#cuban spiky

[little-creature-of-the-day]

little creature of the day: cuban spiky isopod

oh my God they’re so cute! and what a beautiful picture!

image source

[braided-nerves]

Look at the Cuban spiky isopod rn

Isn't he so sweet and polite, he may go trick or treating

[paranoidgemsbok]

Today I just learned about the Cuban Spiky isopod, have you seen them??? I’m love

YESSSS THEY ARE SUCH LIL CUTIES

they look like they should have a cool spin attack

i also love the thai spiky pods theyre like panda kings but punk

[internetdruid]

🥚

Cuban spiky isopod!

(Pseudarmadillo Spinosus)

[rocketboots564]

OC Info and Mood Board

Here’s a Mood Board and OC Info for a Teen Wolf OC of mine: Enrico Mahealani

Enrico Mahealani: Enrico is a curious, clever, and sophisticated kid, and is a close relative of Danny Mahealani. He moves in with Danny after he decides to move back to Beacon Hills (this is during/after the Teen Wolf Movie). With an obsession for criminology and incredible psychic powers to boot, he excels in criminal investigation and forensic analysis. Despite being an awkward teenager haunted by dead, he strives to use his gifts and skills to become a detective…. even if that means occasionally getting in the way of police work, and dragging Eli Hale into his investigations with or without his permission…. May god rest Sheriff Stilinski’s stressed out soul.

Appearance: Enrico has tanned, moderately brown skin with short, wavy yet slightly spiky black hair. Paired with his dark brown eyes and semi-formal style, he often exudes the look of a private academy student mixed with a scraggly noir detective, even sporting his own overcoat (but no fedora. He’s more of a fisherman’s cap guy anyway)

Gender: Male (he/him)

Age: 15-16

Height & Weight: 5’10ft / 177lb

Nationality: Hawaiian/Cuban-American

Species: Human Psychic

Powers: communication with the dead, astral projection, semi-clairvoyance, slight magic prowess

Personality: Enrico has a sophisticated yet casual way of presenting himself. Sure, he talks like a debate team mixed with a poetry teacher, but he’s not very outspoken and rather quiet at times. However, he is exceptionally blunt and straightforward, oftentimes getting straight to the point when talking.

Other Info: Enrico is the son of one of Danny’s Cousin. Technically first cousin once removed, which I simplify to just “relative”

He’s known about his abilities from a very young age, but doesn’t mention them due to being sent to several doctors and therapists, all trying to diagnose him. In his words, “Concern arises when you tell people you can see the dead”

Enrico was orphaned, moving in with Danny after loosing his father due to disease. He lost his mother years before in a car wreck.

He occasionally enjoys botany, and likes growing scorpion grasses, as well as tomato plants

Out of all the dead people who communicate with him in Beacon Hills, the ones he connects with the most is Erica, Boyd, and occasionally Derek, who he often sees in small flashes watching over Eli. He wishes to know why they’re so important, and why they continue to show up.

Music: a list of songs that give off Enrico’s vibe

Pursing My True Self - Persona 4

Space Cowboy - Jamiroquai

Heaven - Persona 4

Duvet - Bôa

Qué Será - Willie Colon

Memories of You - Persona 3

Face Claim

Model - Jose Oliva

Source - Ron Reyes on Twitter (fair warning, their photography is rather provocative, but good!)

@fionajames thank you so much for the kind words I’d be glad to tag you in any other posts I make about him.

Some of this stuff you’ve seen already, but I hope you enjoy what’s new

[beetleboness]

give me a bug and ill tell u what i think it tastes like :3 /nf

Cuban spiky isopod!!

ORR

thai spiky isopod

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 37 - Yanah - "Yes Or No"

Another year, another nascent pop career at the Belgian Eurosong. This is Yanah, aka Natalie Vangronsvelt, and Yes or No is the lead single from her debut album The Girl in the Picture (out in 2004 in all good Belgian record stores). The album cover shows Yanah holding something bouzouki-like. The rest of the album is full of songs with Indian and Cuban influences with the title of the album coming from the famous picture of the young Phan Thi Kim Phuc, screaming, napalm burned and naked, running from the Vietnam War.

