#and at some point today or tomorrow I need to try running the mower over the side and front lawns just to cut down on the mess

[cultivating-wildflowers]

my garden exploded into a wild green wasteland but I found some tiny volunteer seedlings

[bambigoose]

Puppy Love - Tyler Seguin

The iron gates look like something straight out of the medieval ages, the intricate detailing never fails to take Mia’s breath away during the day despite their imposing stature. She’d moved into this community by per chance a little over a month ago and the judgmental stare of Mrs. Fredrick glaring at her currently stopped being intimidating on day one. That miserable old women had no problem letting Mia know she didn’t belong, not like she needed to be told, her older Chevy Equinox stuck out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood of range rovers, Cadillacs, and even a few Ferraris. Mia however knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Her mother was an angel and let her live with her until she was twenty six while she was working the nurse supervisor third shift at the hospital, paying off her student loans, and saving every cent she could with hopes of being able to buy a condo. Mia paid rent of course but it was about half of what she would have paid anywhere else.

Five months ago while searching on Zillow, in bed trying to fall asleep after her shift, her house popped up. It had been posted eight minutes ago and she immediately requested a showing saying she could do it that day while shouting for her mom to call out sick and come with her.

Four hours later, Mia was in love. It was a perfect little two bedroom house with an extra room in the basement that could make it three. Her mom had turned the house upside down searching for a reason it was on the market so cheap besides the fact it was about four times smaller than the average house on the street. Finding nothing despite checking every crack and crevice throughout the entire house, both Mia and her mom had their excitement grow. While having a discussion with the relator about the previous owner who passed suddenly at their summer home in Minnesota and their children were just trying to close everything quickly. Mia immediately put in the offer.

She met Mrs. Fredrick three weeks later while the woman continually walked her fancy poodle with her nose in the air around the entire street. Clearly she had less of a problem with the people moving in a little further down the street on the same day. Clearly they had money, based on the two moving trucks and friends luxury cars helping them move in. Of course according to Mrs. Fredrick his ugly dogs would be a problem in the neighborhood, but that was minimal crime compared to Mia moving in with only her three best friend’s and mother’s older cars.  Her nose went even higher seeing them unload a lawn mower, “You’re lawn will never meet the standards of the neighborhood.” The evil witch of the west finally disappeared after Mia just shrugged and stared her down.

Now she just took satisfaction watching her face scrunch up every time she pulled through and waved at her. She could only imagine the rumors she spreads about her being gone all night long most times. Pulling into her driveway, with her decently up kept lawn, Mia placed her head on the steering wheel and sighed. It was a long shift last night and in typical fashion she put off grocery shopping until the very last minute, forcing herself to have to go this morning in order to eat at some point today.

Stepping out of her car, Mia mentally debated whether to just lie down on the couch in her scrubs or expend the energy to walk upstairs to her bed and change into sweats. Opening her trunk, sleeping on the couch was looking even more appealing staring at all her bags. Resigning herself to making multiple trips, she headed in with the first one full of frozen foods, a habit ingrained in her by her mom. ‘Don’t let the frozen go bad in all this heat.’

On her return to the car she thought she could hear jingling as she past the driver’s door but she wrote it off. Turning around the tail end she was greeted by a chocolate lab whitening around his nose and tail wagging a mile a minute in her trunk laying on the cool spot where the frozen food was had just been.

Mia melted on the spot. “Hi baby! Where’d you come from?” She asked leaning down accepting the slobbering kisses all over her face. Her Golden Retriever used to do the same thing before he pasted, if someone opened a car door while he was outside he’d jump right on in. “Where’s your family buddy?” Pushing down a little hard while rubbing his ears, she got an even more enthusiastic tail wag and a tongue rolling out of his mouth.

“CASH! Where are you buddy?”

She heard shouted out from up the street, as his ears perked up. “Cash, is that your name buddy?” Getting one last lick he took up off the street, “Bye bud!” Mia laughed grabbing the last of her groceries before slamming her trunk door shut.  

**

Daylight savings was the ban of Mia’s existence. All she saw was darkness during the winter months; she might as well as move to Alaska with their twenty-one hours of darkness. A surprising winter blast had hit Dallas the past few days in October so she took a deep breath bundled up in a sweatshirt and scarf. All her winter clothes were still in the attic and she couldn’t convince herself to pull them down just for a few days.

Closing and locking her door she headed out into her usually abandoned street. Tonight though she could hear whispering toward the end of her driveway, “Gerry you gotta calm down bud, how are you still this hyper.” Looking up she could spot a man in what looked like a suit with a dog walking across the street from her house.  The dog appeared to be dragging him along popping from flower bed to flower bed smelling everything. Mia giggled quietly to herself, unlocking her car. The click and lights turning on brought their attention to her.  

The dog was clearly an excitable yellow lab, Gerry she believed it was called. The tail was wagging so hard she wouldn’t be surprised if his handsome suited owner would have a bruise on his knee tomorrow morning. “Gerry no.” The command was useless, Gerry had already taken off across the street at her legs, his poor owner practically running in order to not end up face planting on the ground.  

Mia dropped to her knees and readily accepted the puppy loving. The lab was so excited he was bouncing in place, weaving in between her legs before settling on her feet, head leaned back against her knee with the puppy dog eyes. She continually waved off the apologizes his owner was giving. “Hello love! Aren’t you just the most adorable puppy ever?” Scratching up and down his sides the lab start talking to her. Little yelps and excited yips coming out of him each time she rubbed him down. “Shh… gotta be quiet buddy. Mrs. Fredrick will come out and yell at me and your dad. She already hates me enough as it is.”

“Ahh… you’ve met the wicked witch too”came from the suited man, mischief shining in his eyes eliminated by the street light. Sharing a laugh he reached out with his hand extended, “I’m Tyler.”

“Mia. Would it be offend you to know I prepare to refer to you as the puppy father?”

Surprised laughter left Tyler, his eyes crinkling while his face scrunched up. Mia dropped his hand, not realizing how long she had been holding on. Last thing she ever wanted to do was make someone uncomfortable like that, her anxiety was rising just thinking about it. “Well I’ll just have to refer to you as the beautiful nurse.” He says pointing to her ID badge.

“Your daddy is a flirt Gerry.” She says leaning back down to his level getting a slobbering lick all up her face. “Your dogs clearly enjoy slobbering all over me.” She laughed.

“Dogs?” Tyler questioned, trying to think back if he had meet the cute neighbor before. The boys commented on her every time they saw her. The yard work in the yoga shorts and tank top was a particular favorite of the team, especially when working on her flower beds.

She looked up at him locking eyes, “Yes, Cash visited the trunk of my car just last week.”

Tyler went white, he was sure Cash had only taken off into the woods a bit, not all the way down the street and into someone else’s car. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe he…”

Mia cut him off, “Oh he was a love. Not to worry, my last name isn’t Fredrick, your cute dogs and their puppy loving kept you out of trouble.”

Tyler smirked, “Will the cute dogs and puppy loving be enough to get me a date with the pretty nurse?”

Mia looked down towards Gerry, “I don’t know buddy, should I go on a date with your daddy?” Unbeknownst to Mia, Tyler was actively regretting not listening to Jamie and teaching his dogs silent commands. He was banking on Gerry’s excitement and mentally promising him treats should he get him this date. His hopping paid off, Gerry licked her in the face. “I think that means yes.” Mia laughed. “Well puppy father, my next day off is Thursday, but you have a game the next night. Would it work if we do something before your curfew?”

Tyler’s eyes widened like saucers. “You know who I am?”

“If by that you mean know you’re the man with a ton of puppies that lives up the street and happens to be particularly skilled in hockey, then yes but I mean everyone has to be good at something right?”

Tyler release a breath, “And what are you particularly good at?” he joked.

“Loving on puppies, napping, and walking out on conversations so I’m not late for work.” She counted off on her fingers. “I’ll see you Friday?” she questioned.

Tyler smiled, “Come up around five? I’ll order us in something, that way you’ll stay for the entire time. Can’t disappoint the dogs by walking out on them.”

Mia beamed, “So what you really mean is I get to eat and go on a date with the puppies. You clearly know that way to a ladies heart sir.” She scratched behind Gerry’s ears “I’ll see you and your brothers on Friday for our date buddy and I guess we’ll let your dad tag along.” She waved goodbye, hopping into her car and reversing out of the driveway. Tyler watched her go until the tail lights disappeared.

Mia was finishing up her yard work Friday afternoon, she checked the clock sighing, there was about fifteen minutes before she needed to head in and shower for her date with Tyler tonight. She ran into him the next day and numbers were exchanged. They had been talking all week, him sending her different pictures of the dogs every day with reminders not to disappoint them and Mia was excited for tonight.

She grabbed her water and sat down on her steps with her eyes closed and face turned to the sun basking in the warmth. After a moment she felt something wet against her knee. Eyes opening she laughed seeing Marshall, the only Seguin dog she had yet to meet at her feet. “Did your dad send you down here to remind me about tonight huh?” She leaned forward and scratched behind his ears. Marshall galloped up the stairs and leaned against her side, “You’re just a cuddle bug, those young ones trying you out buddy.”  

Throwing her arm around Marshall she pulled out her phone, muting the music and opening the camera. She flipped the camera around and snapped a quick shot of them. Sending it to Tyler Lost dog?

Jesus, I’ll come down and get him.

Petting his side Mia looked at Marshall, “You wanna go home buddy or should I tell your dad I’m stealing you?” Marshall shook out his body and leaned heavily against her. Mia chuckled, “Staying with me then I guess.”

Nope. He’s mine now. He’ll escort me to yours later :P

You’re trying to steal my children.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Come on buddy. Let’s get cool inside the house yeah?” Mia called standing up, Marshall following behind her closely. He was practically attached to her hip. She almost tripped over him heading up the stairs. Sitting down on the edge of her bed she tapped the side next to her. Needing no further invitation Marshall hopped up and curled up almost in her lap. “You keep doing this I’m going to call you cuddle bug.”

Slipping out from underneath Marshall she gave him another ear scratch before heading into her bathroom. She made sure the doors to both rooms stayed open in case Marshall changed his mind and wanted to get her attention to leave. She showered quickly, debating what to wear throughout the duration. It was a first date but it was also only at his house. Her anxiety was spiking slightly in worry. Taking a deep breath she told herself he thought you were cute in baggy ugly scrubs everything else you own is better than those.

Rubbing a towel through her hair, Mia throw it up into a messy bun before brushing her teeth. Deciding just to do light makeup she was finished in just a few minutes. Returning to her room in order to check in her friend she paused in the doorway smiling. People say depressed people tend to have more blankets and pillows on their bed, in which place she must be denying the truth but Marshall does not seem to mind at all. He had all but tucked himself under her fluffy blanket, leaning up against her pillows with the ceiling fan circling slowly above him. He raised his head to look at her with a tiny tail wag when she headed to her dresser. "What should I wear cuddle bug?" Marshall was zero help, he just continued to sit there staring at her.

"So jeans and a tshirt with a pullover sweater sounds good then." Slipping into her clothes she nudged Marshall off the bed. "Let's go cuddle bug. Time to see daddy and your brothers." Mia would swear she saw Marshall sigh the same way older siblings do when resigning themselves to watching their little siblings for the evening. The duo walked up the street together never further than three feet apart. That would continue throughout the rest of the night. Tyler had to fight the dogs in order to weasel his way next to Mia on the couch.

…..

Mia sighed pulling into her boyfriend's driveway. Tyler and her had seen even less of each other lately. The hospital had been all hands on deck as the flu ripped through the area leading to a higher than normal admit rate and the Stars were in the middle of the season. Tyler's coach had harshly called out him and Jamie not to long ago so they were practically killing themselves at the practice rink.

Tyler had tonight off and Mia felt awful cancelling their plans to go out at the last minute but truthfully Tyler was relieved. Both of them could use a night on the couch with the dogs and food brought to them.

Turning off the engine, Mia waved to Mrs. Fredrick who of course was even more disgusted with her and Tyler now that the were dating and committing sins staying at each other's houses most nights. As per usual Mrs. Fredrick stuck her nose back up in the air huffing away with her miserable poodle.

Unlocking the door Mia laughed hearing thuds through the hallway. Pulling her phone out from the back pocket of her scrubs she started recording. The post on Instagram was the most liked of the year. Tyler and the dogs rushing down the hallway all but tripping over each other was one of the most hilarious things she had seen in a long time. The best response to her caption which puppy missed me more was Jamie's posted seconds after it went up.

The one with two legs.

[amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines]

Steve//Boys Like You

Okay, so this doesn’t exactly follow the Steve/Nancy plot of season 2 (or at least I don’t think it does) but, I really like it so I don’t care. Anyway! Enjoy! And yes, I am now becoming a Stranger Things stan account. Sweet Pea who? I only know Steve Harrington. (based off this song)

“And then she said it was all bullshit. Like our entire relationship and everything.” Steve is sat on your couch at 2am, sobbing into your chest. He turned up twenty minutes ago, tears flowing freely down his cheeks and a look of defeat on his face. 

