubts about that? Just look at this girl, she exudes puppy energy, that being said...wolf (or werewolf, whatever) Shauna!!! I can imagine her starting to show signs of transformation really early, as if she was a little precocious with it, maybe between 10/11 years old, but as she was really very young the transformation never happened, but like I said , signs, lots of signs, like she became excessively more temperamental, getting irritated by the smallest thing and she even punched another child at school because he tried to steal one of her crayons (this girl's parents went through difficult times at that time), also her body temperature was crazy, she was so, so hot that sometimes her mother told her to stay at home, since if any teacher felt this they would probably call the doctors for this girl, she was like a pot of tea steamy, also hair, this girl started having a body hair outbreak and that's okay, body hair is completely normal, but in her case? I'm really talking about an outbreak of body hair, as if it grew so quickly and so suddenly in the most random places, as if this poor baby had to constantly shave a single, isolated, very dense tuft of hair that had grown on his elbow during the night, it was literally from one day to the next 😭😭 I think she probably had this headache for a long time until the symptoms finally calmed her down and then suddenly disappeared, it worried her parents because it happened for a solid year and then all of a sudden it just stopped. , until she was 14 years old, when suddenly, without any previous symptoms, She was at home when she felt a mind-boggling pain in her spine that soon spread to every bone in her body and poor thing, she destroyed her own room, as if she was struggling and bumping into things, knocking everything over while literally screaming in pain and no one warned her that the first time could be so painful (in fact it varies completely from person to person 😀). Anyway, when she finally manages to transform, I personally see her being big, like...really really big, I know that in Twilight the wolves are already huge, but as we saw in the case of Seth Clearwater, character played by Booboo Stewart, young wolves tend to be smaller than adults (obviously), so here's the thing, I can see her being a lot bigger than most other young wolves, but still smaller than an adult, I also think she would be the most feisty among the young people and also the one with the most brute strength and may or may not end up accidentally hurting others sometimes... poor thing, she's just a very big dog who sometimes has no idea of her own strength and size😫 She is also a beautiful and proud wolf with brown fur, as if she has a dark brown fur with a beautiful transition to a lighter brown, almost camel in the belly area, she also has a lighter pattern in the fur in the center of her face. and near the muzzle.

Jekie Taylor----Ok...agora Jackie foi quem realmente me deixou pensando, pois eu estava muito em conflito entre a humana Jackie que já era a melhor amiga de Shuana e descobriu seu segredo e isso a levou a cair de cabeça nesse mundo maluco de lobisomens e vampiros, basicamente o que aconteceu com Belle e Edward... mas neste caso seria mais Belle e Jacob... ou melhor, Jackie e Shauna. Mas também gosto muito da ideia da Vampire Jackie e que o que levou a sua transformação foi o mesmo motivo que levou a sua morte na série, mas neste caso todo o cenário do acidente não existe, mas ainda existe todo o problema com Shauna, talvez Toda essa briga tenha acontecido durante uma festa do pijama na casa de Shauna e ela saiu com muita raiva durante o inverno gelado lá fora, e ela sabia que não deveria fazer isso, mas ela estava com muita raiva, e Shauna sabia que não deveria deixe ela. para fazer isso, mas ela também estava com muita raiva e os dois estavam sendo tão mesquinhos com isso, eu só sei que estava frio e ficando tarde e muito escuro, ela estava desesperada, tão exausta e sentiu seus pés queimando em toda aquela neve porque depois Depois de caminhar tanto tempo foi como se aquelas botas grossas de frio não estivessem mais adiantando, ela desmaiou de tanto frio em algum momento e felizmente (ou não, dependendo do seu ponto de vista), foi encontrada por um vampiro, não outra pessoa. cruel como Victoria, mas alguém bom e gentil como Carlisle Cullen, que a salva levando-a para casa e embrulhando-a da melhor maneira que pode e tentando fazer com que sua temperatura corporal volte ao normal, mas ela já está muito fraca e parece irreparável, então ele sabe que se não fizer alguma coisa essa menina vai morrer e então ela toma essa decisão, a decisão de salvá-la, ele a transforma. Sobre Jackie como uma vampira e recém-criada, acho que todo mundo que assistiu Crepúsculo sabe que os recém-criados podem ser muito perigosos e instáveis, então assim que Jackie acorda o vampiro que a transformou assume um ótimo trabalho de reeducá-la. , para que ela aprenda a se controlar, além de ensiná-la a caçar se alimentando apenas de sangue de animais, o que sinceramente acho que seria super difícil, como se ela fosse mesmo teimosa e instável, ela não quer faz isso, se alimenta de humanos, mas o lado vampiro e faminto dela quer, quer muito 😈😈😈; No meio de tudo isso temos não só Shauna, mas também toda a polícia da cidade procurando pela jovem desaparecida Jeckie Taylor, pois ela não voltou para casa após a briga com Shuana, falando em Shuana, a pobre menina se sente tão culpada e ela está TÃO DESESPERADA, porque em circunstâncias normais ela simplesmente sentiria o cheiro de Jackie, mas agora ela simplesmente não consegue sentir o cheiro dele em lugar nenhum, para ela é como se Jackie tivesse simplesmente desaparecido do mapa, porque mesmo que fosse apenas o cadáver dela ela Eu ainda seria capaz de sentir aquele odor estranho e desagradável, mas agora que Jackie é uma vampira, seu cheiro mudou completamente,não de um jeito ruim, mas não é mais a mesma coisa e nossa pobre Shuana não tem ideia porque ela NÃO SABE que Jackie agora é uma vampira. Em relação à aparência de Jackie, ela permanece basicamente a mesma, os olhos do vampiro são algo que só aparecem realmente durante a alimentação, então não há preocupações em tentar escondê-los, quanto aos olhos dela...inicialmente, durante sua menstruação como recém-nascida, eles foram criados. eram de um vermelho carmesim profundo, mas depois de um tempo, quando ela começou a se alimentar de sangue de animais e aprendeu a se controlar, seus olhos adquiriram um tom âmbar vibrante, mas ela ainda precisa usar lentes de contato, quanto à pele. ela. trabalho em peles pretas e 2. o próprio filme nos mostrou que isso não é realmente uma regra, pois vimos vampiros indígenas não-brancos, cuja pele permaneceu em seu tom original;

Lottie Matthews---- I'll be brief about Lottie actually, I don't know if I have much to say... Her whole family is made up of vampires, but as the Twilight movie itself shows us, vampire children are a danger, uncontrollable and hated by other vampires, so I imagine Lottie's family being like Edward's family, for example, except the "step-siblings" part staying with each other, but more like a small group of vampires who were coming together and forming a family in their own way, This leads me to conclude that in this case Lottie would be adopted, probably on one of the luxurious trips...maybe to a big city like Vegas or something...Lottie was young, hungry and desperate, so she tried to steal a purse to get some money, turns out fate made her decide steal the purse of the beautiful woman who happened to be a vampire and they were even tempted to suck her blood as a tasty drink...but for some reason, something clicked inside them and what was supposed to become a tasty snack became a daughter (??). Lottie was a very well looked after and educated child, she also received all the necessary psychological support, but when she reached a certain age her parents decided to turn her into a vampire, hoping that somehow this could help her with schizophrenia, as many other people were cured of other things by being turned, unfortunately for them psychological conditions. are not included in this, but the transformation made her much more stable than she would be as a human, in fact the medicines no longer work ☹️, she has some delusions from time to time, but nothing that makes her dangerous to anyone or herself; Speaking of which, I see her ability being something like mind control, which would be a great irony of fate due to the fact that she often has no control over her own mind but is capable of controlling those of others, so she can create illusions in her mind. people's minds and make them susceptible to her wishes, as if she told someone to jump off a cliff and the person actually jumped. 😁 I also think that she has already fed on human blood, because her parents feed on human blood, but at some point she simply realized that she actually likes animal blood more, in fact, the main reason her parents are never at home is because , as I said, they feed on human blood, but the treaty with wolves prohibits vampires in the city from killing and feeding on humans, as well as transforming them, so her parents combine the need for food and the taste they have for expensive trips, also all the staff in Lottie's house are human and she likes them all very much and treats them like family too since they are the ones who spend most of their time with her ☺️ (Wow... this should be brief, but anyway lol)

Laura Lee---- Sorry to my Laura Lee lovers but our beautiful girl is not even a Werewolf and certainly not a Vampire, she is a beautiful human, in fact I think her family would abhor vampires, as demonic dark beings created by Satan to bring destruction to the world...that being said, I see Laura Lee's family as fervent believers and also one of the oldest and most respected families in the small town, also one of the few groups of humans who know about the existence of vampires, who just don't try to expose them because of an agreement that was sealed a long time ago by Laura's ancestors, this agreement prohibits Laura Lee's family from trying to expose them and guarantees them a certain protection, yet her family hates them and their parents They had always taught her never to trust a vampire. This Poor Baby Was So Terrified During Her Childhood That She's Scared To Death Of "Big, Bad" Vampires 😱😱, but that of course changes when she meets a beautiful vampire, Lottie Matthews...cough-cough gays...Anyway, I honestly see her pulling out a wooden cross and pointing it in Lottie's direction and when she prays in the name of God... and poor Lottie looks like: 🤨🤨❓️

Lottie: “I don’t want to drink your blood, I don’t eat trash😒🙄”

Laura Lee: "Phew... she doesn't eat garbage😊😊.... She doesn't eat garbage?🤨🧐😥"

In the end our beautiful girls become super friends, Lottie would love to throw Laura Lee over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and take her for walks, as if Lottie would just take her to the most unusual places and once took Laura Lee to a dog house that is literally TWO towns away just because she could 🫠🤗 (also a possible relationship because it would be super cute)

Natalie Scatorccio---- NOW WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE PART I WAS MOST ANXIOUS FOR!!!! I have a crush on her🫠🫠🫠. I was super excited to get to Natalie, because in my eyes she wouldn't be a werewolf or a vampire, just, she would be BOTH, I see her as being a hybrid of both species; now, listen, LISTEN because to me this makes perfect sense and not because of favoritism or anything like that, BUT I see how her mother being a werewolf and her father a vampire, their relationship has always been toxic since adolescence and completely repudiated by their respective families, until Natalie's mother got pregnant, her father hated the news and disowned her the moment he found out about it, he wanted Natalie's mother to find a way to take away this child, but she couldn't courage...and as I said, they were both extremely toxic for each other and even though he hated this baby, he also never left, as if the two were constantly coming and going, they weren't good for each other but They didn't end things either, and with the birth of baby Natalie and both having been disowned by their families, they ended up settling into this horrible, dysfunctional and totally toxic "family". That said, Natalie is a hybrid, just like Bella when she was pregnant with Renesmee, I think Natalie's mother suffered a lot during her pregnancy, she was afraid that her daughter would be an aberration, like a vampire child or something, but when Natalie was born she seemed...normal(??) she didn't present anything of either species, which was a shock since inside her belly she was literally sucking the life out of her mother little by little (her mother was only able to survive because she was a werewolf, since if she had been an ordinary human she would certainly have died), anyway, Natalie was a very healthy and normal little baby, unlike Renesmee, Natalie didn't have accelerated growth or anything like that, she grew up like an ordinary child and her vampire side only came to manifest itself together with her werewolf side during her 14 years of age; she never even showed antecedent symptoms or that showed that at some point she could transform, in fact her first transformation into a werewolf happened while she was high and the few and only symptoms she felt before that, she thought were because of drugs😭😭 poor baby really thought that the unbearable pain in each of his bones was because of the drugs lol, anyway she transformed while smoking in the forest, it was crazy, she knew about her own parents, but as far as she knew she was normal, so she was so scared when it happened, coupled with the fact that she was high it was even more intense, I think she walked a bit like a wolf and then slept near a tree😫, After that day her vampire side also blossomed, she didn't feel the desire for human blood as a newly created vampire, but she felt a LOT of animal blood desire, as if her two origins collided and generated this, as for her eyes, luckily the werewolf genes they were stronger in this case, causing no change in their color, another thing is that she can easily feed on both human food and hunting, she can hunt both as a wolf and as a vampire, but regardless of which form she takes. do that her snack is the same, some poor animal... in fact she doesn't have a vampire ability, since her wolf transformation is already equivalent to that☺️ In wolf form, she would have a beautiful and soft light coat, which mixes shades of white and cream, she also has blue eyes and she is so majestic, also thanks to her vampire genes she is much faster and more agile than a common werewolf would be.

In fact, Natalie's case is very complicated, the constant feeling of not fully belonging to either world made her prefer human company much more, it's also not like she could actively interact with other wolves or vampires, since she would be considered a mistake, an outcast, an abomination and several other horrible things, so she is basically a lonelier person in that sense, she also had to learn everything about being a vampire and a wolf on her own, as she never had her parents to teach her.

Misty Quigley---- Ahhhh our beautiful unbalanced baby Misty, she is definitely a werewolf, look at her...she is literally a puppy...that being said a wolf, from a large family of proud wolves, she would also have a beautiful cream coat, it would be so soft and I think it's even a little curly in some places, like near the paws, length of the tail and on the chest; Werewolf Misty would also be a great silly cub, she tries to fit in with the other young wolves, but she is so clumsy, like she has two left paws and every time the other youngsters let her participate in races or games she always finished her off. tripping over your own paws or a branch, falling and knocking someone down in the process😭😭😭 One time the poor thing was having so much fun and thinking she was doing really well and she really was, for the first time she was fitting in and everything with the others, until she tripped over a tree root during the run, she was a little further behind the others but the fall was so bad that she skidded and "ran over" two other young wolves with her own body, this was generally a "mass pile-up" since those she knocked over bumped into others, so they all ended up knocking them down each other, this ended with some sore limbs and filthy dirt and mud☹️ After that, no one allowed the baby to participate anymore and she became more excluded.

Taissa Turner and De Palmer---- Both would be wolves, a proud and powerful couple I would say, they also both had a imprinting and since then they have been inseparable, their families don't exactly support it, but they also can't do anything about it since imprinting is something almost sacred among wolves, even this kind of thing between wolves of the same sex is not something very common, not because It doesn't happen often, but because it's usually not very exposed (sorry, but I imagine the wolves being a bit sexist and homophobic). Speaking of their coat, I see Van as having a dark gray coat with a mixture of light gray and Taissa with a completely black coat, black as night, Tai would also be much larger than Van, this makes her physically more strong, but Van's size makes her more agile, they would also play a lot of fights while transformed, but they are not really aggressive, although I think that sometimes they can accidentally take the game a little seriously, that ends with Taissa whimpering like a puppy in the corner while Van lies down next to her, licking the back of her ears as an apology for biting Tai's tail.☹️☹️ (my poor babies)

© 2024 theprismyyy — please do not copy, translate or repost any of my works without my permission.

[gracefulsunflower]

ANGEL - SETH CLEARWATER X READER

PROLOGUE

NEXT PART - I

THIRD PERSON'S POV

The war was now over. The Volturi had left the Cullens alone, content with the fact that they were now following the rules. Some of the older wolves still shifted regularly, but Seth had slowed down for now. He was keen on being a normal boy, for now. Currently on the eve of his 15th birthday, and working a shift at his new work — the resort, which he never took much notice to, which made sense; he lived here, he didn't need a place to vacation here.

Right now he was working at the counter, checking people in. Kim usually did it, but right now she was taking a small break to 'talk' to Jared. They were just busy sucking face, which was ridiculous. They only had ten minutes to go until their lunch break, where Seth finished for the day. Half days on Saturdays and Sundays, and in the holidays he had a couple of full days through the week, which was nice. Normal. Like every other nearly 15 year old.

It was okay though. It wasn't really busy at the desk. Seth was really there for cleaning, and answering the phones when people had a problem finding the clean towels or their lightbulbs shorted out. And besides, getting paid to play Solitaire when there were no cleaning jobs or minor repairs to be done wasn’t that bad.

The bell above the door tinkled, making Seth look up and exit his game of Solitaire. There was a huge man, with striking blue eyes. His hair reminded him of a Viking, with the sides clean shaved, revealing tribal tattoos, but the hair on the top of his head was pulled back into a plait which sat over his left shoulder, tied off with a leather cord.

The man stepped out of the way, revealing you. Your left eye was a striking blue, and the right was a golden brown. As soon as Seth looked into them, he felt the pull. The earth fell beneath his feet. Gravity wasn't holding him down anymore. It was you. You were his imprint.

After noticing the boy's intense stare, you hid behind your father slightly, letting him shield you from the boy's gaze.

Seth blinked twice, and swallowed, snapping himself out of it.

"Welcome to the Quileute Seaside Resort! My name is Seth, how may I help you today?" Seth relayed his script, trying not to focus back in on you.

"Hello, Seth! I'm Alexander Ardell. I have a reservation, one of the pet friendly cabins? I booked it online, A-R-D-E-L-L," The man replied with a grin, and Seth nodded, logging into the computer and getting the reservation up on screen.

Cabin one, two rooms, one and a half bathrooms, with one adult, one child, one large dog. Staying for two months, daily laundry service, everything paid in full. He let out a low whistle as he grabbed his room keys and information booklet.

"Two months? That's quite a while," Seth commented, trying to make friendly conversation as he gathered everything, "Wasting your school break in this boring place?"

Alexander let out a chuckle as Seth held out the package.

"My daughter, (Y/N), she's homeschooled. I thought a nice seaside vacation would be fun, she likes exploring places she hasn't been before," Alexander replied, ruffling your hair as you grabbed the keys and booklet off of Seth with a quiet 'thanks'.

"Your cabin is cabin one, straight across the way, there's two bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, and a kitchen and the rooms are smoke free. Please, call the office if you need anything, here’s your keys and information booklet and enjoy your stay!" Seth chirped, and you and your father smiled at him, all teeth, before exiting the way you came.

You had blue and brown braces, the same shades as your eyes.

As soon as you were out of sight Seth grabbed his phone and called Kim. The line rang twice before she answered.

"The lightbulbs are in-”

"I know where the lightbulbs are Kim! You need to get down here, like, ASAP." Seth said breathlessly, pacing behind the desk, trying to calm his rapid heartbeat.

"What's wrong?" She questioned, and Seth could hear a car door opening and shutting over the phone.

"I imprinted and she's here and she's in cabin one and she has a dog and her dad is here with her and she's really pretty and her braces are blue and brown like her eyes and she's only gonna be here for two months so I need help like now please and thank you," Seth told her, all in one breath, and the office door opened once more, this time Jared and Kim entered, making Seth hang up the phone.

"How are you feeling, kid?" Jared asked, clapping Seth on the shoulder, hearing all of the conversation on the phone.

“I don’t know — Hopeless,” Seth sighed, leaning against his pack brother.

Jared gave him a side hug, then looked at the clock.

“Well, your shift is over — Should we go and see Sam and Jacob?” Jared offered, and Seth could only nod, although the thought of leaving you pained him.

Seth looked in the general direction of cabin one, and Jared chuckled, clapping him on the back before leading him out to his car.

§§§

Hi! This is based somewhat on Midnight Mass, a Netflix series, and as the first paragraph stated, this takes place after Twilight saga/Breaking Dawn ends; the movies specifically because I've never read the books, lol. Also; not proofread so if you see a mistake please kindly point it out!!

[devilmass]

FIVE THINGS! | rodrick page

5 things you associate with your muse !

EMOTIONS.

001. elation - rodrick doesn't often feel his emotion's as half-lived things, he feels them full on and too - much and elation is often a part of that spectrum that he operates on for the public. it's a gimmick, but one that's deeply ingrained in him. 002. loneliness - at his core, rodrick is a very lonely guy. he pretends to be okay with that, but he also tries to forge meaningful, long term relationships in other ways. 003. fear - on a whole, rodrick is always in a state of fear that he hates. it comes in waves, and it's most often active at night, but fear is an emotion he's highly familiar with. 004. joy - it's a rarity to talk to rodrick in any state but joy. if he's actually sad, you'll never know; he's a professional at keeping his emotional range to a limit. 005. guilt - this is, by far, the thing that rodrick struggles the most with. it never leaves him. even when he's preaching, it's like a noose around his neck he can never escape.

COLORS.

001. black. 002. white. 003. red. 004. silver. 005. sludgy, ugly green.

SCENTS.

001. incense - self explanatory. 002. cigarette smoke - also self explanatory. 003. musk - home grown, straight from working hard in the louisiana heat. he smells really good naturally. 004. after shave - he shaves every single day so his face probably smells like menthol and spearmint. 005. leather - his house is full of cowboy boots, and his hat always smell like fresh leather, so he smells faintly of it.

WARDROBE.

001. cowboy hat - you'll never see rodrick without his hat on. if he takes it off, his hair is sweaty and flat so he just never takes it off. 002. cowboy boots - our preacherman is known for his boots. he has 20+ (not counting his grandfather or father's collection) pairs of boots and about half are comically bright, loud boots he wears on special occasions. 003. black, jeans. they sit high on his hips. he used to wear them loose before a snake crawled up his pantleg, now he wears them tight enough that nothing can slither up (or down) his pants. 004. black button down with lapel clips. 005. white wife beater. some are a little yellow because he's a sweaty boy, but they're otherwise very worn and white.

