#hand crank washing machine

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

I got a like-new, hand-crank Wonderwash from a reputable seller for 55 dollars total. Now I don’t have to pay four dollars every time I need to wash/dry my clothes or towels. :D

[shojizbae]

Rave Baby

Spencer Reid x Reader

After a long case, some of the team pitstops at your apartment, and Morgan takes the liberty of searching through some memories. He comes across some scandalous photos that light a fire in Reid.

This last case was challenging. To make it worse, the power had gone out in DC due to a blackout. With a chirp, I told the team that I always had a generator and that we could cool with some coronas in my fridge. Hotch had declined, stating the necessity of returning to his wife and son. I had thrown open all the windows and cranked the AC, attempting to push out all the hot air. With my permission, Derek had distributed beers from my fridge and found a bag of chips.

A battery-powered radio was located, and my CDs were run through to find something to unwind with. With a sigh, Emily sank onto my couch and sipped her beer.

"Uhh, I can't tell you how nice your apartment is."

"Yeah," JJ groaned from the corner, holding her hair up and sticking her face in the AC vent. Derek was still looking through my belongings when he came across a Scooter CD.

"Well, well, well, where did a girl like you find this type of music?" I looked at the album cover.

"Oh, that's from my college days." I tried to dismiss it. This isn't the sort of stuff I would share with my coworkers.

"Really? Let's go ahead and pop this in."

"No don't!" I tried to launch it at him before he could open it, but it was too late. A few photos I took the night I bought that CD slipped into his lap.

"Woah ho ho!" Spencer, who had been content to sift through my shitty romance novels, peaked his head up like a prairie dog at the sound of Derek's chuckle. "What do we have here?" He held up one photo, and I hid behind my beer bottle.

"That was years ago," I whined

"What is this?" Spencer came to the group, attention fully peaked

"It's (Y/n). At a rave." Spencer snatched the photo out of Morgans's hand like a cat but Emily nearly yelled

"Shut up, let me see." she slammed her glass bottle on the table and grabbed one of the photos from him

"No way," JJ stated, following Spencer into the circle to look at the evidence. "I could never imagine you at a rave. I've seen you get upset that you left your clothes in the washing machine."

"They'll get moldy," I whined

"Holy shit. Where was this?" Emily inspects a photo of me in a bikini, fluffy leg warmers, and a matching bucket hat. "Look at your butt where were you hiding this." She makes an attempt to check me out, but I sink further into my couch

"I don't know, I was never sober in the 72 hours around a rave."

"Oh yeah? What did you take?" Morgan begged

"All sorts of crap, mostly hallucinogens. My rave mentor told me music is better when you're high."

"So why'd you stop going?" Emily asked

"I grew up."

"You grew up?" JJ asked, putting the photo on the table

"Yeah," I rubbed my hands up and down my thigh and sighed. I wasn't entirely ready to trauma-dump the team, but here I was. "My uncle, who basically raised me, passed on Thanksgiving in the sophomore year of my bachelor's. Hallucinogens made it easy not to grieve, and loud music blocked my ability to think. I would dance around and tell everyone that 'tonight was the night,' and I was 'finally free,' but I would just see him after a while. He would ask me, 'Why are you doing this, my dove?'. I couldn't ignore him anymore, so I just stopped. Put all my teeny bikinis in a box and put it past me." I cleared my throat, realizing that I had put a damper on the mood

"We could play the CD. I think I'll still remember the rhythm." I switched in the discs and let the synth radiate through my living room. Immediately, I felt the groove, letting it carry my limbs airily around me. I felt myself disconnect as the beat continued to pump. Before I could drift away wholly, Emilie's voice brought me down to earth.

"You packed all this away? That means you still have it?"

"Yeah, in a box in the back of my closet." before I could discover my mistake, she darted to the back of my apartment, and JJ took off with her.

"Oh hell, I gotta see this." Derek got up and dropped the last of the photos. Reid dutifully packed them up and sifted through the photos, stopping on one.

"What did you find, Spence?" I crawled toward him slowly. I gasped at the photo. My Rave mom, Zoe, who was only 4 months older than me, and I were posing together. He sifted through the images with it and stacked them. I gasped at the image. The photo on the top was of Zoe throwing up a peace sign, showing the neon pink paint on her palms, and a green hand was playfully on my throat. Both of our bodies had been splattered with neon ain't, but noticeably, I had two big hands brink on the triangle bikini we wore. One pink, one green.

The picture below was of Zoe and I very dramatically kissing. Zoe had made smudged hand prints on my ass. I had a leg up on her hip, and you could see drool and lipstick around each other mouths.

"I hardly even remember that night, and I thought it was trendy to act gay." I pulled the pictures from his hand and returned them to the case. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Why are you apologizing? Y-you had fun."

"Yeah, but you're my colleague. This is embarrassing and you probably are ashamed of me."

"Actually, I'm jealous. In college, I had no friends and didn't go to parties. I was, I am, a loser. You had fun."

"Did you not hear my spiel about using drugs not to think?"

"Yeah, but you were hot." That shocked you. He was only two beers deep, and Reid was spilling his secrets.

You laughed in shock.

"Spencer, you can't say things like that." I slapped at his chest playfully.

"WELL!" I could hear Derek's strained voice. "This!" he put the giant plastic tub on the floor next to us. "This is one heavy bucket of slutty clothes."

"I want to try something on!" JJ greedily popped the snaps on the cover. With giggles, JJ and Emily started pulling out bikinis that looked like they were made out of spider webs.

"Woah ho ho!" Derek giggled, holding up a low-rise thong. "I hope you wore a jacket."

"Alright, that's enough!" I grabbed it from his reach

"Hey, could I borrow one of these?" JJ asked. "Will has been asking for something new."

"Yeah, but don't borrow it. I don't want it back." I made a face of disgust

"Yeah, I might want to just wear one around my apartment?" Emily held something balled up

"Take as many as you want. I won't wear them again. I should sell them. I could finally go on vacation."

"Woah woah woah, if you sell these, what will you wear on vacation?" Derek joked

"Clothes." I snatched another piece of hosiery from him. My knees cracked as I stood and got another beer from the kitchen. "Now, get out of my panties." I swatted him with the bottoms as I walked by

by some stroke of God, the lights flicked back on, and across the street, I could see the surrounding building come back to life.

"Well, I've got to get to my house before my ice cream spoils." Emily stood and collected a few pieces of fabric.

"Yeah, and completely unrelated. I have to call Will." JJ juts out her lip in an admission of guilt. They snuck out the door, giggling and tucking crazy fabric in their bags.

"I should get going too, wonder boy. You need a ride home?"

"No, I should be fine. There's a train in the next hour." Reid was still immersed in the photos.

"Well, don't bug her too badly." He left with a wink

"Why are you still looking at those? They're ancient."

"The date on the back says 1998, making you 20 years old. You're 28." Finally, he puts the photos down. "I'm having a hard time picturing you going to a rave. You only read sappy novels from the seventies. I saw three copies of Tuck Everlasting on your shelves." All the talk from my coworkers and the five beers in my system made me more than angry and bold.

Stupid ideas were my biggest export when I was inebriated.

"Well, I know the FBI has kept me in shape. I'm going to my bedroom and try these on." I gave a coy smile as I took a handful of sets and strutted off to the back of my place.

"W-what do you mean you're going to try them on."

"I've gotta see if they still fit."

[swordsandholly]

def need more ditzy reader with mechanic 141- the only thing that tops my love for military men is blue collar boys <333

make sure to take care of yourself tho lovie!! don’t burn urself out :))

I for sure want to write more of her. Hopefully after this insane week at work I’ll be able to really sit down and crank out some writing. For now I’m battling my way through Ch 3 of Across the Way

But pls enjoy this little not proofread experimental snippet I wrote for ditzy reader

“Look.” Your landlord sighs loudly. Like you’re the one inconveniencing him. “I’ll send someone out.”

“That’s what you said two days ago! And three days before that!” You stomp your foot at no one just to get some of the anger out.

“I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

“Why can’t you-“ The line cuts before you can finish. The jerk hung up on you! What the hell!

You pout, plopping down into your desk chair and sighing. What are you supposed to do? You’re not allowed to call a handyman according to the lease and you don’t have a boyfriend right now. You can’t keep washing pans in the bathroom. It’s gross.

You huff.

“Alright?” Simon asks and you whirl in your chair. How does he walk so quietly?

“Yeah…” You pout harder under his steady gaze, slipping down further into the chair.

“You’re a terrible liar, luv.” His eyes crinkle in corners with a smile.

“Well…” You shrug, twiddling your thumbs in your lap. “My kitchen sink has been broken for a whole week and the landlord won’t do anything about it! I called and called and he just keeps saying he’ll send someone and then doesn’t!” Your voice pitches at the end, real annoyance bleeding through into the edges of your words. You fist your hands in your skirt.

“That’s all?” He raises an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you just ask one of us?”

You blink twice, staring up at him. Your face heats and you look away bashfully - not wanting to admit you didn’t think to ask for their help. Stupid. “I don’t want to be a bother…”

“I’ll come by after work.”

“You don’t have to-“

“I’ll be there.” He nods before marching back into the garage. You just blink after him as he goes.

True to his word, Simon shows up at your door with a massive tool box in hand. Really, he still can’t believe you live in such a shit complex. Price pays you well enough. The locks might as well be paper-mache. Simon lowers his mask before knocking. He trusts you with his face - hell you probably forget it every time you look away - but he also wants you to trust him too. For whatever reason.

You’re staring when you open the door. Big doe eyes looking up at him and blinking slowly. He wonders what goes on behind those blank eyes of yours - if it’s nothing at all or such a chaotic dialogue that you can’t process it enough to pay attention.

All or nothing.

“Gonna let me in, doll?” He asks. You startle, not realizing how intensely you zoned out.

“Oh! Yes!” You jump out of the way, letting him into your small studio apartment. Every time he thinks your shorts can’t get smaller he’s proven wrong.

Simon takes a look around, huffing at the net full of stuffies hanging on the wall. Everything about your home is soft - soft colors, soft fabrics. It smells like vanilla, just like you always do when you come into the shop. His eyes lock briefly on a well-loved sewing machine covered in stickers with a project still under the needle. You must have been working on it before he got here.

Did you mean to leave your bra hanging on the back of that chair right by the kitchen? Lacy and lilac. He’ll have to remember that for some other time. Maybe your birthday.

“Let’s ‘ave a look.” He sighs, knees popping as he crouches in front of the sink. It’s a fucking mess, that’s for sure. At least you figured out how to turn the water off.

“Pipe’s busted.” He says. “I can seal it but it’ll take a sec.”

“Okay.” You murmur.

Simon sighs as he turns onto his back to get a better look. He doesn’t miss the way you stare blatantly at his midsection as his shirt rides up. He might adjust some to expose just a bit more.

You really are the least subtle thing in the planet, aren’t you?

“Can you come hold the light f’me, luv?” He points to the toolbox.

“This one?” You ask, as if it isn’t the only flashlight in the box.

“Yeah.”

“Like this?”

“Yup.” At first he expects you to sit silently so he can concentrate, but he quickly realizes that was far too presumptuous.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Si?” You ask quietly.

He huffs. “No.”

“Oh.” You chew your lip. “You seem like the kind of guy that would.”

Simon has never heard a bigger misread in his damn life but he’ll take it as a compliment, he supposes. “Why do you ask?”

“Cause this is boyfriend work and you’re good at it.”

Simon tries to see your logic - he really does - but he just has no clue how those things are even remotely related. Sure, guys fix things for their girlfriends but calling it ‘boyfriend work’ when anybody with two cents could do it is a bit silly. More than, if he’s honest. He just grunts in response, at a total loss for how to respond.

Simon looks down at you. The way you kneel as your cleaving spills out of your tiny tank top - one of many you insist on wearing so often. He can give into temptation just a little bit, right? “Gonna need you to get closer, doll.”

“Oh!” You scoot forward until your knees brush his side. So ready to listen. Cute.

“Can you lean in a bit?”

“Like this?” You lean forward, chest pressing against him while your hand splays over his midsection for balance. Fucking hell.

“Perfect. Good girl.”

It’s bold and a bit uncoordinated even for him. Something Johnny would try. The purposeful choice of words seems to go right over your head. Instead you blush and smile, shifting your hips just a bit. Your chest pushes further into him. So soft.

Fuck.

You’ll be the death of him. Thank god you’re too unobservant to notice that he’s rock fucking hard.

He’s already done with the sink by the time of this little exchange, but he pretends to tighten some useless bolts anyway just to keep you against him a little longer before shooing you away. It’s cute, the way you scramble to get out of the way. Simon turns the water back on before standing, and gesturing toward the sink.

“Give it a try, luv.”

A little furrow forms in your brow as you step forward to turn it on, crouching and standing to make sure the leak has stopped. You turn the faucet off and whip your head around with a grin.

He’s pretty sure you burst an eardrum with the pitch of the squeal you let out, bouncing over and tightly wrapping your arms around his waist. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

“It’s no pro-“ he cuts off as you push up onto your tip toes and press a kiss to his cheek. He can’t help but bark out a laugh. Little minx.

“Oh, I got some lipstick-“ You reach up to smudge it off but he bats your hand away. He’ll wear it back to the garage and show off the kiss he got. Johnny’s going to absolutely fume.

[mediumgayitalian]

prev

———

By all accounts, Will knows what he’s doing.

He still drives like a godsdamn maniac.

“Do you want us to die?” Nico hollers, cheeks aching from the force of his grin, belly flipping at the peal of Will’s laughter.

The bike is exhilarating, as Will weaves it around cars at unbelievable speeds, working with the bike like it’s a part of him, like it’s not a separate thing he has to move. He steers it with a natural ease Nico’s only really seen in some of the best pegasus riders in camp — he knows the machine intimately enough to anticipate how it moves, how it reacts. It really is an extension of his body.

He left any panic about gripping onto Will somewhere in Long Island — to let go would be suicide. He has to hold on to stay onto the bike, to know to lean when Will leans, to tense when he tenses. Besides that, he’s having fun. He’s not the one driving, so he’s free to rest his helmet on Will’s back and watch as the world whips by — dizzying, really, as the speed of the bike making the green-budding trees melt into the bright blue skies, mix with the tar black asphalt, glow under the sparkling sun. The whole world looks like sidewalk chalk after it rains, a swirling mass of colour and streaks as artistic or more than what it was before it was washed away. The only indication that they’re actually going anywhere rather than standing straight in the middle of a kaleidoscope is the spots of roadside green that pop up every now and again, or a heavy lean to the side and Will switches lanes.

As they pull out of New York, Will starts to slow down. The dizzying mass of colours calms until everything’s at a slow spin, as Will mellows out to a speed that can be registered on a mortal odometer. With less wind whipping all over, Nico can actually hear him.

“Better than a flying chariot?”

Nico grins. “Definitely.”

“Another great thing about this is that it has a CD player. Two-nothing for the sad hunk of wood.”

By great thing Will of course means the same four songs I’ve been obsessed with for a month playing over and over and over until you are ready to launch yourself off the bike and join the dead raccoon at the side of the road, but that still doesn’t manage to ruin it. Something about driving top speeds in the early spring air makes it hard to be annoyed about annoying.

(Or maybe it’s the way Nico can feel Will’s muscles shift every time he moves, or how he winks every time he catches Nico’s eye in the mirrors, or the lowkey kind of sinful the way he straddles the seat. But Nico is quite happy sharing a name with a river in Egypt, so he ignores these fun facts and continues to delude himself, an art in which he is become quite wondrously skilled.)

