#back to lighting matches near open gas stove tops

[godsplatter]

back on the grind

[siriuscatbennett]

The First Avenger info dump because I can

Enlistment/Dog Tags/Awards:

It is canon that Bucky Barnes enlisted on his own right after Pearl Harbor (and Steve tried). This would make his dog tags a type two. His service number would start with a 1 (enlisted army soldier) and a 2 (from New York). This site can be used to generate dog tag numbers (I haven’t tried all the functions, but be aware the O for officers is a 0 starting in 1942). 

During WW2 (amongst other times), there was the Regular Army and the Army of the United States (which no longer exists). Voluntary enlisted men were in the Regular, with draftees in the other (officers were often part of both and had two separate ranks). If you choose to divert from canon and make Bucky a draftee (I personally have always liked this fanon because I’m evil), his service number would start with 32 (drafted, New York). This would also better explain why Bucky rises to the rank of Sergeant so quickly as promotions happened constantly in the AUS ( Dwight D. Eisenhower rose from a colonel to five-star general in three years). 

Steve would have a different type of dog tags than Bucky (including a different chain). He would have a type three (as would anyone between July 20, 1943 and March 31, 1944). I will illustrate the differences below with the custom tags I made for Steve's sister and Bucky in my fanfic (feel free to use the info from them). The N and 7 in her tag are for nurse.

The T42 you’ll see below is the year tetanus shots were recieved. I’ve seen some with two years and some with one. The B is blood type and the P is religion. 

Steve received an award for rescuing the POWs. Seeing as this wasn’t presented by the president, I’ve decided it was the Distinguished Service Cross. This award comes with a $2 pay raise; as a Captain, Steve previously made $200 a month, paid monthly (post-serum). Bucky made $78 as a Sergeant, with a $3.90 pay raise after 3 years of service (December 1944). Steve also obtained SSR pins after joining them (and I believe the Howling Commandos should have as well). (Even though nurses had the rank of an officer, they didn’t get equal pay until after WW2. They earned $70 a month for the first 3 years.)

Many soldiers put their second dog tag in their boot, usually slipped on the shoe laces in between the tongue and top of the shoe.

Not a fact, but I will add a link here to a website where you can either buy Bucky/Steve’s dogtags or make custom ones for $10 (personally, I would advocate for the custom as Bucky’s say he’s not from NY and show he is a draftee. Also, he has type B blood, not O. And Steve is Protestant, not Catholic. The site also states officer’s service numbers didn’t start with 9, but those with special duties did. His service number would most like be between 800000 and 999999, starting with a 0- to show he’s an officer).

Sister: Margaret E Rogers N-724669 T42 B                         P

Bucky: James B Barnes 12831412 T42 B Margaret Rogers (next of kin) 1404 Alameda Ave (next of kin address) Brooklyn NY     P (address, religion)

Italian Front:

Seeing as the 107th were venturing to England in June 1943, they most likely headed straight to Sicily from there (or diverged if they had fuel) to aid in the invasion, continuing into the invasion of the mainland before pushing troops back toward Austria. Italy surrendered at the very beginning of the invasion of the mainland, so the Allies only fought Nazis and Italian soldiers loyal to Mussolini (National Republican Army), who was arrested during the invasion of Sicily and broken out during the mainland invasion. Seeing as Chester Phillips and Peggy were with Steve, they must have joined the 107th later. In my canon, they (and Howard) join at the beginning of the mainland invasion. 

AM-lira (Allied-Military Currency), 100 "am-lire" for a U.S. dollar, was the currency specifically put into circulation for Allied Military after the landing in Sicily. It was used interchangeably with their normal currency. Once the Howling Commandoes join the SSR, they use British currency. 

The 107th’s camp pre-Battle of Azzano was most likely behind the  Volturno Line. Azzano is part of Umbria, which was about 170 miles into enemy territory. 

Post-Azzano, the camp was most likely behind the Barbara Line. Walking approx 533 miles from Kreuzberg, Austria, with troops alternating resting periods in the trucks, walking approximately 42 miles for 12 hours a day, they would reach camp in thirteen days.

Random:

Steve’s canon address according to Avengers is 1404 Alameda Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11362. This is a Queens zip code. I changed it to 11237.

As a Sergeant, Bucky would command a squad of 12 soldiers (privates), split into 3 fireteams. He was also assigned a PFC (one of the scout riflemen) as an assistant; this soldier could serve as either the squad leader's messenger to the platoon commander or could be used to relay orders to other squad teams, as needed. Sergeants are responsible for the individual training, personal appearance and cleanliness of their soldiers, and are expected to set a standard for lower-ranked soldiers to live up to.

Women did have their own army sect for part of the war (Women’s Army Corps) but they didn’t go overseas as they didn’t legally get benefits overseas {I didn’t read a lot on this, take this with a grain of salt}. They did all the non-fighting jobs like listening to radio transmissions and fixing weapons. 

On the ship, there were three-tier bunks. Enlisted men got footlockers under their beds (you could lift up the base), while officers got standing lockers. I would assume water on ships was cold, filtered from the ocean, and they had showers.

Showers were available but not popular at this time, just like hot water heaters. Many people still boiled water to take baths. People also didn’t bathe as often and there was only one kind of shampoo and no conditioner. Women made their own concoctions, used soap, or straight up would do egg masks. Hair was kept clean by doing the “100 strokes” with a hairbrush that was cleaned after every use. Indoor heating also wasn’t used everywhere, leaving many places still using things like fireplaces and wood stoves.

Soldiers used latrines in WW2. They also used a bucket of water and a bar of soap to wash. When water was unavailable and snow was, it was melted and used. They could also simply use things like rivers and lakes if available but if unnecessary, weren't used as lice was prevalent along with disease. Clothes weren't washed often (depending on the situation, some men went weeks without washing their uniform, only changing into dry socks when necessary) but when they were, they were boiled in big pots of water in mass and hung on a line to dry (there were also other ways, but I preferred this one). They carried an extra shirt, socks and laces, water canteen, ammunition, a spade, grenades, a gas mask, food rations, a cup, a wash kit (toothpaste, razor, comb, etc), first aid pouch, and a helmet (usually on their head) in their haversack's/on their belt (and rations, of couse). There was also a tent pack, but most soldiers would simply carry a raincoat. Lots of candles and oil lanterns to light the night. Canvas water bags – also known as Lister bags – were hung around camps and used for dispensing drinking water in which a dose of chlorine was added for purification.

Medical:

Morbidity from such diseases as tuberculosis (anti-tuberculosis agents didn’t begin to appear until 1949), rheumatic fever, typhus, dysentery, and malaria were high. There were tuberculosis quarantine wards separate from the other patients and were eventually evacuated. Frostbite was also common during the cold. Hepatitis A and B were also prevalent. Trench foot was also common, sometimes leading to jungle rot (often referred to as 'the creeping cruds'). PTSD was known then as 'battle fatigue'; men showcasing symptoms were often just given rest and food near the front lines and would normally rejoin the fight in a few days or were evacuated if necessary. All soldiers were vaccinated against tetanus, typhoid, smallpox, cholera, and yellow fever before shipping out. Dental hygiene was extremely important and many field hospitals were equipped with dental prosthetics. 

Food:

A-Rations referred to fresh/refrigerated meats, bread, and vegetables, prepared in mess halls. These meals were basically the same as C-rations, but fresh and always warm.

C-Rations consisted of one M-unit (12 oz can, meat), one B-unit (12 oz can, bread/dessert), and an accessory pack. Each daily ration consisted of three M-units, three B-units, and three accessory packs (one for each meal). The cans were made of tinplate. The cans had a gold lacquer finish. C-rations can be eaten cold or hot and were cooked with a Coleman's pocket stove (which was made specifically for WW2 soldiers).

M-units initially had three kinds: meat and beans, meat and potato hash, and meat and vegetable stew. In 1943, meat and spaghetti in tomato sauce was added; along with meat and noodles, pork and rice, frankfurters and beans, and chicken & vegetables in 1944. 1944 also brought a chopped ham, egg, & potato unit and compressed cereal B-units to replace meat & vegetable hash.

B-units contained crackers, three sugar tablets, loose candy (Brach's chocolate caramels, candy-coated peanuts/raisins, Charms hard candy), and a packet/small can of beverage mix (instant coffee, powdered lemon drink, or bouillon soup powder). Orange drink powder was added in 1944. Due to spoilage, the loose candy was replaced in 1944 with a Brach's fudge disk or a Jim dandy.

Accessory packs (brown butcher paper) contained sugar tablets, water purification tablets, a flat wooden spoon, a piece of candy-coated chewing gum, three 3-packs or one 9-pack of cigarettes, a book of 20 moisture resistant matches, a paper-wrapped P-38 can opener (with instructions that everyone immediately throws out), and about 22.5 sheets of toilet paper. Cigarette brands included Camel, Chelsea, Chesterfield, Craven A-Brand, Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Philip Morris, Player's, Raleigh, and Wings (these were traded constantly). Can openers were meant to be disposable but soldiers wore them on their dog tags for later use either with opening cans or other things (clean muddy boots, screw screws, open letters, strip wires, trim loose thread, and sharpen pencils). 

Seriously. They really gave every single soldier three can openers a day. With printed instructions. During metal rationing. Of which soldiers just put them on thier dog tag chains for later use. Where did all these excess can openers go? And why half a sheet of toilet paper? 

Clothes:

The nurses wore an olive drab service jacket and skirt (they are seen in pants as well) and cap, khaki shirt and tie, and brown shoes (wore nursing shoes or boots). The rank insignia (a single gold bar for second lieutenants, the vast majority of nurses) was worn on the epaulets. A gold "U.S." pin was worn on each collar, and a gold caduceus with a red N was worn on each lapel. Whenever the service jacket wasn't worn, the rank insignia was pinned to the right collar, the caduceus on the left.

Soldier’s field uniforms looked like this (with some adjustments based on gun used). And yes, the leggings are neccessary, they helped keep feet dry: 

The layout I made for Steve’s apartment (there are 2 beds and dressers in the spare room because Bucky lives there too, feel free to change this):

These aren’t all the links I used, because I’ve gone through a lot, like a lot, but here are the ones I saved that are relevant (I don’t like using wiki but I cross-checked any info stated above):

https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenrant.com/winter-soldier-mcu-complete-timeline-bucky-barnes/amp/ https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/65170/how-did-bucky-get-the-rank-of-sergeant https://marvel-movies.fandom.com/wiki/Steven_Rogers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_campaign_(World_War_II) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Sicily https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_invasion_of_Italy https://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/medsvcsinmedtrnmnrthrtrs/chapter6.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squad https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4j8zos/pay_of_american_gis_during_world_war_ii/ https://blogs.stockton.edu/womeninwwtwo/womens-military-involvemnt/womens-nurse-corps/#:~:text=The%20pay%20of%20members%20in,per%20month%E2%80%9D%20(2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_number_(United_States_Army) https://www.med-dept.com/articles/u-s-army-ww2-dog-tags/

Find me on Wattpad here where all of this information and more will be compiled in a Bucky Barnes series with mediocre writing (coming soon). 

[ot3tropetober]

Eliot stared at the gleaming new machine in his kitchen.  

“What,” he said slowly, “is that.”

Hardison slouched against the kitchen island, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands.  “What’s what, handsome?”

Eliot jerked his head at the thing on the counter.  “That.”

“Oh, that?” Hardison said, elaborately casual.  “That’s a top of the line Necromincer 5000.  Not only does it mince, but it chops.  It shreds.  It juliennes.  It chiffonades.  It purees.  I don’t know what half of that means, but it’s the hottest new addition to any herbalist’s arsenal.”

“What are you, writing ads for it?” Eliot grumbled.  “What’s it doing in my kitchen?”

“I got you a lil’ gift,” Hardison said.  “To show my appreciation for everything you’ve been giving me, if you know what I mean."  He waggled his eyebrows.

"This is technology,” Eliot said, ignoring Hardison’s suggestive expressions.  “I don’t use technology in my magic, man.”

“Sure you do,” Hardison said.  “Mortars and pestles don’t grow on trees.  Neither does that big fancy gas stove.  It’s all technology."  He set down the coffee cup just so he could make dramatic air quotes around the word "technology”.  If he hadn’t been shirtless with those low-slung sweatpants that threatened to slide right off his hips, Eliot probably would have rolled his eyes.  As it was, he was a little distracted.  Hardison’s sweatpants won a lot of their arguments, if he was honest, especially since Hardison had been spending more and more weekends at Eliot’s place.  

“Eliot.  Calling Eliot.  Earth to Eliot."  Hardison poked at him.  Eliot startled out of his reverie about Hardison’s abs and all the rest of Hardison and the amount of time they’d been spending together in Eliot’s big sage-scented bed.

"Will you put a damn shirt on so we can finish this argument?” Eliot said.

Hardison looked around.  He picked up one of Eliot’s flannels from the back of one of the high chairs tucked under the island and shrugged it on without bothering to button it.  It didn’t help hide his abs at all, and it was way too snug across the shoulders, but it was something.  Eliot regained enough brain function to refocus on why Hardison was wrong.  

“What I use isn’t technology,” Eliot said.  “It’s human powered.  Well, the gas stove is fire-powered, I guess, but it doesn’t need electricity.  I can light it with a match if I have to.”

“Oh, sure,” Hardison said, his voice tinged with sarcasm.  “Because they just went out and harvested all the pipes for it from the gas-stove fields.  Dug up the burner covers, knocked the dirt off, and shipped them straight to you.  It’s technology, Eliot.  We made it to work for us.”

“It’s not new technology,” Eliot insisted.  “I don’t just press a button and wham bam chiffonade."  He glared at the Necromincer.  "I also don’t believe that damn gadget can chiffonade.”

Hardison tipped his head.  “Fine.  Try to do something nice to make your life easier, give you a little more free time to spend with me, but I see how it is."  He shifted and picked up his coffee cup again, taking a step toward the living room.  Eliot caught him around the waist and Hardison smiled down at him, more than a little smug.

"Thank you,” Eliot said,settling his hips comfortably against Hardison’s.  “I’m never gonna use it.”

“Maybe not for magic,” Hardison said, “but when it comes to dinner, that might be a different story.”

Eliot looked back at the big machine as Hardison wrapped one arm around Eliot’s shoulders, tugging gently at Eliot’s hair.  “It might be useful for dinner."  

"Hmm, changing your tune,” Hardison said, smiling.  

“Yeah, well,” Eliot said.  “Sometimes you chop all day, you don’t want to chop all night.”

“I do love to watch you though,” Hardison said.  “My man and his big old knives.  All those muscles in your back, mmm.”

“I got plenty of chopping to do today,” Eliot said.  “Or I will after I go out and forage what I need.”

“You want help?” Hardison asked.

“Hell no,” Eliot said.  “Not after you mixed up foxgloves and violets.”

“They were purple,” Hardison protested.  “You said they were purple.  I got the purple ones.”

Eliot shook his head.  “I’m not taking any chances.  You’d probably pick up the wrong mushroom or something and then I’m minus one boyfriend.”

“Oh, boyfriend, huh?” Hardison teased.

“Yeah, well,” Eliot said, pretending to scowl, “if you’re gonna start trying to clutter up my beautiful kitchen with your weird appliances, I think it’s kind of official."  

"You’d bring me back,” Hardison said with certainty.  “Even if you had to use the Necromincer.”

“I like your faith in me,” Eliot said, “but I’d also just rather avoid any kind of near-death experience."  He leaned forward very deliberately and ran his hands over Hardison’s abs.  "I’ve got better things to do with my time than spend it saving your ass, you know?”

“I think I get it,” Hardison said.  He leaned down to give Eliot a lingering kiss.  “I’m gonna go get my magic done for the day so you don’t have to see me shaping any nasty electricity or non-ancient technology into spells to save lives and make people’s days run smoother.  Wouldn’t want you to get upset by any kind of magic that didn’t start out growing in the earth.”

“Great,” Eliot told him.  “I’m gonna go out and participate in centuries of tradition by harvesting the blessings and, yes, some of the curses of nature and transforming them into medicine and enchantments.”

“Seems to me like you’ve got plenty of home-grown enchantments working,” Hardison said, setting down his coffee again so he could rub Eliot’s back.  “If you know what I mean.”

“I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” Eliot said.  “Guess the sooner we both get done, the sooner we can test that theory.”

“Hey,” Hardison said as Eliot moved away.  “Make sure you come back just a little sweaty, okay?”

“Just for you, I’ll make sure to get a little sweaty,” Eliot promised.  He got his picking bag off its hook on the wall and slung it over his shoulder.  Hardison patted his ass as Eliot walked past him again on the way to the fridge.  He opened the door, blocking Hardison’s view with his body, and rummaged around in the vegetable drawer under the celery, coming up with a packet wrapped in waxed cloth.

“Is that the sandwich?” Hardison asked.  “Damn, I’ll be honest with you, E.  I was gonna eat that sandwich.”

“That’s why I made two."  Eliot smiled.  "Yours is the one on top of the eggs."  He packed it carefully in his bag and filled his water bottle at the sink, dropping in a few mint leaves from the plant on the windowsill.  He kissed Hardison as he left and hummed a little tune to himself.  The air was fresh and crisp, and he lived in a world full of magic.  When he came home, Hardison would be curled up in an armchair, and in a way, that was the best magic of all.  He wasn’t going to tell Hardison that, though.  There were only so many smug grins a man could bear.  Still and all, it was a nice life.  

[bangtan-sonyeonddaeng]

BTS Reaction| Their s.o speaks French

Just a disclaimer I do not know very much French so anything in italics is meant to indicate that the reader is speaking French. 

Namjoon

You had been standing in line at the grocery store for the better half of 20 minutes now, and there seemed to be no end in sight.

“I just wanted some icecream. This is ridiculous.”  Namjoon chuckles at you.

“I mean the line is moving a little bit? Sort of.. maybe?”

“You’re not helping. By the time we get to the front my icecream is gonna be melted.”

“Sorry. You want to put the icecream back and we can go to another store? Or maybe we can go to the icecream parlor up the street?” You’ve come this far and you aren’t giving up now so you shake your head. A moment later the aisle number light starts flashing, signaling that they need a manager’s assistance. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. This is ridiculous! Why do they only have one aisle open in the first place on a Saturday!” Everyone in line has turned around and stared at you and Namjoon is also looking at you, rather confused. “What?”

“You’re speaking French baby, I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Oh! Oops! My bad! You don’t want to know what I said anyway, it was just a bunch of curses.” 

“Jagi!”

“What?! I’m mad okay?” 

“Why don’t we put the icecream back and I will take you out to the parlor instead. It’ll be much quicker than this.” 

“Okay, let’s go then. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Jin

“Ah this stupid freaking stove. Why won’t it light?! And where the hell does he keep the cooking utensils? They aren’t even anywhere near the forks and knives. Or the pots and pans. I swear everything is backwards-“

“Y/n?” You turn around when you hear Jin’s voice behind you. “What are you getting so angry about in here? You only speak French when you’re mad about something.”