OBJECTS.

001. lighter. he's got an extensive collection of silver lighter holder's for his lighter and he's proud of them. 002. cadillac. if you see the blue cadillac comin', that's the preacher. 003. hankerchief. he keeps one on him and he'll pull it out to wipe the sweat off his forehead like a dandy in the 40's. 004. smokes. his back pocket has a permanent imprint from his pack in all of his jeans. all of them. 005. rosary. rodrick walks around with his rosary in his fist. if you see his fist clenched while he's walking around, it's most likely hidden inside there.

VICES.

001. smoking. 002. breaking chastity (considers his assault his fault) 003. greed. 004. wrath. 005. self flagellation.

ACTIONS.

001. rubbing his face. while he talks to people, rodrick often touches his own face (wiping his nose, pulling on his ear, scratching his jaw). 002. adjusting his hat. he often tips his head back, he'll take it off and run it over his hair to smooth it back or hold his hat against his chest, etc. 003. putting his hands on his hips. this gesture also extends to putting his hands on his lower back and on his ribs. his back hurts, leave him alone. 004. laughing with his head thrown back. he loves to laugh, make him throw his head back with laughter and you're in his good books. 005. staring. if he's really invested in what you're saying, he oftne forgets to blink.

SONGS.

001. BAD MOON RISING / credence clearwater revival. 002. I'M SHAKIN' / jack white 003. RUNS IN THE FAMILY / amanda palmer 004. BIG IRON / marty robbins 005. DON'T CRY / guns 'n' roses

[carrs-universe-writes]

A body horror/psychological thriller story about trauma and people just being people. You play as a shapeshifter who has been thrown into this world in your early 20s after you learn that your parents didn’t tell you the whole truth about yourself… Work with a team of inhuman and human allies and your older sibling to save the town, or turn against them and help another shapeshifter tear down life as you know it. Game includes a fully customizable player, 13 romance options, 3 possible hookups, and a lot of crying.

Drew: Human, selectable gender, pansexual, same age as MC

You and Drew became best friends when you moved to Wolfwater in high-school. They’re a 6′5 person with dark skin, long dark brown hair, and hazel eyes. They always wear a chocolate leather jacket that they got from their father after his death, jeans, graphic t-shirts, and boots.

Weapon of choice: a silver club.

Interview

-

Ezra(they/them): Werewolf, non-binary, male-attracted, 300+ years old, possible poly with Aim for male MCs

Ezra is a reclusive werewolf that’s lived on the Silver Isle most of their life. They’re a 5′0 werewolf with olive colored skin, shaggy, shoulder-length light brown hair, and bright yellow eyes. They tend to not wear either shirts or shoes unless forced. Best friends with Aim.

Weapon of choice: claws/teeth

Interview (Solo)

Interview (Ezra/Aim)

-

Aim(he/him): Hybrid, male, pansexual, 250-300 years old, possible poly with Ezra for male MCs

Aim is a cautious hybrid that lives in the swamp to the south of Wolfwater. He is 6′10 with pale gray skin, close-cropped, pure white hair, and irises that are bright yellow with white pupils. He wears a fur lined leather vest, fur lined boots, and leather pants.

Weapon of choice: a handmade bow with silver-tipped arrows

Interview (Solo)

Interview (Ezra/Aim)

-

Gliss(they/them): Ice elemental, non-binary, pansexual, 150-200 years old, possible love-triangle with Bayle for female MCs, twin with Bayle

Gliss is an aggressive elemental that lives in the Clearwater Asylum ruins with their twin brother and older half sister. They’re a 6′0 person with dark blue skin, a pale blue mohawk, and solid white eyes. They wear heavy black combat boots, pants, and a tactical vest.

Weapon of choice: a scoped rifle with silver bullets

Interview

-

Bayle(he/him): Fire elemental, male, straight, 150-200 years old, possible love-triangle with Gliss for female MCs, twin with Gliss

Bayle is a cocky elemental that lives in the Clearwater Asylum ruins with his twin and older half sister. He’s a 6’0 man with dark pink skin, a shaved head, and solid white eyes. He wears heavy combat pants, boots, and no shirt.

Weapon of choice: himself

Interview

-

Lux(she/her): Hybrid, female, straight, 250-300 years old, older half sister to Gliss, Bayle, and [REDACTED]

Lux is a ruthless, mute hybrid that lives in Clearwater Asylum ruins with her younger half siblings. She’s a 5′7 woman with pale, gold skin with shoulder-length platinum-blonde hair, and light blue irises with white pupils. She wears light combat pants, light boots with rubber soles, a tight fur-lined jacket, a carved wooden mask that resembles a fox, and black gloves with rubber on the palms.

Weapon of choice: silver daggers

Interview

-

Mewse(they/them): human ghost, non-binary, asexual, panromantic, unknown age, romance only available as poly with Lukas

Mewse is a sarcastic and lazy ghost who haunts the Wolfwater cemetery and church. They’re a 5′5 person with translucent skin, short translucent hair, and eyes that have the barest hint of green in the irises. They wear dark dress pants and a white dress shirt.

Weapon of choice: none

Interview (Solo)

Interview (Lukas/Mewse)

-

Lukas(he/him): human, male, pansexual, 28, FWB only unless poly with Mewse

Lukas is carefree, promiscuous, and “technically a preacher” at the Silver’s Bane Church. He’s a 6′1 man with pale skin, short, curly blond hair, and dark blue eyes. He wears a dark gray suit, black dress shoes, a silver cross, and always carries an old, battered bible.

Weapon of choice: an antique, engraved shotgun with silver bullets and holy water

Interview (Solo)

Interview (Lukas/Mewse)

-

Seline(any pronouns): Forest guardian, female, pansexual, unknown age

Seline is the friendly guardian of the forest to the north of Wolfwater. She’s a 6’0 woman with tawny skin, waist-length brown hair that is braided with wildflowers, deer-like antlers, very sharp teeth and claws, and her eyes have black scleras and light brown irises. She wears a deerskin dress and no shoes. She travels with a large stag.

Weapon of choice: her magic and a vine whip braided with sharp pieces of bone

Interview

-

Bethany(she/her): human, female, gay, 22 years old

Bethany is the rebellious daughter of the mayor of Wolfwater. She’s a 5’7 woman with lightly tanned skin, chest-length red hair, and light blue eyes. She wears expensive dresses and heels.

Weapon of choice: a small handgun with silver bullets

Interview

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Crow(he/him): shapeshifter, male, pansexual, 250-300 years old

Crow is the bloodthirsty and unpredictable [REDACTED]. He’s a 6′3 man with colorless skin, slicked back colorless hair, and eyes that resemble whatever his last shift was. He wears colorful, expensive, designer suits and dress shoes.

Weapon of choice: Dax

Interview

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Dax(any pronouns): human, non-binary genderqueer, pansexual, aromantic, 27 years old

Dax is the dutiful lieutenant to Crow. They’re a 5’6 person with a shaved head, and cloudy green eyes. They wear full body armor, a steel mask, and a hood. Their canines have been replaced with silver fangs and they have silver claws in their gloves.

Weapon of choice: fangs or clawed gloves

Interview

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Kel(he/she/they): demon hybrid, gender fluid, pansexual, 21 years old

A spoiled princess that likes to live in the lap of luxury. Also one of Crow’s closest friends. Beautiful and dangerous, they get what they whatever they want for free with a well timed compliment and a pleasant smile. Crow pays them well, but their...clients pay them better.

Portrait set 1(Crow, Dax, Bethany, Seline, Ezra, Aim)

Portrait set 2(Lukas, Mewse, Drew, Lux, Gliss, Bayle)

Alex: shapeshifter, selectable gender, 12 years older than MC

Alex is your older sibling. They left home when they were 18, you were barely 6 when they stormed out of the house after an argument with your parents. When your parents died in a sudden accident 9 years later, you were sent to live with Alex. You can select your prior relationship with your sibling. Were they your best friend? A complete stranger to you? They love you either way.

Weapon of choice: Knowledge

Interview

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Mayor David Troy(he/him): human?, male, looks to be in his late 30s

Mayor Troy is the unnervingly charming mayor of Wolfwater. His perfectly styled hair and suits always seem a little…too pristine. He also happens to be Bethany’s father. Is his charming smile really as pleasant as it seems?

Weapon of choice: Charisma

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General Brock Day(he/him): human, male, 47

General Day is the intense leader of the military squad sent to hand reports of…supernatural occurrences. He doesn’t care for sob stories or excuses, he just knows that under no circumstances can he allow the secrets of Wolfwater to become known.

Weapon of choice: Assault rifle

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Swale(he/it): siren, male, 200-250 years old, omnisexual, aromantic, possible hookup

A curious and infuriating siren that lives in the icy waters of Wolfwater. He has no allegiances and serves only his own chaotic whims. Too bad you have to rely on him to help you. Even worse, he seems to have taken a shine to you, so you have no choice but to be the one to deal with his eccentric personality.

Weapon of choice: [REDACTED]

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Pandora(she/her): [REDACTED] fae, trans female, 2000+ years old, pansexual, possible hookup

An intimidatingly beautiful fae that runs an inhuman casino. The only rule in her club? Don’t get blood on her rugs. Even outside her den of sin, she remains untouchable. Power and hedonism are the only things that interest her, and she will stop at nothing to get both.

Weapon of choice: [REDACTED]

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Xic(he/they): mixed demon, trans male, 300-400 years old, pansexual, aromantic, possible hookup

A sweet, shy demon that wants to help you as best as he can. He runs an apothecary in town, specializing in curses. Friendly enough, but incredibly defensive about his past. What's behind all those locked doors? What secrets is your new ally guarding so fiercely? And does it have anything to do with why he won't allow any electronics into his store?

Weapon of choice: [REDACTED]

-

more to come

[wonder-womans-ex]

‘Cause Boy I was Made for You

By wonder-womans-ex for @inloveoknutzy Sweater Weather secret santa exchange 2020

When Remus Lupin was eleven years old, he learned about soulmates. 

“Almost everyone gets a soulmark on their nineteenth birthday,” Mr. Holliday, his fifth-grade teacher, had explained. “A design, like a tattoo, on their left wrist. And out there, somewhere, someone will have a matching one.

“Some people don’t get them until later—no one knows why. Some don’t get them at all. It’s rare, but some people have more than one soulmate, or their soulmate changes. 

“Can anyone tell me why this might be?”

Trust a teacher to turn this into a lesson, Remus thought, and put up his hand. 

“Because people change, and the person who your soul matches could change, too?” 

“Very good, Mr. Lupin.” 

***

When Sirius Black was eleven years old, his parents kept him home from school. Instead, they sat him down at the dining room table—which was only ever used for special occasions; he couldn’t fathom why this might be considered one—and told him three things. 

“One,” Walburga said, bony fingers and long nails that reminded Sirius of talons drumming on the centuries-old wood, “your career comes first. Always. No matter who your soulmate turns out to be or how you feel about it, you are expected to make the choice that benefits yourself and your role in this family.” 

“Two,” Orion put in, “you are the only person who can prove who your soulmate is. If the reality is something that puts your future or your reputation at risk, lying is the best option. Remember, listen to your head, not your wrist.”

“Three—” this was Walburga again, “—your soulmark, when you get it, will remain covered at all times. No one else is permitted to see it. Are we clear?”

Sirius nodded. 

“Speak up!”

“Yes, Mother. Yes, Father.”

***

When Remus Lupin was thirteen years old, he had his first kiss. It was with a girl from his first aid course to whom he’d never really talked before, and it was wet and clumsy and didn’t taste very nice. In six years when he got his soulmark, he probably wouldn’t even remember her name. 

***

When Sirius Black was thirteen years old, he fell asleep in math class twice. He’d spent the entire night practicing—under his father’s instructions, of course—and the words in the textbook began to swim in front of his eyes. 

His mother slapped him across the cheek when she found out. Though he told no one for a very long time, that was when he started drinking coffee. 

***

When Remus Lupin was fifteen years old, he googled what if your soulmate doesn’t love you. 

***

When Sirius Black was fifteen years old, he found out what it was like to be famous. He enjoyed it, at first. There was so much to enjoy: the attention from his parents, the people who recognized him in public and smiled, and the hockey. 

The hockey was everything. 

He wouldn’t have thought so, but it was freeing, really, to be on the ice, doing what he loved, and know that the whole world was watching. It showed him he was enough—better than enough. He was the best. He’d been working towards being best his whole life, and now he finally got to feel good about it. What wasn’t to like about that?

Amycus Carrow, apparently. The first guy on his team to notice he was different. “Queer,” he whispered, as Sirius packed his gear up. 

Sirius wasn’t sure who he was trying to prove something to by sleeping with Janie Clearwater—Amycus or himself. 

***

When Remus Lupin was seventeen years old, he and his mom picked his little brother Julian up from daycare. Jules had a crude drawing of a star on his wrist in green washable marker. 

“My teacher has one! So I wanted one too!” 

Remus smiled, ruffling Julian’s hair. 

That night, he locked his bedroom door and looked up Sirius Black. Video after video of slapshots, passes, interviews, until he finally drifted off to sleep thinking that’s the sort of person I want to be loved by. 

***

When Sirius Black was seventeen years old, he had his first panic attack. He wasn’t sure what triggered it; he wasn’t sure how he pulled himself out, but he ran a thumb over the red marks where his fingernails had dug into his skin and tried not to cry.

***

When Remus Lupin was nineteen years old, everything went wrong. He woke up on his birthday to his wrist itching, and it took all his willpower not to look at it. He wasn’t quite ready yet. 

It was like Schrödinger’s cat, he reasoned—if he didn’t look, he couldn’t confirm what had been nagging at the back of his head for a while now. He couldn’t deny it, either, but it was better than nothing. 

Julian ran to hug him when he got downstairs, grinning to show off his gap-toothed smile. “I got you a present! Wanna know what it is?”

“I think,” Remus told him, “I’m about to find out anyway.”

Two weeks later, Fenrir Greyback approached him in the locker room. 

***

When Sirius Black was nineteen years old, he found himself signed to an NHL team he wasn’t supposed to be on and with a soulmark he could make neither head nor tail of: a silver wolf and black dog, intertwined like yin and yang, two crossed hockey sticks behind them. He remembered, distantly, being told that soulmarks were meant to make sense. 

The black dog was probably meant to represent him—black dog, dog black (he still hadn’t forgiven his parents for that one)—and the hockey sticks almost definitely had something to do with, well, hockey, but the wolf he had no idea about.  

***

It is now that these two stories meet. There is a split second, a fraction of time, and it seems as though the whole world is holding its breath. Will their paths cross, only to continue on their separate ways? Will they travel together for a time, before they are destined to part once more?

“Hello,” says Remus, and when Sirius holds his hand out coldly, their fate is decided. 

***

“Pots, c’mere a second!” 

Sirius is happy, almost. He’s got the team—he’s one of them, now, really and truly, but there’s something still off. He knows what it is, but he doesn’t want to. 

“I’m coming, Captain! Keep your head on!”

James comes to a stop in front of him. “Hi. What do you need?”

“Please poke Dumo.” A few of the guys chuckle, and this makes Sirius smile. He likes making other people laugh. 

“What, and you needed me for that? You couldn't do it yourself?”

Finn walks into the room, then, jersey half on. “Why do it at all? What did poor old Dumo do to you, anyway?”

“Yeah,” Pascal says from where he’s sitting by his locker. “Respect your elders!”

“Elder, you say? Edging on retirement, are you?”

“Tais-toi!” 

Glancing over to Remus, Sirius allows the barest flicker of a smile to pass over his face. He gets one in return. 

“Alright, everyone get moving,” Coach tells them, opening the door and surveying where they’re all arranged, faces like guilty puppies. “You’re paid to play hockey, not sit on your asses and gossip. Practice starts in five minutes, or you run laps around the outside of the rink. In skates.”

Most of them groan, and Kasey downs a Powerade. “Well, boys, that’s my cue.”

James is the next to go, then Finn, then Logan. Leo and Talker continue their argument—something about George Harrison; Sirius isn’t really listening—out onto the ice, and Adam follows them with Olli and Nado close behind. Dumo winks at Sirius before he goes, too, and then it’s just the two of them. 

“What did he do?” Remus asks, after Sirius has laced and relaced his left skate three times. “Dumo, I mean.” 

“Nothing much. Just… well, if you must know, he put shaving cream in the fridge, once. Guess what I had on my waffles that morning.” 

“Waffles aren’t on your diet plan.”

“It was last year.”

“And you waited until now to get James to poke him?”

He knows Remus can see right through him. He always can. “Never question the methods of a hockey player, Loops.”

He meant it as a joke, but Remus stiffens for some reason, jaw clenching and eyes darting away. There’s an awkward pause before Sirius says, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” 

“Right.” He clears his throat, trying in vain to find something else to say. He would be lying if he said Remus didn’t mean something to him—he knows it. But, after all, knowing something and acknowledging it are two very different things. 

Sirius runs the laps. 

***

That night, after practice, Remus is about to head for the bus station when Sirius steps in front of him. He’s walking backwards, even with his hockey bag slung over his shoulder, and Remus isn’t ashamed to say he’s a little impressed. (From a purely objective point of view, of course. It has nothing to do with Sirius and everything to do with the skill it would take, hypothetically, to do such a thing.) (He’s not fooling anyone, least of all himself.) 

“Want a lift?”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“Well, we’ll just have to fix that.”

Remus rolls his eyes; he pretends to think about it. “All right,” he says, finally. “On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“I get to choose the music.”

Sirius lets out one loud ‘ha!’  It’s the most beautiful thing Remus has heard in a long time. (That would go well: “Oh, I’ve changed my mind. No need to put on the radio, I’ll be content if you just keep laughing.”) (There’s a reason people like him are off to the side, out of sight, instead of right in the spotlight with a microphone.)  

Remus is glad that Sirius waits until he’s parked outside Remus’s apartment building to bring up their earlier conversation. It says something that they say “So, about this evening—” in unison, but Remus isn’t going to think about that. 

“You go first,” Sirius tells him, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly. “Please.”

“I suppose,” Remus says, slowly, “That I haven’t quite been honest with you. Any of you. I wasn’t always a PT.”

“Of course not. You’re my age. You can’t have always worked for the Lions—before that you were a teenager. A student.”

Remus shakes his head. “No. Before that I was a player.” 

“You played? Why’d you stop?”

“Bad hit,” he says, shrugging. “I’m over it. But I… I know what it’s like. The pressure. The rules. So, if you need someone to talk to… just remember—I know what the game does to a guy. You’re not the only one who’s been told to be something you aren’t by someone who forgets you’re a person off the ice, too.

“See you tomorrow, Cap. Thanks for the ride.” 

***

Sirius is probably the one person in history who has managed to burn eggs without even turning the stove on. 

“How on earth did that happen?” James asks when Sirius phones him. 

“I dropped them into the toaster—hey! Stop laughing! It could happen to anyone!”

“Yes,” he hears from the other end of the line, “But it didn’t. It happened to you.”

It takes exactly two minutes and thirty-seven seconds after hanging up on James for Sirius to decide to call Remus. Cooking failures might not have been quite what Remus meant when he said Sirius could talk to him, but it’s the problem at hand right now. 

(Remus laughs just as hard as James, but at least he has the decency to apologize for it afterwards.) 

“Well,” he says, once he’s calmed down, “What are you going to eat now?” 

“I’m not sure. Cereal?”

“Practice is in two and a half hours. You need more than that.”

“I’ll be—”

“If you end that sentence with ‘fine,’ I’ll take the laces out of your skates and strangle you with them. Do you want me to walk you through, I dunno, a pancake?” 

“Sure. What do I need?”

“Flour, butter, eggs, milk…”

Twenty minutes later Sirius is left with milk on his shirt, flour in his hair, butter practically everywhere else, and a microwave that won’t start. 

“I think,” he tells Remus, “I should have cereal.”

“You are going to eat a pancake if it’s the last thing I do—”

“Why don’t you just come over here and make it for me, then? I’m sure you’ll have more success.” 

He holds his breath for a moment, hoping this wasn’t a step too far, before Remus responds. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be over in… half an hour?” 

“Sounds good.” 

Click. 

The instant the call is over, Sirius opens the freezer and grabs one of the popsicles he secretly has stashed there. They’re not part of his diet plan, but he needs one. Then he takes a sponge and starts trying to get the butter out of the sole of his shoe. 

***

The first thought that crosses Remus’s mind is that Sirius’s tongue is purple from one of the popsicles he thinks no one knows about. If Remus kissed him, he’d probably taste like grapes. (The thought is banished from his mind the moment it enters.) 

“So,” he says, surveying the damage. “I am going to teach you how to make a pancake.” 

Sirius, it turns out, is infinitely better at following instructions when they’re simple, and the two of them work out a system quickly. Remus makes the pancake, Sirius gets the ingredients. It works. 

“That’s salt, not sugar. Try again.”

(Most of the time, at least.)

