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iamtheblondestblonde · 4 years ago

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Clear as Day

Part One?

AN: Here’s some friends with benefits with Vince that I came up with in between cases at work. Vince if you’re reading this I’m so sorry please stop right here but also hmu I swear I just wanna be friends. I don’t know much about being a pediatric nurse (financial law anyone?) but I did volunteer at a hospital for a while so I hope it’s not super far off. I have plans and some stuff written for a part two that could be the same length so let me know you want one but it could be complete like this. (First person narrative but again no names or descriptions for the mc)

Warnings: language, definitely (also English isn’t my first language so perhaps some mistakes) and smut, also definitely (yes you read that right I did it again)

Word Count: 13.3k

I loved my job. I really did. I found it rewarding to be able to make tiny faces light up but I was currently on my second day of 12 hour back to back shifts, with yesterday closer to 14 hours, and I just really wanted to spend the entire day in bed.

It wasn’t even 7 a.m. yet and the streets of Toronto were already bustling, everybody preparing for a busy day. The sound of the ice cubes sloshing around in my coffee had become a staple background noise for the walk from the employee parking lot to the front entrance of the hospital, it soothed me.

As soon as I stepped into the building I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face, despite being sleep-deprived and basically needing a break already. There was a new drawing pinned to the wall by the nurses’ station and if the image of my smiling face wasn’t a dead giveaway already, it was hard to miss my name written on top of it in big bold letters.

It had started out as a joke really, a half-hearted complaint about me not getting as many drawings as others because most of my patients didn’t stay long in the ICU. From that moment on Lucas, my only long-term patient right now and all-time favorite teenager, had made sure that there was always a new one waiting for me every week. He was really good at drawing as well and I had an entire stack of amazing portraits, landscapes and lots of other random things at my apartment that I cherished dearly.

“He wanted to give it to you himself but then we had to give him something and he asked me to put it up so you’d see it as soon as you got in.” I turned around to see Mariah standing behind me, her face showing the same look of fondness as mine. Most of the nurses were pretty convinced that he had a crush on me and while I had to face lots of playful jabs because of that, she never gave me shit about it. She was probably about to head out and I knew that she only stayed behind to tell me this so I made sure to thank her.

“Is he up yet?”

“Surprisingly not, although he should be soon. He’s had a rough night and he stayed up way too long to draw but I doubt that anything could ruin this day for him, two dreams coming true and all.”

As soon as her words registered with me I mentally facepalmed, I’d completely forgotten that we’d get a visitor in a couple of hours. Because of Lucas’ surgery he hadn’t talked about hockey all that much lately, so I’d kind of forgotten that today he would get to meet one of his idols. I was about to respond something when I spotted Sydney waving me over.

Sydney was in charge of all of the pediatric nurses during the day shift, meaning that I had approximately three seconds to make my way over before she’d get impatient because she was always so busy. I waved goodbye to Mariah and speed walked over to Sydney, curious to see as to what she needed of me. She never beat around the bush, always coming straight to the core of things so I didn’t expect the conversation to last long and today was no different. She probably held the world record for fastest talker.

“So you know we’re getting a visitor today which means that I need someone to run a tight ship for me. You’re young and perky and I asked around and people love you. I know you helped with some of the Leafs the last time so you should already be familiar with the protocol. This is a big hospital and I want all of the kids on the list to get a chance to talk to Mr Dunn and that won’t happen if he gets lost so I want you to stay with him at all times, got it? I’ll get one of the on-calls to take over for you during everything.”

I couldn’t even get a word in before her pager went off and she jogged off after practically thrusting a file into my hands, unable to respond anything as she said something over her shoulder about this being a gift. I stared after her with my mouth hanging wide open, not really comprehending what had just gone down yet.

Being ‘young and perky’ had apparently just managed to get me demoted from a RN to a babysitter for yet another over-confident celebrity which didn’t really feel like a gift at all.

Lucas had told me all about how great this Vince apparently was but I had seen my fair share of famous people walking around these halls with camera teams following them, it was kind of a part of working with sick kids. There were exceptions of course, some of them were really nice but those were usually the ones that didn’t visit the kids for some good PR. While I was glad that it would make Lucas happy it didn’t really impress me anymore.

Besides I hadn’t really paid attention to hockey ever before, although it was hard to escape the hype right now with me being a St. Louis native. Some of my friends had sent me pictures of the parade from about a month ago but I hadn’t really paid much attention because I’d been slammed with work, not recognizing any of the players either way.

The file Sydney had given me consisted of a schedule for the day and a list of the kids that wanted to meet Vince, which was surprisingly long for this being a hospital in Toronto and him playing for the Blues. Even with my limited, read non-existent, hockey knowledge I was pretty sure that the team wasn’t liked very much in the league but I blamed it on them winning. Sydney was right, we would have to make good time to get through everybody.

I couldn’t exactly spend forever going through the file because I had mostly new admissions assigned to me and that meant lots of charting and running tests. I did spend my break reading through everything and trying to come up with a plan while shoveling food to my mouth at record speed however. Even if I wasn’t exactly thrilled with this assignment there was absolutely no way I wouldn’t be prepared. I would leave this hospital with the best possible impression of me, all things be damned.

It was kind of hard to focus on what was written in front of me though when I had three other nurses standing close by and ranting about how hot Vince apparently was. Lucas had shown me his hockey card a few times but I didn’t really know what he looked like because I was usually busy putting in a new IV line at the time, something he’d come to hate so talking about hockey was the perfect distraction. I was tempted to google him but before I got the chance my pager went off, signaling that the incoming convoy was about to arrive.

Unable to stop myself I checked my reflection quickly in one of the mirrors on my way out of the restroom. Call me vain but I didn’t want to end up in any pictures or videos looking like a total slob, even if it was just in the background. I’d taken the time to shower this morning but I definitely would’ve added more than the layer of concealer if I’d known about this earlier. At least I’d gotten my brows done and my lash extensions refilled a couple of days ago. Deciding that it was too late to do anything else about it I walked towards the front entrance with the file in my hands, making sure one last time that I knew where to take this Vince first.

It wasn’t hard to spot him in the group that arrived, the big shiny trophy he was lugging around kind of a dead giveaway.

He was good-looking, I had to give him that. Not in the rugged handsome way however, it was more of a defined features and beautiful way. The kind of look that got you dubbed as a pretty boy during high school, the polo shirt he was spotting only reinforcing that image.

I couldn’t really imagine him playing ice hockey. He was fit of course, but he wasn’t as big and bulky as I’d thought and if I had to guess I’d peg him as a baseball or lacrosse player, perhaps soccer even. If all hockey players looked like him however, I might have to catch a game or two after all.

I walked over with my big work smile plastered on my face, hand outstretched and he set the cup down to shake it as I introduced myself first. I caught him looking me up and down quickly but I wasn’t really one to talk because I’d done the same exact thing just seconds earlier.

“Hi I’m Vince, nice to meet you. Love the scrubs by the way”, he responded with a dazzling smile, gesturing at my outfit. Compliments weren’t a bad start, especially since I was wearing one of my favorites with an adorable blue and pink dinosaurs print.

“Thanks, one of my friends paints them for me.” Not willing to dwell too long on awkward small talk I continued: “Do you want me to get like a wheelchair for the cup or are you gonna carry it the entire time?”

“I think I’d get a lot of shit for not carrying it so thanks but no thanks.”

I quickly introduced myself to the rest of the team before herding everyone towards the elevators because he had to be upstairs in a couple of minutes. The camera team was more intimidating than I’d thought and I tried my best to distract myself from it as I pointed out different things around the hospital, only hoping that I wasn’t rambling without making any sense.

I was pretty sure that Vince could tell that I was uncomfortable because he kept our conversation going the whole time, obviously trying to make me laugh. His own laugh was hard to ignore and by the time we walked into the room where a livestream would take place the smile on my face was real. At least he wasn’t just easy on the eyes but he seemed fairly entertaining so far as well.

I watched him do the stream with Owen, who I’d spent some time in post-op with after his surgery a couple of weeks ago, and then stood close by as he talked to the long line of patients and people who were able to come up here. Sometimes when he saw a special needs kid getting closer he’d turn to me to ask for advice and tips and even all that ruckus didn’t stop him from keeping up a normal conversation with me.

He’d pick up right where we left off whenever there was a small break in between people and I wasn’t only amazed at his multitasking, but also at how amazing he was with the kids. He made me show him how to hold a baby and I think I’ll never be able to forget the image of a cute little baby boy in the cup.

“I ate cereal out of there this morning”, he whispered conspiratorially to me after the mother was finally done thanking him and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Of course you did. I hope you put it in the sink afterwards at least.” He gave me a wounded look, as if me insinuating he was not a clean person was hurting his ego and I laughed even more. I couldn’t really tell if he was trying to flirt with me or if he was like this with everyone but the mixed signals he’d sent me all afternoon were starting to get confusing.

“You think so lowly of me, I thought you’d know better by now.” With anyone else the wink he sent me as he delivered his line would have probably been overkill but somehow it worked for him.

The fact was that I did know better by now, even if it had only been just under two hours. I probably hadn’t been this wrong about something since I absolutely botched a math test in tenth grade thinking I aced it and he had turned out to be nothing like I had imagined him to be. Perhaps the early morning sleep-deprived me lacked the sense of being able to assess character that I usually had.

When I told him that it was time to leave he looked at me with a puppy eyes, pleading with me to let him stay a little longer. Working in pediatrics I got this a lot but somehow it had a whole different effect on me coming from a 6 feet tall hockey player with lips that were practically made for pouting.

“But there’s still some people left that I haven’t gotten to.”

“There’s also some kids that couldn’t come up here because they are too sick waiting for you in the ICU and you won’t be able to see all of them in time if we don’t go over there now. There’s a tight schedule for a reason you know.”

“Fuck the schedule, I’ll just stay longer,” he said with a cheeky grin but not before covering the ears of the little girl in front of him with his hands so she wouldn’t hear him curse. At this point I felt like it was way too easy for him to make me laugh but at the same time I didn’t really want to do anything against it. These halls had seen worse things than people laughing after all.

“You fit right in with all of my patients, you know that? And don’t you have plans with the cup for this evening?”

I didn’t get an answer straight away because Vince took his time to talk to the last five families left in line before we made our way back to the elevators. I had kind of forgotten about the camera crew that was there to document it all until all of us were crammed back inside the tight space, my shoulder brushing against Vince’s arm so I wouldn’t bump into any of the expensive equipment.

“I promised to make an appearance at this club but they’ll wait for me. By the way, you should come as well.” At first I thought he was joking, surely he had to be as we’d only met, but his try at a winning smile told me he was anything but. Again, was this him flirting or was I losing my mind?

“Shooting your shot while you’re in my good graces because of the kids, I see. I’m gonna have to disappoint though, I’m stuck here till seven and then I have another 12 hour shift coming up tomorrow so I can have a four day weekend.” I had already kind of accepted that we would never see each other again, especially with me turning him down now, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a bit sad about it.

“That sounds brutal. I’m throwing another party at my condo on Saturday if you’re free then.”

“I’m actually driving up to a lake house with some friends for the weekend, sorry.” By now I really was interested because he seemed fun and I wanted that for my last few weeks up here but his timing was truly the worst.

“Wow, you’re really making me work for it,” he let out a teasing chuckle then, running his hand up and down his neck in a very distracting move as he contemplated his next words “I’m assuming you have a busy week next week as well so perhaps next Saturday?”

“Ummm.. I already agreed to meet some friends at a bar on that Saturday,” his face fell at that so I couldn’t help but add “but you’re welcome to meet us there if you want to see how the working class parties. Bring some of your friends as well if you want.”

The smile he gave me at that was equivalent to that of a five year old patient when they get told that they could have a slice of the chocolate cake and it made me glad that there was no one monitoring my heart rate at the moment.

The next day was just another regular day at work and while I had lots of fun yesterday, I was glad to be back in my comfort zone. Working days was anything but boring and I had been so busy that my watch told me I’d already reached my step goal for the day halfway through my shift.

I finally had some time to update the charts while sitting down at the nurses’ station, desperately hoping for some down time soon so I could perhaps even grab another cup of coffee to stop me from climbing into a free bed and taking a nap right there.

I’d seen many people pray in this building and not all of them got what they wished for but somehow today must have been my lucky day because just as I’d finished that thought someone cleared their throat in front of me. I was ready to answer some questions from worried parents but what I totally didn’t expect was Vince standing there with two coffee cups.

“I thought I’d drop this off as a thank you for babysitting me yesterday and I had a feeling that you’d need it”, he said before giving me one of his dazzling smiles. He looked good in a black t shirt and some jeans, his perfectly styled hair in contrast to the messy bun currently on top of my head. That is if the rat’s nest could even still be called a bun.

“Vince Dunn you just keep on surprising me”, I responded with a breathless laugh, not really knowing what else to say at the sweet gesture. What do you say to a good-looking hockey player that not only asks you to spend time with him three times but also takes the time out of his day for this?

Well, besides thanks, obviously.

Vince handed me one of the cups and I took a sip before looking up at him in surprise.

“How do you know the way I like my coffee?”

Instead of answering, he pointed at something behind me and I turned around to see the coffee order list I’d started a while ago in case someone decided to grab some for everyone, my name on top of the sheet.

“I noticed it yesterday in passing, I swear I’m not a stalker or anything.” He blushed at this and it was so cute and unlike his otherwise smooth self that I couldn’t just let him off the hook.

“You know, that’s exactly what a stalker would say”, I responded with a sly smile and while his face turned even more red he burst out laughing. By now we had the attention of every nurse close by and I was pretty sure that all of them were eavesdropping but who could blame them, I’d do the exact same thing. People here lived for the drama, kind of a given with how much time we spent in here because it didn’t really leave much space for a life outside of these halls. Especially if said drama involved a very hot hockey player.

“I’m changing the topic now before I embarrass myself in front of you even further just so you know. I did actually come here for one more thing,” he trailed off before bending down to pick up a bag that I hadn’t noticed before, too distracted by the guy in front of me. “I brought this for Lucas so he has something to show his friends once he gets back on the ice.” He pulled out a Blues’ jersey and turned it around so I could see that it was one of his, complete with a signature and a small message.

Lucas had been an avid hockey player himself up until his kidneys basically decided that they didn’t want to work anymore a while ago. Things had gotten so bad that he had to permanently stay in intensive care with us until after months of dragging people in here to get tested they finally found a donor in a family friend last week. At least his surgery had gone well and while I’d miss having him around, I was glad that he’d finally get discharged to recover at home later today.

I took another sip of the coffee before getting up and walking next to Vince to Lucas’ room. Lucas greeted me with a smile, which only grew after he saw who was following me into the room. Despite having struggled for so long he had always been in a good mood, even when he had to celebrate his fifteenth birthday in the hospital a few weeks ago.

“Look at you, it’s your last day in here and things just keep on getting better.” Vince and Lucas did the handshake they’d come up with yesterday, something that was absolutely necessary as a hockey player or so I’d been told.

Lucas had grown up in Chicago and he’d seen Vince play for the team there but had only really started paying attention after the apparently best fight ever Vince had gotten into at one of the games. Obviously not my words. The connection between the two of them had been instant and all the hockey talk had my head spinning more than during the first few weeks of nursing school so I made a quick exit, leaving them to it.

“I bet every nurse wishes they could trade spots with you right now, me included by the way”, Rachel, my partner in crime since day one of our college classes together, said as soon as I returned to my spot at the station.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about”, I responded, acting clueless. With a raised brow she reached for my coffee cup, spinning it around to reveal a small note written on the side of it that I hadn’t even noticed before.

“You sure about that? This fine specimen of a hockey player just gave you his number and you still act like there’s nothing going on? Besides, everyone saw you two getting all chummy yesterday.”