“I’m mad because nothing in your kitchen is where it’s supposed to be and the damn stove won’t light!”  Jin stares at you, blinking his eyes slowly at you. 

“Still speaking French, love.” 

“Oh. Sorry. I said nothing in your kitchen is where it should be. I’m trying to be nice and make my boyfriend breakfast but I can’t find your spatula, or your pots and pans! And your stove won’t light.”

“Jagi, look up.” You do so and see they are hanging from the ceiling just above the island.

“Oh.. oops.” Jin walks over and then opens a drawer in the island and there are the spatulas and other cooking utensils. He turns the gas stove on and lets it click for a few moments until it lights and then turns the fire down.

“You’re too cute sweetheart. Do you want me to help you cook?”

“Nope! I’m going to make you breakfast so you just sit your handsome face in that chair right there and wait for it to be done.” 

“Can’t wait then.” Jin kisses your forehead before sitting down as you told him to. 

Yoongi

You were exhausted after such a long day with Yoongi. You had went to the studio with him, making sure he took breaks and ate his meals and took care of himself. When you got home you flopped down into the bed, immediately falling asleep. Yoongi walks in and sees you sprawled out on the bed, leaving no room for him. He chuckles and pokes your side. 

“Y/n scoot over.”

“No.”

“Baby come on. You’re taking up the whole bed.”

“Then go sleep on the couch. I’m comfy.”

“Okay I think I definitely heard the word couch in there. If you just told me to go sleep on the couch you’re gonna get it.” He digs his fingers into your side and starts tickling you mercilessly. 

“Stop it! Yoongi Stop please I can’t breathe!”

“Sorry what was that? You’re speaking French, angel. I can’t understand you.”

“I said stop! I’ll move! I give up!” Yoongi looks at you with a triumphant smirk on his face as you scoot over to your side of the bed. 

“That’s what I thought.”

“You’re a brat Min Yoongi.” 

“Think you should be talking about yourself there sweetheart. I wouldn’t have had to resort to such tactics if you would have just moved.” You both are glaring at each other but burst into laughter. 

“I love you, goodnight Yoongi.”

“I love you too. Goodnight y/n.”

Hoseok

Hoseok comes home late one night. You are already in bed, snuggled underneath the covers and he absolutely coos over how adorable you look. The light from the hallway shines slightly on your face and you scrunch up your nose. Hoseok quickly shuts the door, not wanting to wake you but it seems that’s already too late as you are stirring now. 

“Hobi?”

“Yeah, it’s me sunshine.” You smile at him and he moves to lay next to you.

“I missed you today. I just want to be close to you always.”

“What was that?”

“I said I missed you because I always want to be around you. I just love you that much I guess.” Hoseok laughs.

“You’re speaking French y/n. I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Oh.. oops.” Hoseok chuckles and kisses the top of your head.

“It’s okay. Now let’s try that again?”

“I said I miss you because I always want to be around you and I love you too much.” You feel him smiling against the top of your head where his lips are still pressed there.

“I love you too. And I missed you as well. Why don’t you come with me tomorrow? Maybe I can teach you some of our new choreography.”

“Really?! That would be amazing!” Hoseok doesn’t know what you said but judging by you enthusiastic response you must have said yes.

“Then it’s settled!” 

Jimin

You and Jimin were lying in bed, your head resting on his chest as he sang softly to you to help you sleep. You perk your head up and smile at him, moving to kiss him before you drifted off to sleep. You are almost asleep when Jimin kisses the top of your head. Without even thinking you just blurted out “Je t'aime.” Jimin tenses up immediately. He doesn’t know very many phrases outside of his native language, but he definitely knows that one. You’ve never told each other that you loved one another before. His heart absolutely soars at this. He hears you let out a soft snore after that and his heart sinks a little, the happiness being short lived. He wonders if you would have told him that if you weren’t half asleep. Maybe you were dreaming and sleep talking and weren’t meaning to say it to him? He’s troubled by this now and can’t sleep. He lies awake for another hour before he feels you moving around in his hold. You glance at the clock and look up at Jimin, surirprsied to see him looking back at you. 

“What are you doing awake?” He looks at you rather confused. “Ah, sorry. What are you doing awake, Jimin?”

“I was just.. thinking about something?”

“Oh really? What?”

“It’s just.. never mind it’s silly.”

“No really what’s bothering you, mon amour?”

“Amor? Love? Did you mean what you said before then?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Right before you fell asleep you told me you loved me in French.. at least I’m pretty sure. Je t’aime means I love you doesn’t it?”

“Oh..” Your face turns bright red. “Y-yeah that is what it means um. Yes I did mean it.” Jimin smiles so widely at you his cheeks puff up and his eyes disappear which you find so endearing.

“I love you too then y/n. So much.” 

Taehyung

Taehyung had invited you over to play video games with him. He was learning how to play a new game and he wanted to teach you too, thinking it would be a fun way for the two of you to spend time together. You are halfway into your second match and you have caught on rather quickly. However video games tend to bring out your temper and before long you are yelling at the TV.

“Oh for the love of.. Did you see what that asshole just did?! I’m going to find him and go camp his body and make him wish he never killed me, forget the objective of the match.” Taehyung stops playing and turns to look at you. Seeing the angry expression on your face paired with your pout makes him chuckle. You snap your gaze over to him.

“What are you laughing at you think this is funny do you? Is there friendly fire in this game don’t think I won’t kill you too, fool.” Taehyung looks at you now with his head tilted. 

“What did you say?”

“Um.. I said I love you and you’re the best boyfriend in the world.” 

“Aww thank you sweetie! Although you know I don’t believe you one bit right? I gathered the fact that you called me a fool I do know that word because I have heard you use it a lot when you’re mad.” You turn away and blush, the game completely forgotten.

“I’m just messing with you sweetheart. I’m not mad. Come here.” He holds his arms out and you jump onto him, hugging him tightly. “Maybe no more video games for now. Your temper gets pretty bad and I don’t want you to develop blood pressure issues because of me.” You chuckle into his neck and place a soft kiss here.

“Okay Tae. You wanna watch a movie instead?”

“That sounds perfect.” 

Jungkook

Jungkook had asked you to come over to watch a new drama with him. Everyone had been talking about it and said it was amazing so you wanted to find out for yourself. It’s about halfway through the season and the main actress had just been cheated on by her boyfriend. 

“The nerve of that asshole! How could he do that to her?! Oh boy Jungkook if you ever cheat on me or I won’t be sitting there crying like she is you’d be dead where you stand.” Jungkook isn’t entire sure what you said but he knows he heard his name mentioned and the word dead. His eyes widen slightly. 

“I’m kidding.” He’s still staring at you.  “Oh whoops.  I said I was kidding about what I said… which was also in French so you probably didn’t understand me did you?”

“I heard my name and the word death that was enough for me.” You burst out laughing at that. 

“Ah, never mind Kook. It’s nothing. I was just messing with you anyway.” 

“Just guessing here, did you say if I ever cheated on you, you’d kill me?”

“Ah, something of that sort yes.” Jungkook laughs at that, wrapping his arm around you tighter and placing a kiss to your forehead. 

“You never have to worry about that y/n. I love you too much and I would never do anything to hurt you.” 

[heychangbin]

The Camping Trip ║ Part Two

Summary: You and Billy find your way back to your campsite, learn some things and spend the first night out in the woods. 

Wordcount: 4876

Warnings: More smut towards the end. 

A/N: picks up where part one left off, tag list at the bottom.

You didn't want to believe it, couldn't believe it, there was no way in hell that Billy Russo, whose job demanded that he be on high alert and commit, even the most minute of details to memory, was lost.

“8 years of military service," you began, fingers fastening the button of your jean's, "134 confirmed kills, 3 tours in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan, CEO of your own private security company and you can’t remember from what direction you came from when you found me?” you cried incredulously, walking between the breaks in the trees, eyes squinting to see if you recognized some gnarled branch you might've passed by.

 “In my defense,” you turned to look at him over your shoulder, shoulder pressed against the truck of a tall tree, jeans buttoned and zipped back up, dark gray t shirt smoothed down against his torso, “when I got those kills and was doing my tours I wasn’t getting my brain sucked out through my dick.”

 You rolled your eyes as you turned away from him, brows furrowing as you caught the color of the sky. Was it getting darker? It definitely looked darker than when you arrived. Were there bears in New York? Oh god, were you gonna get mauled by Winnie the Pooh?!?

 Your breathing started coming in shorter bursts, the rising panic making you start to hyperventilate.

"Stop panicking." He said, his voice controlled and calm as if he wasn't lost in the middle of the woods with no idea how to get back to the campsite. Probably due to all his training, you were sure that being a Lieutenant in the marines special forces he had to have nerves of steel.

But you didn't and you couldn't pretend you did. 

"Billy, we're lost, how am I not supposed to panic!"

"Panickin’ about it ain’t gonna help, you're just gonna work yourself up--"

"Of course I'm gonna get worked up, we're lost and we don't have our phones Billy! what if a bea--"

"STOP." He said over you, voice hard and commanding, sounding every bit the decorated Lieutenant he was under all the expensive tailored three piece suits, silk ties, and immaculate personal grooming. 

You froze mid step, shocked, Billy had never raised his voice at you, not like this, not even during the heated argument you've had over the years. 

"S-T-O-P," he continued, voice back to its usual soothing tenor, "Stands for: stay calm, think, observe, and plan. First thing you gotta do is calm down." He pushed himself off the tree and walked over to stand in front of you, ducking his head down until his eyes locked on yours, placing his hands on your shoulders and giving them a tight squeeze., the weight of them helping to ground you and regulate your breathing. "Now, think….observe." 

You take a moment and look past him at your surroundings, your eyes dancing between the breaks in the trees, 

“Everything looks the same!” you groan out in frustration

“Hey, hey,” his hands come to cradle your face, dark eyes seeking out yours, “breathe.” you did, pulling a lungful of air and exhaling it slowly, “Alright, now think, where are you?”

“I don’t know, that’s the problem.”

“Cute,” the corner of his lips giving a slight twitch, “think of where you are.”

“The woods? A forest?”

“Good, what does a forest have?”

You rolled your eyes and looked around again, taking in the trees, grass and….mud. Huh. Your head cocks to the side as you noticed the tracks in the damp dirt.

“Billy,” your eyes follow the prints on the ground that lead and disappear into the trees, “how long do footprints last in mud?” you step past Billy and walk  to the edge of the tracks

“If undisturbed, they can last days, weeks, months even.” he says from somewhere behind you.

“Think we can follow those,” you nod towards the prints, “back?”

“It’s worth a shot, if they don't lead us to our site, they can always lead us to somebody else’s, and we can go from there.” His voice has a satisfied tilt to it, you took a few steps alongside the tracks when a rustling made you stop and turn. Billy was crouched down near the ground, large hands gathering the bulk of the sticks you had collected.

“Are you serious?”

“What? I ain't about to let all your hard work go to waste.”

You rolled your eyes but walked over to where he was and helped pick up the remainder of branches on the ground. After picking up the final gnarled branch he nodded to the tracks, saying,

"Lead the way."

With your eyes trained on the ground, you followed along side the clear indents on the wet dirt, It wasn’t long before you were able to hear the familiar sound of Foggy’s voice. 

“All I’m saying is, they’ve been gone a while, maybe we should go out and make sure they’re okay!”

“You got nothin’ to worry about tenderfoot, Bill’s with ‘er, she couldn’t be in better hands.”

“What if he didn’t catch up to her? These woods are huge and easy to get lost in!”

“And lets not forget it’s—”

“We don’t need to worry about them cuz they’re about to break through the treeline.”

You heard Matt say as you took the final step that put you and Billy out from the cover of the trees, 

“There you are! What took you guys so long?” asked Karen at the same time that Frank let out a “Finally decided to show up, eh?” making Karen toss him a glare over her shoulder.

You rolled your eyes ignoring Frank instead choosing to answer the clear and genuine concern in Karen's eyes. 

“Just headed out too far and lost track of time.”

You heard more than saw the amused huff Billy gave at your words, but you were not about to admit to your group of friends that you had gotten frisky in the great outdoors, especially not when at least two of them had been worried about you being lost. 

“Well, that's a relief but we kinda need to get this fire going if we wanna have dinner.” Foggy said as he hurriedly waved you over to the center of your site, where he sat, hunched over a ring made of rocks. You walk over to where Foggy is, Billy a step behind you,

“First thing you need to know is how to build a fire.” Said Foggy as he took the branches from under your arm, “what I’m about to show you is the Nelson method,” he said as he snapped several twings in half, tossing them into the ring of stones. “It’s a family secret that’s been passed down from Nelson to Nelson ever since the old country and has a 99.9% success rate.” he had gone through the majority of the sticks you had brough when he continued, “When you have a nice pile goin’ you get them nice and close, then, you take your trusty box’a matches,” he says pulling a small box from the pocket of his pants, sliding it open and taking one of the wooden matches, pushing the box close, quickly striking the red head of the match along the stripe on the side, the match head bursting to life with a puff of smoke and a menacing fizzle. Foggy held the burning match to the edge of the pile of sticks, the flame transferring to the thinner ends of the twings, consuming the dry wood in a matter of seconds then dying out. Foggy struck another match and tried again. And again, and again, and again. Finally giving up when he burned himself for a second time. 

Foggy pulled this thumb from between his lips, his arms falling to rest a top his knees, turning to look at Billy.

“You wouldn’t happen to have one of those fancy portable gas stoves packed away in one of the SUV’s, would you Russo?

‘Fraid not,” Billy answered, 

Foggy’s head falls, his chin pressing against the middle of his chest, letting out an exaggerated sigh as his shoulders slump, before looking up at the others and solemnly saying, 

“Got some bad news guys, looks like we're gonna starve.” 

“Y’all better get a fire going over there Billy, I did not spend the last 20 minutes prepping these dogs for nothin’.” Curt said, not lifting his eyes from the work his hands were doing on the picnic table.

With that, Billy scooted closer to the edge of the stones, hand reaching in to pick through the pile of twigs and branches Foggy had made, 

“First, you need to know the different materials it takes to build a fire.” he said, picking and snapping some of the more spindly ends of the twigs off, “Tinder should be thin and dry, ideally it would be birch bark, dry pine needles, grass, or leafs, but these,” he waved the growing fistfull of thin twigs, “will do just fine.

“The thing you wanna remember about tinder is, it should be easy to burn, it's what you’re gonna light directly and will spread to your kindling.

“Next, you got your kindling. These should be sticks no thicker than your fingers and go on top of your tinder.” he turned and picked some of the thicker pieces of branches you had found; gathering them into a loose bunch and setting it aside.

“Now, there’s several ways to go ‘bout it,” Billy said, pulling out a pocket knife from the inside of his boot, pulling the the blade from the metal casing, it locking in place with a click, and shoving the tip into the ground and shoveling out dirt, “the most efficient and easiest is the a-fram—”

“Ey! Don't you be teaching ‘er that shit!” Frank hollered making you, and everyone else, turn to look at him

“Pipe down Frankie, we’re trying to build somethin’ here!” Billy threw over his shoulder at the same time that Curt groaned out, “Oh lord, it’s Afghanistan ‘03 all over again.” 

“Afghanistan ‘03?” Karen asked Curt as her eyes jumped from Frank to Billy, just like yours were.

Curt heaved out a sigh, hanging his head and pinching the bridge of his nose, “Story for ‘nother time Karen,” he said, sounding far more exhausted than he had seconds ago, “Just get a fire going Billy.” he added without looking up. 

Billy threw a salute in Curts direction that he didn’t see, then continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. He picked up one of the thickest branches you had found and shoved it into the ground at an angle, adding two sticks at the end that stuck out, propping it on the “y” at the ends. He grabbed the bunch of tinder and placed it in the middle of the space that rested under the three sticks, then layered some of the kindling on either side of the structure. When he deemed it finished, he pulled out his own box of matches, struck one along the side of the box and held the burning match to the front of the tinder, the small pile quickly catching the flames, white smoke forming and rising to the sticks above it, followed closely by the lapping of the fire. In a matter of seconds, the layered sticks caught the flame and were burning warm and bright, the tails of the fire flicking and licking at the open air above them.

The fire had been burning steadily when Foggy asked Billy about the hole he had dug up.

“It’s to let the oxygen flow under the tinder, fire needs oxygen to burn and not choke, that helter skelter shit you pulled would’ve worked had you not packed it so tightly.” 

Foggy nodded along with Billy’s words, “Oxygen, not choke, gotcha.”

Billy laughed good naturedly at the intense look on Foggy’s face, poking at the fire as it continued to consume the branches, poking at them a few more times before he twisted to look behind him and called behind him. 

"Hey Frankie, how ‘bout you make yourself useful and bring over the fuel wood and the grill racks to set up!”

Frank threw a glare at Billy before he pushed himself off the bench connected to the picnic table, picking up one of the bundes of chopped wood in one hand and with the other picking the steel rods and grill racks, walking over to where you were, setting down the bundle of wood, rods, and grill racks beside Billy. 

By the time they had set up the grill racks and had added a few large pieces of wood to the burning fire, the sky had turned a shade darker, everyone gathering around the warmth and idly sipping from beer cans as you waited for the hot dogs to finish cooking. After the timer on Curts phone went off the meal went by pretty quickly as you made plans for the next day, which consisted of hiking and catching lunch. 

It wasn't long before Frank was coaxed into bringing out his guitar as everyone held long sticks with skewered marshmallows over the flames.

"C’mon Frank," you said, pulling your marshmallow away from the fire and quickly sandwiching it between a pair of graham crackers and a piece of milk chocolate, taking a bite before parroting his earlier words, " it's part of the experience."

"C'mon Frank," Karen said from beside him, gently bumping her shoulder against his, making the last of his resistance disappear muttering out a low "fine." pushing himself off his chair and going to grab his guitar.

"Didn't know Frank could play," said Foggy around a mouthful of crackers, chocolate, and burnt marshmallow.

"He's actually pretty good," said Billy as he slowly rotated his stick, the marshmallow at the end getting an even golden coating all around. "Self taught if you can believe it."

Just then Frank sat himself down on his chair, resting the body of the guitar on his thigh, the pad of his thumb strumming and plucking at the strings, his head tilting to the side whole his other hand turned the tuning knobs at the top of the headstock. He turned a few more before he began strumming the strings in earnest. The fingers of his other hand dancing along the fretboard, the crackling of the fire complementing the easy familiar melody that filled the air. Frank cleared his throat a few times and began to sing, his usually gruff voice turning just a bit smoother and wrapping around the well known lyrics.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Billy shift beside you, heard the slightest bit of rustling over the strumming of the guitar strings and the words that flowed from Frank, you turned to look at him, mouthing "You okay?", to which he just smiled and winked at you.