 “Really?” Sirius is squinting at the package. “Why doesn’t it say so?”

“It does. Right there.” 

“How am I supposed to read that?”

“You need glasses, Cap.” 

“I have glasses. I just never wear them.” 

“What?” This is news to Remus. Visions of Sirius with glasses and bed hair are swimming in front of his eyes. “Why?” 

A shrug. “I look stupid.” 

“I’m pretty sure you’d be drop-dead gorgeous in anything.” 

There’s a beat of silence. Remus realizes that, yes, he said that out loud. “I mean, all those fangirls certainly seem to think so.” 

“Right. Yeah.” Sirius clears his throat. 

“Anyway, pancakes! I think these are almost ready to cook—can you turn on the element?”

“The what now?” 

“The element? The coil on the stove?” 

“Should’ve just said that in the first place,” Sirius grumbles. “Fucking Americans.” 

“Fucking French.” 

Suddenly, Remus has a spatula pointed at his nose. He has to cross his eyes to see it properly. “Say that again; I dare you.”

“Fucking French?”

“Awright, that’s it! En garde, bitch!” 

And so begins the great whisk-vs-spatula duel of 2020. There is very little batter left once they’re done—in the bowl, at least. Most of it is on their clothes. 

They look at each other. “Cereal?” 

“...Cereal.” 

***

Kasey’s eyes go wide—almost comically so—when they show up to practice together. 

“Cap giving rides?” He says, and Sirius isn’t sure what accent he’s trying to fake but he ends up sounding like a scandalized duchess from the movie adaptation of an Austen knockoff. (Maybe that is what he was going for. It’s hard to know, with Kasey.) “I thought the day would never come.”

“Shut up.” 

“Make me.”

Remus’s elbow digs into Sirius’s rib cage. “You don’t want to say that. He tried to make me shut up this morning—it’s something I’ll never recover from.” 

Sirius almost laughs at the expression Remus makes when he realizes exactly how that sounds. 

“He dumped pancake batter down my shirt!” 

“You didn’t!” The look on James’s face is aghast. “First the eggs, now this—what will people think?” 

Finn looks up from his phone. “Eggs?” 

“Sirius here dropped the eggs he was going to eat for breakfast into his—”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” 

Dumo slings an arm around his shoulders. “The price you must pay for telling James to poke me yesterday. Learn from this, mon fils. Learn.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do, old man.”

“Treachery!” 

Shrugging him off, Sirius grins. “I am the kitchen monster. Cross me and I will slaughter you in a food war.”

“Try me.” This is Logan speaking; Sirius hadn’t even realized he was there. 

“You’ve been warned!” 

***

“Look, there are twenty-two hockey players in this arena, and I ain’t one of them,” Moody says, and Remus can’t be sure, but he thinks Sirius looks at him. 

***

“You’re favouring your right leg,” Remus comments as soon as Sirius is off the ice. “Want me to take a look?”

“It’s fine, really—”

“I’ll try again. Want me to take a look?” 

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks, Loops.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

They walk into the PT room in businesslike silence, Sirius hoping all the way that one of them will break it. Neither does, and it isn’t until Remus has taken off both his skates for him, now expertly examining his left ankle, that he realizes what he should say. 

“You mentioned you played, last night.”

The finger tracing his Achilles tendon stills. “I did.” 

“Were you any good?” He knows, somewhere, that he’s entering forbidden territory. He can’t bring himself to care. 

“I’d like to believe so.”

“Be honest.” Sirens are blaring in his head. He keeps going. 

“There were rumours…” Remus bites his lip, glances away. “People said I was set for first.”

“What? How come you never said anything? C’mon, you need to play with us sometime, just scrimmage or something—”

“Maybe. That hit…”

“Right. God, I’m sorry, Rem.”

If Remus’s Adam’s apple bobs at the nickname, Sirius doesn’t notice. He certainly doesn’t try his best not to jump to conclusions. (Double negative; that’s a yes, a voice that sounds suspiciously like James’s says in his head. Shut up, he tells it.)

“It’s fine. Really. I just don’t like talking about it. And besides, I like this. Working with the team, even if I can’t be a part of it.”

“You are. A part of the team, I mean. Just as much as I am.”

“Sure.”

There’s another awkward pause before Remus clears his throat. “So, I’m gonna put on some anti-inflammatory gel because it’s a little swollen, but don’t get used to it. I want you to keep doing some stretches, not too much pressure. Capeesh?”

“What the fuck is a capeesh?”

“Just say it.”

“...Capeesh?”

“Awesome.” 

Remus leans forward towards him, their foreheads almost touching. Sirius’s breath catches. 

It’s over just as suddenly. The tube of extra-strength Voltaren is in Remus’s hand, and Sirius feels stupid for thinking he was going to—

Nope. Not thinking about that. 

When he feels tears start to prick at his eyes, he glances up at the fluorescent lights overhead; at least then he’ll have an excuse. There’s a moth resting on one. Its wings flutter once, twice, then go still. Fragile things, moths are—maybe it’s died, maybe it hasn’t. He could read into that, but he won’t. 

He jumps when the cool of the gel on Remus’s hands touches his foot. “Hey!” He yelps, looking quickly down. 

Sirius hates to succumb to cliches, but he would be lying if he was to say his heart doesn’t still. 

Because Remus has pulled the sleeves of his jacket up to his elbows, and his wrist is turned to the sky—to Sirius, who has seen that mark before somewhere. 

Somewhere. He’s kidding himself. He’s seen it every day whenever he bothers to look at his own soulmark, and he’s seeing it again now. 

“You know what, I’m fine,” he blurts out, shaking his ankle out of Remus’s grasp. “Thanks, though. See you later, Loops.” 

***

Remus stays there for a second, watching Sirius leave. He doesn’t know what he did wrong, and he’s not sure he wants to. 

When he gets up to leave, tossing the container towards the first aid kit on the bench and allowing himself a small smile when it lands perfectly inside, blood rushes to his head. He closes his eyes, waiting for the dizziness to pass. 

And then he crashes into Finn. 

“Whoa, sorry,” Remus says, stumbling backwards.

“Nah, don’t stress it. There’s just something I want you to check on.”

Remus is hit by a sense of deja vu. He wonders if Finn, too, is going to leave without explanation. He follows him back into the PT room, Finn gesturing for him to lock the door. 

Though he may be the shorter of the two, Remus knows it’s his job to be the bigger person. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

Finn waits another moment before yanking one sleeve up to reveal three paw prints, each no bigger than a thumbnail, clustered together—one forest green, one golden, and one a deep navy blue. 

“Your soulmark.” Remus doesn’t understand. “What? Is something wrong?” 

“There’s three of them,” Finn says. “Which means there’s three of us.”

“You have two soulmates?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fine, Finn. It may not be common, but it’s not unheard of. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.” 

“It’s not that. It’s… hey, you can’t tell anyone this, okay?”

“I know. Doctor-patient confidentiality, remember?”

“Right.” Finn takes a breath, squeezing his eyes closed. “What if I told you I know who they are? Or I think I do?” 

“Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically.”

“Well, I’d ask you if they knew.”

“And I’d say I don’t think so. One of them’s pretty stubborn—wouldn’t see love if it stood up on the ice and sang the national anthem—and the other isn’t nineteen yet, so he doesn’t—I mean wouldn’t—have his mark yet.” 

“His?”

Finn’s eyes widen. There is a pause before he nods, slowly. “Yeah. Got a problem?”

“Trust me, I’m the last person on earth who’d have a problem with something like that. Hypothetically.” 

This, at least, earns Remus a smile. “Are you…?”

“Yeah.” 

“Cool.” Another pause. “What if I told you, still hypothetically, that they were both on the team?” 

“Then I’d say get the fuck out of here and win them over before they start thinking you’ve forgotten about them.” 

Finn, smiling ear to ear, starts to leave. “Wait,” he says, hand on the doorknob. “You said you were…”

“Gay.”

“Yeah. Do—do you know who your soulmate is?”

Remus opens his mouth to say ‘no.’ He really does. But what comes out—when he takes into account the look of recognition on Sirius’s face when Remus had his sleeves rolled up; the understanding that had passed between them outside Remus’s building (god, that was just last night); the way they’ve always just clicked—is most certainly not ‘no.’ 

“Oh, fuck, I think I do,” he says, and he and Finn run out into the hallway together. 

Sirius’s car is pulling out of the parking lot when Remus arrives, out of breath, at the front doors of the arena. 

“I don’t know why he’s in such a hurry.” Remus jumps. He hadn’t heard James come to stand beside him. “Just packed up his gear at the speed of light and left. Didn’t even shower; he said he’d do it at home.”

So Sirius had been so appalled—disgusted, even—at Remus being his soulmate that he’d left without explanation, with barely even a goodbye. There was a pleasant thought. 

He turns so his back is against the door, sliding slowly down to sit on the floor. 

“Y’know,” James says, sitting next to him, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you needed a hug.”

There’s a moment of comfortable silence before Remus says, “James?”

“Yeah?” 

“I need a hug.” 

James gives the best hugs. Everyone says so. But until now, Remus has never been on the receiving end of a true James Potter hug—warm, strong, and friendly as hell. (“I want that on a t-shirt,” James says when Remus tells him so.)

But eventually, James has to go, too, and Remus heads back to the PT room. He passes Logan in the hall, looking like he’s been hit over the head with a two-by-four. Maybe it’s Finn’s doing; he had mentioned that one of them was oblivious. Logan, Remus knows, is the definition of oblivious. 

***

“And I think that’s all,” Coach Weasley says, glancing around, “Unless anyone else has something to say? Moody? Cap? Loops?” 

“Actually, yes,” says Remus after a moment. “Checkups! Not naming names but Kris lied about his rib acting up so now all of you get to be interrogated.” 

Sirius swallows. He’s not anxious to be alone with Remus; not after yesterday. There’s no way there aren’t going to be questions. 

Kasey goes first, Remus taking just under five minutes to deem him ‘good to go.’ Kris, surprisingly, is only kept for eight, despite the claim of his ribs acting up again. Finn takes the longest—fifteen minutes—and as soon as he’s out he grabs Logan and Leo by the wrists and marches them off somewhere. Sirius’s turn comes last, right after Pascal’s, who gives him a knowing look as he enters.

“Hi,” Remus says, first aid kit nowhere in sight. “Sit down.” 

“Where?” Sirius gets only a shrug in response. 

He hesitates a moment, then sits on the floor, picking at the sole of his sneaker. 

“How are you feeling?” Remus asks suddenly.

“Fine. Ankle’s not bothering me any more.”

“No, I mean how are you feeling?”

Scoffing, he starts to stand up. “I’m not doing this.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.” 

“Sirius Black, sit your ass back down before I make you.” 

Sirius sits his ass back down. 

“Good. Now, how are you feeling?” 

“I’m… confused,” he says, trying to be honest without being specific. “And nervous. And I cried myself to sleep last night, which I haven’t done since I was like seventeen, so there’s that. But mostly I’m just really fucking mad.” 

“At me.” It isn’t a question. 

“No, not at you! At me! At the—” he gestures wildly. “—Universe, or whatever. Can I go now?” 

Remus doesn’t even acknowledge his request. “So you’re disappointed.”

“...Yeah.” 

“May I ask why?” 

“I’m pretty sure you fucking know why.” 

“Maybe I do. But I’d like you to explain it to me.” 

The stupid thing is that Sirius wants to talk about it. He really does. And Remus is the only person he can conceivably talk about it to. But he still chokes on his words when he says, anger burning his throat, “It was never supposed to be like this.” 

“What do you mean by that?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Sirius practically screams. “Stop trying to fucking— psychoalalyze me or something, for fuck’s sake. You fucking asked, and I—” He tears his fingers through his hair, feeling his chest start to constrict. “Just stop talking!” 

The echoes of his shouts fade out too quickly, and the only thing worse than the voices is the sound of his breathing getting faster and faster. Remus’s hand twitches, as though he wants to touch him but thinks better of it.

“It was always supposed to be someone different. Someone faceless; nameless. Someone I could run away from. I can’t fucking run away from you, Remus.

“I always thought I could lie. That I could—pretend, or something. Just keep hiding. It was supposed to be someone I could hide from, because I’ve spent my whole life fucking hiding and that’s all I know how to do. It was never supposed to be someone I could fall in love with.” 

There’s a choked noise from where Remus is sitting on the bench, but nothing else. Sirius refuses to look at him. 

“And I just—I just fucking hate this, because all I’ve been told is that hockey comes before my dreams. And that’s made sense until now because until now hockey was my dream, but now there’s you. Yeah.” 

Remus, to his credit, waits until Sirius’s breathing has calmed down and he’s furiously wiped the tears from his eyes to speak. “What do you need?” 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean forget everything. Forget your family, forget the team, forget me—what do you need?  

“Right now? For the rest of my life? Because those are two very different things.” 

“Let’s start with now. Can I do anything for you? Can you do anything for yourself?” 

“I need a hot chocolate.” 

***

They wait until everyone else has gone, and then make their way outside to Sirius’s car. There’s only one other in the parking lot—a grey Toyota Remus thinks belongs to Nado, or maybe Kris. He’s not sure why he thinks it matters, because it doesn’t. 

Silence hangs around them the whole four blocks to the nearest Tim Horton’s. Inhale; exhale. Inhale; exhale. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything. 

That doesn’t stop Remus from hoping. 

He knows it’s wrong; of course he does. It’s Sirius’s choice, in the end, because Sirius is the one who will be most affected. His career, his life—all on the line if he decides to trust whatever plan the world has in store for them. It’s not like that for Remus. Not anymore. 

There’s a parking spot right outside the front door. Sirius pulls into it, but he doesn’t get out right away. He glances around, makes sure there’s no one immediately in sight, and then he looks down to where his hands now rest in in his lap. Slowly, he pulls up his right sleeve to expose, bit by bit, his soulmark. 

“I don’t know why I never guessed it could be you—Wolfy McWolf Wolf.” 

Remus feels his lips twitch upwards into something resembling a smile. “I could say the same, Dog Black.” 

When he puts his hand on the console, Sirius rests his on top of it. It’s not much. 

But it’s something. 

***

Sirius looks longingly at the Boston cream doughnuts. “Please. I haven’t had one in so long.” 

“Think again, Mr. I’m-on-a-diet-plan.” 

He’s not surprised. What was he thinking, having his PT as his soulmate? (Well, he wasn’t. He didn’t get to choose. But, he thinks to himself, the point still stands.) 

“I’ll have a medium hot chocolate, please, a plain toasted bagel,” Remus looks at him and sighs. “...And a Boston cream doughnut.” 

When the food is set down on the pickup counter, Remus snatches it before Sirius has a chance to. “Hey, this is my doughnut.” 

Sirius pouts. 

“You’re cute. Here.” He tosses him the brown paper bag, and Sirius removes his prize carefully. He‘s going to eat every piece of chocolate glazing if it kills him. 

Back out in the car—this is a conversation neither of them is willing to have in the public dining area—Remus chews on his bagel thoughtfully. Sirius tries and fails not to swear when his hot chocolate burns his tongue.

“Shit!” 

Remus glances over at him. Their eyes meet for a moment, then both look away. “So,” Sirius says after a while. “I think we need to talk.” 

“Yeah.” 

Silence, then—

“You go first,” they say at the same time, and laugh. Some of the tension is broken. 

Sirius reaches hesitantly to where Remus’s arm rests between the seats. He doesn’t need to voice his question—Remus sees it in his eyes; nods. 

Up close, he can see that there are a few differences between their marks. Nothing that could possibly mean they aren’t soulmates—just the discolouring on the dog’s tail; the angle of one of the sticks; the faded white gash that stretches from one side of Remus’s wrist to the other, separating the wolf’s head from its body. Sirius doesn’t quite know what he’s doing when he presses his lips to the scar. 

When he looks up, he sees that Remus is trying not to cry. And that’s when he makes his decision. 

“I want this,” he says, voice soft but sure. “All of it.”

[katehuntington]

Title: Ride With Me (part nineteen) Fandom: Supernatural Timeline: 2008 Pairing: Dean x Reader Word count: ±7500 words Summary series: Y/N is a talented horse rider who is on her way to become a professional. In order to convince her father that she deserves the loan needed to start her own farm, she goes to Arizona for six months, to intern at a ranch owned by Bobby and Ellen Singer. Her future is set out, but then she meets a handsome horseman, who goes by the name of Dean Winchester. A heartwarming series about a cowboy who falls for the girl, letting go of the past and the importance of family.  Summary part nineteen: The Flagstaff Horse Fair is about to kick off, but not without a hitch. Warnings series: NSFW, 18+ only! Fluff, angst, eventually smut. Swearing, smoking, alcohol intoxication, alcohol abuse. Mutual pining, heartbreak. Crying, nightmares, childhood trauma. Description of animal abuse, domestic violence, mentions of addiction. Financial problems, stress, mental breakdown. Description of blood and injury, hospital scenes, character death, grief. Music: ‘Fortunate Son’ - Creedence Clearwater Revival, ‘Backwoods Company’ - The Wild Feathers.  Follow ‘Kate Huntington’s Ride With Me playlist’ on Spotify! Author’s note: Prepare for cuteness and a bit of angst! Thank you @kittenofdoomage​​, @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish​​, @manawhaat​​ and @winchest09​​ for helping me. I especially want to thank Kay, who has beta’d Ride from the very beginning, but needs to take a break from Tumblr to focus on school. I will miss her dearly, but I’m super thankful that Mana is willing to take over. Also a special thanks to @jules-1999​​, who has offered me her knowledge about rodeo events like these.

Ride With Me Masterlist

     With a black bumper-pull trailer in the rearview mirror, Dean’s beloved ‘67 El Camino rolls up Interstate 17. The windows are down, allowing the wind to wash in, like waves crashing onto the beach on a hot summer day, the cool air welcome and refreshing. 

     The Gold Canyon Ranch caravan left around three o’clock, the column of three pickups and trailers now heading towards Flagstaff, Arizona. Bobby and Jo lead the company in his powerful Ford with an impressive gooseneck in tow, which currently accommodates five horses. Benny follows in his four by four, with three horses on board another large trailer, facilitated with a small living quarters. Dean is the last wagon of the train, Meadow and one of his calmer geldings in the back, and Y/N beside him in the passenger seat.

     The cowgirl is soaking up the scenery, the hills that flow next to the highway, the mountains in the distance, the blue sky above them. The tall saguaros that dominate the landscape at home are swapped for ponderosa pines, dusty desert for green grasslands. The forest is already beginning to change color, autumn painting deciduous trees in shades of yellow and orange. It’s remarkable how different her current surroundings are from the Phoenix area, only two and a half hours south. 

     With Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival playing on the old cassette deck of the classic car, Dean drums against the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song. He absently hums along, mouthing a few words every now and then. When he glances aside, a small smile forms on his lips. The woman, who managed to calm him after the disturbing news Bobby delivered, is breathtaking without even trying. Loose strands of hair have escaped her ponytail and dance in the playful wind, her maya blue blouse fluttering against her Arizona sun-kissed skin. She looks at the world through her shaded Ray Bans, lost in thought and wonder.

     He returns his gaze to the road as he reaches for her, laying his hand on her knee to get her attention, softly rubbing his thumb over the denim. Awoken from her daydream, she glances over, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she lays her hand over his, warmed by the touch.

     “Nervous?” he wonders, dropping her hand just long enough to turn down the stereo before he laces their fingers together once again.      “A little bit,” she confesses.      “Don’t be. You’re gonna do fine,” he reassures. “Besides, your class ain’t till tomorrow.”      “I’m not nervous about riding.”      The wrangler moves his focus from the asphalt to his girlfriend. “What about then?”      She’s quiet for a second. Shy, just like she was the first time they met. “Just… This is your scene. People know you, and I don’t know anyone.”      He smirks, lightly. “Concerned about former flings?”       The cowgirl shrugs, half admitting her insecurity.      “Yankee, you have nothing to worry about. Hey…” He squeezes her hand, glancing over again. “I’m with you, okay?”

     A smile breaks through the surface as Y/N glances at the handsome wrangler she gets to call hers, his green eyes making a silent promise. For a guy who claims not to be good with words, he’s doing a pretty great job. She takes a breath when he concentrates on the road again.      “So, how are you going to introduce me?” she wonders.      “As my girlfriend,” he returns, matter-of-factly, cool confidence sitting on the edge of his mouth. He honestly can’t wait to introduce her as his.

     Y/N is unable to hide her contentment, the corners of her mouth creeping up further as she gets lost in the sight of him. There it is again; that tingly feeling, his confirmation breaking down the doubt bit by bit.      “What about Bobby?” Y/N checks. “He still doesn’t know.”      “Believe me, Bobby will be too busy strikin’ deals and sellin’ horses. He’s not gonna notice us,” Dean states, not concerned about his uncle. “It’s gonna be fine, you’re gonna have a blast, trust me.”