I snatched the cup out of her hands, quickly checking if the coast was clear before pulling out my phone to add his number to my contacts while keeping my head down so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes.

“Oh wipe that shit-eating grin off your face. All I get is annoying parents and you get hot dads and famous athletes hitting on you out left and right. Like leave some for the rest of us girl, it’s not fair.”

Even though I’d shot Vince a quick text so he could have my number as well, I never really expected anything more than his response that he’d saved it.

To say I was surprised when he texted me the following week was definitely an understatement. It wasn’t a booty call either, no, he’d texted me in the middle of the day asking if I was working days or nights this week.

Me: days as usual but I’m actually on-call today, got luckyy

Dunner: so you’re home right now?

Okay so perhaps this was a booty call after all. Not that I particularly minded.

While his first response had been pretty fast he took a little longer to answer after I told him that I was home indeed. Laying on the couch in an oversized shirt and yoga pants rewatching some Grey’s Anatomy on to be exactly. Almost the same as working. The rainy weather set the perfect mood for a lazy day in though so I hadn’t moved from my spot ever since returning from the gym this morning.

Dunner: this Chinese place near me has a special two for one offer today and I wanted to bring you some to work

I still wasn’t sure if this was him flirting but I’d also never had somebody I’d only met a week ago offer to bring me food to the hospital so he had to be, right? I sent a screenshot of the message to Rachel but I knew that I couldn’t count on her responding to it anytime soon, seeing as she was actually at work right now. I decided to be forward, telling him that I wouldn’t complain about some good food either way.

Inviting someone who was basically a stranger over to your apartment generally wasn’t exactly the best idea, but I counted on the impression I had of him so far and the reputation he surely had to uphold as a NHL player. Besides, we had lots of medical equipment scattered around the apartment so surely I’d find a syringe or something to defend myself if needed.

Dunner: I’ll be over in 30 so try not to get called in before then

True to his word the bell didn’t ring much later. I’d debated making an effort and changing but I wasn’t about to wear jeans or a skirt to hang out so that didn’t leave many options. Brushing your hair wasn’t nothing either so that counted in my opinion.

Vince had gone through the same train of thought as well apparently because he looked super cozy in some sweatpants and a hoodie that had gotten slightly wet, presumably from his walk from his car to the building as our parking situation was really shitty. He stepped inside and reached up to run his hand through his damp hair before shaking his head, making little droplets of water fly in every direction.

“This is why they don’t allow dogs in here”, I laughed, gesturing to my shirt that now looked like an abstract splash painting.

“Let me make it up to you with some of the best food you’ve ever had because I brought lots” was his response as he lifted the bag of take out while slipping off his shoes by the door, hair now sticking in all directions.

“Alright Dunner, show me what you got”, I said with a wink over my shoulder as I made my way into the kitchen, continuing my bold streak from earlier. I had also learned by now that nicknames were even more important than handshakes as a hockey player. I was pretty sure I’d heard him mumble something along the line of ‘Gladly’ but I was already too far ahead of him to be absolutely certain.

“You’re watching Grey’s Anatomy? Isn’t it like crazy inaccurate?”, he asked with a look at the TV in the living room as I hadn’t bothered to pause the episode.

“Yeah of course it is but I still like it somehow. It’s like the hospital equivalent of bad trash TV shows so it’s kind of my guilty pleasure.”

“Okay give me a quick summary of what I need to know for this episode so we can watch it while we eat.”

I looked at him like he was crazy but he urged me on, looking up at me expectantly from where he’d sat down on the couch. Eventually I gave in, trying to keep explanations as short as possible but even then it took me quite a while to get through, yet Vince never once looked like he was bored. He didn’t lose his interest in it after that either, only looking away from the screen to decide what he was going to eat next, all of the choices delicious just like he promised.

Stuffed like a turkey on Thanksgiving the both of us stayed unmoved on the couch watching episode after episode. Somehow my legs had ended up on his lap and his hands were resting on my knees, drawing slow circles as we made eye contact from time to time. Every few minutes his hand would inch up a little and with him biting his lip as he did it there was no way I would stop him, any doubts about his intentions long gone by now. I couldn’t stop the smile spreading on my lips as his hand finally reached the top of my thigh, softly kneading the sensitive part on the inside. If I was into hand porn, I would have orgasmed already at the sight of his hands wrapped around my thigh.

“What are you grinning about?”, Vince asked with an easy smile himself, looking at me in a way that told me that Meredith had long lost his attention.

“Just waiting for you to finally make a move.”

“I was trying to be somewhat of a gentlemen but I really can’t help myself with you wearing those pants..”

“Well you seem to be awful at it so don’t be one then”, I teased back feeling confident yet again.

In a flash he had somehow - I’ll probably keep wondering about the details for the rest of my life - managed to lift me up enough to shift me so I was straddling his lap, now turned on by his manhandling and the way he was currently looking up at me. For a second both of us stared at each other, trying to figure out if this was really going to happen. Vince lifted his hand from my hip to my face, slowly pulling me down towards him.

Our lips didn’t even get the chance to connect before my phone started ringing.

I jumped up from his lap, immediately recognizing the ringtone I had set for all work calls and almost kneeing him in the crown jewels in the process. One look at my screen told me that it was an emergency which prompted me to run into my room cursing. I quickly pulled on the pair of scrubs I’d laid out in the morning, one hand still pulling the top down while the other was trying to attach my badge properly by the time I made it back into the living room. Vince hadn’t even moved from the couch yet, eyes wide and legs still comfortably spread apart, a sight that made me want to climb back on top of him but unfortunately I couldn’t do that.

“I’m so sorry but I gotta go, you don’t need to rush though. Feel free to keep on watching if you want but please don’t rob us and make sure the door is closed if you decide to leave after all, it locks automatically. The food was delicious thank you very much and bye!”

I barely heard him saying bye as well before I was already through the door, not really looking forward to spending the next few hours in the chaos that usually came with emergency calls. Especially after how much I’d enjoyed spending time with Vince and how much I wished that we would’ve just skipped all of the testing-the-waters stuff and would’ve just went at it like madmen.

The weekend couldn’t arrive fast enough and by the time it was Saturday I was ready to abandon all of my plans so I could sleep the rest of the day. I’d gotten in late last night after working overtime and I probably would have stayed in bed till noon if it wasn’t for Rachel and Mariah bursting into my room at nine in the morning. At least they didn’t wake me at the crack of dawn and the cake they were carrying to my bed looked pretty delicious as well.

“Look at you, another year older and yet still sexy as fuck”, Rachel exclaimed as she hopped onto the bed beside me after they’d finished their horrible rendition of Happy Birthday. Mariah settled on the other side of me and I guess my friends knew me well enough because we didn’t move from that position except to grab some more food and booze until it was time to get ready for tonight. Best roommates ever.

“You need to look extra hot tonight, I want Vince to lose his shit when he sees you.”

Ever since I’d sent the screenshot to Rachel and told her about the couch situation, she had been on my back about the thing. Something about me needing to bag rich hot athletes for her sake. I didn’t even argue with her anymore, only rolling my eyes in sync with Mariah whenever she brought it up.

To my surprise Vince hadn’t been deterred by my hasty exit a few days ago, something that had definitely surprised me. It wasn’t the first time that my job had cockblocked me and it definitely won’t be the last and I’d met more than my fair share of guys who were absolutely not into that at all. The fascination with nurses died really fast once people realized how much time we spent on the job.

Vince and I had texted constantly since he spent the day with me and he had somehow managed to make casual conversation with a flirty undertone the entire time. We’d already established that neither of us was looking for anything serious right now but I had decided that I would definitely not say no to some fun with him.

Some birthday sex would be great for starters. I let Rachel curl my hair while I focused on perfecting my make up because I wanted to look good tonight, not just for Vince but also because by next weekend I’d already be packed so this was really my last big hurrah before moving back home.

The thing about spending most of my days make up free in sports bras, comfortable panties and running shoes was that if I did bother to go out, I put in a lot of effort. I was determined to turn heads tonight so I pulled on a black lace bodysuit that practically presented my boobs on a silver tray, a pair of jeans that made my ass look spectacular and some black stilettos that I hoped wouldn’t kill my feet in a few hours. I had to go braless under the bodysuit, the mesh part on the back making that very obvious and I had a feeling that Vince wouldn’t exactly mind either.

“Girl I’d totally bang you because you look so hot but that outfit shows off everything that’s wrong with you”, Rachel said as we all examined ourselves one last time in front of the full-length mirror in my room and took pictures. I shot her a confused look.

“Wait what’s wrong with me?”

“Well for one your ass looks bangin and so do your boobs and I’m pretty sure that I could tell if you had a dick wearing that and people with dicks are my type soooo..”, she trailed off and both Mariah and I turned towards her with an incredulous look before bursting out laughing, all the day drinking taking its toll already. It wasn’t exactly new for Rachel to stop making any sense once she had some alcohol in her but it was still just as entertaining every single time.

“I can’t believe you’re complaining about her not having a dick right now”, Mariah sighed and I couldn’t stop giggling at my idiotic friends.

“I’m not complaining! I’m just saying that I need a dick to-“

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. Just – just for once in your life be at least somewhat normal please”, Mariah interrupted her exasperated and the both of them continuing to bicker still had me laughing by the time we climbed into the back of our Uber.

We were the last to arrive of course, because Rachel had insisted on us being fashionably late so by the time we made it inside the bar I could already spot my friends sitting in the back. She had also insisted on me wearing a stupid Birthday Girl sash, reminding me how many free drinks it would get me, but I drew the line at the tiara she had pulled out of her purse as well. I was too old for the full 21st birthday look after all.

After I was hugged by everyone and had received all of the birthday wishes and presents I realized that Vince wasn’t among the group, which was weird because we’d been texting all day and he had asked to confirm the time and place again just this morning.

It was as if my thought made him appear because soon I felt two hands gently grab my waist while his cologne infiltrated my senses. He spun me around and the force of the move had me reach out to rest my hands on his shoulders so I wouldn’t fall over. I knew he had done that on purpose.

We were standing so close that we would have definitely gotten in trouble if this were a middle school dance and the way he looked down at me right now made me curse everything that came to my mind because I just wanted to drag him to the nearest bathroom so he could bend me over the counter but of course that wouldn’t be acceptable in front of all my friends.

“Why didn’t you tell me that today is your birthday? Now I’m going to have to make up for the fact that I didn’t get you a present.”

I had a feeling that I wouldn’t mind whatever this making up entailed, if the way he tightened his grip while looking at me as if he was thinking about bathroom counters as well was any indicator.

“Because you don’t just tell people that it’s your birthday, that’s weird.” He pulled me even tighter then, wrapping his arms around me and wishing me a happy birthday after giving me a kiss on the cheek that gave me goosebumps. Before he had the chance to pull away however, I leaned up on my tippy toes because even with heels he was still taller than me and whispered “I can’t wait for the making up for it part though” in his ear.

He groaned in response and he dropped his hands to give my hips a squeeze before reluctantly letting go of me. Only now did I spot the two guys behind him that were all watching us with amused expressions, which had to be the friends he said he’d bring. Introductions were quick and I didn’t even bother to introduce everyone to Vince and his gang because the group was so big that the three of them wouldn’t be able to remember many names either way.

We settled into one of the booths and Rachel practically pushed me into the seat next to Vince, not that I minded of course. Conversation flowed easily, as did the drinks, and soon I found myself climbing out of the booth because I had just about consumed my body weight in liquid and desperately needed to go to the bathroom for something that unfortunately wasn’t sex. Walking over I could feel a slight buzz already but not to the extent that would make me stumble in my heels, perfect for a night out.

By the time Mariah and I returned I could tell that another one of Rachel’s plans was in action because now there was one more person sitting at our table, meaning there wasn’t enough space left for both Mariah and I. I was about to move to sit with some other friends in the booth next to ours when Vince, who was conveniently seated at the edge of our booth, told me to sit on his lap and that was an offer I would never turn down.

He grabbed my hips to pull me closer and onto his lap as he said: “Don’t worry I won’t bite.”

I couldn’t resist messing with him though, so I purposefully shifted closer to his crotch and leaned towards him so only he could hear me as I whispered: “What if I want you to though?” I could tell he was trying to suppress a groan and he gripped me even tighter, pulling me back into him.

Poor Vince, his balls were going to be the same color as a Blues jersey soon enough.

Unfortunately I couldn’t elaborate to make the situation even worse for him because I was being pulled into the conversation at the table. I could feel him growing hard underneath my ass though and the fact that I was able to rile him up so easily really did wonders for my self-confidence..

After I could tell that he had calmed down again I decided to put him out of his misery. Well, kind of. Me leaning across one of the pool tables as I took my shot gave him a perfect view of my cleavage or of me bending over after all, depending on where he stood.

“Are you always this bad?”, I asked after he missed yet another shot.

“No, usually I’m average at least but I guess I’m a little bit distracted right now.” He didn’t even try to hide him staring at my boobs as I took my turn. We’d both long dropped any pretense about where this was headed. After I made my shot I walked around the table to get a better angle for the next one, accidentally brushing up against Vince who now had a perfect view of my ass.

“I hope you’re only average at pool and not at anything else”, I teased him with a look over my shoulder after watching the ball roll into the hole the way I’d planned before straightening up again.

“Let me take you home so my neighbors can confirm me being anything but average”, he responded, his voice deep as he moved next to me, one of his big hands resting on my lower back to play with the fabric there, the heat of his hands practically burning my skin as I looked up at him.

Our intense eye contact was interrupted by one of the waitresses who walked up to the pool table sheepishly with a drink on her tray.

“Hey, that guy over there sent you this and I’m supposed to tell you to come over to him so you don’t have to, uh, keep playing with a - um - loser. His words not mine, sorry.” She pointed to a guy a few tables over who was decently good looking but radiated Asshole Energy off of him, his incredibly rude move not really helping either. Even if it wasn’t for Vince standing next to me I wouldn’t have touched him with a ten foot pole.

Vince had tensed up at the words and I watched him ball his hands into his fists, every muscle in his body tightening with anger. I had no doubt that because of his hockey experience he could hold his own in a fight but it wasn’t something I needed tonight. I thanked the waitress before setting the drink down and making a show of turning towards Vince, one hand trailing up from his biceps to the back of his head so I could interrupt the stare off he was currently having with the other guy.

“Don’t worry, I’m flattered that I seem to be able to distract you so much. To be honest I can’t really concentrate either because now I really want you to make me scream so loud that your neighbors file noise complaints.” Vince choked slightly and then reached for the drink that was sitting next to me, taking three big gulps while looking at me, his eyes dark.

He then grabbed my hand and I didn’t miss the smug look he threw at the other guy over my shoulder before pulling me towards the backdoor of the bar, the pool game abandoned without a second thought. The air outside had cooled down a bit by now but I didn’t even get the chance to acknowledge that because Vince had me pushed against the wall in a second, one hand resting next to my head while the other reached up to cup my face, dropping his head for a kiss.

All this teasing had finally led to this.

It was rough and yet sensual at the same time, his lips demanding and it didn’t take long until his tongue licked along my bottom lip, asking for entrance. He then deepened the kiss even further and I reached up to bury my hands in his stupidly perfect and soft hair, eliciting a throaty groan. When he pushed one of his legs in between mine I couldn’t help the moan that escaped me in turn at the delicious friction, followed by yet another one as he dropped his head to suck along my neck. I could feel how hard he was and it turned me on beyond imagination.

The thought that I would probably let him fuck me in this alley right now brought me back down to earth because this was not how I envisioned my night going.

“Vince, hold up”, I murmured and as soon as my words registered with him he pulled away, both of us panting.

“What’s wrong?”