Frank was coming to the end of the first verse, his voice fading as his hand changed chords, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips as a twangy whistle came up from beside you making you turn to see Billy, sitting up straight with his eyes closed and his hands cupped around his mouth. The whistling changing as he slid the harmonica across his lips, his hands opening and closing over the slim metal instrument, making the pitch rise and fall, before fading completely as Frank began the second verse of the song. 

They continued like that for the remainder of the song, the melody swelling before Frank plucked the last remaining chords as Billy blew on his harmonica, the twangy whistle tapering out as Frank continued to strum the guitar, the fingers of his left hand dancing quickly down the frets as he changed chords, a new melody quickly starting.

Frank and Billy did a couple more songs and had everyone around the fire humming and singing along to his rendition of Thunder Road, before you knew it, the fire had dwindled, the temperature had dipped, and the sky had turned and inky black, it’s after Karen had slumped against Frank’s side, eyes struggling to remain open that Matt suggested putting an end to the night.

The low flame that had been doing a good job at keeping you warm was put out, the mixture of reds, oranges, and yellows hissing as water was poured over them, extinguishing them and giving way to billowy wisps of gray smoke, Billy waved you off, giving you a small smile and saying, “I’ll catch up in a few, wanna make sure this doesn’t come back to life while we’re sleepin’.”

You nod and push yourself off your chair and walk to your and Billy's tent, you reach for the zipper and slide it along the length of the opening, the fabric going slack and letting you step through, pulling your phone out of your pocket and using the light to illuminate your way.

The first thing you notice is the inside of the tent is organized with the same meticulousness you've come to associate with Billy. The large raised bed that takes up a large portion of the left hand corner is made, the sheet and bulky spread pulled taunt, had you had a quarter, you're sure you'd be able to bounce it off the smoothed out surface, beside it a small table with one of the power stations he had sent in the text group. On the opposite corner a couple of hanging organizers, the clothes in them folded with the precision that is, at this point, second nature to Billy, under the organizers an empty mesh hamper, and hanging from the ceiling, an electric lantern.

You reach for the knob, turning it clockwise past the initial click until the room is flooded in a soft, barely there glow. After a few flicks of your phone screen you take your phone cable and connect it, laying the phone on the table and make your way to the organizers, eyes and hands going through the handful of clothes to find an old Anvil t-shirt Billy had once left behind in your apartment and you never returned. It’s worn and frayed around the collar and along the right sleeve but soft to the touch from repeated use; it’s easily your favorite thing you own. Billy has tried to get you to get you to throw it out, swap it for a new one on more than one occasion, mentioning the tiny holes that litter the left side, the stitching that’s coming undone from the right shoulder, but everytime you just shrug, not telling him why you refuse to part with the shirt. You refuse to tell him that it’s the only thing that kept you from breaking down when you—

No. You stop the memories of those lonely nights and days before they are able to fully form. He’s here now, that’s all that matters, not the past, only the future. Our future. Together. 

You shake your head, tossing the shirt onto the bed, maybe one day you’d tell him, when the ghost of the things he did and endured for the people he called his family wasn’t so present on his face and dimming the light of his eyes. You strip your clothes, tossing them into the hamper, followed by your bra, pulling the dark shirt over your head, settling it over your shoulders, the hem falling a few inches short of your thigh. 

You bunch the front of the shirt over your stomach and pop the button of your Jean's free, pushing them down and off your legs. On your way from picking them up off the floor you felt a body press against your back and a pair of arms circle around your middle.

“Curts right, we really should put a bell on you.” you say, relaxing against his chest, closing your eyes as you rested your head on his shoulder. You waited for his witty retort, something about no one getting any sleep if he had a bell on, but it never came. You peeked at him outta he corner of your eye and noticed the way his eyes were locked in on your shirt.

“Y’know, I almost tossed this out when I pulled it outta your bag,” he murmured against your temple, his beard grazing against the side of your face as he spoke, long fingers paying with the frayed hem, “knew you woulda served me my own balls for breakfast if you didn’t see it.” he paused for a beat and rested his chin on your shoulder. “You ever gonna tell me why you hold on to this thing?” 

Someday. The word echoed in your mind as you lifted the shoulder opposite him in a shrug,  “It’s comfortable, ‘sides,” you take a step away from him and turn, resting your hand on your hips, “it looks good on me.”

He smiles, his gaze traveling down your body then back up again, eyes lingering where the soft fabric clings to your body, “it does, holes ‘nd all but,” he closes the small distance between you, hands coming to rest on your hips and pulling you close, “it would look much better on the floor.” with that he seals his lips over yours. 

His hands came up to cradle your head as his lips molded over yours, his tongue teasing at the seam of your lips before pushing past them and delving into your mouth, you angled your head, meeting each swipe of his tongue with one of your own. His hands trailed down, the pads of his fingers caressing the column of your neck, the curve of your breasts, and down your ribcage before circling around your waist, fingers kneading the swell of your ass. Your hands running up his chest, feeling the hard muscle under his shirt, going further up, past his neck to bury themselves in the long tresses at the back of his head, nails dragging against his skull, making him groan into your mouth. 

His fingers are bunching the back of your shirt against the small of your back when you break away, panting into his shoulder as his hands go back to your ass, digging into the supple flesh.

“Billy,” your voice sounds paper thin as Billy kisses the side of your neck, beard scratching the thin skin, “Billy,” you try again through labored breaths, getting an acknowledging hum from him as his lips work on the slope of your neck, “Billy...we can’t…the others--”a moan interrupts you as Billy sinks his teeth on a sensitive patch of skin that makes your knees buckle, your hands gripping the front of his shirt 

"We'll keep it down.” he whispers against the shell of your ear before nipping your lobe and sucking it into his mouth, teeth worrying the sensitive skin before moving to kiss his way down your neck. A hand coming up to circle your breast, thumb swiping across your hardened nipple through your shirt, you breath out a moan and Billy smiles against the side of your neck as he rolls your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. 

"Billy," you breath, voice thick with want and need, your hands clenching the material of his shirt, pulling yourself impossibly closer against him, 

"I’ve got you," he murmurs, lips brushing against yours as he guides you backwards toward the bed, his hands reaching and pulling your shirt over your head, tossing it off to the side while your hands work on the button and zipper of his jeans, pulling his own shirt up and over his head. You leave a trail of open mouth kisses that start from his left shoulder to his neck, sinking your teeth on the tendon there, making him hiss and stumble as he struggles to step out of his jeans. 

When he’s successfully gotten his jeans off, he kisses you with renewed vigor, his lips hungrily devouring yours as he lowers you onto the mattress and settles himself between your legs, rolling his hips into yours, the outline of his harden length making you a bit desperate to have him inside of you. 

You open your mouth to tell him to stop teasing you when a moan pushes itself past your lips as Billy works your clit through your underwear, the speed and pressure varying every few swipes, keeping you from reaching your peak. When he pulls his hand away from between your legs it feels like it’s been an hour, your body is hot, sensitive and you’ve been reduced to a whimpering mess. He shifts around, hooking his fingers in the elastic of your underwear and pushes them down and off your legs. 

“I’ve got you,” he repeats, kissing the inside of your bent knee and up your thigh, the jut of your hip, the hollow under your sternum, between the valley of your breast, the base of your neck, and lastly on your lips. Your hands dig into his hair, nail scratching against the back of his head, moaning into his mouth when you feel the tips of his fingers touch your core, slipping between the wet folds and running up and down the slit, wetting his fingers before circling your clit, keeping the pressure light and the speed just slow enough to keep you on edge. 

You roll your hips against his hand letting out a whimper when you feel the tip of his long fingers at your entrance, pushing in so slowly that the groan you let out was half pleasure half frustration, the frustration fading as he started pumping his fingers into you, quickly adding a second finger and picking up speed, the undulation of your hips making the heel of his palm brush against your clit every so often, turning you into a withering mess as he helps you chase your peak. 

It wasn't until he added a third finger that he fucked you in earnest, long fingers reaching and curling inside of you while his mouth nipped and sucked at any skin within reach, it was the combination of a particularly hard shove and his teeth sinking into the skin over your jugular that hurtled you to reach your climax, body tensing, eyes rolling back of their own accord and mouth falling open in a silent scream. 

Your chest rises and falls heavily as you catch your breath, your body jerking when Billy pulls his fingers away, you take a few deep breaths, tongue coming out to swipe your lower lip while your hand reaches for the front of Billy’s boxer briefs, he catches your wrist and holds it above your head, lowering himself against your body, lips slotting over yours and tongue delving into your willing mouth as he lazily rolls his hips against yours, dragging his covered length against your mound. His teeth nip and pull at your bottom lip before pulling away from you and climbing off the bed. 

“Where’re you going?” you slur breathily as he walks over to the hung organizers on the opposite wall, rummaging through one of the cubbies for a moment, then makes his way back to the edge of the bed, pushing his briefs down his long legs, wrapping his hand around himself and give his length a few lazy strokes, the motion practiced and familiar, you'd seen Billy put on a condom countless times, before climbing back on and between your legs.

“Ain’t goin’ anywhere,” he murmurs against your skin, hand settling in the crook of your knee and gliding up to your thigh, fingers digging into the supple flesh as he rolled his hips, the tip of his hardened length dragging between your folds while he leaves a trail of open mouth kisses across your chest. 

“Billy….need you…” your voice is caught between a whine and a plea, your leg hooking around his hip and bringing him down to you, rolling your hips against his. Billy hisses and lets out a string of curses before reaching between you and guiding himself to your entrance, letting out a rumbling groan as he pushes into you. 

Despite his prep, you still feel the stretch when he enters you, clamping your hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as Billy slowly works himself into you, the speed and force with which he moves increasing with every few thrusts. You feel your second orgasm of the night approaching fast as Billy fucks you in earnest. You struggle to keep yourself quiet as his thrusts become harder, your own movement helping you race towards your finish, Billy pulls your hand away from your mouth and crashes his lips to yours, letting out a moan that Billy swallows as you crest, back arching off the bed and the leg over Billy’s hip pulling him impossibly closer. You’re riding the tails of your high when Billy’s thrusts stutter, hips flush against yours and he bites the top of your breast, groaning as he climaxes. 

You're a heaving, boneless mess, struggling to keep your eyes open when Billy pulls out and rolls off of you, you turn and catch him tying off a condom before your eyes close and slip into unconsciousness.

Last part will be uploaded by/on 6/25/20

Gen: @juguitos @something-tofightfor @its-my-little-dumpster-fire @the-blind-assassin-12 @suchatinyinfinity​ @bts-smolarmy @elanor-of-imladris 

Billy Russo: @nananananananananananabatman @shinebrightlikeafanbase  @emyyjemyy​

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[pixieungerstories]

Housemates - 23

Derick came home from work to find the house abandoned.  Almost.  Dren was still asleep in his bathtub, but all the other rooms were empty. It wasn’t totally unheard of for the guys to go out on Friday night.  It was however very unusual for Kogan to stay out this late.  And they never took Kevin.  

Derick continued up the stairs to Vinny’s room, when he pushed the door open, he felt like his heart might burst.

Everyone was in Vinny’s room.  Even Bazur.   Her bed had been stood up against one of the walls.  Her mattress was on the floor.  Bazur’s had been dragged in and placed next to it.  The gargoyle  was in the corner. Kevin was a piece of wall art.  Thea was asleep in a nest near the ceiling.

It wasn’t quite the pack orgy he was hoping for, but they were getting closer.

God damn it.  He just wanted a family.  It was a stupid werewolf hang up.  He hated how much he wanted this.  But he did.  And he couldn’t ignore it, not when it was so close.  Kogan, Tristan and Vinny were in a tangle on the bed, there was still room for him.

He strippd down to his shorts and crawled into bed.  The blanket was weird.  It took him a moment to realize it was silk.  Thea had made it.  As he lay down he looked up at the nest on the ceiling.  Thea was peeking out.  Derick gave him an encouraging grin.  Thea smiled back, blushing red and showing dimples as he did so.

Vinny woke up to the sound of thunder and the smell of coffee.  The coffee she had been dreaming about but the thunder rattled the windows hard enough to jerk her awake.  She sat up and looked around.  Bazur was gone, everyone else was just waking up.  Kevin was currently an old fashioned wooden school desk.  Dren was sitting on him, drinking a coffee.

There was a travel mug sitting on Kevin next to Dren’s.  “That one is for you, Vinny.  I managed to make a half pot before the power went out.”

“Thanks, Dren!”  She winced as her feet hit the cold floor.

Dren nodded.  “The place will warm up a bit once the boys get the fireplaces lit, but you will want a pair of socks.”

Vinny couldn’t see Kevin’s mouth, but his muffled voice added, “Neither me or Dren are any good at starting the fires.”

Kogan groaned and stood up then swore all the way out of Vinny’s room and down the stairs.  Tristan picked up the silk bundle Thea had made them to sleep in and wrapped it around her shoulders, which made Derick curse, then change form to something more hairy.

Vinny looked out of the window and groaned.  “I don’t want to go out in that.”

“So don’t,” Tristan replied.

“I have to,” Vinny explained.  “I shop for groceries every day.”

Thea crossed the ceiling and left her room.  A moment later Bazur knocked on her door.  “If you give me a list, I’ll go get whatever you need.  The rain doesn’t bother me.  But we should probably get on that before there is a run on the grocery stores.”

The grocery list was a shared internet doc, but Vinny pulled it up and started adding things as she sipped her coffee.    Kevin shifted into a bench and she turned around to sit.  “I should plan for a few days, in case it stays like this.  But we just don’t have enough fridge space based on how you all eat.”

Kogan was back, “We should close all the doors and hunker down in the TV room.  It will be a lot easier to just heat one room than the whole house.”

Vinny looked up, “Does this happen often?”

They all shrugged.  “It’s an old house,” Bazur replied.  “We have work arounds.”

Vinny was trying to think of things she could feed them with no power.  The gas stove would still work, she would just need to light it with a match.  The oven wouldn’t.  That suggested soup or stew, but she usually served that with bread.   She added bread to the list.  She had a couple of recipes for soup that used all non-perishable ingredients.  She shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around herself.

“I think that’s it.   Thank you, Bazur for going out for me.”

“You are very welcome.  I was thinking I should get another fridge for you, but it wouldn’t help today anyway.”

Vinny shook her head, “If this is a predictable thing, I may ask for some shelves in the basement to hold canned goods.”

Kogan nodded.  “There is a wood stove in the basement that keeps the main floor warm if the power goes out in the winter.  We can turn off the water to the top two floors so the pipes don’t freeze, but it has been years since we’ve needed to do that.”

Vinny nodded.  “OK.  Everyone out.  I am digging out my fleece jammies and I’ll be down to see what we can figure out for breakfast in a while.”  She took another sip of coffee, then added a french press to the shopping list.

----

Vinny was downstairs on the couch in front of the fireplace when Bazur came home.  The water was just streaming off of his t-shirt and pants.  “Christ!  Didn’t you take a coat?” Vinny demanded, looking for a towel or a blanket.

Bazur laughed and stripped.  “Water doesn’t bother me.  Or the cold.  If it’s January and too cold for you to go shopping, you can send me out then too.”

Vinny looked at him.  He was perfectly sculpted muscles, but that was the point wasn’t it?  There were all kind of theories about where gargoyles came from.  Everything from magic to silica based parallel evolution.

The gargoyles didn’t comment themselves.  They didn’t seem to reproduce, but that was fine because they didn’t seem to age either.  Vinny was watching Bazur bend over to try to wiggle out of his pants.  She knew he ate, so he must -

“Enjoying the view?” he teased.

Vinny blushed.  “Your skin is all speckled and it looks rough like cement, but I can’t tell it that is an optical illusion or not.”

Bazur offered her his hand, it was smooth like marble.  Not the high gloss polished finish, but definitely honed.  It was also really cold.    Vinny let go and stept back.

Bazur snorted, “Yeah.  I’m much more popular when it is summer and everyone is too hot.”

If he was going to add anything to that, it was interrupted by Tristan and Kogan coming out to get the grocery bags.  As the guys were carrying everything into the kitchen, Bazur nodded to his study.  Vinny followed him in.  

“How are you settling in?  It seems like everything is going well, but I’m not always the best judge of how squishy people work.”

“Squishy?”

“Sorry, that was rude.  How are you Vinny?”

“I good.  School is good,” Vinny replied.  Then she realized he was likely doing a performance review.  “The workload here is about what I can handle.  I’ve been picking one of the common rooms each week to spend a little more-”

“I’m not worried about that.  The guys are all very fond of you.  I just want to make sure you aren’t being pressured into anything,”  he assured her.

“Well, this is awkward,” she mumbled.

“Are you alright?” he sounded so genuinely concerned it made her smile.

“Yeah, I’m good.  It took a while and I’m still figuring it out, but I like being here.”

“I know you were having … personality conflicts with Kevin-” Bazur trailed off, not sure what to say next.

Vinny shrugged, “We seem to have some sort of truce going on.”

Bazur nodded slowly, “He still struggles with the amount of power you have over him.  I can see your kindness that you have not just given up on him.”

Vinny opened her mouth to say something about how fucked up her life would be if she didn’t have this job, then closed it without a word.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Vinny nodded.  “I should go organize something for lunch.”

Bazur cocked his head to the side, “How uncomfortable will you be if we all end up sleeping in the parlour tonight?”

“As long as I make it to church tomorrow, tonight won’t be a problem.  I’m not sure what two nights in a row will be like when I have class the next day.”

“Alright.  Thank you for speaking with me.”

Vinny recognized the dismissal and fled.

She found Thea in the kitchen.  “Oh!  Hey!  Um… Lunch will be ready soon, I just need to see what I’m working with.”

Thea nodded then tipped his head towards a big bowl of salad on the counter.  “I figured we should use up the vegetables out of the fridge first.  There is a half pack of bacon you could cook up to add in.  Maybe some hard boiled eggs.  If you can get the stove running.”

That bit was easy, it just took a barbecue lighter and a moment of bravery.  While the water was boiling, Vinny used her phone to look for a way to bake bread on the stove.  Then she turned it off to save battery.  Thea was still watching her.  It was getting a little creepy.

“What can I do for you?”

“Do you remember that night at dinner where you said you would be OK with us asking for help?”

It took her a moment.  Shit.  “Yes?”

“Is that just for sex?” he asked.  Then he hastened to add, “Or does it work for naked cuddles?”

Vinny kept her eyes front,  “I’m not objecting, but I am curious how that would work if I can’t touch you.”

“I could hold your hands.  We could have a chaperone.”

Fuck.  He had already asked about that.  He wanted Kevin.  Maybe she could ask for someone else.  But that would mean a whole extra person in the room.  “How about Bazur?  He’s ace and doesn’t have a problem with nudity.”

Thea nodded. “I can go ask him, if that’s OK.”

Was it ok?  “This is just cuddles, right?  Not sex?”

“Just cuddles,” Thea assured her.