     After shooting her that grin she’s loved from day one, he glances past the trucks and trailers in front of them. They drive by a large sign made from stone and wood, that says ‘1882 - Flagstaff, Arizona’, the city up ahead and Humphreys Peak in the backdrop. The caravan turns onto I-40 going west, before taking the exit a couple of miles later.

      When they come over the hill, the competition grounds come into view. Flags reach skyward and wave proudly in the Western breeze, the stars and stripes alternating with the state flag of Arizona, the American Reining Horse Association, and many others. There’s the main arena, several training areas, stables, and amusement rides, complete with hundreds of trucks,  trailers, and RV campers filling the fairgrounds. Observing the scene, it becomes clear to Y/N that this isn’t just a local show.

     Dean was right, this is the perfect practice run for her and Meadow, but the sight of the large event has her stomach in knots. Right, those lovely performance nerves that never fail to torment her. She hopes she can survive tomorrow and still be able to eat without throwing up, because it wouldn’t be the first time that the highly strung feeling she experiences right before a ride has her physically sick. 

     The Gold Canyon Ranch caravan enters the show grounds, Bobby following the directions of the parking officer. After a short drive, they park the trailers next to each other on a large field, adding to the rows and rows of pickups, trailers, and even semi trucks with pop out living units.       “I’ll check in with the stable manager,” Jo announces when they get out of the cars, heading over to the stable office to check which boxes are assigned to them.

     Y/N picks her hat off the seat and pushes it on her head, leaving her shades on the dash now that she doesn’t need them anymore. She opens the hatch of the black trailer behind Dean’s Chevy, peeking inside. Meadow greets her with a slightly nervous neigh, eager to get out now that they’ve stopped moving. Lovingly, her rider pets her nose, trying to calm her a little, but the spirited mare begins to scrape her hoof on the rubber coated floor, nonetheless.      “She okay?” Dean asks.      “Yeah, she just wants to get off the trailer. I’m going to unload her, let her graze a little,” she says, attaching the leadrope to her halter. “Could you get the lid?”

     The wrangler nods and walks around to the back, opening the latches as Y/N unties her horse. The cowgirl pushes the divider away and gently leads Meadow down the ramp. The beautiful bay Quarter Horse takes in her surroundings with large eyes, alert and ready for action, belting out another loud neigh to announce her arrival. She circles around her owner, who can’t help but laugh at her cocky attitude; she could have sworn her granddad bought her a mare, and not a stallion, even though Meadow behaves like one at times. Eventually she drops her head and cuts a few bites of grass, before pulling up her head again while chewing, staring at another animal in the distance.

     “She really is a character, ain’t she?” Dean laughs, watching the pair.      “Sure is,” her owner chuckles, rubbing the mare’s withers. “She knows it’s showtime. She can feel it.”      Y/N crouches down to remove Meadow’s travel leg protection while Dean holds the feisty horse, glancing in the direction of the stable office, from which Jo returns.      “Tent B. Box sixty-four to seventy-three,” the ranch owner’s daughter informs. “Let’s unload.”

     Within thirty minutes the ten stables are ready, the heavy trunks installed, the tack rooms decorated and the horses unloaded. Y/N does her bit, rolling the wheel barrow from the truck to the stables with hay bails and wood shaving bedding, but it’s clear the Gold Canyon crew has taken this many horses to a competition before. Benny, Jo, Dean, and Bobby operate like a well-oiled machine, although the head of the ranch is moving a little bit slower these days. 

     Y/N tapes a form to the stable with Meadow’s name and an emergency phone number when Dean comes back from the water point, a full bucket in each hand. He and Benny have been going back and forth a couple of times now, supplying the ten horses. When the head wrangler walks by carrying the water, she’s distracted from the task at hand. Watching his shoulders work under his plaid shirt, she can’t help but get a little lost in the view. His biceps flex against the fabric, back strong and firm while he transports the heavy buckets with steady steps. God, he is good on the eyes.

     “Are you gonna continue to drool over my cousin or are you gonna come with me to the show office to pay our fees?”      Y/N’s eyes shift to Jo, who’s leaning against the stable door with her arms crossed in front of her chest and an amused smirk on her lips. Without a doubt, the blush that fires up her face is hard to miss.       “Let me get my bag,” she says, straightening her back and turning to the head wrangler. “Dean, is the car still un--”

     Before she can finish her sentence, her boyfriend has dug up the keys to the El Camino from his pocket and tosses them to her. Y/N catches them skillfully.      “Awww, so you can read each other’s mind now, too?” Jo comments, earning a glare from Dean, causing her to shrug. “What? It’s dead cute!”      “I’m not cute!” Dean counters, his face contorting as if she just called him something foul.       “No, you’re a tough, manly man. We get it, Cowboy.” She passes him, patting his shoulder. “Keep tellin’ yourself that.”      “You keep tellin’ yourself… somethin’,” he stammers, struggling to stand up to the reputation Jo is undermining.

     She walks on, laughing, not even granting him another look. Bothered with his own unimpressive reply, the wrangler watches his cousin catch up with her father. God, sometimes he wishes he could shut her up without having to deal with her sassy attitude.      Annoyed, he turns back to Y/N, who can’t hide her amusement as she steps closer. He eyes her, which only causes her to chuckle.      “I’m not cute,” he underlines.

     The cowgirl smirks and pushes him into the tack room, out of sight and safe from Bobby’s judgement. She takes his hat from his head and leans in, connecting her lips with his. The kiss is short and sweet, but it’s long enough to make Dean’s head spin. When she parts from him, he opens his eyes again, taking her in as she places his Stetson back over his tousled hair.       “You’re adorable,” she says.      Dean half pouts while furrowing his brow, still trying to establish that he is neither cute or adorable, but breaks character when his girlfriend smiles widely before she spins around. Fine, maybe he is turning a bit soft, but it’s all her doing. 

     Jo joins Y/N with her father’s wallet in hand, the two friends almost skipping to the exit of the stable, joking and laughing as they go. Dean watches the pair and shakes his head, not missing Benny’s wide grin coming his direction. The lovebirds might have stayed out of the ranch owner’s line of sight, however, Benny had a clear view of the endearing interaction. He’s leaning against a tack trunk, arms crossed in front of his broad chest, blue eyes sparkling with mischief and playful judgement that’s impossible to miss.       “Get it over with,” the head wrangler mutters. “Got anything to add to that?”      “Nah, I reckon the gals made their point,” the Southerner chuckles.

     “So, you two are still doin’ good, huh?”      Jo glances at Y/N from the corner of her eye while pushing her father’s wallet into her back pocket. She leans against Dean’s car, careful not to scratch it, knowing that all hell is going to break loose if she does.      “Surprised?” her friend counters, picking up her bag from the front seat, before closing the door.      “Just checkin’ if the woman-oholic isn’t suffering from tremors, hallucinations, insomnia,” the cowgirl states.       Y/N grins at that, pushing the strap of her bag on her shoulder, ready for her friend to lead the way to the show office. 

     “He’s not, don’t worry,” she claims, very much aware that Jo is just toying with her. “He’s been really wonderful, actually. I honestly didn’t expect him to be so attentive and sweet.”      “No one did. Hell, I don’t think even Dean knew he had it in ’im. Guess you bring out the best in my notorious cousin.” She hooks her arm around Y/N’s neck, pulling her in for a side hug.

     On their way over to the show office, Jo is greeted by multiple familiar faces, asking her how she's doing and the ranch owner’s daughter returning the question in a quick exchange. It becomes clear to Y/N that this isn’t just Dean’s scene, but Jo’s as well. 

     She soaks up her surroundings, glancing left and right as they walk up a two story building, a little further up the slightly hilly property. Stalls are lined up along the boulevard, selling all sorts of things, from horse gear to fashion and interior design. It’s not incredibly busy yet, the people waiting in the short lines for the food stands mostly riders, trainers, and horse owners. The organisation is probably expecting a bigger crowd on the weekend.

     A ferrier is hammering a loose shoe under a horse’s hoof, the large animal waiting patiently until the job is done, while a promoter tries to sell a new tractor to an interested party. Cheers roar from one of the arenas, excitement heard in the voice of the commentator, who echoes over the terrain through the speakers. The smell of cotton candy when they pass a concessions truck reaches the cowgirl’s nose as she watches children having fun riding a Shetland pony from the local riding school.

     Content, Y/N smiles, because apart from the temperature, the atmosphere on this show isn’t different from the events she’s been to when she was still living in Freeport. The nerves she felt in the car earlier seep away with the familiarity, excitement taking its place. Before she came to Gold Canyon Ranch, she was buried under pressure and books, working on her thesis around the clock. The last competition she rode was the State Championships. God, she missed this circus. This life. This is where she belongs, not behind some desk, no matter how good the salary.

     “Jo Singer, it’s good to see you again, my dear,” the woman behind the counter in the show office says, recognizing the blonde cowgirl instantly. “How are you and your family doing?”      Reading glasses balance on the tip of the nose of the kind secretary, who smiles at both the girls. Her ash blonde hair is short, and worn in a fashion you would expect for a lady in her sixties.      “Good to see you too, Mildred,” Jo returns, pulling Bobby’s wallet from her pocket. “We’re okay. How are the boys?”

     Y/N glances at her friend from the corner of her eye as the two acquaintances make small talk. She noticed the hint of doubt in her claim that everything was fine with the Singer family, followed by the quick counter question to avert the attention back to the woman on the other side of the desk. Aware that the information Dean shared with her is confidential, she didn’t discuss it with Jo, even though she wanted to. While she didn’t want to get the head wrangler in trouble, she was also unaware of how up to date the youngest Singer actually is. Now that she heard the slight hesitation, however, she’s getting the idea Jo knows more about the ranch’s financial struggles than her bubbly and carefree personality leads on. 

     “How many horses are you competing, hon?” Mildred asks, pushing her glasses up her nose as she searches for Jo’s name on the competitors’ list.       “Two. I’d like to pay for Dean as well, and one entry for my friend here. She’s riding one of ours.”      “Winchester, right?” the secretary checks, crossing off names.      Jo nods, picking at her father’s credit card. “Yeah.”      Mildred flips the page until she finds the one on which the riders filed under the letter ‘W’ are listed.      “Four horses for Dean? Your cousin has a busy weekend ahead of him,” she chuckles, warmly, and looks up at the young woman that accompanied Jo. “What’s your name, sweety?”      “It’s Y/N L/N,” the intern answers. “I’m competing two horses, one of my own. I’d like to pay for Meadowsweet separately.”      “Not a problem.” Mildred focuses on the blonde cowgirl again. “So that's an entry fee for seven horses, plus the stable fee for nine. Y’all brought two horses for auction, am I right? I remember because I had your father on the phone just this morning.”      “Yeah, we do. Do we have to pay to enter the auction too?” Jo wonders, nervousness lacing her tone.      “Yes, the auction entry is 200 dollars for each. After the sale the amount will be settled, together with the commission,” the elder woman informs. “Entry fee is three bucks per horse, stable fee is fifty each, so that will be 877 dollars in total.”

     Jo takes a breath and offers Mildred the card. The normally confident cowgirl seems on edge all of a sudden as she watches the secretary swipe it. Several seconds tick by while they wait for the machine to accept payment, and apparently it’s getting on Jo’s nerves. Y/N’s friend fiddles with her father’s wallet, tension coming off her in waves. Then the machine bleeps, a long high tone cutting through the heavy silence.

     Mildred looks up at the blonde rancher, sympathetically. It’s in her eyes and Jo’s heart drops to her gut before she even speaks. “I’m sorry. It’s declined.”       “W - what? No, that - that can’t be,” Jo stammers. “Can you try again?”      The kind lady swipes the credit card a second time, even though they know it’s not going to make a difference. The same message appears on the small screen, followed by the monotone beep. The sound is interrupted by the door opening and closing, two other competitors now entering the show office, getting in line to pay as well. Jo curses under her breath.

     “Any other way you can pay, darling?” the secretary asks, kindly.      “Uh - I have…” She leafs through the banknotes with trembling fingers, counting the money, her face turning red. “I have 300 dollars. I’ll check if there’s more in the truck--”      “I got it.” Y/N steps closer to the counter, pulling her wallet from her purse.      “What? No, c’mon,” Jo objects.       But her friend isn’t taking no for an answer. “It’s not a problem. I’ll sort it out with your dad later,” she assures, handing over her own card. She returns her attention to Mildred again. “Could you add my fees as well?”      “I sure can. That will be 930 dollars,” the elder woman states, changing the number on the terminal before swiping the credit card. 

     This time it beeps three times, confirming payment without a hitch.      “Alright, all good to go. Good luck on your runs, ladies,” Mildred says, cheery, trying to clear the awkwardness with her warm smile.      “Thank you,” Y/N returns genuinely as Jo gives the woman behind the desk a nod.

     The girls exit the show office, Jo pulling her hat over her eyes a little deeper to mask her flustered face. The redness slowly starts to leave her cheeks again after a minute, as they walk down the boulevard in silence. Y/N isn’t sure if she should say something, and so decides to give her friend some space. Her mind is going over the incident, however. A maxed out credit card; that can’t be good. The writing on the wall is applied with a paintbrush, the black letter getting bolder the more she learns about the suffocating situation. Her mind hasn’t stopped reeling since her talk with Dean in the cafeteria earlier this morning. There has to be ways to tip the scale. 

     Jo eventually speaks up, voice clipped with embarrassment. “I’m sorry ‘bout that. My dad will pay you back.”       “I know,” Y/N responds, not doubting it for a second. “It’s no big deal, seriously. No reason to apologize.”      “Still... Thanks,” the blonde cowgirl utters, embarrassed nonetheless.      It’s now Y/N’s turn to wrap her arm around her friend’s shoulder, hoping the gesture will ease Jo a bit.      “That’s what friends are for, right?” she comforts her. “Come on. Let’s head back. What’s your starting time?”      Jo glances at her watch. “Eight thirty. Thirty minutes after the opening. So that gives me an hour and a half.”      “Better ready your horse then,” Y/N smiles. “You’ve got barrels to race.”

     “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome on this Friday night to the eighteenth annual Flagstaff Horse Fair!”

     With Y/N’s hand in his, Dean walks up the bleachers, as if he’s afraid to lose her in the crowd. Plenty of people have settled down in their seats already, only a few spots left now that the opening ceremony is about to begin. She’s glad he’s keeping a hold on her, though, because once again she feels slightly overwhelmed by the number of strangers who all seem to be very much aware who her boyfriend is. 

     Several times Dean was held up on their way over to the main arena, by acquaintances, former and current clients, old friends and forgotten faces. She could tell he was doing everything he could to ease her nerves, his hand on the small of her back, engaging her into the conversation by introducing her. Yet she felt relieved when the ring came into view, hoping to find a time to take a breather from keeping up appearances and pretending she’s comfortable amongst new company. 

     “Dean!”      Y/N almost flinches at the female voice calling out for the cowboy. For a brief second Y/N shuts her eyes and takes a breath; guess she needs to keep her mask on a bit longer. She turns to face two women, who greet the wrangler, the one with dark, boy cut hair the first to embrace him.      “It’s so good to see you again,” she says, warmly.      “Hey, Jody.” Dean returns the embrace, genuinely pleased to see her too, before he directs his attention to the happily smiling blonde. “Donna, it’s been a while. How are you doing these days?”      “Hiya, handsome. I’m doing just fine, thanks.” The woman with a strong Minnesota accent pulls him into a tight hug as well, pressing her dimpled cheek against his. She backs away, her delighted eyes bouncing from him to the girl behind the cowboy. “Are ya gonna introduce us to this lovely lady?”

     Dean adjusts his hat and reaches for Y/N, his hand slipping behind her back when he nods at the brunette. “That’s Jody Mills - she takes horses off our hands regularly and finds us buyers - and her business partner Donna Hanscum. Good friends of mine, good friends of the Ranch.”       He then gently pulls her a little closer, the pads of his fingers lingering on her hip.      “Jody, Donna, this is my girlfriend Y/N,” Dean responds, unable to hide his proud smile. 

     Both women share the exact same reaction, their jaws dropping to the floor. If Y/N wasn’t so nervous, she would have found it comical.      “Shut the front door!” Donna exclaims. “Are you tellin’ me that Dean Winchester is off the market?”      Dean nods, his grin not faltering. “I’m spoken for.”      Delighted, Jody laughs. “Well, I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”      “Took you long enough,” Donna jokes, teasingly pushing his shoulder, before she winks at the cowgirl next to him. “You must be one heck of a gal if you managed to tie this one down. C’mere!”

     Before Y/N can escape, the woman with the vibrant personality pulls her in and gives her a warm hug as well. She can’t help but to chuckle, because both Donna and Jody seem like sincerely kind people. The warm welcome eases her, helping her to feel more comfortable amongst these new friends.      “Why don’t you sit with us?” Jody suggests, after Donna lets go. “Because I wanna hear all about this miracle woman.”

     They take a seat and Y/N soon engages in conversation with Dean’s friends. Contently, he watches his girl, listening to her enthusiastic voice as she tells them about their meet cute. Dean chuckles at the memory himself; never in a million years could he have guessed he would be where he’s standing now, together with the then so timid and slightly prissy intern. She opened up like a wildflower in spring, blossoming into the carefree spirit that years of studying and discipline hid away. 

     Damn, he fell hard for her, didn’t he? She isn’t the only one who developed; because Jody wasn’t wrong. He too never expected to be able to commit, to be faithful to one woman, yet he can’t even imagine being with anyone else but her now. She taught him to look further than tomorrow. He has to admit, he has been thinking about the future more in the past week than he has in all the prior years combined.       His thoughts are interrupted by the commentator, who’s voice echoes through the speakers, mentioning the sponsors of the event.

     “We thank you for comin’ out here this weekend. Folks, right now I would like to ask Alex Jones to enter our arena floor with the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America.”

     Dean glances at Jody, who proudly watches her adopted daughter trot into the ring on a palomino. She’s dressed in a red shirt, blue and white fringe on her sleeves and chaps playfully dancing in the breeze. The end of the flagpole rests on her stirrup, the American colors fluttering in their wake. The crowd rises to their feet as the flag is carried in, respectfully doffing their hats. 

     “As we gather in the spirit of the Old West, let us be reminded of the part that the horses we cherish have played. They offered our forefathers safe travel, partnership, and the freedom to roam this great land. The same unbreakable bond between man and horse still remains today, as we ride for our country. We ask you to remain standing for the playing of the national anthem.”

     Y/N holds her hat by the brim and squares her shoulders, following Dean’s example when he places his right hand over his heart. A calm falls over the bleachers, every single soul watching the flag with the same steady reverence that only blue-collars truly can. The riders in the warm up area are standing side by side, facing the Stars and Stripes, and even the younger inexperienced horses seem to pay their respect.

     “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light      What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?      Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,      O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?”

     The hairs on her arms rise up as Y/N softly sings along. She knows every word, taught in school of course, but it’s more than that. She believes them. And since she was a little girl, she has dreamed about the Star-Spangled Banner. She imagined it would play while she was standing on the highest step of the podium at the major events: Congress, the Derby, and who knows, maybe one day at the World Equestrian Games. It’s a long shot, maybe, but a goal nonetheless, one she will continue to chase until the day comes that she fulfills that dream. 

     “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,      Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.      Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave      O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

     The cowgirl and her horse began circling as the end of the anthem neared, speed increasing. Alex is galloping along the boarding of the arena, the Stars and Stripes flaunting proudly, standing tall. After the last note, the crowd cheers and claps, rallying the rider on as she takes the flag out of the arena at high speed. 

     “Give it up for Alex Jones!” the commentator encourages. “Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, get comfortable, take a load off your feet, take a seat, and get ready. We’re gonna kick off the competition with Barrel Racing for three year old horses. Let’s ride!”

     “Jo is sixth, right?” Y/N checks as they sit down.      Dean nods, leaning his elbows on his knees, watching his cousin in the warm up pen. “Yeah, after the drag.”      “Smooth footing. Could work in her advantage,” Y/N notes, linking her arm with his. “I was wondering; why don’t you teach Jo?”      The wrangler snorts. “Because she would claw my eyes out.”      His girlfriend laughs now, leaning into him and sweetly resting her cheek against his shoulder.      “Hey, we’ve tried, but we just fight like cats and dogs. It ain’t a good fit,” he chuckles.

     The first horse and rider combination shoots from the holding box and the audience’s motivating cheers rise from the stands into the Arizona air. Being a good sport, Dean claps too.       “Ever raced barrel, sweetcheeks?” Donna wonders, leaning forward to make eye contact with Y/N.      “Once or twice when I was a kid,” she admits. “You?”      “Oh, you betcha!” the cheery blonde states. 

     The rules to the game are quite simple. Three barrels are set up in a cloverleaf in the arena and the horse and rider pair need to cleanly negotiate the pattern. The cowgirl who’s the fastest without knocking over any barrels wins. It’s a thrilling sport to watch, perfect for a horse’s speed and agility when the rider knows how to bring it out in them.

     The second rider kicks off, setting a better time that pushes her up the board. The third follows, knocking over the second barrel, landing the poor girl a five second time penalty.