I laughed at his expression, he looked at me as if he was truly worried that he’d overstepped a boundary. As if I hadn’t thrown hints left and right for the last couple of days. His swollen lips made it hard to concentrate because I just wanted to sink my teeth into them until he groaned again the way he had only seconds ago and I silently cursed his stupid perfect lips. I wondered what damage they could do.

“Nothing’s wrong, nothing at all. I just wanted to say let’s go back inside for like another hour or so and then we can take off.” The smile that quickly spread on his face made it obvious that he was going to say something not-PG-13 before he opened his mouth again to ask:

“Do you think your friends would mind if I dragged you home right this second?”

I had to laugh at that but it quickly died in my throat as he moved his hands to my hips to pull me close again before crashing his lips back onto mine. The going back to the others part would apparently be slightly delayed but with the way his lips and body moved against mine right now I would probably agree to anything if it meant getting to stay right in this position a bit longer.

This time it was less rushed and frantic and instead he took his time to explore every inch of my mouth while his hands wandered my body. Mine were roaming as well, from the neck down his muscular shoulders around to the front before finally creeping up his back below his shirt. I enjoyed the way I could feel his muscles tense under my touch but eventually we had to pull away from each other. We’d spent way too much time out here as it is.

“Let’s go back inside, the faster we get back the sooner we can leave and besides they’re probably wondering what we’re doing out here so long.”

The smug looks we received once we made our way back to the tables after I fixed my hair and make up and Vince did whatever he had to do to conceal his massive hard on made it clear that everyone had a good idea of what had gone on outside though. I’m pretty sure Rachel would have high fived me if it weren’t for the people sitting between us.

I sat on Vince’s lap again and this time it was torture for the both of us to wait until it was finally an acceptable time to make a getaway. I let Rachel take all the presents for me and she made Vince give her his address and phone number before she let him pull me into the back of an Uber.

I was pressed against him for the entire ride, his hand resting way higher on my leg than technically publicly acceptable. With every turn or bump in the road he accidentally brushed my core and at more than one point I had to hide my face in his broad chest so the driver wouldn’t hear the soft moans that couldn’t be stopped. I could tell that he was trying his best not to get too handsy as not to cause a scene but once we were alone in the elevator of his building all bets were off.

He walked me back against the doors, pushing one of his legs in between my own again and kissed me with a force that made me glad that I had tons of metal behind me as leverage to push back. He only pulled away once the little ‘ding’ could be heard and even then he only held off until he had me inside his apartment, barely waiting a second before he shrugged off his jacket, quickly moving onto mine.

Somehow we managed to make it onto the couch without breaking apart our kiss and I barely had time to admire his floor to ceiling windows before he pulled me close until I was straddling his lap. His lips were working on my neck again and I reminded him to not leave any marks there because I had to work on Monday morning, which only prompted him to move down lower, sucking at the skin right above the lace of my bodysuit.

“No one will see those then”, he murmured against my breasts and I moaned as he reached up to palm them through the material. By the time he was done I had several purple marks littering my cleavage and I really needed to see more of him so I motioned for him to take his shirt off, watching in awe as he reached back to pull it over his head in the perfect way only guys managed to.

His body could only be described as a work of art and I could tell that he worked really hard for it as I traced the outline of his abs, muscles contracting and goosebumps rising at my touch. The city lights made for the perfect lighting and the way his skin glowed in their reflection belonged in a museum if ever captured.

Vince reached for the button of my jeans and looked at me as if to ask if I was okay with that. I nodded before standing up, trying to get out of my jeans and heels in a quick but still somewhat sexy motion but I probably succeeded only halfway. He didn’t seem deterred by my struggle at all, the hungry look in his eyes never once vanishing.

As soon as I stood upright again Vince reached up to trace the lace embellishments, slowly moving his hands down lower towards where I really wanted them. Considering the fact that the bodysuit had already been pretty revealing in itself there wasn’t really much ‘new’ skin to see so far but he still looked at me with an intensity that almost made me shiver.

He reached to pull me down on him again but instead I surprised him by sinking down to my knees in front of him, his breath audibly hitching in his throat. For a second he was silent but as soon as I poked my tongue out to trace the ‘V’ on his lower stomach he let out a low moan, throwing his head back.

“Impatient much?”, I teased him, pleasantly surprised at my ability to make him almost lose his shit without even really doing anything.

“You have no idea. I’ve thought about this for days”, he admitted and I only smiled in return, moving to pull his jeans down along with his boxers without revealing that I had done the same. He got up to step out of both while I was focused on watching his dick bounce with the movement, amazed at the size of it.

As soon as he made himself comfortable again I grabbed the base with one hand while resting the other one on his thigh as I moved to lick the drops of precum that adorned the tip. When my tongue made contact he moved one of his hands into my hair, holding it back so he could get a better view.

“Fuck, you look so good like this”, he cursed when I finally wrapped my lips around him, taking the head into my mouth while swirling my tongue around him and taking him a bit further. I removed my lips and I could tell he was about to protest but any words died in his mouth when I started sucking his balls, reaching up to pump his length that was already slick from my spit with my hand.

He seemed to find his voice again once I licked up the underside of his dick but it was only a string of curses that turned into moans when I took him into my mouth as far as I could, my nose touching his pelvic bone. I relaxed my throat and swallowed around him, my name falling from his lips again and again as I reached up to massage his balls at the same time. I looked up to see him watching me with his pupils blown, hair sticking in all directions from running his hands through it so many times and his mouth slightly open. His arms were spread out beside him on the back of the couch and I wanted to take a picture to commemorate the moment, wanting to remember this forever. He had definitely never looked better and no one could convince me otherwise.

The hand in my hair helped me set a rhythm as I bobbed my head while licking around him and Vince was a moaning and cursing mess above me. It didn’t take long before he quite literally pulled me off him, running his hand across his face and taking a few calming breaths.

“You’re incredible but I don’t want to cum yet”, he finally murmured when he helped me back up and I wasn’t sure if he was only complimenting my blowjob-skills or more but the way he was looking at me right now made any thought besides wanting him inside me disappear.

“Vince I need you”, I practically begged and he quickly nodded before standing up with me still in his lap, reaching out to grab the back of my thighs to prevent me from slipping down. He somehow managed to walk up the stairs with me still wrapped around him while I trailed kisses along his collar bones and it was probably the hottest non-sexual thing I’d ever experienced with a guy.

He turned on a soft light once inside his room and while I would have loved to have a look around I was pretty distracted by the way he literally threw me on the bed before crawling on top of me, my legs falling apart to make space for him as if it was the most natural thing on earth.

Vince kissed down my breasts before suddenly stopping somewhere above my belly button.

“Okay I have to admit I’m a bit lost here, as hot as you look in it how the fuck do I get this thing off?” I probably shouldn’t laugh in such a somewhat serious situation but his helpless expression did nothing to stop the giggles that escaped my mouth. He was smiling as well and I was glad that we could laugh about the slight hiccup without it turning awkward.

I quickly reached down to snap open the buttons before sitting up and pulling the piece of lace over my head, discarding it in some corner of his room now completely naked.

“Much better”, he murmured, one of his hands reaching out to grab a hold of my boobs while the other one wrapped around my back, lowering us back onto the mattress. Eventually he trailed his kisses over the part of my skin that was marked up by him until he sucked one of my nipples into his mouth, his hand taking care of the other one.

Slowly but surely he kissed his way down my body, skipping over the part where I needed him most to suck along the inside of my thighs. The sensation rushed through me, my core already throbbing from days of built up expectations and I let out a whine. I was tempted to try and close my legs so I could at least get some kind of friction but his shoulders between them made that impossible.

“Patience baby, don’t you know that good things come to those who wait?”, he murmured and I shuddered at the feeling of his breath fanning across my heat. I didn’t even have the time to think about the fact that he had just called me baby or that I was actually a firm believer in good things happening to those who worked for them because he reached down to drag one of his fingers through my folds and all thoughts left my body.

“Shit, you’re so wet already”, he said softly but I was unable to give him any response besides a frantic nod and another desperate whine.

I’d fantasized about this for the last couple of days of course but nothing came close to the reality of one of his thick fingers dipping into my core. He teased my entrance for a bit, only pushing inside to his first knuckle but then I whined again and he pushed it in as far as he could. I was so lost in the feeling that I hadn’t even noticed him moving back up my body until he littered the valley between my breasts with heated kisses.

“So tight. I can’t wait to feel you around my cock.”

As if the words he’d moaned into my ear weren’t already enough to make any coherent thoughts disappear, he added a second finger and I arched my back into him, the change of angle just right in a way that had me gripping the sheets so tightly that my knuckles turned white. He reached dropped down to tease my nipples, sucking and licking them expertly while his hand thrust up into me.

My moans were already filling the room but then he started circling my clit with his thumb and I knew that I wouldn’t last much longer, the anticipation and desperation definitely helping to speed things along. He looked up at me to watch my reactions and the sight of him with his mouth latched onto my breast was almost enough to send me over the edge by itself.

“I’m so close Vince, please don’t stop”, I begged and this seemed to spur him on further, his movements turning even more eager as he continued to place sloppy kisses along my skin. It was the combination of everything he was doing to me that finally brought me over the edge, the release so sweet after needing it for so long.

He made sure to extend my orgasm as long as possible, only pulling his hand away after I whimpered slightly, the stimulation a bit much now. His softly kissed his way back down and along my thighs now and I could tell that he wasn’t quite done with me yet.

“How’s the birthday girl feeling right now?”, he asked with a teasing smile and normally I probably would have smacked him for this but right now I would tolerate it because I was still in my blissful post-orgasmic state.

“Amazing so far, could do better though.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm, I’m pretty sure I was promised some making up for the lack of a present and I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet.”

“Well excuse me then while I go back to work.” And with that he flattened his tongue and boldly licked one long stripe across my slit.

He started out slowly and I was glad because I was still a bit sensitive from my last orgasm, lapping at my entrance and pushing his tongue inside of me, making me gasp. It didn’t take long however until he grabbed my hips to pull me closer and onto his mouth, pushing my legs up to expose me even further to him and ultimately giving him better access.

When he sucked my clit into his mouth I couldn’t help but arch my back off the mattress again, burying my hands in his hair as he reached up to hold me still. This guy’s lips weren’t just pretty, they were apparently amazingly talented as well.

He replaced his tongue with one of his thick fingers, slowly pushing in and soon his name fell off my lips in a religious chant as he added yet another one, curling them upwards for maximum pleasure. I could feel my high coming from a mile away and Vince apparently must have too by the way I was grinding myself against his face because he quite literally dove back in, determined to shatter my word.

And shatter my world he did.

I was pretty sure I would have floated away as I reached my high if it wasn’t for Vince’s hand across my stomach keeping me grounded. My legs were still shaking with the aftershocks of one of the arguably - no hands down - best orgasms I’d had while getting head in my life. By the time I was finally able to open my eyes again he was wiping his face before grinning down at me.

“You look so fucked out already and we haven’t even gotten to that part yet”, he teased and I let out a chuckle before pushing at his chest. Leave it to him to make fun of me after he was the one who put me in this situation. Not that I was complaining of course.

“Don’t worry, it’s a good look on you. One that I’d definitely like to see more often.” He leaned down to nip at my neck then, his cock prodding at my thigh.

“If you keep doing that you definitely will”, I responded with an airy laugh, still kind of breathless. All talk died down after that however when he captured my lips with his again as he crawled on top of me, settling between my legs. Kissing him was definitely addicting and the fact that I could taste myself while doing so only made it ten times more hot.

Vince rolled his hips against mine, groaning into my mouth when his cock dragged against my skin while I couldn’t stop the moan escaping my lips either. Breaking the kiss he pulled back in a way that had him in a push-up position above me, giving me a moment to enjoy the view. His hair was sticking in all kinds of directions, his pupils so blown that they almost seemed black instead of the usual beautiful green and his muscles were flexing from holding the position.

“Still want to keep going?”, he asked and in my daze it took me a second to realize that this was him asking for consent. I had no doubt that he wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want him to but this, him offering to stop when he had done so much for me already while not getting off yet in return, was sweet. Especially since I had made it more than obvious that stopping was definitely not on my mind.

I moved to flip us over then, straddling his thighs and wrapping my hand around his dick, pumping him a few times and in case that wasn’t confirmation enough for him I leaned down to whisper a “definitely” in his ear.

“Condoms?”

“Top drawer on your right.”

Only because we weren’t in the middle of his huge bed was I able to reach said drawer, grabbing one of the foil packets out of the box and ripping it open with my teeth before rolling it down on him. I scooted up enough to line his cock with my entrance and while I tried to watch Vince as I sunk down on him the way my eyes fluttered shut at the sensation was out of my control.

While there had definitely been enough foreplay to make the sliding in part easy it was still quite a stretch, one so amazing however that it had the both of us moaning at the same time.

“Shit you feel incredible”, he breathed and I nodded my head in agreement, too lost in the pleasure to form any coherent sentences. Rolling my hips against him created some amazing friction that had my head spinning as I clenched my muscles, eliciting throaty groans from him.

Vince reached for my hips, gripping them tightly as he helped guide me along, my clit catching on his pelvic bone with every backward movement. “You got one more in you babe?”, he asked and to my surprise I could tell that I did. The fact that I could already feel it bubbling inside of me spoke volumes of our chemistry in bed together. This was a friends with benefits arrangement I could definitely get behind.

He sat up then, changing the angle at which his cock dragged against my walls and also making it possible for him to take one of my nipples into his mouth, gently grazing his teeth against it while tightening his grip on my hip as he thrust up into me. At this point I was a moaning mess on top of him but I honestly didn’t care. I hadn’t had sex this good in a while and the way he looked up at me in awe made it impossible to feel anything but sexy.

I didn’t even need any extra help to reach my third orgasm of the night with his name falling off my lips, the feeling so strong that my mind was absolutely blank and I saw stars dancing across the back of my eyelids as I arched into him with my eyes shut. He made sure to let me ride it out, groaning as he felt my walls tighten around him but as soon as I slumped against him he turned us around so he was on top of me, never once pulling out.

The pace at which he was chasing his own high now was relentless and hard and I would have held on for dear life if he hadn’t raised my arms to keep them above my head. One of his hands easily encased both of my wrists while he used his other to keep at least some of his weight off of me. I knew that a fourth orgasm was off the table, I was way too exhausted for that by now but he still felt amazing inside of me. I wrapped my legs around him to allow him deeper, the smack of our skin and our moans so loud that I was glad that we didn’t have any nosy roommates right next door. Those noise complaints from the neighbors I’d mentioned earlier might still roll in though.

With this pace it didn’t take long for his thrusts to lose all rhythm and I could tell that he wouldn’t last much longer. I clenched around him to bring him even closer and he groaned into the crook of my neck where he had buried his face, my name and some colorful curses falling off his lips. He readjusted his position so he could lean up enough to look at me while still holding my wrists above my head and I watched him throw his head back in pleasure as he slammed deep inside of me one last time, face contorting in pleasure as he reached his high. I could feel him pulsing inside of me and a pleasant shudder ran through me, making me sigh at the feeling. Perhaps this was my body’s way of saying girl if I could have, I would have.

He let go of my wrists then and I wrapped my arms around him as he dropped down on top of me. We both caught our breath for a few seconds which honestly wasn’t easy with the extra weight on my chest but it was a nice feeling. He had to carefully pull out and roll off of me eventually, throwing the condom next to the bed to dispose of later. For now it was nice to lay beside each other, covered in a sheen of sweat and still panting.

After finally landing back on planet earth I looked to my right at the alarm clock waiting on the nightstand, only now realizing how late it had gotten. Vince lifted his head enough to check the time as well and let out a light groan at the sight.