Vinny considered this.  “Ask Bazur and we can talk about it more after lunch.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thea nod before he ran off.

----

They ended up in Bazur’s room.  He was working at his desk and ignoring them.  Vinny was stripped down to her bra and panties with her hands bound  and her body suspended over Bazur’s bed in a tangle of Thea’s webbing.  She was only about three feet above it, so that if she needed to drop, it wasn’t far.

Thea had been very clear that it was for if she panicked.  He was not going to drop her by accident.

The sensations were surreal.  It was like floating.  Her head and back were supported.  She was face up to the ceiling, but her eyelids were covered by Thea’s softest silk.  She had a bit of play to move her arms and legs, but not much.  They were being held in a four point harness.  She could move any limb, but when she did, she could feel it pulling on the other three.  

The sounds of the storm outside was almost like those relaxation sounds apps, even if the slight draft was making her nipples crinkle.

Thea’s hands were very gently caressing her.  He was touching her all over but there wasn’t a pattern that she could tell.  The small of her back one moment, her shoulder the next.  Just now he was stroking the inside of her thigh.  The whole thing was way more errotic than she had expected.

“Your panties are wet,” he observed quietly.

“I’m enjoying this more than I thought I would,” Vinny replied trying to keep her voice as light as his had been.

“Can I touch them?  Your panties?”

Vinny wasn’t sure about that.  “You said this isn’t a sex thing.”

“It isn’t!” he insisted.

“It’s starting to feel like it is, Thea.”

Bazur snorted.  “It isn’t for him.  Derick is still sleeping before work, but I bet he wouldn’t mind being woken up to help.  Mind you, Kogan will be disappointed that he missed this.”

Thea hummed in agreement.  “Kogan likes being in control.”

Vinny tried to move her arms to cover her face, but all that happened was the ties on her ankles tightened and she swug in back and forth for a moment.  “I don’t want anyone else here to watch,” she whispered.

“I can let you down now, if you need me to,” Thea whispered back at her.

Except she didn’t want that either.

Bazur was suddenly close enough to her ear to make her jump.  “I can always lend a hand, if you need.”

Vinny considered that, then nodded.

Someone traced a careful finger over her panties making her twitch.  That had to be Thea.  He traced the elastic on then gently stroked in what felt like a random pattern until Vinny realized he was probably tracing the paisley print.  When he got to the part where the fabric was double he pressed and got a faintly audible squish.

Bazur’s voice was still right by her ear, “I bet Dren would be over the moon if we invited him into taste you now.”

Vinny turned her head towards his voice.  “I can’t see if you are teasing me.”

“I assure you I am not.”

Vinny thought about that as Thea was touching her in a haphazard way.  She though about what it would be like being here with someone running her vibrator and moaned.

Thea’s hands were gone.  “I’m sorry.”  She heard his feet skitter away.  “I can cut you down now.”

“Just-”  fuck.  “Argh!  I - I don’t know who to get.”

“Dren,” Bazur said firmly.  “He doesn’t like being touched either, but he likes warm and wet and right now you are both.”  

Vinny considered this, then nodded.

She heard the door open.

And close.

Then there was what felt like a really long time before it opened again.  “Vinny?!” Dren sounded shocked.  Someone closed the door.

“Thea wants to keep touching her,” Bazur explained.  “Vinny is finding it distracting.”

The was the faint sound of a drop of water hitting the bed.  Vinny blushed as she realized it wasn’t water.  It was her.

“Help a girl out?” she said trying to be as off hand as she could.

Dren’s impossibly silky smooth hands slid her panties down to her ankles.  She felt his hands on her upper thighs, then felt them melt and slide so they were covering much more of her skin.

“Can I touch you?” Dren asked.

Vinny chewed her lip and nodded.

“Can I help you cum?”

“Uh, yeah!  I mean, yes please.”

Dren chuckled, “You said please!  I can see why Kogan loves you.”  Before she could figure out what to say to that he added, “I would like to pour into you.  But you need to let me know when it is too much.  I could accidently stretch you too far without knowing.”

Vinny nodded again.

“Do you need anything for your clit?” Bazur asked.

“What?” Vinny asked, startled.

“I can make you feel warm and full,” Dren explained.  “I can even pulse a little, but I can’t actually provide any friction.”

“I won’t be at a good angle to help,” Bazur added.

“I could,” Thea whispered, “If Bazur shows me how.”

Vinny just felt completely overwhelmed at that.  “I… yeah.  I trust you.”

At that point Bazur took over.  The warmness of Dren moved aside, Bazur’s cool fingers made her twitch before teased her open and found her clit.  “Rub here,” he instructed, “but gently.”

His hands moved away before Thea’s thin and nimble fingers replaced them.  As Thea gently stroked, Vinny could feel Dren rubbing her back.  “It’s ok, we will be very careful,” said Dren’s quiet voice.

Vinny tried to relax.

[beatriceinmessina]

Halloween Terrorfest, Day XIII: ‘This is Halloween’

(A note: This one is just pure nonsense I wrote to amuse myself.)

31 October 2019

“What are you supposed to be?”  asked James, looking up and down as Thomas and Edward came in through the door.

Thomas gave him a surprised look.  “You really don’t know?”  James shook his head in reply.  “I love rock ‘n’ roll, so put another dime in the jukebox, baby!”

“No, that’s obvious.  You,” James said, gesturing to Edward, who was dressed in a top hat and greatcoat, “who are you?”

Edward sighed.  “James, don’t tell me you’ve never seen The Body Snatcher.”

“What?”

“The Body Snatcher.  You know, the film where Boris Karloff gives this doctor guy bodies and is obsessed with him.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“Then you’ll have to come over to our place and see it.  Next week?” asked Edward, already walking into the house.  Thomas shook his head, smiling affectionately.

“Just watch it alone unless you want to hear his theory on how the two main guys are exes, which is actually pretty plausible,” he said, and tilted his head to the side.  “Wait.  I didn’t ask you who you are, and I’m still not sure.”

An evil grin spread across James’s face.  “Surprise, bitch!  I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

“Oh, yeah.  And I think Francis is staring at me?”  Thomas’s eyes slid over to the dining room table where Francis was sitting and back again.

“No, he’s staring at me and counting down the minutes until he gets to screw me in this.  He told me before we left.”

“Um.  Thanks?”  

“You’re welcome!” James said cheerily, stepping to the side and letting Thomas through.  He had barely gotten through the living-room before there was a screeching of tires so loud that practically everyone in the room jumped.  Tuunbaq hissed and stood up on the sofa’s arm, his fur standing on end.

“Oh, no,” Harry whispered, going to collect the infuriated cat before he tore a hole in the couch and looking out the window.  “They’re going to crash something going like that.”  Another screech as the car skidded into a parked position, and then an infuriated shriek that could probably be heard all the way in Lancashire.

“JOHN HARTNELL, IF YOU DRIVE LIKE THAT AGAIN, I SWEAR TO EVERY GOD ABOVE, I WILL CUT YOUR HANDS OFF FINGER BY FINGER!”

“It’s part of the character!” John could be heard protesting, and then Tom shouting again.

“DON’T TELL ME THAT, JONATHAN -- YOU DRIVE LIKE A FUCKING DEMON TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN -- YOU ARE GOING TO SET THIS CAR ON FIRE ONE DAY -- YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME DRIVE--”

“One, the full name ultimatum doesn’t work when Jonathan isn’t my name.  Two, you’re adorable when you yell like this.”

“Adorable?  ADORABLE?!  I AM NOT--”

“Come on, you know Mary Ann’s the only one who inherited Mum’s terrifying gene.  Your face just gets all screwed up and cute.”

“Hey,” Harry called, opening the door and standing in the entrance, “you might want to get inside before someone reports you for being public nuisances.”

“Am I that loud?” Tom called, his voice finally dropping below a scream.  

“If you were any louder they’d hear you in New York,” John groaned.  “I think my eardrums almost exploded.”

“They wouldn’t be in danger of exploding if you drove like a normal person.  It’s a miracle your licence hasn’t been revoked.”

“Yeah.  We should--”

“WELCOME TO A SHOW ABOUT DEATH!” a gleeful voice screeched from inside, and Graham all but slid into the doorway, leaving Harry a split second to get out of the way.  “If you die during this party, the festivities will not stop.”

“Yes, it will,” Harry said.  “Now come inside before someone gets arrested.”

They got out of the car; Tom headed for the house, and John stayed by the car, looking at it disappointedly.  “It didn’t break down.”

“Wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles.  Come on.”  Tom grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him from the house.  Harry stared at them when they came up the stairs.

“Tell me you were not driving with those sunglasses on.”

“I told him to take them off,” Tom said.  “He said it wasn’t, and I quote, ‘in the spirit of Elwood Blues’, and he wasn’t going to disappoint him.  So we almost crashed four times on a fifteen-minute drive.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“We’re fine,” John said, walking inside.  “Anyone else coming?”

“No, everyone else is here -- Tuunbaq, stop trying to attack them,” Harry sighed, trying to contain the squirming, hissing cat in his arms and close the door at the same time.  “We talked to you about this.”

“I told you,” Silna called from the table.  “He only listens to my dad.”  The door now securely locked, someone turned the music, which had been playing at a decently low volume, way up.  Tuunbaq screeched and leapt out of Harry’s grasp, searching for the culprit as “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” blasted at approximately one hundred thousand million decibels and Blanky, dressed in what looked like a nineteenth-century sailor’s uniform, stood by the speakers and nodded his head as if absolutely nothing was wrong at all.  Francis grabbed him and pulled him backwards whilst Silna leaned over and turned the knob way down, restoring the momentarily-dashed order.  

Cornelius, for one, had somehow managed to find a perch on top of the kitchen counter and was telling some story to the group he had come with, all of whom were dressed as the Sawyer family of Texas Chainsaw fame to a disturbing degree of accuracy.  (Magnus, in particular, resembled Leatherface so closely that no one was entirely sure that Leatherface hadn’t actually turned up.  The chainsaw in his hands wasn’t helping.)  The story seemed to involve some guy he knew and the Regent’s Canal.  Charlie Des Voeux had gotten bored of said story and, true to the character of Nubbins Sawyer, was currently antagonizing whoever he could with a prop pocket knife.  (Or at least it seemed like it was a prop.)  Stanley, made grotesquely white by greasepaint, was occupied in eyeing the matchbox left near the stove.  Francis and James had brought Neptune with them, and, while he was usually a very good boy, the dog had been growling at Tuunbaq all evening.  If everyone wasn’t careful, there would be blood and fur on the floor by the end of the night.

“Hey!” Charlie seemed to pop up out of nowhere in front of John and Tom, waving the knife around in a truly irresponsible manner.  “You want some head cheese?”  

“Stop being a dick,” someone grumbled, and Solomon, wearing a suit that looked like it had just been found in an attic chest, appeared behind Charlie.  “And put the knife down before you stab someone.”

“That’s the point,” Charlie said irritatedly.  “It’s Halloween.  Scary shit is the point -- what -- PUT ME DOWN!” he shrieked when Solomon lifted him into a bridal carry.  “ARSEHOLE!  LET ME GO -- I WILL STAB YOU--”

“Too late,” Solomon said calmly, picking the knife out of Charlie’s fingers.  “This is mine now.  Don’t contradict me, I’m your grandfather!” he added as a final word.  

“Isn’t the grandpa in that movie over a hundred?” John asked.  “He probably can’t carry anyone.”

“I’m saving you from certain death; don’t tear my case apart.”

“Isn’t that a prop, though?”

“Charlie?” Solomon asked.  “Is this a prop knife?”

“Cornelius gave it to me, I don’t know!  PUT ME DOWN,” Charlie howled as Solomon carried him into the kitchen, presumably to interrogate Cornelius as to the function of the knife.  

The kitchen being thus commandeered, everyone else had gathered in the next two rooms, and now that all ears were safe from spontaneously combusting, the party had settled into conversation and dance, and would have gone on perfectly normally if not for a few things that turned it into a night to be remembered as long as anyone lived.

A hissing, popping sound came from the kitchen, followed by Solomon racing out into the dining area with Charlie still in his arms, some of the “Sawyers” behind him.  

“The stove was on fire,” Charlie said.  “I think I saw Stanley climb out the window.”

“Was?” Silna repeated.  “It’s not on fire anymore?”

“It just, like… exploded for two seconds.  Like a gas explosion.”

“Did we leave the stove on?”  Silna turned to Harry.

“I don’t think so.”  He shrugged and went in to look.  “No, we didn’t.  Someone would have had to light it with a match.”

“He took your matches too,” said Tommy Armitage.  “I saw them in his pocket.”

“Wait.”  Harry scowled.  “Stanley set the stove on fire, stole our matches, and climbed out the window?”  Yes, his co-worker was consistently disapproving and Harry was ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent sure he wasn’t capable of smiling, but setting things on fire?  For no reason whatsoever?  But sure enough, Stanley had been gone when he’d checked the stove.  And the window was open.  Good gods, was work going to be awkward tomorrow morning.

The spectacle being over before it even began, everyone was about to leave when someone screamed upstairs, a scream so long and loud it was amazing the screamer hadn’t run out of breath by the time Francis hurried up the stairs to investigate.  He found John Irving staring into the open-doored bedroom, looking as though he had glanced into Hell itself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.  John made a mewling sound and pointed to the bedroom.  Cornelius stood in front of the bed, along with Billy Gibson.  Both seemed to have hastily pulled their clothing on.  Francis sighed.  “You couldn’t go out to your car?”

“We all came over in Sol’s,” Cornelius said.  “It would be rude.”

“And this isn’t?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not illegal.  You can’t hang me for it.”

“Is that your criteria for what’s appropriate to do?  Whether or not you’ll get hanged?”

“Yes.”  Cornelius grinned his cheeky grin.  “And you can’t hang me for that either.”

“What’s all this about hanging?” Francis asked Billy, who shrugged.

“I don’t know.  I just came up here to get laid.”

“Get out of Silna and Harry’s room before you traumatize anyone else.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, Dad,” Cornelius said cheerfully, and marched out pulling Billy with him.  “We’ll be in the coat closet.”

“No, we won’t,” Billy contradicted.  “Sorry, John,” he added to the trembling figure now curled up on the floor.  “We’ll lock the door next time.”

“Lock the door next time?  There shouldn’t BE a next time!” John shrieked, his eyes nearly falling out of his head.  “You two are scorched on the insides of my eyelids for the REST OF MY LIFE!”

“It’s free jerk-off material, you’re welcome,” Cornelius called before Billy yanked him down the stairs.  Francis followed them after seeing that John wasn’t getting up anytime soon, where everyone had dispersed save for Silna and Harry, who were talking over something clutched in Harry’s hands.  

“Where did you get it?” Francis heard Silna say.

“The Budgens three streets over.  The brand starts with G or something.”

“And every single piece has bits of metal in it?”

“Every piece I’ve tried.”

“How do they even get metal bits into candy?  How is anyone that staggeringly incompetent?  Or evil?”

“I don’t know.  We just have to get rid of it.”

“Burn it,” Blanky said, appearing between them.  “Burn it all.”

“Burn it?” Harry repeated.

“Sure, it’s a great bonding experience.”

“He’s right,” Francis said, remembering the Great Cornwall Beach Bonfire of 2005.  (To be fair, they had all been high out of their minds, which might have had something to do with the feeling of togetherness.  And the bonfire had gotten out of control and they had all almost died.)  “You have a fire pit, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s burn it.”

“I mean, if everyone wants to, I don’t see why not.”  She cupped her hands around mouth.  “We’re going outside for a few minutes; there’s something important to do.  You want to join, join.”  Surprisingly, everyone (even John, who had come downstairs) headed for the back door along with them; the coat closet’s door opened and out came John and Harry, along with Billy and Cornelius, who had made it there after all.  (It was a very large coat closet.)

They processed into the backyard and assembled around the fire pit, Silna holding the candy bowl solemnly.  “We were going to serve this,” she explained, “but somehow there’s pieces of metal in all of it, according to Harry, so we’re going to burn it.”

“Why are we burning it?” Thomas asked, leaning on Edward’s arm.

“According to Blanky, it’s good for bonding, and it’s more fun than throwing it away.”  Silna poured the candy into the pit and scanned the crowd.  “Miss Montgomery,” she called, and James stepped forward.  “Will you do the honors?”

“Absolutely.”  James showed her the cigarette he’d been carrying all night.  “Who’s got a light?”

“I do.”  Tommy held a lighter above his head.  “What?” he asked when Graham gave him a side-eyed glance.  “I don’t smoke.  I just like melting stuff.”  He came around and lit the cigarette.  

“On three,” Harry said.  “One -- two -- three!”  

James tossed the cigarette into the fire pit.  And--

WHOOSH!

The candy went up in flames that shot at least halfway to the sky, burning orange and gold.  For a moment, all was silent.  Then, over the snap and crackle of the fire, Edward’s voice.

“Love, love, love, love,” he sang to a tune they all knew well, and Thomas joined in.  Then Graham and Charlie.

“Drop out, drop out, drop out, drop out…”  Now two out of three Johns, Harry Peglar, and Tom added their voices.  John Hartnell added his harmonica, playing for dear life despite not knowing a note of the song on his chosen instrument.

“Be in, be in, be in, be in…”  When the lyrics changed from one-word repetitions, everyone else joined the song.

“Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what,” they sang to the sky and the roaring flames.  “Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what.  Take trips, get high; laugh, joke and goodbye; beat drum and old tin pot; I’m high on you-know-what.”  By this time a neighbor was standing on their back porch, staring.

“Are we bothering you, Mr Ross?” Silna called to him over the singing.

“No, but you’re worrying me.  What is this--” -- Mr Ross shaded his eyes from the flames -- “--some sort of Halloween ritual?”

 “No, sir,” James shouted, pulling Francis into a dance that seemed to combine proper waltzing with tripping over one’s own feet.  “It’s a be-in!”

“A what?”

“A BE-IN!” Solomon yelled joyfully, whirling around with Edward and Thomas.  “You can join us!”

“We’ll be quiet in a few minutes,” Harry said, going over the fence.  “Sorry.  We’ve gotten a bit carried away.”

“Make good on that,” said Mr Ross, and went back inside.  On they went with the dancing and singing, until the flames died down and the candy was reduced to ashes.  There now being nothing to dance around, they shuffled back inside.  Blanky looked at his phone.

“Damn it,” he said.  “Playlist’s run out.”

“We’ll sing!” Tom piped up brightly.  “We’ve been practicing.”

“Go ahead, then.”  Blanky shrugged, and the two brothers leapt up onto the table, ignoring Harry’s protests.  Tom snatched Blanky’s phone, pulled something up on it, and nodded to John.

“A-five-six-seven-eight!” John counted, and country music began to play from the speakers.  Blanky burst out laughing.  “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, though the streams are swollen, keep them doggies rollin’; Rawhide!  Rain and wind and weather, hell-bent for leather; wishin’ my gal was by my side.  All the things I’m missin’; good vittles, love and kissin’, are waiting at the end of my ride.”  He elbowed Tom.  “Move ‘em on!”

