#confusing fall warbler

[geopsych]

Unusual visitor to the bird bath today, along with a dark-eyed junco. I think the green one is a Tennessee warbler, which shouldn't even be here this time of year. Because of the drought I get pretty many kinds of birds at the bird bath but this is the most surprising.

[uwmspeccoll]

A Bevvy of Feathursday Warblers

As I walk through Downer Woods on my way to work, I am always struck by the profusion of confusing warblers I meet along the way in fall. Hopefully, one day I will be able to tell one from the other. Until then, however, we present a few chromolithographic warblers from a painting by the noted German wildlife artist Gustav Mützel, from our 2-volume set of Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty, by the late-19th-century director of the Milwaukee Public Museum Henry Nehrling, and published in Milwaukee by George Brumder from 1893-1896. They are from top to bottom:

Yellow-throated Warbler (Setophaga dominica)

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) 

Cerulean Warbler (Setophaga cerulea)

Prairie Warbler (Setophaga discolor) and Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum)

Wilson's Warbler (Cardellina pusilla)

Mourning Warbler (Geothlypis philadelphia)

Canada Warbler (Cardellina canadensis)

View more posts with warblers.

View more posts from Nehrling’s Our Native Birds.

View more Feathursday posts.

-- MAX, Head of Special Collections

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

FLIGHT OF THE WARBLER (XIII)

|| COV MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER XIV ||

PAIRING: Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 8.0K

WARNINGS: Blood, wounds, angst, mentions of guns & weapons, gore mentions, talks about shootings, tension, suggestive actions, sickness, vomit, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

In the last week that you had him, Kyle Garrick had proved to be something that couldn’t be attributed to the memories you held of that day. This realization had been brewing for a long time—ever since he’d followed you in that car as you defiantly shoved your way over the landscape of this very base. It wasn’t something you’d call conventional; it wasn’t, and in the end, you couldn’t be. 

That isn’t to say you’d forget. 

Your father was a large part of your life, and even now, you have trouble separating your perception of him from what you’ve learned and accepted. You know they’re the same person—you know—but the mind plays tricks on the body, and sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night, you like to go along with the trick that he’d be down in his office, working on all those inventory logs. You know he’s not.

The only thing that really helped the ache was the very man who’d been in the room that day. 

“You’re going to run me into a wall,” you comment dryly as the wheelchair rolls along the tiled floors. 

“I am not,” Kyle says, a smirk evident in his tone. “You just like complaining, Love.”

Your eyes turn in your head and you look over your shoulder as military personnel walk past, sending glances at the SAS Sergeant and the woman he pushes safely under him. You wear more comfortable clothes today—a borrowed T-shirt and cargo pants.

“Where are you taking me, anyways?” The pain in your wound had only increased on the second day of consciousness came along; all of that skin piecing itself together one cell at a time. The meds had helped somewhat, but the injury itself produced a pulse of heat and tightness. 

Brown eyes glance down, brow quirking. “Not fond of surprises, then?”

“Not when they’re from you,” you grumble under your breath sarcastically, turning back around. 

Kyle’s smooth laugh makes your face gain a sheen of warmth, and you try to push back against the onslaught of hands that suddenly ghost your skin. You shift in the wheelchair and silently frown. 

“I should be offended,” the man begins, taking a slow turn left, “but I’ve found I’m getting used to your jabs.” His comment goes in one ear and slides out the other, passing through the eye of your confused thoughts. “In fact, I find them enjoyable.” 

You huff, bringing yourself back to reality as your lips quirk. 

“Yeah, okay—” Your body bends forward with a ragged cough, hand snapping up to cover your mouth as your spine curves. 

Kyle stops the wheelchair, looking in surprise before his arm comes to sit on the back of your shoulder blade, one foot moving him closer. Concern immediately grows in his chest.

“Spitfire?” You wave your free hand, continuing on for a few more seconds before your aching lungs take a deep inhale. Clearing your throat, you blink a few times to push away the blurriness of your vision and move back. 

“I’m good,” your lips mutter. You clear your throat again. “Sorry.”

Kyle blinks. 

“No need to apologize.” He glances you over softly as his hand leaves you. “Feeling alright, then?” 

You nod after a moment, the man only hesitates a second before he grips the handles behind you and begins pushing again. A small silence falls between you two, and you brush a hand over your eyes as you feel those brown eyes staring into the back of your head. 

“...I ever tell you about my time with RTI testing?” The comment makes you pause, brows pulling in as you look over your shoulder again. 

“What’s that?” He smiles, nodding at you as he carts you around.

“Resistance To Interrogation.” Your interest gets jump-started, and you continue to watch him as Kyle’s eyes filter back and forth from the hallway to you. The surroundings swirl together as your focus is grabbed. 

“No, you haven’t.” Gaz hums, shrugging. 

“Want to?” 

“Well, you already started talking about it,” you slide him a sly look. 

He chuckles, tilting his head. “Got me there.” The Brit gathers his thoughts in front of you, eyebrows quirking for a moment. He moves his eyes back down to your own, and they lock for a minute—something flashes over his expression, but it’s lost before you can understand it.

“We were a group of ten,” he begins, “my class and I, yeah? All proper blokes.” The wheelchair squeaks slightly as it moves, but it barely annoys you. Kyle’s stories take precedence. “They had us separated—different rooms all over a test sight.”

“Let me guess,” you say, “it was horrible?”

“Bloody horrendous.” You both share amused looks. “You’d think they left that place abandoned for a decade, Spitfire,” Kyle speaks lower as if in secret. “Swear it was haunted.”

“As if,” you laugh, shaking your head and ignoring the muttered words from passing soldiers. 

“I’m not joking,” Gaz says, smiling easily. “No, they made it that way—simulate an actual scenario.” He smirks, teasing. “As I was saying,” you pass door after door, and you’re none the wiser as to where he’s taking you as the minutes grow longer. “Interrogation. So, they had me in a room; tiny one. All of a sudden as I’m working on the bindings, big fellow comes through the door…”

You know what he’s trying to do. 

Trying to make you laugh—smile. He wants you to forget about everything, even if for a little bit. There was no real destination he was taking you to; you’d passed this same door number two times now. He was just…talking to you. Because he wanted to.

You’d never felt as thankful to have someone to do that with than now. 

The story ends as you expected it would, a full success on the Sergeant's part and a final comment of, “You wanna know what I learned? No one can break me, but me.” More and more tales go past as you joke and tease, growing more comfortable as every one waxes and wanes. You even shared some of your own. 

“You wrecked it?” Kyle blinks in shock, laughing in disbelief. 

“I wrecked it,” you reiterate. “But it wasn’t my fault! The dude pulled out in front of me.” Talking about how you had been driving your friend's car near the middle of high school—having gotten into a minor car crash while you never even had your permit. 

“Bloody hell, what did you do?”

“Switched seats with my friend.” You’re excited. You find you don’t mind the feeling. Everything about videos and stolen goods is lost to the two of you—here, now, the only thing that was appeasing was the sound of one another’s voices. A sway and dip of syllables and accents. A push and pull that now felt more like a tug at a sleeve; gentle hands slipping over flesh. 

More than once your body had wished for the man to touch you. More than once you had to stop yourself from getting sidetracked by the smooth roll of his chuckle. 

More than once, Kyle had to do the same. 

“That worked?” The Sergeant breathes, eyes darting away from yours softly before slinking back like a horse to water. His face was hot, and he’d lost track of the time—even his feet were moving on autopilot.

“You’d be surprised,” you stifle a fond chuff on your lips. “You want to hear the one where I snuck onto a train heading into Michigan?”

He looks at you and you can’t help but feel your face heat as you gaze over your shoulder. 

“You’re trouble, you are.” The comment leaves you smiling widely. 

“Did you expect anything different? My father got a rise out of me,” you laugh. “All he’d do was laugh and ask how my day went while my mother fumed from the foyer.” 

“My mum would have a field day,” Kyle adds. “You make it that far?”

“No,” you shake your head a few times, speaking through crinkled lids. “No, I felt bad halfway through the ride and got off at the next station—found the train back and that was that.”  

The Sergeant’s amusement is obvious. You don’t even realize it’s the first time you’ve mentioned your family without feeling that wash of sadness afterward. 

A calm pause moves along the space, and soon after the man gives you a soft question.

“Leg still good?” Brown eyes look you up and down. “I can stop if you want.” 

Blinking, you’d almost forgotten the bullet wound in your thigh, glancing down at it. Small aches travel up your spine when the limb shakes with the pace of the chair. 

You think about lying. 

Talk to me.

But what could one truth hurt?

“Maybe for just a few minutes.” You don’t turn to see the slow smile that peels Kyle’s lips, but as if a sixth sense, you can feel it. 

“Want to go back to your room?”

“No,” you shake your head in thought. A line forms on your head as you shift to ask him. “Any nice places around here?”

You were starting to notice things you hadn’t before—or maybe you had seen them, and just hadn’t been paying attention. Kyle’s smile moved the scars on his cheek, pushing them tight, and when he looked at you, he gave you all of his attention. When he stopped and started walking, it was always with his right foot. At every noise, even if he wasn’t paying it any attention, his head would slightly tilt in that direction.

Everything has become a metaphor, and all you can do is experience it. 

“Not many,” the man admits, brows furrowing as he stares off. A moment later he looks back down with a dog-like angle to his head. “Library?” 

Your soft smile gives him all the answers he needs.

—

This strange comfort went on for the days remaining, yourself being none the wiser while the guilt on the soldier’s side persisted. How could he tell you? There wasn’t a thought in his mind that he wouldn’t tell you what was going on—that wasn’t who he was. He would never up and disappear without a goodbye, but even thinking about it rubbed him the wrong way. 

Who was to say you would take to the next person who gets put in charge of you? It had taken months for Kyle—whoever else would be flayed on a stake at the first appearance of your wrath. For everyone's sake, the Sergeant hopes it will at least be Alex. 

There might be some hope for him, at least.

But the overarching truth was that he didn’t want to leave you here. He didn’t want to go thousands of miles away and join the others…even if he knew he had to. 

His duty, or his soul. He can’t do one without hurting the other. And he knows he has no choice but to join back with One-Four-One. 

On the third day, you got sick. 

Your body lay heaped over the toilet, a trail of vomit and blood leading into the bathroom that a nurse is hurriedly cleaning with a mop and spraying down with disinfectant. The smell of it only makes you retch more.

“Breathe,” Gaz utters beside you, hand rubbing circles on your back. 

Your head spins; throat on fire. Everything you’d eaten today comes up until there’s only acid and regrets. 

“Ow,” you say through saliva, eyes stinging. Your spine shakes and you dry heave, choking on air. 

Kyle’s lips thin tightly to his face, glancing out of the bathroom door as a patient guard would. His fingers at your back give a little more pressure—the tips digging to give you something to focus on. 

The nurse leaves on fast feet. 

“How are we feeling, then?” You’re asked as your eyes clench tight, your abdomen tense and the muscles shaky like a series of rivers under the skin. “Take your time, Love.”