“You can spend the night if you want but we should definitely shower before that. Even if it wasn’t your birthday – well technically it’s not anymore – I’m not some dick that would kick you out in the middle of the night.”

I was surprised at his offer, I’d been with guys who were those dicks but I was even more surprised when he told me to pick something to sleep in from his closet before pulling on a pair of boxers and getting up to grab waters for the both of us.

I decided to postpone this until after showering, quickly making my way to his ensuite to use the toilet. I saw enough UTIs at work, I didn’t need them following me home. I was trying to wipe my make up off as best as I could with a washcloth and the face wash from his counter when he returned to his bathroom, a new toothbrush triumphantly in his hand.

“Found this in my junk drawer in the kitchen but I’ll be honest, I have no idea how it got there. The wrapping is unopened tho”, he admitted sheepishly and I laughed.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll take it.”

Our shower was quick, both of us too exhausted for any more funny business but if my gaze had dropped from time to time appreciatively no one would ever know. He had an amazing body and I would have to be a nun not to acknowledge that.

Especially while he was naked in the shower.

I definitely wasn’t a nun.

Looking for clothes to sleep in turned out to be more difficult than I’d originally thought because of his affinity to clothes that were at least one size too big. Most of them would reach my knees in a really unflattering way and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep while drowning in fabric. I tried on three, neatly putting them back afterwards and actually contemplating sleeping in only a pair of his boxers before finally finding one that didn’t make me look like a kid.

I could tell that it was an old shirt, perhaps from a previous team, worn down over time with a slightly faded print but it was comfortable and it smelled like him, even if I doubted that he had worn it anytime recently.

Vince was already tucked into bed by the time I stepped back into his bedroom, scrolling through his phone but putting it down on the nightstand once I got closer. I could see that he’d searched for a second charger so I could plug my phone in overnight as well and it was such a little gesture but yet it made me smile.

“I prefer to sleep on the right side, I hope you don’t mind”, he said as I climbed under the cover beside him. I shook my head no before responding:

“Nah, I actually like the left side better.”

“See, we’re meant to be fuck buddies.”

“I could already tell from the three orgasms but hey, if that’s what it takes for you to realize that.”

“You have a point there.”

Any other time and I certainly would’ve stayed up for a while longer so we could talk but right now I knew I wouldn’t last long. For a second I wasn’t sure how to do this, would it be weird to cuddle?

Vince made my decision easy however when he pulled me close until my back was flush against him, wrapping his arm around my waist. After our exhausting shenanigans earlier it took neither of us long to fall asleep.

The next morning I woke super early, my inner clock not allowing me to sleep past seven despite staying up late. I’d turned around in my sleep to lay on my stomach but Vince had somehow managed to keep his arm around me and get even closer.

I was slightly worried for my safety because of the fact that I had managed to sleep through a 200 pound guy basically laying on top of me but I’d slept like a baby. I could tell that Vince was still asleep by the even breaths that fanned across my neck but one part of him definitely wasn’t, poking my side. Bless the male population for their sleepy boners.

I was trying to let him sleep as long as I could, I really did, but with him so close to me and the images of last night combined with the very interesting dream I’d just woken up from burned into my memory I couldn’t help myself. I slowly turned in his arms so we were back to the position we’d fell asleep in, on our sides and pressed together spooning.

Even through my shirt I could feel his body radiating heat and if the night had been warmer it definitely would’ve been too much but right now I just wished for all barriers between our bodies to disappear.

My shifting had apparently woken Vince up successfully because he let out a throaty groan before, consciously or not, rocking against my ass and burying his face in my neck.

“Morning”, he said and I’m not gonna lie his husky morning voice did things to me that didn’t exactly help my situation.

“Morning, how’d you sleep?”, I asked, turning my head slightly so I wasn’t having this conversation with his incredibly comfortable pillow.

“Could’ve been longer but I don’t mind. Now that I’m up however..”, he trailed off, lightly biting my neck and moving his hand from my waist to grab my boob, rocking into me again, this time definitely on purpose.

This was definitely a friends with benefits situation I could get behind.

Somehow Vince managed to weasel his way into my life after that. He’d come over after I finished a shift at the hospital, spend the night and leave me incredibly satisfied the next morning when both of us went our separate ways again. Our time with each other was pretty short, only a week, but somehow I’d had more sex in that one week than in the last few months combined.

My last shift at the hospital on Saturday was, for a lack of better words, sad as fuck. So many people came up to me, telling me how much they would miss me and what a great addition I had been over the past year. When they brought a cake into the break room with a sweet message written on top of it I couldn’t help the tears that welled up. I could see Rachel subtly wipe at her eyes as well and I hugged her tightly.

“Remember our first day of classes? Oh how things have changed since then”, she muttered against me and I nodded. One thing that hadn’t changed however was our friendship. She was the reason I had come to Toronto, where she had grown up but it had been five years since I left my home to go to college and I knew that it was time to go back to my family and childhood friends.

“Don’t think you’ll be getting rid of me this soon, I’ll call you all the time and with there only being a one hour time difference between Toronto and St. Louis you have no excuse to avoid me.”

“As if I could ever avoid you, you little shit. But if your hometown insists on having you back I’ll allow it, I guess.” Her insulting me told me that she was okay again so I let go of her, the both of us still sniffling a bit as we each grabbed a piece of the cake.

When I finally made my ay back home that night Vince was already there. Mariah had probably let him in. There’s been some raised eyebrows at first but after seeing him here every day neither of my roommates was surprised when he knocked at our apartment door. Somehow he seemed to sense that I wasn’t in a talking mood right now, especially about having to say goodbye to the place that had been my home for the past year.

I was excited to see my family and friends in St. Louis again, don’t get me wrong, but goodbyes were never easy.

He greeted me with one of his comforting hugs that I’d already grown accustomed to before dropping his head to press a soft kiss on the top of my head before pulling me to the bathroom.

My shampoo and other toiletries were some of the last few things that hadn’t been stuffed in boxes and duffel bags yet and the sight made tears well up in my eyes.

“It’s okay, you know. I don’t like leaving here either”, he murmured in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me from behind, moving us so we both got hit by the stream of hot water. I wanted to forget everything but the feel of his naked body pressed against me but right now I knew I was too in my head to actually be able to enjoy it. Later maybe.

“But you get to come back every summer for a couple of months. I don’t know how long it’ll take until I can visit everyone again and even then it’ll probably only be for a few days.”

“That’s true. But your friends can also visit you. And in a few weeks I’ll be down as well and then you’ll be so annoyed by me constantly bugging you that you won’t be able to miss your friends here anymore.” My sniffle turned into a laugh at his words and I almost swallowed a big gulp of water in that moment, making both of us break into fits of laughter.

I was glad I’d have him with me again in a few weeks. Hopefully at least. We’d talked about our situation and I told Vince to hit me up again once he’d made it to St. Louis too in a few weeks and while he said he would, I knew that there was the possibility that he might not. I didn’t have the opportunity to dwell on the thought too long though because he’d managed to distract me yet again when he placed searing hot kisses along my shoulder.

If he hadn’t managed to get me out of my shell back in the hospital I never would’ve ended up with him in the shower right now. Or bent over the mattress a few minutes later.

Vince Dunn, the arrogant professional athlete, had turned out to be nothing like I’d expected and I had never been more happy to be wrong.

#Vince Dunn #nhl #nhl hockey #vince dunn imagine #nhl imagine #nhl writing #my writing #clear as day #hockey imagine

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

Text

How Viruses Evolve

https://sciencespies.com/nature/how-viruses-evolve/

How Viruses Evolve

The unusual cases of pneumonia began to appear in midwinter, in China. The cause, researchers would later learn, was a coronavirus new to science. By March, the infection began to spread to other Asian countries and overseas. People were dying, and the World Health Organization issued a global health alert.

But this was 2003, not 2020, and the disease was SARS, not Covid-19. By June, the outbreak was almost gone, with just 8,098 confirmed infections and 774 deaths worldwide. No cases of SARS have been reported since 2004.

Contrast that with the closely related coronavirus that causes Covid-19 today: more than 13,600,000 confirmed cases as of July 16, and more than 585,000 deaths.

Why did SARS go away while today’s coronavirus just keeps on spreading? Why, for that matter, did both these coronaviruses spill over into people at all, from their original bat hosts?

And just as vital as those questions is another: What happens next?

As we face the current pandemic, it will be important to understand how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is likely to evolve in the months and years ahead. It’s possible the virus could lose its lethal character and settle into an evolutionary détente with humanity. It might end up as just another cold virus, as may have happened to another coronavirus in the past. But it could also remain a serious threat or perhaps even evolve to become more lethal. The outcome depends on the complex and sometimes subtle interplay of ecological and evolutionary forces that shape how viruses and their hosts respond to one another.

“One thing you learn about evolution is never to generalize,” says Edward Holmes, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, and author of an article on the evolution of emerging viruses in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. “It depends entirely on the biological nuance of the situation.”

Steps to viral success

Many of the scariest viruses that have caused past or current epidemics originated in other animals and then jumped to people: HIV from other primates, influenza from birds and pigs, and Ebola probably from bats. So, too, for coronaviruses: The ones behind SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and Covid-19 all probably originated in bats and arrived in people via another, stepping-stone species, likely palm civets, camels and possibly pangolins, respectively.

But making the jump from one species to another isn’t easy, because successful viruses have to be tightly adapted to their hosts. To get into a host cell, a molecule on the virus’s surface has to match a receptor on the outside of the cell, like a key fitting into a lock. Once inside the cell, the virus has to evade the cell’s immune defenses and then commandeer the appropriate parts of the host’s biochemistry to churn out new viruses. Any or all of these factors are likely to differ from one host species to another, so viruses will need to change genetically — that is, evolve — in order to set up shop in a new animal.

Pandemics — disease outbreaks of global reach — have visited humanity many times. Here are examples.

A recent mutation alters the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to make it less fragile (the altered bits are shown as colored blobs). This added robustness appears to make the virus more infectious. Three sites are shown because the spike protein is composed of three identical subunits that bind together.

(DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Host switching actually involves two steps, though these can overlap. First, the virus has to be able to invade the new host’s cells: That’s a minimum requirement for making the host sick. But to become capable of causing epidemics, the virus also has to become infectious — that is, transmissible between individuals — in its new host. That’s what elevates a virus from an occasional nuisance to one capable of causing widespread harm.

SARS-CoV-2 shows these two stages clearly. Compared with the virus in bats, both the virus that infects people and a close relative in pangolins carry a mutation that changes the shape of the surface “ spike protein.” The alteration is right at the spot that binds to host cell receptors to let the virus in. This suggests that the mutation first arose either in pangolins or an as yet unidentified species and happened to allow the virus to jump over to people, too.

But SARS-CoV-2 carries other changes in the spike protein that appear to have arisen after it jumped to people, since they don’t occur in the bat or pangolin viruses. One is in a region called the polybasic cleavage site, which is known to make other coronaviruses and flu viruses more infectious. Another appears to make the spike protein less fragile, and in lab experiments with cell cultures, it makes the virus more infectious. The mutation has become more common as the Covid-19 pandemic goes on, which suggests — but does not prove — that it makes the virus more infectious in the real world, too. (Fortunately, though it may increase spread, it doesn’t seem to make people sicker.)

This evolutionary two-step — first spillover, then adaptation to the new host — is probably characteristic of most viruses as they shift hosts, says Daniel Streicker, a viral ecologist at the University of Glasgow. If so, emerging viruses probably pass through a “silent period” immediately after a host shift, in which the virus barely scrapes by, teetering on the brink of extinction until it acquires the mutations needed for an epidemic to bloom.

Streicker sees this in studies of rabies in bats — which is a good model for studying the evolution of emerging viruses, he says, since the rabies virus has jumped between different bat species many times. He and his colleagues looked at decades’ worth of genetic sequence data for rabies viruses that had undergone such host shifts. Since larger populations contain more genetic variants than smaller populations do, measuring genetic diversity in their samples enabled the scientists to estimate how widespread the virus was at any given time.

The team found that almost none of the 13 viral strains they studied took off immediately after switching to a new bat species. Instead, the viruses eked out a marginal existence for years to decades before they acquired the mutations — of as yet unknown function — that allowed them to burst out to epidemic levels. Not surprisingly, the viruses that emerged the fastest were those that needed the fewest genetic changes to blossom.

SARS-CoV-2 probably passed through a similar tenuous phase before it acquired the key adaptations that allowed it to flourish, perhaps the mutation to the polybasic cleavage site, perhaps others not yet identified. In any case, says Colin Parrish, a virologist at Cornell University who studies host shifts, “by the time the first person in Wuhan had been identified with coronavirus, it had probably been in people for a while.”

It was our bad luck that SARS-CoV-2 adapted successfully. Many viruses that spill over to humans never do. About 220 to 250 viruses are known to infect people, but only about half are transmissible — many only weakly — from one person to another, says Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Otago, New Zealand. The rest are dead-end infections. Half is a generous estimate, she adds, since many other spillover events probably fizzle out before they can even be counted.

Getting nicer — or nastier

SARS-CoV-2, of course, is well past the teetering stage. The big question now is: What happens next? One popular theory, endorsed by some experts, is that viruses often start off harming their hosts, but evolve toward a more benign coexistence. After all, many of the viruses we know of that trigger severe problems in a new host species cause mild or no disease in the host they originally came from. And from the virus’s perspective, this theory asserts, hosts that are less sick are more likely to be moving around, meeting others and spreading the infection onward.

“I believe that viruses tend to become less pathogenic,” says Burtram Fielding, a coronavirologist at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. “The ultimate aim of a pathogen is to reproduce, to make more of itself. Any pathogen that kills the host too fast will not give itself enough time to reproduce.” If SARS-CoV-2 can spread faster and further by killing or severely harming fewer of the people it infects, we might expect that over time, it will become less harmful — or, as virologists term it, less virulent.

This kind of evolutionary gentling may be exactly what happened more than a century ago to one of the other human coronaviruses, known as OC43, Fielding suggests. Today, OC43 is one of four coronaviruses that account for up to a third of cases of the common cold (and perhaps occasionally more severe illness). But Fielding and a few others think it could also have been the virus behind a worldwide pandemic, usually ascribed to influenza, that began in 1890 and killed more than a million people worldwide, including Queen Victoria’s grandson and heir.

After rabbits were introduced to Australia, their population exploded. “They are very plentiful here,” says the handwritten inscription on the back of this postcard from around 1930. Scientists eventually introduced the myxoma virus to control the rabbit plague.

(Photographer Paul C. Nomchong / National Museum of Australia)

Scientists can’t prove that, because no virus samples survive from that pandemic, but some circumstantial evidence makes the case plausible, Fielding says. For one thing, people who were infected in the 1890 pandemic apparently experienced nervous-system symptoms we now see as more typical of coronaviruses than of influenza. And when Belgian researchers sequenced OC43’s genome in 2005 and compared it to other known coronaviruses, they concluded that it likely originated as a cattle virus and may have jumped to people right around 1890. They speculated that it may have caused the 1890 pandemic and then settled down to a less nasty coexistence as an ordinary cold virus.

Other evolutionary biologists disagree. The pandemic certainly faded as more people became immune, but there’s no solid evidence that OC43 itself evolved from highly virulent to mostly benign over the last century, they say. Even if it did, that does not mean SARS-CoV-2 will follow the same trajectory. “You can’t just say it’s going to become nicer, that somehow a well-adapted pathogen doesn’t harm its host. Modern evolutionary biology, and a lot of data, shows that doesn’t have to be true. It can get nicer, and it can get nastier,” says Andrew Read, an evolutionary microbiologist at Penn State University. (Holmes is blunter: “Trying to predict virulence evolution is a mug’s game,” he says.)