Somewhere between Jersey and Delaware, the traffic picks up again, so Will shouts for him to hold on and cranks up the speed. Nico clenches tightly around his waist, squeezing his eyes shut, this time, and listens to the roar of air as they shove through it fast enough to rival sound. When they’re drifting, again, Nico can feel an incline, and looks up just in time to watch Will exit off the highway.

“Are we here already?” he shouts, incredulous. He knows his ADHD makes him bad with time, but jeez — it can’t have been more than an hour, an hour and a half.

“Not yet,” Will says, barely having to raise his voice as they come to a stop, heel of his boot clicking on the pavement. He checks both ways and then, once nothing comes around the bend, pushes off and guides them down a winding back road, tipping around curves and speeding down hills. Nico’s stomach bottoms out every drop, and he can’t clamp down the giggle that pushes out his throat, as ridiculous as it is. Luckily, Will’s giggling, too.

In a few minutes, they pull up to an old, rusted gas station, with signs so old they’re hand-painted. Will kills the engine and flicks out the kickstand, pulling off his helmet and shaking out his hair. It’s such a tangled mess that Nico can’t help but reach out and tug on a lopsided curl.

“I didn’t think this thing needed gas.”

“It doesn’t!” He pats a dark piece of glass in between the handlebars. “It’s solar-powered. But I figured you could use a minute to stretch your legs, and frankly, if I don’t eat something soon I genuinely might cook you.”

“You forgot to eat today, didn’t you.”

“…No.”

As soon as he speaks, his eyes start to water. His throat swells. He holds his breath for a noble four seconds, and then starts wheezing.

Nico sighs heavily. “Dumbass.”

Hauling him upright by the collar, Nico drags him towards the little corner store. This, at least, is familiar. Will gets caught up in his work easily, and forgets to do things like eat or move or, on one particularly amusing occasion, breathe. (Just tipped right over, one day, onto the floor, mid-poultice. There is a chip on the side of the stone mortar to this day. Nico, Will’s other friends, and his siblings take shifts bringing it up to dunk on him properly. Last he checked, Lou Ellen commissioned Jake Mason to make a plaque to hang on the infirmary wall, memorializing the incident forever.)

“C’mon, stupid. Let’s get you a sandwich. And Benadryl.”

“I’m honestly fine,” Will wheezes, cheeks swelling slightly.

“Stop talking,” Nico orders. “You’re making it worse.”

Wisely, Will clamps up. That, or his throat is starting to close. Either is likely.

His stubborn determination to continue lying despite being literally allergic to it would be impressive, if it wasn’t so irritating.

A little bell rings by the door when Nico pushes it open, making the person sitting behind the counter look up.

“Ah,” they say sagely, folding up their newspaper. “Demigods.”

Immediately, Nico’s on alert. Before he can draw his sword, though, Will lifts a hive-spotted hand in a wave.

“Hey, Berchio,” he croaks.

The person at the counter — Berchio — smiles ruefully.

“Benadryl?”

Nico nods hesitantly, still a little wary at the stranger, but Will is starting to keen over, now, and Nico didn’t think to bring an Epi-Pen (since the allergy is totally avoidable, William, you are your own worst enemy), so he’s running out of options. “Please.”

Chuckling to themself, Berchio ruffles around a shelf by the checkout counter, locating the familiar bottle after a minute — Will gets himself into these situations a lot, he has a serious twizzler problem and should consider getting his own stash instead of lifting it from the Hermes cabin and then lying about where it went — and rolling towards them. The spokes of their wheelchair have little skull charms on them that make a pleasant tinkling noise as they spin, making Nico trust them instantly. He should get Chiron wheel beads. That’s sick as hell.

“Here, kid. Drink water, too, you’re going to dry yourself out.”

Will garbles out a thank you, choking down the medicine. As all meds do with Apollo’s children, lucky bastards that they are, it works quickly, and in minutes he’s breathing right again.

“Gods, I love oxygen.”

“You are a human disaster,” Nico informs him. “Like, hugely.”

Will takes a sip of his water, pondering that. “Is that more embarrassing for you, or for me?”

“Why the hell would it be embarrassing for me?”

“Well, since you like me so much.” Nico chokes. “I might be a disaster, but at least I don’t have a crush on one.”

“All this wheezing,” Berchio sighs. “This must be Nico?”

“The one and only,” Will says cheerfully. He reaches out and touches a warm hand to Nico’s throat, immediately clearing his airways. Now no longer struggling for breath, Nico darts out and punches him, hard, on the arm.

“Ow! Meanie!”

“You are such a derp-faced dweeb,” Nico hisses, fully aware he’s red in the face. “Why are you — why are you this way.”

“I’m gonna tell Chiron you were bullying me!”

“Tell him! I’ll tell him you were the one to sprinkle instant mashed potatoes all over the grass before it rained, not Cecil!”

Will snaps his mouth shut. “I told you that in confidence.”

Nico smiles smugly. “Well, that’s on you. My loyalties are about as secure as my parent’s relationship.”

“If you two are finished flirting,” interrupts an amused voice, making both of them jump. Berchio watches them with their arms crossed, eyebrow raised in a similar chiding way to Chiron last time he caught Nico attempting to sneak an entire tray of brownies from the kitchen (mark his words — as soon as he can shadow travel again, no other camper will be seeing a brownie as long as they shall live). They shake their head, tutting exaggeratedly. “My, my, Will, I’m beginning to understand why you mentioned him every time you opened your mouth. I figured you liked him, but this is ridiculous.”

For once, Will is the one to flush crimson. He stutters something entirely incomprehensible, gesturing vaguely towards Berchio, and then frantically towards Nico, and finally squawks something about trust and the breaching of it. He goes red to the very roots of his hair, clamping his own mouth shut mid-sentence and scowling something awful.

Suddenly, Nico gets it. This is why no one ever leaves him alone. Oh, he is loathe to give the assholes he’s friends with credit, but…

When does he ever get to see Will — confident, easy Will — go scarlet?

“So you like me,” he says, shit eating grin stretching across his face. “Oh ho ho ho.”

“Oh, shut up,” Will snaps, without any heat. “Last time we played volleyball you got a concussion ‘cause you couldn’t stop staring at my chest and took a ball to the face.”

“That — it was — that hit was malicious,” he sputters. “And how is it my fault you’re always ditching your shirt at the first available opportunity like some kind of whore? I couldn’t not look!”

“Avert your eyes, then, scoundrel!”

“I — don’t call me a scoundrel! You’re a scoundrel!”

“You’re both late, is what you are,” Berchio interrupts again. “Will, I assume you’re running an errand?”

Still a little flushed, Will nods. “Yes. Thanks, Berchio. We’re picking up parts in Roanoke, I just stopped for some food.”

“He forgot to eat this morning,” Nico pipes up. He figures that Berchio seems comfortable enough with Will that they can act as a disappointed authority figure, which will make Mr. Daddy Issues Solace crumple like a castle built on a pillar of sand — he needs the humbling. (Also, Nico will get him on a healthier track or die trying. It’s not fair that he gets to be a big hypocrite about good diet and eating and sleeping habits and then turn around and act a fool. Someone needs to watch out for the idiot, or he’s going to get himself killed, and then Nico is going to have to spend the rest of his life in the Underworld, yelling at him.)

“William.”

Nico’s theory is proven correct. Berchio stares at Will with the perfect mix of disappointment and concern, immediately triggering the scramble-to-please expression on Will’s face. He practically stumbles over himself trying to follow after him and get fed.

“Are you happy with a sandwich, Nico? I know Will’ll eat anything that even remotely looks like food, but most of us have standards,” they tease.

Nico snorts at Will’s offended pout. “Yeah, a sandwich is more than fine. Thanks, Berchio.”

After handing them both a sandwich they pull from one of the many fridges in the little convenience store, they guide them outside, parking their wheelchair next to the curb they sit on and joining them in a little picnic.

“So how do you know each other?” Nico asks, gesturing between the two of them.

Will answers first, because Berchio, who is a polite person with manners, takes the time to swallow their food.

“I stop here all the time,” he says, garbled, making both Nico and Berchio wince. Nico takes the initiative to kick him.

“Stop being disgusting and explain yourself without showing off the contents of your mouth,” Nico threatens, “or I’m going to stab you again.”

Will swallows, sticks out his tongue, and continues.

“First time I used the bike, I got it into my head that I should go visit my mom. Would’ve been fine, except I was thirteen and hadn’t been outside of camp in six years and got chased by a pack of empousai the second I left the city, basically.”

“I was collecting herbs and sensed him coming,” Berchio explains. “He crossed the borders I have set up; I hid him here. Now he stops by whenever he’s travelling to chat.” Berchio smiles warmly. “I appreciate the company.”

Will grins back. “Me too! Plus, I very much appreciate the herb exchange. Speaking of which, I have your goldenrod.”

He digs into his jeans pocket, pulling out a bundle. He hands it over to Berchio, who accepts it gratefully, handing over their own bundle to Will.

“And your witch hazel.”

“Berchio’s an Ipotane,” Will explains, catching sight of Nico’s furrowed brow. “They’ve been doing this healing stuff for centuries. They’re real good with salves.”

Nico shakes his head fondly. “Even when you’re being cool, you’re a nerd.” He gestures to the bike. “Taking your secret motorcycle to visit your secret mentor to learn more about healing. Gods, it’s like Apollo made you in a lab.”

“You take that back! I contain multitudes!”

“And now you’re quoting famous poems, dear gods, try to prove my point better, why don’t you —”

“Blah blah blah!”

Nico grins at him, rolling his eyes, and Will is just as playfully dramatic with his bit lip and hidden smile and the hair he tucks behind his ear like he does when he wants to touch somebody but isn’t sure if it’s invited. Nico answers the question for him, reaching out and flicking his knuckles as an excuse to touch his hands. Will takes it, beaming.

“Thank you for the food, Berchio,” Will says when they finish, leaning down to hug them. “We gotta get going, but I’ll be back in a couple weeks. I had a dream about an outbreak, so no doubt the infirmary will need restocked soon.”

“Bring your boyfriend next time,” Berchio suggests, grinning when Nico goes red at the term. “Watching the two of you was not unlike one of Sterne’s famous productions.”

“I take offence to that,” Will says haughtily.

“Good. You needed humbling.”

“Nobody appreciates me around here!”

Nico bites back the I do that threatens to escape his throat. Gods, he’s so embarrassing. Whoever taught him how to speak should have to pay for their crimes.

They head back to the bike, waving goodbye to the Ipotane and speeding off. The drive the rest of the way down south is much calmer, bellies full and energy somewhat spent, and it helps that there’s no traffic. Will cruises, keeping time with the sun that’s inching across the sky, ignoring Nico’s suggestion to attempt to race his dad. They arrive in Roanoke in good time, following Nyssa’s scrawled directions to the parts shop.

The shop is old, visibly, paint peeling and smelling strongly of car grease. As Nysa predicted, the person they speak to — a mechanic, by the look of her jumpsuit — doesn’t ask so much as a single question at the two teenagers rolling up to her doorstep, heading to the greasy shelves of car parts and grabbing what they need with a shrug.

“Well,” says Will slowly as she piles them on the counter, “that’s…more than I anticipated.”

Nico looks at the stack of twisted metal. He looks at the bike. Finally, he looks at his dumbass friend.

“Solace.”

Will scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah?”

“Solace, tell me you have space to put this stuff.”

“Well, we can try the seat compartment?”

Nico buries his head in his hands. “Solace.”

“What!”

“You know what, lughead! We cannot do the one thing we came here to do! Gods!”

“I usually go on supply runs for the infirmary, okay!” Will cries. “That stuff is way less bulky! I forgot to compensate!”

Nico groans. At this point, they’re going to have to bus back, or something equally as stupid. And what are they gonna do with the bike? Gods, if Nico was here by himself and also maybe possibly with Reyna, who could share her strength, he’d just —

He stills.

“Oh, no,” Will says, pointing a stern finger, “oh, no, di Angelo, I know that look, you have been expressly banned —”

“Relax,” Nico grumbles. “Don’t you trust me?”

“With everything,” Will says automatically, then flushes for the second time that day. “But that is not the point —”

Deciding he will return to that later — and he most certainly will — Nico darts forward. Before Will can stop him, he puts both hands on the pile of parts, lunges towards the nearest shadow, and shoved them in, withdrawing as quickly as he can manage.

“Nico!”

He waits.

“Oh, you fuckin’ — you goddamn son of a mother!”

He checks his hands — still solid.

“I am going to smash you flat an’ feed you through a goddamn juicer! You fuckin’ heart-stopper!”

He grins. “I told you I could do some Underworld magic.”

“Underworld deez fuckin’ nuts!” Will stomps forward, grabbing Nico’s hands to do his own inspection. “What part of doctor’s orders are you missin’, huh? You think I wanna watch you fade again? You think I wanna —” His voice cracks, hands tightening around Nico’s wrists. Nico softens immediately, smug look melting into something gentler.

“Will.”

“You coulda died, Nico, you coulda faded to — to nothin’.”

“Will.” He flips his hands so his palms meet Will’s, and squeezes, smiling gently. “Feel my vitals, dork. Am I fading?”

Will exhales. “No.”

“Am I close?”

“…No.”

He squeezes again. “I’m fine, Will.”

“You scared me.” The anger in his voice has faded into something soft — something afraid. Suddenly the hands on his wrists feel more clingy than anything, and a twinge of guilt goes off in Nico’s stomach.

“I’m sorry.” He squeezes Will’s hands one last time, and when that doesn’t do much, lets go to wrap around his cheeks, instead, forcing him to meet his eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I don’t mean to restrict you,” Will says softly. “It’s just — I worry, is all.”

Nico taps their foreheads together, smile pulling at his face. This, he can — this he can deal with. This version of Will, soft and nervous and caring, makes it a lot easier to slide his fingers into the mess of Will’s curls, to run his thumbs over his cheekbones and feel him shiver.

“Would that have anything to do with the alleged crush you have on me?”

Will grins. “It might.” One of his hands comes up to rest on top of Nico’s, brushing over his knuckles. “All your moonin’ after me had me looking twice, I guess.”

“You’re such a dick,” Nico scoffs, and yanks him down to meet him in the middle, laughing, swallowing his smile and relishing in the warm press of their bodies. It’s — gods, it’s everything, it’s a thousand times better than he imagined, and at the same time everything he expected. Will smells like wind and sunshine and his lavender shampoo, and his hands are roughened from all the antiseptic he has to use, and his lips are surprisingly chapped, but the press of his cheeks is soft, and the feel of him is overwhelming. It feels, as cliche as it is, like the final burst of a firework after watching the smokey trail of the rocket with bated breath, watching it crest the night sky before exploding, finally, amongst the stars, it’s like —

A cleared throat startled them apart.

“Anytime y’all feel like paying for those parts, it would be great.”

Will grins sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says, pulling out the money Chiron gave him. His grin turns sly, and Nico’s knees turn to jelly. “My boyfriend’s just super distracting.”

[stararch4ngelqueen]

LAST ONE I PROMISE IM SO SORRY

soft!jason with reader who hides her nightmares from him (classic 'doesnt wanna be a burden') and he finds out she hasn't been sleeping and just comfort and sappy shit idk

Hope you don’t mind but ima combine this with another idea in my head before it rots. My details aren’t good right now, it’s been a very long day 😅

—

Time written - 6:47 p.m

—

“I remember a bad habit I had when I was little to check the coin slots for any quarters left behind.”

“Bad habit? I did that all the time.” Jason tosses a final shirt into the washing machine. “Still do.”

You giggle as you slam the washer door shut before cranking the knob and clicking the button, watching the machine whirr to life.