“Like shit, Garrick,” Your head turns with a weak glare, bags formed under your eyes from a restless sleep last night. No matter how hard you tried to get comfortable, pain had been stirring in your chest—different from the one in your thigh and the ache of the now-healed mark on your palm. It was like a dull droning; a precursor. 

Coughing, you groan and dip your head away, a hand coming up and slapping the handle to make the bile swirl and disappear down the pipes. Kyle sighs under his breath, watching. 

“C’mon, let’s get you to bed.” You resist the inner voice wanting to tell him to keep rubbing your back, only commenting on brushing your teeth beforehand, which you do with the ever-present shadow behind you in case you might fall over. 

Back in the sheets, Gaz grabs another blanket from the other side of the room and brings it over—spreading it over your body until a toasty feeling overtakes the headache that emanates from behind your eyes. 

“M’gonna lose my mind,” your words slur. “This is worse than getting shot.”

“It is not,” Kyle mutters, a small smile on his face. “You just got a stomach bug. Could be from the meds—wouldn’t be the first I've heard of it.” 

He packs the blanket firmer around you and huffs as he moves into his chair, leaning back. Not once do his eyes leave you as your body shifts and curls—moving to face him. 

“This where you read me a bedtime story?”

Kyle smirks, looking away. 

“A long time ago, in a—”

“Shut up.” He laughs and moves a hand out as you restrain a wide smile, one you had to fight hard to keep hidden as your mouth dips under the blanket. 

Kyle chuckles before shaking his head. “But, seriously, do you remember what you ate today?”

“Nothing besides what was handed to me,” you sigh, moving a hand to your head to feel your skin. “A few more shitty coffees.”

“Let me.” Gaz moves and gently pushes your own aside before his limb flattens over your forehead. Your eyelids momentarily move down at the action, but you allow it to continue. At the gentle way he slips his skin over yours, you nearly purr. 

“Hm,” the man leaves and your eyes follow. “Bit hot.” Kyle’s eyes study you. “Your wound isn’t infected, I know that. Just proper bad timing on your part, Spitfire.”

You rub at your eyes. The comment slips out before you can care to stop it.

“Do you think you can stay here tonight?” Brown orbs widen, and the whites, for a sliver of a second, become more visible. 

Your face blazes, embarrassment shifting the lines of your face—expression twisting back up at the lapse in speech that suffocates like a rope. 

“I don’t mean it like…” Your tongue bites at itself, throat clearing as your eyes dart away from blank brown bulbs. “Just, I know my mother comes to visit before I fall asleep, but I don’t want to risk…” 

Nerves make your jaw slam shut like a lock to a hatch. “Forget it—”

“I’ll stay.” 

Eyes lock. Kyle blinked as if he wasn’t conscious enough to know he answered until it was already said. The Sergeant’s hands go up to fix his cap, licking his lips and taping his foot to the floor. He reiterates after a shocked moment. 

“I’ll stay, Love.” After all, this was the only form he’d be able to. “It’s not a problem.”

Your heart constricts, fingers twitching for your coin that’s still back at the mansion. The words leave your tone breathless. “Okay.” 

So that’s how the Sergeant, who prided himself on his high tolerance and tactical awareness, found himself utterly void of all sense. He sat there, idly on his phone and sending glances as the minutes passed—growing longer. The single lamp is the only light to stay on, sitting on the far table with its warm glow. 

When you do fall asleep, mind and body tired, Kyle’s hand reaches over and pulls the blanket farther over you, sighing softly. It’s only after he leans back that he speaks, almost to himself.

“I’ll be here,” he whispers, guilt filling up his eyes like a glass of water. “But I can’t be forever.”

A creak at the door makes his spine straighten, head whipping over and hand unconsciously jerking to where a sidearm would be strapped to his thigh. 

But it’s only your mother. 

“It’s Kyle,” she whispers, glancing at your sleeping body with a glass of water in her hands, “right?” 

“Ah,” the man speaks low, sending a look your way before standing. “Yes, Ma’am. Kyle Garrick.”

“Sorry.” Coming into the room, the glass is set on the bedside table, liquid sloshing over the brim. “I’m horrible with names, that was always my husband’s specialty.” Kyle shares a polite smile as she puts a hand on his arm. “I always had to write them down to keep it all straight—I’m more organized than a filing cabinet.”

“Aren’t you a nurse, Ma’am?” He chuckles, one eye watching you breathe softly; that gentle rise and fall of your chest. 

You looked calm like this. 

Beautiful, even.

Kyle’s thoughts make him blink quickly, fighting to put his full attention on your mother as she speaks to him. 

“What do you think the patient sheets are for?” They share a good few chuffs at that, the Sergeant’s hands going to cross his chest. 

“You know, young man,” your mother utters, looking at you as something swirls behind her eyes. “You’ve really done a fantastic job with her. Truly. Her father…well…” she trails and Gaz’s chest has a concrete block on it.

He knew that the older woman didn’t know the full story, or else she wouldn’t be telling him this. 

“...he would be thankful, I know he would. He loved that girl more than anyone in the world.” A tiny sigh. “She just…fell apart when he passed, you understand.” A wave of a hand moves in the tight vision of those brown eyes. “We don’t speak about it.” 

Maybe you should have. A cut of resentment makes itself known. How much you’d suffered. How much the solitude had left you a shell of someone who was just coming out again—a clock needing a new battery. 

“Spitfire’s strong,” Kyle says, shifting his feet. His face is firm. “Far stronger than most.” 

“I don’t doubt it,” is the response. “Everything that’s been attempted, and here she is.” A little look is sent his way, paired with an inquisitive nod. “Do you care about her, or only the job?”

“Her,” the answer is immediate. “Bloody job isn’t even half of it, Ma’am, you have my word on that.” 

Those eyes watch him for a moment, digging in a way far sharper than Kyle could have anticipated. But woe to the man who gets in between a mother and her daughter. 

“Good.” Your mother moves, going to kiss you on the head and slip past Kyle. “Make sure she drinks her water when she wakes up,” the man watches as she exits the doorway. Her hand sits on the frame as the last bit of advice fades into the hallway before the door closes with a soft click. “She needs to keep hydrated.”

The guard resumes his midnight shift, but he was correct with his previous assessment. 

You did look beautiful, and perhaps he’d just now begun to see it. 

—

Alex wasn’t bad, truthfully. He had that same charm to him that Gaz possessed like a proud poster boy—the main model with the blond Agent soon after on the first page, blue eyes over the top of the text. He didn’t seem to take your prior muteness to him to heart, in fact, when you apologized for it out of your own free will, he’d only smiled and tilted his head in your direction softly. 

“No need to apologize, Ma’am. I’ve had worse welcomes, trust me. A cold shoulder is the least of my worries.” 

You found yourself actually liking the man, as strange as that sounded in the recesses of your skull. But there are worse things than talking to someone who actually answers back. 

“China?” He stares at you from the side of his eye, Kyle sighing from across the space of the rec room. You sit back on the couch, a forgotten book in hand. “You sure?” 

“Chiyou is a Chinese deity—a company coming out of there with the same name would make the most logical sense, don’t you think?” You shrug. “It’s also a country that’s in the middle of Laos and Russia besides Mongolia; hate to break it to you, but I don’t think Mongolia has a port to send goods from. Executions,” you tilt your head, “sure. Ships? No.” 

“Can we be sure that those are the same thing?” Kyle speaks up from this dark conversation. “Drugs and weapons are two linked businesses, but getting directly involved in hits isn’t usually how those types of things go.”

“I’d have to agree,” Alex sighs. Your mother was out helping in the medical ward due to her knowledge of medicine—there was no need for Keller to follow her around with so many reliable eyes on her. For the moment, he’d been relieved to do as he wished. “Not exactly how cells operate unless something happened to make ‘em change their main sources of income. But it isn’t unheard of. So the laptop was entirely those videos?” Blue eyes move back and forth, the Agent’s arms crossed as he reclines into his seat next to the card table. “Nothing else?”

“Didn’t have time to look.” Gaz grunts. “Someone took it out from right under our noses.” 

An eerie silence settles, and you try not to think too hard about it. 

“The best bet for answers is the guy I shot,” you speak after a moment. Two pairs of eyes with different hues share a fast look as you itch at the back of your neck. “He knew Samson, that has to count.” Your voice slips to a mutter. “He knows something we don’t.”

“You feeling any better today, Love?” Gaz changes the subject. You look up, brow furrowing in confusion. 

“Not really, why?” You can’t stand up fast unless you want to black out, and this morning it hadn’t taken long for you to grow sick after trying to take down food your mother brought you. The nurses were at a loss with what to do, seeing as besides a fever, there wasn’t anything wrong with you. 

It was only after your own heated insistence that Kyle had helped you into the wheelchair that sits next to the couch currently, concerned that if you walked, you would fall unconscious. 

Brown eyes watch you now, face stiff. “Just wondering.” 

You blink at him, trying to speak through your eyes. The man shrugs, tilting his head away. 

Alex looks between the two of you, mustache twitching as he eases out casually in reference to your mother, “She’ll be getting off soon. I’ll leave you both here to think over the details.”

“Right,” Kyle utters, prying his eyes away from you. “Be seeing you, Alex.”

“Call me if you need me,” the Agent comments, patting your shoulder as he slips past, giving over a kind smile. “Get better soon, Doll.” 

You hum as he leaves, closing the door behind him. 

Lips start moving at the same time.

“I need to go back home—”

“I’m getting sent back to One-Four-One—”

Wide eyes meet and lock with quick breaths. 

“What?” Your face twists in, again your voice building over Kyle’s instant refusal of your proposal.

“Not a chance.” 

“Whoah, whoah, back the hell up.” You raise your hands, splaying them out—the man shakes his head, a hand coming to itch at his facial scar. “You’re leaving?”

“I’m not letting you go back to the mansion.”

“Kyle!” You bark so loudly that your eyes gain dancing black dots. “What the fuck?” 

“It wasn’t my plan,” he breathes, avoiding your gaze. “I wasn’t thinking clearly when I sent in the reassignment form—Laswell had me placed back with them faster than I could remember to take it back.”

Your face is devoid of blood, your jaw loose, and your gut sinking inside your abdomen like a fishing line had it connected to your ankle. More than once your mouth opened and closed in shock—in betrayal. 

Leaving? He was leaving you here?

“I don’t…” Your words trail off, throat closing. A pain sparks in your heart.

Kyle’s face screws up, jaw clenching as he stands up, walking over. “Believe me, Spitfire, when I say I had every intention of taking it back before this blew up.”

Hands capture the sides of your arms, grabbing at them as he kneels down to the floor in front of where you sit.

“I’m sorry,” Kyle says slowly and sincerely—staring deeply into your eyes as you struggle to keep the contact. “I’ve been beating myself up over it for days now. I…” he pauses. “I was waiting for a good time to tell you, but it just came out. Please, understand.” 

Your eyes slip away, lips thin and skin pulled. 

Kyle’s muscles are wound, nervous about what this could do and how you would take it. In reality, this last week might be the last chance he’ll get to try and fix what he’s done. 