To understand why it’s so hard to predict changes in virulence, Read says it’s important to recognize the difference between virulence — that is, how sick a virus makes its host — and its transmissibility, or how easily it passes from one host individual to another. Evolution always favors increased transmissibility, because viruses that spread more easily are evolutionarily fitter — that is, they leave more descendants. But transmissibility and virulence aren’t linked in any dependable way, Read says. Some germs do just fine even if they make you very sick. The bacteria that cause cholera spread through diarrhea, so severe disease is good for them. Malaria and yellow fever, which are transmitted by mosquitos, can spread just fine even from a person at death’s door.

Funeral for a U.S. soldier who died of influenza in Russia in 1919. The 1918-1920 pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

(U.S. National Archives)

Respiratory viruses, like influenza and the human coronaviruses, need hosts that move around enough to breathe on one another, so extremely high virulence might be detrimental in some cases. But there’s no obvious evolutionary advantage for SARS-CoV-2 to reduce its virulence, because it pays little price for occasionally killing people: It spreads readily from infected people who are not yet feeling sick, and even from those who may never show symptoms of illness. “To be honest, the novel coronavirus is pretty fit already,” Geoghegan says.

Nor are there many documented instances of viruses whose virulence has abated over time. The rare, classic example is the myxoma virus, which was deliberately introduced to Australia in the 1950s from South America to control invasive European rabbits. Within a few decades, the virus evolved to reduce its virulence, albeit only down to 70 to 95 percent lethality from a whopping 99.8 percent. (It has since ticked up again.)

But myxoma stands nearly alone, Parrish says. For instance, he notes, there is no evidence that recent human pathogens such as Ebola, Zika or chikungunya viruses have shown any signs of becoming less pathogenic in the relatively short time since jumping to humans.

“Everyone has influenza,” reads a headline in a French publication from January 1890.

(Wellcome Collection via CC by 4.0)

The ones that went away

The faded nightmares of our past — pandemics that terrorized, then receded, such as SARS in 2003 and flu in 1918-20 and again in 1957, 1968 and 2009 — went away not because the viruses evolved to cause milder disease, but for other reasons. In the case of SARS, the virus made people sick enough that health workers were able to contain the disease before it got out of hand. “People who got SARS got very sick, very fast and were easily identified, easily tracked and readily quarantined — and their contacts were also readily identified and quarantined,” says Mark Cameron, an immunologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who worked in a Toronto hospital during the height of the SARS outbreak there. That was never going to be as easy to do for Covid-19 because people who don’t show symptoms can spread the virus.

Flu pandemics, meanwhile, have tended to recede for another reason, one that offers more hope in our present moment: Enough of the population eventually becomes immune to slow the virus down. The H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic continued as the main influenza virus until the 1950s, and its descendants still circulate in the human population. What made the virus such a threat in 1918-20 is that it was novel and people had little immunity. Once much of the population had been exposed to the virus and had developed immunity, the pandemic waned, although the virus persisted at a lower level of infections — as it does to this day. It appears less lethal now largely because older people, who are at greatest risk of dying from influenza, have usually encountered H1N1 influenza or something like it at some point in their lives and retain some degree of immunity, Read says.

With the new coronavirus, Parrish says, “we’re sort of in that 1918 period where the virus is spreading fast in a naive population.” But that will change as more people either catch Covid-19 or are vaccinated (if and when that becomes possible) and develop some level of immunity. “There’s no question that once the population is largely immune, the virus will die down,” Parrish says.

The question is how long that immunity will last: for a lifetime, like smallpox, or just a few years, like flu? In part, that will depend on whether the vaccine induces a permanent antibody response or just a temporary one. But it also depends on whether the virus can change to evade the antibodies generated by the vaccine. Although coronaviruses don’t accumulate mutations as fast as flu viruses, they do still change. And at least one, which causes bronchitis in chickens, has evolved new variants that aren’t covered by previous vaccines. But at this point, no one knows what to expect from SARS-CoV-2.

There is, at least, one encouraging aspect to all this. Even if we can’t predict how the virus will evolve or how it will respond to the coming vaccine, there is something all of us can do to reduce the risk of the virus evolving in dangerous ways. And it doesn’t involve any complicated new behaviors. “Viruses can only evolve if they’re replicating and transmitting,” Streicker says. “Anything that reduces the replication of a virus will in consequence reduce the amount of evolution that happens.” In other words, we can do our part to slow down the evolution of the Covid-19 virus by behaving exactly as we’ve been told to already to avoid catching it: Minimize contact with others, wash your hands and wear a mask.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

#Nature

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ejzah · 5 years ago

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Matchmakers

I tend to have Callen be the meddler in my fics, but this time the rest of the team do some meddling of their own.

***

“I told you, I’ve got it covered,” Sam insisted.

“But do you really?” Deeks asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Remember how well the last time you set Callen up on a date turned out?”

“Hey, he had a healthy, steady relationship with Joelle. If she hadn’t turned out to be undercover and with the CIA, it would have been perfect.” Deeks started to make another comment, but Kensi put up a hand and said,

“Ok, let’s not bring Joelle into this.” She’d wedged her chair in between Deeks and Sam’s while they brainstormed potential dates for Callen. Exactly how the conversation had started, Deeks couldn’t say, but it seemed of vital importance now that they figure out Callen’s love life.

“Are you sure he hasn’t mentioned anyone recently?” Deeks asked, thinking that if he were Callen, he’d probably hide a potential relationship from them too.

“Nope. I can tell when he’s interested and haven’t got that vibe from him at all,” Sam replied, shaking his head in apparent distress.

“You know, maybe we should just let Callen figure out when he’s ready to date again,” Kensi suggested. “I mean, he is an adult.”

“If you’re so uncomfortable with the idea, then why’d you scurry over here the second you found out what we were talking about?” Sam asked. For a moment Kensi looked deeply offended but then she tossed her hands up in the air.

“Fine. If you want Callen to go out on a date, I’ll set him up with one of my girlfriends. I know at least two or three who’d be ecstatic to meet a guy like him. Oh, and for the record, I do not scurry.” Sam was already shaking his head before she finished speaking and Deeks sighed loudly.

“Kensi, no offense, but I’ve met some of your friends and they’re a little too...peppy for Callen.”

“Peppy? Is that even a word?” Deeks asked, earning a glare from Sam.

“Peppy or not, my friends are great. And I can guarantee that none of them are secretly CIA agents or the daughters of Russian criminals,” Kensi said acidically.

“Why don’t I just introduce Callen to some of my friends,” Deeks suggested, which made both Kensi and Sam laugh.

“Right, because Callen wants to date a stripper,” Sam said sarcastically.

“Ok, first of all, not all of my female friends work in the exotic arts and” he raised a finger dramatically, “there are some lovely strippers out there. Right Kensi?”

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Kensi said adamantly.

“Oh, you so know what I’m talking about. You met Roxy, Cinnamon, Saphire Angel-you remember, she was the one wearing the red dress and had the really big-”

“Are we interrupting something?” Eric said, standing in the doorway with Nell beside him. He looked vaguely disturbed.

“Who’s Saphire Angel?” Nell asked, sounding intrigued.

“You probably don’t want to know,” Kensi said, shaking her head before Nell could ask anymore questions. Sam gave a deep sigh that somehow suggested he was the mature person in the room at the moment.

“We were just discussing if it would be appropriate to set G up on a date.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize he was back on the market,” Eric commented.

“He’s not,” Kensi confirmed. “But Sam’s worried that if we don’t do something now, Callen’s going to end up all alone for the rest of his life.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Huh. Well, Sydney’s not dating anyone at the moment,” Nell said and Deeks couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. Before things could get too awkward, Eric snapped his fingers.

“Internet dating!”

“Yeah, Eric, somehow I don’t think Callen’s the type to set up an online profile,” Deeks said doubtfully.

“No, we set it up for him,” Eric explained excitedly. “That’s why it would be so perfect. We could vet potential women, find the perfect match for Callen-“

“Hey, sorry I’m late. Dentist appointment took longer than I thought,” Callen said, walking into the bullpen. They all froze guiltily and when no one spoke, Callen looked between them. “Do I want to know what’s going on?” Sam was the fastest to recover and calmly said,

“We were just talking about a mutual friend of ours.”

“And we were just going back up to OPS. Come on, Eric.” Nell grabbed Eric’s hand and started to tug him away. Callen watched them leave and then turned back to the others with a suspicious look. Kensi smiled at him which only seemed to unnerve more.

“I think I’m going to go workout,” he decided, clearly searching for an excuse to leave.

“Enjoy,” Deeks said pleasantly as Callen hastily left the bullpen. As soon as he was out of earshot, Sam leaned forward with an intense expression.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he said grimly. “We have work to do.

#ncis la fanfiction #ncis la #the team #ejzah fanfiction #is it a drabble?#is it a ficlet?

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spellyjane · 6 years ago

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Splashed, Mashed and Dashed on to the podium at Kona!

THAT'S ME, 3RD W45-49 IN THE 🌏

After my 1st go at this race in 2017, I was a little torn. Part of me was happy to tick IRONMAN World Championships off my list and never put myself through that sufferfest again. I hated it, it was hot, the run was horrible, and I found the layout of the transition, spectator areas and general logistics to be claustrophobic ordeals. However, on the evening after that 2017 race, I saw athletes heading home from the award ceremony with their ukeme bowls and I felt a strong pang of want. My race had not gone to plan, I knew I could do better and I wondered where a good day at Kona would put me. After a few more weeks of reflection and recovery I decided that yes, I needed to give it another go.

I started to write my thank yous at the end of this report, but I realised that I may lose a few of you along the way and this is important. Thank you to my biggest fan and supporter, Simon. I love chasing him up hills on bikes, holding his wheel all these years had made me a better person and without his encouragement and support I just could not do this. My coach, Rick Schopp, gosh, I feel like I say this all the time, but he pushes me where I don’t always want to go and he must find it hard to sleep with all the pins I stick into that voodoo doll, (I have taken them all out now.) I thank him especially for pushing me, for listening, for calling me out when I am being a slack ass and for the awesome giggle when he hears my results. Thank you to my team at INTENT, the messages before and after were off the charts! I know a whole bunch were tracking me all day and I was sending my thanks every time I hit a timing mat! Thanks to my Dad for coming all the way from Sydney to cheer and sherpa, that was pretty awesome. I don’t get to see him enough, to have him there was really special.

DAD, READY TO CAPTURE IT ALL

So I found myself at the starting line of this year’s race in quite a different headspace. I had 2 more humbling Ironman experiences under my belt, a crazy amount of fitness gained from lots of training in our new 1750m above sea level abode and some practiced heat coping strategies. I was going for a top 10 finish and a course PR regardless of the weather. My race plan was full of lessons learned from last year, paces, watts, calories, salt and heat coping strategies. I hoped I could pull it all off but I knew that at some stage I would run out of script and just have to ad lib.

7:20am - BOOM! I am swimming. My mission was 8:35 per 500m. This would give me about 1 min faster than last year. I got kicked and pummelled last year so I positioned a little left to avoid the chaos. It worked, it was busy but not as bad. My watch buzzes every 500m, the glance at my splits was telling me we had a bit of current assist on the way out. So when we made the turn I just dug in and pushed hard, trying not to lose too much of the time I had gained on the way out. I kept asking myself if I was going hard enough and could I push any harder, I kept reminding myself to stay on the gas all the way to the finish. I reached the sand and scrambled up the stairs, already thinking about how I was going to execute T1. Thank goodness for the volunteers helping out here as I was almost wiped out by a wave that came crashing over the stairs as I was trying to read the time on my watch. Woo hoo, 1:06:40, 3 minutes faster than last year.

OK, NOW FOR A LITTLE BIKE RIDE

I was handed my T1 bag and ran into the change tent. With the help of a volunteer I was on my way in moments. I was jogging along at the pace of the pack as we made our way to our bikes, I turned on some hussle when I remembered that I was racing! I saw the lamp pole I’d scoped out to landmark my aisle earlier that morning and made the turn, I found my bike no problems. I had opted to clip my shoes in pre race, so by the time I reached the mount line my socks were super soggy from the saturated carpeting. My feet were never dry all day, I’d post a pic of the result but I don’t want to freak y’all out too much. 😱 The mount line was a bit of a zoo but I made it out in one piece! 3:13 about 1:30 faster than last year.

My first 15 minutes of riding were at an intensity (IF) of .78, oops! I was aiming for .66, my goodness, this is rookie territory! Clearly I was a bit amped and buzzed with the good swim start. I lost a bottle of electrolytes/nutrition on a bump at the 5k mark but did not sweat it. I had a back up in my special needs bag located up in Hawi at about the 100k mark. I was taking on cals and salt every 30 mins, I was taking water bottles and refilling my built in hydration bag and keeping a spare bottle on the back cage. I had some additional electrolytes to add to the water while I was on the go as well. It was not as hot as last year, my data recorded an average temp of 32C with a high of 37C, last year I recorded and average temp of 36C and a high of 39C. We seemed to have a tiny bit of cross head wind on the way out to the Hawi turn around. I started to pay attention to race numbers. Last year I did not realise that we would not have our age groups tattooed to our calves and I didn’t realise that the race numbers were grouped in ages. I was on to it this year and I knew the range I was racing. At this point, I was doing all the passing, I don’t recall being passed by anyone in my age group at all on the bike.

PROBABLY DOING 500W HERE 😜

I was pushing a few extra watts than I planned in order to keep out of draft zones and it did not seem to be hurting me. I struggled last year to hold my watts and ended up with an IF of .64 and in Boulder earlier this year same thing happened and I went .62, I put this down to the heat. I have managed .69 in other races but felt that that was too aggressive for Kona, knowing how brutal that run can be, so I felt that .66 was a good stretch for me this year. But on the day I felt like I was holding way too much back at those watts so I let loose a bit. Besides, I was kind of enjoying myself. The climb up to Hawi felt insignificant and I was well on my way to smashing out a great bike. I saw some folks holding out an Aussie flag right at the U turn, crikey, that shit slays me, I felt quite emotional.

The ride back to Kailua was good. I was not cracking. I pushed on, crunching splits in my head and feeling really good. I started to ease up a little and spin at a little higher cadence to get ready to run. I came in at 5:10:23, a big course PR, and unbeknownst to me at the time this 4th fastest bike split had me sitting in 3rd place.

I handed my bike off to a volunteer and ran into the change tent. Helped by another volunteer I threw my shoes on, grabbed my race belt (all loaded up with my gels, hat, number and emergency Immodium) and took off. I missed the sun screen, not on purpose, I just did not see any. Ugh, this sport is turning me into a melanoma snack bar. I got out on the run with a T2 of 3:02, again, saved another 1:30 on last year.

I had loaded my pocket pre race with a couple of nylon panty hose cut into long sock lengths. At the 1st aid station I filled one up with ice and tied it around the back of my neck, it dripped icy cold water down my back for about 30 min. It was awesome. I was using some new gels, loaded with salt and a lower but isotonic sugar concentration. They go down so so easy and have as much salt as the salt tablets I was taking on the bike. I had zero gut issues this year. I calculated that last year I spent about 7 minutes in the toilets throughout the race and spent a good deal of time in a lot of discomfort. This year no problems at all!