“Head ‘em up!”  Tom ducked as an empty soda can came flying at his head.  And another.  And another.

“Head ‘em up!”  A fourth can whistled past John’s ear.

“Move ‘em on!”

“Move ‘em on--”

“Head ‘em up!”

“Rawhide!”  By this time, at least fifteen empty soda cans were on the floor.  “What the hell are you doing?” John asked.

“We don’t have beer bottles to throw at you,” Cornelius explained, tossing another can.  

“But there’s no chicken wire!” Tom cried.

“Empty cans won’t knock you out,” Charlie said.  “We’ll stop when you sing something doesn’t call for it.”

“Fine.”  Tom fiddled with the phone, and new music played.  “Come on; oh, baby, don’t you wanna go?  Come on; oh, baby, don’t you wanna go?  Back to that same old place -- sweet home Chicago!”  A soda can hit the back wall.  “Oh, come on!”

“Think of it as applause,” James said.  “Now keep singing!”

And so they sang, and ducked, and a wonderful night was had by all, in spite of the massive amount of cleanup the house would require, which they would all definitely have to come over for.  

[chiseler]

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

While it must be admitted that no country on earth can top India when it comes to mass hysteria—I mean, the Indians really, really know how to panic over silly nonsense—the United States comes in a very close second. Despite sneering American press coverage of, say, the Monkey Man hysteria in north central India in the late Nineties, it seems we aren’t nearly so rational and sophisticated a population as we’d like to believe. Whether confined to small rural communities or spread nationwide, delightfully stupid instances of mass hysteria are sprinkled liberally throughout our history. Orson Welles’ 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast was small potatoes compared to some of the seriously dumb crap stalwart Americans have panicked about. From the Winsted Wild Man, to the Great Airship of 1897, to both Red Scares, to the child-raping Satanic cult hysteria of the Eighties, to the post-9/11 fear of, well, pretty much everything, to the Ninja Burglar who terrorized the residents of Staten Island for nearly a decade, Americans are just as primed and ready to start flapping their arms and trampling one another, as Rod Serling pointed out in “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” (1960), whenever the lights blink. Today, as fed by media both legitimate and less so, America as a whole seems to be one ugly, sloppy, rolling ball of mass hysterias. We are a gullible, susceptible people.

Although a few sillyassed contemporary revisionists are attempting to rewrite history, claiming the incidents that took place in Mattoon, Illinois in the Fall of 1944 really were the work of a shadowy and diabolical madman, their efforts are about as worthwhile as those of the hundreds of researchers who’ve claimed they’ve discovered the true identity of the (equally fictional) Jack the Ripper. As things stand, The Mad Gasser of Mattoon remains a perfect textbook example of American mass hysteria at its finest.

Mattoon was a small, quiet community in central Illinois, home to a few factories but far from the bustle of Chicago, Springfield or Champagne-Urbana. In 1944 it was even quieter than usual, considering most of the able-bodied men in town had been shipped off to the war.

Although the invasion of Normandy two months earlier seemed to bode well, as with the rest of the country there was still a palpable paranoia in the air that infiltrated most of the women, children and elderly residents who had been left stateside. They worried not only about the young locals in Europe and the South Pacific, but also about what those sinister Germans and Japs might have up their dirty sleeves. And those were only the big things to worry about. There was plenty else, too, all the day-to-day small town fears, especially those harbored by lonely middle-aged women.

On the night of August 31st, Urban Raef and his wife were awakened by a strange smell in their bedroom. The smell sickened both of them. Convinced there was a gas leak, Mrs. Raef attempted to get out of bed to check the stove’s pilot light, but found she couldn’t move her legs.

That same night, a young mother in the same neighborhood woke up when she heard her daughter coughing in another room. As with Mrs. Raef, when she tried to get out of bed to check on the girl, she found her legs seemed to be paralyzed. In both cases the symptoms passed relatively quickly, and the incidents never made it into the papers. Not until later, anyway.

Around 11PM the following night, Bert Kearney, a local cab driver, still had an hour and a half left on his shift. Back home, his wife was awakened by what she described as a sweet odor permeating the room. As the smell grew stronger. Her legs began to feel weak, so she called her sister, who was living with them at the time. When the sister entered the room, she not only smelled the sweet odor, but pointed out it was coming through the open window. As there happened to be a lot of cash in the house that night—stacks of it, in fact, which the sisters had been counting at the kitchen table earlier in the evening—the pair jumped to the conclusion this strange odor must be the work of a prowler who planned to rob them. They called the cops, who could not find any evidence of anything. No odor, no gas, no footprints or fingerprints, no sign of attempted entry. But when Bert returned home after his shift, he claims to have spotted a tall, thin man wearing dark close and a tight cap crouching near the house. Although he gave chase, he soon lost the man in the darkness. The creeping paralysis soon passed, though for the next few days his wife did complain about a burning sensation in her mouth and throat, obvious side effects of the strange gas the tall thin stranger had pumped into the bedroom.

The Kearney’s story made the papers, and that was the end of it. With the details of their harrowing evening now made public, they provided the other residents of Mattoon with the only blueprint they needed.

In the three days following the publication of the Kearney’s story, six other people called the cops to report eerily similar gas attacks with all the same trademarks: a weird smell, partial paralysis of the legs, and a burning sensation in the mouth and throat. One elderly woman claimed the tall, dark-clad Mad Gasser, as he was quickly coming to be known, crawled in through her bedroom window and, um, “attempted to gas her.” A middle aged couple, Carl and Beulah Cordes, returned home on the night of September 5th and discovered a white handkerchief on the back porch. When Beulah picked up the handkerchief and took a big whiff, she said, she began vomiting violently, and from that the pair concluded it must have been left by the Mad Gasser to knock out their dog so he could break into the house. An older woman living with her adult daughter claimed they were in the kitchen when a tall man dressed all in black began rattling the knob of the back door. Finding it locked, he used a syringe to inject the mysterious gas through the keyhole. Both women passed out, waking up several hours later with that telltale burning in their mouth and throats.

Even those who could not claim to be victims of the Mad Gasser themselves spotted him all over Mattoon, sometimes carrying the kind of canister and hose farmers use to spray pesticides. In every instance, the eyewitness descriptions matched perfectly the description Kearney had given the newspapers.

For all their investigating, cops could find no evidence of anything. There was no lasting physical damage to the victims. They could detect no evidence of any strange gas. Although robbery was the presumed motive, no property had been stolen. Even that handkerchief the Cordes’ had found, upon careful analysis, revealed no chemical residue.

The FBI was called in, but likewise found no evidence of anything untoward.

Frustrated by this, as is usually the case, the townsfolk formed roving bands of well-armed angry mobs to patrol the streets at night, determined to capture this Mad Gasser themselves. As official requests that the vigilante groups disband went unheeded, the chief of police was forced to issue a warning begging citizens not to loiter too long on the street for fear they might be mistaken for the Mad Gasser and shot. The town council also issued a plea begging citizens to be real, real careful with those guns.

Roughly two weeks after the Kearney’s story hit the papers, as the number of reported gas attacks in Mattoon approached thirty, the cops stopped caring. Nearly every report could either be explained away quite simply as a reaction to fumes from the local factories, or simply dismissed as false alarms. Considering no evidence was found of anything (save for that evidence created by the supposed victims themselves), this Mad Gasser nonsense was simply a waste of the department’s time, resources, and patience. They had plenty of real local crimes and misdemeanors to deal with as it was.

Not long afterward, and pretty well fed up themselves, town officials came out and told the citizenry to just calm the hell down and stop being stupid. There was no Mad Gasser, and never had been.

After two weeks of public madness and shrill, fear-mongering newspaper headlines, that’s pretty much all it took to bring things to an end. Although it doesn’t seem to work anymore, there was a time, amazingly enough, when all it took was to have someone say, “Oh, just calm the fuck down and go home. You’re all being a bunch of stupid little pansies.”

Seventy-five years after the events in Mattoon, as noted above, a number of revisionists have claimed they’ve identified the mysterious gas that was used, or better still the demented chemist who was behind the attacks, while others note that an eerily similar string of gas attacks took place in Virginia in 1933. It strikes me these people are desperate to sidestep the simple, undeniable reality that people—Americans in particular—are for the most part a stupid, frantic lot eager to not only believe whatever crazy nonsense they’re fed, but run with it as hard as they can.

by Jim Knipfel

[burberrycanary]

The Probable Stars (Matthew x Diana, ADOW Ep. 107)

Summary: That’s the way of the world, he remembers. You break the things you are fondest of.

Nocturns

Next to him, Diana’s breathing slows. He tracks the way her body relaxes into sleep and the beat of her heart. The dying firelight turns her hair a darker shade of gold.

The air, the sheets and his skin all smell of her, easing for now the need he will not satisfy.

But beneath that, the other scent lingers, bright with copper and headier even than desire. How her body felt under his mouth blurs together with the memory of blood in pools and splatters.

I won’t let you harm me, she’d said, lying in his arms, brilliant like a shooting star or a shower of sparks. Matthew has sworn too many vows not to hear the weight behind her words. He’s sworn and kept some, sworn and broken—

—blood on his hands, the arterial gushes from her emptying heart—

He sees Diana again in his mind’s eye, lit with moonlight, slipping from his grasp into the night sky and more cruel than she could understand.

If her little game had not worked, what would he have taken from her? What would have been enough to slake so ravenous a—

Matthew leans over to kiss the top of her head, breathing her in. Mine, he thinks, with the old confusion of hungers.

He leaves the warmth of her—their—bed.

He will not sleep tonight.

Lauds

The house continues to settle with creaks and murmurs.

He retrieves their scattered clothes from the floor. Each piece conjures up overlapping flashes—her hands rushing to open his shirt, the way she’d smiled against the backs of her fingers when he’d tugged her closer on the bed with his palms cupped behind her spread knees.

He sets her folded clothing on the chest at the foot of the bed, finds a clean undershirt in his bag and redresses.

Her heartbeat is the loudest sound in the nighttime hush. How far could they be separated and still he would be able to pick out the cadence of her heart from all the tumult of the world?

Matthew turns out the remaining lamps, content with the glow from the fire as he considers the room that has been hers since childhood—the sloping angles of the gabled ceiling, the gray and black feathers suspended over the bed on long white threads, the moonlight slanting in through small windows.

Little has changed from what he saw in the dreamlike vision of the night her vast wild magic was hobbled by those she loved and trusted most. The temporary rooms in Oxford he had searched for the book of life had revealed much more.

But, in the far corner, a pair of low bookcases overflow with worn paperbacks scattered with the bright yellow secondhand stickers of a university bookstore—Ptolemy, Grosseteste, Bacon, Robert of Chester translating Jabir ibn Hayyan. He flips through Sidereus Nuncius with its printed many-pointed stars from an age that had not yet divided science from art. On the Nature of Things is turned sideways to fit into a too full shelf next to a Latin dictionary with a broken spine.

His fingers skim over the titles to map the history of her quick and hungry mind. Had she been happy, he wonders, as he pictures her at library study tables, losing her turn in lines unaware of anything outside her reading, curled up in oversized chairs with her bare feet pulled up.

What first drew her imagination so far into the past?

He recalls the black-and-white photo on the back of her first book more as an impression than an image: she’d been pretty, of course, smiling. But her startlingly young eyes were what he had noticed, how they clashed with the way she wrote of those long dead.

Even then, she was making him remember things he thought forgotten.

In honor of old friends—monks and humanists in service of God’s Rome and lost Romes equally—who searched for manuscripts with an obsession that matched his own, he reads Lucretius’s opening invocation of life-giving Venus soaring beneath the spinning constellations of heaven again. Then, more dimly, another line returns to him, ni muer ni viu ni no guaris. I do not die nor live nor heal—a poet had sung of love in a language that no longer exists only to die with his guts spilling out into the chaos of gore on the road outside Damascus eight-and-half centuries ago.

The furious speed of Diana’s life is already rushing through his fingers.

The loss of her should kill him but it won’t.

Well, then. A road outside some Damascus awaits him, too, some charnel house of violence he will throw himself at as many times as he must until at last—

Her heartbeat quickens in his ears, drawing him back towards her with that magnetic pull to sit on the edge of the bed. Her eyes dart behind her closed lids. REM sleep prompts the unlovely language of this current life. Dreams. What once had been known to be the workings of planetary influence on a troubled mind, or so the astrologers had taught off and on for a thousand years, transformed now into shifting waves of neuronal activity shown on modern star maps of the mind, lit up with celestial complexity.

Diana flinches with a moan, turning her face into the pillow. He can still count the hours since he woke to find her missing, taken, somewhere alone and hurt and—

She survived those lost hours. She’ll survive their memory, he knows, for all he wishes he could spare her this and take the recollection from her.

Matthew draws back the hair that has fallen over her face, careful not to touch her.

He had not expected this strength in so fragile a creature.

Let me not break her—this—us, he prays in fragments to God, always God, despite everything.

Her trust, so carelessly granted, unearned, had settled over him from the first with a staggering lightness, as exacting a burden as grace.

Perhaps He is as careless with what He gives as what He takes away.

Her fingers twitch, curling inward as loose fists.

God, what would I have done tonight?

Matthew crosses himself and watches as her face tightens with the memory of pain and fear he failed to shield her from.

Outside, a gray dawn slips past the windows.

Prime

Just after six, the quiet is interrupted by the tread of feet down the stairs with a softness that must be Em rather than Sarah.

Matthew remembers their discarded clothes near the front door, Diana’s kicked off shoes. He hadn’t cared, not when her hands kept touching his face and cupping the back of his neck, not when she smelled of blood and lust and the night air.

He listens, idly, to Em in the kitchen, running water and then the click of a gas stove. Her aunts know where he sleeps and what he is to her. He can at least spare Diana this small awkwardness.

He pulls on a sweater against the vulnerable informality of short sleeves and leaves Diana, half-hidden under the faded patchwork quilt, with one last look.

Gossamer-pale light fills the lower floor, broken into occasional patches of red and green by panels of stained glass.

Em calls out good morning and then pushes their folded clothes against his chest.

“It's a good thing the house likes you.”

He doesn’t ask what exactly she means because his father had taught him better than to begin conversations he does not wish to have. He sets the clothing down on the kitchen work table and, with a glance for permission, picks up the small wooden tray of casting artifacts she has gathered—feathers and a bundle of sage, a candle and spool of red thread—so Em can carry her tea and the bowl of water out to the porch.

He will never forget whose magic found Diana for him.

But outside she doesn’t seem in a hurry to cast. Steam rises from her cup of tea and her breath is visible in the morning air. Birds call to each other. The family cat clicks its teeth in response. Its yellow eyes trace arcs and swoops.

Em watches him from over the rim of her cup, thoughtful. Her gaze sharpens.

He waits for the warning or judgment that he will listen to with patience for Diana’s sake. Em sets down her mug, keeping her hands cupped around the warm sides.

“The house used to play hide and seek with Diana when she was little.”

Matthew tilts his head and tries to decipher her, this witch that seems so welcoming and holds so much back.

“If Diana hadn't had any gift at all that would’ve been fine. Every family of witches around here has someone like that. But her magic, it just wasn't right and kids can sense difference like hounds. She would hide in some cupboard or closet and the house would slam doors or rattle windows, room to room, to show it was looking for her.”

Em smiles, quick and broad, though her eyes remain serious.

“The house would play with her for hours. It’d shift furniture nearby, something like that, to let her know she'd been found. How she used to laugh, sweet and carefree as though her heart wasn't still cracked in two with missing her mom and dad. And she never lost that, the way she can light up with joy brighter than anything. Grief didn’t take that from her. She remained herself, happy and kind and stubborn enough to drive Sarah half to distraction and back more days than not. She remained herself,” she repeats.

Em picks up one of the black feathers off the table, twirling it back and forth between her fingers. She gives him another steady look that contains none of Sarah’s anger or distaste. But something protective, ancient and terrible, moves behind her eyes that makes the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end.

Matthew has seen what a mother’s love is capable of more than once.

He forces himself not to tense, to stay leaning against the porch railing.

Em closes her eyes and presses a kiss into the feather. She spreads open her hand. The wind grabs the feather. With a shimmering curl of air, it’s gone.

What did you pray for? He wants to ask. But that is between her and her pagan gods.

Em plays with the tea bag string. Finally, she says, “I'm going to start breakfast. Come inside if the smell of biscuits won't bother you.”

She holds the door open for the cat to follow them but it stares back with blank indifference. Another bird chirps, closer, and the cat’s teeth give a series of rattling clicks.

She shrugs, “All right, then, suit yourself.”

Em hums while she measures out flour and dices cold butter. Other than asking if he drinks tea, she seems content to let him simply be here in her space. He watches as she uses a mug to cut the dough into rounds. She slides a sheet into the oven with smooth automatic motions as though the calm and ordinary turns of life could be drawn like a paper screen over this maelstrom of change.

Above him, Diana’s heart beats, speeding and then slowing in familiar circuits as she sleeps. The light in the room warms to stronger slants that set the stained glass pieces aflame.

With a sudden immediacy, he hears Diana give an indrawn gasp and then, after a pause, a yawn that sounds like she was in the room rather than two floors away.

Em laughs and pulls the biscuits from the oven.

“You see now what I mean? Sometimes you can hear a sigh from the attic. Other times, well, let’s say the house understands the value of a little privacy. But it always let us know when she was awake as a child and I suppose it’s never lost the habit.”

Em cuts a biscuit and drizzles it with honey that still carries the scent of wildflowers—a trace of anise from end-of-summer goldenrod and the sage-like smell of aster. She adds a cup of tea to the tray that she slides towards him for Diana.

“The house likes you well enough. Ask her about the boy she tried to sneak in once if you want to hear what happens when the house thinks otherwise.”

Matthew traps the sound deep in his chest that’s triggered by the thought of other hands touching her and retreats back upstairs. He drops their clothes on the chest at the foot of the bed and leaves the tray on a side table for her.

Diana’s past is her own and she’ll tell him in time or she won’t as she chooses.

But as he crawls back into her bed in this gabled room where the air is still tinged with the desire he drew from her open, quivering body, he kisses her wrists, one after the other.

He leans in to kiss her throat while her fingers card through his hair with a sleepy and contented slowness.

All the while, her heartbeat sounds in his ears like the toiling of a clear and solemn church bell.

Terce

(Later, dying, he’ll hear Diana’s prayer as from a terrible distance. The air will shimmer with gold. She’ll press her torn open skin against his mouth—don’t—forcing her blood onto his tongue until the clamorous speed of her heart is the only sound left on earth. She’ll curl her small light body forward, around him.

Death marriage birth he’ll think in a confused rush as his teeth sink into the skin of her neck, so fragile, so yielding.