“Spitfire,” he implores gently, hands squeezing you. “Say something. Anything.” 

Your eyes flicker back, face lost. How fast you could go from hating this man to relying on him. “Are…you coming back?”

Kyle’s breath is a shaky exhale. “I…”

He doesn’t know. He can’t answer that.

“When do you leave?” You grow more upset at his silence. Panicked even. How dare he come here and do this to you after all of it? Your heart is pounding, veins bulging with blood that rampages with fast aggression. 

“Soon.” The Sergeant clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I know whatever I say won’t make it any better.” He repeats his apology. “It’s my own fault, and I can’t take it back.”

You don’t know what overtakes you, but before you can stop your limbs, you’ve already snapped your arms around his neck, dragging him into your body. The man, while shocked, goes willingly—returning the embrace tightly. 

His hands curl, cruel warmth overtaking you as Gaz sets his head on your shoulder and lets your head burrow into his neck. A weak exhale leaves your sputtering lungs, and the marks on your palm burn like the space behind your eyes. 

Leaving? No, he can’t leave you here.

Hurt melts with sickness, encased in a film of fear. Fear. He can’t do this. No, not now. Not now. 

Not now that you care about him. 

“I hate you,” you force out, voice warbling. Maybe you were always just a fool. “I hate you, Kyle Garrick.”

“I know,” he breathes, not letting you go—pulling you tighter to his chest as your air caresses his neck like a sea storm; clouds of ice and a sky of fire, the boat battered by ardent winds. “I know. I’m sorry.” 

Words only mean so much, but they help when they’re uttered into the skin of your temple—the British accent rolling off his tongue. 

“I’m sorry.” 

He holds you for a long while, and by the end of it, you say in a hard tone, “I’m going home and grabbing what I need.” 

The man lets his eyelids flutter closed. 

“Okay.”

So that was how on the last day he was here, Kyle brought you breakfast, and soon after you’d finished the plate, not expelling it all to your own surprise, you were both off with an escort squad headed by the Sergeant. You were able to rely on a cane for the time being, feeling better even if the news had your mind in a worse way than it had been previously. 

Your mother had been against it—vehemently. 

“There’s no reason for you to go back,” she had said. “You���re going to get yourself hurt!” 

But it was apparent as the car moved through the blackened gates, which had been busted off their hinges, that the house had been utterly abandoned. Kyle had explained that the group from the town—Firebird, as you recall—had been watching over it and seen no one enter or exit. 

“Are you sure?” The Sergeant was in full gear, sitting in the back with you as the car ambled along up the driveway. 

You don’t look at him. “I’ll be quick.” 

Kyle shifts, the assault rifle over his chest and hat on his head. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses even if you can still feel them on you as the time lengthens. The wheels pull to a stop, and the driver comments that they’re parked and all ready to exit. 

“Sweep the perimeter,” Garrick explains, clicking into his comm line. A volley of copies wafts out like a flock of birds on the wind, and out of the window, you watch the overgrown hedges sway with their dying leaves. Autumn was here, now, and you could feel it in your bones. 

“I can go in and grab what you need—”

“Kyle,” you sigh, shifting to gaze into the reflection of your own visage in his glasses. He frowns delicately. “Please.”

“Just concerned, Love.” He explains.

“I know you are,” you can’t help a flicker of a smile, skin crinkling. “Worse than my mother.” 

“Well,” he smirks, “now that’s an achievement. I get a medal for that?”

“And what medal would you want?” You play along, quirking a brow. It was easy to forget he was leaving when he talked so casually to you. “Unfortunately, I don’t have one that says ‘idiot’ on the plaque.” You liked how his lips moved when he spoke—his fingers twitching over the body of his gun like he was always so deep in thought to control them. His shifting feet. Kyle’s easy air. 

That stupid, bloody, hat. 

“Oh yeah? What else are you going to give me, then?” The Sergeant mirrors you with a raised brow, neck bending, and a wide upward motion to his lips. The tone is a flowing tease that leaves your body tingling, and your legs moving closer to one another.

At a shocked pause, a certain electricity enters the air. Kyle rubs at the back of his neck softly, and the sound of his skin is almost enough for you to shift closer. Blinking, you realize you’d been staring at his lips far too intensely—blind to the fact he’d been doing the same.

“The ability to keep your sanity,” you deadpan, rolling your shoulders as the ache in your wound is dull. “Don’t thank me.”

“Can’t complain about that one.” Kyle shifts his thighs on the seats as he mutters. Soon after the radio opens with a soldier giving the all-clear and you grab the cane from the floor with a huff as Gaz’s door opens and closes.

Hand moving to the handle after you’re situated, the barrier opens to the Sergeant on the other side, his vest strapped to his chest. Kyle smiles teasingly as he reaches out, fingers loose.

“Ma’am,” you roll your eyes but slip your limb into his, the gloves he wears rough against your flesh. 

Muttering as your feet carefully settle to the ground, you look up into his face sarcastically, “Such a gentleman.”

“Well, thank you,” he winks, stubble moving. But he slips back into a sheen of seriousness easily. “Slowly, now.”

You huff, already off to the door—also busted open with yellow tape around the front. The stitches in your thigh pull, but it isn’t something that will make you slow down. You’re here to grab what you need—your jacket, your coin. Answers. 

Shifting the tape away, you move into the foyer, soldiers milling around and talking to one another over the radio. Like ants, they shuffle, moving from one point to another in case of any attack from the phantoms in the air. 

It becomes harder to imagine a family living here. 

Eyes slip over the bloodstains, over the ruined hardwood, and the remains of family history. No amount of money could get the shattered remnants of a childhood back. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Gaz whispers to you, standing as a sentinel beside you as he takes his sunglasses off and hangs them off his collar. He can see how this might go. “There’s no shame in leaving, you know that?”

“It’s okay,” you blink away from the pool of crimson in the shape of a man. Brown eyes meet yours, concerned. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Kyle watches you walk away, his face loose and open before diligently following with a lick of his lips and a downward nod, ordering the two men in the foyer to watch the entrances. His face is hot.

When you’re upstairs, after many exasperated looks from the Sergeant, you wipe the sweat from your brow and move onward to your room. You wondered when you’d grown so used to gore and violence that now the sight of it meant nothing to you, sliding past the large splatters; the holes where Gaz had fired through the door. 

“Here,” you sigh, grabbing your canvas jacket from the bed where it had sat for days on end, balancing on one leg while you put the cane down and push your arms into the article. It doesn’t offer the same comfort it usually does, but it certainly helped. One hand takes back up your aid—the other slips into the pocket, finding that silver disc easily. 

The movement of a shadow makes you pause, looking over. 

Gaz is at your nightstand, and in his hand, he holds a picture. 

You’d forgotten about it, really. Stashed under the gun and hidden away—crumbled up so you wouldn’t have to see the faces printed out on it. You move to stand beside him and explain softly. 

“The day I was born. He had to rush to get to the hospital—he was so frazzled he nearly ran right past the delivery room.” Your dad was holding a small version of you, tears on his cheeks and his face in a wide smile. The hospital background is blurred around the two of you. “He always told that story on my birthday,” you finish, voice nothing but a mutter. 

The house suffocates everything.

Gaz had been watching you the entire time you’d been speaking, your arms brushing periodically.

The Sergeant offers the picture without a word, and you take it, fingers touching as you pause. There isn’t much that can be said about that. Skin to gloved skin, you hold the picture in between you, studying it as if you did, all of your questions would be answered. But the only answer that you know is that the pain of it will never fade—even if you can reduce it to an ache instead. Like the wound in your thigh, it’ll just scar over. 

“When I leave,” Gaz utters, hand moving to capture yours. “I’ll call. Everyday.”

“I doubt that,” your eyes tilt, faces close. “Everyone always says that.”

Firmly, Kyle squeezes your flesh, noses nearly touching.

“Not me,” the words are said so earnestly, there’s no room to deny them. 

You stare into his browns—the only eyes you’ll ever be able to look into fully and for so long, breath caught in your throat. It’s the way they shift; how they darken and lighten with every dip of his eyelids and shift of his dark lashes. He swallows, and you find yourself stuck on that image of his throat bobbing as if in slow motion. Your mouth goes dry as he speaks in a whisper that moves the air in front of your face. He’s closer now, hand holding yours on fire.

“Do you trust me, Spitfire?” 

It’s embarrassing how long it takes you to fully understand what he says, and only after your heavy lips move in the slightest show of speech that you’re stopped.

“We’ve got movement out front. Looks like reporters.”

The both of you jerk back, Kyle taking long steps away and panting as your eyes are wide with shock. Under the skin, twin suns with enough firepower to light galaxies ignite from his and yours’ features, sputtering meaningless words. 

Mouth opening and closing, the Sergeant nearly fractures his wrist bone as he wrenches his hand to his radio, pushing out a quick response of, “Be there soon.” 

He backs up another step as your mind whirls like a storm—good, bad, every thought in between. 

What had just happened? 

“S-,” he rubs a hard hand over his chin. “Stay here.”

And then he’s gone with a flash of gear. 

You don’t know how long you stared at that doorway, hand shaky and still outstretched. The picture in your hand had fallen to the ground moments before, twirling like a leaf. With a violent inhale, your other limb was clenched around the cane so tightly that the knuckles were clearly visible, blood pulsing with intent. 

Where you just about to…No, no that wasn’t what was happening. You shake your head, looking around to distract yourself. No. 

You pick up the picture with some difficulty and put it inside your pocket next to the coin. But it doesn’t stop the flight of your heart. 

Left on the coffee table was your phone, which you take and look at the countless missed calls and texts from Hector—you block his number and limp out of the room across the hall. It’s still damaged, the nightstand on its side and your personal laptop’s shattered screen on the floor. 

That makes you pause. 

Why would only one of the devices turn up missing if the other was still here? Even the man who had tried to steal it didn’t know the correct version. Your lips go thin, head moving around to study the space with a more brightly lit intensity. 

You zero in on the large wardrobe. 

Your blanket was still there, and if you can recall only snippets of what happened, there’s one that sticks out more than the other. You remember kicking the journal with your heel as you had pushed off the ground. Moving as fast as you’re able, you huff weakly as you near the large wooden structure, shifting the blanket aside. 

Nothing. 

“No,” you mutter to yourself, looking at where the wardrobe is held up by its four elegant legs. “Not nothing.” 

Moving one leg so that your knee hits the ground, you grunt and clench your jaw as your stitches pull tightly; letting the other limb follow. Your cane hits the ground with a clatter, but you care little. Going down on your hands and knees, stuck in cobwebs and sitting with some of its pages leaking out, your lock on the form of your father’s journal.

—

The drive back was silent. 

Kyle wouldn’t look at you, sunglasses back on and his fingers still over his service weapon. You didn’t comment, too occupied with the item you keep secret inside of your jacket, stuffed into the lining. 

You hadn’t told him that you’d found it, and to this moment, you still don’t know why you don’t. The thought was perhaps that, since he was leaving, it would be pointless, and on that front maybe you’d be right. This wasn’t his concern, but yours. 