     Y/N keeps an eye on Jo, who gets instructions from Bobby. The ranch owner’s daughter is riding a mare called Sundance, who she started up about eight months ago, being the first person to ever ride her. The young horse had her first practise run a couple of weeks ago, but today is her show debut. The atmosphere of a big competition like this can be quite daunting for an inexperienced horse, but Jo prepared her well.

     The fourth goes wide around the first barrel and swerves to the third, wasting valuable time. Number five has a clean run and betters the leading result; 17.13 seconds is the time to beat.      A tractor enters the arena and the crew removes the barrels, white spray paint indicating where they need to be put back once the sand around it is dragged. When the footing is smooth again, the barrels are placed back.

     “Next up is Joanna Beth Singer with Sundance. Now, this young lady knows how to ride, with multiple wins under her belt, so let’s see what she will do with this youngster today.”

     Y/N moves to the edge of her seat, her heartbeat picking up. She might not be the one competing, but sometimes being the person on the sidelines is more nerve-wracking than actually being the one in the saddle.      Bobby walks with his daughter to the entrance of the arena, the young mare next to him already bouncing with excitement. Rousing music only adds to the exhilarating atmosphere surrounding them, the spectators waiting for the thrilling ride that is about to start. The second Jo’s father lets go of the rein, Sundance bolts away, locking on the first barrel like she has been doing this all her life.

     “And she’s off! Look at that speed, people!”

     “C’mon, Jo!” Y/N encourages, joined by Dean, who has gotten on his feet in anticipation.      The crowd cheers when the fast horse turns sharply. Focused, Jo pushes her heels into the bay’s flanks, hands towards the mare’s ears, guiding the youngster through the pattern to the second barrel. They are making good time.      “Smoke them, Jo! You got this!” Dean shouts, voice lost to the crowd that seems to favor Jo and Sundance.

     The clock ticks; eight seconds, nine, ten. Sand clatters against the metal as the eager horse cuts the third obstacle, so tight that you could barely fit a piece of paper between her boot and the barrel. It starts to tip, and Y/N grabs Dean’s arm when the drum almost tumbles over, but Jo pushes it back with her reins in hand so that it stays upright and the audience erupts. 

     “Yeah! Bring it home!” Y/N squeals, excitedly.      At full gallop the two shoot back to the gate, Jo flat on the Sundance’s neck, the energetic horse accelerating until they pass the finish line. The clock stops at 16.35.

     “Folks, if that ain’t horsemanship, I don’t know what is. What a ride and what a horse! Jo Singer and Sundance are in the lead!”

     Dean grins proudly and whistles on his fingers, glancing down at his girlfriend, who is still applauding excitedly.       “Dean, is that mare for sale?” Jody checks, the trader clearly interested now that she has witnessed the talent.       He chuckles. “Depends on your offer.”      “Fair enough. I’ll go have a talk with Bobby then,” she returns, aware that for a horse like that, she needs to raise the stakes.      “We’ll walk with ya,” Dean states, glancing aside when Jody’s friend doesn’t follow. “Donna, you comin’?”      “I’ll meetcha guys later. I’m gonna watch some more runs with Alex.” She nods at Jody’s surrogate daughter, who just sat down in one of the first rows. 

     They say goodbye and the wrangler places his hand on Y/N’s lower back as they walk to the stairs and get down from the bleachers. She can tell he’s trying to play it cool, but she senses his relief. Jo delivered and just secured more than just a place on the podium with that solid ride. The buyers are going to be lining up for Sundance, which means they can keep the price high. It’s a win Gold Canyon Ranch so desperately needs. The cowgirl bumps her shoulder against his, drawing his attention. The smiles they exchange say enough, she knows what’s on his mind, and he knows she understands.      “I’m gonna see if I can catch Jo. It was really nice to meet you, Jody,” she announces, shaking Jody’s hand before turning to Dean. “See you in a bit?”      He nods and meets her in a sweet, short kiss, before she runs off to the stables. His gaze stays fixed on her, lovingly, until he loses track of her in the crowd. Only then does Dean notice Jody’s knowing smirk.      “What?”      “You got it bad,” she comments, an earnest laugh falling from her lips.      He tilts his head, nodding; there’s no denying it. He’s known Jody for a while, and even though they only see eachother every now and then, he considers her a dear friend. 

     “She’s amazing, really. It’s all still kinda new, though,” he admits, comfortable enough to let some of that softness show. “Oh, which reminds me... Bobby doesn’t know yet. So could you not mention it?”      The raised eyebrow and judgemental look she sends him says enough. Jody stares him down as if she’s about to use her mom-voice, causing Dean to slightly cower.      “She’s the intern and it’s kind of a touchy subject. I wanna time it well so that he doesn’t bite my head off,” the cowboy excuses.       The woman who is tough when she needs to be, turns soft now, rolling her eyes slightly.      “Fine, I won’t tell him. Don’t wait too long, though. It’s Bobby, he wasn’t born yesterday. He’s going to find out sooner than later,” she reminds him.      “I’ll tell him soon,” he promises.      “This is a big first for you, ain’t it?” The female ranch owner smiles at him warmly, apparently amused with the somewhat uneasy behavior of the cowboy.       “It is,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “But it’s good. Never thought I’d say it, but I could get used to this.”      “I’m glad you’ve met someone, Dean. You deserve a slice of that apple pie life.” 

     Dean smiles at his boots, knowing she means more with those words than would seem so at the surface. From a young age, even before Dean moved in with the Singer family, she has kept a watchful eye on him and his little brother whenever they were at the same shows and rodeos. Even though she’s only a few years older than him, she was always taking care of others, protecting those who needed it, and apparently she sensed the Winchester boys could use some support. To be honest, she wasn’t wrong. She has seen a few things, picked up on the tell signs. That knowledge adds to the weight of her kind message.

     “And if you ever are in the need of advice only a woman can offer,” she continues, “may it be suitable birthday gifts for the lady, or choosing an engagement ring, you know who to call.”

     Dean’s eyes widen, glancing aside at the fierce woman, walking beside him. He thought about what is to come, but he didn’t think that far ahead. Especially with her internship ending March next year, he’s slightly careful to presume she is going to want to stay with him. Yes, he will fight for her, but he can’t predict the future. Who knows what will happen when she’s due to leave.      “Whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” he laughs. “We only just started dating, y’know?”      “Yeah, I know, but she’s a keeper, I can tell,” Jody counters, sure of herself. “Give it some time, I’ll remind you of this conversation at your wedding.”

     The cowboy chuckles, but doesn’t contradict her. Jody Mills is a smart woman, one who usually is right. She can read people, and despite the small age difference between the two of them, his caring friend often mothers him with her wisdom. He can’t believe the thought crosses his mind, but it flashes through his conscience nonetheless. I hope she’s right.

     He doesn’t want to dwell on it too long, though, because the glimpse of what he secretly hopes one day will come true, takes him by surprise. Somewhat daunted, the wrangler redirects the focus.       “I’ve haven’t spoken to Gabe in a bit. How’s he doin’ these days?” 

     There’s a hint of guilt in his voice, even though he tries to suppress it. Gabriel had worked at Gold Canyon since 2005, until Bobby had to let him go last year. The head wrangler felt horrible, especially since he taught Gabe the ropes when it came down to training horses, and getting fired was the last thing his friend ever expected. Just like with Ash, he would have done anything to prevent the lay off, but their boss didn’t have much of a choice.       Thankfully, Gabe got a job as a horse trainer at Jody’s ranch. They kept in touch, but over time the calls came and went less frequent. Lately, it’s been quiet, though, and the woman next to him looks up at him stunned, a mixture of remorse and empathy in her eyes.

     “You haven’t heard?” she asks, appalled.      Dean shakes his head. “Heard what?”      “Oh, honey, I’m not sure how to tell you this,” she starts, averting her gaze to the ground, as if she’s trying to find solace in the dirt underneath her feet. “He had an accident earlier this week. He’s in hospital.”      The wrangler snaps his eyes at her in shock, a frown puckered between his brows. “W-what?”       “Yeah, he--” she pauses, shaking her head as if she still can’t believe it, “- he was working with a stallion, quite a special case. He turned aggressive and Gabe got trampled. He suffered multiple fractures in the vertebrae.”      The head wrangler stops dead in his tracks, causing his company to turn to face him. In shock he stares at Jody before his gaze drifts off, the unpleasant surprise still evident, though. Not sure what to say, he moves his hand to his face, tracing his stubble as he tries to digest the news.      “Fuck…” he stammers. “Is he - he’s gonna be ok, right?”

     “The doctors haven’t given us much yet. From what I’ve heard, the first tests showed very little reflexes, but there was still a lot of bruising and swelling. They hope to be able to get better imaging soon, but right now it’s not looking good. He most likely damaged his spinal cord; he can’t move his legs,” Jody explains, observing the disoriented man before her with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know he is a friend of yours. Honestly, I expected you would’ve gotten a call from his brothers.” 

     The cowboy still stares at nothing in particular, unable to grasp what he just learned. “We - uh, we didn’t talk as much as we used to. Kinda fell out of touch after he left Gold Canyon.”       Jody nods at that, the endearing smile that was there when they were talking about his newfound relationship now gone. The corners of her mouth are drawn down, the worry and guilt aging her in a matter of moments.      “It’s really tragic. Honestly, I feel awful. It happened on my land, the horse was my client’s.”      “Hey, this is not your fault, you hear?” Dean replies, gently gripping her upper arm. “These accidents can happen. We forget sometimes, but we still work with thousand pound animals who have minds of their own. It’s dangerous, and he knew that.”

     Jody swallows down the guilt and turns to slowly stroll to the warm up area, not walking away from it entirely, but giving herself something to do. Dean adjusts to her pace, shoulder to shoulder with the rancher.      “I found him in the pen. He was screaming in pain,” she tells. “Of course I happened to be the only other person on the premises. Donna was delivering a horse to a new owner.”

     Shaking his head, Dean glances aside. Damn it, he wishes she didn’t have to go through that. Waiting on an ambulance must have been horrible. Dean knows Jody treats her staff like family, their bond much like the dynamic between the Singer family and their personnel. Dean cares about those he works with deeply, he would never forgive himself if an accident like that would happen to a member of the crew.       “He’s gonna bounce back. Gabe’s a tough one,” he soothes, hoping to offer at least a little comfort.      “Yeah, I hope so.” She sighs as they reach Bobby, who is having a conversation with two older men on the sideline, without a doubt doing business. “I’m gonna talk to your uncle. See if we can come to an agreement on that horse.”      “Better get in there fast, before he sells her to someone else,” Dean advises, after which he turns around. “See you at the party tonight?”      “Depends on how much money I spend at the auction, but I’m certain Donna will drag me there anyway,” she says, doing her best to pull together a playful grin.

     Dean watches Jody step up, politely interrupting the negotiation, not even a bit intimidated by the possible buyers who have already named a price. She’s tough, something that he has always admired. The woman stands her ground in a man’s world of horse traders, runs her own ranch and built her own network. An extraordinary person, who always has his back. He carries nothing but respect for her.

     As he makes his way to the stables, tipping his head to the people he knows on his way over, his thoughts go to Gabriel. Jody is not the only one who feels guilty about his current condition. He just told her she shouldn’t blame herself, so why is it that he wishes he would never have let his good friend go? Maybe if Gabe had stayed, he wouldn’t have broken his back. Maybe if he had taught him better, he would’ve still been able to walk. 

     He shakes his head, trying to dismiss the notion. But like a mosquito the mental picture keeps patronising him, buzzing into his ear, draining him and stealing the wrangler’s peace. When he nears the stable tent B, he picks up pace, however. Because he knows that the one person who will calm his mind and make him feel better with just her smile is right around the corner.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part twenty here

[anotherdayinchuckletown]

They’re Funny That Way, Chapter 2

A/N: Hey, guys!  I’m pretty happy with the feedback I received on Chapter 1, and I’m so so thankful to everyone who took the time to read it (especially those of you who offered me kind and encouraging words, ily!)  So, the story continues!

I’ve found over the years that dialogue is my biggest strength, and scenes with little to no dialogue stretch and challenge me a bit.  So this chapter was a touch longer in development than the last. But I hope to get a consistent update schedule going pretty soon here because I have a very fleshed-out plan for this fic.

That said, I hope you enjoy!  Please like, reblog, and comment if you do!

(cross-posted to my AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/users/marie_deneuve)

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Arthur Fleck has seen an angel. There is no other way to describe it.

Things are especially tedious since he returned from his latest stint at the psychiatric ward. The same things, day in and day out, until each day begins to blur together like a watercolor painting. No clear lines separating one grueling day from the next, every shape hazy and undefined beyond the smoke of his cigarettes. He himself disappears into the smog and goes about his life unseen. Unknown. Not to mention, he's now on thin ice at work – Hoyt, his boss, made that much clear to him right off the bat. "You've missed a lot of days, Arthur," he had said the morning he came in to pick up his belongings. "Just try not to be a pain in the ass. No fucking up, you got that?" Arthur can't remember how he responded, if he responded. Only that the voice in his head (it's his mother's voice that time) told him to Smile. At least you got your job back. It's so much easier to smile when he's Carnival, and not just because the expression is painted on for him. He loves his job, honestly, he does. Every once in a while, when he's working gigs at birthday parties or at the children's hospital, when he's able to make the kids laugh, it seems worth it. For just a minute, it seems as though he's good for something after all. As though maybe when his mother used to tell him his purpose was to spread joy and laughter in the world, she was right. And maybe he could actually do it. Then he takes off the wig, the brightly-colored clothes, the greasepaint...and the illusion is broken. Sometimes it's easy to forget the husk of a man that lies underneath the makeup. Arthur Fleck. Who is Arthur Fleck? Hard to say. Carnival is easier. And so Carnival stays that evening as he walks home. Also because he's just so fucking exhausted. Not changing out of his clown costume at work means a little less dealing with his coworkers and a little more getting home to sequester himself from the rest of the world for the remainder of the evening. The woman on the elevator is not part of the plan. She holds the door open for him and retreats silently into a corner. The air between them is still as death as they ascend, her eyes burning holes in the back of his coat all the while. Arthur initially avoids looking back at her, afraid that if he does, she'll vanish into thin air. He's becoming too used to his lonely, damaged psyche playing such tricks on him. She never even pushes any of the buttons for a specific floor – if she's a hallucination, she's not even a convincing one. The trip is not smooth by any means – surprise, surprise – and the woman seems more than a little perturbed. "Does...that happen often?" Her voice, gentle and feathery, suddenly drifts over him, covering him like a weighted blanket. He turns to face her fully, intending to respond, but pauses when he feels his heart stop. She is undoubtedly the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on. She instantly evokes images of those actresses in the black and white films of his youth. The same powerful air of sophistication as Grace Kelly. The same allure as Rita Hayworth. Only she's in vivid color, and they're not separated by a screen, and she's so close. Even in the elevator's dingy lighting, her blonde curls glow like a halo. Her full lips are pulled into a concerned frown, and her icy blue eyes are trained quizzically on him. Right, that's because she asked him a question. And he's so far done nothing but stare at her like a depraved creep. Carnival, his work persona, doesn't generally speak - and thank fuck for that. Arthur doesn't think he could power out a single word if he wanted to, his mouth has gone so dry. In the end, all he manages is a shrug. Idiot. She must not think he's a total loser because she keeps talking to him anyway, even pays him a compliment – a compliment! When's the last time that happened? He's definitely glad he kept the clown costume on now; interacting with her this way is safer, gives him less of a chance to screw it up. Less of a chance for her to see how pathetic he really is underneath it all. All good things must come to an end, however, and they do eventually reach the eighth floor. And when they do, she surprises him yet again. "I'm new to the building, by the way – my name's Emma. It's a pleasure." Emma. Emma. Emma. She extends a perfectly-manicured hand, and for a moment, Arthur just stares. This is most likely when he finds out that this woman, this magnificent vision in his hallway, this Emma, is nothing more than a fantastic dream. And if she is, in fact, a dream, he's not so sure he's ready to wake up. Nevertheless, he gingerly returns the gesture. Their hands connect. Soft and tentative, but tangible. Warm. Light. So light that Arthur feels as though he's floating, hovering just above the tiled floor, and he could continue to float forever, as long as he just holds on. To his disappointment, she is the one to let go. Arthur crashes back down to the floor, a chill running through him at the sudden loss of contact, simple though it was. She bids him good night and takes off down the hall, the click of her heels in perfect sync with the thrumming of his heart against his ribcage. Emma. Emma. Emma. He gets the feeling he won't forget that name for as long as he lives. Arthur Fleck has seen an angel. And she is so, so beautiful. _____________________________________ "Hey, you look like shit." "Thanks, motherfucker." On her way to the kitchen, Emma totters past the open bathroom door, where Eddie is busy shaving his face. Apparently not too busy to comment on her fresh-out-of-bed appearance, though. She will admit, she's not surprised if she doesn't look her best at the moment. Almost a week of sleeping on a rapidly-deflating air mattress on Eddie's living room floor has not done her back any favors. The bags forming under her eyes make her look like she hasn't slept since the seventies, and her hair has become stringy and unkempt since the last time it was washed. To top it off, she still has none of her clothes or other belongings. So she's currently sporting an oversized Creedence Clearwater Revival t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, both borrowed from Eddie. They hang off of her smaller frame, giving her the appearance of a sickly child who will be hard-pressed to survive the coming winter. "You making breakfast?" her brother asks, poking his head into the foyer. A glob of shaving cream drips onto the tile below him, and Emma grimaces. She returns her focus to her previous mission of rifling through the freezer, pushing past an assortment of cheap vodka and TV dinners until she finds his deposit of frozen waffles. "Eggos!" she calls out. "Cool! Pop an extra one in the toaster for me, yeah?" Emma complies, setting an extra plate out for him as well. As the toaster whirs quietly atop the kitchen counter, she begins her morning ritual of planting herself on the sofa and burying her face in the job listings section of the local newspaper. The job hunt so far has yielded results that are...less than stellar. So many applications, so many interviews, and so far...nothing. "We'll call you if something else opens up" here and "we'll keep you on file" there. Even a "your educational background is good, but we're looking for a little more experience". It's starting to take a toll on her self-esteem. The only real offer she's gotten is from a dive bar across town called The Harlequin. She's familiar with the bartending world – it's how she put herself through college. And she likes to think she's damn good at it, too – hell, she had mastered the Bloody Mary with only a couple weeks' practice! Run-of-the-mill margaritas and martinis? Piece of cake. Not to mention, studying psychology at the same time has granted her an uncanny ability to manipulate a conversation, bend it to her will. Sniff out how to get the biggest possible tips from each kind of patron. Yes, she's a master, all right. But she's really hoping to move on to something with a more...prestigious title. "Any new prospects today?" Eddie emerges from the bathroom just as the toaster lets out a soft 'ding!' He quickly joins Emma on the sofa, a plate of waffles in either hand and bottle of syrup under his arm, completely bypassing the dining room table as per usual. She hasn't seen him eat a single meal at that table yet, instead opting to bring his food into the living room and spill his goddamn crumbs all over the furniture. "Nothing yet, besides The Harlequin thing," Emma grumbles, taking the fork he offers and muttering a quick "thank you" as he sets a plate down on the coffee table for her. "I'm tempted to accept it, just so I can end the madness." "Didn't Sophie recommend you at the bank?" Eddie goes to town with the syrup, drowning his breakfast until the golden-brown liquid threatens to spill off of his plate and onto the coffee table. "She tried. Nothing was open." Emma puts down the newspaper for the time being, feeling the beginnings of a migraine creeping along her scalp. She instead grabs the remote and flips on the TV across the living room, the background noise helping her to relax her mind. Eddie shovels in a forkful of his syrupy concoction. "Sorry we couldn't get you on at the record store. We had a spot last week, but Ron's back from rehab now..." he says with his mouth full. "That reminds me, you still thinking about medical school?" That gives her pause. Honestly, she hasn't thought about medical school in quite a while. More pressing matters to attend to. Besides, it's been years since she last studied. Who's to say that she could pick up where she left off now, even if she were to apply? In the end, after a moment's hesitation, she shrugs. "Maybe. I'm a little rusty, you know?" She takes a meager bite of her own breakfast, chewing carefully. "Aw, come on, that's a cop-out!" Eddie abruptly stands and rushes to the kitchen, leaving his plate behind. As he begins to rummage through the fridge, he continues. "You gotta at least try! You're smart and talented, you work your ass off – where the fuck? – oh, there it is..." He returns with a can of whipped cream and unleashes about half of it onto his plate, and the other half directly into his mouth. "Plus!" He grins. "You look like me, so you know you've got it goin' on." The fraternal twins did bear a striking resemblance to one another as children, but age has individualized them greatly. Where Emma remains on the shorter side, Eddie is now a solid six feet tall. Eddie has also experienced a little more horizontal growth; although Emma suspects his rampant drinking (more so than his atrocious diet) is the cause. "I'm not sure what looks have to do with anything..." Emma scans her brother's plate for the waffle. She can't see it - it's forever lost to the sugary onslaught. Maybe it is his diet after all. "Looks have to do with everything, Em. Not fair, but true." His eyebrows furrow, and he scrutinizes her face. "Speaking of which, you really do look terrible." "You mentioned." "No, like...have you been sleeping at all?" His eyes narrow with concern, meeting her own sunken ones. "I know that air mattress is a piece of shit - you can get yourself something nicer if you want." Emma sometimes forgets how observant Eddie can be when he focuses. She really hasn't been able to sleep a wink since she arrived in Gotham several days ago. He's right, the air mattress is an awkward and lumpy piece of shit, but that's not the real reason sleep evades her. The walls of the tiny apartment seem to cry in anguish at night. Sirens blare outside the window near constantly; they're sometimes accompanied by flashing red and blue lights, the colors piercing through the curtains and waltzing unsettlingly across the floor. People wander the streets until the wee hours, shouting at each other, their combined voices drifting toward the sky in an unpleasant cacophony. Emma can easily understand why folks here on the East Side are so exhausted. The only person who sleeps less than she does is the man who lives next door. She's never seen him, but she's definitely heard him. At least once every night, when she least expects it, he bursts into sudden uproarious laughter. Normally, Emma would march right over and ask the man what could possibly be so fucking funny at three in the morning (only a bit more tactfully, she's not an animal), but she never brings herself to do it. Truthfully, she's scared to. Something is not right about that laugh. It's discordant and jarring, as if clawing its way into the apartment like a demon prying frantically through the drywall. It lacks joy, and in fact, actually sounds pretty damn miserable. A part of her wonders if the man is all right. Regardless, a better mattress couldn't hurt. "Yeah, I might do that," she says. "I probably should prioritize getting some clothes of my own first." Satisfied, Eddie returns to demolishing his waffle creation. "Get whatever you want, as long as you can make the space for it. Want you to be comfortable while you're here, however long that is." He chuckles. "With your money, I'm sure you can spoil yourself much better than I can." Emma snorts, gesturing wildly at herself and at her surroundings. "Money? What money?" "You kidding?" He looks genuinely surprised for a moment. "Your ex is a millionaire! You mean to tell me you haven't hopped on that alimony pony?" "Oh, don't be ridiculous, I don't give a shit about Daniel's money." Emma rolls her eyes. "Not to mention, we only separated a week ago. We have to set a court date, fill out the paperwork-" "Yeah, yeah," Eddie drawls, waving her off. "When that check comes, you remember who took your ass in, no questions asked. Got it?" It's nice to know his sense of humor hasn't changed. Emma nods once. "You got it." They eat in peaceful silence for a while, the distant voice of the news anchor on TV the only sound in the room. Something that doesn't happen often for the siblings. After a few minutes, Eddie speaks up again. "Hey, Em?" "Yeah?" "...Glad you're back. Missed you." "Hm." A faint smile plays along her lips. "Missed you too." 