You’d of course let him in, glad that your parents were out of town for the week. Ever since you’d known Steve Harrington, you’d followed him around like a lost puppy. Wherever he was, you were right by his side. Well, more behind him slightly, kinda in the background. There enough for him to notice you, but never enough, and usually when he needed you. 

You knew that you could get better friends, you were pretty, funny and smart. But there was just something about the brown-eyed boy with the brilliant hair that pulled you in and kept you hooked. So much so that by the time it was your senior year, you were madly in love with him, watching him pursue a girl that just didn’t seem that interested in him. 

However you were there to pick up the pieces, like you always were. And tonight seemed to be one of those nights. He’d been to Tina’s Halloween party, something that you weren’t invited to, by Tina or Steve for that matter. But you had other things to do anyway. You’d just been about to fall asleep when he knocked on the door, and now your trying your best to comfort him, even though the girl he was madly in love with, had just broken his heart and left him for another boy. 

“It’s okay Stevie.” You soothe, the nickname that you’d used for him since you could remember, rolled off your tongue like second nature and he smiled at the comfort. “She’s just drunk. She probably won’t even remember it in the morning.” 

“I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.” He sighs and you look at him sympathetically, running your fingers through his hair. There was only a few people that had the privilege of touching his hair, and you were one of the lucky ones. 

“Better. There’s always a tomorrow to talk things through and make things right.” 

“How did I get so damn lucky to have you as a friend?” He asks, wonder lacing his voice and you blush profusely. 

“Luck, I guess.” You shrug and he shakes his head, laughing softly. 

“Nah, it’s more than that. You’re the best thing in my life.” He says, and grabs your hand, giving it a tight squeeze. He drops it before you even have the chance to comprehend what was happening and you can’t help but feel disappointment rise.

“Shouldn’t you be saying that to your girlfriend.” You roll your eyes. 

“Nope. Because I’m saying it to you. Y/n Y/l/n. You are the best thing in my life.” He repeats himself, but there’s something in his voice thats holding him back. You know he’s lying. You know it’s always going to be Nancy Wheeler, but for just one night you can pretend that he actually meant that. You know what you look like to him, you know what you are to him. You’re his childhood best friend that has followed him blindly and not minded being put in the background, just as long as she gets to hang around with him. 

“Sure I am.” You roll your eyes again. “You keep telling yourself that Harrington, I’m going to bed. You coming?” 

“Yeah.” He shrugs and stands up, holding his hand out towards you. You gladly take it and he pulls you up, rather aggressively. So much so that you fall slightly into his chest and he grabs your arms to steady you. You tilt your head up to look at him and he’s already smiling back at you. That signature Steve Harrington smile that has made every single girl in Hawkins High fall in love with him. 

“Steve?” You ask, breaking the silence. He hums in response, still staring down at you, a soft expression in his eyes that makes you melt. “How are you feeling?” 

“Much better after seeing you.” He replies and you giggle softly. The two of you stare at each other for a few moments longer, and you swear he’s leaning into you. His gaze flickers between your eyes and your lips, and then he’s pressing his lips against yours, igniting a flame deep inside you. Steve Harrington is kissing you! Holy shit. You kiss back, just as cautiously, but his hands fall to your hips, pulling you closer to him and your arms wrap around his neck, deepening the kiss. However he pushes you away from him, staring at you wide eyed and breathless. You’re looking back at him, also breathless and blushing, but your heart feels like its just been put through a lawn mower. 

“I’m so sorry.” He stammers and runs his hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have done that. I really shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s fine.” You reassure him, taking a few steps towards him but he stumbles backwards and there’s another sharp pain shooting through your chest. The way he’s looking at you is as if you’ve just told him that there’s mythical creatures roaming Hawkins. He’s looking at you as if you’re a stranger. 

“I’m gonna go home.” He shakes his head and you reach for his hand but he pulls away. “This was such a huge mistake. I’m so sorry. “ 

“Steve.” You call after him, but he’s already out the door and down your drive. He can move fast when he really doesn’t want to be around someone. 

Tears fall freely down your face as you climb into bed. The covers are over your head, something you used to do as a child when you were upset. Usually if someone had said something mean to you, or if Steve had stolen one of your toys and refused to give it back (until his mother told him too). Now you’re just one of his toys, there when he needs something to keep him entertained and easily put back when ‘better’ is found. He’s always walked around like he could charm the birds from the trees, and he can. He charms you every time, tonight has proven it. 

And you fall for it. Every single stereotype. The Jock. The most popular boy in school. The boy that has a hidden softer side. Girl in love with her best friend. Oh wait, that was you. 

-------

The next day at school, Steve has been avoiding you like the plague. However, you manage to catch him at the gym. He’s playing basketball, however it looks like he’s been put on the bench for a while so you take the chance while you can. 

Sitting beside him on the bleachers. He doesn’t notice you at first, but once he does, you can see the disappointment settle in his eyes when he sees its you and not Nancy so you take a deep breath. 

“How are you feeling Stevie?” You ask and nudge him softly. The nickname leaves a bad taste in your mouth today. It doesn’t sound right. 

“Alright.” He shrugs and stares straight ahead at the game. 

“Why you been put on then bench?” 

“Hargrove.” He mutters. 

“Ah...do you wanna talk about last night?”

“No!” He replies loudly and you flinch. 

“Steve, we can’t ignore it forever. You’ve been avoiding me all day and I can’t deal with it. Just talk to me Stevie.” You force the nickname out this time and try to run your fingers through his hair, even though its kinda gross with sweat, but he pulls away. For a simple gesture, it stings like hell and you have to fight the urge to cry. 

“You just can’t help it Steve!” You shout gaining the attention of the basketball players. The game has stopped and the team are staring at the two of you. 

“What are you talking about?” He asks, running a hand over his face. 

“Are you being serious right now? You know, yesterday! At my house. Where we ki-” 

“Shhhh.” He shushed you, moving towards you quickly and glancing around the gym. Is he being serious right now? 

“Its how you were taught to love, and it’s shitty, but I still take it. You expect to keep a hoard of girls to follow you around. I always feel so lucky to hear your lines, just like the others do. But you pick us up when you and your girlfriend have a fight, and then drop us the next day when she’s sober and being nice to you again. You’re playing pretend Steve! When are you going to see that. There’s a name for boys like you-” 

“Oh yeah? And what is it!” He interrupts you and you raise an eyebrow. Before you have the chance to answer, Nancy’s voice rings through the hall and you sigh loudly.

“Steve?” She asks, a look of annoyance and confusion etched onto her face. He pulls away from you quickly and practically jogs to catch up with Nancy. They both walk out, leaving you standing alone. Again. 

“Fucking great.” You mutter before turning and walking the other way. 

In hindsight, some people would say that this was your own fault. Robin had warned you to not go there, when she caught you staring at him. The two of you had been paired up for some project when she was put in one of your advanced classes. And even though at the time you just rolled your eyes and laughed it off, your now thinking that the younger girl was onto something. 

Apparently you seem to love a nightmare, or at least you did. Actually who are you kidding, you still love him. You just can’t help it. Its gonna take more than this for you to get over him. 

-----

It’s been three days and you and Steve have avoided each other as if your life depended on it. Well, it was mainly Steve doing the avoiding but what can you do? 

You’re stood at your locker, Carol and Tommy talking about something that happened at another party you weren’t invited to, when they’re interrupted by Steve. He greets them and they make small talk for a few minutes before they start to bicker. You’ve busied yourself with your locker at this point, not wanting to be involved in any of their conversations. But when Nancy taps your shoulder you have no choice but to turn around and face them. 

“So, I heard about you and Steve.” She starts and your mouth goes dry. “About the argument you had the night of the party.” Of course. “And I want you to know that even though he would never admit it, he’s sorry. Aren’t you Stevie?” She smiles up at him and your vision blurs with tears. 

“Er, yeah.” He rubs the back oh his neck nervously. 

“Okay.” You nod your head. 

“Anyway.” He continues. “Me and Nance are back together.” He wraps an arm around her waist before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. A soft smile appears on her lips as she looks at him. The two of them start making out, meaning Tommy and Carol are shoving their tongues down each others throats before you can even say another word. Leaving you to lean against your locker awkwardly, and look anywhere but either in front of you or to your left. 

“Isn’t that great.” Nancy smiles brightly as she pulls away.  

“...yeah.” You force a smile. She seems to believe it, and the two of them start to talk to Carol and Tommy. 

And once again, you’re pushed into the background. 

part 2 part 3 part 4

[sgnolivia]

weird flex— are you okay??

two days into maybe-olivia’s eat-pray-love-crush-enemy-skulls pillage of cleveland, she’s struck by a migraine so searing that she has enough presence of mind to google psnn hesd dyig strook e ? before she’s left twitching in a trash heap behind starbucks.

two days into maybe-olivia’s eat-pray-love-crush-enemy-skulls pillage of cleveland, she’s struck by a migraine so searing that she has enough presence of mind to google psnn hesd dyig strook e ? before she’s left twitching in a trash heap behind starbucks.

it’s still light out when her brain stops trying to design, manufacture, and detonate it’s own atomic bomb. maybe-olivia isn’t sure if it’s been three hours or three days. the double chocolate chip frappe she bought t-minus five to blackout (ha!) has solidified on her pants. she can taste seafoam under her tongue.

she stares up at the sky in muted exhaustion. 

god, it’s me, she thinks. i would like to invoke my right to choose. 

perhaps if the zygote tube had been pro-choice, none of this would be fucking happening. 

the lizard takes over all executive functioning at that point, forcibly ejecting her from the drivers seat. when she blinks down at her shirt it’s neon green and has a fun i love chicago! written across a black skyline. 

maybe-olivia wonders if she saw the blue bedroom and doesn’t remember it. hopefully the lizard wrote it in the unicorn book.

not that it matters. what’s another forgotten thing in the grand scheme of it all? it’s a fifty-fifty shot she’ll remember anything she’s written in the notebook, anyway. her memory is half a step above melted swiss cheese. 

from that point on, every decision is like russian roulette with a gun that’s fully loaded. maybe-olivia has no fucking idea what’s going to set her spinning into a migraine or send her flying off the realm of human existence or remind her, hey, she fucking loves macaroons. it’s a lot of calculated risks and maybe-olivia discovers that she’s very bad at math. 

it goes on like this for an indeterminable amount of time. 

she tries to balance her world-wide assassination tour with her brain’s need to self-destruct every seventy-three seconds. it is difficult. 

after the act of dying her hair a soft brown sends her tripping into a panic attack, shivering violently and puking all over the nice bathroom of the vacation home she’s squatting in, maybe-olivia decides this isn’t working. 

the unicorn notebook is full, so maybe-olivia unpacks the glittery purple one she bought to replace it. the pen that lights up was lost somewhere in bolivia so she has to settle for a fatter pen that holds four different wells of ink. she feels traitorous for liking it more than its predecessor. 

option 1:

die. 

honestly, this is the easiest and most cost-effective route. at this point she’s ninety-five percent sentient machine gun. there wouldn’t be much lost. blackout was set to be decommissioned after operation foxtrot anyway. maybe-olivia would just be finishing what was set into motion a long time ago. 

she switches the pen into the blue inkwell and sets up a t-chart.

pros:

no more migraines.

won’t wake up in romanian hostel.

stop randomly puking.

permanently get rid of lizard.

cons:

maybe-oliva sits back in the chair. this list is marginally harder. 

agency is exhausting and confusing. some days she’s completely post-verbal and other days she can only speak argentinian spanish, despite having no memories related to argentina. some days she physically can’t wake her body up for more than six minutes at a time. most days she throws up everything she tries to eat. 

maybe-olivia wishes she was strapped back into her holding cell in the unnamed facility, twelve floors below the earth. 

this transforms her body into a wet chihuahua. it takes four hours to pull her bones back inside her skin and another two just to get off the floor. 

jesus, she thinks, and adds keep bones in skin to the pros list. 

she ruminates on her death for a bit, losing time to daydreaming about the endless sleep that might await her. none of her training covered the afterlife so this is as much a guess as everything else in her life. maybe it’s an endless blank void. maybe it’s burning in a pit. maybe it’s a another shot. maybe-olivia hopes not. she doesn’t know if her spirit can handle another go-round of this. 

but, her brain lizard pipes up, then they would win!

maybe-olivia growls out loud and pointedly tells it to shut the fuck up even if she begrudgingly admits that it has a point. 

if she dies, then director howard lives. 

this alights something hot deep in her gut. it feels like she has to puke and run fourteen miles at the same time. there’s no way in hell marcus fucking howard gets to live over her. fuck that. fuck that. 

and really, doesn’t she deserve that? doesn’t she deserve the right to drag howard out of his villa safehouse, shove a piece of rubber in his mouth, break all his fingers, and ask what her real goddamn name is?

project sisyphyus has been trying to kill her— the real her— for eleven fucking years and they still haven’t gotten it done. she wins, they lose. they’ll have to try harder. 