Somehow all of that leads to Yes or No, which is a conventional Western pop-rock song with Yanah wanting some commitment from her wavering partner. There some red, alt-punk grungy guitars, an American accent, and a red-leather jacket. Yanah is trying to be Avril Lavigne. It's fun, spiky and a little bit breathless. Her record company clearly saw this is a promotional opportunity for the album - even if this song doesn't really fit with the rest of the songs on it.

The voting reflected how this was received nicely. The jury didn't like, putting it second last in the heat. For once, the televote agreed with them. However the radio juries liked it a lot, putting in a tie for second-place. Radio-friendliness is all over the sound of this. The song was written by Yanah alongside Eric Geurts who is a song-writer and producer. Eric had his name everywhere on Yanah's debut album. He'd tried to launch girl-pop duo Indiana five years previously without success and in Yanah he's found a new front-girl for his musical ambitions.

Unfortunately for both him and for Yanah, the public didn't take to her or the album. This is a one-off appearance for her at Eurosong and after 2004, there was no more recorded musical output either from her or with Eric's name on it. Maybe the incongruity of the pop tracks and the more ethnic-oriented songs put off potential fans. After 2004 there's little not no trace of Yanah/Natalie. Eric Geurts still runs Flying Snowman Records and studio focussing mainly on production. There is no mention of Yanah on any of his websites or social media.

[hoodie-prince-kid]

There's also the Cuban spiky isopod

And a VERY endangered species, the yellow spikey

THE YELLOW ONE LOOKS LIKE A DURIAN FRUIT,,

[howdoyousayloco]

muggy weather and the neighbor's mangoes

Sometimes when it’s muggy out I say it feels like Florida. Even though my hair will be three times more frizzy by the end of the day and I will sweat my eyeliner off, I love every second. It feels like all of my rose-colored memories from when I am pretty sure I didn't have a care in the world even though that is probably not true.

Muggy weather reminds me of mangoes that grew from a branch of a tree in my grandma's neighbor's yard that she would pick from. Except, not "grandma," because to me and my sisters she was "little lela" since we couldn't pronounce Abuela and she was little and frail from years of chemo and had a much smaller presence than Big Lela, my other grandma, who has had plastic surgery and has tattooed makeup and talks loudly and is a little rude.

My little lela's house was where we spent every trip we made in the summer to south florida. She had a ranch-style house, like most people in hialeah do because of hurricane season, and a linoleum porch that i would crouch on when it was raining sometimes to watch it pour down and feel it on my hands because it was different from the rain at home and was warm. The air was so thick after a rainstorm that it weighed down on you and you could feel it against your skin like honey and it was fragrant with the smell of wet earth. In the front room of her house there was a piano with a bench that i would sit at and pluck out "chopsticks" slowly and it would annoy my older sister heavenly and make my mom think i was a musical genius. The floor was always cold, especially when i would walk barefoot in the morning out of the little room with the dollhouse that was actually a refurbished cd case and had two beds that i shared with three sisters that was next to the bathroom with the sign that said "powder room" on it. I would tiptoe so i wouldnt wake anyone up across the house to the yard with the square of sort of pink concrete that was in the middle of the crab grass that was spiky but didnt have ticks like up north so i could run around in it that was surrounded by wire fencing and palm trees and i tried to catch lizards. I didn't often succeed but when i did i would trap them in a little toy pot so i could show my sisters and parents and little lela who would tell me to get it out of the house and wash the toy. She worried a lot. I guess her life gave her a lot of reasons to.

We would congregate for breakfast in the morning in the living room, all eight of us and eat toasted cuban bread with butter and guava con queso pastelitos from vicky bakery that they don't have here up in Jersey that I am always craving and mangoes that are so much better than the ones we get now and café cubano that i wasn't allowed to have because it would make me short with lots of sugar and milk. I look back on those days like im clicking through a ViewFinder held up to the light. Hazy, otherworldly, so far removed from my current life that it makes me question if i was always who i am right now.

We gathered one time, my whole family with my little brother who was born by then and friends of my awela who were tías even though they werent really and my cousins who i didnt really talk to anymore and tías that were actually tías, and sat around a table that we set up in the front room, the one with the piano, that was filled with cuban food. Bread, and pastelitos, and mangoes, and coffee, and black pudding that i was too scared to eat because did you know it's made with blood, and isn't that weird, and a lot of other things that i dont really remember, and we ate and talked and tried to ignore that little lela was in a wheelchair and she was speaking more spanish than english when its usually the opposite and even though she lived ten more years than the doctors said she would i realized she wasnt immortal and it was scary because she had a tremor and i couldn't really understand her and i felt bad that i couldnt talk to her the same way that i used to because her voice was really high and im not good at speaking spanish and i had trouble looking at her in the eyes because i was old enough to know that she didnt have a lot of time left but too young for that to really sink in and i wasnt sure how to act and so i tried to be happy to make her happy and ate a lot of desert and i thought about other things.

After we packed up, said long goodbyes, and i poorly played her a song on my clarinet, my family squished into the seven seater car that somehow held all of us and took the really long ride back to New Jersey where the mangos were not as good and where there were no vicky bakeries and where little lelas house was not, and i sat cramped in the backseat where it smelled like clementines and the sweat of eight people and gas station coffee, and i played on my sisters DS when she let me and felt weird because i knew it would probably be the last time i would be in this car in florida on a road trip. The last time staying in my little lelas house had came and gone, and we went back after that to Big Lelas house but its not magical anymore it just feels like Florida but in the capitalized way that feels like Vacation and Tourists and Disney Adults instead of just our florida that felt like happiness and home and muggy weather and the neighbor's mangos and i miss it every day.

Its strange to think that florida is Florida to some people, and they take a plane, and they dont see any relatives that havent seen them since they were this big dame un besito mi niñita linda tienes un novio? No? Eso es bueno, men are no good. They go to Disneyland, and they probably stay inside when it rains and dont eat at pollo tropical or stay in a house that doesnt fit all your siblings but maybe im just being bitter because i cant go back to the florida that i want to go back to but maybe everyone has a place like that and its just as hard for everyone to lose but oh well, find a new one because life only moves forward and its not always that easy and definitely not as carefree as you imagined that it most likely maybe was in the past, but it could just be the golden sun that always seems to be behind you teasing you with its unreachable warmth on your back even if its still up in the middle of the sky and doesnt actually move and it still shines over everything because life is still ok and the weather can still be hot and humid and beautiful in new jersey too sometimes.

[rainesol]

Cuban spiky isopod

Hrngh isopods……

[knifeshoeoreofight]

Part 5/?

(part 1 here) (part 2 here) (part 3 here) (part 4 here)

tw: emetophobia

Note: I wrote the storm bit before Tropical Storm Isaias happened, I intend no connection to or disrespect towards a serious real world event. 

A month really is a long time. Sid sets up an office of sorts, where he can throw the shutters open to let in the sun and the sea air. He spends some time setting up his laptop securely as best he can. He hopes the VPN helps. He’s not a computer guy, that was always Flower’s department. 

Flower. He misses his friends, and his family. He has some time before anyone will start to wonder why they haven’t heard from him, so he can try and decide what the safest course of action would be once people start to worry about his radio silence. Maybe letters, so nothing can be tracked electronically? 

He keeps as low a profile as possible. He goes to the supermarket late at night, when the only other people around are tired and also hoping to avoid interaction. 

His favorite thing about the area is the roadside fruit stand he finds the one time he wanders further than the grocery store. It’s run by a little old Cuban lady, who seems perpetually inclined to not want to talk to anyone, which suits him just fine. He returns home with a old plastic bag stretched thin with a fragrant burden of ripe guavas and papayas. 

The papaya’s floral, salmon-pink flesh is the best thing he’s ever eaten and he vows to have some on hand for Zhenya to try when he emerges. 

He does a little half-hearted poking at his research, but there’s not a lot he can do without lab equipment. He works out using YouTube videos. He lays out in the sun and discovers, to his annoyance, that his shoulders have a tendency to freckle as they tan. 

He walks along the beach and goes snorkeling with an old mask and fins he finds in a closet. He sees clouds of silver fish and even a stingray. He wishes Zhenya were here to see it too. 

Every night, before he heads to bed, he checks on the pod. Nothing looks different from day to day.

He has strange dreams at night, colors and sensations so disconcerting and, well, alien, that he often wakes up in a sweat. In many, he sees himself but distorted and strange, cast in shades of ultraviolet and blue. 

It’s comforting. Zhenya is alive, and dreaming. 

***

It might be his imagination, but the air feels charged when he wakes up on the morning of the thirtieth day. Zhenya had told him the time span was approximate, but he still rolls out of bed and heads out to the ship as soon as he throws on some clothes. 

The air is muggy and the sky is overcast. A storm brewing, maybe. The pod, when he reaches it, is intact and unchanged. 

The day drags, the hours creeping by bloated and slow. He goes for a run, he rinses off in the sea. The salt water dries tacky on his skin so he showers it off. Switches on the local news. Registers nothing. Makes himself eat. Makes himself wait another two hours before he checks the ship again in the early afternoon. Nothing. 

As he suspected it might, thunder rumbles through the low-hanging clouds around 3 pm. He watches the wind pick up and toss the fronds of the palms outside the living room window. He checks the weather on his phone, and decides to close the storm shutters on the house. 

The house is stifling and claustrophobic after that. He listens to the pitch of the wind increase and the first bit of drizzle begin to pat against the shutters. 

The news had called it a tropical depression, but as the rainsong outside builds to a roar, though, Sid reasons that a storm is a fucking storm. 

He can’t stop thinking about Zhenya--  about what might happen if he emerges to this chaos alone, disoriented by human senses. Sid makes the decision in an instant. He grabs a flashlight and his phone, and yanks the door open into the driving wind. 

The rain is strangely temperate as it soaks through his clothes. He stands there in the yard for a minute, taking in the dissonant feeling of wind and rain that don’t carry the icy winter teeth he’s used to. 

When a palm frond tears loose and whips him across the face, he hurries to the ship. The noise of the storm is abruptly silenced as soon as the airlock door closes behind him with a sucking hiss. 

Surprise, surprise, nothing has changed. Sid sighs, and goes to try and find something cloth-like to dry off with. Poking around the ship’s bedroom for a bit results in finding a compartment with an assortment of soft, folded textiles. The texture of them is impossibly strange, but they’re clearly woven material of some kind and they absorb water well enough. 

There are a few items that look different, set off to one side of the storage compartment. They’re too small for Zhenya’s original form, and they look recognizably like human clothing, in loose, forgiving shapes. Clothes intended for Zhenya post-reconfiguration, he thinks. He sets them carefully aside, and takes one of the more blanket-y things back into the room containing the pod. With a sigh, he sits against the wall and wraps himself in the blanket. 

The white noise hum of the ship’s machinery pulls him into a trance, then a fitful doze that sends him in and out of awareness like a slow motion stone, skipping on the surface of a pond.

***

He isn’t sure what eventually wakes him. A sound, a sudden fountain of garbled words and images that he only senses in his mind, the coppery tang of blood. 

He jerks to consciousness with a start. The pod is open. Curled up on the floor in front of it, in a spreading pool of viscous liquid, is Zhenya. 

“Zhenya! Oh my god--” 

As Sid staggers to his feet, he registers that the link is there, but all he’s getting is a flood of panic and can’tbreathecan’tbreathecan’t-

He falls to his knees at Zhenya’s side, heedless of the mess. He can’t fully remember what you do for someone choking. Zhenya is an unwieldy deadweight as Sid wraps his arms around his torso and hauls him up. One, two, three blows between the shoulder blades to no avail. He clenches his hands together at Zhenya’s waist and jabs up and in, sharply. Once, twice. He’s had first aid training in the Heimlich but he’s never had to use it before. 

Zhenya’s body convulses, and then he’s leaning forward, vomiting. His sides heave and he draws in a harsh, gasping breath. 

Zhenya Sid thinks frantically. Can you hear me? Can you breathe? 

Zhenya groans, and coughs. The mad throb of panic is fading from their link.  His breaths are coming more evenly now, and Sid rubs his hand over Zhenya’s back in slow, soothing circles. 

“That’s it,” he finds himself crooning. “That’s it, there you go.” 

For the first time, what Zhenya actually looks like now registers. Sid can’t see his face, curled over as he is, but he’s. 

He’s human. Or, he looks it. 

Winter-pale skin, limbs that still seem miles long, broad shoulders and a strong back. Dark hair plastered to his bent head. 

The vulnerable nape of his neck makes something go tight and painful in Sid’s chest. 

“Zhenya,” he says, out loud. 

Zhenya takes a deep, shuddering breath and raises his head. And turns to look at him. 

His eyes are glowing bright, bright blue, but as Sid watches, they fade, going dark and fathomless: human. Long lashes, spiky and wet against his skin as he blinks, slow. Strong, harsh features that he can see Natalia in, even cast in such a masculine mould. 

He’s staring at Sid, and Sid can almost read the emotion that flits like scudding clouds across his new face. Incredulity? Surprise? Not quite those, but close. 

“Hi,” Sid says, and smiles, because he’s so relieved and he can’t help it. 

Zhenya makes a soft, helpless noise and his hands grip Sid’s arms, as if he wants to rise.

Sid stands, and anchors Zhenya as he slowly, laboriously, gets one knee up, and lurches to his feet. 

“Oh, damn,” Sid says. Zhenya is a good couple feet shorter than he used to be, but he still towers over Sid. 

“Can you breathe okay now?” he asks Zhenya, and Zhenya coughs again, clearing his throat. He nods, and Sid’s shoulders slump. “Thank fuck.” 

Crisis over.

Sid lets himself keep looking at him. Stubborn jaw, long, lean torso, narrow hips. His hands are big enough to encircle Sid’s not insubstantial forearms.  

He meets Zhenya’s gaze again. He still feels like he’s looking at a stranger’s face, not at the being who he’d grown so fond of. He’d felt something from the link earlier, but can they still-- 

Sid, Zhenya says into his mind, and relief knifes sweetly through him. It’s still Zhenya. If he closes his eyes, it’s like nothing has changed.

Sid- Sid open them, open your eyes-- 

Sid does, and Zhenya is right there, leaning in closer, staring down at him. His eyes have gone wide and his mouth is slack with surprise. Clumsily, but incredibly gently, he lets go with one hand to tilt Sid’s chin up. And keeps staring.

I didn’t know Zhenya thinks, finally. 

Sid lets out a nervous, airless laugh. “Know...what?” 

I didn’t know that your eyes were that color. 

Sid swallows. The look in Zhenya’s eyes is terrifyingly close to wonder. 

“They’re just hazel,” he says, face going hot, but Zhenya shakes his head. 

I saw in a different spectrum, before, and I had no idea. They’re beautiful. 

Sid feels like the bottom has dropped out of his stomach. “I, uh. Thank you?” 

Zhenya tilts his head to the side, and, slowly, his lips curve up into a smile. 

Or that you sounded like that. To other human eardrums, at least.

Sid thought he was flushing before but apparently his face can get even warmer. 

“I have a stupid voice. I even, like, try to pitch it lower, and stuff.” He’s babbling. “Flower always teases me about having the vocal fry of a Kardashian, but--” 

Your voice is lovely, Zhenya thinks indignantly. All of you, is lovely. 

It’s not something Sid has really ever heard another man tell him, before. He knows what he looks like, a lot of men have had a lot to say about his lips, his ass, et cetera, et cetera. He’s been called good-looking, or even pretty, especially when he was younger. Not lovely. 

“Yeah, well.” His voice cracks a little. “You don’t look too bad, yourself. “

All of Zhenya’s emotions seem to flit across his face as unconsciously and freely as a child’s. He smiles now, wide and bright. 

Really? Good. 

The grin morphs into a smirk that, oh no. Nope. Uh-uh. 

How is my height? And my-- 

“We are not talking about your dick!” Sid squawks, and Zhenya laughs out loud, startling them both. He raises a hand to his mouth, looking so indignant at the noise his body made without his express permission that Sid has to laugh too.

Oh, fine. I see. I was merely going to ask about my eye color, and now you’re laughing at me? 

Zhenya’s eyes dance, and he’s still smiling, so Sid just shakes his head. 

“They’re nice. Really, uh, dark brown.” 

Sleepy, gentle. Soulful. 

Bedroom eyes, a traitorous part of his brain insists, and Sid wills it to shut the fuck up. 

“Let’s, um” His voice cracks. “”Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

***

[laurelnose]

everytime u post an analysis and use fancy biology terms and lingo im so confused but my respect just shoots up like wow. you are so smart!!

aw thank you for the compliment anon!! i do usually try not to use a LOT of jargon but sometimes i forget, please feel free to ask for clarification if you’re ever too confused

in this case the thing i was talking about in the tags of that last post was in regards to the big spiky bits (ornamentation) on the arachas’ snail shell—you see spines like that a lot on snails that live in the ocean, like murex snails (source): 

some of the murex snails get really crazy with it, too. look at this venus comb (source). why does this snail look like it has a ribcage?? i’m uncomfortable tbh

but you basically never see spines like that on snails that live on land, except for (afaik) one very weird exception: snails of the species blaesospira, or cuban porcupine snails

why do they look like this? no one knows but they are really goddamn weird!! science get on it okay we named these fuckers in the 1890s we should have figured out more about what their deal is by now

(you do see smaller, all-over spines on land snails sometimes, like Xenopoma (unsurprisingly, Xenopoma are related to the porcupine snails above) or the hairy snails, but little hedgehog-type spines are a different thing that serve a different purpose.)

but the reason ocean snails have big spines is because things in the ocean that eat snails crush their shells! these include crabs and fish with specialized crushing teeth. the more and larger spines you have on your shell, the harder it is for those animals to get a grip and smash your armor into pieces. this is really not useful on land, where birds can just take snails into the sky and drop them to break them open, or knock them against rocks a bunch of times, so land snails just don’t bother putting big spines on their shells. unless you’re blaesospira. what the fuck, blaesospira.

anyways the snail shell the arachas is using has REAL BIG spines, so the snail was either 

actually from the ocean (in which case, idk how the arachas got hold of it)

OR it was trying to protect itself from something very big, something which wouldn’t be capable of breaking the snail against a rock and would instead be trying to get its jaws around the shell. ...concerning, tbh

[a-spectacle-in-the-morning]

“Right in Front of You” -- Rafael Barba

Because I’m in the mood for some sweet stuff here’s a date with Barba that doesn’t go as anticipated, incredible street food, and Barba being the grumpy gentleman that he is.

Notes: This is a *sort of* follow up for this fic (not a necessary read for this one!) since people had very kind things to say about it despite all the grammar errors. Not that this is in any way free of grammar errors. Is this a weird jump in the relationship from the last one? Perhaps. Are you suddenly and inexplicably more sardonic in this one? Mhm. Did I give myself the time or have the energy amidst all my school work to fix these discrepancies? No, not really. In other words: apologies in advance.

--

It takes you a while to decide what to wear when you go out, and that decision is only worsened by the fact that your nights are usually unpredictable as a professional bar hopper. It’s a science, really. The block you start on, the weather, the friends you’re with; all factors. Tonight, however, you know exactly what to wear.  

Mostly because Barba sent you a very detailed itinerary for the evening. Dinner at a ridiculously expensive restaurant, Broadway show at six thirty, and home by ten. You both have work tomorrow and that means an early bedtime. After sorting through your pile of button-ups and dress pants there was really only one option.

It’s a gamble of an outfit and could easily be over the top, but it’s the most expensive thing you own. And if you’re being honest with yourself you’ve been hoping for an opportunity to wear it.  

Despite how incredible you look on the outside you’re a complete bundle of nerves on the inside. By the time Barba rings the doorbell to your apartment you feel like you’re going to throw up. Who takes a raincheck on drinks and turns it into dinner and a show? The kind of man that waits outside your building in a three-piece suit with flowers, apparently.  

“Hey,” you say, nodding your head towards his suit. “You look nice.”

“That was going to be my line,” he replies, standing a bit stiffly. He holds the flowers out for you to take.

“Thank you, sir.” You take the bouquet from him and press it up to your nose. “I’m a little afraid to ask how you knew that I like dahlias more than roses.”

Barba reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck as he says, “You just seem like a dahlia kind of person.”

“What? A little spiky but with beautiful and deep coloring?” you joke.

“Something like that,” he smiles and relaxes a bit.

“I’m gonna run these up and put them in a vase. Do we have enough time?”

“You’ve got five minutes,” he says, fiddling with his watch like he’s going to set a timer.

“I’ll be back in four,” you nearly yell over your shoulder as you rush back up to your building. “I ran cross country in high school!”

You’re back in seven and out of breath, but Rafael wasn’t really counting. He just grins when you return and the two of you begin the walk to the restaurant. When you get about a block away you start to worry.

“Is that a line for the place we’re going?”

“Probably, but I made a reservation weeks ago.”

So that’s why this date was so delayed.

When you get indoors Rafael goes up to the hostess and confidently says, “I have a reservation for two under Barba.”

The woman scrolls through her tablet and shakes her head. “Sorry, nothing under that name.”

Barba presses his brows together. “Oh, well, they should have been made around two weeks ago.”

She shakes her head again. “Sorry, sir. I don’t see anything here.”

He nods curtly and thanks her, turns, and leads you back outside by the small of your back. Once you’re on the sidewalk again he starts to rub at his right temple.

“I’m sorry. I thought I made the reservation. Damn it...”

He starts to mumble something about Carisi and intrusions so you grab both of his hands and squeeze.

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone.”

When he nods his head but doesn’t respond you add, “That was nice of you not to badger the hostess. Harvard douchebags have a tendency to do that when things don’t go their way.”

He shakes his head at your quip. “I’ve worked plenty of part time jobs. I know not to be an asshole when someone doesn’t deserve it.”

“But you were an asshole to me the first time we met,” you shoot back.

“Exactly.”

“Hey! I was perfectly-”

“I know, I know. There's another place I’m thinking of, but it’s in the Bronx. We’ll have to take a cab.”

“Lead the way.”

In under half an hour you are once again following Barba’s lead as he swiftly presses through the streets. He walks like everyone you pass is trying to get in his way even though the foot traffic isn’t particularly bad tonight. The smell of garlic and spices suddenly overwhelms you and your stomach grumbles.

“I hope that smell is coming from wherever we’re going and I hope it’s close,” you whine a bit exaggeratedly.

He laughs. You’ve never heard Barba laugh enthusiastically. It’s kind of beautiful. “Right in front of you.” He points to a food cart across the street.  

La Kubanita, you read. There’s a short line, but nothing like the one from earlier.  

“How do you know about this place?” you ask, making some conversation as you wait.

“I grew up a few blocks from here. My mom would give me some money every once in a while and I would bring her back tamales.”

You give Barba a sideways glance. “I didn’t know you grew up in the Bronx.”

“Well, that’s because I didn’t tell you,” Barba says sardonically. “And nobody ever asks.”

“Rafa!”

Rafa?

“Dios mío,” Rafael mutters. “Cómo estás, Isabel?”

You look up a bit to the window of the truck to find an older woman absolutely beaming at Barba.

“Tú sabes que estoy bien. Quién es?” she asks, pointing in your direction. “Por fin conseguiste una cita?”

“Stop it Isa,” Rafael lightly scolds. “This is my coworker.”

“Alright,” she relents with a grin. “You want the usual?”

“Por favor,” Rafael responds.

You’re handed a couple take out boxes of warm food within minutes and you thank Isabel with a smile. You find a picnic table to sit at nearby and open the food to find three steaming hot and perfectly wrapped tamales.

As he opens his own box Barba says, “I’m not a huge fan of street food-”

“Shocking.”

Barba squints at you then continues, “But, I love this cart. I even brought some of their arroz con pollo home to my abuela once and she gave it her stamp of approval.”

“Alright, that is really high praise. I don’t think my grandma has approved of anything I have ever cooked or bought her. Or really anything I’ve ever done. You should have seen her face when I told her I wanted to work in law enforc-”

“We can unpack that later,” Barba interrupts, “but right now you’re going to stop thinking about your problems and try that tamale in front of you.”

You throw him a look, but pick up your fork and dig in. It is, undoubtedly, the best tamale you’ve ever had.  

“You win this round, Barba,” you concede between bites.

He looks up from his food. “I wasn’t aware this was a competition.”

“It’s always a game with you.”

“Is it?”

You pause, trying to decide if you want to maintain your nonchalance or admit something a little more personal. Fuck it.

“You’re tough to keep up with sometimes. Everything is in order. No nonsense. You’re effortlessly and brutally sarcastic- which is very sexy, by the way. Every conversation is a mini battle. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s just new. I’m not used to guys like you.”

You hold his gaze for a second longer, then busy yourself with unwrapping your second tamale.  

“Very sexy, hm?”

You snap your eyes back up to him to catch his shit-eating grin. “Really? That’s what you picked out of that?”

His smile somehow grows, and you can’t help the one spreading on your own face.  

“You should know after today that I don’t have it all put together,” he says, going back to his meal.

You gently kick one of his feet under the table. “Yeah, I finally have some proof that you’re human.”

“Aside from the fact that I’m fueled entirely by coffee like the rest of you?”

“Yes,” you nod in agreement. “Aside from the coffee.”

The two of you finish your meal while making casual conversation. When Rafael returns from throwing the garbage out he stops to look at his watch.

“It’ll take us about 30 minutes in this traffic to get back to Manhattan. We should probably head out. Are you ready to go?”

“Damn. I was just starting to get comfortable being totally, inappropriately overdressed. Maybe we should just skip the show.”

Barba rolls his eyes but holds out his arm for you to take. “I’ll leave you here if that’s what you want. I’m not missing Anastasia.”

You laugh, taking his arm and walking out towards the street to hail a taxi. As you wait you notice the sun is beginning to set and is casting the loveliest shade of yellow over everything. You catch Barba looking at you with an entirely contented expression and a slight smile ghosting his lips.  

That look alone is better than all the whiskey in the world.  

--

Here’s the thing folks, I haven’t written anything in Spanish in probably three or more years. I know there have got to be mistakes. I apologize. Blame my senior year Spanish teacher for making us watch soap operas more often than actually teaching us anything. And the name of the food cart is borrowed from a real Cuban food cart that I have never been to. I wasn’t creative enough to think of my own.  

Hopefully this was a decent follow up for “Woeful Wins and Whiskey”. I’m trying to get more confident with writing Barba. Trying being the key word. I’m always happy to read feedback, comments, and criticisms. And if anyone wants a third part let me know! I’m thinking more shenanigans with the SVU, maybe some struggles with defining the relationship..... 

[lemonsharks]

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