But it was also because of that fact that you’d nearly kissed. 

Kissed. 

Your body is stiff in its seat. 

When you’d met back up with him only seconds after snatching the journal and cleaning off your knees, you’d been told about the reporters outside—journalists and news crews. It cut the visit short to the mansion, and with only a single glimpse of a black cat’s tail among the hedges of the front walkway, strangled amid the flash of cameras, you were back in the car.

There had been some talk about how they had known you were there, but none of it was anything sure.

And now you were trapped back here with him. Kyle. 

Kissed. 

The entire vehicle is suffocating in tension.

You don’t remember how long the ride is, how long it takes for the pounding in your skull to start when you can feel him shifting only a foot away. In your mind, you’re upset, but it’s not for the reason you should be. You can’t stop thinking about his hand on your thigh, pushing and pulling the skin—how he holds you so tightly and breathes into your ear. What was wrong with you? Out of everything he’s done? Him?

You’re not upset that he had tried to kiss you. You’re upset that he stopped.

Sitting in your seat, your gut swirls, an airiness to your brain. 

Without any concept of time beyond the treacherous thought of how his body would feel with its weight on top of yours, the base is already in sight and the car is parked with a silent squeal of the brakes. You snap out of it and ignore how the hair on your arms stands on end, and a low pulse emanates from deep inside of you. 

A tinge of sin to take down like bitter coffee. 

Someone opens your door, but it’s not Kyle. 

You lock eyes with Kate Laswell for three seconds before blinking away, but those three seconds are enough. Your oxygen gets choked up in your throat.

“Kate?” Gaz speaks over you, leaning forward in his seat to look around the barrier that is you. He tries not to linger on the fact that your scent is stuck inside of his nostrils, unable to get out the smell of your flesh. “Problem?”

“Not one that you can solve, Sergeant. You,” she nods her head your way as you go back to staring at her nose, frowning at her sudden arrival. “You’re going to come with me. I have a job for you.” 

“Excuse me?” You sound irritated, even to yourself. 

The woman’s response is quick and firm. “Do you want answers, or not?” That in and of itself renders you as silent as a bug. You didn’t want to admit how much Laswell intimidated you, even all that time back when you’d first officially met. You read her record—it wasn’t thin. Pages upon pages of achievements. “Good, follow me. Quickly.”

“Bit hard on the ‘quickly’ part of it,” you mutter, cane hitting the ground and feet following after. Kyle is swift with his exit on his own side, coming over and reaching out a hand to help. Inches above your skin, he halts with a twitch to his outstretched fingers. 

He takes a slow breath and lets his hand drop, eyes darting away. You don’t comment on it, and even the third member of this emotionally constipated club seems to pick up on something else going on—Laswell’s brow moving a millimeter upwards. 

“What’s this about, Ma’am?” Gaz’s voice is low, his hands up at the collar of his combat vest, trying to act casual. Being near you makes his head light all of a sudden, and it’s only his fault.

Maybe he really did need to leave. For both of you. Whatever had just happened was a massive step over boundaries. 

Kate waves a hand and you follow, eager to put distance between you and Kyle even if it pained you. He stays a good ways away, and the gap isn’t subtle. A pain in your heart joins the one in your thigh—the pressure behind your eyes. 

“Joey Lowe,” the name makes you blink.

“Who,” you ask dryly. 

Kate pushes open the door to the main building. “The man you shot two times. Not bad aim, by the way—internal bleeding and four broken ribs. The surgery took three hours to stop them from puncturing his organs.”

You make a face and Kyle’s confused expression turns to the woman in charge. “What’s he got to do with her? Thought you had him in interrogation.”

“We do,” Laswell is all business, sighing under her breath and guiding the both of you to who knows where. You try to share a glance with Kyle, but he only looks away. “He’s not speaking to us. I took the decision upon myself to find a pressure point.” A pause. 

Kate stops walking and you jerk back, cane slamming to the floor as she pivots and stares deeply into your eyes. You tense and glare into her nose. 

“You.” 

“Me?” You blink wildly. “I’m sorry, are we just forgetting that this dude shot me? You want me in a room with him?”

“Kate,” even Kyle has reservations about this, moving closer in and lowering his voice. “Are you sure this is the best way to go about this?”

“This has already been going on for too long,” the woman says, unbreaking in her conviction. “He won’t speak unless there’s something to push him and we can’t risk him in his current state.”

You don’t want to think about what that last comment implies, but you aren’t entirely opposed to this. Answers were answers, and if it meant this nightmare was over with sooner, you’d do it. Maybe you really were losing your rocker. 

Kyle’s jaw clenches, moving back and straightening his spine. This wasn’t your job, you shouldn’t have to even think about this. 

“Spitfire,” he tries to gain your attention as he sees you in thought, legs shifting him to you. “You don’t have to agree—”

“I’m in.” His heart skips a beat.

“This is bullshit,” Gaz grunts and your eyes widen as they slash over to look into his sunglasses. “You do not have to go through with this, you understand that, yeah? We can get answers another way that doesn't involve civilians.” The last is directed at Kate, who frowns and crosses her arms over her blouse. 

“Any other ways that you suggest we do that, Kyle?” A silence. “If I recall, you’re supposed to be getting ready for take-off. The C-17 is waiting to take you to Russia with supplies for your Task Force.” 

You try to stop the tight inhale, but it slips out like a fish to sea. A head fights itself to not gaze at you. Such dead air settles that you half expect the world to be frozen if not for the occasional soldier that moves past, giving glances over to the tension-ridden group. 

“Kyle?” You ask, voice small. 

He stays well away. “You don’t have to.”

A flare of that stubborn spite gradually fills you back up. The man makes you care about him—nearly kisses you, gives you all of these mixed signals…and then goes cold again? It was rude; cruel. It was…confusing. 

And the best thing you can do when life gets confusing is to cage yourself in. 

“I’m doing it,” you say, voice tiny but sure of itself. Neither of you breathes, and the man pleads with himself to try and fix this before it's too late. Tell you it was a mistake…but was it? Can he lie? 

“...You better get going.” Your mind is made. “You don’t want to miss your flight, Sergeant.” There were a million things that needed to be said—to be spoken about in the long nights and the gentle mornings. But in the minute where both of your eyes could be felt gracing one another’s, brown trapped behind the glare of his glasses and yours, hidden by your own pained will, there wasn’t a word that could be uttered. Not without making things far more harder than they already were. 

“Good luck,” you say, but the ink of the words bleeds.

It’s as if every grand step that this week has taken has been based and reduced down to zero. Kyle opens his mouth to respond, but you’ve already walked past with Laswell, leaving him behind as he stands in the hallway staring at nothing.

He doesn't remember a time when he’d clenched his hands so hard. He doesn't remember a time when he had to restrain his legs from chasing after someone. 

And he certainly doesn't remember a time when he could physically feel his heart break his mind. 

TAGS:

@merkitty49, @mh073099, @littlegaypng, @babybooday, @underrated-youngster, @jupiterredolent, @idocarealot, @petrat97, @jade-jax, @roosterr, @escapefromrealitysm, @kysa32, @human-turtle, @aurora-basin, @terumisworld, @xxfeelmylovexx, @neelehksttr, @nezukos-number1fan, @20forty9, @homicidal-slvt, @emerald-valkyrie, @raissadoesthingslmao, @misfne, @hollyhopesworld, @wasteland-babe, @330bpm-whiplash, @anna-banana27, @sunnynomoar, @doggydale, @thecrispypotatochip @74478328, @blueoorchid, @das-conk-creet-baybee, @chestnutsandcurls, @vamqyr3, @lavalleon, @nebula67, @urfavsunkissedleo

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

2023 Klaine Bingo Card

1. Debut - Express Yourself by Eaperanto

2. Page-turning - A Fine Line Between Us by MrsCriss2012

3. Box of Tissues - Underwater by dizzywhiz

4. Unusual Occupation - The Ghost Kitchen by HKvoyage

5. Wild Card - Show Me Love, Show Me Life by CoffeeAddict80

6. Summer - Camp Klaine by Kirakiwi

7. Challenge - I Don't Date Cheerios by TeddysHoney

8. LOL - Rim Job by GleefulDarrenCrissFan

9. Don't normally read - Never Saying Goodbye to You by lilyvandersteen

Thank you for your 2023 Klaine Bingo card!! There are now 92 stories in the collection. ~Lynne

1) Express Yourself by Esperanto *this story is already listed in this category

2) A Fine Line Between Us by MrsCriss2012

Kurt Hummel is a struggling actor hoping for his big break, while Blaine Anderson is a jaded, hard-headed theatre critic. It’s a fine line between love and hate.

3) Underwater by dizzywhiz

Blaine didn't intend to fall into bed with Kurt after the wedding reception, but it happened. Physically, he wanted it, but handling the emotional consequences was a different story. AKA what happens in that hotel room between Kurt pulling him in and telling him "I'll see you downstairs."

4) The Ghost Kitchen by @hkvoyage

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kurt lived in Lima with his father. Two years later, he returned to New York City. As he needed money to pay for rent and food, he got a job in a booming industry: food delivery. His first delivery order was a pick-up from Warbler Food Enterprises. Little did he know he would meet a cute chef there that would turn his world upside down.

5) Show Me Love, Show Me Life by CoffeeAddict80 | @caramelcoffeeaddict

When Blaine Anderson became a vampire over 800 years ago, he gave up on the idea of having close relationships – platonic or romantic – with anyone. As long as he could still have sex, feelings were unnecessary. But there was something different about the new transfer student, Kurt Hummel, that kept drawing him in. Kurt was unlike anyone Blaine had ever met. And Blaine was starting to think that he wasn’t the only one at Dalton with a supernatural secret. To most people, Kurt Hummel seems like your average high schooler; but there’s nothing average about him. Kurt is a warlock – a warlock that can’t use magic. When he was born, his magic went dormant, and no one knows why. But sometimes, he’s capable of things that no one – not even Kurt himself – can explain.

6) Camp Klaine by @kirakiwiwrites *this story is already listed in this category

7) I Don't Date Cheerios by @teddyshoney

Blaine, leader of the McKinley High bad boys is forced to join a club, and he winds up singing in front of the Glee Club. Who else would be in the audience besides Cheerio Kurt? Kurt's never been a fan of Blaine, but that's all about to change...

8) Rim Job by GleefulDarrenCrissFan *this story is already listed in this category

9) Never Saying Goodbye to You by @lilyvandersteen

Inspired by a beautiful drawing by @thisdoesnotsuck, this is a story where Kurt travels through time to the 1920s and falls in love with his great-grandfather’s secret beau. Featuring a family curse, doppelgängers, angst and confusion.

[daisyishedwig]

Chapter 19 of A Place To Call Home is up!