[travelonlinetipsofficial]

Things to Do in Fall: Attractions in Tampa

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Things to Do in Fall: Attractions in Tampa

As the hot and humid Tampa summer makes way for the cooler and dryer weather of fall, the locals head outdoors. Lower temps and smaller crowds make it more comfortable to visit many outdoor attractions, but it’s still warm enough for northern visitors to enjoy an extended summer. In addition, there are plenty of traditional fall activities to enjoy from corn mazes to horror parks. To help you find the best activities of the fall season, 10 Best has put together a list of the top 10 options to choose from.

Without the crowds and daily downpours, it is more fun to visit Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. Enjoy a warm, sunny fall day riding the rides and exploring the animal park. If you visit on select dates between late September and early November, you can also pay an extra fee to experience their popular Halloween attraction, Howl-O-Scream.

There is plenty to do with the wee ones as well. One great option is the Fox Squirrel Corn Maze, recently voted 6th best corn maze in the country by a USA Today 10 Best reader’s poll. The kids will love the hayrides, sweet treats, and exploring the best corn maze around. With stalks reaching 10 feet high, the adults might have to be careful not to get lost!

Photo courtesy of Skye Rodgers

To see the natural beauty of Florida without having to drive very far out of town, Hillsborough River State Park is your best bet. Located upriver from downtown Tampa, in northeastern Hillsborough County, this is one of Florida’s oldest and most popular state parks. The list of things to do here is expansive, starting with both full-facility and primitive camping. Canoes and kayaks can be rented to go down the river. In contrast to most segments of the Hillsborough River which are very slow-moving, the river here has a rare section of fast-moving water with Class II rapids. There are also numerous picnic areas, a public pool, and numerous hiking trails where, if you’re lucky, you will be able to spot some native Florida wildlife.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Fall’s arrival means its time to get outside and enjoy cooler temps and dry trails at Hillsborough River State Park, just minutes from downtown.

Skye’s expert tip: For fun, take a spin on a rented tandem bike. There is a rental/gift/coffee shop deep in the park beside the large pool.

Read more about Hillsborough River State Park →

Coast Bike Share provides a convenient and environmentally-friendly transit option in Tampa’s most popular neighborhoods. With bike hubs located in downtown, Hyde Park, and Ybor City, visitors can grab a bike and explore many of the city’s most popular attractions. To get started, simply visit the website and sign up for a membership. Short-term visitors can get a pay-as-you-go hourly membership, while longer-term visitors may wish to select a monthly membership which includes one free hour of riding per day. While you won’t win any races, the cruiser style bikes are sturdy, safe, and vandalism resistant.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Enjoy exploring Tampa by renting a bike from Coast Bike Share that offers convenient access via multiple hubs and reasonable rates.

Skye’s expert tip: Download their app on your smartphone for a map of all the bike hubs and how many bikes are currently located at each hub.

Read more about Coast Bike Share →

Photo courtesy of Skye Rodgers

If you took a poll of golfers in Tampa, chances are they will name TPC of Tampa Bay as the toughest public access golf course in the region. This award-winning course is part of the PGA Tour’s Tournament Players Club network and was designed by Bobby Weed with PGA professional, Chi Chi Rodriguez. The 6,800 yards from the TPC tees doesn’t quite tell the tale of a course that weaves in and out of wetlands, woodlands, and lakes. Although a relatively flat course, many of the greens have considerable drop-offs so a missed shot will have you chipping back on. Bring your “A” game if you want to tee it up like the pros.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Everyone hits the links as the temperatures cool and the best public course in town is the TPC of Tampa Bay.

Skye’s expert tip: This course can always be counted on to be in great shape throughout the year.

Read more about TPC of Tampa Bay →

Tampa’s Pirate Water Taxi travels the city’s downtown waterways and offers visitors and residents an easy and convenient way to visit downtown parks, museums, restaurants, and other attractions. The large, comfortable vessels offer seating for up to 46 and have restroom facilities. There is also a limited beverage menu available on board including beer and wine. There are currently 17 stops and guests are able to hop on and hop off all day for one low price. Time to navigate between the farthest stops beginning at Rick’s on the River and ending at the Columbia Cafe on Garrison Channel is approximately 45 minutes to an hour. Check their website for maps of the stops and a handy guide to the nearby attractions. Tickets can be bought at any stop, just look for their distinctive yellow and black sign on the docks along the route.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Enjoy Tampa’s beautiful fall weather during the day, or enjoy a haunted river tour weekend nights in October with tales of local ghosts and hauntings.

Skye’s expert tip: Be sure to take a cruise after dark to enjoy the beautiful, everchanging light displays all along the river.

Read more about Pirate Water Taxi →

Photo courtesy of Jana Jones

The Official Ybor City Ghost Tour offers visitors an opportunity to explore the haunted history of Tampa’s famous historic district. By day, Ybor City is a charming neighborhood to visit, by night, as revelers play unawares in local bars and clubs, the ghosts come out to replay their tragic histories in buildings throughout the neighborhood. By joining a Ybor City Ghost Tour you are given the opportunity to explore these chilling spaces and see for yourself if there are spirits about. Accompanied by a knowledgeable local guide, this entertaining two-hour walking tour takes you past Ybor City’s haunted spaces and into the buildings most notorious for their nocturnal activities.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Celebrate the fall season with a Ybor City Ghost Tour – Tampa’s historic district is full of spooky spaces and tragic tales.

Skye’s expert tip: Skeptics beware – you may be forced to change your mind!

Read more about The Official Ybor City Ghost Tour →

Photo courtesy of Skye Rodgers

Clearwater Beach is a very popular and busy beach with a long list of “Best Beach” honors. In addition to meticulously groomed beaches and tons of beach amenities, Clearwater Beach offers many additional attractions. Fishing, dolphin-watching and leisure charters are available close-by. You can also visit the famous dolphin Winter who lives at the nearby Clearwater Aquarium. Some of the best seafood restaurants in the Tampa Bay area are found here including perennial favorite, Frenchy’s. There are also a wide variety of clubs and nightlife including two-story dance club, The Wave, at Shepherd’s Beach Resort. There are always events going on and every evening people gather at The Pier to take part in the sunset celebration that includes entertainment and a craft market.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: The weather is fine for laying-out in Tampa Bay until late October, so get yourself to Clearwater Beach to catch some rays.

Skye’s expert tip: Parking onsite is very limited – it’s a good idea to get there early. Check their website for a list of nearby options.

Read more about Clearwater Beach →

Photo courtesy of Fox Squirrel Corn Maze

Even in Florida, there are opportunities to get out and enjoy traditional fall activities. One of Tampa’s favorites is the Fox Squirrel Corn Maze located just out of town in nearby Plant City. Recently named 6th best corn maze in the country by a USA Today 10 Best Reader’s Poll, this fun event offers families a wide range of activities to celebrate the season. In addition to the hugely popular corn maze and pumpkin patch, the event offers a hayride, horse & pony rides, pumpkin painting, air brush tattoos, sand art, butterfly experiences, and arts and crafts. Food vendors are also on site providing a wide variety of snacks, treats, including cupcakes, kettle corn, boiled peanuts and shaved ice.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: The Fox Squirrel Corn Maze offers visitors the opportunity to escape from the city and celebrate the season with traditional fall activities.

Skye’s expert tip: Make sure to bring cash because while credit cards can be used for entry, many vendors accept only cash and there is no on-site ATM.

Read more about Fox Squirrel Corn Maze →

Photo courtesy of Skye Rodgers

Scream-A-Geddon is a nationally recognized haunted house attraction in a remote area just north of Tampa. But this isn’t your garden variety spooky house, this is full-fledged theme park of horror. With seven elaborate scenarios to experience, there will definitely be something here to scare the pants off you and your friends, including interactive attractions…if you dare. Fight back with some zombie paintball if you want to get in on the action yourself, however, there is an extra charge for this attraction. In between scares, take a load off on the Monster Midway and enjoy a snack and a beer while you catch your breath. Stop by the concession and pick up some marshmallows to roast over one of the several fire pits. This attraction is open select weekends in September, and every day from October 1 through Halloween. Regular admission prices vary between $24.95 and $47.95 depending on the day you go – buy through their website to save $5 off each ticket.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: One of the country’s top-rated scares, Scream-A-Geddon is located just outside of Tampa and is guaranteed to have you running home to mummy.

Skye’s expert tip: Wear shoes you don’t mind getting dirty and take along some bug spray. This is an outdoor attraction in a rural area.

Read more about Scream-A-Geddon Horror Park →

Beloved by locals and visitors alike, ZooTampa at Lowry Park has been voted the #1 Family Friendly Zoo in the country by Parents Magazine and is a five-time winner of the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence. The 56-acre nonprofit zoo is home to 1,300 animals and emphasizes regionally endangered species and those in similar climates. All of your favorites are here, including African species like giraffes, rhinos, and hippos, Asian animals like lions and tigers, as well as animals native to Florida, such as various species of alligator and crocodile. Once they’ve made their way around to all of the animals, the kids can play in the Australian-themed children’s area that includes rides and other games. Going in the morning is a good idea, especially in the summer. Not only do you avoid the heat, but the animals also tend to be more lively.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Fall brings cooler temps for visitors to ZooTampa, and kids will love being scared by family-friendly Creatures of the Night, weekend evenings in October.

Skye’s expert tip: Reservations are no longer required to visit Zoo Tampa during the day, however the Creatures of the Night attraction does require advance tickets and reservations.

Read more about ZooTampa at Lowry Park →

Photo courtesy of Skye Rodgers

Wild animals and wilder rides await visitors to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. The 335-acre Africa-inspired theme park’s six infamous roller coasters, 2,000-plus animals and entertaining live shows provide truly unforgettable thrills. There is something for kids of all age at this world-class park. Adventure lovers can brave SheiKra, a floorless dive coaster with a 200-foot, 90-degree plunge while animal enthusiasts might enjoy hand-feeding kangaroos at Walkabout Way or enjoying majestic views of free-roaming giraffes, zebras and white rhinos on the Serengeti Railway. Be prepared to walk in order to explore all areas of the park. There are several restaurants and numerous vendors throughout the park to keep you fueled on your journey.

Recommended for Things to Do in Fall because: Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in fall means cooler temps, Bier Fest, a beer-inspired food festival, and terror-filled nights at Howl-O-Scream on select dates through Halloween.

Skye’s expert tip: Admission prices vary and there are a variety of packages to choose from. To get the best deals, make sure to buy your tickets in advance and online.

Read more about Busch Gardens Tampa Bay →

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[wichitahandyman]

Best Vinyl Flooring Repair Contractor Wichita KS | Handyman Services Of Wichita

More information is at: https://handymanserviceswichitakansas.com/vinyl-flooring-repair-near-me/

Looking for Vinyl Flooring Repair Service near Wichita KS? Handyman Services Of Wichita  is the premier Vinyl Flooring Repair Service in the  Wichita KS.Best Vinyl Flooring Repair Service in Wichita KS. Cost? Free estimates! Call now or Send a quick message for an estimate. REQUEST A FREE QUOTE NOW

VINYL FLOORING REPAIR SERVICE IN  WICHITA KS The Vinyl Flooring Repair will At Handyman Services Of Wichita, our experienced flooring experts can provide the best Vinyl  Flooring Repair in Wichita KS at a very reasonable price.We take pride in offering the best Vinyl Flooring Repair.Our Handyman Services Of Wichita experts take pride in providing the best service in the Wichita KS area. At The Handyman Services Of Wichita we can arrange your Vinyl repair requirements. With 3 generations of experience in the industry, fully trained staff, and specialised techniques, our Repair Technicians are able to offer the highest levels of service and workmanship. Is your vinyl: Torn or damaged? Bubbled or rippled? Splitting at the seams? In need of repair due to alterations or renovations? The Handyman Services Of Wichita can come to you for: Residential vinyl flooring repairs (includes vinyl tiles and planks) Commercial vinyl repairs (includes rubber tiles) Concrete subfloor levelling and ramping Substrate levelling and repairs at timber/concrete transitions How to Make Minor Repairs to Vinyl Flooring Service There is nothing more annoying than a split, tear, hole or bulge in vinyl flooring as it seems unrepairable, and the first thought would probably be for most people that the whole thing needs replacing. Not so, with a little care, most types of damage can be repaired  in Handyman Services Of Wichita and here is how. Split in Vinyl Flooring 1. First, clean the area thoroughly. Dirt will have caught in the split itself, making it show up darker than the rest of the floor, so the best way to do this is to scrub it with a little hot water and washing-up liquid. 2. Allow it to dry thoroughly and then examine the damage. 3. If the split is a clean one, then the two halves can be joined back together; to do this you may have to soften the vinyl, and you do this with an ordinary household iron. 4. Heat it to its maximum temperature, cover the area of the split with a tea-towel, and then press the iron onto the tea-towel for about 10 seconds. Be very careful not to touch the floor with the iron directly, as the vinyl may melt. 5. When you lift up the iron, quickly stretch the vinyl until it meets over the split and make sure it cools like that. 6. Once cool, use a flat-bladed knife to lift one side if the split, squirt a little superglue into the aperture, and quickly glue the vinyl down and together wiping any excess glue away carefully. 7. Within 10 minutes this should be good enough to walk on, but I wouldn’t wash it for 24 hours. If there is vinyl missing from the split, then a small shaving from a hidden area can be used as a patch and glued into place. The skill here is matching the sliver and flattening it completely into the gap, but it is possible with patience. Vinyl Floor Tear Generally larger than a cut but should be treated in much the same way as a split.

You can peel back the vinyl in the tear, clean both surfaces and dry thoroughly. Use the iron trick to flatten the vinyl out, make sure the edges meet and stick it down and together as before. Fixing a Hole in Your Vinyl This works best with vinyl that is made to look like tiles, but it possible with other designs. It requires spare vinyl being available, either the off-cuts or somewhere under a kitchen unit for example, where it will not show if you take a square. 1. First clean the area of the damage, as before. 2. Then carefully cut out the square where the damage is (or if the pattern is not square, designate part of the pattern to be removed and replaced). 3. Cut the same sized and coloured square from the spare vinyl, try to be as exact as possible but vinyl is quite a forgiving material and will flex if the gap and patch are a milimetre or so out. 4. Glue the patch into the hole being very careful that the edges are well glued down and not proud of the hole. Vinyl Floor Bumps and Bulges This is the easiest problem to fix—no matter how bad it looks, be it from furniture or kitchen appliances. 1. Carefully using a hot iron over a tea-towel on the bulge will restore the vinyl to almost as new. 2. Heat the iron to its hottest setting, lay your tea-towel over the damage and firmly and slowly iron it out. 3. Make sure to put a weight on the bulge as it cools to make sure it stays flat. Call us for : • How To Repair Vinyl Flooring Scratches • How To Fix Vinyl Flooring Seams • How To Fix Dents In Vinyl Flooring • How To Repair Vinyl Flooring That Is Peeling Up • Vinyl Floor Repair • Vinyl Floor Scuff Repair • Vinyl Floor Repair near Wichita KS • Vinyl Floor Adhesive BEST VINYL FLOORING REPAIR SERVICE IN WICHITA KS HANDYMAN SERVICES OF WICHITA REQUEST MORE INFORMATION. CONTACT US!

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[welldresseddadblog]

Welcome to the 12th instalment of the “Garmsman Dozen” question and answer session. The response so far has been tremendous. Did you miss earlier ones? There are links at the end of the page.

This week we welcome to the Garmsman Dozen Iain Trickett from Great Britain!

Who are you, where do you live and what interests you?

My name is Iain Trickett, 31, and I am the head honcho at TRiCKETT England… Well, I am the only honcho actually. I live in Accrington, Lancashire where the pies are plentiful and the skies are grey. When I’m not making clothes or thinking about clothing, I am found looking at Californian Tattooists, researching British subcultures, listening to hip-hop and walking my dogs.

Thinking back to your childhood, what were your most memorable or favourite clothes?

From a very, very young age, I was obsessed with sportswear and in particular training shoes. My mother was really into trainers and bought me my very first pair of Nike Air Jordans at the age of 4. As my interests developed I become interested in sporting apparel and the performance, however, the two items that set me off on a voyage into fashion or clothing were the Newcastle 1995-97 home shirt by Adidas and the LA Gear Gretzky One street hockey trainers.

First, the Newcastle shirt was just beautiful. The team that wore it was one of the great ‘could’ve been’ teams and the period that the shirt was introduced was a great period for sportswear design. The shirt featured a granddad collar, alternate mesh and solid polyester black and white stripes, piping on the three stripes and the infamous Newcastle Brown Ale logo. This item proved that football shirts were just for the pitch, but also fashion items that would be worn after the turnstiles closed.

The Gretzky shoes were something that I imagine went into a metaphorical sportswear landfill. Manufactured by the now defunct LA Gear, these shoes were unlike anything I had ever seen before. I used to visit Florida quite regularly with my parents as my mum had a great Aunt that lived in Clearwater. Most days were spent sat outside, basking in the sun. For a child under 10, this isn’t the most fun you could have, so my dad bought me copies of Sports Illustrated and other American sports magazines to keep me occupied. It was world unlike any I had ever seen and one person who stood out was a Canadian fellow wearing a pair of black and white boots with a #99 on the side. I later learned that this was the great Wayne Gretzky, who had just made his unpopular switch to the LA Kings. The boots themselves were pretty unremarkable, mesh and leather mixed together with some traditional hockey skate laces and the great one’s signature and number on the side. The shoes themselves were by no means a piece to keep in the memory of the sporting collector, but for me, it represented a gateway to a world I have never seen before.

How would you describe your style today, and what are your influences?

When I was younger, I used to listen to DJ Shadow, I always admired how he could take bits and pieces from all over the place and put it all together to create one coherent piece. I am not for a minute saying that what I do compares to the great Shadow, but I would say that I like to be influenced by all kinds of things. I am obsessed with Italy and Italian elegance, for me it isn’t necessarily having a suit made entirely hand in a tiny Sartoria down a backstreet in Napoli, or that weird sprezzatura thing that was cool a few years ago, it is more about being comfortable in your skin and having elegance with it.

I think I will always be obsessed with footwear and I believe dressing from the feet up, you can never go too far wrong. So if I had to describe my style it’s footwear-obsessed, sports-fan, who likes his pasta al dente and his top button done up… that probably makes no sense.