The apartment’s little downstairs laundromat always promised new washers and dryers, but efforts in doing so were lost under a list of other repairs. At least the machines still did their job, so that’s all you could do.

“Last load, right?” Jason double checks whilst shoving his hands into his pockets, leaning against the nearest little surface reserved for folding laundry.

Pushing by your clothes hamper to the side, you nod as you sit yourself in a chair beside the dryers.

“Finally,” you say whilst peeking over at the timer. At least three minutes left before you’d be greeted with heavenly warm sheets.

The warmth of the machines heavily combatted the cold chill outside. The heat in comparison with Jason’s hoodie covering your body left you feeling quite cozy, resulting in a yawn leaving your tired body.

“That’s about five times in the past half hour, someone miss their nap time?” Jason piques, gazing over at you with softened eyes.

You would’ve laughed if not for the second yawn that left your lips again.

“M’fine,” you muffle out after crossing your arms, forcing yourself to relax. Again, the constant rocking of both machines tumbling your clothes and blankets, plus the warmth radiating into the enclosed space nearly had you lulled to sleep in seconds.

Jason find the view absolutely adorable, heavily contemplating on taking the short stride to the seat beside you to let you rest on his shoulder. Only about a minute remained on the machine when he took the chance to approach, watching your tired head slowly tilt, nearly falling back against the wall if he didn’t quickly lurch over to catch it.

Cradling your pretty face in his palm, his eyes slightly narrowed when he picked up a unique detail on your face. Your eyes nearly widened when you blacked out for a second, coming to a sight of a concerned Jason holding your cheek.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you quickly nod, blinking the exhaustion from your eyes. “Yeah. I’m okay, just didn’t sleep good.”

“Uhuh,” his response came too low for your ears to pick up. The dryer emits a sharp beep, signaling your blankets were finally ready.

As good as it felt to be sitting in such an uncomfortable plastic chair, you managed to pull yourself to your feet and towards the dryer, followed by a man who refused to remove his concerned expression off his face.

“What sounds good for dinner tonight?” Jason asks you after you pulled out tangled blankets from the dryer, nearly hugging them to yourself before plopping them onto the counter space to be separated and folded.

“Don’t know. What sounds good to you?”

“Was thinking maybe pizza,” Jason replied whilst approaching you from behind, picking up how sluggish your hands were as they rummaged through the soft pile in search of blanket edges or corners.

“Or… wings, maybe?”

“Hm?” Your head faintly tilts, rising suspicion. He stands beside you, seeing your heavy lidded eyes nearly lose focus on your task.

“Actually, was thhinking of going for some grass instead of chicken,” Jason purposely states, keeping an eye on your exhausted expression. “Grass and weeds, dandelions too.”

“Mm.” Came your response.

“Right,” he tries again. “Or if grass doesn’t hit the spot, we can just eat park dirt with our bare hands. Catch up on our minerals, y’know?”

“Mhm.”

“Babe.” He states with a firm tone. “C’mon. Babe.”

“Hm?” Your head snaps upwards towards him. “Huh? I’m listening.”

“Uhuh.” He quirks a brow before reaching over, pulling the warm fabric out of your hands.

“Babe, for how long?”

“Huh?” You shake your head, trying to remember the topic. “I don’t know. Kinda not hungry for chicken—“

“Not that,” Jason shakes his head. “How long have you not been sleeping good?”

Your lack of answer concerns him a lot more than it should’ve.

“Baby.” Jason grabs said warm, fuzzy blanket fresh off the counter and pulls the cover over your shoulders, draping you in complete warmth.”

“Talk to me.” He expresses with the upmost care, turning your body to face him. “I won’t get mad. Promise.”

You hesitate regardless. A lump in your throat nearly prevents you from doing so, and it worries you. What would he say to something like this? To see you haven’t slept that much due to a few simple bad dreams?

He’d see it ridiculous. A huge part of you believed that to be the case.

“Nightmares?” Jason tries to guess. “Is that it? Insomnia? Something not letting you sleep?”

He hit the nail on the head the first time. You could’ve said yes, could’ve vocally agreed, but all you could do was give a weak nod.

“Why haven’t you told me, hm?” Jason wisps bits of hair from your face, peering down at you with a soft, concerned expression.

When could you tell him? He’s always out on patrols. When he’s out, you’re struggling to sleep. When he comes home, he sleeps during the day, leaving you on your own until the afternoon or so. It’s always such a blessing when he comes home, sleeping by your side.

Sleep should’ve came so easily when he was home safe and sound, but all your mind focused on was the possibility that one day he may not.

It felt so odd to complain to him about sleep when his sleep schedule varied a lot more than the average man. He fought crime for a living, all you did was work or be home. How could complaining to him make any sort of sense?

“It’s just nightmares,” you weakly insist, the concern of making him upset driving your heart fast enough to keep you awake. The warm blanket was too much, lulling you into a comforting serenity your body fought against.

“D’you take meds for this?” He questions, watching you shake your head no. “Sleeping pills, anything like that?”

“I mean, I’ve thought of it, but-“

“Don’t.”

His one word demand catches you off guard, making your eyes widen. “Why not?”

“Don’t need you relying on pills to get some shut eye,” Jason murmurs, exhaling through his nose before lowering his head, resting it along yours. “That’s worse than staying awake.”

He didn’t scoff, he didn’t huff and dismiss your confession, but his response regardless made you regret telling him any of this in general. You knew that look on his face; the worried wrinkle that formed in between his brows when he was too worried about something. Someone.

“Don’t say it’s not my fault. M’Sorry you couldn’t tell me before.”

Your heart lightly aches at this, especially when he stopped your words prior. He blamed himself in some way, and you really didn’t like that.

His eyes never left your face, solemnly gleaming down at your beautiful expression. The attention to the tired shadows under your eyes, your limited energy, practically dragging your feet down every step of the way just to spend all the time you could with him.

It beats the purpose to protect Gotham when he couldn’t protect the ones he loved first. How he was going to handle your subconscious, he hadn’t a clue. Only an idea.

“Jay.”

“Shhh.” He soothes, his mind processing some thoughts you wish you could stop.

“I want you to go back upstairs,” he speaks after some silence. “I’ll sort our stuff out down here. Take a hot shower, fix yourself a drink, and get to bed. I’ll be up there in a bit.”

“But—“

“Ah ah,” he chides, hiding that hint of a smile on the edge of his lip. “Don’t wanna hear it. I’ll stay tonight, and tomorrow night, an’ the night after that.”

“And Gotham?”

Gotham always ran fucking crazy with something nearly every night, but hey, theirs other cape wearing heroes waltzing around.

“What’s one night?” He shrugs. “Don’t gotta carry you to the elevator, do I?”

“I’d prefer that,” you manage to smile. “You wrapped me in a death trap. I won’t make it to the elevator.”

Jason sighs, this time with a smile on his face. Without a word, he hoists you up in his arms, your body wrapped up in a heated, fragrant blanket as he sets you back in your chair from before.

“My little cleopatra,” he comments, in reference to your entire body wrapped up in a blanket, minus your head. “Once we’re done here, we’ll take a long nap. I’ll stay with you as long as you want.”

The official, yet unspoken promise left your heart aching. Of course he’d do such a soothing gesture for you.

“You can’t carry both me and the laundry,” your tired voice says to him, making his smirk grow as he tends to folding your blankets once more.

“Oh yeah? Watch me.”

[deadfrog-and-friends]

Rag Doll washes the tea things when the party is over because otherwise they won't get cleaned. the old Scullery Doll was much better and quicker at it but there were so many tea parties that she broke. one day when they stuck the key in her back it just wouldn't turn anymore and no one knew how to fix it. she just waits in her chair by the fireplace, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. we give her tea every day so she doesn't feel left out but it just grows cold in her lap.

we all have our duties. Rag doll's duty was to tuck everyone into bed at night. that's what she was made for. she was made so a young witch, frightened of the dark, would not be alone. she was made to say "are you comfortable? close your eyes. this one will tell you a story," and such things. the young witch is grown and gone away, and none of the dolls here seem to need that, so Rag stands at the sink with a teacup in one hand and a soapy sponge in another, late into the night. the soapy damp smell has become a part of her. she never feels fully dry. there is only so long she can stand being tumbled in the machine. so every night, instead of crawling into bed with the other dolls, she hangs herself from the clothesline with the fan blowing on her. someday Scullery will be fixed, and this duty will be lifted from her, and the smell will fade, but for now she hardly feels fit to present herself at the tea table.

Mabel helps by bringing all of the tea things to the kitchen, which is wonderful of it, because Rag can't handle the tray and would have to make individual trips for each piece. Mabel Doll has suggested that Rag wear some kind of rubber gloves, there are some that the witch used to use for magical purposes of some kind, but Rag has no fingers. the gloves are too big and the fingers get in the way. Baker Doll who happens to be passing by looks at Rag's cloth stumps and chuckling starts to suggest condoms before Mabel cuts it off. but Rag Doll has tried washing teacups with condoms. they're weirdly greasy. "this one is fine," Rag insists.

"that one is starting to get moldy," Mabel points out.

"a witch will come," says Rag, "and Scullery will be fixed."

~🧽~

years pass. the witch who finally comes can not fix Scullery. "Ro just left you guys here to your own devices," she observes, shaking her head. "Pity."

"miss Ro has many responsibilities," ventures Mable.

"not *that* many," says the new witch. "Scullery here, for example, a beautifully well-made piece of machinery. the silicone coating is lifelike, flexible, and durable. i've never seen its like. it apologizes, by the way, for neglecting the dishes all these years. what a waste, letting it rot out here."

"it needn't worry," ventures Mable. "Rags has taken over its duties."

at this, a giant gear within Scullery cranks into action, clicking over once. some of us jump, some scream, as this is the first we've seen it move in years and our memories are not very long. Scullery's hand jerks, toppling the cup of tea placed in its lap. luckily, its heat resistant silicone will seal out the hot liquid, preventing it from any harm. its skirt will have to be laundered. (we will probably just spot clean it.)

Scullery falls back into permanent stillness. "it's very upset," the new witch remarks. "it said 'that rag doll is least suitable to perform this one's duties."

"well, it's doing its best," says Mabel. "but we hope miss Ro will come back and give it some new body. that one is starting to be like a sponge that is ready to be thrown out."

"we did suggest gloves," says Sweetie. "this one thinks it just enjoys the feeling of decay. not every doll is capable of it, you know. this one will never decay. in a thousand years its parts will still be littering the planet." Sweetie's eyes get a faraway look.

"did it not occur to any of you," the witch says, the misery of the situation beginning to soak in, "that maybe one of the dolls who's not made out of absorbent, um, cloth, would be a better choice for washing the dishes?"

blank stares. finally "these ones' witch is gone."

"but Rag Doll offered to do it. Rag Doll said it was fine."

"we have our duties. this one sweeps the floor and dusts, for example."

"this one is also made of cloth! this one thinks that one is insane for taking on such a task."

"Rag got mad when this one tried to help. Rag screamed at this one."

"no." none of us had given it that much thought.

so the new witch goes into the kitchen to see Rag Doll. "oh, you poor thing," comes out of her mouth before she can stop herself. Rag, startled, falls off the back of the chair it's standing on. it had slunk back into the kitchen, defeated, the moment it had heard the new witch say she could do nothing for Scullery.

the new witch skips over and turns off the faucet. "what is it you were actually made for, little one?" she holds out her hand to help Rag Doll to its feet.

it struggles to remember. "this one... was made to tell bedtime stories and snuggle in bed." the years have not been kind to it. at least it's freshly laundered, having gone through the washing machine and tumbled in the dryer just a few nights ago.

"my name is Zo. may I pick you up?"

not believing what it's hearing, the doll nods, and suddenly it's being lifted into the air! levitated by a magical supportive pair of arms, and pressed into the chest of a Witch. it would take that one's breath away, if that one could breathe. it was like a purpose, long forgotten, was starting to reawaken. "a good weight, a good squish," the witch was muttering. "plenty of latent magic, plenty of spells to decrease the smell of dishes over time. little one, i might just steal you!"

"wha-?"

but before it could object, miss Zo, with Rag Doll in her arms, was hopping on Elizabeta's broom and zooming out through an open window. when Baker stopped in a moment later, all it observed was a sink full of half-washed teacups and the curtains swaying in the wind.

those half-washed teacups stayed in the sink like that for a few more days, and then Baker and Mabel agreed to share the job.

[trashmouth-richie]

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐝𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬

masterlist

𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: implications of: adult prostitution, physical child abuse, child neglect, poverty. series trigger warnings include drug use and abuse, alcohol use and abuse, neglect, etc

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: eddie is determined to make things right, past hardships mentioned. 6k — eddie leaves in 1982 when he is sixteen, there is a scene that takes place in 1984 when reader is eighteen and eddie has already been gone for two years at this point.

He watched the sun creep through the blinds, the Indiana skyline sending hues of pink and purple against the dawning morning.

 Birds chirped noisily, greeting each other in flapping winged ‘hello’. He wished he could feel their joy, wished his eyes didn’t throb from lack of sleep. His throat was caked with the dry cool air still blowing through the vents. 

He so badly wanted to be right, have an answer for one of his many questions that kept weeding into more and more. An unending tether. 

Rubbing wet from his eyes he swung his long legs to the floor. Back aching from the heavy spring loaded frame, he stands and heads toward the shower itching the curls on his head. 

The water from the shower head was warm and welcoming, bringing forth a blanketed calm to his cold exterior. The water washed over his face and wet his hair almost down the length of his back. As he scrubbed his body his mind was elsewhere. 

A million different “what if’s” shattered through his mind. What if… he came back sooner, you had run away with him, what if you had answered his letters, what would have happened to you if you weren’t left here to rot like the foundation of Forest Hills? 

Did you think he didn’t care about you? That he was better off? He wasn’t. And if he could have come back he would’ve. It’s not as if his old man would have welcomed him back with open arms. He’d be lucky to get back handed instead of the usual a meaty fist to the side of the head. 

But Eddie would have done it, for you. And he’ll be kicking his own ass about it until the end of time for not taking the risk. For not having you hop through your window like you’d done so many times before, and run away with him. 

Hand in hand. Into the dark night. Rescuers style. 

With shampoo barely rinsed, he hits the faucet with a bang. Too many years of guilt hung like a weighted cape on his shoulders, but now? Now he had the wits and means to make it right. A promise he kept to himself, to you. 

The itchy towel dried his skin hastily as his fingers raked through his hair, tussling his bangs into a messy submission. His watch beeps on the nightstand, an alarm telling him he had only fifteen minutes before he was supposed to have his meeting. 

It was settled, Eddie wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Certainly someone in this town had to know where you were living. 

Locking the door to the motel he dropped the keys into his pocket and swung a leg over his Harley, he took a deep breath as he revved the engine, satisfied with his decision, a rose blossoming in his stomach, if he could leave Hawkins; so could you. 

The smell of bleach was an odd comfort to you. The astringent burn in your nose brought a calming peace, cleanliness. Washing away spills and stains from any surface it touched. Today in particular were the bedsheets from the club. 

You splash another cupful into the correct compartment for good measure, slamming it shut and inserting quarters into the slotted mouth of the washing machine—cranking the dial to the heaviest wash and hottest water. Your head pounded and throbbed, the hangover headache worsening by the hour. 

The sheets spun around and around as water filled the drum, and you stared in a hypnotizing trance at the thick glass door, thinking about the list of to-do’s Rick had told you needed to be done in his absence.

  “… don’t forget the laundry, okay? Nobody wants to fuck a whore on a dirty bed. I left you something special on the nightstand,” he winked before bending down to kiss your cheek, his suitcase already tucked into the backseat after you packed it and placed it there yourself, “don’t do it all at once, it’s some pretty strong shit.”