she writes fuck that in the scrawling, bunched together lettering she’s beginning to associate with her own personal handwriting. it’s nice. it feels like she owns something.

fuck that.

if they want me dead, they better fucking find me.

option 2:

get it the fuck together

there are no cons to this. she doesn’t need a t-chart. 

getting it together proves to be a con all on it’s own. her brain is a glorified vegetable but it’s all she’s got. it’s not like she can swap it out for a new one. it needs serious repairs though, and short of hooking her scalp up to a car battery, maybe-olivia isn’t sure how to go about this. 

google is, though.

and google doesn’t care if she has to look something up four times an hour. it points her towards helpful websites. searching how do i get my memories back and following it with who the fuck am i six times in half as many hours points her to a self-help thread which leads her to a diagnosis forum. she has acute brain trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative episodes, panic attacks, and sometimes seizures. also, maybe arthritis. she has to ask google what dissociation means. 

maybe-olivia is struck with the overwhelming knowledge that other people know what she’s going through. there are other people who fell head first out of a plane with no parachute and have been hurtling towards the ground for as long as they can remember. sure, they haven’t been tortured and brainwashed and denied the basic human rights that are allocated pretty much across the board but she doesn’t care. she feels connected to these people who live half outside of their skin, wondering the earth like zombies chewed up in the garbage disposal. 

they teach coping strategies. ways to fake normal existence so that it seems like they’re living in the same reality as everyone else. how to breathe when her lungs collapse. how to avoid physical contact in day-to-day situations. 

a lot of them gently suggest finding creative outlets for her feelings. she tries writing but after penning an expansive four page letter in cantonese only to suddenly forget how to read cantonese, she gives that up. 

she decides she isn’t really ready to sift through her emotions. her bodies fucked up instincts are enough without trying to decide if she’s depressed, furious, or anxious on top of it. 

google assures her that recovery happens in stages and at her own pace. if you aren’t ready today, try a little bit more tomorrow. 

her brain still jerks her around like it’s the worlds most aggressive dog owner and she’s the runt of a teacup poodle’s litter, but it works to her advantage. no one can track her if even she has no idea where she’s going next. the targets come in migraines, in hallucinations, in dissociative fits, but they come and maybe-olivia dutifully follows, even if she can’t remember doing it. it’s admittedly a reckless strategy but if there’s a part of her that isn’t a screaming disaster then she hasn’t recovered that part yet. 

she reviews her notebooks every few days, now. they look like they’ve been written by at least four people, one of them being a small child. there’s a variety of languages, handwriting styles, codes, and small illustrations. one page just says fuck licorice in increasingly bold font, fiercely underlined and surrounded by aggressive exclamation points. 

it doesn’t do much except reaffirm that she has the minimal amount of control required to be a human being, but that’s okay. 

a lot of her problems sort themselves out once a helpful blog post points out that she’s eating about a third of what’s required of adult women. this is mostly because she constantly throws up anything that tastes more flavorful than wheat bread but also because she’s never really had to feed herself before. hunger is just another loud, shrieking signal her body sends at her to inform her that something’s wrong, but it sends fifty of those a minute. how’s she supposed to know where the problem is?

a steady combination of pedialyte, muscle milk, and a bottle of gummy vitamins becomes the solution. she has to set alarms to remind herself to drink them and it isn’t ideal, but it keeps her caloric intake up, and solves the arthritis issue. 

it also makes it easier to actually keep the memories she recovers which is a huge win. 

that doesn’t mean things are smooth by anyone’s standards, including her own. random things still absolutely kneecap her— a dad yelling at his son, a lawn mower starting up outside the motel, her own abilities blinding her first thing in the morning. but every incapaciting moment gives a clue. 

a car backfires on the road and maybe-olivia darts behind a minivan, seeing both the tan metal under her hand and white sand beaches. 

239948S462569W

maybe-olivia has never infiltrated a fully-staffed enemy facility on her own before. that’s alright. it can be a learning experience for everyone. 

[sara-reading1]

a heavy dose of atmosphere - BerryliciousCheerio

Literally, all Clarke wants to do is sleep. // It's five, when the mowing starts.

(or: bellamy blake is the neighbor from hell, and clarke is weirdly sort of attracted to him)

based off of the au prompt: so you're the douche that mows their lawn when i keep trying to sleep

-----------

Literally, all Clarke wants to do is sleep. She's spent twenty-two hours on her feet, running off caffeine, a catnap in the lounge, and desperation, and there is nothing more that she wants to do than collapse on her bed. It is actually her dream in life, at this point.

She stumbles through her door at three, body aching and calling out for rest, and just drops everything. She has tomorrow—

today off and she'll probably spend most of it sleeping.

Which is totally fine with her.

...

It's five, when the mowing starts.

...

She lives in a small neighborhood, okay? It was one of the main draws for her, when she was deciding to be a grown up and rent a house instead of an apartment. Small neighborhood, nice neighbors. She'd been greeted with casseroles and lasagnas and open invitations to barbeques when she moved in. Octavia, from across the street, quickly becomes one of her best friends, which is fantastic, because this is like every single TV show marketed to Clarke's age group. Small neighborhood—

she knows everyone that lives here and none of them are crazy and mow their lawns at the crack of dawn.

Groaning and cussing, she rolls out of bed and stumbles to the window. Throwing it open, she sees a figure across the street at—

Octavia's?

There's a flash of fear, because really, who is the shadowy male figure on her friend's lawn? It occurs to her then that a murderer would not take the time to mow the lawn, and O definitely mentioned having an older brother that was coming home from deployment. This must be him—

Bellamy.

Clarke wants to be nice. She does. But—

it's five. She's exhausted. So—

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouts. She's not even worried about the neighbors. Like, if they're getting woken up by something, it's going to be the lawn mower. The figure—

Bellamy looks up and squints, frowning. "Mowing my lawn, princess," he drawls lazily, gesturing to the mower. Clarke bristles. Princess? Did he just call me princess? Fuck that.

"I'm not sure if you noticed, dickface," she bites out—there aren't any kids on this street, right? "But it's five in the morning."

"The sun is up," he says, nodding his head towards the barely there streaks of pink in the sky, "and so am I."

"Some people are trying to sleep."

"And some people are trying to keep their house in order."

She sputters for a moment, entirely too exhausted to even string words together to form some sort of vaguely English sounding response. She hears another window slam open, and, from the right of her, someone shrieks, "For the love of god, shut the fuck up!"

She glances over, leaning further out her own window to see which of the college students is yelling at her. Oh. Great. It's Andrew, the cute one. Fucking hell, man.

"Better get back to bed, princess," Bellamy calls, grinning. "Wouldn't want to wake the neighbors."

His eyes cut away from hers for a moment, but return almost immediately, his expression flickering for an instant. Clarke glances down and notes the impressive show of cleavage she's been providing.

Strike me now, she pleads, retreating quickly and slamming her window closed. The mower starts back up, and Clarke groans, grabbing for a pillow to hold over her face. Maybe if she holds it in place long enough, she'll just pass out.

When that doesn't work, she waits.

The mowing ends in a half hour, and Clarke downs a dose of ZzzQuil and hides in a cocoon of blankets.

...

She wakes up at noon to someone knocking on her door.

"Clarke, I know you're sleeping and I'm super sorry about that, but could you pretty please answer the door?" Octavia calls, voice traveling through Clarke's home easily. She should start sleeping with her bedroom door closed. Probably would make it easier to actually fucking sleep. She groans—

well, really, she kind of screams, mostly into her pillow. Whatever.

"Octavia," she yells, stumbling out of her bed and into the hall, down the stairs, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "I don't know if you know this, but I can hear colors right now."

She runs a hand through her hair, snagging on every tangle because of course, and throws her front door open. She stares at Octavia blearily, expectantly, before she realizes that there is another body there as well. She glances up.

Chest.

And up.

Jaw.

And up.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

She realizes, a beat late, that she says the last part aloud.

Octavia sighs, "Can't say I wasn't expecting that." She steps back, shoving her brother forward, and Clarke crosses her arms over her chest, cleavage be damned—she is not wearing a bra and she is not in the mood to talk to Douchey McDoucheface. "Bell, this is Clarke, my best friend. Clarke, this is Bellamy, my asshat brother that's terribly sorry about mowing the fucking lawn at five."

Bellamy's lips quirk up into a smirk and he greets, "Hey princess."

"Oh, fuck you."

Octavia reaches out and smacks her brother's arm. "Apologize," she commands, shifting back and crossing her arms, eyes narrowed.

"I'm very sorry," he begins, not sounding the least bit apologetic, "for disrupting your beauty sleep."

"Christ," Octavia mutters, rolling her eyes, and Clarke is really tempted to hit him. She's only kept from doing so because of Octavia and the fact that if she moves, she's about ninety percent sure she'll just pass out where she stands. Maybe even sleep standing up. Who knows? Not her.

Octavia manhandles Bellamy away from the doorway, towards the steps, and she says, "I'm so sorry about him—he's usually not this terrible. No, that's a lie. He's kind of a dick, but he's really not horrible when you get to know him."

"S'fine O," Clarke mumbles, scrubbing at her face with her hand. "I'm gonna go sleep some more."

"I'll text you for dinner?" Clarke hums in agreement, waving at her friend before closing the door and sagging against it heavily. She shuffles back up the stairs, almost crawling at one point, and makes it on top of her covers before she starts to snore.

...

When she finally wakes, it's four in the afternoon and Clarke thinks that everything may've just been a bad dream. But her phone buzzes and Octavia's name reads across the screen. Clarke swipes the screen, blindly typing what she hopes is her passcode in.

3:57pm

dinner?

3:57pm

ravens coming and im making pizza

Oh, shit, man.

Clarke has a ridiculous weakness for Octavia's homemade pizza, and that'll be enough to help her survive a night over at the Blake's, Douchey McDoucheface and all, right?

4:03pm

claaaarrrrkkkeeeee

4:04pm

clarke i know ur awake i can see u reading these texts

Clarke grins. Taps out a response with what is probably too many emojis. She spends a moment, after, contemplating if she could get away with sleeping for an hour more, but her phone goes off again, buzzing in her hand, and she peers down her nose at it.

4:06pm

come over at five xoxo

She needs to shower. And change. Become slightly less bear-like, slightly more like the twenty something that she is. She glances at her closet and groans. Sweats are fine for friends, right?

...

She ends up in something other than sweats, which, really, is a huge feat, considering her burning desire to be as comfortable as possible. Not that jersey maxi dresses aren't comfortable—they just imply that she is feeling more awake than Clarke would like people believing.

She can smell the pizza even before she leaves her front steps, and Raven pulls up just as she's crossing the street. "Outta the way," Raven yells, revving her engine. Clarke makes a face, sticking out her tongue for good measure. See—

she can be fun. She's not just the angry sleeper from across the street. She's not—

she's not sure why she feels the need to prove this, honestly, because Bellamy Blake is a terrible human being that just happens to be very, very attractive, but also very much the older brother of Clarke's best friend, and she really shouldn't be thinking about him, okay?

She waits for Raven at the curb, leaning against the Blake's mailbox. Her friend approaches, finally, slamming the door to her car behind her. Clarke frowns when she notices how stiffly Raven's walking, almost limping.

"Is your leg bothering you again?" she asks, worry tingeing her voice as she reaches out to take Raven's bag, at least, not expecting her to be receptive to any other help.

Raven brushes her off, snaps, "I'm fine," as she struggles up the few steps. Well—

okay. Clarke knows well enough not to try and push her help onto Raven, knows that she'll just be more stubborn, will probably hurt herself more than she already is hurting. Instead, she stays a careful step behind, watching her warily for signs of distress, for stumbles.

Octavia usually leaves the door unlocked when they've got dinner plans, so both Raven and Clarke are surprised when the handle doesn't give way under Raven's hand. "O?" Raven calls, knocking. There's some movement in the house, and then—

"Bell, I told you to leave the door unlocked!" There's a muffled response, from above their heads, and Octavia flings the door open in a rush of motion. "Sorry," she says with a grin, kicking the door open wider as she leaves for the kitchen again. "My ASSHOLE BROTHER," she shouts before lowering her voice again, "doesn't trust me when I say that the neighborhood is safe at five in the afternoon."

Clarke wants to say something, anything really, but then her mouth starts to water when the full impact of Octavia's cooking hits her. She takes a deep breath.

Steady. It's just a fucking pizza.

But Clarke's been living off of cereal and cheese sandwiches from the cafeteria at the hospital, so homemade food is, like, the epitome of luxury right now. Especially anything that Octavia's made. Clarke's not bad at cooking—it's just that being friends with O, who makes five course meals in her spare time because she's bored, has set the bar pretty fucking high.

So, now that her jaw is properly on the ground and now that she's definitely drooling over food, a shirtless Bellamy Blake comes down the stairs. Raven shoves past her, following Octavia, who's about halfway through a story about a fourteen year old that hit on her at work and normally Clarke would listen, but she's a bit busy trying to look busy, so that it's not glaringly obvious that she was just struck speechless by the sight of abs and pecks and all that skin, tanned and taut—

fucking hell.