Most garmsmen will have a few “grail items” in their collection. Not to out you, but if your house is burning, which garments do you grab?

I think if my house was burning down, I would think about my new kitchen that is just about to be put in and whether the plinth heater would’ve been worth it in the winter. After a pause, I would make sure that I have my original deadstock pair of Nike Air Jordan Is. They are in a size 10, the original banned colourway and are just waiting to be worn. My plan was to wear them at my wedding, but not being married, they are just waiting for that perfect moment… Maybe my debut in the Accrington Observer.

Are you budget-conscious or spendthrift? Are you a single-shot shopper, or go large and buy bulk? Where are you on slow-fashion and buying less?

I think for many people, getting dressed in a morning is pretty stressful. We are at a point in society where we buy more, have more options and dress much more casually than our parents and certainly, our grandparents do/did. I would like to think that I am the kind of person that buys what I like and for the most part, that tends to be from smaller brands. I do like the idea of buying less and just buying a couple of very expensive suits, but truthfully, I am just not sure that works in the 21st Century. I’d love to be able to turn up to ASDA in Accrington wearing my Rubinacci suit, selecting which bananas best represent who I am, but chances are, I would probably get asked if I worked there. I do think we should make an effort to buy from smaller brands because owning one, I can’t stress to you how many different people are impacted by your £30 you spend with them, rather than oiling a huge conglomerate that doesn’t really care.

Having a large collection of clothes can lead to changing outfit on a daily basis, but if you were going to wear a single outfit the next two weeks, what would it be?

I genuinely believe that you can’t go too far wrong with a varsity jacket (either loads of patches or none, there is no middle ground), a really nice white t-shirt (no curry stains), very, very dark selvedge denim (listen, I am not a denim geek, it is just nicer to wear and everyone likes to see a flick of selvage on their turn-ups) and just a pair of very white leather trainers. In this outfit, you are a bit casual, but at the same time, who wants to be wearing a navy blue suit everywhere they go?

What are your best tips for buying?

If there is one thing that I have learned over the years of buying and designing clothes it’s buying stuff that fits. I know that seems like an obvious thing to say, but it really does help. I went through a phase of wanting to dress like a skinhead, the look is so incredibly iconic and its a really clean aesthetic. However, I know, now, that my shape doesn’t suit that style, I am very, very broad and not well endowed in the shin department so I just end up looking like a square in more ways than one. So my advice is, get something you feel comfortable in and then take it to a tailor, it’s their job to make you look good.

Big lads, don’t buy baggy stuff, you just end up looking worse and for goodness sake you don’t need shoulder pads in your jackets, go get them taken out. Napoli is great for many things, but in particular for making the natural shoulder in suit jackets cool. Forza Napoli Sempre.

Anyone that buys clothes will have made mistakes, what is your most memorable bad buy?

I have been lucky enough to work with Patrick Grant of E. Tautz and Community Clothing fame. One of the more famous items of clothing that he has in the lineup is the field trousers. A wide legged pair of kecks (that’s Lancastrian for pants) that are based on trousers that Naval officers would in the ‘40s and ‘50s. They look very elegant when worn with converse and swish from side to side in almost a hypnotic way. They look great… That is until you are wearing them in TESCO in Accrington only for an old man to say ‘Thas looks like a pillock in them ‘owd lad.’ I nodded in agreement, sadly I am not built like a model and the 42 rolls at the hems did nothing for the shape.

Do you have any style icons, historic or current?

I like to pinch bits from lots of peoples style, so I am sorry if this turns into a massive long list.

Sid Mashburn – his shop and Southern (American) charm are something that you always feel like he is wearing. One of the only two men I know that can wear white jeans convincingly. He also likes Italian tailoring and American football, so he is OK with me.

Alessandro Squarzi – A chap who can seemingly throw on any old thing and look absolutely amazing, I much preferred him with a shaved head, but that is probably because I am follically challenged. He is also the second person I admire who can wear white jeans convincingly.

Lino Ieluzzi – Milan just wouldn’t be the same without this bloke, great hair, great suits and great labradors. I literally don’t know what else you could want from life.

LeBron James – LeBron has literally made wearing his trousers too short in the leg his trademark. Obviously being a basketball player there isn’t much ready-to-wear that would fit him in the leg, but he always manages to produce a certain air of elegance about him.

My Uncle Peter – Only ever wore a rugby shirt and chinos. Every. Single. Day. I admire anymore who has an almost cartoon character-like wardrobe and sticks to it.

My mum and dad – Both have very different views on clothes and how to wear them, but both are passionate about what the put on and that is really all that matters.

Does your interest in clothes influence other aspects of your life?

Clothing does mean a great deal to me and I think most subcultures like to dress up. Be it new Romantics, skinheads, Teddy Boys whatever, I don’t think you can be into clothes without liking the things around it. However, my obsession with all things American and Italian pretty much means that I spend any free time I get there. Whether it is seeking exceptionally old shops in Italy or finding a brand new trainer shop in LA, travelling for clothing and discovery of the cities and towns is, for me, the best part. The internet has so many great uses, but it has slightly killed this adventures. However, there are still a few hidden gems that are on the list, that I am not telling you about!

How do you see your style evolving going forwards?

I think style is the appreciation of beautiful things. I always used to get caught up with the notion that style had to be something of the moment or it had to be something that was a set of rules set by other ‘stylish’ people. I think style is the word we use just for the stuff we like. Sometimes the stuff we like makes us cool and other times it can make us very uncool. However, I think as long as we are appreciating beauty whether that is food, art, clothing, whatever that can only improve our style. I hope my style evolves and my interests develop, I have an insatiable appetite for learning and I can’t see that changing.

Do you have a good style or garment based story?

When I was much younger, I absolutely loved Bape (a Bathing Ape), my friend and I were obsessed with this picture of the Notorious B.I.G wearing a camouflage jacket with ape’s head floating around in it. On the front placket it had A BATHING APE in bold lettering, so we set about finding out where we could get it. To cut a very long story short, we found a tiny shop in London where Bape was sold. We pooled all our money together for the tickets, bunked off school, bought the jacket, came home, feeling like we really had achieved something only for my dad to be waiting on the platform when we returned. I still don’t know to this day how he found out and whats even worse is that I never really wore the jacket much that me and my pal bought together. He was Blackburn Rovers fan. Says it all really.

Thank you for your Garmsman Dozen Iain!

Iain’s website is at trickett-england.co.uk and his Instagram is @trickettengland

Did you miss the first Garmsman Dozens?

Jon from Great Britain

Shaun from Scotland

Klaus from Germany

Roland from Italy

Daniel from Sweden

Enoch from the USA

Even from Norway

Kris from Belgium

Michael from Great Britain

Liam from Great Britain

Lee from Great Britain

PS: If you have suggestions for participants, let me know. Or have your mother suggest you, if you’re a bit keen to suggest yourself. My email is WellDressedDad (@) gmail.com

The Garmsman Dozen #12: Iain from Great Britain (Trickett_England) #trickett #garmsmandozen #mensfashion #madeinengland #accrington #lancashire #mensstyle #menswear #sportswear #vintage #retro Welcome to the 12th instalment of the "Garmsman Dozen" question and answer session. The response so far has been tremendous.

[justpeachy--keen]

Peach Blossom Clearwater -- Character Sheet

i was supposed to do great things / i knew the rules though / but i wasn’t raised to shoot for fame / i had the safety on / i cut my ties, i sold my rings / i wanted none of this / if you start from scratch, you have to sing / just for the fun of it

Archetype — The Creator Birthday — March 25, 2001 Zodiac Sign — Aries MBTI — ENTJ Enneagram — Type 7: The Enthusiast Temperament — Sanguine Hogwarts House — Ravenclaw Moral Alignment — Chaotic Good Primary Vice — Gluttony Primary Virtue — Diligence Element — Water

Overview:

Mother — Foster Mother: Angelica Martin; Birth Mother: Peony Cabrera-Rodriguez Father — Foster Father: Thomas Martin; Birth Father: Jesus Rodriguez Mother’s Occupation — homemaker/heiress Father’s Occupation — owned surf shop Family Finances — wealthy Birth Order — she was smack dab in the middle of her foster siblings Brothers —  Mark (17), Devon (16--birthday in December) Sisters — Rachel (13), Veronica (10) Other Close Family — None. Best Friend — Marta Tinney Other Friends — Patrick, Melanie, James, Malik Enemies — Georgia Pets — None. 5 foster children were enough. Home Life During Childhood — For an orphan, Peach was pretty lucky. She was never abused. Her first foster family kept her until she was eleven, even with her powers. The other kids teased her and she was a bit quiet and shy, but it wasn’t so bad. When she moved in with the Martins, she blossomed. They were a loving family and she thought that they might actually adopt her... Town or City Name(s) — Sydney, Australia! Born and raised--well, as far as she knows. (She was actually born in Rio de Janeiro and she likes to think she was born in Avalor.) What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — She shared with foster siblings. There weren’t a lot of things that were just hers, and she didn’t really get to decorate in her first home. In her second home, everything was pink, pink, pink! Any Sports or Clubs — Cheerleading, dance team, football, softball, she’s actually surprisingly sporty. She also loves to surf. Favorite Toy or Game — Clue was her favorite board game. She was wicked good at it. She also likes playing piano, her foster brother Mark taught her. Schooling — Public schooling, nothing special. Favorite Subject — Literature, definitely. Popular or Loner — Popular after she was in middle school, average amount of friends before that. Important Experiences or Events — being abandoned, changing foster homes, when she spied on her neighbor and found out they were doing very bad things!!, when her foster parents just gave her up without a second thought. Nationality — Australian Culture — ...Australian? (Barbies and the outback!!) Religion and beliefs — Kind of believes in “fate” and “destiny” more than anything else.

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim —  Camila Mendes Complexion — Tan skin, very smooth and pretty. Hair Colour — Black Eye Colour — Brown Height — 5’2 Build — Sporty, she’s got thick thighs and broad shoulders and strong arms because she does all sorts of dance and sports. Tattoos — None! Piercings — Ear piercings Common Hairstyle — Down, kind of wavy. But she’ll put it in a ponytail or pig tails or a little braid. Clothing Style — Very modern but vintage inspired so lots of knee socks and plaid skirts. That kind of thing. She wears headbands and pearls. Frilly blouses. But, she’ll also just rock t-shirts and high waisted shorts. It really just depends on the day, but she definitely keeps abreast of fashion trends (adding her own little twist to them.) Mannerisms — Quirks her mouth a lot when she’s thinking. Talks with her hands a lot, specifically claps them together or shoos people in her excitement. Loves to give high fives. Usual Expression —

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — Average. She gets colds a few times a year, but overall pretty healthy. Physical Ailments — None, she’s quite fit. Neurological Conditions — Uhh, none, really. She’s pretty fuckin’ sane, that’s weird. Allergies —  None! Grooming Habits — Takes very good care of her skin and hair. Shaves every day almost. Never leaves the house without make-up on. Sleeping Habits — She lowkey has a lot of trouble falling asleep, so she has a whole routine. And she says nighttime is when she does her best writing. Eating Habits — Eats pretty well, for the most part. But she also love, love, loves sweets. Eats a lot of candy and chocolate, for sure. Loves to bake. Exercise Habits —  Goes running, does pilates and yoga. Loves to play sports. Will try to get on the cheerleading team. Emotional Stability — Ummm. Honestly? Pretty good. She’s got some lowkey PTSD from the stuff she saw. And she’s got abandonment issues. Oh, also, she’s kind of a compulsive liar. Don’t believe anything she says really. Body Temperature — Average. Sociability — Very social. She doesn’t have the greatest social instincts though. She’s very good at reading people, but not at reading a situation, if that makes sense? Like she doesn’t always say the right thing, but she’s usually right about what she does say. Addictions — None. Uhh unless you count lying? Drug Use — Hasn’t done drugs!! (Yet) Alcohol Use — Got drunk once with her foster brothers. Devon tried to kiss her. It was really awkward.

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — Lying. Creating a version of herself she thinks that people will like in order to gain status. Picking at her cuticles. Blurting out things that probably shouldn’t be said in mixed company. Good Habits — She’s really a great friend, very supportive. She’s super smart and analytical. Best Characteristic — Great friend, really. Worst Characteristic — Compulsive lying. Worst Memory — Her foster parents turning her away. Best Memory — “You know, it’s so much harder to think of bad memories than good memories, I wonder why that is?” - Something Peach has definitely written in her journal. Proud of — Her lying skills. Her writing. Her photography. Her dancing. Basically anything she creates. Embarrassed by — Her need to lie. Driving Style — She’d be a pretty good driver, too bad no one will teach her how to drive. Thomas was going to start in the spring, cry. Strong Points — Intelligent, analytical, clever, insightful, caring, curious. Temperament — Happy go lucky! Peach is one of those people who you will never see sad or angry if she can help it. Weakness — Getting tangled up in her own lies; wanting validation. Fears — People thinking she’s stupid or unworthy. Phobias — Minor arachnophobia. Not much else, she’s pretty fearless. Secrets — Who she is, basically everything about her, lol. Regrets — Having gotten caught spying on her neighbor and the whole mess she’s got herself in. Feels Vulnerable When — Someone catches her having an emotion that is not happy. Pet Peeves — uhm she tries not to have them, because that doesn’t go with her zen lifestyle. Conflicts — The fact she knows everyone would hate her if they knew she was lying to them. Motivation — To be admired. Short Term Goals and Hopes — Be admired, do well in school, make friends, explore. Long Term Goals and Hopes — Be a famous writer. Sexuality — Bisexual, probably? Mostly undecided. She probably thinks she’s straight but also knows sexuality exists on a spectrum. Day or Night Person — Day, or well, she wants to be day, but has insomnia that keeps her up late. Introvert or Extrovert — Extrovert. Literally got 100% extroverted on her Myers-Briggs. Optimist or Pessimist — Optimist. Aggressively an optimist.

Likes and Styles:

Music — Pop is her favorite genre. Yup, she’s definitely that girl, though she went through her #scene phase. But her faves are people like Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepsen (it pains me to put those two next to each other, but to Peach, they’re one in the same.) She loooooves to dance, so anything that gets her moving is going to be what she likes to listen to. Though, she also loves to belt it out with Adele, etc. Books — Gosh, the better question is what books doesn’t Peach like? And the answer would be none! Because there is something to be gained from any book you read! She’s an avid reader, though she kind of keeps it on the down low. But you can’t be a good writer without reading! Magazines — Got to keep up with all the latest gossip! Peach loves all magazines, but she knows to take them with a grain of salt. At least, tabloids. She doesn’t really read things like the Times. Foods — Like I said above–Peach is a huge fan of candy. But, she also likes fruits a lot. Really anything sweet. Though she likes savory and spicy too. Basically, she isn’t particularly picky. She likes lollipops a lot and definitely can be seen eating them quite frequently. Drinks — She doesn’t really have a preference to what she drinks. She likes water. She likes lemonade, juices, soda pop. She’s tried vodka before and was not a fan, but she won’t admit that to anyone and definitely would try alcohol again. Animals — Peach loves anything cute! She’s not a fan of creepy-crawlies or snakes or anything like that or “ugly” does like hairless ones or ones that drool too much. She’s a little afraid of any like–super big animals too (like horses, GASP). One of the first things she’s going to do is buy a cat, even though that is really not advised… Sports — Peach loves sports! Playing them, anyways. She’s not really into watching them on TV, but she’ll definitely go to like--rugby games or football games. And she loves cheerleading, so she’ll probably be at all the games. Social Issues — Her social awareness is still developing but she does consider herself a feminist. Favorite Saying — “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” - Ernest Hemingway Color — Pink! Peach loves pink, always has. Yes, it’s “stereotypical” and “girlie” but she loves it. It makes her happy–the brighter the better, and she often can be seen wearing it. Whenever she’s in a bad mood, she puts on some pink and instantly feels a little better. She’s easy to please like that. Jewelry — Her pearl necklace. Her foster mother bought it for her when she turned sixteen. Websites — Tumblr. Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. She’s big into all the social media stuff. TV Shows — Game of Thrones. Once Upon a Time (yes she knows it is problematic, let her live.) Shows like Gossip Girl and The OC. Lost. Star Trek lowkey. Anything with good writing and/or an interesting concept. She’s a big binge watcher. Movies — Oh gosh. She likes a good mystery, that’s for sure. Also stories within stories (frame stories!!) like Moulin Rouge, Princess Bride, the Fall, and Singin’ in the Rain. But, she really does like anything with a good story. She’s also not one of those snooty “book is better than film” because she can understand the merits of both. Some of her favorite book adaptations are V for Vendetta, Water for Elephants, and the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. Greatest Want — To be appreciated. Greatest Need — To be loved.

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — Castle Suites 42W Household furnishings — Modern and sparse, she didn’t want to spend too much money on them, but her apartment is decorated very cute. A few paintings on the walls and lots of throw pillows. Favorite Possession — Her pearl necklace. Most Cherished Possession — Her journals and notebooks. Neighborhood — Gated community. Town or City Name — Sydney, Australia Details of Town or City — It was Sydney, Australia. Married Before — None. Significant Other Before — None. Children — None. Relationship with Family — Nonexistent now. Car — None. Career — None, but she’ll probably have to get a job. Dream Career — A famous writer. Dream Life — A famous writer, that’s it, that’s all she cares about. Love Life — Nonexistent, but she’s hoping that’ll change. Talents or Skills — Good writer, dancer, singer, photographer; she is not too shabby at painting either. Not bad at surfing and a few other sports. Intelligence Level — Too smart for her own good. Finances — Her foster family was wealthy and they did spoil her.

Your Character’s Life Before Your Story:

Past Careers — None. She helped out at the surf shop sometimes. Past Lovers — None, her foster brother Devon was her first kiss. Biggest Mistakes — Spying on her neighbor. (Though, does she really regret it? No.) Biggest Achievements — She probably won writing contests in school and ones she sent out.

[twilight-adamo]

Chapter 14 Preview & Feedback

Hello everyone -

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted here or published a new chapter. Sorry about that; real life threw me for a loop over the past few weeks and I’ve been fighting these chapters more and more of late. This one is no exception. I’ve finally finished the first scene, but I’m not entirely sure about it for two reasons: one, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything like this; two, I feel putting this in the main body of the work as published on FFN and AO3 may force me to bump up the rating -- and might push me off FFN entirely. I’ve tried to dance along the edge here and avoid getting too explicit for that reason, but I’m still worried that it, and scenes like it, might be a bit too much.

So I’m posting it here in the hopes of gathering some feedback. If it DOES seem like too much, I may just post snippets like this here on Tumblr periodically, and keep the bulk of the scenes like this off FFN and AO3. Sequences like this one will just be alternate and deleted scenes. If it seems reasonably teen-appropriate, well, off it goes into the main story, and there’ll be similar ‘clear but not explicit’ scenes in the future.

If you have tweaks to suggest to make it more appropriate and/or more compelling, if you have issues with descriptions or whatever, well...I’d be glad to hear those too. As I said, it’s been a while since I wrote anything like this, and I feel like I’m pretty rusty.

Putting the text under a cut. Warning: quasi-explicit sexual themes, not quite R I think but possibly more than a PG-13.

It wasn't even 8 by the time we left the Clearwater house, though the sun had set over two hours previously. We grabbed some burgers and fries on the way back home, I double-checked my homework over dinner, and then I had an hour or so to kill before bed.

“I think I'm going to take a bath,” I announced to dad, as he switched on the news.

“You are?” he asked, surprised. “I mean, uh, sure. You just never struck me as the...bath type.”

That didn't really shock me. Even by my half-assed femme standards, the old Bella didn't seem to have much in the way of girly stuff. In my old life, even I'd kept bubble bath and scented candles around, even if I rarely used them. And I definitely had more cosmetics. I seriously needed to make a supply run sometime soon. I wasn't sure if Bath and Body Works or Sephora were around yet, or if there were locations any where near here, but I'd have to look into it. If nothing else, there was always the grocery store.

I smiled and shrugged. “I guess I'm not usually, but sometimes a good soak's nice. I'll just be in the bathroom for a while, is all.”

“Sure, fine. Have...fun?” dad replied, sounding uncertain. “Heh, you don't need a rubber ducky or anything, right?”

I gave him a wry chuckle. “I think I'll manage, thanks.”

I headed back upstairs, sticking the old, rarely-used plug in the tub and starting the water running. Once I'd gotten the temperature to where I wanted it, I ducked back into my room and grabbed my bathrobe. Shutting the bathroom door, I took a look at myself in the full-length mirror on the back and sighed, getting undressed.

I'd gotten to know my new face pretty well over the last couple of weeks, but since that initial experience on the plane, I'd deliberately avoided paying too much attention to my own body. I'd had to get very acquainted with certain things very quickly, especially when my period had come, and of course I'd had to shower, and shave my legs for my date with Alice, but I hadn't really explored. In any sense of the word. Maybe it was because it had felt disrespectful, at first. Maybe it was because I'd been afraid of breaking down under the weight of living in a body that wasn't my own, even if it was a lot closer to the body I'd always wanted.