I won’t let you—

Blood on his hands, splattered everywhere, the arterial gushes of her emptying heart—

God—save me from doing this.

But the only answer he gets from God is more blood, always blood, despite everything.)

[makayla-angelic]

Jashi Week-Day 4-Rain

The Force Between Us

Summary: Jack and Ashi comfort each other in the midst of a powerful Nor’easter. Modern AU.

“Many cities and counties across the East Coast remain in a state of emergency and under tornado watch as Perfect Storm Ikra moves across the area in an estimated three to four day period. High hurricane force winds with gusts reaching up to eighty miles per hour and rainfall totaling up to ten inches, as well as a flood warning issued for people on and near the outer bank region. If you plan on riding out this storm in your home, be sure to stock up on water, non-perishable food, batteries, flashlight, first aid kit, and a back-up generator. Move away from windows and watch for flying debris. More news at eight.”

Jack and Ashi watched this on the Weather Channel as they sat downstairs in the living room huddled together. The rain had started in the afternoon, but it hadn’t gotten heavy until two hours ago. Seeing that this storm had planned to last for over a three to four day period, Jack and Ashi knew they were in a rough ride. Jack had suggested that she and Ashi get the sleeping bags and extra blankets from their closet upstairs and bring whatever else they needed downstairs. Jack didn’t want him and her to be in the upstairs bedroom in case the wind took the roof off or something. They placed their phones on the charger because they knew the storm could knock out the power any second now and they wanted to get as much battery power as they could.

“If the power goes out, what do we do? We have everything BUT a back-up generator,” said Ashi in a concerned tone.

“We’ll just have to make do with flashlights,” said Jack. “I have that LED lamp I got from Lowes not too long ago, and we also have those little fake light up Christmas candles my mom gave us.”

“That’s true,” said Ashi. And she was also thinking about food. “What about the stove?”

“Well, we have the lighter,” said Jack. “If the gas still works all we have to do it light the gas with the lighter and we can heat up some food, like a can of beans and frank or something.”

“And, we have bottles of water,” said Ashi. “We have also have-”

Before Ashi could finish her sentence, the power went out and the house went dark. There was silence as they sat frozen for a seconds, nothing but the sound of the rain and wind beating against the window sharply.

“Welp,” said Jack. “There goes that.

Ashi sighed. The power was out, and there was no telling when it would come back on.

Jack let out a little chuckle and rubbed her back. “I’ll get the lamp and flashlights.”

Ashi removed her and Jack’s phones from the charger. There was no point in keeping it on now. Jack brought in the flashlight and lamp, and he put in the batteries. A bright light filled the house as they came on.

“Well, they work,” said Jack. “And wonderfully too.”

“So, what now?” asked Ashi, taking the flashlight.

“We haven’t much of a choice now but to wait it out,” said Jack.

Suddenly, a crashing noise came from the backyard. Jack’s eyes went wide.

“Oh crap, I forgot to bring the lawn chairs inside! That’s what I forgot!” cried Jack. He jumped up, put on some rain boots and a hooded jacket, and went to go outside.

“Be careful, honey,” said Ashi.

Outside, Jack was greeted with the strong push of the wind against him. It felt like invisible hands were fighting against him, as he pressed forward through the muddy backyard and cold rain, towards the tumbled over lawn chairs that had made their way toward the fence. Jack leaned down and picked up each heavy chair and folded them over, then he tried to pick up both in his arms at the same time. Ashi was watching him from the window. She didn’t think what Jack was doing was a good idea. Why didn’t he carry one at a time? Ashi went over to the back door and cracked it open.

“Jack!” She yelled out into the storm. “Just carry it in one at a time!”

Jack could barely hear her as he creeped toward the door Ashi had cracked open. Suddenly, a strong wind yanked the screen door from Ashi’s hand, and the frame swung backwards and hit Jack right square in the middle of his forehead.

“Jack!” Ashi cried as Jack dropped the chairs in surprise and his hand went to his forehead. Ashi grabbed Jack as Jack sucked his teeth in pain. Jack removed his hand and a trail of blood snaked down his forehead. Forgetting about the lawn chairs, Ashi helped Jack inside the house, and led him into the bathroom.

“Well, that happened,” said Jack.

“The wind just snatched the door out of my hand,” said Ashi. “I’m sorry.”

“Baby it’s okay,” said Jack. “It’s not your fault.”

Ashi used to flashlight to help locate the first aid kit. She pulled it out, and then took out some gauze, some alcohol wipes and ointment, and a large band-aid. Ashi used a piece of gaze to carefully wipe away the blood on Jack’s forehead that was dripping down his face. Ashi then opened an alcohol wipe and began cleaning Jack’s wound. Jack flinched in pain.

“I know it hurts baby but I have to make sure there are no germs inside,” said Ashi.

Jack smiled lightly at her. Next, after washing her hands, Ashi used the ointment and applied some on the tip of her finger and spread it evenly across Jack’s wound. Lastly, she placed the large band aid over top. She gave a small kiss on his forehead over the band-aid. Jack chuckled lightly.

“I hope no more injuries happen during the rest of the course of this storm,” said Ashi.

“Me neither,” said Jack. “So, who’s hungry?”

Ashi searched through the pantry for something quick to fix up for her and Jack to eat. She pulled out a box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, and Spaghetti O’s.

“Which one do you want?” asked Ashi, holding them up before Jack.

“Eh, Spaghetti O’s is fine for me,” said Jack.

So Ashi lit the burner with the lighter after she cut the gas on and then poured the food out of the jumbo sized can and stirred it around so it would heat up evenly.

“Looks like we might have to throw some of our food and dairy products out, such as the milk, and the cheese,” said Ashi as she opened the fridge and took out a carton of mango juice for her and Jack to drink.

“Yeah,” said Jack. “It’s always frustrating when the power goes out. That’s why it’s best to keep the fridge closed as long as possible during times like these.”

After Jack and Ashi ate, they washed the dishes in some heated up stove water, and then Ashi made a phone call to her parents using the main landline house phone. Luckily, it was still working, and she wanted to save as much cell phone battery as possible.

“Are you guys okay?” asked Ashi.

“Yeah, we’re alright, our powers out too, but we have a back up generator,” said Ashi’s mother.

“You do? Oh, well, Jack and I could pack our bags and come stay with you,” said Ashi.

“Not in this storm,” said Ashi’s mother firmly. “It’s very dangerous to walk outside, let alone drive in it, so, it’s best for you to stay where you are at, and if your power hasn’t come back on by the time the storm’s over or so, then you can come over.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” said Ashi. “I hope our power comes back on soon.”

“Me too sweetie, I hope you and Jack are alright.” said Ashi’s mother.

“Well...” began Ashi.

“What? What happened?” asked Ashi’s mother frantically.

“ Jack was trying to bring all the lawn chairs inside the house all at once and I was holding the door open when the wind came in a strong gust and pulled the door from my hand, and hit Jack on the forehead,” said Ashi.

“Oh no! Oh dear! Is he alright?” asked Ashi’s mother.

“He’s fine,” said Ashi. “Just a small cut with some bleeding. I cleaned it, put ointment on it, then bandaged it, and we carried on fine and had some dinner.”

“I’m glad he’s alright,” said Ashi’s mother. “And you too.”

“Thank you,” said Ashi.

Ashi stayed on the phone a little while with her mother, then she talked to her father, and then she called her sisters, they were all camped over at Avi’s house, who lived closest inland, and she had power too. Jack called his parents to check on them, and they were alright as well.

“I swear, everyone has power except us!” cried Ashi.

“It seems that way, but there’s plenty of other people who don’t,” said Jack. “We just have to ride out the storm.”

Ashi snuggled into Jack’s arms. “And I’m here with you.”

Day 2

The rain and wind was still going strong when Jack and Ashi woke up the next morning. Ashi arose from her sleeping bag and went to go look outside. It looked like a little river was flowing down their street as the rain continued to pitter patter on and on. It made her think of the movie Spirited Away, when it had rained so much that the bath house was surrounded by water. Ashi left the window and wandered back into the kitchen. What to eat for breakfast? She opened the dark fridge and felt that the milk was still slightly cold, but she knew it wouldn’t be for long. As she made herself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, Jack came in and gave her a kiss.

“Well, one thing I can say about a rainstorm, it sure makes you sleep like a baby,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Ashi.

After eating, Jack and Ashi sat on the couch. 

“So, what now?” asked Ashi.

“I guess we could play a game or something,” asked Jack.

“A game like what?” asked Ashi.

“How about a classic match of Eye Spy?” asked Jack.

“Oh come on, really? Eye Spy?” said Ashi.

“Yes, I mean it,” said Jack. “Sometimes reminiscing with old childhood games are fun.”

Ashi sighed. What did she have to lose? If she was going to be stuck inside the house for the next two days or so without going nuts, she might as well do something

“Eye Spy, with my little eye, something red,” said Jack.

“The Flowers on the table?” asked Ashi.

“Nope,”

“My slippers by the stairwell?”

“Nope,”

“ This red pen?”

“Your lips,” said Jack with a smile.

Ashi blushed slightly, and then gave Jack a kiss.

“My turn,” said Ashi, sitting cross-legged on the couch. “Eye spy, with my little eye, something tan colored.”

“This couch we’re sitting on?” asked Jack.

“Nope,” said Ashi.

“The picture frame on the wall?”

“Nope,”

“I don’t know, this napkin on the coffee table,” said Jack giving up.

“The band-aid on your forehead,” said Ashi with a giggle.

“Oh really, come on,” said Jack, playfully. “Don’t make fun of me.”

After they finished Eye Spy, Jack asked Ashi what she wanted to do next.

“We have some board games in the closet for when family and guests come over,” said Ashi.

“Let’s take a look at that,” said Jack.

Jack and Ashi searched through all the games they had.

“Let’s play Would You Rather,” said Ashi.

“Sounds good to me,” said Jack.

They played Would You Rather and other games until noon, and then Ashi made them lunch. They got the bread, peanut butter, and grape jelly out of the pantry and made PB and J’s.

“Man, I wish we could watch TV or something,” said Jack. “But we don’t have a back-up generator.”

“Yeah, it’s all your fault,” said Ashi playfully, with a smirk on her face toward Jack. “Well, think of it like this. Little house on the prairie days there was nothing but the outdoors, books, parties, gatherings, and plays for entertainment.”

“Sure was,” said Ashi.

But after another hour of not much to do, Jack and Ashi cracked and whipped out their phones and started playing games that they downloaded. By the time they finished they both had near low batteries.

“I’m on thirty percent, how about you?” asked Ashi.

“Mine is on nineteen percent,” said Jack. “Looks like your phone lasts longer than mine.”

“Well, not much more we can do,” said Ashi. “Once our batteries are dead they will stay dead until the power comes back on. The best thing we can do now is switch to battery save mode and save what little energy we have left.”

So Jack and Ashi did just that. At around nine PM, they decided to call it quits and go to bed. They rolled out their sleeping bags and pillows again and crawled into them. The rain and wind had settled down for the time being, but was slowly picking back up again.

“I miss our bed,” said Ashi quietly.

“I know honey, me too,” said Jack. “But soon the storm will be over and we’ll have power again soon as well.”

Jack reached over and grabbed Ashi’s hand, and they both fell asleep like that, hand in hand.

Day 3

The third day was not much different, except that there seemed to be more rain than wind.

“The weatherman said that storm could be clearing out as early as tonight,” said Jack. “So let’s say our prayers.”

They ate a granola bar and had some mango juice to drink for breakfast, then sat back on the couch. Ashi read a book, and so did Jack. Some time after, Jack removed the band-aid to peer at his injury. It looked it was healing nicely already, and he applied some more ointment to it, and then let it be. He wanted the wound to have a chance to breathe.

“Want to watch movies on my laptop?” asked Ashi. She had been saving the battery energy on that as well, but now she was feeling fed up, and needed something more to do. So did Jack.

They watched movies on Ashi’s laptop until the battery was near dead. They had the rest of the Spaghetti O’s jar for lunch, and then played another round of Eye Spy and Would You Rather.

“Tell me a story Jack,” said Ashi as she laid her head on Jack’s chest. “Any story.”

Jack held her close and told her funny stories about things he did as a child that he thought he wouldn’t get busted for but his parents found out. Around 6PM, the rain and wind began to die down completely! Jack and Ashi were excited. Perhaps soon the power would come back on.

“I bet your sisters are probably living it up right now,” said Jack.

Ashi sighed. She could only imagine what fun they were having.

“I want to go over there, or to your parents house or mine,” said Ashi as she peered out the window. “But we try to drive out there now, water will surely get under the hood of the car and mess up the engine, then we’d have a dead car.”

“I don’t think we got ten inches,” said Jack. “But we’ve got plenty, that’s for sure.”

“I can only imagine those living the closest to the beach and on it must be suffering the worst,” said Ashi.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they had most people on that side evacuate,” said Jack.

There was ringing from the phone in the kitchen and Jack answered it. It was his mother.

“Hey, the storm is dying down early. How are you and Ashi holding up?” his mother asked.

“We’re losing our marbles,” said Jack honestly. “But I guess you can say we’re hanging in there.”

“Yeah. I would ask you two if you could come over here where’s there power and hot water but trying to drive your vehicle through all that flood water probably isn’t the smartest choice, and there’s objects and other debris in the water as well,” said Jack’s mother.

“What else has the news channel been saying?” asked Jack.

“So far, in the past two days since, there’s been over 50 confirmed injuries, and two people have died. Over 5,000 people are without power and over 37 people had to be rescued from their cars from the flood waters,” said Jack’s mother sadly.

“Jesus,” said Jack in a concerned tone. “This storm has been no joke. I hope nothing else happens.”

“Me too,” said Jack.

Day 4

The night was mostly light wind and rain, but in the morning all was silent. Could it be? Ashi thought. Was the storm truly coming to an end? Would they be seeing the light of day soon? Ashi looked out the window once more and to her wonderful surprise, a bit of sunshine was peeking through the gray clouds. The storm was coming to an end! However, flood water was everywhere. All down the street, throughout the whole neighborhood was flood. Ashi chatted with a fellow neighbor from across the street from afar and they said it would probably be a few more days before the water receded. That afternoon, Jack and Ashi were yet again playing another round of would you rather, when the power came back on. They cheered and hugged and kissed in happiness, and both celebrated by taking a shower, with hot water. It felt refreshing to have the AC running, the fridge working, even though they had to throw the milk, cheese, and frozen meats out, and the TV on. A helicopter passed over their neighborhood, recording damage to show live on the news channel. 

After another three days of being stuck inside the house, but with electricity, Jack and Ashi went to the store to get groceries for the house. It felt refreshing to bring home food and other supplies from the store, and fill up your fridge and pantry. Jack and Ashi knew, they were lucky. The following day, Jack’s parents, and Ashi’s parents, along with Ashi’s sisters came over to their house, and they all celebrated with lasagna for dinner. That night, after the festives were over, Jack and Ashi lay in their bed, thinking.

“I’m so glad we survived the storm,” said Ashi.

“Me too,” said Jack. “Nothing can stop us, huh?”

“Nope,” said Ashi. “Nothing. However, come this winter, I’m really gonna need you to have that back-up generator.”

“Hm, you gonna bug me about it until I do?” asked Jack.

“Oh yes, and then some,” said Ashi. “Goodnight honey.”

Jack laughed. “Goodnight Ashi, I love you,”

“I love you too,” said Ashi.

As if things couldn’t get coincidental enough, I was driving home from work early yesterday evening around 7PM, and I got an EAS alert on my phone telling me there was a tornado warning in my area. I wanted to get home as fast as I could, so I started driving carefully through the pouring couldn’t barely see rain. As I neared closer to my house, the sky turned a greenish-gray color and I heard windy roar that sounded like a train. I knew in an instant that it was the tornado near me!!! I didn’t know whether to stop and pull over or keep driving! Luckily, I made it home and took shelter in the downstairs bathroom of my house until the warning stopped. The tornado happened about only a mile or so from where I was driving coming home, maybe even less. That’s why I could hear that awful roar. Well, as you can see, I’m home safe, my parents are home safe, and everything’s alright, except for where the tornado hit. With that being said, here’s a tip for any of my fellow Jashians reading this; if you see a dark greenish-grayish color cast to the clouds in the sky, rotating, spinning clouds, and wind that sounds like a train horn, it’s VERY possible it could be a tornado close by. So, take shelter in a windowless area! As always, see you in the next prompt!

-Makayla <3

[ener-chi]

For paid astral reading: Ruby R, brown eyes, and nonbinary. Sending good energy your way ❤ glad to see you offering these ❤❤

Hi! Thanks for the request! Sorry about the wait, I only have time to do these on the weekends, as the reading usually takes about an hour. Alright let’s jump in:

I see… a girl… mm… no… a figure… medium height… shortish hair… brown? Maybe some color in it… I know they are non-binary, but I am getting slightly more feminine energy than masculine energy… so I will call them “her/she” for the rest of the  reading, to make it easier…

She is… leaning… on a wall… hands in pockets… a very casual, cool vibe… energetic… emphatic… but also very kind and open to everyone…

She sees me, smiles, and winks…

Transition…

I see… the girl… walking… on sidewalk in the city… hands in pockets… headphones… sunglasses… the busy is bustling around them… kind of noisy… but to her all she can hear is her music… can’t quite hear the song… but it is pop and synthy…

Alright, I am ready… the scene begins to shutter… up we go…

I find myself in front of… some tinted glass doors… I open them…

I cover my eyes, not used to the brightness… my eyes focus… I see… a butterfly… yellow… fluttering through the air… my gaze turns downwards… I… am on kind of a cliff… patchy with grass, dirt, and sand… I take in the landscape… the cliff that am on runs in either direction… I am maybe… 200 ft above a kind of rocky beach, and a blue ocean stretches out to the horizon…

The air is cool… a light breeze blows across my face… I am wearing a tank top and shorts, with chacos… interesting, not an outfit that I’d usually wear… I also have a backpack slung over my right shoulder… I take it off and open it… a beach towel… portable camping chair… water… sunscreen… sunglasses… clearly I need to go down to the beach… I put on my sunglasses and put the rest of the way and sling on the backpack…

I step to the edge of the cliff and look down, trying to see if there is a way down… the dirt is pretty steep, the cliff itself more made of dirt than anything, probably too crumbly to climb down… oh wait, duh… I close my eyes, I fade, then reappear below, on the beach…

The waves lap against the rocks… the water sizzling as the waves break and water shoots up the sand…

I walk along the sand, looking for my person…

As I’m walking, I see a lighthouse loom in the distance, and I suddenly know that I must go there…

I close my eyes… I fade, then appear at the beach near the lighthouse. The lighthouse itself is tall and white, with 2 red stripes coiling up the tower. The base extends a little bit in a square, probably for someone to live there.

I climb up the small slope up to the terrace where the tower is. I come around to the house portion of the tower, I walk by some small, old windows. I come around to a narrow, white door and knock. I hear some scuttling inside. The door swings open.