  He waits for you to nod and he bites his lip, “be good, Tommy’s in charge for the next two weeks while I'm gone.”  

  He smirked half assed and flicked his sunglasses down onto the bridge of his nose, climbing into his car and reversing down the driveway. 

  A choked breath finally releasing from your lungs as his tires squeal on the black top.

A wave of nausea hits you from the sickening tickle of broken winged butterflies tumbling in your stomach at the way Rick had smiled at you. 

Making you wish bleach was edible. Maybe it would kill the butterflies, poisoning them from the inside, just as you had been. 

Rick wasn’t the big bad wolf of your life. That title was held to another man, one whose blood coursed through your own veins. Was he an upstanding hero type? Not at all, his wings were clipped like any other fallen angel. 

But he was right lastnight— he came to your aid at the time you desperately needed someone. And in a weird, sickening way, he had saved you. 

 If being “saved” meant going from one evil to another that is. 

You weren’t naive enough to think that you were dating. What Rick and you had was simple…cash register transaction, complete with the clinks and clanging bell noises. He provided you with shelter, kept your needs met, gave you a job. Your payment for such luxuries transpired behind closed doors. 

It wasn’t love, quite literally a situation formed on the grounds of a business deal.  But oh how foolish you were to think it was anything more than that in the beginning. 

  —

One black garbage bag. That’s all that was needed to collect your belongings, and it wasn’t even full. 

 “Do you really have to go?” Lolly’s wide eyes were full of tears, knobby knees tucked to her chin as she sat on your shared bed, watching you unpack drawers and slide a big silver ring over your thumb. 

You have always been strong for her. Protecting her from the evils that took place in this trailer. Sheltering her away when dad’s fist was looking for someone to blame after mom left. Bruises faded easy on your skin, and you’d take them again and again if it meant hers never had to be painted.  

  “Lover’s Lake isn’t that far, you could bike there.” your tone is nonchalant like you aren’t being torn to shreds from the inside out, and it’s taking everything in you to not break down in front of her. 

She sniffs loudly, “everyone leaves me.” 

The words break your heart, and you can practically feel the tissue ripping inside your chest. 

  “Mom, Molly, Pickles, and now you,” her lip quivers and the tears drop on the tops of her knees. 

  “That’s not true,” you tut, rubbing a hand down her back, “Pickles was probably a hundred years old when you found him. Even old Jimmy said that he’d been living here longer than anyone.” 

Deflecting with humor was something you picked up to have Lolly look on the bright side when things were worse for wear. But deep down you hurt just like she did. 

Molly would have been almost eleven now, and you hadn’t seen her since you were her age. You remembered her birthday was the 17th of July and still lit a candle on a gas station twinkie to celebrate it every year. 

  “You’ll get the entire room to yourself, that’s pretty cool Lolls, right?” 

She shrugs, wiping a tear away with a pink polished hand. 

You know it’s time to be serious. It’s time to warn her, to try to keep her safe while you aren’t under the same roof anymore.

Taking her hands in yours and squeezing you plead to her, “stay out of his way, don’t speak unless he asks, don’t stop going to school.”

Lolly opens her mouth to interrupt but you stop her with another pleading look. You had already left school last year, Dad claiming he needed you to help take care of things at home rather than “waste time at that fuckin’ place.”

  “Remember the treehouse in the woods, behind the grove of cedar trees by the big gray rock?” she nods silently, “…nobody knows it’s there but me and E—” your voice breaks on the first syllable of his name and you clear your throat, “it’s safe there,” you don’t tell her how you had made sure to stock the treehouse with her favorite things as a little escape for her. Magazines, cans of food with pull top lids, packaged sweets, your favorite nail polish, a warm blanket, pillow, flashlight etc… anything to keep her company to keep her safe. 

  “.. it’s kinda cozy.” 

The tip of your nose tickles and your throat feels heavy  as you try to swallow down sobs. Not here. She couldn’t see you that way. 

  “I'm not leaving because I want to… you know that, yeah?” 

Her little arms fling around your neck and she squeezes you as hard as an eight year old could, and you hold her tight, wishing you could morph together. 

The bedroom door flies open and the boom of your dad’s bark ricochets off every surface, breaking the sound barrier.  “Fuckin’ Christ Clove, you ready or what?” 

Lolly’s fingers grip you tighter and you hug her just as tight. You whisper quietly to her, “don’t cry in front of him, he doesn’t like it, I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

You let her go. 

Your own tears wetting your cheeks adding to your wet shoulder, but you smile through the pain of your heart breaking. 

Dad scoffs in the background, muttering under his breath something about how he’s not raising a bunch of fucking crybabies. 

His meaty hand grabs your wrist and yanks you upwards, the stench of unwashed armpits and a thick ash of his cigar fill your senses, drying your tears immediately. 

  “Let’s go!” he roars, “makin’ me look bad in front of the new client.” 

He looks around the room with shifty eyes, as if he might say something else, as if he might apologize for the bullshit you’ve had to go through, but when you’re a living breathing demon yourself, you don’t have a conscience, and he rubs his other hand over his balding head, rubbing the grease and gel further into his comb-overed scalp, “…don’t need him thinkin’ I’m a liar because you’re too goddamn selfish to be on time.” 

Your virginity, your innocence was traded to a new drug smuggler in Hawkins for the price of discounted dope. Bought like property, sold like cattle. 

Black plastic fisted hotly in your hand as you walked behind your dad’s crippled sway down the length of the hallway to the front door. 

The childhood home you had imagined leaving behind was blurring past you. The cracked windows, the creaky floors, ratty carpet that was barely glued together, the water stained tub with the leaking faucet. It was all going to be part of your past.

If only Lolly could fit. 

 Fit inside the one plastic garbage bag. 

The jagged chip in the corelle plate was keeping Eddie’s fingers occupied as Wayne’s girlfriend sniffled and quietly blew her nose, talking about the final days of him being alive. 

Cancer. Caught late and untreatable. He lived a whole year longer than what the doctor’s had expected him to, that alone was a miracle. 

Eddie was wrong. Wayne didn’t own a trailer or even live in Forest Hills. He had been renting a small apartment before he got sick and apparently had paid his rent in advance until the end of the year, giving Patty somewhere to stay while she cared for him and the comfort of not having to worry about making ends meet. 

Boxes labeled with loopy handwritten sharpie were stacked in the living room and leaning against the kitchen table that Eddie and Patty were sitting at along with half of a sandwich still sitting on her plate. 

She wipes her nose and shoves round glasses into her auburn graying hair, dotting her under eyes from another trickle of tears. 

Eddie felt bad for her, and maybe he would feel some sort of grief if he had known his uncle more than just the handful of times he had gotten to know him. He was embarrassed to say he couldn’t even remember what Wayne Munson really looked like. 

  “He was a great man, talked about you a lot,” she half whispered, picking at the crust of her sandwich, “always felt like he should have done..something.” 

Eddie didn’t accept pity, it was a Munson trait. So he did what he always did, brushed off any seriousness with a charmer’s smile. 

  “No worries ma’am, honestly, I- I managed just fine.” 

She nods and reaches into the front pocket of her apron, her voice meek and hesitant, “I have everything packed. The crematorium opens on Monday, appointment’s at ten.”

A brass key twinkles between her fingers, “I have a sister out in California… with Wayne gone I don’t,” her voice warbles and she looks around the apartment, “…there’s nothing here for me, anymore.” 

A soft wrinkled hand slides towards Eddie as Patty leans forward on the chair, the key scratching against the wooden table top. 

Eddie smiles softly, knowing the feeling of not being able to stay after tragedy strikes. And from the sound of it Patty deserved a quiet life. 

She explained that he had until December to figure out what should happen with the apartment, but everything else was already put into motion. Maybe he could even find someone to sublet the place until then. 

Her soft eyes still wet as her lips tremble, “you’re more than welcome to go through the boxes and take what you need before the folks down at the Salvation Army load everything up.”

  “When do you leave?” he asks after taking a sip of unsweetened iced tea. 

Patty folds her hands and smiles for the first time since Eddie had knocked on the door, “Greyhound leaves this afternoon.” 

Four loads of sheets were folded and heaped into a basket that was on the verge of tipping over in the back seat of your car. The Diet Coke you bought at the Spin n’ Dry left your stomach grumbling more than it had before you slurped the carbonated drink down in a few gulps. 

With a knock of your hip into your driver's door it slammed home, the noise rattling your brain like a jug of shaken pop. Hangover still ringing loud between your ears.

The world’s darkest sunglasses couldn’t have shaded away the blinding rays of the sun, the heat felt like it was cooking your skin, making your temples and upper lip drip with sweat, an unusually warm day in the middle of May. 

You didn’t recognize the plates on the motorcycle you had parked next to. Definitely not from Indiana. But maybe Wendy’s boyfriend finally got out of prison in Ohio? or was it Colorado?

In desperate need for a shower, you hoist your purse strap higher on your shoulder. Only having a few hours before you needed to clock in at the club, you didn’t have time to take a nap, or grab something to eat. 

You could delegate your tasks to someone else but most of the girls had other jobs during the daylight hours. The only one wrapped up day and night in the club was you. 

  -

The apartment building you resided in had a shared water heater between the 6 units, meaning that hot water was scarce. But you were used to the unpredictable temperature of the water, and on this sweltering day you were glad when the water hit your back like icy daggers.

Like the bleach, it was an odd comfort. 

The cool water jarred you awake a little, allowing your senses to come back to you after a night of inebriation, god knows you needed it. 

Working shampoo through your hair you mentally check off things you’d completed, and everything else to be done for tonight’s shift. 

 Laundry ✔️ 

Set up testing appointments ✔️ 

Inventory ✔️ 

Restock napkins 

Advertise for Ginger’s position

Call Kenny 

Saturday’s were nickel wing night, and that brought with it a crowd of regulars and the occasional out of towners looking for a hot meal, and the typical extras that Queen’s offered.

Tommy had the brilliant idea last year that the girls would dress up in angel wings with halos or devil horns with a spiked tail to replicate the sauce of sweet or spicy wings the kitchen served.  As miserable as it was to trot around dressed like a she devil, the tips on saturday nights were good, even if you left with greasy BBQ sauce fingerprints on your skin. 

Tilting the devil horns into submission atop your head the plastic cherry red pleasers hung by the straps from your painted fingers as you click the front door locked with your keys and shuffle with slippered feet down the stairs. 

Your purse jingled and clanked around as you descended down the steps. A shift at the club meant you could never be too sure on what you might need. Barrettes, an extra pair of panties, hair pick, bobby pins, mascara, lip liner, lotion, tylenol, icy hot for Jolene and the most important of all, an unlabeled package left on a nightstand. 

The sidewalk scuffed the rubber bottom soles of your slippers as you walked to the parking lot. A throat cleared loudly followed by a voice saying your name. First, middle and last. 

A voice you’d recognize in heaven or hell. His voice. 

He was standing next to what you now realized was his motorcycle, of course the out of state plates made sense. His jaw was pressed into a tight clench, a Marlboro dangling from his ringed hand. 

Eddie looked different with the sun’s ray on him compared to the haunting neon lights from the club. They colored his hair a pretty caramel swirled in coffee tendriled curls. Standing next to him you finally comprehended how much taller he was, but when the cheshire cat like smile broke across his face you found it hard not to smile back but you managed not to. 

 The scowl on your face sets him back. Hurt riddling his chest. Your eyebrows pinched the same way they used to but it was never a look that he saw very often, at least not towards him. 

Your face was scarred, but beneath all the difference and the makeup he’d never seen you wear, he still could see that girl. His best friend. 

 You roll your eyes and turn away from him, stomping quick to your car and shoving the key into the lock, still not finding it easy to look in his eyes, “stalking is illegal in Indiana.” 

His nose rumbles with a wrecked laugh, blowing smoke from his nostrils and he chuckles, “didn’t know you lived here.” 

  “Sure,” you say over your shoulder in an annoyed huff, “you just happen to show up at my work and now at my apartment. Totally by accident, or is this your bullshit idea of fate?” 

He opens his mouth to speak and you cut him off before he can utter a word, “.. that was rhetorical, I don’t want your answer.” 

  “Looks like you got your license after all.” 

You know what he’s referring to, and you hate the way a smile spreads against your lips. He was trying to break your shell, not knowing it was rock hard and super glued shut.

His olive branch is stretched out again, arm aching from the strenuous amount of leaves and offerings, but it quickly catches fire from the embers harbored in your stare when you whip around to face him. 

  “Well I’m not sixteen anymore, and I definitely didn’t need your help getting it.”

His face falls, “Cl—..” 

You cut him off again, “I gotta go, I have a million things to do before we open tonight and you’re wasting my ti—”

This time he’s interrupting, talking fast to avoid your annoyed pouts, “can we talk, please? I’ll expl—”

You both might be older but the bickering between you could mimic teenagers, neither of you letting the other finish a sentence. 

Rage pours through you like lava, hot angry and red. The wave of hurt it’s riding on stabs like a knife. “I don’t…goddamnit, I don’t have time for this Eddie!” 

You look at him letting his warm eyes capture yours and you notice how handsome he’s gotten, how his features fit him well, but it doesn’t stop you from delivering the hurt you were feeling for years, “… and most importantly I don’t want to make time for you.”

You spin on your slippered heel. Shoving down the burning ache of regret and possibly vomit from your pounding headache. 

Fuck this, and FUCK him. 

Somewhere between the haste of needing to flee and fumbling with your keys, your bag tumbles to the ground, scattering your belongings all over the asphalt. 

Eddie reaches down to pick up your things the same time you swing your door open hard, and in a comical blur the door connects with his bent head knocking him flat on his ass. 

You gasp and he hisses through his teeth, mumbling curse words and rubbing his forehead.

Stifling a giggle you tuck your lips behind your teeth as you bend at the waist to look at him, your fingers fly to his head trying to pry his hands away.  

  “Are you..” 

  “Don’t laugh,” Eddie fake grumbles, a wide smile on his lips, “don’t you dare..”

You bite your lip to stop giggling, “‘m not...let me— oh c’mon, let me see it.” 

Finally getting his fingers from his head you’re able to take a look at the small cut above his eyebrow. 

  “Jesus Christ Slick, when did you learn to box?”

You’re both laughing now, falling so easily in sync again it was making your head spin. And for the first time in a long time, you let your guard slip. 

His palm is braced against his head, holding the growing goose egg he was sure to get.

  “Please,” you mutter between raspberry blown lips, “I’ve never fought anyone, not with you arou—”

You look at him when your sentence falls flat. Both of you knowing that Eddie’s fists got into more fights defending you than himself. Trailer trash or not, he wasn’t about to let Hawkins jockstrap wearers treat you like dog shit. 

 Eddie winces when your fingers graze over the small gash by his outer brow, “how bad is it killer?” 

  “Remember when you tripped over your own feet playing hide-n’-seek in the cemetery?” 

Eddie snorted through his nose at the memory, “you mean when you had to give me a piggyback ride back home?” 

  “I forgot that part… this isn’t nearly as bad, maybe a tenth of that.” 

You dig through the remaining stuff in your purse, finding the small tin full of bandaids and neosporin you kept for blisters. “Should have taken you to the ER that night.” 

Thumbing through the collection, you find a suitable sized bandage. 

  “Yeah,” Eddie scoffs, “I’m sure Al would’ve loved gettin’ that bill in the mail.” 

His eyes meet yours and you notice the pool of childhood fear bubbling to the surface. Years have come and gone since then, but one never really forgets the pain from those days… How could you when the evidence was scarred into your skin? 