BEFORE IT GOT TOO UGLY 😂

I was holding a conservative pace, dying a little on the hills but pulling it back up on the flats and descents. I was not able to see the race numbers of the girls I was passing and being passed by. I was told by a friend at about the 3km point that I was in 3rd. I was passed by Elisabetta (she went on to 2nd place) just before the halfway point so I wondered if that put me in 4th. I came up upon my friend Jeff, we reached an aid station together, I grabbed a water and dumped it down his back, I can't remember what I said, but he wished me well and I pushed on. Another friend at about 21k told me that I was in 3rd and I was shocked. I was not sure where the other girls were but dang I knew they would be coming. I was remembering that feeling of seeing those ukeme bowls awarded to the top 5 and I began to think I could really get one. The toughest part of the race was the climb up out of the energy lab, the sun on my back was awful and I was tired. I let my pace fall to a level that apparently had my husband and my coach, who were tracking me via the timing mats, having heart attacks. What I did not know, but what they could see was that I was being ferociously stalked by the gal in 4th place, she was gaining on me at at rate that had Simon and Rick on the edge of their seats. I am glad I was oblivious to the actual threat. I made it back up onto the Queen K and just held onto the pace as best I could. I told myself to NOT slow down. The last 8k were tough, I was scared of every foot fall behind me. That kept me moving for sure. I made that last soul and body draining climb of the run, passing the crazy awesome peeps at the Base Performance tent before making that divine turn down Palani Drive. I bounded down that hill smiling my head off. I still had 2k to go but I was so close and the hard part of the course was done. Now it was time to wave to my Dad and friends, smile big and bring it home. I was passed by a gal in the finish chute, and I wondered if I had just lost 3rd but I did not care, I knew I had one of those bowls. I nearly choked when I saw my time too. Whaaat! A 3:42:01 marathon gave me a finish time of 10:05:19. So much to be happy about!

WHAT DID I JUST DO!?

A bit of post race asthma had me into the med tent. Ugh, thanks to Christian and Meredith for helping me out. I was still in the med tent when I turned my phone on to dozens of messages. The 1st one I opened was from Simon, it said, “3rd place, woo hoo!” I lost it, ugly happy crying, “I am ok!” I wheezed at the poor alarmed medic who did not know what to make of my sudden heaving outburst.

So that was the race, I have left out so many details, but to sum up, I feel like I had one of my most perfect races. With hindsight, I feel like I could have pushed a tiny bit harder on the bike, but I could not have know that till after. I wished I could have run under 3:40, I know in hindsight that I could not, I really did not leave anything out there. That 2 mins would not have made a difference in my placing, I just wished I could have held onto my pace. That gives me something to work on and I am fine with that. I will call this an Ironman PR, (my 10:04 in Cozumel does not count because of the massive current assisted short swim course.) I am not sure that I want to right now... but I think I can still wring a little more out of this body. I really want to go under 10 hrs! As for placing 3rd in the women’s 45-49 AG, (IN THE WORLD - tee hee) I am really happy, happy that I was able to pull together my best performance on a day when it really mattered. I absolutely know that I had some fierce competition out there, I know their A games and so I know that their days did not all go to plan, so I remain inspired, vigilant and on my toes.

Kudos to many many athletes on the day for pushing through the heat and distance to achieve some great results. My very good friend Jeff, had his 1st go at Kona after many years in the sport.

PRE RACE SELFIE WITH JEFF

This was a dream day he never thought he would have, his joy, emotion and pride at being there was written all over him! He a great day, he was beaten up a little by the run but his smoking bike made up for it and his overall time was where he said he hoped it would be. I bet he goes back for another crack. Kudos to my other Jeff, (I have a couple,) Jeff B took about 50 mins off his 2017 time. Kudos to Lindsey my friend the human fish who gutted out a run after tearing something important in her hip in T2. I mean she really gutted it out, she was black and blue but she still pulled off a very tidy performance.

The awards ceremony - ahh, where to begin without sounding like a real cow. Sorry, Ironman, this was not awesome. Charging my Dad $55 to eat dinner off a paper plate with a bottle of water at an out door folding table with a plastic table cloth made me a little mad. It was the only way to get into the awards so what can you do?

I made the most of my time on the stage, soaking it in, congratulating Janette, Elisabetta, Linda and Tanja with whom I shared the podium. I just wish my Dad had a telephoto lens to capture the moment a little more clearly. (I guess they assume we are all happy to buy the Finishers Pix.)

Family and friends were restricted to a barricade well away from the stage and off to the side to accommodate the VIP area and TV camera scaffold. VIPs were standing up and walking around with backs to the stage making it difficult for us common Age Groupers to get a picture of one of the MOST AWESOME MOMENTS OF OUR LIVES. I really could go on, but I will put it all in my survey.

One last heart felt thank you to the IRONMAN volunteers, I met people who flew in from all over the world to volunteer (including Meredith and Scott from BC Canada!) and thank you to the locals who embraced the chaos and gave up their time to help put this show on. I had many wonderful experiences with many volunteers, I am so grateful for all the help and cheers!

#racewithintent #triathlon #iamspecialized #kona #ironman #ironmanworldchampionships

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ask-the-human-cookies · 6 years ago

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The Oddities

This is something I wrote for this aus squid ink, I am also posting on archives of our own and hoping to write more for this. Please enjoy!

Sydney Ink

I never had any of the abilities that some has been given. Though my father has joked that my ability is summoning fish onto my hook. With Peter, however, I’ve always doubted his abilities. Seeing ghosts, or more so specifically pirate ghosts that have cursed him, just doesn’t sound right. When we were younger his loud, brash, and rude attitude made me look down at him. His pirate persona was the worst to deal with, which came out when we would sail together.

Squid Ink: Sydney Salt: Sal Pirate: Peter (just to make sure names are clear)

I never thought I would get as close to him as I did. Perhaps the days we were stranded out at sea without a clue where dry land could be forced us to understand each other. Perhaps it was the nights I stayed up, pressing my hand to his forehead when he would struggle to breathe and scream about the dead watching him. Doing all I could to make him feel safe. Perhaps it was with every struggle, every time we were knocked to the ground in every way, Peter would stand up dragging me with him. Shout curses at what seemed like fate’s work and do things ‘his own damn way’. In the end, we didn’t want to face our hardships on our own. We spent years together, settling in a home near the sea. Then, our lives changed in just one morning.

I as setting up my fishing gear when I heard it. A babies wail. I followed the sound down the beach near the rockier areas, finding the source. At first, I didn’t even know if they were human. I picked them up, the ink that covered them staining my hands and clothes. They stopped crying when I held them, wide blue eyes staring up to me. Little hands reaching out to touch and stain my beard. They were calm. Until a big glob of black goop spilled from their open mouth. They started to wail again, and I was panicked. I rushed back home, running as fast as I could leaving behind the expensive tools I had. At that moment, I didn’t care. Now? I don’t think I care that much either that I lost most of them.

Once I arrived, I explained quickly what had happened to Peter. Peter being the one to carry them as we ran to the hospital. Peter has always been the fastest, and we did not know how much time we really had. Peter got there first, bursting in through the doors. Sometimes I wonder, now that I look back, what that receptionist thought during this. A man with long curly hair and an eyepatch bursting in with a baby in his arms, shouting out about black goop, followed by me. Another man, this time with a scar near his eye and a beard. Must have been one hell of a story for him to tell.

They took the child in quickly, leaving me and Peter waiting outside. The bleak waiting room was making us both antsy for sure. I clasped my hands tight, bowing my head and silently prayed. When I peaked up, I saw Peter was doing the same, despite never being that religious. It had been forever since he had prayed, much less prayed with me. I took one of his hands in mine, and prayed quietly.

When I heard panic inside the room they were in, I felt my body tense up. The doctor rushed out, being ushered down the hall by nurses while he held his hand. His hand covered and dripping red from what I saw. I listened after the doctor left and a new one came in. It seemed the panic followed the hurt doctor, and was not because of issues with the child. I let myself sigh and let the tension in my shoulders leave. Peter was gripping my hand tightly, I reminded him to breathe.

The new doctor walked out calmly, leading us inside to see them. They were cleaned up of sand and ink, eyes clear of tears. She talked us through what exactly was the situation. Apparently they were one of those people with special abilities, or an ‘oddity’. She continued to show us the sharp teeth the child already had. She showed us the file they tried to use to fix their teeth, only for them to freak out and bite through metal and apparently, a doctors thumb. She then told us about the black goop, it was more ink. Ink that they are able to produce from their mouth. Why they cried when a big glob came out is most likely just them making too much ink on accident.

We walked home, Peter holding the small sleeping child close. Watching her breathing, as if to make extra sure everything was fine. Once we reached the front door, he looked up to me. Tears threatened to spill down his cheeks, staring at me with worried yet hopeful eyes. I remember how hushed and shaky his voice was.

“I don’t want to let them go...I don’t want to ever lose them..” After a bit of silence, and me finding my words, I spoke up. “Neither do I”

We took them in, named them Sydney and built a crib for them. We found out pretty quickly that not only could they instantly make a mess of ink, bite harder than anyone, they can do a lot of damage.

One night, pirate accidentally talked a bit too loud. Waking the sleeping Sydney up. The night light had broke when they were asleep as well, causing them to panic and screech. I threw down my book and ran upstairs, Peter beating me up the stairs to the door. Only, he froze in front of it, hand still on the light switch. I soon saw why.

Giant squid tendrils where knocking things over, destroying furniture, and breaking windows. Sydney right in the middle of the chaos, eyes glowing a bright white as they scream-sobbed. Soon, they noticed us, calming down. Eyes going normal as the tendrils slipped out of existence. Leaving us staring at them, wide blue eyes staring right back.

We home schooled them. It was surprisingly difficult to find a proper school that could take care of Sydney. Rather than treat them like an animal that needed to be tamed. Multiple times Peter would call up schools, just to go into a shouting rant. Peter was the one to teach them, but it has been keeping him up at night just to make sure Sydney was caught up with every other child.

Then we found a high school, one run by someone who was considered an oddity. The principal being kind and understanding during the call, and when we visited. Sydney also said they felt excited about the new school, grabbed my arm and whispered ‘but nervous too’. I told them that there is nothing to be nervous about.

I must admit, I am nervous as well. Sydney is a sensitive and quiet, and kids can be loud and mean.

#cookie run #cr human au #cr squid ink cookie #cr pirate cookie #cr salt cookie #writing

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breathinginthevapor · 7 years ago

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A chance to make it right again

Summary: It’s been a year since you last saw Luke Hemmings, rockstar and your former best friend, but when invited to celebrate Christmas with the Hemmings family, you might get a chance to make everything right again.

A/N: I know that I haven’t been in any way active on here, but in celebration of Christmas I thought I’d post a small one shot which includes a little bit of Christmas spirit (not very much though), I hope you enjoy x

“How are you, darling? Feels like I haven��t seen you in forever.” Liz greets you with a loving hug and you can’t help but melt into it. Perhaps there’s just a gene for great hugging skills in the Hemmings family because it’s the exact same case with Luke.

“Yeah, it’s been way too long,” you agree, sending her a big smile while pulling away. “I’m doing great, thank you, what about you? Has Andrew’s back gotten any better?” She leads you into the dining room while assuring you that Luke’s dad is doing way better than last you talked with a member of the Hemmings household and that her only worry is that he’ll be eating too much Christmas food because he always has a hard time losing the extra pounds afterwards.

“But enough about us! We are so happy you’re coming; the children haven’t talked about anything else the whole day.”

You laugh, easily imaging the small kids that have always loved you jumping up at the thought of you celebrating Christmas with them this year. “Thank you again for letting my join you for Christmas, Liz. It really means a lot,” you say and smile.

“Nonsense! I’ve known you for 15 years, Y/N, you’re a part of the family, you know you’re always welcome,” she argues and warms your heart with her kind words. It’s true you’ve been a friend of the family for many years and even lived here for short periods of time when your parents were on business trips or something like that, but you’ve never been here for the holidays and not many people would open their homes on Christmas for their child’s former best friend. But that’s just the way Andrew and Liz are, and you’re extremely grateful for it. Otherwise you would be forced to celebrate Christmas alone in your small apartment without any of the things that usually defines your favourite holiday, such as a Christmas tree, tasty food and good company. Originally it was the plan that you should celebrate the holidays with your best friend, but her mum got sick two days before Christmas and had to go to the hospital, your parents and the rest of your family was in Spain (or was it Italy? You weren’t entirely sure) and you couldn’t afford a plane ticket so when you coincidently ran into Celeste and Jack yesterday and they offered that you could join the celebrations at the Hemmings House instead of sitting alone, you accepted the offer even though it would result in a meeting with the boy you had tried your best to avoid for the last year.

As soon as you step into the room where all of Luke’s family gathered, his small cousins run towards you, yelling your name. “Y/N! Y/N! You’re finally here!” Their excitement isn’t exactly quiet and soon the whole family has their focus on you, but the only thing you see is a certain pair of blue eyes. You swallow the lump in your throat and then step forward, hug the kids and listen to their stories about the candy they’ve eaten and their guesses revolving their Christmas presents. However, your focus is elsewhere and you keep on loosing track of what they’re trying to tell you. They thankfully don’t seem to notice that you’re not exactly present and when you make your way around the table to greet all Luke’s uncles, aunts and grandparents you make a bigger effort to answer rightfully to their questions about your studies, how long it’s been since the last time you saw them and thanking them when they tell you that you look more beautiful than ever, that they like your dress or that your new hair style suits you. But just as you’ve almost made your way to the tall blonde you used to call your best friend, dinner is served and you sit down between Jack and one of Luke’s uncles which’s name you don’t recall.

At first you’re tense, embarrassingly aware of his presence so near you but then you get caught up in all the interesting, funny and friendly conversations around you that you manage to forget. You laugh harder than what you’ve done in a long time and you haven’t felt this at home and safe since you were friends Luke and it feels good. Finally, you allow yourself to let go and stop worrying about if your laugh is too loud or if you’re being too much. So when the plates are being taken out and dessert prepared, you’re in a happy and calm state of mind, at least until a certain blond rockstar appears beside you and pats your shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispers.

You turn around, meeting his pale face. His blue eyes have a gentle glow with small pecks of worry and hesitance, like he’s afraid he’ll scare you away. “Hi.” You send him a small smile, and he takes a deep breath and bites his lip, an old habit of his when he’s nervous.

“It’s been a while.” His voice is low, almost gentle and his eyes keeps you trapped. Even if you wanted to, you’re not sure if you’d be able to move from your spot, not when he’s looking at you like this.

You nod. “Yeah, it has.” Flashes of the last time you were together appears in your brain but you show them away, knowing they will upset you and the last thing you want to do after all the kindness this family has shown you is cause a scene.

“Do you- Do you perhaps wanna go for a walk? Get some air, you know? If you don’t want to that’s fine as well, but uh, yeah, I just thought it would be nice,” he proposes, nervously scratching his neck and stuttering more than you’ve ever heard him do before. If this had been old times, you would have laughed and pulled him in a tight hug, but it isn’t. So instead you settle on nodding and shooting him another small smile.

You walk out in silence, the warmth and light of Sydney seeming so out of place when set up against the cold between you and the guy you used to call your best friend.

You haven’t noticed it until now but he’s wearing a ridiculously ugly Christmas sweater you bought for him two years ago and you don’t know if you feel a bigger urge to cry or laugh. You settle for neither of them.

He’s walking in front of you, of course the fastest of the two of you with his long legs. Usually though, he makes an effort to slow down his steps so you can walk together but right now he seems too lost in thought. Suddenly, he stops, standing a few metres in front of you and looking at you like you’ve just placed a knife in his chest. “Why? Why did you just leave? I- I needed you, I needed you so much, but you just left. Why?” He’s standing right there, in the middle of the road and telling you how bad you broke his heart. And your own heart breaks into smaller and smaller pieces for every word he says.

“I just- It sounds so stupid now, but I just couldn’t handle watching you leave me every time I had just gotten you back.” The street is silent besides your low voices. You breathe in, holding back tears and mentally preparing yourself to continue. He deserves answers. “I couldn’t bear saying goodbye in another airport, couldn’t bear only getting to see you five times a year and otherwise only through a screen. And I couldn’t handle that despite you almost never being here with me, I still loved you so much. And I tried to get over you, tried to go out with boys with regular jobs but they just weren’t you. I didn’t know what to do, I’m sorry, but I never meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry.” He looks surprised, which honestly wasn’t what you expected. You thought he would have figured out by now that you had been in love with him but apparently, he hadn’t.