“umm, hello?”

The person… is short, maybe 5'4… they appear feminine… she has thick, auburn hair… it’s short, coming down to her shoulders, with some locks coming down the front of her face… her face has very soft features… seems kind of small… has sharp cheekbones and a set chin… she is wearing… a white t shirt, blue overalls… black boots…  she seems… mid-20’s, I’d say.

“Yes, hi. I uh I was walking along the beach and saw the lighthouse and how wonderful it looked and thought that I would like to visit. Do you live here?”

“oh, yes, I do,” the woman says, her energy relaxing. “Come on in, I’ll show you around,” she says, opening the door and going in.

I follow her in. The quarters are very small, a cramped kitchen with an old gas stove/oven, a small table and two wooden chairs. The windows I saw earlier are over the kitchen, which look out to the sea, a wonderful, sparking view. Further into the room there is a staircase that winds upwards, and to the right of that is a wooden door, which I assume leads to a bedroom. The entire room and everything in it feels very old and weathered, as if it’s from the late 19th century.

“would you like some tea?” she asks, rummaging through some cupboards.

“sure, that would be lovely, thank you,” I say, pulling out the wooden chair and sitting down. She pulls out an old ceramic kettle and puts it on the stove and grabs some matches.

“so I know this might be an obvious question, but I have to ask; so you live here, do you also operate the lighthouse?”

“yes, I do,” she says, turning and leaning against the counter. “It used to belong to a friend of my uncles, whos’ daddy owned it before he did. Well, he dint want it anymore and I heard from my uncle that he was looking for a new tenant and I jumped at the chance.”

“Can I ask why? It seems pretty isolated out here”

“That’s exactly why. I love my own space, being out here with the ocean the birds, the fresh air. Of course, there are times I like to talk to people, but for times like that there is a small town full of good folk a couple of miles away, and of course I get the occasional visitor like you. Here you go,” she says, putting a small mug on the table and pouring some piping hot tea into it.

“Thank you, ” I say.  "Can I see the top of the tower? Where the light is?“

"Sure, I’ll show you,” she says, grabbing mug and walking up the old plank stairs. I follow her up a windy staircase, my footsteps echoing. We come up to the top and go through a door and I find myself inside a very large, spacious room. In the center, of course, is a cement cylinder with a pyre on the top, and a weird contraption that I can’t describe above that. The rest of the room is empty, wooden floors, and tall glass window panes all the way around.

She walks to one of the panes and opens it. I follow her and go outside, a metal railing running all the way around the tower. I join her on the railing at the front of the tower, looking out at the sea. The wind is a little bit stronger up here, a little bit more chilly. I blow on my tea and take a sip.

“Wow… it’s quite a view”

“yes it is, isn’t it?” she says, a wistful smile on her face as she leans over the railing.

“Did you always want to live and work in a lighthouse or did it just seem right when the opportunity presented itself?”

“Yeah, it was like that. I’ve always loved helping people, and I’ve always wanted to do that, but I just could never find the right job for me. When the opportunity came, it just… spoke, to me. I mean, that’s what lighthouses do, they guide you in, right? Well, I guess I was no exception.”

“So do you help a lot of people then?”

“Sometimes. Not often, but when I do, it makes me warm inside knowing that I got to help a lost soul.”

“You mean ship?”

“No, lost soul. You do know where we are, right?” she says, turning and looking at me intently. I chuckle.

“yes, I know where we are. I guess I’ve never thought of having lighthouses being the thing to help guide lost souls.”

“Something has to help let people know that they are nearing dangerous, rocky waters. I like to be that person, to let them know, and to help them steer back on their proper course.”

“That’s very noble of you.”

“Thank you. Like I said, I like to help people. What was your name again?”

“You can call me zhu,” I say, finishing my tea.

“Well, thank you for visiting, zhu. I hope that you are able to find your way” The young woman smiles warmly, giving me a small bow, the scene vibrating, a low roar rising in the distance, and suddenly everything is a blur and I’m spiraling downwards and now I’m in my bedroom.

Wow! That was so interesting! Okay, so just some notes here. This was an interesting reading in a lot of ways. First, I usually know where I’m going to meet the person when I first enter the astral, I thought we were going to meet on the beach so I was totally surprised when I saw a lighthouse! I did my best to try and describe the area, it kind of feels like on the rocky shores of like Ireland or something, not too sure. Anyways, the other thing that was interesting was how conversation-heavy the reading was. We talked a lot! Conversation isn’t usually my strong-suit, but our banter was crystal-clear to me.

It appears that the lighthouse ended up being a lot deeper than that towards the end, more of a spiritual lighthouse, although still literally a lighthouse? Not too sure on how that works, things work differently in the astral. Anyways, I’m not too sure on how to interpret that, so I will leave that to you.

Overall, thank you for the request! This was a great reading, thank you for the tea. I hope that this resonates!

Blessings!

[marieandjou]

Fireplace Safety Tips to Keep Your Fireplace Kid-Friendly

Having a fireplace in a family with small kids can be distressing for guardians. A few guardians may venture to such an extreme as to try not to utilize their fireplace for quite a long time out of dread of their youngsters getting injured.

In any case, there are approaches to infant confirmation your fireplace so you can in any case appreciate warm fires without the concern of your little one getting excessively near the flares.

You can either settle on a protected electric fireplace or follow this manual for make your fireplace kid-accommodating.

Fireplace Dangers for Toddlers

Here are the perils of fireplaces for small kids, and why your fireplace needs infant sealing:

Consumes from hot ashes, contacting hot glass, or getting excessively near the flares

Stumbling perils on ventured fireplace hearths

Sharp corners on hearths

Sharp fireplace instruments

Debris

Carbon monoxide harming

Gas spills

Air toxins from hindered stacks and vents

Fragments from firewood put away close to the fireplace

Fireplace Safety Tips

To guarantee your kids stay protected around your fireplace, follow these fireplace wellbeing tips:

Try not to let little youngsters be close to your fireplace.

Make a boundary around the fireplace to forestall contact with hot surfaces. Additionally, be wary of contact consumes from wood ovens, radiators, stove entryways, irons, and hair curlers.

Eliminate stumbling risks and cover sharp corners, for example, setting froth covers on the edges of a fireplace hearth when the fireplace isn't being used.

Show your children the threats of fire.

Ensure the fireplace damper or pipe is open prior to lighting a fire, and keep it open until the fire it out to keep smoke out of your home.

Keep a window aired out if conceivable while having a fire.

Keep every combustible article, decorations, and style away from the fireplace.

Keep matches, lighters, or fireplace controllers out of your kid's span.

Clean your fireplace of cinders consistently, putting away remains in a fireproof holder (for example a metal can with a protected top).

Have a yearly fireplace and smokestack assessment and cleaning by an expert.

Try not to leave fires unattended.

Keep fireplace apparatuses far from kids.

Introduce smoke finders and carbon monoxide identifiers, testing them month to month and changing the batteries in any event once every year.

Keep a fire douser in a simple to-get to area.

Here are instruments to help infant proof a fireplace:

Fireplace Screens

Fireplace security screens decrease the danger of consumes by giving a boundary between the fireplace and little youngsters.

Unattached fireplace screens can fall over, so utilize a security screen designed for establishment on your fireplace all things being equal.

Fireplace Gates

A fireplace entryway is an infant door implied for use before fireplaces. The most secure fireplace entryways are gotten to the dividers, so you don't need to stress over the doors falling over. These entryways accompany a safe entryway that opens so you can keep an eye on the fire.

In the event that you have a wood-consuming fireplace, introduce the door further back to keep your little one far away from flying ashes.

Fireplace entryways shield your children from:

Falling into the fireplace;

Flying ashes;

Hot glass, if there are glass entryways on your fireplace;

Sharp edges on ventured hearths; and,

Sharp fireplace apparatuses for wood-consuming fireplaces.

Fireplace Door Locks

A fireplace entryway lock mounts over the handles of fireplace entryways and safely bolts them until you are prepared to utilize your fireplace. These entryway secures keep kids from getting in the fireplace and ingesting debris. The entryway bolts additionally keep kids from having their fingers squeezed in the entryways.

Hearth Guards

Hearth watches cushion the sharp edges of fireplace hearths, for example, on ventured hearths. These gatekeepers are regularly made with fire resistant materials so you can keep the watchmen on while utilizing your fireplace.

Hearth monitors clip onto the edge of the hearth, are flexible, and come in various tones to suit your hearth and inside stylistic theme.

Child Proofing Glass Fireplace Doors

Glass entryways get cooking hot—up to 500˚F—causing serious consumes whenever contacted. Furthermore, the glass can stay hot for some time after the flares go out.

So utilize a security boundary screen before glass fireplace ways to keep little children at a protected distance and keep them from interacting with the hot glass.

Carbon Monoxide Detectors

Carbon monoxide (CO) locators are an unquestionable requirement for homes with fireplaces. Carbon monoxide is a quiet executioner, which means you will not have the option to see or smell if there is a risky measure of CO in your home.

Kids are particularly defenseless against carbon monoxide harming in light of their little size. So keep a carbon monoxide identifier on each floor of your home (alongside smoke finders).

Rehearsing A Fire Escape Plan

All families ought to have a fire get away from plan, regardless of whether they don't have a fireplace, and particularly on the off chance that they do.

A fire get away from plan will assist your youngsters with figuring out how to get away from the home securely in case of a fire. Consider purchasing fire get away from stepping stools if your child's room is on the second floor of your home. Furthermore, practice your fire get away from plan frequently so you and your family will be more ready if there should arise an occurrence of a fire.

Having little youngsters in a home with a fireplace can be nerve-wracking. However, with the legitimate security insurances, you can child evidence your fireplace and guarantee that all children are protected.

With these security tips, you don't need to quit utilizing your adored fireplace for quite a long time until your youngsters are developed. All things considered, you can appreciate numerous seasons in the warm shine of the fireplace with your family comfortable and safe.

[xtruss]

Car Camping Stoves

Whether you’re a camping aficionado or a newbie, good food makes the experience a lot more fun. Read our review of camp stoves for car camping:

— By Cook’s Illustrated | February 14, 2020

How We Tested

Ah, the great outdoors! While fresh air, exercise, and communing with nature all have their benefits, if you’re like me, the best part of camping is the food. Sure, food is a survival necessity, but there’s nothing quite like chowing down on a bowl of chili near the fire or waking up to mountain views and the smell of freshly made pancakes. However, unless you’re adept at live-fire cooking, you can’t enjoy camp food without a camp stove.

The Difference Between Backcountry Stoves and Car Camping Stoves

Camping stoves fall into two categories: backcountry stoves and car camping stoves (also called “base camp” stoves). Backcountry stoves, which need to be extremely light and compact because they’re meant for carrying with you while hiking, are usually small apparatuses that sit on top of a fuel container and can hold one small pot. While you can cook meals on backcountry stoves with some finesse, they’re primarily meant for boiling water to add to ready-to-eat foods. Car camping stoves, referred to as such since you take them in your car to your campsite, are heavier than backcountry stoves and have one to three burners. For this testing, we focused on car camping stoves because they’re more versatile for campers interested in cooking. We tested eight models, priced from about $45 to about $240, and used them to boil water, make Easy Ground Beef Chili, prepare Perfect Scrambled Eggs, cook 1 pound of bacon, and make pancakes. Since it was also essential to see how the stoves performed in the wild, we also asked testers to take the stoves with them to camp sites around New England.

Unpacking and Lighting Camp Stoves

Most camp stoves operate using a small fuel canister that you purchase separately. Many of the models we tested use propane, just like a gas grill, but in smaller containers. One stove required isopropane-butane (a mixture of different fuels usually sold in canisters at outdoor stores such as REI), and another could be operated with either propane or butane. We also included one camp stove fueled by wood; we were intrigued by its innovative design that uses heat from the fire to power a battery that can charge your phone or power a USB light.

Butane and fuel mixtures such as isopropane-butane are often preferred for backcountry stoves because the cans are lighter to carry, but for car camping, where the weight of your gear doesn’t matter as much, propane is the most versatile option. Unlike butane, propane works at high altitudes and in temperatures below freezing. While we didn’t base our ratings on the type of fuel a stove required, it’s worth noting that 1-pound propane tanks for camping are much easier to find than butane canisters.

Since camp stoves are essential for survival tasks such as boiling water for drinking, a camp stove should be easy to set up and ignite. However, we immediately encountered major difficulties while trying to start three of the stoves. We had to turn one stove upside down to attach its fuel canisters, and its flimsy knobs were easily knocked out of place, sending fuel spraying all over the fabric sides of the stove. It took three testers poring over the manual to figure out how to place the fuel canisters properly. Even then, this stove felt precarious to cook on; pans wobbled on its high, narrow cooking surface, and its thin wire control knobs shaped like paper clips bent when we turned them, making it impossible to judge when the gas was fully turned off. Professional cooks felt uncomfortable lighting and cooking on the stove, and we ultimately concluded it wasn’t safe to continue testing this model.

One model had a finicky design that made it difficult to attach the fuel tank to the stove. If the fuel tank wasn't placed perfectly, it triggered a glitchy safety system. Each time the safety system tripped, we had to remove the fuel canister from the stove, reset the safety system, and try again. It took 12 tries to get just one of its burners lit; we had the same issue with its other burner.

While gathering branches and twigs for the wood-fired camp stove sounded fun in theory, it was more of a chore in practice. If you’re in an area with limited wood, or you run out at night, you’re out of luck. And while you can, in theory, purchase wood logs to use in this stove, you have to break them down with a hatchet into tiny 2-inch-long pieces that fit into the stove’s very small opening. One tester reported chopping wood for hours to power the grill through a dinner of burgers, sausage, and focaccia. We preferred stoves that we could set up and light quickly. We also liked stoves with automatic igniter buttons; they felt safer to use than stoves that we had to light with a match or utility grill lighter, and it was nice not to have to rummage around for a lighter.

Cooking on a Camp Stove

Before doing any cooking tests, we wanted to test each stove’s heat output by seeing how long it took each model to boil a quart of water. The burner power of the stoves we tested ranged from 8,000 BTUs (British Thermal Units) per burner to 20,000 BTUs per burner. Once lit and set to their highest heat setting, the stoves took from 4 to 11 minutes to boil the water, and these times correlated directly with each stove’s reported BTUs. The 20,000-BTU model was able to boil water in just 4 minutes at high heat. The 8,000-BTU model took the longest to boil water, followed by the wood-burning stove. (The wood-burning stove’s heat output cannot be measured in BTUs because the level of the fire built inside it can vary. However, even when positioned over a roaring fire, the pot of water took more than 10 minutes to boil, and that was after waiting 20 minutes for the stove to preheat.)

While we preferred ripping-hot stoves that could boil water in minutes, the burners had to be responsive enough to accommodate a variety of high- and low-heat cooking tasks. We wanted a stove that could be turned down to low to gently simmer chili without scorching it and cook pancakes without burning them. This proved difficult on many of the stoves. Unlike home stoves that have knobs with numbers or clearly labeled low, medium, and high heat settings, many of the camp stoves had completely unlabeled or ambiguous knobs. Some turned as many as three complete rotations from off to high heat, so it was hard to figure out a low or medium heat setting. Three of the stoves were so finicky that when we tried turning down their heat levels, we often turned off the gas supply instead. A few stoves scorched the chili even when we adjusted the heat to its lowest setting.

Regulating heat levels on the wood-fired stove was also tricky. Heat generated by the wood fire activates a battery with helpful LED lights that tell you when the heat level is at its max, but the process of figuring out the right amount of wood to add at the right time was a delicate art. When the fire was at its peak, we were able to brown meat, but it was harder to regulate the stove’s flame during lower-heat tasks such as simmering chili and cooking pancakes. We preferred the simplicity of gas-powered models and liked products with clearly labeled knobs and responsive heat settings.

Evaluating Ease of Use

With limited resources out in the wilderness, a camp stove should be easy to use in all weather and with whatever cookware you have on hand. For this reason, we liked stoves with windscreens—flaps that can be positioned around the stove to prevent wind gusts from blowing out the flame. However, windscreens had a trade-off: They often limited the usable cooking surface of the stove.

We also preferred stoves with roomier cooking surfaces. While all the stoves had two burners (except the wood-fired stove, which had one, large, grill-like surface), we found that the cooking surfaces on some of the stoves were too small to accommodate two pans at a time. When we tried to cook bacon in a 12-inch skillet and eggs in a 10-inch skillet, the two pans often didn’t fit directly over the burners or hung awkwardly off the cooking surface, with the heat concentrated on one side of the pan. We liked large, roomy cooktops that offered a fair amount of space between the two burners and plenty of room for whatever pans we were cooking with. Finally, we liked stoves that we could wipe down and carry easily and fold up quickly and compactly.

The Best Car Camping Stove: The Camp Chef Mountain Series Everest High Pressure Two-Burner Stove

Our favorite car camping stove is the Camp Chef Mountain Series Everest High Pressure Two-Burner Stove. With 20,000 BTUs of power per burner and powered by easy-to-find propane, this stove boiled a quart of water in just about 4 minutes. Though it could get ripping hot for searing meat, the controls were easy to read and extremely responsive; we were able to quickly reduce the heat level to a gentle low for simmering chili or delicately scrambling eggs. It has all the extra features we like in a camp stove—an automatic igniter, a roomy cooking surface, and a windscreen—so you can enjoy the best part of camping, problem-free.

METHODOLOGY

Eight products, priced from about $45 to about $240, including five models that use propane, one that uses isopropane-butane, one that can use propane or butane, and one that uses wood

Time how long it takes to boil a quart of water on highest heat (repeat test on all burners)

Cook Easy Ground Beef Chili

Cook Perfect Scrambled Eggs

Cook 1 Pound of Bacon

Cook Pancakes

Test cooking surface roominess with pans of differing sizes

Have users test at at campsites throughout New England

Rating Criteria

Heating: We evaluated the quality of the food produced by each model, taking into account the power and responsiveness of the burners.

Ease of Use: We evaluated how the design and size of each stove and its features influenced its performance. A team of testers took the stoves camping and reported back on their usability in the wild.

Cleanup: We evaluated how easy the stoves were to clean.

[kashifqureshicom]

Ways to Detect and Prevent a Gas Leak at Home

Natural gas is a relatively safe and efficient source of energy that is used by the majority of homes in Pakistan for cooking. It is also the primary energy source for most water boilers in the country, even though electric boilers and hot plates are now commonly being installed in modern homes. The biggest risk of using natural gas, though, is the threat of a leak. Here’s how you can detect and prevent a gas leak in your home.

CAUSES OF A GAS LEAK

Inspect Your Gas Pipes for Damage or Rust Here are some of the primary causes of a gas leak: Faulty appliances, like boilers or ovensLoosely fitted gas pipesDamaged gas pipesAn unattended stove that’s been left turned onDamaged gas cylinder If you still have a gas lamp in your home that you turn on during a power outage or a gas heater for the winter months, leaving their gas shutoff valve on, without lighting the lamp or heater can also result in a gas leak. You also need to exercise caution when turning on your gas generator as a backup power supply and ensure that you turn off the supply when the electricity comes back on.