Bellamy makes eye contact, his lips quirking up into a smirk. "Like what you see, princess?"

She's summoning the indignant response that she wants—which is really fucking hard, okay—when Octavia shouts from the kitchen, "Stop harassing my friends, you dick!"

Clarke squeaks out a pitiful, "Yeah!" before she marches herself into the kitchen and trains her eyes on her friends—

she considers it an accomplishment when she doesn't look at Douchey McDoucheface as he waltzes through the kitchen, the living room, and out the sliding door to the backyard.

"Your brother is back?" Raven asks, reaching for a slice of pizza.

Octavia slaps her hand away and warns, "Cooling." She takes a breath and gathers her hair up, twisting it into a bun as she answers, "Yeah—he got in last night and has already pissed off Clarke."

Raven rounds on her then, eyebrows raised higher than Clarke had ever thought possible before she'd met the woman. "I worked a double," she explains. "And got called in from the parking lot for an emergency with one of my patients." She yawns, mostly unintentionally, and Raven makes a sympathetic noise. "I passed out when I got home—."

Octavia cuts her off. "And my terrible brother woke her up two hours later. They screamed at each other from across the street."

"Exciting!" Raven claps happily, grinning.

"It really wasn't," Clarke grumbles, leaning on the bar, watching curiously as Octavia bustles around, grabbing bottles of this or that. She checks the oven and Clarke smells—

"Did you make garlic bread?" Octavia nods, crouching to inspect the tray in the oven. "O," Clarke says soberly. "I think I love you."

...

Bellamy stays away, really, once the bread is done—

he only stops in to steal two slices of pizza before disappearing down into the basement. Raven eyes him as he goes, eyes glued to his ass, which Clarke only really notices when she looks away from it.

Octavia is, thankfully, distracted by the cat at that time.

...

It's a small neighborhood, okay, so Clarke takes the opportunities provided by such a small community to their full advantage. If one of these opportunities involves timing picking up her mail with whenever Bellamy is around, just to glare and blush and hurl barbs at one another then—

it's a small neighborhood.

She spends a lot of time at Octavia's, and avoids making eye contact with the elder Blake, if at all possible.

It's fine.

She's fine.

Nothing's going on.

...

Same scene, four weeks later—

Clarke drags her sorry ass out of her car, hands shaking as she fumbles for her house key. It's noon, and she has been awake for twenty four hours. She thinks that she's mostly caffeine at this point? Is that medically possible?

She went to fucking med school, she should know this shit.

Her knees are weakening and she makes it to the couch before she collapses, not bothering to change out of her scrubs.

...

She's slept for forty seven minutes when she jerks awake, shaking and scared—

she dry heaves over the edge of the couch, bile rising. Her father's body is burned into her retinas, and every time she blinks the nausea begins anew. She wants to die. Wants him to not die. Fix this, she'd screamed at her mother. This is your fault.

Oh, but it wasn't.

Guilt sits in a hard knot in Clarke's chest, and she lays still, staring at the ceiling. She goes without blinking as long as she can, until her eyes are dry and irritated. Her body rebels. She blinks and her stomach roils.

Which is when the lawn mower fucking starts.

And Clarke thinks it's the combined lack of sleep and the nightmare—the night terror—but she is itching for a fight and Bellamy Blake is smug and calls her princess when she gets angry, so here she is, fucking angry. She launches to her feet—

she's strong until the door, where she doubles over to dry heave again.

Small, minor distraction.

Their street is deserted, so Clarke storms across without looking both ways, because she is a fucking adult, kay? She can make her own dumb decisions—this is looking to be her dumbest yet.

But Bellamy spots her, and flips the mower off, preparing, squaring his stance. "Blake!" she bellows, still teetering on the edge of being sick.

"Hey, princess," he greets, running a hand through his hair lazily, smirk permanently affixed.

"Don't call me princess, asshole."

"Did I wake you from your slumber?" he asks, hand brought to his chest in mock horror.

"You know what—," she starts, stopping abruptly to double over and heave. Nothing comes up, but she wipes her mouth out of instinct.

"Jesus, Clarke—."

When she rights herself, she launches back into it. "You are a terrible—."

"Clarke, hey." His voice is gentler than she's ever heard it—no, no, she heard him that quiet that one time that she dragged Octavia home from their favorite bar, and she'd puked all over her older brother's shoes. He hadn't—

from what she'd seen of Bellamy Blake, she'd expected him to be frustrated or angry or exasperated, but he'd just slid his arm around his little sister and guided her to the living room, voice low and smooth and comforting and—

and now is not the time for Clarke to think about that. She gasps, "You're such a fucking ass, okay?" Oh god. She can't breathe. She doubles over again, clutching her knees.

"Princess, you need to breathe, okay?" His arm slides over her back, hand on her waist. He places the other at her elbow. He thinks she's going to pass out.

She might pass out.

She's going to pass out.

Her head is so, so light, and Clarke sags against him without really meaning to. Bellamy's arm is strong around her waist, and he's basically supporting all of her weight. Clarke keeps dry heaving, and he has to stop every few moments to let her, since, apparently, gut wrenching heaves aren't conducive with walking/dragging your neighbor off your yard.

She thinks that if she weren't currently shaking, she'd be embarrassed. But—

um.

Shaking.

...

He brings her a glass of water and a bucket—

"One of my buddies used to get like this," he offers hesitantly, scratching at the back of his neck. "It was a coin toss to whether he'd puke up the water or not, so…" Bellamy trails off awkwardly, but Clarke accepts his offerings with a small smile. He's sweeter than she'd thought—

more in line with the way Octavia always talked about him while he was deployed. She sips the water carefully; he sits at the opposite end of the couch and doesn't look at her.

When Clarke trusts her body to not, like, freak out on her, she asks, "So, are you out?" Bellamy's brow furrows, and he glances at her for a moment. "Of the military," she clarifies abruptly.

His forehead smoothes. "Oh, uh," he tugs at the collar of his shirt—Clarke tries not to stare at his collarbone when it's exposed. It's a fucking collarbone and get your shit together, Griffin. "Yeah. Was my final tour."

"How many times were you deployed?"

"Four tours. Nine months each." Clarke lets out a stuttering breath. That's a—

"That's a long time," she says shakily, like an idiot. He nods and shoots her a tight lipped smile. "When'd you join up?"

Stop talking. Just. Stop. He probably doesn't want to talk about this.

"When O turned eighteen." They fall into silence—not uncomfortable, but not companionable. Clarke knows bits and pieces of their past, from Octavia—

knows that their dad died before she was born, that their mom died a few months before Bellamy's nineteenth birthday, when Octavia was still in elementary school. But it seems a lot more real, hearing it from him. Octavia regards her past with sort of an off handed air—

it was done and over with, and she felt no need to dwell on it. She'd told Clarke that her older brother had sacrificed a lot to make sure that she didn't go into the system, and that he was protective of her, and Clarke had pictured this gallant, young soldier—

not the hesitant, irritating man that was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. There was a thick scar that wound its way up his forearm.

"I—," Clarke starts, shutting her mouth as soon as she does. She's not sure what she was about to say, but it would probably have been weirdly emotional. They had a moment.

One. No need to ruin it.

Bellamy, thankfully, ignores her.

...

He walks her back to her door silently, hand hovering just near the small of her back, never quite touching. Clarke, as tired as she is, watches his retreating form until he disappears back into his home.

Distantly, semidetached, she feels an ache in her chest.

...

She gets home after the end of her ER rotation, on a Tuesday afternoon, the next week. Ever since that day, she's noticed that Bellamy avoids noisy yard work whenever she's home—she once saw him notice her car and carry the weed whacker back to the shed. But she's—

Clarke can't explain it. But she likes Bellamy Blake. Likes his warm, strong hands, likes his calm presence. And something hasn't sat right with her since he'd walked her home silently, and she thinks she's finally figured it out. She changes quickly when she's home, grabs the six pack from her fridge, and marches over.

After about a minute of insistent—but measured—knocking, Bellamy answers.

"Octavia isn't home," he says gruffly, hand at the back of his neck again. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat.

Clarke raises the beer. "I was—um. I was wondering if we could talk?" She feels incredibly exposed, waiting for him to either accept her or reject her. Whatever. She can drown her sorrows in the six beers. She's about to backtrack, apologize and walk away purposefully, when Bellamy steps back and widens the door.

"Come in, princess," he grumbles.

...

She waits until they're well into their first beers before she speaks.

"Thanks," she stutters. "For, um. For the other day."

He takes a swig. "S'nothing."

She chances a look. Bellamy's eyes are trained at the wall, and Clarke forges on. "But it was though. I don't usually—uh—."

"Clarke," he says seriously, finally looking at her. "You don't have to explain."

So she doesn't. They finish the pack in silence. Octavia comes home to find her brother and her best friend screaming at each other—

"What the fuck, princess, that was a fucking blue shell!"

"You started it, dickface!"

...

(It becomes a tradition. Every Tuesday, after her rotation is over, Clarke brings beer and whoops Bellamy's ass at Mario Kart—

"Lucky shot, Griffin—."

"Thanks, grandpa—."

Octavia sidles up to her on a night out, when Raven is buying a drink, and asks casually, slyly, "So you and my brother?"

Clarke blushes beet red and stammers. "What? Jesus, O, we're friends—if that. He's terrible and rude and inconsiderate and did I mention rude—!" Octavia rolls her eyes, and Clarke tries not to think about Bellamy that night, hands on her hips—

when she stumbles home that night, she drops her shades immediately, stiffening when she spies Bellamy's shape in the driveway. She can't—

he's terrible. Rude.

She spends most of the night staring at the ceiling.

She doesn't like Bellamy Blake, right?

Right?)

...

Bellamy is sort of the last person that Clarke expects to see in the ER waiting room, at two thirty in the morning.

He's sitting in the corner, cradling his hand against his chest, and Octavia is across the room, arguing with the admitting nurse in low tones, and Clarke glances around the room quickly before she marches over.

"What happened?" she demands, sitting next to Bellamy.

He looks up, startled, and hisses, "Jesus christ—!"

She gestures to his hand impatiently. She doesn't have all day. Night.

Whatever.

Very carefully, he pulls away the dish towel that's been wrapped around it. "Bell—," Clarke breathes, taking in the damage. There's cuts all over, blood dried on the palm and oozing out of scrapes, and she counts at least three pieces of glass embedded in the knuckles. Christ almighty—

"Dr. Griffin?" Mel, the admitting RN, calls her over. "Can you take him?" She starts to protest—she really shouldn't work on anyone that she knows, that she's friends with, that she—

um.

"We don't have anyone else, Clarke," Mel explains, looking tired. Clarke holds out a hand for his paperwork. Octavia mouths a thank you, and Clarke waits at the desk for her to collect her brother.

Bellamy looks distant—lost, even. Clarke glances down at his papers as she leads them down the hall. Octavia's—

shit.

Octavia's indicated PTSD, which, like, Clarke could've guessed because four tours, but she'd never really thought of it. Okay. Okay.

"So," she starts, tugging the curtain around to block off the bed. "What the hell happened to you?" She tries to play it off like a joke, but Bellamy suddenly looks very young, with his hand cradled to his body, and she is so, so invested in him. In his well-being. She wants him to be okay—healthy. Friendly, non-romantic investment in his well-being.

Octavia shifts her weight and says carefully, "He punched a mirror."

Shit. Okay.

Bellamy huffs, glaring at his sister over Clarke's shoulder, and she pulls up the chair to the bed side. She holds out her hands expectantly, and Bellamy offers her his. Clarke takes his wrist gently, rotating his arm to inspect his palm, to assess damage. He'll probably need a few stitches along the palm, butterfly bandages on the knuckles.

"How'd you get cut here?" she asks quietly, glancing at his palm.

"I, uh—I tried to clean up. Before O woke."

Octavia makes a disapproving sound, but Clarke nods. "You're going to need some stitches here," she says, fingertip hovering above the largest cut. "And I'll need to get out the glass. Are you up on immunizations?" He nods. Clarke lets go of his wrist gently and rolls away, making a few notes on his chart. "Do you want a numbing agent?"

Bellamy stares at her, stares at the chart—and then back to her. His eyes are dark and intense, and Clarke has to remind herself that his sister—her friend—is right behind her. He shakes his head.

"O—okay."

She steps out, then—takes a deep breath and preps a suture tray. The ER was busy about thirty minutes ago, leaving all the other attending physicians and nurses off with their patients—

she could probably call someone in to help her, but it's simple, yeah? No use in bringing in more people than needed.

She scrubs up and rolls the tray over. As she nears the curtain, she can hear hushed voices, can pick out bits and pieces of the conversation—

the argument.

"—Bell," Octavia whispers. "You need help."

Clarke halts, because—

this isn't anything she needs to hear. This is a private matter, something for them to discuss in private, in safety. She waits a few moments, and when she doesn't hear Bellamy respond, she draws back the curtain and says with a smile, "Your order, sir?"