You shut your eyes and shake your head as you peel the slicked backing from the bandaid— a yellow cartoon background with Mario and Luigi. 

Eddie gives you a look with a cocked eyebrow and you shrug, moving his bangs back from his face so you could get a good look at the cut. 

His hair is surprisingly soft like french silk. You wonder if his girlfriend buys special shampoo for him meant for curly hair.

Placing the sticky bandage against his cream colored skin, you rub the seams of the bandaid with your thumbs so it’ll stay in place. His breath fans across your forearms, and he watches in silence at your first aid handiwork. 

You haven’t been this close to Eddie in years. It shouldn’t be weird, it shouldn’t feel awkward to touch someone’s forehead. The same someone you had shared a bed with more times than you could even count. But this was different, you were kids, teens then, now you were both adults. Living completely separate lives. 

Clapping your hands in a wiping motion you unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, “there, good as new.” 

He pushes his hands on the pavement and stands up, as you pick up the rest of your things, tossing them absentmindedly into your purse. 

“Thanks doc,” he breathes, clearing his throat, “I don’t mean to be a dick.. don’t hit me again, but are you wearing horns?” 

You scoff and look up at him. He stands tall above you, and you actually take notice of what he’s wearing. Black boots and a light wash of denim jeans, a navy and brown patterned flannel fit snug against his arms, rolled to his elbows. 

He looks like a grown man, no longer a trailer park boy with holes in his jeans and stolen sneakers on his feet. 

 A large hand is extended down to you and you take it, his right your left, the two tattoos aligning for the first time in what seems like forever. 

When you stand to your full height he’s still inches taller than you are, and where your noses used to be practically at the same level, yours barely hits him in the chest now. 

  “Does Hawkins celebrate Halloween in May now?” 

You shake your head and let out a sad sigh, “it’s umm.. it’s for work.” 

You’re embarrassed that you have to explain to your old friend that you have a job that requires you to dress like a slut, that your ass literally paid for your car, that since he left your life turned upside down for the worst. Your cheeks are hot and you pick at the polish on your nails. 

  “Oh,” his voice grows small, “that’s…”

  “…yeah.” 

You’re praying for a miracle, for lightning to strike, or a car to backfire— anything, to have this awkward conversation die. 

You don’t have to wait long. 

“Well,” Eddie exhales, swinging his arms, “since you beat me up in my first twenty four hours of being home, I think you owe it to me to let me take you for a cup of coffee,” he smirks, fingers gliding over the bandage and shaking his hair back into place. 

Home. 

A common word that had held no meaning to you, but with Eddie here standing in the flesh, breathing the same air and staring down at you—the four letters felt colossal, and it made your stomach flip. 

  “I don’t like coffee.” 

Eddie’s smile falls. The small glint of hope in his eyes dimmed out like a burnt lightbulb. Leaves on his olive branch curled and charred next to your embers.

Keys jingle in his pocket with his hung head and he fumbles with his words.

  “Sure, yeah.. sorry. I just wanted to..” his shoulders sag, “it’s been a long time, Clove.” 

You stare blankly at him. Whatever wind was in his sails was snuffed out by you, and you fucking hated yourself for that. All you wanted to do was scream in his face. 

Tell him yeah, it has been a long time because he left you. He was the one who skipped town in the middle of the night. It was him who left nothing but— goddamnit… his doe eyes could convince a nun to rob a bank, hopefully you don’t end up regretting this..

  “Do you like wings?” 

  —

  “Okay easy! Easy!” 

  “I got it, calm down!” 

  “The van’s top heavy y'know? This fucker will flip like that.” Eddie says snapping his fingers, his other hand was gripped right on the ‘oh shit’ handle knuckles glaring  white. 

Eddie did it. Between working weekends at Z’s shop and saving whatever nickel and dime he had, he finally saved up enough cash to buy the shitty brown van the Templeton’s had for sale in the front of their trailer. 

The windshield was cracked, the passenger door was permanently locked shut. But to Eddie it was a means of escape, a venture that Al Munson had no say in, it was dirty and the seats were mouse bitten and full of dust. It was paradise.

  “Just ease into the parking lot, try not to hit anyone..” a smirk catches the corner of his lip, “but if you do, aim for  Higgin’s sedan.” 

This wasn’t your first time driving Eddie’s beloved vehicle, usually you practiced on the open highway, turning onto gravel and coasting with Eddie’s hand waving out the window, but today he thought it’d be good for you to drive in town.

You were nervous, never really having to maneuver through vehicles or watch for anything more than a scared rabbit from the tall ditch weed, driving in town was wracking every nerve to the highest meter. 

  “Eddie, uh, how do I park? There aren’t any lines.” 

He mouths around a cigarette, pointing lazily with his forefinger, “here’s fine, just whip her in there.” 

The van comes to an abrupt halt, and the grinding sound of metal on metal groans loudly. You sit wide eyed and breathing heavily, foot still on the brake. The cigarette from Eddie’s mouth falls on his lap. 

What would have been a normal ass chewing and possibly a slap to the back of the head from your dad, is only met with a grin from your bestfriend. 

He reaches over and throws the gear shift into park. And coaxes your hands from their death grip on the steering wheel. 

Fear riddles through your body and you stutter an apology, “I’m sorry Eddie! I’ll pay for it!” he says your name but you ignore him, “how— however much it is! I swear! I’ll—”

A hand clamps tight over your mouth and your eyes well with tears, ready to flood over the dam of your eyelashes. 

“Clove, stop…it's fine,” his eyes plead for you to believe him but you don’t, your mouth keeps moving against his hand so he holds your face gently with both hands, “I swear, it’s not a big deal.. alright? You think I care about the paint job on this big lug o’ shit? C’mon, scoot over.” 

 You move across the center counsel and back into the heaping pit of whatever Eddie thought was necessary to keep back there. His long legs scramble and tangle up in the steering wheel before he’s sitting comfortably behind the driver’s seat and you crawl to the passenger side, wiping at your eyes. 

  “‘m hungry, you?” 

Of course you were, the box of scalloped potatoes you made for supper last night ended up being crunchy and watery. The last pieces of bread went to make Lolly a mayo and cheese sandwich. The potato monstrosity ended up feeding the strays, and your belly grumbled ever since. 

 “Not really,” you lied. 

 Eddie shrugs and throws the van in reverse, wincing as the van groaned against the rear fender of Jonathan Byers’ olive colored car. 

 “Don’t worry,” he lies, “he won't even notice.” 

  —

The powdered gas station donuts left a white film of sugar on your lips. Yoo-hoo dripped down Eddie’s chin as he took another long swig, biting the rope of a Twizzlers in half. 

 Eddie had spread a flannel blanket he had “borrowed” on the floor in the back of his van, and you both climbed in amongst the trash and nonsense to enjoy a sugary breakfast. 

The crinkled white donette’s wax paper is tossed behind him carelessly and he reaches for a second bottle of Yoo-hoo. “So much better than first period, McCannon  can suck a fat one.” 

 You wipe your lips on the back of your hand, “I kinda like History, it’s interesting.” 

 Eddie snorts, “you like History because you’re hot for teacher.” 

 Mr. James McCannon was good looking,  but that’s not what made you interested in his class. He was your roundabout, average middle aged family man.

 A father, a husband, a friend, a coach, an employee—but most importantly, he was respected, put together, polished. 

 He probably taught his kids to play catch, took family vacations to some National Park, and without a doubt, his lawn was more than likely manicured in a way that looked magazine ready at all times. 

 His wife brought his lunch in a brown paper sack, toting along a thermos which you imagined would be filled with a creamy tomato soup or maybe coffee. She always had their toddler in tow. A smiling little cutesy thing, sparkling eyes and dressed to the nines. She too was an average American woman, cookie cut and baked to perfection— still that wasn’t what drove you to like his class. 

 It came down to something rather simple. You were jealous. 

 Seeing a father be so loving and caring for his own child, excited to see the young kid and always giving a kiss to her little cheeks, it drove you mad. The way his eyes lit up when his little family knocked on the door, the way they seemed so fucking happy— made you yearn for normalcy. 

 Because your life would never be like theirs. 

 Guaranteed little Kelly McCannon didn’t get cigars flicked into her face whenever her dad felt like she deserved it. She probably would never have to care for a sibling like a parent, never have to rummage through couch cushions in search of loose change to buy a gallon of milk. 

 She would never know the gut wrenching feeling of having her mother pack up only one of their siblings and disappear into the night, never to be seen again. 

 So the answer was no— you weren’t in love with Mr. McCannon. You were completely enthralled that he was a good person, a doting father, and that more than likely— never in your lifetime or the next, would you experience the bond of unconditional love from a parent, probably not from anyone. 

 Scowling, and burying the sadness of the truth, you shove his arm, “you’re hogging all the Yoo-hoo.” 

 He laughs, leaning forward and handing the glass bottle over. The dark blues and purples around his eye from last week were now shaded to a gross jaundice-like color, much like the fingerprints on your arms. 

 Eddie stays quiet for a while, watching you nibble your breakfast, taking small sips at the chocolate drink. He picks at his jeans, fraying the holes wider, his knuckles still swollen from Tommy’s chin. 

 A fight he’d gladly start again if he ever caught that son of a bitch trying to— Eddie shook his head, he’d fucking kill him, plain and simple. 

Your lip was still split, and he had spent an hour picking gravel out of your palm while you sat on his bathroom counter. Snotty nose and tears flowing from your eyes. 

 It was probably then— he realized, or maybe it was years earlier when you were both younger. But right now sitting across from you in the dingy air of his van, Eddie is sure he’s never seen anyone look more beautiful.

The rolling feeling in his gut he got whenever he couldn’t fix what was making you sad, when you came to school with new bruises on your skin unable to stay awake in class, the countless times you had snuck out and showed up at his window in the middle of the night when things got really bad— it all came to fruition, like a lightbulb going off in his brain. 

You meant more to him than anyone in his life, he’d  protect you with his own life if he had to. You were all he ever needed.

He knew at thirteen, and he knew now. When he thought of the word love, he thought of you.

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[star-spacer]

Tyrant of the Laundry Room

Part of the Heart Pirates X reader series: Sanctity of Sacred Space

Laundry duty was your favorite. Though your nakama couldn’t agree.

To say you quite liked laundry duty was an understatement.

Always the first to sign up, taking the worst shifts or the day with the heaviest load, never a complaint coming from you except for the crew to take care of their clothes more.

As often as you could, you’d swap laundry duty with anyone willing on the crew. It had gotten bad enough at a certain point until Law had banned anybody from swapping laundry duty with you for a month until the redness on your hands died down. After that, he had imposed a strict limitation of how many times a certain chore could be done until the rota refreshed.

The rest of the crew never quite understood your fervor for this particular chore, as to many, this was down at the bottom of the list on how much they wanted to do it, alongside dish duty. Shachi had—the third time you asked to swap with him—grabbed you by the shoulders and peered deep into your eyes through his shades to ask if you were okay. He couldn’t believe that you simply just wanted to.

But the reason was simple.

Your passion as a tailor did not just simply end at making and fixing clothes. It extended into their care and upkeep. You knew the best way to cut linen, the specific direction it needed to reduce shrinkage in the long run. You knew how to remove all manner of stains, and you meant it. Not even the discolorations on Shachi’s hat stood a chance when you got your hands on it. 

It was the first thing you chose to learn after he died, the world opening up at your fingertips without the pressure of what you had to do. Your experience with a gun meant blood often found itself at home on your things and he didn’t care enough about appearances to bother keeping things stain-free. So as an act of rebellion, the first thing you did was to learn about clothes. The seamstresses and launderers at your old village were thrilled to have a fresh face so interested in their trade, and wasted no time in teaching you everything they knew. What that man forced you to be, and what those ladies taught you, were the only relic you had of your childhood.

And laundry duty was the one chance where you got to stretch out this knowledge and allow yourself a chance to shine.

Though, that passion tended to be a bit overbearing for those who worked with you. 

“Shachi, you don’t crank the heat all the way up for those!”

Crossing the space, you shoved yourself into the redhead’s space as you fiddled with the controls on the machines.

“You’re lucky that I caught this in time, you idiot!”

“But doesn’t turning it up make them dry faster??”

“NOT LIKE THIS!” Your screech echoed through the room. “We have fragile polyester-based stuff in there! You’re going to melt them!”

“It can’t be that bad, right?!?”

“HOW ABOUT I MELT YOUR SHADES FOR YOU TO FIND OUT?!?”

The screaming echoed through even the halls, those lucky enough to escape laundry duty with you chuckling at Shachi’s misfortune. You ran laundry day with a militant fist, hunting down those who forgot their clothes with a dogged focus. It was terrifying to get in your way, and even more terrifying to be stuck working the shift with you. No matter how much you begged, Law refused to let you shoulder the burden of washing everything by yourself. It was a well-known fact by now that your standards were hellish to meet, and you did not go gentle on those who failed (save Bepo and Law).

But at the end of the day, when the Heart Pirates received their laundry back, delightfully warm and cleaner than they’ve ever been before you arrived, they were glad that their beloved tailor cared so much.

[yeoldenews]

I didn't know they had children's sewing machines back then too! That's so cute! Do you know what they would have cost at the time, compared to an adult-sized one?

Pretty much anything a mom would have/do around the house came in a miniature version for little girls - sewing machines, wash tubs/boards, little china cabinets full of dishes, tiny cast iron stoves, etc., etc.

As for cost - much less generally, but it's a little hard to compare as most children's machines were just the machine and were hand cranked, while adult machines usually came with a cabinet and many had switched over to electric power by that time.

Children's machines in the fall/winter 1923 Sears range from about $15 to $100 when adjusted for inflation.

Whereas a cabinet-less adult sewing machine would run you closer to $700 - however it was an electric machine, so again, hard to compare.

[lady-wildflower]

My "new" sewing machine I got myself for the holidays!

Well, I say new. She's a 116 year old hand-cranked Singer model 28, dated to the 4th of September 1907 with the grapevine designs and the "Victorian" decals if I did my research right. She pre-dates the independent governance of my country by three weeks, and can't be said to be built like a tank because she was built before tanks were invented. But whatever she's built like, she sews like a fucking champ despite being 116. Four layers of fabric on a stitch length of about a millimetre? Give her a challenge already, she takes that like it's nothing.

All she needed when she arrived was some cleaning up and a bit of tension adjustment to her presser foot!

I shall name her Bernadette, for yes I am a gullible simple bitch who got into antique sewing machines via Bernadette Banner. So in honour blame, she shall be Bernadette. And now, since I was hand-stitching before and not very well, the clothes I make shan't fall to pieces upon the mere glance of a washing machine!

[xylaes]

August DWC 2024 Day 2 - Violence

An unfamiliar city. Beings made of stone. Giant machines within deep caverns. A crystal piercing the sky. The subterranean kingdom. Massive roots of a tree buried deep. Intense, darkened eyes staring back at him through the mirror, and a soft, dulcet whisper: ‘These violent delights have violent ends.’

Xylaes shot up in bed, dagger in hand and pointed towards the empty space beside him. No, it was only a dream. No one was there. The runes on his left arm shimmered a dull indigo before disappearing. He tucked his dagger beneath his pillow once more and wiped the sweat from his brow before realizing the sheets beneath him were also soaked with sweat.

With a sigh, he rolled out of bed and pulled the bedding off, dumping it by the door to be washed before stepping out onto the balcony to claim a much needed cigarette. The crisp breeze blowing over flushed skin was a welcomed feeling, and had become a habit of his since he started having these bizarre dreams a couple weeks ago. There were a lot of strange things happening in the world lately, it was easy enough to chalk it up to Azeroth fucking with people. Not that he had heard of anyone having this particular experience, but not everyone chose to speak of their own personal encounters. Himself included, of course. Burdening others with his crazy dreams wouldn’t solve anything.