DANGERS ASSOCIATED WITH A GAS LEAK

Undetected Gas Leaks Can Lead to Fires and Explosions Gas leaks can be fatal if they are not detected in time. An undetected gas leak can pose the following risks: Adverse health effectsAccidental fireExplosionCarbon Monoxide (CO) poisoningDeath Since natural gas or CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is extremely flammable, a leak will cause it to spread in your immediate surroundings, and even the slightest spark can result in an uncontrollable inferno. Thousands of cases of gas fires, exploding gas cylinders, and fatalities caused due to CO poisoning and gas inhalation are reported every year. That’s why it is imperative for you to know how to detect and prevent a gas leak at home to protect your family.

HOW TO DETECT A GAS LEAK?

A Carbon Monoxide Detector Can Detect High Levels of the Gas The biggest problem associated with detecting a gas leak is that natural gas is transparent and doesn’t leave a trace, spreading into your environment with few to no signs and symptoms. Here are some major signs of a gas leak that you should keep your eye on vigilantly: THE SMELL OF ROTTEN EGGS Natural gas smells like rotten eggs, and if you can smell a strangely similar odour in your home, you should avoid striking a match and check all the gas valves and sources immediately. CHECK THE STOVE Natural gas is most commonly used in stovetops, and there is a chance that you might have left it turned on without lighting it. Thus, if you smell strange rotten odours, check the stove and all its dials first. HISSING OR WHISTLING SOUND If you’ve left a stovetop turned on, it’s pretty easy to detect the source of the leak. But if you can’t find the source, listen quietly in the area where the smell is the strongest, and you might hear a hissing or whistling sound that indicates that gas is leaking from a torn, damaged, or loose pipe. VISIBLE PIPE DAMAGE You might also be able to find a damaged pipe during your search for the source. If not, you might actually be able to see visible pipe damage that confirms your doubt about a gas leak once you’ve tracked the source of the leak. DAMAGED GAS CYLINDER Many homes in Pakistan in larger apartment complexes no longer have a direct gas pipeline. Instead, they’re provided with a gas cylinder for use that needs to be refilled once it’s empty. If you also have a gas cylinder at home, keep a sharp eye on its condition, as wear and tear can cause leaks. DEAD PLANTS If your indoor plants are dying or looking droopy, and you can also smell a funny odour in the house, then you have a gas leak on your hands. Natural gas will generally kill vegetation or damage it to the point where it cannot thrive. HEALTH EFFECTS Gas leaks can result in a number of adverse health effects, including some of the following: Difficulty in breathingDizzinessHeadachesWatery eyesIrritated throatNauseaReduced appetiteIrritabilityRinging in the earsNosebleeds People with weak immune systems, including children and the elderly are more prone to these effects. Moreover, anyone suffering from respiratory illnesses might also be at high risk due to a gas leak. Extreme cases of CO poisoning can also result in unconsciousness, and become fatal if immediate medical attention is not given. GAS LEAK DETECTOR Using a Carbon Monoxide detector is also a sure-fire way of detecting gas leaks. It’s also one of the many safety precautions that you should take when you have a generator in your home.

WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF A GAS LEAK?

Turn Off the Gas If You Suspect a Leak Protecting your family should be your top concern in case of a gas leak. If you fear that gas is leaking from a known or unknown source and is spreading through the house, here are some steps that you should take immediately: Turn off the gas supply at the source, which is the gas meterAvoid lighting a match or turning on the lights, as electrical circuits can cause a sparkOpen all of the doors and windows to air out the homeLeave the house with your family and go into the open to breathe some fresh airContact the gas supply representatives for assistance on 021-99021000 for Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and 042-99080000 for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).Call the helpline at 1199 from all over Pakistan for emergencies.

HOW TO PREVENT A GAS LEAK?

Call a Professional to Fix the Leak You need to detect and prevent a gas leak to safeguard your family. Here are some preventive measures to avoid a gas leak: Check all the appliances routinely for leaksInstall a gas leak detectorMaintain the gas cylinder regularly if you have oneCall a technician to inspect the supply if the flame in your burner or stove is yellow or orange, instead of the regular blue colourBe wary of musty and rotten smells coming near gas supply sourcesVentilate the area around the equipment that uses gas as its sourceCheck the batteries on the gas leak detector if you have installed one in your home Detect and prevent a gas leak in your home with the tips and tricks mentioned above. Always seek the help of a professional if you are unsure because protecting your family should be your primary concern. You can also check out how to apply for a new gas connection if you’ve recently moved homes. Stay tuned to My Blog for more helpful tips and tricks. You can share your feedback with me about my posts at kashifabidqureshi@gmail.com. Read the full article

[mel-loves-all]

Shoreline - Chapter 3 of 4

Olicity Navy Seal AU - rated M, for violence and sexy times.

Can a wounded Navy Seal find his way back to the living?

A/N: This is dedicated to all our warriors.  Previous chapters can be found HERE and AO3.

~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 3

“Yes,” came the sinfully breathless response of the woman Oliver had not been able to get out of his mind.  The one word made him forget every fear and insecurity he had had about going to her.  It also made him think of what sighs of pleasure would sound like on her lips.

She was even more beautiful with her hair down in waves.  She wore brown frame glasses that made the blue of her eyes stand out even more and a pretty summer dress that floated over her knees as she walked behind him.  Gone was her work persona and in its place was a woman who playfully asked him for help against the avalanche of male testosterone that filled the bar.  

She’d accepted his “help” and his hand.  Oliver nervously rubbed the fingers of his left hand together as he led her to the dance floor with his right.  She made him nervous.  She excited him.

She went easily into the loose circle of his arms as he turned and pulled her near.  Even with her wedge heels on, the top of her head only came up to his chin.

“Hello,”  their eyes met as they swayed to the reggae music playing on the jukebox.

“Hello,”

“I’m Oliver. Oliver Queen,”

“Felicity, Felicity Smoak,”

“I know,”

“You know?”

Oliver couldn’t help but smile at her question and he had to fight the urge to smooth away the adorable furrow of confusion on her forehead.

“You introduced yourself during the presentation,”  

“Oh, yes, I did didn’t I,” she chuckled.  “I’m sorry, I’m a bit...nervous,”

At her refreshing candor Oliver admitted, “Me too.”

“You are?”

“I’m a bit rusty...talking to a beautiful woman,” Oliver watched mesmerized as a shade of light pink bloomed on her cheeks at his words.

“I’ll try to be gentle,” she replied with a soft, beguiling smile that was all kinds of attractive.  God, the last thing he wanted was gentle as he watched her nibble on her plump lower lip.  Glistening cherry red lips that tempted him to have a taste.

Who was this woman who made his body hard and ready and his heart want to take chances?  He didn't know what he could offer her when so many shadows haunted him.  But she made him want to try.

“Wanna get out of here? Go for a drive?”

“Okay,”

~~~~~~

Before they left the bar, Felicity made sure the ladies had a way home and that they knew she was leaving with Oliver.   They cruised for a little bit listening to music as Oliver drove his jeep to the beach where they parked in a quiet, empty public parking lot.

The nearby waves glistened gray under the moon as they took part in a symphony of sounds that made for a beautiful night.

They talked for hours and found they had a lot in common.  Not just the understanding of military life and its pressures, but also the fact that coffee could be a delicacy and that Peyton Manning was one of the great quarterbacks of their generation.

“I’ve really enjoyed tonight,” Felicity said, and she found she really had.  She had never felt as comfortable with a person so quickly.   Oliver Queen wasn’t just a fascinating, handsome man, he was also a mystery...a bit of a puzzle.  She had always enjoyed a mystery.  

He had steered most of their conversation towards getting to know her.  Felicity certainly enjoyed being with a man who wanted to know about her, but...she sometimes caught a glimpse of sadness behind his gorgeous eyes.  When they had talked about Felicity’s brother and the sacrifice he had made in the line of duty, it hit Oliver harder than she expected.  Of course, a fellow soldier would understand and feel for another, but she sensed there was so much more...to the impact it had on him.  Something, painful.  She had to bite her tongue each time she wanted to ask him, deeper, more personal questions.

“Me too. Felicity, would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow?”  

“I would love to,”  Felicity grinned, a huge smile taking over her face.  He wanted to see her again and that made her want to do a happy dance.

“Good,”  he replied as he grinned back at her.  “I’ll cook.”

“You cook?”  Felicity asked as her jaw dropped open. Could this man be anymore perfect?  She would and could burn everything she touched in a kitchen.  Give her a rifle and she could hit a target at 800 meters, but give her a pan and a stove....nope.

“I cook,” Oliver laughed at her amazement.  

His laughter was sexy and contagious.  It cocooned her in its warmth and sensuality.  She loved the fact that she could make him happy.  And it also scared her how much she wanted to keep any sadness from touching him ever again.  

~~~~~~

Oliver’s thumb hovered over the screen of his iphone before he pressed the lock screen and slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans.  He had almost called Felicity and cancelled their dinner several times during the day after he woke to another nightmare that morning.  

He had been feeling so light and...happy, last night with her, that he had asked to see her again. He hadn’t laughed and smiled so much in so very long.  She was extremely attractive, funny, and intelligent.  She made him feel...good.  He almost felt like his old self.  

Almost.  Till he woke from a dream full of pain.  He was such a fool to bring her into his darkness.  She made him forget himself.  She made him forget that he didn’t deserve to feel light and happy.    

His friends were dead.  Elizabeth Lance was dead.  

He would ensure Felicity had a nice evening and then….then he would need to let her go.  He didn’t want to hurt her and the more time he spent with her...he knew he would end up hurting her.  

~~~~~~

“Hi,” Felicity said, as she kissed Oliver on the cheek when he greeted her at his front door.  He looked scrumptious in a navy blue t-shirt and faded jeans.  The scent of the ocean, coconut sunscreen and man surrounded her as Oliver’s eyes traced her face and lingered on her lips.  Lips that still tingled from the feel of his sexy, late afternoon scruff.  “Um, you have a beautiful home.  I’m so envious you live on the beach.”

“Thanks!  And thank you,” he replied as she handed him a chilled six pack of her favorite Mexican beer and he turned and led her into the beach style bungalow house.  “I’ve only just started to settle in more...when I was...on call with my team, I would be gone a lot.”

The catch in his voice as he talked about his team didn’t go unnoticed by Felicity, but she let it go.  Maybe he missed being in the field or maybe there was more to it.  She could wait.  They were getting to know each other and it was a part of the puzzle of Oliver Queen that she looked forward to unraveling.

Felicity liked the open floor plan of the living room that shared the space with a very modern kitchen.  The room’s simple white walls, dark wood tables and cabinets and sage green couch and matching recliners was clean and crisp.

“I thought I’d barbeque some marinated chicken and vegetables out on the patio grill,”

“Sounds perfect.  Can I help open a bottle of beer for you, while you be master chef?”

“That would be great,” he chuckled.

Conversation and laughter flowed easily and Oliver tantalized Felicity’s taste buds in more ways than one.  Dinner was delicious, but so was the way Oliver moved in his worn in jeans.  She took another sip of her negra modelo to cover her moan as she watched him, from where she sat on the wooden picnic table, as he leaned over to shut off the gas for the grill.  His muscles rippled under his clothes when he moved and all she wanted to do was see them unhindered.  Touch them with her hands and her mouth.  Who would have thought clothing could be so irritating?  In fact her own shorts and gray t-shirt were starting to feel tight and restrictive against her heated skin.

“Ready for dessert?” Oliver asked with a twinkle in his eye.  He couldn’t know how much she wanted to jump him, could he?  Naw, she thought.  She was just projecting her own wants.  “I have dark chocolate or mint chocolate chip ice cream,”

“Seriously? You have mint chocolate chip ice cream?”

“I gather I chose right. I’ll get you some and bring it out here,”

Oliver came back out with two small bowls and spoons and handed one to her.  He then sat down beside her on the top of the wooden picnic table.  They both ate their ice cream and watched the beginning of the evening’s sunset over the horizon.  

Felicity felt so relaxed and safe and a big reason for that, was the man beside her.  Everything felt...right.  He felt....right.

The wind whipped tendrils of her hair loose from her ponytail and she suddenly felt Oliver’s fingers slid them behind her ear.  

Time seemed to stop as heat seared where he touched her.  She watched, transfixed by the turmoil of emotions that flickered in his eyes.  Her mysterious Seal.

“Why were you rusty?”

“What?” Oliver asked.

“You told me the other night...you felt rusty talking to a woman,”

He didn’t reply.  Instead he turned his head back towards the brilliant streaks of color in the sky.

As he remained silent she watched all the openness and light dim from his face.  A small shiver traveled down her back as she felt him close himself off from her.  It hurt as she felt the acute loss of him.

“I’m sorry, I di,”

“Please don’t apologize, Felicity,” Oliver said, cutting her off and holding her gaze once again.  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Then what did I say that upset you?”  

“I...carry a lot of baggage.  I shouldn’t have asked you to dinner,”

Felicity stilled at his words, but then she set down her bowl and shifted closer to him.  Just close enough so only their shoulders met.  A small connection so he knew she was with him.  That he wasn’t alone.

“What happened?”  she gently whispered, willing and wanting to be a friend.  

“My issues...you don’t deserve having to deal with them,”

“Perhaps you should let me decide that,” she said quietly.

He shut his eyes...and when he met her eyes again...he was hurting.  He no longer hid it from her.   The intensity of his gaze was almost too overwhelming to hold.

“I, I couldn’t keep my men safe.  On my last mission I failed them.  Three of my best friends and a young woman died.  I was wounded and I...I can’t seem to forgive myself for what happened.”

As Oliver told her about the bomb, the explosion and the months and months of rehab and rebuilding of his life, Felicity’s heart reached out to him.  It was such a profound trauma and loss that only he could find his way through.  If there was one thing she learned from her brother’s journey was that no matter how much you loved your loved one, all you could do for them was be there.  Let them know they weren’t alone.   Other than that, the journey had to be made by them.

She rested her head against his shoulder and after his words ended and his breathing calmed he laid his head on top of hers.   They sat there, not really seeing the sun set or hearing the world move on around them.   They sat there, taking what they needed from each other.  

Night drifted in around them and the patio’s automatic fairy lights blinked on and they were bathed under their whimsicalness.

“On their last visit my dad strung those up here for my mom,”

Oliver lifted his head as she moved hers to look up at him, “They’re beautiful,”

“You’re beautiful,”

Felicity nudged his shoulder for making her blush.

“Thank you, Felicity.  For listening.  For not judging.  For being a friend,”

“You’re welcome.  And, Oliver?”

“Hmm,”

“I would still like to get to know you better.  Go on another date and hopefully, more?”  She knew she was moving fast.  Perhaps being forward, but there was just something about him.  She felt connected to Oliver on so many levels.

She could tell her words surprised him.  She just hoped they tempted him too, because she wanted him in her life.  She wanted this man who valued his friendships, his family and his country.    

~~~~~~~~

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[nightmare-afton-cosplay]

Look Into Richard Bender’s Amazing Glass Cottage in Amagansett

realtor.com

In 1960, a young architect named Richard Bender began to build a semiutopian community on a 20-acre property near the far end of Long Island, in a town popular with New York’s top artists and writers of the day.

The project in Amagansett, NY, which he called Amenity, featured a small handful of Mid-Century Modern summer cottages built around a communal tennis court. At the time, each cottage cost less than $15,000 to build, furnish, and landscape. The community’s first home—the 850-square-foot cottage Bender and his family lived in for decades—is now listed for $2.2 million.

Bender’s home is striking for how much larger it feels. Large glass walls run the length of both sides of the flat-roofed home, allowing anyone to look through the house to the woods beyond.

Exterior

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Living room and kitchen

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The home’s second owner, photographer Anita Calero, bought the cottage in 1994 and restored it to its original condition—swapping out the original glass with insulated glass, updating the linoleum floors with aged pine, and putting in custom oak cabinetry that matched Bender’s original 1960s-era color palette.

In 1960, Bender and his wife, Sue, were living in Greenwich Village with their two young boys, and had spent the previous two summers renting a cottage on Long Island with their friends.

“And that got us thinking about how you could live a life where … a small New York apartment could be bigger, in a different way, than having a bigger apartment,” Bender recalls. “We’d have a small apartment with almost no windows, and then we would go out in the country and have something else.”

Living room

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Bedroom

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They found their “something else” on 20 acres of woodland in Amagansett, a small hamlet near the town of East Hampton. The Benders bought the land for $20,000 in the middle of the winter and began building their home that spring. The first cottage had no central heating or air conditioning. On cold nights, they’d light a fire in their floating orb fireplace.

The family spent the next few years building inexpensive cottages along Red Dirt Road, which were bought by like-minded friends from the city.

“It became a life. It was marvelous,” Bender later recalled. “In the winter we didn’t go out [to the cottage]. In the spring and the fall we were out for three days, usually in the city for four. In the summer—we basically stayed out all summer. … We did that for 10 years, and the kids grew up there, in a wonderful world.”

The early community shared everything—one family owned a Land Rover, another had a sailboat, and neighbors would share tools, equipment, and baby-sitting. Bender recalls the families would often barbecue together on the beach.

“I don’t think we ate a meal indoors for years,” he says. “It was a whole evolution of houses built with the idea of simple spaces, openness, bringing the woods into your house, and living with nature.”

In the 1960s, similar communities of Mid-Century Modern homes began appearing in other towns. In California, Joseph Eichler built modern residential developments, often anchored by central community features. Like Amenity, most of Eichler’s homes have been carefully restored and now command top prices.

Today, just one other home from the original Amenity project still stands. That cottage was expanded and renovated, and last sold in 2011 for $2.2 million, according to agent Bayard S. Fenwick.

Freshwater pool

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At 850 square feet, Bender’s home is spare and minimalist, with high-end, period-appropriate finishes. In addition to the glass walls and sliding glass doors, there are dark, exposed wooden beams throughout. The galley-style kitchen has been updated with a Sub-Zero refrigerator, Viking gas stove, and Bosch dishwasher.

The two bedrooms each have their own floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, dual patios run nearly the length of the house, with a large mahogany deck in the front, and a smaller deck in the back, built around a Japanese-inspired rock garden.

The most recent owner, who purchased the home from Calero in 2011 for $1.6 million, added the freshwater pool and sauna.

Bender went on to work with some of the most important artists, architects, and designers of his day, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Mark Rothko, Norman Mailer, and others. He taught architecture at Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and University of California at Berkeley, later becoming chairman of Berkeley’s architecture department.

The post Look Into Richard Bender’s Amazing Glass Cottage in Amagansett appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from http://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/glass-cottage-richard-bender/