The Blakes are glaring at each other, but Bellamy takes a break to offer her a smirk. "Don't think that's what I asked for, Clarke," he murmurs, eyeing the shot prepared on the tray.

Octavia softens slightly, and intervenes. "Bellamy," Octavia cautions. "It's procedure."

It's really not, but Clarke thought that she could at least give him the option of numbing, in case he changed his mind. He gulps. Looks from the shot to Clarke's face and nods shortly.

"You're sure?" she confirms, hand already reaching out for the disinfectant. Bellamy nods again, and Clarke sits, rolling over the tray with her. She finds a spot without any injury and wipes it down carefully, supporting his arm by the wrist.

"This'll hurt," she warns, glancing up at Bellamy, who keeps his eyes on her. He nods shortly, grunts out something like approval. "Do you want me to—?"

"Just stab me already, Dr. Griffin," he forces out, with a ghost of a smile on his lips and, okay, she knows that this isn't a great situation, but he's really, really pretty, okay? It's not her fault that her mouth goes a little dry.

Instead of contemplating the implications of being attracted to someone when they're injured, Clarke positions the needle and pushes it in quickly. Bellamy tenses, and his grip on the bed tightens. Clarke hears Octavia suck in a breath behind her, and Clarke focuses on keeping her hand steady. When she withdraws, he doesn't relax, which isn't entirely unexpected, really, considering the way he's eyeing the needle and thread.

"I'm going to clean it now," Clarke murmurs, leaning back to grab the tweezers and a bowl. She thinks that he'll benefit from knowing what's happening, so she continues. "I have to remove the glass and any other debris, okay?"

"Thanks, princess," Bellamy bites out, closing his eyes briefly when she brings the tweezers near his hand. She doesn't take it personally—

she's heard worse from patients, and this is Bellamy, so, really, what was she expecting? The lidocaine mix works fast, she knows, so Clarke gives it an extra minute—just in case—before she goes after the first piece, the biggest piece of glass. Cleaning takes only a little time—

Clarke is good at what she does, so she makes short work of it, pausing for a moment only when she's counted three winces and a grimace in under two minutes. Octavia keeps making little sounds of disgust when she peers over Clarke's shoulder at the bowl, slowly filling with bloody shards of glass.

Her stitches, when she makes them, are neat and precise, and Bellamy only groans once, choking it off within seconds. Clarke wraps his hand in gauze when she's done, and tries not to stare at him too long.

She leaves the Blakes to one another for a while, wandering back up to the front lobby to file discharge papers. Mel's sleeping at the desk, coffee untouched in front of her, and the waiting room, for once, is empty. Clarke takes that as a sign, and handles Bellamy's paperwork herself. Still feeling—

Clarke's not sure what she's feeling. But it's unsettling, and there's a black hole in her stomach, so she writes out care instructions by hand. On a whim, she draws a cartoon version of herself, wagging a finger and listing off options for letting it out, other than punching a mirror. Feeling cheeky, she scribbles down her schedule, with the note mow your lawn at these times.

There's movement at a bed off to the right, and Clarke covers the papers quickly, face burning for a reason she doesn't want to put a name on. Mel startles awake, and shoots Clarke a grateful look when she realizes what she's done. Clarke nods at the cup in front of her, and advises, "The coffee on the third floor lounge is better."

"Oh my god, really?"

"Mhm. Page Harper—it's her break and she'd probably be willing to run some down to you."

"Oh, god," Mel breathes. "Bless you." She picks up the phone and waits, asking, "How's your guy?" Clarke flushes at the title—

it means nothing.

It means nothing, dumbass.

"He's fine. He'll be fine. Can you enter this prescription for me?" She passes over the papers and Mel scans them—her eyebrows raise and Clarke knows—she fucking knows what's caught her eye and—

"Really?" Mel questions, flipping the paper to face Clarke. Clarke really wishes she wouldn't.

"Don't say anything," Clarke requests. "Just, don't. Please."

"O-okay Doc," Mel says, making a face. "Your life, your romance."

"It's not—," she sputters. "We're not—."

But she wants to be. She really, really wants to be. But she's so—

if she could, she'd wiggle her hand around in a questionable, non-committal gesture.

She shoves the thought out of her mind and spins on her heel, leaving Mel to her laughing and judging and typing. Halfway down the hall, she doubles back because, of fucking course, she left all the after-care info with Mel. The nurse hands over the papers with a raised eyebrow, to which Clarke responds with a well-timed rude gesture, because this is her business, okay?

Octavia's texting—probably Lincoln—when she gets back; Bellamy's staring at the trashcan sullenly.

"Hey, so," Clarke greets, dropping on the stool and rolling between the bed and Octavia. "I called in a prescription for some painkillers, 'cause your hand is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning." Bellamy nods towards Octavia, who slips her phone into her pocket to receive the packet. She flips through it as Clarke continues, facing her older brother.

"You're going to want to change the dressing at least once a day—more if you sweat or shower. Try not to get it wet, but if you do it's not the end of the world. Um—." She racks her brain for the rest of her instructions. "Put some Neosporin or some other antibiotic on the stitched wounds when you change the dressing. You can take the butterfly bandages off in a week; make an appointment with your regular doctor to get the stitches out in like a week and a half."

She realizes that she's grabbed his good hand, without meaning to.

Shit.

"I think that covers it," Clarke finishes abruptly, dropping his hand and spinning around to face Octavia. "Think you can keep this one out of trouble for a week?" Octavia nods, a tiny smile forming and Clarke glances down at the open folder in her hands and—

jesus fucking christ, tonight cannot get any more embarrassing.

She clears her throat and stands, ushers the Blake siblings out. It's nearly four am, and Clarke's shift is almost over. Okay. This has been—

uh.

It's been uh.

They walk out towards the lobby together, and Clarke wipes her palms on her pants. "I'll see you guys later," she says with a tired smile, leaning against a pillar.

Octavia glances at the clock on the back wall of the admissions desk and asks, "Do you get off at four?" Clarke hesitates, then nods. "Come over when you're done."

Oh.

Oh god.

Clarke starts to say no, to find an excuse, but Octavia sings, "I'll make pancakes…"

Well, that changes things. "I'll be there in a half hour," she sighs, finally. Octavia makes a happy noise, and Clarke thinks that Bellamy even smiles, so, like, yeah, okay, not bad, Griffin.

She waves as they walk out into the humid night—

morning. It's morning. Jesus christ. She sees Octavia pull out of the parking lot, onto the street, and no, no Clarke, don't turn around, because Mel is already—

oh, yes. She's already laughing at Clarke. She spends the last ten minutes of her shift watching the waiting room TV, because it gets more channels than the lounge one and Mel will page her if she's needed.

The clock strikes four.

Clarke ignores the implications when she shoots to her feet and says goodbye to Mel, already halfway towards the lockers.

...

(Breakfast is loud, thanks to Octavia, making idle conversation as she expertly flips the pancakes. Bellamy takes Clarke's hand in his good one, and she tries to hide her blush.

She also tries to hide her disappointment when he takes it back in order to eat—

because, you know, stitches and shit)

...

It was friendly hand holding.

Clarke's about two more repetitions away from completely convincing herself of this, and she hasn't seen Bellamy for almost a month. She's gone over to hang out with Octavia and Raven, and every time, she bites her tongue when she starts to wonder where the elder Blake is—

lucky for her, Raven doesn't.

"Oh, yeah," Octavia will respond, scanning the room. "He's got some stuff. Things." Or, some equally vague answer that both scares and worries Clarke, because those are two different emotions, no matter what Raven says.

So Clarke isn't really expecting him on her doorstep, one sunny morning.

She's very aware of her state of undress as she leans against the door frame, peering up at him, blinking sleep out of her eyes. This is, luckily, one of her normal days—

the kind where she goes to sleep at ten at night and wakes up at eight in the morning. She glances at his hand, checking it over—

he's had his stitches removed and it's all healed up well, small little scabs and scars the only sign of any damage to begin with. Bellamy rubs at the back of his neck and clears his throat. "Hey dickface," she greets, offering him a small, sleepy smile. And—

god. Clarke realizes she's a goner when he smiles, because when he grins—an honest to god grin—Bellamy's entire face lights up, makes him look about ten years younger.

"Hey princess," he responds. "I just wanted to thank you. For this." He raises his hand.

Clarke snorts. "S'my job."

"Still. Thank you." Clarke ducks under the intensity of his eyes, studies the floor. When she looks up again, Bellamy is looking at her yard, judgment written all over his face.

"Look," Clarke begins, immediately defensive. "I don't have a lot of time to keep my lawn at neat as some people." She punctuates the statement with a pointed look across the street. Bellamy opens his mouth; hesitates and—

there it is again. He rubs his neck when he's nervous, Clarke thinks. It's endearing.

"Do you want me to take care of it?" he finally offers. "When I clean up my own yard."

Clarke leans forward, and she thinks that maybe Bellamy will move back, but he stays where he is. When she peers out at her lawn, she is very aware of his chest, his heartbeat almost beneath her ear. Okay. Play it cool, Griffin. And, okay, yeah, her lawn is kind of trashed. There are weeds everywhere, and the last time it got mowed was when she and Finn were still—

well.

"Yeah," she murmurs, leaning back. "That'd be great." When she glances up again, Bellamy is staring at her. And she—

oh, god, she just.

Ugh.

"You haven't punched anymore mirrors, I hope?" She tries to make her voice light, joking, but the worry is evident, and he has to know that she saw the chart, yeah?

Bellamy blinks at her. "Uh—yeah. I've been. Um. I've been in a support group. Seeing a therapist." Clarke smiles, because good. "O's idea," he tacks on, which, yeah, she figured.

"That's great, Bell." Her hands shake a little and, really, why? Literally, why? Bellamy glances down, then back up to her face.

"You had—uh. You'd said you wanted to talk." His voice is gruff, but his words are tender. Clarke thinks she might die. "Do you—do you still need to?"

Oh.

Clarke worries her lip. This is—

she doesn't think that he needs to hear what she had wanted to tell him. He is struggling—

recovering, getting better, and he does not need her struggles added to his own. But Bellamy's rubbing his neck again, eyes so earnest that it hurts, and Clarke can't not open the door wider.

"I've only got hard cider," she tells him. "Also it's nine in the morning, and I'm not sure how into day drinking you are?"

"Very," he laughs, stepping past her, further into her home.

.. .

(And that's how Clarke has hot morning sex with her best friend's brother at nine am.

As if.)

...

She's two ciders in, admittedly a lightweight, and she is comfortably warm, inhibitions lowered.

"I have nightmares, sometimes," she begins, haltingly. This has to sound like nothing, compared to him. Jesus christ. Okay. "Mostly about my dad." Bellamy raises his eyebrows and Clarke realizes how that must sound.

"Oh, uh—," she searches for the right words. "Not like—he um. He died. Really, um—in a car wreck." Bellamy's face is blank, but his dark eyes are understanding. He nods at her to continue. "My mom and I made it, but I—it's just not something I can really forget about."

Clarke decides to omit the part when she almost died, too. The part where she hated her mother for distracting him—hated herself more for doing the same. The part where her hands still shake when she's driving and it begins to rain, how she has to pull over and breathe. The part where she's still a wreck over it, when it's been more than a decade.

But the cider shakes in her hand, now, when she thinks of it, and she thinks that Bellamy knows.

...

(She also thinks that he knows what she's about to do when she surges forward, an hour later.

He is warm and yielding beneath her lips, and when he pulls back, grinning, Clarke can't help but mirror him)

...

Clarke wakes at nine on her day off, to the sound of a mower starting up below her window. Fighting a grin, she kneels in her bed and throws her window open, leaning out to peer down at the man on her front yard.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asks, remembering that morning, years ago, trying to fake anger that she doesn't feel. Bellamy looks up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

"Mowing my lawn, princess," he calls back, grinning.

"Ass—."

"Daddy!" a little voice shouts, and Clarke tracks the blur that is their son running out from the porch. "You said Mommy needed to sleep." She bites back a laugh. Bellamy looks between her and Jake, pleading, but Clarke just gestures for him to answer.

"Well, bud, uh—Mommy and I have a tradition, yeah? I mow the lawn, and your mom yells at me." Jake nods solemnly, looking up at the window and grinning at his mother, and Clarke mood gets brighter—if that's possible. This is—

the baby cries from the nursery, and Clarke lets out a little sigh.

Yeah.

This is worth waking up for.

[imascreamerbabymakemeamute]

I don’t run, but I will run to you

Supernatural has become a big part of my life, and thought I have been writing fanfiction for years, I never had the guts to post it. But after much coaxing from @annie-marie94 I have decided to post this. 

A/N: DeanxReader, no smut but it’s way too fluffy for it’s own good. 

In this AU teachers are dating teachers! It is never okay for students to date teachers! 