“You- you were in love with me?” he asks, as if processing the fact that you, his best friend through almost 15 years had viewed him as more than a friend without him knowing.

You shrug and answer, voice fragile and almost breaking: “I thought you knew.” You can’t get yourself to look at him, can’t meet his eyes. If you do, you’re afraid you’re gonna cry.

“How could I know? You never told me, never showed me any kind of signs you felt anymore for me than strictly friendship.” He sounds frustrated, but you still don’t have the strength to turn your head and look at him. “How could I know, Y/N?” his voice is barely a whisper, but you hear him loud and clear. You’ve always had a way of following every small thing he does and hearing everything he says. Perhaps it just is like that when you’ve spent so many years having feelings for someone.

You don’t answer him; don’t know what to say, really, because you can’t think of anything that wouldn’t make this awful situation even worse. How can you ever face him again after this?

You can hear him walking closer to you and eventually feel his breath on your neck when he whispers once again: “Look at me, Y/N.”

You shake your head, still not willing to face the shame that’ll surely appear in your body if you ever look at him again. “Please just look at me,” he begs, and you can’t refuse when he asks you like that. You turn your head, meeting his eyes and feeling the wetness in your own. He’s close, so close and you can sense it in every cell of your body. Even after all this time apart, all it wants is to be close to him. “I- I know there’s been happening a lot of shit between us, but do you think that maybe, just maybe, you’ll ever be able to fall in love with me again?” He pauses, swallowing a lump in his throat before continuing: “Because, fairly, I have loved you since forever, but I never in a million years thought you would reciprocate my feelings. And I’m aware that it might be too late, but I needed to tell you and now I need to know; do I still stand a chance?”

You look at him, look at the ugly sweater that’s way too hot for the warm weather, the freckles that adorn his rosy cheeks, the blond curls that’s completely out of place and lastly the sky-blue eyes that’s been your only comfort on lonely nights. And when you nod, it doesn’t matter that it’s a thousand degrees, that there’s not a single sign of snow in this desert-like climate or no mistletoe is in sight: you’ve never felt the Christmas spirit deeper. And when he kisses you, it feels like coming home. It feels like finally being where you belong. It feels perfect, despite the sweat in your armpits, the hands that you don’t know where to put and your teeth that accidently collide.

He smiles against your lips before pulling away, looking all over your face like he’s searching for something. ”Your hair has gotten shorter. I like it; it suits you,” he says. “But your eyes are still the same as they’ve always been, pulling me in and making me wish I never have to let go of you again.” He breathes against your lips, waiting for you to say something.

“Then don’t. Ever. Take me with you, show me the world. I just wanna be by your side.” And then you kiss him again, and all the wrongs turn into rights. “But for now, let’s get back to the party. I’m really in the mood for one of your mother’s desserts.”

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brn1029 · 3 years ago

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On this date in rock (and some not so rock…) history

November 22nd

1957 - Simon and Art Garfunkel

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel appeared as Tom and Jerry on ABC-TV's American Bandstand. Close friends through childhood, the first time they appeared on stage together was in a school play, Alice in Wonderland (Simon as the White Rabbit, Garfunkel as the Cheshire Cat). They later began performing together in their junior year as Tom and Jerry, with Simon as Jerry Landis and Garfunkel as Tom Graph.

1969 - Iron Butterfly

Iron Butterfly supported by Steel Mill, (featuring Bruce Springsteen) appeared at the Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. The gig was held in the school's 3,500- seat Crenshaw Gymnasium.

1975 - KC and the Sunshine Band

KC and the Sunshine Band started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'That's The Way (I Like It)', the group's second US No.1 of the year, it made No.4 in the UK.

1980 - Abba

ABBA scored their sixth UK No.1 album when Super Trouper started a nine week run at the top of the charts. The album which features the No.1 singles 'The Winner Takes It All' and 'Super Trouper', became the biggest-selling of 1980 in the UK.

1990 - Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman announced that his 17-month marriage to model Mandy Smith was over. With the consent of her mother, Smith had started dating the 47-year-old Rolling Stones bassist when she was aged 13.

1991 - Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper came to the rescue of two fans; Patrick and Dee Ann Kelly, whose California home was about to be re-possessed. Patrick had painted Coopers face on the house to help sell the property. Mr Cooper signed autographs to help raise money for the couple.

1994 - Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam released their third studio album Vitalogy, which was first released on vinyl and became the first vinyl album to appear on the US chart, since the domination of the compact disc format. They followed the release in other formats two weeks later, whereupon it became the second-fastest-selling CD in history, behind only the band's previous release Vs.

1997 - Michael Hutchence

INXS singer Michael Hutchence was found dead in his hotel suite in Sydney. He was 37. Hutchence body was found at 11.50am naked behind the door to his room. He had apparently hanged himself with his own belt and the buckle broke away and his body was found kneeling on the floor and facing the door. It had been suggested that his death resulted from an act of auto eroticism, no forensic or other evidence to substantiate that suggestion was found.

2004 - Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne struggled with a burglar who escaped with jewellery worth about £2m from his Buckinghamshire mansion. Osbourne told reporters that he had the masked raider in a headlock as he tried to stop him. The burglar broke free and jumped 30 ft from a first floor window. A large amount of jewellery was stolen in the raid in which two burglars were involved.

2005 - Bob Dylan

Poems written by Bob Dylan in his college days sold for $78,000 (£45,000) at a New York City auction. The 16 pages of poems were the first known time Robert Zimmerman used the Dylan name and came from his studies at the University of Minnesota during 1959-60.

2010 - The Beatles

After just one week of availability on the iTunes store, The Beatles music sold more than 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs. The Fab Four's debut on iTunes was accompanied by an extensive world-wide marketing campaign.

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wanderbitesbybobbie · 5 years ago

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ANTIQUE: Misadventures and Cold Springs

Antique (An-ti-ke), that is how you pronounce it. My foreign friends were puzzled when I posted my Antique photos on my Instagram Account and wouldn’t stop asking where in the world I was. “It’s Antique, friends!” It’s a province in the Philippines located in the Western Part of the Visayas Region. It’s not “antique”, the adjective that you use to describe something ancient. It’s AN-TI-KE. Please don’t be confused.

I generally had no idea what I’m putting myself into when I decided to travel to Antique by land from Iloilo. But just as they say, the moments of happiness that we enjoy take us by surprise. On a rainy day, I flew from Manila to Iloilo to visit my good friends, Krizia and Mike. I also had some travel writing business to attend to so it was a two-in-one trip. I always stay with them every time I travel to Iloilo. I am very grateful that they receive me in their home very openly each time. I only had a few days left from my vacation in the Philippines. I was scheduled to go back to Sydney in two weeks, so I promised myself that I would make the most out of the remaining days. I have told Krizia that I wanted to go hiking at Mararison Island to take photos of “Rafflesias“. You know, the huge flowers that eat humans. Just kidding. They eat parasites, but whatever. They are carnivores, and it is fascinating to see some of the species up close and personal. I was very excited to see them. Mike was actually thrilled too, as he is a big fan of things like those, plants, animals, and nature. Both of them are animal and nature-lovers which makes them a very compatible super couple. But during that time, Mike was exceedingly interested to see a Rafflesia in person. So over dinner and a couple of beers, we planned our Antique itinerary. For this trip, I spent my “Day 1” just food-blogging around Iloilo since I was invited by a number of restaurants and cafes prior to my arrival. That night we planned my “Day 2”. We googled everything from transportation to activities, and in a snap, we weren’t going to Mararison anymore. There was a better eco-tourist spot in the middle of a lush tropical rain forest. MALUMPATI COLD SPRINGS.

Photo from TripAdvisor

Oh my gosh! The google images were just so captivating that we have to experience it ourselves. No. Actually, WE NEED TO EXPERIENCE IT OURSELVES. It has become imperative now, it’s not just a whim anymore. That was it, the deciding point! We’re ditching Mararison! The planned itinerary was:

Take the earliest bus to Antique, head straight to Pandan (where Malumpati Cold Springs is located)

Stop by Tibiao on the way back to experience the very intriguing Kawa Hot Bath, maybe get a chance to see a Rafflesia somewhere

Head back to Iloilo before night time.

It’s gonna be a one day trip, so we all settled to go to bed early so we can catch the first bus. Another friend was coming with us. It was the first time I have met Kim that time. He went with us for dinner the night before, and he was a part of the “Day 2 Planning”. Kim is years younger than us. He’s a unicorn (well at least that’s what his Facebook Profile says). He’s in his early twenties and this guy has a very contagious laughter. He’s the type of person that will liven up a very boring classroom. It was just at that night that he have decided to come with us. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, but Kim made everything extra fun – starting from the bus ride.

THE CERES BUS RIDE

If you will google “How to go to Antique from Iloilo”, the first thing that would come up is the Iloilo International Airport. Apparently, Google suggests that the fastest way to Antique is by plane. But, that was not an option for us. We were working on a very limited budget so we all woke up early and proceeded to the Ceres Bus Terminal in Molo. As early as 5:15 AM, we were already out, riding a jeepney from Jaro to Molo to catch the 6:00 AM bus. Based on what we have researched, we would be arriving in Antique by 8:30 to 9:00 AM. We decided to skip shower that morning (we took a shower the night before), since we would be plunging in the cold springs in a matter of two and a half hours anyway. Plus the fact that it was really cold in the crack of dawn. So the three of us were already in the bus, Mike, Krizia, and me. The bus conductor handed over our tickets and reminded us that the bus would be leaving at exactly 6:00 AM. OMG. Kim was still missing in action. We thought he was already at the bus station, but there was no sign of Kim anywhere. Where is he? Is he still asleep? We did not receive any replies via SMS. We kept on calling his mobile, and that was the only time he finally answered. There’s only 5 minutes left, the bus would be leaving, and Kim was running from his house to the bus station. There were no jeepneys in his area, so he was forced to walk (I mean run). The conductor kept on checking up on us and Krizia kept on apologizing in Ilonggo (the dialect in Iloilo). The bus driver started the engine. We were all stressed out so early in the morning. Kim was on loud speaker and he talked to the bus conductor saying that he was only 5 minutes away. We could hear him panting in the background. The driver drove slowly and asked which way was Kim coming from. They explained to us that we cannot wait for him any longer because the bus timetable would be messed up. We cannot be late, otherwise we would be delaying the next bus schedule. OMG. Finally, there was Kim. Running a few meters behind the bus. We started laughing at the mere sight of him struggling to catch the bus with his backpack. He was waving at the bus conductor yelling, “I’m here! I’m here!” in Ilonggo. He was out of breath when he stepped inside the bus. The conductor literally pulled him up from the bus entrance, and all the other passengers started to laugh. Whew! That was a close call. He almost missed the bus!

It was the start of the long bus ride. A ticket to Antique cost us P210 ($7.50 AUD) for a non air-conditioned bus. I chose a window seat to get a hold of some fresh air, and I immediately fell asleep as soon as the bus started running.

In a couple of hours, the bus stopped. I was already feeling the hot breeze on my face, the sun was already up so I was wide awake. It was around 9:00 AM and we have finally arrived in Antique. It was a 3-hour travel. But the thing is, we haven’t arrived at our destination yet. The conductor informed us that it would take another hour before we reach Pandan. We were just stopping by to stretch out a bit and for a quick toilet break. It was the final stop for most of the passengers so there was less than half of the people in the bus. As we headed on, the people in the bus went down one by one until there were only a few left. The bus probably stopped for about 15 times before we finally reached Pandan. It seemed endless. By the time we got there, it was only the 4 of us left inside the bus plus the driver and bus conductor.

IT WASN’T ANOTHER HOUR. IT WAS A TOTAL LIE. It was already around 11:30 AM when we finally reached Pandan Bus Terminal! Like whooooot??? So much for sunbathing at 9! I kept on asking the conductor if we were there yet each time the bus would stop. I probably pissed him off for asking every half hour. I felt so stupid. I was the leader of the pack, how could I miss this part from my google searches? We were just so enticed with the picturesque view of Malumpati Cold Springs, that we just missed that part where it says it’s another 3 freaking hours from the main proper of Tibiao. We were so exhausted from the bus ride. We felt sticky and grouchy from the very humid weather. The sun was glaring at us! Remember, we didn’t take a shower thinking we would be bathing in the Cold Springs by that time. But no. We were in the middle of Pandan Bus Terminal, not knowing where to go next. I took out my phone and started to check out Google Maps to navigate. Signal was on and off. I needed to find a data spot. It sounds like a scene from a thriller movie. No signal + stuck in the middle of somewhere. As soon as my data started working, I instantly turned on my GPS. Good grief!!! Our location pin was at the end of the island, a few minutes away we could already be in Boracay Island. 7 freaking hours of travel by land! We should have just gone to Boracay for goodness sake! What in the world was I thinking? I don’t remember signing up for a 7-hour land travel! Had I known that it would be a laborious travel, I would have pushed through with Mararison. How could this be such an epic fail?

But anyway, Google says it’s another half hour to reach Malumpati Cold Springs. We hailed a tricycle to take us there. We traversed for about 20 minutes. We paid for P50 ($1.5 AUD) per head, so a total of P200 ($6 AUD) for the 4 of us. A signage welcomed us by the entrance.

We paid the entrance fees and to our luck, the road to the cold springs was steep. We all had to get off to help the driver push his tricycle. We were already so pissed at this point. We were so behind our schedule! We were already ranting all the way through, both in Tagalog (Manila dialect) and in Ilonggo. Upon hearing our frustrations, the tricycle driver offered to pick us up for free. It was already past 12 noon and we all agreed to return to the bus terminal at 3:00 PM. You can just imagine how exasperated we were. THE FREAKING LAND TRAVEL WAS LONGER THAN OUR STAY. In the original schedule, we’re supposed to be traveling back to Iloilo by 3:00 PM. But we cannot skip the rest of the itinerary at this point. Not when we’ve traveled a long way already.

MALUMPATI COLD SPRINGS, FINALLY!

Our first look into the cold springs, we were like, “Ito na ‘yun?” (This is it?) We felt like our expectations weren’t met because we traveled all the way from Iloilo just to see what was in front of us. We have all declared IT WAS NOT WORTH IT! The butt-hurts from the long raging hours in the bus, the steep tricycle ride… and this was it? Our point of view has changed however after we settled down, refreshed ourselves, and took another look. All of a sudden, it has become beautiful without any pretenses.

It is true that seeing things from a composed outlook alters everything. I wowed my Instagram followers with a view of the cold springs. Every angle, wherever you look is just invigorating. I badly wanted to jump into the waters as soon as I saw it, but I pacified myself from over-excitement. I have this mentality that if you are too happy, something unlucky would come up next. So calm down! Calm down, Bobbie! The 4 of us decided to have lunch first before we explored the entirety of it.

Since we came in late, we had less to none choices for lunch. We had no right to be picky. There was a small canteen near the life-vest rental shack, and it was the only stall that was open that time. We devoured whatever was left in their food keepers and realized we could have saved a lot more by bringing our packed lunch if we had planned this better. Our 7-hour travel made us really hungry. We haven’t had anything since we woke up at 5:00 AM.