A Place to Call Home (68948 words) by Daisyishedwig Chapters: 19/20 Fandom: Glee Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe, Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe, Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson & Sam Evans, Jeff/Nick the Warbler (Glee), Unique Adams/Trent (Warbler) Characters: Blaine Anderson, Sebastian Smythe, Kurt Hummel, Sam Evans (Glee), Nick the Warbler (Glee), Jeff (Glee), Trent (Glee), Tina Cohen-Chang, Marley Rose, Unique Adams, Sebastian Smythe's Parents, Burt Hummel, Carole Hudson-Hummel, Eli.C (Glee) Additional Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Angst, Depression, Panic Attacks, Dubious Consent, Statutory Rape, Lack of Communication, Homelessness, Seblaine Roommates, Fix-It of Sorts, Polyamory, Blaine is kicked out, Hurt/Comfort, Blaine Anderson-centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Blaine transfer to Dalton, Friends to Lovers, disowned Blaine Anderson, trigger warnings listed in the notes on specific chapters as well Series: Part 1 of A Place to Call Home Summary: In a matter of days Blaine's whole world falls apart and everything he does to try and stay afloat only seems to make matters worse. A call to Sebastian Smythe is his last resort, and maybe the one that actually starts to make things better.

I can't believe how close we are to the end of this story. I'm so excited to share the final chapter with you as soon as possible. The final scene has been giving me problems so it might need more time, but we're almost there!

Chapter snippet below the cut

“I kissed Sebastian,” he blurted out, cutting Blaine off mid-sentence. 

Blaine froze, looking at him in confusion. “What?” He said, stunned.

“Last night when we got drunk together. We - we had a bit of a heart-to-heart and I just…I kissed him.” Kurt looked down at his lap, his hands twisting together. 

Blaine’s eyes darted around the room like he was having a hard time processing what Kurt had said.

“We’re both so sorry about it. It didn’t…we didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

Blaine’s eyes were distant as he stared past Kurt’s head. “Did…did he kiss you back?” 

Kurt nodded, the anxiety in his chest cinching so tight he could barely breathe. 

Blaine blinked like he was trying to pull himself back together but couldn’t quite manage it. “Was it…” he cleared his throat, “was it payback? For what I did?”

Kurt’s head shot up. “No!” he cried, “of course not.”

Blaine looked like he didn’t fully believe him.

“We - we were just talking. And he…he told me he loved you, and he just looked so sad. Like he was fully resigned to…well, to losing you to me. And I couldn’t stand to see him like that and it just…drunk me decided kissing him was the best way I could comfort him in the moment. And it was stupid and we immediately regretted it and I am so sorry.”

Blaine looked more present even as his brain was still trying to process what was happening. 

“I need…I think I need to go…somewhere.” He stood up slowly and gathered his things.

“Blaine,” Kurt tried, but Blaine just held up a hand to stop him.

“I’m not - I’m just confused, okay? I need to clear my head.”

[follow-up-news]

Window strikes are an issue in almost every major U.S. city. Birds don’t see clear or reflective glass and don’t understand it’s a lethal barrier. When they see plants or bushes through windows or reflected in them, they head for them, killing themselves in the process. Birds that migrate at night, like sparrows and warblers, rely on the stars to navigate. Bright lights from buildings both attract and confuse them, leading to window strikes or birds flying around the lights until they die from exhaustion — a phenomenon known as fatal light attraction. In 2017, for example, almost 400 passerines became disoriented in a Galveston, Texas, skyscraper’s floodlights and died in collisions with windows. “Unfortunately, it is really common,” said Matt Igleski, executive director of the Chicago Audubon Society. “We see this in pretty much every major city during spring and fall migration. This (the window strikes at McCormick Place) was a very catastrophic single event, but when you add it all up (across the country), it’s always like that.” [...] Window strikes and fatal light attraction are easily preventable, said Anna Pidgeon, an avian ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Building managers can simply dim their lights, she said, and architects can design windows with markings in the glass that birds can easily recognize. People can add screens, paint their windows or apply decals to the glass as well. New York City has taken to shutting off the twin beams of light symbolizing the World Trade Center for periods of time during its annual Sept. 11 memorial ceremony to prevent birds from becoming trapped in the light shafts. The National Audubon Society launched a program in 1999 called Lights Out, an effort to encourage urban centers to turn off or dim lights during migration months. Nearly 50 U.S. and Canadian cities have joined the movement, including Toronto, New York, Boston, San Diego, Dallas and Miami. Chicago also participates in the Lights Out program. The city council in 2020 passed an ordinance requiring bird safety measures in new buildings but has yet to implement the requirements. The first buildings at McCormick Place were constructed in 1959.

[cuntycassandra]

Family, and where we find it.

Summary: Nick had gone through his entire life setting out to impress his father, desperately trying to seek approval from the very man who had played a part in giving him life. But there is only so many times a person can take the sharp pain of rejection before they start looking elsewhere for somebody else to help them up again. No matter if those people were singing boarding school students, and their parents.

Sebastian knew he was one to make mistakes. He was rash, condescending and sometimes downright mean. But contrary to popular belief, he was trying his best to make amends, and having his confidence ruptured by a ‘respectable’ adult was not how he had planned for his parent-teacher conference night to end.

Nick was often quite used to humiliation on a minuscule scale.

Before Sebastian had come along, it wasn't a frequent occurrence to be granted some sort of solo within the warblers, it wasn’t very often that he was anybody’s first pick for a sports game, excluding hockey, and he definitely wasn't intellectually exquisite. He was just plain, average, not awful, but still not worth a second glance. It was humiliating to say the least, but only for a short sporadic cluster of seconds, and then as quick as it came, it left, and everybody could move on with their lives.

But what Nick wasn't quite accustomed to was that familiar sense of embarrassment enhanced on a much larger scale. He was a quiet person, only speaking his mind when comfortable and usually amongst his friends, more often than not against those very same idiotic yet charming boys. He never truly thought he would suffer such a mortifying punishment when he never gave other people a reason to display that type of behaviour, a consequence couldn’t be fairly served without a particularly humane reason after all…

He sniffled aloud, utilising the corner of his blazer cuff to swipe at the weighted tears clinging to his eyelashes, simultaneously allowing his head to fall against the wall supporting his slouching weight. Apart from the incessant ignominy he had felt as soon as the confusing repercussions began, he didn’t understand why he had reacted to such a twisted example of humiliation as if he were nothing but a coward. Nick already knew his own father never thought particularly highly of him when it came to academics, being a university professor had driven a large wedge between them, pressuring their already poor relationship with its jagged double standards, simply because his father was extremely intelligent, and Nick was not. That was common knowledge amongst their cold household.

He was too much like his mother, apparently, who Nick hadn't actually seen in person since his ninth birthday. Far too 'emotional' and 'compassionate' to be considered for the rigorous world of mathematics and science based subjects, not enough of a ‘man’.

Too much of a fag.

Continuation

[naskeitasblog]

tsukumono yume 0.00 differences and unused things YAY! NO START.EXE! there's several midi files some of which are the original uncompressed versions of existing songs or songs that were removed entirely the midi files for torii world, monochrome world, the room where amatsuki can buy mochi, and the lucid dream event are here (named "おまいり", "つみき遊び", "和菓子", and "空" respectively) the other midi files that ended up being entirely removed are named "ゆき", "広大", "悪兆", and "kureko"... there is an npc named kureko and a full screen image of her that exists in every version but isn't used, i think there would've been a monoko-like event for her. the song has the same kind of feeling as monoko's song so i think it was meant for something like that there is also a removed bgm file named "pororiporori-" there's an unused title screen image (表紙.png), it would've been called "insecure" at one point or maybe its from another project humiha scrapped and just used as a placeholder

pinwheel, flag, jellyfish, rabbit, paddy rice, bush warbler, disheveled hair, waterwheel, jizo, and traveler didn't exist yet paddy world, cluster amaryllis world, and ocean world didn't exist yet alot of worlds in general just did not exist yet, i don't know if it'd be necessary to add them but if anyone would want me to list them all please send an ask the nexus was more like the original yume nikki's nexus, the floor isn't there and the background has blue lines leading to each door (this explains an unused map i found in the final version a while ago that i've been confused about)

YAY! THERE'S TRAFFIC CONES! kozuki saves the game by interacting with a table above her bed instead of sitting down by the wall and there is no save theme yet the uboa room existed but the event there wasn't implemented yet there is no countdown for falling asleep or a transition for going into one of the nexus doors yet the sound effect for opening the door in kozuki's dream room is doubled for some reason and her dream room also has no bgm there's no connections at the transition from sky world to the blue maze so you can only get caught by the chaser there the monochrome world bgm is sped up and the npc in the small path isn't there it also just puts you back where you came from when you leave the path THE CAT NPC THAT GIVES YOU THE MONOCHROME EFFECT DOESN'T SQUEAK AT YOU THIS IS A TRAVESTY. the bgm in the transition from stone world to sakura world is the stone world bgm sped up when using the sakura effect kozuki doesn't fade into petals and reappear so it feels alot more abrupt

i think this is all of the things i found, if someone knows more once again please send an ask

[day-poems]

10/2

I was surprised to find a flock

of warblers working the young

birch clumps out on the Kennebunk

Plains…right out in…along a

seldom used old road that

bisects the plain parallel to Rt. 109.

There had to be a dozen or more

Yellow-rumped Warblers and

twice that of Palms…and Palms

are a warbler I do not often see

here around home…or in Maine

for that matter. And, of course,

a single Common Yellowthroat

working the inner-most foliage

of the bushiest clumps of birch,

staying well out of sight, or

camera line-of-sight at any rate.

I stood and watched them

glean insects from the underside

of the birch leaves for 30 minutes

at least. Trying for photos when-

ever one worked its way out

into the open far enough.

I have, of course, lots of photos

of the leafy clump where a bird

was, and lots of out-of-focus

shots that might have a bird

in there somewhere…but I did

get a few reasonable shots of

both Yellow-rumps and Palms…

both already in their confusing

fall feathers among the turning

foliage of the young birches.

[hairpintvrns]

Beneath their mask, Terry’s blood pulsed. This always happened, they thought, when caught in far too much light, when their world was cast too far away from any notions relating to their everyday. No buildings here. No pressing deadline. Somewhere, above them, they could perhaps draw focus onto some birdsong—though it was faint. No Micah...

They could no longer grasp the logic. Thoughts of more grounding sensations, then. Trees of native white oak, older than Leandro, than Terry, by decades. The first fall foliage from the deciduous trees, burnt orange in the mid-morning hour. Fire ants moving en masse from the bark of this tree and to the nearest molehill. Weevils, or whatever insect of interest Diego had taken a liking to. Lupita sitting on an exposed tree stump, watching something moving below. Still, Leandro’s presence was overwhelming. Too tall. Too warm. Flaring. They never cared for it, this invasion of light and noise. Eyes, mouth. Shoulders. Hands. Aggravating how his body appeared to be sculpted from an ideal.

They held Lea’s gaze as it drifted upward. Birds. They could do birds. Granted, thrushes usually foraged on the ground, but they could be so versatile in their foraging habits—the varied thrush on the West Coast, for one, had developed to forage beyond the understory. Still, it was easier to imagine the hermit thrush they’d spotted some weeks past singing its haunting flute-like song in the morning and piercing their beak through their prey the next. “Think that you’d cut its lifespan? Well, yes, Lea. Though I suppose insects don’t live a terribly long life,” they began, glancing sideways at Diego, “I can’t help that birds feed on them. It’s just in their nature.”