Pairing: Dean x Reader

I don’t run, but I will run to you

“I want you guys to run two laps for being late to class today,” Dean yells at a couple of the linebackers as they hustled out to practice in their pads.

“Yes, Coach Winchester,” they grumbled.

“But, Coach, you know I don’t run,” you say as you walk by the open door where he is standing on your way by. Your pace quickens minutely as you realize how loud you said that; quickly skirting the lot and zipping through the grass to your little house across the street.

The next day comes without fail, and with it came Tuesday Technology. Where the kids used what they had learned the last week to either create something of their own, or catch up on work they haven’t finished yet that was due, is due, or extra credit. They can be terrors, but they enjoy the work time.

It was Tuesdays when Hall Duty was just more than you handle most days, but on the rare occasion that Coach Winchester shares the duty with you, it was much better. And today, after a particular hellish discussion on how, though one may think, it is rude to depict the President as a Nazi, a monkey, and anything containing expletives, whatever was currently being worshipped by the kids must have been smiling down upon you as Coach rounded the corner to share Hall Duty with you since Gabe, the science teacher, was out on sick leave after getting too into a re-enactment in his class and caused his own concussion. To which many kids filmed and put on youtube. You have spent hours finding each version of it and finding the kid to have them take it down.

But, back to the handsome man walking toward you. After all your students filed out of the computer lab, you stood next to the doorway as the hordes of students went by, one or two slipping out of the throng, and into your room.

“So if you don’t run, what exercise do you do?” a deep voice, rough from years of yelling at rowdy students. Your jump slightly and students around you who notice snicker a bit, especially the ones in the doorway.

“Huh?” You ask, wondering what he was talking about.

“Yesterday,” he reminds you, “you said you don’t run, so what exercise do you do?”

“Oh, that,” you sigh. “I walk the neighbor’s dog for him, he can’t get out and walk Daisy like his wife did before she passed, so I walk the dog, and he lets me pile my trash on his side of the driveway so I don’t have to pay for it to be picked up,” you smile sheepishly.

“You live in town? I didn’t know that.”

“I live right there,” you point out the windows in the back of your classroom, “in the little brown house. I walk to school everyday.” Just then the bell rings and you look up at the clock just inside your room and start calming the class down so you can remind them what is due tomorrow.

At lunch you looked out the window at your house across the street, “Damn, I’ve gotta ask Dad if I can borrow his pusher, my yard looks atrocious.”

“I can get it if you want,” the gruff voice says from behind you.

“Coach! I didn’t see you come in! You scared me!” you almost screech.

“Sorry Ms. L/N, I just meant that I could get it for you, I have a mower back at my place it will take about ten minutes to do that.”

“No, it takes at least an hour, Coach Winchester, and I can do it. I just have been putting it off,” you say quickly.

“I’ll be over tonight, you’ll see. Ten minutes, time me.” He says as he pats your shoulder, “and, call me Dean, only the kids call me Coach.”

After school, you hurry home. You can’t put your finger on why, but you have a feeling that Dean will be by with his mower soon. You tidy the house up and get your laptop out so you can grade the student’s work, being a computer teacher has its perks. You turn on some classic rock to drown out the noise of the cars on the road and get some dinner started. The sound of a lawn mower pulls you away from your spaghetti preparations and you look out the kitchen window to see Dean drive by on his riding lawn mower, big bulky noise cancelling headphones on his ears as he rumbles past.

You glance at the clock on the oven, remembering his challenge; 5:09.

You meander to the back porch with a tray of lemonade and glasses as Dean drives by with the blades off after finishing rounding out your last tree in the backyard. He pulls up to the bottom of the stairs, he climbs them, two at a time and you see that the heat of the August sun has prompted the usually crisp dressed man to don a pair of jean shorts and toss his white tee over the back of the driver seat. Sweat glistens off his honey colored skin all perfectly filled out and toned.

“Lemonade?” You ask, trying not to let your voice waver, “What do I owe you for such a favor?”

“Turn up that music?” He offers from under his lashes as he sips on the glass of lemonade after sinking into a second hand patio chair you got off the internet.

You gave him a puzzling look before reaching hand into the house past the screen door and you turned the little knob on the old stereo speakers you had hooked up to your computer. The classic rock came louder, Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore kicked in over the chorus and his thousand watt smile crawled onto his face.

“No seriously, you did a wonderful job, what do I owe you? How much do you want for doing this?” you asked again, trying to clarify.

“I heard you the first time, Sugar. I told you, turn it up and let me come back out. I’ll come out as long as you need me to.”

“Really?” you asked shocked. “You would do that for me?” He nodded.

“One thing though,” he said suddenly.

“Anything, name it!”

“Come have dinner at my place on Saturday. I would say Friday, but, ya’know, the game.” he rambles a bit sheepishly.

“I- Of- Yes,” you start and stop a few times, “yes, I would like that very much.” Your cheeks tint a bit pink and the timer in the house goes off. You set your drink down and rush inside to take your garlic bread out of the oven. You come right back outside at the sound of the  mower turning on, and being drove around to the front of the house. You hurry to the front of the house, and watch out the front window as Coach Winchester drives off on his little riding lawn mower down the road a couple blocks before turning. Turning back to your kitchen, you settle for having dinner with your gradebook instead of Dean.

Friday at school was crazy, home football games usually were. You were helping the school by selling tickets, and you got a little bonus but you also got in for free. After a tough first half, the guys came in for a swift second half and came out with a big win. The stands rush the field, you quickly and quietly slip out of the masses after congratulating a couple of the team who were in your classes. As you were heading through the parking lot to home you hear a couple of the other teachers talking about heading out to drinks tonight at the bar in town. Your hurry faster across the street, not a big drinker yourself you tend to stay away from those teachers, always afraid that they will get in trouble, and by extension, you. You slip inside quietly, and lay your keys down on the counter as you take your jacket to the closet in the hall as a knock resounds through the living room. You grab the door handle and open the door to see Dean standing there.

“Hey, I didn’t get to talk to you tonight, with the game and all,” Dean kind of rambles.

You open the screen door on the front door and step out onto the front cement pad with him. “It’s okay, is there something you need?”

“Do you want to come drinking with us? We won, and the kids can’t go drink so we might as well!”

“Oh, no,” you say quickly, “I don’t drink, I’m more fun if I stay home and out of your way. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got papers to check anyway.” You smile and wave him off. “Go on, I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

Dean smiles wide, “I almost forgot! Can I come in? I’ll write my address down, come on down at six, is that okay?”

“Yeah,” you step out of the way and hold the door for him. He drags his feet across your front mat and gingerly steps onto your carpet. You pad across the plush carpet and head for the kitchen, grabbing a pad of paper and gesturing for him to follow as he stands on the mat, frozen. He followed quickly with big strides, grabbing the pen and quickly scribbling his address down and then looked up at you. You two share a smile and his eyes rove over your face, looking for any amount of trepidation as he reaches a hand out to cup your cheek and then as he moves to peck your other cheek.

At five fourty you were just pulling your skirt on and tucking in the ends of your tank top to the waistband. The light blue tank and aztec pink and blue print of the tea length skirt matched nicely, and with a thin white jacket and small pink quartz pendant necklace your look was set. A touch of makeup and you were out the door by five fifty. Just a short walk, about three blocks, to Dean’s took you about five minutes. When you knocked on the door Dean came rushing a minute later, with a bottle of water in one hand.

“Hey,” he said as he looked you up and down. “Damn, I feel underdressed now.” He said quickly gesturing to his own dark jeans and grey tee shirt with a red and black flannel with the sleeves rolled up, you smile a bit. He chuckles and steps aside and you take a step inside.

Dinner was quaint, a perfectly grilled steak with mashed potatoes and a bottle of straight root beer each.

“I remember that you said that you don’t drink, or run but we can get to that later,” he said in a teasing tone as he handed you your bottle as you sat on his back patio. After sitting and sharing horror stories of teaching and killing a six pack of straight root beer, Dean came back with hard root beer, and you turned him down tonight. At eight his phone rang for the third time in a row and he answered it finally, leaving his hard soda on the picnic table as he walked away a bit to talk to his brother about something. You reached over as it seemed to be the end of the conversation and downed the last swallow of his soda and as he came back you stood to leave. Copying his actions the night before you cupped his face with your hands and pecked his cheek.

“I had a wonderful time tonight, but I think it’s time I leave,” you say quickly, blushing a bit as you pull back.

“I had a great time too, we should do this again,” he says and he surges forward to peck your lips shortly and with that your blush increases.

“Next Saturday, my house, six o’clock, it’s a date,” you say quickly as you skirt his house and hurry away before you do something rash.

That next week at school is tough, knowing that the date is coming up and the fact that you are still sharing Hall Duty since Gabe is still out with his minor concussion doesn’t help. Lunch is better because there is something to do beside talking, but there is more time then as well. His shameless flirting is getting him somewhere though, he is making it harder for you to separate school from your personal life. Some of the quicker students are picking up on his hints, and flirting, sometimes faster than you are.

Saturday rolls around and you have cleaned the house, made a casserole, and bought a box of that hard root beer at the store. You set the small breakfast table as a dinner table for two. A knock on the door pulls you from your thoughts.

“Hi Dean,” you say as you open the door, unconsciously smoothing out the khaki capri leg to wipe off the sweat as you hold the door open.

“Hey you, I brought you these,” he holds out a couple stems of lilies presumably from his flower bed along the back of his yard as that color was just blooming when you were there last week. You grab them from him and smell them a bit and smile.

“They are beautiful, come in, I’ll pull out a vase.” You hold the door for him and gesture for him to sit anywhere he likes while you get the vase and wait on the casserole. He sits on the couch and watches as you pull a vase out of the small china cupboard and fill it with water and set it on the counter. You return with a couple of the hard root beer bottles and hand him one. His face shows that he didn’t believe that you would have these.

“Hey, I never said I couldn’t, I just said I don’t usually,” you twisted the cap off and tossed it to the coffee table, he copies you and takes a swig. As you take your phone out and start the music playing softly. The soft bluesy tunes of The Steve Miller Band echo around the small living area as Dean’s smile widens.

“You know Steve Miller?” he asks incredulously.

“Of course, I grew up on the classics!” you exclaim. He starts singing along and the two of you finish out the song as the timer on the counter beeps. You hop up and turn off the timer, opening the oven door to check your casserole. Dean wanders over and sits down at the small breakfast table with his and your hard sodas. You bring the pan over to the table and carefully dish out the food.

After a quaint dinner, and almost the whole six pack of hard sodas down, and bubbling within you two, you see the lust burning in his eyes. But as a true gentleman he retreats back to his house in order to keep his cool. Every Saturday for the rest of the year you and Dean met up, dinner, movies, grading, lesson planning, anything that could mean you could share the space, your place, his place, a public place.

Around Christmas you share your first steamy kiss, and by May you were officially a couple and the students were loving it. The Principal however was a little less than thrilled, emails had been provided that stated the conduct requirements for teachers, with certain areas highlighted.

Over the summer, steamy nights were getting hotter as Dean’s drawer at your place turned into everything in your place after his trailer got flooded in the summer storms.

At the first pep rally a couple years after that, the school was a-buzz. With the workload your learning team had piled on you you weren’t looking forward to Dean had been spending more time with the team, and while you were happy for the distraction from the empty house, the work was supposed to be distributed between your team. You had planned on camping out in your room, avoiding the rally until one of the football players piped in.

“Ms. L/N? Aren’t you comin’? Coach Winchester is adamant that everyone come this rally. Says he’s gotta show us something he’s been working on,” Terrell told you. He was a good kid, star running back in fact. Quick as a speeding bullet, but some days you wondered how many hits he’s taken and not gotten checked out.

“Well, you just fill me in, Mr. Edlund’s new plan for our standardized tests is going to take the rest of the night, even if I don’t go to the rally,” you said, pointing to the class schedule you and your peers had to figure out in order to get all the students through your three classrooms of computers. You made a shooing motion with your hand and Terrell sighed.

“I didn’t want to do this Miss.” He sighed as he walked to the door and whistled down the hall. Then he came back in the classroom as his co-hort, Jordan, came in with an exercise band. Jordan walked up slowly as Terrell boxed you in behind your desk. He and Jordan wrapped the band around your middle and around the back of your desk chair before each grabbing an arm and running down the hall pulling you along. At first you fought back, but soon enough it was over and you were wheeled into the gym where the entire school was sitting in the bleachers, Principal Edlund was talking to the school about how the football team was doing good in practice and how he had watched a couple scrimmages. He passed the mic off to Coach Winchester and he called his captains out to stand with him. He gave them all an honorable mention and talked about the team as a whole.

“Now I would like to call out our favorite Cheerleader,” Dean called over the mic as Terrell and Jordan left the line up to free you from your chair and lead you over like gentlemen. They looped your arms in their elbows and escorted you to the front where the quarterback had pulled a chair from a stunt to happen later up to sit beside Coach. The other captains backed up and the real cheerleaders filed out with signs that you couldn’t see. Terrell and Jordan sat you down in the chair before joining the team behind you. You tried to turn but Dean clapped a hand on your shoulder.