This happens to be our view as a compensation for all the inconvenience. Since we came on a weekday, we had the place to ourselves. Krizia had to warn me every now and then to be careful with places like this. I am a very inquisitive person. Every time I go somewhere, the “travel journalist” in me automatically comes out. But on this particular trip, I was careful. We were visitors, and we don’t know the people (and the creatures) that reside in the place. There are a lot of mythical stories in this part of the country, it is best not to stare at people and mind your own business. The cold springs might be enchanted by some fairy spirits or something. I’m sorry, I did not mean to spook you or creep you out in any way. I am not a believer of myths myself. They are called myths for a reason. But it’s always better safe than sorry.

The 16-feet pristine spring water is very inviting. It looks like a natural pool with trees and wooden bridges on the facade. Aside from swimming, there are other activities that can be enjoyed in Malumpati Cold Springs. You can go “water tubing”, where you ride the inner tube of a rubber tire and steer your way through the gushing waters on the other side of the springs. A guide will help you navigate. It’s like wild water rafting, but it’s not as wild. There’s also rappelling, zip-lining, and trekking, of course every activity has a price.

RAPPEL: P50 ($1.50 AUD)

TREKKING WITH GUIDE: P150-P200 ($5-6 AUD)

ZIPLINE: P200 ($6 AUD)

WATER TUBING: P200 ($6 AUD)

We just decided to rent a rubber tube without fully experiencing water tubing. We had very limited time, as we still planned to push through with our intended itinerary despite the fact that we were already so behind schedule.

We didn’t have any other choice anyway. We were already there. What else could we do but to jump into the turquoise waters and enjoy the view. I even brought my favorite goggles with me and the funny part is… I LOST IT THERE! It was just a pair of goggles, I know. But a little mishap like that, added to all the other misfortunes we went through just to get there ignited our belief that the day of this misdaventure just doesn’t end there.

TO BE CONTINUED…

HAVE YOU BEEN TO ANTIQUE?

WHERE EXACTLY DID YOU GO?

HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE?

I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

ANTIQUE: Misadventures and Cold Springs was originally published on WanderBitesByBobbie

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deathtouch · 8 years ago

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⋆ femfeb day 5 // my femfeb masterpost ⋆ xposted to ao3 ⋆ mei/symmetra // 3k // general audience ⋆ adventure, holding hands, kissing ⋆ mei and satya scale a cliffside to retrieve some valuable data (thanks to @5idestuff for the suggestion!!)

To The Top

“It’s a little scary.” Mei said softly. “Like a ghost story.”

Lena burst into a sharp fit of laughter. “Mei-Ling! That’s not a ghost story!”

Satya was glad they were facing each other and speaking to one another. She was a few seats down from them at the table and from her vantage point she could listen to the conversation unfold perfectly without necessarily needing to be part of it. She liked listening to Mei speak. Her voice was gentle and sweet.

Though Mei often spoke about her work, it wasn’t a constant stream of climatology. Some other teammates could use a lesson in diverse topics of conversation. It was nice when Mei brought up the things she was passionate about, though. The timbre of her voice changed. It was like a little buzz of excitement running through her. Satya could sense it when it happened. It was charming to see her get lost in the intricacies of her profession.

“A little!” She insisted, not backing down in the face of Lena’s laughter. “Think of all the research that could be sitting up there, just waiting for someone to find it. The work site might be abandoned, but the work itself shouldn’t be lost.”

Mei had regaled them with the tale of a nearby research facility located on one of the many islands that dotted Ilios’ shores. Apparently years back there had been a team of researchers busily collecting weather pattern data when a tsunami crashed through. Boats were wrecked, lives were lost, and a great rock structure that had been standing on the little island for years had crumbled away in the relentless waves. Now the half wrecked research site sat atop a lonely peak with no path up.

Mei had gone out for a long walk along the harbor just last night to look for the island in the distance. It was clear how badly she wanted to go. From Satya’s understanding there really was no way to scale the rocky hillside that the research facility was located on. Even if Mei was an experienced mountain climber, which she wasn't, it was still dangerous terrain. It’s not like there was a magic set of stairs that could take her straight to the top… not yet, at least.

“You’re right.” Satya spoke up.

Mei and Lena both glanced at her. They had probably forgotten she was there at all with how quiet she’d been until now.

“I would be happy to accompany you in order to retrieve the data.” She added, straightening her back a little as she spoke.

Mei blinked at her for a second before smiling sadly. “There’s no way up the hillside.” She said.

Satya offered up her open palm. The tech of her arm whirred as she created a perfect model of a staircase in glowing blue hard-light. It was tiny in comparison to what they would need to climb an island peak, but it was a clear indication of what she had in mind. In truth a set of stairs might not even work, and she would have to build something else to help create a path up to the research facility. It was worth it to try, though. Wasn’t it?

Mei gasped. “Satya!” She rose from her chair and bounded towards Satya in big strides. At once her arms were around Satya’s slender shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. “You’re brilliant!” +++

Satya regretted her decision not to bring sunglasses. The mid-morning sun was sparkling over the cool blue ocean. Everywhere she looked bright light glinted up at her. Even Mei herself was a glitter of light, in a completely different way. She didn’t have much in the way of warm weather clothing. She looked a little silly in her blue pants and pale tank top. Satya herself had opted for athletic leggings and a nice tunic, a switch up from her usual sari. They certainly didn’t look like two women about to scale a dangerous island cliff but that was precisely what they intended to do.

Their team knew where they were headed. Lena offered to follow them to the shore and watch for them across the water. Mei and Satya decided against it. They didn’t know how long it would take to reach the summit and it was unnecessary to keep someone waiting for them. If they needed help they would contact the base. Angela packed up a medkit for them, just in case of an accident, and sent them off with plenty of warnings about being safe.

A fisherman down at the harbor offered to take them over to the island in his boat. He didn’t even ask for anything in return. He had nets to check in that area and he was happy to ferry them along. It took some of circling of the small island before he found a good place to dock the boat. There were some craggy rocks to navigate in the water but eventually they found a flat topped rock that the fisherman could pull up to. Satya held Mei’s hand and helped her step atop the rock. It was just big enough for the two of them and when Mei had her footing she helped Satya up as well. They waved the fisherman off with their thanks and both turned to stare at the rising peak. It wasn’t so tall, maybe six or seven stories at its highest. The island itself was about as big around as a soccer pitch or two. Up at the very top a precarious looking building, no bigger than a one room house, sat among the ridged peaks of rock.

It was easy to see which parts of island had been knocked away by the tsunami. Satya could imagine a slope with natural footholds to climb, making it a pleasure hike up to the top building and then back down to the sea. It must have been easy to come and go to the research center. Now it would be a challenge. A challenge she was happy to face. She took in the entire shape of the rising landmass with a critical eye, looking for the best places to ascend.

The very first thing she did was create a footbridge with a wave of her fingers. It connected the flat topped rock they stood on to the base of the island. It was a simple, glowing blue plank. She could have finessed something architecturally beautiful, a miniature version of the Golden Gate or Sydney Harbor bridge. She didn’t bother. It would take a little longer, require more effort, and needed more concentration. Getting to the top was their goal, not creating art.

Satya held Mei’s hand and they walked across together, helping one another to balance. The hard-light tech was sturdy and stable under their feet. If they fell here, it would only mean a dip in the water. Not pleasant, no, but not fatal. It was when they started climbing up high that they would need to be especially careful. At the end of the bridge Satya squinted around, trying to find the next place to step. If they could find a stable rock with a good platform surface, she wouldn’t even need to create a foothold for them. It not, she would improvise.

“This way.” Mei said happily, cherry picking her steps as she found a path among the rocks. +++

Mei didn’t seem particularly athletic. She was a scientist after all. Not to mention she had a thick layer of adorable fat that likely kept her warm in all the frozen places she used to travel to for research. That being said, she held her own. In battle she could keep step with even the fastest member of Overwatch. She never lagged behind or held anyone up. She often used ice walls to elevate herself to dangerous rooftops and she never seemed to have trouble navigating those. Satya knew she wasn’t weak or inept. Seeing her fearlessly lead the way up a mountain side was incredible though. Mei was always surprising her in little ways.

Satya actually enjoyed the work of it herself. It was a fantastic mental exercise. It reminded her of some of the harder training she’d been put through back at Vishkar. None of the simulated tests or civil engineering she’d done under the watchful eyes of her instructors were quite as complicated or complex as this. It was hard, but rewarding. Every time she looked back and saw how high they were climbing, Satya felt even more proud of herself. Blue chunks of hard light dotted the cliff side. Some parts were bluer than others. They often found natural stepping places which made their patchwork path all the more interesting.

The sun was hot overhead but neither of them minded. Their minds were busy elsewhere. Mei’s dark bangs were sticking to her forehead but she didn’t seem to notice. If Satya wasn’t using her hands to create a new bridge or platform to walk on, she was holding onto Mei. They had no illusions about their safety. They took their time, slowly making their way, careful not to miss a step or fall.

They were close to reaching their goal. The building was more near than ever. The terrain actually seemed a little more stable up near the top of the peak. There were still sharp spires of rock that jutted towards the sky but there was also plenty of flat surface at the top of the ridge too. Enough flat surface for a building to be built up here, and enough for Mei and Satya to walk with a little ease.

Even with the ground steady they held on to one another, hand in hand. +++

The little research building was made of wood. It reminded Satya of the squat life guard offices she had seen built on wooden stilts that dotted the shorelines in America. There was no wooden stilt frame here, but the texture of the wood was the same. The outer walls had been battered by wind and rain and maybe even lapped at by especially large waves. The paint had chipped away. This place certainly was abandoned.

Sun bleached tech sat on the flat roof of the structure. Little satellite dishes pointed in different directions, a massive circular Doppler radar, other things Satya couldn't properly recognize. Some of the tech seemed to be holding up better than others.

Mei went for the front door. It was locked, but the wood frame was rotten and moldering. All it took was a good push and the frame splintered open. There were no windows to the structure and so when the door fell open, it showed a single room of darkness.

'It's a little scary,' Mei had said at the table the other night. 'Like a ghost story'. Well, she was right. Either she wasn't afraid of ghosts or she really wanted that data because she entered fearlessly. Satya followed.

Being out of the sun provided an instant coolness. It took a long moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light of the room. It was musty and stank of rotting wood inside but it bearable. The one room building was surprisingly cramped inside, packed full to the brim with different computers and monitoring equipment. All of it was decades old, it would be a miracle if any of it still worked.

"All this stuff." Mei said sadly. "Just left behind."

She went to a nearby computer and tried to switch it on. It didn't work. Her disappointment was so palpable it made Satya's heart ache.

Satya glanced around in the darkened room. She spotted a generator in a back corner on the bottom rung for a sturdy metal shelving unit. She went over to it and knelt down curiously. It took a moment for her to make sense of the controls but she found out how to turn it on easily enough. As soon as she did the room came to life, computers turning on, screens lighting up, different monitoring equipment whirring.

Mei lit up. "Ah! Satya! Thank you!" Her glasses began to glow with the light of the screen in front of her. She made an excited noise and began clacking away at the keyboard as soon as the computer had finished booting up.

Satya went to stand by her side. She too peered at the screen. The operating system was foreign ancient to her. Mei seemed to be in the same boat. She clicked around somewhat cluelessly. She didn't seem to know what she was doing or what she was looking for.

It was only a lucky guess but Satya pointed to a curious looking icon on the screen. "Try this." She suggested.

Mei clicked on it.

Different windows began to populate, one after the other after the other. They were marked with dates and times in the upper corner. The rest of the information was a mess to Satya. Mei, however, cried out with delight.

"It's here!" She said happily. "It's all here!"

Before she could stop herself she turned to Satya and grabbed her by the cheeks. Mei pulled her in close and planted a kiss right on her mouth. It was full of excitement and gratefulness. A congratulations and a thank you at the same time. Mei didn't even seem to notice what she'd done. She went right back to the computer, clicking through the unearthed data. She babbled on about how long the equipment had gone on recording after the tsunami, how long the generator must have lasted before kicking it, how much information they had.

Satya blinked slow, the words washing over her. She still could taste Mei's lips, rich and delicious like cherries. She couldn't believe that had just happened. Her heart was thudding happily her chest. She wished they were still outside because then she could blame the hot sun for the way her face flushed.

Satya watched as Mei stuck a trusty thumb drive into the port and began copying the information she wanted. She was buzzing with excitement, a glitter of energy in the dark of the room. She was so beautiful when it came to the thing she was most passionate about. +++

The trip down the hillside was a little quicker than going up. They didn't need to carve of create a path out of the rocks, they need only retrace their footsteps. This was a little easier said than done. In the places where there were no hard-light bridges or footholds they had to refind natural stepping places.

Mei was a bundle of energy. She had checked every computer and every device for any information they could find before leaving. They probably spent more time in that stuffy little room than they had climbing to get up there. Satya wasn't complaining, though. It had been nice to retire from the hot sun for a little while.

Their fisherman friend had seen them making their way back down the side of the island peak. He had sailed over to meet them when they finally reached sea level. His little boat was filled with his catch for the day. Satya tried not to be too obvious about holding her nose but the smell wasn't particularly nice. Mei beamed and regaled the fisherman with the heroic story of their ascent. She talked about starting up the computer like it was uncovering a treasure chest. It made the short trip to the harbor bearable to hear her happy speaking voice.

Back at the base she scurried off to find Winston. She had hopes that he could help parse through the raw data she had found. Satya wished her good luck before departing to find a shower.

It was almost three days until she saw Mei again. By then the entire team had heard the fantastic story of their adventure. It probably sounded much more exciting than it actually had been. Mei had a way of talking about these things and becoming utterly captivating with her storytelling. Either that, or Satya was just easily captivated by Mei. It was hard to tell.

Everyone around the base was talking about it. Mei had managed to sweep them up in the whirlwind of her excitement. Everyone was curious about what the uncovered data could mean and how it would help working scientists today. It was all anyone seemed to be thinking about. Everyone except for Satya. She was curious too, no doubt, but there was one part of a Mei's story she had left out; their kiss. Satya couldn't stop thinking about it; those warm hands on her cheek, the taste of cherries, over before it began. She wondered if Mei even remembered doing it.

They ran into each other again in the hallway. Mei was clearly on her way back from Winston's unofficial office, where she had been squirreled away working tirelessly. She didn't look tired though. She was still buzzing with excitement.

"Satya!" Mei stopped in her tracks. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you."

Satya stopped too, standing in front of Mei. She tucked a long strand of her hair behind her ear, not quite sure what to say.

"I, uh-" a slight blush crossed Mei's face. "I wanted to tell you; I don't know what I would have done without your assistance. Not only did you help me reach the research facility but you knew to turn on the generator and where to click for information."

"Oh." Satya considered for a moment. "It was nothing."

"No!" Mei insisted. "It wasn't nothing. You've done so much for me. I don't know how to thank you."

Satya didn't know either. She didn't feel like she needed any thanks. Making Mei happy, seeing her beam with pride and buzz with excitement was enough. She couldn't think of anything more she wanted. Well, except... maybe...

"How about another kiss?" Satya suggested innocently.

Mei looked up at her, the blush on her face burning brighter.

"If you'd like, that is." Satya quickly added.

Mei's words seem to stick in her throat. Instead she nodded her head gently up and down. Excitement blossomed in Satya's chest. She waited a beat before leaning in and gently pressing their lips together. Mei stood up on the tips of her toes to kiss back. Her lips were just as soft as before, and they still tasted sweet like cherries. There was no urgency now. No underlying messages or themes. Just a kiss, simple and sweet and gentle.

When Satya pulled away her heart was beating faster. Mei's eyes fluttered open and she smiled. "I've been thinking of kissing you ever since it last happened." She admitted sheepishly. "Would you allow me to take you to dinner too? As a thank you?"

Satya smiled and shook her head. "No. But you can take me out to dinner as a date."

That was a much better idea.

#overwatch #overwatch femslash #fanfic #symmetra #mei #femfeb #femfeb 2017

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