Maybe those were still valid concerns. But I couldn't go on like this, for one simple reason.

“You are Isabella Marie Swan,” I whispered to myself, locking eyes with my reflection. They seemed wrong, as always, but I was no longer sure why, not after my memory loss. Something about the shade not quite being right. “You are Bella Swan. Your parents are Renee and Charlie. You're dating Alice Cullen. This is who you will be for as long as you live. Anything from before...”

My voice cracked a little, and tears blurred my vision. I wiped them back roughly with the back of my hand. I could remember so many nights like this, and as I felt the pain cut through my thoughts, I wondered why my brain had decided to keep those memories. There had been so many times, desperate to deny who I was, desperate to find an easier path, when I'd stood before other mirrors, telling myself who I was, who I should be. Telling myself it wouldn't change. That it couldn't. I had tried, so many times, to shove my feelings deep down inside me, to find a balance that wouldn't require me to unleash the truth. There had been sacrifices, and compromises, and the line had kept moving, until finally I couldn't pretend any longer. And now, here I was, standing in front of another mirror, in another body that felt wrong, insisting on the way things had to be.

“That was different,” I hissed, under my breath. “This is different. Isn't this what you wanted? Maybe not exactly the body you wanted, but who the hell ever gets exactly the body they want? This is what you prayed to God would happen. So what? What is it? Why are you upset?”

I forced myself to look at my reflection, digging deep into the roiling storm of my emotions. They seemed harder to control, now. That was as good a starting point as any. “I'm off my meds. I haven't been off my meds this long in years. I may be in a different brain, with different brain chemistry, but the hardware's still faulty and maybe the software is, too. Okay. I need to get back on medication of some kind. I'm dealing with teenage hormones. Aside from my hair, I don't look anything like my old self, and now I can barely even remember what my old self even looked like. I've already forgotten parts of my old life, I'm afraid of forgetting the rest, and I feel like I'm abandoning my loved ones by settling in here. I don't know what happened to the previous Bella Swan and I feel guilty for taking over her body and her life, even though I didn't ask for it. And I've been so wrapped up in all of that that I've barely even touched myself, I have an incredibly hot girlfriend who loves to tease, and I am horny as shit, so none of that is helping, either. One of these problems can be solved tonight! Guess which one.”

I shoved my hands against the door to either side of the mirror, staring intently at my own face, until finally I couldn't help it. A soft laugh bubbled up in my throat, I cracked a smile, and I shook my head slowly. Finally, I pushed back, sniffing and wiping the remaining tears from my puffy, reddened eyes.

“Well, it's still pretty gruesome when I cry, so that hasn't changed,” I joked, letting another giggle out of my throat. “Come on, Bells, let's see what we're working with.”

My gaze swept slowly downward, away from my face, and I really looked at myself for the first time. I was right the first time, I thought – I looked about as much like Kristen Stewart as any other relatively slender brunette on the planet, and changing my hair had only emphasized the differences. My general build was the same, perhaps, but I was a little less lean. The layer of baby fat I'd noticed in my face was present in the rest of my body as well, giving me a slightly unfinished look. There was still a slight awkwardness to my limbs, which might have explained Bella's clumsiness in the books. I suspected I was a late bloomer. I was definitely a young woman, to be sure, but I didn't think puberty was quite done with me yet. At least it was headed in the right direction this time.

I didn't have Rosalie or Emily's curves, or Leah's athletic figure. I wasn't a petite, elfin beauty like Alice, either. But Bella Swan was certainly someone I would have felt attracted to, in my old life, at least if she were somewhat older. She was pretty – I was pretty. No, I was beautiful, or would be. I could see the hints of the woman I'd become, in a couple years more, as my limbs and features struck their final balance and the last childish softness faded away. I could see the characteristics that would be drawn out when I turned, changing me from beautiful to gorgeous. I could just about see myself through Alice's eyes, just for a moment, and I felt lust stirring deep within me.

I swallowed, and let my tongue flick across my lips, before raising my hand to cup one of my breasts, running my fingers over the sensitive skin. My breath hitched in my throat, and a small, tingling shiver ran through my flesh, goosebumps rising in its wake. Slowly, I ran both hands down my soft stomach, over my hips, down my thighs. I shifted one hand to my inner thigh, running my fingers upward...but I stopped short, biting my lip and glancing over at the tub, which was reaching the point where I risked a spillover when I got in. Abandoning my ministrations, I stepped over to it and switched off the faucet, then tied my hair up in a messy bun before slipping in, letting out a soft hiss as I sank into the hot water.

Shutting my eyes, I took a moment to simply float in the tub, letting my thoughts drift aimlessly for a moment. Then, slowly, gently, I drew my finger up my inner thigh again, reveling in the yearning, nearly aching tingle that ran through my body. With my other hand, I stroked upward from the spot where my thigh met my pelvis, over my stomach, finally reaching my chest and caressing my breast once more. I could feel myself coming alive with every touch, heat and need rising within me, new and strange but no less pleasurable.

Much as I was enjoying it, though, I felt a slight pang of...something. Guilt, maybe, and longing. I didn't want to do another emotional inventory. I didn't want to think too much about it – or think at all, at the moment. But part of me still wished Alice was there, even if I was doing this partly for her. When the time came, I wanted to know my own body, wanted to be able to tell her what I needed. I was already a blushing virgin, particularly compared to her centuries of experience. I didn't want to be completely ignorant. I was sure she'd have plenty to teach me regardless.

Still...if I concentrated, I could almost picture her entering the bathroom, a wicked smile on her lips, a mischievous twinkle in her golden eyes, her lithe form wrapped in a short, silky, barely-there bathrobe. I could imagine her hips swaying as she walked over to me, leaning over, the curve of her breasts coming into view. I could almost feel her cool, sweet breath against my ear as she whispered to me in a low, husky voice.

“Getting started without me, baby? Tsk. Naughty.”

I left my eyes closed, not wanting to break the fantasy, not when it all seemed so vivid. My lips curled into a lazy smile as I replied to my imagined Alice. “Does that mean you're going to have to punish me?”

“Maybe,” she trilled softly, drawing the word out in a sing-song cadence, and I swore I could almost feel her cold, firm lips grazing my jaw, kissing down my neck, her venom-slick tongue darting out to caress my skin. I reached for my breast, imagining small, pale, cool fingers stroking skillfully where my hand touched. “First I think you owe me a show. Even if I am joining it already in progress. Go on, Bella. Show me how you touch yourself. Show me how you want me to touch you.”

I nodded, biting my lip, and trailed my fingers downward, slowly stroking along the lines of my chest, my stomach, my hips. My hands found my thighs, and my fingers clamped around them, pushing them apart as far as the tub would allow. As I did, I felt the ghost of Alice's hands on mine, guiding my fingers as they moved upward again.

“Are you wet for me, baby?” she murmured, leaning over to brush her lips against mine.

I almost wanted to give her some smart-ass reply about the fact I was in a tub, of course I was wet, but at that moment I touched myself at last, and my breath caught in my throat before coming out in a ragged, strangled whisper. “Oh, yes. Always.”

“Always? My, my. That must make your school day very interesting,” she replied, with a note of feline amusement in her voice.

I groaned, my hips shifting against the porcelain tub as my fingers kept working. “Shut up.”

“If that's what you want. I'm sure I could find better uses for this wagging tongue of mine,” she returned.

It went on like that for what seemed like an eternity, my imaginary Alice alternating between wicked teasing and whispered words of encouragement, her phantom lips and fingers seemingly everywhere. At some point, the fantasy shifted, and she was in the tub with me, on top of me, her small breasts brushing against mine, her fingers working in concert with my hand. I was close, so close, and I wasn't quite sure how to push myself over the top, not until I pictured her leaning down against me and whispering in my ear.

“Come for me.”

The floodgates seemed to burst at that, and I had to bite my lip hard to keep from crying out, not wanting to alert my dad to what precisely I was doing. I let out a strangled groan through my teeth as I shuddered with the force of my climax, and then, at last, I took in a ragged breath, finding release. I floated there in the afterglow for a long moment, my body still tingling. At last, I opened my eyes.

Alice, of course, was nowhere to be seen. As real as it had seemed, it had ultimately just been my own imagination. Maybe I should have been worried about how vivid the fantasy was, but at the time, I could only feel a hollow regret deep in my bones.

“Next time,” I promised myself in a whisper. “Next time it's with her.”

[amorremanet]

10 facts about meme: Lucy? And Adelaide, if you don't mind doing two?

send me one of my oc’s and i tell you ten facts about them

This is the shitty, “I fell asleep instead of doing this last night, and then, when I was almost fucking done, trying to make tumblr instant messenger stop doing something made it decide to click over somewhere else, and Firefox apparently doesn’t let the Lazarus extension work anymore, so I lost everything and am completely skimming out of frustration because the original was detailed and cool, and I lost basically all of it” version

LUCY

1. Has never completed a Pokémon game with a grass or water starter. She just doesn’t bond with them as much as she does with the fire starters, and any time she tries to pick a grass or water starter, she inevitably gives up, restarts, and picks the fire starter instead.

2. Since she turned 18, she’s made a point of giving blood as often as possible, because she’s type-O negative (the universal donor), and the Red Cross is pretty much always running short on blood, which can leave a lot of people totally screwed when they need to get transfusions.

3. Doesn’t believe in astrology and dismisses most of things in that vein as a cold-reading scam that’s based on exploiting people’s ability to project themselves onto anything…… but she does have an interest in dream interpretation.

4. She finds recipes confusing, and is even more befuddled by the Food Network and, “how to make [x baked goods]” videos on youtube, to the point that she finds them more stressful than getting a, “We need to talk” text from her parents. And yet, she is not confused by instructions in a chemistry lab.

5. She loves her red hair, but hates being called, “ginger.” It’s not that she thinks the word is offensive or anything; she just thinks that it sounds weird and slightly disgusting.

6. One of her favorite forms of, “teenage rebellion” was watching televangelists (or more accurately, having them on while she did other stuff because it’s really easy for Lucy to tune them out), which Lucy wouldn’t have liked so much if she’d actually paid attention to any of them (because of how televangelists exploit their viewers’ pain and suffering, get rich off of it, and don’t have to pay taxes on most of that money because they call it, “religious donations”) — but it did successfully annoy her very Catholic parents and very Catholic, “he’s a legit priest and everything” uncle.

7. A horror movie can be as political or politically coded as it wants. Unless it does something truly novel with the genre, like Get Out, then Lucy will probably just roll her eyes, complain about how many people value, “edginess” over quality, and then go watch The Great Mouse Detective for the umpteenth time. It’s not even that she gets squicked by horror movies, because she stops at dismissing all of them as edgelord garbage and doesn’t give them a chance.

8. She has even less patience for the films of Christopher Nolan, and literally the only one that she doesn’t go in too hard on is The Dark Knight, which only gets any consideration because Heath Ledger died not that long after making it, in ways that were pretty heavily associated with the movie in popular culture.

Not that she really cares about Heath Ledger, or even about the taboo on speaking ill of the dead, but she figures that he isn’t Ronald Reagan levels of terrible, or worse, so it’s easier to just not get into it with people over Heath Ledger when all that she wanted to say was that The Dark Knight isn’t actually that great

She will, however, talk shit about Ronald Reagan pretty much any time she’s given an opportunity, and especially if her Mom and Dad are around (because they were big Reaganites, back in the day, and annoying them with her hatred of the Gipper keeps them from paying attention to things like how her, “best friend” Sara Grace is actually her girlfriend)

9. Her answer to the question of whether she prefers cats or dogs will probably be something like, “iguanas” because she hates the assumption that it’s not possible to love cats and dogs more or less equally, but she also has better things to argue with people about.

10. She can’t whistle, she’s not really a very good dancer, and the last time she tried to tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue, she wound up swallowing it.

ADELAIDE

1. At 5’11”, Addie is taller than her big brother and their Mom (who are both 5’10”), and when standing up as best man when Max and Linda got married, she didn’t try to make him feel short, but she did wear a nice pair of heels and didn’t really go out of her way not to make him feel short, either.

2. By all rights, Addie probably should’ve been diagnosed with ADHD a while ago, but because her childhood and adolescence lasted from about 1986-2000 (when she turned 18), and because in 2017, ADHD is still badly misunderstood and under-diagnosed in AFAB kids, Addie got missed and made it to 33, thinking that all of her ADHD symptoms are just personal quirks or failings.

3. Her favorite color is purple. The darker the shade, the better.

4. Her ability to interpret song lyrics is often questionable. Like, on one hand, she’s totally made the mistake of hearing, “There’s a bathroom on the right” instead of, “There’s a bad moon on the rise” during the chorus of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising”

—and on the other hand, she completely missed that most of Missy Elliot’s “Work It” is explicitly about cunnilingus until Pete asked her what the Hell she thought the lyric, “Go downtown and eat it like a vulture” was referring to, especially given its proximity to Ms. Elliot talking about shaving her chocha. (All Addie has to say for herself is that she got caught up on the, “Girls, girls, get that cash / If it’s 9 to 5 or shakin’ your ass” verse.)

She also thought that Spice Girls were singing about group sex in “Wannabe,” rather than singing about making sure that your significant other can get along with your gal pals, and she kept thinking this until mid-September 2012.

5. As far as her family knows, Addie almost got arrested on her 18th birthday and had to run from the cops while she and a few friends were kinda drunk and screwing around in New York City. What really happened was that her birthday was on a Saturday, so they signed themselves out of school for the weekend, went to NYC, and saw the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar because her parents bought them tickets.

Then, they used fake ID’s to get some alcohol and got kinda drunk. Then, while they were screwing around in Brooklyn instead of going to cousin Jeremy’s place and crashing for the night, they wound up going by a gay bar, where Addie tripped over her own feet and got caught by a cute butch lesbian who happened to be dressed as a sexy cop for a themed party at said gay bar and had gone outside for a smoke break.

Then, one of Addie’s friends mistook this poor woman for a real cop and insisted that they run, and despite putting it together in the cold, sober light of day that there had been no actual danger, Addie told Sebastian the, “We so totally almost got arrested” story because she thought it sounded cooler, and at this point, it’s been 15 years, and she doesn’t see a point in correcting her family when her younger cousins get the, “Don’t get too rowdy on your 18th birthday or you may end up running from the cops like Adelaide” cautionary tale.

6. She would probably try to play real-world Quidditch, if she could get anyone to play with her, but that’s not going to happen, because everyone who knows her also knows that Addie is competitive as fuck, and that playing “muggle Quidditch” with her is a good way to get at least mildly injured.

7. She can see where the dislike that a lot of people in her life have for the All-Stars comes from, but personally, Addie doesn’t buy into it herself. She doesn’t really care to defend them, either, but at this point, she feels like most of the world’s problems can’t be solved with super-strength or heat vision, and they’re more complicated than the All-Stars’ image would allow them to handle, so it’s best to see the All-Stars as entertainers, rather than actual heroes.

Not that she begrudges anyone their annoyance with the fact that the All-Stars make, “we are actual heroes” a cornerstone of their so-called “brand,” but if you ask Addie, it’s not all that much different from how U.S. politicians lie up one side and down the other about basically everything, and how much of U.S. politics is increasingly little more than a theatre spectacle to cover up what’s actually going on

Oddly enough, Addie is accidentally on to something with that, because a lot of the supervillains in this universe are not truly participating in any shadowy conspiracy…… but they are being manipulated by members of one, and alternately being used as a source of talking points, or as distractions, so that the folks in said shadowy conspiracy (who are a mix of mutants and not) can push through their own agendas and try to secure their own power at the expense of anyone who gets in their way

Not that it’s really here or there at the moment, but this is totally going to bite them in the ass, partly from the people they’ve been exploiting and screwing over for decades putting shit together and pushing back, and partly because they decide to bank on installing a puppet who isn’t as easily controlled or as easily made to serve their agendas as they think. Anyway, as I was saying.

8. If Adelaide hadn’t gone into the family business and started vying with Max to see who’s going to become CEO when their Dad retires, she probably would’ve gone into advertising. If not that, she most likely would’ve gone to law school.

However, despite the fact that her Mom and several of her cousins are lawyers, Addie’s notions about how being a lawyer works are mostly derived from Legally Blonde, Ally McBeal, and Law and Order: SVU, so it might be a good thing that she has no idea what she’d actually want to do at law school.

9. Popular wisdom holds that she only isn’t the worst driver out of her siblings because Sebastian is the one who should’ve racked up multiple DUI charges by now, by all rights shouldn’t have his license anymore, and rarely uses it these days anyway because he, “doesn’t have PTSD, he just doesn’t like driving okay, it kinda freaks him out” (…which it does because of the PTSD that he allegedly doesn’t have but that’s another matter)

Addie holds that this popular wisdom is misogynistic bullshit being passed off as familial teasing, because actually, she’s a much better driver than all three of her brothers (with both cars and motorcycles, though only she and Seb have ever driven one of those, so it’s a little unfair to Max and Ambrose)

—and she may not know how to fix more complicated car problems, but she can at least get a better grasp on what might be wrong than, “I don’t know, it keeps making a thunka thunka thunka sound if you go above 60 mph” and she has more than once fixed something for her brothers that turned out to be something like, “You were driving with the parking brake on, dumb-ass”

10. Her go-to karaoke night songs are Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” — the latter of which would be funnier to Adelaide if she’d intended to sound hella bi when she first started doing it, rather than picking it because she was kinda drunk and knew all the words, then getting really into singing it and having no conscious idea where those emotions were coming from

[ulfwolf]

Morning Poem — Musing 14

My morning poem Alive from lack of this world Come evening she’s dead

 Quite often, I wake up in the middle of the night with some snippet of a poem or a suddenly urgent question or a nicely dancing set of seventeen syllables that claim to be a Wolfku refusing to let me fall all the way back to sleep until I make a note of it/them—lest I forget it/them come my four-a.m. morning.

To accommodate this, I have a ream or so of copy paper in my bedside stand drawer along with a trusted mechanical pencil, and these days I can reach out, pull the drawer open and select a sheet of paper (and fold it in half) along with the pencil (that I bought many years ago in a department store in Clearwater, Florida where the sales clerk categorically told me they absolutely had no mechanical pencils—ten steps after which I stumbled upon the display of them), and turn on my bedside lamp and without really waking up all the way write the snippet, question, Wolfku down. Then I clip the pencil to the folded sheet (facilitating reaching for the sheet and pencil again for the invariable revisions to sail into my head a minute or five or ten from now) and place it on top of the ream or so of still innocent sheets of paper.

Then I turn out the light, roll over onto my left side and try to re-enter sleep. An often-thankless task.

Yes, occasionally, I’ll drift back, but most of the time I muse the snippet or Wolfku a little and if I do I’ll invariably come up with something which I now have to write down, too, lest I forget it come morning.

So, I do: reach for the folded shee and pencil, turn on the light again and revise/add/refine/re-write, etc. the thought in question.

Then I return paper and pencil and try again to sleep, which more often than not leads to another revision.

Here, though, is the curious and often wonderful thing: The poem or the thought (since it is all that is going on for me at this hour of night), even if patently strange, makes perfect sense to me and strikes me as not only meaningful but perhaps important, too. Mankind needs to know of this (that’s why I cannot afford to forget these things, or so I tell myself).

My alarm goes off at 4 a.m. at which point I rise, silence the alarm and turn the cell phone off (I’m using an old, decommissioned but excellent cell phone as my alarm), brush my teeth, exercise, shave and shower, then do my morning sitting (Anapanasati Meditation). After that I usually read for an hour or so (Dhamma) and reflect on wise words uttered or written by wise people.

I then check/retrieve my night-time notes and enter them either in my journal or as a new Wolfku, etc.

Then it’s time to walk.

And still, even now, the night-time notes, the morning poem, my noted thoughts ring true, remain alive in me for lack of this awake (and very intrusive) world. Too much of the night still surrounds and permeates me (for meditation and reading and reflecting does not disturb that mood overly) to ruin the heart of the poem: yes, it still lives, and often I’ll worry it and revise a little during my walk.

However, upon arrival back from my hour’s walk, the awake world now makes a serious push for dominance as it arrives with its emails and blog posts and news and soccer scores and music to be selected to chop salad by, then the actual chopping and now the sitting down to the meal itself (it’s around 10 a.m., now, and this is my lunch).

And from there the day goes on. There’s yardwork to be done, there’s mail to collect, there’s shopping to do, there more email, there might be an article to write, and there is more and more awake world pushing out more and more night-time ditto, and by late afternoon or early evening, the poem has as often as not lost not only its meaning and importance but its breath, too. If I haven’t forgotten it altogether, it certainly seems no longer at all important.

As luck would have it, though, come next morning—the awake world cleared out of my head again, the poem (or one of its many siblings, newly born overnight or not) is alive and breathing again.

Perhaps I should never fully wake up, would that keep my poems alive? Or I should completely and forever wake up transcending all nights. Possibly the latter.

::

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