“Ah-ah-ah! No peeking!” Dean chastised you into the mic, the student body giggled a bit but quieted down quickly.

“Now, as many of you know, Miss L/N and I have been dating for some time now,” he grinned down at you and you gave a little blush. “Now normally she is not one for public displays of affection, and Principal Edlund has stressed the need for me to not do something stupid. So instead I do things like this to embarrass her. If you were here last year you remember how I made her sing Shrek Karaoke?” The upperclassmen cheer a bit at how you had absolutely rocked out to Smash-Mouth last year beating out the then quarterback, Taylor. “Well, this year, we are not going to embarrass her, we are going to cherish her.”

Behind you the chant of the cheerleaders “one-two-three” startled you, but the whole student body yelled, “We love you Miss L/N!”

This is followed by the upperclassmen football boys all telling awesome and tear jerking stories of how you helped them, either at practice, or driving them home, or letting them sit in your classroom and finish homework if they didn’t have a computer at home. You wiped at tears as each student shared stories from years ago, even a few teachers joined in. After each story the call of “One-two-three” followed by “We love you Miss L/N” was heard.

Suddenly, the stories stopped, and the shuffling of mics was heard. The captains came up and picked up your chair, bouncing you around a bit before turning you to face the back wall of the gym and setting you down. There knelt Dean.

“Y/F/N L/N, you have been the Friday Night Lights to my football field for years,” Dean spoke, his voice not wavering, but his eyes shining. “Will you be my Friday Night Lights, my Head Cheerleader, and my Wife? Will you marry me?”

Your hands flew to your face, covering your mouth, your tears are now running rivers down your makeup; the sudden floating mic next to you took only a glance as you pulled it away from the person with your right hand, you held it up to your face as you answered.

“I don’t run,” the students giggled, “but I will run to you. Yes, Coach Dean Winchester; I will be your lights, your cheerleader, and your wife.”

You both stood up as he slid the beautiful ring onto your finger and some poor student ran up to gather the mics.

“One-two-three!”

“We love you Mr and Mrs Winchester!” called the student body as you embraced and kissed.

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Vital Signs, pt22

Word Count: 2085 Tags: @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @outside-the-government, @jimfromsales, @donnaintx, @enterprisewriting @starmission @supermoonpanda @rayleyanns @sistasarah-sallysaidso @flirtswithdanger

I collected up the pile of files and resisted the urge to skip up to the bridge. I had finally squared away Steve’s physical, and was happy to turn over the personnel files on all the Avengers to Director Fury. Fury was in quiet head-to-head conversation with Maria Hill, so I waited at the computer console for him to finish. He noticed me and broke away from the conversation.

“Dr. Richmond. I presume that pile of files is completed physicals?” He asked. I nodded and handed them over.

“Sir, if you have a moment, I have some recommendations for medical,” I stated. He nodded, prompting me to continue.

“Sir, we don’t e-chart, and I think we should be. A paper chart is only as good as the information in it, and in emergency situations, if the personnel needing medical attention are not where their charts are, it can mean the difference between life and death. I know that sounds dramatic, but if we’d been able to pull a chart on Coulson electronically as soon as he was injured, maybe we could have done more for him,” I suggested. Fury nodded, the hint of a sad smile flitting across his features.

“I will admit, Dr. Richmond, the way SHIELD medical services runs is largely a mystery to me. I don’t want to recommend you to a management position as you are far too valuable an asset in the field, but if there is something we can trial here, and work out the kinks before instituting across SHEILD, I am in full support. Did you have a specific plan?”

“Everyone on board runs around with tablets. There are tons of hospitals running their charting on tablet technology these days. I can do a little research, and talk to Stark about what the he can recommend or provide. A paper copy of personnel charts can be kept where necessary, but a file that can be transferred from location to location is just so much more helpful. And won’t take up the same kind of space. We have a 12 by 16 room in the infirmary entirely dedicated to personnel charts archives.” I explained.

“Read Stark into your idea, and use the time you’ve been given with him to work on this project as well then, Richmond. You’re starting with him today?”

“Yes Sir.”

“See me on Saturday and let me know how you are progressing,” he dismissed me. I turned to head to the lab for my first day working with Tony Stark. My stomach was tight and I have no problem at all admitting I was nervous as hell. The man was brilliant. Attention span of a gerbil on crack, but brilliant regardless, and the thought of working with him made me a little dizzy. I was, in all likelihood, horrifyingly outmatched by Stark. I was med school smart, which wasn’t stupid, but Tony Stark was a genius. A wave of nausea hit me and I wished I hadn’t had the bagel I’ll wolfed down.

“Richmond, wait,” Fury stopped me as I reached the bridge door. I turned.

“I received a request from Captain Rogers this morning regarding accommodation,” he disclosed. I nodded, a flush creeping up my cheek.

“Sir?”

“I’ve approved it, conditional to you resuming counselling sessions. Captain Rogers has all the information you will need for the transition to your new quarters,” he dismissed me again. A few crewmembers on the bridge had stopped what they were doing and were obviously listening in. I fought back the flush on my cheeks and nodded before dashing from the bridge.

I walked into the lab and it was like walking into a nightclub. Stark had done something to the lighting and it was flashing and pulsing along with rhythm of the music blaring through the room. He was standing at his heads up display, with his back to the door, dancing in place while he flicked through some complicated blue prints. The bridge of the song swelled and he stopped working, did some fancy arm flailing and spun around on one foot. I thought he might stop when he saw me, but he just nodded and kept dancing. I stood there, rooted to the spot. I shouldn’t really have been surprised, and honestly, he looked like he was accomplishing a lot, so it’s not like I didn’t approve. It made me feel more comfortable to be working with him though, knowing he was so relaxed.

He did another spin and saw that I hadn’t moved and danced over to me doing some weird step that looked like it had come out of Saturday Night Fever. He grabbed my hand and spun me over to the console, and then bumped his hip against mine, waving his arms in the air. I couldn’t help but laugh, but wasn’t quite relaxed enough to join in the fun. He shook his head, and made a gesture in the air. The music stopped.

“Richmond, there is a mandatory morning dance party in this lab. You must dance. I can’t work with you if you can’t follow lab protocols,” he deadpanned. I laughed.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware.” I took my lab coat off and draped it over a chair on the far side of the room.

“And you can’t wear scrubs in here. I hate them. If you’re going to be one of Stark’s Dancing Girls (trademark pending), you have to dress sexier than that,” he teased. I rolled my eyes.

“Right. I’ll make sure I wear a bikini tomorrow.”

“Make it really inappropriate. I work better in those conditions.” His grin somehow became broader. Probably in relief that I wasn’t as uptight as he maybe suspected.

“Good to know. Skanky latex peekaboo bikini is standard lab protective protocol,” I nodded. He laughed again.

“We can’t start working until you dance, Richmond. Let’s go, we don’t have all day.” He waved his hand and the music started again and then he crossed his arms and rocked back on one hip, waiting. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“You asked for it.” I stepped away from him and stretched. I cracked my shoulders and met his gaze. Without cracking so much as a hint of a smile, I busted out into the ‘running man’. He cracked up.

“Wait, was that enough? How about a little sprinkler?” I popped my arms up and waved my one arm across in front of me, “Or the lawn mower?” I leaned over to ‘start the mower’ and Stark broke.

“You have to stop! No more dancing!” He turned away. Damn good thing he broke when he did, I had very little left in my ‘weird dance’ repertoire. He cut the music.

“Please say no more morning dance parties,” I begged, and sat down on a stool across the table from him. There’s something about the Tony Stark smirk that makes you really not want to trust whatever he says next. Like some sort of mischievous child up to no good, but promising to behave because he knows that’s what you want to hear. He gave me the smirk, and nodded. I cringed inwardly, dreading what might greet me the next morning. I walked over to the coffee maker and poured myself a cup.

“The MRI lacks functionality in a lot of ways, Richmond. I think we could build a better imaging unit that would complement what we’re trying to develop more appropriately. I looked at some of the scans in the database and they aren’t fantastic for 3D imaging. We can definitely do better.” He changed gears immediately when he decided he was done screwing around.

“Oh, we’re working now?” I returned to my stool and sat down.

“Unless you wanted to dance some more?”

“Work it is.” I opened the Medical Imaging textbook I’d been studying and we started discussing what improvements could be made to the imagine technology we had access to. Tony’s brain was a masterpiece. I would never say it to his face, but the speed at which his mind moved was astonishing to me. I would say ‘wouldn’t it be cool if?’ and he would be halfway through figuring out how to make it happen before I could finish my sentence. It was really no wonder he could be so wild and unpredictable. I don’t know that I would particularly enjoy living in his brain every day.

Steve popped in at lunch with sandwiches, which was random and kind of sweet. We sat down and ate quietly, which was apparently highly offensive to Tony.

“Don’t you two speak to each other? How can you be revoltingly romantic without words?” He pulled a stool up and took a bite out of my sandwich. I caught Steve’s eye and winked.

“And people say I’m naïve,” Steve teased. Tony raised an eyebrow.

“What’s that, Cap?” He asked.

“Do you talk all the time when you’re alone with your best girl?” Steve’s question was pointed. Tony furrowed his brow and said nothing, his look of confusion spreading.

“Steve is too much of a gentleman, but what he’s getting at is that most people don’t talk when they’re busy in the bedroom,” I filled in. Tony’s eyes widened and then he laughed.

“This is lunch, not some illicit assignation. Unless it was supposed to be? Oh god, I just ate part of your sandwich. Are we having a threesome?” He stood up and faked a full body shiver before heading back to his computer console. Steve smiled and said nothing as he finished his sandwich.

“Fury told me you’d spoken to him about quarters,” I stated, my voice low. Steve nodded and shot a look toward Tony.

“Yeah. Did he tell you he approved it?” He asked. I nodded. He collected our garbage and kissed me on the forehead, “I’ll move your stuff this afternoon.” He headed out of the lab. Tony looked up.

“You guys are boring,” he stated.

“Oh?”

“You’re boring. You eat sandwiches. And you run together. And watch movies. You’re boring. I get that he’s a 90-year-old man, but you are a young woman. Live a little.”

“I’m touched that you’re so concerned,” I replied dryly.

“Seriously, Lex. You are what, 25-“

“29, but who’s counting?”

“Okay, 29. When was the last time you were out partying and woke up in a strange country with a guy name Sven rubbing your back?”

“Considering I’m not a billionaire? Never,” I laughed.

“We need to remedy that,” he determined.

“We don’t. I’m good.”

“When was the last time you were in Vegas?” He demanded.

“Never?”

“You’ve never been to Vegas? Have you ever drunk a beer? Kissed a boy? Had sex somewhere other than a bed? Partied with the Maxim girls?”

“Never been to Vegas. Wouldn’t want to party with the Maxim girls.”

“Wait, does that mean –“

“Tony, enough. I am happy. I love Steve.”

“You were recruited to be an agent, right?” He changed topics.

“Why?”

“I just think someone with the temperament to be an agent shouldn’t be babysitting Cap.”

“I’m not babysitting, Tony. And I didn’t have the temperament to be an agent.”

“Sure you did. You just wrecked your shoulder. By the way, that’s been fixed. How long do you think until Fury pulls you from medical to work as an agent?” He asked.

“I’d refuse. I like my job. Besides, SHIELD is out a med school education if they turn me into a field agent. And there’s a greater need for docs now that we’ve had all the shenanigans of the last couple of years. And with that, can we talk about the e-charting system we need to develop? I would like to get started on it, and I have an appointment at 1400.” I sent up a silent prayer that Tony would take the damn hint and stop dissecting my relationship with Steve. It was making me nauseated and uncomfortable.

“Sure.” He flipped open a paper chart and cringed.

“I would like to use tablet technology for charting and maintaining employee health records. Is that feasible?” I asked.

“Easy. We’ll just need to develop a health management program and then install it. I’ll need a list of headings for charting info to go into, and we’ll have to merge some database management software into it.”

“We’ll need mainframe access to lock into various servers for information of medical records,” I explained.

“What about Barton? He’s nice, single.”

“Tony! Enough!” I snapped and pointed at the chart.

[tghrs]

Here is what the last week’s statistics look like.  As you can see a lot of rain where we ended the week flooded with a record of just shy of 5″.  By far the largest rain total I have seen over the last 20+ years. 

This is how the last few days went…  I had just sprayed greens Tuesday this week but was hit by a 1/2″ thunderstorm so I know I am in trouble even though I re-applied on Wednesday.   But if you look at the temperatures and humidity.  The only things loving this condition is the fungus.  

Thursday the 13th we were chased off the course by rain (again).   So I went out before lunch with a 2″ total accumulation at this point and this are the photos I was able to get.

Still getting under the bridge, 1130 am

11 Green

12 green

14 green

16 pond

16 cart path to pond

  When the rain continued the rest of the day I knew we would be flooded.  That is when we hit almost 5″ total accumulation.