They crossed their arms tightly, pulling their limbs closer to their body. Bracing, almost, against some invisible force. Drawing further into themselves, a strange but not rare impulse emerged to pierce themselves through the bark. They wished they could stand as resolutely as this white oak, with its trunk thick and deeply grooved. But perhaps the opposite was true. They leaned into the warmth because they feared the cold begging to be let out. The sensations were clearer outlines compared to the jumbled logic in their head. Prickle of the bark, earthy smell of the forest floor. And they didn’t know where it came from, that teasing inflection in their words. Trying to draw Leandro back into the dark, perhaps. The vision of him was too bright against the open space. They’d like the darkness of candles and stairwells and sudden encounters. Very lovely the shadows. His laugh was almost interesting. Hoarse. Brief, but not curt. In the woods, his laughter had been transformed into just that—background noise. A warbler’s hoarse call. 

Knowing words came next: Would that satisfy you? They don’t pick up the entendre until another few seconds later, until he’d turned his back and had given them no opportunity to answer. Instead, Leandro had pressed forward, diverting his attention from them and to the children.

Their brows furrowed, almost confused at the disruption of momentum, like a bird pausing mid-flight as the light caught the glazed window, barely missing a collision. At a loss, they willed their legs to move forward and caught the family sitting nearby, not too far from the tree stump where Lupita had earlier sat.

They’d eased down on the same stump that Lupita had left behind, having vacated it in favor of sitting on a picnic mat that Diego had unrolled. Rustling of lunch wrappers, soft laughter. Amid the noise, Terry chose that moment to answer, ears flushing red at their slight social blunder, “What I meant—of course I played with marbles. My brothers hated that I beat them each time. Abe found my stash hidden under a loose floorboard and threw all of them out the window. We lived just above my dad’s shop. You can imagine how furious Papa got, sidewalk filled with the damn things.” The memory felt so lost in time now.  “I don’t know why I’m talking about that.” They bit their bottom lip, in an attempt to sweep away the current of memory, and shook their head. 

A focus on the next question, then. “It isn’t a witch store. Even I find the whole thing quite rational. Think about sapphires. Among the hardest materials on earth.” Their gaze drifted, if unintentionally, from Leandro to his children. Lupita and Diego both had begun unrolling their breakfast burritos, but their ears perked up, listening to Terry’s words with rapt attention. “It’s bright, hard and durable. We use sapphires for lenses and windows and crystal dials of watches. In some ways, even if diamonds are the hardest natural substance, sapphires are better, and more practical, when it comes to the everyday. Could handle temperatures higher than diamonds, too.” A pause here, realizing that they’d had an audience of three. “When you put it like it that, it isn’t hard to see why sapphire crystals would appeal so much to people, now, wouldn’t it?” 

The shared “Yeah!” was almost endearing. “And it helps, of course, that they are quite beautiful.” Their gaze softened as they watched the children, letting out a short peal of laughter at their renewed enthusiasm, “Anyway, go on and eat.” 

They leaned forward, right hand drifting to the buckle of their messenger bag, feeling the cold of it, the smoothness of it against the leather. Content to sit in silence, until—

“Dad, there’s no more space here. Go sit with Terry!” 

Terry stilled. Contact became an act of touching. Deliberate elusiveness was foiled, now, for he could never say no to his children. They adjusted in their seat by the tree stump. So little space between them, beneath them, the warmth against elbows rubbing, shoulders touching.

The minutes ticked on. They held their gaze back to the wildflowers. Would that satisfy you? Had Terry answered? “Lea,” their free hand hovered on the small of his back, before settling there, urging him to stand. Pushing them away, almost. Push, pull, want, don’t want. Oscillations like clockwork. “Well, are you going to pick some wildflowers for me?”

Although their response had not been surprising, Leandro paused for a moment. He’d always found that talking things out helped ease the mind and body from strain and stress. Conversations came easy to people like him who have made a life out of interacting with and teaching younger minds. Lea could go on about the most trivial things in life and find some absurd outlook in its importance on this world. At times he wondered if that was his younger self’s way of helping himself get through things that climbed through to the surface, but all in all he believed it. He could tell that for Terry communication perhaps wasn’t the easiest. He often wondered about their story, but felt intruding too much might make them run for the hills or something. Terry didn’t seem to like him asking many questions. 

The surprise really came in the form of post credit lines. Those scenes people stayed back at the theater in order to get a clue for what the following movie would bring. The marvels, Leandro remembered, did it often, although he didn’t particularly watch any of them. Terry’s version came just as exciting and unexpected to him, despite the obvious caution in their rescind. Accepting whatever he could get, Lea flashed them a smile. They were getting somewhere, weren’t they? Regardless it was the best that he would get, so he held onto that and moved on before they changed their mind. 

Lea wondered what it took for someone to get truly close to her. Clearly, there were ways - Terry had been married at some point after all, which only made him more curious about it all. He knew it probably wasn’t a conversation he’d be privy to, but he could certainly make up his own lore. He thought about their own encounter and how it had come about. Leandro liked to separate his friend into versions of sorts. There was the confident and quirky flirt he liked to keep stored at Ketziya. She was immersive and all around sexy in a way that left so much to the imagination. Subtle and yet purposeful in her approach - it still left him breathless to think about.

Leandro glanced over them ever so casually, pretending to simply take a look around for more insects. This version was definitely just Terry. Thoughtful, always there but somehow not at the same time, and easily defensive. She was vulnerable and yet so fierce that it gave him whiplash. There were times where he’d see one fuse with the other and he caught himself utterly dumbfounded. It was no surprise his children felt it too. Diego had been the first to pry, not having even waited until Terry left before he bombarded them with innocent questions. Lupita had been a little less forward, but watchful and wishful which only served to stab Leandro’s heart. 

Glancing up at them he couldn’t help but feel a warmth besides Terry. Despite having had his doubts about this entire arrangement, and still sometimes questioning it all, Leandro couldn’t deny just how happy his children were to have Terry around. How quick to follow instructions Diego and Lupita were just so Terry would come back again and again. Leandro didn’t know how long they’d be able to keep that going for, or how long before Terry found it too much, but he prays it doesn’t hurt them long. “You think so?” Lea asked, glancing up at the towering trees in search of the birds. He could hear them calling all around them, but his gaze had been fixed on the ground where his interests lied. Concerned for the little beetle quickly evaded at the sound of Terry’s laughter. Perhaps the weevil wouldn’t die in vain. The thought felt oddly bittersweet, and left an unearthly presence in its wake. 

As if to mock his thoughts it happened right before him. The shift was ever so subtle, but he couldn’t help the excitement it woke in him. His smile widened at their words, “Maybe I’m more inclined to now.” he confessed with a single breathy laugh. Lea could see it though - Terry amongst the wildflowers. It seemed appropriate with their shared similarities. Unruly. Adaptable. Strong despite its fragility. Picking flowers for them was the least they’d do if so allowed. “Would that satisfy you?” he asked, not turning to gauge their reaction instead choosing to move forwards to where his children played. They might be hungry, he thought, and with the sun high above them it’d be best to find a place with some shade. 

And just as quick as it had come... His head fell back as he looked up at the sky, begging for clemency. Terry would be the death of him. “What? Where? How?” he couldn’t even think of the questions to ask to see how their math ended on separate answers. What did age have to do with marbles? “Nevermind.” he dismissed it, “What I meant was, I could teach him some games and then they’d play it over at the school yard like we used to back before the internet rotten everyone’s brains.” Leandro remembered having tournaments during recess with the other kids of weaver ridge. Those were some of the most exciting moments of his youth, right besides his adventures with Cookie and his endless insect breeding farms. “I’m not so sure about going there. Isn’t that one of those witch stores?” he asked, glancing at them. His family had sinned enough for seven lifetimes, he didn’t need to add any more displeasure in the Lord’s face.

[awesomeforever]

Sign in In 1886, after meeting the inventor Thomas Edison in New York, Hawaii’s King Kalakaua enthusiastically began electrifying the grounds of his new residence — and within a year, 325 incandescent lights had the Iolani Palace fully aglow. The king wouldn’t be able to pull off the same feat these days on Maui. Much of the island’s outdoor illumination soon could violate a new ordinance intended to help the island’s winged population. Fines could reach $1,000 a day. The measure restricts outdoor lighting in an effort to keep endangered birds — and Maui has some of the world’s rarest — from crashing into spotlighted buildings. But Bill 21, signed into law last week, is ruffling feathers because its provisions also could keep flagpoles, church steeples, swimming pools and even luaus in the dark. “People have told me they’ve seen birds falling on the ground in town, up country, all over the place,” said the bill’s author, Kelly Takaya King, who chairs the Maui County Council’s Climate Action, Resilience and Environment Committee. Maui is a veritable Eden for species such as the wedge-tailed shearwater, white-tailed tropicbird, brown booby, myna, kiwikiu and nene — the state bird and the world’s rarest goose. The island also is home to some 170,000 people, however, and the new law is pitting the avian paradise against the human one. The ordinance imposes a near-total ban on upward-shining outdoor lighting and limits short-wavelength blue-light content. Similar laws are in effect in many jurisdictions nationwide to protect various local interests, including the night skies in Arizona and the wilderness in New Hampshire. Maui has a more complicated set of priorities. The outdoor light restrictions effectively prohibit nighttime hula dances and luau performances — local cultural signatures. Indoor alternatives are impractical. “Customers do not want to be in a ballroom or enclosed facility — they can go to Detroit and do that,” wrote Debbie Weil-Manuma, the president of a local tourism company, in a letter of opposition. At the same time, Maui is grappling with an invasive species arriving in flocks of up to 35,000 a day: tourists. Local officials are considering caps on hotel and vacation rentals. Birds can be disoriented by artificial light, sometimes confusing it for moonlight, and end up slamming into a building’s windows or circling until exhausted. In a single night in May 2017, 398 migrating birds — including warblers, grosbeaks and ovenbirds — flew into the floodlights of an office tower in Galveston, Tex. Only three survived. This danger is why the Empire State Building in New York City, the former John Hancock Center in Chicago and other landmark skyscrapers now go dark overnight during peak bird migration periods. One tall building. One dark and stormy night. 395 dead birds. Yet, most mass bird fatalities occur in urban centers with tall buildings in high density. Maui is rural, and its kalana, or county office building, is only nine stories tall. Jack Curran, a New Jersey lighting consultant who evaluated the science behind the bill, said the council “clearly didn’t do their homework.” The bill also requires that lighted surfaces be nonreflective, with a matte surface if painted. As the island is coated in compliant black paint, Curran joked, “Maui will wind up looking like Halloween.” Even support for the regulation is fractured. “This bill does provide good benefits,” said Jordan Molina, Maui’s public works director, “but it doesn’t have to do so recklessly.” The new law, he added, will make his office the “blue-light police.” Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not oppose the bill, it recommended creating a habitat conservation plan unless the county could devise a foolproof lighting policy. According to public records, the council relied on a single, non-peer-reviewed study funded by an Arizona company, C&W Energy Solutions, that lobbied for the bill. (The county’s attorneys issued a memorandum in July warning of the “potentially serious conflict of interest,” which the council ignored.

) And King’s efforts were propelled in part by conservation groups’ lawsuit alleging that a luxury resort’s lights disoriented at least 15 endangered petrels between 2008 and 2021, resulting in at least one petrel’s death. (By contrast, the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project has focused on the continuing “depredation by feral cats,” which number in the thousands on the island.) Still at issue are the measure’s conflicting exemptions. For example, lights at public golf courses, tennis courts and schools’ athletics events are allowed, but not lights at hotel-owned golf courses or tennis courts. Conventional string lights are permitted for holidays and cultural festivals but must be “fully shielded” for all other uses, including weddings. The county fair is also exempt. So are emergency services and emergency road repairs. The law will inhibit TV and film crews’ night lights, such as those used by “Hawaii Five-O,” “NCIS: Hawai‘i” and “The White Lotus.” The latter was honored in October by the Maui County Film Office for giving the island national and international recognition. To guard migratory birds, Philadelphia plans to cut its artificial lighting that can fatally distract flocks King told local media that compliant lights are widely available online. But when asked recently for online links to such bulbs, her office sent just one — for a bedside night light that can double as an outdoor bug light, although it was unclear whether the bulb meets all of the ordinance’s specifications. “Appropriate lighting is not available,” King then conceded. “We’re hoping it will be in the next few years. When you pass a lot of these environmental laws, you kind of have to go in steps to get them passed.” As passed, the bill explicitly removed exemptions for field harvesting, security lighting at beaches run by hotels or condominiums, safety lighting for water features, motion-sensor lighting, and lighting on state or federal property — including Maui’s harbors and even the runway lights at its airports. Council member Shane Sinenci supported the ultimate provisions. “Our unique biodiversity is what makes us appealing to both visitors and to residents alike,” the Maui News quoted him as saying before the final vote. “We are often underestimating the value of a healthy ecosystem and all the benefits that comes with it.” The law takes effect in July for new lighting and requires existing lighting to be in compliance by 2026. Sign up for the latest news about climate change, energy and the environment, delivered every Thursday source

[shinsengumi-archives]

Hijikata Toshizo’s haiku poems

Here’s a list of all 41 of Hijikata’s haiku poems from his book “Hogyoku Haiku Collection” (豊玉発句集), along with translations for each one. 

The translations are based on japanese-wiki-corpus (English), fushigi-dono (Russian), WhiteWind (Japanese explanations) and shinsengumi.forumvi (Vietnamese). I tried to focus on the intended meaning rather than the literal translation.

Overall, he really liked to write about spring, plum blossoms, snow and kites 😅

Which one’s your favorite?

(Image from fushigi-dono)

文久三 亥の春 豊玉 発句 集 土方義豊 Bunkyu 3, Spring of the Year of the Boar Hogyoku Haiku Collection Hijikata Yoshitoyo (commentary)

さしむかふ心は清き水かゞみ My heart is pure as I face my reflection in the water (commentary)

(Image from fushigi-dono)

裏表なきは君子の扇かな A gentleman’s fan has no front or back (commentary)

水音に添えてききけり川千鳥 The cries of river gulls— accompanied by the sound of water (commentary)

手のひらを硯にやせん春の山 Mountains in spring— I use my palm as an inkstone  (commentary)

白牡丹月夜月夜に染めてほし White peony, on a moonlit night— hoping to be dyed in moonlight (commentary)

願うことあるかも知らす火取虫 Moths, full of desire, are taken by the flames (commentary)

露のふる先にのほるや稲の花 Dewdrops fall from the tips of rice blossoms (commentary)

おもしろき夜着の列や今朝の雪 In front of the snow this morning, lined up in their night kimonos— How funny! (commentary)

菜の花のすたれに登る朝日かな The rising sun shines through the bamboo curtain— of canola flowers (commentary)

知れば迷いしなければ迷わぬ恋の道 The ways of love, if you know it, you are lost, if you know it not, you will not get lost  (commentary)

知れば迷いしらねば迷ふ法の道 The ways of law, if you know it, you will get lost, if you know it not, you will still get lost (commentary)

(Image from fushigi-dono)

人の世のものとは見えず梅の花 Plum blossoms do not appear to belong in this mortal world (commentary)

我年も花に咲れて尚古し Every time the cherry blossoms bloom, I grow a year older (commentary)

年どしにおられて梅のすがた哉 Year after year, this crooked plum tree continues to bloom (commentary)

朧ともいはて春立つ年の内 How confusing, the first day of spring has arrived before the first day of the year (commentary)

春の草五色までは覚えけり The herbs of spring— I’ll remember only five alternative:  春の鶯五色までは覚えけり (source) The bush warbler in spring has learned to sing five notes (commentary)

(Image from fushigi-dono)

朝茶呑てそちこちすれば霞けり Steam from my morning tea, here and there, merges with the haze of dawn  (commentary)

春の夜はむつかしからぬ噺かな On a spring night, we were engrossed in carefree conversation (commentary)

三日月の水の底照る春の雨 The crescent moon shines from underwater— spring rain (commentary)

水の北山の南や春の月 North of the waters, south of the mountains, is the spring moon  (commentary)

横に行き足跡はなし朝の雪  In the morning snow, there are no footprints off the beaten path (commentary)

(Image from fushigi-dono)

山門を見こして見ゆる春の月 Looking beyond the temple gate— the spring moon (commentary)

大切な雪は解けけり松の庭 In the pine garden, my precious snow has already melted (commentary)

二三輪はつ花たけはとりはやす The first two or three blossoms cause so much celebration (commentary)

玉川に鮎つり来るやひかんかな In the Tama River, the ayu fish are coming, but it’s the Day of Mercy (commentary)

春雨や客を返して客に行  Spring rain— parting ways from a guest, I visit another (commentary)

来た人にもらひあくひや春の雨 A guest arrived and made me yawn— spring rain (commentary)

咲ふりに寒けは見へず梅の花 The plum blossoms do not look cold in bloom (commentary)

朝雪の盛りを知らす伝馬町 In the Tenma district, no one knows the beauty of morning snow (commentary)

丘に居て呑のもけふの(飲むのも今日の)花見かな I wonder if I'll be up on the hill drinking or just viewing the cherry blossoms today (commentary)

梅の花 一輪咲いても 梅は梅 A plum blossom, even if it’s only one, a plum blossom is a plum blossom (commentary)

(Image from fushigi-dono)

(井伊公君）ふりなからきゆる雪あり上巳こそ (Lord Ii) The snow that fell on the third of the third month has already melted (commentary)

年礼に出て行空やとんひたこ On the way to say my New Year's greetings, a kite flies in the sky above (commentary)

春ははるきのふの雪も今日は解 Spring is spring, and the snow that fell yesterday is melting today (commentary)

公用に出て行みちや春の月 I can see the spring moon on my way to official business (commentary)

あはら屋に寝て居てさむし春の月 It’s cold sleeping in this shabby house, the spring moon shines above (commentary)

(Image from fushigi-dono)

暖かなかき根のそはやあぐるたこ (ひか登り) In the warm air, next to a fence, a kite rises (commentary)

今日もきょうたこのうなりや夕けせん Today again and again, you could hear the buzzing of kites, until dinner was over (commentary)

うぐいすやはたきの音もついやめる A bush warbler sings, I look up from my cleaning (commentary)

武蔵野やつよふ出て来る花見酒 Go to the fields of Musashi, and get drunk admiring cherry blossoms  (commentary)

梅の花咲る日だけにさいて散 Plum blossoms bloom and scatter on the same day (commentary)

Sources:

English translations: https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/person/Toshizo%20HIJIKATA.html

Photos + Russian translations + commentary: https://diary.ru/~fushigi-dono/?tag=5054930&n=t

Russian translations: https://morreth.livejournal.com/1280012.html

Photos + Vietnamese translations: https://shinsengumi.forumvi.com/t23-topic

Photos: http://www.toshizo.com/takara/toshi020.html

Photo: https://intojapanwaraku.com/editorgo/171083/

Art + Commentary: https://earlgreyimperial.bufsiz.jp/hijikata/tosizou000.htm

Commentary: https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1418506134

Commentary: https://ameblo.jp/rekijyo-doumei/entry-11511616596.html

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

Bingo card

Thank you for your bingo card, I've anonymized it. #Jen

KLAINE BINGO: (Sorry for leaving 'til the last day 😅)

Debut fic - Trick or Treat by bitbybit Thank you - already in our debut fic category!

2. Page turner fic - Never Saying Goodbye to You by @lilyvandersteen

Inspired by a beautiful drawing by @thisdoesnotsuck, this is a story where Kurt travels through time to the 1920s and falls in love with his great-grandfather’s secret beau. Featuring a family curse, doppelgängers, angst and confusion. I promise the ending will be happy, though :-)

 3. Fic that made you need tissues: Maybe It Should Have Been Different by Verseau_87 (lots of tw)

Kurt and his family and friends deal with the aftermath of a horrific attack. Can someone recover from something this violent and come out unchanged? They don't think so...but is it possible?

Sometimes strength and love can do anything...

4. Fic where one has an unusual reputation: The Ghost Kitchen by @hkvoyage

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kurt lived in Lima with his father. Two years later, he returned to New York City. As he needed money to pay for rent and food, he got a job in a booming industry: food delivery. His first delivery order was a pick-up from Warbler Food Enterprises. Little did he know he would meet a cute chef there that would turn his world upside down.

5. Wild card, your choice: The Dalton Circle by darcangell23, @grlnxtdr30,

On Halloween night in 1901, two boys mysteriously disappeared from Dalton Academy, and a third boy was murdered. Over a hundred years later, can the witches of The Dalton Circle solve the mystery? An evil being wants Blaine's body, and he will stop at nothing to get it! Kurt won't let that happen.

6. Summer story: New Adventures Summer Camp by izwordsoup

Already chosen in this category!!

7. Fic written for a challenge: My Dream Come True by little_escapist 

Kurt Hummel thought that being a famous model was his dream until he met Blaine Anderson and his son.

8. Fic that made you laugh out loud: Witch Wanted by @rockitmans

Witch Wanted For CURSE BREAKING and REVENGE Can pay in lasagna or favors (nothing weird)

Blaine is cursed to not touch anyone, Kurt is the grumpy neighborhood witch. They each have something the other other needs (the thing is love)

9. -- (no choice)

Find the full list at A03. Rules at Library

[lies]

There’s that illustration in the original Peterson guide of “confusing fall warblers.” This bird would fit right in. Distinguishing them from a drab first-year Bay-breasted (for example) is an exercise in learning what to pay attention to and approaching the question with an open mind.

Or I guess if you see them all the time it just becomes recognition.

I’m such a baby in so many areas of bird ID. I’m pretty good at the 300 or so species that occur with some regularity where I live. But take me out of that context by flying me somewhere else or having some interesting bird from somewhere else fly to me, and I’m back at square one.

Pine Warbler (Setophaga pinus)

October 7, 2023

John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Tinicum, Pennsylvania

[angelatsumu]

musical theatre.

notes: fluff, slightly ooc atsumu, absolutely adorable <3, not properly formatted or proof-read, gn!reader

WC: 745

miya atsumu, msby jackals star athlete, loves musical theatre and the like. he claims it’s your fault, but osamu’s already confirmed that he had always had the Beetlejuice bug. you often come home on the days you work later him to find him dancing in his underwear in the kitchen as he finishes dinner, poorly harmonizing with the Warblers version of some mid-2000s song. you spook him every time by singing along with him, but he quickly returns to his jam session as you fall in line, helping him set the table for dinner.

miya atsumu, the muscial theatre enthusiast, enjoys a good love song; he’s a hopeless romantic at heart, and the way musical characters convey romance tugs on his heart strings in a way very similar to how you often do. you’re always seranaded by your loverboy when the two of you are alone—in the car, the house, on a desolate isle in the grocery store. atsumu thinks it’s what real couples do, serenade one another. he’s not ashamed to embarrass you in the checkout line if you pretend to ignore his performance, voice getting louder until your cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

miya atsumu—Hamilton:the musical critic and Alexander Hamilton anti—hadn’t exactly explained to his team his music taste. honestly, the topic never came up, and he was far too prideful to express his preference for the Glee version of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ because he figured his teammates would be intolerant. unfortunately for him, his spouse had not been so privy to this level of secrecy. while you were hosting Koutaro, Kiyoomi, and Shoyo, you let it slip to the men that you and Atsumu were going to visit Broadway for your anniversary because it was just in time for Atsumu to see ‘Waitress’ for real. Shoyo’s eyes squint at you in skepticism whike Koutaro’s face held a bewildered expression. your brows knit together as you rethink your statement in an attempt to pinpoint the source of their confusion, but you’re interrupted by atsumu walking into the room with the takeout you all had delivered. all eyes shift to him, and the two more lively of the guests immediately have diarrhea of the mouth. Atsumu brushes off their silly teasing and overly ignorant questions, but he continues to shoot glares at you all evening.

“ya mean, ya know that?” atsumu huffs as he hears you enter the kitchen, the little patter of your feet along the floor still making his heart throb after two years of marriage. you roll your eyes, making your way to the kitchen sink where he stood, washing the few dishes from the gathering. your sigh contently, hands wrapping around his lower abdomen and clasping at the front. he relaxes into your touch as he scrubs away. “can’t believe ya outed me, baby. ‘sposed to be just fer us,” he whines dramatically, overselling the betrayal narrative just a bit. you sigh once more, inhaling his scent as your buried your face in the soft material of his shirt. “’m sorry baby, was just excited for the trip is all,” you mumbled into his back, and he lets out a dramatic huff. “’s okay, love. ‘m excited, too. bo’ said he’ll give In the Heights a try,” “hm? how’d you manage that?” atsumu laughs at the hint of tiredness in your voice, your reply coming out more disinterested than you intended. as he dries off the dishes before setting them aside he mentions, “told ‘im Vanessa was hot,” atsumu giggles boyishly, and you jokingly head-but him in the back. he dramatically simpers in search of an apology, but you merely nuzzle over the area of attack. he hums in response, shaking his head at how cute you were.

at the next day of practice, atsumu comes into the locker room to be met by the sound of “Candy Store” from the Heathers musical. his cheeks warm at the sound, certain that his team was just teaming him. as he rounds the corner to approach his locker he finds Shoyo, Koutaro, and Kiyoomi standing on different benches with hair brushes in hand as they sing along proudly. Atsumu grins lovingly at his friends before shaking his head, pressing onward to his locker. as he preps his things for practice, he secretly thanks you for telling his not-so-dirty little secret.

reblogs + likes appreciated <3

[coldflashfan]

Snart snuck into the empty West household to see what he could find, but as he entered the hallway, a photo frame caught his eye.

"Well, well, well. Who would have thought the scarlet speedster was a choir boy," he stated to himself as he picked up the photo frame to study it more.

As he lifted the frame closer to his face, he noticed something fall to the floor. A polaroid had landed by his feet. When he picked it up, he saw Barry in the same blazer from the photo before, sat at a table.

"Cute," he smirked as he held up the photo to get a better view.

Figuring no one would notice if the picture was gone, considering it was tucked behind the frame, Snart put it in his inside pocket for sake keeping. He was sure Mick and Lisa did not have this in mind when he informed them he would look for information on the speedster.

Snart quickly searched through the house, trying hard not to linger in Barry's old bedroom. It was hard resisting the urge to lay on the bed and close his eyes, imagining Barry was lying beside him. But no, he needs to stay focused on his mission. No Barry Allen distractions; it was bad enough he had already stolen the photo. After all, it wasn't of any actual use to him. He quickly made his way downstairs and back out through the door, taking one last glance at the photo frame.

As he walked down the street towards his motorcycle, he pulled the polaroid back out of his pocket to glance at it once again. He couldn't help but note how soft and innocent Barry's face had looked, well more so than it did now. Quickly he pocketed the photo again before riding away.

-----------

Barry spied Snart at his regular table in Saints and Sinners and stalked his way across the room before sliding into Snart's booth.

"What do you want my help with now?" Snart drawled.

"No help, just one question," Barry replied short and curt.

"And that is?"

"Where's the picture?"

"Excuse me?"

"What did you do with the picture Snart?"

"Barry, you're going to have to be a bit more clear," Snart smirked.

Barry rolled his eyes before answering,

"Joe called me asking if I'd been by the house. He said Cecile had been cleaning and noticed an old polaroid that was tucked behind a frame was missing. He wanted to know if I had taken it, which I haven't."

"And your point is?" Snart replied, pretending to sound board.

"There is only one person I know who would break into a cop's home. So what did you do with the picture?"

"Nothing," Snart replied, taking a bite out of his french fry.

"Nothing?" Barry asked, eyebrows raised.

"Nothing."

"Then why did you take it?" Barry cried, waving his arms around.

"Because I could," Snart smirked.

"But why that? You could have taken anything. I thought you were going to sell my identity to the highest bidder or something!"

"We made a deal, Barry, and I stand by that deal. No one will find out who you are."

"Again then, why take that?"

Snart shrugged, and Barry sighed.

Snart couldn't have Barry knowing he took it because he thought he looked cute, that looking at the picture gave him warm fuzzy feelings. What kind of criminal would he be then. He definitely couldn't admit that he falls asleep every night looking at it before tucking it under his pillow. It sounds ridiculous just saying it in his head.

"Well, can I have it back?" Barry asked.

"I tell you what, meet me back here tomorrow at the same time, at this booth."

"And you'll give me the picture back?"

"Meet me, and you'll find out," Snart replied, walking away as he threw money down on the table for his order.

Barry sat back and sighed. Why would he take that of all things?

-------

"Okay, Snart, where's the picture?" Barry asked as he sank into the booth.

Snart smirked,

"I realize it wasn't fair for me to have that picture of you, so here."

Barry looked at the table in front of him to see a stack of polaroids, but he didn't see him when he picked them up. Instead, he saw Snart but a really young Leonard Snart.

"What is this?" Barry asked.

"Now it's fair, I have the picture of you, but you now have pictures of me."

"What?! Snart, that wasn't the deal," Barry exclaimed.

"Barry, we never made any such deal. I just figured this is more fair."

"But why do you want that picture so bad."

"Because I do," Snart replied, childishly.

Barry just sighed and put his hands in the air in exasperation. 

"Well, if you don't want these, I'll just take them back."

As Snart leaned across the table to take the pictures, Barry quickly snatched them up.

"I never said that!" He exclaimed, sifting through them.

When Barry looked up, Snart had his eyebrows raised.

"Your hair is curly," Barry giggled.

Snart rolled his eyes,

"Don't make me regret this kid."

"When were these taken?" Barry asked, honestly intrigued.

"I don't know, in my early to mid-twenties. I swiped a camera from a house me and Mick pulled a job on. Back in the safe house, Mick was messing around with it and took some photos of me. Lisa must have kept them. I found them a year or so ago." 

"You're actually smiling in this one." Barry beamed as he held it up to Len.

"Okay, Barry, we don't need the whole bar knowing. You'll ruin my reputation."

Barry looked around, remembering where he was, and blushed slightly.

"So you were a choir boy, huh?" Snart smirked.

"Well, it wasn't really a choir. We were an acapella group called the Warblers for our school's glee club."

"How adorable."

"Is that why you kept the picture?"

"Excuse me?" Snart replied, confused.

"You kept my picture because you found it adorable." Barry smiled, jokingly, or that's what he told himself.

"Careful, Barry, someone might think you're flirting with me," Snart smirked.

"Wha- I would nev- no." Barry stumbled over his own words blushing.

Snart actually had a slight smile on his lips as he raised his eyebrows at the bumbling idiot in front of him.

"Whatever you say, kid, well, I need to get going, so I'll see you around, I'm sure."

"Wait!" Barry shouted.

"Geez, Barry, what?" Snart asked, looking around at the attention Barry had just acquired towards them both.

"Sorry, it's just my picture."

Snart breathed a laugh and thought, what the hell,

"Barry, how am I supposed to look at that cute face every night if I give it back to you?"

Snart then continued to walk out but not before he saw the crimson red of Barry's face.

-------

A few days later, at Star Labs, Barry had just run back into the cortex after a patrol around the city. It was just him and Joe as everyone else had gone home for the night. As Barry pulled his cowl back and unzipped the top of his suit slightly, he missed what had fallen out, but Joe hadn't. 

As Barry sat down on one of the chairs, Joe bent down to pick up the polaroid on the floor.

"Um. Bar, why do you have an old picture of Leonard Snart in your suit?"

"What?" Barry asked, not fully paying attention.

Joe handed it to Barry with his eyebrows raised, and Barry's face completely paled.

"Um, it's for a work case." Barry lied.

"In your flash suit?" Joe asked, eyebrows still raised.

"Um, well, it's-"

"Bar?"

"Oh my god." Barry sighed quietly, burying his head in his hands in embarrassment.

"it's okay, Bar. I'm not mad. It's just not something I'd expect to happen. Are you two... Ya know..."

"NO, NO, I swear!" Barry cried.

"Okay, anything else? Two enemies don't normally carry around each other's pictures. I'm assuming that's where yours disappeared to. You could have just said you gave it to someone."

"No, Joe- It's not- I didn't..." Barry just sighed, blushing, rubbing his hands on his face.

Barry jumped up before Joe got a chance to reply.

"I've got to go," Barry said.

“To see Snart?” Joes asked.

"No!" Barry replied defensively.

Joe just raised his eyebrows.

"Okay fine, yes, but not for the reasons you're thinking!"

Barry ran out of Star Labs and towards Saints and Sinners.

Stupid Snart, this is all his fault, Barry thought to himself, but he couldn't ignore the butterflies in his stomach at the thought of seeing the man again.