He took a final drag off his cigarette and stubbed it out in the overflowing ashtray before making his way to the bathroom to wash the now dried sweat away. Splashing water over his face a few times, he glanced at himself in the mirror and froze. For just the briefest of moments, he could have sworn those intense, darkened eyes from his dream were staring at him. 

Just exhausted, he assumed.

Blinking away the remainder of the sleep from his eyes, he cranked his goblin radio up to drown out any unwanted thoughts and stepped into the shower to begin his day.

@daily-writing-challenge

[scary-grace]

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 5) - a Shigaraki x f! Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 5

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it, and you’re slowly coming around to the idea that what’s wrong with your house might be one of your favorite things about it. Part of it is how happy Phantom is – you feel guilty leaving her at home alone, but a lot less guilty when you know she’s with Tomura, who’s kind of crazy about her. Part of it is knowing that you’ll never find another insect in your house again, and that even if you do, you won’t have to kill it. Part of it is never worrying about a break-in, because based on how Tomura responds to even friendly people coming over, he could probably give any potential intruder a massive heart attack even without materializing.

All of that is nice. But if you’re being honest – and you try to make yourself be honest, with yourself if no one else – the main reason why you’re so happy with what’s wrong with your house is because you and Tomura are sort of, maybe, finally getting along.

You have to buy a new microwave after the soup can incident, and it wasn’t the only time Tomura tried to take care of you while you were sick. He ruined a lot of the stuff he tried to help with – flooded the hallway with bubbles after using liquid detergent in the washing machine, left the fridge open for eight hours and cranked up your electricity bill to unsustainable levels – but when you explained what went wrong, he didn’t get mad at you. He called you an idiot a lot, mostly for getting sick in the first place, but he also fed Phantom and brought you food so you wouldn’t have to get off the couch, and in the biggest shock of all, he let Keigo into the house to check on you. You’re pretty sure he only did it to piss Dabi off, but still.

There hasn’t been any more touching. Other than dragging you from the hallway to the couch the first day you were sick, Tomura doesn’t get close to you unless he’s dematerialized. That’s fine with you. You’re pretending the whole incident didn’t happen, or trying to. Sometimes the thought creeps into your head anyway. You’ll be doing something completely innocuous and all at once your mind will explode with the memory of Tomura’s raspy voice begging you to keep talking, not to leave him.

And then the images come in, things you never saw but things you can picture perfectly: His pale skin flushed and his shoulders rising and falling in unsteady pants and his hands frantic and shaking as he jerks himself off. It invariably turns your face into a furnace, and Tomura always notices. But Tomura thinks a flushed face means you’ve got a fever, so you’re safe from being found out. You don’t know what would happen if he did find out. The longer you go without anybody finding out anything at all, the better.

The flu sweeps through the neighborhood, but strangely enough, you’re the only non-ghost who catches it. Eri, Himiko, and Magne all get sick, and Hizashi spends a lot of time gloating until he comes down with it, too. The only sort-of-former ghost who avoids it is Dabi, but that’s because Dabi never goes outside. Or Keigo won’t let him go outside. You’re not sure which it is.

“It’s weird,” Spinner says. You’re giving him a ride to the grocery store because you both need to go, and because you owe him for somehow catching a whole anthill and leaving it on your porch. “That just the ghosts caught it. Usually they don’t get sick.”

“Shouldn’t they get sick more than we do? They don’t have immunity or anything.”

“I guess,” Spinner says, frowning. “But I brought home all kinds of weird shit when I was in school, and Magne never caught any of it until now.”

That is weird. “Jin says he and the others always got sick, but never Himiko before this time. If it wasn’t for me getting it, I’d think it was a ghost thing, too.”

“It could still be a ghost thing even if you got it,” Spinner says. “You spend all your time hanging out with the most powerful ghost anybody’s ever seen. Maybe you’ve got enough ghost on you to catch the – hey, are you okay?”

“Fine,” you wheeze. There’s no way you’re telling Spinner that you misheard “ghost on you” as “ghost in you” and choked on your own spit. “Go on. What were you saying?”

But Spinner’s changing the subject. “What’s that like, anyway? Living with a ghost that strong.”

“You should know. Magne’s pretty tough.”

“She’s got a body count, sure,” Spinner says. All the ghosts in the neighborhood have killed somebody, but Magne and Hizashi are the only ones who need both hands and both feet to count how many. “But I never got the feeling from her that the whole street gets from Tomura. That aura he projects is something else. Did you really not feel it when you were buying the place?”

“I didn’t,” you say. “I knew there had to be something off about the house, or somebody else would have bought it. But I did everything I could think of to figure it out and there was nothing. I’ve never felt what you all are talking about from him. From Hizashi, sure. But not from him.”

“Hizashi’s scary even as a human,” Spinner agrees. “I don’t know how Aizawa handles it. I’d be pissing myself.”

“Aizawa seems pretty bomb-proof,” you say. “I guess that’s a good thing. Or they would have been in trouble when Eri’s conjurer showed up.”

The whole street knows the story, even if the Aizawa family never talks about it. You heard five separate versions of it, one each from Himiko, Jin, Jin’s little brother, a former ghost named Atsuhiro who lives at the top of the street, and Keigo. You’re inclined to trust Keigo’s version, but you see the look on Spinner’s face, and it makes you question things. “Do you know something about it that I don’t?”

“They had the same conjurer,” Spinner says. “Eri and Magne.”

Your jaw drops. “We’re pretty sure he was Atsuhiro’s, too,” Spinner continues, “but Atsuhiro says he doesn’t remember who conjured him. The circumstances are pretty close, though. That conjurer liked abandoned buildings, or ones that were in danger of falling in. When the building comes down, it turns the ghost loose.”

“He wanted to set them free?”

“I guess,” Spinner says. “Loose ghosts can cause a lot more trouble than trapped ones. I’m glad he’s dead. And I’m glad he found the Aizawas first.”

Eri’s conjurer sounds like a real creep, but Spinner didn’t strike you as the kind of guy who wishes he could shove the bad stuff off onto somebody else. “Why? You don’t think Magne could have taken him?”

“She probably could have,” Spinner says. He gets out of the car and heads for the store, leaving you to chase after him. “But there’s this legend. Or a myth. Maybe a ghost story. It says that if you kill your own conjurer, even after you’re embodied, it sends you back.”

“I thought they couldn’t go back to the world between,” you say. “Aizawa never said –”

“Aizawa doesn’t know everything,” Spinner says. His jaw is clenched, and the next words he speaks are hard to hear. “I didn’t want her to go back.”

“Oh.” Your feelings on Tomura are just mixed enough that the idea of him vanishing permanently doesn’t make you panic. Or at least you tell yourself that it doesn’t make you panic and try not to think about it any harder than that. But Spinner looks miserable just saying it out loud. “Um –”

“I need to grab my stuff. I’ll meet you back here when I’m done.”

“Okay,” you say. You want to say something else, but Spinner vanishes down the aisle before you can think of what it should be.

You’re turning a lot of things over in your head as you do your grocery shopping. The legend about ghosts returning to the world between. The world between itself, what it’s like there. The now-dead conjurer who summoned Magne and Eri. The maybe-still-alive conjurer who summoned Tomura. But Tomura’s still a ghost. Even if his conjurer came back, there’s nothing they could do to hurt him.

You remember Spinner saying that Magne didn’t like this world at first, all the way back on the first day you met Aizawa. Maybe he was worried she’d go back if she got the chance. You gather up your last items, pay for them, and go to wait for Spinner, who comes back five minutes after you with a bottle of soda, a bunch of bananas, and a whole bag full of makeup and nail polish from the discount bin. “It’s for Magne,” he says when he sees you looking at it. “She likes pretty stuff. I’d buy nicer stuff if I could afford it.”

“Sometimes the cheap stuff is best.” Your favorite sunscreen is a discount brand, and you’ve never had very much money. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I think I was being kind of insensitive.”

“You didn’t know or anything,” Spinner says. “I don’t talk about it very much. I, like – it’s not heartwarming. Or cute. Or anything like that.”

“It doesn’t have to be any of those things,” you say. It’s not like your ghost story fits, either. You struggle with what to say as the two of you walk back out to the parking lot. “You don’t have to tell me. You can if you want to.”

“Really? Everybody else wanted to drag it out of me,” Spinner says. “Somebody new shows up in the neighborhood, and everybody else cases the joint for a few days and comes crawling out of the woodwork. I’d been here two weeks when Aizawa ambushed me with a tape recorder. Everybody’s in everybody else’s business all the time.”

You didn’t get that treatment, but then again, you didn’t have a ghost when you moved in. “It makes sense,” you say as you start the car. Spinner raises his eyebrows. “Ghosts don’t have any boundaries at all. The more of them you hang out with, the less boundaries you have.”

Spinner snorts. “You wouldn’t believe what happens when they start talking to each other. The shit they’ll say – one time I heard Himiko telling Eri how cute it is that Jin picks his nose and farts in his sleep. And she wasn’t being sarcastic. Once they choose a human, they really commit.”

You wonder what Tomura would say about you to the other ghosts, if he ever talked to them. If he’d say anything about you at all. “How do you think about your relationship with Magne, then? Is she like your friend, your sister, your aunt –”

“My big sister,” Spinner says. You back out of the parking spot and steer towards the road, and the noise in the car almost covers up what he says next. “My mom.”

You’re not close with your parents. There was never any real reason why, and it’s not like you hate them. You’re an only child, and the three of you just never felt like a family – not like the families your friends were part of, or the ones you saw on TV, or even the weird ghost families in the neighborhood you live in now. Maybe it was different when you were too young to remember, but as you grew up, the three of you felt more like roommates than anything else. You always felt like you were alone. Moving out just made it official.

But it’s not that way for everybody. Not even most people. You glance sideways at Spinner. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, and then he tells you the story.

Spinner’s parents weren’t great. That’s not an uncommon story in the neighborhood – Jin’s dad was an all-purpose batterer, and Shinsou was in foster care – but unlike the two of them, there was no friendly ghost in Spinner’s house. Spinner ran away from home when he was twelve, and nobody looked for him. He went from town to town, building to building, alone. He was fifteen when he found himself staying in the abandoned warehouse Magne haunted.

At first, Spinner says, there was no way to tell that the place was haunted at all. When Magne showed herself, she was always embodied, and he thought she was human, just like him. And she was nice to him. She brought him things he needed, although she never said where she found them. She talked to him, although she never answered the questions he asked her about herself. “She cared about me,” Spinner says. “For real, not pretending like everybody else did. I never wanted to leave.”

But he had to. Spinner caught the attention of the wrong gang of criminals, and although Magne hid him, they found him anyway. Magne’s way of draining people was different than Tomura’s is. Spinner tells you about lying on his back on the concrete floor of the warehouse, watching the people who were attacking him implode, one by one. “And then, with the last one, something happened,” Spinner says. “The whole world – I don’t know how to describe it. It did something. Usually people aren’t conscious when their ghosts embody themselves permanently, but I was. I saw it happen. I knew before she did.”

You wish Spinner could describe it better. It’s not like you’re ever going to see for yourself. “It was scary for everybody,” Spinner says. “Me and her. There we are in that stupid warehouse and there are dead people everywhere and we can leave, finally – except I’m so beat I can’t tell which end is up. It was three whole days before we got anywhere it was safe to talk about stuff.”

“Was there a lot to talk about?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Spinner says, shaking his head. “All the human stuff? Even when they embody themselves, they never embody themselves long enough to get a feel for what it’s really like. And there’s no way for them to experience all the human stuff ahead of time. Like eating, sleeping, taking a piss –”

You imagine the look on Tomura’s face if he permanently embodied himself and then found out about having to pee, and then you’re struggling not to laugh. “That’s bad enough,” Spinner says. “But then there’s the thing where she’s, like – a whole human. A whole human who didn’t exist before. There was paperwork. It sucked.”

You hadn’t thought about that. “How does that even work?”

“Honestly? That’s how we met Hizashi,” Spinner says. You blink. “He spent so long blending into the human world before he embodied himself full-time that he had to learn to forge documents to do stuff, and he’s creepy good at it. He gets you the basic stuff – birth certificate, ID – and then he builds a whole paper trail. Somebody who looks at Magne’s documents is never going to know she didn’t exist five years ago.”

“So that’s how you found this place, too,” you realize. That means Hizashi and Aizawa were here before Spinner and Magne, but when did the rest of them move in? “Who was here first?”

Spinner gives you an odd look. “Your ghost,” he says. “Tomura.”

“He’s not mine,” you say, almost on reflex. “He’d be mad if he heard you say that.”

Spinner basically straight up ignores you. “I gotta say, it was weird to hear you name-drop him that first time. We’ve all always known he’s there, but we know so little about him that he’s basically got legend status – and to you he’s just Tomura. And that’s it.”

“What else was he supposed to be? I didn’t know anything about any of this until I moved here.” You feel hurt, even though you shouldn’t. Spinner’s not saying any of the things your brain is telling you he’s saying – not that you shouldn’t be here, not that you don’t deserve to be in the same house as Tomura, not that you don’t understand. “I’m glad he does what he does for everybody in the neighborhood. I don’t think it’s conscious –”

“Oh, we know that. He doesn’t give a shit,” Spinner says, and laughs. “Maybe that’s why it’s weird. Because he clearly gives a shit about you.”

You knew that. Hearing somebody else say it, somebody like Spinner who doesn’t have a weird relationship with their ghost, makes you all kinds of uncomfortable. “Like, he got on the phone for you. Live ghosts hate technology. They hate anything they can’t haunt. For a ghost like him to get on the phone, he must care a lot.”

You laugh, wondering if it sounds as uncomfortable as you feel. “I still have to apologize to Aizawa for that phone call. Tomura was kind of a dick.”

“They’re all kind of dicks,” Spinner says, and your laughter feels a little less uncomfortable this time. “They can’t really help it when they don’t understand. The embodied ones learn eventually.”

You’re not so sure about that. Dabi’s still very much of a dick. Magne was a dick when she was sick, but so was everybody who got the ghost flu, you included. Hizashi’s a dick on purpose sometimes, but most of the time he isn’t. He can’t be. Aizawa wouldn’t have stayed with him otherwise.

Out of all the ghost families in the neighborhood, you’ve spent the most time observing Aizawa’s. You don’t know why, when you’ve got Keigo and Dabi right across the street, but your eyes are consistently drawn to the house where Aizawa and Hizashi and their kids live. At first it might have been because you needed to confirm your conclusion. You needed to know whether Aizawa married Hizashi because he wanted to or because he had to. And you’ve watched them long enough that you’re sure: Aizawa loves Hizashi, in the same weird way Hizashi loves him.

It’s not like you can’t see why, even if you’re legitimately spooked by Hizashi. There’s nobody more committed to a relationship than an embodied ghost. Hizashi likes to make sweeping statements about all the things he’d do if Aizawa asked him to – like fighting God, or bringing him a piece of the sun, or breaking into the cat shelter and stealing all the cats – but what he actually does is quieter. Aizawa’s relaxed when Hizashi’s around. He doesn’t look so tired. He smiles more. Hizashi makes him comfortable. Hizashi makes him happy.

There’s a line in one of the few ghost books Aizawa didn’t write that’s been playing in your head lately: Ghosts haunt the space they’re given. That’s how they haunt houses. Maybe that’s how they haunt people, too.

“Thanks,” Spinner says, and you glance at him. Somehow you’re parked in front of his house already, when you barely remember driving home. “For the ride. And for not being weird about things.”

“Any time,” you say, and you mean it. You watch as Spinner makes his way up the front steps and opens the door, only to find Magne waiting there already. She hugs him so hard she lifts him off his feet.

You drive the rest of the way back to your house, lost in thought, and greet Phantom on autopilot before you start unpacking the groceries. You know Tomura’s around somewhere, and sure enough, there’s a puff of cold air against the back of your neck – the air chilling and then displacing in response to his presence. “Spinner,” he says without preamble. “Do you like him?”

For once you don’t play dumb. “He’s a nice guy. Kind of young for me.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six,” you say. “How old are you?”

“A hundred and ten,” Tomura says, and your jaw drops. “I think. It was hard to count in here before. It never felt like anything changed.”

“It probably didn’t.” The first time you stepped into the house, you felt almost like time had stopped. “Me and Phantom change. I bet that helps.”

“Whatever,” Tomura says. At his heart, Tomura’s still an asshole most of the time. When he speaks up again, his voice sounds different. “When you say change, you mean age. Don’t you?”

You nod. There’s an edge to Tomura’s voice now. “How long do you live?”

You don’t like thinking about how long Phantom will live. Your vocal cords feel pinched and tight when you speak. “Phantom’s breed of dog can live to be thirteen or fourteen if you take good care of them. I take good care of her, and she’s only two. That’s – eleven more years.”

“That’s not long enough,” Tomura says. He’s telling you. Your eyes well up. “What about you?”

“If I’m lucky?” It’s easier to think about this for you than for Phantom. “I might make it to ninety. If nothing goes wrong.”

“That’s not long enough, either,” Tomura snaps. “What do you mean, if nothing goes wrong?”

If you’re not allowed to play dumb, Tomura isn’t, either. “You’ve watched medical dramas with me. Car accidents. Heart attacks. Alzheimer’s – the one where you forget everything. Cancer. All those things can happen to humans at any time. And they do, every day.”

“No,” Tomura says.

“It’s mortality. You can’t just say ‘no’ and opt out.”

“No,” Tomura says again. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to leave me.”

Your stomach twists. “I’m sixty-four years away from being ninety. That’s a long time.”

“It’s not long enough!” There’s a light thud from behind you, the sound of Tomura’s feet hitting the floor as he materializes. A pair of ice-cold arms wrap around your waist, gripping you tightly and yanking you backwards against an equally cold chest. He’s breathing hard, even though he doesn’t have to breathe. His heart is beating harder, even though there’s no reason for him to have one. If not for the chill spreading over you, you couldn’t tell a difference between him and someone human.

His voice, when he speaks, is full of menace. “It can try to take you. I won’t let it.”

“There’s not a grim reaper,” you say. At least, you think there isn’t. But the world has ghosts in it. Maybe it’s got a personification of death, too. “There’s nothing for you to fight. This is just how things are.”

“No, it isn’t. You and Phantom are mine.” Phantom comes running at the sound of her name and drops her ball at your feet. You kick it away and she runs off in pursuit. “The others are stupid. They did it wrong. I know better.”

Your teeth are starting to chatter. “What do you mean?”

“They embodied themselves so they could follow their humans,” Tomura says. “Wherever they go. Even after they’re dead. I’m going to make you follow me.”

You want to tell him to quit talking like a lunatic. Remind him that ghosts and humans are two different species, that ghosts can become human but not the other way around. Tell him that this isn’t a fairytale, that the rules won’t bend just because he wants them to, that you’re going to die one day and there’s nothing he can do about it. “Don’t be so sentimental,” you say, like an idiot. Like an asshole. “What kind of ghost are you?”

The last time you said something like that to Tomura, he vanished, haunted your house all night, and then got so turned on from touching your hand that he flooded the entire neighborhood with horniness. This time he doesn’t vanish, but he doesn’t answer, either. He stays exactly where he is, arms lashed tightly around your waist, cheek resting against your hair, and the cold seeps into your bones.

“Is that really why they did it?” you ask after a while. Tomura makes some kind of noise that’s muffled by your hair. “The others.”

“Why do you care?” Tomura’s quiet for a second. “I get it. That human thing where you have to understand stuff so it won’t scare you.”

“I guess.”

“Then ask somebody else,” Tomura says, almost derisive. “I’d never do something that stupid.”

“Yeah,” you say. Your heart sinks, and you compartmentalize like you haven’t done since the first few months after you moved in. It’s almost been a year. A year ago you’d never have imagined this, and you wish you’d stayed that way. Don’t you? “I know.”

[16woodsequ]

Sunday Steve - Day Ten

Things that would be new or unfamiliar to Steve in the 21st century, either due to the time period he grew up in, or his social-economic status and other such factors.

Day Ten: Laundry — Washer and Dryers

Washing Machine

1920s ad for a Thor brand washing machine. One of the first electric washing machines. Note the exposed motor underneath that could shock users when wet. (Imagine Steve associating Thor with washing machines 😆).

Laundry machines have a long history. The first washing machines were invented in the late 1800s. There were mechanical, hand powered machines, consisting of drums full of water and handles to agitate the laundry and turn the rollers to squeeze water from washed clothes.

However, these devices were most common in middle class families. Poor families who could not afford the machines and rich families who did not have to worry about the labour of laundry likely did not have these machines.

Laundry was a laborious task and families who could afford it had hired help to do their laundry or they sent out their laundry to be cleaned and returned.

Here is an account of laundry days in the 1920s for a family who had a scullery. They used a 'washing copper' tub that was built into the floor and had a space for a fire underneath. It is interesting how it describes typical washing without a washing machine, but Steve and Sarah likely lived in a tenement apartment building and did not have these facilities available to them.

We will get into what Sarah probably did when Steve was growing up. But one last laundry innovation to talk about in the 20s was the electric washer. The first electrical washer appeared in the US before the first World War thanks to the invention of the small electric motor (Link).

This blog page gives a good overview of how a domestic electric washing machine worked in 1927. The metal drum was manually filled with water (if you didn't have a hose, lifting and pouring water into the drum was your fate). Pre-prepared soap was added then pre-soaked clothes could be washed. The machines could handle about ten pounds, so clothes had to be regularly transferred in and out. After the wash, clothes were wrung out and put in scalding rinse water to remove soap. Clothes were then wrung out again (maybe rinsed a few more times), starched, and hung to dry. Some families had heated dryer cupboards to hang their clothes.

Domestic washing machines inside the home were not common before the 50s. They were growing in popularity in the 30s, but I doubt Steve every used any type of washing machine in his own home. Depending on how well off you feel the Barneses were they may have had one, but I still feel this wasn't very likely.

In 1920 only 8% of US families owned a washing machine. And by 1941 "only 52% of U.S. families owned or had interior access to an electric washing machine—almost half of families were still hand rubbing or hand cranking laundry or using commercial services" (Link).

Tenement Laundry Days

Reproduction of 1928-1935 tenement house.

Reproduction of 1890s era tenement apartment.

Wash days were usually on Monday. Sarah probably did these steps: Soaking the laundry, scrubbing, boiling, wringing, rinsing, wringing agin, and finally, hanging to dry. (Link)

In the second picture above a scrub board can be seen in the deep sink. The sink was likely used for soaking, scrubbing and rinsing. Scrub boards were used well into the 20th century.

While indoor plumping for tenements was becoming common in the 20s (especially for toilets), if they didn't have running water Sarah would have to trek up and down flights of stairs to fill her tub from the tap in the yard. (Link) This would most likely only be the case if Steve and Sarah lived in a pre-1905 tenement building as laws about tenements changed around that time. However, many tenements were cold water flats, so water would be boiled on the stove.

In the picture above you can see a large oblong metal tub on the stove. This is likely what was used for boiling.

After soaking (usually started Sunday night) clothes that were still soiled would be scrubbed, then the laundry was boiled. Clothes were boiled in water for an hour and stirred with a rod or wooden stick. They would then be removed with a fork or a rod, wrung out, rinsed (to remove soap) and wrung out again.

If Sarah (or Winifred) was able to afford it she may have a mangle to squeeze the water from washed clothes ($5.95-8.00 for a basic one in 1920). These two wooden rollers were dangerous because women could get their fingers or hair caught in them. They also sometimes damaged or broke off buttons. If she didn't have one, she'd wring them out by hand.

The spin cycle was developed to wring out clothes, and some electric washers had this feature going into the 30s. (Link)

Once wrung out, the clothes were hung to dry. In the winter clothes could be hung in front of the fireplace or stove (on a clothes horse for those who had one) if there was space, but they could also be hung outside to freeze and brought in before nightfall.

Tenement buildings commonly had clotheslines strung between buildings. "The advantage of living on a low floor (with fewer flights of stairs to climb) became a disadvantage on wash day, because when hanging your laundry out to dry, ‘someone else might put out a red wash or a blue wash over it, and it drips down and makes you do your wash all over again." (Link)

Berenice Abbott (1898-1991). Court of the First Model Tenements in New York City. March 16, 1936. Museum of the City of New York. (Link, many other examples of tenement clotheslines here. I think this is multiple days of laundry lines in one picture).

Abbott documented this space as a communal laundry line: ropes with pulleys led from apartments to five-story poles imbedded in concrete. Abbott made two exposures, with the laundry and poles forming different abstract configurations. She later recalled that winter day the laundry frozen stiff and the children huddled together, too cold to move.

If you didn't have a clothesline near your window you could dry your clothes on the roof. This required climbing more stairs and keeping an eye out for thieves. (Link)

Tuesdays were ironing days. There were electric irons in the 20s but people also still used multiple irons that had to be heated on the stove. Clothes needed to be damp and sprinkled with water while ironing. That is until steam irons were introduced in the 30s. (Link)

However:

What did Steve do after Sarah died? The same thing the Rogers would have done if Sarah had no time to do laundry, which is likely because she worked full time and laundry was an long chore. If Sarah did do her own laundry as well as worked, she would have worked very long hours trying to stay on top of everything.

For those who couldn't do laundry they would send out their laundry. The peak of the commercial laundry industry was in the 1920s. Many laundries were owned by Chinese immigrants and these laundries catered to single men. (Link) These laundries were cheaper than white-owned steam laundries, which generally catered to large institutions like hotels and hospitals, although they advertised to women as well. Here is a picture of a large commercial laundry.

Sending out laundry may have been a necessary expense on Sarah and Steve's part that they had to budget for. This recounting of a Chinese laundry has the clothes dried and ironed by the workers.

Women, especially black women, took laundry into their home. It is possible Sarah and Steve sent out their laundry to washerwomen, perhaps even one who lived in their own tenement. (Link)

If Sarah did not have the time, nor could afford to send out laundry (especially in the 30s), Steve may have had to deal with the shame of going to school in dirty clothes. Cleanliness was a point of pride and I'm certain Sarah would have made every effort to keep him clean but it may not have always been possible.

Laundry soap

Here is what was most typically used as laundry soap. It was also common, especially for rural families, to make their own soap out of lye and grate or cut up that as laundry soap. (Link)

(Link) Laundry soap options in 1927. They included purchasing flakes, chips, or powder; liquifying your soap ahead of time (right); and (left) grating your own laundry soap from a bar. Fels Naptha soap, which came in a big bar, was rubbed on difficult stains and rings around the collar.

Laundromats

The first laundromat or 'washateria' was opened in Texas in 1934. (Link) Laundromats grew in popularity and spread across the country. These early laundromats had rentable electric washing machines like the ones already mentioned in this post. Clothes were taken home damp to be ironed.

In the 40s the name laundromat became common to describe self-serve laundry. This name actually comes from a brand of automatic washing machine. (Link) Laundromats helps familiarize consumers with washing machines and grow their trust in them, thus ushering in the domestic washing machine age in the 50s and 60s and the decline of commercial laundry services.

Steve may have used a washateria or laundromat in the late 30s or early 40s but the machines would be different. They may have looked something like this:

Toploading washing machine bought in 1939 (Link) It has a motorized mangle.

This blog also has many 1940s ads to show other styles of washing machines. I think our modern washings machines would be somewhat recognizable if Steve saw these ads, but in general washing machines now look very different from the ones he probably saw.

Dryers

If one didn't hang their clothes to dry they were probably wealthy enough to have air dryers which became available in the early 1920s. These were rooms or cupboards. "These dryers could be powered by electricity, gas, or kerosene. In a good dryer, heated air circulated around the clothing so that the clothes did not bake and yellow. The hot air was pulled out of the cabinet and up a chimney" (Link).

Richer folks could also have their clothes dry in sunlit or steam-heated rooms at the top of their mansion or townhouse. (Link).

A sailor getting a uniform out of a clothes dryer in 1943 (link)

The first electric dryer was manufactured in 1938. (Link) Here's a picture of a 1940s dryer, it looks a bit like an oven.

Automatic dryers were slower to arrive. Launderettes had dryers after the war and this helped facilitate the arrival of dryers in the home.

Before dryers became common in laundromats clothes were taken back damp and ironed. This was more or less ideal anyways since clothes needed to be damp to be ironed if you didn't have a steam iron (which was still a luxury).

Dryers would be very new or completely foreign for Steve. I doubt he used one.

Army Laundry Days

This post is already long (I know), so quick coverage of what I found here.

Army training camps had laundries. The army developed laundry trucks (Quarter Master Laundry Units) to service medical units and troops in the field.

When the trucks couldn't keep up with the front (although they did their best) soldiers made arrangements with local laundries or cleaned their clothes themselves.

Clothing exchange was sometime done instead of cleaning and returning the same clothes to speed up the process. This was done most often with front line troops, often in conjunction with showers.

Steve specialised uniform (really, all of the commandos' uniforms) would probably complicate this process which is really interesting to think about. This wash trucks wouldn't be able to just bring standard uniforms to switch out since they were all wearing different uniforms from different armies. If it could be arranged beforehand they might be able to bring a new uniform for Steve, but I wonder if he wore regular fatigues most of the time and only switched into his Captain America suit during active missions to make things easier.

The mobile laundries also organized clothing repair.

This post got really long! I didn't get into the detailed steps of laundry before modern technologies really took off. But needless to say there's still a lot that could be said.

I have a housekeeping book from 1952 that goes into detail how to wash clothes. If anyone is interested in a post about that, you can let me know. I also have a catalogue reproduction showing laundry machines and prices from the early 20th century if anyone is interested,

Sunday Steve Masterpost

[electricopolis-net]

Life in Exile Pt. 2: You & I

The question of what to do still loomed over the two exiles. Percy was determined to save the coin he had, and Bob had nothing more to trade, save his phone, which he figured he should keep, though it had long since run out of power. So that meant finding a job.

Unfortunately, Bob was terrible at manual labor. The farmer from before (a fellow by the name of Gon) invited Bob to help out in the fields, but his back started hurting almost immediately, and he was so unused to the strain that it was easier for Gon to do the work himself. Still, he did acquire a small turnip for his troubles, but it mostly just added insult to injury.

Working at one of the food stalls in town was only a little less disastrous. Bob did fine when things were slow, but tended to freeze up under pressure, and more than once his shaking hands had tipped over a glass or gotten burned on the grill. It went better than the farmwork, and maybe with more practice Bob would have overcome his nerves, but he wasn't exactly feeling inspired to persist in his work.

As a last-ditch effort, he decided to play to his talents that had originally landed him a job at Top Tier in the first place: entertainment. He danced (decently), sang (not very well), and told stories of the city in the valley. It attracted children, who relished the chance to learn anything they could about the cursed city, but the adults turned them away and guided them past the mysterious man with the long nose.

Dejected, he found himself on the beach, poking at the sand with a stick. "This is harder than I thought," he sighed. "Man, if there were a television camera on me, things would be different."

The stick bumped into something under the sand. Bob paused, then began to shovel away the sand with his hands curiously. He pulled out something rectangular, made of plastic and metal: a pocket radio. "Oh, huh, a radio," he remarked, banging it in his hands to get the sand out. "I wonder if it works?"

It did not. "Ah, well. Oh hey, there's batteries in it, though," Bob observed, taking a few double A batteries out of the rear of the machine. "Maybe they're still good?"

He wandered along the beach, bending down to look at the machines and other junk washing up on the shore. After about twenty minutes, he had assembled a collection of geegaws and gadgets: the pocket radio, a hand-crank-powered flashlight (lucky!), a cracked set of binoculars, a kitchen scale, and more.

He brought them into the house, sat down at the table and began to tinker with them, with Percy watching from nearby. The batteries were usable, if not fully charged, and he slotted them into the kitchen scale. By some miracle, it turned on, the LCD screen displaying 0.0 grams. He could have jumped for joy.

"This'll be great!" he exclaimed, turning the scale back and forth.

"Clean it up a little bit and I bet we could get something good for it," Percy offered, impressed.

The sound of the Cursebreaker's voice made him jump. "I see you've done exactly what I hoped you would," the man laughed raucously, appearing from behind Bob. "Sorry, boys, I let myself in."

"What do you mean by that?" Percy asked. "You hoped we'd repair these?"

"Of course I did. They're from your town, after all. You two are in the best position to reclaim these. Clean them, make them usable. Take responsibility for them," the Cursebreaker intoned, gesturing with his staff to each item. "I could have just told you all this at the start, but I wanted you to learn it on your own."

"By the way," the old man added, "there's one more thing we have to do before these are fit for trade." He pulled out a small plastic bag full of paper bits shaped like the amulets he had hanging around his neck. "They have to be purified, you see."

Bob and Percy watched. The Cursebreaker sat down at the table, examined each item in turn, and made the upwards-arrow sign he'd used before to welcome Bob and Percy into the town. Afterwards, he took the small pieces of paper, licked the back of them, and stuck them onto the items, one apiece. "There," he said. "Now they're good to go."

"This 'curse'…" Percy ventured carefully. "Do you really believe there's such a thing? It seems preposterous to us, being from the city itself. Do you really have to go to such lengths to even use our trash?"

"Eh." The old man shrugged. "The folk around here are always superstitious. They barely trust me more than they trust you," he laughed. "But they live by rules, and the rules they live by make them happy. So why not play along?"

---

Percy traded the goods in town the day after, and came back with a much better haul than before. The kitchen scale netted them some more food and a few heavy blankets for their beds. The hand-cranked flashlight was especially lucrative: not only did he manage to trade it for a slightly worn woolen coat and shirt for himself, but he also managed to snag some clothes for Bob as well. The clothes off their backs had gotten dusty, dirty and--frankly--didn't smell so good, so it was time to learn how to do their own laundry for once.

The small shack was equipped with a water pump, and it wasn't too hard to barter for soap. A barrel that washed up on the beach made a passable washtub. It was a far cry from the luxuries of Top Tier HQ, but Bob tried his best not to complain. Percy, for some reason, didn't complain at all.

Actually, Bob found it interesting. Percy was in the best position to rant, rave and moan about his fall from grace, but he took everything in stride. Maybe he considered it what he deserved, or maybe he simply didn't want to appear petulant in front of his ex-employee. Whether it was washing clothes, bartering in town, or even learning how to cook food from a can, Percy just shut up and did the damn thing. It was honestly kind of impressive, though Bob would never admit it.

Gradually, and with the two of them working together, things settled into a sort of routine. Bob would wake up early in the morning, comb the beach for refuse before anyone else could take the good stuff, and return home to clean and repair them. Percy would take the items and barter them in town, then return with sundries that they used to improve their quality of life: food, wood for the stove, pots and pans to cook in, a sewing kit, even things like magazines and books.

"Magazines? Really?" Bob asked, flipping through them. "These are old style magazines and TV guides. Not exactly worthwhile reading material."

"It's not enough to simply survive," Percy explained. "You have to give your brain some kind of stimulation that isn't work. Enrichment for your enclosure, so to speak."

"Enrichment for my enclosure," Bob groaned. "You really have a way with words."

Percy shrugged. "It's just like running a business. You have to keep your workers happy if you want to earn their trust, and earning their trust is the only way they'll feel compelled to contribute to the best of their ability. It's the difference between 90% efficiency and 95%."

"Is that so," Bob yawned, reclining in bed. "Well, I'm not your worker anymore."

"That's right," Percy said. "You're more like a housewife now, don't you think?"

"That's not funny!" Bob yelped, turning bright red. "I am not your housewife!"

---

The first week or two of exile had been filled with novelty, but it was starting to wear off by now, and the boredom was driving Bob insane. He tossed and turned in his bed, tinkered on his gadgets throughout the night, and went for walks along the shore in the early morning, but nothing seemed to make his restlessness abate.

It wasn't long before he blew up at Percy again. "I can't stand this!" he shouted, throwing a broken something-or-other onto the table. "I can't do this anymore! I want to go back to town!"

"Stop complaining," Percy said, refusing to raise his voice. "You know very well we can't do that."

"We could do that if you hadn't run the damn place into the ground!" Bob yelled. "If you hadn't let the power run out--if you'd done something--"

"Done something? Done what?" Percy retorted. "Shift the entire city to an alternative source of energy all at once? It would have taken decades to do that. If I'd been president twenty years earlier, it still wouldn't have been enough time," he insisted. "The infrastructure wasn't built for anything else!"

Percy sat down at the table, rubbing at his temples. He was sweating. It was the first time Bob had seen him lose his cool since they'd taken up residence in the town. "You don't understand," he groaned. "You don't know what it's like to inherit a dying city."

Bob blinked, processing this. "Is that true?" he asked. "Electricopolis was already on the way out?"

Percy nodded.

"Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you do anything?"

"What could I have done?" the other man moaned. "Tell the entire town to pack up and leave? There was nothing for miles around--just dust and mountains. I couldn't simply turn them out to the wilderness." He buried his face in his hands. "I just…wanted everything to go smoothly. I wanted everyone to be happy…up to the very end."

Bob looked at him, then turned away. "That's not how it went, though."

"I know." Percy rubbed at his nose and eyes. "I must apologize for that. I…took your resignation far too personally."

"That's putting it lightly."

"Can you blame me?" Percy sighed. "We had such a good thing going, you know. Look at this," he said, motioning to the items they'd stockpiled. "Even hundreds of miles away from town, with nothing but the clothes on our backs, we've scraped together something for ourselves. You can't deny that we make a good team."

Bob sighed. "That's the problem," he mumbled. "We do make a good team."

[stray-kaz]

Reds & Whites : a Bucky x reader oneshot

Summary: It’s laundry day! And Bucky hasn’t actually had an interaction with the pretty new girl living in his building yet. How to break the ice? Turn her underwear pink in the wash, that’s how.

Bucky hadn’t had any cause to introduce himself to the cutest new building tenant, in spite of the tight coil in his gut whenever he spotted you, but as he stared down at the pair of baby pink boy shorts that most definitely did not belong to him, he realised he had no choice.

But at least now he had an in. He had accidentally mixed some of your washing in with his red stuff and now your once white underwear was pink. Awesome.

So when Wednesday rolled around, Bucky found himself walking into the laundry room to find you, instantly buffeted by damp heat from the washing machines and rumbling from the dryers. It didn’t take long to spot you, sitting on top of an unused dryer, pen cap between your teeth as you filled in an adult coloring book.

Bucky cleared his throat gently, and when you looked up, he set his washing hamper down on the floor next to the nearest out of use machine.

“Hi” he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck with his metal hand.

He watched your eyes dart to it then back to his face, your expression studiedly neutral.

“Hello” you said quietly, curious in spite of yourself; you had seen him in the halls but had never stopped, too cautious for your own good sometimes.

“I’m Bucky” he introduced himself, then fumbled with his words, coming out with the first thing to pop into his head. “Are you good at that?”

Without a word, you flipped the book around so he could see the picture of a rose, blossoming a perfect blood red on the page, a single dark green thorn adorning one side of the stem. Bucky’s dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. He took a few steps closer to see better, and you passed the book into his hands before he even realised they were outstretched.

“Wow, you didn’t even go outside the lines” he murmured. “It’s pretty.”

You laughed.

“Well, I’m not five anymore, Bucky” you teased, and told him your name.

He bit his lip, his blue gaze glancing over you with the speed and accuracy of a pinball machine. You swallowed a little too hard.

“Uh huh” he mumbled, not wanting to say anything else and cut the fragile line between you.

Suddenly remembering why he was there to begin with, he bent and opened his hamper, quickly finding the neatly folded underwear and straightening with it in his hand. Your eyes locked on and he watched as your cheeks turned pink to match.

“I’m sorry, but this got caught up with my wash last week. And it turned pink. Sorry. Again.”

You pushed off the dryer and landed lightly, approaching him on bare feet. Your forehead was on a level with the top of his chest and when you looked up at the same time that your fingers brushed his as you took your underwear back, you saw the dip in his throat as he swallowed and the bass thump in his pulse.

Huh. If that’s how it is...

You smiled up at him.

“Thanks, Bucky Barnes” you said, turning and tossing your newly pink underwear into your empty basket.

The dryer you were using cranked to a halt and you knelt to unload it, while Bucky watched, puzzled.

“You already knew my name?” he asked, as you eventually straightened and turned back to face him, full washing basket balanced against one hip.

You nodded, a shy smile curving your lips. You passed him on your way to the door, where you paused to glance back; he was still watching you, one eyebrow raised.

“Everyone knows who the beautiful people are, Bucky.”

And then you whisked away, and Bucky realised only then that your coloring book was still in his hand.

The week following his first encounter with you, Bucky found a pink sock buried deep in his clean washing. Perplexed, he returned it to you, along with your coloring book.

Then a week later, a matching sock appeared, a little less mysteriously. He returned it to you accompanied by a tiny rosebud, thorns removed.

The third time, it was a sleep shirt with a pizza coupon stapled to the shoulder. Dutifully, he showed up at your door that night, a DVD tucked under one arm, a pizza box balanced on his free hand and your sleep shirt flung over one shoulder. You answered the door in pajamas worn soft from time and wear, hair still damp from a shower.

You let him in and closed the door at his back, turning to face him again as he set the pizza box down on the low coffee table. It had a couple of books on it and nothing else.

“Thank you for the flower” you said, smiling up at him.

Bucky nodded, his lips twitching into a slight smile.

“You’re welcome, doll” he replied, the endearment and depth of his voice sending a pleasant warmth through your veins.

He busied his hands with setting up the movie to watch and then settled down on the couch, his knees wide so he could rest the open pizza box across his lap.

You sat beside him, curling your feet up underneath you, reaching over him for a slice of pizza.

Within the hour, the movie was going unwatched, the pizza box lay half empty on the coffee table, and you were sitting in Bucky’s lap, all senses on electric.

He left later in the evening with lips reddened and swollen, and a burning need for more of you.

The fourth and final time washing was “mixed up”, Bucky found a petal pink bra stuffed in with his clean underwear, and by now the message was blindingly clear to him.

He made it to your room in record time, the smooth cups of the bra crushed in his fist. When you saw him, you only got out a smile before his mouth was on yours and the door was being kicked shut.

No pressure tag : @witchywithwhiskey​     

[dwellordream]

“By 1900, the domestic role of women was already beginning to reflect the long-term effects of social and technological changes that had been taking place since the Civil War. Most significantly, women’s marital and maternal roles were different from the ones that their grandmothers had experienced in 1850. Marriages themselves were not as permanent as they had been in the past. By 1900, the divorce rate had risen to one in twelve couples; by 1915 the rate was one in nine. Two-thirds of divorces were sought by women, a clear indication that a growing number of women were unwilling to accept unsatisfactory marriages and that, increasingly, they had the courage and the means to obtain their independence.

The proportion of women choosing never to marry at all had risen from 6 percent (where it had been throughout the 19th century) to 10 percent in the 1890s. Within this new group of women who never married were many educated professionals and others who felt that they could find satisfactory lives, work, and companionship without husbands and children. Among married white women of childbearing age, the birthrate had dropped 50 percent in the course of a century; it had gone from seven children for each woman in 1800 to three to four children in 1900. Among African-American women, the birth rate began to decline dramatically after 1900. By the 1920s about half of all married black women in northern cities were remaining childless, compared to only one-fourth of married white women. The birthrate of immigrant groups also decreased as they became more assimilated into American culture.

…As a rule, innovation happened more quickly in cities than in rural areas, and new technology was available to the well-to-do many years before it reached the homes of working people. Few of the new home utilities and labor-saving machines were ready for mass consumption before 1920. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, most American women were still washing household clothing and linen by hand in tubs with corrugated scrubbing boards. In a series of separate operations, each of which required fresh hot water, they boiled the clothes on the stove, rinsed them, blued the whites, and starched nearly everything except work clothes. Every item was wrung out through a hand-cranked roller mangle and hung to dry, outdoors or indoors, depending on the weather. The next day almost everything, including sheets, had to be ironed, using heavy flatirons that were heated on the stove and reheated as they cooled.

All but the wealthiest housewives did some laundry themselves, or assisted their domestic servants with the backbreaking labor. Any family who could afford it hired a laundress to come in by the day or take clothing to her own home to wash. By 1910, commercial steam laundries--staffed mostly by women workers--had become big business in cities and large towns, easing the chores of wash day for housewives. In later decades, automatic washing machines would return laundry to the home, making it, once again, the responsibility of the housewife.

…In 1900, nearly all American homes had cast-iron stoves, which had replaced fireplace cooking and heating in all but the most primitive houses. Stoves made cooking much easier and used fuel economically, and their temperature could be more or less controlled through the manipulation of a set of dampers. Many kitchen stoves had attached water-heating and storage reservoirs, which made dish washing and laundry easier than they had been in the days when all water had to be hauled and heated in kettles over the fire.

Most Americans used coal for heating and cooking, though families burned wood in parts of the country where trees were still abundant. Coal and wood smoke left a thin film of grime on furniture and windowsills and embedded itself in carpets and curtains, making housecleaning a repetitive and thankless task. Coal-fired furnaces and central heating systems, which burned more clearly than small stoves and had been available for decades, were still so expensive in the 1890s that they were found only in the urban homes of affluent people.

…Ironically, the opportunity to improve housekeeping with new sources of energy and new appliances would actually make housework more complex, multiplying some tasks while relieving the burdens of others. The presence in the home of hot running water meant washing and cleaning were easier, but also suggested the need to take more baths or to mop the floor more often. Washing machines made it possible to wash the same clothes more frequently than before. Easily regulated gas or electric ovens meant the housewife could attempt more elaborate cooking and baking than her mother had been able to produce in her day.

Despite its heavily advertised promises, the new domestic technology did not actually liberate women from housework. Rather, it served to intensify the personal importance of the home and the woman’s role in it by suggesting that her housework could be scientifically perfected. All the domestic experts and professional home economists promoted scientific housekeeping and the consumption of new appliances and energy sources. In magazines and books, on the lecture circuit, and in secondary schools, where domestic science became part of the required curriculum for girls, these authorities encouraged homemakers and potential homemakers to time their tasks, to break household jobs into segments, and to follow strict sanitary guidelines, especially in cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, potential sources of infectious disease.”

- Karen Manners Smith, “Women at Home.” in New Paths to Power: American Women, 1890-1920