Friday…Flooded, goal is to get the cart paths open for golfers.  The Pro Shop closes for the day and Saturday Morning to get ready for an event.  We pump the water off the cart path on #1 so we can get through without causing a muddy mess.  (Had to dust off the pumps, haven’t used them since we started putting catch basins in the bunkers in 2014.) The rest of the nine is passable but large areas of water sitting over the drains with each molecule of H2O (water) waiting its turn to hit the rapids to the Ohio River and eventually to New Orleans.  With the bunker drains working so well we were able to get sand pushed up and the bottoms scarified to dry out.

Side Story:  My pump station was being repaired (stuck needle valve in a regulator). Went in and the pump was running 230 GPM with 0 PSI.  (Not normal)  Doug and I were now on the look out for an irrigation leak.  Test the repair to find it is a much larger leak..it is only 420 gallons per minute.  That’s 25,200 gallons per hour.  I would probably notice the fountain in the middle of the course so I wonder why I can’t spot it… Curious?  My guess it is on the back side under 6 feet of water.  I think it will have to wait until next week when the water is gone to investigate further.  Let’s turn the pumps off for now.

Jim did a walk-about with the waders to get some shots since everything was basically underwater and we don’t own a boat.   Photos:   This is Friday morning… Afternoon… and into Saturday.

#14 Ball Washer

Porta John #14 Next to the Black tee.

Trees between #16 Fairway and #14 Tees

#14 Fairway

#15 Fairway

#10 Green

#10 Fairway

Driving Range

#1 Cart Path

#4 Right Rough

#8 Fairway Bunker

Saturday…We were able to get the front open plus 10 &18 for Saturday afternoon event including bunkers raked (3rd raking) (YEA crew!).  

#10 Green Saturday

Driving Range Saturday

#17 (from 11 bridge) Saturday

The back still had impassible water on the paths #11, #12, #13, #14, and behind #17.  

Today (Sunday) we went in and of course the door lock was broken and we had to break into the building to get the day started.  We write ourselves in since the time clock got zapped with the lightning in the area the last few days.  The goal was to get the front nine ready and try to put together the back nine.  We need to get the final cart paths cleared for traffic like: greens mowers, tee set up, (We will need to make more tee markers to replace the ones floated away in the flood.) cup cutter, Oh yeah…Golfers!  The greens were cut and muddy, they are covered with disease (since I can’t spray under water).  Needless to say we are cart path only.  I am hoping that we will be off the path on the front tomorrow.

I know you have a very short memory.  You have taught me that I have three days to get bunkers back in shape before you start complaining.  

So here is your heads up.  It just ain’t gonna happen this time.  

Here is what we are looking at so far.  I will tell you more when we can drive on the grass.  I know you will start driving on the grass today even though it is cart path only.  I know it looks dry but it isn’t, you will leave muddy footprints everywhere which is what the pro shop warned you was going to happen.  And yet you will think the grass will be dry enough to drive on.  Some of you may get stuck and have to push yourselves out and leave a muddy rutted mess.  That is OK, I expect that after you realize that no one is watching and you have a few too many drinks and believe I don’t know what I  am talking about.  You will still believe “It is dry out there.”

We’ll see, you will leave your evidence for us to fix this week.  We appreciate you coming out to play.  We’ll fix it.  Just don’t expect miracles.

#15 Ball washer & Trash can

#14 Fairway

#14 Fairway

#14 Fairway

#17 (from 11 bridge) Saturday

#18 trash can Ball Washer bed washed away.

#18 trash can Ball Washer

#14 Green Side Bunker

#14 Green Side Bunker Missing sand.

Mark Novotny CGCS

7-16-17 Flooding Update: Here is what the last week's statistics look like.  As you can see a lot of rain where we ended the week flooded with a record of just shy of 5".  

[flauntpage]

Your Wednesday Morning Roundup

The December 76ers can be summed up by one quote from The Waterboy:

With the 101-95 loss to the Sacramento Kings, the Sixers have lost seven of their last eight games, 2-9 since the calendar turned to December, and 4-11 since Thanksgiving.

For the second straight game, the Sixers did not have the services of Joel Embiid due to back soreness, but that in no means is a good excuse for this slump. They lost to the Chicago Bulls by two on Monday night, so this should’ve been a win, right? Nope.

Robert Covington led the Sixers with 17 points, while Ben Simmons was an assist short of another triple-double, recording 13 points and 12 rebounds to go with his nine dishes. Zach Randolph led all players with 27 points, with Buddy Hield not that far behind with 24.

The team begins a home-and-home Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center with the Toronto Raptors. That will be the team’s last home game until the new year. Let’s hope we see more of Ben Simmons taking jumpers, because he might need to start carrying the team a little more.

The Roundup:

Remember Jahlil Okafor? The Sixers traded him and Nik Stauskas to the Nets for Trevor Booker nearly two weeks ago. He hasn’t played in five of the team’s six games since the trade, and he’s blaming the Sixers for not being in game shape. So much for that vegan diet of his.

But he’s now entered damage control mode. This from his Instagram story:

—

Pro Bowl rosters were announced last night, and the Eagles had six of their own named to the NFC team Four of them are first-time selections.

RG Brandon Brooks (1st Pro Bowl)

DT Fletcher Cox (3rd Pro Bowl)

TE Zach Ertz (1st Pro Bowl)

S Malcolm Jenkins (2nd Pro Bowl)

RT Lane Johnson (1st Pro Bowl)

QB Carson Wentz (1st Pro Bowl)

The Steelers led all teams with eight Pro Bowlers.

But one notable exception was center Jason Kelce, who was leading voting at the center position earlier this month. His teammates thought he was robbed of a selection:

Kelce got snubbed so bad I’m starting to wonder if the voters are all trash cans.

— Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) December 20, 2017

Kelce was robbed though http://pic.twitter.com/VVCrl3glni

— Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) December 20, 2017

Long also thought Brandon Graham should’ve been in:

BG never having been to a Pro Bowl is an example of why it’s kind of an arbitrary deal. Great football player.

— Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) December 20, 2017

Kelce and Graham, along with Alshon Jeffery, Jalen Mills, Jake Elliott and Kamu Grugier-Hill are all Pro Bowl alternates.

As for the rest of the team, defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz hasn’t been happy with his performance of the defense, even though the team has continued their winning ways.

“One thing that has hurt us, particularly in this last game, were penalties and third down,” Schwartz said. “The first three series of the game, I think we started 0-for-6 on third downs. You talk about a good formula for giving up points, there’s one right there. When I say 0-for-6, that might not be the stat count because the penalties don’t count in those official stats, but they count on defense…

“When we’re playing our best, we don’t give teams a second chance. I’ve said that a few weeks in a row now. I’m getting a little bit tired of saying it, but we have to get back to that. We have to get back to playing clean football, not giving people stuff for free.

“There’s a lot of things the opponents do to us. They can run and pass and play-action and everything else. I think what’s more important in this is what we’re doing. When we play our best, we don’t give up touchdowns.”

Carson Wentz made his return to NovaCare Complex yesterday. But even though he won’t play for the rest of the year, he’ll still get involved with Nick Foles and Nate Sudfeld.

“Today he was back in the building, in the quarterback room, and just being himself,” Reich said. “That’s a tight-knit room. These rooms, our players are close. The three of those [QBs] are really close. So, first and foremost, take care of rehab. Second, support Nick [Foles] and Nate [Sudfeld].”

From covering Training Camp this summer, Reich is right. I spoke to Dane Evans, the team’s fourth string QB during the preseason, and he discussed the close-knit and competitiveness the QBs had, especially with ping pong. Evans and Foles, along with Matt McGloin, made sure Wentz didn’t have easy chances to win. It’s a fun group from what Evans told me.

—

Anthony SanFilippo recaps Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, which ended their six-game winning streak.

Despite playing in every game this season, rookie defenseman Robert Hagg hasn’t recorded a goal. He’s not worried about that, and would rather worry about his team rather than himself.

“I’m not trying to build my game through stats,” Hagg said after practice Tuesday. “I’m just trying to help the team win. If my stats say I’m horse[bleep] out there, I don’t care, honestly.”

They don’t. What they say is he is already, in his rookie season, among the NHL’s most consistent hitters and reliable defenders. Hagg was credited with six hits in Monday’s 4-1 loss to Los Angeles, maintaining his status among the top five defenders in that category.

Impressive as those numbers are, the impressive aspect is what they accomplish. Armed with an active stick that can flick pucks clear of danger with a single hand attached, Hagg designs his hits to separate pucks rather than shoulders. He’s amassed just 12 penalty minutes. Radko Gudas, despite playing in 20 because of injuries and a 10-game suspension, has 57 penalty minutes.

“Hagger’s playing hard,” said Flyers coach Dave Hakstol. “You look at [Monday] night. We were off our game. We didn’t play a complete game. Individually, I thought he played hard. He did all of the things that we would like to see out of him. Throughout he was a consistent player, a heavy player throughout that entire game.”

The Flyers host the Detroit Red Wings tonight for Wednesday Night Rivalry at 8 PM on NBCSN. Don’t ask me how this is a rivalry game, because just mentioning the 1997 Stanley Cup Final is ridiculous. It’s the team’s last home game of the calendar year.

—

As Temple prepares for tomorrow’s Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl (what a name for a bowl), the school’s winningest senior class doesn’t want to end the season with a losing record. And head coach Geoff Collins has been setting the tone for the week.

Collins was named Temple’s head coach two weeks before last year’s bowl game, but he didn’t coach in it, opting to observe. Tight ends and special teams coach Ed Foley, who was named the interim head coach when Rhule departed, coached the team.

While the media hasn’t been able to view much of practice, word is that the players have been energetic, with Collins leading the way.

Collins says he and his staff haven’t shied away from mentioning the disappointing results of the last two bowl games. He feels that in practice, he feels the players seemed to have responded.

“I am pleased with how they prepared [and] handled their business on and off the field, so it has been a good week of preparation,” Collins said.

The team had some fun as well on the beach yesterday.

Selfies with Hooter!#InvadeTheBay http://pic.twitter.com/A3SAf5FODb

— Temple Football (@Temple_FB) December 19, 2017

Had a blast at the today! #BattleAtTheBeach #InvadeTheBay http://pic.twitter.com/ikDNXThNFh

— Temple Football (@Temple_FB) December 20, 2017

The kid crowd surfing in the first picture is long snapper Corey Lerch, one of my buds from high school. He’s the next Jon Dorenbos.

Today is the start of the new early signing period for high school football recruits.

—

In other sports news, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has stripped Alex Guerrero, an associate of Tom Brady and his TB12 therapy center, of his special team privileges. Is there a growing rift between Brady and Belichick?

Oklahoma freshman Trae Young tied the NCAA record of 22 assists in last night’s win over Northwestern State. He was also the first player in two decades to register at least 20 points and 20 assists in the same game.

After their move to the Barclays Center, a basketball arena, proved to be really bad, the New York Islanders will move back to Long Island near Belmont Park.

North Carolina head coach Sylvia Hatchell and UConn head coach and Norristown native Geno Auriemma earned their 1,000th career victories in women’s college basketball.

Speaking of local in the college game, former Imhotep wide receiver and current Maryland Terrapin D.J. Moore is foregoing his senior season and will enter the 2018 NFL Draft.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is back on IR.

Lane Kiffin had a heck of a day. Hours after signing a new 10-year contract extension (!) with Florida Atlantic, his Owls destroyed Akron 50-3.

LANE WITH THE ONE-HANDED SNAG http://pic.twitter.com/Tqua5kjYd0

— SB Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) December 20, 2017

We also found out he hates Gatorade baths and he can’t really dance.

Steph Curry’s ankle injury will force him to miss the Christmas Day NBA Finals rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Former 49er and current rugby player Jarryd Hayne has been accused of rape in a civil lawsuit.

Marlins Man is not happy with Derek Jeter and his moves with the Miami Marlins.

Charlie Villanueva got his housed robbed. And they took his toilet.

They stole my toilet…… I’m not making this shit up. Still waiting @DallasPD http://pic.twitter.com/Go9BP3itSB

— Charlie Villanueva (@CVBelieve) December 20, 2017

This Detroit Mercy commit broke a rim.

Literally shut down the gym. Games canceled. @Adrian4Nelson just broke the rim.. http://pic.twitter.com/GFuE6A0HkJ

— Ian (@ian_ash1) December 20, 2017

—

In the news, part of I-95 in Bucks County was shut down early this morning after a sign mishap involving a malfunctioning crane.

The Senate passed the new GOP tax plan and will go back to the House for another vote.

A top European court has ruled that Uber should be regulated as a taxi company.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned during the church’s sex abuse scandal, has died at 86.

Heather North, the longtime voice of Daphne during the Scooby Doo incarnations up until 2003, has died at 71.

If you’re tired of the same old Christmas songs, Chance the Rapper and Jeremih have dropped a deluxe holiday mixtape for you to listen and download.

McDonald’s is going to sell a McVegan burger in Europe.

Your Wednesday Morning Roundup published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv